Morris may refer to:

People[link]

• Morris (surname), a common family name (and a list of people with the name)
• Morris (comics) (1923–2001), Belgian cartoonist, creator of Lucky Luke
• Morris, one of the 14 Tribes of Galway, Ireland

Places[link]

In Canada

• Morris, Manitoba

In the United States

• Morris, Alabama
• Morris, Connecticut
• Morris, Georgia
• Morris, Illinois
• Morris, Indiana
• Morris County, Kansas
• Morris, Minnesota
• Morris (town), New York
  • Morris (village), New York
• Morris, Oklahoma
• Morris, Wisconsin
• Morris County, New Jersey
• Morris Island, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina
• Morris Plains, New Jersey
• Morris Township, Pennsylvania (disambiguation)

Other uses[link]

• Morris Chair, an early type of reclining chair
• Morris College, a private liberal arts college in Sumter, South Carolina
• Morris Communications, an American publishing company
• Morris dance, a traditional English dance form
• Morris Motors, a former British car manufacturer
• Morris Multimedia, an American publishing company
• Morris the Cat, mascot of 9Lives brand cat food
• Morris the Midget Moose, a Walt Disney animated short
• Morris worm, one of the first computer worms distributed via the Internet
• Morris & Co., a company manufacturing items of decorative art
• Nine Men's Morris, a board game
• USCS Morris, a survey ship in service with the United States Coast Survey from 1849 to 1855
• USS Morris, the name of several ships of the Continental Navy and United States Navy

See also[link]

• All pages beginning with "Morris"
• Morriston
• Morristown (disambiguation)
• Morrisville (disambiguation)
• Mount Morris (disambiguation)
• Maurice (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Errol Mark Morris (born February 5, 1948) is an American film director. In 2003, The Guardian put him seventh in its list of the world's 40 best directors.^[1] In 2003, his film The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Biography[link]

Early life and education[link]

Morris was born in Hewlett, New York on February 5, 1948. When he was two years old, his father died of a heart attack. His mother, a Juilliard graduate, supported Morris and his brother as a music teacher. Morris attended Hewlett Elementary School in a class with Brent Glass, Tony Kornheiser and former Village Voice editor David Schneiderman.^{[citation needed]}

After being treated for strabismus in childhood, he refused to wear an eye patch. As a consequence, he has limited sight in one eye and lacks normal stereoscopic vision.^[2]

In the 10th grade, Morris attended the Putney School, a boarding school in Vermont. He began playing the cello, spending a summer in France studying music under the acclaimed Nadia Boulanger, who also taught Morris' future collaborator Philip Glass. Describing Morris as a teenager, Mark Singer wrote that he "read with a passion the forty-odd Oz books, watched a lot of television, and on a regular basis went with a doting but not quite right maiden aunt ("I guess you'd have to say that Aunt Roz was somewhat demented") to Saturday matinées, where he saw such films as This Island Earth and Creature from the Black Lagoon — horror movies that, viewed again 30 years later, still seem scary to him."^[3]

Morris attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, graduating in 1969 with a B.A. in history. For a brief time Morris held small jobs, first as a cable television salesman and then as a term-paper writer. His unorthodox approach to applying for grad school included "trying to get accepted at different graduate schools just by showing up on their doorstep." Having unsuccessfully approached both the University of Oxford and Harvard University, Morris was able to talk his way into Princeton University, where he began studying the history of science, a topic in which he had "absolutely no background." His concentration was in the history of physics, and he was bored and unsuccessful in the prerequisite physics classes he had to take. This, together with his antagonistic relationship with his advisor Thomas Kuhn ("'You won't even look through my telescope.' And his response was 'Errol, it's not a telescope, it's a kaleidoscope.'"^[3]) ensured that his stay at Princeton would be short. He left Princeton in 1972, enrolling at Berkeley as a Ph.D. student in philosophy. At Berkeley, Morris once again found that he was not well-suited to his subject. "Berkeley was just a world of pedants. It was truly shocking. I spent two or three years in the philosophy program. I have very bad feelings about it," he later said.^[3] He became a regular at the Pacific Film Archive, as Tom Luddy, the director of the archive at the time, later remembered: "He was a film noir nut. He claimed we weren't showing the real film noir. So I challenged him to write the program notes. Then, there was his habit of sneaking into the films and denying that he was sneaking in. I told him if he was sneaking in he should at least admit he was doing it."^[3]

Inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho, Morris visited Plainfield, Wisconsin in 1975. While in Wisconsin, he conducted multiple interviews with Ed Gein, the infamous serial killer who was a resident at Mendota State Hospital in Madison. He later made plans with German film director Werner Herzog, whom Tom Luddy had introduced to Morris, to return in the summer of 1975 to secretly open the grave of Gein's mother to test their theory that Gein himself had already dug her up. Herzog arrived on schedule, but Morris had second thoughts and was not there. Herzog did not open the grave. Morris later returned to Plainfield, this time staying for almost a year, conducting hundreds of hours of interviews. Although he had plans to either write a book or make a film (which he would call Digging up the Past), Morris never completed his Ed Gein project. In the fall of 1976, Herzog visited Plainfield again, this time to shoot part of his film Stroszek. After the shooting finished, Herzog handed Morris an envelope with cash in it. Morris walked over to the motel window and tossed the envelope out the window into a parking lot. Herzog went out to the parking lot and brought the money back, again offering it to Morris, saying, "Please don't do that again."^[3] Morris accepted the $2,000 and used it to take a trip to Vernon, Florida. Vernon was nicknamed Nub City because its residents participated in a particularly gruesome form of insurance fraud in which they deliberately amputated a limb in order to collect the insurance money. "In the hierarchy of nubbiedom, the supremely rewarding self-sacrifice was the loss of a right leg and a left arm, because, so the theory went, 'afterward, you could still write your name and still have a foot to press the gas pedal of your Cadillac.'"^[3] Morris's second documentary would be about the town and bear its name, although it makes no mention of Vernon as Nub City, but instead explores other idiosyncrasies of the town's residents. Morris made this omission because he received death threats while doing research; the town's residents were afraid that Morris would reveal their secret.

After spending two weeks in Vernon, Morris returned to Berkeley and began working on a script for a work of fiction that he called Nub City. After a few unproductive months, he happened to read a headline in the San Francisco Chronicle that read, "450 DEAD PETS GOING TO NAPA VALLEY". Morris left for Napa Valley and began working on the film that would become his first feature, Gates of Heaven. In 1978 when the film premiered, Werner Herzog cooked and publicly ate his shoe, an event later incorporated into a short documentary by Les Blank. Herzog had promised to eat his shoe if Morris completed the project, to challenge and encourage Morris, whom Herzog perceived as incapable of following up on the projects he conceived. At the public shoe-eating, Herzog suggested that he hoped the act would serve to encourage anyone having difficulty bringing a project to fruition.

