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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Dean Rusk Oral History Collection
Subject
The topic of the resource
United States--Officials and employees
Politics and Public Policy
Description
An account of the resource
The collection consists of 172 oral history interviews with Dean Rusk and his colleagues between 1984-1989. Includes audiotapes and transcriptions documenting Rusk's life from early childhood in the 1910's through his teaching career in the 1980's. The interviews contain information on Rusk's service as U.S. Under Secretary and Secretary of State during the administrations of Presidents Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson and his involvement in foreign relations including the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Vietnam War. The interviews also document his position as president of the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1950s.<br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=14&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard Geary Rusk
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1984-1989
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL214DROH
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
United States
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL214DROH-Rusk7O/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.3 Circa 1985 Rusk 7O, Dean Rusk autobiographical sketch, Part 1, circa 1985 RBRL214DROH-Rusk7O RBRL214DROH Dean Rusk Oral History Collection Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia oral history 1:|6(4)|14(10)|24(7)|33(4)|40(2)|47(17)|56(1)|66(3)|72(12)|80(8)|89(16)|101(2)|109(10)|117(12)|128(3)|136(7)|148(10)|159(12)|167(6)|178(8)|187(10)|203(8)|214(9)|222(9)|229(1)|238(5)|248(5)|259(2)|266(3)|273(1)|283(7)|290(16)|298(6)|307(10)|317(11)|327(13)|338(3)|347(5)|359(12)|370(7)|378(7)|390(4)|400(14)|409(9)|420(3)|431(7)|440(7)|448(11)|460(1)|468(16)|479(1)|489(11)|498(2)|505(14)|515(12)|523(7)|531(16)|540(11)|549(7)|557(7)|566(9)|576(9)|585(11)|592(14)|602(10)|610(3)|618(4)|623(1)|629(11)|635(7)|642(8)|649(6)|656(13)|664(6)|671(5)|680(5)|686(4)|692(4)|700(6)|709(5)|715(4)|724(1)|732(8)|739(4)|746(9)|754(16)|762(9)|770(1)|777(6)|784(3) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_y4wwpux8& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; & ; wid=1_k108whjf" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 21 Childhood in Cherokee County, GA I was born February 9, 1909 in Cherokee County, Georgia. Dean Rusk shares about his early childhood in Cherokee County. The topics he discusses include his ancestry, his home life, his diet, and the local area. Davidson College ; Justice of the Peace ; malnutrition ; Presbyterian ; Scotch-Irish 17 670 Attending grammar school in Atlanta In 1912, my father, realizing that this was a man-killing little farm and it was almost destroying my mother physically... Dean Rusk talks about his time at Lee Street School in Atlanta, GA. He discusses the quality and type of education he received there. Atlanta Public School System ; Carpenter's Geographic Readers ; Georgia Board of Education ; open air classrooms 17 990 Studying at Boys' High School After seventh grade, I went straight to high school. Dean Rusk discusses his experiences at Boys' High School. He shares about his favorite teacher, Preston Epps, and the quality of the school. Alciphronian Yearbook ; Atlanta Public School System ; Boston Latin School ; Greek literature ; Reserve Officers' Training Corp ; Rockefeller Foundation ; ROTC 17 1505 Preparation for Davidson College I had always dreamed about going to Davidson College. Dean Rusk talks about the two years he spent after high school saving money to attend Davidson College. He shares about his time in a law firm and working for the < ; i> ; Atlanta Journal< ; /i> ; newspaper. City Editor Harlee Branch, Sr. ; ROTC ; YMCA ; Young Men's Christian Association 17 1834 Obtaining the Rhodes Scholarship I knew when I first entered Davidson that I was going to try for a Rhodes scholarship... Dean Rusk speaks about his collegiate preparations for applying for the Rhodes Scholarship. He also discusses the application process. Cecil Rhodes ; Davidson College ; Former Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels ; North Carolina poll tax ; Professor Guy Vowles ; YMCA 17 2193 Time at Oxford University / Time in Germany during the rise of the Nazi Party Anyhow, I was accepted at St. John's College, Oxford, one of the smaller but one of the richer colleges there. Dean Rusk talks about his studies and leisure time at St. John's College, Oxford. Later, he discusses studying abroad in Germany during Adolf Hitler's rise to power. He shares about the changes to Germany and the university system. < ; i> ; Mein Kampf< ; /i> ; ; Hochshule fur Politik ; Nazism ; Professor Viktor Bruns ; The Lakes District, England ; The Modern Greats ; Treaty of Versailles ; University of Berlin 17 2731 Visit by Mohandas Gandhi / The King and Country debate One of the delights at Oxford was the fact that some of your professors would have open house every Sunday afternoon... Dean Rusk describes the time he heard Gandhi speak to a group of students at Oxford. Later, he talks about the King and Country debate he attended in the Oxford Union. Adolf Hilter ; C.E.M. Joad ; colonialism ; Indian Nationalists ; Oxford Lotus Club ; Oxford Movement ; pacifism ; Resolve that this House will not fight for King and Country ; St. John's College ; United States Army ; World War 2 ; World War II ; WW2 ; WWII 17 3109 Professor at Mills College But when I was finishing up at Oxford in 1934, the United States was still in a very deep depression... Dean Rusk speaks about his time teaching at Mills College. He focuses on his admiration for Mills College President, Aurelia Henry Reinhardt, and recalls meeting his wife. Association of American University Woman ; Cecil Rhodes ; Republican Party ; Rhodes Trust ; United States Army Reserves 17 3579 Law school at Berkeley / Captain in the Army Reserves Part of that period, beginning about 1936, I began to study law at Berkeley. Dean Rusk shares about his experiences in law school at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1930's. Later, he discusses his transition to active duty as a captain in the Army Reserves. Boalt Hall ; Law Review ; U.S. Military ; World War 2 ; World War II ; WW2 ; WWII 17 4108 Organizing a new section of G-2, the army intelligence organization Then in October 1941, I received orders to report to the War Department General Staff in Washington for a G-2... Dean Rusk talks about his move from California to Washington, D.C. to organize a new section of G-2 (the military intelligence staff in the U.S. Army) to cover Afghanistan, India, Burma, Malaya, Australia, New Zealand, and the British Pacific Islands. Murray's Tourist Handbook on India and Ceylon ; War Department ; World War 2 ; World War II ; WW2 ; WWII 17 4442 Staff officer for General Joseph Stilwell After being in G-2 for over a year and a half, I was then sent to Commander General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. Dean Rusk discusses going to India to serve as a staff officer for General Stilwell in the China-Burma-India Theater. He focuses on the command structure in this theater and their operations. Burma Road ; CBI ; Merill's Marauders ; Vinegar Joe Stillwell ; World War 2 ; World War II ; WW2 ; WWII 17 5052 Chief of War Plans for General Joseph Stilwell My job as Chief of War Plans for General Stilwell was as much political as military. Dean Rusk speaks about his job as Chief of War Plans in the China-Burma-India Theater. He describes their mission and the barriers to success. Chiang Kai-shek ; communism ; General Clair Lee Chennault ; Indian National Movement ; World War 2 ; World War II ; WW2 ; WWII 17 DEAN RUSK: I was born February 9, 1909 in Cherokee County, Georgia. My great grandfather, David Rusk, was one of three brothers who came over from Northern Ireland, he was among the people we call the Scotch-Irish. He came over about the end of the 18th century and landed in Charleston and found his way over to the western part of South Carolina, in the Pendleton area--the John C. Calhoun kind of country. Then he made his way to north Georgia, the southern part of Cherokee County and staked out several hundred acres of ground there at a time when that was mostly Indian country--free for settlers to stake out. In a little family graveyard up in Cherokee County, I can see his grave and my great-grandmother' ; s grave and note on her tombstone that she was born in 1776, and I have often reflected upon the fact that only four of us have spanned the entire life of this country as an independent nation. My grandfather, James Edward Rusk, kept the original home place going ; he was a man of considerable substance. For example, he was the Justice of the Peace in that area and when neighbors had a problem, somebody' ; s cow trampled on someone else' ; s garden or something, they would simply meet with my grandfather under a tree somewhere and settle it. Very rarely did anything go to the county courthouse in that area because they tried to settle their problems locally. My grandfather had eleven children. My own father was next to the youngest son. He was the only one of those eleven children who went to college. He went to Davidson College in North Carolina, a Presbyterian liberal arts college, because he had in mind going into the Presbyterian ministry. After Davidson he went to the Louisville Theological Seminary and was ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian Church. But he did not have a good run at his profession in the ministry because he had some trouble with his throat and had to leave it. He did some school teaching and then went back to Cherokee County and rented a forty acre plot of land from his sister, my Aunt Mary Roberts, and it was on that forty acre farm that I was born. I thought all my life that I had been delivered by a veterinarian because our next door neighbor was our uncle, Dr. Roberts, but I learned many years later that a doctor had come over from Woodstock, a town about eight miles away in the middle of a dark, stormy night to preside over my birth. I must confess that I can' ; t remember in much detail about those years in Cherokee County because we left there when I was less than four years old. I do remember the death of my grandmother and the fact that her sons, all together, sang at her funeral. I remember the men playing marbles in our yard, a marble game called Tennessee Nines. I remember the walk about four hundred yards from our house down to the old homeplace, down the road--the heavy forest on both sides and how scary it was to walk along there at night, when one didn' ; t know what would come out of the woods at you--all imagination. I remember going to the hill with a load of sugarcane to be ground up for sorghum syrup, but life on the farm there was very tough--red clay hills not very productive. There was a little bottom land along the river there where things could grow a little better. My father' ; s cash income in the course of a year on that little farm was perhaps a hundred dollars with a few bales, but we grew our own food and made our own guilts, things of that sort. The old house in which I was born was built by my father. It was one of the first houses in that part of Georgia to have glass windowpanes. Of course we had a well on the front porch and we had a privy about fifty yards behind the house. One thing I do remember is that my father and about a dozen neighbors joined together to put up a homemade telephone system connecting about twelve or fifteen farms in that area. It was one of those telephones where you turned a crank and each house had a particular ring: one long, two shorts or a long and a short. When the phone rang for anybody, whatever the signal, anybody else could pick up the phone and listen to what was being said and there were three long rings on the telephone system which was a signal for everybody to come to the phone. They used that in case of fire because you might need help from neighbors or if a mad dog came through and they had to follow that dog from farm to farm until somebody could kill it. I used to say they also used it if an agent of the federal government came into the area because we lived very much among ourselves and outsiders were not very welcome. As a matter of fact, anybody from as far away as across the river was looked upon pretty much as a foreigner. This little house had three rooms. Our diet was very inadequate. We lived on the pork that we got from slaughtering pigs after the first hard freeze. We very seldom had any beef because we only had two cows and we needed the milk. There were always some chickens--maybe twenty, thirty chickens--but we only ate chicken on very special occasions. We ate a lot of fatback and bacon. We did have some smoked ham. We bought our wheat flour but we grew our own corn for cornbread and ate a great deal of cornbread. The sorghum syrup was our principal sweetener--dessert, very little coffee. The calcium content of our food was very inadequate and most of us have had very poor teeth because of that. We knew that we were poor but if anybody else had called us poor we would have shot them. Of course, I was the third son so most of my clothes were hand-me-downs. My mother sewed most of our clothes. My father cobbled our shoes and cut our hair and we were as close to self-sufficiency as you could be on a forty acre farm and with limited supplies of cash. I have never known how much rent my father had to pay my aunt for that farm, but it could not have been very much. My two older brothers and my older sister Margaret attended a typical one room schoolhouse. In those days they had seven grades in one room and the only qualification for the teacher was that he or she be a graduate of that particular school. I did not attend that school because I wasn' ; t old enough before we moved to Atlanta. I got something of a feel for life in Cherokee County as well as down in Rockdale County where my mother grew up because after we moved to Atlanta in 1912, we kids would go back to the country during the summer vacation. I spent a lot of time with kinfolk on the farms until I was fourteen or fifteen years old and so I had a good chance later on to get a real sense as to what life had been like on the farm. In 1912, my father, realizing that this was a man-killing little farm and it was almost destroying my mother physically, took a job at the post office in Atlanta as a mail carrier and we moved to Atlanta in 1912. Atlanta was maybe seventy-five thousand to eighty thousand by that time, it was sort of a railroad center. We first lived in a little house on Fifth Street which has long since been overrun by Georgia Tech and although it was in the center of Atlanta, it still had an outdoor privy. That is a matter of some importance because one of the things I remember about that place was both my brother Roger and my brother Parks had typhoid fever while we were living there. But we soon moved out to West End and Whitehall Street along the Central of Georgia railroad which ran from Atlanta down to Macon. I entered school there--Lee Street School. I was very fortunate in being able to attend the Lee Street School because it was then the normal training school for the Atlanta School System. That meant that we had only very select teachers for our regular classroom teachers, and we had fifteen or twenty of the teacher candidates around to help out with projects and pageants and teacher' ; s aides and things of that sort. Looking back on it, I feel that I got a very good start in grammar school. My mother had been a schoolteacher briefly. With two older brothers and an older sister, I learned to read and write and do arithmetic before I was of school age so I took a test to see whether I would skip the first grade and go into the second grade. As a result of that, I started off going to school in the second grade. The teacher I became acquainted with was Miss Ethel Massingale, my second grade teacher, and she and I corresponded all of her life until she died in her eighties, she was not married. But we had excellent teachers, we learned the basic things about reading, spelling, arithmetic and things of that sort--it was a pretty well-disciplined school. One thing I look back upon with some satisfaction was that each year we would study a different part of the world, using what they called Carpenter' ; s [Geographic] Readers, they were little geography books. One year we would use the Reader on Latin America, another year Africa, another year on Asia, another year on Europe and all of our projects and pageants and things like that were built around the area of the world that we were studying at that time. So one got a feeling even at that early age as to what the world was about, people in other parts of the world. We had seven years of grammar school there. The first three years were in an outdoor school, which was very unusual then. One square building, split down the middle in two directions with walls, but the outside walls were wide open, and we attended school in those classes right through the winter. There were canvas curtains we could raise in case of rain but when it got cold in the winter we had thick woolen bags in which we would tie ourselves. In really cold weather, we would heat bricks at home and bring them to school and put them in the bottom of the bag and about every hour and a half or so we would pause and the teacher would serve hot cocoa. I remember when I was in the fourth grade going down to the city' ; s Board of Education to testify in favor of continuing that open air school, but the Atlanta school system did not continue it. I suspect because it was pretty hard on the teachers to teach under those conditions but I never had colds or anything else. I have never been as healthy as I was going to that open air school. After the seventh grade I went straight to high school, we didn' ; t have junior high school in those days. Again I was very fortunate because in the Atlanta school system in those days they had two high schools, Boys' ; High School and Girls' ; High School whose primary purpose was to prepare young people for college. Then they had Commercial High and Tech High for those whose primary interest was not in going on to college. So Boys' ; High School in those days was very much like the Boston Latin School, a rigorous program with college preparatory work with emphasis on English, mathematics, Latin, Greek, and science. I greatly benefitted from the rather rigorous discipline that they had there in that high school. Years later they made the high schools in Atlanta all purpose high schools where every high school tried to do everything. Maybe it is a sign of my age but I felt that maybe they slipped back a bit by losing some of the quality they had in the old Boys' ; High School. The principal was Mr. [Herbert] H.O. Smith, a Harvard man who had very high standards and was a rigorous disciplinarian where learning was concerned. He would throw quite a tantrum if he came across shoddy work or anything of that sort. About 90% of us went on to college--it was a public high school. The most striking thing about this experience, as I look back over the years, was the greatest single teacher I ever had in my life, my high school teacher of Greek, named Preston Epps. He had classes of eighteen or so perfectly normal teenage boys but he would just bring us alive by going into the great questions and great ideas raised by the Greeks ; Plato, Aristotle and the great works that the Greeks produced. We worked very hard at it and were very enthusiastic about those Greek studies because of the inspirational quality of Preston Epps' ; teaching. RICHARD RUSK: Would his wife be privy to his thoughts about you back then? DEAN RUSK: Probably, but she is now his second wife and the wife that he had at the time he was teaching Boys' ; High has long since died. But Miriam Epps and I are good friends and she undoubtedly has heard him talk a good deal about those days. After he finished his Ph.D. at Chicago, Preston Epps went on to become professor of classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and became one of the Kenan professors up there which is one of the distinguished professorships at the University and later became a professor emeritus. He and I, again, corresponded until his death in 1982 at the age of 94. He was a most remarkable man. One of the real satisfactions that I had was later on when I, at the Rockefeller Foundation, was able to find a genuine job that he could do for us on a visit to Greece and that was his first opportunity to visit Greece and he never forgot that nor did I. On Boys' ; High School you can check some of these things through the yearbook called the Alciphronian. RICHARD RUSK: How was it determined who got to go to Boys' ; High School? DEAN RUSK: You made your own choice, you applied. I don' ; t know, quite frankly, whether they screened out applicants for Boys' ; High School. There were neighborhood high schools but Boys' ; High School was not, it was a city-wide school. Boys' ; High School originally, when I first started there, was a big, old, red brick building on Gilmore Street just across the street from the city auditorium. It was inadequate, drafty. I have developed over the years some real skepticism about whether the quality of teaching has much to do with the luxury of the surroundings in which the teaching takes place. RICHARD RUSK: Was it a boarding school? DEAN RUSK: No. RICHARD RUSK: Did your dad take special efforts to get you in? DEAN RUSK: No, I just applied to Boys' ; High from Lee Street School and whether anything went on behind the scenes to certify me I just don' ; t know. I had no problem getting in. Boys' ; High was about four miles from home and a friend of mine from West End and I went to school together every day, we would usually stand down at the corner and thumb a ride. His name was James Jacobs who worked for many years with the Southern Bell Telephone Company. I remember one old gentleman, who drove an old-fashioned Chevrolet touring car, would pick us up most days. But there were times when we walked in and walked home. Boys' ; High began ROTC [Reserve Officers' ; Training Corp] but began its classes at seven-thirty in the morning before the regular school started and so that meant that we got up and started going pretty early in the day to get there in time. I valued the ROTC training and enjoyed it. My final year there I was cadet commander of the battalion. We were instructed by a remarkable noncommissioned army officer named Sergeant Short, who was a good disciplinarian and handled the situation very well. I was active in school affairs. I was on the staff of the school newspaper. I think I was editor of the yearbook, the Alciphronian, and did not limit my interest just to the classes and school books. I went out for basketball but got cut off the squad the first day because I wasn' ; t any good but made a lot of friends there at Boys' ; High School who have been with me all of my life. Now that I am back in Georgia I see a good many of those fellows and its means a good deal to me ; people like Harvey Hill, Harlee Branch [Jr.], Dr. Paul McGinty. There are others whose names I could provide you although many of them are no longer alive. Then, I had always dreamed about going to Davidson College. My father had been in the class of 1894 there and he had told us a good deal about Davidson, but the question was how I was going to get there from a financial point of view. I stayed out of school for two years between high school and college working in a little law office with a young lawyer named Augustus [M.] Roan who later became a judge in Atlanta. The idea was that I would work and save up enough to go to college, but it didn' ; t work out very well because I didn' ; t make much more than it took to live on so I didn' ; t really bank any money to use to go to college, but that was a useful two years. Among other things I spent a lot of time down at the YMCA [Young Men' ; s Christian Association] learning to play basketball and at least got good enough to make the Davidson team when I finally got there but that is another story. One thing that turned out to be a lucky break was that in my senior year in high school, I was asked to be the school page editor for the Atlanta Journal. Each Sunday the Journal would run a full page of letters from the different elementary schools from around the city, each one of those schools would have a kind of correspondent and they would write in letters. It would be my job to edit those letters and paste them together to make up a school page. That paid $40 a month and that was very welcome money in those days, but it brought me in touch with one of the great figures in Atlanta journalism, Harlee Branch, Sr., who was the city editor of the Atlanta Journal. My little desk was right under the rail behind which he sat. And then there were great sports writers like O.B. Keeler and Morgan Blake and others and I found that a very stimulating experience. Well, after two years in this lay office, I decided that I had better head for college if I were ever going to get there and so I set out for Davidson. My brother Parks drove me up there and I had about $50 in my pocket but because my father had been for a time a Presbyterian minister, I was given a scholarship, a modest amount. Then I was lucky enough to find jobs with which I could work my way through Davidson. For example, every four years the local bank in town named an entering freshman to become bookkeeper and assistant teller in a little bank in Davidson. It just happened that the job came open when I got there. I was lucky enough to get that job and it helped a good deal with the costs. I waited on tables at the boarding house and my senior year I was one of the managers of the student store, I had to just piece things together to keep things going. I entered Davidson in 1927 and graduated in 1931. Davidson was then and is now a good solid liberal arts college--very good in pre-professional training and undergraduate preparation for graduate studies and elsewhere. It had a good academic reputation, good faculty ; it is even much more strong today than it was then. I found the Davidson College experience pretty hectic because I had a full day with the combination of classes and studies and basketball and other things and so I had to run from one appointment to another almost all the time. I continued ROTC at Davidson which I enjoyed every much under the direction of Colonel William R. Scott, one of the finest army officers I have ever known in my life. I used to visit with him until his death in the late 1960s, a very fine man. I knew when I first entered Davidson that I was going to try for a Rhodes scholarship because that was about the only way I saw that I could take any graduate studies or go beyond the B. A. [Bachelor of Arts] degree. And so partly because of that and partly because things just happened, I took a very active part in student affairs there at Davidson. My freshman year I was president of the freshman class, I was very active in the YMCA work, active on their yearbook, the Quips and Cranks, was an active member of the Kappa Alpha fraternity, but still I knew that I had to keep my academic work in good shape and so I boned up pretty hard. At Davidson I made, of course, a great many friends that have been friends throughout my life although I have not seen as many of them as I should like to. I went to my 50th reunion in 1981 and there were about seventy of us there which was quite a lot for a 50th class reunion that was about 70% of the class. I took the regular liberal arts program with majors in effect in political science and history and remember with particular appreciation a member of the faculty named Archibald Currie, who had been law trained rather than through the Ph.D. track and he taught American government, principle of law and international law and things of that sort and I always enjoyed that work with him. But the person most responsible for my getting a [Cecil John] Rhodes scholarship was Professor Guy Vowles, professor of German at Davidson ; he himself had been a Rhodes Scholar many years earlier and he took the initiative and urged me to apply for a Rhodes scholarship and indeed I think he was on the State Committee of Selection. I applied for the Rhodes from North Carolina because you could apply either from your own home state or from the state in which you went to college. So I applied to the North Carolina committee and was lucky enough to get it. There were two committees to go through for a Rhodes scholarship because when Cecil Rhodes wrote his will back in 1903 or 1904 he provided under his will a Rhodes scholarship to each state in the American union, thinking that there were thirteen states. Well, actually there was not enough money in the will to provide one for each one of the forty eight states, so they went into court and got the will amended to provide thirty-two Rhodes scholarships from the United States as a whole so as a result each state had its competition, its committees of selection, then those go to a regional committee so that they would allocate by regions the number that would be required for thirty-two from the United States as a whole. And so I went off to Oxford in October 1931. In talking with young people these days about their plans for the future, I have been impressed with the role which accident, happenstance, luck played in my own life. One example of that came up in connection with the Rhodes scholarship. The chairman of the North Carolina committee was Josephus Daniels who had been Woodrow Wilson' ; s Secretary of the Navy. When I was before the Committee he looked over my papers and said, " ; Mr. Rusk, I see in your papers here that you live up in Georgia. Why should we give a North Carolina appointment to a Georgian?" ; And I said, " ; Well, Mr. Chairman, I have been living in North Carolina for four years, I have spent not only the school year here but the summers here ; I worked in a bank in Greensboro in the summertime, I have paid poll tax in North Carolina." ; " ; Oh," ; he said, " ; you paid poll tax. That' ; s alright." ; Now paying poll tax was a complete accident because the teller of the little bank in Davidson, a marvelous man named Thompson, was also the town treasurer and he was the fellow who collected poll tax. And just for fun or sentiment, or whatever it was, I paid him a dollar poll tax each year. I am quite convinced that if I had not paid that poll tax, I would not have been chosen as a Rhodes Scholar from North Carolina. Anyhow, I was accepted at St. John' ; s College, Oxford, one of the smaller but one of the richer colleges there. It had vast holdings in North Oxford real estate and things like that. I started out to read for the degree in philosophy, politics and economics, a degree called the Modern Greats by the people at Oxford. I had some fine tutors there in my own College, and of course, the lectures at Oxford are university-wide lectures and you can attend such of them as you see fit. The University publishes a lecture program for each term and you look through it and