Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace

by Leon Panetta

  Through my early childhood, Nono and I were together almost constantly. He was a big, garrulous man, with hands like catchers’ mitts, a mop of thick white hair, and a lyrical Italian accent. He loved life, good food, and a glass of wine that he would pour from a gallon jug of Gallo that rested on the floor near his chair. He’d carry me around on his shoulders, and take me down to the local Italian market, Genovese’s, or the wharf. He fished a bit, and the fishermen would always be happy to see him. They gathered there or in a little plaza at the end of Alvarado Street, where they smoked Toscanellis and talked about the war and Mussolini and Hitler as I strained to hear and understand. My Nono, after all, was only in the United States by chance, and he warned that the war might not be as easy as some Americans thought. “Watch out,” he once told my father. “Mussolini and Hitler could win.” My father didn’t buy it: “Papa, that’s not going to happen.”

  Although we spoke both English and Italian at home, Nono knew only bits and pieces of English. My father told the story of one of his dishwashers who had to have a serious operation. When he returned from his stay in the hospital, Nono asked him where he had been. Jack, the dishwasher, said he’d been hospitalized with a very serious illness.

  “Thatsa good, Jack . . . Thatsa good,” my Nono said.

  My father quickly explained to a shaken Jack that it was Nono’s way of hoping all went well.

  For me to take full advantage of my grandfather’s generosity, it was critical for me to learn Italian. He spoiled me, as grandparents do, and I sat on his shoulders calling out things I wanted from the market. One day I begged for a cantaloupe, and he heard that as “lupe.” Arriving at the market, Nono was perplexed but determined to give me what I wanted. In Italian, he asked the owners, “Ma dove trovo un lupe?”—“But where am I going to find a wolf?” People in Monterey still tell that story.

  It was an Italian market, of course, and the grandson of the owners was Joe Genovese. Joe and I were boys together. We played almost every day. He would come around the apartment complex on Van Buren and stand outside yelling “Leee-on, Leee-on, come out and play.” We roamed the neighborhood together, fashioning slingshots and rubber-band guns. We struggled to keep up with my brother and his friends, who played at another level, building tree forts and playing with axes. One of those axes cost my brother half of his right thumb—neighbors still talk about the screams of my mother when Joe came running home, half his thumb dangling from his hand.

  On weekends, Joe Genovese and I would walk to the Monterey Theater, where we’d see the serials for twenty-five cents. They played the Phantom, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Batman, Superman—all our favorites. After the movies, we’d go by the restaurant and have a hamburger before heading home. Those were the days when two kids, six years old, could walk all around Monterey by themselves; families looked out for one another.

  Joe and I loved to play make-believe, but I made him play by my rules: I always got to play the lead, and he was forced to be my sidekick. We tied my mother’s dishrags at the corners and made them into capes. Properly outfitted, we then challenged and vanquished enemies of every stripe—not exactly a precursor of my years at the CIA or the Defense Department, but perhaps a glimmer.

  I attended Catholic schools as a young boy, and worked to be a good student. I walked to school—about ten blocks through downtown Monterey—and got there early. Too early for the Franciscan nuns, who were bothered by my loitering around campus before school opened. They made me write “I will not get to school early” a thousand times on the blackboard. That, plus the occasional whack of a ruler across my hands, taught me a lot about discipline. Other than the occasional mark-down for “deportment,” I generally received good grades—history and English were my strongest subjects; math was fine up until I reached Algebra 2, at which point I hit the wall and began to say Hail Marys. And my Catholic education extended beyond the classroom. Although my parents worked hard and did not make every mass, they were Catholic in their souls, and there was no question but that I would be raised Catholic. I attended mass often during the week and every Sunday. I was an altar boy and received First Communion and the other sacraments in the church as well. And my make-believe life bled into my religious observance. There was a vacant shed not far from our house, and I would occasionally sneak inside and deliver stirring sermons to the empty rooms. To this day, I carry a rosary and attend mass on Sunday. And I steady myself with Hail Marys, especially during these most tense recent phases of my life, when it was my responsibility to order young people into harm’s way.

  My parents were a loving and supportive presence throughout my childhood. They came to America because they believed they could give their children a better life. And they did, but they also worked hard to make that happen. The restaurant was often open until 2 a.m. and then again for breakfast, so they barely had time for a nap before they needed to return to work. Even Tuesdays, when the restaurant was closed, were filled with restocking, paying bills, buying and replacing supplies. That made me all the happier to have my Nono, as he stood in for my hardworking mother and father.

  During the early years of the war in Europe, events on that continent were of intense interest but still seemed remote. That changed after Pearl Harbor. Suddenly, many Americans, especially on the West Coast, feared invasion, and that fear was stoked by the unfounded suspicion that the December 7, 1941, attack had been aided by Japanese spies. Those inside the United States with ties to the Axis powers came under grave and increasingly shrill suspicion. It was ludicrous to think that my grandfather posed any such threat—he was a retired sailor with no loyalties to Mussolini, and there was not so much as an allegation against him—but he was among those Italians living in America who were forcibly removed from their homes, in his case because he was living in the coastal zone.

