num_pages: 512
description: The inspiring and revelatory autobiography of the defense secretary and CIA director who led the intelligence war that killed Bin Laden among many important roles in a legendary careerIt could be said that Leon Panetta has had two of the most consequential careers of any American public servant in the past fifty years. His first career beginning as an army intelligence officer and including a distinguished run as one of Congresss most powerful and respected members lasted thirty-five years and culminated in his transformational role as Clintons budget czar and White House chief of staff. He then retired to establish the Panetta Institute with his wife of fifty years Sylvia; to serve on the Iraq Study Group; and to protect his beloved California coastline. But in 2009 he accepted what many said was a thankless returning to public office as the director of the CIA taking it from a state of turmoil after the Bush-era torture debates and moving it back to the vital center of Americas war against Al Qaeda including the campaign that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden. And then in the wake of bin Ladens death Panetta became the U.S. secretary of defense inheriting two troubled wars in a time of austerity and painful choices.Like his career Worthy Fights is a reflection of Panettas values. It is imbued with the frank grounded and often quite funny spirit of a man who never lost touch with where he came his familys walnut farm in beautiful Carmel Valley California. It is also a testament to a lost kind of political leadership which favors progress and duty to country over partisanship. Panetta is a Democrat who pushed for balanced budgets while also expanding care for the elderly and sick; a devout Catholic who opposes the death penalty but had to weigh every drone strike from 2009 through 2011. Throughout his career Panettas polestar has been his belief that a public servants real choice is between leadership or crisis. Troubles always come about through no fault of ones own but most can be prevented with courage and foresight.As always Panetta calls them as he sees them in Worthy Fights . Suffused with its authors decency and stubborn common sense the book is an epic American success story a great political memoir and a revelatory view onto many of the great figures and events of our time.
language: English
title: Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace
publisher: Penguin Press