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Robert Michael Gates

Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War Paperback – May 12, 2015

by Robert M. Gates (Author)

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After serving six presidents in both the CIA and the National Security Council, Robert M. Gates believed that he had left Washington politics behind for good—but when he received the call from the White House in 2006 to help a nation mired in two wars, he answered what he felt was the call of duty.

Forthright and unsparing, Duty is Gates’s behind-the-scenes account of his nearly five years as a Secretary of Defense at war: the battles with Congress, the two presidents he served, the military itself, and the vast Pentagon bureaucracy; his efforts to help George W. Bush turn the tide in Iraq; his role as a guiding (and often dissenting) voice for Barack Obama; and, most importantly, his ardent devotion to and love for American soldiers. Offering unvarnished appraisals of our political leaders, including Dick Cheney, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton, Duty tells a powerful and deeply personal story, giving us an unprecedented look at two administrations and the wars that have defined them.

Print length

640 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Vintage
Publication date

May 12, 2015
Dimensions

6.12 x 1.4 x 9.2 inches
ISBN-10

030794963X
ISBN-13

978-0307949639
Lexile measure

1280L
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Editorial Reviews

Review

A 2014 New York Times Notable Book

“Probably one of the best Washington memoirs ever...Historians and policy wonks will bask in the revelations Gates provides on major decisions from late 2006 to 2011, the span of his time at the Pentagon…Gates is doing far more than just scoring points in this revealing volume. The key to reading it is understanding that he was profoundly affected by his role in sending American soldiers overseas to fight and be killed or maimed.”
—Thomas E. Ricks, The New York Times Book Review

“Touching, heartfelt...fascinating...Gates takes the reader inside the war-room deliberations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and delivers unsentimental assessments of each man’s temperament, intellect and management style...No civilian in Washington was closer to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than Gates. As Washington and the rest of the country were growing bored with the grinding conflicts, he seemed to feel their burden more acutely.”
—Greg Jaffe, The Washington Post

“Forthright, impassioned…highly revealing about decision making in both the Obama and Bush White Houses…[Gates’] writing is informed not only by a keen sense of historical context, but also by a longtime Washington veteran’s understanding of how the levers of government work or fail to work. Unlike many careful Washington memoirists, Gates speaks his mind on a host of issues…[he] gives us his shrewd take on a range of foreign policy matters, an understanding of his mission to reform the incoherent spending and procurement policies of the Pentagon, and a tactile sense of what it was like to be defense secretary during two wars.”
—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“A refreshingly honest memoir and a moving one.”
—Jack Keane, The Wall Street Journal

“A compelling memoir and a serious history…A fascinating, briskly honest account [of a] journey through the cutthroat corridors of Washington and world politics, with shrewd, sometimes eye-popping observations along the way about the nature of war and the limits of power.…Gates was a truly historic secretary of defense…precisely because he did get so much done…His descriptions of how he accomplished these feats—the mix of cooptation and coercion that he employed—should be read by every future defense secretary, and executives of all stripes, as a guide for how to command and overhaul a large institution.”
—Fred Kaplan, Slate

“A breathtakingly comprehensive and ultimately unsparing examination of the modern ways of making politics, policy, and war…Students of the nation’s two early twenty-first century wars will find the comprehensive account of Pentagon and White House deliberations riveting. General readers will be drawn to [Gates’] meditations on power and on life at the center of great political decisions…His vision is clear and his tale is sad. Gates takes ‘Duty’ as his title, but the account of his service also brings to mind the other two thirds of the West Point motto: ‘honor’ and ‘country.’”
—David M. Shribman, The Boston Globe

“Duty…is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of what makes Washington tick.”
—Edward Luce, Financial Times

“Gates has offered…an informed and…earnest perspective, one that Americans ought to hear, reflect on and debate.”
—Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic

“Engaging and candid….Young people who want to understand and live up to the highest ideals of American statesmanship would do well to read this book carefully; Gates has much to teach about the practical idealism that represents the best kind of American leadership.”
—Foreign Affairs

“Compelling…trenchant.”
—Newsday

“This is a serious, thoughtful, illuminating, and valuable insider account of the final years of the George W. Bush administration and early years of the Obama presidency….Gates holds little back in this revealing memoir.”
—Choice

