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Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War Kindle Edition
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.
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LanguageEnglish
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PublisherVintage
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Publication dateJanuary 14, 2014
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File size22877 KB
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Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Review
“Probably one of the best Washington memoirs ever...Historians and policy wonks will bask in the revelations Gates provides on major decisions from late 2006 to 2011, the span of his time at the Pentagon…Gates is doing far more than just scoring points in this revealing volume. The key to reading it is understanding that he was profoundly affected by his role in sending American soldiers overseas to fight and be killed or maimed.”
—Thomas E. Ricks, The New York Times Book Review
“Touching, heartfelt...fascinating...Gates takes the reader inside the war-room deliberations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and delivers unsentimental assessments of each man’s temperament, intellect and management style...No civilian in Washington was closer to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than Gates. As Washington and the rest of the country were growing bored with the grinding conflicts, he seemed to feel their burden more acutely.”
—Greg Jaffe, The Washington Post
“Forthright, impassioned…highly revealing about decision making in both the Obama and Bush White Houses…[Gates’] writing is informed not only by a keen sense of historical context, but also by a longtime Washington veteran’s understanding of how the levers of government work or fail to work. Unlike many careful Washington memoirists, Gates speaks his mind on a host of issues…[he] gives us his shrewd take on a range of foreign policy matters, an understanding of his mission to reform the incoherent spending and procurement policies of the Pentagon, and a tactile sense of what it was like to be defense secretary during two wars.”
—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“A refreshingly honest memoir and a moving one.”
—Jack Keane, The Wall Street Journal
“A compelling memoir and a serious history…A fascinating, briskly honest account [of a] journey through the cutthroat corridors of Washington and world politics, with shrewd, sometimes eye-popping observations along the way about the nature of war and the limits of power.…Gates was a truly historic secretary of defense…precisely because he did get so much done…His descriptions of how he accomplished these feats—the mix of cooptation and coercion that he employed—should be read by every future defense secretary, and executives of all stripes, as a guide for how to command and overhaul a large institution.”
—Fred Kaplan, Slate
“A breathtakingly comprehensive and ultimately unsparing examination of the modern ways of making politics, policy, and war…Students of the nation’s two early twenty-first century wars will find the comprehensive account of Pentagon and White House deliberations riveting. General readers will be drawn to [Gates’] meditations on power and on life at the center of great political decisions…His vision is clear and his tale is sad. Gates takes ‘Duty’ as his title, but the account of his service also brings to mind the other two thirds of the West Point motto: ‘honor’ and ‘country.’”
—David M. Shribman, The Boston Globe
“Duty…is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of what makes Washington tick.”
—Edward Luce, Financial Times
“Gates has offered…an informed and…earnest perspective, one that Americans ought to hear, reflect on and debate.”
—Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic
“Engaging and candid….Young people who want to understand and live up to the highest ideals of American statesmanship would do well to read this book carefully; Gates has much to teach about the practical idealism that represents the best kind of American leadership.”
—Foreign Affairs
“Compelling…trenchant.”
—Newsday
“This is a serious, thoughtful, illuminating, and valuable insider account of the final years of the George W. Bush administration and early years of the Obama presidency….Gates holds little back in this revealing memoir.”
—Choice
“If you read only one book by a Washington insider this year, make it this one. It should be savored by anyone who wishes to know more about the realities of decision-making in today’s federal government.”
—Library Journal
“The full story that emerges from this detailed and often deeply personal account is of a man fed up with the dysfunction of the nation’s capital.”
—The American Conservative
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
This is a book about my more than four and a half years at war. It is, of course, principally about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where initial victories in both countries were squandered by mistakes, shortsighted- ness, and conflict in the field as well as in Washington, leading to long, brutal campaigns to avert strategic defeat. It is about the war against al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, those responsible for our national tragedy on September 11, 2001. But this book is also about my political war with Congress every day I was in office and the dramatic contrast between my public respect, bipartisanship, and calm, and my private frustration, disgust, and anger. There were also political wars with the White House, often with the White House staff, occasionally with the presidents themselves—more with President Obama than with President Bush. And finally, there was my bureaucratic war with the Department of Defense and the military services, aimed at transforming a department organized to plan for war into one that could wage war, changing the military forces we had into the military forces we needed to succeed.