decide with your tutor which ones you think you would be interested in and would be helpful to you. The only compulsory academic appointment which I had at Oxford was my weekly session with my tutor. Each week I would be expected to write a paper on a topic that my tutor and I had agreed on ahead of time and I would bring in that paper and he would go over it with me and would criticize it and go on from there. And so, that continuous writing experience, I think, proved very valuable to me. One of the most important things about Oxford, as far as I was concerned, was that it was the first time I had a chance to experience any of the leisure that goes along with learning. There was no such thing as working your way through Oxford so I had a good deal of time on my hands for bull sessions with my own fellow students. Of course, every afternoon everyone was expected to take part in sports of some sort. I played lacrosse at the University and tennis, but the idea at Oxford in those days was that you took full advantage of what one thinks of as " ; Oxford life." ; The serious cramming for your exams you did during your vacations. The three terms which make up the Oxford year altogether lasts about six months so you have about six month' ; s vacation each year. The typical habit was to load up a suitcase full of books and go off somewhere and do some really hard studying during your vacation period. I spent one vacation, I remember, on the little island of Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands off the French coast, all by myself, living with a family but no other young people around. I spent another vacation for a period up in the lake district of northern England in the Wordsworth country on a reading party where certainly every morning was put into hard academic work and every afternoon we went out hiking, things like that. Then I began to go to Germany during my Oxford vacations, and I was in Germany when [Adolf] Hitler seized power and I brought back some very strong impressions of what had happened in those eventful years in Germany. I was there, for example, when the Nazi storm troopers took the streets and public platforms away from the democratic parties of Germany. My first year in Germany was 1933. I went to Germany in the first instance to study international law at the Hochschule fur Politik under Professor [Viktor] Bruns. But soon after I enrolled there and began seminars with him, the Nazis took over this Hochschule fur Politik and turned it into a leadership school for the Nazi party. I then moved across the street to the University of Berlin. But the impact of the Nazis on the education system became apparent very early indeed. For example, in this seminar with Professor Bruns, we began discussing on the first day what kinds of things we ought to cover in the seminar. One of the Nazi students stood up and said, " ; There is nothing to study but the illegality of the Treaty of Versailles." ; He demanded that we simply concentrate on that subject. Well, that didn' ; t promise to be a very productive session in international law so I was rather glad that I was forced to move across the street to the University of Berlin where there were some remnants of the educational system, although the Nazis had begun to make inroads there. So I went back to Germany and spent some time in Hannover learning German and became relatively fluent. I went to Hamburg to study economics ; they were very strong in economics at the big trading center, but most of my studies were there in Berlin itself. It was very distressing to see what the Nazis were in the process of doing. One of the tragedies of the Nazi experience was that many of my own age German students supported Adolf Hitler for what we would call idealistic reasons. They were interested in rebuilding the public morale of Germany following the terrible experiences of inflation and all the rest of it under the Weimar Republic. It was not until later that they realized the extent to which their idealistic views had been betrayed by this man Hitler. They just didn' ; t believe what he had written and Mein Kampf didn' ; t think he was serious about it and let themselves become trapped. When I was in Berlin, I lived with a German family out in Neubabelsberg, near Potsdam, and there was a seventeen-year old boy in that family. Well, he was crazy about motorbikes and he was offered a position in the SS [Schutzstaffel] Motorbike Brigade and he joined ; not because he had any particular ideological views that would turn him in that direction but because he liked motorbikes. Well, he was in the SS throughout the war, served on the eastern front in Germany and all that. As a matter of fact, I took leave for one term at Oxford in order to continue my studies in Germany because so much was happening there and came on back to Oxford for my final term and took my final exams in philosophy, politics and economics. The final exam there produces a B.A. degree. It is a B.A. which is somewhat further along in the academic world than the ordinary American B.A. because in the English school system their preparatory school, their public schools, carry work up through what we would call junior college and so the so-called undergraduate degree at Oxford is more or less the equivalent of a M.A. degree in an American situation. END OF SIDE 1 BEGINNING OF SIDE 2 DEAN RUSK: One of the delights at Oxford was the fact that some of your professors would have open house every Sunday afternoon and some of the most important people in Europe would drop by for a Sunday afternoon tea with the professor and undergraduates. [Mohandas] Gandhi visited Oxford while I was there. He had come to London for one of the so-called Round Table conferences between the Indian Nationalists and British government and he came up to spend the weekend with the Master of Balliol, bringing along with him two goats to provide him with his goat' ; s milk. He agreed to spend an evening with an organization of Indian students at Oxford called, I believe, the Lotus Club. He agreed that each Indian student could bring a non-Indian student with him to this meeting. A friend of mine at St. John' ; s College who was Indian asked me to go with him. It was a very dramatic evening ; a crowded room with about two hundred students in it and Mr. Gandhi sitting on a table up in front of the room in his loin cloth, cross-legged, and he simply spent the evening talking with us, answering questions. I remember one thing in particular that he said, he said, " ; They will think of me in spiritual terms, that is because of my way of life, the things I say, the way I dress, but they will forget that I have discovered the secret of power in India." ; His voice became rather harsh at this point, he said, " ; We Indians cannot return British fire, rifle for rifle, canon for canon, because we simply don' ; t have such weapons, but we can drive them out of India by simply doing nothing because they can' ; t stay here without us." ; He said, " ; If we do that, some of us may die, others of us may go hungry, but the British will have to leave." ; And then in rather harsh terms he said, " ; That is raw power." ; And I have never forgotten about that meeting that evening with Mohandas Gandhi. Another evening I have never forgotten was a debate we had in the Oxford Union that famous Oxford undergraduate debating society sometimes referred to as " ; the training ground for prime ministers." ; The Oxford Union held a debate every week on some stated topic. One evening I was there at the Oxford Union when the motion before the House was " ; Resolve that this House will not fight for King and Country." ; The man who moved the motion from the pacifist side was the philosopher C.E.M. [Cyril Edwin Mitchinson] Joad. He was brilliant, witty, articulate, and his patriotic opposition was pretty inadequate so C.E.M. Joad carried the day and the Oxford Union voted with a very substantial vote that " ; This House will not fight for King and Country." ; Since I was an American and it wasn' ; t my King and Country and also I was a reserve officer in the United States Army, I did not vote on that motion. I thought it was up to me to abstain. But that vote in the Oxford Union that night created quite a sensation and gave rise to a pacifist movement called the Oxford Movement. Adolf Hitler was later to refer to that as one of the signs that Britain would not fight and helped to encourage him to pursue his course of aggression with which we are all familiar. But there was a follow-up on that debate that interested me. Just a very few years after the outbreak of war, C.E.M. Joad himself and Bertrand Russell, Maude Roydon, George Lansbury, joined in a joint statement that was circulated widely by the British Minister of Information, which in effect said to these same young people, " ; Sorry chaps, this fellow Hitler is different, get out there and fight." ; All without the arms, without the training, without the acts of prevention which they themselves had done so much to block. In the United States, we had similar people, among them Norman [Mattoon] Thomas, who wrote a very pained little book explaining to my generation of students why we should nevertheless fight in World War II despite all the things which he had said prior to World War II. My generation of students was led down the garden path into the catastrophe of a World War II which could have been prevented. I will get into that as we go along. But we nevertheless did what was expected of us, knowing that it was a war that did not have to happen if people had been wise enough or strong enough at the proper time. When I was finishing up at Oxford in 1934, the United States was still in a very deep depression and I had no particular ideas about a job so I wrote a note to President Frank Aydelotte of Swarthmore College who was the American secretary to the Rhodes trust and told him that if he heard of any job opportunities that came across his desk, I would be interested in hearing from him. So one day at Oxford I got a cable asking if I would accept a position as assistant professor of government at Mills College, at a salary of $2,000 a year. I cabled back saying yes. Then I went around Oxford trying to find some Rhodes scholars from California to tell me where and what Mills College was. I had never heard of the place. The cable was sent by Aurelia Henry Reinhardt, who was then president of Mills College and she, perhaps as a matter of policy, perhaps out of financial stringency, had the practice of inviting some fresh Rhodes scholars to the faculty, perhaps knowing that the chances were that in the long run she wouldn' ; t be able to keep them on the faculty. But one of the faculty members, a former Rhodes scholar named Buck, had been invited to spend a visiting year at Stanford and so there was a vacancy. She undoubtedly got hold of Dr. Aydelotte and he must have given her my name. But anyhow, I went to Mills College in the fall of 1934 where I started out as a young professor of government and international relations. I was at Mills College until I was called to active duty in the army in December 1940, in preparation for building up our armed forces because of the war that was then going on. Those were very interesting and happy days at Mills College. Among other things, I met your mother there. She was in a couple of my classes my first year. She had signed up to have those classes with Professor Buck, who was not going to be there and some stranger named Rusk was going to teach those classes, she apparently cried when she heard the news. In the summer of 1934 she had gone to Japan as part of a Japanese-American student exchange group and she was actively interested in international matters. So that was how I became acquainted with her. As a matter of fact, in her second year I drove her down to a conference at Riverside, California, put on by the president of the University of Southern California, Dr. Rufus B. Kleinschmitt. This was a Riverside conference on World Affairs that was held in December of each year and it was the usual kind of thing--a series of speeches and discussion groups--and since your mother was a student who was interested in international affairs, I invited her to drive down there with me and we did and that soon began to bloom into a more that ordinary friendship, so before long we were getting pretty close to each other. It was not easy for a young professor to court a student in a women' ; s college in the 1930s, but we would get up at five o' ; clock in the morning and drive out in the countryside and have breakfast over a boy scout frying pan and things like that and get her back before everyone started getting up. We would sort of get away for dinner or something like that where we were not likely to run into Mills people. It was an interesting college in those days. Aurelia Reinhardt herself was an extraordinary woman. She was large physically, commanding voice, very high intelligence ; she was very active both in local and national affairs, Republican National Committeewoman from California, close friend of Herbert Hoover and his Secretary of the Interior, Ray Lyman Wilbur, who had been president of Stanford ; she was a woman of real quality and determination. She held Mills College together through the depths of the Depression simply by determination, hairpins and baling wire. She was just determined to see it through, just made it happen. She was very active in the Association of American University Women, very active in her own church ; she was national head of her church one year. She had a great influence not only on campus but in the entire Bay area community. I liked working for her ; she was a good college president. As a matter of fact, I doubt whether Mills could have survived those rigorous years of the Depression without the special qualities of Aurelia Reinhardt. There is a good biography on her which you can read and catch up on that part of it. Of course, your mother and I have many friends from the Mills days both on the faculty and among alumni of many classes, particularly among the classes from about 1933 to about 1945. We since have been very active in the Mills Club of New York, Mills Club of Washington, and lately we have been meeting with the Mills College group down in Georgia. Part of that period, beginning about 1936, I began to study law at Berkeley. I was shooting in the long run to become a university professor in international law. I was thinking primarily of political science departments, but as I looked around the field and looked around political scientists, I found that almost none of them had law training ; they had all come through the Ph.D. track. I felt that since lawyers and political scientists talk about the same institutions, use many of the same words, that there would be some point in going to law rather than the Ph. D. track in preparation for teaching international law, perhaps in a political science department. So I began to attend the University of California Law School at Berkeley, at Boalt Hall as it is called. The Law School at Berkeley was one of the top three or four law schools in the entire country, it was then and still is, with a very fine faculty, able student body, a fine library ; it was one of the best. It was about ten miles from the Mills campus and there were times when I had to make a twenty minute transfer from a class that I was teaching at Mills to a class at Berkeley. And I had to scurry pretty fast across the tortuous winding roads between Mills and the Berkeley campus, usually my principal problem was to find a place to park once I got over to Berkeley. I took about a two-thirds or three-fourths program at law school, knowing that it would take me more than the three years to finish up because I was teaching full-time at Mills while I was studying law. Of course, that meant a pretty heavy load, reading and studying both for my classes at Mills and for my law classes, but I managed. As a matter of fact, I was invited to be on the board of the Law Review at the Berkeley Law School, but I was simply too pressed to be able to put in the articles that would have qualified me for full membership on the Law Review. During all that period, I was a reserve officer in the U.S. Army. In those days, Congressional appropriations were so small that we had a minimum of active training, an occasional two week camp during the summer, but most of the reserve training was done by correspondence work, map problems that were sent out by the area headquarters over at the Presidio, San Francisco. So doing those map problems to keep my reserve commission alive and moving forward was on top of whatever I had to do as a professor at Mills and as a student of law at Berkeley. I was told in late 1939, early 1940 that the prospect was that I would be called to active duty as a reserve officer and so I did not continue my law work in the fall of 1940. Indeed, I was called to active duty as a captain in the Army Reserves to take command of the A-Company of the 30th Infantry which was then stationed at the Presidio, San Francisco. I had never had active command of regular troops before and I suppose I was rather green, but I had been very active both in high school and in college ROTC, eight years of it, and had been the cadet commander both in high school and in college. The 30th Infantry was a part of the Third Division, made up of the Seventh, Fifteenth and Thirtieth Infantry Regiments. But they were distributed up and down the West Coast. The Division had not been mobilized as a division for a very long time, but it was stated that the Third Division on the West Coast and the First Division were the only two divisions in our army that rated " ; ready for combat," ; but that was ridiculous. When I took command of Company A of the 30th Infantry, we had a little over one hundred men in the Company instead of two hundred and twenty-five called for by the Tables of Organization. A number of those men were holdovers from World War I and obviously too old for active field duty as infantrymen. We did not have our full complement of machine guns ; we had no mortars even though mortars were simple metal tubes ; we were very limited in ammunition for purposes of training. At one period, I remember, we were rationed to ten rounds per man per season for training on the range to teach people how to shoot. That may have been because we had been moving about everything we could scrap up to Britain in connection with their war effort. But we did maneuver in Marin County then eventually down at Fort Roberts lower down in California. Then the Third Division was pulled together up in the state of Washington at Fort Lewis. In the summer of 1941, I was transferred from Company A to become assistant G-3 of the Third Division, assistant operations officer. G-3 is the tactical and operations unit of the General Staff. We were heavily involved in maneuvers both on the Olympic Peninsula across the Puget Sound from Seattle and in other training exercises with far less equipment than would be normal if we had any idea of going to combat. Then in October 1941, I received orders to report to the War Department General Staff in Washington for a G-2, G-2 being the intelligence organization of the army. My division commander protested this transfer ; I expressed my own lack of desire to take it, but the War Department persisted ; your mother and I were off to Washington. It turned out that my assignment there was to organize a new section of G-2 to gather information about British areas in Asia and the Pacific. This new section which was committed to me was to cover Afghanistan, the Indian subcontinent, Burma, Malaya, Australia, New Zealand and the British Pacific Islands, a vast area with which I had had very little contact. When I arrived I tried to find out why it was that I was assigned to that job despite the objections of my division commander, and I was told that a large stack of cards on individual officers were run through a sorting machine and my card fell out for that particular job because I spent three years in England. When I arrived I asked to see the files of information which we already had on that vast part of the world and a dear old lady, almost at the point of retirement, Mrs. North, took me over to a set of file cabinets and pulled out one drawer marked British Asia. There we found one copy of Murray' ; s Tourist Handbook on India and Ceylon ; it had been stamped confidential because it was the only copy in town and that was the only way to keep track of it and be sure that no one else ran off with it ; there was one 1925 military attached report from London on the British army in India and about a half a drawer full of clippings from the New York Times which Mrs. North had been clipping between World War I and II on that part of the world and that was it. It is hard for people to realize how naked we were in terms of information intelligence about so many parts of the world at the beginning of World War II. However, I passed my first test with flying colors. About my second or third day there on the job I got a telephone call from a full colonel in the War Plans Division of the General Staff who said " ; Rusk, I forget, is Indochina in South China or in North China?" ; I was able to explain to him where Indochina was. It is a bureaucratic fact that when someone finds themselves on a desk with a particular tag on it, that person overnight becomes the expert on that particular job and so I was the War Department' ; s expert on that vast part of the world almost from the first day, it is laughable of course but that is the way it happened. We began to build up that section and accumulate information and establish contact with people who had experience in those countries and gradually began to sort things out. After being in G-2 for over a year and a half, I was then sent to Commander General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. I went out there for a ninety day crash course put on especially for majors and lieutenants ; I had by then been promoted to major. As a result of that, I was assigned, in effect, to a pool of officers who were being prepared for General Staff functions overseas. In the spring of 1943 I was assigned to become the staff officer for General Joseph [Warren] Stilwell, " ; Vinegar" ; Joe Stilwell, in the China-Burma-India Theater. I prepared myself to go, put Mother and David on the train for California where she was to stay while I was overseas during the war ; she went to Mills and stayed with some friends for a bit and then got a little house up on Underwood Drive on the campus itself. I think we paid something like $20.00 a month rent on that little house during the war. General Stilwell happened to be coming to Washington for consultation and so it was arranged that I would fly to India with him. I think that was in early June 1943. We flew to India in one of the new DC-4 aircraft which then appeared to be a magnificent plane. I thought at the time that it was the plane to end all planes--four motored, had long distance capability, had a good record of reliability. We went first to London where General Stilwell had consultations with British military authorities and then flew from London to North Africa, crossed North Africa, which had been, by then, recaptured by the Allies, on to India. I was put in the Operations Section of General Stilwell' ; s staff at the headquarters in New Delhi and soon became the Chief of War Plans for General Stilwell' ; s headquarters, he had another headquarters up in Assam in northeastern India where preparations were being made for a reentry into Burma, and still another headquarters in China. The command structure out there was very complex indeed because the British Chiefs of Staff were the executive agents for the U.S. and British Combined Chiefs of Staff for Burma and India, whereas Chiang Kai-shek was the Supreme Commander for the China theater, General Stilwell was, in theory, under the command of Lord Louis [Francis Albert Victor Nicholas] Mountbatten in the Southeast Asia command for India and Burma, but was also Chief of Staff to Chiang Kai-shek in the China theater. So command arrangements were rather complicated, and we had to work more or less on the basis of cooperation rather than direct command. The China-Burma-India theater was the lowest priority in the war as far as the general Allied strategy was concerned. First priority was of course the war against Hitler in Europe ; second priority was given to the operations in the Pacific under General [Douglas] MacArthur and Admiral [Chester William] Nimitz and the China-Burma-India theater was more or less at the bottom of the list. That had an influence on the manpower we were allocated, supplies, the equipment in terms of aircraft and things of that sort that might be needed so we had to make do with minimum resources. General Stilwell, for example, kept pressing for at least two American infantry divisions, but he never got them. He finally got one reinforcement regiment called " ; Merrill' ; s Marauders" ; which were used in operations in north Burma but there were never any major American ground forces involved in that area. We did make a major commitment toward building the Burma Road for a reentry into China. We did not know at that time how the war would develop with the Japanese and we could see the possibility that even if the Japanese were defeated in the Pacific and in their main islands that the large Japanese forces on the mainland of China would continue to fight. In any event, it was important to keep the Chinese in the war somehow in order to pin down, use up those Japanese forces which might otherwise be thrown in to reinforce those who were opposing MacArthur and Nimitz. So we needed this backdoor entry into China for the purpose of mining supplies and we took on the arduous task of opening up a road from northeastern India, Assam, through northern Burma into the Yunnan province of China. For that purpose the terrain was terrible, the rainy season made construction extraordinarily difficult, but through heroic and sacrificial effort, a lot of help from the Indians and the peoples of northern Burma, we were able to push the road through. As a matter of fact, however, the road was never used significantly for the purpose for which it was built. We had constructed back in the United States several thousand special truck-trailer combinations to be used to haul supplies across that road into China but by the time we got the road open the DC-4 aircraft could do the job of sixty truck-trailer combinations because a DC-4 could make the trip over the hump in the Yunnan province of China in about an hour, could make several flights a day and the two to three week journey by road by truck-trailer combination simply was not practical. My job as Chief of War Plans for General Stilwell was as much political as military. Most people have overlooked the fact that General Stilwell was sent out to the China-Burma-India Theater with an impossible mission. His job was to try to get the Chinese in China and the British army in India, made up mostly of various Indian troops, to fight the Japanese as soon and as hard as possible. But it was apparent that Chiang Kai-shek was not going to commit such forces as he had strongly against the Japanese because he was looking over his shoulder at the Communist in China at the end of the war, and he could see MacArthur and Nimitz steadily advancing across the Pacific. It was also obvious that Mr. [Winston Leonard Spencer] Churchill was not going to commit the British army in India in any serious way against the Japanese until the defeat of Hitler because the army in India was the only imperial reserve which Churchill had. The army in India provided many of the forces that were able to hold on in the Middle East at a time when the war was going very badly for the allies. So General Stilwell, without any major American forces of his own, was in the position of saying to both the Chinese and to the British, " ; I will hold your coat, now get out there and fight." ; The result was that frustration, disappointment, irritation both with regard to the British and with regard to the Chinese, were built into the very nature of General Stilwell' ; s role out there. There were many ruffled feathers to be smoothed, we had some problems with the Indian National Movement, many of whose leaders were in jail. For example, they demanded to know when we would stop killing their cattle to feed our troops. Our supply lines back to the United States were very long across submarine infested waters and it was important for us to subsist on the land as much as we could. We finally agreed that we would not slaughter cattle that were not over twelve years old and that we would do so in screened areas which would not be seen by those peoples who might object. Of course, that meant that we ate a great deal of hamburger, because cattle more than twelve years old tend to be pretty tough and scrawny. The Indian Nationalists also demanded that we give permission to our soldiers to marry Indian girls. We compromised by agreeing that if a soldier were under orders to go home and was within thirty days of point of embarkation either by ship or by air, then we would then give him permission to marry. There was a general rule that troops in active theaters of operation were not to marry local people. I believe that was true in Europe and in the Pacific. As a matter of fact, when a soldier was within thirty days of embarkation, he wasn' ; t too much interested in local marriage, but the principle had been accepted and that seemed to satisfy the British Nationalists. There was a bitter struggle between General Stilwell and his own subordinate General Clair [Lee] Chennault about how to use such materials as we could move across the hump. General Chennault and Chiang Kai-shek wanted almost a monopoly on that tonnage for his air force, but General Stilwell knew that if Chennault' ; s air operations were beefed up without strong Chinese ground capabilities alongside of it that the Japanese would simply move in and take over his air fields which indeed they did. That controversy moved all the way to Washington and one of my jobs was to draft most of the cables which represented General Stilwell point of view on that standing strategic difference of view. END OF SIDE 2 Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL214DROH-Rusk7O.xml RBRL214DROH-Rusk7O.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL214DROH/findingaid
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91 minutes
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Rusk 7O, Dean Rusk autobiographical sketch, Part 1, circa 1985
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RBRL214DROH-Rusk7O
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audio
oral histories
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sound
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United States
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Subject
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Education
World War, 1939-1945
United States. Army--Officers
United States--Veterans
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An account of the resource
Part one of an autobiographical sketch by Dean Rusk, as told to Richard Rusk.
