Rumsfeld, Donald (1932–)

An experienced Washington insider, appointed secretary of defense in 2001 by President George W. Bush. Donald Rumsfeld previously occupied that office from 1975–1977, and his early handling of the Defense Department as an experienced administrator later deteriorated under the pressure of serious national defense issues.

Born in 1932, Donald Henry Rumsfeld grew up in Chicago, Illinois, and graduated in 1954 from Princeton University. He served briefly in the Navy as an aviator and then began pursuing political aspirations. Starting as a staffer to members of Congress from Ohio and Michigan in 1958 and 1959, he took a three-year break as an investment broker in Chicago before winning election to Congress as a Republican from Illinois in 1962.

In 1969, Rumsfeld resigned his congressional seat to join the White House staff of President Richard Nixon. He served as special assistant for economic opportunity for less than a year before becoming an adviser to the president for the next three years. Appointed Ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1973, Rumsfeld departed the White House just before the Watergate scandal reached crisis level.

During the administration of President Gerald Ford, Rumsfeld served as chief of staff before becoming secretary of defense in 1975. In 1977, Rumsfeld removed himself from government for several years, serving as a corporate CEO. However, he sometimes also served on special commissions, such as arms control adviser (1983–84), presidential envoy to the Middle East (1983–84), and chairman of the Commission to Assess United States National Security, Space Management, and Organization (1999–2001). This last group recommended in its January 11, 2001, report that the United States needed a ballistic missile defense program, effectively reviving the moribund Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)—the so-called Star Wars of the administration of President Ronald Reagan.

While in the business world, Rumsfeld retained close enough connections with Republican party members to win a nod from Vice President Dick Cheney in 2000 for the defense cabinet post in the newly formed cabinet of President George W. Bush. Because the Bush administration had few defense policy initiatives in mind besides missile defense and the substitution of advanced technology war fighting systems for programmed defense expenditures (the so-called Transformation Defense Initiatives), Rumsfeld was ideally suited for the chief defense position.

However, the military service chiefs soon registered dismay with Rumsfeld's single-minded approach to defense programming. The money needed to revive ballistic missile defense programs and kick start the ill-defined Transformation Defense Initiatives would leave little for the desired modernization and operations budgets that were already in the defense plans but lacked sufficient funding to accomplish. In addition, Rumsfeld displayed a sense of intellectual and managerial superiority as a former defense chief, seen [Page 641]as arrogance by some, an attitude that left the service chiefs and their staffs baffled.

After only six months of mutual discomfort, the Pentagon had to respond to the September 11, 2001, attack by terrorists upon the United States. It became necessary to correct homeland defense weaknesses while also devising a campaign to occupy Afghanistan and eradicate the terrorist centers there. Additionally, the Defense Department had to expand the scope of military operations to plan the defeat and occupation of Iraq within a year of initiating operations against Afghanistan.

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