Known and Unknown_ A Memoir - Donald Rumsfeld [40]
I never strayed far from the principles I had written on my first campaign card in 1962. I resisted expansions of the federal government and was supportive of tax relief. I didn’t believe that either party had a monopoly on wisdom—or on any particular issue—and I still don’t. For example, I supported the establishment of the Peace Corps as well as some environmental protection legislation. I also expressed reservations about the House Un-American Activities Committee’s use of subpoena power.
I found myself becoming friends with individuals with other points of view, such as John Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan, and the political activist Al Lowenstein, whom I had first gotten to know on Capitol Hill in the late 1950s. Lowenstein knew everyone in the liberal pantheon from Eleanor Roosevelt to Norman Thomas to Bobby Kennedy. He was an early critic of America’s involvement in Vietnam, took part in protest marches, and led civil rights activities with a passion. But unlike some on the far left, Al was a fierce anticommunist who steered away from those radical groups that were aligned with Soviet ideology.
We were an odd pairing—me with my crew cut and conservative suit and tie and Lowenstein with rumpled hair and untucked shirttails—but we forged a friendship. I found him humorous, passionate, and interesting. We got together when we were both in Washington, which was not often, since Al was constantly traveling all over the globe. He had a habit of sending us postcards in his almost unreadable scrawl. And just before our third child, Nick, was born in 1967, Al was with us at home timing Joyce’s contractions.
During his first uphill battle for a seat in Congress, against the Democratic establishment’s preferred candidate, he sent me a letter joking about the repercussions if he won. “I intend to join you if not on the Space Committee, then wherever else they put people who defeat Manhattan congressmen in primaries,” he wrote.
“Best of luck,” I replied. “If you want me to come in and campaign against you, I will be happy to.”5 In return for a contribution he had made to my first congressional primary, I sent him a fifty-dollar contribution—for the Democratic primary only.6 I had no doubt he would be a lively addition to Congress if he won a seat, which he finally did in 1968.
Shortly thereafter, and to my regret, our relationship soured. In 1970, Lowenstein ran for reelection against a tough Republican opponent. His campaign wanted to use our friendship to demonstrate that he was not as radical as his opponent suggested.7 Among other things, he was accused unfairly of being involved in the Black Panthers and of echoing the line of the enemy in Vietnam.
Wanting to help my friend, I gave an interview in which I made the point both that I wasn’t endorsing Lowenstein but that some of the characterizations being pinned on him were not consistent with my knowledge of him. “I don’t subscribe to the theory that an individual who raises questions about national issues, including war, is undermining support for the men in uniform who are executing that policy,” I told a reporter.8 “I have never known him to advocate working outside the system and I certainly have never heard him advocate the use of violence.”
If I had still been a member of Congress, that would have been one thing. But by then I was a senior aide in the Nixon