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Dean Rusk
Richard Rusk
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ca. 1985
OHMS
-
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Dean Rusk Oral History Collection
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United States--Officials and employees
Politics and Public Policy
Description
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The collection consists of 172 oral history interviews with Dean Rusk and his colleagues between 1984-1989. Includes audiotapes and transcriptions documenting Rusk's life from early childhood in the 1910's through his teaching career in the 1980's. The interviews contain information on Rusk's service as U.S. Under Secretary and Secretary of State during the administrations of Presidents Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson and his involvement in foreign relations including the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Vietnam War. The interviews also document his position as president of the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1950s.<br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=14&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
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Richard Geary Rusk
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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1984-1989
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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Oral histories
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RBRL214DROH
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United States
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
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https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL214DROH-Rusk7S/ohms
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5.3 Circa 1985 Rusk 7S, Dean Rusk autobiographical sketch, Part 5, circa 1985 RBRL214DROH-Rusk7S RBRL214DROH Dean Rusk Oral History Collection Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia oral history 1:|11(5)|19(8)|25(7)|34(11)|43(16)|50(7)|62(14)|71(8)|88(1)|92(6)|101(3)|110(8)|120(1)|130(6)|137(10)|147(4)|155(1)|164(13)|173(11)|182(13)|192(8)|202(7)|210(4)|218(11)|227(14)|236(1)|246(5)|253(7)|263(13)|272(2)|279(3)|287(5)|295(8)|306(8)|314(3)|326(2)|337(10)|348(11)|357(9)|366(14)|376(4)|387(5)|395(10)|406(8)|415(6)|428(9)|436(16)|448(8)|457(12)|468(15)|476(9)|484(14)|492(4)|503(1)|514(5)|522(14)|533(9)|543(10)|551(6)|562(9)|569(11)|578(8)|585(12)|596(4)|605(7)|616(2)|626(15)|636(5)|644(16)|653(1)|665(2)|672(13)|681(4)|689(15)|698(1)|708(4)|717(14)|727(15)|735(6)|745(7)|752(13)|760(11)|769(2)|778(5)|785(9)|792(2)|801(11)|809(3)|817(7)|824(6) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_b2ymkvbw& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; & ; wid=1_7xgncqgd" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 2 Anecdote from time at Oxford University / The League of Nations --had an invitation there from the lord and lady of the local manor house to come and have tea with them the next afternoon. Dean Rusk shares a story from his time in Oxford, England about attending tea at the local manor house. Later, he discusses the League of Nations, focusing on its historical role and effectiveness. He illustrates his view using the example of Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. Benito Mussolini ; Litton Commission Report ; pacifism ; Senate Foreign Relations Committee ; trench warfare ; Wellington Coo ; Winston Churchill ; World War I ; World War II ; WWI ; WWII 17 577 German support for Adolf Hitler During Oxford vacations, I spent a good many of those in Germany. Dean Rusk talks about the motivations and forms of German support for Hitler during his rise to power. He focuses on his observations from the times he studied in different German cities. < ; i> ; Mein Kampf< ; /i> ; ; German inflation ; The National Socialist German Workers' Party ; the Nazis ; The Weimar Republic ; Treaty of Versailles ; World War II 17 1011 Time at Oxford University There was one thing at Oxford that I particularly enjoyed. Dean Rusk shares about studying at Oxford University. He discusses Professor Alfred Zimmern, the Rhodes Scholarship, having American guests, exams, and life at St. John's College. Cecil Peace Prize ; Cecil Rhodes ; Junior Common Room ; Lord Robert Cecil 17 1734 China-Burma-India theater during WWII One little matter not related to anything we have been talking about, Rich... Dean Rusk talks about his time serving in the CBI theater. He focuses on the condition of Japan and China during WWII, discussing the U.S. goals and strategies to stop Japan. General Frank Merrill ; Pearl Harbor ; President Franklin Roosevelt ; Secretary of State John Foster Dulles ; Truman Administration ; World War II 17 2275 Creating a supply line to China Nevertheless, it was a substantial effort. Our job was to try to find some way to get supplies into China. Dean Rusk shares the difficulties the Allies faced in creating a supply line to China, including terrain, snipers, and lack of supplies. General Earl Gilmore Wheeler ; Lord Louis Mountbatten ; Madam Chiang Kai-shek ; President Roosevelt ; World War II 17 2812 Working with General Joseph Stilwell and Winston Churchill / Chinese forces in Burma And by the time the road to China was completed, it was safe and secure from a military point of view, and we had driven the Japanese much farther south. Dean Rusk talks about working with Stilwell and Churchill during WWII, sharing about their leadership styles and personalities. Later, Rusk discusses the Chinese forces in Burma. He focuses on their potential as soldiers, military corruption, and their sense of property. CBI theater ; Chiang Kai-shek ; China-Burma-India theater ; Merrill's Marauders ; Operation GRAPPLE ; Operation PINPRICK ; Vinegar Joe Stilwell ; World War II 17 3306 Predicting the end of WWII as Chief of War Plans / Pearl Harbor It's hard to say to what extent the mission of the China-Burma-India theater was performed... Dean Rusk talks about having to predict the end date of WWII for other staff officers because of his role as Chief of War Plans. Later, he discusses the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He focuses on the surprise of the U.S. intelligence community. Colonel James Compton ; G-2 military intelligence ; World War II 17 3642 The China-Burma-India theater One of the successful parts of our operation in the China-Burma-India theater was flying material across the hump to China. Dean Rusk talks about various aspects of the CBI theater in WWII, including difficulty transporting supplies, the effectiveness of different types of forces, and situations where he witnessed or avoided combat. British East African battalion ; flying the hump ; General Joseph Stilwell ; Japanese Zero planes ; modern warfare ; Siege of Myitkyina 17 4406 Decolonization of Asia One little interesting matter: President Roosevelt felt very strongly that the major colonial areas of Asia should come out of World War II as independent nations: India, Burma, Malaya, Indonesia, Indochina. Dean Rusk speaks about the decolonization of the colonial areas in Asia, focusing on President Roosevelt's changing opinion and the ways history would have changed had Asian countries come out of WWII as independent nations. CBI theater ; China-Burma-India theater ; George Cartlett Marshall ; Indochina ; Marshall Plan ; NATO ; North Atlantic Treaty Organization ; Office of Strategic Services ; OSS ; Prime Minister Winston Churchill ; the British Empire ; World War II 17 5000 Cooperation between the U.S., France, and England Now, we entered another chapter when the North Koreans attacked South Korea in 1950 because it was clear that this was a major attack by the North Koreans of a broad front for the purpose of seizing South Korea. Dean Rusk discusses the relationship between the U.S., France and England during the Korean War and WWII. communism ; Eisenhower Administration ; Indochina ; Seventh Fleet ; U.S. foreign aid 17 DEAN RUSK: --had an invitation there from the lord and lady of the local manor house to come and have tea with them the next afternoon. Well, we all had been growing beards and were pretty crummy, so we debated whether or not we would get cleaned up and accept. We decided that we should because part of her invitation was motivated by the fact that there were some Americans nearby and she wanted to extend some hospitality. So we got cleaned up and when we got over there we found that the hostess, the lady of the manor, was that same lady who was in the car at the filling station the afternoon before. During a lull in the conversation, she said, " ; Oh, young gentlemen, I must tell you ; yesterday I saw the most horrible creature I have ever seen in my life." ; Then she proceeded to describe me in some detail. Well, we all laughed and then we told her about it, and she was a very good sport and thought it was very amusing. I didn' ; t care very much for the food in England. They would serve watery beef and veal and lamb and they didn' ; t pay much attention to preparing their food in a tasteful fashion. I thought that their facilities, such as their bath and toilet facilities, were much more primitive than they need have been in that kind of society which had, after all, launched the industrial revolution. There was a general absence of central heating which, coming from the South in this country, I found a little difficult at times. But I also thought that the British, despite their worldwide empire, were relatively indifferent to customs and manners and cultures in other parts of the world. As far as many of them were concerned, I was still from " ; out there in the colonies" ; and many of them had very few up-to-date ideas about what America, the United States, was all about. One little example of the kind of arch attitude that they sometimes took: My tutor in politics, W.C. Costin, in tutorial one week, made a rather nasty remark to me about the fact that our Supreme Court justices are appointed to the Court because of politics, that most of them had come through the political track. Well, I went off to the library and did a thumbnail biographic sketch of British law lords, who are the equivalent of our Supreme Court, over a period of about two hundred years and found that about ninety percent of them came through the political track, junior members of the ministry or cabinet or attorney general or something of that sort. When I presented that evidence to my tutor, he was utterly surprised because they had sort of assumed that somehow their law lords were appointed within the framework of political purity. During my first term at Oxford, the Japanese seized Manchuria. I felt instinctively that something very important was happening and I spent an enormous amount of time trying to follow the Manchurian dispute in great detail. I studied the reports that came out in the League of Nations, such as the Litton Commission Report. I spent an awful lot of time on it. As I look back on it, that time was wasted because it was merely one of the episodes that produced World War II. But there was a strong sense of pacifism during my time at Oxford. The League of Nations was not looked upon as an instrument for enforcing the peace. I remember Wellington Coo, representing China, standing before the League of Nations, pleading for help of the world community against the invasion of Japan, and it was help that never came. In the early 1930s, the scars of World War I were still very apparent and frequently discussed. In World War I, Britain, and I suppose Britain was not alone, lost a high proportion of its young manpower in that dreadful trench warfare. Wars in which maybe 200,000 men would be lost in only 400 yards of ground. I have heard the term " ; decimated" ; about the youth of England in that war. Since decimated means reduced to a tenth, I think that word is somewhat exaggerated, but nevertheless they lost a great many of the flower of their youth in that World War I, and it made a very deep impression. That was very much in Churchill' ; s mind when he was one of the leaders in World War II ; he simply wasn' ; t going to go through that kind of war again. No, I think that Britain suffered dreadfully in that war and one could feel it ; it was on people' ; s minds. Almost no family was without a casualty in World War I. RICHARD RUSK: Did they have any clue as to what was coming in 1931? DEAN RUSK: No, not really. Because when you look ahead the trigger point in World War II was almost surely the seizure of Manchuria by the Japanese and the refusal of the world community to take any action against Japan. That was repeated again when [Benito] Mussolini in 1935, I think it was, marched into Ethiopia. And again, there was the frail little figure of Emperor Haile Selassie standing before the League of Nations pleading for help. At that point, at least, the League of Nations began to discuss economic sanctions against Italy, but in America the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would not even let Cordell Hull make a statement saying that if the League of Nations imposed sanctions upon Italy, we would not frustrate those sanctions by insisting upon our right to trade as a neutral nation, We weren' ; t ever willing to go that far. RICHARD RUSK: The League itself was a brand new idea, brand new concept, but prior to the creation of the League, was there ever any incident where the international community would come to the aid of a country that was under attack? DEAN RUSK: No, I suppose that the closest to collective security prior to that was the loose federation of European forces which finally put themselves together to oppose Napoleon, at least in anything like modern times. But after Mussolini went into Ethiopia and got away with it, there was the Civil War in Spain. [Francisco] Franco' ; s forces moved to overthrow the Republican government of Spain ; Mussolini and Hitler actively participated with Franco with airplanes, weapons, personnel, but the democracies simply looked the other way and pretended that this was nothing but a civil war ; finally drove the supporters of the Republican government in Spain into the hands of the communists. During Oxford vacations, I spent a good many of those in Germany and that was the period when the Nazis and Adolf Hitler were rising to power. I watched the Storm troopers take the streets and the public platforms away from the democratic parties of Germany. In political campaigns, the Nazis would break up other people' ; s meetings and they would guard their own. They would put on these big parades through cities and would attack anybody else' ; s parades who would try to do the same thing. My first excursion to Germany was to Hannover, where I went to study the German language. I had been told that in Hannover they spoke the purest German spoken in Germany, and I took German lessons at the University of Hannover. The next vacation, I went up to Hamburg and studied economics, Hamburg being a great trade and economic center. In both instances I lived with families and pretty much concentrated on my studies because the vacation was limited in scope. But already the Nazis were stirring and you could see the attraction of the Nazi party and the program to many Germans who had suffered through the trials and tribulations of the Weimar Republic. You see, during the 1920s there had been this devastating inflation which had wiped out the value of any kind of currency or savings or anything of that sort and Britain, France, the United States did less than might have been done to help the Weimar Republic get back on its feet. Then I went to Berlin to study, first at the Hochschule fur Politik because I wanted to do a seminar with Professor [Viktor] Bruns in international law but by that time the Nazi momentum was gaining a great deal of momentum. Nazi students in this seminar insisted that we do nothing in the seminar but study the illegality of the Treaty of Versailles, which was one of the doctrines of the Nazi party. Then I moved across to the University of Berlin, but even there the Nazi influence was beginning to be felt very strongly. I remember attending a lecture given by a professor in the University of Berlin on the subject of how best to incorporate the Germans in the United States into the Third Reich. He debated in his lecture seriously about whether they should demand territorial enclaves in places like Milwaukee, St. Louis, or whether they should try to do it simply through party organization as branches of the Nazi party. It was almost ridiculous to see how serious he was about something which was almost nothing but wild dreams. One of the tragic recollections I have was that many young Germans my own age, student age, in the beginning supported Adolf Hitler for what might be called idealistic reasons ; they wanted to see the public morale of Germany restored ; they wanted to see Germany respected among the nations of the world ; they wanted to get away from some of the despair and lethargy and economic problems affecting Germany. They didn' ; t really believe what Adolf Hitler had written in Mein Kampf. It was not until later that they realized the extent to which they had been betrayed. So, Adolf Hitler came in partly through the use of pressure, use of force on the streets, but partly through a kind of seductiveness that took into camp an awful lot of people. That, I think, is one of the tragedies of the German experience during the 1930s and World War II. While I was studying in Berlin, I lived with a family out in Neubabelsberg near Potsdam, and this was a place of many lakes. So one day I was out in a canoe, and I pulled the canoe up on a little sand bank to go into a little restaurant to have lunch. When I got back my canoe was gone. I notified the water police and about an hour later, they came pulling up in their little boat towing my canoe and they said to me, " ; Here is your canoe ; we have caught the thief and he will be punished, but we are fining you five marks for tempting thieves." ; I had not tied or locked my canoe. I thought of that often afterwards because when you look over the events and sad story of the 1930s, I think that we democracies, with our pacifism and indifference to aggression elsewhere, were guilty of tempting thieves. For example, when Hitler marched his army into the Rhineland, contrary to the Treaty of Versailles, we learned later that in his orders to his troops he said that if the French show any sign of resistance, you German troops come back home. But the French did not show any sign of resistance and he occupied the Rhineland and discovered that he could get away with it without being punished. That helped to build the momentum of aggression in his mind, then Austria, then Czechoslovakia, then his attack on Poland which finally triggered World War II. This matter of tempting thieves is a problem that we have to think about in terms of preventing war, particularly the larger wars. There was one thing at Oxford that I particularly enjoyed: Professor Alfred Zimmern was professor of international relations at Oxford, and almost every Sunday he would have an open house in his own home for any students who wanted to drop in. Often he would have some distinguished visitor from the continent or someone up from London to be there to visit with students and talk things over. For example, he had [Edvard] Benes from Czechoslovakia on Sunday ; we all enjoyed that. Professor Zimmern, later upon his retirement from Oxford, became a professor at Hartford College in Connecticut in the United States, and I corresponded with him until he died. But that kind of informal discussion and contact at Oxford was very valuable. I had one lucky break at Oxford which helped me get out of there without winding up in a debtor' ; s prison. The Rhodes scholarship stipend was just enough to cover essentials and you had to watch it very closely to be able to get by on it. I had no further resources of my own to call on. But my travels in Germany proved to be a little expensive so I had run up some bills at Oxford. The spring of 1934, I was in Germany about to come back for my final term at Oxford, and I got a telegram from David French, my roommate and friend, who reminded me of the Cecil Peace Prize competition. A prize established by Lord Robert Cecil for the best essay among British colleges and universities on any subject dealing with international affairs. David French told me in this telegram that the deadline for getting in a paper was about one week away, and I could not come to Oxford unless I submitted a paper. So I holed myself up in a little hotel there in Berlin and wrote for about five days straight. I picked as my topic some reflections on the relationship between the British Commonwealth of Nations on the one side and the League of Nations on the other. I got this paper off just ahead of the deadline and shortly after that I learned that I had won the prize. The prize was one hundred pounds. Well, a hundred pounds was five hundred dollars in those days and that allowed me to pay my bills and just squeak home. Once at Oxford I was having some American friends in for breakfast, and when I put in the order with my scout for breakfast I asked him to serve cantaloupe as the first course. He went down to the battery and came back and said, " ; The Master of the battery wants to know if you really mean that you want cantaloupe." ; I said, " ; Yes, of course that is what I would like to have." ; So he served the cantaloupe and my bill came in at the end of the term and those cantaloupes were five dollars a piece. They probably were hothouse cantaloupes or had been shipped in from the tropics somewhere. But that was a pretty expensive breakfast as far as I was concerned in those days. St. John' ; s College had a marvelous wine cellar. I am sure that the fellows in the college, the Dons, spent a fair amount of time sampling the wines all over Europe and getting some of the best ones into St. John' ; s College. St. John' ; s was noted for having one of the best wine cellars in all of Oxford. While I was at Oxford, I really had beamed at college and university teaching in the international field. It seemed to me that that was where the action was ; that was where the really important things were going on. I had come to have a real appreciation for the quality of life in academia with its relatively free time in between class sessions and fairly long vacations and so forth. I had long since given up any idea of going into the ministry and I had no taste whatever for going into the rat race of business competition. I had not, at that point, really begun to think of government service as such. As a matter of fact my government service began while I was on the faculty at Mills. I got a little summons from Uncle Sam to report for duty as a reserve officer in December of 1940. It was those six years of military service which led to my going to the State Department. I began that trail. But my ideas were really aimed at college and university teaching in the international field. During my first term at Oxford I think I was hazed a little by my fellow students because I was appointed to chair a committee of the Junior Common Room--the Junior Common Room being the organized students of the college--to wait on the president of the college to petition for a powder room for ladies in the college. There were no such facilities and if you had a lady guest and she needed to withdraw, you would have to take her outside the college, across the street down into an underground and put a penny in the slot and let her do what she had to do. The president of the college at that time was old Dr. James, a heavily bearded man in his eighties whom we called the Bodger and so I, with two other members of the committee, went into call on him. We went in to see him, and I made my speech asking for a powder room. When I got through he simply glared at us and said, " ; What a monstrous proposal." ; And that was the end of that. I am quite sure that the officers of the Junior Common Room knew very well what would happen to me if I were on this committee but they nevertheless stuck my nose into it. When we all had finished our final exams at Oxford, the Dons of the college gave an wing-ding of a party for those who had-just gone through the exams, wine and other liquids were flowing freely. I remember at that party that one of my tutors made a rather stuffy remark about what fine lecturers they had at Oxford. So I said, " ; Well, I suppose not all of them are. I remember the fellow who was lecturing on [David] Hume. I went to his lecture and the first day there were about 225 students there and this young man came in with his back to the audience and mumbled ; the second lecture there were about 75 students there and he did the same thing. For the third lecture we were about down to 30 and he did the same thing and I quit. He wasn' ; t a very good lecturer." ; And my tutor said, " ; Well what did you do about Hume?" ; And I said, " ; I had to work it up on my own." ; So he said, " ; Well, that might have been the best lecturer you had." ; We would meet our tutor at Oxford once a week and for a time you might have two tutors going at the same time and have two tutorials a week. But at each tutorial you would bring in an essay, maybe 18 or 20 pages, long on a topic that had been agreed on the week before and the procedure of the tutorial was for your tutor to go over your essay and criticize and discuss it and to branch out from there into other things. But these weekly essays turned out to be exactly the kind of writing that was required in the final exams. So that you had that practice in getting ready for the kinds of essays that had to be written for the exams. Richard, I don' ; t think you should use this in any of your writing but on my final exams at Oxford, I remember that about halfway through one of my philosophy papers, I simply tore it up and started over again, I did not think that I had done very well. Well, when the written exams were over in ten days or two weeks, you come up before a board of oral examiners for the oral part of your examination. When I went before the oral examiners, they made such complimentary remarks about my exam and didn' ; t press me on any additional questions. I went back and reported to my Dons at my own college what the oral examiners had said. They said, " ; Oh well, you are a certain first." ; The grades being first class, second class, third class, fourth class. However, when the results came out, I found myself with a second. Then I got a note of apology from the examiners because apparently the philosophy reader on the exam had gotten my paper mixed up with somebody else' ; s. I may be the only person who has had a note of apology from the examiners at Oxford University. But I got the gentleman' ; s second, which is a very respectable outcome. One little matter not related to anything we have been talking about--I had been a friend of John Foster Dulles during the Truman administration, during the negotiation of the Japanese Peace Treaty. When I was at the Rockefeller Foundation he became secretary of state. At the end of the 100th day in office, I wrote him a long letter, about three pages, commenting on how he was doing with respect to the various parts of his job. Eight years later when I had finished my own 100 days, my secretary Phyllis [D.] Bernau, who had been John Foster Dulles' ; secretary, very quietly came in on the 100th day and laid on my desk a copy of this letter which I had written to John Foster Dulles eight years earlier. So just for fun, I sent a copy of that letter to Mr. Shultz when he took office. When I arrived in New Delhi to serve under General Stilwell, I was assigned to the G-3 section in the New Delhi headquarters, so-called Rear Echelon, the Forward Echelon was up in Assam and there was another headquarters over in China, but the headquarters in New Delhi was the headquarters for all American forces in China, Burma and India. Since I was directly involved with war plans from the very beginning, I spent a great deal of time traveling into Assam, to China, down to Ceylon where Lord Louis Mountbatten' ; s headquarters were. I usually travelled in a small, converted bomber that had been turned into a staff plane but they were piston planes and very slow and there were times when it seemed that I spent more time in the air getting from one place to another that I did on the ground. My direct superior at the beginning was General Frank [Dow] Merrill, who later became commander of Merrill' ; s Marauders and took that group into Burma. But he was my immediate chief, and I found him a very able and agreeable man for whom to work. We remained friends until his death from a heart attack quite a few years ago. We had two major missions. One was to try to encourage the Chinese as well as the British army in India to take on the Japanese as quickly as possible and the other was to cut through a supply line to China. The Japanese had interrupted the old Burman Flying Tiger days. We thought it was very important, as did Washington, to try to get some supplies into China to keep China in the war because if they simply dropped out of the war, it would release very large numbers of Japanese forces to be turned against MacArthur and [Chester William] Nimitz who were coming across the Pacific. RICHARD RUSK: What kind of war making potential did China have back in those years? DEAN RUSK: We sometimes forget that China had been fighting the Japanese for a decade prior to Pearl Harbor. After all, Manchuria was seized in 1931 and following that the Japanese moved in on the coastal areas of China and imposed great losses upon the Chinese forces. I think many people underestimated the erosion of the ten years of warfare on the political and economic structure of China itself. That was a decade when China was getting no help from the outside. As a matter of fact, we ourselves continued to send scrap iron and oil to Japan to be used in making arms for the attack on China ; pretty disgraceful story. But when Pearl Harbor came along, we needed for our own purposes that idea that there was a China, a great country that was a local ally, strongly fighting the Japanese, and we created a kind of idealized picture of what was left of free China because things were very grim for us just after Pearl Harbor. For example, think of March 1942, three months after Pearl Harbor. Imagine that President Roosevelt might have gone on a nationwide radio hookup and said the following: " ; My fellow Americans, I have some very serious things to say to you. Hitler' ; s armies are smashing at the gates of Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad ; [Erwin] Rommel is rushing through north Africa toward Cairo ; my intelligence people tell me [because they were at the time] that Russia will be knocked out of the war in the course of the next six or eight weeks. We cannot mobilize our own armed forces except at a snail' ; s pace because we simply don' ; t have the arms and equipment for them. The Japanese have just destroyed the heart of our fleet at Pearl Harbor and they are rushing through Asia and we see no way to stop them ; the jig is up." ; Now based upon certain present day standards of something called credibility, had Franklin Roosevelt said that in March of 1942, he would have been telling the truth ; but had he said it, he would have been telling a profound lie because he and Churchill and Joseph Stalin and millions of others built upon hope and confidence and necessity and we defeated the Axis powers. I mention that because China was very important to us during the first part of the war both psychologically and militarily and it was not until MacArthur and Nimitz managed to come right into the Philippines and into Okinawa and places like that that we knew that we did not have to rely upon China for help in the actual defeat of Japan in the main islands of Japan. RICHARD RUSK: What percent of Japan' ; s war power was tied down there in Asia? DEAN RUSK: It is a little hard to say but at least there were hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, Japanese soldiers in China in one capacity or another. Some of them were line of communications troops to supply the Japanese effort farther south but, I think, during the war itself, we exaggerated some of the Japanese forces. For example, we thought there was an elite Japanese route army in Manchuria. Well, at the end of the war, when the Russians got into the war against Japan for about four days, we found that the Japanese army in Manchuria had become something of a shell because they had drawn a lot of officers' ; men out of it to reinforce their forces in the Pacific. Nevertheless, it was a substantial effort so our job was to try to find some way to get supplies into China. We looked at all possible ground routes. As a matter of fact, we even looked at the possibility of going up through Afghanistan and coming through extreme western China. We scoured Asia for ways of getting into China, but cutting a road back through Burma seemed to be the only really feasible way to do it. On one occasion, while I was still in the Pentagon back in Washington, Madam Chiang Kai-shek came to Washington and she went in to see President Roosevelt. After her visit we got a note from FDR in the Pentagon saying that Madam Chiang Kai-shek had proposed that we open up a coolie pack route from India into China over the mountains and that the Chinese would furnish whatever number of people, one to two million, to carry loads into China by foot. Well, it didn' ; t take us long to figure out that on that three or four week journey, that each Chinese soldier would eat two or three times his load and there was no food in that area ; it was an utterly desolate area. We sent a little note to FDR saying, " ; Mr. President, this is not feasible because these coolies would eat more than they could carry on this kind of journey." ; Back came a little note from him saying, " ; Then drop their food to them by air." ; And we had to send back a little note saying, " ; Mr. President, if we had the planes to drop their food by air, we could take the supplies into China to begin with." ; That just illustrates how desperate people were to try to find some way of getting into China. But the route from Assam, through Burma into China was very difficult terrain indeed--beautiful country in the dry weather but when the monsoons came up and the rains began to fall, it just became a quagmire so the engineering problems were formidable indeed. I personally was not involved in the planning and construction of this road although it was within our theater, but we had General [Earle Gilmore] Wheeler, particularly, and one or two others, whose names I will dig out, in charge of the actual construction. The road was about three hundred miles, but it was winding, the ground was treacherous, there were many streams to be bridged and of course there were Japanese taking potshots. There were times when men had to drive bulldozers with a little piece of metal up in front of them as protection against snipers. We used a great deal of Indians in front of them as protection against snipers. We used a great deal of Indian labor and Burmese labor. The Karens and the Kachins, two north Burmese tribes were available to us and were very helpful to us in trying to mobilize some forces to get that road built ; but that was a two-year effort and required an enormous amount of toil but it was a contingency kind of effort, somewhat like the Alkin Highway built into Alaska, we built that in the event we needed it. But as I said earlier in another tape, we couldn' ; t be sure that if we defeated the Japanese on their own home islands that the Japanese forces in China would then surrender, the war might be continued in China itself. After all, all of our experience with Japanese forces, up to that point, had been that they were fanatical in their conduct of the war and that they just fought to the last, so we just didn' ; t know. We had a big problem with our line of communications back to the United States. It was long, it was slow, and there were periods when we would lose half of our ships trying to come to the China-Burma-India Theater to submarines down in the south Atlantic. I remember once Lord Louis Mountbatten was furious that among three ships which were on their way out the only ship that survived happened to have a good deal of its space taken up with a box of chocolates for every American in the theater, whereas the ship with arms and other crucially needed supplies got sunk. But Washington was a long way away, and it was not easy to get the Pentagon to understand the circumstances in which we were operating. For example, we could see that we and the British were going to return to Burma from the north, we would find ourselves on these narrow gauged rail lines but without any engines, without any rolling stock, and so quite early in 1943, we sent a cable back to the Pentagon to ask them to prepare for us some small locomotives for a narrow track which could be moved in by air and the Pentagon just pooh-poohed us on the idea of an airborne locomotive. But when we actually got in Burma and got hold of a part of that rail system, we needed such things and so we had to construct some light locomotives out of jeeps by putting flange wheels on them and pulling whatever we could. Another instance of lack of imagination in the Pentagon: We had a homing pigeon communications company out there. Under the circumstances we were faced with in Burma, that homing pigeon company was very useful at times. One day some of the Chinese troops got into the pigeon coops and they made pigeon stew out of all the pigeons, so we sent a telegram-- END OF SIDE 1 BEGINNING OF SIDE 2 DEAN RUSK: We asked the Pentagon for a complete replacement for the pigeon compliment for the such and such Sigma Company. Back came a telegram from the Pentagon saying, " ; Request denied. It is the assumption of the tables of organization that the pigeons would furnish their own replacements." ; We had not told them that the Chinese troops had eaten these pigeons. In 1944, the Japanese became aware of the continuing build-up of Allied potential in India and so they launched a major offensive against eastern India to try to break that up. An account of that campaign is fully described in General [William Joseph] Slim' ; s fine book on the subject and you will have to read that for it. General Slim was a fine British commander. During that operation, when the British forces were very hard pressed, we used whatever air we had in support of British forces, and it worked out very well. We defeated the Japanese in that campaign and opened the way for us to move much more deeply into Burma. By the time the road to China was completed, it was safe and secure from a military point of view, and we had driven the Japanese much farther south. For operations in Burma and India we were under the control of the British chiefs of staff who were the executive agents for the U.S.