WASHINGTON -- Karl Rove, a master of the political attack with added credentials as a cunning operative, suddenly finds himself playing an extraordinarily defensive game, as a federal investigation of who revealed the identity of a CIA operative reaches high into the White House.

Rove, deputy chief of staff and architect of President Bush's political career, has reached the pinnacle of American politics with a blend of brainpower, discipline and ruthless aggressiveness.

But now, with the White House declining to publicly discuss what role Rove might have played in the possibly illegal disclosure of a covert agent's identity, the president's most dedicated brigadier has retreated to the bunker. And as a Time magazine reporter who drew on Rove as a source for his story about the agent testified to a grand jury Wednesday, Bush publicly declined to elaborate on the case.

"Rove is not just any White House staffer. He is the man," said Scott Reed, a Republican consultant with close ties to the White House. "They haven't named it the `Roval Office' at this point, but that's coming down the pike. At least they should call it the `Rove Garden."'

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A specialist in direct-mail appeals for fundraising, Rove helped George W. Bush win election as Texas governor in 1994 and set out to get him elected president in 2000 with the most aggressive fundraising campaign a presidential candidate had ever waged.

After Bush suffered a humiliating defeat in the New Hampshire primary against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Rove recast Bush as "a reformer with results." Then he launched a take-no-prisoners attack on McCain.

"Everybody knows how bright Karl is," said Republican consultant Alex Castellanos. "He is one of the sharpest political minds of this generation. But I think people don't value his biggest asset, and that is he shares the same principles and focus of the president. He believes what the president believes."

But Rove hasn't always hewed to the purest principles in pursuit of his political goals.

Rove left college in Utah to work on political campaigns and moved to Illinois in 1970. Working alongside Robert Kjellander, then president of the College Republicans of Illinois and now a Republican national committeeman, Rove took quickly to the task of organizing college campuses.

Fake invitations

He also used an assumed name to gain access to the campaign headquarters of Democrat Alan Dixon, who was running for state treasurer. Once inside, Rove grabbed campaign stationery and later used it to print fake invitations to the grand opening of the Democrat's Chicago office, which he distributed to homeless people on Lower Wacker Drive.

People showed up in droves, lured by the free liquor, food and women that Rove had promised on the invitations. Dixon won anyway, but Rove's chicanery came to symbolize what would become a win-at-all-costs ethic that eventually permeated the state's Republican culture...

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