Life Stories

Gates being briefed at Camp Eggers in Kabul during a tour of Afghanistan last December. Photo credit: Lynsey Addario for TIME

Robert Gates is the only US Secretary of Defense to be invited to stay on by a rival administration. A Cold War hawk appointed under George W Bush, he was asked by Obama to continue the fight in Afghanistan. A diminutive 66 year old Kansan and skillful political player, Gates is the only Republican in the Democrat’s national security team.

TIME has called the online version of this profile What is Robert Gates Really Fighting For? and the nub of the piece is the question writer Elizabeth Rubin delivers right at the end. “Is there a Gates vision or doctrine?” she asks. Or – as an aid paraphrases – is he merely a chameleon who lacks strong vision?

The piece acknowledges Gates’ many mistakes (most notably his attitude towards the Soviets in Afghanistan and his arming of the mujahedin) and White House staffers’ unease at the extent of his power within the administration. It also contains pages of description of Gates’ pragmatism, his common sense approach to fixing the army’s many ills and his grown up attitude towards relations with the Defense Department’s greatest enemy, the State Department.

So when he delivers his answer, I found it a good deal more alarming than his interviewer appears to. “I am very much an American exceptionalist [pause] and I believe that we are, as a country, the greatest force for good in the history of the world.” Blimey.

Gates’ ambition and intensity didn’t always endear him to his colleagues, who say he has mellowed with age. “He was on the make when I knew him. He’s made it now,” says one. In 1987, after then CIA director William Casey retired, Reagan nominated Gates to become director of central intelligence. It was the midst of the Iran-contra hearings, however, and there was little hope of a quick confirmation. After four weeks, Gates withdrew his nomination. He recalls going back to his job as deputy and wanting to hide from his colleagues, then getting a call that his father died. Gates was convinced that watching him go through those hearings and investigations was too much for his father’s weak heart. The shock and the stress of those six months was too much for Gates as well. He shut the door to his office and wept.

Read the rest at TIME