THE BUREAU

FOCUS OF F.B.I. IS SEEN SHIFTING TO TERRORISM

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 - The Bush administration is discussing proposals
that would lead to the most fundamental reorganization of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation in its history, shifting its focus to
counterterrorism and away from crime fighting, senior officials said.

Under the new thinking, they said, the agency would give up
responsibility for some of the duties on which it built its legendary
"G-man" reputation, like bank robbery, drug trafficking and some
violent crime investigations.

"As counterterrorism becomes the No. 1 priority of the F.B.I., it has
become obvious that other types of investigations will have to be
de-emphasized at the bureau or turned over to other agencies," said a
senior administration official, one of several interviewed in recent
days who have been involved in the discussions.

Some officials say the restructuring has already begun, even before
any formal plans have been proposed, propelled by the terrorist
attacks of Sept. 11, when thousands of bureau agents across the
country were ordered to put aside other investigations to focus
exclusively on counterterrorism.

Since Sept. 11, senior officials said, Attorney General John Ashcroft
and the bureau's director, Robert S. Mueller III, have agreed that
the emphasis on counterterrorism will be permanent, and that other
major changes are inevitable. They have said repeatedly in recent
days that the bureau's 28,000 employees will have one overriding
responsibility: to prevent further terrorist attacks against
Americans.

Officials emphasized that no formal restructuring plan exists, and
that any structural change in the bureau's mission might require
Congressional approval.

But the trauma of Sept. 11 appears to give this proposal a far better
chance of success than many of the other ideas that repeatedly arise
in Washington to remake complicated or failing bureaucracies, like
the perennial plans to restructure the Immigration and Naturalization
Service.

The attorney general and bureau director strongly support the change,
law enforcement officials said. And because of the investigation of
the terrorist attacks, some of the ideas are already being put into
place - a de facto restructuring.

In addition, even before Sept. 11, members of Congress in both
parties were calling for significant change at the bureau. Since the
attacks, they have praised Mr. Ashcroft for his insistence that the
bureau concentrate on preventing terrorist acts.

"That's exactly what he ought to be doing," said Senator Jon Kyl, a
Republican of Arizona who is a member of both the Intelligence and
Judiciary Committees. "What's important now is to track down and
prevent more terrorism."

For generations, career advancement at the bureau has depended on the
sort of basic gumshoe investigations that would now be turned over to
other federal agencies or even to local police departments. For that
reason, the change is already facing opposition from the rank and
file at the bureau, one of the government's most tradition-bound
agencies.

Until now, agents who worked in the "other side" of the bureau - in
the classified world of counterterrorism and counterintelligence
units - seldom gained the same renown or promotions as their
counterparts in the criminal division. Frequently, the bureau's
counterintelligence agents complained that their biggest successes
were necessarily cloaked in secrecy.

Their problems were compounded by management changes in recent years
that granted flexibility to supervisors in the bureau's 56 national
field offices to set their own priorities, a system that in some
places resulted in a downgrading of counterterrorism and
counterintelligence investigations.

But in the aftermath of Sept. 11, senior administration officials
say, counterterrorism and counterintelligence must be the bureau's
principal responsibilities.

As a result, they added, the bureau will need to give up
responsibility - permanently - for many types of more routine
criminal investigations. The bureau has already directed agents to
stop responding to nonviolent bank robberies, so-called note jobs.

Administration officials said that under a reorganization, many types
of narcotics investigations that had previously been handled by the
bureau would very likely be turned over to the Drug Enforcement
Administration, and that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
would take over some firearms and bombing cases previously handled by
the bureau.

The F.B.I., they said, may jettison some of the jurisdiction that J.
Edgar Hoover and his successors had won for the bureau, which is
known in Washington for its aggressiveness in trying to expand its
turf and budget, a strategy that Congress has willingly supported
with bigger and bigger budgets and more personnel.

Some recently acquired powers may be among the first to be
relinquished, like the bureau's responsibility for investigations of
child pornography, carjackings and fathers who have not paid child
support. In the future, the agency could also give up investigations
of health care and military-procurement fraud, duties that could be
handed over to the offices of inspectors general at the Department of
Health and Human Services and the Pentagon. Another senior official,
speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that "12 months from
now, the F.B.I. is not going to be the organization it was on Sept.
10."

"Its responsibilities and priorities are all going to change," he
added. "Any area where there is a duplicative effort with some other
part of the government has a strong chance of being broken off from
the bureau's responsibility."

No one in the administration is suggesting that the bureau will be
sidelined in the government's effort to combat major crime. But law
enforcement officials said that narrowing the bureau's focus would
make the agency more effective in responding to crimes that it is
uniquely qualified to address, like complex white-collar fraud,
organized crime and political corruption.

A major restructuring of the bureau has been under discussion since
the early days of the Bush administration. The administration
inherited an agency battered by criticism in Congress over missteps
that seemed rooted in managerial failures.

Supporters of the F.B.I. in Congress complained of mismanagement
after the bureau's erratic investigation of Wen Ho Lee, the Los
Alamos nuclear weapons scientist; the unmasking of an F.B.I. agent,
Robert P. Hanssen, as a Russian spy; and the belated discovery of
investigative documents in the Oklahoma City bombing case that forced
Mr. Ashcroft to delay the execution of Timothy J. McVeigh.

In a speech to bureau employees last summer, Mr. Ashcroft said the
Hanssen case and the handling of the McVeigh documents were "injuring
the public trust" and signaled that he would keep a close watch on
the agency. He started several internal inquiries and brought in a
private consulting firm to conduct a management review of the F.B.I.,
which is still under way.

He persuaded a skeptical White House to accept his choice, Mr.
Mueller, as the bureau's new director. Mr. Mueller had earned a
fearsome reputation from previous jobs for shaking up government
agencies, notably the United States attorney's office in San
Francisco, where he forced out most of the senior managers. Both Mr.
Ashcroft and Mr. Mueller, senior aides said, were determined to end
decades of hostility and turf battles between the Justice Department
and the F.B.I.

Within hours of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon, officials said, Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Mueller had no choice
but to restructure the bureau, at least temporarily.

Thousands of agents were told to abandon their more routine criminal
investigations and to focus entirely on terrorism, especially on
pursuing leads that might prevent another terrorist attack. A senior
Justice Department official said that although there had been no
bureauwide notice to those agents of their future duties, "many of
them won't be going back to their old jobs."