Known and Unknown

Donald Rumsfeld doesn't dwell too long on any subject in his book Known and Unknown. The narrative moves forward quickly. The reader has to pay attention, or Rumsfeld will move on to another subject before you know it.

Billy Graham has been mentioned a couple times so far in the book. He was one of a small circle of people Nixon gathered together on the eve of one of Nixon's primary victories to discuss who should be the Vice President running mate. Graham recommended a Christian U.S. Senator from Oregon, Mark Hatfield, but Nixon went with Spiro T. Agnew, Governor of Maryland, though Agnew had not been adequately vetted. It soon turned out that Agnew had been involved in some crooked deals in Maryland, and had to resign the Vice Presidency. When Nixon died, Graham gave a eulogy at his funeral.

That reminds me. Have you seen videos of Westboro Baptist Church preacher Fred Phelps angrily telling Billy Graham that he is going to Hell and that the Westboro people will picket his funeral when he dies? They are available on You Tube, but I did not want to display them here on this blog, because they are vile. Ann Althouse also has recent footage taken by her husband, Meade, of the Westboro people picketing in Wisconsin. Phelps and his congregants seem particularly angry that Graham preaches that God loves us. They happily sing God hates America, to the tune of God Bless America. I am sure they do not see the irony in their freedom to sing their hateful songs in America.

I guess I just have to admit I am a political junkie, because I find Rumsfeld's book riveting. He has been a pivotal figure to many of the significant events of the last half of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st, and he write with candor and clarity. He writes about all the major events, but also gives us tidbits of interesting information never before written about. For example, when Nixon appointed him Ambassador to NATO, before leaving for Brussels, his sixteen-year-old daughter wanted to get her driver's license. Guess who taught her to parallel park? A man named Richard Cheney, who was Rumsfeld's assistant in many of the jobs Rumsfeld took on!

Early in his career, Rumsfeld learned to be wary of the media. Columnist Jack Anderson, syndicated in practically every newspaper in America, wrote a column about Rumsfeld in which the only two words that were accurate were the spelling of Rumsfeld's name! When Rumsfeld confronted Anderson, Anderson did not write a column correcting his errors, because he was afraid some newspapers would drop his column, which he had inherited from his predecessor, Drew Pearson.