Donald Rumsfeld Totally Explained

Everything about Donald Rumsfeld totally explained

Donald Henry Rumsfeld (born July 9 1932) is a United States businessman, politician, the 13th Secretary of Defense under President Gerald Ford from 1975 to 1977, and the 21st Secretary of Defense under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2006. He is both the youngest (43 years old) and the oldest (68 years old) person to have held the position, as well as the only person to have held the position for two non-consecutive terms, and the second longest serving, behind Robert McNamara.
Rumsfeld has also served in various positions under President Richard Nixon, served four terms in the United States House of Representatives, and served as United States Ambassador to NATO. Rumsfeld was an aviator in the United States Navy between 1954 and 1957 before transferring to the Reserve. In public life, he's also served as an official in numerous federal commissions and councils. ABC and BBC news consider Rumsfeld to be the most controversial defense secretary in US history.

Background and family

Youth

Donald Rumsfeld was born on July 9, 1932 in Evanston, Illinois, to George Donald Rumsfeld (Illinois, 10 October 1904 – September 1974) and Jeannette Huster (Illinois, 27 May 1903 – 3 May 1988). His great-grandfather Johann Heinrich Rumsfeld emigrated from Weyhe near Bremen in Northern Germany in 1876. Rumsfeld grew up in Winnetka, Illinois.
Rumsfeld became an Eagle Scout in 1949 and is the recipient of both the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. and their Silver Buffalo Award in 2006. He was a ranger at Philmont Scout Ranch in 1949. Rumsfeld would later buy a vacation house west of Philmont at Taos, New Mexico.

Education

Rumsfeld went to Baker Demonstration School for middle school and graduated from New Trier High School. He attended Princeton University on academic and NROTC scholarships (A.B., 1954). In extracurricular activities he was an accomplished amateur wrestler and a member of the Lightweight Football team playing defensive back. While at Princeton his roommate was another future Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci.
His Princeton University senior thesis was titled "The Steel Seizure Case of 1952 and Its Effects on Presidential Powers."
In 1956 he attended Georgetown University Law Center, but didn't graduate.

Domestic life

Rumsfeld married Joyce H. Pierson (born September 18, 1932) on December 27, 1954. They have three children and six grandchildren. Their three children are psychologist Valerie J. Rumsfeld Richard (born March 3, 1956), housewife Marcy K. Rumsfeld Walczak (born March 28, 1960), and Internet entrepreneur Donald Nicholas "Nick" Rumsfeld (born June 26, 1967).
Rumsfeld lives in St. Michaels, Maryland, in a former bed-and-breakfast that began its history as a plantation home named "Mount Misery." The plantation is infamous as the site of the captivity of Frederick Douglass at the hands of the "slave breaker" Edward Covey.

Military service

Rumsfeld served in the U.S. Navy from 1954 to 1957 as a naval aviator and flight instructor. His initial training was in the North American SNJ Texan basic trainer after which he transitioned to flying the Grumman F9F Panther fighter. In 1957, he transferred to the Naval Reserve and continued his naval service in flying and administrative assignments as a drilling reservist until 1975. He transferred to the Individual Ready Reserve when he became Secretary of Defense in 1975 and retired with the rank of Captain in 1989."

Early political career

In 1957, during the Eisenhower administration, he served as Administrative Assistant to David S. Dennison, Jr., a Congressman representing the 11th district of Ohio. In 1959, Rumsfeld then moved on to become a staff assistant to Congressman Robert P. Griffin of Michigan.
   After a two-year stint with investment banking firm A. G. Becker from 1960 to 1962, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives for Illinois' 13th congressional district in 1962, at the age of 30, and was re-elected by large majorities in 1964, 1966, and 1968.
   In the Congress, he served on the Joint Economic Committee, the Committee on Science and Aeronautics, and the Government Operations Committee, as well as the Subcommittees on Military and Foreign Operations. He was also a co-founder of the Japanese-American Inter-Parliamentary Council.
   Rumsfeld, who used to attend seminars at the University of Chicago, early became a staunch supporter of the economist Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics and can be seen in Friedman's PBS series Free to Choose.

