Donald H. Rumsfeld

U.S. Secretary of Defense

"There are few active figures who span more of the history of the modern Republican Party, or have the government resumes to match that of Donald Henry Rumsfeld," said an article in the New York Times. A true Pentagon veteran, Rumsfeld, 68, reassumed the post of U.S. secretary of defence in 2001 after a quarter-century hiatus. He first held the position in November 1975 in the administration of President Gerald Ford.

Born in 1932 in Chicago, Illinois, he graduated from Princeton University in 1954 and served as a naval aviator for three years before going to Washington to work under two congressmen. Rumsfeld briefly left politics to join an investment bank, but returned to Washington in 1962 at age 30 to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives as a representative from Illinois. He was re-elected in 1964, 1966 and 1968. He remained in the House until resigning in 1969 to join the administration of President Richard Nixon as director of the Office of Economic Opportunity.

After serving as U.S. Ambassador to NATO in Brussels from 1973-1974, he was called back to Washington to work in the Ford administration as the White House chief of staff and later, at age 46, as the youngest U.S. secretary of defence in the country's history.

After President Ford lost his re-election bid to Jimmy Carter in 1976, Rumsfeld returned to the corporate world where he served as chief executive, president, and then chairman of G.D. Searle & Co., a worldwide pharmaceutical company. During his business career, Rumsfeld continued public service in a variety of posts. His most recent positions include the chairmanship of an independent commission to review and assess the ballistic missile threat to the United States and a commission to evaluate the management of American space operations. Before being sworn in as the 21st secretary of defence, Rumsfeld was the chairman of Gilead Sciences, Inc.

He married Joyce Pierson in 1954. They have three children.