Ex-CIA Chief Robert Gates Plans Move To Big Lake

BIG LAKE, Skagit County - Former CIA Director Robert Gates and his family plan to move to a waterfront home on this lake about five miles east of Mount Vernon.

Gates said he plans to write a book, catch some fish and live privately and quietly after he moves here this summer.

He and his wife, Rebecca Gates, who now live in Vienna, Va., bought the house last summer. They have two children.

"My wife has relatives on the (Olympic) Peninsula. We knew that when I left government service we would eventually move out there," Gates said.

Special security arrangements are being made at the residence.

Gates, 50, left the CIA in January 1993, after a nearly 30-year association with the intelligence agency. He also was deputy national security adviser and deputy CIA director, before spending the last year of the Bush administration in the top CIA post.

In 1987, President Reagan nominated Gates to head the CIA, but Gates later withdrew from consideration after his name became one of many linked to the Iran-contra, arms-for-hostages affair.