WASHINGTON — President Bush's new national security advisor has made a career out of being the perfect right-hand man to a series of powerful Washington conservatives.
Now the self-effacing Stephen J. Hadley, often described as one of the nicest guys in Washington, is doing one of toughest jobs in the U.S. government.
Like John R. Bolton, Hadley is a Yale-trained lawyer known for his tremendous energy and hawkish credentials, and as a conservative loyalist with close ties to Vice President Dick Cheney. But unlike Bolton, whose nomination as U.N. ambassador prompted bitter opposition from officials who had worked with him inside the Bush administration, no one in Washington seems to have a nasty word to say about Hadley -- even off the record.
Some even ask: Is Hadley too nice?
The national security advisor's job -- which Hadley took in January, succeeding Condoleezza Rice -- is to make sure the president gets the best possible information, intelligence and analysis on which to base decisions and then ensure they are carried out. Previous national security advisors sometimes have had to bring feuding, turf-grabbing or end-running Cabinet officials into line.
As the administration grapples with the challenges posed by the Iraqi insurgency, tensions with Iran and North Korea, as well as a legacy of failed intelligence, the need for a national security advisor to make sure all views are heard is acute.
But administration critics worry that Hadley could be too deferential to his former bosses -- Rice, now secretary of State, and Cheney -- to keep them from dominating all decision-making.
Hadley, 58, is one of the eight "Vulcans," the self-named team of conservatives, including Cheney and Rice, who advised Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign and have influenced U.S. foreign policy since. Hadley's ties with administration hawks date to 1972, when he arrived in Washington as a young naval officer and worked in the Pentagon with Paul D. Wolfowitz, now director of the World Bank.
Is it possible for a person to hold key positions in Washington's toughest bureaucracies for 33 years and have no enemies?
"It's true. I don't believe he's made an enemy," said Leslie H. Gelb, a former State Department and Defense Department official and president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
