Donald Rumsfeld's Memoir Coming In January

NEW YORK — The title and release date of Donald Rumsfeld's memoir are now known, or, as he might say, are now known knowns.

The book is called "Known and Unknown," and it's coming in January.

Rumsfeld, 78, will write about his childhood and long political career, starting as a Republican congressman from Illinois in the 1960s and then as secretary of defense under President Gerald Ford and President George W. Bush, the publisher, Sentinel, said in a statement Monday.

Rumsfeld's book was first announced in 2008. Rumsfeld received no advance and will donate all proceeds to veterans charities.

The statement from Sentinel, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA), said Rumsfeld would include anecdotes about everyone from Elvis Presley to his close friend and ally Dick Cheney, the former vice president whose own memoir is scheduled for the spring.

Rumsfeld, a leading advocate of the war in Iraq, became increasingly controversial during his years in the Bush administration and resigned soon after the 2006 midterm elections, when Republicans lost control of Congress.

Sentinel president and publisher Adrian Zackheim called Rumsfeld's memoir "a fascinating narrative for today's readers and an unprecedented resource for tomorrow's historians."

"Like Donald Rumsfeld himself, this memoir pulls no punches," Zackheim said in a statement.

The title of Rumsfeld's book is as notable as the name of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's book, "Going Rogue," which stemmed from how pundits questioned whether she hurt Sen. John McCain's presidential bid as his running mate by "going rogue," or defying his campaign's control.

"Known and Unknown" refers to a widely quoted explanation – praised by some as philosophy, criticized by others as double-talk – Rumsfeld offered in 2002 about the lack of evidence that Iraq was supplying terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.

"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 that we know," he said. "There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don't know."

Rumsfeld will draw upon previously unreleased and recently declassified documents, Sentinel said. Thousands of pages of documents unseen by the public will be made available on an accompanying website, it said.

Comments

[Vernie31]

02:21 PM on 10/03/2010

Donald Rumsfeld's legacy will only be famous in the Halls of the World's War colleges. he will be noted as a perfect example of what not to do and be for future military leaders!

[Vernie31]

02:15 PM on 10/03/2010

The worst secretary of Defense the United States have ever had to lead its armed forces. History will not be kind to his tenure. He will be named as the most responsible leader for the most American Casualties, since the Civil WAR. Arrogance and Hubris will be his listed chosen poison.

[freethinkergirl]

06:31 PM on 09/22/2010

"Best of Buddies"........Rumsfeld/Cheney.....It's all in the family.....

[a] BOTH worked for Nixon
http://www .biography .com/artic les/DickCh eney-92460 63

"In the early 1970s, when Rumsfeld became WH counsel, Cheney accompanied his mentor to the WH, where he served as a deputy counsel. He later became assistant director of the Cost of Living Council, with Rumsfeld as director."

[b] BOTH worked for Ford

"Ford appointed Rumsfeld his chief of staff when he took office after Nixon's resignation in 1974. The next year, when he made the 42-year-old Rumsfeld the youngest secretary of defense in the
nation's history, he named 34-year-old Dick Cheney his chief of staff, also the youngest ever.

Those two Ford appointees worked together ever since."

[c] BOTH worked for Reagan

"BOTH were principal actors in one of the most highly classified programs of the Reagan Administration. Under it U.S. officials furtively carried out detailed planning exercises for keeping the federal government running during and after a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. The program called for setting aside the legal rules for presidential succession in some circumstances, in favor of a secret procedure for putting in place a new "President" and his staff."

[d] BOTH signatories of PNAC; along with their contemporaries Jeb Bush and Paul Wolfowitz.

[e] BOTH worked for Bush 43

[FDRbyGodDemocrat]

06:21 PM on 09/22/2010

Love the photo. He almost has the salute down pat.

[freethinkergirl]

06:32 PM on 09/22/2010

Bingo!!!

[Conk]

02:34 PM on 09/22/2010

Wonder if he will discuss his role in the wrongful approval of the deadly, poisonous Aspartame sweetner? Some VERY egregious maneuvers in gettting the foul substance approved, practically in the dead of night over the objections (for 13 years!!!) of the FDA.

[FDRbyGodDemocrat]

06:31 PM on 09/22/2010

(See snopes.com for the debunking of the Aspartame myth)

[rougebaisers]

09:27 AM on 09/22/2010

Can we use any of it as evidence to put him behind bars?

[freethinkergirl]

06:33 PM on 09/22/2010

F&F .......Along with D!ck....

Best of Buddies"........Rumsfeld/Cheney.....It's all in the family.....

[a] BOTH worked for Nixon
http://www .biography .com/artic les/DickCh eney-92460 63

"In the early 1970s, when Rumsfeld became WH counsel, Cheney accompanied his mentor to the WH, where he served as a deputy counsel. He later became assistant director of the Cost of Living Council, with Rumsfeld as director."