“If you read only one book by a Washington insider this year, make it this one. It should be savored by anyone who wishes to know more about the realities of decision-making in today’s federal government.”
—Library Journal

“The full story that emerges from this detailed and often deeply personal account is of a man fed up with the dysfunction of the nation’s capital.”
—The American Conservative

About the Author

Robert M. Gates served as secretary of defense from 2006 to 2011. He also served as an officer in the United States Air Force and worked for the Central Intelligence Agency before being appointed director of the agency by President George H. W. Bush. He was a member of the National Security Council staff in four administrations and served eight presidents of both political parties. Additionally, Gates has a continuing distinguished record in the private sector and in academia, including currently serving as chancellor of the College of William and Mary. He holds a Ph.D. in Russian and Soviet history from Georgetown University.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Author’s Note

This is a book about my more than four and a half years at war. It is, of course, principally about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where initial victories in both countries were squandered by mistakes, shortsighted- ness, and conflict in the field as well as in Washington, leading to long, brutal campaigns to avert strategic defeat. It is about the war against al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, those responsible for our national tragedy on September 11, 2001. But this book is also about my political war with Congress every day I was in office and the dramatic contrast between my public respect, bipartisanship, and calm, and my private frustration, disgust, and anger. There were also political wars with the White House, often with the White House staff, occasionally with the presidents themselves—more with President Obama than with President Bush. And finally, there was my bureaucratic war with the Department of Defense and the military services, aimed at transforming a department organized to plan for war into one that could wage war, changing the military forces we had into the military forces we needed to succeed.

George W. Bush and Barack Obama were, respectively, the seventh and eighth presidents I worked for. I knew neither man when I began working for them, and they did not know me. To my astonishment (and consternation), I became the only secretary of defense in history to be asked to remain in the position by a newly elected president, let alone one of a different party. I came to the job in mid-December 2006 with the sole purpose of doing what I could to salvage the mission in Iraq from disaster. I had no idea how to do it, nor any idea of the sweeping changes I would need to make at the Pentagon to get it done. And I had no idea how dramatically and how far my mission over time would expand beyond Iraq.

As I look back, there is a parallel theme to my four and a half years at war: love. By that I mean the love—there is no other word for it—I came to feel for the troops, and the overwhelming sense of personal responsibility I developed for them. So much so that it would shape some of my most significant decisions and positions. Toward the end of my time in office, I could barely speak to them or about them without being overcome with emotion. Early in my fifth year, I came to believe my determination to protect them—in the wars we were in and from new wars—was clouding my judgment and diminishing my usefulness to the president, and thus it played a part in my decision to retire.

I make no pretense that this book is a complete, much less definitive, history of the period from 2006 to 2011. It is simply my personal story about being secretary of defense during those turbulent, difficult years.

Chapter 1
Summoned to Duty

I had become president of Texas A&M University in August 2002, and by October 2006 I was well into my fifth year. I was very happy there, and many—but not all—Aggies believed I was making significant improvements in nearly all aspects of the university (except football). I had originally committed to staying five years but agreed to extend that to seven years—summer 2009. Then my wife, Becky, and I would finally return to our home in the Pacific Northwest.

The week of October 15, 2006, the week that would change my life, started out routinely with several meetings. Then I took to the road, ending up in Des Moines, Iowa, where I was to give a speech on Friday, the twentieth.

Just past one p.m. that day I received an e-mail from my secretary, Sandy Crawford, saying that President Bush’s national security adviser, Steve Hadley, wanted to speak to me on the phone within an hour or two. Hadley’s assistant was “quite insistent” that the message be passed to me. I told Sandy to inform the assistant I would return Steve’s call on Saturday morning. I had no idea why Steve was calling, but I had spent nearly nine years at the White House on the National Security Council (NSC) staff under four presidents, and I knew that the West Wing often demanded instant responses that were rarely necessary.

Hadley and I had first met on the NSC staff in the summer of 1974 and had remained friends, though we were in contact infrequently. In January 2005, Steve—who had succeeded Condoleezza Rice as George W. Bush’s national security adviser for the second Bush term—had asked me to consider becoming the first director of national intelligence (DNI), a job created by legislation the previous year, legislation—and a job—that I had vigorously opposed as unworkable. The president and his senior advisers wanted me to make it work. I met with Hadley and White House chief of staff Andy Card in Washington on Monday of inauguration week. We had very detailed conversations about authorities and presidential empowerment of the DNI, and by the weekend they and I both thought I would agree to take the job.

