Bolton's a Tough Guy With a Cause

That assessment became a self-fulfilling prophesy. In the course of the four years Bolton served as an undersecretary of State, he had a succession of ideological and personal clashes with subordinates, colleagues and superiors.

Eventually, Colin L. Powell, secretary of State at the time, ordered his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, to keep tabs on Bolton and prevent him from alienating allies, three current and former State Department officials said. One of the officials said that he was specifically assigned to "mind" Bolton and report back if the undersecretary's activities were creating problems.

"John was a super-frustrated guy, pinioned at the wrists by Rich [Armitage], held down and clubbed regularly by his own people, and generally nullified by the secretary's skills at thwarting him," said one of the former senior officials, a lifelong Republican who said he "despised" Bolton.

Foreign diplomats who have made no secret of their dislike for Bolton said they were told by other State Department officials that they should not assume that Bolton's hard-line pronouncements on issues such as North Korea or Iran represented administration policy. In public, though, Powell and Armitage unfailingly defended Bolton and denied the existence of a rift.

The pent-up bitterness over Bolton's record at the State Department exploded after Bush nominated him to be U.N. ambassador last month, stalling his Senate confirmation hearing and inflaming debate in Washington.

In interviews since the hearing, current and former State Department officials at many levels described an atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust spun out of Bolton's zealous policy initiatives and the efforts of others to thwart him.

Many who described personal and policy conflicts, including Bolton's supporters, did so on condition of anonymity because of diplomatic protocol or because of the acute political sensitivity of the situation.

Yet some of Bolton's reported clashes with colleagues and subordinates -- including two ambassadors, three intelligence analysts, a lawyer and at least three senior State Department officials -- are unsurprising given Bolton's assertive style and the political chasm between the hard-line Republicans with whom Bolton was allied and the moderate Republicans at the helm of the State Department.