Career

Nixon Administration

Rumsfeld resigned from Congress in 1969 — his fourth term — to serve in the Nixon administration as Director of the United States Office of Economic Opportunity, Assistant to the President, and a member of the President's Cabinet (1969–1970); named Counselor to the President in December 1970, Director of the Economic Stabilization Program; and member of the President's Cabinet (1971–1972).
In 1971 President Nixon was recorded saying about Rumsfeld "at least Rummy is tough enough" and "He's a ruthless little bastard. You can be sure of that." In February 1973, Rumsfeld left Washington to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Brussels, Belgium. He served as the United States' Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Council and the Defense Planning Committee, and the Nuclear Planning Group. In this capacity, he represented the United States in wide-ranging military and diplomatic matters.

Ford Administration

In August, 1974, he was called back to Washington to serve as transition chairman for the new president, Gerald R. Ford. He had been Ford's confidant since their days in the U.S. House when Ford was House minority leader. Later in Ford's presidency, Rumsfeld became White House Chief of Staff, where he served from 1974 to 1975. In October of 1975, Ford named Rumsfeld to become the 13th U.S. Secretary of Defense at the same time he nominated George H. W. Bush to become Director of the CIA. According to Bob Woodward's 2002 book "Bush at War," a rivalry developed between the two men and "Bush senior was convinced that Rumsfeld was pushing him out to the CIA to end his political career."
At the Pentagon, Rumsfeld oversaw the transition to an all-volunteer military and, although he supported the Ford administration's efforts at détente, he sought to reverse the gradual decline in the defense budget and to build up U.S. strategic and conventional forces. He asserted, along with Team B (which he helped to set up), that trends in comparative U.S.-Soviet military strength hadn't favored the United States for 15 to 20 years and that, if continued, they "would have the effect of injecting a fundamental instability in the world."
In 1977, Rumsfeld was awarded the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Private career

In early 1977 Rumsfeld briefly lectured at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School and Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, in Evanston, Illinois.
   From 1977 to 1985 Rumsfeld served as Chief Executive Officer, President, and then Chairman of G.D. Searle & Company, a worldwide pharmaceutical company based in Skokie, Illinois, whose products included, among others, Metamucil, Dramamine, Aspartame, and the oral contraceptive pill Enovid. During his tenure at Searle, Rumsfeld led the company's financial turnaround that in turn earned him awards as the Outstanding Chief Executive Officer in the Pharmaceutical Industry from the Wall Street Transcript (1980) and Financial World (1981). Rumsfeld is believed to have earned around $12 million from Searle's sale to Monsanto.
   It was under Rumsfeld that Searle got the Food and Drug Administration's approval for the controversial artificial sweetener, aspartame, which it marketed as NutraSweet. This was despite a previous 1980 FDA Board of Inquiry, composed of three independent scientists, which confirmed that it "might induce brain tumors." It was given the go ahead after Reagan's new FDA commissioner, Arthur Hayes Hull, Jr added a 6th member to the review board, after the initial 5 members voted 3-2 to uphold the ban.
   From 1985 to 1990 he was in private business. During his business career, Rumsfeld continued public service in various posts, including:

Member of the President's General Advisory Committee on Arms Control—Reagan Administration (1982–1986);
President Reagan's Special Envoy on the Law of the Sea Treaty (1982–1983);
Senior Advisor to President Reagan's Panel on Strategic Systems (1983–1984);
Member of the U.S. Joint Advisory Commission on U.S./Japan Relations—Reagan Administration (1983–1984);
President Reagan's Special Envoy to the Middle East (1983–1984);
Member of the National Commission on the Public Service (1987–1990);
Member of the National Economic Commission (1988–1989);
Member of the Board of Visitors of the National Defense University (1988–1992);
Chairman Emeritus, Defense Contractor, Carlyle Group (1989–2005);
Member of the Commission on U.S./Japan Relations (1989–1991);
Member of the Board of Directors for ABB Ltd. (1990–2001);
FCC's High Definition Television Advisory Committee (1992–1993);
Chairman, Commission on the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States (1998–1999);
Member of the U.S. Trade Deficit Review Commission (1999–2000);
Member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR);
Chairman of the U.S. Commission to Assess National Security Space Management and Organization (2000);
Honorary Vice-Chancellor of Yale University (2001), honoring Rumsfeld's U.S. foreign policy work.

