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Rusk AA, Interview with Dean Rusk, circa 1985

Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia
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00:00:00 - Foreign economic policy

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Partial Transcript: (several people talking at once) Do you recall an instance, Pop?

Segment Synopsis: Rusk names various colleagues who supported him in matters of domestic and international economic policy during his tenure as Secretary of State. Further, he discusses the intersection of economic policy and national decision-making, particularly during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War.

Keywords: Anthony M. Solomon; Berlin Blockade; Christian Herter; Federal Reserve; George Wildman Ball; Hyannisport; John F. Kennedy; John M. Leddy; Kennedy Compound; Robert F. Kennedy; Ted Kennedy; The Vietnam War; U.S. economics; W. Michael Blumenthal; William McChesney Martin; economic policy; economics

00:06:29 - U.S. government collaboration

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Partial Transcript: Stop me immediately if this is redundant, but the overarching question I had regarded the fragmentation within our federal government and the difficulty of making the fragments work.

Segment Synopsis: Rusk discusses the efforts by which a government secures better collaboration among its members. Further, he talks on his attempts to simplify the chain of command within his own office.

Keywords: Agency for International Development; C. Douglas Dillon; CIA; Cabinet of the United States; Central Intelligence Agency; Congress; Cy Vance; Cyrus R. Vance; Deadly Gambits; George Marshall; Harry Truman; Henry Kissinger; Iranian hostage crisis; Iranian hostages; James Lloyd Greenfield; Jimmy Carter; John F. Kennedy; John R. Burke; National Security; National Security Advisor; Palestine; Pearl Harbor; Richard Nixon; Robert Joseph Manning; Robert Lansing; Robert McNamara; Strobe Talbott; The Marshall Reorganization; U.S. State Department; U.S. fiscal policy; Wally Hickel; Walter Hickel; William Hodding Carter III; William Jennings Bryan; Woodrow Wilson; World War II; Zbiginew Brzezinski; chain of command; government employee morale; government leaks; government reorganization; governmental accountability; organizational accountability; press spokesmen; public resignation; reorganization of the War Department

00:32:49 - Resignation of public officials

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Partial Transcript: It's true the President has a four-year mandate to do what he thinks best for the country.

Segment Synopsis: Rusk discusses the terms under which he would have resigned as Secretary of State. Further, he talks on the events surrounding the resignations of American government officials during and following his tenure.

Keywords: 1963 election; 1967 election; Elliot Lee Richardson; Federal Bureau of Investigation; George Wildman Ball; J. Edgar Hoover; John F. Kennedy; Lyndon B. Johnson; Presidential term limit; Ramsey Clark; Richard Nixon; Robert McNamara; Saturday Night Massacre; Secretary of State; The Vietnam War; Watergate; bugging

00:40:01 - Kennedy's task forces, privacy

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Partial Transcript: Did you find John Kennedy's use of task forces that would go out on their own in pursuit of information and policy direction outside of official channels helpful or hurtful to the State Department?

Segment Synopsis: Rusk discusses how President John F. Kennedy's use of task forces effected his job, and talks on the intersection of confidentiality and journalism.

Keywords: Bay of Pigs; Channel 8; Cold War; Cuban Missile Crisis; Daniel Ellsberg; Dean Acheson; Georgia Public Broadcasting Station; Intelligence and Research; John F. Kennedy; Llewellyn Thompson; National Security Council; Pentagon papers; Roger Hilsman; Soviet Russia; The Official Secrets Act; U.S. State Department; USSR; Vietnam War; government data; government intelligence; government leaks; nuclear war; nuclear weapons; task forces

00:48:30 - Presidential power

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Partial Transcript: I've got to read this one little quote into the record here, from this Russian writer, referring to this public protest bit, Pop.

Keywords: Alexander Galech; Anatoly Dobrynin; Arthur H. Vandenberg; Charles de Gaulle; Cuban Missile Crisis; David Ormsby-Gore; Dean Acheson; Ernest Gruening; Herve Alphand; John Kenneth Galbraith; Llewellyn Thompson; McGeorge Bundy; North Atlantic Treaty Organization; U.S. Congress; U.S. President; U.S. executive branch; U.S. foreign ambassadors; U.S. legislation; Wilhelm Grewe; collaborative government; military bases; treaty relationships

Subjects: Rusk speaks to the efficacy of the President in guiding policy and decision-making in government, and considers the effects of such leadership on other branches of government and foreign policy.