Robert Gates is of course returning under Obama as Secretary of Defense.  Gates has a 26 year career with both the CIA and National Security Council.  He was recruited by the CIA in 1966, in 1967 he was conscripted and commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Air Force.  From 67-69 he was assigned to the Strategic Air Command as an intelligence officer.  After his duty was up, he returned to the CIA.  In 1974 Gates left the CIA to serve on the staff of the National Security Council.  He returned to the CIA in 1979.  While there he moved steadily up the ranks until he was made Deputy Director in April of 1986 and where he served until March 20, 1989.  Gates was nominated to become Director of the CIA in 1987 but withdrew his name after it was clear the Senate would reject him due to controversy over his role in the Iran-Contra scandal.  Gates was appointed by George H.W. Bush in 1991 and was confirmed by the Senate the same year.  The final report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters said that Gates, "was close to many figures who played significant roles in the Iran/Contra affair and was in a position to have known of their activities.  The evidence developed by Independent Council did not warrant indictment…"  In 1984 he advocated that the US initiate a bombing campaign against Nicaragua and that the US do everything in its power short of direct military invasion of the country to remove the Sandinista government.  He has served on the corporate boards of Fidelity Investments, NACCO Industries, Inc., Brinker International, Inc., Parker Drilling Company, Science Applications International Corporation, and VoteHere, a technology company which sought to provide cryptography and computer software security for the electronic election industry.  In 2004 he co-chaired a Council on Foreign Relations task force on US relations towards Iran.  He was also a member of the Iraq Study Group.  Wikipedia even has a special section on criticisms of Gates where it states that he trumped up the military threat that the Soviet Union posed to the US and for, "repeatedly skewing intelligence to promote a particular worldview."

And now on to Hillary Clinton who while in Arkansas sat on the board of Wal-Mart and several other corporations.  The Whitewater controversy has followed her and her husband both, but neither were ever charged with anything in the investigation.  While at Wellesley College she served as president of the Wellesley Young Republicans as a freshman but changed her views as the Civil Rights movement and Vietnam War changed the political climate.  She helped with Nelson Rockefeller's campaign but then left the party for good after that.  She wrote her senior thesis about the tactics of radical community organizer Saul Alinsky which was suppressed at the request of the White House (clearly she didn't want folks to know how radical she had become).  She went on to work for Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein where two of four partners were Communist Party members.  While in Arkansas working on child law and other matters some conservatives noted that her work/theories would usurp traditional parental authority, allow children to file frivolous lawsuits against their parents, and argued that her work was legal "crit" theory run amok.  In 1977 Jimmy Carter appointed her to the board of directors of the Legal Services Corporation where she served until 1981.  in 79 she made a large profit from trading cattle futures contracts… taking a $1,000 investment and generating nearly $100,000 when she stopped trading after 10 months.  The couple also became involved in their Whitewater Development Corporation venture at this time.  From 1982 to 1988 she was on the board of directors of the New World Foundation which funded a variety of New Left interest groups.  She sat on the board of directors for TCBY, Wal-Mart Stores and Lafarge.  Bill Clinton said that electing him would get "two for the price of one" or that it was like "buy one, get one free", indicating the level of involvement of Hillary in a Bill Clinton administration.  She has been scrutinized over the Whitewater investments, "Travelgate" and "Filegate."  No charges have ever been filed despite lingering questions and hints of scandal.  As Senator, she voted for the PATRIOT Act and the compromise renewal of the act.  She was in favor of the Afghanistan invasion and also voted in favor of the Iraq War Resolution.  She voted to increase the size of the Army by 80,000 soldiers and voted against Bush's tax cut packages.  She opposed the Iraq troop surge and voted in favor of a Senate resolution calling on the State Department to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a "foreign terrorist organization."  She also supported the $700 billion dollar banker bailout claiming that it represented the interests of the American people.  In 2006 the NRA gave her an F rating on protecting the Second Amendment.  Hillary Clinton was tapped for Secretary of State. 

Retired Marine Corps Commandant and General James L. Jones has an impressive military record of service that is far too lengthy to go into and which presents very little of alarm on a surface check, so I won't get into all that.  You may find it interesting, however, that General Jones joined the Board of Directors of The Boeing Company on June 21, 2007 and that he serves on their Audit and Finance Committees.  On May 28, 2008 General Jones was elected to the board of directors of Chevron Corporation.  Once again, like Condoleezza Rice, Chevron has had another member of their board of directors placed in a cabinet level position.  Also he is a member of the Atlantic Council (watch for this again later in this article).  He was tapped for National Security Advisor. 

Susan Rice was tapped to be Obama's US Ambassador to the UN.  Susan has an interesting background working for Bill Clinton's administration on the National Security Council.  She was a foreign policy aid to Michael Dukakis during his election bid and she performed several different jobs while working on the National Security Council.  While there she stunned a few officials present when she asked, "If we use the word 'genocide' and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November [congressional] election?"  She was managing director and principal at Intellibridge, she joined the Brookings Institution as a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy and Global Economy and Development program.  At Brookings she focused on US foreign policy, weak and failing states, the implications of global poverty, and transnational threats to security.  In 2004 she served as a foreign policy advisor to John Kerry.  She is "on leave" from the Brookings institute but serves on the boards of several organizations, including the National Democratic Institute, the US Fund for UNICEF, board of directors of the Atlantic Council (told you this would come up again), advisory board of Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford, the board of directors of Bureau of National Affairs, board of directors of Partnership for Public Service, the Beauvoir School, and past member of the Internews Network's board of directors.  She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Aspen Strategy Group.  While working with African/US issues she was criticized as being "inexperienced and inflexible."  She is friends with Madeline Albright who she considers a mentor.  In 2002 in an article in the Washington Post she was implicated along with Richard Clarke in missing a chance to neutralize Osama bin Laden while he was still in Sudan.