Reading Rummy: An insider's view of the U.S. Defense Secretary

I've know Rummy for several decades, ever since he walked into my campaign office and volunteered when I was running for the U.S. Senate from Illinois at an improbably young age.

Rummy is Donald Rumsfeld '54, the hard-nosed, highly visible secretary of defense, currently serving his second tour — 25 years apart — as a major politico of the Pentagon.

Rummy is a longtime friend — not an intimate — but I have observed him closely as he ascended the political ladder and became rich in the private sector.

Rummy's role for his present vital post is that the best defense is an overwhelming offense. He commands a department which oversees the world's most powerful military force, greater than that of all other nations combined. The U.S. is indeed the only superpower.

He is resolutely committed to increasing its size and strength. He is an unbending hawk who is intrigued by, even addicted to, the most exotic high-tech weapons of war, including some that don't work and many more that will stand idle until we find some reason to employ them.

The Department of Defense many years ago was identified as the War Department until it was changed in the 1940s when James V. Forrestal '15 became the nation's first secretary of defense, a less jarring title.

Today it should rightly be called the Department of Offense. All its missions since World War II have involved offensive actions by the U.S.: Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Iraq and this unfolding war on terrorism. The last defensive action cam when we responded to the sneak attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor in 1941, and we fought back with full fury.

Rummy and his boss are rattling sabers even now, as President Bush threatens lightly-disguised military action against his so-called "axis of evil" — Iraq, Iran and North Korea — even as it becomes more apparent that the war we "won" in Afghanistan may be far from over. It would appear Bush, Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney, likewise a former defense secretary, are war-oriented and much less inclined to seek diplomatic resolution of our difference with the unallied "axis" trio.

Back to Secretary Rumsfeld: From long observation, I would describe him as smart, tough, relentlessly ambitious, shrewd, resolutely sure of himself and disinclined to concede that he might on occasion be wrong. He has the rookie president's ear and can overpower Bush with his mountain of experience, expertise and firmly fixed mindset.

Rummy has long hankered for the presidency, and, strangely, his last best chance may be at hand. He is agile as any political figure I've known. He has a rare ability to emerge unscathed from the tightest spots. As a key Nixon insider, he escaped to a major NATO post barely days before Watergate broke and remained untouched by the scandal.

A fellow Republican who knew Rummy better than I once confided: "If Rummy were trapped on the 9th floor of a burning building, and he leaped out, he'd hit the ground running."

Rumsfeld scored big in the private sector. His influential political patrons and close friends include Dan and Bill Searle, who tapped Rummy to run their faltering pharmaceutical company, which he did with notable success, and Princeton classmate Ned Jannotta, managing partner of the influential Wm Blair investment banking firm in Chicago.

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It is no surprise that the short-lived Office of Strategic Influence should surface at the Pentagon on Rummy's watch, nor is it surprising that he would kill the controversial campaign to dispense "disinformation" as a way to present America's case most favorably to the Arab and wider world, as soon as negative clatter arose from the media, civic and thought leaders and foreign governments friendly to the U.S. Rumsfeld is not a liar, but he is a control freak who would want to make certain his version, preferable unedited, would be widely transmitted. Once the negative uproar became apparent, it was in the Rumsfeld mold to snuff out the misguided propaganda initiative.

On the other hand, he is showing bulldog tenacity in his determination, shared by the President, to build very costly, possibly unworkable missile shield. The updated model of Reagon's Star Wars provides an ongoing, multi-billion dollar payday to the largest military contractors (and contributors) with no assurance whatever it will really protect us against ballistic missile attack, and against warnings by several eminent scientists that it is more fantasy than reality.

My guess — purely that — is that Cheney will depart, ostensibly for health reasons, but in truth because his passion for secrecy and Machiavellian maneuvering may become a dangerous political liability. Bush would then turn to trusted, somewhat charismatic Rumsfeld to replace Cheney.

If Bush, despite stratospheric ratings as commander-in-chief, falters in 2004, as domestic miscues mount, as they did for his father in 1992, Rumsfeld would be a logical GOP nominee for President.

Rummy is nearing 70 in great shape. I am convinced he covets one last shot at the White House, which he would be obliged to deny. I wouldn't bet against him. If a few things fall his way, and George W. Bush goes the way of his father in his try for a second term, Rumsfeld might yet get his chance. Bill Rentschler '49 is an award-winning columnist and commentator on national issues from Hamilton, Ohio. He is also a member of The Daily Princetonian Board of Trustees and former chairman of the 'Prince.'