To commemorate the Foundation's 10-year anniversary, our Executive Director, Sarah Tonucci, recently sat down with Founder and President, Don Rumsfeld, to discuss the Foundation's beginnings, the evolution of its programs over the last decade and his hopes for the future.
TONUCCI: After you left the Department of Defense in 2006, what inspired you and Joyce to decide to start the Rumsfeld Foundation?
RUMSFELD: Well, there were several reasons. One element of the Foundation involves military families and individuals who serve the country. I had been one of the sponsors of legislation to create the all-volunteer military, which I believe has been a wonderful thing. Everyone who today serves in the military is there because they want to be there. They raised their hand and said, “Send me.” The downside is that a much smaller portion of the American people end up serving and having an understanding of the military, how it works, the importance of it and more broadly an appreciation for the people who do volunteer to serve. It seemed to Joyce and me that it would be a good thing for us to try to encourage people to engage with the military community and military families through some wonderful charities that exist to support them. That aspect of the Foundation has been something we have enjoyed doing.
Another element of the Foundation is the Graduate Fellowship Program. It’s expensive for a young person to invest two, three, four years to get a Masters or PhD or both. It’s expensive in time and money. When working in the Pentagon, some of the people I came to know had benefited from financial support for their graduate studies from a charity years ago that now no longer exists. Learning that that program was about to expire, I thought, given the talented folks I had worked with, it would be a worthwhile cause to take on in our efforts.
The other thing on our minds came from my travels across Greater Central Asia as I had spent a good deal of time in the region. Throughout my life I, as most everybody, have been fully aware of our country’s focus on Western Europe and on Asia. Alternatively, we’ve had relatively little focus on Central Asia. When the Soviet Union was disbanded, most of the countries became former Soviet Republics. They don’t get a lot of attention, they are interesting countries and I had had to spend time there throughout my Pentagon days, during which a number of them were enormously helpful to the United States in our various activities around the world. It struck me that it would be a healthy thing for our country to bring over some people from the Greater Central Asia region, have them become a bit more familiar with the United States, but also to have the United States become a bit more familiar with them.
Those were basically the essential reasons why Joyce and I decided to focus in those areas with our Foundation.
TONUCCI: A few months ago marked ten years since the Foundation was first established. Thinking back on when you were first conceptualizing what the Foundation might do and what your aims were, what stands out to you now as far as the Foundation’s evolution over this past decade?
RUMSFLED: I suppose the thing that leaps to my mind is it’s probably better in life to be lucky than smart. The purpose we had in our minds when we launched these three programs has evolved in a way that has been positive and rewarding. On the other hand, what’s also really important are the things that have happened that we never even anticipated. For instance, with regards to our Central Asia Fellowship Program, an expert on Central Asia came to me one day and said without even intending to do it, what’s happened is that for the Fellows from those ten countries in that part of the world, in bringing them over here and having annual meetings for them – we’ve probably created the only network that exists among their ten countries. We didn’t set out to do that – it has just evolved, it’s happened. These people who come to the United States get to know people from their neighboring countries in a part of the world where they don’t travel in each other’s countries. These people who are carefully selected are interesting, interested, doing important things and have careers that are advancing them in their lives. They get to know each other during the program and they maintain those relationships. That’s an interesting thing. I hope that what it does is help link those countries to some extent – journalists getting to know journalists from other countries, businesspeople getting to know businesspeople from other countries, and so forth. After the program, they have tended to visit each other’s countries more than they ever had before and that’s been a good thing.
TONUCCI: In the conclusion of your memoir, Known and Unknown, you wrote, “I hope readers will come away with a conviction that service to America is an obligation to be fulfilled as well as an honor to be embraced.” Related to this, another part of the mission is to encourage leadership and public service, as you noted as part of your inspiration for starting the Foundation. Why do you think it is important for future generations to understand the value and importance of serving the nation, whether in a military or civilian capacity?
RUMSFELD: Government benefits from having people who are intelligent, who are honorable, who have integrity, who have character, who have experiences that they can bring to the government, whether in uniform or on the civilian side – both are enormously important. So it seems to me that what we have to do is at least have a little balance in our society and make sure that people who are coming up who are young and are figuring out how they want to spend their lives, that they aren’t turned off from being a part of government. That they don’t come away with a feeling that there are not good people in government because there are a lot of wonderful people in government doing wonderful things, doing honorable things and performing well for our country. We spend a lot more time critiquing and criticizing than we do recognizing and honoring people who serve in government who do well for our country.
TONUCCI: Also in your memoir, you recall that some of the most inspiring moments of your tenure as Secretary of Defense were meeting with the troops, which as you mentioned, all of them have volunteered to serve the country. When discussing service members, the wounded, the fallen and military families, you wrote that, “It was the highest honor of my life to have served with and known them.” Since the Foundation started, part of its work has been to provide grants to organizations that support the military and veteran community. A portion of those grants are made possible by the profits from your memoir as well as from your new app, Churchill Solitaire. Can you expand a bit more on why you decided to make grants to military charities a part of the Foundation’s key efforts?
