by Leon Panetta
In the meantime, I moved into the transition team offices and plunged into the world of national security and intelligence. I was given an eight-by-ten-foot office, which I shared with another member of the transition. Thankfully, that was none other than John Brennan, soon to become Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, and years later, one of my successors as CIA director. Jeremy was across the hall, where he was assisted by a young campaign aide named Elliot Gillerman. Elliot set to work right away getting me in to see members of Congress. Well, almost right away. First he performed one other important task: He taught me how to use the phones.
Down the hall were Susan Rice and Jim Steinberg, who were leading Obama’s national security team. Susan would go on to become ambassador to the United Nations, and Jim landed as deputy secretary of state. Many of us thought that Jim was in line to become national security adviser, a job he had prepared for as deputy to Sandy Berger during my years in the Clinton White House. But Obama did something that I’m sure he came to regret. Instead of relying on close advisers for his top national security positions, he reached for two seasoned military men he did not know well, Jim Jones and Dennis Blair. Jones, a decorated former marine, had served as Supreme Allied Commander of Europe, and Obama selected him as national security adviser. Blair, a cerebral and respected naval officer who had led Pacific Command, was nominated to be director of national intelligence. Placing military men in those positions gave Obama cover from those prepared to pounce on any mistake as evidence that the president’s lack of national security credentials rendered him unfit for his office. Unfortunately, it also meant that he lacked rapport with the advisers responsible for some of his administration’s most difficult and delicate decisions. In time, Obama would undo both of these personnel moves.
By contrast, two of Obama’s other appointments in the foreign affairs and national security arenas were ringing successes. The president persuaded Bob Gates to stay on as secretary of defense, an important gesture of continuity as the country continued to fight wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Moreover, Gates was a Republican, so his appointment—and willingness to accept the post—underscored the nonpartisan nature of America’s approach to those conflicts. The other clear star of Obama’s first cabinet was Hillary Clinton, whom he named as secretary of state. Known around the world, she was a luminous representative for the United States in every foreign capital, as well as a smart, forceful advocate in meetings of the president’s top advisers. An additional benefit of her appointment was that it helped heal the wounds from the hard-fought campaign between her and Obama during the Democratic primaries. Democrats now could unite behind this presidency.
With Jones in as national security adviser, Jim Steinberg was assigned to Hillary Clinton to be her deputy, a prestigious and important post. The critical job of deputy national security adviser—the orchestra conductor for national security decision making in the White House—went to Tom Donilon. I had known Tom for a long time and respected him. He had served as Warren Christopher’s chief of staff at the State Department in the 1990s and was a careful lawyer and a student of national security decision making. He had written about the way the job was handled under various presidents and was determined to make the National Security Council a highly functioning staff, as it was under president George H. W. Bush and his national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft. Tom, whose brother Mike was a senior political adviser to Biden, would play perhaps the most important role in foreign policy decision making over the next four years. Intense and serious-minded, Tom immersed himself in the details of policy making. Sometimes he would push hard, but in my experience he was always willing to listen to counterarguments and to reconsider his position.
Two congressional aides who had served with then senator Obama on Capitol Hill were given prominent roles on the NSC staff. Denis McDonough, a hard-charging, creative, and whip-smart strategist, was assigned to oversee strategic communications; Mark Lippert, a naval reservist who had served in Iraq and was a master of the national security issues on the president-elect’s desk, was given the job of NSC chief of staff. Both McDonough and Lippert enjoyed broad authority in the White House—the president listened to them and trusted them. McDonough would go on to become an effective deputy national security adviser and later the White House chief of staff. Lippert would later be confirmed by the Senate as assistant secretary of defense, traveled with me to Asia, and became my successor’s chief of staff at the Pentagon.
A few days after settling in, I was visited by two men, one six foot five, the other six foot seven. They were Rich and Dan, who ran the protection detail for CIA directors and deputy directors. They folded themselves into the chairs in my shoebox office, their knees bumping up against the desk, and gave me the rules of my new life. First, a protective detail would follow me wherever I went. I would ride in the backseat of an SUV. I could not fly on a commercial flight, both for security reasons and to ensure I was reachable at all times. The agency would rent a charter aircraft for me everywhere I went. Finally, they assigned me a code name. From that moment on, I would catch snippets of them announcing the movements of “Eagle,” as in “Eagle, en route, grocery store.”
Most of the other senior government officials who joined the Obama administration were moving to D.C. with their families and were in the hunt for homes to buy or rent. But since I was coming by myself, I didn’t want to spend money on a house. Instead, I went back to my longtime friend and first campaign manager, John Franzén, and his good old house on Massachusetts Avenue. Overnight, that walk-up apartment on Capitol Hill became a place where I could command operations half a world away. The agency brought in security measures—video cameras and guards, among other things—and installed an important piece of spy gear, a secure phone, so that I could be in contact with the office at any hour.
