Since arriving at the Central Intelligence Agency, former Rep. Porter Goss has generated much controversy.
Before Goss’ appointment as agency director, critics expressed concern about his capacity to provide objective information to government officials, free of political bias–the cardinal purpose of an intelligence director.
They argued that his strong partisanship in the House, where he was chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and frequently attacked the Clinton administration, disqualified him as a candidate. Moreover, they maintained, Goss had been too passive as an intelligence overseer, advocating funding for the CIA at unprecedented levels and serving chiefly as a cheerleader for the nation’s intelligence agencies.
The critics are now convinced that the first few months of Goss’ tenure as director of central intelligence have confirmed their worst fears. They point to the gruff manner in which his staff members, whom Goss brought with him from the House committee, fired several senior officials. They also question his aloofness from intelligence professionals at the agency, where he had once worked in the Directorate of Operations. They wonder, too, how he could have approved a memorandum circulated throughout the CIA soon after his arrival that urged support for the Bush administration, a directive that seemed to verify the prediction that he would contaminate intelligence with politics.
Yet there is more to Porter Goss than this criticism suggests.
For example, a closer reading of the controversial memo reveals that its purpose was not to bend the CIA toward a partisan posture but rather to remind intelligence bureaucrats that their job description does not include taking potshots at the White House or, for that matter, any other government agency.
Instead, intelligence officers are paid to concentrate on gathering and interpreting–as objectively as possible–information from overseas that can help officials protect the nation from danger. Most CIA employees understand this principle and perform admirably; yet, based on the recent spate of intelligence leaks critical of the White House, some evidently do not.
Goss sought to bring the CIA back in line with the ethos of professional responsibility, which rests on the bedrock principle of policy neutrality.
The memo, unfortunately, was poorly worded and gave many people the impression that Goss was politicizing the CIA. Moreover, his staff from Capitol Hill (who were CIA officers earlier in their careers) carried out the firings with all the grace of a bulldozer.
Nevertheless, Goss has the personal skills to succeed as leader of the CIA. As a member of the Aspin-Brown Commission, which looked into post-Cold War intelligence issues in 1995-96, he displayed considerable adeptness in working with his colleagues, along with a deep knowledge of the intelligence business and an interest in reform.
During commission meetings, he advocated improvements in the CIA’s human intelligence (“humint”) capacity–infiltrating spies into the high councils of America’s adversaries. Others often proposed technical solutions for information gathering through the use of satellites, which are not very helpful in finding terrorists hidden in caves.
He supported a more serious approach to accountability over the secret agencies and later wrote a scathing congressional critique of the CIA’s poor humint record. Goss came across as a bright, affable and serious member of the commission, and certainly one of the hardest-working people on the panel.
A year before his appointment as director, Goss appeared with another member of Congress at a conference on intelligence accountability held in Washington, D.C. His colleague came late, read a few brief remarks, then quickly exited.
In contrast, Goss spoke at length (and without a script) about the importance of accountability, advancing some innovative ideas. He stayed through the full session and had animated discussions with scholars for an hour after the formal event was over.
Goss has gotten off on the wrong foot at the CIA, although he is hardly the first new director to ruffle feathers in the intelligence bureaucracy. Stansfield Turner, President Jimmy Carter’s intelligence chief, brought with him from the Navy a band of fellow officers, whom CIA officers quickly dubbed the Navy Mafia.
Turner fired many more people than Goss has, and with an equal lack of tact. John Deutch, another outsider, chosen by President Bill Clinton, soon found himself the first director ever booed in the “the Bubble,” the CIA’s assembly hall, for proposing changes and coming across as unsympathetic to the tribe he had just joined.
Organizations don’t like change; new leaders often do. These differing impulses produce conflict. The CIA has weathered helm changes in the past, including some outsiders, and will do so this time as well. So, too, will Goss endure this early setback.
Indeed, the knowledge base, natural charm (despite reports to the contrary) and good sense he brings to the job tilt the odds in favor of his not only surviving but performing well.
The most important yardstick for measuring any CIA chief–or any national intelligence director, the superchief just created by the government–is how effectively he or she resists the temptation to join a president’s political team.
With his famous “slam dunk” assurance to President Bush about the probability of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, former Director George Tenet crossed the line separating intelligence and policy.
He overstated the case about the possibility of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, as estimated more cautiously by professional analysts in the intelligence agencies. Goss, too, may succumb to the sirens of the White House, but my sense of him is that he is likely to uphold the sacred standard of professional objectivity for intelligence officers and speak truth to power.
Whether power will listen is, of course, another matter.
