Rumsfeld's Life In Politics
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's resignation under fire on TKTK marks the likely end of a long, varied Washington career that's spanned five decades and included stints as a White House chief of staff, U.S. ambassador to NATO and U.S. congressman.
His departure also represents the loss to President Bush and Vice President Cheney of one of their closest personal and political allies.
Rumsfeld, 72, ended his second term as defense secretary – he previously held the post under President Gerald Ford – following the scandal over alleged abuse of Iraqi detainees by U.S. soldiers and civilian contractors at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.
Rumsfeld headed the Pentagon during the war in Afghanistan and was the architect of the Iraq war – and his department largely controlled the postwar occupation. As that occupation became plagued by wide-ranging problems, including a continued and stubborn insurgency, the criticism of him grew. There were complaints that reconstruction contracts were not issued competitively and that there were too few U.S. soldiers on hand to secure the country.
The complaints crystallized – especially among Democrats, but even among Republicans – over the pictures of prisoner abuse by U.S. forces, and whether the Pentagon informed Congress or the president soon enough about the growing investigations.
Known for his charismatic television presence and at times combative exchanges with reporters, Rumsfeld became a familiar face to the American public from his freqent press conferences during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
He also gained notoriety for his careful, sometimes hard to decipher use of language, as in his infamous statement, in reference to what the U.S. knew about the threat posed by Iraq, that "there are known knowns, there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know."
Born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1932, Rumsfeld is a Princeton University graduate and former Navy pilot. He first came to Washington in 1957, during the Eisenhower administration, to serve as an assistant to a congressman from Ohio.
He returned to the nation's capitol in 1962, after working for an investment banking firm, and was elected to the House of Representatives from Illinois. He was reelected for three more terms but resigned in 1969 to join the Nixon administration.
In 1973 he became U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, returning to Washington in August 1974 to head President Ford's transition team.
He served as White House chief of staff for Mr. Ford before becoming the youngest secretary of defense in history from 1975 to 1977, following the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam.
Rumsfeld's career has closely paralleled that of Vice President Dick Cheney, who was a deputy to Rumsfeld when he was Mr. Ford's chief of staff. Cheney later succeeded Rumsfeld as Ford's chief of staff.
After Democrat Jimmy Carter defeated Mr. Ford in the 1976 presidential race, Rumsfeld entered the private sector, serving as a top executive at G.D. Searle & Co., a worldwide pharmaceutical company, and General Instrument Corporation, a leader in broadband transmission, distribution, and access control technologies. Before returning to Washington in as defense secretary in 2001, he served as chairman of the board of Gilead Sciences, Inc., a pharmaceutical company.
Rumsfeld also chaired the bipartisan U.S. Ballistic Missile Threat Commission, in 1998, and the U.S. Commission to Assess National Security Space Management and Organization, in 2000.
Rumsfeld married his wife Joyce in 1954. They have three children and five grandchildren.