Spy agency to be led by CIA vet

WASHINGTON – A top CIA manager who remains undercover will soon oversee traditional human spying activities for the entire intelligence community, a position created in the post-Sept. 11 intelligence overhaul.

Publicly, he is referred to simply as “Jose.”

His posting as director of the new National Clandestine Service ends weeks of debate over whether the CIA would retain its primacy over the government’s traditional human spywork, as an increasing number of U.S. national security agencies take on these types of assignments.

Jose will now broadly coordinate operations for the CIA, FBI, Defense Department and other agencies involved in human intelligence, or the information gathered by people, rather than by technical means.

“This is another positive step in building an intelligence community that is more unified, coordinated and effective,” National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said Thursday.

Forming a National Clandestine Service was one of more than 70 recommendations from President Bush’s commission on weapons of mass destruction, which released a bruising report in March about the current capabilities of the 15 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community.

The report concluded that the “toughest targets remain largely impenetrable” to human spying operations.

CIA Director Porter Goss drafted a plan that would place the National Clandestine Service under his chain of command. The plan’s acceptance is viewed as a victory for the CIA.

Intelligence veterans have said for months that any arrangement that somehow undermined the CIA’s role as the top producer of human intelligence would hurt the agency’s clout and deepen problems with agency morale.