New Head Of CIA Clandestine Service Returns To Agency

Saturday, September 15th 2007, 4:23 pm

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) _ The new head of the CIA's clandestine service is a veteran operative who joined other high-ranking officials in quitting the spy agency in 2004 after clashing with aides to then-director Porter Goss.

Michael Sulick, who has 25 years of experience at the CIA, was named Friday to become director of the service that includes most of its foreign posts and covert officers.

He is take over on Sept. 30.

In a note to employees that the agency released, CIA Director Michael Hayden said Sulick was ``ideally prepared to guide the National Clandestine Service as it strives to meet the range of security challenges facing our country, starting with the fight against terror. He knows that espionage demands constant change and adaptation.''

Sulick had held the No. 2 job in the clandestine service, as the CIA's associate deputy director for operations, for only several months before he decided to leave and become a private consultant. He also had been a CIA division chief and chief of the agency's counterintelligence.

That was in November 2004, when Sulick and his immediate boss, Stephen Kappes, then CIA's deputy director for operations, resigned after confrontations with Goss' leadership team. Goss had been a clandestine officer in the 1960s before his election as a Republican congressman from Florida. Goss resigned as CIA chief in May 2006.

Goss had brought with him four staff members from the House Intelligence Committee, which he led for nearly eight years. It was with those aides that Kappes and Sulick wound up in heated debates.

Now, Sulick will help run all foreign intelligence activities. Kappes returned in July 26 as Hyaden's deputy.

``As a seasoned operations officer, Mike earned a reputation for superior tradecraft and sound judgment,'' Hayden said. ``He speaks his mind and our rapport was immediate.''