The Making of An Artful Warrior

By Courtney Andree | Monday, February 16, 2004

At first glance, Rumsfeld: The Making of An Artful Warrior appears to be a run-of-the-mill effort at celebrity biography: A few facts here, some personal anecdotes there, and, voila, an in-depth work into the mental operations of who's hot, all written to the tune of a sixth grader's Weekly Reader. Rumsfeld: The Making of An Artful Warrior is deceptively generic, however. One can forgive the deluge of awkward prose, but the editing process—or lack thereof—and missing citations create something akin to a whimsical picnic with the Secretary of Defense. A few editorial slips might be permissible, but even the readers of Highlights magazine cannot sanction mistaking September 11, 1991 for September 11, 2001.

So mechanics aren't Decter's specialty. The reader is, however, given a positive description of Rumsfeld—though the biography reads a bit like a public relations press release. Readers interested in analysis of Rumsfeld's entire life should look elsewhere—this isn't like Martin Gilbert's multi-volume Churchill biography; Decter concentrates the current Secretary of Defense's first sixty years into one 50-page blip, rarely examining anything beneath superficial facts. Decter's is primarily a book about the Rumseld—Bush administration dynamo.

Decter's research comes chiefly from personal correspondence and interviews with the Rumsfeld family. Rumsfeld's story is addressed a bit like a personal narrative, with little evidence supplied from a deductive approach—few examined government documents, little analysis of policies in historical terms. Rather, the reader is introduced to less Rumsfeld the politician, and more Rumsfeld the man: a wide-traveled Illinois native of modest roots, who went from Princeton's lecture halls to a seat in Congress, and now a seat beside President Bush.

Unable to shrug the sycophantic tone throughout the course of the book, Decter's reverential prose may make the reader question whether her shortsighted interpretation is apt, or something more akin to the ravings of a doting grandmother. On rare occasions something bordering wit emerges, with Decter forging oblique comparisons of the "manliness" of former President Clinton and his administration with that of the present administration and their balls of steel. At one point she even questions the virility of modern-day Princeton students, pointing out that their willingness to go into military service or to support their country is something that is more than dubious.

From a literary standpoint, Artful Warrior may presume to be biographical, but even by liberal definition Decter's treatment reads more like an extended Christmas letter. Either Rumsfeld has managed to live the most charmed existence in the history of man, or flaws and trials have been left out of this portrait, blurring lines and erasing blemishes to make him appear in the pink of health and twenty years younger. The treatment is undoubtedly Decter's own, and the reader is forced to swallow generous doses of her influence. She finds nothing suspect in his hard-headed business operations at the head of Searle's Pharmaceuticals, even in his dismissal of hundreds of employees. A lesser woman would have backed down long before it reached this height, but not Decter. The reader can tell that she's bought into it, and perhaps just a bit of this spirit will rub off, and soon we too will be working 12 hour days casting off the weakness of chairs, deigning to stand on our God-given feet behind our desk at the Pentagon. Though anecdotes are few and far between, Decter does offer up a few that do even more to reinforce the picture of the Defense Secretary as a hard-headed powerhouse.

Decter sets October 28, 1963 as the date when Rumsfeld took citizen's arrest to a new level. On his way home from work on this day Rumsfeld was alerted to the presence of a "fugitive" drag-racer. Spotting him on the road Rumsfeld pulled his car over and tackled the man, holding him until police could arrive. The book isn't infused with the typical humanizing tales that would endear him to us as a soft and cuddly Defense Secretary; it seems as if she is uncomfortable with the idea of attributing any modicum of weakness to his person. Again and again Rumsfeld is poised in attack position, whether she tells of his escape from the sinking Nixon administration, his hardheaded stance on proliferation and disarmament, his "swoop" in to organize the Ford transition, or his taking on the FDA at the helm of Searle's. Decter never allows Rumsfeld to let his guard down.

If you have an afternoon to waste and are craving information on Rumsfeld, an in-depth internet search would be recommended instead of this book. This does not begin to offer an analysis of Rumsfeld's actions in his present office; in fact, it does very little beyond serving as a parrot that reiterates stale words and pretty pictures we have no want to see again. We're all for Rummy around here, but we appreciate biographies that read little like VH1's Behind the Music. If you feel that you cannot wait for a "real" biography to materialize and feel up to the challenge of galloping over useless qualifying phrases then, by all means, read Rumsfeld: The Making of an Artful Warrior.

The Making of An Artful Warrior

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