About the Rumsfeld Archive


library documentsWelcome to the home of the Rumsfeld Archive, a site that was created in conjunction with the publication of Secretary Rumsfeld’s memoir, Known and Unknown, in 2011. With its launch, Rumsfeld released the following statement, "In addition to documents cited in Known and Unknown, the Rumsfeld Archive contains a number of documents from my personal collection. I hand-selected documents that are of particular historical interest or are related to the events in Known and Unknown. My decision to release these papers was not an easy one. 

A few documents have been redacted to protect personal privacy, and some have been withheld because they contain sensitive information, generally on personnel matters. These documents were not designed with an eye to history as part of an authoritative archive. They are working papers, often prepared in great haste under difficult circumstances. While some are highly-polished, many were never even edited. They contain numerous typos, misspellings, and some outright errors. They need to be handled as archival material. 

Despite my strong personal inclination to go back in and clean them up, I have concluded to do so would give the impression of a polished, even a sanitized record. Instead, I have put them out on this website, warts and all, for readers to draw their own conclusions."