Selection On December 12, 1960,
Democratic President-elect John F. Kennedy nominated Rusk to be Secretary of State. Rusk was not Kennedy's first choice; his first choice,
J. William Fulbright, proved too controversial.
David Halberstam also described Rusk as "everybody's number two". Rusk had recently written an article titled "The President" in
Foreign Affairs calling for the president to direct foreign policy with the secretary of state as a mere adviser, which had Kennedy's interest after it was pointed out to him. After deciding that Fulbright's support for segregation disqualified him, Kennedy summoned Rusk for a meeting, where he himself endorsed Fulbright as the man best qualified to be Secretary of State. Kennedy biographer
Robert Dallek explained Rusk's choice thus: Kennedy tended to address Rusk as "Mr. Rusk" instead of Dean. Rusk took charge of a department he knew well when it was half the size. It now employed 23,000 people including 6,000 Foreign Service officers and had diplomatic relations with 98 countries. He had faith in the use of military action to combat communism. Despite private misgivings about the Bay of Pigs invasion, he remained noncommittal during the executive council meetings leading up to the attack and never opposed it outright. Early in his tenure, he had strong doubts about US intervention in Vietnam, but later his vigorous public defense of US actions in the Vietnam War made him a frequent target of anti-war protests. Just as had under the Truman administration, Rusk tended to favor hawkish line towards Vietnam and frequently allied himself in debates in the Cabinet and on the National Security Council with equally hawkish Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.
Vietnam and Laos Against the criticism made by Edward Lansdale of the embassy in Saigon, Rusk defended the performance of the State Department, saying South Vietnam was a difficult assignment. On 9 March 1961, the communist Pathet Lao won a notable victory on the Plains of Jars, and for a moment the Pathet Lao seemed on the verge of seizing all of Laos. Rusk expressed considerable disgust when he learned that neither side in the Lao civil war fought very hard, citing a report that both sides had broken off combat to go celebrate a water festival for ten days before resuming their battle. Rusk, who had much experience of Southeast Asia during World War Two, expressed much doubt if bombing alone would stop the Pathet Lao, saying it was his experience that bombing only worked with ground troops to hold the ground or advance. Rusk did not pass on the memo to Kennedy nor did he himself speak out against the Bay of Pigs invasion, even when his own military experience had convinced him that a single brigade "did not stand a snowball's chance in hell" of toppling's Cuba's government. In April 1961, when a proposal to send 100 more American military advisers to South Vietnam to make a total of 800 appeared before Kennedy, Rusk argued for acceptance even as he noted that it violated the Geneva Accords of 1954 (which the United States had not signed, but promised to abide by), which limited the number of foreign military personnel in Vietnam to 700 at a time. Rusk stated that International Control Commission consisting of diplomats from India, Poland and Canada which was supposed to enforce the Geneva Accords should not be informed of the deployment and the advisers "be placed in varied locations to avoid attention". Rusk opened the Geneva conference on neutralizing Laos and predicted to Kennedy that the negotiations would fail. Rusk continued his Rockefeller Foundation interest in aiding
developing nations and also supported low tariffs to encourage world trade.
USS Liberty incident Rusk drew the ire of
supporters of Israel after he let it be known that he believed the
USS Liberty incident was a deliberate attack on the ship, rather than an accident. He was very outspoken about his views on the attack: “Accordingly, there is every reason to believe that the USS
Liberty was or should have been identified, or at least her nationality determined, prior to the attack. In these circumstances, the later military attack by Israeli aircraft on the USS
Liberty is quite literally incomprehensible. As a minimum, the attack must be condemned as an act of military irresponsibility reflecting reckless disregard for human life. The subsequent attack by Israeli torpedo boats, substantially after the vessel was or should have been identified by Israeli military forces, manifests the same reckless disregard for human life. At the time of the attack, the USS
Liberty was flying the American flag and its identification was clearly indicated in large white letters and numerals on its hull. It was broad daylight and the weather conditions were excellent. Experience demonstrates that both the flag and the identification number of the vessel were readily visible from the air. At a minimum, the attack must be condemned as an act of military recklessness reflecting wanton disregard for human life. The silhouette and conduct of the USS
Liberty readily distinguished it from any vessel that could have been considered as hostile. The USS
Liberty was peacefully engaged, posed no threat whatsoever to the torpedo boats, and obviously carried no armament affording it a combat capability. It could and should have been scrutinized visually at close range before torpedoes were fired.” In 1990, he wrote, “I was never satisfied with the Israeli explanation. Their sustained attack to disable and sink
Liberty precluded an assault by accident or by some trigger-happy local commander. Through diplomatic channels we refused to accept their explanations. I didn't believe them then, and I don't believe them to this day. The attack was outrageous.” After an Israeli claim appeared in
The Washington Post that they had inquired about the presence of U.S. ships in the area before the attack, Rusk telegrammed the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv and demanded “urgent confirmation.” U.S. Ambassador to Israel
Walworth Barbour confirmed that Israel's story was bogus: “No request for info on U.S. ships operating off Sinai was made until after
Liberty incident. Had Israelis made such an inquiry it would have been forwarded immediately to the chief of naval operations and other high naval commands and repeated to dept.”