-British combined chiefs of staff for that theater, just as the American chiefs of staff were the executive agents for campaigns in Europe and in the Pacific. Being under the British chiefs of staff meant, in effect, that we were under Mr. Churchill' ; s command and he tended to follow things that were going on out there in considerable detail. I had a little long range exchange with him at a time when he didn' ; t know me from Adam' ; s off ox. We received an order from him to launch a long range penetration group, a [Orde C.] Wingate-type operation, into Burma. This group would involve about 3,000 men who would wander around shooting at whatever Japs they could find, but they weren' ; t going to seize any terrain or capture any particular objectives, they were going in there for four or five weeks and then come on back, supplied by air the entire time. It was an operation that had no perceptible influence on the outcome of the war. So as Chief of War Plans, I gave this operation the code name PINPRICK. Well, when that got back to London, out came a rocket from Mr. Churchill saying, " ; Change of name of PINPRICK to GRAPPLE." ; Well, that may be one of the differences between Mr. Churchill and myself. General Stilwell kept pressing Washington for at least two divisions of American ground forces to be used out there. He thought it would greatly speed up the effort to break back into Burma, recapture Burma and open up the road to China, but the European and Pacific theaters, quite rightly, had much higher priority for such forces and he was denied them. But he was finally given a brigade that came to be called " ; Merrill' ; s Marauders." ; These were volunteers from the European and Pacific theaters. I think these fellows came out there with the idea that they would have one operation and then they would all go home ; but it was sort of a patchwork kind of operation with a good deal of gallant people in it. In any event, since that was the only ground force that General Stilwell had, he used it much more than perhaps commanders are entitled the use of such a force. He drove them unmercifully and they were operating in extreme conditions. For example, they encamped in one area where there was typhus on ticks and a lot of the men came down with typhus. Fortunately, we discovered that if they were treated up at the 20th General Hospital, up in Assam under air-conditioned equipment, that they could do pretty well in bringing them out of it ; there was malaria, there was nothing but emergency rations for them to eat ; it was a pretty tough operation and General Stilwell expended Merrill' ; s Marauders and they wound up being a unit which really had no further combat capability. General Stilwell was a foot soldier. He didn' ; t like headquarters, he didn' ; t like the political relationships involved in high command. He was always out in the field with the troops. I suppose he might have been a superb division commander in combat, but he was impatient with all the things that go along with the highest levels of command. He got the nickname " ; Vinegar Joe" ; because of certain mannerisms he had. In fact, he was a very warm human being with great compassion. For example, he spent a good deal of time in China before World War II and he had a great feeling for the Chinese people. He felt, and I think quite properly, that if Chinese soldiers were properly equipped, properly trained, and properly led that they would be good soldiers. I think he proved that with some of the Chinese troops in Burma, but he was deeply distressed by the inadequacies, the corruption, the failure of the Chiang Kai-shek government to do what ought to have been done for the Chinese people and he was always on the side of the common people in China rather than the government and the high command. Corruption was a serious problem there. For example, when we furnished Atabrine to the Chinese forces as protection against malaria, we had to have an American in the mess line to put this Atabrine down the throats of the Chinese so that their officers wouldn' ; t collect all the Atabrine and send it back to China and sell it on the black market. We could never separate a Chinese unit from its arms and equipment. For example, if we wanted a Chinese unit to move as fast as possible from point A to point B and we told them to leave all of their stuff and we would fly this stuff to them when they reached point B, they simply wouldn' ; t do it. They had almost a fanatical sense of property and one of the instructions we gave to our men out there was never try to take anything away from a Chinese soldier, he would kill you. There were times when General Stilwell had to take unusual measures to spur the Chinese to advance even in the area where we thought there were few, if any, Japanese. There were some occasions when we told them that their supplies for the next day would be dropped at such and such a point, which might be fifteen miles farther down the road and if they wanted their supplies, they would have to go down there to get it, so they would move. On one occasion General Stilwell wanted a Chinese unit to move and they were bucking the move so he just took his carbine and headed down the road toward the Japanese and left it to the Chinese as a matter of face to trail along with him. But in general, the Chinese forces in Burma, given all the circumstances, performed creditably and well and paid off the effort we made to get them trained and armed. It is hard to say to what extent the mission of the China-Burma-India theater was actually performed because before we had any real opportunity to capitalize on what was done there, MacArthur and Nimitz were well on their way across the Pacific and the brunt of the war shifted to the frontal attack on Japan. I have no doubt that if war continued for a much longer period what was done in Burma would have been very useful. One little matter that left some impressions and stuck with me: As Chief of War Plans, I was the person who was supposed to give advice to other staff officers who had their own problems and the chief signal officer and the chief ordinance officer, chief quartermaster, and people like that would come in and say, " ; Look, we have got a long line of communications back to the United States ; we have got to know something about how long we are going to be out here in order to know how to do our planning." ; In effect, they were asking me when the war was going to be over. But I would look at them very solemnly and say, " ; You should plan on our being here until April 1946," ; and they would go away very happy. But one day, one of them on their way out of the door turned around and said, " ; Oh, by the way, how do you know that it is April 1946?" ; I said, " ; I don' ; t know, but I am being paid to give you an answer." ; Of course I did know something about the general war plans for the war itself, and I knew something about the preparations for the invasion of the main island, so April 1946 wasn' ; t too bad a figure. RICHARD RUSK: Was there anything about developments of World War II, specifically your theater, that surprised you at all? Did it go pretty much as you expected it to back in the early 40s? DEAN RUSK: I think, in the first place, I was surprised as everybody else by the attack on Pearl Harbor. I had been assigned to G-2 military intelligence in the War Department in October 1941, two months before Pearl Harbor. But as I said earlier, I was assigned to keep track of the British areas in Asia, not in Japan specifically, but the Japanese section of G-2 was just down the hall from us, and I had friends and fellow officers there. On Pearl Harbor day, I had come into the office very early, six o' ; clock in the morning, because we had pretty good information that the Japanese were going to attack the southwest Pacific on that weekend, and we could track a substantial naval force that was moving in the direction and since this involved Malaya and almost certainly Indonesia, I turned up quite early. But when Pearl Harbor came some of the junior officers in the Japanese section of G-2 were up and down the hall laughing over the first flashes that came in from Pearl Harbor, they simply didn' ; t believe it. Some of them didn' ; t believe it until President Roosevelt went on the radio and actually announced to the nation that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. Well, after Pearl Harbor Day, my own colonel, Colonel [James] Compton, came to me with a memorandum in his hand and he said, " ; Dean, you might want to see this, it is very interesting. Take a good look at it because you won' ; t see it again. All the copies are being gathered up and destroyed." ; It was a memorandum that had been prepared about five days earlier in the Japanese section of G-2 indicating points in the Pacific which the Japanese might attack and Pearl Harbor was not even on the list. Had General [Walter C.] Short and the Admiral [Husband E. Kimmel] at Pearl Harbor been brought to trail, had they been court-martialed, some of us would have had a problem of conscience as to whether we should clarify the fact that G-2 simply did not anticipate an attack on Pearl Harbor. One of the successful parts of our operation in the China-Burma-India theater was flying material across the hump to China. We used air fields in northeastern India, up in Assam, but to get the supplies from the port at Calcutta up to Assam was itself a major problem because it was about a 1200 mile journey. There were large rivers to be crossed such as the Irrawaddy, which in the rainy season might be eight or ten miles wide, and of course there was a problem of building air strips on a very difficult terrain. We had little or no heavy equipment, some of them had to be built by hand. And the railroad that went up to that area from Assam was very poor and was very poorly operated. For example, it was just taken for granted up until we got there that when the engineer driving the railroad train got to his own little village, he would just stop the train for three or four hours and go and visit with his friends and family, or when they got to a river to be crossed they would pull up a railroad ferry, broadside along the dock and then they would load these cars onto the ferry one at a time, crosswise on the ferry. Well, we did a lot of things ; we multiplied the tonnage being moved on that railway by putting some trained personnel on there to run the trains, and we put the tracks on these ferries in the longitudinal direction so that we could put five or six cars on the ferry at one time and not just put cars on one at a time crosswise. Now there were times when we perhaps overstrained that railroad. We had one or two wrecks because our fellows would try too hard to make the trains move, but all those problems were pretty well licked in due course, but it took a lot of doing and involved some occasional friction with the Indian authorities and with both the British and Indians who were technically responsible up in that part of India. I found India to be a fascinating country ; extraordinarily complex with all of its ethnic groups and languages. I started taking lessons in Urdu, which was used typically in the British army in India, but after I had quite a few lessons, one of my Indian friends told me that I was simply learning the Urdu of British military command and that I could not use it for any polite conversation among the Indian themselves so I sort of lost interest in learning Urdu. The British army in Indian was made up of many, many different tribes. Many of the best battalions came out of the hill country, people like the Gurkas, the Garhwali' ; s and regiments of that sort. But, I think the Japanese might well have penetrated deeply into India had it not been for the fighting capabilities of those native Indian forces. The British also brought over their East African battalion--all black--and they were an extraordinary group because they could put their packs on their heads and just dogtrot along all day long and just cover enormous amounts of ground and were a very valuable unit in that situation. The terrain was such that armored forces simply weren' ; t very relevant to the fighting out there. It was not tankable country in the usual sense, there was too much water, too many swamps, too much soft ground and so most of the fighting had to be done by an infantryman with a rifle in his hand. None of these kind of modern warfare techniques were very relevant except by air and air supply and techniques of that sort. On one occasion we received word from the Pentagon that several light tanks were on their way to us. Well, we hadn' ; t asked for them and we sent a message back saying that we needed light tanks like we needed holes in the head and for heaven' ; s sake send us some things we really could use because that was very scarce shipping that was being consumed by sending us these light tanks. They were such light tanks that they had no relevance whatever to the European theater. But the light tanks arrived, the Pentagon insisted. Well quite some time later I tried to run down why it was that we got those light tanks and I learned, whether this is true or not I can' ; t personally vouch for it, that a congressional committee was out in the West somewhere looking at military supplies and stores and things of that sort and they saw a large number of these light tanks just sitting out in the field and they asked somebody in the military what these light tanks were for and they were told that those were for the China-Burma-India theater. So we got these tanks that they simply had to get rid of somehow, somewhere and they set outside of Calcutta and rusted and became scrape iron at the end of the war. I would have to say that I personally was not in combat in the China-Burma-India theater. There was one time when three or four of us were in a jeep with General Stilwell going down through the woods in Burma and we got a couple of snipper shots across our brow. General Stilwell stopped the jeep and looked around his staff people who were with him [he had a signal man, and an ordinance man, and people like that] and looked at me and said, " ; Rusk, you are the only infantry-trained man here so let' ; s go and see if we can find those snipers." ; So here I went off with a three-star general scurrying around the woods in Burma looking for Japanese snipers ; we never found them, but that was a brief encounter that proved to be nothing. When the Japanese Zero planes came over our airfields, the drill was that every plane that could do so would take to the air to reduce the chances of being destroyed on the ground. I was in one of the western airfields in China, the name of which I could check on a map, when the red ball warning went up that Zeroes were on the way in, and so my pilot and I jumped in our little DC-3 aircraft and took off. As we headed north to try to get away from any Zeroes that might be coming in, we saw a Zero coming in behind us and there was another DC-3 aircraft off about two miles to our right and for reasons best known to the Japanese pilot, he choose to attack that plane rather than ours and by the time he had shot that plane down we had gotten into some clouds and he was never able to find us. But actually flying the hump was something I was not supposed to do during the period when the Japanese were still in Burma because I was aware of general Allied war plans. There were quite a few of us who were forbidden to fly over enemy-held territory on the theory that we might get shot down and get tortured into revealing some of this material ; but the only way we could get from India into China was over Japanese-held Burma. Fortunately, I wasn' ; t faced with a problem arising from that factor. RICHARD RUSK: You say you never had a great deal of actual combat experience over there ; did you have opportunity to see the actual carnage of what modern warfare does to people? DEAN RUSK: I did not visit the front when the Japanese were involved with their offensive against the British forces along the eastern frontier of India, but in the part of Burma that our forces were in and the Chinese were in, the fighting was more or less open country kind of fighting, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians. There were no pitched battles of any major importance except for the seizure of Myitkyina, which was a key airport road center up in northeast Burma. I did see Myitkyina shortly after it was taken when it was pretty battered and blown up and saw something of the destruction, but it was nothing like the kind of destruction we are familiar with in western Europe or in a place like some of the Pacific islands where everything was just destroyed. The ratio of military forces, both Japanese and Allied forces, the geography in Burma, was so small that it was almost happenstance that you ran into an enemy. I mentioned the Karens and the Kachins in North Burma ; they had been heavily involved with Protestant missionaries who had established mission stations up there. Down in the southern part of Burma around Rangoon, where the predominate culture was Buddhist, there were various movements among the Burmese, some of them sponsored by the Japanese, that were not particularly friendly to the United States. But the American forces in Burma, in our effort to build the road, did not really come into contact with those and those problems did not arise until the end of the war when the question of Burmese independence had come up. One little interesting matter: President Roosevelt felt very strongly that the major colonial areas of Asia should come out of World War II as independent nations: India, Burma, Malaya, Indonesia, Indochina. He had tried to press Mr. Churchill very hard to make a commitment to the Indians that this would be the result at the end of the war, but Mr. Churchill was very resistant. One can remember his famous remark, " ; I did not become His Majesty' ; s First Minister to reside over the liquidation of the British Empire." ; And so he resisted this notion. That meant that there was some tension between the American and British forces in India about psychological warfare and in effect public relations kinds of problems because we were there solely for the purpose of trying to fight the Japanese and the British did not want to come clean on their desire to restore British rule in India at the end of the war, so that led to a good many frictions. Indeed, we devised a shoulder patch for the China-Burma-India theater which was worn by every American in the theater and was worn by no one but Americans out there. This shoulder patch showed the star of India, the sun of China and some red and white stripes for the United States. The theory was that with this theater-wide shoulder patch, it would make it easier for the Indians or anybody else to distinguish the Americans and to understand that we were there solely for the purpose of fighting the Japanese. But that was the subject of some controversy. While I am at it, I might say that there is reason to believe that President Roosevelt gave up on his desire to see these areas of Asia emerge from the war as independent nations, somewhere around the beginning of 1945, whether he was getting old and sick or whether he was just tired of butting his head up against Mr. Churchill, I don' ; t know. I saw that because around the middle of 1944, various Frenchmen began to arrive out in the China-Burma-India theater asking to be parachuted into Indochina. Well, we didn' ; t know what the policy drill was back in Washington, so we sent a telegram back reporting that these Frenchmen were there wanting to be parachuted into Indochina and asking for policy guidance as to U.S. policy toward Indochina. Well, weeks passed, months passed, follow-up telegrams produced no result and when a staff officer had to go back to Washington for something, we would ask him to try to get the answer and nothing happened. Finally around the beginning of 1945, there came out to us a joint chiefs of staff paper--light blue fool' ; s cap paper--and the subject of the paper was U.S. policy toward Indochina. On the first sheet it said, " ; The Joint Chiefs of Staff have asked the President for a statement of U.S. policy toward Indochina ; the President' ; s reply is contained in Annex A." ; So I flipped over to Annex A and there was a sheet of paper that said, " ; When asked by the Joint Chiefs of Staff for a statement of U.S. policy toward Indochina, the President replied, ' ; I don' ; t want to hear any more about Indochina.' ; " ; So there was a gap in policy for a full year there which had very considerable consequences as far as the history of that area was concerned. [As a follow-up question to that ; as Chief of War Plans over there, did you have to make policy to fill that gap or take any actions not necessarily approved by Washington but simply had to be made at the scene by somebody? Incidentally, were these organized French military units?] No, just individuals, probably OSS [Office of Strategic Services] type characters. But when Franklin Roosevelt lost interest in pursuing his anti-colonial policy about those areas, bear in mind that American forces out there were under British command and so for the last year of the war and the immediate postwar period, the arrangements out there were determined by the British and that led to the return of the British to India, Burma, Malaya, return of the Dutch to Indonesia and the return of the French to Indochina. The whole history might have been different had those countries come out of the war independent. They became independent very quickly after the war, but a lot of things might have happened differently. For example, while I was in China-Burma-India, I personally authorized the dropping of arms and American cigarettes to Ho Chi Minh in Indochina because we were ready to help anybody who would shoot at the Japanese, so we encouraged him in his effort to resist the Japanese. We had in the CBI theater a very able group of the Officers Strategic Services, the wartime predecessor of the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency], and they conducted a good many clandestine operations. They had an extraordinary combination of bluebloods and thugs in the OSS during the war. People right out of Wall Street on the one side, people who probably ought to have been in a penitentiary on the other. And they did many extraordinary things to help out and make things difficult for the Japanese. Their operations were under General Stilwell' ; s command, and it was my job to keep in close touch with them, help them to decide which things to do and which things not to do. When the war was over, just after the French returned to Indochina, we soon found ourselves in the United States launching the [George Catlett] Marshall Plan and NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] and in those two great enterprises the active and casual participation of the French was indispensable and what was happening in Indochina itself tended to move on to the back burner because our relations with France were extraordinarily important, say from 1946 to 1949. We did, however, in providing aid to France, some of which went off to help their position in Indochina, we did try to press them to come to a political settlement with the nations of Indochina, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. But we did not want to press them to the point of having them say to us, " ; Alright, we' ; re leaving, but this in your baby," ; because we didn' ; t want that problem in our basket. They made various moves, but we had a succession of French governments during that period, not one of which was strong enough to take the action to really cut the ties between those countries and France and let them move ahead as independent countries. Now, we entered another chapter when the North Koreans attacked South Korea in 1950 because it was clear that this was a major attack by the North Koreans of a broad front for the purpose of seizing South Korea. At the time the attack occurred, we didn' ; t know what else was involved ; what China, the Soviet Union might have in mind in addition to Korea, so President Truman put the Seventh Fleet between Taiwan and the mainland and said that we would resist any attempt to use force across that strait there in either direction, and we substantially increased our aid to the French in Indochina because we were trying to discourage the possibility that the operation in Korea might be broadened into a general Communist assault on neighboring areas in Asia. In retrospect, I think that fear was unfounded because we never got any real evidence that they were planning to attack either Taiwan or Indochina. Nevertheless, that North Korean attack gave rise to stepped-up assistance to the French in Indochina. Some of that assistance we tried to channel directly to the indigenous governments in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, but there were great difficulties with the French when we would try to do that. That was the situation until during the Eisenhower administration and the French were driven out of Indochina and Vietnam was split in half at the Geneva Conference. I mentioned on an earlier tape the running dispute that General Stilwell had with Chiang Kai-shek and General [Claire Lee] Chennault on the use of the tonnage coming over the hump. That was a battle that went all the way back to Washington and there were also some controversies between the British and the Chinese with respect to the role and activities of the Chinese forces in Burma. The British were convinced that the Chinese forces had come into Burma carrying boundary stones in their knapsacks and that they were determined to make good on China' ; s historic claim to a good part of northern Burma. So there was suspicion and friction between the two. Well, I had to carry the brunt of drafting most of General Stilwell' ; s cables back to Washington on both of these disputes. I was told in the summer of 1945 that I had been transferred from the CBI theater back to the Operations Division of the War Department' ; s General Staff because they had found that I had been the principal author of those cables. British-American cooperation out there was not very close up through 1943 and well into 1944. As a matter of fact, it was not until it became clear that Hitler was on the way to being defeated that cooperation significantly increased. As I indicated earlier, Churchill was simply determined that not very much was going to happen out in India and Burma until Hitler was defeated because the British Army in India was the only imperial reserve he had. But when Allied forces began to roll following the Normandy landings, then cooperation became really quite good and Lord Louis Mountbatten contributed greatly to that because he was determined to see to it that the Americans and the British worked well together. He had both British and Americans on his own staff down in Ceylon, and he followed what the Americans, and indeed the Chinese, were doing in Burma closely and with interest, but there were problems really until Hitler was on the way down. I suspect that Mr. Churchill achieved some of his policy of delay simply be sending British commanders out to India who he knew simply were not going to do anything. General Auchinleck came out, General Wavell came out and there was a lethargy about the British headquarters in India that had to be seen to be believed. I think instead of arguing these things out as a matter of policy with Franklin Roosevelt, he just achieved his purposes in that fashion. We were very fortunate in having Colonel Mike Saunders, J.S. Saunders, as the British liaison to the American headquarters and he had an office right alongside of mine. He was a remarkable fellow, friendly, energetic, understanding. He had married an American wife from Michigan, Mel Saunders, lovely woman, and he helped us avoid a great many problems after the war. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL214DROH-Rusk7S.xml RBRL214DROH-Rusk7S.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL214DROH/findingaid
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91 minutes
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Rusk 7S, Dean Rusk autobiographical sketch, Part 5, circa 1985
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RBRL214DROH-Rusk7S
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audio
oral histories
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sound
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United States
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World War, 1939-1945
United States. Army--Officers
United States--Military relations
Foreign relations
United States--Veterans
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Part five of an autobiographical sketch by Dean Rusk, as told to Richard Rusk
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Dean Rusk
Richard Rusk
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ca. 1985
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Dean Rusk Oral History Collection
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United States--Officials and employees
Politics and Public Policy
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The collection consists of 172 oral history interviews with Dean Rusk and his colleagues between 1984-1989. Includes audiotapes and transcriptions documenting Rusk's life from early childhood in the 1910's through his teaching career in the 1980's. The interviews contain information on Rusk's service as U.S. Under Secretary and Secretary of State during the administrations of Presidents Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson and his involvement in foreign relations including the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Vietnam War. The interviews also document his position as president of the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1950s.<br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=14&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
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Richard Geary Rusk
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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1984-1989
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Oral histories
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RBRL214DROH
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United States
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
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https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL214DROH-RuskGGGG/ohms
