41. Donald Rumsfeld.
"Be precise. A lack of precision is dangerous when the margin of error is small." -Donald Rumsfeld
I. The Nomination.
It was the last phone call Donald Rumsfeld was expecting on one of the final nights of the Republican Convention, but the deal between Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford had just fallen through, and the former California governor was without a running mate, and time was running out. When Ford backed out, the Reagan team was frantically searching for a new running mate. "What about Bush?" someone shouted. The Gipper rolled his eyes, "Anyone else?" No one could think of another candidate. Then, a man in the room shouted, "I've got Rumsfeld's number, you can call him right now?" As Reagan pondered, someone else in the room shouted, "Who?" Before the other aide could say "Ford's Secretary of Defense" Reagan interjected, "Sure, what the hell? How bad can it be?" Oh how eerily prescient.
"Don, is this you?" Reagan began. Within ten minutes Donald Rumsfeld became the Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States. The next morning, the announcement was made official, and several months later Donald Henry Rumsfeld, 48, became the 43rd Vice President of the United States.
II. The Assassination.
On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was assassinated only 69 days into his presidency. At 3:15 PM (EST) Vice President Donald Rumsfeld stood in the Blue Room of the White House and took the Oath of Office to become America's 41st President of the United States. After addressing the American people for only a few minutes, Rumsfeld entered the Oval Office and demanded to speak to the former presidents. First would be former President Carter, and then former President Nixon, and, finally, Rumsfeld's ex-boss: Former President Gerald Ford. In his first act as president, Donald Rumsfeld relied on the Presidents Club for advice. "Words cannot describe," he told Ford, "the thoughts going through my mind right now." The 38th President reminded Rumsfeld to remain calm. "Above all, we need a leader right now," Ford told the newest club inductee. "I'm here to help you in anyway I can." Rumsfeld thanked Ford and hung up the phone.
Days later, dignitaries around the world gathered in Washington for the funeral of the 40th president, a man for whom so many had great expectations. Reagan would often not be included in lists that ranked the former presidents (joining the likes of James Garfield and William Henry Harrison) but though he would be almost completely forgotten within 50 years, the American people grieved in that moment. After the funeral, Reagan was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery, and President Rumsfeld's touching eulogy helped to mend a broken nation.
III. The Vice President.
Donald Rumsfeld trusted few individuals, and so the search for a Vice President was an incredibly daunting task for the White House staffers involved in the process. Rumsfeld wanted someone who would be far more versed in domestic policy than he, and he wanted someone who could appease the more moderate members of the public. After some time the list was brought down to two: Howard Baker and John Connally. Eventually, upon consultation with Nixon and Ford (who Rumsfeld regarded as his "right hand men" in his presidential memoirs), Rumsfeld announced the appointment of John Connally.
Had the United States not been recovering from the assassination of a president who ignited so much optimism and passion in his short 69 days, it is highly unlikely that Connally would have been confirmed, but Congressional Democrats were afraid of appearing to play petty politics in the wake of Reagan's assassination. It was a relatively close vote, but John Connally became America's 44th Vice President.
IV. Spending Habits.
Donald Rumsfeld believed the most important issue facing the United States was the Cold War, and that ending the War had to be the top priority of the Commander-in-Chief. "Perhaps more than any president," biographer Michael Beschloss wrote in his 2003 biography of Rumsfeld (regarded as the most comprehensive account of the man and his presidency), "Rumsfeld viewed himself as Commander-in-Chief first and president second, and that's why almost immediately after Reagan's death, Rumsfeld went to Congress and demanded a major increase in federal spending for the Defense Department."
Rumsfeld and his Administration used the assassination on Reagan as proof that America needed to increase its national security, though Reagan's assassin was not tied to the Soviet Union, Rumsfeld and members of his Administration insisted that Reagan's assassination was a threat to the national security of the nation, and Chief of Staff Dick Cheney often appeared on Sunday talk shows to talk about the "very grave intelligence reports" that suggest that "America's defense is in danger." It was the beginning of a months-long effort to scare the nation into increasing Defense spending, and Rumsfeld got his wish. Throughout his six years in office, the United States began rapidly pouring money into its Defense Department at a rate which could not be matched by the Soviet Union, which Rumsfeld identified as a reason for the increased spending.
