they would not have gone for adlai stevenson. leaning out of the window, sweet old ladies came through in cambridge, and one said to the other, don't you just love history? it is so old. i appreciated this. it is old and young. this sort of cross fertilization in the present moment -- what one might do in those films, we are about to start shooting. there are follow-up films. if you don't find some of those words on that particular occasion, i very much doubt they will. before doing that, i worked for harold, this rather glorious days. a very reasonable roll. i work for at the occasional magazine, sometimes not. in a way, a good journalist in the first draft of history. i was lucky in life. goodness, how time flies. stand up and be counted. how long do i have? that sounds alarming. your life will expire in 3 minutes. two:59. eight:15. this skinny kid with the curly hair? there are 2 kind of history you can do. both of them in the light of history, going all the way back. in the nineteenth history, that gloaming -- a great one in

host: you wrote about his being influenced by adlai stevenson in the 1950's. how did donald rumsfeld in the becoming a republican? guest: he came from a conservative district on the north shore in chicago. he could not have gotten elected if you were not conservative. but he was not a neo - conservative. sometimes people confuse him as being part of that community. he was always quite mainline conservative. some people might be surprised to learn that when he was younger in congress he had the image as a moderate republican, a reformer. he led a group that came to be known as rumsfeld's raiders and challenged some of the old-guard republicans in leadership. host: you wrote that his transformation process did not go as some conservative critics wanted. in august 2001 bill kristol called for donald rumsfeld and another resignation. guest: that is red. there was a time a few months into his tenure when he was widely speculated likely to be the first cabinet casualty of the bush administration because he had come into office charged with transforming the military,

by the democratic senator adlai stevenson in the 50's. how did donald rumsfeld wind up being a republican? >> guest: well, he came from a very conservative district. the north shore of chicago, and he couldn't have gotten elected if he were a conservative. but he wasn't a neoconservative. sometimes people confuse him as being a part of that community. he was always quite mainline conservative and what is also very interesting some people may be surprised to learn is that when he was younger and congress particularly he had an image as a moderate republican, reformer, he actually led a group that came to be known as rumsfeld's readers in challenging the republican old guard that had been in charge of the leadership. >> host: dewaal so right that at one point in the transformation process was not going the way that some conservative critics wanted. at one point i believe in august of .2001 gilchrest zero, the editor of the weekly standard, called for bottled rumsfeld and paul wolfowitz's resignation. >> guest: that's right. there was a time

he was inspired in his senior year of college when adlai stevenson came to speak to his graduating class at princeton. he urged the students there to use their educations and put them to work in public-service. not long after that, rumsfeld ran for congress. he became the youngest republican member of congress in the 1960's. he believed very much in public service. he served not only in congress but in the nixon and ford administrations. he then came back in the bush to administration. even in between, when he was a corporate executive, he stayed involved in government serving as a presidential envoy and on a couple of government commissions. host: the book is 800 pages. it is an extensive biography. some presidents do not get this kind of treatment. he spoke about him running for congress. did he ever have presidential aspirations? guest: he did. some of his old classmates remember him expressing an interest as a teenager in becoming president someday. a lot of kids may express that. what was interesting was to hear a number of his former classmates say that with rumsfeld, they took it