LITTLE KNOWN FACTS ABOUT WELL KNOWN PEOPLE

Donald Rumsfeld......Liberal?

Who'd a thunk it? Donald Rumsfeld was elected to Congress in
1962 at age 30 and immediately became a reformer. He fought
for civil rights legislation and sponsored the Freedom of Infor-
mation Act. He was so anti-Vietnam that Henry Kissinger used
to sarcastically flash him the peace sign. While he was chief of
the Pentagon he refused to meet with defense-industry exec-
utives on ethical grounds. His biographer says he was 'deeply
moral'.
--From a book review of Bradley Graham's biography of
Rumsfeld called By His Own Rules.

So what happened? How did a hero become such a villain? We
would prefer our heroes to be pure and our villains to be, well,
villainish, without any mitigating factors. But human beings con-
tinue to be human beings is spite of our wishes, and within every
human psyche is the potentiality for everything a human being
can do, the worst evil as well as the greatest good. Not so? Wit-
ness our present example. It would be fascinating to know about
the moment(s) Rumsfeld wandered from one side of the line to
the other.