Panetta chose to enforce civil rights and equal education laws over the objection of President Nixon, who wanted enforcement to move slowly in keeping with his strategy to gain political support among Southern whites. Robert Finch and Assistant Secretary John Veneman supported Panetta and refused to fire him, threatening to resign if forced to do so. Eventually forced out of office in 1970, Panetta left Washington to work as Executive Assistant for John Lindsay, the then-Republican Mayor of New York City (Lindsay would switch parties the following year.) Panetta wrote about his Nixon administration experience in his 1971 book "Bring Us Together".