An Exodus of Agents

By Brian Bennett, Adam Zagorin

Office birthday parties must make FBI Director Robert Mueller a little nervous these days. Consider his No. 2, John Pistole, who hits retirement age when he turns 50 this month. For weeks rumors bubbled up to the seventh floor of the FBI's headquarters at the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington: Pistole was going to bolt for a lucrative job in the private sector. The whispers got so loud that Pistole took it upon himself to assure Mueller that he wasn't leaving. One reason he gave: it wouldn't be right to split when so many other senior officials have headed for the exits.

Years of pummeling by the press and Congress, plus wrenching changes produced by the bureau's shift in focus to antiterrorism, have depressed morale, even in the highest ranks. That has coincided with lucrative employment offers to agents from firms desperate for experienced security chiefs in the wake of 9/11. On July 15, just weeks after his 50th birthday, acting executive assistant director for law-enforcement services Chris Swecker is to leave for a new job as head of global security for Bank of America, where he will earn a reported $600,000, more than triple what he makes as the FBI's No. 3. Better pay isn't the only motivation--one former senior FBI manager says he quit after tiring of the "constant berating" he got from lawmakers when briefing Congress. "All these factors play into a decision to leave: family, finances, burnout, pressure, criticism," he says. "You've worked your a__ off. Eventually you say, Hey, the heck with this."

The turnover has hit some of the most vital positions in the bureau hierarchy. In five years, six different people have moved through the post of counterterrorism chief, overseeing what has been the FBI's core mission since 9/11. And June 2 was the last day for 29-year veteran Gary Bald, 52, who retired just 10 months after being tapped to start up the FBI's new National Security Branch. He's taking a security job with Royal Caribbean Cruises.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have been debating whether the brain drain at the FBI poses a threat to national security. "The FBI cannot be a revolving door for senior managers," says Senator Chuck Grassley. "It needs stability in these important positions to fight in the war on terror."

Mueller seems to agree. When promoting agents to senior-executive levels, he "is trying to extract some promise as to how long they are willing to stay," says Michael Mason, who runs the administrative side of the FBI. Grassley suggested to TIME that "the FBI needs to appeal to the patriotic spirit of its senior managers." But beyond that, the bureau is offering few tangible perks to make working there more attractive. Nor will the jobs be getting easier--Mason says new recruits should expect to be rotated around the country and the world, even if it means uprooting their families, a practice that, for budgetary reasons, had waned in recent years.

Mason, however, is optimistic that the new generation of agents will make the sacrifices necessary for the job. At the Washington field office, he notes, 65% of the new recruits last year had taken pay cuts from previous jobs to work at the FBI.