CIA Chief Taps Goss-Era Victim for Key Job

CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden turned to one of the many casualties of his predecessor's troubled tenure, Michael Sulick, to be the new head of the National Clandestine Service, the agency's covert arm.

Sulick, one of the CIA's most respected senior officials, had been the deputy chief of the CIA's clandestine arm until he was forced out over a personnel dispute with then CIA Director Porter Goss. The move will reunite Sulick with his former boss, Stephen Kappes, who was also pushed out as part of the same incident and brought back by Hayden to serve as the CIA's current deputy director. The duo's forced departure was almost universally unpopular among CIA staffers, but they were only two of the dozens of senior managers who left in frustration under Goss.

Sulick, who was a CIA officer for 25 years, will take over the task of enlarging the CIA's covert operations from Jose Rodriguez, who is retiring. Sulick also served as the CIA's chief of counterintelligence.

—Kevin Whitelaw