An Old Spy Comes In from the Hill

By DOUGLAS WALLER

If it had been up to him, Porter Goss never would have left the CIA. He was a typical spy during the cold war, one of the Ivy Leaguers the CIA prized, a Yale scholar of ancient Greek who roamed Western Europe, Mexico and the Dominican Republic during the 1960s recruiting foreign agents and collecting intelligence on the Soviets. Goss, 65, once told TIME that he had hoped to spend a career at the CIA, but a serious staph infection in 1970 forced him to quit fieldwork, and he left the agency for a new life in Florida that eventually led him to politics and the House of Representatives. Three decades later, the former secret agent is poised to return to the clandestine world, now that President George W. Bush has nominated Goss as director of Central Intelligence.

Goss's chances of being confirmed in the job are much greater than they were when the White House first floated his name six weeks ago. Then Democrats publicly complained that the Republican Congressman was too partisan for the position, left open by the July resignation of George Tenet. But the Bush Administration was moved to fill the post after recent polls showed Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry narrowing the gap with Bush on the question of whom voters trust more to fight terrorism. That and warnings of a possible new alQaeda attack in the U.S. made it politically dicey to continue with no permanent CIA chief.

Bush correctly calculated that Democrats would be reluctant to risk a backlash from voters by blocking a nominee while the nation was under threat. Kerry signaled that he wouldn't fight the nomination, and though Senate Democrats are still worried that Goss is too loyal to his political masters and too close to his old agency to reform it, for now they don't plan to hold up his appointment. Instead, they say they'll use Goss's confirmation hearing in early September to air complaints about CIA failures--and possibly to grill Goss on his recent proposal to lift the ban on the agency operating inside the U.S. A representative said Goss merely meant to provoke debate.

After Goss left the CIA, he moved to Sanibel Island off Florida's west coast, a community that has attracted other former spies. With two ex-agency pals, he set up a newspaper called the Island Reporter. He became an antigrowth environmentalist, showing up one time barefoot at a county commission meeting, and was eventually elected the island's first mayor.

Goss, now a multimillionaire, went to Congress in 1989 and in 1995 was named to the House Intelligence Committee, where he earned a reputation as a straight shooter. In those days, he was said to work well with Democrats. A favorite of Republican leaders, Goss became the committee's chairman just two years later; in that job, he showed more interest in boosting intelligence funding than in reform. He supported a proposal to give the CIA director more control over the nation's 15 intelligence agencies and their combined budget, now $40 billion, but he did little to press for the changes. "If you look at all the things the agency is being criticized for now, did he express any interest in fixing these problems, particularly before 9/11?" asks a former intelligence official. "Not a lot." Democrats complain that as the presidential race has heated up, Goss hasn't been shy about protecting Bush or attacking Kerry.

Goss recognizes now that the intelligence community must be overhauled. He concluded in a committee report two months ago that the CIA was in "dysfunctional denial" about the need for reform. If Bush is re-elected, Goss should have at least four years to prove he can transform the agency. If Kerry wins, Goss will probably have only enough time at Langley to get his desk set up. --By Douglas Waller. With reporting by Timothy J. Burger/Washington

With reporting by Timothy J. Burger/Washington