Robert M. Gates
Robert M. Gates
Robert Michael Gatesis 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 was Director of Central Intelligence under President George H. W. Bush. 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. After leaving the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth25 September 1943
CountryUnited States of America
I consider myself a Republican.
I have tried to maintain civil relationships with everyone I meet - and, even if I violently disagree with them, try to be respectful.
Most governments lie to each other. That's the way business gets done.
And so the greatest of American triumphs... became a peculiarly joyless victory. We had won the Cold War, but there would be no parades.
Future U.S. political leaders, those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me, may not consider the return on America's investment in NATO worth the cost.
One of my favorite little sayings is, 'To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.
No policy has proved more successful in making friends for the United States, during the cold war and since, than educating students from abroad at our colleges and universities.
What I know concerns me. What I don't know concerns me even more. What people aren't telling me worries me the most.
A wild and crazy weekend involves sitting on the front porch, smoking a cigar, reading a book.
I'm a big advocate of drones.