The care and handling of spooks
Because this is the season for gratuitous and unsolicited advice (see any graduation ceremony near you), I thought I would offer some thoughts for former Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who took over as CIA director a month ago. I am sure many people are sharing their wisdom on the “big picture,” so I will confine myself to advice on the care and feeding of the denizens of the building where I once worked.
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THEY ARE AN odd bunch at the Central Intelligence Agency, and your predecessor, Porter Goss, did not adapt well. He seemed unable to make it out of the lobby each morning without starting a fistfight. You can do better.
For starters, resist any impulse to “demonstrate who is in charge.” The people at the agency have never had any problem understanding who is in charge; they have on occasion had trouble believing that the person in charge knew what he was doing.
As CIA director, Goss said he did not “do” personnel, and inside the agency, it was easily the most resented remark he ever made. You have talented people working for you. Use them, and do not go to the retirees looking for the “perfect” person. They don’t make them like they used to, and that’s probably a good thing.
Do not try to undo all the personnel changes made by Goss. Some people needed to be pushed out. You’re trying to hire back Stephen Kappes, the former field operations boss, as your deputy, and this is good and bad. Many officers respect his operational judgment, and many are angry about his alleged leaks to the media. On your team, he should keep his mouth shut.
Goss let his entourage alienate the entire building before he ever got there. Get your assistants under control. It’s better to make your own enemies. You probably brought some military aides with you. Remind them that half the agency does not know the difference between a full colonel and a milkshake; those who do know don’t care.
Don’t ask anyone to dumb down their work for you. The CIA has a jargon that you need to learn. Before you change anything about agency culture, first you need to understand it.
The executive dining room is a bad idea. You and your staff should be down in the cafeteria meeting people, not huddled up in a bunker wondering what folks think. Listen to people. They are smart and sophisticated and will usually tell you what is wrong if you give them a chance.
The RUMINT (rumor intelligence) on you is that you like “corporate speak” and prefer large, impersonal gatherings to one-on-one encounters. Work on that. Blunt, plain speech will get you further with those in the agency than anything else. If something is going to happen to them, tell them before they see it in the Los Angeles Times. “I do not know” or “I cannot tell you” are statements that spooks accept as sometimes necessary, but they will always find out if you lie to them. You are working with a bunch of spies, so you should not be surprised that RUMINT travels quickly and is surprisingly accurate. Yes, you are busy, but your first job is to make people motivated and effective. Screw this up and you are doomed.
The directorate of operations is where all the spies live. Frankly, this is a tough room. Your best move is to pick someone whom they respect to lead them -- lead them, not manage them. When they are in some sand-blown flyspeck in Iraq with their lives on the line, they want a leader who cares about them and their mission, not a nice guy who is good at managing his paperwork. Once you get them a leader, you need to expect the impossible from them. Right now, everyone is afraid to make mistakes. Make it clear that you have confidence in them and will back them even if they do not succeed. This directorate exists to run high-risk, high-payoff operations; otherwise, it could be replaced by Al Jazeera.
The directorate of intelligence is where the analysts live and where the National Intelligence Estimates are produced. This place is a mess. Since the fiasco over Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, it has been full of dead men walking, paralyzed with fear of making another mistake. Start over. Anyone associated with the WMD mess -- and there are such people still there -- needs to be retired, kicked upstairs or otherwise moved on. It may not be fair, just or efficient, but you must do it to blow the smell of failure out of the organization. Then appoint a pit bull as the quality-control officer for analysis.
Your job is one of the most important in Washington, and one of the toughest. You are playing “Bet your country’s future” every day. History has not been kind to your immediate predecessors. They got famous in the worst ways. Good luck. You’re going to need it.