Negroponte Moves to Job Considered Crucial at State Dept.

"This is nothing against these people as individuals," Hoekstra said. But "when we crafted the intelligence reform bill, we put protections in there to make sure the military was represented. . . . We should have put language in there that protected civilian oversight. The administration clearly has a bias, almost a criterion, that to be in the intelligence community, you better have a military background. That's not what I envisioned, and I don't believe that's healthy."

Others pointed out that Hayden, who formerly served as Negroponte's DNI deputy, and Clapper, who retired in June after five years as director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), had argued with former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld over the growth of Pentagon control over intelligence. Along with McConnell, the head of the National Security Agency during the Clinton administration, the three are recognized as military men who, in the past, have responded well to the needs of the president and civilian policymakers.

The still-vacant job of deputy DNI is likely to be filled with a civilian. One candidate is Thomas Fingar, one of Negroponte's first appointments as deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and now chairman of the National Intelligence Council.

As DNI, Negroponte has focused on building common information-sharing and tradecraft training rather than day-to-day analysis or operations, said John E. McLaughlin, the former deputy CIA director. Negroponte has been criticized by Congress for being too diplomatic with the intelligence community's 16 agencies, some of whose members have resisted relinquishing traditional roles and perquisites in the name of integration.

But McLaughlin said Negroponte had "exercised his own authority" in pushing through a fiscal 2008 budget request that wrested money from more powerful elements of the community -- particularly the Pentagon.

At the CIA, Hayden has reflected his own close association with Negroponte even as he has tried to boost low morale. In a speech to agency employees yesterday, Hayden released the agency's five-year "Strategic Intent," subtitled "One Agency, One Community."

Its emphasis, said former senior CIA official Paul Pillar, was on "the strongly felt need for greater coordination across different organizations," while "quelling any thought that this is an agency that is in a state of transition to something much less than it once was."

Staff writer Glenn Kessler contributed to this report.