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Peggy also confided in one of her high school teachers, who recalls: "It was a carefully thought-out decision." Mrs. Rusk discussed the courtship with the teacher and, according to the confidante, "never asked me to try to discourage Peggy and never showed any sign of disapproval." While Rusk was understandably troubled about the problems of a mixed marriage, he seemed even more concerned about Peggy's youth. The United Church of Christ minister who performed the ceremony, University Chaplain B. Davie Napier, detected no family hostility to the match. He discussed the problems of intermarriage with Peggy and Guy, found them well aware of the risks. As to their tender ages, Napier said: "Peggy, for her years, is amazing. She has a kind of maturity, a solidity, going way beyond her years. And Guy, he's one of the loosest, calmest, easiest fellows —of any race." Guy's mother concurs.
Discussing his future with her son, she found him thinking, but not worrying, about its complications. He wants to have children and once remarked: "Don't worry, I can educate them in Switzerland if I have to." Says Clarence Smith: "If anybody can make this work, Guy and Peggy can."
The Brother-in-Law Gambit. The secrecy and lack of pomp at the ceremony gave rise to the inevitable rumors that the Rusks were trying to downplay the marriage. It was held in California because a Washington wedding would have increased the political ramifications and made it more difficult to keep the guest list unofficial. Moreover, a Washington bash would certainly have increased pressures on the young couple. Jack Foisie, a Los Angeles Times foreign correspondent and brother of Mrs. Rusk, explained to the press that the families wanted "to give the kids a break on the takeoff, because they're going to have enough problems." Not incidentally, the parents were set on eluding the antiwar pickets who dog Rusk's every appearance.
A simple cover was devised. Rusk went to California early in the week, accompanied only by security men, to brief a group of businessmen in Beverly Hills on the war. He then went up to the Bay Area ostensibly to see Brother-in-Law Foisie, who had returned from his post in Bangkok for medical treatment. At the campus church, the wedding roster read Smith-Foisie rather than Smith-Rusk. Although perhaps 200 people in California and Washington knew of the wedding, the essential details were not known until hours before the wedding. One of the few hitches occurred just before Rusk was to enter the church from a dimly lighted side room. Maid of Honor Anne Kogler's hem came unstitched, and as Chaplain Napier's wife groped to thread a needle, Rusk obligingly lit paper matches and—not for the first time—risked having his fingers burned.
That night the Secretary of State was back in Washington, advising both his own aides and the White House that he did not want any official statements—or unofficial ones for that matter—to be put out about the wedding. Next day he was meeting with visiting Latin American foreign ministers, imperturbably puffing his usual Lark. His daughter and new son-in-law were off on a long-weekend honeymoon in Southern California. Peggy was due back at Stanford and Guy at his job this week, both with a little history-making behind them.