Porter Goss

Porter Johnston Goss (born November 26, 1938) is an American politician who was the first Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the last Director of Central Intelligence following the passage of the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which abolished the DCI position. A CIA officer in Latin America during the Cold War, he served as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1989 until he took up his post at the agency.

Goss represented the Florida's 14th congressional district, which includes Lee County, Fort Myers, Naples, and part of Port Charlotte. He served for a time as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Goss was a co-sponsor of the USA PATRIOT Act and was a co-chair of the Joint 9/11 Intelligence Inquiry.

Goss resigned as Director of the CIA on May 5, 2006 in a sit-down press conference with President George W. Bush from the Oval Office. On May 8, Bush nominated U.S. Air Force General Michael Hayden to be Goss's successor.

Goss is an avid organic farmer. He has a farm in Virginia and spends his summers on Fishers Island in Long Island Sound.

Education and early CIA career
Goss was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, the son of Virginia Holland (née Johnston) and Richard Wayne Goss, who was an executive of the Scovill Manufacturing Company (a corporation controlled by the Goss family). He attended Camp Timanous in Raymond, Maine and was educated at the Fessenden School. In 1956, he graduated from the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut.

Goss studied at Yale University, where received his Bachelor of Arts majoring in ancient Greek. (Goss also speaks Spanish and French). At Yale, he was a member of Book and Snake, a secret society at Yale. He was a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity alongside William H.T. Bush, the uncle of President George W. Bush, and John Negroponte, who served as an ambassador for George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, and as Goss's superior in the post of Director of National Intelligence from 2005 to 2006. Negroponte solicited Goss's assistance, while Goss was Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, to get the position as US ambassador to the United Nations in the first term of the second Bush administration.

In his junior year at Yale, Goss was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency. He spent much of the 1960s — roughly from 1960 until 1971 — working for the Directorate of Operations, the clandestine services of the CIA. There he first worked in Latin America and the Caribbean and later in Europe. The full details are not known due to the classified nature of the CIA, but Goss has said that he had worked in Haiti, Santo Domingo, and Mexico. A photograph taken in Mexico City in January 1963 shows Goss with his arm around David Sánchez Morales, at a table with Barry Seal and other CIA members of Operation 40, a U.S.-backed right-wing assassination squad.

Goss, who has said that he has recruited and trained foreign agents, worked in Miami for much of the time. Goss was involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, telling the Washington Post in 2002 that he had done some "small-boat handling" and had "some very interesting moments in the Florida Straits."

Towards the end of his career as a CIA officer, Goss was transferred to Europe, where, in 1970, he collapsed in his London hotel room because of a blood infection in his heart and kidneys. Goss says he does not know what happened, but says that he was not poisoned. Some sources now say that Goss suffered a staph infection. In any case, his health was severely affected, and he retired from the CIA.

Government career
After retiring from the CIA, Goss moved to Sanibel, a resort town off the coast of Fort Myers. In 1974, he was elected to the City Council and was elected mayor by the council. In 1983, Bob Graham, then Governor of Florida, appointed Goss to the Lee County Board of Commissioners.

In 1988 Goss ran for Congress in what was then the 13th congressional district of Florida. The seat was vacated by Connie Mack III when Mack ran successfully for the U. S. Senate. In the Republican primary—the real contest in this heavily Republican district—Goss's main opponent was Louis A. "Skip" Bafalis, who had represented the district for 10 years before making an unsuccessful bid for governor. Bafalis was initially heavily favored due to his name recognition. However, he only garnered 29% of the vote in the primary to Goss's 38%, largely due to the fact that Goss's campaign was much better financed. Goss went on to defeat Bafalis handily in the runoff election. In the general election, Goss faced the former first president of Common Cause, Jack T. Conway. Goss won in a rout, taking 71 percent of the vote. He was easily reelected seven times. The district was so heavily Republican that Goss only faced a Democrat one other time, in 1996; he won with 73 percent of the vote. He was unopposed for reelection in 1990, 1994 and 1998.

In Congress, Goss had a mostly conservative voting record. However, he tended to be much more supportive of environmental legislation than most of his fellow Republicans. For instance, he supported the Kyoto Protocol and strengthening the Environmental Protection Agency. Most of his major legislation has been intelligence authorization bills, with some local constituent-services bills.

