Known knowns donald rumsfeld autobiography
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There are unknown unknowns
Saying associated with the US invasion of Iraq
"There are unknown unknowns" is a phrase from a response United States Secretary of DefenseDonald Rumsfeld gave to a question at a U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) news briefing on February 12, 2002, about the lack of evidence linking the government of Iraq with the supply of weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups.[1] Rumsfeld stated:
Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.[1]
The statement became the subject of much commentary. In The Decisi
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Known and Unknown: A Memoir
Few Americans have spent more time near the center of power than Donald Rumsfeld, whose widely commented-on memoir offers many previously undisclosed details about his service with four U.S. presidents. We follow his rise from a middle-class childhood to the Navy to a seat in the U.S. Congress at age thirty, and his experiences there during the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights era. We also get his unique perspective as a cabinet-level member of the Nixon and Ford administrations, as CEO of two Fortune 500 companies, and as a special envoy to the Middle East for President Reagan.
Rumsfeld also addresses the challenges and controversies of his time as Secretary of Defense during the 9/11 attacks by al-Qaida and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He includes candid observations on the differences of views within the Pentagon and with other members of President George W. Bush’s National Security Council.
In a famous press briefing, Rumsfeld once said th
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Few Americans have spent more time nära the center of power than Donald Rumsfeld. Now he has written an unflinching memoir of his half-century career, sharing previously undisclosed details that will fascinate readers and force historians to rethink many controversies.
Starting from a middle-class childhood in Illinois, Rumsfeld had a rapid rise that won him early acclaim. He shows us what it was like growing up during the Great nedstämdhet and World War II, going to Princeton on scholarships, serving as a naval aviator, then getting his first political job on Capitol Hill during the Eisenhower administration. He recalls how he won a seat in the House of Representatives at age thirty and what he experienced as a Republican in Congress during the Kennedy and Johnson years.
We also follow him back to the executive branch as he took on key cabinet positions in the Nixon and Ford administrations, including his service as the youngest-ever secretary of defens