Early career[link]

Gates of Heaven was given a limited release in the spring of 1981. Critic Roger Ebert was and remains today a champion of the film, including it on his all-time top ten best films list. Morris returned to Vernon in 1979 and again in 1980, renting a house in town and conducting interviews with the town's citizens. Vernon, FL premiered at the 1981 New York Film Festival. Newsweek called it, "a film as odd and mysterious as its subjects, and quite unforgettable." The film, like Gates of Heaven, suffered from poor distribution. It was released on video in 1987, and DVD in 2005.

After finishing Vernon, FL, Morris tried unsuccessfully to get funding for a variety of projects. There was Road, a story about an interstate highway in Minnesota; a project about Robert Golka, the creator of laser-induced fireballs in Utah; and the story of Centralia, Pennsylvania, the coal town in which an "inextinguishable subterranean fire" ignited in 1962. He eventually got funding in 1983 to write a script about John and Jim Pardue, a pair of Missouri bank robbers who had killed their father and grandmother and robbed five banks. Morris's pitch went, "The great bank-robbery sprees always take place at a time when something is going wrong in the country. Bonnie and Clyde were apolitical, but it's impossible to imagine them without the Depression as a back-drop. The Pardue brothers were apolitical, but it's impossible to imagine them without Vietnam." Morris wanted Tom Waits and Mickey Rourke to play the brothers, and he wrote the script, but the project eventually failed. Morris worked on writing scripts for various other projects, including a pair of ill-fated Stephen King adaptations.

In 1984 he married Julia Sheehan, whom he had met in Wisconsin while researching Ed Gein and other serial killers. Morris would later recall an early conversation with Julia: "I was talking to a mass murderer but I was thinking of you," he said, and instantly regretted it, afraid that it might not have sounded as affectionate as he had wished. But Julia was actually flattered: "I thought, really, that was one of the nicest things anyone ever said to me. It was hard to go out with other guys after that."

In 1985, Morris became interested in Dr. James Grigson, a psychiatrist in Dallas. Under Texas law, the death penalty can only be issued if the jury is convinced that the defendant is not only guilty, but will commit further violent crimes in the future if he is not put to death. Grigson had spent 15 years testifying for such cases, and he almost invariably gave the same damning testimony, often saying that it is "one hundred per cent certain" that the defendant would kill again.^[4] This led to Grigson being nicknamed "Dr. Death".^[5] Through Grigson, Morris would meet the subject of his next film, 36 year-old Randall Dale Adams.^[6]

Adams was serving a life sentence that had been commuted from a death sentence on a legal technicality for the 1976 murder of Robert Wood, a Dallas police officer. Adams told Morris that he had been framed, and that David Harris, who was present at the time of the murder and was the principal witness for the prosecution, had in fact killed Wood. Morris began researching the case because it related to Dr. Grigson; he was at first unconvinced of Adams's innocence. After reading the transcripts of the trial and meeting David Harris at a bar, however, Morris was no longer so sure.

At the time, Morris had been making a living as a private investigator for a well-known private detective agency that specialized in Wall Street cases. Bringing together his talents as an investigator and his obsessions with murder, narration and epistemology, Morris went to work on the case in earnest. Unedited interviews in which the prosecution's witnesses systematically contradicted themselves were used as testimony in Adams's 1986 habeas corpus hearing to determine if he would receive a new trial. David Harris famously confessed, in a roundabout manner, to killing Wood. Although Adams was finally found innocent after years of being processed by the legal system, the judge in the habeas corpus hearing officially stated that, "much could be said about those videotape interviews, but nothing that would have any bearing on the matter before this court." Regardless, The Thin Blue Line, as Morris's film would be called, was popularly accepted as the main force behind getting its subject, Randall Adams, out of prison. As Morris said of the film, "The Thin Blue Line is two movies grafted together. On one simple level is the question, Did he do it, or didn’t he? And on another level, The Thin Blue Line, properly considered, is an essay on false history. A whole group of people, literally everyone, believed a version of the world that was entirely wrong, and my accidental investigation of the story provided a different version of what happened."^[7]

Three years after the release of Adams, he sued Morris demanding a fair share of box office revenue. Morris stands by the belief that a subject should not be paid for being themselves, even in front of the camera. Aside from the fact that Adams was suing the very man who got him off of death row and out of prison all together, was the fact that Morris himself made absolutely no money on the movie.^{[citation needed]} The man supplements his income working on paid commercials for companies like Levi, Miller Beer, and Honda.

According to a survey by The Washington Post, The Thin Blue Line made dozens of critics' top ten lists for 1988, more than any other film that year. It won the documentary of the year award from both the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics. Despite its widespread acclaim, it was not nominated for an Oscar, which created a small scandal regarding the nomination practices of the Academy. The Academy cited the film's genre of "non-fiction", arguing that it was not actually a documentary. To this day, The Thin Blue Line is one of the most critically acclaimed documentaries ever made.

2000s[link]

Although Morris has achieved fame as a documentary filmmaker, he is also an accomplished director of television commercials. In 2002, Morris directed a series of television ads for Apple Computer as part of a popular "Switch" campaign. The commercials featured ex-Windows users discussing their various bad experiences that motivated their own personal switches to Macintosh. One commercial in the series, starring a high-school friend of his son Hamilton Morris, named Ellen Feiss, became an Internet fad. Morris has directed hundreds of commercials for various companies and products, including Adidas, AIG, Cisco Systems, Citibank, Kimberly-Clark's Depend brand, Levi's, Miller High Life, Nike, PBS, The Quaker Oats Company, Southern Comfort, EA Sports, Toyota and Volkswagen. Many of these commercials are available on his website.

In 2002, Morris was commissioned to make a short film for the 75th Academy Awards. He was hired based on his advertising resume, not his career as a director of feature-length documentaries. Those interviewed ranged from Laura Bush to Iggy Pop to Kenneth Arrow to Morris's 15 year old son Hamilton Morris . Morris was nominated for an Emmy for this short film. He considered editing this footage into a feature length film, focusing specifically on Donald Trump discussing Citizen Kane (This segment was later released on the second issue of Wholphin). Morris went on to make a second short for the 79th Academy Awards in 2007, this time interviewing the various nominees and asking them about their Oscar experiences.

In July 2004, Morris directed another series of commercials in the style of the "Switch" ads. This campaign featured Republicans who voted for Bush in the 2000 election giving their personal reasons for voting for Kerry in 2004. Upon completing more than 50 commercials, Morris had difficulty getting them on the air. Eventually the liberal advocacy group MoveOn PAC paid to air a few of the commercials. Morris eventually wrote an editorial for the New York Times discussing the commercials and Kerry's losing campaign.

In the fall of 2004, Morris also directed a series of noteworthy commercials for Sharp Electronics. The commercials enigmatically depicted various scenes from what appeared to be a short narrative that climaxed with a car crashing into a swimming pool. Each commercial showed a slightly different perspective on the events, and each ended with a cryptic weblink. The weblink was to a fake webpage advertising a prize offered to anyone who could discover the secret location of some valuable urns. It was in fact an alternate reality game. The original commercials can be found on Morris's website.

