Mr. Turner, as intelligence chief under President Jimmy Carter, had an agenda that was the opposite in many ways from Mr. Goss's. He sought to shrink the clandestine service and rein it in, in reaction to the abuses of the 60's and 70's. Mr. Goss wants to make it bigger and bolder, in response to failures in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks and in prewar intelligence on Iraq.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Turner said he recognized the challenge that Mr. Goss was facing.
"Criticize the D.O., and you're in trouble," Mr. Turner said, using an abbreviation for the operations directorate. "Try to modify the way that operation works, and if you're an outsider, you're in trouble."
Mr. Goss and his team, including Mr. Murray, have never made a secret of their view that the clandestine service was in need of major change. A report by the House Intelligence Committee issued in June, when Mr. Goss was its chairman and Mr. Murray its staff director, portrayed the operations directorate in scathing terms, disparaging what it called "a continued political aversion to operations risk" and calling for "immediate and far-reaching changes."
"The nimble, flexible, core-mission oriented enterprise the D.O. once was, is becoming just a fleeting memory," the report said. "With each passing day, it becomes harder to resurrect."