Asian affairs On March 24, 1961, Rusk released a brief statement saying his delegation was to travel to
Bangkok and the
SEATO nations' responsibility should be considered if peace settlements were not realized. In 1961, Rusk disapproved of the Indian invasion of Goa, which he regarded as an act of aggression against NATO ally Portugal, but was overruled by Kennedy who wanted to improve relations with India and who also noted the Portuguese had no other option but to be allied to the United States. Earlier in 1961, a major rebellion had broken out in the Portuguese colony of Angola, which increased Portugal's reliance upon its largest supplier of arms, the United States. In regards to the
West New Guinea dispute about the
Netherlands New Guinea, Rusk favored supporting the NATO ally Netherlands against Indonesia as he saw Sukarno as pro-Chinese. In the
Arab Cold War between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Rusk favored the latter. In Egypt, the government subsidized the sale of staple foods like bread at cost or below cost prices, and Egypt's growing population, which outstripped the capacity of Egypt's agriculture, required Egypt to import food. Nasser had become very dependent upon the PL 480 food sales to provide food at cost to his people, and moreover the Soviet Union could not hope to match America's food sales to Egypt. Nasser argued in exchange for PL 480 food sales that he would not start a war with Israel, saying for that for all his fiery speeches he promised to keep the Arab-Israeli dispute "in the icebox". By 1962, Egypt imported 50% of its wheat consumed from the United States and owing to the PL 480 law was some $180 million per year at a time when Egypt's foreign reserves were almost deleted owing to a heavy level of military spending. In May 1963, out of anger at being trapped in the quagmire of fighting a guerrilla war in Yemen, Nasser ordered Egyptian Air Force squadrons in Yemen to start bombing towns in Saudi Arabia.
Overthrow of Vietnam President Diem In August 1963, a series of misunderstandings rocked the Kennedy administration when, in reaction to the Buddhist crisis, a policy proposal urging the overthrow of President Diem of South Vietnam was presented to Kennedy. He stated he would consider adopting it if Rusk gave his approval first. Rusk, who had gone to New York to attend a session of the United Nations, cautiously gave approval out of the impression that Kennedy had approved it first. All of the assembled officials rejected Kattenburg's idea, with Rusk saying "we will not pull out ... until the war is won." The author of the story wrote that Rusk "was not known for his force and decisiveness" and asserted that Bundy was "the real Secretary of State". As Rusk recounted in his autobiography, he repeatedly offered his resignation, but it was never accepted. Rumors of Rusk's dismissal leading up to the 1964 election abounded prior to President Kennedy's trip to Dallas in 1963. Shortly after
Kennedy was assassinated, Rusk offered his resignation to the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson. However, Johnson liked Rusk and refused his resignation. He remained secretary throughout Johnson's administration. Rusk told Alphand: "To us, the defense of South Vietnam has the same significance as the defense of Berlin." Both Johnson and Rusk agreed that Kennedy was "freakishly ambitious" with an obsessive desire to one day be president. Rusk told Johnson: "Mr. President, I just can't wrap my mind around that kind of ambition. I don't know how to understand it." On August 29, 1964, amid the ongoing presidential election, Rusk called for bipartisan support to ensure that the US's foreign policy have both consistency and reliability and said Republican presidential nominee
Barry Goldwater was creating "mischief". The following month, at a September 10 press conference in the main auditorium of the State Department, Rusk said that Senator Goldwater's critiques "reflect a basic lack of understanding" of a U.S. President's handling of conflict and peace. On September 7, 1964, Johnson assembled his national security team to seek a consensus about what to do about Vietnam. Rusk advised caution, arguing that Johnson should embark on military measures only after diplomacy had been exhausted. In September 1964, Rusk grew frustrated with the endless infighting amongst South Vietnam's junta of generals and after a failed coup d'état against
Nguyễn Khánh sent a message to
