OH YES I DID. Unabridged version and all.

I'm a sucker for a good memoir. It doesn't matter if you agree with Donald Rumsfeld or approve of everything he's ever done: he's an engagingly lucid writer who has lived through (and influenced) some seriously major historic events. Reading this book was like having a good sit-down with your aged grandfather, except this particular aged grandfather has held an impressive smattering of government positions over the years including serving as Secretary of Defense for two different US Presidents.

That said, once I hit the post-9/11 chapters on Iraq, this book became a bit of a "long, hard slog," if you will. The narrative became mired in details and minutiae and I've already heard so much about that period of time through other books. So I checked out right around there and tuned back in once Hurricane Katrina came around.

Other reviews have complained that Known and Unknown is nothing more than a string of mea culpa avoidance behaviors, to which I say, dude, this is a memoir and he can write it how he wants it. I have to say, there were some cases where the record needed a little setting straight and a memoir is the perfect place for that. To take a minor example, you may recall that the title of this book was taken from a famous Rumsfeld quote:

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

Read it again, folks. It makes perfect sense and is actually quite insightful no matter what you think of the man. As is this book.