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Those skills have made Gates perhaps the most powerful Defense Secretary since Robert McNamara ruled the roost in the Vietnam War era. But for the left, Gates is a disappointing compromise, a constant reminder of Obama's reluctance to fully repudiate Bush's conduct of the war on terrorism. "Gates is an agent of change within his own empire and not within the broader national-security construct. That is the risk Obama ran. He covered his flank but didn't get change," says a Defense policy adviser. White House staffers are no doubt uneasy about their dependency on this...
Gates has always had a keen sense about who is the boss, "how they work, what their needs are and how to successfully contribute to their offices," says an aide. It's what allows him to adapt his positions to changing times. Under Bush he justified the missile-defense program; under Obama he took charge of canceling it. Similarly, while he's never been a champion of repealing the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, he has agreed to carry out the President's order to do just that...
...public saw only the poker face. " 'Never let them see you sweat' - you can put that above Gates' door," says Richard Armitage, an old friend and colleague. Four years later, while serving as Deputy National Security Adviser under President George H.W. Bush, Gates was nominated again to be DCI. What followed was one of the longest and most bitter confirmation hearings in Senate records. CIA co-workers from the Soviet desk excoriated his character, his motives, his honesty. They called him a toady who'd fire dissenters and slant intelligence just to please his then boss, Casey. The hearings, which...
...face on the predictability of uncertainty. His Wichita monotone and old-fashioned speeches about service and duty exude a sense of calm and control - just what the Pentagon needed at the end of 2006 as an antidote to Rumsfeld. Gates had left government in 1992 after the elder Bush's defeat and became president of Texas A&M before being summoned back to Washington by George W. Bush. At Gates' confirmation hearings, Democratic Senator Carl Levin asked whether the U.S. was winning the war in Iraq. Gates replied, "No, sir." With those two words, he won over the Democrats...
...memoir Speech-less, Matt Latimer, a speechwriter for both Rumsfeld and Bush, describes Gates as "our Winston Wolf," the Harvey Keitel character in Pulp Fiction who comes to dispose of the bodies and take care of the bloody mess after an accidental killing. "Wolf was a case study of robotic efficiency, overseeing an elaborate cleanup while calmly drinking a cup of coffee," writes Latimer. "That's what President Bush wanted - a cold-blooded competent cleaner...