>> rose: welcome to the program. from the college and william & mary in williamsberg, virginia, a conversation with former secretary of defense robert gates.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: robert gait has had a long and distinguished career in pub public service. he has served under eight presidents. his career began at the c.i.a. in the 1960s where he rose to become director of the agency under president george h.w.

bush. he also served as an officer in the united states air force. after 26 years at the c.i.a. and national security council, he became president of texas and, a, many university. in 2006, president george w. bush appointed him sex tear of defense succeeding donald rumsfeld. under his watch, gates oversaw iraq's troop surge. president-elect obama asked him to stay in the job. he became the first defense secretary to serve both a republican and democratic president. in the obama administration he played a pivotal role in shaping u.s. policy in afghanistan. he was a key player in the decision to send additional forces into the country. he was at the center of the debate on the raid to kill osama bin laden last may. gates stepped down as defense secretary in june, 2011. here is what president obama said at gates' farewell ceremony. >> what you see is a man that i've come to know and respect. a humble american patriot. a man of common sense and decency.

quite simply one of our nation's finest public servants. >> reporter: i talked with bob gates in williamsburg virginia at the college of william & mary where he accepted the post of chancellor, a post held by gorge washington, margaret thatcher, sandra day o'connor and many others. here's a conversation with bob gates. it's a pleasure to be at william & mary. it's coming home for you. >> absolutely. >> rose: 1965 a young bob gates graduates from william & mary. >> i was 17 years old when i came here from kansas. i think i got in because they didn't have anybody from kansas. >> rose: (laughs) so you fit the geographical portrait? >> exactly. (laughs) >> dave: but you came here and now you come back as chancellor, an honorary job but a distinguished group of people have served here. margaret thatcher sandra day

o'connor is your immediate predecessor. why did you do this? >> first of all, the president of the college made a very compelling case. first of all, the predecessors that you mentioned but the first chancellor after president was gorge washington. >> rose: simultaneous to being president. >> he was chancellor through 11 years, through his entire presidency. and i figured if i could sit in the chair he sat in that would be worth the price of admission. >> rose: william and mary is an interesting college because so many presidents came here, from thomas jefferson to james monroe also the great scholar jon stewart of comedy fame came here. >> exactly. >> rose: when you look ahead to your life what do you hope to accomplish? well, i'm writing two books. the first is a memoir of my time as secretary of defense under president obama and president

bush. it was a unique time and a unique experience working under two presidents, two different parties, never been done before and i also want to write about how you lead change in big public institutions. i've done it at c.i.a. and texas a&m, department, and it's different than the private sector and i don't think there's much out there by any time you've done it and particularly at several different big institutions. >> rose: i want to talk about broad things and specific things. beginning with broad things. what's the... how do you assess our national security today? >> well, i think we don't... it's just first of all very different from the world i grew up in in terms of the cold war. there was an overarching enemy. there was always looming on the horizon the danger of the a

nuclear confrontation. so the soviet union posed an existential threat to us and our whole national security for the most part was shaped around... our policies were shaped around that threat. now there's many diverse challenges. none are probably existential at this point but all of them are challenges and all of them have to be dealt with and the problem is that crises and problems just keep coming up and nothing ever goes away. and what people i think don't understand is that we have this gigantic national security apparatus that people talk about but when push comes to shove it's eight people in have to deal with all of these issues sitting around the table in the situation room led by the president and the platter is really full and it's a very complicated world.