Morris also directed a series of spots for Reebok that featured rapper 50 Cent. The spots featured a title design by The Wilderness.

In 2004, Morris won the Best Documentary Oscar at the Academy Awards, for his film The Fog of War, about the career of Robert S. McNamara, who was famous for having been the Secretary of Defense who had led the nation into the Vietnam War under Presidents John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, and who was also crucially involved in having helped President Kennedy avoid a Third World War over the issue of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. In the hauntingly re-enacted opening portion of the film concerning the background that McNamara and his pro-nuclear-war adversary U.S. General Curtis LeMay had shared together during World War II, director Morris brought out complexities in the character of McNamara, which the public had not previously recognized, but which largely shaped McNamara's positions regarding both the missiles-in-Cuba issue and the Vietnam War issue, and which therefore created the historical figure that McNamara turned out to be as the U.S. Secretary of Defense. In this documentary, Morris brought to a pinnacle the revolutionary technique that he had first introduced to the world in his 1988 The Thin Blue Line: the use of re-enactments in a documentary film—a technique (re-enactments) which had previously been thought to be inappropriate for use in a "documentary" film. However, by now, in 2004, the use of re-enactments in a documentary had become accepted by critics, and therefore this time around, Morris finally won the Academy Award that he should earlier have won also for his The Thin Blue Line, which had actually revolutionized documentary filmmaking.

In early 2010, a new Morris documentary had been submitted to several film festivals, including Toronto International Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival, and Telluride Film Festival.^[8] The film, titled Tabloid,^[9] features interviews with Joyce McKinney, a former Miss Wyoming, who was convicted in absentia for the kidnap and indecent assault of a Mormon missionary in England during 1977.

Additionally Morris has been writing long-form journalism exploring different areas of his interest, published on the New York Times website. A collection of these essays, entitled Believing is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography, was published by Penguin Press on September 1, 2011. In November 2011, Morris premiered a documentary short, "The Umbrella Man," featuring Josiah "Tink" Thompson on the Kennedy assassination, on the opinion page of The New York Times online.

The Interrotron[link]

The Interrotron is a device similar to a teleprompter: Errol and his subject each sit facing a camera. The image of each person's face is then projected onto a two-way mirror positioned in front of the lens of the other's camera. Instead of looking at a blank lens, then, both Morris and his subject are looking directly at a human face. (Diagram) Morris believes that the machine helps to explore the relationship between "monologue and language, and how people present themselves to camera, and express themselves to camera."^[10]

The name "Interrotron" was coined by Morris's wife, who, according to Morris, "liked the name because it combined two important concepts — terror and interview."^[11]

Filmography[link]

• Gates of Heaven (1978)
• Vernon, Florida (1981)
• The Thin Blue Line (1988)
• The Dark Wind (1991)
• A Brief History of Time (1991)
• Fast, Cheap and Out of Control (1997)
• Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. (1999)
• First Person (2000)
• The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003)
• Standard Operating Procedure (2008)
• Tabloid (2010)

Writing[link]

Books

• Believing Is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography (Penguin Press, 1 September 2011)
• A Wilderness Of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald (Penguin Press, forthcoming in 2012)

Essays

• "Will The Real Hooded Man Please Stand Up" (2007)
• "Which Came First, The Chicken or the Egg?" (2007)
• "Cartesian Blogging, Part One" (2007)
• "Play It Again, Sam (Re-Enactments, Part One)" (2008)
• "Play It Again, Sam (Re-Enactments, Part Two)" (2008)
• "The Most Curious Thing" (2008)
• "Cartesian Blogging, Part Two" (2008)
• "People in the Middle" (2008)
• "Photography as a Weapon" (2008)
• "Cartesian Blogging, Part Three" (2008)
• "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall" (2009)
• "Whose Father Was He?" (2009)
• "Bamboozling Ourselves" (2009)
• "Seven Lies About Lying" (2009)
• "The Case of the Inappropriate Alarm Clock" (2009)
• "The Anosognosic's Dilemma: Something's Wrong but You'll Never Know What It Is" (2010)
• "The Ashtray" (2011)
• "Did My Brother Invent E-Mail With Tom Van Vleck?" (2011)

Awards and honors[link]

• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2007)^[12]
• Jury Grand Prix Silver Bear at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival for Standard Operating Procedure
• Academy Award for Documentary Feature The Fog of War (2004)
• Best Documentary of the Year awards for The Fog of War (2003): the National Board of Review, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Chicago Film Critics, and the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics.
• 2002 International Documentary Association list of the 20 all-time best documentaries: The Thin Blue Line (#2), Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (#14)^[13]
• Emmy for Best Commercial for PBS commercial "Photobooth" (2001)
• In December 2001, the United States' National Film Preservation Foundation announced that Morris's The Thin Blue Line would be one of the 25 films selected that year for preservation in the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress, bringing the total at the time to 325.
• MacArthur Fellowship (1989)
• Washington Post Best Film of the Year for The Thin Blue Line (1988)
• New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics Best Documentary for The Thin Blue Line (1988)
• Golden Horse for Best Foreign Film at the Taiwan International Film Festival for The Thin Blue Line (1988)
• Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture, from the Mystery Writers of America, for The Thin Blue Line (1989)
• Gates of Heaven (1978) has long been on Roger Ebert's list of the ten greatest films ever made.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Errol Morris

• Errol Morris's website
• Errol Morris on Twitter
• Errol Morris at the Internet Movie Database
• Errol Morris on Charlie Rose
• Works by or about Errol Morris in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Errol Morris collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Errol Morris at Rotten Tomatoes)
• Errol Morris (Jonathan Crow, Allmovie)
• Errol Morris (Nina Rehfeld, GreenCine)
• Voices on Antisemitism Interview with Errol Morris from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Werner Herzog in coversation with Errol Morris (The Believer)

Donald Rumsfeld
13th and 21st United States Secretary of Defense
In office January 20, 2001 – December 18, 2006
President	George W. Bush
Deputy	Paul Wolfowitz Gordon England
Preceded by	William Cohen
Succeeded by	Robert Gates
In office November 20, 1975 – January 20, 1977
President	Gerald Ford
Deputy	Bill Clements
Preceded by	James Schlesinger
Succeeded by	Harold Brown
6th White House Chief of Staff
In office September 21, 1974 – November 20, 1975
President	Gerald Ford
Preceded by	Alexander Haig
Succeeded by	Dick Cheney
9th United States Ambassador to NATO
In office February 2, 1973 – September 21, 1974
Appointed by	Richard Nixon
Preceded by	David Kennedy
Succeeded by	David Bruce
3rd Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity
In office May 27, 1969 – December 11, 1970
President	Richard Nixon
Preceded by	Bertrand Harding
Succeeded by	Frank Carlucci
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 13th district
In office January 3, 1963 – March 20, 1969
Preceded by	Marguerite Church
Succeeded by	Phil Crane
Personal details
Born	(1932-07-09) July 9, 1932 (age 79) Evanston, Illinois, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Joyce Pierson
Children	Valerie Marcy Donald
Alma mater	Princeton University Georgetown University
Signature
Website	Library website[1]
Military service
Service/branch	United States Navy
Years of service	1954–1975
Rank	Captain
Unit	Active Duty (1954–1957) Navy Reserve (1957–1975) Individual Ready Reserve (1975–1989)

Donald Henry Rumsfeld (born July 9, 1932) is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to have served as Secretary of Defense. Additionally, Rumsfeld was a four-term U.S. Congressman from Illinois (1962–1969), Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity (1969–1970), Counsellor to the President (1969–1973), the United States Permanent Representative to NATO (1973–1974), and White House Chief of Staff (1974–1975).

