Gates Robert M. Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War

New York: Knopf, 2014. — 640 p. — ISBN-13 978-0307959478.
From the former secretary of defense, a strikingly candid, vivid account of serving Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. When Robert M. Gates received a call from the White House, he thought he’d long left Washington politics behind: After working for six presidents in both the CIA and the National Security Council, he was happily serving 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.Summoned to Duty.
Iraq, Iraq, and Iraq.
Mending Fences, Finding Allies.
Waging War on the Pentagon.
Beyond Iraq: A Complicated World.
Good War, Bad War.
One Damn Thing After Another.
Transition.
New Team, New Agenda, Old Secretary.
Afghanistan: A House Divided.
Difficult Foes, Difficult Friends.
Meanwhile, Back in Washington.
War, War… and Revolution.
At War to the Last Day.
Reflections.
.
Illustration Credits.
A Note About the Author.
Illustrations.
Also by Robert M. Gates.