>> rose: those people are the president, the vice president, the secretary of state, secretary of defense, national security advisor, chairman of the joint chiefs. that's six. >> director of national intelligence and director of c.i.a. >> rose: that brings me to a specific, which is the night of the bin laden raid. and the assassination... >> we pledged to each other we would never go public with operational details. >> rose: how long did that last? >> five hours. (laughs) >> there was... it's important to understand there are no easy... there's no easy solutions at that level. there are hard choices. >> i always used to tell people that presidents never get to choose between good and bad options. by the time the problem gets to the president there are no good options. you only get the choice of the least bad option because if there's a good option somebody at a lower level will make that decision and take credit for it. >> rose: so you're sitting in that room. what were your concerns? >> my major concern... i had no

doubts that the seals could perform the mission. unlike... i was sitting in the situation or in the white house when the desert one operation to rescue the hostages in tehran went forward in 1980 and the disaster ensued. part of that... a big part of that were problems with our military. lack of coordination, lack of training, equipment wasn't that good. i have none of those doubts with respect to the bin laden raid. these people do these things almost on a daily basis. they're the best that have ever been and they've got the best equipment. my concern with... was whether or not he was there and i think what people don't realize that made the decision tough for the president was we didn't have one single piece of hard data that he was in that compound. not one. the whole thing was a circumstantial case built by

analysts at the c.i.a. and we quizzed those analysts very aggressively in terms of their case and in terms of their confidence and the confidence level of those who built the case ranged from 40% to 80% that he was actually there. and having led that analytical side i said come on, there's no way to quantify this. you've just got different levels of gut feel about whether or not you're right. >> rose: there was no single person who could tell you he was in that building. no person that had seen him in that building. >> right. so the crux of the decision revolved less about the efficacy of the military piece of it than the consequences for us if he wasn't there in terms of the relationship with pakistan, in terms of the war with afghanistan. if pakistan shut off our supply lines. if the pakistanis were even more

aggressive in supporting the taliban and so on. that was why i said it was a gutsy call. >> rose: you said it was a courageous call. as courageous as you've ever seen a president make. >> because i think you can make the case that the failure of the desert one operation wasn't the only thing that led to president carter's defeat in 1980 but it was a big piece of it. it kind of symbolized other deficiencies and so it was a risky call. >> rose: so having known that, they they didn't have enough helicopters and that dust was a factor what were your worries with these navy seals going in that have been informed by your experience at c.i.a. >> i wanted to make sure if things went south that... >> rose: we had more people in there. >> that we had enough capability to get them out and back to

afghanistan. >> rose: is it remarkable that they did having lost one helicopter? >> well, i think because of the... we met on this a lot. and admiral mcraven, who led this operation personally oversaw the training and the planning and he and i had a lot of conversations it was because of this dialogue and the time we spent working with the president in the situation that we prepared for those contingencys so we did have enough. that when that helicopter went down which, incidentally, i thought i was going to have a heart attack. >> rose: what were you thinking? >> well the disaster at desert one began with a helicopter crash. >> rose: you said "deja vu"? >> i thought, my god, not again. but these guys... that's the difference in the training and everything else. these guys handled it masterfully.

>> it is said you wanted to bomb and not go in. >> well, i wanted to kill him as much as everybody else. my preoccupation the whole time i was secretary was the wars in iraq and afghanistan and my objective was how do we bring these wars to a conclusion that serves the national security of the united states and i didn't want any distractions from those two wars that we were already in where we had tens of thousands of our troops at risk. so my primary concern was the reaction of the pakistanis if we went in there and he wasn't there my view was let's kill him but let's use a missile of some kind. and the reason... the objection to that was well, we couldn't collect any information to

exploit and we won't know for sure whether we got him, my view was you'll know. it may take a few months and it's not draz mat i can and you won't get the headline that you will on a seal raid but you have a... if you think he's there that's probably the least risky way to take him out. but the president asked for my view and i told him. i said maybe, mr. president, i've been in this job too long and i've become too cautious but... and he said... he actually was very reassuring. he said "no, you've raised lots of questions i have that to think about and make sure i'm comfortable that i know the answers to those questions." but i've always thought it was a very courageous... >> rose: nobody can say i would have made the same decision. you don't really know until

