Goss brought with him many of his principal congressional aides, who bear a reputation for condescension and hostility to the CIA, as well as fierce partisanship. "Kostiw's the best of the bunch," says a retired senior official. "Words fail me to describe the rest of them." And Goss didn't just give them top positions in the agency, he invented new posts for them, as mediators between the DCI and the intelligence and operations directorates. "They are not positions that are rigorously defined in agency regulations," observes Steven Aftergood, an intelligence policy expert with the Federation of American Scientists. "Rather, they are invested with whatever authority Goss wants to give them, which means they could be very important indeed."

As his chief of staff and senior advisor for strategic programs, Goss brought two senior Republican House Intelligence Committee aides, Patrick Murray and Merrell Moorhead. Clashes with Murray led to Kappes' departure on Monday. But some CIA officials are particularly concerned about Jay Jakub, a former GOP subcommittee staff director who's now Goss' nebulously titled senior advisor for operations and analysis. Jakub, a principal author of the June intelligence committee report, was a CIA analyst and case officer before serving as chief investigator on ultraconservative Rep. Dan Burton's inquiry into Democratic campaign finance during the 1996 election. "He's widely viewed as having very strong partisan views," says one of Jakub's former CIA colleagues. "Jay leaps too early. He acts on his views, and often doesn't seem like a measured decision maker." (Through a spokeswoman, Goss and his senior staff declined requests for interviews.)

Many at the CIA fear that Goss will enforce loyalty to the Bush administration at the expense of good intelligence work. "A word I heard a lot from Goss is 'teamwork,'" says a just-departed agency official. "Whether he meant teamwork inside the building or with the administration, I don't know. But I suspect he means the latter." Adds another retired official, "One thing everybody is watching with some concern is how far down the politicization goes. It's been very contained up to this point. It's not just how intelligence gets treated and slanted, but how these people bring partisanship into a lower level" of Langley officials. And if that happens, says the first official, "we lose the reason for our existence. If there's any hint of pressure, it's worse than having no intelligence at all."

Illustrating this fear is the cautionary tale of the CIA's 2002 examination of the dubious connection between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. As a result of intense pressure from senior Bush administration officials, including Vice President Cheney -- many of whom had already concluded that a solid connection existed -- CIA analysts prepared a report titled "Iraq and al-Qaida: Assessing a Murky Relationship." Or at least a few of them did. Circulated that June, as the administration sought rationales for an invasion of Iraq, the report excluded the assessments of the agency's Near East and South Asia (NESA) office, which generally cast doubt on either an existing or a prospective alliance between Saddam and Osama bin Laden. The paper was chiefly the product of the CIA's terrorism analysts, who explained that their approach was "purposefully aggressive in seeking to draw connections, on the assumption that any indication of a relationship between these two elements could carry great dangers." Jami Miscik, the CIA's deputy director for intelligence, told Senate Intelligence Committee investigators that the paper was intended to "stretch to the maximum the evidence you had." The exclusion of NESA prompted an inquiry by the agency's ombudsman into politicization.

Despite CIA professionals' general skepticism about the White House's desired conclusions and attempt to stay within the confines of responsible intelligence work, a slanted study still emerged. Yet the facts did constrain the analysis, and the report stated that there existed "no conclusive evidence of cooperation on specific terrorist operations." In frustration, a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst detailed to the office of Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, who sponsored much of the effort to manipulate intelligence to connect al-Qaida to Saddam, contended to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his chief deputies that the "CIA's interpretation ought to be ignored." (In its public pronouncements about the alleged ties, the Bush administration generally followed the DIA analyst's advice.)

Now, with Goss at the helm and the independence of the agency under siege, many at Langley fear that the Bush administration won't have to worry anymore about being told anything it doesn't already believe.

The widespread animosity toward Goss is likely to mark his entire tenure. Effective, long-lasting DCIs typically owe their success to an ability to balance three constituencies: the White House, Capitol Hill and Langley. DCIs who neglect their CIA power base don't often survive or implement much. Goss seems to be predicating his career on deliberately antagonizing the agency and forcing it into submission. But without the support of the agency he runs, Goss will be forced to rely on the warm wishes of the president for his continued service, which will only escalate the bitterness between Goss and the CIA.

The director has already shunned those who've pleaded for conciliation. Four former deputy directors of operations attempted to "tell him to stop what he was doing the way he was doing it," an ex-senior official told the Washington Post, but Goss refused to meet with them. As tensions rise between Goss and the agency, they risk becoming mutually reinforcing -- and difficult to defuse. If Goss thought the CIA was dysfunctional before, he has guaranteed that it is now. Caught in the balance is the intelligence work indispensable to waging the war on terror. "If the trust [in CIA leadership] isn't there, you just can't be successful," warns a former intelligence official who worries about operatives and analysts having to keep one eye on bin Laden while reserving the other for fighting off their bosses.

Backed by a White House that rarely fires its loyal subordinates, Goss could very well be at Langley for a long time despite his shaky start. When Goss gave his introductory address to CIA employees in September, he received two standing ovations -- when he walked in and again when he finished up. A former CIA official who was present at the ceremony remarks, "Let him do it again today. He'll probably need security."

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