The new chief of U.S. spies overseas is a CIA retiree who left Langley in 2004 to protest reforms launched by then-director Porter Goss, CIA head Michael Hayden announced on Friday. Hayden said in a message to employees that Michael J. Sulick will return to the agency to run the national clandestine service. A former senior spy in Europe who recruited and handled Soviet agents, Sulick will oversea the CIA's overseas stations and over 4,000 officers.

Hayden is reuniting a two-man team that ran the clandestine service until they butted heads with Goss, a former CIA spy and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who resigned in May 2006.

Hayden last year brought back Stephen Kappes as the agency's deputy director. When he headed the clandestine service, Kappes was Sulick's boss.

In an incident that symbolized Goss' rocky tenure at CIA, Sulick quit in November 2004 as associate deputy director of operations (now the clandestine service) rather than except a transfer to New York.

This story continues below
Advertisement

Goss and his team of ex-congressional aides were trying to transform the clandestine service into a more productive branch and decided to replace Sulick with their own appointee. Sulick called Goss' chief of staff a "Hill puke," tossed a memo at the aide and stalked out of the room.

Shortly afterwards, Kappes resigned as well.

"Mike will be a powerful addition to our agency leadership team," Hayden said Friday. "As a seasoned operations officer, Mike earned a reputation for superior tradecraft and sound judgment. He sharpened those skills in himself and has over the years developed and encouraged them in others."

On Sept. 30, Sulick will replace Jose Rodriguez, a long-time covert officer who last month announced his retirement and disclosed that he had been the chief of the clandestine service.

Virtually all clandestine service heads are identified, but Rodriguez chose to stay anonymous, a CIA spokesman said.

rscarborough@dcexaminer.com