By G. Stuart Smith
It may be a resume item that really is just a molehill – or it may be something that a well-heeled conspiracy theorist could bulldoze into a mountain. Whichever it is, Director of Central Intelligence designate Porter Goss has a secret past that I tried to uncover 16 years ago. And it’s a secret that today calls into question his ability to reform the nation’s intelligence services.
My connection to Goss began in the early ’80s when I was a political reporter for a TV station in Fort Myers, Florida. Goss was a city councilman on the tony, yet laid-back, resort island of Sanibel. The sparsely populated isle had a reputation as a haven for nature lovers, shell collectors and retired CIA. operatives.
One of them was Porter J. Goss, who was forced into retirement because of a debilitating illness he contracted while a CIA employee. Goss made Sanibel his home in 1971. Residents elected him to the island’s first city council in 1974 and council members named him the city’s first mayor.
From there, Goss stepped up to county government when a scandal forced three Lee County commissioners off the board and into prison. Then Florida Governor Bob Graham named Goss to one of the vacancies in 1983. Goss’s secret CIA past never became an issue while he served on the two local government boards. But he tossed his hat into the ring for the House of Representatives in 1988 and immediately became a leading contender. In the heavily-Republican district, whoever won the GOP September primary would be a shoo-in to win the general election.
But four other Republicans also wanted the House seat; Goss ended up in a hotly-contested runoff with the area’s former congressman. Knowing the winner of that battle could likely keep the seat as long as he wanted – including voting on the intelligence budget and policies — I decided to start asking a lot more questions about Porter Goss’s secret past.
My first call went to the CIA public affairs office. The staff there told me that it was a firm policy never to comment on whether a person had worked for the agency. A few days later, however, I received a call from the agency; since Goss was running for Congress, the CIA would make an exception in this case and confirmed that Goss did work for the agency. They wouldn’t give any more information, such as what dates he was employed, where he was stationed or what operations he took part in.
I also tried to track down anyone who might have worked with Goss in his CIA years. The best I could do was track down Philip Agee, the former agent who wrote “CIA Diary, Inside the Company.” Agee’s 1975 book listed abuses in the agency, but when I got a hold of him in Europe, he never had even heard of Goss.
So I was left to interview the candidate with very little background about his past – only revelations about the “company’s” bugging of anti-war activists, attempts to assassinate foreign leaders and other disclosures made by the so-called Church Committee, a special Senate investigation of agency abuses through the 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s.
In the interview Goss said he had no personal knowledge of any of those abuses, but could not say anything more about his service in the CIA. With so much of his past a secret, I asked Goss how voters could rely on him to be a congressional watchdog of the agency. He replied his constituents would have to trust him.
Goss easily won the October Republican run-off and sprinted to a 71 percent win over his Democrat challenger in the general election. Over the next 14 years, Goss received little opposition and voters returned him seven times to increasingly more important positions on Capitol Hill.
He made a reputation serving his constituents’ unique interests, from retiree and veterans affairs to protecting Florida’s fragile environment. He served as chairman of the House ethics committee then moved on to the intelligence committee. I continued to report on Goss’s rise through the early ’90s and one day was invited to talk to him about becoming his press secretary. But he never made an offer; perhaps the memory of me asking about his secret past was too fresh.
When I moved from Fort Myers in 1995 I continued to watch Goss progress through the House. Once he became the chairman of the intelligence committee other journalists wrote about his CIA past, but ran into the same secret stonewall as I did in 1988.
In nominating Goss, President Bush revealed more about Goss’s secret life. Goss served from 1960 to 1971 as a field agent on two continents, “He knows the CIA inside and out,” said the president. But is that good or bad given the intelligence lapses of the last few years? Though he has a reputation as a reformer, some accuse Goss of being too close to the CIA – a lapdog instead of a watchdog of the agency.
In the years I dealt with Goss as a reporter he always answered my questions forthrightly – except when his CIA oath swore him to secrecy, and he blithely said we should trust him. But now I have to wonder: in the post Sept. 11 world do we put our faith in a man whose experience might help reform a troubled CIA, or are the stakes too high to trust in someone whose 11-year secret resume gap might hinder those reforms?