Reply #13: No, she was National Security Advisor--NSA.

[sofa king]

Hadley was her executive officer, or its equivalent, and then took her place when she became Secretary of State. The postion of National Security Advisor is a common term for the clunky title Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

The two most important jobs a National Security Advisor has are sitting on the National Security Council (NSC), and managing the White House Situation Room in a time of crisis. (The response to the hijackings of September 11 therefore squarely fell on the shoulders of Ms. Rice and in any other Administration she would have been fired for screwing up that response.)

This is not to be confused with the National Security Agency, the eavesdropping intelligence wing of the Department of Defense, which read and recorded this very post before you even saw it.