RUMSFELD: Well, the reality is that we have probably the finest military on the face of the Earth. One of the central characteristics is that today there is no one in the military who didn’t volunteer. There’s no one there who is being forced to be there. Every single person decided on their own that they wanted to make that decision for themselves and contribute through their service in uniform. That fact, it seems to me, is an important one. The Foundation has as one of our goals a purpose in supporting those people and supporting their families and recognizing that they have made a choice that benefits the country, to be sure, and that it is important that that be appreciated and that we place a value on it. That the country says, good for you – thank you.
TONUCCI: Looking at each of the Foundation’s focus areas separately, public service on the one end and Greater Central Asia on the other end, they can seem as if they don’t have much in common. But if you look at the Foundation’s mission to encourage leadership, public service, and free political and economic systems, there are a few common threads that can be found. One such common thread is the Foundation’s efforts on encouraging rising leaders whether in the U.S. or in the Greater Central Asia region. Why do you think it’s important to invest in future leaders?
Watch Rumsfeld's reply here or read below:
RUMSFELD: You know any individual has a choice in life, what they are going to do with themselves. You can go into business, you can go into medicine, you can go in the military, you can serve in federal, state or local government. Each of us can find a way that seems to be of interest and importance to us as individuals. There’s no particular magnet drawing people into government. Conversely, there is, from time to time, quite a bit of criticism of government. It would be a shame if people were dissuaded from making that choice or from studying subject matter that is relevant to public policy and public service. I think that it’s probably a good thing for us to be doing what we’re doing and for others to be demonstrating an interest in the importance of public service, the importance of government and the importance that government benefit from the involvement – the engagement, the interest and the contributions – of talented, interested, well-educated, honorable human beings.
Tonucci: You’ve been known to say that coming from the Midwest you consider yourself an optimist. Does having the opportunity to meet and spend time with the individuals the Foundation works with, such as the Graduate Fellows, the Central Asia Fellows, service members and veterans, impact your feeling of optimism for the future?
Watch Rumsfeld's reply here or read below:
RUMSFELD: Well it does. You can’t be around people who serve in the military and their families and not feel good about the country. That people – fine people, talented people, honorable people – are willing to dedicate their lives to service is important. To be around all of the professors who help us find students that can benefit from our programs and involvement in the Graduate Fellows Programs; to be around those professors and see what they’re doing with young people and teaching and helping others advance in their lives and in the academic world or in the public policy world is of a kind. One has to be grateful that people – that there are so many people who do want to raise their hand and volunteer to serve in the military and so many people that are interested in public policy and public service and spend their lives in the academic world or, having passed through the academic world, spend their lives serving in government or serving in public policy related activities. Joyce and I feel privileged we can be around those people.
TONUCCI: So as we noted, the Foundation is now a decade in, so as you look toward the future of the Foundation and its programs and activities, what impact do you hope the Foundation will be able to make?
RUMSFELD: We are truly pleased with the progress the Foundation has made across all our focus areas. We’re pleased with what we have seen in the Graduate Fellowship Program. We’re pleased with the assistance we’ve been able to provide with respect to military charities and grateful to the people who run those charities and the attention and dedication they demonstrate to be supportive of the men and women who serve in the military and their families; as well as the progress we see with our Greater Central Asia Fellowship Program.
To the extent the people who will be involved when we’re no longer involved continue to believe that some good is being accomplished, things that are helpful to our country and to our concepts of the value of free political and free economic systems; to the extent that we see progress and contribution, we’d like to see the Foundation continue over a period of time, and as these networks evolve, they may likely prove over time to be the strength of the programs that we’ve initiated.
TONUCCI: Lastly, the Foundation’s been fortunate over the past decade to have a lot of support from wonderful friends and partners both in terms of making donations as well as making the time to meet with our various groups of Fellows, speak at conferences, give a helping hand. What would your message be to those people who have supported the Foundation over the years?
Watch Rumsfeld's reply here or read below:
RUMSFELD: Well of course we are so appreciative of people who just decided they like what we’re doing and decided they want to assist and be a part of that. These are friends from high school and college and business and government who fortunately have been interested and helpful, some financially, and many others have spoken to our Graduate Fellows. We have a whole team of people that meet with our Greater Central Asia Fellows when they’re in the United States, and we appreciate it. The friendships that have evolved from all of this seem to me to be an added dimension, an added benefit to the program. For people to be willing – very prominent business people or academics or former government officials – to take their time to meet with these 10 or 12 people that might be in the country at any given time from Central Asia or to come and speak to our Graduate Fellows when we gather them together once a year or at smaller events throughout the year, for them to take their time to do that is important. You get former Secretaries of State and former Presidents and people who have made contributions who understand our society, for them to sit down and meet with 10 or 12 people or a group of our Graduate Fellows is important. It adds a texture and a dimension to the program that you couldn’t achieve any other way.
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The above text includes edited excerpts from Don Rumsfeld’s full interview with our Executive Director on February 1, 2018.