I’ve written before about the high-flying career of Providence native and La Salle Academy graduate Tom Donilon, who’s been called one of President Obama’s “two most influential foreign-policy advisers.”

But Tom isn’t the only member of the Donilon family with some powerful connections. His brother Mike is a longtime adviser to Vice President Biden who was a “quiet but indispensable” part of the Obama-Biden campaign last year. And his brother Terry is the chief spokesman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, whose leader, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, is generating a lot of buzz as an actual contender to succeed Pope Benedict XVI as the next Bishop of Rome.

That possibility was intriguing enough that Washington Post correspondent Jason Horowitz filed a dispatch in today’s paper straight from Vatican City discussing it with Terry, who’s in Rome with Cardinal O’Malley:

One Donilon brother “working for the most powerful man on the planet and the other one could work for the most powerful religious leader on the planet?” mused Terry on Saturday, dressed in blue baseball cap and polo shirt in a café by the Vatican. “Yeah, that’s kind of an interesting storyline.” …

And while reports have emerged that Tom Donilon is expected to step down this year (“I’m still fully engaged,” he said), there is also a third Donilon brother, Michael. A longtime political aide to Vice President Biden, he would probably play a major role in a Biden 2016 presidential bid. (The brothers also have a sister, Donna, a nurse who is widely considered a saint.) …

The Donilon children grew up in a solidly Irish section of Providence, R.I., where St. Michael’s Parish acted as a center of gravity. Faith, Terry said, was the “fabric of who we were.” He and his brothers served as altar boys, and the family lived in a Dutch Colonial home where they all learned instruments: Donna and Tom the piano, Mike the guitar.

The article goes on to discuss Terry Donilon’s pre-O’Malley work with former Providence Mayor Joe Paolino, former Gov. Bruce Sundlun and former Congressman Bob Weygand – as well as the fact that he and O’Malley bonded during his job interview over, of all people, Buddy Cianci.

One question the Post story doesn’t answer – was Terry behind the masterstroke of having O’Malley and his fellow American cardinals hold daily press briefings, which proved to be extremely popular before they were reportedly quashed by the Roman Curia?

Rhode Island native and La Salle Academy grad Tom Donilon became President Obama’s national security adviser in December 2010 after a career that included a senior gig at Fannie Mae. Donilon has been called one of Obama’s most influential advisers; he even wrote the formal orders to get Osama bin Laden.

Donilon is now getting some unwelcome publicity, Foreign Policy’s Peter Feaver reports:

Outrage over the recent national security leaks has been slowly building. It has all the signs of having legs, as they say in the business — of being a long-term Big Problem, rather than a short-term distraction. …

And the outrage is beginning to have a focus: on National Security Advisor Tom Donilon. Old Beltway hands see the dots as connecting and pointing to Donilon as the most senior, if not the earliest and certainly not the only, source. The focus may be unfair, or at least based only on circumstantial evidence. Undoubtedly others were leaking sensitive information, perhaps without the knowledge or approval of senior leaders like Donilon, let alone his boss, the president. But when folks like Tom Ricks are starting a death watch the focus is likely to stay riveted on White House advisors, and on Donilon in particular.

Feaver goes on to suggest Donilon may have already tendered his resignation, and the president may soon take him up on it to avoid a major campaign distraction. Here’s more on Donilon’s tenure.

(photo: Pete Souza/The White House)

Donilon, left, with Biden, Obama and Clinton in the Oval Office in January

Nesi’s Notes is always on the lookout for tidbits about President Obama’s national security adviser Tom Donilon – LaSalle Academy Class of ’73 – and there’s been a veritable deluge recently, what with him writing the orders to get Osama bin Laden and sitting beside the president in the Situation Room as the raid went down.

