An AP News Analysis

By KATHERINE SHRADER

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) – John Negroponte’s early moves since taking over as the nation’s intelligence director last month indicate he is focusing on one particular element of America’s spy apparatus: the CIA’s highly secretive clandestine service.

Negroponte has promoted two veterans of the service to be his deputies. He also has sent a classified memo to the heads of the agency’s foreign outposts, requiring them to report directly to him on matters of importance to the country’s 15 intelligence agencies.

Some intelligence veterans say Negroponte is signaling his plans to reach deep into the clandestine service and provide extra oversight to an organization whose mistakes make headlines and can cause diplomatic blowups.

To other observers, his moves are an acknowledgment of the service’s stature among those agencies.

If this is a recognition by Negroponte “that the clandestine human intelligence business needs to be empowered, strengthened, properly budgeted and succeeding, than I endorse what he is doing with enthusiasm,” said Jim Pavitt, who headed the clandestine service until last summer.

“It could be an empowering of the chiefs of station,” he said. Alternatively, “it’s a way of showing that he’s going to get his hands around this.”

Negroponte’s actions also might reveal possible tensions with CIA Director Porter Goss and his inner circle.

This month, Negroponte picked Mary Margaret Graham as his deputy for intelligence collection. She was a senior member of the clandestine service who tussled with Goss’ senior aides soon after he began work.

Negroponte’s chief of staff is David Shedd, who spent much of his career in the clandestine service.

At his Senate confirmation hearing, Negroponte said his to-do-list included improving the quality of intelligence collected by U.S. spies. At the time, it was not clear how deeply Negroponte would reach into the clandestine service to manage covert operations.

“Obviously, Mr. Goss and I are going to have to work very closely together and reach good understandings on the division of labor with respect to this question,” he told senators in April.

Representatives from the CIA and Negroponte’s office played down the memo that went to the heads of the clandestine service’s foreign outposts.

They said it reflected changes that Congress approved late last year in an intelligence overhaul, which created the director of national intelligence, or DNI.

A CIA spokesperson said the chiefs of station will serve as representatives of Negroponte’s office when carrying out intelligence functions and responsibilities for intelligence agencies, and noted that they still report through the traditional chain of command at the CIA.

“There is no change in reporting channels,” the spokesperson added.

Officially known as the Directorate of Operations, the CIA’s clandestine service is responsible for covert operations around the globe and dozens of CIA outposts abroad.

The victories the clandestine service can claim are often kept classified – and overshadowed by public failings.

Its operatives were the first to enter Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, setting the stage for successes by the U.S.-led coalition.

But it has come under fire in reports by the Sept. 11 commission and a presidential board that studied intelligence agencies’ ability to assess the threat from weapons of mass destruction.

The latter found that shortfalls in old-fashioned spying had left the country unable to penetrate some of its most dangerous enemies, including Iran and North Korea.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks and the mistakes made on the prewar intelligence on Iraq, the spy agencies have been in the midst of overhauls. Former CIA Director George Tenet stepped down last summer, and was replaced by Goss, the Florida Republican who had been chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

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EDITOR’s NOTE – Katherine Shrader covers intelligence and national security issues for The Associated Press.

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On the Net:

Office of the Director of National Intelligence: http://www.dni.gov/

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