Leon Panetta, who served in two presidential administrations as well as in Congress, will present the 2019 Cameron Fellows Lecture on October 10 at the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center on the campus of Texas A&M University. The title of his lecture is “The Challenges of US National Security Decision Making.” A reception at 5:30 p.m. will precede Secretary Panetta’s lecture at 6 p.m.
Following service in the United States Army, Panetta joined the staff of Senator Tom Kuchel of California. In 1969, he was appointed Director of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare’s Office for Civil Rights, and later served as Executive Assistant to the mayor of New York City. He practiced law in Monterey, California, until his election to the United States House of Representatives in 1976.
Appointed as Director of the Office of Management and Budget for the Clinton administration in 1993, in 1994, he was named the president’s Chief of Staff. After leaving the White House in 1997, Secretary Panetta and his wife Sylvia established the Panetta Institute for Public Policy, based at California State University, Monterey Bay, a nonprofit study center that seeks to attract men and women to public service.
Panetta served as Director of the CIA under President Obama, where he ran the operation that brought Osama bin Laden to justice. Later, as Secretary of Defense, Panetta led the effort to develop a new defense strategy, helped bring two wars to an end, and opened up opportunities for everyone to serve in the military.
The William Waldo Cameron Distinguished Fellows Program was established by an endowment to the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation from Flora Cameron Crichton as a memorial to her father. The Cameron Fellows Program is intended to bring remarkable leaders and consequential ideas from the frontiers of industry, government, and academia to the classrooms of the Bush School.
Tickets are required for this event.
