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Rumsfeld was born on July 9, 1932 in Evanston, Illinois. He attended Princeton University and Georgetown Law School before serving in the Navy from 1954 to 1957. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives for Illinois' 13th congressional district in 1962, at the age of 30, and was re-elected by large majorities in 1964, 1966, and 1968.
Rumsfeld resigned from Congress in 1969 to serve in the Nixon administration. In 1969, Nixon planned to reform and reorganize the United States Office of Economic Opportunity, and he appointed Rumsfeld Director of the organization. Rumsfeld had voted against the creation of OEO when he was in Congress, and initially rejected Nixon's offer, but later accepted after speaking with Nixon. While Director of OEO, Rumsfeld sought to reorganize OEO to make several of Lyndon Johnson's anti-poverty programs more cost-effective by allocating funds to them from other less-successful government programs. During this time, he hired future Vice-President Dick Cheney to serve under him, and Cheney would follow Rumsfeld on his career path. A story by reporter Jack Anderson alleged that Rumsfeld had cut programs to aid the poor while spending thousands to redecorate his office. Rumsfeld dictated a four-page response to Anderson, labeling the accusations as falsehoods, and invited Anderson to tour his office. Anderson did not retract his claims, but much later Anderson admitted that his column was a mistake.
In December 1970, Nixon named Rumsfeld Counsellor to the President, an advisory position that earned him Cabinet-status. He was given an office in the West Wing. The following year Nixon named Rumsfeld as Director of the Economic Stabilization Program in 1970 and as headed up the Cost of Living Council. Nixon had some admiration for Rumsfeld and in one of his secret Oval Office recordings, Nixon called Rumselfeld "a ruthless little bastard." In February 1973, Nixon appointed Rumsfeld to the post of U.S. Ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Brussels, Belgium.
In August 1974, Rumsfeld was called back to Washington. He was selected by President Gerald Ford to serve as his transition chairman. Ford and Rumsfeld had become close friends during their days in the House. When Ford took office, he appointed Rumsfeld White House Chief of Staff, where Rumsfeld served from 1974 to 1975. Rumsfeld brought on former Wyoming Congressman Dick Cheney as his Deputy. In October 1975, Ford reshuffled his cabinet in the Halloween Massacre. He named Rumsfeld to become the 13th U.S. Secretary of Defense and named future President George H. W. Bush to the post of Director of Central Intelligence. According to Bob Woodward's 2002 book Bush at War, a rivalry developed between the two men. Woodward wrote that Bush was convinced that Rumsfeld was pushing him out to the CIA to end his political career.
At the Pentagon, Rumsfeld oversaw the transition to an all-volunteer military. He sought to reverse the gradual decline in the defense budget and to build up U.S. strategic and conventional forces. He fought with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the SALT talks over policy. Rumsfeld argued that trends in comparative U.S.-Soviet military strength had not favored the United States for 15 to 20 years and that, if continued, there would be what he called "a fundamental instability in the world." Rumsfeld oversaw the development of cruise missiles, the B-1 bomber, and a major naval shipbuilding program.
When Ford lost the 1976 election, Rumsfeld returned to private business life, and was named president and CEO of the pharmaceutical corporation G. D. Searle & Company. He led the fight for the legalization of Aspartame. He was later named CEO of General Instrument from 1990 to 1993, and chairman of Gilead Sciences from 1997 to 2001. He was appointed as Defense Secretary in January 2001 by President George W. Bush. Rumsfeld was crucial in planning the United States' response to the September 11, 2001 attacks, and in the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Rumsfeld's tenure became highly controversial for the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal, as well as the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. He gradually lost political support as the wars continued and resigned in late 2006. He has since published his autobiography Known and Unknown: A Memoir.
In an interview that Ford gave to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in 2004, Ford was critical of his former Chief of Staff over the decision to go to war in Iraq. Ford told Woodward that he "very strongly" disagreed with the justifications given for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. "I don't think I would have gone to war," Ford told Woodward. In the interview, Ford was critical not only of President George W. Bush but also of Vice President Cheney and of Donald Rumsfeld. He told Woodward that "Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction and now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do."