Now we also know a little bit about his relationship with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, thanks to a Vanity Fair article by “The Promise” author Jonathan Alter:

Even so, [Clinton] works hard to keep the hatchet with Obama buried. This requires staying on good terms with his White House. Hillary has known Tom Donilon, the national-security adviser, since 1978, when he was a 23-year-old political operative. They have lunch once a week, where sometimes – as on the details of Af-Pak escalation – they cordially disagree but know the president will decide anyway. Donilon believes you have to go back to George H. W. Bush’s era to find such “alignment” among national-security principals. “She’s a great team player,” he says.

(photo: Pete Souza/The White House)

President Obama’s national security adviser Tom Donilon – the Rhode Island native who wrote the orders to get bin Laden and was in the Situation Room as the mission went down – will be taking a victory tour on the Sunday talk shows this weekend.

The La Salle grad is scheduled to appear on four of the five big political programs this weekend. The exception, oddly enough, is CBS’s “Face the Nation,” which airs locally on WPRI 12. Bob Scheiffer will have John Kerry and Donald Rumsfeld.

Luckily, you can catch Donlin on our Fox Providence station’s “Fox News Sunday,” which airs at 9 a.m. Then stick around for “Newsmakers” with Tim White at 10 – his guest this week is Congressman Jim Langevin, and bin Laden will be one of the topics of discussion.

Today on Nesi’s Notes:

> Mayor Taveras spent Cinco de Mayo with Obama at the White House

> Break out the champagne! CEOs say RI’s only the 15th-worst state

> Belo execs surprised after Projo advertising sales drop 15% in Q

> Speaking of Projo, the editorial board wants a full pension probe

> How the Jack McConnell filibuster vote divided Senate Republicans

> A Brown economist on how we do and don’t deal with high gas prices

from Tim White:

> Meet the veteran DOT worker who spends hours a day sleeping in his car

> Watch “Newsmakers” with Congressman Jim Langevin this weekend

et cetera:

~ David Leonhardt on the good news and bad news in this morning’s jobs report (NYT)

~ PolitiFact Rhode Island vs. the New York Times on Republicans’ Medicare plan

~ A critique of that study showing Paul Krugman is the most accurate pundit (Crooked Timber)

~ Looks like Amazon.com is going to start a price war for MP3s. Fine with me! (WSJ)

~ Should we buy expensive wine? You may enjoy it more – but not because of the taste (Wired)

~ Young Americans do not know much about civics; that seems worrying (NYT)

(photo: Wikipedia/Dennis Mojado)

The White House has posted some photos on Flickr of President Obama and his national-security team tracking the bin Laden mission from the Situation Room on Sunday.

Here’s Obama with National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, the Rhode Island native who wrote the formal orders to get bin Laden:

And here’s the entire group receiving an update on the mission (Donilon is in the center, standing with his arms crossed):

Both photos were taken by White House photographer Pete Souza.

Reed, left, and other senators at a hearing with Defense Secretary Robert Gates in 2009

The importance of the American military finally killing Osama bin Laden is “more than symbolic” and could help turn the tide of the country’s efforts in the Middle East, U.S. Sen. Jack Reed said this morning.

“It matters a great deal, but the real sort of test will be not what has been accomplished, but how it’s used in the future,” Reed told me in a phone interview a short time ago. The administration needs to “maintain the momentum” by ensuring a lesson is learned about the U.S. military’s capabilities and the consequences of defying it, he said.

“There’s probably now more people in Pakistan who’ve been sort of on the fence about bin Laden and al-Qaeda who might be convinced, ‘Hey, these guys know what they’re doing and they’re going to do it – I want to be with them rather than be on the fence,’ ” Reed said.

President Obama’s decision Friday morning to order the raid on bin Laden was a closely held secret on Capitol Hill. Reed said he had no advance word of the mission and only learned bin Laden was dead when he woke up early this morning and scanned his e-mails. But although it took more than a decade, Reed said he never doubted the country would eventually track bin Laden down.

Reed said his first thought upon reading the news was admiration for the Navy SEALs and intelligence officers who carried out the mission, as well as for President Obama, who Reed said made “a courageous and tough decision” since he faced “a lot of risk had this not been successful.”

