Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace

by Leon Panetta

  We drafted language that would withhold funds from the Interior Department for any work to authorize drilling off the California coast. The oil companies fought back hard, but we worked our votes. Norm Dicks, a Washington Democrat elected the same year as I was, supported us from the beginning, and was on the relevant subcommittee. Pennsylvania Democrat Jack Murtha couldn’t have cared less about offshore drilling in California, but he recognized how important this issue was to us, and gave his full support, no doubt realizing that we’d owe him one (he was a consummate vote trader). Their backing got it through the subcommittee, and then other supporters began to line up.

  The final House vote was 275 to 73. For good measure, the House also stripped $3.6 million from Watt’s office, snidely instructing him that he should “set an example in times of fiscal restraint.” And it barred him from using National Park Service facilities for political and social functions—a slap at Watt, who had used the Custis-Lee Mansion at Arlington National Cemetery for a couple of parties the year before. All in all, it was, as one commentator noted, a bill “clearly aimed at stopping a Cabinet secretary.”4

  Once we had it through the House, I quickly took the proposal to Senators Alan Cranston and Pete Wilson. Cranston, a Democrat who took over Kuchel’s seat in 1969 (after Rafferty beat Kuchel in the Republican primary, Cranston clobbered Rafferty in the general election), was an easy sell, as he was already known for his strong support of environmental causes. I was less sure of Wilson, who was then a newly elected Republican and would go on to compile a more conservative record once he became governor a few years later. At the time, however, he was still regarded as a moderate, and coastal protection was so widely supported in California that whatever reservations he might have had, he didn’t acknowledge them. He too signed on enthusiastically.

  Their support was vital because that meant both houses of Congress approved identical language, meaning that no conference negotiation was possible. As a result, once the Senate acted, the moratorium was approved, and President Reagan, recognizing the bipartisan support behind it, signed the measure into law. Beginning in 1982, no federal funds could be used to advance oil exploration off the California coast. That ban was renewed year after year, and support for it grew as other parts of the country lobbied to be included.

  Still, it was a fragile device. At any point, we could have lost our annual appropriations vote, and the blockade against drilling would have fallen. So even as the moratorium went into effect, I continued to look for a more permanent way to hold off drilling. It took another ten years, but in 1992, I introduced legislation to amend the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1972 to designate the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. That designation protected the entire Central Coast of California, and continues to do so today. Even if Congress were to reauthorize offshore drilling in California, the beaches and cliffs where I grew up will never look out at an oil platform.

  I think of that long effort every time I stroll the Monterey coast or enjoy a sunset over the Pacific. And here’s an admission: If Watt had been more flexible—if he’d proposed, for instance, that we open some tracts to leasing while agreeing to protect some of the more sensitive areas—I might have gone for it. I’m proud of my role in protecting those beautiful areas, but they also owe a debt to the intransigence of the man I was fighting.

  • • •

  Protecting the coast was a natural undertaking for a member of Congress in my district, but other causes arose less predictably. Two of those touched me on level of basic humanity, and both resulted in changes that I believe rendered our country a more compassionate one. They involved the neediest Americans—those living in hunger and those dying in pain.

  Early in 1982, I was meeting with a group of constituents in the district when they raised a humanitarian matter with me that struck me as so obvious that it warranted a new federal law. One of them, Jerome Rubin, was the founder and medical director of Hospice of the Monterey Peninsula, and he spoke compellingly of his mission and his patients.

  Rubin and the others described terminally ill patients who were approaching the end of their lives. Those who were in hospitals were covered by Medicare, so they could afford treatments to ease their pain or provide other palliative relief. But for those who sought to end their lives at home, under hospice care, no such protection existed. They could turn to private insurance if they had it, and of course the very wealthy could pay for it themselves. So the only ones who were blocked from the relief offered by hospice were working people who had paid their taxes and helped support Medicare, only to be denied this important benefit at precisely the moment of maximum anguish.