you're in the room and you listen to what the best people you know say to you and then you have to go as president and decide. >> absolutely. >> rose: and you're putting everything on the table. this would have been a disaster if it turned out really bad. like it did for jimmy carter. >> if it had been another desert one it would have been catastrophic. and it would have been the additional consequence... when that helicopter went down and hit the plane in 1980 and we lost the servicemen it was all inside iran and other than propaganda and so on there really wasn't a consequence of magnitude if this mission failed it could have put the war in afghanistan at risk and that was one of my principal concerns. and so that's one of the things

that made it a tough call because the ramifications of failure were much broader than in 1980. >> rose: the pakistanis. what do you believe they knew about osama bin laden? >> that's very interesting and secretary clinton and i talked about this a lot. i think you've just asked me and she and i talked about this we find it inconceivable that bin laden lived in a military garrison town for five years in pakistan living amid a number of retired generals and with a number of military facilities nearby and that nobody knew. by the same token based on everything that i've been told and i saw before i left we don't have any evidence that they did know. nothing in bin laden's papers or anything else. so instinctively you have to say of course somebody knew. but there hasn't been any

evidence that i'm aware of that's turned up to that effect. >> rose: can you imagine circumstances in which someone at i.s.i. or someone in the military would have known and not reported it up to the director of i.s.i. or the army chief of staff general kin yanni? >> yes. >> rose: you can? >> yes. >> why? >> well, i've dealt with i.s.i. for a long time. back when we were actually working very closely with them, supporting the mujahadeen against the soef yes, sirs in afghanistan in 1980s. and... >> rose: they were on your side. everybody was supporting the mujahadeen. >> exactly. but it's a... let's just say that they don't have the same kind of oversight that our intelligence agencies do. >> rose: so they have rogue elements within i.s.i.? >> well, i'm not sure how rogue they are, just independent. >> in afghanistan if the pakistanis had done everything that you wanted them to do would

that war look very different today? >> i think it would. from the time the situation began to get worse in 2005 thereabouts the influx of extremists and foreign fighters and the taliban coming across the pakistani border has always been a huge challenge for us and the pakistanis have acted against these guys. they've drawn the chrif went of six divisions from the indian border. about 140,000 troops in western paz. they've taken thousands of casualties so you can't say they haven't done anything. they really have. and they've suffered a lot for it. but in terms of the political decision to deny the taliban the ability for their leaders to sit in peshawar or quetta, those

decisions haven't been made and they've just been unwilling to work with us in terms of how do you stop the infiltration across the border. musharraf... i saw musharraf, president musharraf in pakistan in february of 2007 and musharraf says to me "so what's a lone sent troy do if he sees 30 or 40 pakistanis coming across 30 or 40 taliban going into afghanistan? what's a lone sent troy do as they're walking by?" i said "how about warning us and we'll set up an ambush." he said "well, i like ambushes." and i said "big talk." >> rose: so they don't want to do it in the end. >> they're hedging their bets, charlie. and if you take the long perspective you can understand why. these guys believe we have abandoned them four times. trys in wars with india, once when we turned our backs on them

after the soviets left afghanistan and then a fourth time when we imposed the pressler amendment, had to impose it when we found out they had a nuclear weapon. had to cut off all our military relations with the pakistani military. so their view is there's a very strong likelihood the united states will cut and run or leave afghanistan and leave them holding the bag. and so they're playing both sides of the street to protect themselves against that. i think that the strategic agreement that the administration has signed with the afghans that commits us to staying there and providing assistance and training and so on for the long term should help reassure pakistanis that we're not going to do that, we're not going to walk away as we did in the late 1980s. so that they will... i mean, our effort over the years has been to get them to come down on our side of the fence. to stop hedging and fully commit

to our side. i think that's still... we're not there yet. >> rose: and there's nothing we can do to change their mind about protecting two of america's worst enemies, al-zawahiri and mullah omar. >> right. >> rose: nothing. >> believe me, people have tried. in both the bush and obama administrations. >> rose: the president has suggested that he... the surge troops will be withdrawn and that he may withdraw more by the end of... speed up the schedule. is there risk in that and do you support that decision? >> well, i'm not there and i'm not aware of the debates that are going on and what decisions are being made but i will say this. a surge is a surge, it's not a long-term reinforcement and the reality is the surge in afghanistan has lasted longer than the surge in iraq did.

