Last week, Murray demanded that Kappes fire Sulick after Sulick criticized Murray at a meeting, according to several current and former CIA officials. Kappes declined and offered his resignation. McLaughlin announced his retirement, and several other senior operations officers have threatened to resign, the current and former officials said.
Goss's internal e-mail also attempted to calm fears that Murray has wide-ranging authority and that Goss intends to dilute the power of the directorate of operations. Last week, Murray told managers that the directorate will lose its key role in appointing station chiefs and regional division chiefs, according to several current and former employees.
"The division deputy directors," Goss's statement said, "would have complete responsibility for managing their components." Murray "organizes and manages the duties and priorities of my staff."
A CIA spokesman declined to comment.
McCain also cited a leak of information about Michael V. Kostiw, Goss's initial choice for the number three position at the agency, as evidence of partisan opposition to the new director. That leak, concerning a 20-year-old shoplifting incident, resulted in Kostiw's withdrawal from consideration for that job. He is now a special assistant to Goss.
"The information was leaked before he even got there," McCain said.
Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (W.Va.), ranking Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said that he had expected changes at the CIA based on past failures but that Goss "must provide some explanation for this rash of departures among senior officials."
In 1977, when retired admiral Stansfield Turner was named CIA director by President Jimmy Carter, he brought to agency headquarters what one former CIA official described as "a Navy boarding party armed with sabers." Turner's aides fired several senior clandestine officials, and although the actions were resented they were never believed to have had partisan motives.
