So Leon Panetta has no experience in intelligence, huh? Could have fooled San Jose attorney Bill Gates, who sat at a desk facing President-elect Obama’s choice for CIA chief for two years in the 1960s at Fort Ord. Gates and Panetta worked together in a military intelligence unit in 1965 and 1966, before Panetta launched a career in politics by joining the staff of U.S. Senate Minority Whip Thomas Kuchel, a moderate California Republican whose head was handed to him when he refused to kowtow to the party’s nascent right wing.
Gates doesn’t elaborate on what he and Panetta did at the windswept, now-decommissioned Army base, other than to say it was “top secret” and involved infantry troop numbers in Vietnam.
“We were a training base—we had to put out X number of soldiers every cycle, so it was important that we knew what was going on,” he says. “It had to do with keeping the commanding general posted regarding how the war was building up and, interpreting from that, how many more men and draftees they would need to put through training.”
Gates speculates that Panetta joined the military intelligence unit not because of a fascination with all things spooky but because it spelled a briefer commission than a stint as a military lawyer would have for the newly minted Santa Clara University Law School grad.
As for whether the gig at Fort Ord was any kind of preparation for running a byzantine agency dogged by scandal and allegations of torture, Gates says nah. But he has utter faith in his old pal nevertheless.
“Leon Panetta was picked for that job because of the same reason lots of people were picked for their jobs by the president-elect, and that’s that he’s a very, very smart man. He’s brilliant. He’s a genius. He can run large agencies and he showed that by running the office of the President of the United States.”
The CIA says it needs someone who is an “insider” and understands how they work.
Well, obviously think they have been doing such a good job.
This is the agency whose intelligence failure allowed the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to get hit in a surprise attack, then let Osama bin Laden slip out of Tora Bora.
This is the agency that failed to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union.
And let’s not get into the war in Iraq! Let’s reform this agency, and Leon Panetta is about as competent and respected a government executive as can be deployed. Good luck, Leon!
As I said in a comment appended to the Editor’s announcement, Mr. Panetta is no doubt very familiar with the CIA, and to learn that he served in military intelligence does not surprise me. As an offspring of a retired senior civilian DOD career official, I can also say that once sworn, always sworn. The Mafia didn’t invent omerta… If you think that firefighters, police officers and Marines are loyal to their organizations, even to the point of risking ones life, this loyalty pales in comparison to the lifelong obligation taken and commitment made when one joins the Intelligence Community.
RGJ
As long as Arnold is Governor, I’m not sure any California voters can have a valid opinion on the correlation between experience and fit for office.
Former California congressman and Clinton aide has little experience with spy agencies. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, incoming chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, indicates she might oppose the pick.
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john
dating
Do FLY or Bill Gates REALLY think that Mr. Panetta’s brief stint in intelligence @ Fort Ord in 1965-66 has any relevance in 2009?
So, let’s say I was an employment lawyer in 1965=66, and then moved on to other things completely unrelated to employment law. Does that make me a great choice for Secretary of Labor in 2009?
I don’t know what Mr. Panetta brings to the dance @ the CIA in 2009; but it’s sooo lame to cite a brief stint 45 years ago as somehow being a qualification.