Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace

by Leon Panetta, Jim Newton Narrated by Leon Panetta

Overview

The New York Times*bestselling autobiography of a legendary political and military leader.
*
It could be said that Leon Panetta has had two of*the most consequential careers of any American*public servant in the past 50 years. His first career, beginning as an Army intelligence officer and including a distinguished run as one of the most powerful and respected members of Congress, lasted 35 years and culminated in his transformational role as budget czar and White House chief of staff in the Clinton administration. But after a brief “retirement,” he returned to public service in 2009 as the CIA director who led the intelligence war that killed Osama Bin Laden and then became the US secretary of defense, inheriting two troubled wars in a time of austerity and painful choices. Like his career, Worthy Fights is a reflection*of Panetta's values. It is also a testament to a lost kind of political leadership that favors progress and duty to country over partisanship.

Leon Panetta calls them as he sees them in Worthy Fights. Suffused with its author's decency*and common sense, the book is an inspiring American success story, a great political memoir,*and a revelatory view onto many of the defining figures and events of our time.

Editorial Reviews

The New York Times Book Review - Leslie H. Gelb

I can't think of a single Democrat and only a handful of Republicans who have held as many blue ribbon positions in both Congress and the executive branch as [Panetta] has. And he can claim substantial accomplishments: saving the food stamp program, masterminding the plan to kill Osama bin Laden, helping lead an effective war on terrorism, managing vast cuts in Pentagon spending without political and bureaucratic turmoil…Young people searching for the role model of a public servant will find few as good as Panetta, and…they will discover in Worthy Fights…a playbook for how to behave with integrity in a city with limited virtue.

From the Publisher

Very readable, with the frank descriptions of personalities and events that distinguish this genre at its best.” —David Ignatius, The Washington Post
 
“Young people searching for the role model of a public servant will find few as good as Panetta. . . . A playbook for how to behave with integrity in a city with limited virtue.” —Leslie H. Gelb, The New York Times Book Review

Library Journal

12/01/2014
It's hard to find an American public official, appointed or elected, who has had a more distinguished record of public service over the past five decades than Panetta. Here, with author and Los Angeles Times editor-at-large Newton (Justice for All; Eisenhower), he offers an insider's perspective that is suffused with insight, intelligence, and integrity. Panetta, the son of Italian immigrants, presents himself quite convincingly as an American patriot committed to the nation's fundamental principles. He concedes that he's neither a scholar nor a theorist; rather, he's an effective, engaging manager of offices and agencies. Panetta served as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2009 to 2011 and secretary of defense from 2011 to 2013. The prose in this enlightening work is often a bit wooden but what comes through clearly is the author's love for his country, and his unflagging efforts to help prod it in the right direction and protect it. As a contemporary political memoir, the book reflects what is often the case: criticize an incumbent president (Barack Obama) and go a bit softer on potential presidential candidates (Hillary Clinton). VERDICT Anyone who wants to read about a career in public service and experience at the upper echelons of national politics should reason this account of a principled, pragmatic, politician with energy, talent, humor, and relish for the necessary, well-timed profane look into life in the arena. [See Prepub Alert, 5/4/14.]—Stephen Kent Shaw, Northwest Nazarene Coll., Nampa, ID

DECEMBER 2014 - AudioFile

Politicians are generally not seen as candid and unpretentious, but this audiobook presents former Congressman and CIA director Leon Panetta as sincere and approachable. His story is quite American, and his accomplishments are many. Panetta reads his own book in a clear, pleasant voice; his pace allows listeners to follow his story with ease. Throughout his political career, Panetta presented himself as a genuine man of the people, and that view of himself comes through in this book. However, his narration lacks the emotion and immediacy of the events he speaks about. He also drops some words at the ends of sentences and reads too slowly in places. Panetta has had a fascinating career, but he needs a professional to sing his praises. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2014-10-14
Former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Panetta tells all—well, some—about his life in politics."I have talked at length in these pages about wars," writes the author toward the end. Indeed he has: His time in politics has run from Saigon to Syria, while his recent responsibilities have embraced such diverse matters as helping handle the return of American POW Bowe Bergdahl—a deal, Panetta writes, that he disapproved of—and weathering the David Petraeus affair. The memoir begins along familiar, formulaic lines: son of hardworking immigrants, drawn to office by a sense of "duty to country and a conviction that government could play a constructive role in the life of its citizens," paying dues under the tough tutelage of Tip O'Neill and Jim Wright, and so on. Panetta is gentle on most of the politicians who have crossed his path, though it's clear he reserves considerable disdain for former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and his "divisive tactics." It is also clear that the author was at odds with President Barack Obama at many points. Though mildly framed ("achievements cannot allow leaders to become complacent"), his criticism has a bite. Many of the sharpest divergences turn on the question of leaving Iraq: "It was no secret that I had fought to keep it from ending this way," he writes, and he pursued doing so "with reservations." Still, Panetta's criticisms are mild in the context of his overall defense of his former boss: As he writes, he finds it "amusing" that Obama is seen as an ideologue instead of as a "realist and pragmatist" who has overcome unnecessarily staunch opposition to "make important progress in many areas, from fighting terrorism to righting the economy." Predictable passages aside, Panetta offers a valuable portrait of how things get done in Washington—cautiously, like this memoir, and with exquisite calculation.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169409659
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	10/07/2014
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

I said good-bye to a fallen CIA colleague, a personable, driven young woman named Elizabeth Hanson, on a warm May morning in Washington in 2010. She was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery, in the shade of a stately line of willow oaks, amid thousands of American heroes and in the company of hundreds of friends, family, and coworkers from the Central Intelligence Agency. I was at the time the director of the CIA. Elizabeth Hanson had worked for me.

It was a graveside service, modest and brief; she was buried in Area 60, beside many veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, just over a small rise from the Pentagon. Hanson and six other members of our agency were killed on December 30, 2009, at a remote CIA base in the Khost province of eastern Afghanistan. Liz Hanson and her colleagues were there that day to meet a potential agent, a jihadist who said he wanted to work for the CIA and steer us to the leadership of Al Qaeda. Instead, when he arrived at the meeting he detonated a diabolically powerful suicide vest, killing seven of our best and injuring a dozen more. That explosion was a signal tragedy for the CIA—one of the largest losses of life in the agency’s history.

The attack shook the CIA, and I had spent much of that winter and spring consoling our employees and traveling around America to share the grief of the families of those men and women. Hanson’s funeral was the last of seven such services I had attended. They included small private services and a large Catholic mass. Some were packed with dignitaries, others limited to friends and family. I met with mourners in Fredericksburg, Maryland; Virginia Beach; Clinton, Massachusetts; Akron, Ohio; and central Illinois. And this was my third trip to Arlington. After the funeral mass in Clinton, boys and girls stood in the snow outside the church, some quietly waving flags or signs that read, THANKS FOR KEEPING US SAFE. In Akron, the widow of one of our fallen, Scott Roberson, was carrying his child, a girl. One eulogist imagined the day when their daughter would come to visit the CIA and touch the star etched into the marble of our Memorial Wall, marking her father’s sacrifice, her heart full of pride for a man she never had the luck to know.

Two realizations connected all of those ceremonies: Nothing could return those young men and women to their families, and I could only offer them a promise. America would do everything in its power to bring those behind the murders to justice. They hit us; America would hit back.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Worthy Fights"
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Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
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