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5.3 Circa 1985 RUSK GGGG, Dean Rusk interviewed by Richard Rusk and Thomas Schoenbaum circa 1985 RBRL214DROH-RuskGGGG RBRL214DROH Dean Rusk Oral History Collection Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Dean Rusk Richard Rusk and Thomas Schoenbaum oral history 1:|7(13)|16(8)|27(10)|45(7)|52(14)|68(10)|80(11)|102(11)|114(8)|127(2)|140(4)|155(1)|164(5)|188(2)|204(9)|225(1)|252(16)|283(14)|302(5)|313(8)|325(1)|341(15)|354(6)|367(3)|379(14)|395(7)|415(1)|427(12)|438(11)|459(13)|470(1)|489(6)|502(8)|512(12)|524(8)|536(4)|565(2)|581(2)|598(15)|616(4)|626(1)|646(12)|658(14)|672(12)|681(14)|690(13)|703(4)|725(6)|739(5)|752(12)|762(2)|773(1)|789(7)|813(11)|823(8)|838(10)|861(11)|877(8)|888(3)|898(5)|915(6)|935(6)|958(5) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_uo8npk0p& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; & ; wid=1_vjfazdl7" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 7 Japan, Pearl Harbor, and Hitler This is a follow-up interview on essentially World War II. We'll try to cover some holes in the previous interviews. Dean Rusk discusses his involvement in the G-2 (Military Intelligence) of the U.S. Army during the Japenese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. He discusses the decision by the United States and Great Britain to give priority to the war against Hitler rather than Japan. Douglas MacArthur ; Indonesia ; Malaya ; Philippines ; Southeast Asia 17 661 Battle of Singapore / Interactions with George Marshall Now, Singapore was a major defeat for the British, of course, and therefore for us indirectly. Dean Rusk discusses the fall of Singapore, which was a major defeat for the British in WWII and the United States indirectly. He also discusses his interactions with the Chief of Staff of the Army, George Marshall, during his time as a captain in the G-2. Australia ; Burma ; China ; India ; Indonesia ; Malaya ; Tokyo raid of 1942 ; Winston Churchill 17 1073 The Operations Division In 1942 WBTPD, the War Plans Division became the OPD. What was the relationship of WPD when you were there to G-2? How did you fit into-- Dean Rusk discusses his involvement with Operations Division of the general staff in Washington, D.C., where he dealt with long-range polices and planning. He also talks about his department's relationship with the State War Navy Coordinating Committee (SWINK). Abe Lincoln Brigade ; G-2 ; Harry Truman ; John J. McCloy ; Oxford ; War Plans Division ; WBTPD ; WPD 17 1444 Issues with SWINK Now getting back to the issues which you dealt with in SWINK: at that time there were many interesting issues. Dean Rusk discusses some of the issues he was involved with while at SWINK, including the decision to retain the Japanese emperor as well as the Japanese surrender. He also talks about the Manhattan Project and the first nuclear weapons. Abraham Lincoln Brigade ; Hiroshima ; Hitler ; Kuril Islands ; Potsdam Agreement ; Soviet Union ; Truman 17 2216 Four power occupation of Germany What was your planning with respect to Germany during that time, that summer of '45? That was a lively--what did you do with respect to that theatre? Dean Rusk describes the difficulties of dealing with the Soviet Union during the post-WWII period. He also discusses the four-power arrangement for the occupation of Germany. Franklin Roosevelt ; Joseph Stalin ; Operations Division 17 2523 Career transition into the State Department Now between September 2nd and February of '46 you went over to the State Department. What was primary after the Japanese surrender? What was on the agenda primarily those six months or so? Dean Rusk discusses being demobilized from the Army and becoming the Assistant Division Chief of the Division of International Security Affairs in the State Department. He also talks about becoming involved with the United Nations. Alger Hiss ; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace ; Far Eastern Commission ; John J. McCloy ; Joseph Johson ; Special Political Affaris ; SWINK 17 2770 Relationship with General Stilwell I wanted to ask, going back to Stilwell--I don't think we have on tape your first meeting with Stilwell. Wasn't that in San Francisco? Dean Rusk discusses his relationship with General Joseph Stilwell while he was in the G-2, and talks about his reaction to Stilwell's release from the Army. CBI ; Chiang Kai-shek ; Dan Sultan ; Fort Leavenworth ; General Stilwell ; John Stewart ; Washington conspiracy 17 3173 China-India-Burma Theater Were you there when Abe Lincoln came around in February of '45? Made his worldwide tour and he stopped in Delhi with Sultan? Dean Rusk discusses being the Chief of War Plans during the China-Burma-India Theater (CBI). Chiang Kai-shek ; Gandhi ; Ho Chi Minh ; Mao Tse-tung 17 3626 Reflections on the Operations Division Well, I think we're about at the end of another tape. Thank you very much. Dean Rusk praises the people that he worked with while he was in the Operations Division, including Tick Bonesteel and James McCormack. Atomic Energy Commission ; George Lincoln ; George Marshall 17 SCHOENBAUM: This is a follow-up interview on essentially World War II. We' ; ll try to cover some holes in the previous interviews. Rich Rusk and Tom Schoenbaum are doing the interviewing. I wanted to ask, first of all, some questions about when you were in G-2 [Military Intelligence] from October 1941 to June of 1943 in the Missions Building on the Mall and you were the Asian expert. We' ; ve already got an interview on that. But one question that' ; s quite important: On November 27, 194l, according to the record, there were warnings sent about a Japanese attack: warnings sent by, I think G-2 or by the Joint Chiefs at that time to some of our commanders in the Pacific. Were you involved in that at all? DEAN RUSK: Yes, to the extent that Southeast Asia was involved. We had very strong indications that the Japanese were going to move on Malaya [Malaysia] and Indonesia before Pearl Harbor. And indeed we had had some joint military talks with the British and the Dutch about that possibility. Then as we approached Pearl Harbor we were following a large Japanese fleet that was moving south toward Malaya and Indonesia. And that very much involved my own responsibilities in G-2, so I followed that very carefully on a day-by-day basis. SCHOENBAUM: Where were you getting reports? DEAN RUSK: Getting them from--the most important reports were coming from naval intelligence and wireless intercepts and things of that sort. And we could follow that particular Japanese fleet very well. But alongside of that, the other part of G-2 having to do directly with Japan had lost another Japanese fleet. We didn' ; t know where it was. And that was the fleet that turned out to attack Pearl Harbor under radio silence. But anyhow, we were expecting an attack on Malaya and Indonesia on the weekend of Pearl Harbor. Indeed I myself reported to work about six o' ; clock that Sunday morning of Pearl Harbor because we were expecting this attack in the area in which I was directly involved. SCHOENBAUM: Would that have been a landing on Malaya? DEAN RUSK: We expected an invasion on Malaya and also Indonesia. But anyhow, that part of the attack of the weekend of Pearl Harbor was anticipated and I can' ; t say that the forces in the area were braced for it, either in Malaya or in Indonesia. But nevertheless the attack was expected. SCHOENBAUM: But it was thought to come to be imminent in Malaya and Indonesia rather than-- DEAN RUSK: Right. Right. SCHOENBAUM: So that took you by surprise? DEAN RUSK: Well the Pearl Harbor thing came as a surprise to military intelligence. Indeed, as soon as the Pearl Harbor attack came, immediately after the attack Colonel [Arthur] Compton, the colonel in charge of my section of G-2, came and showed me a memorandum that had been prepared the week before by the Japanese section of G-2 which listed the areas which might be subject to Japanese attack in the Pacific and Pearl Harbor was not on the list. He said, " ; I thought I ought to show this to you because you will never see this memorandum again because all copies are being gathered up and destroyed." ; But there is no doubt in my mind that the attack on Pearl Harbor came as a surprise. Now on the morning of Pearl Harbor there were some intercepts that caused some last minute action: people scurrying around trying to get word out to [Husband E.] Kimmel and [Walter] Short in Hawaii. DEAN RUSK: I was not involved in that. But it was too late then to have them really braced. I think I' ; ve already put on tape why I was ordered to G-2 in the first place. SCHOENBAUM: Yes. Yes we have that. DEAN RUSK: All right. SCHOENBAUM: Now, the next thing that happened while you were in G-2 was the invasion of--well Japan--the taking of the Philippines by Japan. There are some interesting things that the historical record has there. I think the book which is a history of World War II that I wrote kind of takes a swipe at [Douglas] MacArthur. It says that MacArthur left for Australia on March 10 and that didn' ; t do any good for the morale of the American troops in the Philippines. And also there was a decision in Washington not to relieve the garrison on the Philippines. Were you involved in that, in those decisions in supplying information or anything like that? DEAN RUSK: Not at a very high level. Because the decision was made promptly after Pearl Harbor by the United States and Great Britain that we would give first priority to the war against Hitler. That was the main theatre. It was important to defeat Hitler and then we could defeat Japan after that. All through the war, therefore, Europe was the first priority theatre. However I would point out that although the Pacific was the second priority theatre, it was still a major effort. Indeed it was an effort which virtually defeated Japan without major redeployments from the European theatre after the defeat of Hitler. So it was a secondary theatre, but it was a very large secondary, a very strong secondary theatre. RICHARD RUSK: Were there any major redeployment from Europe to the Pacific before V-E [Victory in Europe] day? DEAN RUSK: Not before V-E day, no. RICHARD RUSK: Not before? It was a total effort right up to the very end? DEAN RUSK: Right. Right. SCHOENBAUM: The Singapore case-- DEAN RUSK: By the way, I personally think that decision was right. I think Hitler was much the greater threat and that although there was a good deal of stir in American public opinion because the attack on us had come in the Pacific and a lot of people felt that Japan was the main enemy therefore. And when the Japanese landed a few men on one of the Aleutian Islands that created a great stir. Here was American soil under attack. Actually those Japanese in the Aleutians were not going anywhere. It was not a major military problem in the overall point of the war, but politically it was important to winkle them out of there and we had to do that. SCHOENBAUM: What was your mood before--I guess after Munich you knew that war was inevitable in Europe, and after the oil embargo did it become clear that it was just a matter of time in the Far East as well? After the oil embargo on Japan? DEAN RUSK: Well I developed stronger and stronger feelings throughout the thirties that war was inevitable because of the momentum that the aggressors in Japan and [Benito] Mussolini and Hitler were developing. SCHOENBAUM: Do you remember a specific time when you thought, " ; That' ; s it. If I wasn' ; t convinced before, I' ; m now convinced." ; ? DEAN RUSK: Well, I think I' ; ve told you earlier that when the Japanese seized Manchuria I thought that something very important had happened. DEAN RUSK: And I must say the successive moves during the thirties to me was very much of an alert that war was on the way. I mean, the attitude of the United States at that time was pacifist and isolationist. I was aware that Secretary of State Henry [Lewis] Stimson thought that we ought to do something about the Japanese seizure of Manchuria but that Herbert [Clark] Hoover wouldn' ; t let him. Of course we, on the West Coast where I was living at the time--Well, where I came to be living caused us to be especially alert to Japan' ; s war against China and the threat there in the Pacific: a concern that was not shared by the east and the south in this country. They weren' ; t as sensitive to Pacific Ocean affairs as we were in California. SCHOENBAUM: And you were in the Third division which was later sent, was it to Italy or was it to--or was that the division that was sent to Corregidor and Battan? DEAN RUSK: No, the Third division was in the North African campaign, and then to Sicily in the Italian campaigns, and then it was pulled out to take part in the Normandy landings. It went right through the war and had a brilliant record. But I left the third division before it went overseas. I was transferred back to G-2 and the War Department. SCHOENBAUM: Yeah, I understand. Now, Singapore was a major defeat for the British, of course, and therefore for us indirectly. Again, was there somewhat of a problem with [Winston Leonard Spencer] Churchill? Some of the accounts say that Churchill was bullheaded over mounting an offensive in North Africa and he neglected to reinforce Singapore and the Japanese used the back door to compensate for it. DEAN RUSK: Well they landed in Northern Malaya initially. SCHOENBAUM: And you predicted that, didn' ; t you? DEAN RUSK: Well when I studied the terrain of Malaya, it was clear to me that the Japanese would not simply slog in purely land operations down that peninsula: mountainous terrain, much of it, covered with thick jungle. And it seemed to be obvious that the Japanese were going to make a series of amphibious moves into the river mouths on both sides of the peninsula down the peninsula. And I prepared a map showing these stages that the Japanese would almost certainly use and which indeed the Japanese did use. That got me some brownie points in G-2. But it seemed to be obvious. Now Singapore' ; s static defenses had been aimed toward the sea. Their big guns and things of that sort were all positioned to resist an attack by sea. They were not aimed toward the land side of Singapore. And in any event the forces there were simply not adequate for the task. Unfortunately one Australian division which was on its way to the Middle East was diverted into Singapore just in time for the surrender. SCHOENBAUM: To be captured. DEAN RUSK: And that created some very bitter feelings between Australia and the British and Winston Churchill. SCHOENBAUM: Did you attempt to warn or did you attempt to--you were lower level DEAN RUSK: Well I think I was a captain at that time. I told my own superiors what I thought was in the works. But I don' ; t know how far up that went. SCHOENBAUM: You knew they were headed toward Singapore and you knew what Singapore was-- DEAN RUSK: Oh, well they were already attacking Indonesia. So it was certain to include Singapore. SCHOENBAUM: But you didn' ; t know anything about--there was apparently exchange that somebody asked Churchill to reinforce Singapore and Churchill said " ; no." ; DEAN RUSK: I don' ; t believe that any reinforcements of Singapore would have done any good because they would not have been on the scale required to fend off the Japanese attack. SCHOENBAUM: In G-2, then, did you have anything to do with the--then once Singapore fell, Burma and India, well Burma anyway, was next and even Australia was at peril. What were your duties in G-2 after that? DEAN RUSK: Well I followed those operations very closely and we knew in Washington that the defense forces in Burma, for example, would have no chance against the Japanese. They were very thin ; they were native troops by and large, under British officers ; there was no way to supply them or really reinforce them in any significant fashion. So it seemed to me that the British and General Stilwell and his few Chinese were going to be driven out of Burma, and the chief question was how to get them out. SCHOENBAUM: How to get them out and how to save India or--? DEAN RUSK: Yeah. We were somewhat concerned about India. Of course, in retrospect--and I think we were aware of this at the time--India is such a mass that it would have required almost all the forces the Japanese could bring to bear. After all they had put millions of troops into China and were not able to conquer China, to occupy China and take it out of the war. India would have presented the same kind of problem. All those hundreds of millions of people, there' ; s just no way that any invader is going to take over that kind of place. SCHOENBAUM: Were you involved at all in Tokyo raid in 1942-- DEAN RUSK: No. No I was not-- SCHOENBAUM: Or the planning of the island hopping-- DEAN RUSK: I was not involved in that. DEAN RUSK: Ummm. SCHOENBAUM: The (unintelligible) stages of [Chester W.] Nimitz and MacArthur? DEAN RUSK: I can' ; t say that I was really. You see during World War II when we established a theatre commander in the theatre headquarters, much of the intelligence and operational responsibilities passed to the theatre commander. So we weren' ; t involved in the detailed planning of any of the island hopping expeditions. Of course we followed them all very carefully and I learned a lot about all those many islands in the South Pacific and the-- SCHOENBAUM: Were you involved in collecting information on those? DEAN RUSK: Yep. Of course we briefed the bigwigs every morning about the progress of the war and I was involved in a number of those briefings. RICHARD RUSK: Who were the bigwigs? DEAN RUSK: Oh, the Chief of Staff of the Army, George [Catlett] Marshall, and-- SCHOENBAUM: Oh, you worked with Marshall on a daily basis even then. DEAN RUSK: Yes. Have I put on tape my first encounter with General Marshall? RICHARD RUSK: Yep. We got that. SCHOENBAUM: Let' ; s see, was that--Yeah. We got that. We got that. DEAN RUSK: Based on ray study vacation in Guernsey and the Channel Islands? SCHOENBAUM: Yeah. That' ; s right. That was while you were in G-2. DEAN RUSK: No. That was while I was at Oxford. Well, while I was in G-2 I-- SCHOENBAUM: Your first encounter with Marshall was in G-2? DEAN RUSK: Yeah. SCHOENBAUM: Yeah. We' ; ve got that. Yeah, we' ; ve got that. DEAN RUSK: I knew that they were planning the possibility of an air invasion of these Channel Islands. So the colonel under whom I was working discovered that I' ; d spent an Oxford vacation on Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands, and-- SCHOENBAUM: Was that Compton? DEAN RUSK: Yeah. So he went running up to tell George Marshall, " ; I' ; ve got a captain who spent three months there," ; and so forth, you see? And so Marshall sent for me. SCHOENBAUM: Yeah. DEAN RUSK: But you' ; ve got that story. SCHOENBAUM: Yeah, we' ; ve got that. RICHARD RUSK: Pop, you cane to Marshall' ; s attention during the war when you were with Stilwell and evidently the talent scouts in Washington picked up on your cables and your various reputations over in CBI [China-Burma-India theatre]. Did Marshall pick up on your abilities at all while you were briefing him as a captain? DEAN RUSK: I don' ; t think so. No, I was just another captain. SCHOENBAUM: In 1942 WBTPD, the War Plans Division became the OPD. What was the relationship of WPD when you were there to G-2? How did you fit into-- DEAN RUSK: First the War Plans Division, later the Operations Division, called upon G-2 heavily for all sorts of information, you see. And our job was to try to furnish them the information that they needed. Occasionally we would volunteer information whether they asked for it or not. But there was a very close working relationship between G-2 and the Operations Division, which in lower echelon was called G-3. G-3 is Operations. RICHARD RUSK: Pop, there' ; s not a whole lot written that we can tell about [George Arthur] Abe Lincoln' ; s brigade. How did that work? Do you recall any individual who worked for that group who may have written memoirs of their own or may have spoken in some detail about the work that was done? DEAN RUSK: Hmmm. RICHARD RUSK: Would Lincoln himself, or-- DEAN RUSK: I don' ; t think that Abe Lincoln, or Tick [Charles Hartwell] Bonesteel ,or Ted Parker or any of those fellows actually wrote books about it. But Abe Lincoln, who overlapped--well, he was finishing up at Oxford his third year when I first got there for my first year, so I knew him casually at Oxford. But apparently--I' ; m not sure if I' ; m repeating myself--in May I was sent home for a month of rest and rehabilitation. SCHOENBAUM: ' ; 45, yeah. DEAN RUSK: In ' ; 45. But then while I was in Oakland, California in early June I received orders to report to the Operations Division of the general staff in Washington and not to go back to India. SCHOENBAUM: Yeah. DEAN RUSK: And when I got back to Washington in June of ' ; 45, they told me that they had sent a telegram out to the CBI headquarters asking for the identity of the staff officer that had been writing General Stilwell' ; s cables. And they gave them my name, and so I was transferred back. When I got there I found myself among some other friends. For example, the head of my immediate section in the Operations Division was Tick Bonesteel, Charles Bonesteel. He and I were very close at Oxford and we had been good friends there. Then another member of that group was a fellow named [James] McCormack, who also was at Oxford at the same time. So we were a natural team when we found ourselves working together. My section of that Operations Division had to do with longer-range policies and planning. SCHOENBAUM: The Far East in particular or--? DEAN RUSK: No, worldwide. SCHOENBAUM: Worldwide? DEAN RUSK: And so we were heavily involved in various policy questions involving the occupation of Germany and the problems we were having with Russia in that regard and with the policies involved in the windup of the war against Japan, the launching of the United Nations, and questions of that sort. Indeed that group had a considerable effect upon American policy because during the war itself Franklin [Delano] Roosevelt turned to Secretary of War Stimson and to the military for a lot of policy issues which normally would have been questions for the Department of State. But so many of these issues were directly linked to the prosecution and windup of the war that we found ourselves dealing with a lot of questions that normally would have been dealt with primarily in the State Department. SCHOENBAUM: Were you involved in the planning then for the Terminal Conference at Potsdam, 16-24 July in 1945? Is that part of the preliminary work? DEAN RUSK: There was some work done in our section on that, but by and large--Well that was when--the policy issues there were at long last being worked on strongly by the State Department, but we were directly involved. You see, we had what was called the State War Navy Coordinating Committee, SWINK, and that met regularly at least once a week, sometimes more often. That committee was made up of the Assistant Secretary of State ; the Assistant Secretary of War, John J. McCloy ; and a Navy colleague. They met regularly and my section of the Operations Division was the staff backstop through John J. McCloy in his participation in SWINK. So we would prepare papers for him on things that were on the agenda of these meetings of SWINK and we' ; d brief him personally. We also were the backstop to George Marshall for his participation in the meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So we were backstopping both the civilian and the military leadership of the War Department in those days. SCHOENBAUM: Did you see [Harry S] Truman for the first time personally during this time or was that later? DEAN RUSK: No. When I was in the military I did not meet personally with Truman. After all, I was pretty junior. But my direct personal contacts with him began when I went to the State Department as head of United Nations affairs. SCHOENBAUM: Now getting back to the issues which you dealt with in SWINK: at that time there were many interesting issues. You mentioned our problems with the Soviets over Germany and possible future Soviet expansion started at that time, did it not? Is that your first inkling that we were going to have trouble with the Soviets? DEAN RUSK: Well, we were determined that we would not give to the Soviet Union a Soviet zone of occupation in Japan. We had had such bitter experiences with them in trying to work out relations regarding Germany. And after all, the Soviets were in the war against Japan only about three days and we felt that they had not earned any zone of occupation in Japan. So we succeeded in denying to the Soviet Union as, say Hokkaido Island or any other zone of occupation there. We also had a major role in the decision to retain the emperor. SCHOENBAUM: Oh you did? You did that? DEAN RUSK: Oh yes. Yes. SCHOENBAUM: Did you study the Japanese history for that purpose? DEAN RUSK: Well we thought that the only chance to have a peaceful occupation of Japan would be through the emperor. And his position was such that [if] he called upon the Japanese people to accept the occupation, that they would do it. Because we knew that if the Japanese resisted the occupation in Japan with the same fervor and determination with which they had prosecuted the war that we' ; d have to put millions of American soldiers into Japan just to control the Japanese people. So we in the Army had a major influence on it. There were some in the State Department who wanted to get rid of the emperor. But we effectively resisted that and brought about the decision to retain the emperor. And I still think that that was a very wise thing for us to do. SCHOENBAUM: Was there any possibility--of course the Soviets still hold the Kuril Islands there. Did you talk about the Kuril Islands at that time? I guess the Russians were on them at that time. DEAN RUSK: No we didn' ; t. We more or less accepted the fact that the Kurils would go to the Soviet Union. RICHARD RUSK: This decision to retain the emperor, were you quite influential with that piece of advice? DEAN RUSK: Well, our group was. I wouldn' ; t isolate myself out. But Bonesteel and Abe Lincoln and the rest of us, we all concurred on that. We all had the common point of view. RICHARD RUSK: Incidentally, when Russia came into the war against Japan in the last three days, what did they do? Formally declare war within three days of Hiroshima? DEAN RUSK: I think they did declare war. You see, we had thought incorrectly all through the war that there was major and elite Japanese--what they call a route array in Manchuria. And it was one of our concerns about what that army might do even if we succeeded in defeating Japan proper. But actually when the Russians attacked we found that this route army had been largely depleted for the purpose of reinforcing other Japanese positions in the Pacific and that it was more or less of a shell, so the Russians had very little opposition when they came into the war in Manchuria. SCHOENBAUM: And that was basically the Potsdam Agreement and the surrender ultimatum that was joined in by--in July that' ; s how the Soviets entered the war. Did you have a hand in those final ultimatums? DEAN RUSK: No, we had gotten in effect no cooperation from Russia in the war against Japan until the last few days. For example, they would not let [James Harold] Doolittle' ; s planes land in Russian airfields. They would not give us any facility for overflying Japan for intelligence purposes. They just weren' ; t cooperating at all, possibly because they simply did not want to get involved with Japan until well after the defeat of Hitler. But also I think they too possibly overestimated the strength of the Japanese forces in Manchuria. You see their own forces out there had to come along and be supplied by that very inadequate trans-Siberian Railway. So they might have had some real nervousness about what Japanese forces in Manchuria could do to them if they got into the war prematurely. SCHOENBAUM: Did you have some input on that Potsdam surrender ultimatum to Japan, the wording of that, or the policy, to issue the ultimatum. DEAN RUSK: Yes. We looked at that. I don' ; t recall the details, but we did. Of course there was a lot of planning related to the surrender of Japan which had to take place. And the actual surrender of Japan came sooner than we all thought it would occur. SCHOENBAUM: As a result of the bomb. DEAN RUSK: So we had some very intensive all night meetings to put together the terms of surrender for Japan, MacArthur' ; s General Order Number One, getting all the documents embossed to be signed on the Battleship Missouri, and straightening out all sorts of things. SCHOENBAUM: Your group prepared those documents basically, didn' ; t they? DEAN RUSK: Yeah, we had a lot to do with them. One thing that President Truman wanted, which we fully agreed, was to keep things as simple as possible ; not to get into all kinds of complicated issues. For example, we did not make any arrangement about what would happen to the Koreans who were living in Japan at the end of the war. We agreed that Korea should emerge as an independent nation as a result of World War II, but we did not address ourselves to the position of Korean nationals who were living in Japan, what would happen to them. Well, that' ; s just one small sign that we were trying to keep things just as simple as possible, not try to complicate them with a lot of things. RICHARD RUSK: Incidentally, Pop, when MacArthur personally landed his plane in Tokyo, I believe it was, and accepted the Japanese surrender, I know he formally accepted on behalf of the United States the Japanese surrender on the Battleship Missouri. But didn' ; t he himself land in a plane, a civilian transport plane, at an airstrip that was guarded by Japanese troops at a time when it was very uncertain what the Japanese reaction would be? Do you recall that? DEAN RUSK: Yes, that took some courage on MacArthur' ; s part because that was the first test we had as to the character of the Japanese and their response to the surrender situation. But he boldly went in there on the assumption that things were going to be all right and indeed he was proved correct on that. END OF SIDE 1 BEGINNING OF SIDE 2 RICHARD RUSK: Did anyone in your group advice MacArthur that that type of thing could have been suicidal? DEAN RUSK: I don' ; t recall that we advised him one way or the other about when and under what circumstances he would himself go into Japan. RICHARD RUSK: When did you know that the Second World War had been won? DEAN RUSK: I think not really until the surrender itself came. Because, you see the Japanese had fought with such tenacity and fanaticism throughout the war that we still had to keep in mind the possibility that there would not only be a very bloody and costly invasion of Japan itself, but that the Japanese forces on the mainland in China, Manchuria, might fight with the same fanaticism, in which case the war could be prolonged for quite a while even after the defeat of Japan and the main home islands. RICHARD RUSK: In general terms, when did you know that the Americans and the Allies were going to win World War II? Not the actual moment of surrender. DEAN RUSK: I had no real doubt about that myself--maybe it was the overconfidence of youth--from the very beginning when I was in G-2 back in 1941-42. We had a group of colonels in G-2 who had taken a tour at the Potsdam War Academy in Hitler' ; s Germany. And they, by and large, thought that Hitler was invincible ; that he could not be defeated. We used to call them the Potsdam Club. But we younger officers simply did not agree with that. And we resisted that kind of--I remember on one occasion some of these people in G-2 sent a word over to President Roosevelt that Russia would be knocked out of the war in the course of the next six or eight weeks--things like that. So there was the impact of those who simply felt that Hitler' ; s armies were invincible. Now when they got their tails beat in Russia, their influence waned rapidly. SCHOENBAUM: It' ; s interesting and we' ; ve talked about this before, but when you were in SWINK working for Abe Lincoln, right up to the day the bomb was dropped, you' ; ve said before you didn' ; t know about that, and your group was apparently working on invasion-plans assumptions and occupation assumptions as if the Manhattan project did not exist. DEAN RUSK: That' ; s right. We were busily engaged in planning for the invasion of Japan. And it was clear to us that any invasion of the main islands of Japan could be a very costly. To begin with, millions of Japanese would have lost their lives because we would not have gone in without a sustained period of saturation bombing of Japan and its flimsy cities. We killed more people in one fire bomb raid on Tokyo than we did at Hiroshima. Then estimates of American casualties going into Japan ranged from four or five hundred thousand all the way up to MacArthur' ; s figure of a million, which was his estimate as to how many American casualties would be involved. We were looking toward a very bloody end of the war if that had become possible. SCHOENBAUM: Apparently, right near your group, in Abe Lincoln' ; s group there were some rumors of the Manhattan project. In fact, the official account says that General [John E.] Hull [sic] told one officer to quit trying to find out what the Manhattan project was. DEAN RUSK: Well I think General Hull knew about it. He was the head of the Operations Division as a whole, with its several elements. And I have no doubt that he knew about the Manhattan project. SCHOENBAUM: But apparently others knew below him and he, in fact, told one officer under him to stop: " ; Stop your questions. Don' ; t try to find out about that!" ; Do you remember anything about that? DEAN RUSK: Well, you know, yeah. This term Manhattan project itself sort of got out here and there, but any indication of curiosity about what this was immediately squelched. SCHOENBAUM: Is that right? DEAN RUSK: Yeah. SCHOENBAUM: So you had heard the term " ; Manhattan project?" ; DEAN RUSK: I had heard the phrase, but I didn' ; t know anything about it and my section was not involved in-- SCHOENBAUM: Were you at all curious? DEAN RUSK: Oh, well sure one is curious about that. We also learned to keep your mouth shut and respect the need-to-know attitude. SCHOENBAUM: I understand. What was your planning with respect to Germany during that time, that summer of ' ; 45? That was a lively--what did you do with respect to that theatre? DEAN RUSK: Well we did a good deal of work on the four-power occupation of Germany and the troubles we were having with the Russians, but one of the major questions we ran into was the simple business of finding food for the people of Germany. There was a very severe worldwide food shortage at the end of World War II and here we were with all these millions of Germans as a direct responsibility of ours. And we had a responsibility to feed them and we set up a special task force to scurry around to find food and it was not easy. SCHOENBAUM: Where did you go for food? To international relief organizations or U.S. government? DEAN RUSK: I don' ; t remember exactly. No, chiefly an American problem. Because you see some of our own food production had dropped off when we put so many men into uniform. But we did a good deal of scrimping and scratching and managed somehow to put it together. SCHOENBAUM: Were there problems? That was, of course, even before Winston Churchill' ; s Fulton Missouri speech which occurred in early 1946. But that summer of ' ; 45 you knew that there were wrangles with the Russians-- DEAN RUSK: Oh, yes, indeed-- SCHOENBAUM: Over Germany? DEAN RUSK: Before Franklin Roosevelt died he had come to realize that we were going to have major problems with the Soviets at the end of the war and in the immediate postwar period. And Averell Harriman also was among those who was fully aware of the difficulties we were headed for. Although many who were strong supporters of the United Nations thought that a new era had arrived and that the great powers were going to cooperate with each other, there were many who doubted very much that we would get that kind of cooperation with Joseph Stalin. SCHOENBAUM: And did you have something to do, then, with the setting up of the four zones and the occupation of Germany? DEAN RUSK: No that had come before I got back to the Operations Division. That was while I was still in India. SCHOENBAUM: But you had something to do with Berlin at that point. DEAN RUSK: Well the actual four-power arrangements for the occupation of Germany and the four zones in Berlin were things that we wrestled with and we gradually had to recognize the fact that the Russians simply were not going to be easy partners in these four-power arrangements for Germany and we could not get the four-power machinery to work very well in Germany. And that contributed a lot to our determination not to let the Russians have a zone of occupation in Japan. SCHOENBAUM: I see. But you got the best deal you could, you felt, in the Germany situation at that time? DEAN RUSK: Well one thing in retrospect that was absolutely a mistake: During the war we had some negotiations in London--Ambassador [John G.] Winant was the American negotiator--about where the various forces would be at the time of the defeat of Germany. Our own forces had marched deeply into Silesia, Thuringia, and places like that. But in these negotiations in Germany, in London, we agreed, I think prematurely, as to the zones of occupation in Germany. As far as Berlin was concerned we made the mistake of not requiring a land corridor fully under our control leading to Berlin. Ambassador Winant in London apparently decided--and this idea was put to him--that he just did not want to irritate the Russians and didn' ; t ask for a land corridor because that would reflect some mistrust to the Russians or something. But anyhow, these arrangements were concluded in London and the result was that we had to pull back our forces from a considerable part of what is now East Germany to comply with those agreements that had been reached, I think, prematurely about where the various armies would be at the end of the war. SCHOENBAUM: Did you feel there was anything at all that could be done about that? DEAN RUSK: Not really. Not really. SCHOENBAUM: So you had to accept that and work under-- DEAN RUSK: Yeah. And in effect we withdrew from these areas in East Germany and in exchange got for it, if you like, the position of West Berlin and the so- called access rights that leads [sic] to it. SCHOENBAUM: Were you involved in the access rights negotiation or advice? DEAN RUSK: No. No, that happened before I got back to OPD. SCHOENBAUM: Now between September second and February of ' ; 46 you went over to the State Department. What was primary after the Japanese surrender? What was on the agenda primarily those six months or so? DEAN RUSK: When I was demobilized from the Army, I think in February of ' ; 46, I went over to the State Department to become Assistant Division Chief of the Division of International Security Affairs under the office of Special Political Affairs, as it was then called. Joseph [Esrey] Johnson, who later became head of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was head of that division and I had