Rumsfeld served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of General Instrument Corporation from 1990 to 1993. A leader in broadband transmission, distribution, and access control technologies for cable, satellite and terrestrial broadcasting applications, the company pioneered the development of the first all-digital high-definition television (HDTV) technology. After taking the company public and returning it to profitability, Rumsfeld returned to private business in late 1993. From January 1997 until being sworn in as the 21st Secretary of Defense in January 2001, Rumsfeld served as Chairman of Gilead Sciences, Inc. He was also a board member of the RAND Corporation.
Rumsfeld served as United Way Inter-governmental Affairs Director in Washington, D.C. from 1986 to 1989. He was asked to serve the U.S. State Department as a "foreign policy consultant," a role he held from 1990 to 1993 concurrently with General Instrument Corporation CEO and ABB corporate board member.

ABB and North Korea

Rumsfeld sat on ABB's board from 1990 to 2001. ABB is a European engineering giant based in Zürich, Switzerland; formed through the merger between ASEA of Sweden and Brown Boveri of Switzerland. In 2000 this company sold two light water nuclear reactors to KEDO for installation in North Korea, as part of the 1994 agreed framework reached under President Bill Clinton.
The sale of the nuclear technology was a high-profile contract. ABB's then chief executive, Göran Lindahl, visited North Korea in November 1999 to announce ABB's "wide-ranging, long-term cooperation agreement" with the communist government. Rumsfeld's office said that the Secretary of Defense didn't "recall it being brought before the board at any time." But ABB spokesman Björn Edlund told Fortune that "board members were informed about this project."

Reagan Administration

During his period as Reagan's Special Envoy to the Middle East (November 1983–May 1984), Rumsfeld was the most senior conduit for crucial American military intelligence, hardware and strategic advice to Saddam Hussein, then fighting Iran in the Iran-Iraq war. The United States' pro-Iraq policy was adopted when the tide of the Iran-Iraq war turned strongly in Iran's favor, and it looked as if Iran might overrun Iraq completely. Although the United States was hesitant to support a Soviet client state, the prospect of greatly expanded Shia influence in the region outweighed these concerns. When Rumsfeld visited Baghdad on December 19–December 20 1983, he and Saddam Hussein had a 90-minute discussion that covered Syria's occupation of Lebanon, preventing Syrian and Iranian expansion, preventing arms sales to Iran by foreign countries, increasing Iraqi oil production via a possible new oil pipeline across Jordan. According to declassified U.S. State Department documents Rumsfeld also informed Tariq Aziz (Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister) that: "Our efforts to assist were inhibited by certain things that made it difficult for us ... citing the use of chemical weapons." Rumsfeld brought many gifts from the Reagan administration to Saddam Hussein. These gifts included pistols, medieval spiked hammers and a pair of golden cowboy spurs. Until the 1991 Gulf war these were all displayed at Saddam Hussein's Victory Museum in Baghdad which held all the gifts bestowed on Saddam by friendly national leaders.
During his brief bid for the 1988 Republican nomination, Rumsfeld stated that restoring full relations with Iraq was one of his best achievements. This wasn't a particularly controversial position at the time, when U.S. policy considered supporting a totalitarian yet secular Iraq an effective bulwark against the expansion of Iranian revolutionary Islamist influence.

George H.W. Bush and Clinton years

As a member of the National Academy of Public Administration and a member of the boards of trustees of the Gerald R. Ford Foundation, the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowships, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the National Park Foundation. He was also a member of the U.S./Russia Business Forum and Chairman of the Congressional Leadership's National Security Advisory Group.
Rumsfeld was a founder and active member of the Project for the New American Century, a neo-conservative think tank dedicated to maintaining US Primacy. On January 29, 1998, he signed a PNAC letter calling for President Bill Clinton to implement "regime change" in Iraq.
From January to July 1998 Rumsfeld chaired the nine-member Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States. They concluded that Iraq, Iran, and North Korea could develop intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities in five to ten years and that U.S. intelligence would have little warning before such systems were deployed.

Opposing effort to release Jonathan Pollard

Rumsfeld has long been an opponent of the release or sentence commutation of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard. In late 1998, in response to media reports that President Clinton was considering issuing a pardon to Pollard, Rumsfeld sent a letter to President Clinton, urging him not to grant clemency. According to Rumsfeld, seven former U.S. Secretaries of Defense signed the letter urging Clinton not to pardon Pollard or commute his sentence. Eventually, President Clinton decided against granting Pollard clemency. (See letter on right.)

