- Sep 26, 2000
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/washington/30cia.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
WASHINGTON, May 29 ? In his old office at the Central Intelligence Agency, Stephen R. Kappes once hung a World War II-era British poster that announced, "Keep Calm and Carry On." He ignored this admonition 18 months ago, when he resigned in anger after bitter clashes with senior aides to Porter J. Goss.
But now Mr. Goss has been forced out as the agency's director, and Mr. Kappes is poised to return, with a promotion. He would become deputy director, under Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who won Senate confirmation on Friday.
A man of military bearing and a storied past, Mr. Kappes would become the first person since William E. Colby in 1973 to ascend to one of agency's top two positions from a career spent in the clandestine service. General Hayden has said that his return would be a signal that "amateur hour" is over at the C.I.A., which has seen little calm since Mr. Kappes's departure.
A no-nonsense former Marine officer who insists on addressing his elders as "sir," Mr. Kappes speaks Russian and Persian; served as the agency's station chief in Moscow and Kuwait during a quarter-century at the C.I.A.; and played a pivotal role in the secret talks with Libya that culminated in December 2003 in the agreement in which Col. Muammar el-Qadaffi agreed to give up his chemical and biological weapons program.
His appointment has not been formally announced, but intelligence officials as well as Mr. Kappes's friends say he will probably take the deputy director position.
Mr. Kappes, 54, declined to be interviewed for this article, having spent most of his professional career trying hard not to be noticed.
Veteran intelligence officials say his expected return is being celebrated within the agency, and some Democratic lawmakers have even characterized Mr. Kappes as a savior who will rescue a moribund agency.
Some critics, including Representative Peter Hoekstra, the Michigan Republican who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, have portrayed his return as a victory for a hidebound C.I.A. bureaucracy that resists all change. There has even been grumbling among White House officials that Mr. Kappes, the former head of the clandestine service, criticized the Bush administration and its policies after he left the agency in 2004.
People who know Mr. Kappes well reject these descriptions as simplistic.
"I would suggest that we dismiss all of the breathless characterizations of Steve Kappes either from his critics or the people trying to counter his critics," said Milton A. Bearden, who served for three decades in the C.I.A.'s clandestine service. "The simple fact is that he is a very solid choice to come to the agency at a time when it is extremely wobbly."
John E. McLaughlin, deputy director of the C.I.A. from 2000 to 2004, said Mr. Kappes would "bring a sense of leadership and professionalism to the agency's operations division."
Mr. Kappes, a Cincinnati native, joined the C.I.A. in 1981 after five years in the Marine Corps, where he once commanded a platoon of the Marines' legendary "silent drill team" in Washington that performs a tightly scripted rifle ceremony before thousands of spectators each year.
In 1988 he became the deputy chief of a secret C.I.A. station in Frankfurt, the agency's hub for collecting information about Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's government in Iran. From Frankfurt, case officers debriefed Iranian exiles and built up a network of agents inside Iran.
Mr. Kappes later transferred to the Middle East, where he served on the agency's task force before the Persian Gulf war of 1991 and re-opened the C.I.A. station in Kuwait after the war's end.
After running the C.I.A. station in Moscow in the late 1990's, Mr. Kappes returned to C.I.A. headquarters, where he ascended to the top echelon of the directorate of operations, now known as the national clandestine service.
His time at C.I.A. headquarters was marked by an occ
asionally stormy relationship with the lawmakers who oversee the intelligence community.
One of the biggest successes of Mr. Kappes's career came after he became the clandestine service's second-ranking official and was put in charge of coordinating the C.I.A's effort to penetrate the secret network of a Pakistani nuclear scientist, A. Q. Khan.
Dr. Khan had for years been using the black market to sell nuclear blueprints and centrifuge parts, and in October 2003, American and European authorities intercepted a freighter bound for Libya loaded with nuclear bomb-making material.
Soon afterward, Colonel Qaddafi agreed to allow American and British inspectors to tour suspected nuclear sites, and Mr. Kappes was put in charge of a team that began negotiating directly with the colonel over ending Libya's programs for unconventional weapons.
Former intelligence officials said Mr. Kappes was given the assignment because he had both the background and the temperament for the delicate negotiations with a longtime American adversary.
"You don't send just anyone to do this," Mr. McLaughlin said. "It was an enormously difficult, complicated and high-stakes mission."
After several rounds of talks led by Mr. Kappes, the Bush administration was able to announce in December 2003 that Libya had agreed to abandon the programs.
Yet Mr. Kappes's career track veered off course in late 2004, when Mr. Goss and many of his top aides came to the C.I.A.
The incident that directly led to his resignation occurred in November 2004, shortly after Mr. Goss took over at the agency. Patrick Murray, who was Mr. Goss's chief of staff, ordered Mr. Kappes to fire his deputy, Michael Sulick, after Mr. Sulick had a testy exchange with Mr. Murray.
Mr. Kappes, who at the time was in charge of the C.I.A.'s clandestine service, refused and chose to resign instead.
After leaving the agency, he became an executive vice president at ArmorGroup, a private security firm based in London.
Those who know Mr. Kappes say he bears no grudges for the circumstances of his departure. But while many inside the agency are eagerly awaiting Mr. Kappes's return, his reputation as a taskmaster who does not suffer fools gladly has some bracing for what could lie ahead.
"The really good people are happy he's coming back," said a former top C.I.A. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because Mr. Kappes's return has not yet been made official. "The ones who are scared of him should be scared of him."
After the debacle of Porter Goss it is good to see that professionalism and competence are hopefully becoming the criteria for the CIA, instead of Goss's crusade to rid the agency of anyone who was not a Bush supporter.
It is too soon to tell but maybe Hayden will do some good at the CIA.