  It didn’t take more than that for me to be convinced, so upon returning to Washington, I drafted a bill to extend Medicare coverage to hospice. Specifically, under the language of the bill, anyone diagnosed as having six months or less to live would be entitled to Medicare benefits for psychological or medical services provided by hospice. I estimated that the bill would save the Medicare program $15 million in the first year, and possibly as much as $130 million by the fifth year, since hospice services generally are less expensive than traditional care.

  These being the days when some semblance of bipartisanship still existed, I took the idea first to Senator Bob Dole, the Kansas Republican, and asked if he would be a cosponsor. He agreed, and we reeled in support. Within a few days, we had 143 House members signed as cosponsors and more in the Senate. By the time of the bill’s first hearing, that number was over 200, on its way to more than 300.

  Not everyone was convinced. The Reagan administration, which already was annoyed with me over the Central Coast dispute, came out against the bill. The objection was entered by Paul Willging, deputy administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration, and it was sufficiently dubious that it was hard to know whether to take him seriously. The administration, he said, believed “we should proceed with extreme caution” in creating this new benefit before fully understanding its potential cost. He cited as an example the unanticipated rise in costs for coverage of end-stage kidney disease, which had ballooned from $229 million in 1974 to $1.6 billion in 1981.

  In the case of hospice, however, we had solid evidence that it would save money, not cost more, so Willging’s objection seemed more like reflexive opposition to something I was proposing than a serious reason not to proceed. The House shrugged him off, and with Dole’s help, so did the Senate. Both approved the benefit, which was included as part of that year’s Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act.

  As a way of enlisting support from some wavering members in 1982, we agreed to study the effects of the benefit and allow it to expire in 1986 if it was not delivering the desired service and saving the government money. That study emphatically endorsed hospice, and rather than let the provision sunset, Congress made it permanent. Today, 100 percent of the costs of hospice are covered by Medicare. No terminally ill person need remain in a hospital nor in pain should they prefer this alternative.

  My mother was able to die at home, where she was comfortable and at peace, because my father was able to pay for it. Now all Americans have that same right and ability.

  My exposure to hunger came about differently, and bore almost no deep connection to my district. Though the Central Coast does have hungry families, and though some of our seniors benefit from programs such as Meals on Wheels, my enlightenment on the deprivations of starving Americans grew out of my assignment to the Agriculture Committee, notably its subcommittee on Nutrition. Among our responsibilities was oversight of the federal Food Stamp Program.

  In the course of researching the program and assessing the need for it, our subcommittee traveled widely and to some of America’s poorest communities. What I saw frankly shocked and saddened me. In areas as disparate as Appalachia and the slums of Chicago or New York, we saw parents who simply could not provide for their children. Too often we saw children who were was
ting away.

  Those meetings became more poignant and desperate during the 1980s, as Reagan’s policies cut key food programs for many hungry Americans. In 1989, one survey concluded that requests for emergency food assistance in major American cities increased 96 percent that year. Roughly 60 percent of those requesting food were children or the parents of children. Poverty spread and deepened during the Reagan years; by the end of his time in office, there were more poor people and they were on average significantly poorer. What’s more, most were working and still not able to afford the basics of life. Of the 32.5 million Americans living in poverty at the end of the 1980s, 18 million lived in households where at least one person had work. For many, food stamps were the difference between living and dying. I suppose I was naïve, but until seeing that for myself, I would not have believed that such desperation could coexist in this country with such bounty.

  One of my principal guides through this discovery was Congressman Mickey Leland of Texas, a passionate and committed activist who dedicated his public service to eradicating hunger after visiting the Sudan in 1984 and seeing a starving girl literally die before his eyes.5 Leland, who chaired the Congressional Black Caucus, impressed upon me the deep urgency of his cause, and we worked closely together, mostly on programs to alleviate hunger in the United States but also on supplying some aid to countries in famine. At his request, I joined his Select Committee on Hunger in 1984, and remained a member during the rest of my years in Congress.