  In early 1942, some ten thousand Italians living on the West Coast were targeted for removal because they lived in areas that were designated as prohibited.1 The order did not apply to American citizens and was in many cases waived even for first-generation immigrants, especially those with American children. Presumably, that is why my parents were spared. My grandfather, by contrast, had not immigrated to the United States but rather was an Italian citizen in this country merely for a vacation. That was enough to render him a threat, and, to my shock and dismay, he was ordered to leave Monterey.

  My parents helped him find an apartment in San Jose in a boardinghouse run by an Italian family. When it came time to leave, we drove Nono to San Jose. That car ride was one I will never forget. Through my tears, I struggled to understand why my Nono was being forced to move away. I’m sure it was painful for my parents to say good-bye to my grandfather, but they did not let on to me, and they certainly did not allow themselves to become embittered against the United States. “To be free,” my father used to say, “we must also be secure.” Did he apply that sentiment to the removal of my Nono? Neither my mother nor my father said a word; there were only tears.

  My grandfather’s case was one of thousands involving relocation or internment of Italians and Italian Americans during the war, a shameful example of segregating out a portion of the public solely on the basis of background. As a civil rights issue, it paled next to the treatment of the Japanese and Japanese Americans, 110,000 of whom were interned for most of the war; nearly two-thirds of those were American citizens, forced to spend years behind barbed wire in camps throughout the West, extending as far east as Arkansas. Though most American-born Italian Americans, myself included, escaped that fate, the entire episode stands as a bracing reminder that even those most committed to civil liberties can lose sight of their responsibilities when confronted by a threat to security. It was a lesson I would later have the opportunity to reflect upon.

  In the meantime, the war was in one sense good for my family. Fort Ord kept growing as a major hub of training activity for American soldiers bound for the war. Monterey was jumping with off-dut
y soldiers and sailors—and the restaurant was too. Business boomed through those years, and my father proved to be a street-smart investor. He bought a couple of rental properties and supplemented his income from the café with rent payments. Then, just as the war ended, he sold the restaurant at the height of the market, and was done with his days behind the counter.

  He and my mother took the money from the sale of the café and bought twelve acres in the Carmel Valley. They planted walnut trees so that the land would produce some income, as well as some peach trees that would begin producing while the walnuts matured. In 1946, they began work on a house, and by 1948 it was complete. We moved from Monterey to the valley. I would spend the rest of my youth in that home. Indeed, I have spent much of my life there. My sons grew up in that house, and my wife, Sylvia, and I live there today.

  The orchard required plenty of work. I helped with irrigating the trees three times a year, picked the fruit, and often manned a fruit stand out on the road. But the property was more than a chore—it was a wondrous retreat, vast and limitless, for a boy with an imagination. I crawled over the hills, pretending to be characters from Tom Mix to Zapata. I built an imaginary city out of wooden blocks close to the house, constructing roads and dams and waterways. And though the crop never did make much money—I suspect it just about kept pace with the taxes—it connected my mother and father to the land, and grounded me in the real work of farming. Today, when I see the vegetable garden that one of my sons nurtures in his backyard, I remember my young days in Carmel Valley and happily note that my parents’ gift to me continues to yield fruit.

  I enjoyed sports as a boy, particularly baseball and basketball, but I showed my greatest potential as a pianist. My parents arranged for Joe and me to take lessons. Joe soon moved on to sports and friends in high school, but I stuck with it for a while because of the encouragement of my mother and the kindness of a local piano teacher, David Alberto. He would pick me up at school, buy cookies, and off we would go to my lessons on his old Steinway in his Carmel home. I loved the music, and my skills improved. I gave some recitals and even attracted a little notice.

  When I was about ten years old, I gave a performance at a home in Carmel that the local newspaper covered. “This boy,” the reviewer wrote of me, “possesses a phenomenal musical talent. He played with a depth of feeling and understanding far beyond his years.” Of my interpretive ability, this generous reviewer marked that it was “nothing short of genius.” Unfortunately, practicing the piano meant not playing sports or studying. I stuck with it for several years and even gave a formal concert at the Sunset Center in Carmel, but eventually my interests turned elsewhere. And though I still play often, I abandoned thoughts of a musical career before I finished high school. It was not just the hours of practice required for a pianist; it was the realization that I liked being with people, not performing for them.

  After eight years of Catholic grammar school, the horizons of my life suddenly expanded when I enrolled at Monterey High School, my first experience with public education. After a rocky start—I came home in tears the first day, overwhelmed by the size of my classes and worried about making friends with boys and girls who already had been together for years—I got my bearings and discovered a knack for politics. I joined all kinds of clubs—Key Club, Latin Club, and the like—and I ran for student council and was elected, first as student body vice president and later as president. One of my projects was to create a student union—a place for students to play cards or listen to records. I proposed the idea, and the administration signed off on it. I then solicited contributions of used furniture, including a big unit of a record player that sat in the corner, and a couple Ping-Pong tables. It was an instant hit. My commitment to constituent services was born.

