The wrong spy

IT’S ONLY NATURAL AT THIS STAGE of the Bush presidency to be wary of someone anointed by the president as “the right man to lead the CIA at this critical moment in our nation’s history.” That’s how George W. Bush introduced Michael V. Hayden on Monday as his choice to become CIA director -- and the general’s resume only ratchets up the wariness. Hayden, a former director of the National Security Agency who is currently the deputy director of national intelligence under John D. Negroponte, is the principal architect of the NSA’s warrantless domestic eavesdropping program and has been one of its biggest cheerleaders.

No administration likes it when prickly facts get in the way of its preconceived worldview -- whether the subject is a foreign regime’s weapons program or the constitutionality of an eavesdropping program. But this White House is especially keen to revisit and readjust its facts, instead of its preconceptions, when the two are in conflict. Hayden’s main qualification for the CIA job seems to be that he would be more than happy to oblige.

The nation’s sprawling intelligence bureaucracy, spanning 16 agencies, has never quite recovered from the shock of 9/11. Porter J. Goss resigned as CIA director Friday after only 18 months in office, in part because the job had been downgraded once the office of national intelligence director was created last year. Until Negroponte assumed that role, it had been the responsibility of the CIA director to coordinate and oversee all intelligence agencies -- even though a number of them, such as the NSA, are part of the Defense Department. (The CIA was created in 1947 as its own entity.) Now it’s Negroponte who oversees all intelligence matters and gets presidential face time each morning, and Goss chafed at the demotion.

Goss reportedly also resented the notion that the CIA should narrow its focus to espionage and leave the analytical work to others, including Negroponte’s office. Presumably Hayden, who has been Negroponte’s deputy and once ran the CIA’s rival spying agency, will press this narrower focus. This is not necessarily bad in theory. But in practice it may lead to a further politicization of the intelligence community’s work.

It’s easy to nitpick Hayden’s nomination for other reasons. If the agency needs to refocus on human intelligence, wouldn’t it make more sense to bring in a director with experience in that area? Hayden comes from the gadget-oriented NSA. And the fact that he is a military man taking over the one formidable nonmilitary intelligence agency at a time when Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld’s Pentagon is expanding its intelligence capabilities is raising legitimate concerns.

But the most disturbing part of Hayden’s resume, and the one that disqualifies him for the job, is his proud parenthood of the NSA’s eavesdropping program. Under the program, the agency listens in on conversations between U.S. residents and overseas parties without seeking a warrant from secret courts set up for this purpose.

Hayden has spoken in defense of the program’s constitutionality, and the White House thinks it has the upper hand politically on this issue. In the name of fighting terror, most Americans seem willing to allow Bush to chisel away at their privacy and at the Bill of Rights. Senators may find it hard to derail Hayden’s nomination. But they should at least use his confirmation hearings to try to ascertain exactly what those NSA eavesdroppers are up to.