been working with those fellows a good deal when I was in the Pentagon backstopping John J. McCloy in SWINK, so I got to know them pretty well. I was very much interested in the United Nations and they were preoccupied with getting the United Nations off to its start. So I went over there for several months to the State Department and the head of that office at that time was Alger Hiss. Then after a few months I was invited to come back across the Potomac to the Pentagon to become a special assistant to Secretary of War, Robert [P.] Patterson and I spent several months there working on the same subjects: the United Nations, the occupation problems, dealing with the Far Eastern Commission, and things of that sort. SCHOENBAUM: And you first worked on the United Nations, though, when you were working for SWINK in the summer of ' ; 45. DEAN RUSK: Only in the most general way because those plans were well along and indeed before I was ordered back to OPD, the San Francisco conference to complete the United Nations Charter was in session. They were in session in San Francisco when I was on leave across the bay in Oakland. But there were a good many United Nations questions which directly affected the military. For example, the arrangements under Chapter VII for United Nations forces and things of that sort ; the organization of a military staff committee under the U.N. Security Council ; and questions of trusteeship. For example, we accepted the idea that the islands in the Pacific that we had taken from Japan would be under a United Nations trusteeship, but we were very determined that we would maintain control over those islands from a military point of view. And indeed at that time we were relatively comfortable with the idea that the United States should control every wave of the Pacific Ocean. So we arranged what is called a strategic trusteeship for these Pacific islands. Under a strategic trusteeship the agreement of the trust power is worked out between the trust power and the U.N. Security Council, not with the U.N. General Assembly. And in the U.N. Security Council we had a veto and so we did include a trust agreement with regard to these Pacific Islands under the heading of a Strategic Trusteeship. We had complete control and we could veto any effort in the Security Council to change that control. So that worked out, from our point of view, reasonably successfully. SCHOENBAUM: You worked that out in ' ; 45 still, while you were mobilized? DEAN RUSK: Yeah. SCHOENBAUM: I wanted to ask, going back to Stilwell--I don' ; t think we have on tape your first meeting with Stilwell. Wasn' ; t that in San Francisco? DEAN RUSK: I never asked you about it, because I hoped you had forgotten the first encounter I had with him. We were at a summer reserve training camp, reserve officers training camp, and General Stilwell was our direct commander at that time, out of San Francisco. He came down to pay us a visit at the end of our tour of training and we had dinner for him. I was named to be the master of ceremonies of that dinner. Well the program committee had put together a program and in effect handed me the program maybe an hour before the dinner. Well, included on the program was a striptease gal. (laughter) I was sitting next to General Stilwell and had to introduce this striptease dancer. (laughter) That created a very sour impression on General Stilwell. SCHOENBAUM: Really? DEAN RUSK: I' ; m not sure whether he remembered that later. I hope he didn' ; t. SCHOENBAUM: That was before you went to G-2? DEAN RUSK: That was before I was called to active duty. SCHOENBAUM: Before you were called to active duty. You were still at Mills? DEAN RUSK: Summer training camp. RICHARD RUSK: He didn' ; t think that was all that funny? DEAN RUSK: But this stripteaser was quite a stripper and quite a teaser. So that was my first meeting with Stilwell. But anyhow, then early ' ; 43 I was taken out of G-2 to join a group of people who would get a very intensive preparation for overseas duty. I had asked for overseas duty. SCHOENBAUM: Oh you asked for it? DEAN RUSK: Yeah. And I was put in a group that was sent out to Fort Leavenworth for a ninety-day period of very special training and apparently I had done well at that so they put me on a list of, oh, ten or twenty officers who were available, if you like, for some kind of special assignment overseas. And Stilwell came back to Washington for consultation in ' ; 43. He was looking for a couple of staff people and apparently he looked over the list and picked me out as one that he would like to go with him out to-- SCHOENBAUM: He didn' ; t interview you beforehand? DEAN RUSK: Nope. But I saw him immediately as soon as my orders were issued. Then, as a matter of fact, I flew back to India with him. SCHOENBAUM: Via London, and that' ; s where the--We have that on tape. We don' ; t need to spend time on the CBI. But one question: What was your reaction--Stilwell was relieved in October of ' ; 44. Did you see that coming? Specifically, I was reading [Theodore H.] Teddy White' ; s book and apparently Stilwell, sitting in Chungking, very depressed, in October of ' ; 44 unburdened his soul to Teddy White, according to Teddy White. And he said to Teddy White, " ; You look at all the ' ; eyes only' ; cables. I know I am violating Amy regulations, but I want you to know what' ; s happening." ; And he unburdened his soul and told Teddy White how that [sic] we are headed for trouble and that Chiang [Kai-shek] was--did he really call Chiang ' ; peanut' ; ? Called him Peanut! That Peanut was worthless and he apparently wanted to do more toward making a move to cooperate with Mao Tse-tung. Did he ever unburden himself to you like that? DEAN RUSK: Well I was fully aware of these problems and so he didn' ; t have to do a lot of unburdening as far as I was concerned. Indeed I was drafting a lot of his cables back to Washington on these issues. But Stilwell ran into increasing opposition from [Me-ling Soong] Madame Chiang Kai-shek, General [Claire Lee] Chennault, and General Chennault' ; s aide, a lieutenant called Joseph Alsop. They were actively conspiring in Washington against Joseph Stilwell. And Chiang Kai-shek, of course, was fully behind Madam Chiang Kai-shek in such things. RICHARD RUSK: Were you aware of that Washington conspiracy? DEAN RUSK: I knew about it. I have no doubt myself that when John [Stewart] Service of the State Department was sent back to Washington that he was instructed by General Stilwell to get Stilwell' ; s story out to the press. Well when John Service got back, he unfortunately chose Amerasia, a publication that was under some suspicion at that time, as one of his channels. But had General Stilwell lived and been able to be present to testify in John Service' ; s boards, considering his loyalty and security situation, I have no doubt that John Service would have been cleared. But I am sure that General Stilwell himself asked John Service to get some of these things out to the press as a sort of backfire to what General Chennault, Joe Alsop, and Madame Chiang Kai-shek were doing with the press. SCHOENBAUM: Do you remember the moment you heard that Stilwell was relieved, was fired basically? DEAN RUSK: I don' ; t remember the incident, but that broke the China-Burma-India theatre up into two theatres. The China theatre was put under General [Albert C,] Wedemeyer, and the India-Burma theatre, as far as American troops were concerned, was put under General [Daniel I.] Sultan, General Dan Sultan. So I worked very closely with General Dan Sultan after the split of the theatre. SCHOENBAUM: Were you there when Abe Lincoln came around in February of ' ; 45? Made his worldwide tour and he stopped in Delhi with Sultan? DEAN RUSK: Yes. SCHOENBAUM: You were involved in those talks? DEAN RUSK: I was there. Yes. SCHOENBAUM: What happened then? DEAN RUSK: Well I forget really. SCHOENBAUM: Just a briefing. DEAN RUSK: You see, this China-Burma-India was, in effect, the last priority theatre. Well that' ; s proved by the fact that they allowed a young college professor like me to be Chief of War Plans for the theatre. That shows what a low priority the theatre was. And so they were the last in line to get resources, personnel, things of that sort. So we had to struggle with that. SCHOENBAUM: In planning, did you plan his--At one point didn' ; t he have some plans to go to open attack on the Japanese and drive to Canton? Were you actively involved in planning operations in China? DEAN RUSK: Well we were trying to build up in China itself a force comparable to the Chinese force that was in Burma. The Chinese force in Burma had been assembled, trained, well fed, well lead, well-armed, and they gave a very good account of themselves in the return to Burma, particularly from the North. Well we were trying to build up a similar force across the Yangtze River in China. That depended a good deal on the amount of supply we could move into China. Well General Chennault wanted almost all of the air tonnage that we could get into China to go to his air force. And this suited Chiang Kai-shek very well because that meant that he would not have to do much about committing his Chinese forces. Well Stilwell pointed out to Chennault and to Washington that if Chennault did, in fact, build up his capacity to use air in China ; the Japanese would simply come and take his airfields away. SCHOENBAUM: Which they did. DEAN RUSK: Which they did. So this was involved in the long standing feud between Stilwell and one of his own subordinates, General Chennault. General Chennault used his back channels to Washington to take this feud back to Washington. General Marshall always loyally supported Joseph Stilwell. SCHOENBAUM: Do you share the historical " ; what ifs" ; of Barbara Tuchman and Teddy White that if Stilwell had prevailed in the CBI over Chennault that he would have made friends with Mao Tse-tung and we would have all lived happily ever after? DEAN RUSK: Oh, I have great misgivings about that. After all, Mao Tse-tung was not going to turn himself into a loyal ally or puppet of the United States. Indeed, our chief interest in Mao Tse-tung at that time was that we were interested in encouraging anybody who was willing to shoot at the Japanese. So we sent missions up there and we sent some supplies of different kinds, just as we did with Ho Chi Minh down in Indochina during that period. We were trying to get any and everybody to fight the Japanese who would be willing to. SCHOENBAUM: Did you personally--I knew you personally authorized the supplies to Ho Chi Minh. Did you personally authorize the supplies to Mao and his forces too? DEAN RUSK: Yeah, but they were rather limited. They were rather limited because of the limitations on the tonnage we could move across the hump. Also Chiang Kai-shek would not cooperate in sending anything whatever up to Mao Tse-tung. SCHOENBAUM: But you did try to get some to-- DEAN RUSK: We tried to get a little-- SCHOENBAUM: To Mao? DEAN RUSK: Token feed up there to them. RICHARD RUSK: Was it Stilwell who authorized these things or did you, in his absence while he was out in the field authorize these shipments? DEAN RUSK: Well you can' ; t draw that distinction. I was on his staff and these things came across my desk. Whatever was done there, I' ; m sure I saw and authorized. SCHOENBAUM: As Chief of War Plans, it sounds like it was mainly a not so much military planning as such: " ; Here' ; s the objective." ; It was more [that] a lot of logistics went into it. RICHARD RUSK: A lot of politics. DEAN RUSK: Well, as Chief of War Plans out there, ray job was about fifty percent military and fifty percent political. I had to deal with our relations with the British high command there in Delhi and they were very resistant toward major active operations against the Japanese and that whole theatre. I had to work out Stilwell' ; s relations with Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was Southeast Asia Commander for all that theatre except China. And we had to give a lot of thought to our relations with the Indian nationalists. And we had some real frictions with the British on what is called psychological warfare because President Roosevelt had made a major effort to get Churchill' ; s agreement that India would come out of the war as an independent nation and Churchill wouldn' ; t buy it. Roosevelt sent some special missions out to India during the war to encourage that idea. On the American side we wanted to do everything we could to make it clear to the Indians that we were out there for the sole purpose of fighting the Japanese ; that we were not connected in any way with the return of British power to India. And of course that created some frictions between our psychological warfare or propaganda programs and the British programs. Indeed I was one of three or four people who invented the shoulder patch for the China-Burma-India theatre. That was a shoulder patch which reflected the sun of China, the star of India, and the red and white stripes for the United States. Every American in uniform in the entire theatre wore that same shoulder patch to identify us as something separate from the British. The British didn' ; t like that particularly. On one occasion a British division was put under General Stilwell' ; s command up in north Burma and the commander of that division asked for the privilege of wearing the CBI shoulder patch. We had to say no. So I had a lot of those political issues to deal with. I think I' ; ve already put on tape my experience with the Indian nationalists with regard to marrying their daughters and slaughtering their cows. SCHOENBAUM: Yeah. We' ; ve got that. DEAN RUSK: You' ; ve got that. SCHOENBAUM: Did you meet [Mohandas Karamchand] Gandhi again? DEAN RUSK: No, I never met him except at that evening at Oxford that I already talked about. You see he was in prison when I was in the China-Burraa-India theatre. SCHOENBAUM: Well, I think we' ; re about at the end of another tape. Thank-you very much. DEAN RUSK: In retrospect, I want to express ray admiration for those fellows in the Operations Division of the War Department General Staff in the summer of ' ; 45. I mentioned Bonesteel and McCormack. Bonesteel later became a Four-Star General and McCormack became a Two or Three-Star General and was a very vital part of the Atomic Energy Commission and the development of our nuclear strength at the end of the war. Sidney [Francis] Griffin was another colonel there who later became a Two or Three-Star General and was a Deputy Commandant of the Air War College. It was a very talented group. We had a lot of fun working on fascinating problems and I think were able to make some positive contribution to the state of affairs. SCHOENBAUM: Did you, among yourselves, divide the world up a little bit? DEAN RUSK: No. SCHOENBAUM: How did you decide who would work on what memos? DEAN RUSK: We were a group of maybe-- SCHOENBAUM: Just six people? DEAN RUSK: About six people in my little section of the Operations Division, headed by Tick Bonesteel, an old friend, and we reported to George Lincoln, Abe Lincoln, who was the head of a somewhat larger group. And he, in turn, reported to General Hull, who was head of Operations Division as a whole. SCHOENBAUM: And the process was that somebody would get an assignment to write a memo and then you' ; d discuss it, a draft memo, with all of the other six? DEAN RUSK: With all of the others and then do whatever redrafting seemed to be indicated. But we had to work fast and we were tuned to working fast. We didn' ; t just let papers lie on our desks for days or weeks on end ; when there was something to do we did it. SCHOENBAUM: Those were think-piece type memoranda that you had to do? DEAN RUSK: Yeah. SCHOENBAUM: And action type memoranda of a couple of pages each? DEAN RUSK: Yeah. Sometimes a little longer. But even then, you see, you knew that anything that went up to General Marshall had to be on one page. [break in recording] DEAN RUSK: They might not be able to because they usually-- RICHARD RUSK: We have that. DEAN RUSK: Okay, well, we' ; ll let that go. SCHOENBAUM: Thanks a lot. I appreciate this. I' ; m sorry to bother you about that we' ; ve been over this, but it' ; s a tremendous amount of material. DEAN RUSK: No problem. SCHOENBAUM: Very interesting. DEAN RUSK: Well, I was very fortunate during the war. There were some incidents where my chances at the time were fifty-fifty. Put together enough of those incidences, I felt that I used up all ray luck in World War II and have been living on borrowed time ever since. But it [sic] was a lot of fascinating problems to deal with. END OF SIDE 2 Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL214DROH-RuskGGGG.xml RBRL214DROH-RuskGGGG.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL214DROH/findingaid
Duration
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64 minutes
Repository
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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RUSK GGGG, Dean Rusk interviewed by Richard Rusk and Thomas Schoenbaum circa 1985
Identifier
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RBRL214DROH-RuskGGGG
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Dean Rusk
Richard Rusk
Thomas Schoenbaum
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audio
oral histories
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sound
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United States
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Subject
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World War, 1939-1945
United States--Armed Forces
United States. Army--Officers
Military intelligence
Cold War
Date
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ca. 1985
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
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Griffin African American Oral History Project
Subject
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Georgia--History, Local
African Americans--History
Georgia--Communities
Description
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The Griffin African American Oral History Project is a collaboration between the Griffin Branch NAACP, the Griffin Campus Library of the University of Georgia, and the Richard B. Russell Library. The seed was planted in the meetings of the Educational Prosperity Initiative which is also chaired by the president of the Griffin Branch NAACP, Jewel Walker-Harps. Collaborators on the project include: Griffin Housing Authority; Spalding County Collaborative; Fairmont Alumni Association; University of Georgia—Athens and Griffin campuses; and the Educational Prosperity Initiative, which is an affiliate of the Spalding County Collaborative and others. Interviewers on the project include: John Cruickshank, librarian at UGA-Griffin Campus Library; Jewel Walker-Harps, President of the Griffin, GA Branch of the NAACP; Art Cain, coordinator of Continuing Education for UGA-Griffin; Be-Atrice Cunningham, project manager for College of Agricultural and Environmental Science for Griffin; and Ellen Bauske, senior public service associate at the Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture in Griffin. Rich Braman was the sound engineer for this project. <br />The Griffin African American Oral History Project intends to document the experiences of people who lived in Fairmont Community in Griffin, Georgia during the civil rights era and through its transformation to the present day.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
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2015-2018
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Oral histories
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RBRL418GAA
Coverage
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Griffin, Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object Text
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5.4
Interview with Curtis Jones, June 27, 2017
RBRL418GAA-016
RBRL418GAA
Griffin African American Oral History Project
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia
Curtis Jones
Art Cain
Jewel Walker-Harps
Ellen Bauske
Rich Braman
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Kaltura
audio
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47
Mandatory and voluntary integration
I am Curtis Jones, superintendent of the Bibb County School System...
Jones talks about how his parents' careers affected his upbringing. Jones recalls his experience in being one of the first black students to integrate into Sacred Heart Elementary. Jones relates his transition to Junior High School and talks about some of the friends he had growing up. Jones details the process of mandatory integration and his first days attending the newly integrated Griffin High School.
Bibb County Public School District;Griffin High School;mandatory integration;Sacred Heart Elementary School;Spaulding Junior High School
511
Griffin High School experience
So I will tell you what my thoughts are...
Jones describes the differences between voluntary and mandatory integration, and his experience with both. Jones recalls how his mother helped him with the transition to attending a white school. Jones mentions how his experience at Griffin High School had an impact on his future career. Jones talks about his decision to run for president of the student body at his school, and how he built a following among the students for his campaign.
Fairmount High School;Griffin High School;Griffin-Spaulding County;mandatory integration;Sacred Heart Elementary;Virginia Ball;voluntary integration
957
Football and the Army
Athletics did that, and when...
Jones talks about how his experience on Griffin High School's football team assisted him in gathering support for his student presidential campaign and also influenced his decision to go into the Army. Jones recalls how he came to attend West Point Military Academy. Jones mentions his friends in high school and how they impacted his high school experience.
Air Force;Griffin High School;military;United States Military Academy West Point
1329
Integrating Griffin High School / Returning to Griffin
Now, I'll tell you when there was competition...
Jones recalls how the consolidation of the Griffin and Fairmount High School football teams spurred competition, as players from the historically black and white schools initially viewed each other as rivals. Jones talks about returning to Griffin, Georgia after graduating from West Point Military Academy and how he came to lead the ROTC branch at Griffin High School. Jones mentions how he became the first black principle of Griffin High.
competition;Fairmount High School;Griffin High School;integration;Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC)
1772
Becoming the Superintendent of the Griffin School System
So when I joined the staff in '97...
Jones relates how he rose from the position of ROTC leader to the position of principal of Griffin High School in 2005 to finally the position of Griffin Spalding Superintendent. Jones shares how he was received by the white staff at Griffin High School. Jones adds how his experience attending Griffin High School eased his experience of transitioning into the role as principal.
Griffin High School;Walter Pyron;William Walker
2169
Administration issues
And the principal who was going...
Jones talks about how opening Spalding High School proved to be a contentious subject for the employees of Griffin High School. Jones relates an experience he had with an angry mother who felt threatened by the majority African American administration of Griffin High School. Jones mentions how he dealt with a problem among staff concerning dress code.
Griffin High School;Spalding High School;Todd McGee;Walter Pyron
2601
Experience in the Army / Integration and merging
So, in the military, I was an...
Jones talks about his twenty year career in the military. Jones explains the process of merging the staff of Fairmount and Griffin High School. Jones emphasizes how creating separate schools for grades 6-8 assisted with the distribution of staff after mandatory integration. Jones shares how this integration method was also applied for the sports teams of Griffin High School.
Albany State, Georgia;Fairmount High School;Fort Benning, Georgia;Fort Leavenworth;Germany;Griffin High School
3080
Family and career experiences
Mom and Dad came from Texas...
Jones talks about his upbringing and recalls his experiences visiting his grandparents. Jones talks about his family's history and his father's career in the army. Jones shares how his parents upheld their beliefs in the Civil Rights movement in their decision to allow him to integrate to Spalding Middle School. Jones relates some of the decisions he had to make as superintendent of the Griffin school system.
Kiwanis Club of Griffin;Sacred Heart Elementary School;Texas;Trinity CME Church;University of Georgia
3569
Concluding thoughts
Here's a story about Dr. Bradley...
Jones recalls some of the interactions he had with Dr. Bradley, while trying to become the principal of Griffin High School. Jones shares how, despite his lack of formal education in the way of administration, he managed to make improvements in the Griffin school system.
Dr. Bradley;education;Griffin, Georgia
Oral history
rbrl418gaa-016_jones ART CAIN:Okay, it is June 27th, about two o'clock, in 2017, and we're here in the conference room for the Center for Urban Agriculture. We're here with Colonel Jones, who is the former superintendent of -- should say Curtis Jones, who's the former superintendent of Griffin Spalding County schools and currently superintendent of schools in Macon, Georgia. My name is Art Cain. I'm here at the University of Georgia in the Office of Continuing Education. CURTIS JONES:Hi. I'm Curtis Jones, superintendent of the Bibb County school system. I'm also a resident of Griffin Spalding County, and I am a former superintendent here for six years. JEWEL WALKER-HARPS:Jewel Walker-Harps, president of the Griffin branch NAACP, and cosponsor of the African American Oral History Project. ELLEN BAUSKE:I'm Ellen Bauske. I'm with the UGA Center for Urban Agriculture. RICHIE BRAMAN:I'm Richie Braman. And I'm also with the UGA Center for Urban Agriculture. CAIN:Okay, I'll start. Curtis, I have considered you a literal icon here in Griffin. You've had many distinguished accomplishments over your career, being the first African American principal at Griffin High School, first African American superintendent of schools here in Griffin. Prior to that a distinguished career in our military. And now currently superintendent of Bibb County schools. And what we want you to do is just kind of reflect back and tell us how you got -- how you were able to be able to set yourself up to have such accomplishments as you've had over the course of your career. JONES:I appreciate that. Truthfully it's not about me, it's about a lot of folks. And I'll tell you it begins with my mom and my dad. Mom was a teacher here in Griffin Spalding. She taught at -- as far as I can remember the first school was Annie Shockley Elementary. And I'll tell you, being a child of a teacher at the school can be hard, right, Richie? We were able to get in trouble, and whenever I got in trouble in second grade, they said, "Boy, I'm going to tell your mama." I learned to get straight. I will tell you that my dad was a minister here at Trinity CME Church. And because of that it created a foundation. After going through an experience at Anne Street and being in segregated schools for grades one through four, voluntary segregation -- integration occurred, and I was allowed to go to Sacred Heart Elementary School. And while at Sacred Heart I learned a lot of different skills. I remember my brother, my sister, and I were usually the minorities in our class, and it was the first time you had to wear a uniform. At that time it was a white shirt, navy blue pants, and black or brown shoes. As you've already mentioned though, I learned to wear a uniform for 20 years after that, when I joined the army. That became though part of the experience that my parents put us through, because while I stayed at Sacred Heart for two years, what I found was that when it was time to go to seventh grade, I had to make a decision. Was I going to go to what was called Spalding Junior High or go to Kelsey? One was a majority black school, one was majority white. We currently at that time lived in Barnesville, and we commuted back and forth every day. And so like most kids I just turned to the people who were in my class and said, "Where are you going?" And the majority of them said Spalding Junior High. So I went too. I think at that age it was trying to be, you know, know who your friends are and go. I also will tell you though that I think part of it started with my parents allowing me to play football when I was in sixth grade. Eleven years old, never played organized sports, but I will tell you that I still remember this, but at the end of that first season I got the most valuable player award. (laughs) And I still remember what it looks like. But it was different, because I truthfully had more fun practicing than playing the football games. Practice, you know who your friends are, you're competing with them, you talk to them about what you're doing. After that I went to junior high, and that was a very unique experience. And I will tell you it was unique in several ways. There was one individual named Wayne K. who was -- I'd known when I was in first grade. And then Wayne and I separated. We came back together in seventh. And Wayne was in advanced classes and I was in regular classes. But we were both able to compete. Later on Wayne went on to Howard University and became a lawyer. Another person I met when I was there was Randal. Randal came from Pike County but Randal also went on and became a state legislator. And -- WALKER-HARPS:Randal Mangham? JONES:Yeah. Randal Mangham. And so he and I became friends at that point. It was interesting when we went through that. But learning football and learning who people were and creating relationships I think was key for me at that point, because it was interesting, but during that time of voluntary integration, I remember in eighth grade I ran for student body president. And I was riding home in the car with my mom one day. She said, "Boy, you ran for president of that school?" (laughs) And I said, "How did you know?" And she said, "I know. You going to win?" I said, "Mom, I don't know." Turned out I came in second. But it was surprising to Mom that, you know, we even came that close at all. And she also thought it was funny because -- I'll say this to you, Jewel -- I ran. Randal ran. Wayne ran. A girl named Michelle R. ran as well. A bunch of us ran. We were just kids going to school. And then I think, Art, what happened for me also though was I went to Griffin High. And Griffin High, when now you had mandatory integration of schools, and that for me was in the tenth grade. And what I remember distinctly about that summer is this. At the time the integration of schools was based on the seventy-thirty percentage. Seventy percent black, 30 percent -- no, 70 percent white, 30 percent black. And there was a guy who I knew, Danny Wayne. Danny Wayne was the copresident of that class. And Danny Wayne was another student who was with me at Annie Shockley. He was two years ahead. He was a person I looked up to. I said, "Like man, I want to grow up and be like Danny." So I come back after all these years and I see him for the very first time and he's copresident. And Danny is writing on the blackboard. And he puts twelfth grade seven white three -- seven Griffin High three Fairmont. And then he -- eleventh grade, seven, three. He got to tenth grade. And he wrote six parentheses one, three. And I remember sitting there looking at that and saying, "What?" And a friend of mine, Tony Head, who I played with later, said, "Curtis, why are you looking at that like that?" I said, "Why'd he put six, one in parentheses?" He says, "Because it's seven white but you came from Spalding. They voted you in so they're trying to figure out how to count you." (laughs) And I felt like holy cow. And so Danny then went over -- yes, sir. CAIN:I just -- JONES:Am I talking too much? CAIN:Can you tell us a little bit (inaudible) continue but I just wanted you to tell us a little bit about that distinction between voluntary integration and mandatory I guess. JONES:Okay. So I will tell you what my thoughts are. Mom was a teacher. And I remember when I was going to Annie Shockley, which was an all-black school -- now it's called Anne Street -- Mom was a teacher there. And I think teachers were required to send their children to public schools. Was -- that was my impression. But that year Mom said, "Curtis, you don't have to go to Anne Street any -- to Annie Shockley anymore, we want to put you in Sacred Heart. And -- but it's voluntary. You don't have to go." That was what she said. And I said, "Is anybody else going?" And I said, "I don't know." And so that whole idea of voluntary was you were able then to go to a white school if you were black or a black school if you were white. But you volunteered to do that. And really it kicked in for me when -- between that Spalding Junior High and Fairmont. Because I didn't know at the time there were two different middle schools. I just didn't. I just stayed in my class or stayed in my lane. And so when we got there it was probably -- if it was seventy-thirty when I got to high school, it must have been ninety-ten (laughs) when I was in junior high. But I will tell you, the people who were there wanted to be there. And we kind of band together a little bit. But it was interesting. When I got to tenth grade there was no longer that option. And I'll be honest with you. My experience now tells me that Griffin Spalding did it well. They decided to have one school where all seventh graders went, one school for all eighth graders, one school for all ninth graders. And then one high school for grades 10, 11, and 12. That didn't happen all over the South but it happened here in Griffin Spalding. And I remember my mom telling me -- she came back from a board meeting and she said, "You know," and she named the principal, he was the principal up at Beaverbrook. And he just said, "You know, we've been dragging our feet on this for about 15 years, they just told us it's time to do it, so we're going to do it." CAIN:So it was that transition from that voluntary period until -- JONES:To mandatory. CAIN:-- full. Yeah. JONES:Full integration. WALKER-HARPS:The law insisted that you do it when it became mandatory. When we consider prior to then when we -- teachers and students transferred that it was voluntary. But I never did because I went -- and I didn't volunteer, I went because -- JONES:(laughs) You were told. WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible). JONES:Well, you know, the thing that was interesting is my mom was told that same year that I went to Sacred Heart. She ended up being assigned to Beaverbrook and I remember she was scared. And it's interesting when you're a child and you see your mom worried about that. Didn't know about the north side of Griffin or Spalding County and she ended up going there for that one year. And I remember hearing, heard Mom and Dad just talking about it. But she went. And my impression was -- now this is where I may get in trouble -- the black schools picked who they thought were some of the very best teachers that would go, that would not embarrass them. And then later my impression was that some of the white teachers who went to the black schools may not have been the very best but they were some -- the ones with the best attitudes about I can go and I can make a difference. And that ended up being key. Part of what made it work for me though was Mom. Mom went to Beaverbrook. Later she went to Jackson Road with a principal, Gladys Harden. Stayed there for about 20 years I think. WALKER-HARPS:At least. JONES:Became a part of that family. And was special. But I think that experience in Griffin High worked for me. When you talk about being the first black principal or the first black ROTC, I will tell you it started for me back in high school. In high school when I was in eleventh grade I ran for student body president. Truthfully it was I think having white friends and black friends, playing football, being somewhat, you