We are deeply sorry to learn of the passing of Donald Rumsfeld. Throughout his long and productive life, Don Rumsfeld built an extraordinary legacy of service to our country stretching across more than half a century.

Richard Nixon was the first president to call on Don Rumsfeld to serve in a senior leadership position in the executive branch. At President Nixon’s request, Don resigned his seat in the House of Representatives to serve as director of the White House Office of Economic Opportunity. He would go on to serve in three additional senior posts in the Nixon Administration.

Donald Rumsfeld’s remarkable record of public service encompassed critical periods of U.S. history. He began with what was already a successful career in congressional politics and as a domestic policymaker in the Nixon and Ford administrations. But his consuming interest was national security, which he got a taste of as U.S. ambassador to NATO in 1973. His stint there was ever so brief: After Watergate crushed the Nixon administration, newly installed President Gerald Ford, remembering their days together in the House of Representatives, brought Rumsfeld back to Washington as the White House chief of staff.

In the mid-2000s, I spent two years as senior military assistant to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, acting essentially as his military gatekeeper and translating his orders to the U.S. military via the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Before joining his team, I had been a Navy one-star admiral and commander of Enterprise Carrier Strike Group, in charge of 10,000 sailors and a dozen ships in combat in the Arabian Gulf. 

"A period that brought unprecedented challenges to our country and to our military also brought out the best qualities in Secretary Rumsfeld. A man of intelligence, integrity, and almost inexhaustible energy, he never paled before tough decisions, and never flinched from responsibility."

Former Vice President Dick Cheney and Dr. Lynne Cheney issued the following statement on the passage of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld:

“We are so sorry to learn that the world has lost Don Rumsfeld, but sorry most of all for the great empty space we know his passing has left in the lives of his family.

A brief word of condolences on the passing of Don Rumsfeld. When I had my first job in the Office of Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, there was already a portrait of Don Rumsfeld on the long wall right outside the Secretary’s office in the Pentagon. Over the years, it moved down the hall as history passed and newer Secretaries took their nearer places. Then a second portrait of Don appeared—the only person to occupy the office twice!

I was saddened to hear today of the passing of former Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.  Mr. Rumsfeld had the singular distinction of holding that post for two nonconsecutive tenures, serving as both the 13th Secretary of Defense and the 21st. He also served in the U.S. Navy in 1954-57 as a pilot and a flight instructor, and he continued his service as a reservist until 1975, when he became Secretary of Defense for the first time. Over the decades of his remarkable career, from Congress to the White House to the Pentagon, Secretary Rumsfeld was propelled by his boundless energy, probing intellect, and abiding commitment to serve his country. On behalf of the Department of Defense, I extend my deep condolences to his family and loved ones. 

Donald Rumsfeld fired me once.

I had been his chief speechwriter for two years when he was George W. Bush’s secretary of defense and in his retirement we were working together on his memoir. Now that collaboration was ending abruptly. He didn’t enjoy firing me—“stepping back” from each other as he put it—but he delivered the decision in his usual no BS, cards-on-the-table manner.

Few men have had more consequential careers in public and private life than Donald Rumsfeld, the senior adviser to three Presidents and business executive, who died Tuesday at age 88.

A conservative Midwesterner, he served in the Navy and won a seat in Congress from Illinois in 1962. Richard Nixon spotted his talent and brought him in as an adviser. His star rose quickly and he became chief of staff and then secretary of Defense for Gerald Ford, the youngest Pentagon chief at age 43.

As former secretaries of defense, we hold a common view of the solemn obligations of the U.S. armed forces and the Defense Department. Each of us swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We did not swear it to an individual or a party.