Born in Illinois, Rumsfeld attended Princeton University, graduating in 1954 with a degree in political science. After serving in the Navy for three years, he mounted a campaign for Congress in Illinois' 13th Congressional District, winning in 1962 at the age of 30. Reelected four times, he was a leading co-sponsor of the Freedom of Information Act. Rumsfeld was reluctantly appointed by President Richard Nixon to head the Office of Economic Opportunity in 1969; appointed Counselor by Nixon and entitled to Cabinet-level status, he would also head up the Economic Stabilization Program before being appointed Ambassador to NATO. Called back to Washington in August 1974, Rumsfeld was appointed Chief of Staff by President Ford, recruiting a young one-time staffer of his, Dick Cheney, to succeed him when Ford nominated Rumsfeld Secretary of Defense in 1975.

When Ford lost the 1976 election, Rumsfeld returned to private business life, and was named president of G. D. Searle & Company, a noted pharmaceutical company, during which time he led the legalization of Aspartame. He was later named CEO of General Instrument from 1990 to 1993, and chairman of Gilead Sciences from 1997 to 2001.

Rumsfeld was recommended for the position of Defense Secretary by incoming Vice President Dick Cheney in late 2000, and was appointed in January 2001 by President George W. Bush. His tenure has been noted to be one of the most pivotal in recent history; as one of the key individuals responsible for the restructuring of the military in the new 21st century, Rumsfeld was crucial in planning the United States' response to the September 11, 2001 attacks, which included two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Highly popular with the media for his outspokenness and candor, he gradually lost political support as the wars continued and resigned in late 2006.

Early life[link]

Donald Henry Rumsfeld was born on July 9, 1932, in Evanston, Illinois, to George Donald Rumsfeld and Jeannette (née Huster). His father came from a Swiss American family that had emigrated in the 1870s, and young Donald was sometimes ribbed about looking like a "tough Swiss".^[2] Growing 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^[3] and its Silver Buffalo Award in 2006. He was a camp counselor at the Northeast Illinois Council's Camp Ma-Ka-Ja-Wan in the late 1940s and a ranger at Philmont Scout Ranch in 1949.^[4]

Rumsfeld's 1954 yearbook portrait from Princeton, where he played football and wrestled.

Rumsfeld attended Baker Demonstration School, a private middle school, and later graduated^[5] from New Trier High School. He attended Princeton University on academic and NROTC partial scholarships (A.B., 1954). During his time at Princeton, he was an accomplished amateur wrestler, becoming captain of the wrestling team, and captain of the Lightweight Football team playing defensive back. His Princeton University senior thesis was titled "The Steel Seizure Case of 1952 and Its Effects on Presidential Powers."^[6] While at Princeton he roomed with another future Secretary of Defense, Frank Carlucci.

Rumsfeld married his high school sweetheart Joyce H. Pierson on December 27, 1954. They have three children and six grandchildren. He attempted to get his law degree in 1956, and attended Georgetown University Law Center, but did not graduate.

Rumsfeld served in the United States Navy during peacetime, 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. On 1 July 1958, he was assigned to Anti-submarine Squadron 662 at Naval Air Station Anacostia, District of Columbia, as a selective reservist.^[7] Rumsfeld was designated aircraft commander of Anti-submarine Squadron 731 on 1 October 1960, at Naval Air Station Grosse Ile, Michigan, where he flew the S2F Tracker.^[7] He transferred to the Individual Ready Reserve when he became Secretary of Defense in 1975 and retired with the rank of captain in 1989.^[8]

Career in government (1962-1977)[link]

Member of Congress[link]

In 1957, during the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, Rumsfeld served as Administrative Assistant to David S. Dennison, Jr., a Congressman representing the 11th district of Ohio. In 1959, he moved on to become a staff assistant to Congressman Robert P. Griffin of Michigan.^[9] Engaging in a two-year stint with an investment banking firm, A. G. Becker, from 1960 to 1962,^[10] Rumsfeld would instead set his sights on becoming a member of Congress.

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.^[11] While in Congress, he served on the Joint Economic Committee, the Committee on Science and Aeronautics, and the Government Operations Committee, as well as on the Subcommittees on Military and Foreign Operations. He was also a co-founder of the Japanese-American Inter-Parliamentary Council^[12] in addition to being a leading cosponsor of the Freedom of Information Act.^[13]

As a young Congressman, Rumsfeld attended seminars at the University of Chicago, an experience he credits with introducing him to the idea of an all volunteer military, and to the economist Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics.^[14] He would later take part in Friedman's PBS series Free to Choose.^[15]

Nixon Administration[link]

Rumsfeld with his son, Nick, in the Oval Office with President Nixon, 1973

Rumsfeld resigned from Congress in 1969 — his fourth term — to serve President Richard Nixon in his administration, and he would serve in a variety of executive branch positions throughout the Nixon presidency. In 1969, Nixon sought to reform and reorganize the United States Office of Economic Opportunity, an organization created during the Kennedy administration and greatly expanded as a part of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs, rather than eliminate it outright. He appointed Rumsfeld Director of the organization. Rumsfeld had voted against the creation of OEO when he was in Congress, and initially rejected president's offer, citing his own inherent belief that the OEO did more harm than good, and he felt that he was not the right person for the job.^[16] He only accepted after a personal plea from the president.

While Director of OEO, Rumsfeld sought to reorganize OEO to serve as "a laboratory for experimental programs."^[17] Several beneficial anti-poverty programs were saved by allocated funds to them from other less-successful government programs. During this time, he hired Frank Carlucci and Dick Cheney to serve under him.