know, known. And that same guy who was with me who said, "Curtis, they're trying to figure out what to do with you," that was Tony. He got elected vice president. I got elected president. And after that my mom came to me and said, "I'm just surprised. I never thought that would happen at this point in time." But I also remember a Ms. Ball. Ms. Ball was the counselor at the school. WALKER-HARPS:Virginia Ball. JONES:Virginia Ball. I wasn't sure how much names I could use. I can use them? WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible). JONES:Okay. Virginia Ball. Had been my second grade teacher when she was Ms. Hodo at Annie Shockley. Then when I was getting ready to go to fifth grade she'd gotten married, became Ms. Ball, was going to be my fifth grade teacher. Well, I get to high school, and there she is the counselor. And I remember Ms. Ball saying, "Curtis, you're fortunate, you're going to be president of the student body. But you need to work something out. What's going to happen when you leave? We always need to have some kind of representation. And so I think you ought to do something like the president is black, the vice president is white, or vice versa. But they need to do that." I said, "Ms. Ball, how can I do anything about that?" She says, "You're the president of the student body, the first one that we've had, just talk to the principal." And so I did. I went and talked to Coach Gray and I just shared that idea with him and he said, "Curtis, why would we do that?" And my response was, "You run for president of the United States, you're on the ticket, let them run on tickets. And doesn't have to be mandatory but if things are like they are I think people are going to see diversity as a good thing." I was surprised but when I came back to Griffin after 20 years in the military, people running for student body council at Griffin High were running on tickets. One black, one white. And that's who was winning. Not mandatory. But people were still electing that way. That was surprising to me. CAIN:Just to back up a little bit about your run for president, student body president at the time. Was that -- how did you -- because you were kind of in two worlds. How did you cultivate the kind of relationships in both worlds that allowed you -- allowed for you to get that kind of vote from your student body colleagues? JONES:I think in a lot of ways it was athletics. When I played football I started off in the city league. And back in that day elementary schools had their own football teams. And so we played and I learned who the players were, they learned who I was. That second year they stopped having school teams but they just had rec teams and you signed up. But truthfully the athletes knew each other. And that group of us in that particular year, we were pretty special, I'll be honest. We got together in eighth grade. So and that just became the nucleus I would say. But that group of us, we stayed together. We were undefeated in eighth. Undefeated in ninth. About four of us made the varsity as sophomores. And then when we became seniors our team went nine, one, and one, won the region championship, beat R. E. Lee for the first time in recent history and people were happy. And I just think it was just a special group that came together. Randy Pass was on the team, ended up playing for the New York Giants, went to Georgia Tech on a scholarship. Tony Head ended up going to Georgia Tech, doing very well. Terry Willis, who was -- went to Fort Valley. David Wolfoff, who became a city policeman here, went to Fort Valley on a scholarship. Setter Jun, Keith Tubble. I mean we were just -- we were pretty good. But I think athletics did that. And when I got to West Point what I learned was that it's on those fields when you're struggling with something that is unique -- not unique, but common to everybody. You form a friendship. And I think that happened for us at that time. We were special. I'll tell you now. It was scary. I remember my sophomore year when we were playing one of the very first games. Might have been like the third game of the season. It was a home game and there was this guy who was walking on this guy's yard and he got killed. Shot, because he was trespassing. After that they changed all our games to day games. We started playing on Saturdays. Coach Dowis, who was our head football coach, Johnny Goodrum, who was an assistant coach, made a difference though. That next year they took us up to summer training camp and they said, "Look, forget what's happening there. This is about us and what we're going to do." And that training experience for us just bonded us in a way that you can't imagine. You ever seen the movie Remember the Titans? CAIN:Mm-hmm. JONES:It was just like that experience where we went up and went to camp and we came back. And we were just unique. So anyway I think living in both worlds worked for me. It made it easier for me to then decide to go to West Point. That was probably life-changing for me in more ways than I realized. Now I'll tell you, I only did one year of ROTC in high school. Didn't want to be in the military. (laughs) No. Didn't want to wear a uniform. But West Point was unique. And when my dad found out about the opportunity for me to go, because Congressman Jack Flynt gave me a nomination, he said, "Son, if that works for you that's the thing to do. I'm trying to save money for you to go to college. But if you do this it'll help us out a whole lot." And that by itself was unique. Just, you know, sometimes it just turns out how things happen. I was in a French class. Mr. Russell was my French teacher. And Mr. Russell said to me -- he was absent one day -- and he said, "Curtis, what did you say with that substitute teacher who was in here?" And I said, "Sir, I didn't say anything. (laughs) I didn't do anything. I'm sorry." He says, "No no no, it's good." And he was out again and she came back. Turned out later I found out she was really a vocational teacher that they had sent in. And -- but we were talking about race and issues like that. And she just came up to me one day and said, "What are you going to do when you graduate?" I said, "I think I want to fly airplanes, maybe be a pilot." And she said, "You think you can do that?" And I said, "I guess." So she said, "I got a person I want you to meet and I'm -- he's going to give you a call." That person was Jack Flynt. She had been his teacher. And so he called, asked me to come out to his house, he lived down there on Poplar Street. And he told me. He says, "Curtis, you impressed my former teacher. I still listen to her. She asked me to give you a nomination for West Point. I don't -- I mean for the Air Force Academy. I don't have any. But if you're willing to go to Military Academy I can get you one of those. And if that doesn't work out for you, I have a friend named John Conyers," a guy from I think Michigan, or Pennsylvania. CAIN:No, Detroit. JONES:Detroit, Michigan. "He can get you a nomination to the Air Force Academy if you like that." And I said, "Yes, sir." I'm thinking like man. That was how I ended up going. But West Point changed and it was all because of football and being willing to work with people. So a long answer to a short question. CAIN:Great answer. WALKER-HARPS:You talked about several young men who went to Spalding with you. Did you bond as a unit or was there rivalry among you? JONES:Well, Randal was on the football team and Randal Mangham is the one who became a state legislator and he and I ended up being -- we continued to be friends. With Wayne, Wayne and I had been -- Wayne came to Anne Street -- Annie Shockley -- for like two weeks. His mom was my first grade teacher. And he then left and went to Moore Elementary and attended school there until we got to junior high. There was no competition among us. Wayne was just smart. I was an athlete. And so I don't think we had any kind of competition among ourselves. What I learned is that there was safety. And so sometimes you see somebody in the hallway and they would just give you a look or a nod and you felt like it was okay. I remember though there was a -- in middle school, you know how you have bullies? There was this one family moved in. And they were fighting everybody. (laughs) They were fighting everybody. There was one black boy there who was, what's his name, James Leeks. James said, "Look, I'm not going to fight you." But these three brothers that moved in, they were Caldwells, they were going to fight everybody. And so they did. And we had a big fight in the gym between James and the middle Caldwell boy, first name was Joe. And it just happened. You know, but to be truthful, whenever that happens, teachers aren't around. (laughs) Principals aren't around. It just happens. And everybody knew that fight was going to happen. And when it was over, I remember the Caldwell boy looked at me and said, "All right, I'm going to fight you tomorrow." (laughs) I looked. And I said, "Why?" He says, "Because I'm going to be king of the hill." And I said, "Okay. You can be king of the hill." He says, "That's it? We're not going to fight?" And I said, "No." He threw his hands up in the air and said, "Yay, I'm the best." And for him that was a big deal. So that's what he wanted to do. But there was no competition for us. You know, we were just trying to make honor roll, trying to do well. And that's just -- that was what it was. But again when I played football I'll tell you this. Mom was driving a Simca, and practice would be after school. And I could see the car up on the hill every day just waiting to -- waiting for practice to be over so I can get my stinky behind in the car and ride 17 miles to get home. But there was no competition for that. Now I'll tell you when there was competition was when we integrated the schools in high school. That first year when we came together, you have to think about it this way. You had two football teams, one black, one white, one Fairmont, one Griffin High. And you had two returning quarterbacks, two returning centers. Everybody was a starter who was coming back. And the question became how's that going to work. Johnny Goodrum, who ended up being assistant coach, had been -- and Coach Hiram Whitaker had been the head football coach over there. They made him the assistant coach for Coach Dowis. Trying to pull staff together, trying to pull teams together. I mean that was hard. It was very hard. Because people thought they were going to start. For me it ended up being a little bit more difficult. And I'll tell you why. Those black boys who were at Fairmont, they didn't know me. This was just a little black boy who was over there playing with those white boys, who can't play. And they were going to show me they could play. And I tell you what. (laughs) We had drills. And they lit me up. Day after day after day. But eventually I think I won them over by just keep -- I just kept coming back and just kept trying to learn. And I'll say this. Coach Goodrum, who was the backs coach at the time, he was setting me up too. Curtis, go over there and run the ball. Oowee. But after that, turned out to be okay. Here's what else happened though, Art, that made things work for me. After going to West Point and coming back after 20 years, and I found out that Mom was sick, and she needed help transitioning from the hospital to come home, and for me it was a transitional period. I had three children. We wanted them to learn their grandparents. I came back to Griffin. And I went into a meeting with one of my friends down in Barnesville, Carl Ogletree. And Carl said, "Curtis, go find out about ROTC in Griffin. My wife is a teacher and she can find out if we can start one here in Lamar County. You go up to Griffin and find out how to do it." Well, I did. And in Griffin they told me, "It's a federal thing, you just can't start one. They're not starting any more. But our guy Colonel Imes is getting ready to retire. Why don't you come interview for that job?" And I said, "Like whoa, okay. I don't have a uniform." "You don't need a uniform, just come on up." This was like on a Tuesday. I got home, I got a phone call. "This is Colonel Imes. Is this Curtis Jones?" "Yes, sir." "I understand that you're interested in Junior ROTC." "Well, I really don't know a lot about Junior ROTC." "Well, I'm getting ready to retire. I've been here for 20 years." And I'll tell you that caused me pause. And I'll tell you why. When I was in high school at Griffin High ROTC started in 1966. Major Pelt came aboard in 1967. And then they had a couple other people that came on. But I'm talking about in '97 when I got back, Imes had been there for 20 of those 30 years. That's how long he had been at Griffin High. He was an institution. And he called me up, interviewed me, and said, "Look, I'm going to recommend you for the job." As I was getting ready to leave I saw this guy. And he was a black NCO. And he said, "Hey, sir, how you doing?" I said, "I'm fine, how are you?" And he said, "I'm good." He said, "You Curtis Jones?" And I said, "Yes, sir, I am." "One that played football at Griffin High, number 21?" "Yes, sir, I am." "One that used to play for the Saints back when you were in the sixth grade?" "Yes, sir, I am, how do you know that?" He said, "I used to be a recruiter back in Griffin, I saw you then. My name is Lee McRae. And you up here interviewing for this job?" I said, "Yes, sir, I am." He said, "I think you're going to get it because they're looking for somebody from Griffin to come on back and you're just a Griffin kind of guy." Because of Lee I think I helped get the job. Went in for an interview with the principal, who was Mike McLemore, was the incoming principal. And Larry White was the outgoing principal. They did a joint interview. McLemore said, "I'm going to recommend you for the position," so we started out together. And I'll just tell you that that just turned out to be a blessing for me with Lee McRae and how that turned out. But again I think it was part of having my being in both worlds because when I found out I was going to be recommended to be the principal -- this is four years later -- I needed some recommendations. And he was one of them. And so was Dr. McLemore. But I will tell you something that worked for me. Having done ROTC for four years at the school, and having done the interviews, I'll be honest, I was scared. I mean Griffin High was a big school. It was like 1,900 kids, one of the biggest in the state. And people used to come to Griffin to see what a school looks like. And this is from a guy who's been in the army for 20 years but didn't really know a whole lot about what to do. I'll tell you Mom said to me, "They going to make you the principal? What are they thinking about?" (laughs) I said, "Well, Mom." I said, "I don't know." And so what happened was I ended up interviewing, got the position. And during one of the very first meetings we had -- this is another thing that worked for me -- we went out on the football field to talk about what happens during a bomb threat. And when we were coming back in all the black staff peeled off to the right and went down the 600 -- down the 800 hallway into a room. And Doc Richard Beaton was walking in with me, and he said, "Where are all those folks going?" And Kay Moore, who was my secretary, about to be my secretary, said, "Oh, the black staff wants to meet with Dr. -- with Colonel Jones." And he said, "Well, I want to go." And she said, "No, you can't go, this is just for them." And he said, "Oh. Okay." Well, he said, "When you finish that you come talk to me." I said, "Doc, I'll come see you." So I went into the room. And they said to me, "Look, you're the first black principal for Griffin High School. We want you to be successful. We don't want you to do anything stupid. We're going to support you. We're going to do our very best. We ask that you do your very best as well." And I said, "Okay." And we kind of came to that common understanding. Never met like that again. Never had that conversation again. Until I was asked to speak at a black history program and I shared that story probably, I don't know, it may have been 16 years later. Where that group just said, "We're going to support you." And I can tell you I can remember occasions now that may not seem significant where they helped me. I'll give you one. I was asked to make morning announcements when I was the principal. And, you know, going through school, you learn phonics and how to speak, but there was this word that I said that was wrong. I would always say, "And this," how did I say it? I said, "And this Saurday I want you guys to come in and talk to us about how to do this." Or, "This Saurday we're going to do this." Jewel McCann was one of my English teachers. She came down and she said, "Look. If you're going to be principal of this school you're going to stop saying Saurday. It's Saturday." I said, "Yes, ma'am." That was the small kinds of things they did to help me out that, you know, in some ways will take away your credibility but in other ways -- and so she helped me with that. BAUSKE:I'm confused about ROTC and principal. JONES:Okay. BAUSKE:Can you talk about that (inaudible). JONES:What happened? BAUSKE:Yes. JONES:So when I joined the staff in '97 the principal made me the chairperson of the discipline committee for school improvement. The next year, he made me the -- a -- I guess I was the cochair a second time of that committee. Then my third year, he put me in charge of the school improvement. And that fourth year he retired. And so based on that and working on SAT improvement, the superintendent and others asked me if I'd apply for the position. And so I then moved from after four years of doing ROTC, I became the principal of the high school. And then after being principal of the high school for four years I was talking to Walter Powry, who was then the assistant superintendent. And I was saying, "Dr. Powry, you know, I've been doing this now for about four years, I'm trying to understand. Where am I going?" And he says, "Curtis, I'm probably going to retire in about two years and I think you're going to be taking my place." Turned out he retired that year, and I applied for that position and I got it as well. BAUSKE:And what year was it? JONES:That was 2005. So I was assistant super -- so ROTC for four years, high school principal for four years, and then I became the assistant superintendent for administrative services for four years. And then after that I applied to become the superintendent and I got that as well. That was another story too. I'll just give you the short part about help. I was a member of Trinity CME Church, that's where my dad had been a pastor. Johnny Goodrum was a member of that church as well as some other folks who were educators. And one day I was -- got a phone call from Johnny Goodrum, and he said, "Curtis, can you meet me down at the church?" And I said, "Yeah, coach, I can meet you down there." Told you he was my previous coach. He says, "There's some people want to meet you, they understand you're going to be -- you're applying to be superintendent and they just want to talk to you." "Okay." I told my wife about it and she said, "What are they going to do?" I said, "Dear, I don't know." So I went down to the church and inside the church there was William Matchett, Dr. -- was the principal at Moore -- WALKER-HARPS:Nesbith. JONES:Dr. William Nesbith. Johnny Goodrum. Mr. Walker. WALKER-HARPS:William Walker. JONES:William Walker. Were there. And Coach Goodrum. And Coach Goodrum introduced them all. Truthfully I'd never really met any of them before except Goodrum at the time. And kind of knew Matchett. And he just told me, said, "They want to talk to you because you're going to apply to be the superintendent." And it turned out they didn't -- I thought it was going to be an interview. It turned out them just telling me stories about what happened with them as they were administrators and going through and lessons that they learned. So I was there for about an hour and a half just listening to these wise guys tell me about what they had learned and some of their experiences. And then after that I told my wife about it and she said, "What'd they ask you?" And I told her they just talked to me. Later I found out though that that group had actually called the superintendent and some board members and they endorsed me for being superintendent. And Jesse Bradley, who at that time was the superintendent, said, "Curtis, I want to be honest with you. You got people on the north side of town and people on the south side of town. You got people on the north side of town, that's the black side, and they're supporting you. You got people on the south side of town," and they're supporting this other internal candidate who was there who turned out -- who was white. And he says, "But the advantage you have is you also got some people on the south side of town calling for you as well." He says, "I don't know if that's going to make a big difference or not but it means something to me." And I ended up getting the position. So that ended up being unique as well. And I'll be honest. As superintendent I fully felt supported by everybody. And I was worried there for a while, you know. Ms. Harps scared me for a while. She was president of the NAACP, I said, "Oh Lord, what is she going to call and ask me? What do I have to do? I'm trying to raise the graduation rate. Just give me some time." (laughs) WALKER-HARPS:You had advantage. Your mom and I were very very good friends. And your dad had been a good friend. JONES:And he was also friends with Calvin Hill, who was my ninth grade science teacher. Remember I told you when I was in first grade, when I was in elementary? I was in tenth grade biology class with some students. And I'll be honest. Biology was hard. And Mr. Hill was the teacher. And I remember one day we were getting ready to do some -- cut some frogs and that kind of stuff. And people were just acting silly. And so I started acting silly with them. He just grabbed me and took me aside, said, "Look, boy, I know your daddy, you keep that up, I'm going to call him." And I said, "You know my dad?" He said, "I know Curtis. And I know Roberta." And I said, "Ooh." (laughs) Didn't get out of line anymore after that. So for me I think that helped me out some so -- CAIN:Can I -- WALKER-HARPS:How well were you received by the white staff at Griffin High? Because that was their first experience having to receive orders from a black person? And particularly a black man. Were there challenges? JONES:Well, yes and no. So the first part of it is Mr. Johnston, who had been the French teacher when I was in high school, Jim, James Johnston, was one of the ones who wrote a letter of endorsement for me for going into the position. He had been Evelyn's teacher when we were in high school, and so he still remembered, he was one of the ones who I visited when I came back. Mark Fenezee had been my ninth grade science teacher, and so now Mark was the head of the counseling department. There was also Ms. Jackson, who was my ninth -- my tenth grade math teacher, who was there for that one year, who introduced me to Evelyn, who I -- became my girlfriend and my -- now my wife. And so I was not a total stranger to some. And so that helped when I first got there. And when I became the principal, because I'd been on the staff and had led the leadership, there -- most of them were willing to come on board. We had another issue that divided us more so than being a black principal, and that is that we were opening Spalding Junior High -- Spalding High School at that point in time. And the principal who was going to be for Spalding High was located in that building and was actively recruiting people. And at this point now I'm going to be the principal and he's telling people, "Come on over with us to Spalding High School because we're going to have a great school." And people are like, "Well, wait a minute, you saying we're not great?" And so -- and well, you're great, but you're going to stay here, we're going to go do this other thing. And it was like oh. And so it just divided the staff. And it started before we even had opened Spalding High. And so that was difficult because I'm now the person who's going to be the principal of the school. Todd is the -- yeah. Well, put his name -- was -- WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible) it's okay. JONES:Todd McGee was going to be the principal of Spalding High. And he pulled in one of our assistant principals who was out who was making this. That's what was hard. And then trying to figure out how do you divide a staff and keep things going. And wondering are you losing -- and who you're losing. It turned out later, what I realized is that a lot of the people who went to Spalding had come from Spalding Junior High and were ninth grade teachers and they had never really felt as if they were a full part of the staff at Griffin High anyway. And so they were able to go and create that environment, that school that they wanted to have. Now here's a story though that was hard. One day I was principal of the school, and I walked out of the main office into the hallway and I looked down. And classes were going on. And I saw this group of people come out of the building. And it was a mother, her child, assistant principal, teacher. And the mother said, "Look, I'm not going to talk to you anymore. I'm just going down. I'm going to see the principal." And the boy looked up and said, "Well, there's the principal right there." And she says, "I ain't going to talk to him, I'm going downtown." And so they left and went downtown. Wally Snell, who was my assistant principal, and Clint Middleton came, who was the teacher, came, told me what had happened. They said, "Son is not doing well, he's failing, we tried to tell them that. But, you know, they wanted to talk to you but we just said going downtown." So they did. Little while later I got a phone call from Walter Powry and Walter said, "Curtis, just had this parent come see me. And she's not happy. But I told her she got to follow chain of command, she's coming back to see you. But I'm going to tell you now race is a part of this issue." And I said, "Oh, okay." So I thought about it. She was white, her son was white. Clint Middleton was a black male. Wally Snell, the assistant principal, was a black male. I was the principal of the school, a black male. She got downtown and saw the assistant superintendent Walter Powry, a black male. (laughs) She came back in and saw me. What I did though was Jamie Cassidy, who was an assistant principal I had, was on campus, and I called Jamie in, who was white. We met, we had a great conversation. But the conversation started off with the student looking at me and saying, "Colonel Jones, just want to tell you, I don't really have a problem with Negroes. I mean I have a lot of friends who are." And I said, "No problem." And so that was -- we had situations like that, I guess, you know, but Cassidy was great, he helped that environment. And I'll tell you I learned something. People want to take care of their kids the very best they can. And they just want to believe that somebody understands. And what that parent was looking for was somebody who she thought understood. For her that was Cassidy. WALKER-HARPS:I would think that more so than race your military background and your procedure, your attitude would have had more effect than race. JONES:(laughs) WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible) after having come back from the military, and your sternness, and your being so adamant about what you believed. JONES:Well, that did get me in trouble. We were coming back from a meeting in Macon one day. And it was my first year. And my secretary called and said, "Colonel Jones, I have a petition from some teachers." "A petition?" "Yes." "What is it about?" "They don't think you're enforcing the dress code with students and so they're mad. And so they --" "How many people signed that?" "Oh, 25, 30." "Are you serious?" "Yes, sir." I said, "Tell you what. We're going to have a faculty meeting. We're on our way back now. I want everybody to meet me on the JROTC rifle range." "The rifle range?" I said, "The rifle range. I want you to take the chairs in the rifle range, I want you to divide them in half, I want them facing each other, one on one side of the room, one on the other. We'll be back in about 35 minutes." Got back to Griffin High School. Ms. Moore met me at the door and said, "They're all down on the rifle range." (laughs) I said, "Okay." Went down to the rifle range. My assistant principals were waiting for me. I walked in. I said, "Look, I see this petition. People say that they're upset about dress code. I am too but here's the problem. If you have a child for first period and the child is not in dress code, you didn't do anything about it, and that makes second period, third period, fourth period, and fifth period teachers all upset because they think everybody's breaking dress code just because you didn't enforce it. So right now in this room we got the people on this side who are the ones who signed this petition. And on this side is those who didn't. I will do whatever it is you want me to do, I work for you, so here's the deal. All of you who think we're not enforcing dress code, you need to talk to these on this side about what it is you need to do. And you-all finished having that conversation come get me and my assistant principals, we'll be waiting on you in the hallway. Just tell me how you want to do it." I turned around, I started walking out. And one of the teachers said, "Colonel Jones, can I ask you a question?" I said, "No. You need to ask them over there." We walked on out. About 5 minutes later, maybe 10 minutes later, Dr. Beaton came out and said, "We worked it out. We have a way. We're going to enforce the dress code now. We understand." And the other thing that we did though was at that point we were starting to record all of our faculty meetings because football coaches couldn't be there. And so later on I went back to look at the tape. And this one teacher I had said, "Turn off that camera, they're trying to turn us against each other." (laughs) So but so that sternness did get me in trouble. I still have teachers today who remind me of taking them down to the rifle range. But that was the way we tried to approach things. Just straightforwardly and dealt with it. Now if I had to do it over again I may take them to the cafeteria. But the rifle range (laughs) -- WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible). JONES:But I wanted them close. I didn't want them spread out. I needed them to be able to see each other and engage. WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible) called the rifle range. (laughs) JONES:It was called the rifle range. WALKER-HARPS:I thought you were going to say they were going to shoot (inaudible). JONES:(laughs) So that got us into a little bit of trouble. Dress code. But, you know, but we worked hard. We worked hard. BAUSKE:What'd you do in the military? JONES:So in the military I was an infantry officer for 20 years and -- BAUSKE:Start and finish? The dates? JONES:So -- okay. So I went to -- graduated from Griffin High in 1973. Started at West Point that summer for what's called Beast Barracks. Graduated four years later in 1977 and became an infantry officer. And just to tell you how much I am a Griffin boy, so Evelyn, who was still my girlfriend at that time, and was still a member of Trinity Church, my dad a pastor, we got married at Trinity, Dad did the marriage. My brother was my best man. Barbara, my sister-in-law was the maid of honor. Or Mycie was, the other sister. But it was in the infantry for 20 years. Was assigned to Fort Benning, Georgia for one tour of duty for three, assigned to Albany State College for three to teach Senior ROTC. Was assigned to Hinesville, Georgia where I did -- was an infantry officer. And then I also did one year at Fort Leavenworth as a just school, Command and General Staff College. And did a total of six years in Germany. Three of those as an infantry officer, our very first assignment, and then three years as a comptroller. Very unique experience for me. I was a new army major, was going to Heidelberg, Germany, I was a comptroller. And I found out that the budget I was responsible for was $1.1 billion. (laughs) And there's my first assignment. The army just threw you in there and said, "Figure it out." Later on I also had my last tour of duty in the Pentagon. So I retired in '97. But I was a comptroller there for the Joint Chiefs of Staff for fighting counter drugs and that budget was like $1.3 billion. So at least then I had some experience. So that was what I did but -- while I was in. CAIN:Can I back you up one more time? JONES:Sure. CAIN:Okay, you said when -- that when mandatory integration hit -- JONES:Okay. CAIN:-- and you had the two football teams come together that there was obviously a quarterback from one team was competing for -- from both teams were competing for one spot. If I take that and ask about integration between the two schools, Fairmont and say Griffin High, okay, or merging almost two districts together, you have that same kind of scenario, I would think, where you would have to decide who was going to be the English teacher at Griffin High, and you've got an English teacher at Fairmont and English teacher at Griffin High. You had that same kind of scenario as you merged those two entities together. Do you know anything about how that was dealt with? And whether there was fairness, the idea of fairness, in trying to do that merger? That had to be a little bit of a challenge. JONES:I don't have a great deal of knowledge about that. But here's what my initial thoughts are. Remember I said that we had one school that was for seventh, one school for eighth, one school for ninth, and then one school for 10, 11, 12? If you had the approximate correct class size you probably needed all the teachers you had, you just had to decide who was going to teach what. And so I don't think it was a -- I don't remember hearing any issues being discussed about somebody not being able to get that particular position. I mean you're -- almost always you were looking for some teachers who would come. And I remember even when I was there we had turnovers of black teachers and white teachers. So it wasn't quite the same in that regard because on the football team you only have 11 starters. Here it could expand based on the number of teachers to accommodate what you, you know, what you need to have. CAIN:Enrollments (inaudible). JONES:Yeah. I think it expanded. Made it easier to accommodate. What was hard was I think when you -- who was going to be the principal, who was going to be the assistant principal, who was going to be the head coach, and that kind of thing. And I do remember thinking that you had a football coach at Fairmont who became an assistant. And the new coach who was in charge had his own system that was different. And I'll tell you though. That quarterback situation was hard. Randy Jones had been a student that I knew at Sacred Heart who was now the quarterback. Eleventh -- he started as a -- I think he started as a sophomore and as a junior. Now he's coming back for senior year. And then you had Greg Wellmaker who started as a sophomore and as a junior at Fairmont who was coming back. And they were different. And the offense the coach wanted to put in. Because he was new too. It was only his second year. Was hard for them to figure out. And so you had to -- they had to figure out how they were going to make it work. I'll tell you though, my senior year, that whole idea though about -- I'm just going to say skill takes over. It was interesting. Our starting quarterback that first year when we got there was a guy named Charles Buckaloo. He broke his leg in the first game. The backup quarterback was David Sprine, who broke his leg in the third game. So now we're down to our third-string quarterback who was a guy named Willie Jordan who was a black kid who was a sophomore. Willie was a better athlete than both those guys. And Willie could throw the ball at least 45 yards on the fly. Came in, started as a sophomore, continued to start as a junior, and finished as a senior. Went on to Tennessee and played football. And so but people were just about winning. And I'll tell