Yesterday, the Washington Post had a lengthy report on how former CIA director Leon Panetta was sending out copies of his book nearly a month before it cleared the CIA’s internal revue process to ensure that no sensitive national security information was being revealed. According to the Post, Panetta clashed with his former agency repeatedly throughout the process. And he refused to hold himself to the same standards of secrecy that he demanded while he was CIA director, having publicly scolded Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette for his own book about the Bin Laden raid. The Post also notes that Panetta played fast and loose with state secrets at the CIA: “His public comments about the drone campaign — including his description of airstrikes on al-Qaeda as “the only game in town” — were so extensive that the American Civil Liberties Union cited them extensively in a lawsuit that argued the program could no longer be considered a government secret.”
Of course, the idea that Panetta would spurn the CIA in order to make sure his $3 million book deal went off without a hitch should not be surprising to anyone who has followed Panetta’s career. Decades ago, The New Republic reported Panetta was the likely the source who revealed Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s authorship of the controversial report “The Black Family: Then and Now” to the press. Former Bush administration official and historian Tevi Troy recounted the incident in his book Intellectuals and the American Presidency:
Although memos leak all the time, and the leakers are rarely identified, The New Republic’s John Osborne reported in a March 1970 profile of Moynihan that Leon Panetta was a prime suspect in the leak.
There was certainly some reason for the suspicion. In February, Panetta had resigned from HEW because he opposed the Nixon administration’s approach to desegregation. Panetta later went to work for New York mayor John Lindsay, switched parties, and successfully ran for Congress as a Democrat in 1976. The leaker has never been definitively identified.
When Panetta was up for confirmation as CIA director, I suggested the Senate use the opportunity to ask Panetta to confirm whether he was the leaker, as being able to keep a secret would be an important qualification for the position.
Looking ahead, Panetta is expected to hitch his wagon to Hillary’s presidential bid. When the Clintons invariably start kneecapping the insufficiently loyal in the press, Panetta’s proximity to the various revelations might be of interest to political observers. And if, God forbid, Panetta is up for a prominent job in yet another Clinton administration, the Senate should once again consider Panetta’s problematic relationship with political secrets.