so it has been in there and it has made a big difference, particularly in the south where we finally had enough troops to clear the taliban out and i think is making a difference in the east. so i... if i were in the job, i would have supported the decision. in fact, did support the decision that the surge would end ultimately by the end of september. >> rose: right. >> by the end of this september. that would still leave us roughly 68,000 to 70,000 troops. >> rose: the surge was 30,000. >> right. and so then i think the question is at what pace in 2013, 2014 do you draw those forces down? and, frankly, that's a place where i would give a lot of weight to the view of the commander in terms of the pacing of the drawdown to zero combat

troops. and kind of depending and like in iraq the situation will be different in different provinces and different districts in affidavits so some it's probably relatively safe for us to draw down. afghans have been in charge of security? kabul for years at this point. i think afghans have a responsibility for security for more than half the pop population of the country. so i think that the pacing of that final drawdown... i mean, everybody knows it's coming to an end in 2014. it's very much like the agreement that president bush reached with the iraqi government in terms of all of our troops being out of iraq by the end of 2011 but i think what i would be arguing in giving the commander quite a bit of

flexibility in the pacing. since we all know how this movie is going to end then i think giving that commander the discretion is important. >> rose: somehow this movie going to end? >> how the afghan story ends is very much like the question of how the iraq story ends. we don't know yet. the hope in both places is that the governments have enough authority and enough military power to be able to prevent extremists from taking over the government in the afghan case to keep the taliban from resurging and starting a civil war or trying to overthrow the government in kabul and then the work of decades of trying to build a more modern state in afghanistan. >> rose: do you believe the afghans will be able to take over and perform in a way to prevent a taliban takeover in

2014? >> i think the answer to that question depends in part on how the next two and a half years plays out. the afghan army has grown a lot faster than was originally planned. and i think despite the problems that we've had that everything i've heard, everything i saw in my many visits out there is they're pretty good. nobody's ever questioned the afghans' ability to fight. >> rose: right. (laughs) kicked out the russians didn't they? >> they beat the russians, they beat alexander the great, they beat the brits. >> rose: they know tough, don't say in. >> these guys are warriors. >> rose: but, in fact, it's that history that made some people say don't get involved in a war in afghanistan because they kicked everybody. there's a long history there that says this has been a place that empires come and fail. >> i had grave concerns about significant troop buildup in

afghanistan. and... the case that was made to me by general mcchrystal i found compelling. he said the size of our footprint is not as important as what we do with it and as long as the afghans believe that we're their friends and allies and there to help them and that we believe when they have developed an army. we're not there to try and impose a system on them as the soviets did. we're not there to try to conquer them. people forget the soviets killed millions of afghans. you talk about civilian casualties and the efforts we take to prevent civilian casualties but the russians forced five million afghans into exile and probably killed another couple of million. that's what the afghan experience with foreign invaders has been. we're there under different circumstances. we... the government in kabul is a government that basically we helped them have elections and... >> rose: is that because the

tribal system is a... it has certain limits in its power because of tribal nature of the country. >> there's never been in the whole history of afghanistan a strong central government and from the first conversation i had with president obama at the ranch when i was interviewing for the job as secretary i said we're not paying enough attention to the provinces, the districts and the tribes. we need a handful of... and the obama administration, when we were debating strategy in 2009 said let's forget trying to build a strong centralized government in afghanistan. let's focus on a handful of ministries that really matter to us like the ministry of the interior, the ministry of defense, maybe the ministry of education, ministry of health and not worry so much about the ministry of sports. and let's focus on those that are important to us achieving our objective and getting out of there. on the question of corruption, there's no question that it's a big problem.