I was to call Card at Camp David with my final answer the following Monday. Over the weekend I wrestled with the decision. On Saturday night, lying awake in bed, I told Becky she could make this decision really easy for me; I knew how much she loved being at Texas A&M, and all she had to say was that she didn’t want to return to Washington, D.C. Instead, she said, “We have to do what you have to do.” I said, “Thanks a lot.”

Late Sunday night I walked around the campus smoking a cigar. As I walked past familiar landmarks and buildings, I decided I could not leave Texas A&M; there was still too much I wanted to accomplish there. And I really, really did not want to go back into government. I called Andy the next morning and told him to tell the president I would not take the job. He seemed stunned. He must have felt that I had led them on, which I regretted, but it really had been a last-minute decision. There was one consolation. I told Becky, “We are safe now—the Bush administration will never ask me to do another thing.” I was wrong.

At nine a.m. on Saturday—now nearly two years later—I returned Steve’s call as promised. He wasted no time in posing a simple, direct question: “If the president asked you to become secretary of defense, would you accept?” Stunned, I gave him an equally simple, direct answer without hesitation: “We have kids dying in two wars. If the president thinks I can help, I have no choice but to say yes. It’s my duty.” The troops out there were doing their duty—how could I not do mine?

That said, I sat at my desk frozen. My God, what have I done? I kept thinking to myself. I knew that after nearly forty years of marriage, Becky would support my decision and all that it meant for our two children as well, but I was still terrified to tell her.

Josh Bolten, a former director of the Office of Management and Bud- get, who had replaced Card as White House chief of staff earlier that year, called a few days later to reassure himself of my intentions. He asked if I had any ethical issues that could be a problem, like hiring illegal immigrants as nannies or housekeepers. I decided to have some fun at his expense and told him we had a noncitizen housekeeper. Before he began to hyperventilate, I told him she had a green card and was well along the path to citizenship. I don’t think he appreciated my sense of humor.

Bolten then said a private interview had to be arranged for me with the president. I told him I thought I could slip into Washington for dinner on Sunday, November 12, without attracting attention. The president wanted to move faster. Josh e-mailed me on October 31 to see if I could drive to the Bush ranch near Crawford, Texas, for an early morning meeting on Sunday, November 5.

The arrangements set up by deputy White House chief of staff Joe Hagin were very precise. He e-mailed me that I should meet him at eight-thirty a.m. in McGregor, Texas, about twenty minutes from the ranch. I would find him in the parking lot at the Brookshire Brothers grocery store, sitting in a white Dodge Durango parked to the right of the entrance. Dress would be “ranch casual”—sport shirt and khakis or jeans. I look back with amusement that my job interviews with both President Bush and President-elect Obama involved more cloak-and- dagger clandestinity than most of my decades-long career in the CIA.

I did not tell anyone other than Becky what was going on except for the president’s father, former president George H. W. Bush (the forty- first president, Bush 41), with whom I wanted to consult. He was the reason I had come to Texas A&M in the first place, in 1999, to be the interim dean of the George H. W. Bush School of Government and Public Service. What was supposed to be a nine-month stint of a few days a month became two years and led directly to my becoming president of Texas A&M. Bush was sorry I would be leaving the university, but he knew the country had to come first. I also think he was happy that his son had reached out to me.

I left my house just before five a.m. to head for my interview with the president. Call me old-fashioned, but I thought a blazer and slacks more appropriate for a meeting with the president than a sport shirt and jeans. Starbucks wasn’t open that early, so I was pretty bleary-eyed for the first part of the two-and-a-half-hour drive. I was thinking the entire way about questions to ask and answers to give, the magnitude of the challenge, how life for both my wife and me would change, and how to approach the job of secretary of defense. I do not recall feeling any self- doubt on the drive to the ranch that morning, perhaps a reflection of just how little I understood the direness of the situation. I knew, however, that I had one thing going for me: most people had low expectations about what could be done to turn around the war in Iraq and change the climate in Washington.

