Leon Panetta — LLMpedia

Leon Panetta
Name	Leon Panetta
Caption	Official portrait, 2009
Office	23rd United States Secretary of Defense
President	Barack Obama
Term start	July 1, 2011
Term end	February 27, 2013
Predecessor	Robert Gates
Successor	Chuck Hagel
Office1	Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
President1	Barack Obama
Term start1	February 13, 2009
Term end1	June 30, 2011
Predecessor1	Michael Hayden
Successor1	David Petraeus
Office2	White House Chief of Staff to the President
President2	Bill Clinton
Term start2	July 17, 1994
Term end2	January 20, 1997
Predecessor2	Mack McLarty
Successor2	Erskine Bowles
Office3	Director of the Office of Management and Budget
President3	Bill Clinton
Term start3	January 21, 1993
Term end3	July 17, 1994
Predecessor3	Richard Darman
Successor3	Alice Rivlin
Office4	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California
Term start4	January 3, 1977
Term end4	January 21, 1993
Predecessor4	Burt Talcott
Successor4	Sam Farr
Constituency4	16th district (1977–1993), 17th district (1993)
Birth date	28 June 1938
Birth place	Monterey, California, U.S.
Party	Democratic
Spouse	Sylvia Marie Varni, 1962
Education	Santa Clara University (BA, JD)
Allegiance	United States
Branch	United States
Serviceyears	1964–1966
Rank	First Lieutenant
Unit	United States Army Intelligence Corps

Contents

Leon Panetta is an American politician and attorney who served in several high-profile roles within the United States federal government. His career spanned from a Congressman from California to key positions in the Clinton administration, including White House Chief of Staff and Director of the Office of Management and Budget. He later returned to public service under President Barack Obama, first as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and then as the 23rd Secretary of Defense.

Early life and education

Born in Monterey, California, to Italian immigrant parents, he was raised in the nearby Monterey County area. He attended local public schools before earning a Bachelor of Arts in political science and a Juris Doctor from Santa Clara University. Following his graduation from law school, he served as a First Lieutenant in the United States Army Intelligence Corps from 1964 to 1966. His early professional experience included working as a legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Thomas Kuchel of California.

In 1969, he was appointed director of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare's Office for Civil Rights for the Richard Nixon administration, but resigned in 1970 over policy disagreements. He was first elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1976, representing a Central Coast district. During his sixteen-year tenure in Congress, he served on the House Budget Committee and was a key figure in the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. He also chaired the House Agriculture Committee's Subcommittee on Domestic Marketing, Consumer Relations, and Nutrition.

Appointed by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the United States Senate, he led the Central Intelligence Agency from 2009 to 2011. His tenure was dominated by the agency's counterterrorism efforts, most notably the operation that located and killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011. He also oversaw a significant expansion of the CIA's drone program and managed the agency's role during the Arab Spring uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa.

In July 2011, he was sworn in as Secretary of Defense, succeeding Robert Gates. His term was defined by managing the drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and the end of the Iraq War. He also confronted major budgetary challenges, including the implementation of the Budget Control Act of 2011, which triggered automatic spending cuts known as sequestration. He advocated for maintaining a robust military presence in the Asia-Pacific region as part of the administration's strategic "Pivot to Asia."

After leaving the Pentagon in 2013, he co-founded the Panetta Institute for Public Policy with his wife at California State University, Monterey Bay. He has been a frequent commentator on national security and political issues, authoring the memoir Worthy Fights. He has also served on corporate boards, including for Blue Shield of California, and remains a Distinguished Scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C..