Maxwell Taylor, the ambassador in Saigon, on September 14, stating he was to "make it emphatically clear" to Khánh and the rest of the junta that Johnson was tired of the infighting. Rusk also instructed Taylor to say: "The United States has not provided massive assistance to South Vietnam, in military equipment, economic resources, and personnel in order to subsidize continuing quarrels among South Vietnamese leaders." Increasingly, the feeling in Washington was if South Vietnam could not defeat the Viet Cong guerrillas on its own, the Americans would have to step in and win the war that the South Vietnamese had proved incapable of winning. In September 1964, a peace initiative was launched by the UN Secretary General
U Thant who tried to set up secret peace talks in his native Burma, which were supported by the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev who pressured Ho Chi Minh to take part in the projected peace talks, saying he would only increase Soviet aid to North Vietnam if the North Vietnamese took part in a diplomatic effort to end the war first. Rusk told Ambassador Taylor that with the elections occurring in less than 48 hours, Johnson did not want to act, but after the election there would be "a more systematic campaign of military pressure on the North with all implications we have always seen in their course of action".
Nasser On December 23, 1964, Nasser decided to up the ante in his relations with the United States by delivering a violently anti-American speech in Port Said in which he called Iran "an American and Zionist colony" and claimed Johnson wanted to reduce Egypt to the status of Iran. Through Nasser was hoping that his speech might force the United States to reduce military aid to Saudi Arabia, it had the opposite effect. Johnson, who was more pro-Israeli than Kennedy had been, was furious with the speech. Rusk later recalled: "We didn't expect Nasser to bow, scrape, lick our boots, and say 'Thank you Uncle Sam', but we did expect to at least moderate his virulent criticism of the United States. Instead, he got up in front of those big crowds in Cairo and shouted such things as 'Throw your aid into the Red Sea!'" On January 5, 1965, Johnson suspended all PL 480 aid to Egypt, an action that immediately plunged the Egyptian economy into a crisis. Nasser realized what he had done and began to lobby for the resumption of PL 480 food sales, but got nowhere. Though Nasser knew the best way of ending the crisis was to pull out of Yemen and seek a rapprochement with Saudi Arabia and the United States, he instead turned towards the Soviet Union to seek support for the rapidly contracting Egyptian economy.
Robert Kennedy undercuts Rusk In April 1965, Senator Robert Kennedy during a visit to the White House advised Johnson to sack Rusk and replace him with
Bill Moyers. Johnson at first thought this was a joke, saying that Kennedy's brother had appointed him Secretary of State, and was astonished to learn that Kennedy was serious. The president replied: "I like Bill Moyers, but I'm not about to remove Rusk." In June 1965, when General
William Westmoreland requested of Johnson 180, 000 troops to Vietnam, Rusk argued to Johnson that the United States had to fight in Vietnam to maintain "the integrity of the U.S. commitment" throughout the world, but also wondered aloud if Westermoreland was exaggerating the extent of the problems in South Vietnam in order to have more troops under his command. However, despite his doubts about Westmoreland Rusk in a rare memo to the president warned that if South Vietnam were lost "the Communist world would draw conclusions that would lead to our ruin and almost certainly to a catastrophic war". At another meeting, Rusk stated the United States should have committed itself to Vietnam more heavily in 1961, saying that if U.S. troops had been sent to fight then, the present difficulties would not exist. Rusk came into conflict with his Undersecretary of State, George Ball, about Vietnam. When Ball argued the governing duumvirate of Thieu and Ky in South Vietnam were "clowns" unworthy of American support, Rusk replied: "Don't give me that stuff. You don't understand that at the time of Korea we had to go out and dig up Syngman Rhee out of the bush where he was hiding. There was no government in Korea, either. We're going to get some breaks, and this thing is going to work." Rusk felt that Ball's memos arguing that American involvement in the war should be seen by as few as possible. At meetings of the National Security Council, Rusk consistently argued against Ball.
