R Condoleezza Rice will replace Gen Colin L. Powell as the next Secretary of State of the US. Senior Bush administration officials said that President George W. Bush had picked his National Security Adviser for General Powell's job and that Dr Rice's name could be announced very soon.The first woman to ever occupy the post of National Security Adviser, Dr Rice will be making history with her appointment to the post of Secretary of State. Not only will she be only the second female Secretary of State after Ms Madeleine Albright in the Clinton Administration, she will also be the first African American woman to occupy the post.
A foreign policy hawk and one of Mr Bush's closest confidantes, Dr Rice, who turned 50 on Sunday, worked as an adviser on national security issues to Mr Bush after stepping down from six years as Stanford University's provost.
Born in segregated Alabama in 1954, Dr Rice entered college at 15 and by the age of 26 she had earned a Ph.D. in international affairs from the University of Denver. One of her mentors at university was Prof Joseph Korbel - Ms Albright's father.
A linguist who speaks four languages, Dr Rice is also an accomplished figure skater and a classically trained concert pianist. In 1981, she moved to California to take up a political science professorship at Stanford, where she built a reputation as an expert on the Soviet Union.
Dr Rice became the assistant to Mr Bush for national security affairs on January 22, 2001.
Earlier this year, Forbes magazine rated Dr Rice the most powerful woman in the world. "Advising the leader of the world's largest superpower - and having the ear of leaders around the globe — makes Dr Rice the most powerful woman in the world," the magazine noted.
Mr Powell announced his resignation on Monday saying it had "always been my intention that I would serve one term."
"President Bush and I have talked about foreign policy and we've talked about what to do at the end of the first term," he said, adding, "And after we had had a chance to have good and fulsome discussions on it, we came to the mutual agreement that it would be appropriate for me to leave at this time."
