Editing Dean Rusk (section)

==Retirement==
[[File:Dean Rusk (post-retirement).png|120px|thumb|left|Rusk in his later years.]]
January 20, 1969 marked Rusk's last day as Secretary of State, and upon leaving Foggy Bottom he delivered a brief valedictory: "Eight years ago, Mrs. Rusk and I came quietly. We wish now to leave quietly. Thank you very much".<ref name="Langguth 534">Langguth, A.J. ''Our Vietnam 1954–1975'', New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000 p.534</ref> At a farewell dinner hosted by Dobrynin, the longest-serving ambassador in Washington, Rusk told his host: "What's done cannot be undone."<ref name="Langguth 534"/> After the dinner, Rusk drove away in a modest car that barely seemed to be working, which Dobrynin considered to an apt symbolic end to the Johnson administration.<ref name="Langguth 534"/> Upon his return to Georgia, Rusk suffered from a prolonged bout of depression and suffered from psychosomatic illnesses, visiting doctors with complaints of chest and stomach pains that appeared to have no physical basis.<ref name="Langguth 534"/> Unable to work, Rusk was supported throughout 1969 by the Rockefeller Foundation who paid him a salary as a "distinguished fellow".<ref name="Langguth 534"/>   

On July 27, 1969, Rusk voiced his support for the [[Richard Nixon|Nixon]] administration's proposed anti-ballistic missile system, saying that he would vote for it, were he a senator, from an understanding that further proposals would be reviewed if any progress would be made in Soviet Union peace talks.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1969/07/28/page/3/article/rusk-backs-abm-hails-peace-work|title=Rusk Backs ABM, Hails Peace Work|date=July 27, 1969|first=William|last=Jones|newspaper=Chicago Tribune}}</ref> The same year, Rusk received both the [[Sylvanus Thayer Award]] and the [[Presidential Medal of Freedom]], with Distinction.

Following his retirement, he taught international law at the [[University of Georgia School of Law]] in [[Athens, Georgia]] (1970–1984). Rusk was emotionally exhausted after 8 years as Secretary of State and narrowly survived a nervous breakdown in 1969.<ref name="Rusks on Rusk64" /> Roy Harris, a university regent who served as the Georgia campaign manager for the presidential campaign of George Wallace in 1968, tried to block Rusk's appointment under the ostensible grounds "We don't want the university to be a haven for broken-down politicians", but in reality because he was opposed to a man who had allowed his daughter to marry a black man.<ref name="Langguth 534"/> However, Harris's vote was overruled.  Rusk found that the return to teaching in 1970 and the resumption of the academic career he had abandoned in 1940 was emotionally satisfying. The other professors remembered him as being like a "junior associate seeking tenure".<ref name="Rusks on Rusk64" /> Rusk told his son "the students I was privileged to teach helped rejuvenate my life and make a new start after those hard years in Washington."<ref name="Rusks on Rusk64" />

In the 1970s, Rusk was a member of the Committee on Present Danger, a hawkish group opposed to détente with the Soviet Union and distrustful of treaties to control the nuclear arms race.<ref name="New Light on Dean Rusk124">{{cite journal|first=Warren|last=Cohen|title=New Light on Dean Rusk? A Review Essay|journal=Political Science Quarterly|volume=106|issue=1 |publisher=The Academy of Political Science |page=124|date=Spring 1991 |doi=10.2307/2152177|jstor=2152177}}</ref>

In 1973, Rusk eulogized Johnson when he [[Lying in state|lay in state]].<ref>{{harvnb|Rusk|1990|p=328}}</ref>

In 1984, Rusk's son [[Richard Rusk|Richard]], whom he had not spoken to since 1970 owing to the opposition of Rusk ''fils'' to the Vietnam War, surprised his father by returning to Georgia from Alaska to seek a reconciliation.<ref name="Rusks on Rusk58">{{cite journal |last1=Herring |first1=George |title=Rusks on Rusk: A Georgian's Life as Collaborative Autobiography |journal=The Georgia Historical Quarterly |date=Spring 1992 |volume=76 |issue=1 |page=58}}</ref> As part of the reconciliation process, Rusk, who had gone blind by this point, agreed to dictate his memoirs to his son, who recorded what he said and wrote it down into what became the book ''As I Saw It''.<ref name="Rusks on Rusk58" />

===Rusk's memoir===
In a review of his memoir ''As I Saw It'', the American historian Warren Cohen noted that little of the acrimony of Rusk's relations with McNamara, Bundy and Fulbright appeared, but that Rusk was unremittingly hostile in his picture of Kennedy's closest adviser and right-hand man, his younger brother Robert, together with the UN Secretary General [[U Thant]].<ref name="New Light on Dean Rusk125">{{cite journal|first=Warren|last=Cohen|title=New Light on Dean Rusk? A Review Essay|journal=Political Science Quarterly|volume=106|issue=1 |publisher=The Academy of Political Science |page=125|date=Spring 1991 |doi=10.2307/2152177|jstor=2152177}}</ref> In ''As I Saw It'', Rusk expressed considerable anger at the media's coverage of the Vietnam War, accusing anti-war journalists of "faking" stories and images that portrayed the war in an unflattering light.<ref name="New Light on Dean Rusk125" /> Rusk spoke about what he called the "so-called freedom of the press", as he maintained that journalists from ''The New York Times'' and ''The Washington Post'' only wrote what their editors told them to write, saying, if there were true freedom of the press, both newspapers would have portrayed the war more positively.<ref name="New Light on Dean Rusk125" /> Despite his hawkish views towards the Soviet Union, Rusk stated during his time as Secretary of State that he never saw any evidence that the Soviet Union planned to invade Western Europe and he "seriously doubted" that it ever would.<ref name="New Light on Dean Rusk125" /> Cohen noted that in contrast to his years with Kennedy, Rusk was warmer and more protective towards Johnson, whom he clearly got on better with than he ever did with Kennedy.<ref name="New Light on Dean Rusk126">{{cite journal|first=Warren|last=Cohen|title=New Light on Dean Rusk? A Review Essay|journal=Political Science Quarterly|volume=106|issue=1 |publisher=The Academy of Political Science |page=126|date=Spring 1991 |doi=10.2307/2152177|jstor=2152177}}</ref>

In a review of ''As I Saw It'', the historian [[George C. Herring]] wrote that the book was mostly dull and uninformative when it came to Rusk's time as Secretary of State, telling little that historians did not already know, and the most interesting and passionate parts concerned his youth in the "Old South" and his conflict and reconciliation with his son Richard.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Herring |first1=George |title=Rusks on Rusk: A Georgian's Life as Collaborative Autobiography |journal=The Georgia Historical Quarterly |date=Spring 1992 |volume=76 |issue=1 |page=59 & 63}}</ref>

Rusk died of [[heart failure]] in Athens, Georgia, on December 20, 1994, at the age of 85.<ref>''The New York Times'', December 22, 1994, pg. A1</ref> He and his wife are buried at the [[Oconee Hill Cemetery]] in Athens.

Rusk Eating House, the first women's eating house at Davidson College, was founded in 1977 and is named in his honor. The Dean Rusk International Studies Program at Davidson College is also named in his honor.

[[Dean Rusk Middle School]], located in Canton, Georgia, was named in his honor, as was Dean Rusk Hall on the campus of the University of Georgia.