WASHINGTON — With two years of experience already on the job, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to provide a steady hand for the first wartime presidential changeover since Vietnam.

The 65-year-old Pentagon chief is considered a pragmatist, has worked on security issues for a long succession of American presidents and is associated with the improved fortunes in the Iraq campaign during his tenure.

President George W. Bush believes that Gates has "been a very fine secretary and that he'll continue to be for the next president," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

Gates will serve as a bridge not only between the outgoing and incoming administrations, but also could lend stability for a military that has come under unprecedented stress from fighting in two conflicts at once.

Gates started his government career as a young man at the CIA and rose through the bureaucracy from an entry-level position to become its director. He served on the National Security Council under Presidents Reagan, Carter, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

His government resume is not without problems. During his confirmation hearings to be CIA director, he was criticized for missing clues about the impending fall of the Soviet Union and for politicizing Cold War intelligence. Those two complaints _ misreading intelligence and using it selectively _ have also been leveled at the Bush administration in its Iraq policy.

The Kansas native joined the CIA in 1966, became acting CIA director in 1987 and director in 1991.

Gates left the CIA and government in 1993, joining corporate boards and writing a memoir, "From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War."

A close friend of the Bush family, Gates was interim dean of the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M in 1999 and became the university's president in 2002.

He gave up his post at the uiversity to replace Donald H. Rumsfeld in December 2006. He soon improved Pentagon relations with Congress, partly through the force of his personality _ a sense of humor and humility that was refreshing to lawmakers who had tussled with the more gruff and difficult Rumsfeld.