Leon Panetta
Leon Edward Panetta is an American retired politician and government official who has served under several Democratic administrations as Secretary of Defense, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, White House Chief of Staff, director of the Office of Management and Budget, as well as a U.S. representative from California.
Panetta was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993. He served under President Bill Clinton as Director of the Office of Management and Budget from 1993 to 1994 and as White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997. He cofounded the Panetta Institute for Public Policy in 1997 and served as a distinguished scholar to chancellor Charles B. Reed of the California State University system and as a professor of public policy at Santa Clara University.
In January 2009, newly elected president Barack Obama nominated Panetta to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Panetta was confirmed by the Senate in February 2009. As director of the CIA, Panetta oversaw the operation that killed Osama bin Laden. On April 28, 2011, Obama announced the nomination of Panetta as defense secretary to replace the retiring Robert Gates. In June, the Senate confirmed Panetta unanimously and he assumed the office on July 1, 2011. David Petraeus became CIA director on September 6, 2011.
Since retiring as Defense Secretary in 2013, Panetta has served as chairman of the Panetta Institute for Public Policy, located at California State University, Monterey Bay, a campus of the California State University that he helped establish during his tenure as congressman. The institute is dedicated to motivating and preparing people for lives of public service and helping them to become more knowledgeably engaged in the democratic process. He also serves on a number of boards and commissions and frequently writes and lectures on public-policy issues.
Secretary Panetta's son, Jimmy Panetta, has held the elder Panetta's former seat in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2017.
Early life, education, and military service
Panetta was born in Monterey, California, the son of Carmelina Maria and Carmelo Frank Panetta, Italian immigrants from Gerace in Calabria, Italy. In the 1940s, the Panetta family owned a restaurant in Monterey.He was raised in the Monterey area and attended two Catholic grammar schools: San Carlos School and Junípero Serra School. He attended Monterey High School, where he became involved in student politics, and was a member of the Junior Statesmen of America. As a junior, he was the vice president of the student body, and as a senior, he became its president. In 1956, he entered Santa Clara University and graduated magna cum laude in 1960 with a BA in political science. In 1963, he received a Juris Doctor from the Santa Clara University School of Law.
In 1964, he joined the United States Army as a second lieutenant, served as an officer in the Army Military Intelligence Corps, and received the Army Commendation Medal. In 1966, he was discharged as a first lieutenant.
Political career
Early political career
Panetta started in politics in 1966 as a legislative assistant to Republican senator Thomas Kuchel, the Senate Minority whip from California, whom Panetta has called "a tremendous role model."In 1969, Panetta became the assistant to Robert H. Finch, secretary of the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare under the Nixon administration. Soon thereafter, he was appointed director of the Office for Civil Rights.
Panetta chose to enforce civil rights and equal-education laws over the objection of Richard Nixon, who wanted enforcement to move slowly in keeping with his strategy to gain political support among Southern whites. Robert Finch and assistant secretary John Veneman supported Panetta and refused to fire him, threatening to resign if forced to do so. Eventually forced from office in 1970, Panetta left Washington to work as an executive assistant for John Lindsay, the mayor of New York City. Panetta wrote about his Nixon administration experience in his 1971 book Bring Us Together.
He returned to Monterey to practice law at Panetta, Thompson & Panetta from 1971 to 1976.
U.S. House of Representatives
Elections
Panetta switched to the Democratic Party in 1971, citing his belief that the Republican Party was moving away from the political center. In 1976, Panetta was elected to the U.S. Congress to represent California's 16th congressional district, unseating incumbent Republican Burt Talcott with 53% of the vote. He would never face another contest nearly that close, and was reelected eight times.Tenure
During his time in Congress, Panetta concentrated mostly on budget issues, civil rights, education, healthcare, agriculture, immigration, and environmental protection, particularly preventing oil drilling off the California coast. He wrote the Hunger Prevention Act of 1988 and the Fair Employment Practices Resolution. He was the author of legislation establishing the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, and legislation providing Medicare coverage for hospice care. Working with chancellor Barry Munitz, he helped establish California State University, Monterey Bay at the former Fort Ord military base.He also attempted to form the Big Sur National Scenic Area with senator Alan Cranston. The bill would have created a 700,000-acre scenic area administered by the U.S. Forest Service. It budgeted $100 million to buy land from private land owners, up to $30 million for easements and management programs, and created a state plan for a zone about long and wide along the Big Sur coast.
