Part two of an autobiographical sketch by Dean Rusk, as told to Richard Rusk. Topics include Rusk's birth and ancestry, his early life in Cherokee County, Georgia, and his move to Atlanta. Rusk discusses his education, including grammar school, Boys’ High School in Atlanta, Preston Epps (Rusk's Greek teacher, and the ROTC. Rusk also talks about his early employment (between high school and college), his experiences at Davidson College, the Rhodes Scholarship, St. John’s College, Oxford University. Rusk talks about vacations in Germany during Hitler’s rise to power and meeting with Mohandas "Mahatma" Gandhi. He describes the outbreak of WW II, including C.E.M. Joad and the Oxford Movement and Norman Thomas. Rusk talks about Mills College, including meeting his future wife, Virginia Foisie Rusk and President Aurelia Reinhardt, as well as his experience at Berkeley Law School. He discusses his experiences with the military, including the Army Reserves (c. 1939-1940; Company A, 30th Infantry; Assistant Operations Officer, Third Division), the War Department (G-2; 1941), General Joseph Stilwell (Staff Officer for Rusk, who Rusk was Chief of War Plans under), and the China-Burma-India theater (Burma Road, Indian Nationalists, General Clair Chennault, and Chiang Kai-Shek).
For more information, see the
Russell Library finding aid for the Dean Rusk Oral History Collection.