George W. Bush and Barack Obama were, respectively, the seventh and eighth presidents I worked for. I knew neither man when I began working for them, and they did not know me. To my astonishment (and consternation), I became the only secretary of defense in history to be asked to remain in the position by a newly elected president, let alone one of a different party. I came to the job in mid-December 2006 with the sole purpose of doing what I could to salvage the mission in Iraq from disaster. I had no idea how to do it, nor any idea of the sweeping changes I would need to make at the Pentagon to get it done. And I had no idea how dramatically and how far my mission over time would expand beyond Iraq.
As I look back, there is a parallel theme to my four and a half years at war: love. By that I mean the love—there is no other word for it—I came to feel for the troops, and the overwhelming sense of personal responsibility I developed for them. So much so that it would shape some of my most significant decisions and positions. Toward the end of my time in office, I could barely speak to them or about them without being overcome with emotion. Early in my fifth year, I came to believe my determination to protect them—in the wars we were in and from new wars—was clouding my judgment and diminishing my usefulness to the president, and thus it played a part in my decision to retire.
I make no pretense that this book is a complete, much less definitive, history of the period from 2006 to 2011. It is simply my personal story about being secretary of defense during those turbulent, difficult years.
Chapter 1
Summoned to Duty
I had become president of Texas A&M University in August 2002, and by October 2006 I was well into my fifth year. I was very happy there, and many—but not all—Aggies believed I was making significant improvements in nearly all aspects of the university (except football). I had originally committed to staying five years but agreed to extend that to seven years—summer 2009. Then my wife, Becky, and I would finally return to our home in the Pacific Northwest.
The week of October 15, 2006, the week that would change my life, started out routinely with several meetings. Then I took to the road, ending up in Des Moines, Iowa, where I was to give a speech on Friday, the twentieth.
Just past one p.m. that day I received an e-mail from my secretary, Sandy Crawford, saying that President Bush’s national security adviser, Steve Hadley, wanted to speak to me on the phone within an hour or two. Hadley’s assistant was “quite insistent” that the message be passed to me. I told Sandy to inform the assistant I would return Steve’s call on Saturday morning. I had no idea why Steve was calling, but I had spent nearly nine years at the White House on the National Security Council (NSC) staff under four presidents, and I knew that the West Wing often demanded instant responses that were rarely necessary.
Hadley and I had first met on the NSC staff in the summer of 1974 and had remained friends, though we were in contact infrequently. In January 2005, Steve—who had succeeded Condoleezza Rice as George W. Bush’s national security adviser for the second Bush term—had asked me to consider becoming the first director of national intelligence (DNI), a job created by legislation the previous year, legislation—and a job—that I had vigorously opposed as unworkable. The president and his senior advisers wanted me to make it work. I met with Hadley and White House chief of staff Andy Card in Washington on Monday of inauguration week. We had very detailed conversations about authorities and presidential empowerment of the DNI, and by the weekend they and I both thought I would agree to take the job.
I was to call Card at Camp David with my final answer the following Monday. Over the weekend I wrestled with the decision. On Saturday night, lying awake in bed, I told Becky she could make this decision really easy for me; I knew how much she loved being at Texas A&M, and all she had to say was that she didn’t want to return to Washington, D.C. Instead, she said, “We have to do what you have to do.” I said, “Thanks a lot.”
Late Sunday night I walked around the campus smoking a cigar. As I walked past familiar landmarks and buildings, I decided I could not leave Texas A&M; there was still too much I wanted to accomplish there. And I really, really did not want to go back into government. I called Andy the next morning and told him to tell the president I would not take the job. He seemed stunned. He must have felt that I had led them on, which I regretted, but it really had been a last-minute decision. There was one consolation. I told Becky, “We are safe now—the Bush administration will never ask me to do another thing.” I was wrong.