During the drive I also thought about how strange it would be to join this administration. I had never had a conversation with the president. I had played no role in the 2000 campaign and was never asked to do so. I had virtually no contact with anyone in the administration during Bush’s first term and was dismayed when my closest friend and mentor, Brent Scowcroft, wound up in a public dispute with the administration over his opposition to going to war in Iraq. While I had known Rice, Hadley, Dick Cheney, and others for years, I was joining a group of people who had been through 9/11 together, who had been fighting two wars, and who had six years of being on the same team. I would be the outsider.

I made my clandestine rendezvous in McGregor with no problem. As we approached the ranch, I could see the difference in security as a result of 9/11. I had visited other presidential residences, and they were always heavily guarded, but nothing like this. I was dropped off at the president’s office, a spacious but simply decorated one-story building some distance from the main house. It has a large office and sitting room for the president, and a kitchen and a couple of offices with computers for staff. I arrived before the president (always good protocol), got a cup of coffee (finally), and looked around the place until the president arrived a few minutes later, promptly at nine. (He was always exceptionally punctual.) He had excused himself from a large group of friends and family celebrating his wife Laura’s sixtieth birthday.

We exchanged pleasantries, and he got down to business. He talked first about the importance of success in Iraq, saying that the current strategy wasn’t working and that a new one was needed. He told me he was thinking seriously about a significant surge in U.S. forces to restore security in Baghdad. He asked me about my experience on the Iraq Study Group (more later) and what I thought about such a surge. He said he thought we needed new military leadership in Iraq and was taking a close look at Lieutenant General David Petraeus. Iraq was obviously upper-most on his mind, but he also talked about his concerns in Afghanistan; a number of other national security challenges, including Iran; the climate in Washington; and his way of doing business, including an insistence on candor from his senior advisers. When he said specifically that his father did not know about our meeting, I felt a bit uncomfortable, but I did not disabuse him. It was clear he had not consulted his father about this possible appointment and that, contrary to later speculation, Bush 41 had no role in it....

Continued in DUTY: Memoirs of a Secretary at War…

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; Reprint edition (May 12, 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 640 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 030794963X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0307949639
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1280L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.86 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.12 x 1.4 x 9.2 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #267,115 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #220 in Afghan War Biographies
- #228 in Iraq War Biographies
- #358 in Iraq War History (Books)

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Pentagon & military never bought into Iraq & Afghanistan & politics always bad influence

Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2020

Verified Purchase

Robert Gates had a long history in U.S. government service. His last position was Secretary of Defense, which he held at the end of the Bush administration into the first term of President Obama. His memoir of that time Duty, Memoirs Of A Secretary At War covers the bureaucratic wars he went through, the difficulties he had with the military, and various challenges the United States faced, most importantly the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His most major incites come from the handling of those two conflicts. He found that the Pentagon and military were not committed to either one believing that they were aberrations, and he found American politics corrosive to running both.

The first big task Gates dealt with in the book was Iraq. He was first contacted at the end of 2006 to replace Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld by President Bush to help introduce a new strategy the Surge. Gates realized that both the public and political class had turned on the war by the time the Surge started, so he saw his role as dealing with Washington to try to maintain what support he could find to give time for the military to be successful in Iraq. First, he would acknowledge past mistakes and then stall for time. Then when the Surge started showing success he started talking about withdrawals again with the goal to draw things out. While he was happy with the military results and the reduction in violence he came to accept the fact that the U.S. could not get Baghdad to pass any major laws or carry out reconciliation. Instead he believed the American role could be as a mediator between the various factions. He also believed Iraq would need a long term commitment from Washington to sustain the improvements.

He didn’t seem half as involved under the Obama administration. The new president campaigned about ending the Iraq war. He was committed to the withdrawal timeline laid out by his predecessor but agreed with Gates that a stay behind force was necessary. When a new treaty was not possible with Baghdad which Obama felt was needed to allow a small number of troops to remain he was happy to say that it was over. It’s surprising that Gates didn’t write more about this turn of events. After he repeatedly said he wanted the U.S. to be in Iraq to make sure things didn’t fall apart, he had little to say when the American military couldn’t stay. That seemed to be a fundamental failure of his point of view, but it went with little comment. That’s perhaps because he was much more involved and frustrated with Afghanistan by that time. The other issue he kept emphasizing was that Iraq was so toxic by the time that he came into office that there could be no open debate about it. Every public forum politicians took to showboating and giving diatribes to their constituencies rather than really dealing with the war. Gates would find that a problem with Afghanistan as well.

