American politician, government official, and businessman who served as Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under Gerald Ford, and again from 2001 to 2006 under George W. Bush. He was both the youngest and the second-oldest 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). Between his terms as Secretary of Defense, he served as the CEO and chairman of several companies.
Donald Rumsfeld was born to George and Jeannette (Husted) Rumsfeld who resided in Evanston, Illinois. Five years later, the family moved to nearby Winnetka where he and his sister, Joan, enjoyed the suburban lifestyle of children of a successful realtor. He attended New Trier High School in Winnetka, graduating in 1950 with an academic scholarship to Princeton. At Princeton, he distinguished himself in sports as captain of the wrestling team.
Upon graduation in 1954, Rumsfeld joined the U.S. Navy as an ensign and served until 1957, eventually earning the rank of lieutenant.
After his discharge from the Navy in 1957, he joined the administrative staff of Congressman David Dennison of Ohio. Later that year, he entered a banking and investment firm in Chicago. He won a seat in the House in 1962, and served three more terms.
President Nixon named Rumsfeld Chief of the Office of Economic Opportunity on 21 April 1969, only months after becoming president. He resigned from Congress and was confirmed by the Senate and sworn in on 26 May 1969.
In January 1973 he was posted to Brussels, Belgium as NATO ambassador. In August 1974 he was called back to Washington to serve as Chief of Staff of the White House for President Ford. He served as a cabinet member from 1974 to 1975, and as the 13th U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977, the youngest in history.
Rumsfeld left Washington after over 20 years of public service to lecture at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of International Affairs and at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management prior to entering private enterprise. In June 1977, he took the job of Chief Executive Officer of G.D. Searle & Co., an international pharmaceutical company, serving there until 1985. He was named Outstanding Chief Executive Officer in the Pharmaceutical Industry in 1980 and 1981 for his turnarounds at Searle. From 1985 to 1990 he was in private business. From 1990 to 1993, he served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of General Instrument Corporation, which he took public and then returned to private business.
He continued his public service on various federal posts and civic activities. His honors include: Distinguished Eagle Scout Award, 1975; George Catlett Marshal Award, 1984; Woodrow Wilson Award, 1985; Dwight Eisenhower Medal, 1993; and 11 honorary degrees. He was awarded the nation’s highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1977.
Rumsfeld married Joyce Pierson, a high school classmate and native of Montana, on 27 December 1954. They had three children: Valerie, Marcy and Nicholas. He was trim, muscular and personable. He often worked twelve-hour days. He relaxed by reading, skiing, occasional rounds of tennis and less-frequent workouts on the trampoline.
On 29 December 2000, he was nominated as Secretary of Defense of the George W. Bush cabinet. Calls for Rumsfeld’s resignation were loud and clear after pictures of American soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees at an Iraq prison were aired in the media. Rumsfeld appeared before the Senate and House Armed Services Committees on 7 May 2004. In his opening statement before each congressional body, he apologized to the detainees and their families. Rumsfeld responded to a question about whether he would step down by saying: “I would not resign simply because people try to make a political issue out of it.” President Bush commended Rumsfeld’s overall performance and said he would not ask the Defense Secretary to quit the cabinet.
Despite protestations that Rumsfeld would continue in his job as Secretary of Defense until the end of the Bush administration in 2008, President Bush announced on 8 November 2006 that he had accepted Rumsfeld’s resignation. The announcement came one day after the US elections swung the balance of power in the Congress to the Democratic Party, with the lack of success in Iraq given by voters as one of the major reasons for voting Democratic in congressional elections.
In his retirement years, he published an autobiography, Known and Unknown: A Memoir (released on 8 February 2011), as well as Rumsfeld’s Rules: Leadership Lessons in Business, Politics, War, and Life (2013). He died from multiple myeloma on 29 June 2021 at the age of 88 at his home in Taos, New Mexico.
Link to Wikipedia biography