At nine a.m. on Saturday—now nearly two years later—I returned Steve’s call as promised. He wasted no time in posing a simple, direct question: “If the president asked you to become secretary of defense, would you accept?” Stunned, I gave him an equally simple, direct answer without hesitation: “We have kids dying in two wars. If the president thinks I can help, I have no choice but to say yes. It’s my duty.” The troops out there were doing their duty—how could I not do mine?
That said, I sat at my desk frozen. My God, what have I done? I kept thinking to myself. I knew that after nearly forty years of marriage, Becky would support my decision and all that it meant for our two children as well, but I was still terrified to tell her.
Josh Bolten, a former director of the Office of Management and Bud- get, who had replaced Card as White House chief of staff earlier that year, called a few days later to reassure himself of my intentions. He asked if I had any ethical issues that could be a problem, like hiring illegal immigrants as nannies or housekeepers. I decided to have some fun at his expense and told him we had a noncitizen housekeeper. Before he began to hyperventilate, I told him she had a green card and was well along the path to citizenship. I don’t think he appreciated my sense of humor.
Bolten then said a private interview had to be arranged for me with the president. I told him I thought I could slip into Washington for dinner on Sunday, November 12, without attracting attention. The president wanted to move faster. Josh e-mailed me on October 31 to see if I could drive to the Bush ranch near Crawford, Texas, for an early morning meeting on Sunday, November 5.
The arrangements set up by deputy White House chief of staff Joe Hagin were very precise. He e-mailed me that I should meet him at eight-thirty a.m. in McGregor, Texas, about twenty minutes from the ranch. I would find him in the parking lot at the Brookshire Brothers grocery store, sitting in a white Dodge Durango parked to the right of the entrance. Dress would be “ranch casual”—sport shirt and khakis or jeans. I look back with amusement that my job interviews with both President Bush and President-elect Obama involved more cloak-and- dagger clandestinity than most of my decades-long career in the CIA.
I did not tell anyone other than Becky what was going on except for the president’s father, former president George H. W. Bush (the forty- first president, Bush 41), with whom I wanted to consult. He was the reason I had come to Texas A&M in the first place, in 1999, to be the interim dean of the George H. W. Bush School of Government and Public Service. What was supposed to be a nine-month stint of a few days a month became two years and led directly to my becoming president of Texas A&M. Bush was sorry I would be leaving the university, but he knew the country had to come first. I also think he was happy that his son had reached out to me.
I left my house just before five a.m. to head for my interview with the president. Call me old-fashioned, but I thought a blazer and slacks more appropriate for a meeting with the president than a sport shirt and jeans. Starbucks wasn’t open that early, so I was pretty bleary-eyed for the first part of the two-and-a-half-hour drive. I was thinking the entire way about questions to ask and answers to give, the magnitude of the challenge, how life for both my wife and me would change, and how to approach the job of secretary of defense. I do not recall feeling any self- doubt on the drive to the ranch that morning, perhaps a reflection of just how little I understood the direness of the situation. I knew, however, that I had one thing going for me: most people had low expectations about what could be done to turn around the war in Iraq and change the climate in Washington.
During the drive I also thought about how strange it would be to join this administration. I had never had a conversation with the president. I had played no role in the 2000 campaign and was never asked to do so. I had virtually no contact with anyone in the administration during Bush’s first term and was dismayed when my closest friend and mentor, Brent Scowcroft, wound up in a public dispute with the administration over his opposition to going to war in Iraq. While I had known Rice, Hadley, Dick Cheney, and others for years, I was joining a group of people who had been through 9/11 together, who had been fighting two wars, and who had six years of being on the same team. I would be the outsider.
