Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates selected Michael B. Donley to succeed Michael W. Wynne as Secretary of the Air Force, and Gen. Norton A. Schwartz to succeed Gen. T. Michael Moseley as the service’s chief of staff. Donley is the Pentagon’s director of administration and management; Schwartz is commander of U.S. Transportation Command. Wynne and Moseley were fired June 5 in the aftermath of two incidents last year, in which B-52 bombers carried nuclear weapons from Barksdale Air Force Base, La., to Minot Air Force Base, N.D., and ICBM parts were released to Taiwan. Gates ultimately decided that culpability for the incidents rested with the service’s top civilian and military leaders. In submitting Donley’s and Schwartz’s nomination to President Bush, Gates asked that Donley be named acting Air Force secretary as of June 21. Gates also nominated Gen. Duncan McNabb, the Air Force vice chief of staff, to succeed Schwartz as chief of transportation command, and Lt. Gen. William M. Fraser III to be the next vice chief.