To afford the massive Defense increases, Rumsfeld sought to slash numerous programs while greatly reducing taxes in hopes that the cuts would generate economic growth. It was supply-side economics at its worse. Rumsfeld had opponents on both sides of the aisle; in fact, Connecticut Senator Lowell Weicker (a Republican) was one of Rumsfeld's biggest opponents. As Rumsfeld sought to get his budgets through Congress, he often made backroom deals with legislators, sometimes directly, to get the votes he needed.
Each year Rumsfeld was in office, Defense spending increased. When Rumsfeld left office in 1987, the federal deficit was over $315 billion dollars (adjusted for inflation). In an effort to match the U.S., the Soviet Union did indeed spend hundreds of billions of dollars, but historians debate if this actually contributed to the downfall of the USSR.
V. The Cold War.
In his first term, Donald Rumsfeld sought to end the Cold War, and to do that he spent a great deal of time traveling to meet foreign dignitaries. He developed a close bond with UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (who would later describe Rumsfeld as "pleasant" but "positively insane") and was a frequent visitor of Moscow. However, his repeated meetings with foreign officials did not make him afraid to fund an effort against the Soviet Union.
Rumsfeld once wrote in a letter to former President Ford, "If I leave this White House without having toppled the Soviet Union, my presidency should be regarded as a failure." His policies certainly reflected that line of thinking. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Jeane Kirpatrick (appointed in 1982) sought aggressively to fund anti-Soviet forces, regardless of their own records on issues like human rights. The United States began aggressively funding the Contras in Nicaragua among others. Rumsfeld officially ended the policy of detente with the Soviet Union and used his 1983 State of the Union Address to lay out a clear foreign policy in what would become known as the Rumsfeld Doctrine.
"Now, more than any other point in our history, we are on the verge of winning the Cold War. Mankind is so close to exterminating the evil of Communism from the world. We must accept that this is our responsibility, as the world's beacon of hope. We must and we will end the Cold War with victory," he said. He continued by explaining his plans to "push back" against the "Authority of Evil" (which he said was the Soviet Union) by funding "freedom fighters" throughout the world. Later that year, Donald Rumsfeld announced an invasion of Grenada in October, a mission that would last only two months and would restore democracy to the region. Around the same time, Rumsfeld announced that the United States was going to war against Lebanon, seeking Congressional approval for an authorization of force in the region, which was granted after the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut. The Lebanon War would last for five years as the United States fought desperately against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The conflict was one of America's bloodiest and consumed national attention for much of the five years. At first public support for the war was fairly high, but by 1987, when Rumsfeld left office, public approval of the mission had dropped to 18%.
The war was increasingly dangerous because though the Soviet Union did not directly get involved, it did funnel money to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Lebanon and Iran. The conflict continued to escalate throughout Rumsfeld's presidency as he sent more and more American troops into the Middle East. The war would eventually consume much of the Middle East as Lebanon was decimated as other nations such as Iraq and Syria began to be involved in the conflict as well. As Beschloss would right, "By the time Rumsfeld left office, Lebanon was a battlefield while the United States, the Soviet Union, and a host of other nations killed each other on the soil of Lebanon. By 1987, few Americans knew why we were still there, and fewer still knew what 'victory' would be defined as. Yet, as opposition to the war grew, Rumsfeld continued to label opponents as treasonous."
VI. Reelection.
Rumsfeld's reelection in 1984, remains one of the greatest mysteries of American political history. It was by an incredibly close margin, to be sure, but it is hard for Americans to remember that the Lebanon War was not incredibly unpopular by November of 1984, and that the economy had almost entirely recovered from the Carter years. In fact, at the time of the 1984 Election, most Americans believed the nation was one the right track, and the reelection of Rumsfeld showed that.