I made my clandestine rendezvous in McGregor with no problem. As we approached the ranch, I could see the difference in security as a result of 9/11. I had visited other presidential residences, and they were always heavily guarded, but nothing like this. I was dropped off at the president’s office, a spacious but simply decorated one-story building some distance from the main house. It has a large office and sitting room for the president, and a kitchen and a couple of offices with computers for staff. I arrived before the president (always good protocol), got a cup of coffee (finally), and looked around the place until the president arrived a few minutes later, promptly at nine. (He was always exceptionally punctual.) He had excused himself from a large group of friends and family celebrating his wife Laura’s sixtieth birthday.
We exchanged pleasantries, and he got down to business. He talked first about the importance of success in Iraq, saying that the current strategy wasn’t working and that a new one was needed. He told me he was thinking seriously about a significant surge in U.S. forces to restore security in Baghdad. He asked me about my experience on the Iraq Study Group (more later) and what I thought about such a surge. He said he thought we needed new military leadership in Iraq and was taking a close look at Lieutenant General David Petraeus. Iraq was obviously upper-most on his mind, but he also talked about his concerns in Afghanistan; a number of other national security challenges, including Iran; the climate in Washington; and his way of doing business, including an insistence on candor from his senior advisers. When he said specifically that his father did not know about our meeting, I felt a bit uncomfortable, but I did not disabuse him. It was clear he had not consulted his father about this possible appointment and that, contrary to later speculation, Bush 41 had no role in it....
Continued in DUTY: Memoirs of a Secretary at War…
Product details
- ASIN : B00F8F3J2S
- Publisher : Vintage (January 14, 2014)
- Publication date : January 14, 2014
- Language : English
- File size : 22877 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 642 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #354,190 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #47 in Iraq War History (Kindle Store)
- #324 in Iraq War History (Books)
- #421 in Biographies of Political Leaders
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About the author
ROBERT M. GATES is the author of Duty, and A Passion for Leadership. He served as secretary of defense under presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He was an officer in the United States Air Force and worked for the CIA before being appointed director of the agency. A member of the National Security Council staff in four administrations, he served eight presidents of both political parties. He was president of Texas A&M University from 2002 to 2006, is currently chancellor of the College of William & Mary, was national president of the Boy Scouts of America from 2014 to 2016, and has served on several corporate boards of directors. In 2018 he became chairman of Eisenhower Fellowships. He lives in Washington state.
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Now, I know I'm right about all of the above. Mr. Gates' memoir "Duty" is eminently readable. It is beautifully, brilliantly written by a person with a very high IQ. "Duty" outlines in exquisite detail the progression of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, from their outset after the September 11 attacks, under George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. When both wars began to go badly, President Bush asked Mr. Gates to take over at the Defense Department, and his four-and-a-half-year tenure at Defense was highly successful, both in the conclusion of the war in Iraq, and the improvement in the security situation in Afghanistan.
Mr. Gates is complimentary of both President Bush and President Obama, at least in terms of their personal integrity and intelligence. The press portrayal of George W. Bush as a bumbling idiot was clearly wrong and mean-spirited. Also, the liberal press portrayal of Dick Cheney as a malevolent Rasputin to George W. Bush was clearly wrong, again with malign intent. Mr. Bush is portrayed as a thoughtful and deliberative president who was not afraid to make decisions. He did not delegate important decisions to his subordinates, including Cheney. (Bush's biggest problem, as we all know, was that he was an inept public speaker). Mr. Gates is also kind to Obama, complimenting him on his intelligence and deliberative style.
Mr. Gates is unstinting in his criticism of both Congress and of Obama's inner circle. Regarding Congress, Gates clearly has little respect for either party and the never-ending nattering between parties. He singles out Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for particular scorn for being partisan first, last, and always, , but he doesn't give congressional Republicans much credit, either.
Mr. Gates has no respect for Obama's inner circle, especially Vice President Biden. Gates is careful to note and compliment Biden's social skills, but he singles Biden out as a fairly stupid, incompetent, ever-partisan, unreliable, and mean-spirited back stabber within the confines of the White House. This was very eye-opening to me.