  For a time, Congress accepted and appreciated the need for this most basic responsibility of government. A smart political coalition grew up around food stamps by including them in the same legislation that provided price supports for many agricultural products. Members of Congress from cotton, wheat, and corn states, for instance, would support the bill because it supplied their members with crucial supports, while urban members and those with very poor districts would sign on for the food stamp provisions. It wasn’t a model of conscientious governance—it locked in expensive agricultural supports that in many cases went to agribusiness rather than the family farmers who were its more popular beneficiaries—but it was politically astute and enduringly effective. Year after year, we were able to secure passage of food stamp legislation that saved families. I have on my wall the various pens that presidents used to sign those bills. I can’t look at them without thinking of the families who received that aid.

  Among the many tragedies that have accompanied the collapse of leadership in Washington in recent years has been the breakdown of the consensus on food stamps. Tea Party conservatives, delighting in labeling President Obama the “food-stamp president,” pointed to the dramatic rise in requests for emergency food as evidence of our slide into a welfare state or, more absurdly, socialism. It was not. It was the result of a bitter recession that commenced under President George W. Bush and that has gradually given way under President Obama. Nevertheless, food stamps remain a whipping boy. Members of Congress have demanded limits on the time that any recipient can qualify for food, and have demanded that recipients be cut off if they can’t find work quickly.

  Sensible people can disagree about the reach and effectiveness of welfare or any relief program. Food stamps are admittedly expensive, and there is undoubtedly waste to be addressed. Compassionate people, however, do not let children starve in order to make political points.

  • • •

  After my mother died, my father lived alone for a time at his home in the Carmel Valley. But solitude didn’t suit him, and he became impatient for a companion. And when it came to matrimony, he knew what to do: He headed for Italy and back to Siderno. Amazingly, he struck gold again, meeting Teresa Ruggiero—we always called her Tita—and marrying her in the spring of 1970. The two of them lived in a guesthouse on the property while Sylvia and I and our sons enjoyed the main house—or at least I enjoyed it when I was home from Washington.

  As the 1970s unfolded, my father’s health faded. In February 1983, I was in Washington when Sylvia called to say he had died. I sat alone in my congressional office overlooking the Capitol and cried, my heart full with memories. He was buried next to my mother in the main cemetery in Monterey, inside a crypt he had picked out years before. He left me with an unshakable commitment to family and country, and a powerful sense of the responsibilities of a father. I loved him, admired him, and when he was gone missed him suddenly and deeply.

  My stepmother stayed on at the house for another two decades, sharing the property with me and Sylvia and our children. Tita died in 2012.

  • • •

  One of the most complex and challenging tasks of my congressional tenure began with a failure.

  The area in and around Monterey has been home to soldiers since even before California entered the Union, as it served as an army post during the Mexican-American War and the Gold Rush. In 1917, the army founded Camp Gigling in the area just north of Monterey, and that camp became first Camp Ord and later Fort Ord. At its peak, it was home to thousands of soldiers at any given time. Indeed, more than 1.5 million soldiers, including such diverse luminaries as actor Clint Eastwood and Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, passed through the base between the beginning of World War II and the time I was elected to Congress. By the 1980s, it was the home of the army’s 7th Infantry Division (Light). The American troops who participated in the invasion of Panama in 1989 were drawn largely from Fort Ord, and it played important roles in other U.S. actions as well.

  It thus had seen its share of history, but more tangibly the fort was a major economic force in the Central Coast and my district. It had supplied jobs and economic benefit to the region for decades—the success of Carmelo’s Café during the war, I well recalled, was largely fueled by the servicemen who came to appreciate my mother’s friendly face and my father’s homestyle cooking.

