Editing Dean Rusk (section)

===Selection===
On December 12, 1960, [[History of the United States Democratic Party|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.<ref>{{cite book |last=Schlesinger Jr. |first=Arthur M. |title=Journals 1952–2000 |year=2008 |publisher=[[Penguin Books]] |page=[https://archive.org/details/journals195220000000schl/page/98 98] |isbn=978-0-14-311435-2 |quote=Elizabeth Farmer told me this evening that, at five this afternoon, it looked as if it would be Rusk in State, with Bowles and Bundy as Undersecretaries. (Ken, by the way, told me that Jack had called him on the 7th and talked seriously about Mac as Secretary.) I asked why Rusk had finally emerged. Elizabeth said, 'He was the lowest common denominator.' Apparently Harris Wofford succeeded in stirring the Negroes and Jews up so effectively that the uproar killed Fulbright, who was apparently Jack's first choice. |url=https://archive.org/details/journals195220000000schl/page/98 }}</ref> [[David Halberstam]] also described Rusk as "everybody's number two".<ref>{{cite book |last=Halberstam |first=David |title=The Best and the Brightest |year=1972 |publisher=[[Random House]] |page=[https://archive.org/details/bestbrightest00halb/page/32 32] |isbn=0-394-46163-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/bestbrightest00halb/page/32 }}</ref> 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.<ref name="Langguth, A.J. p.43">Langguth, A.J. ''Our Vietnam 1954–1975'', New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000 p.43</ref>  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.<ref name="Langguth, A.J. p.43"/> Rusk himself was not particularly interested in running the State Department as the annual pay for secretary of state was $25,000 while his job as director of the Rockefeller Foundation paid $60,000 per year.<ref name="Langguth, A.J. p.43"/> Rusk only agreed to take the position out of a sense of patriotism after Kennedy insisted that he take the job.<ref>Langguth, A.J. ''Our Vietnam 1954–1975'', New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000 p.43-44</ref>

Kennedy biographer [[Robert Dallek]] explained Rusk's choice thus:

{{blockquote|By process of elimination, and determined to run foreign policy from the White House, Kennedy came to Dean Rusk, the president of the Rockefeller Foundation. Rusk was an acceptable last choice, with the right credentials and the right backers. A Rhodes scholar, a college professor, a World War II officer, an Assistant Secretary of State for the Far East under Truman, a liberal Georgian sympathetic to integration, and a consistent [[Adlai Stevenson II|Stevenson]] supporter, Rusk offended no one. The foreign policy establishment — Acheson, [[Robert A. Lovett|Lovett]], liberals [[Chester Bowles|Bowles]] and Stevenson, and ''[[The New York Times]]'' — all sang his praises. But most of all, it was clear to Kennedy from their one meeting in December 1960 that Rusk would be a sort of faceless, faithful bureaucrat who would serve rather than attempt to lead.<ref>Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917–1963, p. 315, 2003, Little, Brown and Company</ref>}}

Kennedy tended to address Rusk as "Mr. Rusk" instead of Dean.<ref>Langguth, A.J. ''Our Vietnam'' New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000 p.126</ref>

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.<ref>Schoenbaum, ''Waging Peace and War''. p&nbsp;267.</ref>  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,<ref>{{cite journal|first=John B. |last=Henry II |author2=William Espinosa |title=The Tragedy of Dean Rusk |jstor=1147824 |journal=Foreign Policy|issue=8 |publisher=Carnegie Endowment for International Peace |pages=166–189|date=Autumn 1972 |doi=10.2307/1147824}}</ref> 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.<ref>Karnow, Stanley ''Vietnam: A History'', New York: Viking, 1983 p.249</ref>