Dean Rusk was US deputy under secretary of state from 1949 to 1950; US assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern Affairs from March 1950 to December 1951; a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1950 to 1961, and president from 1952 to 1961; US secretary of state from January 1961 to January 1969; recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, with distinction, in 1969; and professor of international law at the University of Georgia School of Law from 1970 to 1984.