This is a story about Dean Rusk that most likely others don't know. When he was in India, he roomed in a house with three other officers. My father, Kenneth Smith, was one of those officers. They had received passes to go to New York to see their families. So my mother was there at a dinner with the men. The army was working at the time on becoming fully intergrated, so a discussion about the relationship of blacks and whites was discussed. Dean had indicated that he felt that the blacks and whites should be totally equal. My mother and father both agreed. But, as was often in those days, interracial marriage was not approved of. So my mother told me that she leaned across the table and touched Dean's hand and said, "Dean, what would you do if someday your daughter comes to you hand in hand with a black man and says, 'Daddy. I love him. And we want to get married.'?" And Dean answered, "I would tell her, 'Honey, if you love him, then that's okay.'"

Years later, that exact situation happened. And Dean Rusk did exactly what he had said in the early 1940's that he would do. He didn't oppose his daughter's marriage to a black man. When he was tested on a very personal way on his views on recial equality, he withstood the test and stood firm.

You can't help but admire a man like that. I wish I could tell this story to his family. I think they'd like to hear it.

Liz,

Six years later, it has reached his family. I am one of his grandsons. Thank you for sharing that touching story.

Patrick Rusk

Liz -

Thanks to my son, Patrick, your touching story has reached me. I am David Rusk, Dean Rusk's elder son. Let me add a story from the same period. In mid-1945 my father was recalled by General Marshall from the China-Burma-India theater to work on post-war planning in the Pentagon. He befriended Ralph Bunche, an African-American (and also a young colonel, as the story came down to me). One noonday they were walking down one of the Pentagon corridors past the Officers' Mess and my father suggested that they grab a bite of lunch. "Dean," Bunche said, "I'm not allowed to go in there." "Oh," said my father, "let's just see about that. Come on." So Dean Rusk and Ralph Bunche integrated the Officers' Mess at the Pentagon that day and it stayed that way ever since.