A native of Chicago, Donald Rumsfeld (born July 9, 1932) grew up in a middle-class family, which implies a mixture of All-American athleticism with academic acumen sufficient to receive a scholarship at Princeton.
Donald Rumsfeld: biography politics
After graduating from Princeton, he graduated for 3 years to serve in the navy, where he was known as an assertive pilot and champion wrestler, until a shoulder injury put an end to his Olympic hopes. Having parted with a brilliant sports career, Donald, of course, turned to the next promising lesson - politics.
In 1954, he married Joyce Pearson. The couple had three children: Valerie (1967), Marcy (1960), and Nicholas (1967).
In 1962, Donald Rumsfeld (photo can be seen below) won the almost hopeless elections to the House of Representatives, where he proved to be a liberal Republican supporting civil rights. After the defeat of Goldwater in 1964, he helped a bloc of moderate Republicans lead Gerald Ford into minority leaders. He joined the Nixon administration in 1969, where he held several posts, including the post of economic adviser and ambassador to NATO. Although Rumsfeld appeared on several records used to impeach the president, he was not prosecuted.
Ford Administration
After the resignation of Nixon, Rumsfeld worked first as head of the Ford Administration (1974–1975) and then as Secretary of Defense (1975–1977). Under him, the B-1 strategic bomber, the Trident ballistic missile, and the Mirotvorets intercontinental ballistic missile 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. It was a consequence of the circumstances or the actual change in worldview, unknown. It is indicative that, according to legend, Henry Kissinger describes Rumsfeld as the most ruthless man he had ever met. And he talked with both Mao Zedong and Augusto Pinochet, except for Kissinger himself.
Pharmaceuticals and Electronics
When Ford's fabulous presidency came to an end, he decided to return to the private sector, focusing on super-profitable positions in pharmaceuticals (GD Searle & Co., Gilead Sciences) and high technology (General Instrument Corp.). Despite the fact that he had no previous business experience, Rumsfeld in his resume hinted at his political influence and parallel service at various posts. From 1982 to 2000, he carried out a dozen special government assignments.
Perhaps the most memorable of these came from the Reagan administration when Donald Rumsfeld was appointed Presidential Special Representative for the Middle East. According to the Washington Post, he was a major supporter of support for Iraq and its dictator, Saddam Hussein.
Baghdad experience
As a conciliatory gesture in 1982, the United States removed Iraq from the list of sponsoring states of terrorism, which provided Rumsfeld with the opportunity to visit Baghdad in 1983, when the ten-year Iran-Iraq war was in full swing.
At that time, intelligence reports indicated that Baghdad used illegal chemical weapons against Iran almost every day. During several visits to Iraq, Rumsfeld told government officials that the United States saw Iran’s victory as its main strategic defeat. In a personal meeting with Saddam Hussein in December 1983, he told the "Baghdad butcher" that the United States would like to fully restore diplomatic relations with Iraq.
In 2002, Rumsfeld tried to rehabilitate himself, claiming that he had warned Hussein not to use prohibited weapons, but this statement was not supported by the State Department transcript.
Failures with dole
Satisfied with the service of his people, Donald Rumsfeld again went to work in the private sector. He then competed in the 1988 presidential race, but retired in favor of Bob Dole. The then-victorious Bush Sr. neglected Donald, weaning him from influential appointments.
In 1996, politician Donald Rumsfeld once again bet on Dole, and again was among the losers.
In 1997, he became one of the founders of the New American Century Project, a neoconservative foreign policy group. Future US Vice President Dick Cheney, former Vice President Dan Quayle and Florida Governor Jeb Bush, brother of George W. Bush, were also co-founders.
Donald Rumsfeld: Growing Politics
Bill Clinton was more generous in his victory than Bush. In 1999, he commissioned Rumsfeld to chair a commission to assess the feasibility of establishing a national missile defense system.
George W. Bush, becoming president in 2000, instructed him to bring the army into line with the requirements of the 21st century. Without conducting active hostilities, Rumsfeld was known as a reformer when he began to revise the main points that guided the preparation of defense spending - for example, the provision according to which the army should be ready to wage two wars simultaneously 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 planes to the towers of the World Trade Center, Donald Rumsfeld was in the reserve headquarters near the Pentagon, where a third plane subsequently crashed. He rejected the evacuation plan, even when the air was filled with smoke. The minister hurried to the crash site, despite the objections of the security service, and helped evacuate the wounded.
September 11 and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan made a star out of Rumsfeld. His daily briefings were as popular as the evening show's soliloquy and twice as exciting. Demonstrating a strikingly colorful balance between brute force and clever puns, Rumsfeld made it clear that the day he dislocated his shoulder, professional wrestling lost a first-class superstar.
Despite the strange combination of stiffness and comic, he fought the shortest war in history to expel the Taliban from Afghanistan.
Rumsfeld's Strategem
The American politician Donald Rumsfeld played a major role in creating a strategy for waging the Afghan war, leaving the development of military tactics to commanders. His heroism during the attack on the Pentagon caused well-deserved sympathy among his subordinates. Even during the conduct of one war and the planning of the next, he stubbornly continued to implement the reforms launched before September 11 to create the armed forces of the new millennium.
Soon after the terrorist attack, the rating of public sentiments regarding Rumsfeld’s discharge of his duties exceeded 80%, roughly coinciding with the assessment of the work of the commander in chief. His prospects for the future largely depended on a future war with Iraq. Together with Dick Cheney, he was one of the most ardent supporters of the destruction of his former companion Saddam Hussein.
Like the Afghan war, the Iraqi script followed Rumsfeld’s “stratageme” - an inconspicuous preliminary intrusion before its official announcement in the media to make it look better than anyone could have imagined. Rumsfeld introduced air forces and military forces into Afghanistan long before the United States acknowledged the conduct of hostilities. As a result, the six-month war looked as if it took only two months.
In February 2003, US special forces were already in Iraq, and the air strikes of the allied forces were tripled, compared with operations of the last decades. By the time historical photographs of the “first strike” appeared, the United States already controlled half of the country.
After losing the Republicans in the 2006 election, which was to blame for the ongoing war in Iraq, Rumsfeld announced his resignation. In December, he was replaced by Robert Gates.
