The agency brought Rumsfeld’s second book, “Rumsfeld’s Rules,” to market, and negotiated a $1.5 million advance for “A Time for Truth,” by Senator Ted Cruz. Along with another former Washington speechwriter, Urbahn helped write Rumsfeld’s memoir “Known and Unknown,” and co-founded a literary agency named Javelin, the Secret Service code name of Rumsfeld’s wife. Urbahn first met Rumsfeld as a Pentagon speechwriter, and was later chief of staff in Rumsfeld’s private office, where he achieved minor fame by being the first to tweet early reports of Osama bin Laden’s death. He spoke about the app’s hundred-thousand-plus downloads with the shy pride of a new father. Sitting with us at the steakhouse was Keith Urbahn, Rumsfeld’s co-developer and protégé. After that, I could accompany him to the CNN green room and watch as he taught his game to a millennial producer. I received final word at midday on Tuesday: Rumsfeld would meet me, two and a half hours hence, for a fifteen-minute steakhouse coffee. By Monday, his media offensive was spreading across Twitter, prompting me to e-mail his Churchill Solitaire colleagues around lunch. Rumsfeld came to New York late Sunday, by train. “This is all fun!” he said, brightly, when asked if he’d had time for fun. At age eighty-three, he had overseen the launch of a mobile game, Churchill Solitaire, and come to New York for a slog of promotional interviews-the “Today” show, “Fox and Friends,” Sean Hannity, Stephen Colbert, “Morning Joe,” and “The View,” plus some radio, with Jake Tapper and Charlie Rose still to come. His silver hair was brushed back in a bicorne shape his small, twinkling eyes suggested that he was savoring a private joke. On a drizzly winter afternoon, Donald Rumsfeld arrived at a fourth-floor steakhouse overlooking Columbus Circle, tossed his overcoat into a booth, and ordered a cup of coffee. Follow like on Facebook /MvApWY9M8rĬhurchill Solitaire is available now on iOS.At age eighty-three, Donald Rumsfeld has overseen the launch of a mobile game, Churchill Solitaire. Sir Winston's diabolical game of solitaire is here. Also unlike Solitaire, Rumsfeld’s version is free to play with in-app purchases to continue playing. The app also comes with a campaign mode that posits a world wherein the player works under Churchill for some reason, and even has quotes from the man. What exactly differentiates Churchill Solitaire from regular Solitaire? Well, Churchill Solitaire is played with two decks, and there’s the added “liberating cards contained in a row called the Devil’s Six” bit. Why it took Rumsfeld until 2016 to make an app out of a game he learned in 1973 is anyone’s guess. It’s pitched as a much harder, more strategic version of the original game. “I asked him what he was playing and he proceeded to tell me the origin of the game he called Churchill Solitaire after the man we both very much admired, and the diabolical rules that make it the hardest game of Solitaire - and probably the most challenging and strategic game of logic or puzzle - I’ve ever played.”Īccording to Rumsfeld’s story, Churchill taught de Staercke the game many years prior while the Belgian government in exile existed in London during World War II. “I can remember de Staercke sitting across from me on a plane somewhere over Europe playing the curious game, dizzying columns of miniature cards arrayed on the table between us,” Rumsfeld says in a Medium post about the game.
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