I've been waiting for this to get posted on Atlantic's website. An interview with James Mann on his piece "Young Rumsfeld" in this month's Atlantic. Looking forward to his book coming out this spring - "Rise of the Vulcans."
Too long to post in its entirety.
theatlantic.com
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Atlantic Unbound | October 8, 2003
Interviews
Rumsfeld's Roots
James Mann talks about the political evolution and influences of Donald Rumsfeld
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Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger once wrote, is "a special Washington phenomenon: the skilled full-time politician-bureaucrat in whom ambition, ability, and substance fuse seamlessly." "Young Rumsfeld" (October Atlantic), James Mann's examination of the future Secretary of Defense's tenure in the Nixon Administration, shows Rumsfeld at a time when these three qualities had not yet quite fused, when Rumsfeld found himself restlessly searching for—and never quite achieving—the kind of position he wanted within the Administration.
Mann's article both fills out and changes the common understanding of Rumsfeld. It shows him as a fierce defender of his "bureacratic turf" who displayed surprisingly progressive views while head of the beleaguered Office of Economic Opportunity. It shows him offending some of Nixon's aides, such as H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, through his combination of naked ambition and unwillingness to be a team player. And it shows him to be a savvy political operator, who, while not involved in Watergate, "was not nearly so marginal a figure in Nixon's political apparatus as he was later portrayed." From today's perspective, perhaps the most unexpected revelation about Rumsfeld is that when it came to the Vietnam War, Rumsfeld was a dove, not a hawk—a fact that led Nixon to talk openly among his aides about "dumping" Rumsfeld.
Yet in other moods Nixon admired and valued Rumsfeld, and despite his threat to fire him, kept him around in various positions until the end of his presidency. In 1971-1972, when Rumsfeld was on the White House staff, he and Nixon had several talks about Rumsfeld's political future. Nixon, of course, loved to hand out political advice, and as a young former Congressman unsure about what his next career move should be, Rumsfeld was eager to receive it. The advice—not always good, often filled with sharply worded expressions of disdain for others—was certainly definite. Of particular interest are Nixon's comments on which countries Rumsfeld might want to get involved with and which ones he should avoid—comments that display a twisted sort of prescience:
"The only things that matter in the world are Japan and China, Russia and Europe," Nixon explained. "Latin America doesn't matter. Long as we've been in it, people don't give one damn about Latin America, Don." Stay away from Africa, too, Nixon warned. As for the Middle East, getting involved there carried too many potential hazards for a politician. "People think it's for the purpose of catering to the Jewish vote," Nixon told Rumsfeld. "And anyway, there's nothing you can do about the Middle East."
Now, of course, Nixon's once-dovish protégé has long since become that special Washington phenomenon that Kissinger was talking about, and is testing the truth of Nixon's remark about the Middle East for himself.
Mann's article on Rumsfeld is adapted from his book Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet, which will be published in April. He is a senior writer-in-residence at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington, D.C.
We spoke by phone on September 26.
<continued with interview at link> |
