world. some republicans began to join democrats in questioning whether rumsfeld should remain the defense secretary. host: your book has a series of pictures of him appearing at many hearings. you called him a master of hand gestures. he spent four terms as a congressman. did he feel comfortable on the hill as the secretary of defense? guest: his hand gestures are very much a part of the way that he speaks. the gopac to when he was in the nixon white house -- they go back to when he was in the nixon white house. there were stories about how he would talk with his hands. he was very good on the hill in terms of his performances. but he had terrible strains with a number of key members of

congress that did not serve him well. it was one of the greatest paradoxes about his time. one thing that puzzled his closest aides most was what he did not seem to make more of an effort and was not able to get along better with the key members of congress. sometimes, he seemed to almost purposely alienate them. i think it was one of the major factors that contributed to his downfall. host: sylvester is on the line from florida. go ahead. caller: i want to know if donald rumsfeld was president now, how would he respond to the iran government and protesters? guest: this is purely speculative of course. for all of his toughness and plainspoken aness and directnes,

he also had an inner compass when facing dicey situations. he had a sense of how far to go and when not to go too far. was secretary of defense he was very wary about taking military action against al qaeda and taliban terrorists and parts of pakistan for fear of destabilizing the pakistani government. host: we have a question for you from twitter. what was his role in watergate? guest: although donald rumsfeld service senior positions in the nixon administration, he was able to escape much of the tank of watergate.

he was overseas as ambassador to nato at the time the scandal broke. however, he was " involved with nixon's political operations -- quite involved, as i write in the book about local favors and activities. he was very close to nixon's top political operatives who were implicated in watergate. host: you wrote about his being influenced by adlai stevenson in the 1950's. how did donald rumsfeld in the becoming a republican? guest: he came from a conservative district on the north shore in chicago. he could not have gotten elected if you were not conservative. but he was not a neo -

conservative. sometimes people confuse him as being part of that community. he was always quite mainline conservative. some people might be surprised to learn that when he was younger in congress he had the image as a moderate republican, a reformer. he led a group that came to be known as rumsfeld's raiders and challenged some of the old-guard republicans in leadership. host: you wrote that his transformation process did not go as some conservative critics wanted. in august 2001 bill kristol called for donald rumsfeld and another resignation. guest: that is red. there was a time a few months into his tenure when he was

widely speculated likely to be the first cabinet casualty of the bush administration because he had come into office charged with transforming the military, but was taking his time, organizing study groups. he argued with the chiefs, members of congress about the direction of change. some were not happy with how fast change was happening. it was 9/11 and that the war in afghanistan that really saved him. host: good morning, caller. caller: to the american people in total budgets for all the military, the pentagon, what did those total? politicians often talk about public service but yet the

revolving door that these people and at the staff of the politicians and up going to work directly or indirectly for these military suppliers. the top public service all the time but the fact is it is primarily for personal gain. this is the problem in this country. thank you. guest: the defense budget now is over .5 trillion dollars and continues to rise through this decade. even not counting the cost of the war. and the war in afghanistan and the war on terrorism all of which have added billions of

dollars. as for the revolving door, i don't think it is the reason for the rise in defense spending, however. host: he transition the easily between public service and private business bega. guest: it is still possible to do that. bertran to put additional controls about that. -- they are trying to put additional controls. look, if it is a technical area experience counts. i don't think we want to completely close the door on those who have experience in the defense industry to come into government or those in government going into defense. host: among many photographs looks bad secretary rumsfeld

with these other figures. here he is with troops at a town hall meeting. how was he viewed by the troops and the general staff? guest: he generally got very good, rousing reception. the episode concerning armor and kuwait was an exception where the troops asked pointed questions from him. one explanation might be that the group was largely made up of reservists. it was further into the war and many frustrations were building. he generally was well-received by troops and enjoyed visiting with them.