WASHINGTON, May 29 ? In his old office at the Central Intelligence Agency, Stephen R. Kappes once hung a World War II-era British poster that announced, "Keep Calm and Carry On." He ignored this admonition 18 months ago, when he resigned in anger after bitter clashes with senior aides to Porter J. Goss.
But now Mr. Goss has been forced out as the agency's director, and Mr. Kappes is poised to return, with a promotion. He would become deputy director, under Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who won Senate confirmation on Friday.
A man of military bearing and a storied past, Mr. Kappes would become the first person since William E. Colby in 1973 to ascend to one of agency's top two positions from a career spent in the clandestine service. General Hayden has said that his return would be a signal that "amateur hour" is over at the C.I.A., which has seen little calm since Mr. Kappes's departure.
A no-nonsense former Marine officer who insists on addressing his elders as "sir," Mr. Kappes speaks Russian and Persian; served as the agency's station chief in Moscow and Kuwait during a quarter-century at the C.I.A.; and played a pivotal role in the secret talks with Libya that culminated in December 2003 in the agreement in which Col. Muammar el-Qadaffi agreed to give up his chemical and biological weapons program.
His appointment has not been formally announced, but intelligence officials as well as Mr. Kappes's friends say he will probably take the deputy director position.
Mr. Kappes, 54, declined to be interviewed for this article, having spent most of his professional career trying hard not to be noticed.
Veteran intelligence officials say his expected return is being celebrated within the agency, and some Democratic lawmakers have even characterized Mr. Kappes as a savior who will rescue a moribund agency.
Some critics, including Representative Peter Hoekstra, the Michigan Republican who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, have portrayed his return as a victory for a hidebound C.I.A. bureaucracy that resists all change. There has even been grumbling among White House officials that Mr. Kappes, the former head of the clandestine service, criticized the Bush administration and its policies after he left the agency in 2004.
People who know Mr. Kappes well reject these descriptions as simplistic.
"I would suggest that we dismiss all of the breathless characterizations of Steve Kappes either from his critics or the people trying to counter his critics," said Milton A. Bearden, who served for three decades in the C.I.A.'s clandestine service. "The simple fact is that he is a very solid choice to come to the agency at a time when it is extremely wobbly."
John E. McLaughlin, deputy director of the C.I.A. from 2000 to 2004, said Mr. Kappes would "bring a sense of leadership and professionalism to the agency's operations division."
Mr. Kappes, a Cincinnati native, joined the C.I.A. in 1981 after five years in the Marine Corps, where he once commanded a platoon of the Marines' legendary "silent drill team" in Washington that performs a tightly scripted rifle ceremony before thousands of spectators each year.
In 1988 he became the deputy chief of a secret C.I.A. station in Frankfurt, the agency's hub for collecting information about Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's government in Iran. From Frankfurt, case officers debriefed Iranian exiles and built up a network of agents inside Iran.
Mr. Kappes later transferred to the Middle East, where he served on the agency's task force before the Persian Gulf war of 1991 and re-opened the C.I.A. station in Kuwait after the war's end.
After running the C.I.A. station in Moscow in the late 1990's, Mr. Kappes returned to C.I.A. headquarters, where he ascended to the top echelon of the directorate of operations, now known as the national clandestine service.
His time at C.I.A. headquarters was marked by an occ
asionally stormy relationship with the lawmakers who oversee the intelligence community.
One of the biggest successes of Mr. Kappes's career came after he became the clandestine service's second-ranking official and was put in charge of coordinating the C.I.A's effort to penetrate the secret network of a Pakistani nuclear scientist, A. Q. Khan.
Dr. Khan had for years been using the black market to sell nuclear blueprints and centrifuge parts, and in October 2003, American and European authorities intercepted a freighter bound for Libya loaded with nuclear bomb-making material.
Soon afterward, Colonel Qaddafi agreed to allow American and British inspectors to tour suspected nuclear sites, and Mr. Kappes was put in charge of a team that began negotiating directly with the colonel over ending Libya's programs for unconventional weapons.
Former intelligence officials said Mr. Kappes was given the assignment because he had both the background and the temperament for the delicate negotiations with a longtime American adversary.
"You don't send just anyone to do this," Mr. McLaughlin said. "It was an enormously difficult, complicated and high-stakes mission."
After several rounds of talks led by Mr. Kappes, the Bush administration was able to announce in December 2003 that Libya had agreed to abandon the programs.
Yet Mr. Kappes's career track veered off course in late 2004, when Mr. Goss and many of his top aides came to the C.I.A.
The incident that directly led to his resignation occurred in November 2004, shortly after Mr. Goss took over at the agency. Patrick Murray, who was Mr. Goss's chief of staff, ordered Mr. Kappes to fire his deputy, Michael Sulick, after Mr. Sulick had a testy exchange with Mr. Murray.
Mr. Kappes, who at the time was in charge of the C.I.A.'s clandestine service, refused and chose to resign instead.
After leaving the agency, he became an executive vice president at ArmorGroup, a private security firm based in London.
Those who know Mr. Kappes say he bears no grudges for the circumstances of his departure. But while many inside the agency are eagerly awaiting Mr. Kappes's return, his reputation as a taskmaster who does not suffer fools gladly has some bracing for what could lie ahead.
"The really good people are happy he's coming back," said a former top C.I.A. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because Mr. Kappes's return has not yet been made official. "The ones who are scared of him should be scared of him."
After the debacle of Porter Goss it is good to see that professionalism and competence are hopefully becoming the criteria for the CIA, instead of Goss's crusade to rid the agency of anyone who was not a Bush supporter.
It is too soon to tell but maybe Hayden will do some good at the CIA.
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