Much has been written about your unique relationship with George W. Bush. You’re a history buff — are you aware of any relationships like it?

Not really. I think there have been other secretaries of state who were close friends, like James Baker and George H. W. Bush. But when you’re in those positions, you always have to remember that he’s the president, he’s the elected one. The president can never quite be your friend. The fact that you have been friends before he was president just gives you a level of trust and a level of comfort that I think is very helpful. I could be very direct with him.

In his memoir, Donald Rumsfeld said the opposite — that you almost never wanted to take dissenting views to the president.

He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I don’t think he was ever in the room with the president and me when I would follow the president from a national-security meeting and tell him precisely what was going on in that room. We tended to do it privately.

Rumsfeld also implied that you were unfit for office. He wrote that you had “modest experience in the federal government and management.”

First of all, I didn’t have modest experience in management. Managing Stanford University is not so easy. But I don’t know what Don was trying to say, and it really doesn’t matter. Don can be a grumpy guy. We all know that.