Reed’s thoughts also turned to the families of those who died in the Sept. 11 attacks. “You can’t replace the loss of their sons and daughters, husbands and waves, but it’s just a moment where they can sort of take a pause and have a sense of solace,” he said.

Reed heaped praise on Rhode Island native Tom Donilon, Obama’s national security adviser, who wrote the orders for the bin Laden mission on Friday. The first information about bin Laden’s whereabouts came in last summer, but it was “carefully vetted” by Donilon and others – “there was no rush to go in and try to capitalize,” Reed said.

“It’s a very important job,” Reed said of Donilon’s position. “First of all, you have to be selfless to serve the president – and serving him not by doing what he wants, but frankly by making sure he gets all the information, some of it good, some of it bad, so he’s fully aware of the risks and so he understands not only the consequences of success, but in many cases more importantly, of the operations that didn’t succeed.”

Reed also said the success of the bin Laden raid will make it even easier to win confirmation of Obama’s new national security team, which will include CIA Director Leon Panetta moving to the Pentagon as defense secretary and General David Petreaus taking over from Panetta at the CIA.

“This provides very significant vindication to the president in his selection of Leon Panetta,” said Reed, who praised the choices last week. “Leon was one of the key people in this process. … When they come before us, it will be easily recognized that these are sound appointees, and they should be confirmed quickly.”

Here at Nesi’s Notes, I like to keep an eye on the career trajectory of National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, a Rhode Island native and La Salle alum who just last week was described as one of the two “most influential” aides President Obama has when it comes to foreign policy.

No surprise, then: Donilon played a pivotal role on the White House side of the Osama bin Laden saga.

Over the last month and a half, the president held five high-level meetings with his national security team to decide the government’s course of action on bin Laden. Donilon was one of the aides who gathered for the final White House meeting, at 8:20 a.m. Friday in the Diplomatic Room, where Obama gave the order for the raid to go forward.

The national security adviser took it from there, writing the formal authorization from Obama and delivering it to CIA Director Leon Panetta, then convening a 3 p.m. meeting of top officials to complete the planning. (The raid was reportedly moved from Saturday to Sunday due to weather.) Obama and his team met in the Situation Room throughout the afternoon Sunday, and the president was told bin Laden had been tentatively identified at 3:50 p.m.

On Sunday evening, Donilon called members of Congress to let them know bin laden was dead. As you can see in the photo above, he was seated in the East Room of the White House last night for the president’s dramatic speech, alongside National Intelligence Director James Clapper, CIA Director Leon Panetta, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Biden.

The ubiquitous Beltway wiseman David Gergen offered this analysis of what the mission means for the 55-year-old lawyer and veteran Democratic staffer:

For [Obama's] national security team, Sunday night was hugely good news, too. … National Security Council adviser Tom Donilon will also see his stature grow: He shepherded the bin Laden planning through the government. It was one of his first big trials and by all appearances, he passed with flying colors — and no leaks.

By coincidence, The Los Angeles Times profiled Donilon last week; here’s an excerpt that gives a sense of just how powerful he has become:

[W]orking a few paces from the Oval Office, Donilon was doing what he does whenever emergencies arise: setting up a system for his boss to make choices. On time. And in a way that ensures presidential orders get carried out.

With changes taking place atop the CIA, the Pentagon and in key overseas posts, Donilon, who has held the national security advisor’s post for six months after two years as No. 2, is expected to see his sway over U.S. foreign policymaking grow. But his influence differs from that of many of his predecessors.

Where some past national security advisors — Henry A. Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, for example — were grand strategists, Donilon is a master of process, enforcing order and structure for a president who deeply values both. …

Donilon’s rise to one of the most powerful posts in the U.S. government reflects Obama’s wish to maintain personal control over foreign strategy. …

Apart from the first family, there may be no one in the White House who spends more time in Obama’s company than the 55-year-old Donilon. He has walk-in privileges to the Oval Office and a guaranteed spot on the president’s calendar as the advisor who chairs the morning national security briefing.