He was the subject of one of legendary writer Jack Anderson's columns, alleging that "anti-poverty czar" Rumsfeld had cut programs to aid the poor while spending thousands to redecorate his office. Rumsfeld dictated a four page response to Anderson, labeling the accusations as falsehoods, and invited Anderson to tour his office. Despite the tour, Anderson did not retract his claims, and would only later admit that his column was a mistake.^[17]

When he left OEO in December 1970, President Nixon named Rumsfeld Counsellor to the President, a general advisory position that earned him Cabinet-status.^[18] He was given an office in the West Wing and now regularly interacted with the Nixon administration hierarchy. He was named Director of the Economic Stabilization Program in 1970 as well, and headed up the Cost of Living Council. In 1971 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."^{[19][20][21][22][23]}

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, and was asked to help mediate a conflict on behalf of the United States between Cyprus and Turkey.^[24]

Ford Administration[link]

Chief of Staff Rumsfeld (left) and Deputy-Chief of Staff Dick Cheney (right) meet with President Ford, April 1975

In August 1974, Rumsfeld 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 House when Ford was House minority leader. As the new president became settled in, Ford appointed Rumsfeld White House Chief of Staff, where he served from 1974 to 1975.

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld shares a laugh with President Ford in a Cabinet meeting, 1975

In October 1975, Ford reshuffled his cabinet in the Halloween Massacre. He named Rumsfeld to become the 13th U.S. Secretary of Defense; George H. W. Bush became Director of Central Intelligence. 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."^[25]

At the Pentagon, Rumsfeld oversaw the transition to an all-volunteer military. He sought to reverse the gradual decline in the defense budget and to build up U.S. strategic and conventional forces, skillfully undermining Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the SALT talks.^[26] He asserted, along with Team B (which he helped to set up),^[27] that trends in comparative U.S.-Soviet military strength had not 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."^[8] For this reason, he oversaw the development of cruise missiles, the B-1 bomber, and a major naval shipbuilding program.^[26]

In 1977, Rumsfeld was awarded the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.^[28] Kissinger, his bureaucratic adversary, would later pay him a different sort of compliment, pronouncing him "a special Washington phenomenon: the skilled full-time politician-bureaucrat in whom ambition, ability, and substance fuse seamlessly."^[29]

Return to the private sector (1977–2000)[link]

Business career[link]

In early 1977 Rumsfeld briefly lectured at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School and Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, located in Chicago, Illinois near his home town of Evanston. His sights instead turned to business, and 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. During his tenure at Searle, Rumsfeld led the company's financial turnaround, thereby earning awards as the Outstanding Chief Executive Officer in the Pharmaceutical Industry from the Wall Street Transcript (1980) and Financial World (1981). In 1985, Searle was sold to Monsanto Company. Rumsfeld is believed to have earned around $12 million from this sale.^[30]

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. Gilead Sciences is the developer of Tamiflu (Oseltamivir), which is used in the treatment of bird flu.^[31] As a result, Rumsfeld's holdings in the company grew significantly when avian flu became a subject of popular anxiety during his later term as Secretary of Defense. Following standard practice, Rumsfeld recused himself from any decisions involving Gilead, and he directed the Pentagon's General Counsel to issue instructions outlining what he could and could not be involved in if there were an avian flu pandemic and the Pentagon had to respond.^[32][33][34]

Part-time public service[link]

During his business career, Rumsfeld continued part-time public service in various posts. In November 1983, Rumsfeld was appointed Special Envoy to the Middle East by President Ronald Reagan, at a turbulent time in modern Middle Eastern history when Iraq was fighting Iran in the Iran–Iraq War. The United States wished for the conflict to end, and Rumsfeld was sent to the Middle East to serve as a mediator on behalf of the President.

As President Reagan's Special Envoy to the Middle East, Rumsfeld met with Saddam Hussein during a visit to Baghdad in December 1983, during the Iran–Iraq War (see video here).

When Rumsfeld visited Baghdad on December 20, 1983, he met Saddam Hussein at Saddam's palace and had a 90-minute discussion. They largely agreed on opposing Syria's occupation of Lebanon; preventing Syrian and Iranian expansion; and preventing arms sales to Iran. Rumsfeld suggested that if U.S.-Iraq relations could improve the U.S. might support a new oil pipeline across Jordan, which Iraq had opposed but was now willing to reconsider. Rumsfeld also informed Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz that "Our efforts to assist were inhibited by certain things that made it difficult for us ... citing the use of chemical weapons."^[35]

Rumsfeld wrote in his memoir Known and Unknown that his meeting with Hussein "has been the subject of gossip, rumors, and crackpot conspiracy theories for more than a quarter of a century... Supposedly I had been sent to see Saddam by President Reagan either to negotiate a secret oil deal, to help arm Iraq, or to make Iraq an American client state. The truth is that our encounter was more straightforward and less dramatic."^[36]

In addition to taking the position of Middle East envoy, Rumsfeld served as a member of the President's General Advisory Committee on Arms Control (1982–1986); President Reagan's Special Envoy on the Law of the Sea Treaty (1982–1983); a senior adviser to President Reagan's Panel on Strategic Systems (1983–1984); a member of the Joint Advisory Commission on U.S./Japan Relations (1983–1984); a member of the National Commission on the Public Service (1987–1990); a member of the National Economic Commission (1988–1989); a member of the Board of Visitors of the National Defense University (1988–1992); a member of the FCC's High Definition Television Advisory Committee (1992–1993); a member of the U.S. Trade Deficit Review Commission (1999–2000); a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; and Chairman of the U.S. Commission to Assess National Security Space Management and Organization (2000). Among his most noteworthy positions was Chairman of the nine-member Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States from January to July 1998. In its findings, the commission 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.^[37]

During the 1980s, Rumsfeld became a member of the National Academy of Public Administration, and was named 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.^{[citation needed]} Rumsfeld was a founder and active member of the Project for the New American Century, a neo-conservative think-tank dedicated to maintaining U.S. primacy. In addition, he served as United Way Inter-governmental Affairs Director in Washington, D.C. from 1986 to 1989 and was asked to serve the U.S. State Department as a foreign policy consultant from 1990 to 1993. He also sat on European Engineering giant Asea Brown Boveri's board from 1990 to 2001, a company which sold two light-water nuclear reactors to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization for installation in North Korea, as part of the 1994 agreed framework reached under President Bill Clinton. Rumsfeld's office said that he did not "recall it being brought before the board at any time" though Fortune magazine reported that "board members were informed about this project."^[38]

To honor his foreign policy work, Rumsfeld was named honorary Vice-Chancellor of Yale University in 2001.^{[citation needed]}

Presidential and vice presidential aspirations[link]

During 1976 Republican National Convention, Rumsfeld received one vote for Vice President of the United States, although he did not seek the office, and the nomination was easily won by Ford's choice, Senator Bob Dole.^[39] During the 1980 Republican National Convention he also received one vote for Vice President.^[40] Economist Milton Friedman later noted that he, Friedman, regarded Reagan's pick of Bush as "the worst decision not only of his campaign but of his presidency," and that Rumsfeld was instead his preference. "Had he been chosen," Friedman said, "I believe he would have succeeded Reagan as president and the sorry Bush-Clinton period would never have occurred."^[41]

Rumsfeld briefly sought the Presidential nomination in 1988, but withdrew from the race before primaries began.^[42] During the 1996 election he initially formed a presidential exploratory committee, but declined to formally enter the race. He was instead named national chairman for Republican nominee Bob Dole's campaign.^[43]

Return to government (2001–2006)[link]

Rumsfeld is administered the oath of office as the 21st Secretary of Defense on January 20, 2001 by Director of Administration and Management David O. Cooke (left), as Joyce Rumsfeld holds the Bible in a ceremony at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building

Rumsfeld was named Secretary of Defense soon after President George W. Bush took office in 2001 despite Rumsfeld's past rivalry with the previous President Bush. Bush's first choice, FedEx founder Fred Smith, was unavailable and Vice President-elect Cheney recommended Rumsfeld for the job.^[44]

Rumsfeld's second tenure as Secretary of Defense cemented him as the most powerful Pentagon chief since Robert McNamara and one of the most influential Cabinet members in the Bush administration.^[45] His tenure would prove to be a pivotal and rocky one which led the United States military into the 21st century. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Rumsfeld led the military planning and execution of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent 2003 invasion of Iraq. He pushed hard to send as small a force as possible to both conflicts, a concept codified as the Rumsfeld Doctrine.

