This story is told because Rumsfeld's portrayal of himself as a canny or ruthless D.C. operator was not uncommon when he was in government. It will also be common in his obituaries. However, his relationship with Washington was far more than the typical Washington transactional relationship. He was far from a Washington boss.I was fortunate to be able to see many sides of Donald Henry Rumsfeld over the 17 years we spent together. He is the youngest and second-oldest defence secretary in American history. I saw the good, bad and the complex. As his collaborator, I was able to read every memo and note he had ever written since his time in Congress in 1960. I was his chief speechwriter at Pentagon and traveled with him to over 40 countries. I also learned his strict rules of grammar (the very word was not necessary and should be avoided). I was his friend and we talked hundreds of times about many topics, from how to use a podometer to whether or not UFOs are real (I am not answering that!) to his love for liberal Adlai Stephenson. I helped him to become an app developer when he was 80. This involved adapting an online version a solitaire game that Winston Churchill used.Many will be reflecting on Don Rumsfeld's life over the next days. They will likely focus, predictably, and in some ways understandably, on his final years as a secretary of defense for George W. Bush in the worst days in Iraq War history. This was a high-profile moment that had grave consequences, which unfortunately was his last major public act. It is wrong to view him through this lens and the many decades of history he has helped to create.Don Rumsfeld was one the most influential figures in the past 50 years. He was a moderate Republican congressman from Illinois who championed civil rights legislation as well as a civil style in politics to counter the extremists within his party. He stood up against LBJ in the face of the lies surrounding the Vietnam War. He was an official in Nixon's administration and tried to make the war against poverty work by being the director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. This office had been established under LBJs Great Society. He was a Nixon protégé who refuted the scorched-earth tactics used by some senior aides. He was exiled to Europe, where, fortuitously he stayed out the fire as a huge scandal took root.For restoring the ship of State after Watergate, President Gerald Ford is credited. It was his old friend from Congress Don Rumsfeld who he turned to for his chief of staff. He was the one he trusted to keep the ship together. As the youngest secretary to defense under Ford, he favored a Reaganite-style military buildup in opposition to the Soviets, which helped speed the end of the Cold War. George W. Bush called Don Rumsfeld back to the Pentagon many decades later. He reformed and modernized defense while responding to two wars and managing the largest attack on the homeland in American history. He was the most powerful surrogate of the administration when things were going well, and its heat shield when things got tough. He never complained.Except once.I flew along with Joyce and him to Kansas after he quit as defense secretary. They were as happy together as they were when they were with each other. Their love affair began in high school, and was continued for over 70 years. I was not feeling jovial.Donald Rumsfeld and U.S. President Gerald Ford meet at the White House, Washington, D.C., on February 6, 1975. Marion S. Trikosko/Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty ImagesI explained to him that I was resentful of the media attacks against him by the Bob Woodwards. I repeated the established wisdom that the man they all once praised in the Bush administration's early halcyon days, was now the villain to which almost all the blame must be assigned. They accused him of pushing for the invasion in Iraq. Since the late 1990s, U.S. policy has been to change the regime. Many Democrats and Republicans in Congress voted for Saddam Hussein's removal. It is a collective guilt if there is any. They also blamed him for declaring that there were Weapons of Mass Destruction (a claim made by the Clintons, foreign leaders with their intelligence agencies, and foreign policy experts such as Joe Biden to the U.N. by Colin Powell who examined the intelligence personally, and almost all of the punditry, who later claimed they didn't say that). They blamed him because he simultaneously listened to and then didn't listen to his generals. Rumsfeld's curse was that he was a strategic thinker and hard-charging manager (his Rumsfelds Rules for management were a DC legend). People assumed he was responsible.He was not without fault for the Iraq War and its administration, but that is no surprise. These arguments will last a lifetime. It wasn't true, however, that he insisted on the invasion of Iraq. He didn't believe that the Middle East could become a democracy in a matter of hours, as some ideologues within and outside