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After school, Rumsfeld studied at Princeton University. From 1954 to 1957 he served in the US Navy. He was subsequently represented in the US Congress several times as a member of the Republican Party. In 1954 Rumsfeld married Joyce Pierson, with whom he had three children. In the years 1969/70 and 1971/72, Rumsfeld served as economic advisor to President Richard Nixon. In 1973/74 he served as US envoy to NATO. Under President Gerald Rudolph Ford, Rumsfeld was elevated to White House chief of staff in 1974/75. He served as Secretary of Defense under the same President from 1975 to 1977. After Ford left the presidency, Rumsfeld also lost his political office in 1977. He now turned to business, holding senior positions at G. D. Searle and Company from 1977 to 1985.

From 1985 to 1990, Rumsfeld served as a senior advisor to William Blair and Company. From 1990 to 1993 he worked as a manager for General Instrument Corporation and from 1997 to 2000 for Gilead Sciences, Inc. Rumsfeld received 11 academic honorary degrees. He was, among other things, Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the Eisenhower Medal in 1993. Rumsfeld was given the opportunity to make a political comeback in 2001 when George W. Bush became president. Since then he has taken up the office of Defense Minister again. In this role, he was at the center of global attention, especially after the terrorist attack on the USA on September 11, 2001 and during the US military strike against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan a few months later. Since the summer of 2002, in connection with the preparations for a US attack on Iraq, the world's attention has once again been focused on the statements of the veteran US Secretary of Defense.

As a supporter of his president's war policy, Rumsfeld increasingly overshadows Secretary of State Colin Powell, who dissents from it. Although Rumsfeld came under increasing public criticism over the Iraq War due to allegations of torture against American soldiers, he was able to retain his office during President Bush's second term in office after his re-election in November 2004. After the Iraq War, Rumsfeld emerged primarily as a warning about Iran's terrorist potential and China's growing military power. In 2004/05, the American Secretary of Defense made three trips to Latin America to ensure the support of the local governments in the US dispute with Venezuela. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has long been trying to forge an "Axis of the South" against the North American superpower in order to give the South American countries back their autonomy. He also concluded an alliance with the Cuban head of state Fidel Castro.

Following the Republican defeat in the 2006 congressional elections, Bush announced Rumsfeld's resignation as Secretary of Defense on November 8, 2006. The US administration was responding to ongoing criticism of the deployment of American soldiers in Iraq. Robert Gates was nominated as his successor. His memoirs were published in February 2011 under the title "Known and Unknown: A Memoir".

Donald Rumsfeld died on June 29, 2021 in Taos, New Mexico.

Donald Rumsfeld in The Unknown Known (2013)

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