Quotes By Donald Rumsfeld

Reduce the layers of management. They put distance between the top of an organization and the customers.

The Federal Government should be the last resort, not the first. Ask if a potential program is truly a federal responsibility or whether it can better be handled privately, by voluntary organizations, or by local or state governments.

One of your tasks is to separate the "personal" from the "substantive." The two can become confused, especially if someone rubs the President wrong.

If you foul up, tell the President and correct it fast. Delay only compounds mistakes.

See that the President, the Cabinet and staff are informed. If cut out of the information flow, their decisions may be poor, not made, or not confidently or persuasively implemented.

Work continuously to trim the White House staff from your first day to your last. All the pressures are to the contrary.

Visit with your predecessors from previous Administrations. They know the ropes and can help you see around some corners. Try to make original mistakes, rather than needlessly repeating theirs.

You will launch many projects, but have time to finish only a few. So think, plan, develop, launch and tap good people to be responsible. Give them authority and hold them accountable. Trying to do too much yourself creates a bottleneck.

Presidential leadership needn't always cost money. Look for low- and no-cost options. They can be surprisingly effective.

If in doubt, move decisions up to the President.

If the staff lacks policy guidance against which to test decisions, their decisions will be random.

Don't think of yourself as indispensable or infallible. As Charles De Gaulle said, the cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men.

Don't automatically obey Presidential directives if you disagree or if you suspect he hasn't considered key aspects of the issue.

If a prospective Presidential approach can't be explained clearly enough to be understood well, it probably hasn't been thought through well enough. If not well understood by the American people, it probably won't "sail" anyway. Send it back for further thought.

Our task, your task... is to try to connect the dots before something happens. People say, 'Well, where's the smoking gun?' Well, we don't want to see a smoking gun from a weapon of mass destruction.

Amidst all the clutter, beyond all the obstacles, aside from all the static, are the goals set. Put your head down, do the best job possible, let the flak pass, and work towards those goals.

Members of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate are not there by accident. Each managed to get there for some reason. Learn what it was and you will know something important about them, about our country and about the American people.

With the press there is no "off the record."

Arguments of convenience lack integrity and inevitably trip you up.

Politics is human beings; it's addition rather than subtraction.

Treat each federal dollar as if it was hard earned; it was - by a taxpayer.

Many people around the President have sizeable egos before entering government, some with good reason. Their new positions will do little to moderate their egos.

There are a lot of people who lie and get away with it, and that's just a fact.

Look for what's missing. Many advisors can tell a President how to improve what's proposed or what's gone amiss. Few are able to see what isn't there.

If in doubt, don't. If still in doubt, do what's right.

Don't say "the White House wants." Buildings can't want.

Don't speak ill of your predecessors or successors. You didn't walk in their shoes.

Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war.

Congress, the press, and the bureaucracy too often focus on how much money or effort is spent, rather than whether the money or effort actually achieves the announced goal.

Preserve the President's options. He may need them.