his relations with the generals were more mixed. one of the things in writing the book that most impressed me was returning to some of those senior officers with whom he got along best and hearing them describe their relationships with him. even those like the general, clark who was the head of the navy, even those who had the reputation for having figured out how to deal with donald rumsfeld had mixed feelings about that relationship. host: did the most give you good access? guest: yes, i cannot complain about the access. also, donald rumsfeld who opened doors for me with different people. it was also helpful to go back and talk with both former

officials and retired military officers after they had left and had time to reflect. host: a question about his resignation from twitter. guest: by the time he stepped down his only major supporter in the administration was dick cheney. that relationship goes back many years. it was donald rumsfeld who brought dick cheney and back in the nixon administration. they were close and had a long- term relationship. but by the end in the bush administration donald rumsfeld had very few voices of support either within the administration, congress, or the senior military ranks. host: why did the president wait until after the elections to accept his resignation? guest: the president was adamant

about waiting even though he seems to have made up his mind about the replacement. that was before the election. they set into motion some planning as to how the resignation would be announced. bush was insistent that the news not come until after the election because he did not want it to seem like he was being politically motivated, to help republican candidates. there were many republican candidates after the fact who were quite upset that bush had not moved sooner because republicans felt the departure might have helped save some republican candidates. host: bradley graham is our guest. this is his book. good morning on the democrats' line. caller: congratulations with your new book i think you have

the market on the fiction ultimate universe. first of all, you said something about the general supporting donald rumsfeld. he fired every general who tell them he needed 20,000 trips. he wanted to go in with 50,000. he fired a couple of them. the message twas that you were either with him or out the door. he was talking about these mushroom clouds of mass destruction and the destruction of the united states. he also participated in signing a document that i recommend everyone looked up. it was called "project for the new american century ." it said that we should dominate the middle east. it said that only a large event would motivate the united states to attack iraq and afghanistan.

host: there is a lot there. we will get our guest's response. guest: he did not fire the general, although it is commonly thought that he did. the only person he fired was the architect -- army secretary, tom white. a number of people feel he should have fired more people. his successor, bob gates, as now dismissed six senior officials. he did pull the rug out from under the general by allowing word to be publicized 18 months early of who he would be replaced with at the end of his term as army chief of staff. but he was allowed to serve out his term. there is no question there were a lot of strains between them

and with other members of the joint chiefs of staff. they resented being sidelined by rumsfeld who could beat overbearing and domineering. -- who could be overbearing and domineering. there are a number of 4-star officers and others who are that way. it is a tough culture. when you look closely at a number of the major decisions, you can see that as much as rumsfeld is to blame for many things that went wrong, there were a number of senior officers who could have done more to stand up to him or call also be blamed for bad judgment and miscalculations.

host: you also interviewed his wife, joyce. what kind of role did she have for his career? guest: i talked to her about five times. she is a critical figure in his life. the most important figure. they go back to high school when they first started dating. she is a tremendous asset to him. she has no detractors that i could find. she is perfectly charming, at engaging. she is very shrewd in her own way. host: she is also very bluntly honest with him on his career decisions. guest: yes, she was always brought into those decisions. she also had a certain appreciation for rumsfeld. even at the height of his popularity around the time of the afghan war when he was the

face of the united states, people by the millions would tune in and watches conferences. the president nicknamed him "rumstud." joyce was talking to a group of military wives. she tried to bring a sense of modesty to the situation. about, she cuddled her speech "the rock star and the the go to," and her star and the the go to," and her point was that -- she titled her speech "the rock star and the goat." she was quite vocal on that. host: how much. the planning for those wars was done before 9/11? guest: for the rock or, there was quite a bit. -- for the bairaq war,

there was quite a bit. there was very little planning for the afghan war. act it was a cia plan the president first embraced to link up with the afghan militias and the northern alliance against the taliban. host: here is cleveland. good morning on the republic mine. caller: i was curious if you were able to determine whether his political philosophy was influenced by having been surrounded by so many people, people strongly influenced by certain philosophers and military strategists who would be considered by conservatives.

was he influenced by that group? did you agreed they were corrected? guest: that is an interesting question. his relationship with the neocons is in the bottom part of his time a secretary because he ended up surrounded by a number of very prominent members of the neo-conservative community including his deputy, the chief of policy positions at the pentagon. but he himself is not a neo- conservative. many of his views overlap. they depart -- that is in one critical area which is the notion of spreading democracy around the world. he was always uncomfortable with that notion, particularly as a rationale for going to war

against iraq. he argued to keep it out of frederick just find the invasion. he was not successful. the white house -- to keep it out of the rhetoric just a fine condition. the white house embrace their rhetoric along with weapons of mass destruction. i questioned him on why he was so surrounded with new kinneocod he had no convincing answer. but it did not seem to me as if it were a strategy on his part he explained it as the result of his taking the advice of white house officials and the choice of wolfowitz, and then dave, and so on. guest: he, the quebec quite a

