Topic: Dean Rusk

David Dean Rusk (February 9, 1909 – December 20, 1994) was the United States Secretary of State from 1961 to 1969 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Rusk is the second-longest serving U.S. Secretary of State of all time, behind only Cordell Hull.

Dean Rusk was born in a rural district of Cherokee County, Georgia, the son of Robert Hugh and Frances Elizabeth (Clotfelter) Rusk. He was educated in Atlanta's public schools, graduated from Boys High School in 1925, and spent two years working for an Atlanta lawyer before working his way through Davidson College. Rusk was coached in football by William "Monk" Younger and was a member of the Kappa Alpha Order Sigma chapter, becoming a Cadet Lieutenant Colonel commanding the Reserve Officers' Training Corps battalion. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1931. While studying in England as a Rhodes Scholar at St. John's College, Oxford, he received the Cecil Peace Prize in 1933.

Rusk taught at Mills College in Oakland, California from 1934 to 1949 and earned a law degree at the University of California, Berkeley in 1940. He married Virginia Foisie (October 5, 1915 – February 24, 1996) on June 9, 1937 and they had three children.