Throughout his time as Defense Secretary, Rumsfeld was noted for his candor and quick wit when giving weekly press conferences or speaking with the press.^[46] U.S. News & World Report called him "a straight-talking Midwesterner" who "routinely has the press corps doubled over in fits of laughter."^[46]

Modernizing the military[link]

Rumsfeld's initial task, as outlined by President Bush, was to modernize the military and transform it into a lighter fighting force. Once in office, Rumsfeld immediately announced a series of sweeping reviews intended to accomplish this, and developed a new strategy for defense more relevant to the 21st century. Central to his proposal was to reorganize the global command structure, otherwise known as the Unified Command, replacing it with both the U.S. Strategic Command and Northern Command systems. Strategic Command would take over responsibilities that were held by the Strategic Command and Space Command, both of which were disestablished. This plan was approved by President Bush and implemented under the oversight of Rumsfeld.^[8]

September 11, 2001[link]

"The Pentagon is functioning" was the message Rumsfeld stressed during a press conference in the Pentagon briefing room barely eight hours after terrorists crashed a hijacked commercial jetliner into the Pentagon. Rumsfeld is flanked, left to right, by Secretary of the Army Tom White, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Hugh Shelton, and Senators John Warner (R-VA), and Carl Levin (D-MI), the Ranking Member and Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Rumsfeld and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani speak at the site of the World Trade Center attacks in Lower Manhattan on November 14, 2001

The United States was attacked on September 11, 2001 by al Qaeda terrorists who hijacked commercial airliners and crashed them in coordinated strikes into both towers of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and its target was likely a prominent building in Washington, D.C., most probably either the Capitol Building or the White House.^[47] Within three hours of the start of the first hijacking and two hours after American Airlines Flight 11 struck 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.^[48]

On the morning of 9/11, Rumsfeld spoke at a Pentagon breakfast meeting. According to his later description to Larry King, he stated at the meeting that "sometime in the next two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve months there would be an event that would occur in the world that would be sufficiently shocking that it would remind people again how important it is to have a strong healthy defense department that contributes to... that underpins peace and stability in our world. And that is what underpins peace and stability."^[49]

After the strike on the Pentagon by American Airlines Flight 77, Rumsfeld went out to the parking lot to assist with rescue efforts.^[50] He later recalled that "I wanted to see what had happened. I wanted to see if people needed help. I went downstairs and helped for a bit with some people on stretchers. Then I came back up here and started — I realized I had to get back up here and get at it."^[49]

Military decisions in the wake of 9/11[link]

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld (left) and the Commander of U.S. Central Command General Tommy Franks, listen to a question at the close of a Pentagon press conference on March 5, 2003. Rumsfeld and Franks gave reporters an operational update and fielded questions on the possible conflict in Iraq.

On the afternoon of September 11, Rumsfeld issued rapid orders to his aides to look for evidence of possible Iraqi involvement in regard to what had just occurred, according to notes taken by senior policy official Stephen Cambone. "Best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H." — meaning Saddam Hussein — "at same time. Not only UBL" (Osama bin Laden), Cambone's notes quoted Rumsfeld as saying. "Need to move swiftly — Near term target needs — go massive — sweep it all up. Things related and not."^[51][52]

That evening, after President Bush spoke to the nation from the Oval Office, Rumsfeld recalled musing about the President's intended response to attack terrorists from whatever territory they planned and operated. He reported questioning whether that would include attacking American allies, and suggested that the problem be magnified and viewed from a broader scope. He recommended that state-sponsors of terror, including Sudan, Libya, Iraq and Iran, be considered as possible places of sanctuary if the U.S. were to attack Afghanistan.^[53]

Rumsfeld wrote in Known and Unknown, "Much has been written about the Bush administration's focus on Iraq after 9/11. Commentators have suggested that it was strange or obsessive for the President and his advisers to have raised questions about whether Saddam Hussein was somehow behind the attack. I have never understood the controversy. I had no idea if Iraq was or was not involved, but it would have been irresponsible for any administration not to have asked the question."^[54]

"Looking back on the weeks following 9/11," he wrote, "Some accounts suggest an administration that seemed to have a preordained response to the attacks. From my vantage point, however, quite the opposite was the case. It was a time of discovery–of seeking elusive, imperfect solutions for new problems that would not be solved quickly. There was no guidebook or road map for us to follow."^[55]

Afghanistan and Iraq[link]

After the war in Afghanistan was launched, Rumsfeld participated in a meeting in regard to the review of the Department of Defense's Contingency Plan in the event of a war with Iraq. The plan, as it was then conceived, contemplated troop levels of up to 500,000, which Rumsfeld felt was far too many. Gordon and Trainor wrote:

As [General] Newbold outlined the plan ... it was clear that Rumsfeld was growing increasingly irritated. For Rumsfeld, the plan required too many troops and supplies and took far too long to execute. It was, Rumsfeld declared, the "product of old thinking and the embodiment of everything that was wrong with the military."^[56]

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 military operation 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.^[57]

As a result, Rumsfeld stirred controversy as to whether the forces that did invade Iraq were enough in size.^[56] In a September 2007 interview with The Daily Telegraph, General Mike Jackson, the head of the British army during the invasion, criticized Rumsfeld's plans for the invasion of Iraq as "intellectually bankrupt," adding that Rumsfeld is "one of those most responsible for the current situation in Iraq," and that he felt that "the US approach to combating global terrorism is 'inadequate' and too focused on military might rather than nation building and diplomacy."^[58]

In 2006, Rumsfeld responded to a question by Brit Hume of Fox News as to whether he pressed General Tommy Franks to lower his request for 400,000 troops for the war:

Absolutely not. That's a mythology [sic]. This town [Washington, D.C] is filled with this kind of nonsense. The people who decide the levels of forces on the ground are not the Secretary of Defense or the President. We hear recommendations, but the recommendations are made by the combatant commanders and by members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and there hasn't been a minute in the last six years when we have not had the number of troops that the combatant commanders have requested.^[59]