The Secretary believed that Afghanistan was neglected. The U.S. had invaded in 2001 but immediately shifted focus to Iraq and didn’t give the first conflict the time, attention and troops necessary to be successful. Like Iraq the U.S. also underestimated the enemy. Gates argued that the U.S. should focus upon services, local governments, and building up the Afghan forces so that they could eventually take over security. Under both Bush and Obama Gates faced nothing but trouble. First, more troops couldn’t be sent while the Surge was going on in Iraq. Then there were several different military commands and different development agendas all run by different groups and countries making managing the war a complete mess. These problems were never fully resolved. Bush sent some more troops at the end of his presidency but then he and Gates both agreed that the next administration should decide on what new strategy should be taken. That turned into another headache for Gates. There was a very long and thorough in the new White House and Obama eventually agreed to troop increases for a counterinsurgency-counter terror policy that the Secretary agreed with. The problem for Gates was that the debate became venomous for him. One group of advisors led by Vice President Joseph Biden believed that domestic politics were more important than fighting the war and constantly argued against more troops, and then when that was decided tried to undermine the policy at every turn. On top of that, military officials kept going to the press pushing their strategy choice which caused resentment within the White House and gave more ammunition to Biden and his camp. Like Iraq, Gates believed politics trumped national security in the discussions.

Gates third main point was that he didn’t believe the military or Pentagon was fully committed to either war. Instead they kept planning for the large conventional conflict they wanted like a showdown with China or North Korea. That meant they always wanted new aircraft carriers, bombers and the latest jet fighters instead of equipment that would help the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. For instance, he relayed the story of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP) which was designed to withstand improved explosive devices (IEDs) which were one of the biggest problems in Iraq and was a growing threat in Afghanistan. The military opposed it because they thought they would all be thrown away after the two conflicts were over, and the Pentagon wasn’t interested either because it didn’t fit the view of the new transformation in military affairs that Secretary Rumsfeld was pushing. Gates had to fight the bureaucracy and then luckily got support from Congress to greatly increase the manufacturing of the vehicle which saved countless lives. Another issue was drones. There were not enough for either war. This was largely due to the fact that the Air Force was opposed to them because they wanted piloted planes. They would only allow officers to operate drones and told them they could not advance their career by flying them. Only around half the drones the Americans had were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place. Again, the Pentagon was thinking of bombers and fighters and taking on a big country rather than winning the on-going wars. Gates had to go through a huge bureaucratic mess to get more drones. Both of these incidents played into the Secretary’s fears that the military wanted to put Iraq and Afghanistan behind them as quickly as possible, forget everything they learned like happened in Vietnam, so they could go back to business as usual. The Pentagon and military turned out to be heavily invested in the status quo, and the two wars were seen as inconveniences. Gates never commented on how this worked out, but he was right. The Defense Department and services do want to put the two conflicts behind them as seen by the fact that they delayed the release of the Army history of Iraq and would not distribute public copies to the press and scholars because they argued the war did not fit its long term strategic planning for the future.

Duty covers plenty of other issues that Gates encountered, but really the most important lessons to be learned come from his experiences with Iraq and Afghanistan. Gates wrote that the only way to be successful in wars was to fully and publicly commit to them and explain to the public that only thinking long term can they be successful. They have to put that national interest above domestic politics that can turn at any time. He also believed that Americans could only maintain their support for so long so the White House has to do as much as they can with the time given them. He thought the U.S. successfully maneuvered this mine field with Iraq, even though he admits he didn’t get the stay behind force he wanted. On the other hand, he thought domestic concerns got in the way with regards to Afghanistan. He constantly felt at war with factions within the administration over policy which made a difficult situation worse. A White House at war with itself is no way to manage a conflict. On the other hand, what he never made that much headway with was the mindset and bureaucracy of the military and Pentagon. They had their vision, and fighting insurgencies was not included. The idea that American had to prepare for a range of different wars never got buy in from the institutions. That probably means the next time the U.S. intervenes in a developing country they will have to learn everything all over again just as Gates feared..