few years. they had served together on various groups and commissions. -- they went back quite a few years. host: here is chicago on the independent line. caller: yes, i want to say i support what president obama has been doing. he had ice-cream on saturday and went off and on sunday. i enjoyed those activities myself. thank you. host: banks. westchester, new york, caroline on the democrats' line. caller: good morning. i was wondering how mr. bradley graham felt when he found out that donald rumsfeld, wolfowitz in the other neocons promoted saddam hussein, kept telling us that he had these weapons of

mass destruction when the man was contained for 12 years? now they have ridden off into the sunset with big money in their bank accounts. i like to know when they're going to give some of the money back to the american people because now we are suffering? guest: concerning weapons of mass destruction, clearly that is misjudgment. bush and all the other officials will have to continue to address that misjudgment of the weapons of mass destruction. donald rumsfeld did believe that report. of all the senior officials if he should have known better

or at least question that intelligence more aggressively than he did. he tried to warn against believing too much in the conventional wisdom, not challenging enough assumptions and intelligence reports. he was very fond of disturbing to people the preface of a book on pearl harbor which warns against falling into this kind of conventional thinking and not challenging conventional wisdom sufficiently, and yet here was a case where rumsfeld himself did not seem to question is enough. host: moments ago we showed the picture it from your books of his meeting saddam hussein. guest: the meeting occurred in

december 1983 when he says served as a presidential envoy richard when he served as the convoy president reagan to the middle east. he was instructed by the reagan administration to facilitate the resumption of ties with iraq that had been ruptured during the iraq/iran war. both were interested then had resuming those ties. it would be a way to offset the influence of iran in the region. it seemed like a good idea at the time. 20 years later it was embarrassing to have those pictures circulating and his shaking hands with saddam hussein.

host: here is a picture of him with colin powell and was secretary rest. what was his relationship with them? guest: his relationships with them were both strain. particularly on policy questions. on personal terms he could be engaging and courteous. there were tremendous tensions between donald rumsfeld and colin powell on a broad range of possible new there was a lot of gamesmanship and the billing. he would needle powell at meetings. sometimes to pick on his pronunciation of the capital of afghanistan. powell who is no slouch in self

we get back at him, his well-worn suits. he was critical for management of the national security council. host: did you talk to either for this book? guest: yes, to one of them. caller: good morning, gentlemen. of like to ask the author, part of the problem with his reputation comes from the fact that no matter how good of the secretary of defense to become if you want to be a true agent of change to go in with lighter forces, change the mentality, you sometimes take some of that in the end of your reputation is not what it would have been if you have gone with the flow -- if you take so many pins and pricks.

guest: i think this through to some extent. he was found not to be popular to try to change one of the most high-bound bureaucracies and institutions in washington, but there are also ways more effective to bring about change. rumsfeld is often criticized for something that often got him into trouble. his style could often beat needlessly offensive, abusive, abrasive. at least, that is how many who felt with him -- who dealt with him about. caller: i have always been troubled by the remark that he made to young soldier standing up telling him and asking him about the equipment and not

being supplied with the equipment that should have been on the field. rumsfeld hesitated and then told him that you go to war with what you have got. to me, that is insensitive. i hope you addressed that in your book, and if not, now. guest: we talked about that earlier in the program this morning. he has never really regretted the statement. he feels it was taken out of context and that if you read the whole statement, he does show some more empathy for the situation. when he returned to washington, he did send off a number of memos to senior officials trying to do better on this issue. host: you wrote that scowcroft

continued to have communication with him. host: after doing this book, do you have an idea of what makes him tick? guest: i have a better idea, but i cannot say i thoroughly understand him. he is very complicated. that is what has continued to fascinate me about him. he is like the jekyll and hyde kind of character. he has this gruff talk, hard- charging side to him that got him into trouble as defense

secretary. it also made him effective years earlier in business and government. on the other hand, he can be very affable, congenial, personable. he has an old world courtesy about him. you never quite knew what rumsfeld would show up. i did not in my dealings with him. at times, he seemed genuine and forthcoming. at other times, he could seem icy cold and shut down if the questioning were going somewhere he did not want to go. there are examples in the book of when he would have dressed down some senior officer in front of a group of others. he would be very harsh. afterwards, another senior official might take him aside and say that he was too tough on this person. rumsfeld