Years Before His Bipartisan Halo, Rough Reception for Gates
By CARL HULSE, NYT, JAN. 17, 2014
WASHINGTON — Former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates startled Washington with a withering critique of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. when he said in his new memoir that Mr. Biden had “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
One particular Biden policy decision was an intensely personal one for Mr. Gates: Mr. Biden’s vote as a senator on Nov. 5, 1991, against Mr. Gates’s confirmation as director of the C.I.A. Mr. Biden joined 30 other Democrats in balking at the nomination, although it was ultimately approved on a 64-to-31 vote after four months of exhausting hearings and pointed criticism of Mr. Gates’s record on multiple fronts, including his misreading of events in the former Soviet Union.
“I have been disappointed in the past in Mr. Gates’s analytical skills, especially in regard to the Soviet Union,” Mr. Biden said in announcing that he would side with those opposing Mr. Gates. “I have chosen to err on the side of new thinking.”
Given the bipartisan halo that encircled Mr. Gates as Pentagon chief to both President Obama and President George W. Bush, it is easy to forget that he was once a highly contentious figure in Washington. In 1987, Mr. Gates withdrew his nomination to be C.I.A. director after he came under fire over his role in the Iran-contra scandal — he was the deputy director of the C.I.A. when the Reagan administration was selling arms covertly to Iran and using the proceeds to support the contras in Nicaragua — and had to fight hard to become the head of the agency four years later.
(More here.)
WASHINGTON — Former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates startled Washington with a withering critique of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. when he said in his new memoir that Mr. Biden had “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
One particular Biden policy decision was an intensely personal one for Mr. Gates: Mr. Biden’s vote as a senator on Nov. 5, 1991, against Mr. Gates’s confirmation as director of the C.I.A. Mr. Biden joined 30 other Democrats in balking at the nomination, although it was ultimately approved on a 64-to-31 vote after four months of exhausting hearings and pointed criticism of Mr. Gates’s record on multiple fronts, including his misreading of events in the former Soviet Union.
“I have been disappointed in the past in Mr. Gates’s analytical skills, especially in regard to the Soviet Union,” Mr. Biden said in announcing that he would side with those opposing Mr. Gates. “I have chosen to err on the side of new thinking.”
Given the bipartisan halo that encircled Mr. Gates as Pentagon chief to both President Obama and President George W. Bush, it is easy to forget that he was once a highly contentious figure in Washington. In 1987, Mr. Gates withdrew his nomination to be C.I.A. director after he came under fire over his role in the Iran-contra scandal — he was the deputy director of the C.I.A. when the Reagan administration was selling arms covertly to Iran and using the proceeds to support the contras in Nicaragua — and had to fight hard to become the head of the agency four years later.
(More here.)
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