What It's Like to Work for Donald Rumsfeld

By Alexis Madrigal

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has done an admirable job building out a digital document archive from his time in the government on his website, Rumsfeld.com. While I was watching the events in Libya unfold, I decided to search his papers to see what he'd written on the country. In so doing, I ran across a document that left me flabbergasted. It's a message (probably an email) that Rumsfeld sent to then Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith on April 7, 2003. Here it is in its entirety:

The memo's tone is so casual about such complex and important topics that it prompted Technology Review editor Jason Pontin to ask me on Twitter, "Is this a parody?"

But no, the memo is real. You can find find it yourself (and many other treasures I'm sure) on Rumsfeld's site.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/02/what-its-like-to-work-for-donald-rumsfeld/71521/