ABCs of the CIA: a to-do list for Porter Goss

TO: Porter Goss

FROM: Former Top Spymasters

RE: Advice on running the CIA

Mr. Goss:

If confirmed by the Senate to head the Central Intelligence agency, prepare to be disliked. You'll be "the skunk at the garden party," as James Woolsey, America's top spymaster from February 1993 to January 1995, puts it. Your assignment is to be a truth teller, the messenger with often unpleasant assessments to give the White House and Congress. Like most people, they usually want to hear what they want to hear, not necessarily what you have to say. In other words, no "stove-piping" or spinning.

And you're going to have plenty of work to do inside the Langley headquarters - boosting morale and building new capabilities. Here's some advice that may help along the way, from people who have been there before you:

1. Don't get caught up in politics. "You have to be absolutely willing, when all around you on the political side are saying, 'This is very, very unpleasant for us to hear,' you have to say, 'I'm sorry about that, let me say it again,' " says Mr. Woolsey.

And another thing while we're on the subject: Since you've spent much of the last 15 years skillfully playing the political game in the most political of cities, you must cut all partisan threads once you move across the river to Langley, Va. Otherwise, your information, your stock and trade, will be suspect.

This is how Stansfield Turner, head of the CIA from March 1977 through January 1981, puts it: "Do everything that you can, Porter, to assure people that you will not be swayed by partisan political concerns in the way you produce intelligence. We've had enough of that with the weapons of mass destruction and the Al Qaeda/Saddam link. The public is already skeptical of our intelligence. You've got to try to restore that confidence despite the handicap you have coming from a partisan political background."

2. Serve up the facts. The best way to do that is to "build trust with truth," says William Webster, who held the top intelligence job from May 1987 to August 1991. He even has a little crib code you can use to remember this. He calls it the "4 Cs," something he always required of his operatives when they testified before Congress: Be correct, candid, complete, and consistent. "The purpose was to get away from a reputation for perhaps being disingenuous or cute in an effort to protect sources and methods," he says.

"The better approach was to be straightforward in answering the question and work out the problems with Congress rather than playing games with it."

3. Know your place. Remember the intelligence community does not make policy. It simply provides timely and useful intelligence that policymakers judge for themselves.

"So the new director needs to know who he is, that he's not the shaper of policy but the informer of policy that others make," adds Webster. "Failure to do that undercuts the trust that's necessary to be effective."

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