In Your Face at the CIA

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JASON REED / REUTERS

SPYMASTER The new director has called his approach tough love. Others feel hes trying to get the agency to toe the policy line

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Within a few hours of the e-mail, much of the agency's clandestine arm was on war footing, e-mailing friends, dialing up agency veterans and generally lighting fires all over town, hoping some of it would stick to Murray and the rest of Goss's boarding party. If this sounded like insubordination, it was also a game the CIA has perfected over the years. "The CIA's permanent bureaucracy plays hardball," says an intelligence-committee staff member. "They're trained to do that, to undermine and spy on foreign governments, to run agents, and when they turn those talents to politics in Washington, they can be very tough and very formidable."

That behavior only strengthened White House resolve last week to bring the CIA under control. Though Bush endorsed many of the recommendations of the 9/11 commission earlier this year, including the creation of a new Director of National Intelligence with expanded powers and budget authority, it's widely known that the Pentagon resisted the move because the reforms almost certainly would have strengthened the CIA's autonomy at the Pentagon's expense. The paranoia inside the intelligence community can sometimes come unbound: some at the agency believe that Pentagon boss Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney not only oppose the commission's recommendations but also want to carve up the CIA, take away its clandestine arm altogether and move it to the Pentagon. Congress would be unlikely to go along with such a radical move, nor would Bush's father, who ran the CIA briefly in the mid-1970s and whose name hangs over the door at headquarters in Langley and who still closely follows agency matters. Congressional negotiations on the 9/11 commission reforms broke down Saturday, but Republican leaders promised to keep working until adjournment in December.

Though Goss spoke with half a dozen members of Congress to calm the waters last week, he showed no signs of backing down. A CIA source tells TIME that Goss plans to enforce rules that bar active CIA officials from profiting from their positions or commenting on policy in nongovernment publications. Goss briefs Bush six days a week when both men are in town. Goss is also planning to make a foreign trip soon and is close to recommending a new deputy for White House nomination. One candidate is Lieut. General Michael Hayden, the director of the National Security Agency and a highly regarded veteran whom many old-timers admire. "In the days and weeks ahead of us," Goss's Nov. 15 e-mail read, "I will announce a series of changes, some involving procedures, organization, senior personnel and areas of focus for our action. I understand that it is easy to be distracted by both the nature and the pace of change. I am confident, however, that you will remain deeply committed to our mission. The American people and the President on their behalf, expect nothing less."

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