Presidential and Vice Presidential aspirations

During 1976 Republican National Convention Secretary Rumsfeld received one vote for Vice President of the United States, although he didn't seek office, and nomination went easily for Ford's choice, Senator Bob Dole. During 1980 Republican National Convention he also received one vote for V.P.
Rumsfeld briefly sought Presidential nomination in 1988, but withdrew from race before primaries began and received no vote.
During 1996 election he initially formed a presidential campaign exploratory committee, but declined to formally enter the race.

George W. Bush Administration

Rumsfeld was named Defense Secretary soon after President George W. Bush took office in 2001. He immediately announced a series of sweeping reviews intended to transform the U.S. military into a lighter force. These studies were led by Pentagon analyst Andrew Marshall. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Rumsfeld led the military planning and execution of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Rumsfeld pushed hard to send as small a force as possible to both conflicts, a concept codified as the Rumsfeld Doctrine.
   Rumsfeld's plan resulted in a lightning invasion that took Baghdad in well under a month with very few American casualties. Many government buildings, plus major museums, electrical generation infrastructure, and even oil equipment were looted and vandalized during the transition from the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime to the establishment of the Coalition Provisional Authority. A violent insurrection began shortly after the occupation started.
   After the German and French governments voiced opposition to invading Iraq, Rumsfeld labeled these countries as part of "Old Europe", implying that countries that supported the war were part of a newer, modern Europe. He gave more press conferences than his predecessors. The BBC Radio 4 current affairs program Broadcasting House had been so taken by Rumsfeld's various remarks that it once held a regular slot called "The Donald Rumsfeld sound bite of the Week" in which they played his most amusing comment from that week.
   Bush retained Rumsfeld after his 2004 presidential re-election. In December 2004, Rumsfeld came under fire after a "town-hall" meeting with U.S. troops where he responded to a soldier's comments about inferior military equipment by saying "you go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want."

September 11, 2001

Rumsfeld's activities during the September 11, 2001 attacks were outlined in a Pentagon press briefing on September 15, 2001. Within three hours of the start of the first hijacking and two hours of American Airlines Flight 11 striking the World Trade Center, Rumsfeld raised the defense condition signaling of the United States offensive readiness to DEFCON 3; the highest it had been since the Arab-Israeli war in 1973.

Run-up to Iraq

Approximately five hours after the attack on the World Trade Center, Rumsfeld told aides he wanted the; "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H. [SaddamHussein] at same time. Not only OBL [Osamabin Laden]."
Rumsfeld also made many public statements regarding Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, weapons which were never found.
Curiously, Rumsfeld has attempted to escape responsibility for the Iraq War, stating he was only carrying out the policies of others. But the record is clear from beginning to end that Rumsfeld was one of the lead drivers in the decision to invade Iraq.

Military decisions

Rumsfeld stirred controversy by quarreling for months with the CIA over who had the authority to fire Hellfire missiles from Predator drones, although according to The 9/11 Commission Report, the armed Predator wasn't ready for deployment until early 2002. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon note:
September 11, 2001, Rumsfeld was in a meeting whose subject was the review of the Department of Defense's (Contingency) Plan in the event of a war with Iraq (U.S. Central Command OPLAN 1003-98). The plan (as it was then conceived) contemplated troop levels of up to 500,000, which Rumsfeld opined was far too many. Gordon and Trainor wrote:
Brit Hume as to whether he pressed General Tommy Franks to lower his request for 400,000 troops for the Iraq War by stating:
From the very beginning of his tenure, Rumsfeld attempted to overthrow Powell's doctrine of using massive force in military actions. Rumsfeld pressured his generals to use less men, then blamed the generals when it turned out that Powell had been right all along, massive force was needed. Rumsfeld's refusal to accept responsibility for himself, his decisions, and his leadership of armies at war contributed to his fall and resignation.