Mr. Gates is extremely complimentary of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He loved her intelligence, passion, work ethic, and her sense of humor. He feels that she is a person with a great sense of honor and of mission. She was never afraid to oppose either Obama or Biden. I was also surprised with this take on Hillary Clinton, who I have never liked.
If there is a problem with this book, it is that it does not have a linear timeline. The book bounces around from crisis to crisis, often backtracking from one time and place to another. It was a little confusing at times. The book is extremely detailed. I enjoyed Mr. Gates' discussion of his interactions with service members at all levels of rank. The amount of work involved in his tenure is excruciating to read about. He worked basically 24/7 the entire time. His travel schedule was unbelievable.
I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone interested in politics and military matters. It is a magnificent book.
Robert Gates initially appeared to me as a civilian who either voluntary or involuntary skipped military service to his country then came to an epiphany that the citizen soldiers were worth considering. At least he came to this conclusion where many others in the Obama Administration have not. I always thought him ambivalent about decision making and took the consensus road.
On reading the book I found it equally divided between his time with the Bush then the Obama Administrations. If I learned anything in the first part of the book, it is how George Bush was determined and focused on his own efforts to keep victory in Iraq. I obtained great insight, though Robert Gates eyes as SECDEF, into George W, Bush’s strong character which correlates with his creation of” Decision Points.”
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Contrarily to my initial opinion, Robert Gates as SECDEF appears to be more of a negotiator and mediator than a leader of a 700 billion dollar/year enterprise. I learned through the book he was a Second Lieutenant 1967-69 in USAF in SAC and understands the military somewhat.
I appreciate his time and service as SECDEF, but he spent much time worrying about military members, micromanaging, and seemed to shun his main responsibilities. If he manages his immediate civilian and commander subordinates, then the military member will be taken care of. He shirked his responsibility with the “2008 Bent Spear Event” with the B-52 sortie from Minot AFB to Barksdale AFB August 30, 2007 where six live nuclear warheads were flown in error. An example of the latter is the firing of SECUSAF Wynne and USAF Chief Moseley. He left it to someone else! That is his responsibility to fire these individuals for they work directly for him! Then to go to Mosley’s retirement? Duaaaaaaa? Then he went to Langley AFB, Combat Command, and he states he was well received and then to Scott AFB, Military Airlift Command and received more elation. Those are both competitive major air commands within the USAF. Why did he not go to Global Strike Command (The offending command)? That is the system that had the “Bent Spear Event!” This is weasel-esque.
In the second portion of the book it is very interesting to peer into the new administration from his point of view with his value sets and experience versus new appointees lack of awareness of the world and national corporate history. The Obama Administration appears to have had the most inexperienced foreign policy staffers meddling in serious issues like Turkey and Armenia without knowing the caustic history between the two. Gates appears to be a father figure to Barak Obama in the fact he is 28 years older and it appears the President takes his advice readily and easily according to him. In this tour with this administration he appears a more mature SECDEF. He changes course early in the Obama Administration to micromanage the budget process for acquisition instead of the entire DOD in the previous 2 years. Gates provides a very favorable appraisal of Obama making decisions regarding DOD, drawn down in Iraq, surge in Afghanistan, and relationships with military personnel which I did not expect. Probably because Obama was his boss. He was not that generous to Biden where he felt he possessed competency, credibility, and integrity issues. His impressions of his entire stent at the DOD helm was that “Politics overriding national interests,” especially with the latter administration.
It appears this work is a well-documented, methodical and encompassing diary as to his real intensions of accepting this position all along. I feel the book is well written an understandable in my vernacular. He approaches much from a historical perspective due to the fact he is a trained historian. After this read I have much more respect for Robert Gates and his contributions to our defense over his tenure. I now have great compassion for his predicament as SECDEF. His written message is easily comprehendible to me and other military people. His proven and verified advocacy for the military member turns me to his side. However, I felt he overdoes it in his worrying about uniform DOD members. That is what colonels and generals deal with! Not the SECDEF! Do your job and, not theirs! Gates through his words appeared to be very instrumental; in the rapid acquisition of MRVPs. ISR, and on fighting the VA on behalf of wounded warriors…. Let us see if this advocacy continues in his civilian position.
