Robert Gates
Robert Michael Gates is an American intelligence analyst and university president who has served as the 24th Chancellor of the College of William and Mary since 2012. He previously served as the 22nd United States secretary of defense from 2006 to 2011 and as the 15th director of central intelligence from 1991 to 1993.
Gates began his career serving as an officer in the United States Air Force but was quickly recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency. Gates served for twenty-six years in the CIA and at the National Security Council, and was director of central intelligence under President George H. W. Bush. After leaving the CIA, Gates became president of Texas A&M University and was a member of several corporate boards. Gates served as a member of the Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan commission co-chaired by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton that studied the lessons of the Iraq War.
Gates was nominated by President George W. Bush as secretary of defense in 2006, replacing Donald Rumsfeld. He was confirmed with bipartisan support. He continued to serve as secretary of defense under President Barack Obama and retired in 2011. In 2007, Time named Gates one of the year's most influential people, and in 2008 he was named one of America's Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report. Gates was presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, by President Obama during his retirement ceremony.
Since leaving the Obama administration, Gates was elected president of the Boy Scouts of America, served as chancellor of the College of William & Mary, and served as a member on several corporate boards. In 2012, Gates was elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.
Early life and education
Gates was born in Wichita, Kansas, the son of Isabel V. and Melville A. "Mel" Gates. Gates attained the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America and received the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award and Silver Buffalo Award from the BSA as an adult. He graduated from Wichita High School East in 1961. Gates is also a Vigil Honor member within the Order of the Arrow, BSA's National Honor Society. He was selected as the 2017 BSA National Alumnus of the Year.Gates then received a scholarship to attend the College of William & Mary, graduating in 1965 with a B.A. in history. At William & Mary, Gates was an active member and president of the Alpha Phi Omega chapter and the Young Republicans; he was also the business manager for the William and Mary Review, a literary and art magazine. At his William & Mary graduation ceremony, Gates received the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award naming him the graduate who "has made the greatest contribution to his fellow man".
Gates then received a Master of Arts in the history of Eastern Europe and the south Slavs from Indiana University Bloomington in 1966. He completed his PhD in Russian and Soviet history at Georgetown University in 1974 under Joseph Schiebel, who, according to Gates, had been heavily influenced by Karl Wittfogel's studies on "Soviet communism and its resemblance to oriental despotism and the Asiatic mode of production, the role of government in controlling all of society". The title of Gates's Georgetown doctoral dissertation is Soviet Sinology: An Untapped Source for Kremlin Views and Disputes Relating to Contemporary Events in China and it is available from University Microfilms International as document number 7421652.
Gates was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from William & Mary, the University of Oklahoma, Georgetown University and from Kansas State University.
He married Rebecca "Becky" Gates on January 7, 1967, and they have two children.
Intelligence career
Junior positions
While at Indiana University, Gates was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency and joined in 1966. On January 4, 1967, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force after attending Officer Training School under CIA sponsorship. From 1967 to 1969, he was assigned to the Strategic Air Command as an intelligence officer, which included a year at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, where he delivered intelligence briefings to intercontinental ballistic missile crews. After fulfilling his military obligation, he rejoined the CIA as an intelligence analyst. He wrote his doctoral thesis while serving as a professional intelligence officer.Gates left the CIA in 1974 to serve on the staff of the National Security Council. He returned to the CIA in late 1979, serving briefly as the director of the Strategic Evaluation Center, Office of Strategic Research. He was named the director of the DCI/DDCI Executive Staff in 1981, deputy director for intelligence in 1982, and deputy director of central intelligence from April 18, 1986, to March 20, 1989.
Deputy National Security Advisor
Under President George H. W. Bush, Gates was Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs from March until August 1989, and was Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Adviser under Brent Scowcroft from August 1989 until November 1991.Gates was nominated to become the director of central intelligence in early 1987. He withdrew his name after it became clear the Senate would reject the nomination due to controversy about his role in the Iran-Contra Affair.
Director of Central Intelligence
Gates was nominated, for the second time, for the position of Director of Central Intelligence by Bush on May 14, 1991, confirmed by the Senate on November 5, and sworn in on November 6.During a Senate committee hearing on his nomination, former division chief Melvin Goodman testified that the agency was the most corrupt and slanted during the tenure of William Casey with Gates serving as deputy. According to Goodman, Gates was part of an agency leadership that proliferated false information and ignored 'reality'. National Intelligence Council chairman Harold P. Ford testified that during his tenure, Gates had transgressed professional boundaries.
Deputy directors during his tenure were Richard J. Kerr and Adm. William O. Studeman. He served until 1993. It is notable that the reluctance of the Bush administration to involve itself in the breakup of Yugoslavia was due in no small part to three advisors who had deep exposure to the region: Scowcroft, Lawrence Eagleburger and himself: "We saw the historical roots of this conflict and the near nonexistent potential for solving it, for us fixing it."
Level of involvement in the Iran–Contra scandal
Because of his senior status in the CIA, Gates was close to many figures who played significant roles in the Iran–Contra Affair and was in a position to have known of their activities. In 1984, as deputy director of CIA, Gates advocated that the U.S. initiate a bombing campaign against Nicaragua and that the U.S. do everything in its power short of direct military invasion of the country to remove the Sandinista government.Gates was an early subject of Independent Counsel's investigation, but the investigation of Gates intensified in the spring of 1991 as part of a larger inquiry into the Iran–Contra activities of CIA officials. This investigation received an additional impetus in May 1991, when President George H. W. Bush nominated Gates to be Director of Central Intelligence. The chairman and vice chairman of the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence requested, in a letter to the independent counsel on May 15, 1991, any information that would "significantly bear on the fitness" of Gates for the CIA post.
Gates consistently testified that he first heard on October 1, 1986, from Charles E. Allen, the national intelligence officer who was closest to the Iran initiative, that proceeds from the Iran arms sales may have been diverted to support the Contras. Other evidence proves, however, that Gates received a report on the diversion during the summer of 1986 from DDI Richard Kerr. The issue was whether the Independent Counsel could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Gates was deliberately not telling the truth when he later claimed not to have remembered any reference to the diversion before meeting with Allen in October.
File:President Bush meets with General Colin Powell, General Scowcroft, Secretary James Baker, Vice President Quayle... - NARA - 186429.jpg|thumb|President George H. W. Bush meets with Robert Gates, General Colin Powell, Secretary Dick Cheney and others about the situation in the Persian Gulf and Operation Desert Shield, January 15, 1991.
Grand jury secrecy rules hampered Independent Counsel's response. Nevertheless, in order to answer questions about Gates's prior testimony, Independent Counsel accelerated his investigation of Gates in the summer of 1991. This investigation was substantially completed by September 3, 1991, at which time Independent Counsel determined that Gates's Iran–Contra activities and testimony did not warrant prosecution.
Independent Counsel made this decision subject to developments that could have warranted reopening his inquiry, including testimony by Clair E. George, the CIA's former deputy director for operations. At the time Independent Counsel reached this decision, the possibility remained that George could have provided information warranting reconsideration of Gates's status in the investigation. George refused to cooperate with Independent Counsel and was indicted on September 19, 1991. George subpoenaed Gates to testify as a defense witness at George's first trial in the summer of 1994, but Gates was never called.
The final report of the Independent Counsel for Iran–Contra Scandal, issued on August 4, 1993, said that Gates "was close to many figures who played significant roles in the Iran/contra affair and was in a position to have known of their activities. The evidence developed by Independent Counsel did not warrant indictment..."