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Memoirs of a Secretary at War
Knopf
January 2014
On Sale: January 14, 2014
640 pages
ISBN: 0307959473
EAN: 9780307959478
Kindle: B00F8F3J2S
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Memoir
From the former secretary of defense, a strikingly candid,
vividly written account of his experience serving Presidents
George W. Bush and Barack Obama during the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Before Robert M. Gates received a call from the White House
in 2006, he thought he’d left Washington politics behind:
after working for six presidents in both the CIA and the
National Security Council, he was happy in his role as
president of Texas A&M University. But when he was asked
to help a nation mired in two wars and to aid the troops
doing the fighting, he answered what he felt was the call of
duty. Now, in this unsparing memoir, meticulously fair in
its assessments, he takes us behind the scenes of his nearly
five years as a secretary at war: the battles with Congress,
the two presidents he served, the military itself, and the
vast Pentagon bureaucracy; his efforts to help Bush turn the
tide in Iraq; his role as a guiding, and often dissenting,
voice for Obama; the ardent devotion to and love for
American soldiers—his “heroes”—he developed on the job. In relating his personal journey as secretary, Gates draws
us into the innermost sanctums of government and military
power during the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars,
illuminating iconic figures, vital negotiations, and
critical situations in revealing, intimate detail. Offering
unvarnished appraisals of Dick Cheney, Joe Biden, Hillary
Clinton, and Presidents Bush and Obama among other key
players, Gates exposes the full spectrum of
behind-closed-doors politicking within both the Bush and
Obama administrations. He discusses the great controversies of his tenure—surges in
both Iraq and Afghanistan, how to deal with Iran and
Syria, “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” Guantánamo Bay, WikiLeaks—as
they played out behind the television cameras. He brings to
life the Situation Room during the Bin Laden raid. And,
searingly, he shows how congressional debate and action or
inaction on everything from equipment budgeting to troop
withdrawals was often motivated, to his increasing despair
and anger, more by party politics and media impact than by
members’ desires to protect our soldiers and ensure their
success. However embroiled he became in the trials of Washington,
Gates makes clear that his heart was always in the most
important theater of his tenure as secretary: the front
lines. We journey with him to both war zones as he meets
with active-duty troops and their commanders, awed by their
courage, and also witness him greet coffin after flag-draped
coffin returned to U.S. soil, heartbreakingly aware that he
signed every deployment order. In frank and poignant
vignettes, Gates conveys the human cost of war, and his
admiration for those brave enough to undertake it when
necessary. Duty tells a powerful and deeply personal
story that allows us an unprecedented look at two
administrations and the wars that have defined them.
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