Few Americans have spent more time near the center of power than Donald Rumsfeld, whose widely commented-on memoir offers many previously undisclosed details about his service with four U.S. presidents. We follow his rise from a middle-class childhood to the Navy to a seat in the U.S. Congress at age thirty, and his experiences there during the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights era. We also get his unique perspective as a cabinet-level member of the Nixon and Ford administrations, as CEO of two Fortune 500 companies, and as a special envoy to the Middle East for President Reagan.
Rumsfeld also addresses the challenges and controversies of his time as Secretary of Defense during the 9/11 attacks by al-Qaida and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He includes candid observations on the differences of views within the Pentagon and with other members of President George W. Bush’s National Security Council.
In a famous press briefing, Rumsfeld once said 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.
Chapter 4. The Longest of Long Shots
Chapter 5. “Here, Sir, the People Govern”
Chapter 7. 1968: Year of Turmoil
Chapter 8. The Job That Couldn’t Be Done
Chapter 10. NATO and Nixon’s Fall
Chapter 13. An Agonizing Reappraisal
Chapter 14. Unfinished Business
Chapter 15. Turning On the Lights
Chapter 16. Hold the SALT: Tension over Détente
Chapter 18. Searle’s Sweet Success
Chapter 19. From Malaise to Morning in America
Chapter 20. Our Rural Period, Interrupted
Chapter 22. Dogs Don’t Bark at Parked Cars
Chapter 23. Bears in the Woods
Chapter 24. The National Security Council
Chapter 25. The Agony of Surprise
Chapter 27. Special Operations
Chapter 28. Little Birds in a Nest
Chapter 29. Kabul Falls, Karzai Rises
Chapter 31. The Case for Regime Change
Chapter 32. A Failure of Diplomacy
Chapter 33. Exit the Butcher of Baghdad
Chapter 34. Catastrophic Success
Chapter 35. Mission Accomplished?
Chapter 36. Too Many Hands on the Steering Wheel
Chapter 37. Liberation from the Occupation
Chapter 38. The Least Worst Place
Chapter 39. The Twentieth Hijacker
Chapter 40. Law in a Time of War
Chapter 41. The Road Not Traveled
Chapter 42. Katrina and the Challenge of New Institutions
Chapter 45. Hands Off the Bicycle Seat
Chapter 47. Eyes on Afghanistan
Chapter 48. Iraq’s Summer of Violence
Chapter 50. After Tides and Hurricanes