[b] BOTH worked for Ford

"Ford appointed Rumsfeld his chief of staff when he took office after Nixon's resignation in 1974. The next year, when he made the 42-year-old Rumsfeld the youngest secretary of defense in the
nation's history, he named 34-year-old Dick Cheney his chief of staff, also the youngest ever.

Those two Ford appointees worked together ever since."

[c] BOTH worked for Reagan

"BOTH were principal actors in one of the most highly classified programs of the Reagan Administration. Under it U.S. officials furtively carried out detailed planning exercises for keeping the federal government running during and after a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. The program called for setting aside the legal rules for presidential succession in some circumstances, in favor of a secret procedure for putting in place a new "President" and his staff."

[d] BOTH signatories of PNAC; along with their contemporaries Jeb Bush and Paul Wolfowitz.

[e] BOTH worked for Bush 43

[billygore2000]

07:08 PM on 09/21/2010

Meanwhile, Baghdad could use the electricity it had under Saddam. Shock and awe? Shock and awe? Certainly the shock lingers: There was no sign of Yankee know-how about how to fix things once American forces arrived. They didn't seem to have a clue about what they were supposed to do once they got to Baghdad. How can I ever thank you, Donald, for the black eye you gave this country? Or for the way you ruined the military? Or for all the Iraqis whose lives you lost?

[Jampa]

12:23 PM on 09/21/2010

This is no different than OJ's "memoir".
This scumbag is a war criminal, pure and simple.

[freethinkergirl]

06:34 PM on 09/22/2010

Right along with his buddy Cheney.....#11

[mlm4420]

12:10 PM on 09/21/2010

'his close friend and ally Dick Cheney, the former vice president whose own memoir is scheduled for the spring"

(eyes rolling)

[RedDogBear]

12:06 PM on 09/21/2010

One of my favorite books on web design is called "Web Sites that Suck: Learning Good Design from Bad" It shows some sites, many high profile that were poorly designed and in the process illustrates some of the most important concepts of web design by showing what NOT to do. I think someone could do a similar book on how to be an effective manager by doing a case study of Rumsfield. Rumsfield wasn't just a neocon who believed their own propoganda. He also wasn't just a greedy SOB who cared nothing for human life as long as his friends made money (and I'm sure indirectly he benefited as well). He was all those things but he was also just one of the absolute worst executives in history.

I've read several books about the Iraq war, the planning for it and the occupation. And one thing that stands out from each authors different perspective is what an awful boss Rumsfield was. Refusing to delegate. Dictating some of the most trivial decisions for which he had no knowledge. incapable of leadership. While he was lost in minutia he ignored the basic requirements to plan for the war and ignored the SOP that the DOD had developed over decades based on experience from WWII, Vietnam, and the first Gulf war. Refusing to listen. He cultivated a culture of fear where anyone who contradicted him was punished and the yes men who kissed his but were rewarded.

[Bruce Forbes]

11:36 AM on 09/21/2010

I read Albert Speer's book, so I guess I can read this without losing any more "moral cred".

[Leigh49]

11:36 AM on 09/21/2010

I can't wait to read this! Excuse me while I go take my meds.

[Levittown]

11:24 AM on 09/21/2010

I was sold on Donald Rumsfeld as Sec Of Defense, He was poised and sounded so sure of what he said. But as time went by he lost control and became an apologist for a bad war and very bad decisons. He lost me completely when he issued the most feeble excuse for a nation to be underarmed and under manpower for what the invasion needed, " We go to war with what we have " was the weakest exuse in memory of wars. We were not invaded nor attacked. There was no rush to go until fully prepared. We wasted thousand of lives all for a few barrels of oil, the motivation the Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld had. He was better off being forgotten. All he can do now is regurgetate his legacy.

[War with the newts]

10:58 AM on 09/21/2010

A reminder of D. Rumsfeld's razor-sharp prose style....

From a Press Conference at NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium, June 6, 2002:

"Now what is the message there? The message is that there are known "knowns." There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don't know. So when we do the best we can and we pull all this information together, and we then say well that's basically what we see as the situation, that is really only the known knowns and the known unknowns. And each year, we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns. It sounds like a riddle. It isn't a riddle. It is a very serious, important matter.
There's another way to phrase that and that is that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It is basically saying the same thing in a different way. Simply because you do not have evidence that something exists does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn't exist. And yet almost always, when we make our threat assessments, when we look at the world, we end up basing it on the first two pieces of that puzzle, rather than all three."

[Leigh49]

11:36 AM on 09/21/2010

Maybe Palin's ghostwriter was called in.

[Montcalms Revenge]

10:42 AM on 09/21/2010

Dante already published "The Inferno".... ;-)