The legislation he sponsored include: a constitutional amendment to establish term limits limiting representatives to no more than three consecutive terms of four years. Major bills sponsored by Goss include a bill to limit Congressional pay raises to no more than Social Security cost-of-living adjustments (unpassed), The Public Interest Declassification Act of 1999 (unpassed), and the USA PATRIOT Act.

He served in Congress for 16 years until his appointment by President George W. Bush to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). While in the House, Goss served as chair of the House Intelligence Committee from 1997 until 2005 and the vice-chairman of the House Rules Committee. He also helped establish and served on the Homeland Security Committee. As a congressman, Goss consistently and emphatically defended the CIA and supported strong budget increases for the Agency, even during a time of tight budgets and Clintonian slashes to other parts of the intelligence budgets. In mid-2004, Goss took a very strong position, during what had already been announced as his last congressional term, urging specific reforms and corrections in the way the CIA carried out its activities, lest it become "just another government bureaucracy."

Career timeline

 * CIA Director 22-Sep-2004 to 5-May-2006 (resigned)
 * U.S. Congressman, Florida 14th (3-Jan-1993 to 23-Sep-2004, resigned)
 * U.S. Congressman, Florida 13th (3-Jan-1989 to 3-Jan-1993)
 * Mayor Sanibel, FL (1981–1982)
 * Mayor Sanibel, FL (1975–1977)
 * CIA employee 1962–1971
 * Council on Foreign Relations
 * Ripon Society

Intelligence inquiry: September 11, 2001
In August 2001 Goss, Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), and Senator Jon Kyl (R - AZ) visited Islamabad, Pakistan. Meetings were held with President Pervez Musharraf and with Pakistan's military and intelligence officials including the head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) General Mahmud Ahmed, as well as with the Afghan ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef. On the morning 11 September 2001, Goss and Graham were having breakfast with General Ahmad. Ahmad's network had ties to Osama bin Laden and directly funded, supported, and trained the Taliban. They met with Musharraf and Zaeef on the 27th. As reported by Agence France Presse on August 28, 2001, Zaeef assured the US delegation that the Taliban would never allow bin Laden to use Afghanistan to launch attacks on the US or any other country. Goss fully defended the CIA and the Bush administration. With the White House and Sen. Graham, his counterpart in the Senate Intelligence Committee, Goss rebuffed calls for an inquiry in the weeks immediately following September 11.

After growing pressure, Congress established the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, a joint inquiry of the two intelligence committees, led by Graham and Goss. Goss and Graham made it clear that their goal was not to identify specific wrongdoing: Graham said the inquiry would not play "the blame game about what went wrong from an intelligence perspective,", and Goss said, "This is not a who-shall-we-hang type of investigation. It is about where are the gaps in America's defense and what do we do about it type of investigation."

The Washington Post reported statements made by Goss on May 17, 2002. Goss said he was looking for "solutions, not scapegoats." He called the uproar over the President's Daily Brief of August 6, 2001, Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US, "a lot of nonsense." He also said, "None of this is news, but it's all part of the finger-pointing. It's foolishness." The Post also reported that Goss refused to blame an "intelligence failure" for September 11, preferring to praise the agency's "fine work."(Washington Post, May 18, 2002, "A Cloak But No Dagger; An Ex-Spy Says He Seeks Solutions, Not Scapegoats for 9/11")

The inquiry's final report was released in December 2002 and focused entirely on the CIA and FBI's activities, including no information on the White House's activities. Ray McGovern, a 27-year veteran of the CIA turned Democratic political activist and a frequent commentator on intelligence issues, believed the report showed that Goss gave "clear priority to providing political protection for the president" when conducting the inquiry.

Goss publicly declared his opposition to the creation of an independent 9-11 Commission. A year later, he declined to open committee hearings into the Plame affair, saying: "Somebody sends me a blue dress and some DNA, I'll have an investigation."

Goss chiefly blames President Bill Clinton for the recent CIA failures. He confided in a reporter: "The one thing I lose sleep about is thinking what could I have done better, how could I have gotten more attention on this problem sooner." When asked whether he ever brought up his concerns with the administration, Goss claimed he had met three times with President Clinton to discuss "certain problems." The upshot? "He was patient and we had an interesting conversation but it was quite clear he didn’t value the intelligence community to the degree President Bush does."

