The Robert Gates File: Senate’s Doubtful Dozen

Kerry, Biden, Levin and 9 other current senators voted against Gates in 1991. Have they changed their minds?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


WASHINGTON — In 1991 when Robert Gates underwent confirmation hearings before the Senate Intelligence Committee to be Bush Senior’s Director of Central Intelligence, 31 senators voted against him. (The final vote was 64-31, with 5 not voting.) Of those 31, 12 are still in the Senate; Mother Jones asked all of them where they stand today; of the 12, John Kerry was the only one to answer our questions in full.

Carl Levin, D-Mich.: Told ABC’s “This Week” on November 12 that “I hope that his confirmation hearings can be held and that he will get a vote prior to the end of this Congress.”

In a press conference November 13, Levin elaborated: “For me, the important thing with Mr. Gates is whether or not he is independent, whether or not he’s going to speak truth to power — or will he do what Secretary Shultz said that he did, which was to shape the intelligence and the information in order to support policy. We had enough of that with George Tenet. We had enough manipulating intelligence, shaping intelligence in order to give the policy-makers what they wanted to hear.”

Max Baucus, D-Montana: “In the spirit of moving along,” Baucus told The Hill earlier this week, he would likely support Gates this time around. “Gates is certainly qualified.”

Joe Biden, D-Del.: The incoming Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair told ABC that “I am inclined to vote for him now.” He added: “I know some of his views on Iraq. I know he wasn’t of the Rumsfeld school. And to put it very, very bluntly, as long as he is not there, Rumsfeld is.”

Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M.: Did not want to comment until hearings were completed.

Kent Conrad, D-N.D.: Did not return calls or emails.

Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. (press release): “It is my fervent hope that a new Secretary of Defense will do what this Administration has seemed unwilling to do up until now — listen to our generals about our security needs both in Iraq and elsewhere. … These hearings will certainly explore his past tenure at the CIA fifteen years ago, including prior allegations of politicized intelligence. … It is my hope that his past experience has sensitized him to the danger that politicized intelligence can pose to our nation’s national security.”

Tom Harkin, D-Iowa: A spokeswoman told Mother Jones: “For now he is reserving judgment and keeping an open mind, but in light of this Administration’s track record for politicizing intelligence, and given Gates’ background, he is not optimistic this is an ideal choice.”

Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. (press release): “We thank Secretary Rumsfeld for his service. Clearly now is the time to give our men and women in uniform new leadership and a new policy that is worthy of their enormous sacrifice.”

John Kerry, D-Mass., through a spokeswoman, was the only member to fully answer Mother Jones‘ questions:

Q – What do you think of Robert Gates as the new Secretary of Defense?

A – It was about four years overdue for Don Rumsfeld to go. Where do we go from here? We need honest questions and substantive answers, and I’m going to follow the Gates confirmation hearings very closely to determine his willingness to push and adopt a new strategy in Iraq. Obviously it is encouraging that Robert Gates opposed this war from the beginning, but we need to understand where he thinks the policy needs to go today.

Q – You voted no in 1991, how would you vote today?

A – I had concerns way back then because I’d been so involved in the Iran Contra investigations and the BCCI investigations. I had reservations, and I voted them. He did things as CIA Director that assuaged some of those concerns. That’s why I’ll follow these hearings closely and with an open mind.

Q – Is this a decision for a lame-duck Congress to make?

A – The question is whether we have a thorough debate and what it reveals. I think people are going to take this confirmation very seriously in light of the kind of mess we’ve had at DOD the last six years.

Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.: Has made no specific statement on Gates, but told the Ashbury Park Press that Rumsfeld’s resignation will likely result in “more competent management and fuller support of the war in Iraq.”

John Rockefeller, D-W. Va. (press release): “The president’s choice may signal that he is searching for a realistic and pragmatic approach in Iraq and the war on terror, rather than continuing on a course driven by ideology.”

Paul Sarbanes, D-Md.: Did not return calls or emails.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate