From the start, John D. Negroponte felt miscast as the nation’s first director of national intelligence, a diplomat who never seemed comfortable in spook’s clothing, colleagues and friends of his said.
Even at age 67, Mr. Negroponte longed to be back in the thick of policymaking, they said. But he knew it was the one role he was barred from playing as long as he remained the nation’s top intelligence chief, whose role is to step into the Oval Office each morning as a neutral, impartial adviser on the threats lurking around the globe.
It was because of this, officials said, that he agreed to do something generally unheard of in a city obsessed with the bureaucratic totem pole: trade a cabinet-level job for a subcabinet post as deputy secretary of state, a job that essentially requires him to handle tasks that Condoleezza Rice would rather not deal with.
(snip)
Top Congressional officials responded angrily to the news of Mr. Negroponte’s departure.
“I think he walked off the job, and I don’t like it,” said Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the new chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/05/washington/05intel.html?hp&ex=1167973200&en=3c4e6a9ee56e7841&ei=5094&partner=homepage
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