'Face The Nation' comes to 'Alma Mater of the Nation'
William & Mary Chancellor and former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates ’65 will appear this weekend from campus on “Face The Nation,” CBS News’ Sunday public affairs broadcast.
Longtime CBS News broadcast journalist Bob Schieffer, anchor and moderator of the popular weekly show, will be on campus this weekend to tape the segment from William & Mary’s historic campus. The interview with Gates will air locally at 10:30 a.m. on CBS (channel 3).
Gates, who was installed last year William & Mary’s 24th chancellor, is on campus to participate in Commencement weekend activities. FBI Director Robert S. Mueller will deliver the keynote address at the main ceremony on Sunday, and Gates will provide welcoming remarks.
Schieffer is the CBS network’s chief Washington correspondent. He has covered Washington for CBS News for more than 30 years and is one of the few broadcast or print journalists to have covered all four major beats in the nation's capital -- the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department and Capitol Hill. He has been chief Washington correspondent since 1982 and congressional correspondent since 1989. He has covered every presidential campaign and been a floor reporter at all of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions since 1972. In 2005 and 2006, Schieffer served as interim anchor of “The CBS Evening News.” He began anchoring “Face The Nation” in May 1991.
This is the second year in a row CBS News will take part in William & Mary Commencement festivities. Last year, “CBS This Morning” co-anchor and longtime PBS broadcaster Charlie Rose came to the nation’s second-oldest institution of higher education to interview Gates.
Gates, a member of William & Mary’s undergraduate Class of 1965, retired in June 2011 after serving since 2006 as head of the U.S. Department of Defense. He is the only defense secretary in the nation’s history to serve two presidents from different political parties – serving under former President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama. Prior to becoming defense secretary, he served in numerous capacities in the executive branch and worked for eight presidents. He is also the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency. From 2002 to 2006, Gates was president of Texas A&M University.
At William & Mary’s 2012 Charter Day ceremony, Gates was invested as chancellor, an honorary position with a long tradition at the university. He succeeded U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
