Donald Rumsfeld dies at 88

WASHINGTON: Donald H Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense for Presidents Gerald R Ford and George W Bush, who presided over America’s Cold War strategies in the 1970s and, in the new world of terrorism decades later, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, died on Tuesday at his home in Taos, N.M. He was 88. The cause was multiple myeloma, said Keith Urbahn, a spokesman for the family.

Encores are hardly rare in Washington, but Mr Rumsfeld had the distinction of being the only defense chief to serve two nonconsecutive terms: 1975 to 1977 under Mr. Ford, and 2001 to 2006 under Mr Bush.

He also was the youngest, at 43, and the oldest, at 74, to hold the post — first in an era of Soviet-American nuclear perils, then in an age of subtler menace by terrorists and rogue states.