I was eager to learn the history and nuances of the agency I was being asked to head, and, fortunately for me, one of those who knew it best was assigned to a desk less than six feet from mine. That was John Brennan, who had been considered for the CIA job but withdrew because some senators questioned whether he had effectively countenanced rough interrogations or rendition during the Bush years. In fact, John had opposed some aspects of those policies internally, but the prospect of liberal senators rising up in opposition to Obama’s first nomination to head the CIA was enough to persuade him to back off, clearing the way for my nomination.
Soon after arriving in Washington, John, Jeremy, and I met over dinner in a private space at the Caucus Room, a steak restaurant near the headquarters of the FBI. As we talked, I was struck by Brennan’s lifelong commitment to public service as well as his great abilities—he was a veteran of the CIA and spoke fluent Arabic, among other things. I was grateful that he would be serving on Obama’s team as the administration’s chief adviser on counterterrorism, a position formally known as the Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism and one for which he was eminently well suited (and which did not require Senate confirmation). John’s essential advice to me that night was that I needed to take the time to learn the culture of the agency, which he had served for nearly a quarter of a century. Moreover, John made clear that my focus had to be on terrorism and that there were, despite the criticisms, dedicated professionals at the CIA who deeply cared about the safety of the country.
The controversy around Brennan was a reminder of a particular challenge that I faced as I moved to take over at CIA. The fierce debate during the campaign over the tactics used in the response to terrorism created a gloomy sense at the agency that its people were tainted. No matter that the CIA itself had not advocated secret prisons or torture. Its men and women were given the job of protecting America and assigned the tools with which to do it. For those efforts, many now believed that the new president regarded them with suspicion, and might even authorize prosecutions of some officers. As the president’s nominee, I understood that I too might be received waril
y.2
I was determined to make it clear that I was not among those who would demonize the agency or its officers. Before my confirmation hearings began, I met with Steve Kappes, the agency’s deputy director since returning to the CIA under Mike Hayden. Plainspoken, direct, and imposing, Steve was a model officer, a former marine who easily cleared six feet. His graying beard, square jaw, and bald head made him stand out in almost any group. Steve had joined CIA out of the military, rising to become a station chief and head of the Directorate of Operations, now called the National Clandestine Service. Steve had also conducted sensitive discussions with the Iranians over the years, and was fluent in, among other things, the Libya file. He had helped negotiate with Qaddafi to rid that nation of weapons of mass destruction in exchange for the easing of sanctions.
Kappes was inclined to retire and allow me to name my own deputy, but first he agreed to walk me through the agency’s history, major challenges, and key personnel. We spent ninety minutes together that first day, and he invited me to dinner the next week at “Scattergood,” a handsome old house on the CIA campus. We continued our conversation there, and I asked him to stay on. He wanted seventy-two hours to think about it. When they were up, he informed me that he would agree to keep serving as the CIA’s deputy director, to my pleasure and relief.
Steve’s decision went a long way toward helping me secure the support of other agency veterans, most of whom I first met around a conference table at the transition offices. Chief among them was Scott White, the agency’s associate deputy director, or number three, a linebacker of a man who had served in the navy and as a career analyst and administrator. Meanwhile, the heads of the four directorates—or the “Four D’s,” as they were called—brought deep, diverse talents: Mike Sulick, who returned along with Kappes in the Hayden years, now served as director of the National Clandestine Service, “the spy guy,” responsible for espionage and covert action; Stephanie O’Sullivan, director for science and technology, oversaw our technical side, everything from concealing microphones in furniture to spy satellites; John, director for support, ran the main administrative functions of the agency, including communications, security, and personnel; and Michael Morell, director of intelligence, was responsible for creating the agency’s main product—timely, accurate, policy-relevant analysis for the president and other “customers.”
I introduced myself to this extraordinary group, told them a bit about myself, and shared my initial thoughts about the agency’s role in protecting the country. Scott and the D’s briefly described their mission areas, and pledged to support me internally. The meeting was warm and cordial, even personal. Realizing that many of them wondered whether I intended to replace them with my own team, I closed by trying to set their minds at ease. “We’re going to work really hard together,” I said, “but I hope we’ll have some good times and become friends.”
The meeting ran so long that I kept another visitor waiting. In retrospect, that was a mistake, because this next visitor would be my notional boss in the intelligence community—Admiral Blair, the nominee to be director of national intelligence. Blair had graciously run to the local Subway sandwich shop to grab us lunch, but after half an hour he impatiently knocked on the door of my meeting with the D’s and announced, “Party’s over, Leon and I have a meeting.” It was the first time I met him, and it foreshadowed what would be at times an uncomfortable relationship.
On Friday, January 9, President-elect Obama somewhat anticlimactically announced my nomination along with that of Blair. Reports had been circulating for days, so no one was surprised, though one aspect of the news conference was portentous. Blair was generous to me in his remarks that day, but also made a point of asserting his place atop the nation’s intelligence apparatus—correct in theory, though, as we would discover, not always in practice.
In the midst of those briefings and business lunches and dinners, I received a call from Sylvia. Sadly, she broke the news that her mother, long ailing, had died. Benedetta Crosetti had lived a long life, long enough to see not only her children grow to adulthood but her grandchildren as well. And yet even in celebrating her life, it was wrenching to lose her. For the first time in our lives, Sylvia and I were without any of our parents. I flew home immediately, attended the funeral, and returned to Washington later that weekend. I was back at work on Monday.
