American politician Donald Rumsfeld: biography

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:42

Chicago native Donald Rumsfeld (born July 9, 1932) grew up in a middle-class family background, which implies a mixture of All-American athleticism with academic acumen enough to receive a scholarship to Princeton.

Donald Rumsfeld: biography of a politician

After graduating from Princeton, the graduate went to serve in the Navy for 3 years, where he was known as an assertive pilot and champion wrestler until a shoulder injury ended his Olympic hopes. After parting with a brilliant sports career, Donald naturally turned to the next promising occupation - politics.

In 1954 he married Joyce Pearson. The couple had three children: Valerie (1967), Marcy (1960), and Nicholas (1967).

In 1962, Donald Rumsfeld (pictured below) won a near-lost election to the House of Representatives, where he emerged as a pro-civil rights liberal Republican. After the defeat of Goldwater in 1964, he helped the moderate Republican bloc push Gerald Ford into minority leadership. Joined the Nixon administration in 1969, where he held a number of positions includingeconomic adviser and ambassador to NATO. Although Rumsfeld appeared on several tapes used to impeach the President, he was not prosecuted.

Ford Administration

After Nixon's resignation, Rumsfeld served first as Ford's Chief of Staff (1974-1975) and then as Secretary of Defense (1975-1977). Under him, the strategic bomber "B-1", the ballistic missile "Trident" and the intercontinental ballistic missile "Peacemaker" were created. In 1977 he was awarded the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Republican politician Donald Rumsfeld may have been more moderate than, for example, Barry Goldwater, but over the years his political profile has shifted to the right. Whether this was a consequence of circumstances or an actual change in worldview is unknown. Tellingly, according to legend, Henry Kissinger describes Rumsfeld as the most ruthless man he has ever met. And he talked with both Mao Zedong and Augusto Pinochet, except for Kissinger himself.

Pharmaceuticals and electronics

As Ford's fabulous presidency came to an end, he decided to return to the private sector, focusing on super-lucrative positions in pharmaceuticals (G. D. Searle & Co., Gilead Sciences) and high-tech (General Instrument Corp.). Although he had no previous business experience, Rumsfeld hinted athis political influence and parallel service in various posts. From 1982 to 2000, he carried out about a dozen special government assignments.

Perhaps the most memorable of these came during the Reagan administration, when Donald Rumsfeld was appointed Special Representative of the President for the Middle East. According to The Washington Post, he was the main supporter of Iraq and its dictator Saddam Hussein.

Baghdad experience

As a conciliatory gesture, in 1982 the US removed Iraq from its list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, allowing Rumsfeld to visit Baghdad in 1983, when the ten-year Iran-Iraq war was in full swing.

At the time, intelligence reports suggested that Baghdad used illegal chemical weapons against Iran almost daily. During several visits to Iraq, Rumsfeld told government officials that the United States viewed an Iranian victory as its major strategic defeat. In a personal meeting with Saddam Hussein in December 1983, he told the "butcher of Baghdad" that the United States would like to restore full diplomatic relations with Iraq.

In 2002, Rumsfeld tried to exonerate himself by claiming he had warned Hussein not to use banned weapons, but this claim was not backed up by a State Department transcript.

Failure with Dole

Satisfied with serving his people,Donald Rumsfeld went back to work in the private sector. He then entered the 1988 presidential race but retired in favor of Bob Dole. The then victorious Bush Sr. snubbed Donald, excommunicating him from influential appointments.

In 1996, politician Donald Rumsfeld once again bet on Dole, and was again among the losers.

In 1997, he co-founded the Project for a New American Century, a neo-conservative foreign policy group. Other co-founders include future US Vice President Dick Cheney, former Vice President Dan Quayle, and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of George W. Bush.

Donald Rumsfeld: Rise of Politics

Bill Clinton was more generous in his victory than Bush. In 1999, he appointed Rumsfeld to chair a commission to evaluate the feasibility of establishing a national missile defense system.

George Bush, when he became president in 2000, charged him with bringing the army into line with the demands of the 21st century. While not in active combat, Rumsfeld became known as a reformer when he began to rethink the main points that guided defense spending, such as the provision that the army should be ready to fight two wars at the same time in different parts of the globe.

9/11

But on September 11, 2001, the world suddenly began to seem much more dangerous than before. After the terrorists sent two hijacked planesin the towers of the World Trade Center, Donald Rumsfeld was in reserve headquarters near the Pentagon, where the third plane subsequently crashed. He rejected the evacuation plan even as the air filled with smoke. The minister hurried to the crash site over the objections of security personnel and helped evacuate the injured.

September 11 and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan made Rumsfeld a star. His daily briefings were as popular as The Tonight Show monologue and twice as exciting. Striking a strikingly colorful balance between brute force and clever wordplay, Rumsfeld made it clear that professional wrestling lost a top-notch superstar the day he dislocated his shoulder.

Despite a strange combination of stiffness and comedy, he fought the shortest war in history to drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan.

Rumsfeld's stratagem

US politician Donald Rumsfeld played a major role in shaping the strategy for the Afghan war, leaving military tactics to commanders. His heroism during the attack on the Pentagon caused well-deserved sympathy among his subordinates. Even as he fought one war and planned for the next, he persevered in implementing the pre-9/11 reforms to create a new millennium military.

Shortly after the terrorist attack, the rating of public sentiment about Rumsfeld's performance of his duties exceeded 80%, roughly coinciding with the assessment of the work of the commander in chief. His outlook onthe future largely depended on a future war with Iraq. Along with Dick Cheney, he was one of the most vocal supporters of the destruction of his former companion Saddam Hussein.

Like the Afghan war, the Iraqi scenario followed the "Rumsfeld stratagem" - a subtle pre-invasion before it was officially announced in the media, to make it look better than anyone could have imagined. Rumsfeld brought the air force and combat troops into Afghanistan long before the US acknowledged the fact of warfare. As a result, the six-month war looked like it had only taken two months.

In February 2003, US Special Forces were already in Iraq, and allied air strikes were tripled compared to operations in the last decades. By the time the historic first strike photos surfaced, the United States already controlled half of the country.

After losing the Republican election in 2006, due to the ongoing war in Iraq, Rumsfeld announced his resignation. Robert Gates replaced him in December.

Life after retirement

In 2007, Rumsfeld founded a foundation in his name to support public organizations in the United States and develop free political and economic systems abroad.

He donated an advance for the publication of his memoirs to veterans. Known and Unknown: A Memoir was published in 2011.

In 2013 the book Rumsfeld Rules: Lessons in Leadership in Business, Politics, War and Life was published. It appeared thanks to the recordings that the author made on smallpieces of paper and kept in a shoe box. One of the aphorisms says: "Only those stupid things are difficult to resolve that are created by smart people."