Britain will not send troops In 1964 and again in 1965, Rusk approached the British Prime Minister
Harold Wilson to ask for British troops to go to Vietnam, requests that were refused. The normally Anglophile Rusk saw the refusal as a "betrayal". Rusk told the
Times of London: "All we needed was just one regiment. The
Black Watch would have done it. Just one regiment, but you wouldn't. Well, don't expect us to save you again. They can invade Sussex and we won't do a damn thing about it." When Johnson asked Rusk about the matter, the latter replied that in diplomacy "there is a difference between rejecting a proposal and not accepting it", a distinction that Rusk claimed that U Thant had missed. However, Rusk argued for the bombing pause, saying "You must think about the morale of the American people if the other side keeps pushing. We must be able to say that all has been done." Some of the language that Rusk included in his offer for peace talks seemed to calculate to inspire rejection such as the demand that Hanoi must publicly vow "to cease aggression" and the bombing pause was "a step toward peace, although there has not been the slightest hint or suggestion from the other side as to what they would do if the bombing stopped." In a way that the Johnson administration had much trouble understanding, the North Vietnamese felt to negotiate with the Americans reserving the right to resume the bombing would be to accept a diminution of their country's independence, hence the demand for an unconditional bombing halt. Rusk recorded in his autobiography that de Gaulle did not respond when asked, "Does your order include the bodies of American soldiers in France's cemeteries?"
Fulbright hearings on Vietnam In February 1966, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chaired by Fulbright held hearings on the Vietnam War and Fulbright had called as expert witnesses
George F. Kennan and General
James M. Gavin, who were both critical of the Vietnam War. Rusk who served as Johnson's principal spokesman on Vietnam was sent by the president together with General Maxwell Taylor to serve as his rebuttal witnesses before the Foreign Relations Committee. Rusk testified that the war was a morally justified struggle to halt "the steady extension of Communist power through force and threat". Rusk together with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General
Earle "Bus" Wheeler and the National Security Adviser
Walt Whitman Rostow were the leading "hawks" while the leading "doves" was Rusk's former ally McNamara together with Harriman. Rusk equated withdrawal from Vietnam as "appeasement", through at times he was willing to advise Johnson to open peace talks as a way to rebut domestic criticism that Johnson was unwilling to consider alternative ways to end the war. In 1967, Rusk was opposed to the Operation Pennsylvania peace plan touted by Henry Kissinger, saying "Eight months pregnant with peace and all of them hoping to win the Nobel Peace Prize". When Kissinger reported that the North Vietnamese would not begin peace talks unless the bombing was stopped first, Rusk advocated continuing the bombing, telling Johnson: "If the bombing isn't having that much effect, why do they want to stop the bombing so much?"
Rusk family issues Rusk's support for the Vietnam War caused considerable torment for his son
Richard, who was opposed to the war but who enlisted in the Marine Corps and refused to attend anti-war demonstrations out of love for his father. The psychological strain caused the younger Rusk to suffer a nervous breakdown and led to a break between father and son. after it became known that his daughter, Peggy, planned to marry Guy Smith, In response, the
Richmond News Leader stated that it found the wedding offensive, further saying that "anything which diminishes [Rusk's] personal acceptability is an affair of state." He decided not to resign after talking to McNamara and the president. A year after his daughter's wedding, Rusk was invited to join the faculty of the
University of Georgia Law School, only to have his appointment denounced by Roy Harris, an ally of Alabama Governor George Wallace and a member of the university's board of regents, who stated that his opposition was because of Peggy Rusk's interracial marriage. The university nonetheless appointed Rusk to the position.
