Rumsfeld's Go-to Guy

By DOUGLAS WALLER

Is Donald Rumsfeld headed for the exit by the end of this year? While speculation has been hot that the Secretary of Defense will depart early in President George W. Bush's second term, don't bet on it, his senior aides tell TIME. Rumsfeld has been sending strong signals that he's in no hurry to leave: asking applicants for senior posts whether they're willing to stay until the end of the term and talking to aides about planning foreign trips years down the road.

Another sign he may be sticking around is his choice for a No. 2: Navy Secretary Gordon England, 67, whom Bush has nominated as Deputy Defense Secretary and who could face confirmation hearings as early as this week. Now that Rumsfeld is pushing plans to transform the Defense Department into a leaner, more agile fighting machine, he wants a deputy with more business savvy to see those programs completed. England's predecessor, Paul Wolfowitz, preferred strategizing grand operations like the Iraq war over managing the nuts and bolts of the department, which is what a deputy defense chief traditionally does. England, a seasoned defense-industry exec who helped develop the F-16 fighter, isn't a neocon ideologue like Wolfowitz and has cultivated warmer relations with Congress. In 2002 he helped save billions of dollars by combining the Navy and Marine Corps aviation programs, and he has been given politically sensitive duties, notably overseeing the Pentagon's review of detainee cases at Guantanamo Bay. Rumsfeld is counting on England's skills to help reform hiring and firing rules for the Pentagon's 700,000-strong civilian work force; implement the closing or realigning of bases around the U.S.; and supervise the Quadrennial Defense Review, which will decide what weapons get funded or axed during the next four years. England, says a senior Pentagon official, "is a closer who knows how to solve problems." By Douglas Waller