Musings On Iraq blog

6 people found this helpful

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Charles L Evans

One of the few memoirs I may read a second time

Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2016

Verified Purchase

As someone who has been associated with the US government (as active duty, a DoD civilian, and as a contractor) for 26 years now, I found this book to be incredibly insightful. I might well read it again. It usually takes me months to read a book this size; I finished this one in just over a week. One aspect that I enjoyed is that while Gates made numerous references to his past, he did not go on and on and on about it. When I read a book like this I do not care about how the author's grandparent's made their way to America. I do not care about where or under what conditions the author grew up. For a book like this I want to be hit in the face immediately with the here-and-now, and that's what Gates did. I think of the entire 600 pages he spent just over TWO pages on this childhood. Some authors spend entire chapters (or multiple chapters) about their years as a child and/or teenager. Some readers like that, and that's fine. For me, I don't care. If I am reading a SECDEF's memoirs I want them to begin at the moment he gets the call from the President and end with the day he resigns. This book is perfect in that regard. The amount of detail is amazing. Gates take you into the Situation Room with him, into the Oval Office, into the countless meetings and gives what I believe to be a balanced assessment of every personality that was in-play during his tenure (from field commanders to POTUS). Just as important, his love for the troops and their well-being is beyond question. Well done, Bob!

26 people found this helpful

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Rand Barrett

It’s a dark & depressing as a book about endless global war should be

Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2020

Verified Purchase

Not sure how seriously I can take this book, it seems to suggest that the horror that has been wrought by America all across the Middle East these past two decades was just an honest mistake that could’ve happened to anybody.

Of course, I don’t expect anybody to come out and acknowledge their complicity in war crimes & human rights violations, but Gates gives Bush (and himself) a complete pass for all the monumentally poor decisions and reckless policies.

My two cents: you don’t topple governments and plunge countries into civil war by accident, that is in fact that very obvious & predictable outcome of invading a country and overthrowing its government without any plan for what comes next. Gates does a great job trying to make it seem like he, and everybody around him, didn’t fail utterly in their responsibilities, but if you’re looking for any sort of cogent explanation for the decisions made in the Bush (and later, Obama) administration then you won’t find it here. This is just an account of how political creatures skate by and cover their own asses while kicking the can down the road, my biggest takeaway is that Gates is basically Eichman, he’ll do his best to manage a situation without any regard for the effects on people outside of the in-group.

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ian

Interesting book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 5, 2019

Verified Purchase

An interesting book, written with honesty by someone who genuinely felt he was trying to do the right thing to bring two chaotic wars to a conclusion whilst trying to prevent others. Some honest admissions that the USA had gone into Afghanistan and Iraq with very little understanding of the local politics, tribal realities, social structures etc. It just seemed odd that it was almost two thirds of the way through before there was any mention of the Sunni-Shia schism (surely the root cause of so much strife in the world today) and no honest explanation of the “Iranian problem”. But perhaps too much to expect that the former head of the CIA would recognise that their 1953 overthrow of the legitimate regime was perhaps a key contributing factor?

Larkottery

Interesting read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 15, 2020

Verified Purchase

I was inspired to read this it’s referred to in John Bolton’s recent book, The Room Where It Happened. Mr Gates served as defence secretary under Republican and Democrat Presidents. By way of comparison, I found it an easier book to read than Mr Bolton’s. It gave an insight to the workings of Congress and of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Stig Andersson

A book for everybody who are interested in the world of to-day.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 10, 2014

Verified Purchase

I think that Robert Gates is a very good story-teller and is also able to describe complex questions in a very interesting and amusing way.
In spite of the thickness of the book it was quite easy to finish.
People, who are interested in the world of to-day and to see it specially from an American point of wiev should read this bood.
The author can be both humorus and emotional and tell us his story with a revieling distance to the many difficult problems, that he has to deal with.

6 people found this helpful

Gabriel Talmain

like his devotion to the people in uniform

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 10, 2016

Verified Purchase

Disorganised book. Gate pushes his pet talking points, like his devotion to the people in uniform, to the point of making the reader sick. The book goes through his dairy without providing much insight or reflection on his experience. Plenty of ranting though. An historian may find it interesting for the small details.

One person found this helpful

RMF

you are there

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 15, 2015

Verified Purchase

What it was really like, in Iraq, Afghanistan and especially Washington, as Secretary of Defence serving, uniquely, two consecutive presidents, a conservative Republican at the end of his term and a liberal a Democrat at the start of his. Vividly shows exactly how and why today US Govt fails again and again to attain a level of performance, as defined by its constitutional mandate, that would rate a grade better than C minus.

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