Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace

by Leon Panetta

  It was not long after I left the Republican Party that it began to unravel from the top. The first reports of what would become known as Watergate began to trickle in during the summer of 1972, when the Washington Post reported that one of five men arrested after a break-in at Democratic headquarters in the Watergate office and hotel complex was the security coordinator of the Nixon campaign. The scandal simmered for a while, but persistent reporting by the press, especially the Post’s famous team of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, revealed a far-reaching and malevolent political operation run from the highest levels of the White House. The administration targeted “enemies” for tax audits, played dirty tricks on political opponents, conducted break-ins and wiretapping, paid hush money to discourage operatives from testifying, and deliberately impeded investigations into wrongdoing by top administration officials. On March 1, 1974, seven of those officials, including the same John Erlichman who had stymied me at HEW, were indicted by a grand jury. Nixon resigned on August 8.

  I was hardly surprised. I’d seen the Nixon administration’s willingness to bend principle to politics during my run at HEW. Nixon’s political operation was profoundly corrupt and a manifestation of the president’s insecurity and paranoia. It was only a matter of time before trouble caught up with it. And though I worried whether the presidency itself was damaged by the scandal, I was not sorry to see Nixon go and to have Gerald Ford, whom I used to see on the Hill when I worked for Kuchel, take his place.

  By the mid-1970s, I’d been gone from Washington for five years, but I’d never left politics far behind. Much of my law practice had political overtones—fighting civil rights cases and representing the regional park district, for instance—and a number of clients and friends suggested that I consider a run for public office. One day in the spring of 1975, a good friend from the small town of Aptos, California, Leo Greenberg, and the local head of the California Teachers Association, Win Nelson, took me to lunch in Salinas. They urged me to make a run for public office—we discussed state as well as federal possibilities—and laid out their case for how I might win. I left with the idea firmly in mind.

  As I considered it, I realized quickly that federal office had far greater appeal for me. I’d worked in Washington and liked the atmosphere. And I was much less fluent in the issues that legislators tackled in Sacramento. My background, interests, and orientation all pointed toward Washington. Standing in my way was Congressman Burt Talcott.

  Talcott was an unusual character. A graduate of Stanford and decorated bomber pilot who had been held as a prisoner of war by the Nazis during World War II, he was smart and good-looking and seemingly well ensconced in his district, which had been represented by Republicans since the days of FDR. But Talcott was also a bit of an oddball. He was a teetotaler and self-conscious dresser who once addressed his colleagues from the floor of the House to scold them for wearing sport coats rather than suits. He frowned on cursing and was known to blurt comments like “to health with it” because he disliked using the word “hell.” (My linguistic habits even then were, well, more colorful.)

  He was also prone to the impolitic outburst, which occasionally revealed an unpleasant set of instincts. During the early 1970s, for instance, when the fall of South Vietnam led to a flood of refugees seeking the protection of the United States, Talcott publicly complained that California should not be asked to shoulder that burden for the perplexing reason that “we have too many Orientals already. If they all gravitate to California, the tax and welfare rolls will get overburdened, and we already have our share of illegal aliens.”1

  Aside from those flashes of intolerance, there was the matter of Talcott’s record. He had first won office in 1962, but didn’t have much to show for his long tenure. He’d won passage of only three bills during that time, and his attendance record on his committees was poor. Moreover, he had fallen into the occupational hazard of mentally relocating to Washington and spending little time in the district. The inland farm community that was an important part of the economy of the area—and whose political support was especially important for a Republican—was restive. And while Talcott was missing committee meetings back in Washington, the district, which ran along the California coast from Santa Cruz down to San Luis Obispo, was changing fast. Coastal towns that had been historically Republican, such as Santa Cruz, were absorbing the counterculture and transforming into centers of liberalism.

  In 1972, Talcott won reelection to his congressional seat. But he prevailed by only about eight points over his Democratic challenger, Julian Camacho. The following election was even closer, with Talcott winning a rematch against Camacho but this time squeaking out only a two-point win—about 2,000 votes of more than 150,000 cast.

  Camacho elected not to run a third time, and I had my opening. I announced in November 1975 and began the yearlong effort to unseat the incumbent. Campaigns in the 1970s were much less expensive than they are today, and I’d put away a little cash, but it still was a stretch; I had to use my savings and also forgo income since I was committed to campaigning almost full-time.

  My advantages were the district’s Democratic tilt, the disarray of Republicans in the wake of Nixon’s resignation and his pardon by Gerald Ford—Ford was at the top of the Republican ticket that year, and did not seem likely to have long coattails—and the general dissatisfaction with Talcott. But Talcott had advantages too: He had almost universal name recognition, a long history of winning races in the district, and plenty of people he’d done favors for. And of course, there are always the issues that bubble beneath the surface: Would some voters resist supporting an Italian American? Would some regard me with suspicion for having switched parties or having fought for civil rights?