the administration believed.Contrary to his image as a hard-working micromanager, he learned perhaps to his own peril from LBJs Vietnam experience to trust and sometimes defer to generals in the field when overseeing a war. Many of those generals told him to keep the course, even when it seemed obvious that a correction was necessary. This is something I have heard. Rumsfeld was known for his strong opinions. Rumsfeld was a man who liked people. He would let you do almost anything if you liked him. Although they were great at overthrowing the regimes of Baghdad and Kabul, they did it quickly and brilliantly. Rumsfeld was not cut out for long-term occupations of foreign countries. It turned out that the State Department and National Security Council members who played major roles during this occupation were not involved in it, or were supposed. Their leaders managed to escape the harsh condemnation of their pundits friends when WMD were not found in Iraq and a vicious civil war ensued. Democracy did not emerge across the Middle East as promised.I was furious when he had to resign because of massive Republican losses in 2006, partly due to the chaos in Iraq. It was unfair, I thought. He agreed.The Rumsfelds shared a comfortable bubble, but for a brief moment, they exchanged glances and their faces became raw. I was able to see past the cool facade they had displayed since Nixon. It turned out that they were not so happy after all.Joyce was the first to speak. She mentioned that her husband had been criticized by many people for the war in Iraq. She did not name any names but asked, "Where are they now?" None of them were willing to defend him or take any responsibility. Her husband's face was filled with disappointment and agreement. Perhaps even sadness. This was the first time and only occasion I'd ever seen Rumsfeld's confident demeanor shaken. The tough and resilient Rumsfeld quickly returned, and then it was back to business and the future.Rumsfeld was one the last old-school public servants. He was kind and gentle to people, helped someone with a crippling drug addiction, and managed a war. Rumsfeld was also friends with people from Sammy Davis Jr. to Sammy Cheneys. Rumsfeld could forget politics and put policies aside and value people as individuals. Rumsfeld was an active squash player into his 70s. He zipped around Pentagon, sapping younger and more envious aides. He founded a foundation to help entrepreneurs in developing countries.He held a Boy Scouts perspective of right and wrong. He was very strict about paying taxes and expenses. Because he felt it was a waste of money, he got rid of the Pentagon's personal pastry chef. He was reassigned to a military aide, whose primary job was to follow him around the Department. He believed that the young man had more important things to do and that the secretary of defense could not be secure in the most secure building in the world. He was not happy about the notion that people don't always mean what you say and thought it was insulting to be called ambitious. I resigned a military aide whose job was to follow him around the Department. He also told me how his father used to move their family into houses, which they would then refurbish and sell at a modest profit. He thought the term was unseemly.His ethics were my most memorable encounter. It was in Mongolia. A horse was given to him by the Mongolian government as a gift. It was customary to give the horse to the owner and then to put it in the pasture. He was shocked that I held such a reptilian viewpoint when I suggested that the Mongolians might have used the same old horse for multiple visits by dignitaries. He could not believe that anyone would do this. He was certain that he would somehow be able to get the horse shipped over to America, even after we had taken off from Ulanbator.He could be rude, or harsh. People feared him and were afraid of challenging him. He would scold generals and senior aides for making seemingly insignificant errors, like not numbering pages on a slide presentation. He was not one to mince his words. He held two people in public life in deep disrepute. The first was Nelson Rockefeller, a former Vice President. He considered him a bully. Rumsfeld hated both of these attributes. George H.W. George H.W. Bush, or Poppy, as Rumsfeld would call him, was the American aristocrat who embodied in his mind at mostthe sneering eliteism of American aristocracy. He didn't forget the people who looked down upon the suburban Illinois boy who was accepted to Princeton on an ROTC scholarship.Rumsfeld was a former colleague of Henry Kissinger and had perhaps the most important frenemy relationship in American politics. They were both formidable individuals, and although they did occasionally clash, their rivalry was tempered by nostalgia, age and mutual respect.Although he was sometimes a little bit irritable, he was always kind and loving. He danced to ABBA's Waterloolaugh at my wedding. He smiled, laughed, and had fun.
