Decision Points

next two and a half years, Condi and I met frequently to discuss foreign policy. One summer day in 1999, Condi, Laura, and I were hiking on the ranch. As we started to climb up a steep grade, Condi launched into a discourse on the history of the Balkans. Laura and I were huffing and puffing. Condi kept going, explaining the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the rise of Milosevic. That trail is now known as Balkan Hill. I decided that if I ended up in the Oval Office, I wanted Condi Rice by my side.

    With Colin Powell.
White House/Eric Draper
    The first selection for the Cabinet was easy. Colin Powell would be secretary of state. I had first met Colin at Camp David in 1989, when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He and Dick Cheney had come to brief Dad on the surrender of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega . Colin was wearing his Army uniform. In contrast to the formality of his dress, he was good-natured and friendly. He spoke to everyone in the room, even bystanders like the president’s children.
    Colin was widely admired at home and had a huge presence around the world. He would credibly defend American interests and values, from a stronger NATO to freer trade. I believed Colin could be the second coming of George Marshall, a soldier turned statesman.
    The two key national security positions left were secretary of defense and director of central intelligence. More than a decade after the Berlin Wall fell, much of the Defense Department was still designed for fighting the Cold War. I had campaigned on an ambitious vision to transform the military. I planned to realign our force structure and invest in new technologies such as precision weapons and missile defense. I knew there would be resistance within the Pentagon, and I needed a tenacious, innovative secretary to lead the effort.
    My top candidate was Fred Smith , the founder and chief executive of FedEx. Fred graduated from Yale two years ahead of me, earned the Silver Star as a Marine in Vietnam, and built his company into one of the world’s most successful businesses. He loved the military and would bring an organizational mind to the Pentagon. Andy Card called Fred, learned he was interested in the job, and invited him to Austin. I was prepared to offer Fred the position, but before he made the trip, he was diagnosed with a heart condition. He had to bow out to focus on his health.
    We considered a variety of other names for secretary of defense,including Dan Coats , a fine senator from Indiana. Then Condi threw out an interesting idea: How about Don Rumsfeld?
    Don had been secretary of defense twenty-five years earlier, during the Ford administration. He had since served on a number of influential national security commissions. I had been considering Rumsfeld for CIA, not Defense. When I interviewed him, Don laid out a captivating vision for transforming the Defense Department. He talked about making our forces lighter, more agile, and more rapidly deployable. And he was a strong proponent of a missile defense system to protect against rogue states like North Korea and Iran.

    With Don Rumsfeld.
White House/Eric Draper
    Rumsfeld impressed me. He was knowledgeable, articulate, and confident. As a former secretary of defense, he had the strength and experience to bring major changes to the Pentagon. He would run the bureaucracy, not let it run him. Dick Cheney , who had been Don’s deputy when he was chief of staff in the Ford White House, recommended him strongly.
    There was one awkward issue. Some believed that Don had used his influence to persuade President Ford to appoint Dad to run the CIA in 1975 as a way of taking him out of contention for the vice presidency. I had no way of knowing if this was true. But whatever disagreements he and Dad might have had twenty-five years earlier did not concern me, so long as Don could do the job. Don went on to become both the youngest and oldest person to serve as secretary of defense.
    With Rumsfeld going to the Pentagon, I no longer had a leading candidate for the CIA. I had great respect for the Agency as a result of Dad’s time there. I had been receiving intelligence briefings as president-elect for a few weeks when I met the sitting director, George Tenet. He was the opposite of the stereotypical CIA director you read about in spy novels—the bow-tied, Ivy League, elite type. Tenet was a blue-collar guy, the son of Greek immigrants from New York City. He spoke bluntly, often colorfully, and