Government official Robert Michael Gates was born on September 25, 1943, in Wichita, Kansas, and served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1991 to 1993, and as secretary of defense (2006-2011) in the administrations of presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, respectively.

Gates studied European history at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, receiving a bachelor's degree in 1965. While earning a master's degree from Indiana University in 1966, he was recruited by the CIA, and joined the agency full-time as a Soviet analyst after a two-year stint in the U.S. Air Force. Gates later received a doctorate (1974) in Russian and Soviet history from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.