  One thing I learned early: As someone who had been born and raised in the district, I enjoyed campaigning. Some politicians don’t. They like governing or deal-making or hobnobbing, but they can’t be bothered to hear a farmer’s problems or a veteran’s complaint or a family’s immigration difficulties. Some like the glamour of Washington but find their districts dull or distracting. They resent having to provide basic services to constituents when they imagined writing laws and making history. In my experience, those tend to be the ones who end up losing touch and being tossed out. Luckily for me, perhaps because of the gratitude for this country that my parents felt so deeply, I genuinely liked the part of politics that was about listening and helping.

  Good thing, too, because I did a lot of it in late 1975 and most of 1976. I visited every city in the district, met every mayor and council member. I marched in parades, worked the crowds at rodeos and fairs, spoke to Rotary clubs and Kiwanis clubs and every other gathering we could elbow a spot at. Sylvia and I did a bunch of these together, and while I would talk, she would distribute our literature. I had a challenger in the primary, a more liberal Democrat named John Bakalian, and that turned out to be a good thing, as it forced us to build up a campaign during the primary. I beat him fairly easily, and that positioned me well for the general election against Talcott, since I was now able to argue that I represented the center and that he was an out-of-touch conservative.

  Tom Kuchel endorsed me, as did Representative Pete McCloskey, a moderate Republican representing the Bay Area. The national Democratic Party, seeing Talcott as vulnerable, provided support and resources, and environmental groups rallied behind me as well. The latter were especially important, as the group known as Environmental Action named Talcott to its “Dirty Dozen” list of members of Congress most unfriendly to the environment. Talcott responded by calling the organization “a small clique that has distorted the environmental record of the Congress for its own partisan reasons.”2 Meanwhile, Norm Mineta, a good friend going back to his days as mayor of San Jose, was a respected Japanese-American congressman who couldn’t wait to campaign for me—he remembered all too well Talcott’s remarks about Japanese Americans. The cumulative result was that I was able to point to support that
stretched from the Republican center to the Democratic left—a broad base compared to Talcott’s narrower hold on conservatives.

  After winning the primary, we invested in a small poll and discovered that I was about five points behind. I realized I had a fight on my hands, and I was lucky to land an up-and-coming political consultant, John Franzén, to head my effort in the general election. John had done press for George McGovern and other candidates, but had never run a campaign himself. Then again, I’d never run for office before either. We met during the Democratic convention that year and hit it off immediately. We agreed to take a chance on each other.

  John’s advice took two forms. The first was substantive. Camacho had challenged Talcott mainly in ideological terms, arguing that Talcott was too conservative for an increasingly liberal district; he’d made headway but run up against the truth that much of the district, particularly inland, remained Republican and was reluctant to toss out a conservative for a liberal. John’s advice: Challenge Talcott’s effectiveness, not his politics. When it came to tactics, John’s recommendation was even simpler: television.

  First, though, we needed money. When John arrived, the campaign had $2,600 on hand and bills payable of $2,754. That meant we needed to move fast, and we did, appealing to national Democrats with the argument that this represented a serious opportunity for the party to pick up a seat. Representative Phil Burton, a San Francisco Democrat who was renowned for his political acumen, agreed, and arranged for Tip O’Neill, the legendary Speaker of the House, to visit the district and help us raise money. We were thrilled, and reached out to every supporter and potential supporter we could think of.

  O’Neill arrived for the event as scheduled and found a healthy crowd awaiting him. He was in fine spirits, ebullient and welcoming as always, obviously pleased to be surrounded by like-minded Democrats. When it came time for him to tout me, though, he stressed that we were gathered to help “my good friend Leo.” I winced, as did John, and that wasn’t the end of it. O’Neill kept extolling my potential, urging the crowd to dig deep to help “Leo.” When it was over, finally, my friends in the audience took it all in stride and donated generously. Fortunately, everyone, including myself, loved the big Irishman from Boston. He could say whatever he wanted if it got people to donate to our campaign.

  We had a message, a strategy, and now money. With that fund-raiser and a few others, we built up a treasury of about $180,000 and went up with a string of television ads aiming at what we saw as Talcott’s essential weakness. Boy, what a difference that made. It was my first introduction to the power of advertising that reaches inside the voter’s home. Suddenly, I was in demand. Voters jostled to shake my hand, and we felt we had gained the momentum of the race.

  Our slogan was “No more excuses,” and it boxed Talcott in. He’d been arguing that it wasn’t fair to judge his record because Democrats controlled Congress, and therefore it wasn’t realistic to expect him to get bills passed. That put him in the awkward position of trying to run against Congress while seeking his eighth term as a member of that same Congress. A Los Angeles Times headline captured his predicament: GOP INCUMBENT LASHES OUT AT CONGRESS, the paper reported in October. “I’m not responsible for the Congress,” the paper quoted Talcott saying. “The Democratic majority is responsible for the Congress. They vote me down every time.”3 That, of course, begged the question of why voters needed a congressman who couldn’t deliver for them. And it sure sounded like an excuse. We kept hammering: “No more excuses.”

