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Colorful Outsider Is Named No. 3 at the CIA

By Vernon Loeb and Greg Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 17, 2001; Page A03

A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard, a cigar-chomping former investment banker and martial arts enthusiast, was named yesterday executive director of the CIA, bringing a fast-paced management style to the agency's No. 3 job.

Central Intelligence Agency Director George J. Tenet announced the appointment, saying he treasures Krongard's "wise counsel and 'no-nonsense' business-like views."

Krongard, 64, former head of Alex. Brown & Co., an investment bank based in Baltimore, joined the agency three years ago as a counselor to Tenet. He switched careers shortly after helping engineer the $2.5 billion merger of Alex. Brown and Bankers Trust New York Corp., gaining $71 million in Bankers Trust stock.

Few of his former colleagues were surprised by his decision to trade a $4 million salary and stock options for the far less remunerative job of Tenet's consigliere.

A graduate of Princeton and the University of Maryland Law School, Krongard has a fondness for extreme military-style activities. Even as a banking executive, he trained with police SWAT teams for recreation and worked out with a kung fu master.

To impress -- or intimidate -- visitors, the former Marine officer would demonstrate lightning-fast moves for disabling an attacker.

The purpose of his exercise regime was not just to stay fit, he once said, but to increase toughness and discipline. To that end, he would thrust his hands repeatedly into buckets of dried rice or absorb blows to the stomach from a heavy medicine ball.

He maintained a shooting range on the park-like grounds of his home on the northern edge of Baltimore, and kept a walk-in safe stocked with Cuban cigars.

His rhetorical style, blunt and colorful, sets him apart on the seventh floor of CIA headquarters. In an interview yesterday, Krongard described his past duties as those of a "minister without portfolio" whom senior managers felt comfortable talking to about "sticky subjects."

"I really didn't have a dog in any fights," he allowed, "and I was able to broker some things."

But Krongard exhibited the requisite secretiveness when asked to explain his interest in intelligence and how he came to land a job in Tenet's inner circle. If you go back to the CIA's origins during World War II in the Office of Strategic Services, he explained, "the whole OSS was really nothing but Wall
Street bankers and lawyers."

Given the CIA's insular nature, outsiders who assume top posts often arouse suspicion. That was certainly true in the case of Nora Slatkin, a Capitol Hill staffer and Pentagon official who served as executive director from 1995 to 1996 under then-CIA Director John M. Deutch.

One former agency official said yesterday that he found it "absolutely astounding" that Tenet installed
Krongard in such an important job. "When you meet him, he tells you to punch him in the stomach to see how tough he is," the former official said.

But Krongard received a rave review from former deputy director of operations Jack Downing, an agency legend. "I have a lot of respect for Buzzy," Downing said. "He knows business and financial markets and all that. But he's been privy to everything since he's been there, sitting at George's right hand, so he certainly knows the agency. I personally would be very happy to serve in that agency with Buzzy as executive director."

Krongard described his new role as that of a chief operating officer and vowed to keep everyone focused. "If you ask me, 'What is your one biggest priority?' it would be to do everything I can . . . to support our two basic missions here, operations and intelligence," he said. "If you don't worry about who gets the credit, you can accomplish an awful lot."

© 2001 The Washington Post Company