Role in US public relations effort

An April 2006 memo lists instructions to Pentagon staff including:
Rumsfeld was deliberate in crafting the propaganda message to target the public. People will "rally" to the word "sacrifice," Rumsfeld noted after a meeting. "They are looking for leadership. Sacrifice = Victory." In May 2004, Rumsfeld considered whether to redefine the war on terrorism as a fight against "worldwide insurgency." He advised aides "to test what the results could be" if the war on terrorism were renamed. Rumsfeld also ordered specific public Pentagon attacks and responses to US newspaper columns that reported the negative aspects of the war, which he often personally reviewed before being sent.
In October 2003, Rumsfeld personally approved a secret Pentagon "roadmap" on war propaganda, which calls for "boundaries" between information operations abroad and the news media at home, but provides for no such limits. The Roadmap advances a policy according to which as long as the US government doesn't intentionally target the American public, it doesn't matter that psychological operations, PSYOP, reaches the American public. The Roadmap acknowledges that "information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and PSYOP, increasingly is consumed by our domestic audience" but argues that "the distinction between foreign and domestic audiences becomes more a question of USG [U.S.government] intent rather than information dissemination practices."

Prisoner abuse

Rumsfeld vigorously defended the Bush administration's decision to detain alleged illegal enemy combatants without protection under the Third Geneva Convention, because the Article 4 of the Convention limits rights to those who fight in uniform, under a defined command structure, and carry arms openly. There was nonetheless a large amount of pressure to apply the Geneva Conventions to cover these illegal combatants by many international bodies. Critics feel that Rumsfeld should have been held personally responsible for the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal. Rumsfeld himself said, "These events occurred on my watch as secretary of defense. I'm accountable for them." US military investigations into the matters didn't find him responsible for any wrongdoing.
In November 2006, the former U.S. Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, in charge of Abu Ghraib prison until early 2004, told Spain's El Pais newspaper she'd seen a letter apparently signed by Rumsfeld that allowed civilian contractors to use techniques such as sleep deprivation during interrogation. "The methods consisted of making prisoners stand for long periods, sleep deprivation ... playing music at full volume, having to sit in uncomfortably ... Rumsfeld authorised these specific techniques." She said that this was contrary to the Geneva Convention and quoted from the same "Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind". According to Karpinski, the handwritten signature was above his printed name and in the same handwriting in the margin was written: "Make sure this is accomplished". According to the February 16th 2008 edition of The Economist magazine, Rumsfeld also wrote in a 2002 memo; "I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing (by prisoners) limited to four hours?" There have been no comments from either the Pentagon or U.S. Army spokespeople in Iraq on Karpinski's accusations.

Condolence letters

In December 2004, Rumsfeld was heavily criticized for using a signing machine instead of personally signing over 1000 letters of condolence to the families of soldiers killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan. He promised to personally sign all letters in the future.

Tamiflu

From January 1997 until being sworn in as the 21st Secretary of Defense in January 2001, Rumsfeld was Chairman of the Board of Gilead Sciences, which is the developer of Tamiflu (Oseltamivir), which is used in the treatment of bird flu. Several news sources have published stories implying that Rumsfeld profits from sales of Tamiflu to the U.S. Government while he's in office, although they note that he's recused himself from any decisions involving Gilead and also had the Pentagon's General Counsel issue additional instructions outlining what he could and couldn't be involved in if there were an avian flu pandemic and the Pentagon had to respond.

War critics

Rumsfeld has come under fire for his remarks at the American Legion's national convention when he accused critics of the Bush administration's Iraq and counter-terrorism policies of "trying to appease a new type of fascism." Also, Rumsfeld claimed that the administration's critics have "moral and intellectual confusion" about what threatens the nation's security and accused them of lacking the courage to fight back.

Ray McGovern

In May 2006, Rumsfeld was grilled during a question and answer session in Atlanta by Ray McGovern, an anti-war activist who spent 27 years as a CIA analyst. The session was aired on national television.(External Link

)(External Link

) � RAY McGOVERN: And so, I'd like to ask you to be up front with the American people. Why did you lie to get us into a war that wasn't necessary and that has caused these kinds of casualties? Why?

� DONALD RUMSFELD: Well, first of all, I haven’t lied. I didn't lie then. Colin Powell didn't lie. He spent weeks and weeks with the Central Intelligence Agency people and prepared a presentation that I know he believed was accurate, and he presented that to the United Nations. The President spent weeks and weeks with the Central Intelligence people, and he went to the American people and made a presentation. I'm not in the intelligence business. They gave the world their honest opinion. It appears that there were not weapons of mass destruction there.

� RAY McGOVERN: You said you knew where they were?

