'As I look back, there is a parallel theme to my 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.'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.Robert Gates was US Secretary of Defense from 2006 to 2011 serving under both George Bush and Barack Obama. Before that he was Director of the CIA. This is his candid and revealing account of US military engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Gates oversaw the controversial surge of US troops in both countries. As well as this, he also provides commentary on the situations in Syria, Iran, Israel and North Korea and details behind the scenes meetings with Bush, Cheney, Rice, Obama and other major political figures.Mr. Gates is the only Secretary of Defense to serve under both a Republican and a Democratic president, and in Duty he provides an unsparing, full accounting of his tenure.

'What am I supposed to do when he starts spewing his bullshit?' Barack Obama preparing for his first debate with Mitt Romney


In their runaway bestseller Game Change / Race of a Lifetime, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann captured the full drama of Barack Obama's improbable, dazzling victory over the Clintons, John McCain and Sarah Palin. With the same masterly reporting, unparalleled access, and narrative skill, Double Down picks up the story in the Oval Office, where the president is beset by crises both inherited and unforeseen - facing defiance from his political foes, disenchantment from voters, disdain from the nation's powerful finance figures and dysfunction within the West Wing. As 2012 looms, leaders of the Republican Party, salivating over Obama's political fragility, see a chance to wrestle back control of the White House - and the country.

So how did the Republicans screw it up? How did Obama survive the onslaught and defy the predictions of a one-term presidency? Double Down follows the gaudy carnival of Republican contenders - ambitious and flawed, famous and infamous, charismatic and cartoonish - as Mitt Romney, the straitlaced, can-do, gaffe-prone multimillionaire from Massachusetts, scraped and scratched his way to the nomination, while Obama is seen storming out of a White House meeting with his high command after accusing them of betrayal, and gradually transforming a tense détente with Bill Clinton into political gold.

Double Down takes you into back rooms and closed-door meetings, laying bare the secret history of the 2012 campaign in a panoramic account of an election that was as hard fought as it was lastingly consequential.