Bill Clinton Agrees to Disclose Names of Foundation Donors

McCaskill said any Obama supporter upset that an appointment went to a former rival should realize that the president-elect's willingness to work with past foes is a reason so many people supported him. "People are going to have to set aside what they want and think about what the country needs," she said. "The old school was that you reward your friends and punish your enemies. But it's a new day, and there is no reward and punishment going on."

Others wonder why Obama would want as his chief diplomat someone whose foreign policy approach he criticized throughout the primaries. Obama said Clinton has a "mindset that got us into war" in Iraq, while Clinton suggested that Obama was naive in his eagerness to talk with enemies.

But Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of international relations at Boston University and a leading conservative critic of the war in Iraq, said there may be less distance between the two now. Obama, he said, has turned toward a more military-minded approach as he argues for sending more troops to Afghanistan.

Clinton, Bacevich said, "is smart, competent and well-versed in the ways of the world -- and a completely conventional thinker in the mainstream of American statecraft. To the extent that Obama chooses her, it is a signal that he himself hews to the mainstream. It's an indication that his promise to change the way Washington works has a fairly limited scope."

Advisers to the senator from New York insist that she remains undecided about whether she would accept the secretary of state position. Clinton is considering the option with her husband and close advisers, a source with direct knowledge of the negotiations said, noting that becoming the nation's top diplomat would be a career-changing decision. Of particular concern is how much influence Clinton would have in Obama's White House, where she would compete for attention with other top foreign policy and national security aides, the source said.

Clinton, according to those close to her, is only now beginning to think seriously about her political legacy.

"I think she's in legacy-planning mode and needs to figure out how to make a mark over the next five years, since that is her window," said one Clinton adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

Among the concessions made by Bill Clinton, according to a source with direct knowledge of the negotiations, was an agreement to release the names of all previous and future donors to the William J. Clinton Foundation, including those who gave gifts anonymously -- an idea that the Clintons had rejected during the senator's presidential campaign. The foundation staff will begin contacting donors who gave to the foundation anonymously to tell them their names will now be released to the Obama team, the source said.

Yesterday, the transition team also formalized several hires, including David Axelrod, the chief strategist of Obama's presidential campaign, as a senior adviser, and Washington lawyer Greg Craig as White House counsel. Lisa Brown, a former counsel to Vice President Al Gore, was named staff secretary, and Obama's Senate legislative director, Christopher P. Lu, was tapped to be Cabinet secretary.