� DONALD RUMSFELD: I did not. I said I knew where suspect sites were, and we were --

� RAY McGOVERN: You said you knew where they were, “near Tikrit, near Baghdad, and northeast, south and west of there.” Those were your words. (McGovern was quoting a 2003 Rumsfeld appearance on ABC‘s This Week(External Link

)

Rumsfeld's original remarks in his 2003 ABC appearance included the following addition:
� I'd also add, we saw from the air that there were dozens of trucks that went into that facility after the existence of it became public in the press and they moved things out. They dispersed them and took them away. So there may be nothing left. I don't know that. But it's way too soon to know. The exploitation (sic) is just starting.(External Link

)(External Link

)

Calls for resignation

In an unprecedented move in modern US history, eight retired generals and admirals called for Rumsfeld to resign in early 2006 in what was called the "Generals Revolt", mostly because of disgust at what they regarded as his abysmal military planning and lack of strategic competence. Rumsfeld rebuffed these criticisms, stating that "out of thousands and thousands of admirals and generals, if every time two or three people disagreed we changed the secretary of defense of the United States, it would be like a merry-go-round." Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan reports that "Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who travels often to Iraq and supports the war, says that the generals' and admirals' views mirror those of 75 percent of the officers in the field, and probably more." President Bush responded to the criticism by stating that Rumsfeld is "exactly what is needed," and also defended him in his controversial decider remark.

Astroturf Generals

In 2008 the New York Times reported that Rumsfeld responded to the Generals Revolt by using a number of high ranking retired members of the Military as puppets. (External Link

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Resignation

On November 1, 2006, President Bush stated he'd stand by Rumsfeld as defense secretary for the length of his term as president. Rumsfeld wrote a resignation letter dated November 6th, and, per the stamp on the letter, Bush saw it on Election Day, November 7th. In the elections, the House and the Senate shifted to Democratic control. After the elections, on November 8, Bush announced Rumsfeld would resign his position as Secretary of Defense. Many Republicans were unhappy with the delay, believing they'd have won more votes if voters had known Rumsfeld was resigning.
   Bush nominated Robert Gates for the position. At a press conference announcing the resignation of Rumsfeld and the nomination of Bob Gates, Bush claimed, "America is safer and the world is more secure because of the service and the leadership of Donald Rumsfeld."
   On December 18, 2006, Rumsfeld's resignation took effect and Robert Gates was sworn in as his successor. One of his last actions as defense secretary was to pay a surprise visit to Iraq on December 10, 2006 to bid farewell to the United States military serving in Iraq.
   Including his time serving as the 13th Secretary of Defense under President Ford from 1975 to 1977, Rumsfeld is the second-longest-serving Secretary of Defense in history, falling nine days short of becoming the longest-serving Pentagon chief (after the Vietnam-era Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara).
   In a farewell ceremony attended by President Bush on December 16, 2006, Rumsfeld's long-time political collaborator Vice President Dick Cheney called the secretary "the finest secretary of defense this nation has ever had."

Post-resignation activities

In the months after his resignation, Rumsfeld toured the New York publishing houses in preparation for a potential memoir(External Link

). Such a book would reportedly be used by Rumsfeld to justify the military strategy used in Iraq under his watch. An agreement on a book deal hasn't been announced.
According to Time magazine, Rumsfeld is also in the early stages of establishing an educational foundation that would provide fellowships to talented individuals from the private sector who want to serve for some time in government. Rumsfeld would finance the foundation.
In September 2007, Rumsfeld received a one year appointment as a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, joining (among others) retired Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, former commander of US forces in Iraq, and fellow conservatives George Shultz and Newt Gingrich. He will participate in the institution's new task force studying post-September 11 ideology and non-state terror.

Lawsuits

Pentagon database

Several New York teenagers brought a lawsuit against Rumsfeld in federal court over a Pentagon database of potential military recruits. The Pentagon defended the database as critical to national security, but the plaintiffs argue that the database retains information on people as young as 16 in violation of federal privacy laws. New York Civil Liberties Union director Donna Lieberman said, "On the one hand Congress has afforded broad latitude to collect information but on the other hand the Department of Defense has completely flouted those limits."