but charlie, corruption is a major problem in most developing countries. i mean a candidate was a member of the chinese politburo. >> rose: the standing committee of the politburo. >> his wife is now accused of corruption and potentially accused of poisoning a british businessman and everybody know there is's corruption in china but there's corruption in a lot of these countries and it's a problem we have to deal with. it's a problem for u.s. business but it's not unique to afghanistan is my point. >> therefore it is said that general mcchrystal had the best relationshipi and had a good relationship and could speak to him. how hard was it to lose him and was it necessary? >> stan didn't give me anything to work with. he basically just took responsibility. it's the command ethic of people

like mcchrystal where if something goes wrong under them or there's an impression that they're not correct in their behavior toward their civilian commanders that they have to take the fall and frankly i was very concerned that losing mcchrystal would have huge consequences, negative consequences in afghanistan and it was actually president who suggested petraeus. and the irony is the second he said it i realized he had put his finger on the one guy that i had the confidence we wouldn't drop the ball with a change of commanders i didn't know anybody else who could move in there and pick up the rein it is way petraeus could but it was the

president's suggest and, frankly, that's when i said okay. >> you have also said looking at general petraeus and what happened in iraq that that perhaps the surge in iraq was if not the, one of the most important achievements for you as a public official. >> well, my approach was in talking with general petraeus basically i told him i'll get you as many troops as i can for as long as i can and i basically said your battle space is baghdad and mine is washington, d.c. and mine's more dangerous. (laughter) >> rose: more treacherous. >> well, there's churchill's old line that politics is much more dangerous than war because in war they can only kill you once. >> rose: (laughs) but actually thing that i was

proudest of was what i was able to do to help the troops from the more heavily armored vehicles, medevaced to the treatment of wounded warriors. those were the things that as i looked back that i was the proudest of. >> but the surge was successful in your definition? >> yes. i think what the surge enabled was for us to be able to hand the iraqis a more stable, more peaceful country where they had the opportunity to build a relatively democratic state and iraq is unusual in that among developing countries it's extremely wealthy. >> rose: it's got a lot of oil. >> and it's got a highly educated population so they have a lot of opportunitys if they can get past their internal problems and, you know, i think it's very messy right now. the truth is, though, that it's

still basically the only arab democracy despite all the different champs that they face. but my concern was how do we bring this conflict in iraq to a conclusion that is not a disaster for the united states? and given where we were in 2006. and i think we did that and more. >> rose: history will judge, but what is your instinct about whether we should have invaded iraq? >> well, as i said all along beginning with my confirmation hearing i don't know the answer to that question. if iraq ends up as a moderate arab democracy and right there in the heart of the middle east i think... >> rose: what's the likelihood of that? >> well, 50-50. >> do you fear the iranians may end up with more influence in

iraq than we want to see that's in our national interest? >> i think that... i have always believed that clearly the iranians want more influence in iraq i've always believed that iraqi nationalism will win out in that respect. people forget these two countries fought an awful war for eight years in the 1980s. hundreds of thousands of iraqis, mainly shi'a soldiers died in that war. i don't think they've forgotten that. so i think we... i don't question for a second the iranians want more influence, that we're maneuvering to get more influence but but i think that there are enough iraqis who are iraqi nationalists that at the end of the day i there will be a bulwark against them. >> rose: you have also said we went to iraq on the wrong

premise-- weapons of mass destruction-- and there were none there. >> right. >> rose: do you know why we went to war on that premise? >> well, first of all i am convinced that all those that were involved in that decision up to and including the president believed there were weapons of mass destruction. the reality is that nearly every intelligence service in the world believed that there were weapons of mass destruction. i attribute the error in the intelligence to the fact that in the gulf war... first gulf war the analysts underestimated how far along saddam was in developing nuclear weapons. >> rose: and after the war... >> and after the war we discovered that he could have potentially been within months of having a device of some kind. >> rose: but then the notion was that he dismantled it.

