Worthy fights : a memoir of leadership in war and peace / Leon Panetta ; with Jim Newton.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 473-478) and index.

part I. Politics and progress. "A better life" -- "Look at yourself in the mirror" -- "You did what was right" -- "No more excuses" -- "Working for us" -- "It's the right fight" -- "If the White House is falling apart ..." -- "We thought you would cave -- pt. II. Protect and defend. "The combatant commander in the War on Terrorism" -- "Tell it like it is ... our national security depends on it" -- "Disrupt, dismantle, defeat" -- "Everywhere in the world" -- "Go in and get Bin Laden" -- "To be free, we must also be secure" -- "A new defense strategy for the twenty-first century" -- "In together, out together" -- "I cannot imagine the pain" -- Leadership or crisis.

Leon Panetta's first career, beginning as an army intelligence officer and including 16 years in the House of Representatives, lasted thirty-five years and culminated in his role as Clinton's budget czar and White House chief of staff. He then "retired" to establish the Panetta Institute with his wife of fifty years, Sylvia; to serve on the Iraq Study Group; and to protect his beloved California coastline. But in 2009, he accepted what many said was a thankless task: returning to public office as the director of the CIA, taking it from a state of turmoil after the Bush-era torture debates and moving it back to the vital center of America's war against Al Qaeda, including the campaign that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden. And then, in the wake of bin Laden's death, Panetta became the U.S. Secretary of Defense, inheriting two troubled wars in a time of austerity and painful choices. Worthy Fights is a reflection of Panetta's values. It is imbued with the frank, grounded, and often quite funny spirit of a man who never lost touch with where he came from: his family's walnut farm in beautiful Carmel Valley, California. It is also a testament to a lost kind of political leadership, which favors progress and duty to country over partisanship. Panetta is a Democrat who pushed for balanced budgets while also expanding care for the elderly and sick; a devout Catholic who opposes the death penalty but had to weigh every drone strike from 2009 through 2011. Throughout his career, Panetta's polestar has been his belief that a public servant's real choice is between leadership or crisis. Troubles always come about through no fault of one's own, but most can be prevented with courage and foresight.