WASHINGTON — John D. Negroponte, who in 2005 became the first director of national intelligence, overseeing the 16 U.S. spy agencies, will give up that job to become deputy secretary of State, U.S. officials said Wednesday evening.
A veteran diplomat, Negroponte, 67, joined the new agency at a time of growing concern over the failures of U.S. intelligence to anticipate the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and to accurately assess Iraq's illicit weapons programs before the 2003 U.S. invasion. By moving to the No. 2 diplomatic post, vacant since July, he would be returning to more familiar terrain.
A replacement for Negroponte has not been selected, a U.S. official said. But there was speculation that the post could go to J. Michael McConnell, a retired vice admiral who headed the National Security Agency from 1992 to 1996. Attempts to reach McConnell, now a senior vice president at the McLean, Va., consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, were unsuccessful.
Negroponte's office declined to comment on why the director would cut short his service, which includes giving President Bush his daily intelligence briefing, for what is considered a lower-ranking position. But people close to Negroponte, who spent 37 years as a Foreign Service officer, said they believed he was not happy trying to better integrate sometimes-rivalrous organizations in a specialty outside his own.
The creation of the office Negroponte is leaving was the principal recommendation of the independent commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks. It was designed, in part, to ensure that the 16 spy agencies shared crucial information.
Some U.S. officials expressed surprise at the news of Negroponte's departure, first reported by NBC, since only last month he seemed to have silenced rumors that he might be taking the State Department job. In an interview broadcast Dec. 3 on C-SPAN, Negroponte said he expected to remain in his current post "through the end of this administration, and then, I think, probably that'll be about the right time to pack it in."
A formal announcement of his change in jobs is expected later this week.
Negroponte's talents will be welcome in the senior ranks of the State Department, which has been stressed by simultaneous crises in the Middle East and elsewhere and has lost several top officials in recent months. Some foreign diplomats have complained that it has became increasingly difficult to win top-level attention on even urgent issues, except for critical items related to the Middle East.