As Newsweek and CNN reported, in June 2004, while Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, in the face of withering attacks by the Democrats against the Bush Administration in a very tightly contested presidential and congressional election year, Goss defended the intelligence community and the Administration in decidedly partisan terms. During floor debate, fending off efforts by the Democrats in the House to cut the intelligence budget, Goss argued that Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the Democratic presidential nominee, did not appreciate the critical need for robust and sustained support for the CIA and the Intelligence Community. Goss noted a 1977 quote of Kerry's arguing for intelligence budget cuts and calling Kerry's proposals on nuclear security "dangerously naive."

Director of CIA
Following the June 3, 2004 resignation of CIA director George Tenet, Goss was nominated to become the new director on August 10 by President George W. Bush. The appointment was challenged by some prominent Democrats, including former Vice President Al Gore, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV). Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, expressed concerns that Goss was too politically partisan, given his public remarks against Democrats while serving as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Another Democratic member of the committee, Ron Wyden (D-OR), expressed concerns that given Goss's history within and ties to the CIA, he would be too disinclined to push for institutional change. In an interview carried out by Michael Moore's production company on March 3, 2004, Goss described himself as "probably not qualified" for a job within the CIA, because the language skills the Agency now seeks are not languages he speaks and because the people applying today for positions within the CIA's four directorates have such keen technical and analytic skills, which he did not have when he applied to the Agency in the early 1960s. (See below)

The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee endorsed his nomination by a 12-4 vote on September 20, 2004, and on September 22 he was confirmed by the Senate in a 77-17 vote. Republican senators unanimously backed him, along with many prominent Democrats, including the two Democratic senators from Florida, Bob Graham and Bill Nelson, and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle.

While at the CIA, Goss reportedly began to reverse the acts of the previous Directors. Goss and others noted in numerous reports and writings their opposition to risk aversion "which is the last thing you want in an intelligence agency."

Early change under Goss
Goss arrived as CIA Director on September 24, 2004. He had promised the US Senate that he would bring change and reform to the CIA.

He brought with him five personal staff that were to implement changes that became unpopular with CIA professionals. Goss's chief of staff, Patrick Murray, is a former federal prosecutor who served as the House Intelligence Committee Chief Counsel for about 6 years, and as its staff director for the final year before coming to the CIA. Murray also was appointed by President George W. Bush to the position of Associate Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice from 2001 to 2003. He served on the Bush-Cheney Transition Team for the Intelligence Community in 2000 and until the Inauguration. Goss's other staff included Dr. J. Jakub, who formerly served as a CIA DI analyst and was trained as an operations officer before leaving the Agency to attend Oxford University, where he obtained his D.Phil. He served on the House Intelligence Committee and for Senator Saxby Chambliss doing oversight work of the CIA and the Intelligence Community since 1998 before rejoining the CIA with Goss in October 2004. Merrell Moorhead worked for Goss for 10 years, seven of them on the House Intelligence Committee, including as the Committee's Deputy Staff Director, doing oversight and budgetary/programmatic work regarding the CIA.

Almost immediately upon Director Goss's and his former Congressional staffers arrival, Steve Kappes — the Director of Operations — and his subordinates including Michael Sulick, Kappes' then-deputy began a series of confrontations with Goss and his personal staff immediately upon their arrival at the CIA. Kappes was rumored to have personally told DO officers that if they were seen or heard to be subservient to the new DCI and his staff their careers would be over. Kappes, Sulick, and Deputy Director John McLaughlin were reported to believe that ultimately Goss would back down.

Since Kappes' reemergence at the CIA it has been reported that he quit the Agency rather than carry out a request by Goss to reassign Michael Sulick. It is also reported that this incident occurred because the chief of staff, Murray, heatedly admonished Sulick about the then assistant deputy director for counterintelligence, Mary Margaret Graham, about leaked classified information regarding another CIA officer.

Sulick reportedly left the Director's office, leaving Kappes standing there stony-faced. Murray then made the point that if that was the way Sulick was going to act with the DCI's chief of staff, Kappes needed to think about reassigning him to New York, because that sort of relationship just could not be good for the CIA or the DCI.

