Gates: CIA no USDA

The Los Angeles Times reports today on the rapid climb of Defense Secretary-designate Robert Gates through the ranks of the CIA. Gates' rise was meteoric, but he was apparently pretty rough on the agency's analysts -- and on the civilian federal bureaucracy. "There are far too many people playing it safe," Gates wrote in a 1981 memo to then-CIA chief William J. Casey, just before he became Casey's deputy. "CIA is slowly turning into the Department of Agriculture."