Finally, his continuous criticism of Biden and his contrary positive view of Hillary Clinton appear to be an orchestrated opening statement to the 2016 presidential election. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, could this be?
Top reviews from other countries
I find the insights very helpful. Its written in casual and yet thoughtful language. I would recommend this book to everyone who is interested in world politics, economies of war etc.
The book goes into significant detail about both wars, largely at the strategic level (tactical information largely is restricted to efforts to help protect the troops). He outlines the decision process, the people involved, the countries involved, and the bureaucracies involved. As a non-registered Republican, Gates comes off as very even-handed. He paints Bush in a slightly more positive light than Obama, which I was going to refute with a claim that Bush was an experienced president in the final lap of his second term while Obama was a new president who would have to seek re-election in four years. But Gates notes that himself. He characterizes Bush 43 as a man of decisive action, who was less concerned with political issues than with what he thought was right. He was fair and personable to Gates, although their relationship never went beyond a professional one. These same things can be said about Obama, other than his greater weighing of political costs and benefits and greater influence of White House staff. Without giving away the content of the book, it's pretty remarkable how similar Obama and Bush appear through Gates' eyes. To be sure, they were very different people and Gates notes that often enough. But at the bottom line, beyond their opposing political views, both were professionals who appeared to be very competent to Gates.
There are a lot of other people beyond presidents mentioned in the book. Gates is very positive about Condi Rice and Hillary Clinton. Again, two different personalities and political positions, but two very competent Secretaries of State who both worked well with Gates. In fact, the information about Hillary is so positive I think this book would be a real boost for her should she run for president. Even for right-leaning readers, Gates claims that Hillary taught him not to judge a book by its cover, or media reputation. Biden and Cheney both get a lot of ink. Both were extremists within their governments. Cheney was an extreme war hawk, Biden an extreme peace dove. Foreign leaders get some coverage, as do many other people in the upper levels of Washington politics. And certainly, the generals and admirals get a lot of attention. Almost all of it is positive, although comments about their lapses in media judgment are noted. In general, Gates got along with most of the people he worked with, but he doesn't shy away from describing difficult situations or people, nor does he shy away from talking about the people he ended up firing. So this isn't a feel-good book where he's kind to everyone. Everyone takes a shot here and there, but it really seems that Gates generally tried to get along with most people and most of them tried the same in return (which is actually fairly shocking in politics!).
All in all, I found it to be a very fascinating and (as far as I can tell) very honest look behind the curtains of power. Gates comes across as perhaps too sensible and thoughtful, or at least that's how it seemed to me. I could hardly fault or disagree with any of his decisions. If someone else does, at least the logic behind those decisions are clearly laid out, often with details of the political and/or military machinery that surrounded those decisions. Gates also deals with broader issues, such as problems with the Congress, or with the national media. Gates calls himself, above all, a realist, and I think he deserves that claim. He was both for and against war in different contexts, he served both presidents very well (Obama wanted him to stay on), and his motives seem to be largely apolitical and without career objectives. So as a person, I found him to be an interesting person to read about. As a topic, this book deserves to be read by a wide audience. Anyone interested in the personalities of the big players, the machinery of war and/or politics, the day-to-day challenges of being the Secretary of Defence, the history of US politics (going back almost 40 years), and plain human nature in general, is probably going to get something significant out of this book. At 600 pages it's definitely not a fast read. But it is well written, and for 600 pages of biographical history, it captured my attention from start to finish. With his added final thoughts and caveats at the end of the book addressing a lot of the questions I came up with throughout the book, I really don't have any reason to not give this book 5 stars. It's not the best biography I've ever read, but it certainly is a very good one that is sure to appeal to a broad audience on both sides of the political fence. Which, as Gates would point out, is a good thing. Solid five stars.