In Errol Morris’ The Unknown Known, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld serves as the sole talking head in a documentary about his life and career. In essence Morris has repeated the same formula from his 2003 doc The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S McNamara, except that unlike the reflective McNamara, Rumsfeld breezily, near-gleefully takes on a brusque, no-bullshit bravado in response to Morris’ caustic questions.
It proves difficult to crack the Rumsfeld nut: he has an answer for everything, and even when it is unsatisfactory, Rumsfeld is wont to simply deny accepted facts about the war and assert innocence about others, like the torture linkages between Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. When Rumsfeld claims more contentious ideas, the film visually underscores the gravity of Rumsfeld’s words.
“It would have been so much easier if you could treat people the same, as prisoners of war” says Rumsfeld in voiceover as the film briefly presents footage of distraught detainees. With these subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) ironic flashes, The Unknown Known renders Rumsfeld’s words hollow, demonstrating that the former Secretary of Defense is unable to explain the complexity of the situation.
Morris’ interest in seeking truth through his subjects has always served a broader purpose. While he fails to get Rumsfeld to crack up about the controversial aspects of the war,that shouldn’t be considered a failure on Morris’ part — especially considering Rumsfeld’s known talents in elocution. To describe Morris’ interrogation of Rumsfeld as unsatisfactory would miss the broader ideas presented in the film, like the politician’s reliance on obtaining clear definitions of words (including “victory” and “terrorism”) as a persuasion tactic for the military presence in Iraq (some words are naturally more apt and targeted for Rumsfeld’s stance more than others).
The film also keeps returning to his now-infamous soundbite about the lack of evidence of Iraq supplying terrorist groups with weapons of mass destruction: “There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are the things we do not know we don’t know.” In one of his many millions of memos, this statement includes an additional clause: “There are also unknown knowns… Things that you think you know,that it turns out you did not.”
When defining “unknown known” on camera, Rumsfeld ends up describing the opposite and realises his memo might be “backwards.” He posits it should be, “things that you possibly may know that you don’t know that you know.” The point of this scene is not to ridicule Rumsfeld but to illustrate his lack of awareness about his lack of knowledge. Even when describing the unknown known, Rumsfeld can’t help but turn into an unknown known himself.