you. Football pulled this community together back then better than anything you can imagine. And I take pride in the fact that we were part of that group that started that whole process of just making it work. But it was, you know, kind of like making sausages. Didn't look good when it first started. You had to have the right people there to do it. WALKER-HARPS:Were you a part of the group that decided what the team would be called (inaudible) Bears or whatever and the colors or whatever? Were you a part of that group? JONES:I was not a part of that group, that was -- Danny Wayne was the president. And what they did was they pulled together a group of students from Fairmont and a group of students from Griffin High and those students had to come together, what those ideas were going to be. Now I think suggestions were made to them, but it's -- truthfully it was pretty much an equal compromise. If you remember, it was the Griffin High Eagles and the Fairmont Bears. And so they decided to make it the Griffin High Bears. Fairmont's colors were blue and white. Griffin High's were green and white. And so we ended up becoming the green and gold because Fairmont also had a gold color. And so it was just a compromise. Now some people said, "Why does a black school got to get the mascot? Why can't we be the Fairmont whatever?" But for the players when we got those new uniforms -- and I'll be honest, they gave us a bus. It was painted green and gold. And they started feeding us pregame meals. (laughs) Hey, we were doing fine. And we thought we were going to be pretty good, and we were, we were. All righty. Anything else? Have I talked about what you wanted me to talk about? CAIN:You've covered a whole lot and it's been -- I guess I could ask one more question, and it gets -- this goes back to early years. I know you're going to have to run here. Grandparents' influence. Influence from grandparents, great-grandparents on you, on the family. JONES:Okay. Mom and Dad came from Texas. And Dad was a minister as I said. Initially lived in Pike County. He got his church at Trinity, which is still here, where I currently attend. And so I didn't really know a lot about grandparents. I can remember the first time that Mom would take us back to Texas and spend time with our grandparents on her side of the family. I now know it was because she was working on her master's. And she was going to University of Georgia. And so she had to find something to do with us, because during the summers when Dad was having his church, either vacation Bible school was going on or it was revival. And so had to figure something out. So we would go stay with my mom's mom. And truthfully that's when I learned my cousins and my uncles, and that's when I learned a lot about them. And then later we would go visit my dad's family. And so that was a support. But what I came to realize is that on both sides of the family they had been down as sharecroppers. They moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area which is what we then recognized. And then the idea though was that -- that I came to recognize is my mom went to college. My dad went to college because of the G.I. Bill. Learned to cut hair. He was a barber. And then he had been in the field artillery. My dad's brother was a career army man, a sergeant. And I remember him talking to me about running a basic camp. And I had a picture. It was him and all these trainees and he was the only black person in that picture. And he said, "Curtis, in the army is the only place where I can tell white people what to do." I was teaching Junior ROTC at Griffin High and Sergeant Major Lang, who was one of my instructors, told me about a time when he was working with one of his cadets the year before I got there. Cadet did something and Sergeant Major Lang was in charge of rifle team. And Sergeant Major Lang had told him he couldn't stay on the team. Was kicking him off. He said the boy got up and said, "You know, there'd have been time back there when my uncle just would have hung you up for that." He said, "Like okay, well, your uncle ain't here so it's time for you to go." (laughs) Interesting times. So but Mom went to college, Dad went to college. But I also recognized as I thought back on that Mom at some time drove up to Jonesboro to get to work on her degree after school, and they had to make sacrifices. And so when Mom asked us to go to Sacred Heart and then said, "You need to go to Spalding," it was really them putting their values about the importance of integration with their own children to what it is they believed. When the March on Washington happened Mom and Dad didn't get to go in '63, but when it happened that second time around they went, because they wanted to be a part of that process. And so I think in some ways I recognized that and kept up with it. But it wasn't like they, you know, they talked about it all the time. It's just who we were and what we did. I didn't tell you, but we grew up on Railroad Street down in Barnesville. And it's just a way of keeping humble and knowing where you came from and what you're doing. WALKER-HARPS:What challenge or challenges did you face when you first -- from the community when you first became superintendent? Because the schools are usually the focal point of the community and of particular interest to businesspeople. JONES:Yeah. WALKER-HARPS:And special challenges or just in general (inaudible). JONES:Well, for the most part it was good. Jesse Bradley, who had been superintendent kind of set me up by when it was time for him to have -- he had a seat on the chamber of commerce, in the Rotary. He put me in Kiwanis. We built a -- we started working on this idea of -- it wasn't the College & Career Academy. It was a different idea. Oh, I know, it was UGA was working with the school system to try to approach this poverty issue. And so with Archways. And so Dr. Bradley put me on that. So that put me in good stead to create relationships. I remember he said, "Curtis, I need for you to join Kiwanis. And we'll pay for your membership." It's like oh, okay. And he -- in order to be fair he then went out to the other people in the senior cabinet and offered them the same opportunity. But I eventually became president of the Kiwanis club here in Griffin. And one of the members was about 90 years old, had been a former I think county commissioner -- county manager. And he was getting married and -- at 90. And he invited me to his house for a party that was going on. Turned out his granddaughter had been one of my students when I was the principal at Griffin High School, and I went over. And Evelyn went with me and at this point now I've been named to be the superintendent. And he came up to me while we were at his house with this celebration and he said, "Curtis I'm just going to tell you now. Never had a president that looked like you before but I'm going to support you." And it was like okay. And I told that to Evelyn. And things I think were okay. I was a member of the chamber, and so they were pretty supportive of me. Bonnie Pfrogner was a -- was I would say a supporter. And so if there was resistance I think it was this. If it turned out I'd done something that they didn't approve of, then I'm not sure that leash was too long for me that was out there. And so they may have been willing to pull back. I'm trying to think. Do I really want to tell you this? WALKER-HARPS:Sure. CAIN:(inaudible). JONES:So at one point when I was superintendent it was time for me to name an assistant superintendent and I had a couple people came to me and said, "Curtis, you have support on both sides of town, north and south. But I don't think this town is ready for two blacks to be superintendent and assistant superintendent. So before you make a recommendation you need to think about what your choice is going to be." That was a reminder to me that things had not progressed as much as we -- as -- maybe as much as I'd thought they had. That was different. But I don't remember. Fundraising kept going as strong as it had been. Anna Burns was on my staff. She was very good. Worked very hard. And in fact it increased. She worked very hard to increase the number of partnerships we had. I was able to name a number of people to be principals of schools. And I didn't -- I only got pushback on one, my very first one. But overall I think Griffin -- I think because of the background and even though I didn't live in Griffin, I think most people thought I did. And I think most people just saw me as a Griffin person from -- for, you know, forever. And so I don't think it was a lot. I cannot say I had any issues. Dick Brooks, who was at First National Bank, was very supportive as well. So I think it went pretty well. WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible). CAIN:(inaudible) Jerry Arkin was supportive too. JONES:Dr. Arkin was very supportive. CAIN:Very supportive. JONES:In fact I didn't know how to use him enough. (laughs) And so were you. To be quite truthful, Art. WALKER-HARPS:Much of that probably, would you agree, came about because of the personality and the people person that Jesse Bradley was and his willingness to take you on and take you in (inaudible). JONES:I would agree with that. I will tell -- here's a story about Dr. Bradley. When I was interviewing to become principal he -- it was just a one-on-one interview. And he said to me, "What kind of principal you want to be? Just a general." And I said, "Dr. Bradley, I just want to be a good principal. I don't want to be a black principal. I want to be a principal who happens to be black that does a good job." And he talked for the next 20 minutes about wanting to be a good superintendent. Not a white superintendent, but a superintendent who happened to be white. We bonded from that moment on. And it was -- I don't know if something was going on with him at that point in time but I will tell you that I do know that some board members ran initially to get rid of Dr. Bradley when he first got there. But all I ever saw him trying to do was what he thought was right. He made hard decisions. Some weren't always popular but he worked hard. WALKER-HARPS:Yeah. I had an issue with him when he first came. But then we became very good friends, very supportive of me and I liked him a lot. And I see him occasionally now. But (inaudible) Curtis. JONES:(laughs) Well, that's because you're not -- people weren't sure what the agenda is that people get hired with or what it is they're trying to accomplish. And if you don't have great communication then people will fill the gaps. But I'll tell you. He was very supportive of me. He even was the very first person through Mike McLemore who asked me if I wanted to become an assistant principal. I went home, told that to Evelyn. She said, "You only been in this for two years, you going to be an assistant principal?" (laughs) Said, "No." And then he encouraged me to go to a conference to learn about how to improve SAT scores. I came back, I briefed them on the plan. We implemented the plan. And I do believe that was another key reason for why they decided to go ahead and let me apply to be principal of the high school. And then I mean truthfully, if I -- as I look back on it, it was that, then assistant superintendent, and then putting me in places so I could develop relationships. So Dr. Bradley I think just wanted to do the best. And truthfully he will tell you he only came here for four years -- for three years. They hired him to come in to clean things up. And then he just stayed. He was good. WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible) you came to the system with little education background (inaudible). JONES:Correct, I'd been in the army for 20 years, and -- but what I think was happening -- well, you got to understand now. Dr. Bradley came from the prison system. WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible). JONES:(laughs) And so the idea is that you're looking for leaders. WALKER-HARPS:Clean things up is (inaudible) about. Yeah (inaudible) system. BAUSKE:(inaudible) army. JONES:Well, and I did have somebody come back and tell me when my time was up to leave Griffin, they said, "Okay, we've had Bradley and now we've had you. Now we need a real educator." I said, "Okay." I thought we did pretty good. We made some improvements while I was here, and I'm very proud of the time and the people that worked with me. But -- and I'll be honest. James Westbury, who was the board president when I left, said, "Curtis, we trained you well. Now you're leaving us." And I had to apologize for that. But I'll be quite honest, they did train me well, gave me a lot of opportunities. And I feel very fortunate. I feel very fortunate to have been in Griffin too. And I say that. Very proud of what's happened the 18 years that I was here. For me it's the American dream to be quite truthful, 20 years in the army, and now 20 years in education. WALKER-HARPS:Well, we're proud of you. America is. I am. I'm not always agreeing, but we manage to coexist. So but we are proud and thankful. Your contribution that you made to this community. JONES:Well, appreciate it. WALKER-HARPS:Wish you well. And there's no point in wishing you well in Macon because you're already doing so well that we -- JONES:Well -- WALKER-HARPS:-- just need to commend you on how well you have been received and the progress that you've been able to make. JONES:We appreciate it. But again I'm really proud of the work that we did here in Griffin. And the people who were principals, assistant principals. And, you know, and I'll be remiss if I didn't say something about my wife who was a -- truthfully an inspiration. I used to go home and say, "Evelyn, what is this stuff? Evelyn, what is this?" She was a teacher at Anne Street for a little while. Then she moved to Jordan Hill only for a couple weeks. Went on over to Orrs. Then became a gifted one teacher here in the system. And then an assistant principal at Anne Street again. Became the principal at Anne Street. And now she's at Orrs. But she's the true educator. Evelyn has worked in Department of Defense schools, Fairfax County, she just solves so much. And has been able to contribute so much. And truthfully if I ever was successful in any ways while I was here, a large part of that would be because when I was about to do something Evelyn would say, "What are you doing?" (laughs) And I would explain some of it and she'd say, "Well, all right, now, you know what you're doing." And just gave me reason to think. So I have to thank her as well. WALKER-HARPS:Evelyn was always destined to be an educator. When she -- eighth grade, and my student, you could see the potential of that girl. JONES:Well, I truly admit that she's not as smart as I am. Well, she's not. I married her. (laughs) WALKER-HARPS:Oh, okay, I think that's (inaudible) that is a wrap-up. So again we say thank you for taking time and the interest to come and share with us on this project. JONES:Thank you. WALKER-HARPS:Appreciate it. JONES:I appreciate it. CAIN:(inaudible). JONES:Thank you, sir. I didn't recognize you, sir. END OF AUDIO FILE
Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule.
audio
purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Griffin, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
66 minutes
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA-016/ohms
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Curtis Jones, June 27, 2017
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL418GAA-016
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Curtis Jones
Art Cain
Jewel Walker-Harps
Ellen Bauske
Rich Braman
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-27
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Griffin, Georgia
Subject
The topic of the resource
Discrimination
School integration
Military education
United States--Veterans
African American veterans
United States. Army--Officers
Education
Description
An account of the resource
Curtis Jones grew up in Griffin, Georgia during segregation. As a child, he was one of the first students to integrate into Sacred Heart Elementary and later was one of the first to integrate into Griffin High School. Jones attended West Point Military Academy before he served in the army as an infantry officer, a position he held for 20 years. After retiring from the army, Jones became the first African American superintendent of the Griffin School system. In this interview, Jones talks about his school experience, military and educational career, and he discusses integration and discrimination.
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
UGA Student Veterans Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
College-student veterans
Armed Forces
United States--Veterans
University and colleges--University of Georgia
Description
An account of the resource
The UGA Student Veterans Oral History Project is comprised of oral history interviews with University of Georgia student veterans, who represent service across the different branches of the United States military. Participants discuss their decision to enroll in service, their experience in basic training and in their respective departments, as well their experiences as non-traditional students.<br /><br />Please note that i<span>nterviews have varying levels of access. Some interviews are available online, while others are only available through the Russell Library Reading Room.<br /><br />Interview SVOH-012 has been permanently removed at narrator's request.<br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=6&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a><br /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-ongoing
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL423SVOH
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.3 Interview with Guyton Lee Robinson, August 4, 2017 RBRL423SVOH-013 RBRL423SVOH UGA Student Veterans Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Guyton Lee Robinson Kate Dahlstrand oral history 0 Kaltura audio < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_028tan7y& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_c5i5g13x" ; width=" ; 304" ; height=" ; 231" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 25 Motivations for joining the military / Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) Why did you join the military? Robinson describes his motivations for joining the military including a family history of military service and inspiration from the novel < ; /i> ; The Long Grey Line< ; /i> ; by Rick Atkinson. He talks about how this novel sparked his interest in West Point. He discusses his hometown of Thomasville, Georgia and the expectations the public had of his service before 9/11. He also describes his MOS (military occupational specialty) as an aviation officer. Boeing AH-64 Apache ; Commanding Officer ; South Korea ; West Point 17 336 Deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan So you've brought up some time in Iraq, tell me some dates of your deployment. How many times have you deployed? Robinson describes his three deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. He discusses the responsibilities of a Platoon leaders and Company Commanders. He describes the differences in each deployment including operation tempo, regulations, and intensity. 101st Airborne ; Fort Hood ; Germany ; Kandahar ; South Korea 17 1045 Public misconceptions of the military / Pursuing PhD at UGA There are a lot of public misperceptions about the military. Is there one specific misperception that you hear that you would like to explain to future generations? Robinson describes the misconception of resource mismanagement in the Army, such as fiscal irresponsibility. He also discusses teaching American Politics at West Point, and receiving his Masters in Public Management. Robinson talks about the events that led him to becoming a PhD candidate at the University of Georgia. Boeing AH-64 Apache ; Lieutenant Colonel ; School of Advanced Military Studies Strategic Planning and Policy Program 17 1431 Attending the University of Georgia So what's it been like? You went from being an instructor at West Point, and a commander, to being on a huge SEC campus, what's it like to be a student? Robinson describes being a PhD candidate at the University of Georgia while still being on active duty including, his promotion to Battalion Commander at The Arch. He also discusses his military career aspirations after finishing his doctorate, and potentially returning to civilian life. education policy ; PhD program 17 1760 Valor and leadership in the line of duty / The Distinguished Flying Cross So before I hit record, you told me that there was something specific you'd like to talk about. Robinson recalls first hearing the news of the deaths of two of his company commanders whose helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan. Robinson discusses nominating the soldiers for the Distinguished Flying Cross: the first aviators to receive the award since the Vietnam War. Baghdad ; Distinguished Flying Cross ; Golden Knights ; Medal of Honor ; Warrant Officer 17 2348 Final thoughts One last question, for the historian reviewing this interview one hundred years from now--do you have any final thoughts to help inform the lessons you've learned from your military experience? Robinson describes the unpredictability of war, particularly when in close combat. He also discusses the attributes of a good leader. Company Command 17 Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. audio 0 http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL423SVOH/findingaid
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL423SVOH-013/ohms
Location
The location of the interview
Athens, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
42 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Guyton Lee Robinson, August 4, 2017
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL423SVOH-013
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Guyton Lee Robinson
Kate Dahlstrand
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
United States. Army--Officers
United States. Army--Soldiers
Iraq War, 2003-2011
Military education
Operation Enduring Freedom, 2001-
Description
An account of the resource
Guyton Lee Robinson has served as an Aviation Officer in the United States Army since May 2000. Throughout his interview, he recalls his deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and the responsibilities of an officer. He also describes attending West Point, Cornell, and then the University of Georgia to receive his PhD in Public Management.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-04
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
UGA Student Veterans Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
College-student veterans
Armed Forces
United States--Veterans
University and colleges--University of Georgia
Description
An account of the resource
The UGA Student Veterans Oral History Project is comprised of oral history interviews with University of Georgia student veterans, who represent service across the different branches of the United States military. Participants discuss their decision to enroll in service, their experience in basic training and in their respective departments, as well their experiences as non-traditional students.<br /><br />Please note that i<span>nterviews have varying levels of access. Some interviews are available online, while others are only available through the Russell Library Reading Room.<br /><br />Interview SVOH-012 has been permanently removed at narrator's request.<br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=6&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a><br /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-ongoing
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL423SVOH
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.3 Interview with Hunter Holder, September 26, 2017 RBRL423SVOH-020 RBRL423SVOH UGA Student Veterans Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Hunter Holder Kate Dahlstrand oral history 0 Kaltura audio < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_4w2pqblu& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_81vfhtaj" ; width=" ; 304" ; height=" ; 231" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 26 Motivations for joining the military Is this going to be a life-long thing? Or are you planning on getting out after your contract is over? Holder discusses his motivations for joining the military, including paying off student loan debt and the instability of the job market during the 2008 recession. Auburn University ; Chief Warrant Officer 17 144 MOS (military occupational specialty) / Warrant Officer Training School Tell me about your role in the military. Holder describes his MOS (military occupational specialty) as a medical evacuation helicopter pilot. He also discusses the intense training he experienced and the difficulties he had sleeping during his time at Warrant Officer Training School. flight training ; Fort Rucker 17 790 Deployment to Iraq What was your major at Auburn? Was it something that had anything to do with flying helicopters? Holder describes his expectations of flight school and his deployment to Iraq. He discusses his daily activities while deployed, and the difficulties of finding a regular sleep schedule as a pilot. Architecture ; Camp Taji 17 1402 Transferring to the University of Georgia So, how did you get to UGA? Holder discusses transferring from the University of North Georgia to the University of Georgia. He describes changing his major from architecture to business management. Auburn University ; Winder, Georgia 17 1594 Military versus university learning environments So you have been in a classroom on both sides of a military experience, do you notice a difference at all? Holder contrasts the independent nature of student life with the group mentality of the military. He notes the time and monetary investment the military commits to creating a successful solider and compares this to the self-reliant atmosphere at a large university. accounting ; weather and geology 17 1946 Transference of military discipline to academics Do you think, since your first three years were at Auburn and you had no military experience and now you're here--did the military change your perspective on being a student? Holder discusses how the military taught him self-motivation, and to take his academics seriously, noting the positive impact on his grades. Holder talks about revealing his National Guard status to students and professors. discipline ; intrinsic motivation ; study habits 17 2158 Military Educational Benefits / Public misconceptions of the military So tell me, you said that when you were coming out here you called Ted [Barco -- Director of the Student Veterans Resource Center]. How did you find the Student Veteran Resource Center? How did you meet Ted? Holder describes the differences in pay between National Guard and active duty service members. He talks about how the National Guard GI Bill provides less benefits and support compared to active duty. He discusses how his appreciation for a military lifestyle has grown, including how he thrives in a structured environment and his access to many educational opportunities. Holder also addresses the negative stereotype of service members being uneducated and unintelligent. benefits ; income ; perceptions 17 2431 Student Veterans Resource Center / Final thoughts How often do you--do you visit the Student Veteran Resource Center on a regular basis? Holder describes his interactions with the Student Veterans Resource Center, including participating in community events and social life. He also discusses various options for his future plans, such as going on active duty or working for an airline. Holder shares his final thoughts and advises others to seriously consider military service as a career option. Student Veteran Association 17 Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. audio 0 http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL423SVOH/findingaid
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL423SVOH-020/ohms
Location
The location of the interview
Athens, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
44 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Hunter Holder, September 26, 2017
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL423SVOH-020
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hunter Holder
Kate Dahlstrand
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
United States--National Guard
United States. Army--Officers
Iraq War, 2003-2011
Description
An account of the resource
Hunter Holder has served as a Chief Warrant Officer in the Army National Guard since February 2011. Holder describes his occupation as a medical evacuation helicopter pilot, the extensive training he underwent at Warrant Officer Training School, and his deployment to Iraq. He talks about deciding to attend the University of Georgia, the educational benefits the military provides, and public misperceptions of the military.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
UGA Student Veterans Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
College-student veterans
Armed Forces
United States--Veterans
University and colleges--University of Georgia
Description
An account of the resource
The UGA Student Veterans Oral History Project is comprised of oral history interviews with University of Georgia student veterans, who represent service across the different branches of the United States military. Participants discuss their decision to enroll in service, their experience in basic training and in their respective departments, as well their experiences as non-traditional students.<br /><br />Please note that i<span>nterviews have varying levels of access. Some interviews are available online, while others are only available through the Russell Library Reading Room.<br /><br />Interview SVOH-012 has been permanently removed at narrator's request.<br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=6&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a><br /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-ongoing
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL423SVOH
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.4 Interview with Philip Choi, September 19, 2019 RBRL423SVOH-076 RBRL423SVOH UGA Student Veterans Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Philip Choi Thomas McShea 0 Kaltura audio < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_3lfgajxu& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true& ; & ; wid=1_3vdr2huv" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; sandbox=" ; allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; 11 Deciding to Join the Army Um, if you can go ahead and, um, giver your name... Philip Young Choi discusses his current rank as Captain in the United States Army, in which he has served active duty and reserve since 2012. He was born in Los Angeles, but grew up in Costa Rica before moving to back to the United States in 1996. He describes his own personal experience of 9/11 when he was in seventh grade and how it helped him arrive at the decision to join the Army. Atlanta, Ga ; George Walker Bush ; Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport ; Los Angeles, CA ; September 11 attacks 296 Military and Education Okay, so, uh, so you decided to join the Army... Choi explains how he went about joining the Army by applying for ROTC Scholarships. He attended Clemson University, majoring in Health Science with a Health Services Administration concentration and a minor in Business and Military Leadership. He notes that he already had a basic foundation of military knowledge from his grandparents. He also discusses how ROTC helped him mature, although it was difficult to balance with his other responsibilities. Korean War ; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ; University of Texas ; Vanderbilt University 529 Work After College So after college, what did it look like for you... Choi discusses the impacts of the recession towards the end of the recovery period in 2012. Despite high unemployment rates, Choi began working as an account executive for corporate Home Depot and enlisted into the Army Reserve. He had drilled with 518th Sustainment Brigade out of North Carolina for two years before he served active duty as 2nd Lieutenant. Atlanta, Georgia ; Raleigh, North Carolina ; The Great Recession 778 Progressing Through the Army What, what branch were you in? Choi served as an army staff shop role in Adjutant Generals Corps (AG), although he always desired to go into Civil Affairs. He discusses the required route through Human Resources to get into Public or Civil Affairs and the meaning of number assignments to Army fields. He also mentions his learning opportunity as a Platoon Leader with a Platoon Sergeant and 1st Sergeant before he went directly into a staff role in Human Resources. Adjutant General's Corp ; Field 38 ; Field 42 ; Field 46 ; S1 896 First Deployment You said you, you went forward on a deployment... Choi deployed as a 1st Lieutenant to Bagram, Afghanistan as a Strength Manager in 2016. Per President Obama's withdrawal of troops, Choi's team's mission was to determine how many they could bring back and still accomplish the mission. He discusses the intensity of the nine month deployment, mentioning the different ways they could spend their time. He shares the difficulty of balancing deployment with a full time career and the difference between Army Reserves and Active Duty. Barack Obama ; Commander in Chief ; The Home Depot 1259 Balancing School, Career, and Military Um, so you're in Afghanistan for nine months... After returning home from deployment, Choi began working for UPS Corporate. He enrolled at the University of Georgia to obtain his Master of Business Administration from Terry College of Business' Buckhead Campus. His discusses balancing three things at once: his schoolwork, career, and military. He now drills out of Georgia with a small Public Affairs unit at Fort Mcpherson, although he has taken a step back both in the military and his corporate career in order to balance more efficiently. Atlanta, Georgia ; Captain ; Executive Officer ; UGA 1573 Closing Remarks So, at this point, I wanted to... Choi pays his thanks to the University of Georgia and the opportunity to be involved. He shares why he feels the project is important and will make an impact on future generations. Choi also explains the privileges he feels Americans have in comparison to other countries and how, for him, joining the Army was a great way to give back to his country. Atlanta, Ga ; GI Bill ; patriotism ; The University of Arizona ; UGA ; University of North Carolina oral history No transcript. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. audio 0 http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL423SVOH/findingaid
Location
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Athens, Georgia
Duration
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31 minutes
OHMS Object
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https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL423SVOH-076/ohms
Repository
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Philip Choi, September 19, 2019
Identifier
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RBRL423SVOH-076
Creator
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Philip Choi
Thomas McShea
Format
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audio
oral histories
Type
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sound
Rights
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Subject
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United States. Army--Soldiers
Military education
United States. Army--Officers
Description
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Philip Young Choi was born in Los Angeles, California but grew up in Costa Rica. He is a Captain of the United States Army, and enrolled at the University of Georgia. In his interview, Choi explains how and why he joined the Army, as well as his progression through the ranks. He details his first deployment and returning to school and, balancing the military, school, and his career.
Date
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2019-09-19
Coverage
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Georgia
OHMS