Known and Unknown (Rumsfeld)

Known and Unknown: A Memoir
Donald Rumsfeld, 2011
Penguin Group USA
832 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781595230676


Summary
If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much. —Rumsfeld's Rules

Few Americans have spent more time near the center of power than Donald Rumsfeld. Now he has written an unflinching memoir of his half-century career, sharing previously undisclosed details that will fascinate readers and force historians to rethink many controversies.

Starting from a middle-class childhood in Illinois, Rumsfeld had a rapid rise that won him early acclaim. He shows us what it was like growing up during the Great Depression and World War II, going to Princeton on scholarships, serving as a naval aviator, then getting his first political job on Capitol Hill during the Eisenhower administration. He recalls how he won a seat in the House of Representatives at age thirty and what he experienced as a Republican in Congress during the Kennedy and Johnson years.

We also follow him back to the executive branch as he took on key cabinet positions in the Nixon and Ford administrations, including his service as the youngest-ever secretary of defense, just after the trauma of Vietnam. And we learn about the challenges he later faced as a CEO in the private sector, and during his special assignments for President Reagan, including a face-to-face meeting with Saddam Hussein in 1983.

All of that would have been enough material for a fascinating book. But as 2001 began, Rumsfeld's greatest challenges lay ahead of him. At age sixty-eight he returned to the Pentagon as President Bush's secretary of defense, with a mandate to transform the military for a new century. Just nine months later he would confront the worst acts of terrorism in American history, followed by unexpected wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And he would be on the firing line for many controversies, from the revelations of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison to allegations of torture at Guantánamo Bay.

Known and Unknownreveals what happened behind the scenes during the critical moments of the Bush years, as the President's inner circle debated how best to defend our country. It is based not only on Rumsfeld's memory but also on hundreds of previously unreleased documents from throughout his career. It also features his blunt, firsthand opinions about some of the world's best-known figures, from Margaret Thatcher to Elvis Presley, from Henry Kissinger to Colin Powell, and about each American president from Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush.

In a famous press briefing, Rumsfeld once remarked that "there are also unknown unknowns . . . things we do not know we don't know." His book makes us realize just how much we didn't know.

Donald Rumsfeld is donating his proceeds from the sales of Known and Unknownto the military charities supported by the Rumsfeld Foundation.. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio
• Birth—July 9, 1932
• Where—Evanston, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., Princeton University
• Currently—lives in St. Michaels, Maryland

Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman who 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. Combined, he is the second longest-serving defense secretary after Robert McNamara.

Rumsfeld was White House Chief of Staff during part of the Ford Administration and also served in various positions in the Nixon Administration. He was elected to four terms in the United States House of Representatives, and served as the United States Permanent Representative to NATO.

He was president of G. D. Searle & Company from 1977–1985, CEO of General Instrument from 1990–1993, and chairman of Gilead Sciences from 1997-2001.

Youth
Donald Rumsfeld was born in Evanston, Illinois, to George Donald Rumsfeld and Jeannette (née Huster). His great-grandfather, Johann Heinrich Rumsfeld, emigrated from Weyhe near Bremen in Northern Germany in 1876. 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. 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. Rumsfeld later bought a vacation house 30 miles (48 km) west of Philmont at Taos, New Mexico.

Education
Rumsfeld went to Baker Demonstration School, a private middle school, and later graduated[6] from New Trier High School. He attended Princeton University on academic and NROTC partial scholarships (A.B., 1954). In extracurricular activities he was an accomplished amateur wrestler and a member of the Lightweight Football team playing defensive back, and at Princeton he became captain of both the varsity wrestling team and the lightweight football team. While at Princeton he roomed with another future Secretary of Defense, Frank Carlucci.

His Princeton University senior thesis was titled "The Steel Seizure Case of 1952 and Its Effects on Presidential Powers." That precedent was later used against him in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.

In 1956 he attended Georgetown University Law Center but did not graduate.

Domestic life
Rumsfeld married Joyce H. Pierson on December 27, 1954. They have three children and six grandchildren. Rumsfeld lives in St. Michaels, Maryland, in a former plantation house, Mount Misery, the site of Frederick Douglass's resistance to the unsuccessful breaking by Edward Covey. (From Wikipedia—where a longer and more indepth biography can be found.)

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Book Reviews
Mr. Rumsfeld’s memoir plays a fast and loose game of dodge ball with what are now “known knowns” and “known unknowns” about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The tedious, self-serving volume is filled with efforts to blame others—most notably the C.I.A., the State Department and the Coalition Provisional Authority (in particular George Tenet, Colin L. Powell, Condoleezza Rice and L. Paul Bremer III)—for misjudgments made in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the failure to contain an insurgency there that metastasized for years. It is a book that suffers from many of the same flaws that led the administration into what George Packer of The New Yorker has called “a needlessly deadly” undertaking—that is, cherry-picked data, unexamined assumptions and an unwillingness to re-examine past decisions.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times