  As a young person, I hadn’t given a lot of thought to a career. Piano had come and gone, and my father periodically floated the idea that he thought being a dentist would be smart—good money, regular hours, and Wednesdays off seemed ideal to him. But the thought of spending my life looking in other people’s mouths didn’t do much for me. Joe, meanwhile, headed off to Santa Clara University—the first member of our family ever to go to college—determined to head from there to law school. I had tailed him for years, following him and his friends through the streets of Monterey. This too seemed like a path worth following. My parents approved, and I matriculated in the fall of 1956. My father paid my tuition in regular cash installments, and I chipped in by extending my ROTC service at Santa Clara—ROTC was required for all students the first two years in those days—for two more years and getting my army commission.

  ROTC was my first real service to my country, and I enjoyed it, both for the sense that I was contributing to my education and because I liked the specifics of my experience—the military history, the schooling in weaponry and tactics. When I graduated from Santa Clara, I received my bachelor of science degree at the podium, then all of us who had completed ROTC stripped off our graduation robes to reveal our uniforms underneath. I circled back up to the podium a second time, this time to receive my commission. It was a like a scene from an old Doris Day–Gordon MacRae movie.

  In retrospect, the combination of law and student government may look as if I was building toward a career in politics even then. If so, it wasn’t conscious.

  I was drawn to the idea of service—my parents’ gratitude to this country for the opportunities it gave them profoundly affected me, and my ROTC training reinforced that. But I was never a particularly ideological young person, and my political role models in those days made their impressions as much through character as philosophy. I remember Eisenhower visiting Carmel during his presidency—he liked to golf at Pebble Beach—and I was captivated by his presence. I had rooted for him during the 1952 Republican convention in Chicago; I didn’t think of him in terms of political philosophy so much as I admired his style of sturdy, comforting leadership.

  In California, Earl Warren was elected governor in 1942, when I was still a young boy, and went on to be twice reelected (he is the only governor in California history to win three consecutive elections), so he was the governor for my whole youth, and he too captured my interest and support. Like Eisenhower, he was a big, forceful presence, as well as a commanding and bipartisan leader. And, like Eisenhower, he was a Republican.

  So when it came time for me to align with a party, I joined the GOP of Ike and Warren, and considered myself part of the socially liberal, fiscally conservative Republican Party that those two leaders helped create and nurture through the 1950s. My first presidential vote was for Richard Nixon in 1960; I supported him because of his association with Eisenhower and in the belief that he represented moderate social policies in areas such as civil rights. The party would change a great deal in later years, and I would eventually leave it, but I believe I remain faithful to those progressive ideals that once grounded Eisenhower Republicans.

  College and law school were formative in many ways, but no moment was more meaningful than a mixer in the fall of 1958. I was a student body officer at Santa Clara—commissioner of social activities or some such thing—and since it was an all-men’s school, we hosted regular get-togethers with our sister Catholic schools in the Bay Area. Buses brought in the young women, and we greeted them with corsages. That day, as they disembarked, I exchanged looks with one dark-haired beauty from Dominican. We didn’t connect at first—she was surrounded by other girls, and I couldn’t get to her. But later that evening, after I considered skipping the dance, I was encouraged by my friends, particularly Butch Erbst, to see what the possibilities might be at the mixer. We walked out of the dorm, and there was a group of women passing by.

  Sylvia was part of that group; our eyes met again. We struck up a conversation at dinner. We ended up spending the evening, the first of many, chatting away. Soon I met her family, and we too hit it off. Her parents, like mine, were Italian, hardworking, and dedicated to the success of their childre
n—her dad was a partner in a garbage company that held a franchise with the city of Petaluma, just north of San Francisco.

  After a long courtship, I proposed to Sylvia, and then, in the fashion expected of Italian men of my generation, I sought her father’s approval. He happily gave it. We were engaged on June 20, 1961. I gave Sylvia a ring, and she gave me a watch. It was a self-winding Movado. More than fifty years later, I still wear it. And it’s always been set to California time, so that no matter where I am in the world, I am reminded of home.

  A year later, on July 14, 1962, Sylvia and I were married at her family’s parish. Our first son, Chris, was born on Mother’s Day of the following year, and our family began to take shape. For our part, Sylvia and I are still having that talk that we began in 1958.

  Although I voted for Nixon in 1960, I admired Kennedy as well, and as a Catholic, my heart was with him. I attended a Kennedy rally in San Jose during the campaign, and I had the chance to shake his hand as he passed in an open car. Even that passing moment left a feeling of connection, and when he won the election I joined with the rest of the country in anticipating his presidency.

  His charisma and charm, his sense of style and panache, his young wife and attractive children—all struck a hopeful chord in the country as the first American president born in the twentieth century took command. It was his inaugural message that struck me most strongly, however. His call to service—“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”—powerfully expressed the lessons of my father and my experiences in the army. I felt that sense of duty; Kennedy’s appeal to patriotism resonated deeply with me and many of those close to me.

  The final words of that speech are often overlooked in favor of the famous “ask not” passage, but they are among the most stirring appeals to service ever uttered by an American president, and they fused country and faith in a way that spoke directly to me: “With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.”