>> then there were a lot of inspection bus at the end of the day people forget also he threw the inspectors out. and played games with the inspectors the whole time. so i can see where people came to that analytical conclusion but i think that the notion that the president or anybody at the time in 2003 intentionally misled people. >> rose: where do you think we are with respect to the arab spring and what options are there for the united states? >> well, first of all, i think we need to realize that our ability to influence the outcome in most of these countries is extremely limited. the ability of any outsideer to influence the outcome is very limited. i worry, frankly, that... and i'm an intelligence guy, i'm a pessimist, basically.

there's the old saying when an intelligence officer smell it is flowers he looks around for the coffin. >> rose: (laughs) i didn't realize you were that type. >> but i... we are stepping off into the unknown in the middle east. the political tectonic plate, if you will, has shifted significantly. and we don't know how this is going to come out. there were several of these countries-- iraq among them-- that syria and libya that are artificial reunited nations from the time they were colonys where they have artificial boundaries. i always... i like to tell people that any time you see a straight line in the middle east winston churchill probably drew it in 1920. >> rose: (laughs) >> and... but they are artificial creations that have put together historically adversarial tribes, ethnic

groups and religions and the way that they've been held together in all three of those countries was by the iron fist of repression. the question is with weaker governments will historically contrifugal forces tear those apart and frankly the early returns from libya are not encouraging. and syria, this violence is... the regime in syria is a minority, ethnically and religiously and they know that if they lose they'll probably be slaughtered. so i think, frankly, the administration has been wise and being very careful about getting involved, particularly militarily, in syria. there are a lot of people in that opposition we don't want to see running syria. >> rose: some of them have been kicked out by the syrian government and had a lot of connections to islamism and

whatever it represents and are now back as part of the opposition. >> but the question also is for example in egypt. and this presidential debate that took place in egypt last week was kind of an extraordinary thing and the debate over the role of islam in the governments and so on. and the irony is the former member of the muslim brotherhood is now being castigated by the muslim brotherhood as sort of a heretic and so on. but it remains to be how a situation in egypt comes out and the problem these countries face-- and a number of u.s. commentators are written about this-- is that when these elections are over these countries face enormous challenges, particularly economic challenges. and that's especially true of egypt. especially with the decline of tourism after... over the last year or so.

so i think this is a book that remains to be written and i think the u.s. needs to proceed with humility in terms of what we can actually accomplish and also with great care because we don't know-- to use the phrase we talked about earlier-- how that movie is going to end and it may end differently in different countries. >> rose: but what choices do we have? >> well, i think that we have to continue to articulate our principles. that we want democratic rule, we want protection of human rights. that the people ought to be represented and that the governments ought to solve their problem. i think when we begin to get into specifics with specific countries we begin to... i think each of these countries needs to find its own path to a more representative government. >> rose: and it's not our path

or our model that we should recommend. >> if it's our path it will fail because it will be an alien graft on to another culture. and we don't appreciate fully enough how different some of these cultures are and i just think that democracy and freedom are not based on one election. it's based on democratic institutions, on the rule of law on civil society. none of these arab states have any of those things to any particular degree. >> you have said that was the most difficult problem you had to find, the worst problem for finding a good answer. >> correct. >> rose: what are the choices? >> well, i think there that there are fundamentally three: a military attack which, as i've said and others have said will immediately rally 70 million

iranians around the mullahs and i believe risks igniting a war. are the american people ready for a third war in the middle east in ten years? and the assumption behind that is the iranians won't do much if we launch that kind of an attack. >> and you believe? >> well, first of all, you have to be honest with yourself and say it's an act of war. and then you're hoping the other guys sort of shrug it off, maybe fire a few missiles and complain a lot but don't close the strait of hormuz and send the price of oil to $200 a barrel. don't launch attacks against the oil facilities of other countries in the gulf. don't launch terrorist attacks against us and our friends across the middle east and perhaps even here at home. and don't get even more involved in iraq or and afghanistan. so that's one option, the

military option. the other option is allowing iran to go forward with their nuclear program and facing the reality that a nuclear armed iran probably would ignite a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region of the world. you can have a nuclear armed iran with missiles that can already each israel and could probably within two or three years reach europe and an iran emboldened to behave even more aggressively around the region. >> rose: so you're suggesting containment is not an alternative? >> well, i'm saying containment has huge risks associated with it, just like a military attack does. the third option is... and the only good option is putting enough pressure on the iranian government that they make the decision for themselves.