  Once we had established Talcott’s habit of skipping committee meetings, we went up with what we called the “empty chair” ad. An offscreen voice ticked off the meetings Talcott had missed while the camera stayed steady on an empty chair. It raised the obvious question: Who, if anyone, really was representing this district in Washington? Another ad highlighted his place among the “Dirty Dozen,” and that hurt on the Central Coast, where one thing Republicans and Democrats agreed on was the protection of the area’s scenic beauty. And to keep Talcott further off balance, I played up my family farm background with images of me on our Carmel Valley ranch. One ad featured a picture of me throwing hay into the back of a pickup truck, my dad alongside me. Even the weather helped: It was a bad drought year, and Talcott hadn’t been able to deliver on a water project that might have helped. Talcott’s insistence that he couldn’t be held responsible for problems because Democrats ran the show in Washington wasn’t much comfort to a farmer who needed water. It just represented another “excuse,” and thus played to our theme.

  There was no doubt that the ads were having an impact. Suddenly, we had scores of people volunteering for the campaign and large crowds turning out for events and encouraging my candidacy. But when we conducted another small poll, we were astounded to discover that it didn’t register any improvement. We had planned to use it to encourage donors, but when we saw the results we chose a different course: We buried it, told no one of the results, and pretended we’d never done a poll at all. That left us to trust our instincts rather than data, never an entirely comfortable approach, but we really didn’t have a choice. As election day approached, we ran low on money, so I waged a last round of fund-raising, borrowed another $25,000, and kept our ads on the air.

  On election night, we nervously gathered at a hotel on the beach in Seaside to await the returns. First came the absentee ballots, and Talcott was beating me handily; that wasn’t encouraging, but not too worrisome either, since absentees tend to be more conservative. Then came Santa Cruz, and we split the vote there, though I was leading. I carried Monterey, my home turf, and a cheer went up for that. I lost San Benito, which hadn’t voted for a Democrat since 1936, but I won big in San Luis Obispo. Finally, after twelve months of campaigning and a long evening of counting ballots, I was the newly elected congressman from California’s 16th District. I ended up with 53.6 percent of the vote.

  The next morning, I walked over to my dad’s house and hugged him. He had come to the United States with twenty-five dollars and few skills other than the ability to cook a good Italian meal; indeed, he’d arrived with little more than the dream of what might be and the dream of giving his children a better life. That journey had brought him to Monterey, where he now comfortably grew walnuts and tended his piece of American soil. He had worked hard, devoted his life to Joe and me and to creating a secure place for his family. This country had taken him in, and he had given back. And now his son would serve in the U.S. Congress as the representative of the community where he still lived. He was rarely expressive, but he beamed that morning with joy, his own dreams and those of my mother finding fulfillment in the life they had built.

  Running for Congress and serving in Congress are two different things, of course, and the first question that my election brought was how Sylvia and I would balance my new responsibilities with our job of raising our boys. That turned out to be an easy decision. We had moved enough in our lives, and we wanted our sons to grow up in California and to be near their grandfather. We decided that the best approach would be to keep our family in Carmel Valley. I would commute to Washington, and Sylvia, who had played such an important role in the campaign, would be my district administrative assistant, managing my five district offices without pay and being my eyes and ears at home.

  Although not exactly orthodox, it was the perfect fit for the strong partnership that Sylvia and I had in our family and our work. She knew the district as well as anyone. And of course, she’d been around politics as long as I had. I was determined not to repeat Talcott’s principal failing—his drift away from the district and its concerns. What better way to anchor me in the life of the Central Coast than for my wife to serve as my official representative? From my first day in Congress, constituents knew that when they spoke with Sylvia, they were speaking with me.

  So Sylvia began the work of setting up our offices and hiring district staff while I flew back to Washington to learn the ropes of Congress.
My first move, and maybe my best, was to ask John Franzén, who had managed my campaign, to run my Washington office. He agreed, and set out to build my staff there.

  We arranged our offices, hired assistants, such as Diana Marino, who later became my administrative assistant, and in January 1977, as Jimmy Carter prepared to assume the presidency and Democrats were in full ascent, I became a member of the U.S. Congress.

  FIVE

  “Working for Us”

  My time in Congress began with a brief but helpful set of orientation meetings in Washington, Williamsburg, Virginia, and Boston—helpful for refreshing my knowledge of parliamentary procedure and also for meeting incoming freshmen, both Democrats and Republicans. Once those were done, the challenges started quickly, and reality set in fast. Based on the orientations, I imagined that my first votes as a freshman might be on budget or foreign policy issues. Instead, I learned a basic lesson of Congress: Members are expected to take care of their own. My first challenge, then, was how to navigate a scheduled vote on a pay raise for Congress itself.

  Needless to say, that’s a vote that both the public and the members felt strongly about. Tip O’Neill pulled me aside early to lecture me on my responsibility to my colleagues. He assured me that no member had ever lost a seat over a pay raise and that it was my duty to my older colleagues to vote for the raise. We’d take the vote right at the beginning of the term so that plenty of time would have passed before any of us would have to run again. “It’s not a big deal,” Tip promised, and added, “We want you to do it.”