Top 10 Donald Rumsfeld Quotes

Donald Rumsfeld
(Former U.S. Congressman)

Donald Henry "Don" Rumsfeld  is an American retired 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 second oldest (after Leon Panetta) person to have served as Secretary of Defense. Additionally, Rumsfeld was a three-term U.S. Congressman from Illinois (1963–1969), 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. He was a leading co-sponsor of the Freedom of Information Act. Rumsfeld reluctantly accepted an appointment by President Richard Nixon to head the Office of Economic Opportunity in 1969; appointed Counsellor 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. Rumsfeld recruited a young one-time staffer of his, Dick Cheney, to succeed him when Ford nominated him Secretary of Defense in 1975.
When Ford lost the 1976 election, Rumsfeld returned to private business life, and was named president and CEO of the pharmaceutical corporation G. D. Searle & Company. He was later named CEO of General Instrument from 1990 to 1993, and chairman of Gilead Sciences from 1997 to 2001.
Rumsfeld was appointed Secretary of Defense for a second time in January 2001 by President George W. Bush. During his tenure he was 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 attacks, which included two wars, one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. In addition to war strategy, Rumsfeld's tenure became highly controversial for the use of enhanced interrogation techniques as well as the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal–for which he offered his resignation, but it was rejected by the President. Known in media circles for his outspokenness and candor, he gradually lost political support as the wars continued, and he resigned in late 2006.
In his retirement years, he published an autobiography Known and Unknown: A Memoir as well as Rumsfeld's Rules: Leadership Lessons in Business, Politics, War, and Life. He is involved with the Rumsfeld Foundation's Fellowship program, which has advisors at dozens of universities across the United States, and supports several military-related causes.

Top 10 Donald Rumsfeld Quotes

If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.

Be yourself. Follow your instincts. Success depends, at least in part, on the ability to "carry it off.

Winston Churchill played this game during World War II when the Nazis took over Belgium. The government went into exile in London and a young diplomat took over and was assisting the Belgian government and Churchill taught him the game, and then he taught me.

If in doubt, don't. If still in doubt, do what's right.

Don't think of yourself as indispensable or infallible. As Charles De Gaulle said, the cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men.

Many people around the President have sizeable egos before entering government, some with good reason. Their new positions will do little to moderate their egos.

Politics is human beings; it's addition rather than subtraction 

First rule of politics: you can't win unless you're on the ballot. Second rule: If you run, you may lose. And, if you tie, you do not win. 

The price of being close to the President is delivering bad news. You fail him if you don't tell him the truth. Others won't do it.

In our system leadership is by consent, not command. To lead a President must persuade. Personal contacts and experiences help shape his thinking. They can be critical to his persuasiveness and thus to his leadership. 

Donald Henry Rumsfeld was born on July 9, 1932, in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Jeannette Kearsley (née Husted) and George Donald Rumsfeld. His father came from a German-American family that had emigrated in the 1870s, but young Donald was sometimes ribbed about looking like a "tough Swiss". 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 and its Silver Buffalo Award in 2006. Living in Winnetka, his family attended a Congregational Church. From 1943–1945, Rumsfeld lived in Coronado, California while his father was stationed on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific in World War II. He was a ranger at Philmont Scout Ranch in 1949.
Rumsfeld attended Baker Demonstration School, and later graduated from New Trier High School. He attended Princeton University on academic and NROTC partial scholarships. He graduated in 1954 with an A.B. in Political Science. During his time at Princeton, he was an accomplished amateur wrestler, becoming captain of the varsity 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." While at Princeton he was friends with another future Secretary of Defense, Frank Carlucci.
Rumsfeld married Joyce P. Pierson on December 27, 1954. They have three children, six grandchildren, and one great grandchild. He attended Case Western Reserve University School of Law and Georgetown University Law Center, but did not graduate.
Rumsfeld served in the United States 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 the T-28 advanced trainer. In 1957, he transferred to the Naval Reserve and continued his naval service in flying and administrative assignments as a drilling reservist. On July 1, 1958, he was assigned to Anti-submarine Squadron 662 at Naval Air Station Anacostia, District of Columbia, as a selective reservist. Rumsfeld was designated aircraft commander of Anti-submarine Squadron 731 on October 1, 1960, at Naval Air Station Grosse Ile, Michigan, where he flew the S2F Tracker. He transferred to the Individual Ready Reserve when he became Secretary of Defense in 1975 and retired with the rank of captain in 1989.

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. Engaging in a two-year stint with an investment banking firm, A. G. Becker & Co., from 1960 to 1962, 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. 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 in addition to being a leading cosponsor of the Freedom of Information Act.
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 with Cabinet rank. Rumsfeld had voted against the creation of OEO when he was in Congress, and initially rejected Nixon'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. He only accepted after personal pleas from the president.
In August 1974, after Nixon resigned as president in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, Rumsfeld was called back to Washington to serve as transition chairman for the new president, Gerald Ford. He had been Ford's confidant since their days in the House, before 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.
In early 1977 Rumsfeld briefly lectured at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School and Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, located in Chicago, Illinois. 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.
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.
During the 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. During the 1980 Republican National Convention he also received one vote for Vice President. 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.