A hefty and heavily annotated accounting and defense of [Donald Rumsfeld's] life in public service. "Never much of a handwringer, I don’t spend a lot of time in recriminations, looking back or second-guessing decisions made in real time with imperfect information by myself or others,” he writes. But hand-wring he does, in repeated blasts of Rumsfeldian score-settling that come off as a cross between setting the record straight and doggedly knocking enemies off pedestals.... The book is full of little nuggets..., but at its heart, it is a revenge memoir.... Rumsfeld has careful and consistent praise for only a few — chief among them George W. Bush, Gerald Ford and Richard B. Cheney.
Gwen Ifill - Washington Post


Donald Rumsfeld's Known and Unknown is thus one of the most important contributions to a growing list of remembrances of our most recent wars. The book is crisply written, blending narrative detail with personal judgment and reflection. Mr. Rumsfeld begins by giving us a fine, if compressed, account of his life before becoming George W. Bush's defense secretary in 2001.... But the bulk of Known and Unknown inevitably refers to the events that followed 9/11—that is, to the Bush administration's wars in Afghanistan and, especially, Iraq. From his accounts of various meetings and planning sessions, it is clear that the decision to go to war was not taken lightly, and Mr. Rumsfeld, to this day, does not doubt the wisdom of removing Saddam Hussein from power, even if weapons of mass destruction were never found in Iraq.
Robert H. Scales - Wall Street Journal


It's wearisome always being right, particularly when so many others are so wrong, so often — at least that's the impression a reader is most likely to draw from Rumsfeld's exhaustive, exasperating but vigorously written memoir.... Masterful bureaucratic survivor that he was until he ran out of room to maneuver, Rumsfeld delivers a memoir that is all about shifting blame and settling scores.
Tim Rutten - Los Angeles Times

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Discussion Questions
1. What is the meaning of the book's title? It was taken from a well-known, and oft-repeated, statement Rumsfeld made in a 2002 press conference: “Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me because, as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” In what way is his statement relevant to his memoir? Why might Rumsfeld have chosen it as his title?

2. There is disagreement about the tone and purpose of Known and Unknown. Some reviewers believe it is a self-serving, blame-others memoir and scathing attempt to settle scores, especially regarding Colin Powell. John Scales, however, a retired major general, writes in the Wall Street Journal that Rumsfeld is always gracious to his opponents, that he "treats almost everyone with respect and softens his barbs." What is your opinion of the book's tone and thrust?

3. Mr. Rumsfeld writes that...

there is not a persuasive argument to be made that the United States would be in a stronger strategic position or that Iraq and the Middle East would be better off if Saddam were still in power. In short, ridding the region of Saddam’s brutal regime has created a more stable and secure world.

What reasons does he give for this statement? Do you agree or disagree with him?

4. How does Rumsfeld dispute his critics who have said the war in Iraq diverted attention from Afghanistan? Do you agree with Rumsfeld or his critics?

5. How does the author defend himself against his critics who claim that his preoccupation with building a fast, light, and flexible force crippled the military's ability to secure Iraq? Are his arguments convincing to you?

6. Rumsfeld distances himself from the neo-conservatives whose goal was to export democracy and engage in nation-building secure democratic societies. Why doesn't he agree with the neo-cons? What about you?

7. What accomplishments is Rumsfeld most proud of—and why? What are some of the things he regrets having said, done or not done—and why?

8. In writing of then-Vice President Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld says that Cheney could have served George W. Bush as defense secretary and vice president. Why does qualities does Rumsfeld admire in Cheney?

9. What does Rumsfeld think of the former president George H.W. Bush (the then-president's father)? Why was the relationship between the two older men so chilly?

10. Who else in George W's administration does Rumsfeld criticize...and why? What does he say about, for example, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice?

11. Why does he dispute Powell's charge that he, Powell, had been misled about the existence of WMD in Iraq, particularly in his presentation of evidence to the United Nations?

12. Discuss Rumsfeld's observations regarding the pernicious in-fighting between the Pentagon and the State Department. How does he say the bad relations underminded the war effort?

13. According to Rumsfeld, what was L. Paul Bremer's role, as head of the provisional government, in stabilizing or destabilizing Iraq? What about the decision to disband the Iraqi army and ban Ba'ath party members from public life? Why were those decisions made, who made them, and what were the consequences?

14. Rumsfeld admires then-President George W. Bush. What presidential qualities ad actions does he praise?

15. Overall, what impressions do you take away from having read Known and Unknown? Do you find yourself agreeing with Rumsfeld? Do you find him honorable, likeable, fair-minded? Do you find him arrogant and defensive? Do you believe he is willing...or unwilling...to accept responsibility for what went wrong in Iraq?

16. What have you learned from reading this memoir? What surprised you? What impressed you? What angered you? Does the book confirm or alter your basic views of former Secretary Rumsfeld and the prosecution of the War in Iraq?

17. Have you read other accounts of the war, and lead-up to the war, in Iraq—Assassin's Gate (Packer), Bush at War and State of Denial (Woodward), Fiasco (Ricks), The Forever War (Filkins), or others. If so, how does this memoir compare?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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