Rusk sees communists in peace movement In October 1967, Rusk told Johnson that he believed the March on the Pentagon was the work of "the Communists", and pressed Johnson to order an investigation to prove it. The investigation was launched involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and military intelligence, and found "no significant evidence that would prove Communist control or direction of the U.S. peace movement and its leaders." When McNamara advised Johnson in October 1967 to agree to North Vietnam's demand that the United States cease the bombing campaign as the precondition for opening peace talks, Rusk opposed the idea of a "bombing pause" as removing the "incentive for peace", and urged Johnson to continue Operation Rolling Thunder. By this time, many at the State Department were concerned by Rusk's drinking on the job with
William Bundy later saying that Rusk was a like a "zombie" until he started to drink. McNamara was shocked when he visited him at Foggy Bottom in the afternoon and saw Rusk open his desk to pull out a bottle of scotch, which he proceeded to drink in its entirety. On January 5, 1968, notes by Rusk were delivered to
Ambassador of the Soviet Union to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin, pleading support from the US to "avoid recurrence of" claimed bombing of Russian cargo ships in the
Haiphong North Vietnam port the day prior. On February 9, Rusk was asked by Senator
William Fulbright over his possible information in regards to a US tactical nuclear weapons introduction in South Vietnam report. Like other members of the Johnson administration, Rusk was shaken by the surprise of the Tet Offensive. During a news briefing at the height of the Tet Offensive, Rusk who was known for his courteous manner, was asked how the Johnson administration was taken by surprise, causing him to snap in fury: "Whose side are you on? Now, I'm the Secretary of State of the United States, and I'm on our side! None of your papers or your broadcasting apparatuses are worth a damn unless the United States succeeds. They are trivial compared to that question. So I don't know why people have to be probing for things that one can bitch about, when there are two thousand stories on the same day about things that are more constructive." Fulbright made his sympathies clear by wearing a necktie decorated with doves and olive branches. Through Rusk handled himself well under the relentless questioning by Fulbright, the televised hearings were another blow to the prestige of the Johnson administration as it became very apparent to the viewers that a number of senators were now opposed to the war or were only lukewarm in their support. The following day, Rusk added 10 sites to the 5 proposed initially, accusing
Hanoi of having a propaganda battle over neutral areas for discussion during a press conference. Just before the peace talks in Paris were due to open on 13 May 1968, Rusk advocated bombing North Vietnam north of the 20 parallel, a proposal strongly opposed by the Defense Secretary Clark Clifford who stated it would wreck the peace talks. Clifford persuaded a reluctant Johnson to stick by his promise of 31 March 1968 of no bombing north of 20 parallel. Rusk continued his advocacy of bombing north of 20 parallel, telling Johnson on 21 May 1968 "We will not get a solution in Paris until we prove they can't win in the South". During a meeting on 26 July 1968, Johnson briefed all three presidential candidates about the state of the war and the peace talks. Rusk who attended the meeting agreed with Richard Nixon's statement that bombing provided leverage in the Paris peace talks, saying: "If the North Vietnamese were not being bombed, they would have no incentive to do anything". On September 30, Rusk met privately with
Foreign Minister of Israel Abba Eban in
New York City for discussion on peace plans from the
Middle East. In October 1968, when Johnson considered a complete bombing halt to North Vietnam, Rusk was opposed. On November 1, Rusk said long term allies of the North Vietnam bomb halt should pressure Hanoi to accelerate their involvement in the peace talks in Paris.
End of term Nixon won the election and Rusk prepared to leave office January 20, 1969. On December 1, 1968, citing the halt of bombing in North Vietnam, Rusk said that the Soviet Union would need to come forward and do what it could to forward peace talks in southeast Asia. On December 22, Rusk appeared on television to officially confirm the 82 surviving crew members of the
USS Pueblo intelligence ship, speaking on behalf of the hospitalized President Johnson. In the last days of the Johnson administration, the president wanted to nominate Rusk to the Supreme Court. Although Rusk had studied the law, he did not have a law degree nor had he ever practiced law, but Johnson pointed out that the constitution did not require legal experience to serve on the Supreme Court and "I've already talked to
Dick Russell and he said you'd be confirmed easily." Though Eastland was a fellow Southerner, he had neither forgotten nor forgiven Rusk for allowing his daughter to marry a black man. Eastland announced he would not confirm Rusk if he were nominated to the Supreme Court. On January 2, 1969, Rusk met with five Jewish American leaders in his office to assure them the US had not changed its policy in the Middle East of recognizing the sovereignty of Israel. One of the leaders, the American-Israeli Public Affairs committee's Irving Kane, said afterward that Rusk had successfully convinced him. ==Retirement==