by Stephanie Griffith
WASHINGTON, Aug 10 (AFP) - Porter Goss, nominated Tuesday to head the Central Intelligence Agency, spent more than 10 years as a spy before entering politics and becoming the powerful chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
A life threatening illness forced him to end his time as a clandestine agent but he has rebuilt a career as a sold Republican who is now only the second Congressman, after the elder George Bush, to become director of the CIA.
President George W. Bush named Goss to replace George Tenet, who stood down as director in July facing strong criticism over the failure to head off the September 11, 2001 attacks and the information used to justify the Iraq war.
Supporters say Goss's background makes him the perfect choice to rebuild the troubled agency.
Goss, a graduate of Yale University who speaks French and Spanish, was in army intelligence for two years before becoming a CIA case officer from 1962 to 1971.
He was a field officer on "two continents", Bush said as he announced the nomination. No details have been released but according to US media, Goss served in Haiti, the Dominican Republican, Mexico and Western Europe.
In a 2002 interview with the Washington Post, he recalled "I had some very interesting moments in the Florida Straits" during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
Goss was in England when he was struck by an infection of the heart and other organs that nearly killed him and forced him to leave the CIA at the age of 31.
He retired to Florida, set up a newspaper with two other ex-spies and entered local politics in the city of Sanibel. "We started a new life," he told the Post. "We just started all over again, completely."
He was elected to the House of Representatives for southwest Florida in 1988 and has been chairman of the House Intelligence Committee for seven years. He had planned to retire in 2002 but Vice President Dick Cheney helped convince Goss to stay on.
"Porter Goss is a leader with strong experience in intelligence and in the fight against terrorism," Bush said. "He knows the CIA inside and out. He's the right man to lead this important agency at this critical moment in our nation's history."
As chairman of the House committee, Goss played a central role in congressional efforts to probe intelligence failures leading up to the September 11 terror attacks.
In June, Goss gave a speech to the House of Representatives, outlining his commitment to revamping the US espionage network so it could regain some of the luster lost after the attacks and other setbacks.
"For the past seven-plus years, I have been working to refit the intelligence community for its future ... to posture it for the days ahead," Goss said.
When his name was first mentioned as a possible replacement for Tenet, intelligence insiders praised Goss, saying he would be an ardent advocate for the agency.
"He'd be excellent at it," said Senator Pat Roberts, the Republican head of the Senate intelligence committee. "You need someone with a lot of experience. I have found that experience counts."
But opponents have criticized Goss as being too closely connected to the intelligence establishment and to the Bush administration.
"He's much too close," said Melvin Goodman, a former CIA agent and Washington-based political analyst. "Tenet's replacement can't be an advocate for the CIA, he's got to be a junkyard dog." Goss has swept the criticism aside.
An ardent Bush supporter, Goss recently was chosen by the president's campaign to critique a speech by Democratic challenger John Kerry. Goss obliged by blasting the Massachusetts senator's national security views as "unrealistic and dangerously naive."
The comments led senior Democratic senator John Rockefeller, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee to opine that to choose Goss or "any politician, from either party for the CIA director job, would be a mistake."
Goss also serves on the House Select Committee for Homeland Security, and the House Rules Committee, which is responsible for how legislation is presented.
Goss and his wife Mariel have four children and 11 grandchildren.