A week later, Kappes and Sulick, recognizing that Goss was going to protect his former Hill staff, announced that they were retiring, John McLaughlin, the then Deputy Director, who Goss reportedly believed had started the whole series of events by appointing Kappes to the DDO position without consulting Goss, announced his departure just two days later.

Following Goss's departure, both Kappes and Sulick have returned to positions of higher authority in the U.S. Intelligence Community. Kappas is the Deputy Director of the CIA and Sulick was appointed Director of the National Clandestine Service on September 14, 2007.

Resignation
On May 5, 2006 Goss' resignation from the CIA directorship was announced at a joint press briefing with President Bush at the White House. There was speculation in the press concerning the reasons of the sudden announcement.

The Los Angeles Times reported "Goss was pushed out by Negroponte after clashes between them over Goss' management style, as well as his reluctance to surrender CIA personnel and resources to new organizations set up to combat terrorism and weapons proliferation." Goss carried considerable integrity on the issues relating to the intelligence community, given his service as a CIA officer and as Chairman for 10 years on the House Intelligence Community. Negroponte for his part had been an ambassador, and a consumer of intelligence. Goss made the point with Negroponte that pursuing changes Negroponte reportedly desired, in the manner upon which Negroponte reportedly insisted, contradicted the intent of the intelligence reform legislation; this was to add to the capabilities of the existing agencies in the intelligence community, not to detract and diminish those existing capabilities. The Weekly Standard also noted that Goss wanted intelligence analysts to get more exposure to intelligence gathering and Negroponte planned to move them from the CIA over to DNI, farther from intelligence gathering. While the editors of The Weekly Standard sided with Goss in this dispute, they believe Goss was forced out for other reasons:


 * [W]e are concerned that Goss left, or was eased out, for reasons of greater policy significance. And if this is the case, Goss's leaving is not a good sign. Goss is a political conservative and an institutional reformer. He is pro-Bush Doctrine and pro-shaking-up-the-CIA.


 * John Negroponte, so far as we can tell, shares none of these sympathies. Negroponte is therefore more in tune with large swaths of the intelligence community and the State Department. If Negroponte forced Goss out and is allowed to pick Goss's successor — if Goss isn't replaced with a reformer committed to fighting and winning the war on terror, broadly and rightly understood — then Goss's departure will prove to have been a weakening moment in an administration increasingly susceptible to moments of weakness.

Goss was replaced by Negroponte's Principal Deputy Director for National Intelligence, four-star Air Force General Michael Hayden.

Excerpt from the History of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence


 * "The idea of a Director of National Intelligence (DNI) dates to 1955 when a blue-ribbon study commissioned by Congress recommended that the Director of Central Intelligence should employ a deputy to run the CIA so that the director could focus on coordinating the overall intelligence effort."

Robert Novak's May 11 column claimed "Goss faced a disintegrating CIA. The major analytic functions were passed to the DNI. Special operations were going over to the Pentagon. Negroponte was no help to Goss. Although bizarre reasons for Goss's resignation have been floated on the Internet, sources say Negroponte simply suggested his time was up."

Goss is an active speaker on the lecture circuit.

About Iran's nuclear program
On 15 December 2005, Goss warned Ankara to be ready for a possible U.S. aerial operation against Iran and Syria.

As people in the U.S. readied themselves for Christmas, few were aware that CIA Director Porter Goss was in Ankara, Turkey on Monday, engaged in a meeting that lasted over four hours with Turkish Intelligence officials. Goss, accompanied by a large delegation, brought secret data about Iran as he met with officials of the Milli Istihbarat Teskilati, or MIT. Goss allegedly asked for Turkish support for the Bush administration's policies on Iran's nuclear activities, telling Turkish officials that Iran has nuclear weapons, a situation that created a huge threat to Turkey and other countries in the region.

Goss said that Iran sees Turkey as an enemy and will "export its regime," warning Ankara to be ready for a possible U.S. aerial operation against Iran and Syria.

On Tuesday Goss was driven in his armored BMW to a meeting with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Additional dialogue reportedly focused on the intelligence data, with Goss warning Ankara to be ready for a possible U.S. aerial operation against Iran and Syria.