Donald Rumsfeld, the corporate boardroom days.

• Position: FIVE QUESTIONS WITH ... - Interview - Reprint

Ed. Note: Upon leaving office as U.S. Secretary of Defense in 2006, Donaid Rumsfeld concluded an admirably lengthy, accomplished life of service to the nation. Prominent bookends of his career are the House seat he won in 1962 at the age of 30 and his return to the Pentagon in 2001 at the age of 68. (He first held the Pentagon post during Gerald Ford's presidency, giving him the distinction of being both the youngest and the oldest person to be Defense Secretary). With such a vast set of life experiences, it is understandable that he devoted four years to capturing it all in print. His memoir, titled Known and Unknown, was published in February 2011. Much of the 800-page book traces in engrossing detail his life in local, national and global public service.

But there is a key chapter that recounts his successful run as the chief of pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle, which he led from 1977 to 1985, at which time it was acquired by Monsanto Co. (The stock price increased from $12.50 to S65 per share during his tenure.) Also during his rare sojourns from government service he served on close to a dozen public company boards. That was the chapter in his life that Directors & Boards wanted to explore with him.

We chatted by telephone in April during one of his return visits to Washington. While now living near Taos, New Mexico, Rumsfeld makes occasional forays back to the nation's capital for initiatives involving his chairmanship of the Rumsfeld Foundation (www.rumsfeldfounda-tion.org). The mission of the Foundation is to foster leadership and public service at home and support the growth of free political and economic systems abroad. A separate website (at www.rumsfeld.com) supports his book and also houses a vast trove of documents, photos, media clips and other informational materials generated over the course of his career that is available online to researchers and the viewing public. An excerpt of our conversation follows.

--James Kristie

When you joined G.D. Searle & Co. you came aboard as CEO and then soon after added the chairman role. A big issue in the governance world these days is whether to split the chairman and CEO positions. You have seen different structures in a lot of different boardrooms. What view do you hold on this debate?

You are correct. I have served as a CEO but not the chairman, a chairman and the CEO. and a chairman but not the CEO. I know the theory now is that they should be separate, but I don't think that...