Robert Gates on His Memoir: Education, Leadership Style, Book (2014)
Robert Michael Gates (born
September 25, 1943) is an
American statesman, scholar and university president who served as the
22nd United States Secretary of Defense from
2006 to
2011.
Gates served for 26 years in the
Central Intelligence Agency and the
National Security Council, and under
President George H. W. Bush was
Director of Central Intelligence. Gates was also an officer in the
United States Air Force and during the early part of his military career, he was recruited by the
CIA.[2] 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
Republican President George W. Bush as
Secretary of Defense after the
2006 election, replacing
Donald Rumsfeld. He was confirmed with bipartisan support.[3] In a
2007 profile written by former
National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski,
Time named Gates one of the year's most influential people.[3] In 2008, Gates was named one of
America's Best Leaders by
U.S. News &
World Report.[4] He continued to serve as Secretary of Defense in
President Barack Obama's administration.[5] He retired in 2011. "He'll be remembered for making us aware of the danger of over-reliance on military intervention as an instrument of
American foreign policy," said former
Senator David L. Boren.[6] Gates was presented the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, by
President Obama during his retirement ceremony.[7] According to a
Washington Post book review, he is "widely considered the best defense secretary of the post-World War II era".[8]
Since leaving the
Obama Administration, Gates has been elected President of the
Boy Scouts of America, served as
Chancellor of the
College of William & Mary, and become a member of several corporate boards.
Gates is a
Principal, along with
Condoleezza Rice,
Stephen Hadley and Anja
Manuel, in RiceHadley Gates
LLC, a strategic consulting firm.[77]
On
September 6, 2011, it was announced that Gates had accepted the position of chancellor at the College of William & Mary, succeeding
Sandra Day O'Connor. He took the office of the chancellor on
February 3,
2012.
On May 2, 2012,
Starbucks Corporation announced that Gates had been elected to the
Starbucks board of directors. He will serve on the board's nominating and corporate governance committee.[78]
On
October 30,
2013, the Boy Scouts of America announced that Gates had been elected to the
National executive board. While on this board, he will serve as the national president-elect. In May 2014, he began a two-year-long term as the
BSA national president.
Randall Stephenson, chairman and chief executive officer of
AT&T; Inc. serves under Gates as the president-elect. Gates has succeeded
Wayne Perry as the national president.[79] On May 21,
2015, Gates stated that the "status quo [ban on gay adult leaders] in [the BSA] movement's membership standards cannot be sustained" and that he would no longer seek to revoke the charters of chapters that accept gay adult leaders.[80]
In his memoir,
Duty:
Memoirs of a
Secretary at War, Gates alternately criticized and praised
Obama's military leadership, writing, "
I never doubted [his] support for the troops, only his support for their mission [in
Afghanistan]", and "I was very proud to work for a president who had made one of the most courageous decisions I had ever witnessed in the
White House [by authorizing the raid against
Osama bin Laden]."[81][82]
In the wake of the
2014 Crimean crisis on 25
March 2014, Gates wrote an op-ed piece on
Vladimir Putin,
Russian expansionism, the nascent sanctions regime, the
US military budget, and the need for bold leadership.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gates