Secretary Robert Gates Reflects On Service To Texas A&M, Relationship With Bush Family

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was in College Station this summer to attend events for 41@100, the Centennial Celebration of President George H.W. Bush. He spoke with Texas A&M Today to share remembrances of the Bushes, his time at Texas A&M, and more.

Gates served under eight presidents — including Bush, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — during his distinguished career as an intelligence professional, first joining the CIA in 1966. His service includes deputy director of central intelligence (1986-89); assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser at the White House (1989-91); and CIA director (1991-93).

In 1999, Bush, who by then had established his presidential library at Texas A&M, asked Gates to serve as interim dean of the Bush School. Gates was A&M’s president from Aug. 1, 2002, until Dec. 16, 2006, when he left to take the job as defense secretary under George W. Bush. When Obama became president in 2008, he asked Gates to stay on, making him the only secretary of defense in the history of the nation to serve under two presidents of different parties.

What are some of your favorite memories of your time leading Texas A&M University?

I’ve been privileged to lead multiple large organizations, and the most fun job I ever had was president of Texas A&M. Also the most sincerely nice people I’ve ever met.

I especially enjoyed time with the Corps Cadets; I created the Board of Visitors for the Corps to help fund recruitment. I would run with the Corps from time to time, at 5 o’clock in the morning. I would always tell them, ‘I know you can run rings around me now, but how many of you will be out doing this 40 years from now?’

And just the encounters that I had with the students over the years. The same thing with the faculty — they were my partners, they delivered the mission of the organization. So they deserve to be consulted on all the decisions that are being made on the budget, space and all the rest. I included the faculty, or representatives of the faculty, in pretty much everything I did. I also enjoyed the time I spent with former students; they’re so dedicated to the university and its mission. Texas A&M is a unique American institution. I can’t imagine ever being the president of any university other than Texas A&M.

You are the only defense secretary in history to serve under two presidents of different parties. Why do you think that happened?

I often get asked, how could you possibly work for two men as different as George W. Bush and Barack Obama? And I’m not sure I know the right answer, but I think circumstances played a role. When Barack Obama became president, the country was involved in a deep economic crisis in 2008, 2009 — almost existential, and I did have broad bipartisan support in Congress. I had always tried to be even-handed. Everybody knew I’d worked for both Democrats and Republicans in the White House. Obama was the eighth president I’d worked for — five Republicans and three Democrats. And so I had pretty good bipartisan credentials, and I had been completely non-political as secretary of defense. I earned a lot of credit on the Hill for being candid and honest and being a straight shooter. I suspect that in the back of Obama’s mind was ‘my first priority is I’ve got to take care of this economic crisis. But I’ve got two wars going on, and the guy who’s running them now seems to be doing a good job and seems to have support on the Hill. So let’s have some continuity here.’

This year, we’re marking President Bush’s Centennial. Tell us what you recall of him.

We don’t have enough time for all my favorite memories of President Bush. One that I think showed his courage and his vision — I was with him on a domestic political trip and the issue at the time was the reunification of Germany. Everybody was opposed to it. Margaret Thatcher was opposed. Gorbachev was opposed. Francois Mitterrand of France was opposed. Nobody favored it. And our own government was tied in knots trying to figure out what we were going to do.

Bush is doing a political event in Helena, Montana, and afterward he has a press conference in the statehouse, and he gets asked the question, ‘What do you think about the reunification of Germany?’ And he paused and said, you know, it’s been 40 years. I think that the German people have changed. I think they are dedicated to democracy now and if they want to unify, I’m all for it. So I called [Gen. Brent] Scowcroft back in Washington immediately thereafter. And I said, Brent, do we have a policy on German reunification? And he said, ‘No, we’re all tied up. We can’t figure out exactly what we’re going to do.’ And I said, ‘Well, you have one now.’ And he said, ‘What is it?’ I said, ‘The president of the United States has announced he’s all for it’. And the Scowcroft response was: ‘Oh crap!’

What should President Bush be remembered for?

I think it has to be framed in terms of, first of all, his dedication to public service through his entire life, and hers [First Lady Barbara Bush] as well, through literacy and the other programs that she sponsored.

But also, I think, when these things get codified in history, you lose a lot of the human touch. What was so much fun was how they interacted as a couple and how much fun they were. One time — you know, he never bragged about himself — but he learned that an elementary school here in Texas had been named for him. He was at a public event, and he said, ‘An elementary school has just been named for me,’ and Barbara, without hesitating, piped up. She said, ‘Yeah, by a vote of four to three!’ They were a lot of fun to be around.

Of course, there were difficult times. In the lead-up to the Gulf War, the president knew people were going to die. And this was a guy who every day had an amazing sense of humor. But once there was a movement of forces, moving toward war, that sense of humor disappeared. He was mindful of the consequences of the decisions he was making. Having been in combat himself, he knew what was going to happen and that weighed on him.

I’ll give you an anecdote of how sentimental he was about the troops. It was his first year [as president] in 1989, there was a huge explosion, a gun turret on the battleship USS Iowa, and 47 sailors were killed. And he was helicoptering down, he was going to speak at a memorial service for these 47 sailors. We were on the helicopter, it was just the two of us and the Secret Service. He kept reading the speech and he would tear up every time he got to the same passage about the sailors. He finally stopped, he put the speech down and he said, I once asked Ronald Reagan how he got through emotional passages like this. And Reagan told him, I just repeat it over and over and over again. And Bush looked at me, and he had tears in his eyes, and he said, ‘That doesn’t work for me.’ Ironically, he later would be criticized for racing through his remarks at the ceremony. And I knew the reason he had raced through was that was the only way he could get through it.

He’s one of the few people that I’ve ever known who literally bore no grudges. He was always a forgive-and-forget guy — well, forgive, maybe not so much forget!

One thing in terms of the state of our politics today was Bush’s view of people who disagreed with him as fellow citizens, as people who were trying to do the right thing for the country, and people worth talking to. That didn’t mean he agreed with them. And he had some huge fights during the Bush administration, over many issues. But he never treated any of the members of Congress as an enemy. He led with integrity and with character. When he said something, you knew it was true. And if he said he’s going to do something, you knew it would happen. So I think this sense of we’re all in this together, and we’re all Americans. We ought to treat each other decently, with character and integrity, even when we disagree. That is the most significant lesson that his life has for people in politics today.

Note: This interview has been edited and condensed.