The Democratic Primary was a battle between Walter Mondale, Gary Hart, George McGovern, and Jesse Jackson. McGovern, aided by those in the Democratic base who opposed the Lebanon War on grounds it was an overreaction flocked to McGovern, helping him to win the New Hampshire primary, but when President Rumsfeld announced that the "end of the War was on the horizon" in a Rose Garden speech a day after McGovern's victory his campaign seemed to deflate. Mondale captured the nomination after a close fight against Hart.
For his running mate, Mondale chose Senator John Glenn of Ohio, and the two campaigned vigorously across the nation throughout the 1984 Campaign, hitting Rumsfeld for "mismanagement of the war" after he had declared that end was in sight months earlier. Rumsfeld used the attacks as an opportunity to paint the Mondale/Glenn ticket as inexperienced saying, "I know a great deal more about what's happening on the ground than my opponents do, no one wants these troops home more than me, but it would be unsafe and irresponsible to set a timetable for withdrawal, as my opponent suggests."
On Election Day 1984, Donald Rumsfeld was reelected with 50.7% of the popular vote and 293 electoral votes. It was his second term that would forever define Donald Rumsfeld and his presidency.
VII. Government Spying.
As public approval of the Lebanon War sank, President Rumsfeld sought desperately to cling to any remaining influence. Now that the Soviet Union had sent troops to the region, Rumsfeld believed he could topple the communists once and for all. He continued to escalate the conference and expanded the war to Iraq, where he began launching airstrikes against the Iraqi military forces. All of this as the United States covertly funded the mujahideen in Iran. Democrats began accusing Rumsfeld of "heightening global danger" and putting America on the brink of nuclear war. To combat his enemies, Rumsfeld ordered the CIA and the FBI to personally spy on Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Ted Kennedy, John Glenn, and other prominent Democrats who were vocally opposed to the Lebanon War.
In a memo to the CIA and the FBI that would later be declassified, Attorney General Antonin Scalia (who worked with Rumsfeld in the Ford Administration) regarded the spying as "completely within the authority of the president" as the motivations were not "personal" and were instead requested to "better protect the nation from possible treason."
The extensive spying records were first rumored just before the 1986 Midterm Elections when President Rumsfeld seemed to suggest their existence in an interview with Dan Rather, saying, "Well, the enemies of the war - I don't know that all of their intentions are so grand - I mean - I know a lot more about them than they know about me." When asked to elaborate on what he meant, Rumsfeld said, "Well, the United States - I have a good relatio - I don't see a need to comment on that. I just have a good relationship with - with the members of Congress." Then, an official in the FBI did a tell-all interview with Rather in February of 1987, in which he said that President Rumsfeld was "spying on enemies" and using the FBI and the CIA to "give Connally the upper hand" in the 1988 presidential election.
Senator Lowell Weicker (R-CT), of Watergate fame, was the first to immediately call for an investigation into the matter. Scalia testified repeatedly in front of the Senate investigative committee, admitting to the spying and also defending the legality of the actions Rumsfeld had taken. A wide-ranging subpoena by the Weicker Committee (as it soon became known) further revealed a conspiracy to exaggerate the intelligence in the wake of the Beirut Embassy Bombing. Further, the Weicker Committee unearthed some of the bribes that had been exchanged in Rumsfeld's first term to get various budget measures through Congress. Rumsfeld refused to resign from office, citing that the evidence was "weak at best" and called the Weicker Committee "a sham facade orchestrated by War opponents."
Public opinion of Rumsfeld plummeted and the House of Representatives made Rumsfeld the second president to be impeached in U.S. History. A week later, the Senate removed him from office. Rumsfeld, who would later admit to briefly considering not leaving the White House, departed the White House in October 1987, and John Connally was sworn in as the nation's 42nd president at one of America's darkest moments.