Rumsfeld told Hume that Franks ultimately decided against such a troop level.^[60]

There was also controversy between Rumsfeld at the Pentagon and the CIA over who had the authority to fire Hellfire missiles from Predator drones.^[61] Even though the drones were not ready for delpyment until 2002,^[61] Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon have argued that "these quarrels kept the Predator from being used against al Qaeda.... One individual who was at the center of the action called this episode 'typical' and complained that 'Rumsfeld never missed an opportunity to fail to cooperate. The fact is, the Secretary of Defense is an obstacle. He has helped the terrorists.'^[62]

After the Iraq invasion, U.S. troops were criticized for not protecting the historical artifacts and treasures located at the National Museum of Iraq. When asked at the time why U.S. troops did not actively seek to stop the lawlessness, Rumsfeld replied, "Stuff happens... and it's untidy and freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here."^[63] He further commented that, "The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over, and over, and over, and it's the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it 20 times, and you think, "My goodness, were there that many vases?"^[63]

Secretary Rumsfeld responds to a reporter's question during a Pentagon press briefing. Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave reporters an operational update on Operation Iraqi Freedom on October 2, 2003.

Throughout his tenure, Rumsfeld sought to remind the American people of the 9/11 attacks and threats against Americans, noting at one time in a 2006 memo to "[m]ake the American people realize they are surrounded in the world by violent extremists."^[64][65]

As Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld was deliberate in crafting the public message from the Department of Defense. 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.^[65] Rumsfeld also ordered specific public Pentagon attacks on and responses to U.S. newspaper columns that reported the negative aspects of the war, which he often personally reviewed before they were sent.^[65]

In October 2003, Rumsfeld personally approved a secret Pentagon "roadmap" on public relations, calling for "boundaries" between information operations abroad and the news media at home. The Roadmap advances a policy according to which as long as the U.S. government does not intentionally target the American public, it does not matter that psychological operations, reach the American public.^[66]

Prisoner abuse and enhanced interrogation techniques[link]

The Department of Defense's preliminary concerns for holding, housing, and interrogating captured prisoners on the battlefield were raised during the military build-up prior to the Iraq War. Because Saddam Hussein’s military forces surrendered when faced with military action, many within the DOD, including Rumsfeld and United States Central Command General Tommy Franks, decided it was in the best interest of all to hand these prisoners over to their respective countries. Additionally, it was determined that maintaining a large holding facility was, at the time, unrealistic. Instead, the use of many facilities such as Abu Ghraib would be utilized to house prisoners prior to handing them over and Rumsfeld defended the Bush administration's decision to detain enemy combatants without protection under the Third Geneva Convention. Because of this, critics, including the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, would hold Rumsfeld responsible for the ensuing Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal. Rumsfeld himself said: "These events occurred on my watch as Secretary of Defense. I am accountable for them."^[67] He offered his resignation to President Bush in the wake of the scandal, but it was not accepted.^[68]

Rumsfeld poses with Marines during one of his trips to Camp Fallujah, Iraq, on Christmas Eve 2004.

In a memo read by Rumsfeld detailing how Guantanamo interrogators would induce stress in prisoners by forcing them to remain standing in one position for a maximum of four hours, Rumsfeld scrawled a handwritten note in the margin reading: "I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing [by prisoners] limited to four hours? D.R.".^[69]

Various organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, have called for investigations of Rumsfeld regarding his involvement in managing the Iraq War and his support of the Bush administration's policies of enhanced interrogation techniques.^[70][71] In 2005 the ACLU and Human Rights First filed a lawsuit against Rumsfeld and other top government officials, "on behalf of eight men who they say were subjected to torture and abuse by U.S. forces under the command of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld."^[72] In 2005, a suit was filed against Rumsfeld by several human rights organizations for allegedly violating U.S. and international law that prohibits "torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment."^[72] Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel filed suit against the U.S. government and Rumsfeld on similar grounds, alleging that they were tortured and their rights of habeas corpus were violated.^{[73][74][75][76][77][78]} In 2007, U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan ruled that Rumsfeld could not "be held personally responsible for actions taken in connection with his government job."^[79] The ACLU tried to revive the case in 2011 with no luck.^[80]

Resignation[link]

Rumsfeld with former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher alongside the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace, 2006

Eight retired generals and admirals called for Rumsfeld to resign in early 2006 in what was called the "Generals Revolt," accusing him of "abysmal" military planning and lack of strategic competence.^[81][82][83] Commentator Pat Buchanan reported at the time that Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who traveled often to Iraq and supported the war, claimed that the generals' and admirals' views mirror those of 75 percent of the officers in the field, and probably more."^[84] 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."^[85] Bush defended his secretary throughout, and responded by stating that Rumsfeld is "exactly what is needed".^[86]

Rumsfeld shakes President Bush's hand as he announces his resignation, November 8, 2006.

On November 1, 2006, Bush stated he would stand by Rumsfeld as defense secretary for the length of his term as president.^[87] Rumsfeld wrote a resignation letter dated November 6, and, per the stamp on the letter, Bush saw it on Election Day, November 7.^[88] 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 would have won more votes if voters had known Rumsfeld was resigning.^[88]

Bush nominated Robert Gates to succeed Rumsfeld^[89][90][91] and at a press conference announcing Rumsfeld's resignation and Gates' nomination, Bush remarked, "America is safer and the world is more secure because of the service and the leadership of Donald Rumsfeld."^[92]

On December 18, 2006, Rumsfeld's resignation took effect. 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 there.^[93] In a farewell ceremony on December 16, 2006, Rumsfeld's long-time political ally Vice President Dick Cheney, who worked with him in the Ford administration and who also had served as a secretary of defense, called the secretary "the finest secretary of defense this nation has ever had."

Including his time serving as the 13th Secretary of Defense under Ford from 1975 to 1977, Rumsfeld is the second-longest-serving Secretary of Defense in history, falling nine days short of the term of the longest-serving Pentagon chief, the Vietnam-era Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara.

Retirement and later life (2006–present)[link]

Rumsfeld shares a laugh with his successor, Robert Gates, at a ceremony to unveil his official portrait as Secretary of Defense, June 25, 2010

In the months after his resignation, Rumsfeld toured the New York publishing houses in preparation for a potential memoir.^[94] After receiving what one industry source labeled "big bids", he reached an agreement with the Penguin Group to publish the book under its Sentinel HC imprint.