Alleged torture

Civil actions

On March 1, 2005, the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First filed a lawsuit against Rumsfeld in a federal court in Illinois on behalf of eight detainees who they say were subjected to torture and abuse by U.S. forces. It seeks compensatory damages on behalf of the eight men allegedly tortured and abused by U.S. military forces after being captured in Iraq and Afghanistan. A federal judge dropped the charges against Rumsfeld citing the legal precedent that U.S. Government officials can't be held personally responsible for actions committed while in office.
On December 18, 2006, U.S. citizen Donald Vance filed suit against Rumsfeld and the U.S. government alleging illegal incarceration and torture he endured in Iraq. Vance, a former U.S. Navy sailor, went to Iraq as a civilian security-contractor for Shield Group Security (SGS). He became an unpaid informant for the FBI, passing them evidence over a period of several months suggesting that SGS was engaged in illegal weapons trading with the Iraqi Interior Ministry. When Vance felt he was in grave danger, U.S. forces retrieved him from the Red Zone but subsequently detained him without charges for 97 days at Camp Cropper. Vance's lawsuit against Rumsfeld and the U.S. Government alleges that during his detention he was tortured and his rights of habeas corpus were violated.

Criminal charges sought

Criminal charges were sought in 2004 by Wolfgang Kaleck as well as Michael Ratner and Peter Weiss of the U.S.-based Center for Constitutional Rights in German courts against Donald Rumsfeld for war crimes. They were rejected by German Federal Public Prosecutor Kay Nehm with the explanation that criminal prosecution in the nations of the accused and the victims should be given priority. Notable co-plaintiffs include 1980 Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (Argentine), 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner Martín Almada (Paraguay), Theo van Boven, the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture. On March 15 2007, the city council of Berkeley, California endorsed the war crimes complaint from Germany. (External Link

) Similar criminal charges are being sought in France. A complaint has been filed before a French court accusing Rumsfeld of authorizing and ordering torture. The complaint invokes the provisions of the United Nations Convention Against Torture, ratified by both the United States and France, which provides that signatory countries must prosecute a torturer or someone who knowingly oversees torturers, irrespective of where the torture occurred. The complaint argues that both the U.S. and Iraq have failed to independently investigate the matter and therefore France is obligated to prosecute Rumsfeld. International Federation for Human Rights (La Fédération internationale des ligues des droits de l’Homme, FIDH) president Souhayr Belhassen said that “[France] has no choice but to open an investigation.” The complaint was registered at the office of the prosecutor of the Court of First Instance in Paris when Rumsfeld's personal presence in the city for a talk sponsored by the magazine Foreign Policy provided for French jurisdiction.
Ratner said of these developments that “We won't rest until those U.S. officials involved in torture are brought to justice. Rumsfeld must understand that he's no place to hide.”
Criminal charges against Rumsfeld were also pressed in Sweden in 2007 and in Argentina in 2005.:

Donald Rumsfeld - 47,037 (67.71%)

Marion E. Burks - 19,037 (27.40%)

Raymond Albert Morley - 2,187 (3.15%)

Edward L. Gordy Illinois' 13th congressional district, 1962:

Donald Rumsfeld (R) - 139,230 (63.52%)

John A. Kennedy (D) - 79,419 (36.23%)

Write-ins - 542 (0.25%) Illinois' 13th congressional district, 1964:

Donald Rumsfeld (R) (inc.) - 165,129 (57.82%)

Lynn A. Williams (D) - 120,449 (42.18%) Illinois' 13th congressional district, 1966:

Donald Rumsfeld (R) (inc.) - 158,769 (76.01%)

James L. McCabe (D) - 50,107 (23.99%) Illinois' 13th congressional district, 1968:

Donald Rumsfeld (R) (inc.) - 186,714 (72.74%)

David C. Baylor (D) - 69,987 (27.26%) 1976 Republican National Convention (Vice Presidential tally):

Bob Dole - 1,921 (85.04%)

Abstaining - 103 (4.56%)

Jesse Helms - 103 (4.56%)

Ronald Reagan - 27 (1.20%)

Phil Crane - 23 (1.02%)

John Grady - 19 (0.84%)

Louis Frey - 9 (0.40%)

Anne Armstrong - 6 (0.27%)

Howard Baker - 6 (0.27%)

William F. Buckley - 4 (0.18%)

John B. Connally - 4 (0.18%)

David C. Treen - 4 (0.18%)

Alan Steelman - 3 (0.13%)

Edmund Bauman - 2 (0.09%)

Bill Brock - 2 (0.09%)

Paul Laxalt - 2 (0.09%)