that continuing to seek nuclear weapons is actually harming the security of the country and perhaps more importantly to them putting the regime itself at risk and there are signs that those sanctions are bebe againing to really bite and some much more severe european union sanctions will come into effect this summer. there are some additional things that can be done. >> rose: and there is pressure in india and china to stop buying iranian oil. >> and china has reduced their buy of iranian oil, south africa has and so on h. so this is the only good outcome as far as i can see and are there variations on these things? probably. but fundamentally these are the three choices. >> rose: what if israel does it on its own? >> well, i think that would be worse than us doing it. because i think that then has lots of regional complications

they may end up in a much larger myself conflict. so i think that would be worse. >> rose: so we have to change the behavior and not the regime, so to speak. >> well, i think setting as a goal regime change is too ambitious and we can't on our own bring that about. the key is bringing about changes in the policies of the regime and long term again articulating our principles and then supporting those reform elements in iran. >> well, the argument is made by governor romney and others within the national security conversation that the administration that you served should have been more positive about the revolution taking place in the streets that the iranians put down after the election of ahmadinejad. that there was more you could have done to signal support for them and that it would have been

a wise policy. >> these things are always tough choices. we face the same kind of question in the early 1980s on supporting solidarity in poland. at what point does your support... fers of all if your support becomes public the regimess turn it against these movements and basically make the argument at home that the movements have no legitimacy. that they are the creature of foreign intervention... of foreign governments who are trying to change the way it... sovereign countries are governed so we are very careful about how we supported solidarity. the question is whether you put the reform elements or those who want to bring about change from

inside, whether you put them at greater risk including risk to their lives by your support. >> rose: do you give president obama high marks in the national security arena? >> i had no difference moving from the bush administration to the obama administration. the situation in iraq that path had already been cleared the new president sent additional troops into afghanistan. he was as aggressive if not more so in going after terrorists in al qaeda. i think that the relationship with china has been managed pretty well. >> rose: how about the soviet union? how about russia? >> well, my view... >> rose: that's your expertise! >> i think if anything we've been too patient with the russians.

>> rose: so we've put too much time on resetting and waiting for them to respond? >> well, i think you had to do those things and we did need... i think getting a new start agreement was important if for no other reason than it gives us confidence of what's going on. >> rose: do you agree with governor romney that russia is our principal adversary or how he's characterized the national security issue? >> no, i don't think so. >> rose: but he has said that... you recognize he's said that. >> russia is a mixed picture. i never thought i'd see american military equipment going across the transsiberian railroad but the russians are allowing us to resupply with non-lethal equipment afghanistan. the russians have not blocked sanctions against iran. so it's a mixed picture with russia. my concern about the russians right now is more about what's going on inside russia for russians than it is about them as an threat to the united

states >> what's the difference between the way president bush acted with the way president obama actd? >> i think so he'll not go around the table he'll go around the backbench. to hear from the second and third tier officials president bush welcomed discussion but he didn't point his finger and say "what do you think?" other than the national security principle principals. >> rose: what instincts did president bush have that president obama didn't have?

