NYDaily News

How Rumsfeld Tames Press

By THOMAS M. DeFRANK Daily News Washington Bureau Chief

WASHINGTON As President Gerald Ford's White House chief of staff, Donald Rumsfeld loved to deflect pointed and sometimes pompous queries from reporters with snappy, snippy comebacks.

"First," he'd say, "let me unravel the flaws in your question."

A quarter-century later, Rummy and his tart tongue are back — and a new generation of journalists, this time at the Pentagon, is being exposed to the not-so-tender mercies of what one longtime Rumsfeld associate calls DonSpeak.

At Monday's Pentagon briefing, for example, a television correspondent asked the defense secretary about U.S. support for Northern Alliance forces fighting the Taliban in northern Afghanistan.

"Well, first, let me parse that question a little bit," Rumsfeld needled good-naturedly.

"It's just one question," the reporter protested.

It was a vintage velvet barb from Rumsfeld — a former Navy pilot who always has been suspicious of the Pentagon bureaucracy and who is the architect of a media policy that's long on access and managed news but extremely short on information.

Rumsfeld has agreed to meet the press five days a week — but characteristically leaves no doubt he'd rather be doing just about anything else.

"It's not clear to me that it's necessary or even desirable," he said with a smile recently. "But I've acquiesced in that, and we will be available."

Throughout his government career, which includes a previous stint as defense secretary, Rumsfeld mostly has avoided reporters like the plague — and last week probably wished he was still keeping his distance.

Had to Eat His Words

During a meeting with USA Today's editorial board he was asked whether he thought U.S. commandos would snatch terror mastermind Osama Bin Laden. "I just don't know whether we'll be successful," he replied.

The spin-obsessed White House was irked — the prospect of failure isn't "on message" — so Rumsfeld had to eat his words the next day, saying: "I think we're going to get him."

"From time to time, I suppose things come out of my mouth not quite the right way," he explained.

Unlike many of his colleagues in the Bush administration, Rumsfeld is no media-basher. In fact, as an Illinois congressman he was one of the primary co-sponsors of the Freedom of Information Act.

But time and again he has made no apologies for erring on the side of caution when it comes to talking about the Afghan war. As a result, the Pentagon — enthusiastically backed by the White House — has released far less information on Operation Enduring Freedom than it did on the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

Intellectual Combat

"We'll do our best to give you as much information as we can safely provide," Rumsfeld said. "But we cannot and will not provide information that could jeopardize the success of our efforts to root out and liquidate the terrorist networks that threaten our people."

Chief Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said Rumsfeld relishes the intellectual combat of these encounters.

"He can be a very intimidating figure," Clarke added, "so some people around him don't push back. That's certainly not a problem with reporters. He and they have a lot of fun."

But Rumsfeld doesn't flinch from calling a dumb query just that. When a reporter asked why a network cameraman couldn't go along on last week's commando assault inside Afghanistan, Rumsfeld replied with a pained, "I'm amazed at the question."

His take-no-prisoners style doesn't seem to offend the egos of Pentagon regulars in the press. Several say they enjoy watching how his mind works when he's considering how — or whether — to answer a question.

"He doesn't like us," the national editor for a major newspaper said. "But he's got spunk, and there's a certain charm to him. He's a worthy adversary."

Rummy's loose-lips-sink-ships approach clearly plays well with the military brass. Only a week before the Sept. 11 attacks, a Pentagon general was asked his opinion of the defense secretary. "He hasn't shown me much as a leader," the general replied.

Last week the same officer had a different take: "He's a standup guy. Protecting [operational security] has helped him in this building

-- Anonymous, October 28, 2001