In a move apparently designed to sidestep controversy over the CIA’s interrogation and detention practices, President-elect Barack Obama has decided to nominate a nonprofessional, Democratic Party grandee Leon Panetta, as his new director of the agency, NEWSWEEK has learned.

Two well-informed political sources, who both asked for anonymity when discussing personnel matters, said that Obama made known his CIA decision to other officials earlier today. Along with Obama's anticipated decision to appoint retired Navy Adm. Dennis Blair as the new head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence--Panetta's future boss--the CIA nomination is expected to be announced in the near future.

The choice is somewhat surprising in that Panetta has no specific background managing a sprawling and esoteric intelligence bureaucracy like the CIA, or supervising and planning byzantine undercover operations. But he was a senior Democratic congressman for many years and served in the Clinton administration first as director of the Office of Management and Budget and then as White House chief of staff. In the latter post, Panetta sat in on the daily intelligence briefing giving to the president by the CIA--a task that has now been shifted to the office of the national-intelligence czar, which was created under intelligence-reform legislation approved by Congress after 9/11. As budget director, he had direct involvement in financial issues related to intelligence. Panetta also served on the Iraq Study Group and publicly opposed President Bush's "surge" of troops in 2006.

Among Obama's reasons for choosing Panetta, one of the sources said, were his reputation as a "first-rate manager," his White House experience handling issues related to "intelligence support" and his history of being able to establish friendly and cooperative relations between the executive branch and Capitol Hill. While unusual, the Panetta appointment will not come as a complete shock to those who have been following Obama's somewhat fraught efforts to produce a relatively noncontroversial but nonetheless highly respected candidate to head the always-controversial CIA.

In the weeks following his election victory, Obama was widely expected to appoint as his CIA chief John Brennan, a former top CIA and counterterrorism official who is co-chair of the committee reviewing intelligence policy issues for the president-elect's transition team. But Brennan withdrew his name from consideration as CIA chief after he was slammed by bloggers for public statements he made defending the CIA's involvement in controversial counterterrorism operations, including rough interrogations which Bush administration critics and human-rights advocates described as torture.

The Brennan controversy cast a cloud over Obama's efforts to find a new CIA chief (though sources say that Obama decided some time ago on Admiral Blair, who was not involved with controversial Bush interrogation policies, as his new intelligence czar). The current CIA chief, retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, signaled that he wouldn't mind being asked to stay on for a time. But critics noted that Hayden, like Brennan, had publicly defended the Bush administration’s counterterror activities, including CIA interrogation policies (which Hayden himself had little to do with) and warrantless wiretapping by the National Security Agency (a program that Hayden, as NSA director, helped to create after 9/11). As a senator, Obama had voted against Hayden's confirmation.

Some Democratic intelligence experts had favored an experienced intelligence official--such as Hayden's current CIA deputy, Stephen Kappes, to take over at Langley. But Kappes, who was a senior official of the CIA's undercover spying division when controversial interrogation practices were being used, faced the same potential uproar from Obama's liberal base as Brennan.

Last week, word began to circulate on the spy grapevine that Obama was looking to fill the CIA director's job with a highly respected senior figure with extensive government experience who had no spy-world baggage but would likely sail through the confirmation process. In Panetta, the president-elect probably found a candidate who fits those specifications, though reservations are already being expressed among intelligence experts about the nominee's lack of expertise in what some have called the world's second oldest profession--spying.