I heard several times how satoshi disappeared after Gavin said that he was going to the CIA to give a talk or something. I found this video with Gavin confirming this is true:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pWblf8COH4&t=5m37s"I don't know if that was the reason... but it certainly didn't help."
Well you fucking bet.
He could have been scared by the prospect of governments disliking Bitcoin a lot. Actually, one of his last posts was on the subject of Wikileaks when they started accepting Bitcoin in late 2010:
It would have been nice to get this attention in any other context. WikiLeaks has kicked the hornet's nest, and the swarm is headed towards us.
Obviously I wasn't there at the time, so I can't say that I know satoshi that well. But this was one of satoshi's few posts that were not about code - most of them were much more relaxed and logical, purely about improving code and discussion about the workings of Bitcoin. This makes it quite significant. I would interpret it in two ways:
1. Satoshi would have preferred that Bitcoin was not associated purely with Wikileaks, and perhaps he thought this could lead to Bitcoin becoming notorious for criminal activity. This would link in with Gavin's point about the CIA.
2. Satoshi would have preferred that Bitcoin was adopted more gradually and he'd have more time to improve it with just a small community of competent and dedicated users.