>> first of all you have to pit these presidents when i knew them perspective. president bush was in the last two years of eight years as president. he was never going to run for office again. he basically made his historical bed and so he was very confident of kind of the decisions he'd made and most of the big decisions had already been made. the surge, obviously, was a new one. but this was a guy who had, when i started working for him six years of experience as president of the united states. i worked for president obama in the very first two years of his administration. here's a president who knew from the beginning that he was going to run for reelection but he also had a lot to learn in terms of the national security arena, frankly i think he was an incredibly fast learner and his desire to get a broad range of

views was highly commendable. but i think that the different... a lot of the differences between the two in some ways have to do with when i worked with them. >> rose: but you've also worked for the following presidents in one way or the other whether at the c.i.a. or the national security council. richard nixon. jimmy carter. gerald ford. >> reagan. >> rose: reagan. national security for bush 41 and lyndon johnson. what have you learned about leadership? >> well, first of all, they're all different. people ask me how can you work for presidents as different as president bush and president obama? i say "i worked for jimmy carter and ronald reagan." are you kidding me? >> rose: that's a difference! >> you adapt or you... that... e

actually in some ways an important lesson. i think that president... i don't think many of these presidents worked hard enough with the congress. cultivated the congress in some ways the guy who did it best was the first president. >> rose: lyndon johnson. >> lyndon johnson. >> rose: because he knew the congress. >> but just in terms of inviting these guys down to the white house for drinks and having some time when there's no no agenda and getting to know each other i don't think either president obama or president bush did more of that. >> rose: and if they had we might have had less dysfunction in government today. >> well, it couldn't have hurt. >> rose: we haven't mentioned china. what ought to be america's

policy? >> i think that the policies that the last several u.s. presidents have followed towards china have been pretty much on the mark. i think that we need to make sure that the chinese know when we're unhappy about policies that they're following, whether it's their currency or the theft of intellectual property. their aggressive behavior in the south china sea but the other side of the coin is n minute is that at this point i believe the party and the government probably recognize that the only legitimacy they have is a steady improving standard of living for the chinese people. and that requires probably 9% to 10% annual g.d.p. growth. and creating more than 20 million jobs every year. the worry thafd and the worry i had as secretary of defense is that i think that the chinese

military is on a different page than the civilian leadership. my favorite example of this is when i was in china a year ago january literally hours before i was to meet with president hu jintao the p.l.a. rolls out for the first public viewing their stealth fighter and it was clear in the meeting that hu jintao had no idea that was going to happen. we believe that the chinese civilian leaders didn't flow about the anti-satellite test that was conducted several years ago so... and we have some sense that the leash is being pulled on the chinese military to not be so aggressive, at least for now. but the reality is they are making some pretty significant investments in the military. military capabilities and technology that clearly are aim at keeping our aircraft carriers out of the south china sea or

being able to take them out. keeping us well behind to the east of taiwan and so on. so their military programs are a worry but i think they are more of a worry in a regional context than they are on a global context. these guys learned a lesson from the soviets. they're not going to match u.s. tank for tank, ship to ship, missile to missile. they won't brup themselves trying to do that but i think we will face a growing challenges in places like the south china sea and the waters around japan that's why secretary panetta is looking for a ratification of a law because it would strengthen our position in places like the south china sea. >> we are sitting here on a campus created in 169, the second university created in the united states named after

william & mary. so it's full of history and history is to be learned from. >> my favorite quote-- and i use in the commencement addresses-- is from john adams and it is to the effect that... it's in a letter to one of his sons and he wrote "public business must be done. it will be done one way or another. if wise men refuse it, others will not. if honest men refuse it, others will not. and i always say will the wise and honest among you come help us lead america? and i think this business of... one of the messages is i don't think there's ever been more volunteerism and community

involvement by university and college students all over this country than there is today. but the problem is once they graduate too many of them turn their backs on a career in service and i worry about that. >> rose: thank you, it's a pleasure to come here and talk to someone who has served eight presidents and continues in public service here at a great university as chancellor. thank you. >> thank you, charlie. >> rose: a conversation with the new chancellor of william & mary a man who's held many high offices in the united states. robert gates. thank you for joining us. see you next time. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org