Three Monkeys Online Magazine

Snapshots from the Past. A 1975 interview with former US Secretary of State Dean Rusk

In June, 1975, Richard Gilbert directed a production for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation entitled ‘The Old South’ - a salute to the USA Bi-Centennial. As part of the production he interviewed Dean Rusk, who served as Secretary of State to both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and General Mark Clark, among others. The interview took place at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, where he was head of the International Law Faculty. He agreed to be interviewed as long as there was no discussion of politics. Richard Gilbert, for Three Monkeys Online, presents extracts from an interview that, while conducted over thirty years ago, remains topical.

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"Georgia's quite a different place than it was when I was a small boy. We were still smarting under the echoes of reconstruction after the Civil War. We had a strong feeling about Yankees. We were relatively poor. We should erect a monument to the bo-weevil because that drove us away from the small poor cotton farms that plagued my boyhood. Now Georgia has diversified its agriculture. It is rapidly industrializing in many parts of the state. It's exporting to other countries rather vigorously at the present time. Its educational system has exploded. We have about more than thirty units in the University of Georgia system around the state. It's part of the nation. Many Southerners have gone north from places like Georgia. Many people from the north have come back here. So we're part of the United States in a way that we were not when I was a boy.

Well there is a great joy in coming back to a place that is your home and where your roots are very deep. I can note on the grave marker of my great grandmother a few miles from here that she was born in 1776 and that four of us have spanned the entire life of this nation as an independent country. But there are important changes. For example, in the old days the theory of relations between white and black was wrong, though we had an affinity for personal relationships between whites and blacks. Now that the theory has been straightened out, those personal relationships continue and I think we have a basis there on which to build and I rather think that the south over the next decade is going to show the way to the rest of the country in race relations. So many things have changed in the psychological attitude of people and their readiness to work together.

I'm not sure that all of them would think that I have made it good because I suspect a good many of them disagreed with many of the things I did. But Georgia has sent some very important people to our national capital. Senator Richard Russell was one of the great senators of all times and for 20 years was probably the second most powerful man in Washington. Others have played that role over the years. So I think Georgia's likely to play a livelier part in the national scene for as long as one can see into the future.

I've decided to spend such time as remains to me working with young people in the field of international law because I think this present generation of young people has on its plate certain problems that are different in kind than any the human race has ever faced before. In your country and mine the nuclear arms race and the threat of nuclear war, the environment, the population explosion, energy, diminishing raw materials, problems of that sort and so I think this is a very special generation of young people. They're going to write a unique chapter in the history of the human race and I'm very stimulated by it because they're a great bunch. I won't patronize them by saying why. I think this is a question that applies to all young people in every country including yours and mine. Because I think this is a very special generation of young people with whom I'm privileged now to work.

I think the United States and all countries have a generation of young people coming up now that will be a very special generation because they will have on their plate very special problems that are different in kind than any the human race has ever faced before and some of those are going to have to reach a solution by around the time of the turn of the century if homo sapiens is going to make it.

I think the nuclear arms race and nuclear war, the environmental issues, population explosion, the long-term aspects of energy, diminishing raw materials such as critical minerals, relations among people of different religions and cultural backgrounds, all these things present an agenda for the future which makes this group of young people very important. They're going to write a unique chapter in the history of the human race. I'd like to see how the story comes out but I won't be able to.

In the last 30 years we've lived through some rather dreadful things. We've had some serious crises and we've had some great tragedies. But even in the face of all those, we've been able to put behind us 30 years since a nuclear weapon has been fired in anger and that's very important. And we've developed a network of international institutions that are capable of dealing with many of these urgent problems. But I'm inclined to think that the very nature of these problems for the future will force people to think of the family of man, not as world government, but as an organic community made up of the human race that are united by some of these urgent problems which we can't escape. There's no foxhole into which to crawl anymore and so I think it's going to have a profound influence on relations among nations.

I think there will be a continuation of the explosion of international law through sheer necessity. More international law has come into being since 1945 than in the entire history of the human race before that time. In a sense law may appear to be restricting but in another sense it's liberating because it's the law that gives us a chance to predict with reasonable accuracy what others are going to do and to make our own choices as comprehensive as possible. It's the law that liberates. It's responsible for our individual liberties and for laying the hand of restraint over those who exercise raw power. So I would anticipate that we will have more law rather than less law, particularly in the international field. This will vary I suppose in the eye of the beholder. In the broadest sense it's the majesty of a legal order that gives moral principles a chance to be effective in the real world, because if that legal order were not there then we'd resort to the law of the jungle where moral views would have very little currency or very little opportunity. So I don't think that there's a conflict between the notion of law and the notion of moral principle.

I think we have a constitutional system that has demonstrated over and over again and more particularly in the last two years, that it has great strength and flexibility to it. I think we have an economic system that is capable of performing miracles and providing the resources that are needed to get some of our great jobs done. I think we have a people who are rapidly becoming more sophisticated about the world and the world in which we live, through educational and other processes. I think our two countries are served by their news media about as any people in the world, even though one can criticize various aspects of what the news media do, so I think there are enormous assets on which these young people can build. Now, in terms of what's wrong. I think that it's still true to an extent that if you scratch the skin of any American, you find an isolationist at heart. We didn't grow up as did the British, young British in the 19th century thinking of Britain with a world role. What we've done during and since world war two has been contrary to our traditional instincts and has been an act of will. Well, we've been called upon for great burdens in this period and there are times when the American people get a bit weary, when they become more preoccupied of what they think of their own internal affairs. I say what they think because these so-called domestic problems can only be solved with a high degree of international action. So I think really our problem is a sense of direction, new compass bearings on the part of our people because they, at the end of the day decide what our country does.

Ah, this is my home. My grandfather has 58 grandchildren so I've had 57 first cousins, most of them still living and in this area. Hundreds of relatives, many old friends from high school and college days and all the pleasantries of good climate and a somewhat more relaxed way of life and some open spaces and it's just a good place to be. I love it. I wouldn't go back to Washington under any circumstances whatever, at any time. I've had 20 years of public service and that's my share. I'm a permanent private citizen."

Dean Rusk died in 1994 at the age of 85

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