Of my initial conversations, none was more illuminating than that with my predecessor, Michael Hayden. Hayden had hoped to be retained as director, and privately he derided my nomination, referring to me as “Rahm Emanuel’s goombah,” an insult I learned of only much later.3 By contrast, I admired Hayden, whom Jeremy and others credited with restoring the agency’s morale and confidence after Goss’s unsuccessful tenure.
My first meeting with Hayden was at transition headquarters inside the “SCIF” (a “sensitive compartmented information facility”). The SCIF had our secure computers and safes where we could store our classified notes and daily intelligence briefings. It also had a secure video hookup to the Obama team’s transition office in Chicago, where the president-elect was receiving intelligence briefings. Hayden was eminently professional and determined to see that our transition was thorough, if for no other reason than to protect the agency, to which he was very loyal. Our first conversation was brief, mostly to introduce ourselves, and we agreed to talk later in greater detail.
Soon after, we did, meeting this time at Langley. Hayden had a stack of notes and methodically ticked off his points, emphasizing the quality of the CIA’s staff and its need for independence. He said he thought Iraq was on track and wouldn’t require much attention from me. He urged me to stay close to the Israelis on Iran and to keep up the pressure against Tehran. And he said that more needed to be done to truly make CIA the “national human intelligence manager,” the coordinator for all human spy operations across the government, as the post-9/11 reforms had dictated.
I didn’t need any convincing on those points, but Hayden also sternly warned me that the president-elect shouldn’t back off from the aggressive counterterrorism policies of the Bush administration. He beseeched me to urge the president to protect the CIA’s right to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects outside of the judicial “read them their rights” context. And he warned against suggesting that officers had ever engaged in torture—a matter that would present itself to me again in various controversies during my first year as director.
What really staggered me in Hayden’s briefing, however, were his revelations about the CIA’s growing involvement in the effort to locate senior members of Al Qaeda. Likening the mission of the CIA director to a military commander, he explained the important role the agency played in the broader national effort to prevent another 9/11. I was to be, in effect, “the combatant commander in the war on terrorism.”
Our conversation that day was a sobering introduction to the difficult responsibilities that awaited me. Any person in those senior jobs—at CIA or elsewhere—carries a heavy burden; these operations require literal life-and-death decisions, sometimes on a daily basis. My rosary was never far away in those years, and I said more Hail Marys than I can recall.
First, though, I needed to be confirmed by the Senate. I didn’t really doubt that I would get through—President Obama was riding a wave of popularity, and Democrats controlled the Senate. Still, Feinstein’s initial skepticism at my appointment was a reminder not to take anything for granted. I meticulously visited members in their offices, introducing myself to those I hadn’t met, catching up with those I’d known for many years. Those sessions were almost without exception cordial and friendly, though occasionally odd. When I referred to West Virginia’s legendary Robert Byrd, whom I’d known for more than twenty years, as “Bob,” he sternly corrected me. “It’s Senator Byrd,” he said. And when I met with Hawaii’s Daniel Inouye, he vigorously supported my nomination, but seemed most interested in hearing whether as CIA director I would be allowe
d to carry a sidearm. I told him I didn’t expect to. He seemed a bit disappointed. Notwithstanding those unusual moments in our conversations, both senators were strong supporters of the CIA mission and would lend valuable help to the agency during my time there.
The hearings began on the afternoon of February 5. I was pulled between Republicans who worried that I would impose limits on the agency that would inhibit its effectiveness and Democrats who worried that rough techniques were compromising American values and undermining our international moral authority. One thing both sides agreed on was that the CIA needed to do a better job informing them of its efforts and making sure that there was broad political support for that work. That was the easiest concern for me to dispense with, and I did so in my opening statement. “Keeping this committee fully and currently informed is not optional,” I assured the members on the first day of my hearings. “It’s the law, and it’s my solemn obligation to fulfill that requirement.”4
Under questioning about waterboarding and other techniques of enhanced interrogation, I firmly denounced them—President Obama had just days earlier issued an executive order prohibiting the use of such methods. Yet I did concede that in a so-called ticking time bomb scenario in which a suspect was withholding information that might imminently result in a catastrophe, I would “not hesitate to go to the President of the United States and request whatever additional authority I would need.”5
I was also asked about rendition, a practice that dated to the Clinton years (though after I had left the administration), but that had become far more controversial under Bush, especially because the assumption was that the United States was intentionally moving suspects to countries where the interrogation methods would be more brutal than those the United States was prepared to employ. I promised the committee that should I be confirmed, the CIA would not authorize the transfer of any person in our custody to any other country “for the purposes of torture.”6 Hayden blew a gasket over that comment, which he said implied that the CIA had countenanced such torture in the past. He complained to Jeremy, and the next day, under additional questioning from the committee, I cleaned up my comments, clarifying that we might continue to divert some detainees to other countries after receiving assurances that they would not be treated “inhumanely.” That was enough to mollify Hayden, and my testimony continued without further hiccups.
