New York Times – by MARK LANDLER
WASHINGTON — In a major shakeup of President Obama’s foreign-policy inner circle, Tom Donilon, the national security adviser, is resigning and will be replaced by Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, White House officials said late Tuesday.
The appointment, which Mr. Obama plans to make on Wednesday afternoon, puts Ms. Rice, 48, an outspoken diplomat and a close political ally, at the heart of the administration’s foreign-policy apparatus.
It is also a defiant gesture to Republicans who harshly criticized Ms. Rice for presenting an erroneous account of the deadly attacks on the American mission in Benghazi, Libya. The post of national security adviser, while powerful, does not require Senate confirmation.
Mr. Obama also plans to nominate Samantha Power, a National Security Council official, as Ms. Rice’s replacement at the United Nations on Wednesday. Ms. Power, who has written extensively about genocide, is closely allied with Ms. Rice on human rights issues.
A central member of Mr. Obama’s foreign-policy team since he first took office, Mr. Donilon, 58, has exerted sweeping influence, mostly behind the scenes, on issues from counterterrorism to the reorientation of America to Asia from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Among his last big projects was negotiating the highly unusual informal meeting between Mr. Obama and President Xi Jinping of China on Friday at an estate in Southern California. Mr. Donilon, just back from talks in Beijing, clearly took pride of ownership.
“I don’t know when there was a broad meeting like this,” he said in an interview. “For the last 40 years or so, these conversations have taken place in a more formal, scripted context.”
But Mr. Donilon has also hit a rough patch recently, with the publication of an unflattering profile in Foreign Policy magazine that cast him as a sharp-elbowed infighter and a domineering boss, who had strained relationships with colleagues, including his former deputy, Denis R. McDonough, now the White House chief of staff.
Mr. Donilon and Mr. McDonough, however, both denied those reports, with Mr. McDonough saying he had a “very good relationship with Tom.” He added, “It pains me to think anybody would think he’s leaving because of me.”
Mr. Donilon, whose departure is effective early July, said he had planned to leave after Mr. Obama’s first term but stayed on at the president’s request to break in a new team led by Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John O. Brennan.
He pointed to the unusual harmony among Cabinet heavyweights like former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, and chalked up reports of unhappy subordinates to the relentless grind of working in the White House.
“I cherish my staff,” he said. “They are a national treasure.”
Mr. McDonough said Mr. Donilon’s greatest policy legacy would be his role in engineering the pivot to Asia. In a statement, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., said, “I’ve worked with eight different administrations and even more national security advisers, and I’ve never met anyone with more talent and with greater strategic judgment.”
The president recently nominated Mr. Donilon’s wife, Cathy Russell, a former chief of staff to Jill Biden, as the State Department’s ambassador at large for global women’s issues – a job that will impose heavy work and travel demands of its own on a family that has seen little of Mr. Donilon since 2009. The Donilons have two children, aged 14 and 16.
For Ms. Rice, the appointment amounts to redemption after she withdrew from consideration as secretary of state because Republicans threatened to block her nomination over Benghazi.
Mr. Obama steadfastly defended Ms. Rice, and after he nominated John Kerry instead of her, White House officials said she became the front-runner to succeed Mr. Donilon, who has been in the job since October 2010 and had been the principal deputy before that.
A Rhodes Scholar who holds a doctorate in international affairs from Oxford University, Ms. Rice began her government career on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, later serving as senior director for African affairs from 1995 to 1997.
A foreign policy adviser to then-Senator Obama during his 2008 campaign, Ms. Rice was viewed as a potential national security adviser in his first term. Mr. Obama instead sent her to the United Nations and chose Gen. James L. Jones, a former Marine Corps commandant.
At the United Nations, Ms. Rice earned good reviews for lining up balky members behind sanctions on North Korea and Iran. After Mr. Obama’s re-election, she was seen as a prime candidate to replace Mrs. Clinton. But that was before she appeared on television to discuss the attack in Benghazi, which killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.
Ms. Rice, using talking points drafted by the C.I.A., said the assault appeared to be a protest gone awry rather than a premeditated terrorist attack. That proved incorrect, and though Ms. Rice cautioned that the account could change with further intelligence, Republicans accused her of sanitizing the truth for political reasons.
After withdrawing her name as secretary of state, Ms. Rice returned to the United Nations, where she kept a low profile, immersing herself in issues involving countries like Syria and North Korea. But she has retained the confidence of the White House, playing an influential role in internal debates over questions like whether to arm the rebels in Syria.
“When she speaks,” Mr. Biden said last month, “no one wonders whether or not she is speaking for the president.”
Unlike Mr. Donilon, Ms. Rice is known for her outspoken views on human rights and other issues. She advocated the NATO-led military intervention in Libya, for example. That raises a question of how she will approach the job of national security adviser, which has traditionally functioned as a broker among competing agencies.
Mr. Donilon has said his model was Brent Scowcroft, the influential adviser to President George H.W. Bush. A tireless student of the bureaucratic process, Mr. Donilon favors exhaustive preparation over seat-of-the-pants advice. He prided himself on delivering a daily briefing to Mr. Obama more than 800 times – scheduling overseas trips on weekends to avoid missing that ritual.
In the last year, with Republicans accusing him of being responsible for national security leaks – which the White House has denied – Mr. Donilon has steered clear of reporters.
Critics have faulted Mr. Donilon, whose background is in Democratic Party politics, for not functioning as a strategic adviser to Mr. Obama. But Mr. Donilon oversaw risky operations like the commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden and took on delicate tasks like managing relations with Pakistan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Russia and China.
With the new focus on Asia, a revived trade agenda and a narrower American approach to fighting terrorists, he said, “We really have changed the strategic posture of the U.S. in the world.”
Oh really? Great. Fanfukkingtastic. I feel safer already. What could possibly go wrong? America gets attacked by another crummy youtube video?
“The president recently nominated Mr. Donilon’s wife, Cathy Russell, a former chief of staff to Jill Biden, as the State Department’s ambassador at large for global women’s issues”
I’m sorry, but where in the HELL do they come up with these RIDICULOUS, ABSURD and INSANE made up political positions?
“Ambassador at large for global women’s issues”?
WHAT THE F**K does that have to do with running and protecting our country and why am I giving countless amounts of tax dollars to pay such a person in such a stupid position?
The position sounds like a female ex-convict who just escaped from the Federal penitentiary, is “at large” and we are trying to track her down because she had “women issues” with her man.
I’m sorry, but unless I’m in imminent danger by global women’s issues (whatever the hell it means in the first place), THERE’S NO NEED TO HAVE A POSITION AT THE WHITE HOUSE OR IN ANY PART OF GOVERNMENT FOR IT!!! IT’S NOT NECESSARY NOR IS IT RELEVANT IN ANY GOVERNMENT MATTER!!!! NO NEED FOR IT!!! PERIOD!!!
Hell, why don’t we have a position called “Ambassador at large for global men issues”.
What other stupid positions are there in government that are like this? I mean really, people. What a waste of taxpayers money. Imagine what we all could do with that money. What the hell is wrong with our country?
“Hell, why don’t we have a position called “Ambassador at large for global men issues”.
REAL men don’t have ‘issues’. That’s why, NC. LOL