Melvin A. Goodman: Revisiting the Rehabilitation of Defense Secretary Robert Gates
[Melvin A. Goodman is national security and intelligence columnist for Truthout. He is senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and adjunct professor of government at Johns Hopkins University. His 42-year government career included service at the CIA, State Department, Defense Department and the US Army. His latest book is "Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA."]
Michael Crowley of the New Republic is the latest journalist to give absolution to Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates for his long record of politicizing intelligence and undercutting conciliatory policy initiatives. In the current issue of the magazine, Crowley refers to Gates as "one of Washington's most revered figures" and credits him with the completion of a "years-long rehabilitation of his once-controversial image."
This is a good time to review that "controversial image" and to consider whether and how much Mr. Gates has really changed.
As deputy director for intelligence and then deputy director of the CIA, Gates was wrong about every key intelligence question of the 1980s - either because he allowed his assumptions to override the evidence or because he was politicizing the evidence. A Kremlinologist by training, Gates was one of the last American hardliners to comprehend the changes taking place in the Soviet Union. He was wrong about Mikhail Gorbachev, wrong about the importance of reform, wrong about Moscow's pursuit of arms control and détente with the United States.
He was wrong about the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, wrong about Moscow and Nicaragua and the Sandinistas, wrong about Soviet withdrawal of ground forces from Central Europe and naval forces from the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. He penned a series of op-eds on Gorbachev, first arguing that Gorbachev was a fraud and a fake, then arguing that Gorbachev would be replaced by neo-Stalinists. Gates totally missed the emergence of Boris Yeltsin and the possibility of further reform. The year the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union was on its way to dissolution, Gates was telling various Congressional committees that a "long, competitive struggle with the Soviet Union still lies before us" and that the "dictatorship of the Communist party remains untouched and untouchable."
Gates was eager to give his bosses what they wanted during the Reagan and Bush administrations in the 1980s and 1990s.When CIA Director William Casey wanted a National Intelligence Estimate that blamed international terrorism on the Soviet Union, Gates guided the project. When Casey wanted an intelligence assessment blaming Moscow for the plot to assassinate the Pope, Gates selected the analysts and dictated the conclusions.
For an estimate to justify selling arms to Iran and passing the proceeds to the Contras in Nicaragua, again Gates was Casey's man. When the Reagan administration required speeches to justify Star Wars by trumpeting Soviet missile shields, it was Gates who tailored the intelligence and aggressively presented the case. When Casey wanted op-eds that challenged intelligence findings on the Soviet retreat from the third world, it was Gates who wrote them for The Washington Times and other papers.
Gates' tailoring of intelligence for President Ronald Reagan led to his nomination to be CIA director in 1987 after Casey succumbed to a brain tumor. The Senate Intelligence Committee did not believe that Gates was being truthful about his denials of knowledge regarding Iran-Contra, and committee Chairman David Boren (D-Oklahoma) convinced Gates he would not survive the committee's vote. Gates wisely withdrew his nomination. He was nominated a second time in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush and, once again, was prepared to withdraw his nomination following testimony and sworn affidavits that documented his politicization of intelligence on the Soviet Union, Central America, the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia...
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Michael Crowley of the New Republic is the latest journalist to give absolution to Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates for his long record of politicizing intelligence and undercutting conciliatory policy initiatives. In the current issue of the magazine, Crowley refers to Gates as "one of Washington's most revered figures" and credits him with the completion of a "years-long rehabilitation of his once-controversial image."
This is a good time to review that "controversial image" and to consider whether and how much Mr. Gates has really changed.
As deputy director for intelligence and then deputy director of the CIA, Gates was wrong about every key intelligence question of the 1980s - either because he allowed his assumptions to override the evidence or because he was politicizing the evidence. A Kremlinologist by training, Gates was one of the last American hardliners to comprehend the changes taking place in the Soviet Union. He was wrong about Mikhail Gorbachev, wrong about the importance of reform, wrong about Moscow's pursuit of arms control and détente with the United States.
He was wrong about the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, wrong about Moscow and Nicaragua and the Sandinistas, wrong about Soviet withdrawal of ground forces from Central Europe and naval forces from the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. He penned a series of op-eds on Gorbachev, first arguing that Gorbachev was a fraud and a fake, then arguing that Gorbachev would be replaced by neo-Stalinists. Gates totally missed the emergence of Boris Yeltsin and the possibility of further reform. The year the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union was on its way to dissolution, Gates was telling various Congressional committees that a "long, competitive struggle with the Soviet Union still lies before us" and that the "dictatorship of the Communist party remains untouched and untouchable."
Gates was eager to give his bosses what they wanted during the Reagan and Bush administrations in the 1980s and 1990s.When CIA Director William Casey wanted a National Intelligence Estimate that blamed international terrorism on the Soviet Union, Gates guided the project. When Casey wanted an intelligence assessment blaming Moscow for the plot to assassinate the Pope, Gates selected the analysts and dictated the conclusions.
For an estimate to justify selling arms to Iran and passing the proceeds to the Contras in Nicaragua, again Gates was Casey's man. When the Reagan administration required speeches to justify Star Wars by trumpeting Soviet missile shields, it was Gates who tailored the intelligence and aggressively presented the case. When Casey wanted op-eds that challenged intelligence findings on the Soviet retreat from the third world, it was Gates who wrote them for The Washington Times and other papers.
Gates' tailoring of intelligence for President Ronald Reagan led to his nomination to be CIA director in 1987 after Casey succumbed to a brain tumor. The Senate Intelligence Committee did not believe that Gates was being truthful about his denials of knowledge regarding Iran-Contra, and committee Chairman David Boren (D-Oklahoma) convinced Gates he would not survive the committee's vote. Gates wisely withdrew his nomination. He was nominated a second time in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush and, once again, was prepared to withdraw his nomination following testimony and sworn affidavits that documented his politicization of intelligence on the Soviet Union, Central America, the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia...