Ace GQ magazine correspondent Lisa DePaulo this summer scored an exclusive close encounter with former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a man of power not known for letting feature writers from New York or anywhere else invade his private life. DePaulo flew with “Rummy,” as she calls him, by private jet to Taos, N.M., where she spent a day observing and questioning him on his ranch. DePaulo’s entertaining, illuminating and politically neutral profile, which appears in the October GQ -- under the headline “Off the Record With Don Rumsfeld" -- hits newsstands next week but already is posted on GQ’s Web site. I debriefed DePaulo on Thursday, Sept.13 by telephone from her home in Manhattan:

Q: How did you get this scoop -- this first up-close-and-personal access with Donald Rumsfeld since he resigned?

A: I’m still not quite sure. I think the little stars were in alignment. First of all, I’m not a Pentagon reporter; I’m not a war reporter. I don’t pretend to be. I think he may have been intrigued by that, because one of the things I made pretty clear from the beginning was that I wanted to capture "Rummy the Man" -- what it’s like to be Donald Rumsfeld, especially today. I really didn’t want to go into it with just 20 questions on Iraq and nothing else. I wanted a sense of him.

I think the context of it was appealing to him. GQ is doing this huge, 50th anniversary issue and we wanted to focus on a handful of truly iconic men -- people who have been incredibly influential for the last half century but are still incredibly relevant today. Rummy was obviously on that wish list, so I think he liked the context of that a lot. There was a lot of wooing involved, because this is not a guy who does this kind of thing. The first time I met him was at Dulles Airport that morning.

Q: They didn’t suspect that you were part of some sort of East Coast liberal conspiracy to trick or trash him?

A: I think one thing they were really clear about was that I do not have a political agenda when I write. I’m not on a side. I try to capture the personality regardless of the party. I’m not a crazy liberal; I’m not a crazy conservative. I’m a writer. And that was also somewhat in my favor.

Q: It’s not like you’re not a Bush-hater or -lover or an anti-war maniac?

A: I really, really try -- because I write a lot of political features and political profiles -- to just approach it like a writer. If you are a jerk, you’re going to come off as a jerk. If you’re fascinating, you’re going to come off -- I hope -- as fascinating. I really don’t have a political agenda. It’s very funny. I remember once writing this piece (for Philadelphia magazine) on the mayor of Philadelphia, Ed Rendell, and getting all these e-mails from conservatives saying, “Hey, you’re one of us.” When I was writing I wasn’t thinking, “Wow, the liberals are going to hate this.” I never think that way.

Q: The piece you wrote about Rendell was unfavorable?

A: It was a piece that was so long ago but every time I go back to Philadelphia I get a ration of crap from people -- “How could you do that to our wonderful mayor?” But it was a story where he was sort of his bawdy -- as he put it, “salty” -- self. I wrote about it. I wrote everything he said. My big surprise was that so many reporters were hanging out with the guy for years and years and never wrote about the kind of things that came out of his mouth. Of course, I was in a different position because I was a magazine writer, and when I’m done, I’m done. It was a big to-do. It tells you how little goes on in Philadelphia that I still get asked about that. It’s like, “Come on. Get over it.” But that’s still a thing there. That was very funny. I didn’t look at it as bashing a Democratic mayor. I just looked at it like a fun profile of the guy.

I think there are too many people right now who write about politics who have such a clear horse in the race. I love when people say, “What are your politics.” I love that they don’t know -- and I hope that they continue to never to know.

Q: What did you think of Rumsfeld before you spent time with him?

A: That he’s just this absolutely fascinating American character. I was always totally intrigued by the man. I didn’t have a “Oooh, I don’t like him” or “I do like him.” I used to love to watch his press conferences because he had such a set of brass ones all the time. Whether you agreed with him or hated him or whatever, he was just fascinating. When you think of the influence he’s had in so many ways for such a long time. I guess my opinion of him at that time was, “I’d love to have this man as a subject.”

Q: So what do you think of him now that you’ve seen him outside of the Bush administration “bubble”?

A: He is a very complex, in some ways difficult, man. But also he has this part of him that is incredibly charming, incredibly witty and bright. You want to hang out with the guy. He’s fascinating to talk to, but he’s a tough guy. I always thought, “I’m dealing with a master strategist here.” He was difficult, and yet I like difficult people.

Q: Not nasty, not stuffy or aloof?

A: No. As I said in the piece, and I really felt it, he answered every question I asked of him, even when the answer was “I don’t want to talk about it.” There was never anger. Impatience, yes. This is a guy who doesn’t suffer fools. He knows who he is. He’s very comfortable in his own skin. He gets very bored and impatient with things he doesn’t feel like talking about. Continued...