Elliot Richardson - 2 (0.09%)

Richard Schweiker - 2 (0.09%)

William E. Simon - 2 (0.09%)

Jack Wellborn - 2 (0.09%)

James Allen - 1 (0.04%)

Ray Barnhardt - 1 (0.04%)

George H. W. Bush - 1 (0.04%)

Pete Domenici - 1 (0.04%)

James B. Edwards - 1 (0.04%)

Frank S. Glenn - 1 (0.04%)

David Keane - 1 (0.04%)

James McClure - 1 (0.04%)

Nancy Palm - 1 (0.04%)

Donald Rumsfeld - 1 (0.04%)

John W. Sears - 1 (0.04%)

Roger Staubach - 1 (0.04%)

Steve Symms - 1 (0.04%) 1980 Republican National Convention (Vice Presidential tally):

George H. W. Bush - 1,832 (93.33%)

Jesse Helms - 54 (2.75%)

Jack Kemp - 42 (2.14%)

Phil Crane - 23 (1.17%)

James R. Thompson - 5 (0.26%)

John M. Ashbrook - 1 (0.05%)

Howard Baker - 1 (0.05%)

Henry J. Hyde - 1 (0.05%)

Donald Rumsfeld - 1 (0.05%)

Eugene Schroeder - 1 (0.05%)

William E. Simon - 1 (0.05%)

Guy Vander Jagt - 1 (0.05%)

Awards

The Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ford (1977)

From 1977 to 1985 he served as Chief Executive Officer, President, and then Chairman of G.D. Searle & Co., a worldwide pharmaceutical company. The successful turnaround there earned him awards as the Outstanding Chief Executive Officer in the Pharmaceutical Industry from the Wall Street Transcript (1980) and Financial World (1981).

Royal Order of the Intare by King Kigeli V of Rwanda.

George C. Marshall Medal by the U.S. Army Association (1984)

Woodrow Wilson Medal by Princeton University (1985)

Dwight D. Eisenhower Medal (1993)

Lone Sailor Award by the U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation (2002)

Statesmanship Award by the U.S. Assoc of Former Members of Congress (2003)

James H. Doolittle Award by the Hudson Institute (2003)

Gerald R. Ford Medal presented by President Ford and the Ford Foundation (2004)

Distinguished Eagle Scout Award by the Boy Scouts of America

Union League of Philadelphia Gold Medal for Citizenship (2006)

Claremont Institute Statesmanship Award (2007)

Rumsfeld has been awarded 11 honorary degrees.

Affiliation history

Institutional affiliations

Center for Security Policy: Longtime associate; winner of the CSP's 1998 "Keeper of the Flame" award (5)

Hoover Institution: Member, board of trustees

Project for the New American Century: Signed PNAC's founding statement of principles as well as two policy letters on Iraq

Freedom House: Board member

RAND Corporation: Board member

Committee for the Free World: Former chairman

Bohemian Club: Member

Government posts, panels, and commissions

Secretary of Defense (2001–06)

U.S. Commission to Assess National Security Space Management and Organization: Chairman (2000)

U.S. Ballistic Missile Threat Commission: Chairman (1998)

Secretary of Defense (1975–77)

White House Chief of Staff in Ford administration (1974–75)

U.S. Ambassador to NATO (1973–74)

U.S. Congress: Representative from Illinois (1962–69)

U.S. Navy: Various posts, including aviator (1954–57); reserves (1957–1975) Retired as a Navy Captain (1989)

Corporate connections and business interests

Gilead Sciences: joined Gilead as a director in 1988 Chairman (1997–2001)

General Instrument Corporation: Chairman and CEO (1990–93)

G.D. Searle pharmaceutical company: CEO/Chairman/President (1977–1985)

Bechtel Corporation: Was involved in Iraq-Bechtel negotiations in the 1980s on a pipeline project

Gulfstream Aerospace: Former director

Tribune Company: Former director

Metricom, Inc.: Former director

Sears, Roebuck and Co.: Former director

ABB AB: Former director

Kellogg Company: director 1985–199? while Carlos Gutierrez (x Cuba 1960) president CEO and chairman Kellogg until named Secretary Commerce under Bush from 2005

Education

Princeton University: A.B. (1954)

Intellectual heritage

John Boyd of OODA Loop fame.Further Information

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