  So as the United States began to consolidate its armed forces in the 1980s—in 1988, Congress approved the Defense Authorization and Base Closure and Realignment Act, which established a commission to identify and recommend base closures—I viewed it as my responsibility to my district to keep the base open. I began to work on Defense Department officials, pressing the case that the weather on the Central Coast was ideal, and very few if any bases enjoyed a longer training season. That also made it a useful staging area. When I first heard that Fort Ord was to be included on the list of bases slated for closure, I convened a group of retired officers in my district and we took our case directly to Colin Powell. The first list of recommended closures came out, and Fort Ord was not on it. We’d dodged a bullet.

  But the process wasn’t over, and the arguments for shutting down Fort Ord were formidable. For one thing, it lacked sufficient family housing, and finding affordable places to live outside the base was almost impossible in the expensive communities of Monterey and Carmel. Seaside, where the base was principally located, was a bit cheaper, but still out of reach of most army families. Recognizing that, I worked to develop affordable housing, but Powell worried, with some justification, that we’d never have enough. Moreover, Fort Ord lacked a major airfield, which complicated rapid deployments, as troops had to be moved to an airport before they could be sent on their missions. Finally, one criterion for base closures was how much the Department of Defense could get in return if it shut down facilities and sold them. Fort Ord sat on twenty-eight thousand acres of California coastland, including beaches and bluffs to rival those of Malibu. From the military’s perspective, then, closing Fort Ord would save money, and selling it would bring in much more money. It was hard to argue with that logic.

  When the next list of recommended closures appeared in 1991, Fort Ord was on it, and I recognized that our number was up. I came home one weekend with the bad news. “I think it’s better if we accept this decision and move on,” I told a group of community leaders who had been working on the issue for years. “We can’t go on fighting this. . . . We have to replace Fort Ord in a way that will minimize
damage to the area.”

  Those were hard words for many of my constituents to hear, and I have no doubt that many of them thought I’d let them down. But it moved the conversation forward, past a losing battle and into a constructive discussion about the future of that part of the Central Coast.

  Making that shift was not easy. Before communities could work together on a plan, we had to confront the many rivalries and competing visions for the property. Seaside thought it should take the lead, since it was the community most directly adjacent to the base, but others had claims as well, since no town on that stretch of coastline had been unaffected by the presence of the army over so many generations. Anger over the decision also clouded easy debate over it. Many of my constituents believed the closure was done in retaliation for my vote on January 12, 1991, against the resolution authorizing President George H. W. Bush to take the United States to war in Iraq—a fear that I don’t subscribe to, but mention here only because it demonstrates how high passions were running at the time.

  In an effort to bring communities together, state senator Henry Mello—another great, pragmatic leader from the era—proposed the creation of an agency that would take the lead in implementing a re-use proposal. That became the Fort Ord Reuse Authority, which acted as the development agency for the property. Every city in the area was represented on the authority, and through the early 1990s a vision of the property began to take shape. Thankfully, early talk of locating a prison there faded away, and turned instead to the idea of building some sort of school on the land.

  The University of California wasn’t a good fit—for the sensible reasons that the Santa Cruz campus was just a few miles away and the university was committed to building its next campus in the state’s Central Valley. That eventually became UC Merced, the newest state university campus. But the Cal State system was another option, and I happened to know that system’s chancellor, Barry Munitz. I invited him to tour the property in the fall of 1991, and he immediately saw the potential. Not only was there a huge amount of land in a beautiful area, but there was also a gymnasium, roads, dormitories, water and sewer lines, electricity—infrastructure that would have cost millions of dollars to build from scratch. “You know,” Barry said to me at the end of our tour, “this makes sense.” Barry took the idea to the Cal State trustees, who approved, with the idea that the campus would initially be an adjunct of Cal State San Jose and eventually mature into a stand-alone school. The military, meanwhile, recognized that a high priority for former bases should be conversion for public purposes, so it agreed to donate a large swath of the property on the coastal edge to the new school.