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• Donald Rumsfeld was the 13th Secretary of Defense under President Gerald Ford from 1975 to 1977, and the 21st Secretary of Defense under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2006. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to have held the position, as well as the only person to have held the position for two non-consecutive terms, and the second longest serving, behind Robert McNamara.

• Fast Facts

  1. Born on July 9, 1932
  2. Secretary of Defense: 1975-1977, 2001-2006
  3. Party: Republican
  4. Replaced by Robert Gates
  5. Religion: Presbyterian

• Career

  Rumsfeld served in various positions under President Nixon, served four terms in the United States House of Representatives, and served as United States Ambassador to NATO. Rumsfeld was an aviator in the United States Navy between 1954 and 1957 before transferring to the Reserve.

• Iraq War

  Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Rumsfeld led the military planning and execution of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In a concept referred to as the Rumsfeld Doctrine, he pushed hard to send as small a force as possible to both conflicts.

• Related Mahalo Pages

  George W. Bush | Department of Defense | Robert Gates | Condoleezza Rice | Dick Cheney | Colin Powell | Saddam Hussein | Osama bin Laden | Stephen Hadley | Scooter Libby | Project for the New American Century | Richard Nixon | Dwight Eisenhower | Gerald Ford | Ronald Reagan | Bill Clinton | Nouri al-Maliki | Muqtada al Sadr | Ahmed Chalabi | Karl Rove | Lawrence Wilkerson

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