The bill was opposed by California senator S. I. Hayakawa, development interests, and Big Sur residents. Local residents mocked the plan as "Panetta's Pave 'n' Save" and raised a fund of more than $100,000 to lobby against the proposal. The legislation was blocked by Hayakawa in the energy committee and did not reach a vote.
Budget committee
Panetta was a member of the House Committee on the Budget from 1979 to 1989, and its chairman from 1989 to 1993, Panetta played a key role in the 1990 budget summit.Committee assignments
His positions included:- Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on the Budget
- Chairman of the Agriculture Committee's Subcommittee on Domestic Marketing, Consumer Relations, and Nutrition
- Chairman of the Administration Committee's Subcommittee on Personnel and Police
- Chairman of the created by the
- Vice Chairman of the in Congress
- Member of the .
Director of the Office of Management and Budget
White House chief of staff
In 1994, President Clinton became increasingly concerned about a lack of order and focus in the White House, an issue that stretched from foreign to domestic policy and political matters. Clinton, who had vowed to run a professional operation, asked Panetta to become his new chief of staff, replacing Mack McLarty. According to author Nigel Hamilton, "Panetta replaced McLarty for the rest of Clinton's first term—and the rest is history. To be a great leader, a modern president must have a great chief of staff—and in Leon Panetta, Clinton got the enforcer he deserved." Panetta was appointed White House chief of staff on July 17, 1994, and he held that position until January 20, 1997. He was a key negotiator of the 1996 budget, which was another important step toward bringing the budget into balance.Director of the CIA
Nomination
On January 5, 2009, President-elect Barack Obama announced his intention to nominate Panetta to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency.At the time of his selection, journalists and politicians raised concerns about Panetta's limited experience in intelligence, aside from his two-year service as a military intelligence officer in the 1960s. California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, expressed concerns that she was not consulted about the Panetta appointment and stated her belief that "the agency is best-served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time."
Former CIA officer Ishmael Jones stated that Panetta was a wise choice, because of his close personal connection to the president and lack of exposure to the CIA bureaucracy. Also, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius said that Panetta did have exposure to intelligence operations as director of the OMB and as chief of staff for President Bill Clinton, where he "sat in on the daily intelligence briefings as chief of staff, and he reviewed the nation's most secret intelligence-collection and covert-action programs in his previous post as director of the Office of Management and Budget".
On February 12, 2009, Panetta was confirmed in the full Senate by voice vote.
Tenure
On February 19, 2009, Panetta was sworn in as director of the Central Intelligence Agency by vice president Joe Biden before an audience of CIA employees. Panetta reportedly received a "rock star welcome" from his new subordinates.As CIA director, Panetta traveled extensively to intelligence outposts around the world and worked with international leaders to confront threats of Islamic extremism and Taliban. In 2010, working with the Senate Intelligence Committee, he conducted a secret review of the use of torture by the CIA during the administration of George W. Bush. The review, which came to be known by 2014 as the Panetta Review, yielded a series of memoranda that, according to The New York Times, "cast a particularly harsh light" on the Bush-era interrogation program. The Times noted: "The effort to write the exhaustive history of the C.I.A.'s detention operations was fraught from the beginning. President Obama officially ended the program during his first week in office in 2009. The intelligence committee announced its intention to take a hard look at the program, but there was little appetite inside the White House to accede to the committee's request for all classified C.I.A. cables related to it." The findings of the Panetta Review reportedly aligned with much of what the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture found in its factual accounting. Both reports were largely seen as an effort in fact-finding and prevention, but not a governmental path towards some possible project of accountability or punishment for past interrogation or torture.
Panetta supported the Obama administration's campaign of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, which he identified as the "most effective weapon" against senior al-Qaeda leadership. Drone strikes increased significantly under Panetta, with as many as fifty suspected al-Qaeda militants being killed in May 2009 alone.
As director of the CIA, Panetta oversaw the hunt for terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, and played a key role in the operation in which bin Laden was killed on May 1, 2011.