We have reached the point where a pliable specimen like Robert M. Gates can pass for an unvarnished, plain-spoken teller of truth to power. Read this story about Rumsfeld’s likely replacement. And weep.

“It was tough for me because he’d been my boss and our personal relations were fine,” Mr. Ford said Thursday. “But the problem was the skewing of intelligence by him to suit what the consumer wanted to hear. I think there was no question about it.”

Mr. Ford, 85, who worked at the agency from 1950 until the early 1990s, said he remembered Mr. Gates exaggerating Soviet misdeeds around the world. “He painted a dire picture of increased Russian pressure on Iran when the people who followed that issue were telling me the exact opposite,” he said.

Melvin A. Goodman, a former Soviet analyst for the agency, said on Thursday that during the 1980s, Mr. Gates acted as a “filter” for intelligence, trimming findings on the Soviet threat to match the hard-line ideological expectations of his boss, William J. Casey, then the director of central intelligence.