In 2007, Rumsfeld established The Rumsfeld Foundation, an educational foundation that provides fellowships to talented individuals from the private sector who want to serve for some time in government.^[95] Rumsfeld personally financed the foundation.^[96] The foundation has granted over 50 fellowships to graduate students from Central Asia, provided over $2.1 million in microfinance grants, and donated over $200,000 to charities for veterans affairs.^[95]

In September 2007, Rumsfeld received a one-year appointment as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University,^[97] joining (among others) retired army General John P. Abizaid, former commander of U.S. Central Command, and fellow conservatives George Shultz and Newt Gingrich. He participated in the institution's new task force studying post–September 11 ideology and non-state terror.^{[citation needed]}

Rumsfeld declined to accept an advance for the publication of his memoir, and has said he is donating any proceeds from the work to veterans groups.^[95] His book, entitled Known and Unknown: A Memoir, was released on February 8, 2011.^[98]

In conjunction with the publication of Known and Unknown, Rumsfeld established "The Rumsfeld Papers", a website with documents "related to the endnotes" of the book and his service during the George W. Bush administration;^[1] during the months that followed the book's publication, the website is being expanded to include "a number of other documents from [his] archive"; as of June 2011,^{[dated info]} the topics include his Congressional voting record, the Nixon administration, documents and memos of meetings while he was part of the Ford administration, private sector documents, and NATO documents, among others.^[1]

Rumsfeld was awarded the "Defender of the Constitution Award" at the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., on February 10, 2011. After leaving office, Rumsfeld repeatedly criticized former fellow Cabinet member Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State. In 2011 she finally responded, saying that Rumsfeld "doesn't know what he's talking about."^[99]

Electoral history[link]

During the four elections during which he ran to represent Illinois's 13th congressional district, Rumsfeld received shares of the popular vote that ranged from 57.82% (in 1964) to 76.01% (in 1966). In 1975 and 2001, Rumsfeld was overwhelmingly confirmed by the U.S. Senate after Presidents Gerald Ford and George W. Bush, respectively, appointed him as U.S. Secretary of Defense.

Awards[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2011)

Rumsfeld has been awarded 11 honorary degrees.^{[citation needed]} Following his years as CEO, president, and later chairman of G. D. Searle & Company, he was recognized as Outstanding CEO in the pharmaceutical industry by the Wall Street Transcript (1980) and Financial World (1981).^{[citation needed]}

His other awards include:

• The Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ford (1977)
• 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)^[100]
• Distinguished Eagle Scout Award by the Boy Scouts of America
• Union League of Philadelphia Gold Medal for Citizenship (2006)
• Claremont Institute Statesmanship Award (2007)
• Victory of Freedom Award from the Richard Nixon Foundation (2010)^[101]
• Order of Anthony Wayne from Valley Forge Military Academy

Affiliation history[link]

Institutional affiliations[link]

• 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[link]

• 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)
• United States Navy: Various posts, including aviator (1954–57); reserves (1957–1975) Retired as a Navy Captain (1989)

Corporate connections and business interests[link]

• 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
• RAND Corporation: Chairman of Board from 1981–1986; 1995–1996
• Bilderberg Group: Member^{[citation needed]}
• Amylin Pharmaceuticals: Former director

Education[link]

• Princeton University: A.B. (1954)

Intellectual heritage[link]

• John Boyd of OODA Loop fame.

See also[link]

	United States portal
	Switzerland portal
	Biography portal

• Agathidium rumsfeldi — the naming of a beetle in homage to Rumsfeld
• Hillbilly armor — Rumsfeld questioned by a soldier about the use of "ad hoc" armor
• 'Known knowns' - quotation
• Known and Unknown: A Memoir, Rumsfeld's memoir of his life

Footnotes[link]

Works[link]

• Rumsfeld, Donald (2011). Known and Unknown: A Memoir. Sentinel. ISBN 978-1-59523-067-6. 
• Rumsfeld, Donald (1988). Strategic imperatives in East Asia. Heritage lectures, no. 605. Washington, D.C.: Heritage Foundation.  Speech given Mar. 3, 1998 in Washington, D.C.

References[link]

• By His Own Rules: The Ambitions, Successes, and Ultimate Failures of Donald Rumsfeld by Bradley Graham (PublicAffairs, 2009) ISBN 978-1-58648-421-7
• Rumsfeld's War: The Untold Story of America's Anti-Terrorist Commander by Rowan Scarborough (Regnery Publishing, 2004) ISBN 0-89526-069-7
• Rumsfeld: A Personal Portrait by Midge Decter (Regan Books, 2003) ISBN 0-06-056091-6
• The Rumsfeld Way: The Leadership Wisdom of a Battle-Hardened Maverick by Jeffrey A. Krames (McGraw-Hill, 2002) ISBN 0-07-140641-7
• Hoehn, Andrew R. Albert A. Robbert, Margaret C. Harrell (2011). Succession management for senior military positions : the Rumsfeld model for Secretary of Defense involvement. Santa Monica, CA: RAND. ISBN 978-0-8330-5228-5. 
• Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy by Andrew Cockburn (Scribners, 2007) ISBN 1-4165-3574-8
• Decision Points by George W. Bush (Crown, 2010) ISBN 978-0-307-59061-9

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Donald Rumsfeld

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Donald Rumsfeld

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Donald Rumsfeld

Works[link]

• The Rumsfeld Papers, his official website
• U.S. Secretary of Defense official transcripts archive
• Rumsfeld's Rules advice on government, business and life, January 29, 2001
• Donald Rumsfeld's Project Syndicate op/eds
• Known and Unknown: A Memoir by Donald Rumsfeld (2011)

Government service[link]

• White House Biography
• Department of Defense Biography
• Donald Rumsfeld at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Appearances on C-SPAN programs
• Appearances on Charlie Rose
• Appearances at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Donald Rumsfeld in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Donald Rumsfeld collected news and commentary at Al Jazeera English
• Donald Rumsfeld collected news and commentary at The Guardian
• Donald Rumsfeld collected news and commentary at The Jerusalem Post
• Donald Rumsfeld collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Donald Rumsfeld collected news and commentary at The Wall Street Journal

Documentary video[link]

• Video clip of Rumsfeld (as special U.S. envoy to Middle East) meeting Hussein
• The short film A View from the White House, Part I (1975) is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
• The short film A View from the White House, Part II (1975) is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
• The short film A Single Six Year Term for President (1987) is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
• The short film Money, Television, and Politics (1988) is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
• The short film The Private Lives of Public Servants (1989) is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
• PBS Frontline — Rumsfeld's War October 2004 documentary

Articles profiling Rumsfeld[link]

• The Life and Times of Donald Rumsfeld, PBS
• Washington Post — Rumsfeld's War archives 2001–04
• Rumsfeld revealed, Vivienne Heines. The Air Force Times, 3 March 2003
• Close-Up: Young Rumsfeld, James Mann, The Atlantic Monthly, November 2003
• The Donald Rumsfeld Library of Quotations, BBC Radio 4
• Biographer Andrew Cockburn on Rumsfeld at London Frontline Club May 2007.
• The Don: A Look at Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Carol Felsenthal, Chicago magazine.
• Lunch with the FT: Donald Rumsfeld by Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, February 11, 2011

v t e Secretaries of Defense of the United States of America Forrestal Johnson Marshall Lovett Wilson McElroy T. Gates McNamara Clifford Laird Richardson Schlesinger Rumsfeld Brown Weinberger Carlucci Cheney Aspin Perry Cohen Rumsfeld Gates Panetta