 Cohen noted that in contrast to Kennedy that Rusk was more warmer and protective towards Johnson, whom he clearly got on better with than he ever did with Kennedy.In a review of "As I Saw It", the historian George C. Herring wrote that the book was mostly dull and uninformative when it came to Rusk's time as Secretary of State, telling little that historians did not already know, and the most interesting and passionate parts concerned his youth in the "Old South" and his conflict with and reconciliation with his son Richard.He died of heart failure in Athens, Georgia on December 20, 1994, at the age of 85.