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Institutional
Affiliations
Center
for Security Policy: Longtime associate; winner of the CSP's
1998 "Keeper of the Flame" award (5)
Hoover Institution: Member, board of trustees (1)
Project for the New American Century: Signed PNAC's founding statement of principles as well as two policy letters on Iraq (2)
Empower America: Board member (4)
Freedom House: Board member (7)
RAND Corporation: Board member (7)
Committee for the Free World: Former chairman (15)
Government
Posts/Panels/Commissions
U.S. Commission to Assess National Security Space Management and Organization: Chairman (2000) (1)
U.S. Ballistic Missile Threat Commission: Chairman (1998) (1)
Secretary of Defense (1975-77) (1)
White House Chief of Staff in Ford administration (1974-75) (1)
U.S. Ambassador to NATO (1973-74) (1)
U.S. Congress: Representative from Illinois (1962-69) (1)
U.S. Navy: Various posts, including aviator (1954-57); reserves (1957-1975) (1)
Corporate
Connections/Business Interests
Gilead Sciences pharmaceutical company: Chairman (until 2001) (1)
General Instrument Corporation: Chairman and CEO (1990-93) (1)
G.D. Searle pharmaceutical company: CEO/Chairman/President (1977-1985) (1)
Bechtel: Was involved in Iraq-Bechtel negotiations in the 1980s on a pipeline project (3)
Gulfstream Aerospace: Former director (6)
Tribune Company: Former director (6)
Metricom, Inc.: Former director (7)
Sears, Roebuck and Co.: Former director (7)
ABB AB: Former director (7)
Education
Princeton University: A.B. (1954) (1)
Right
Web connections
Individuals
Organizations
Corporate
Government
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Highlights
& Quotes
Even before the 2004 presidential campaign got off to a start, it was widely believed that Donald Rumsfeld would turn down an offer to return as secretary of defense in a second Bush administration. This was in large part because of his age (he turned 72 in 2004) and the high toll-both physical and psychological-he paid serving in such a high-profile position, especially during a time of severe controversy and war. It thus came as a minor surprise when in early December 2004-after eight of the 15 cabinet officials from the first Bush administration had already given their resignations-Rumsfeld announced that he would stay on.
A key reason for the decision seems to have been pressure from the president, as well as Rumsfeld's sense of duty to Bush and a desire to complete the job in Iraq. As he has done so often during his presidency, Bush ignored considerable negative public opinion in advocating Rumsfeld's return. Commented one official at the time: "These are challenging times-we are a nation at war and it's critical we win this war. Secretary Rumsfeld, the president believes, is the right person for the job. He has proven himself to be a strong leader during these times of challenge." (16)
During the first administration Rumsfeld often seemed to be Bush's über orchestrator for everything pertaining to U.S. foreign relations. However, with the rise of a like-minded hawk to secretary of state (Condoleezza
Rice) and the controversy surrounding the military's actions in Iraq, Rumsfeld will likely have a lower profile during the second administration. The abuses at Abu Ghraib, the misuse of intelligence by his top deputies, and the serious miscalculations of military preparedness are among the many issues that have marred Rumsfeld's tenure. (17)
Rumsfeld-along with several other individuals who would later get jobs working under George W. Bush-started pushing for war in Iraq long before he became Bush's defense secretary. He signed multiple letters from the Project
for the New American Century advocating intervention in the Middle East, and he was an active supporter of the Center
for Security Policy, the hawkish think tank headed by Frank
Gaffney that berated the Clinton administration for not getting tough with Saddam and for letting other rogues like North Korea off the hook. He was also a board member of several other conservative outfits, including the Hoover
Institution and William Bennett's Empower
America.
Rumsfeld's many business connections, although not as controversial as the dealings of other administration top officials like Dick
Cheney, have drawn some press attention-most notably, his work on an Iraq-Bechtel pipeline deal in the early 1980s. Reported the Glasgow
Sunday Herald (April 13, 2003), "One fact [Rumsfeld] doesn't want to be reminded about is his former glad-handing with Saddam as Reagan's special envoy to Iraq in the early 1980s. While Saddam was blitzing the Ayatollah's armies with chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war, Rumsfeld spent most of his time talking to the Ba'ath Party about the building of an oil pipeline on behalf of the construction company Bechtel. Bechtel's former vice-chairman is George
Shultz, Reagan's secretary of state."
Rumsfeld was also on the board of the multinational, Swiss-based company Asea Brown Boveri (ABB), a key contractor in several controversial development projects like the Three Gorges Project in China and the Bakun Dam in Malaysia. (8) According to Swiss Radio International, in 2000, while Rumsfeld was still on the ABB board, the company won a $200 million contract with Pyongyang to deliver equipment and services for two nuclear power plants. The reactors are part of a deal that was struck between the United States and North Korea in 1994 in an effort to end Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. (9)
Interestingly, in 1998, Rumsfeld, who has been one of the George W. Bush administration's hardliners on Korea policy, chaired a congressional commission (the Rumsfeld
Commission on the Ballistic Missile Threat) that argued that the Clinton administration erred when it made the 1994 deal with the North Koreans. Yet, while wearing his corporate hat, Rumsfeld was profiting from this very deal. He claimed that the Korean reactor deal never came up in any of the ABB board meetings he attended. (9)
In 2000 Rumsfeld also chaired the congressionally mandated Commission
to Assess National Security Space Management and Organization, whose report warned that the United States faced a potential Pearl Harbor in space. As Mike Moore reported in the Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists (March/April 2001), "Although the United States is without peer among 'space-faring' nations, the report notes, its commanding lead also makes the country vulnerable to 'state and non-state actors hostile to the United States and its interests.' The economy would be disastrously disrupted and the ability to fight high-tech wars terminally compromised if a significant number of these space assets were disabled or destroyed in a 'Space Pearl Harbor.' Commission members were unanimous in finding that the United States has 'an urgent interest in promoting and protecting the peaceful use of space and in developing the technologies and operational capabilities that its objectives in space require.' The latter part of that sentence provides the report's focus. To protect the U.S. economy as well as the economies of its friends and allies, the U.S. military must evolve into a ground, sea, air, and space force. It must be prepared to fight in all four mediums; it must be willing to weaponize space." (10)
The list of individuals who worked alongside Rumsfeld on the space commission reads like a who's who of space weapons proponents and military-industrial complex reps. Commission members included Malcolm
Wallop, a Heritage Fellow and former senator who has long promoted a space-based missile defense system; David
Jeremiah, a member of the Defense Policy Board and retired admiral who has connections to several defense contractors, including Alliant
Techsystems and Litton Industries; Thomas
Moorman, a retired U.S. air force general who is a partner in Booz Allen Hamilton; and the hapless "mayor of Baghdad," Jay
Garner, whose SY Technology worked on the Patriot missile system and Israel's Arrow missile defense system. (11)
Rumsfeld participated on several other official panels and commissions while he was in the private sector. He was a member of the President's General Advisory Committee on Arms Control (1982-86); the Special Presidential Envoy on the Law of the Sea Treaty (1982-83); a Senior Advisor to the President's Panel on Strategic Systems (1983-84); a member of the U.S. Joint Advisory Commission on U.S./Japan Relations (1983-84); a Special Presidential Envoy to the Middle East (1983-84); a member of the National Commission on Public Service (1987-90); a member of the National Economic Commission (1988-89); a member of the Board of Visitors of the National Defense University (1988-92); a member of the Commission on U.S./Japan Relations (1989-91); and a member of the U.S. Trade Deficit Review Commission (1999-2000). (1)
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