Update: U.S. Sen. Jack Reed tells me the raid was “very carefully orchestrated but carefully protected,” which is “tribute to Tom Donilon.” Read my full interview with Reed here.

(photo: White House, via Politico)

Rhode Island native and La Salle Academy grad Tom Donilon became President Obama’s national security adviser last December – just in time to play a key role in formulating the administration’s response to the crises in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere in the Arab world.

But even before he was elevated to Condi Rice’s old job, Donilon had already emerged as one of the president’s most trusted advisers on foreign affairs, The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza reports:

After the Inauguration, the realists began to win that debate [between them and the idealists] within the Administration. The two most influential foreign-policy advisers in the White House are Thomas Donilon, the national-security adviser, and Denis McDonough, a deputy national-security adviser. Donilon, who is 55, is a longtime Washington lawyer, lobbyist, and Democratic Party strategist. …

The National Security Council is a bureaucracy that helps the President streamline decision-making, and Donilon seems to have thought extensively about how that system works. Like the President, he values staff discretion. His rule for hiring at the N.S.C. is to find people who are, in his words, “high value, low maintenance.” Obama’s N.S.C. adopted the model of the first Bush Administration. …

One of Donilon’s overriding beliefs, which Obama adopted as his own, was that America needed to rebuild its reputation, extricate itself from the Middle East and Afghanistan, and turn its attention toward Asia and China’s unchecked influence in the region. America was “overweighted” in the former and “underweighted” in the latter, Donilon told me.

Lizza’s lengthy piece is well worth a read for its up-close view of the sometimes chaotic way Obama’s foreign policy has evolved, particularly for its insights into the role Hillary Clinton played, the process that led to Mubarak’s ouster, and the way we backed into military action in Libya.

(photo: Pete Souza/The White House)

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he will step down at some point before the end of this year – and no matter what he says publicly, U.S. Sen. Jack Reed apparently hasn’t convinced insiders to stop suggesting he could be Gates’ successor.

The latest example comes from Politico, which throws Reed into the mix today:

The information vacuum has created a standing game of defense secretary roulette in Washington’s national security circles, where almost any potential name can seem like a sure thing or a long shot, depending on the day and the person offering it. One roster of potential candidates includes Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has said she is not interested; Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent; Sen. Jack Reed, the Rhode Island Democrat; Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy; Navy Secretary Ray Mabus; and John Hamre, president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former deputy secretary of defense in the Clinton administration.

But just because some people are floating Reed’s name doesn’t mean he’s looking to take the job. The senator, who usually brushes aside these reports, said as much in September, the last time I asked him about SecDef rumors:

U.S. Sen. Jack Reed has ruled out becoming President Barack Obama’s defense secretary once and for all – not that he ever said anything otherwise.

“I am committed to serving the people of Rhode Island as their senator, and, as such, I am not interested in being Secretary of Defense,” Reed said in a statement sent to Eyewitness News a short time ago.

(A Beltway-based Nesi’s Notes reader pointed out to me that if Reed became defense secretary and Tom Donilon continued as national security adviser, La Salle Academy would be more or less singularly responsible for America’s national defense.)

Donilon in the Oval Office last year

Last fall, President Obama tapped Rhode Island native and La Salle grad Tom Donilon as his new national security adviser.

But according to New York magazine, administration officials considered giving Donilon an even more powerful gig – White House chief of staff – during the search for Rahm Emanuel’s replacement. Here’s the relevant excerpt (emphasis mine):

Yet for all this, [Bill] Daley was not the first person considered to replace Emanuel. The outgoing chief of staff himself initially pushed hard for Ron Klain, Joe Biden’s chief, to succeed him, but the idea faced internal opposition. Tom Donilon, then deputy national-security adviser, was in the mix, until Obama decided to name him Jim Jones’s heir. Daschle, Panetta, and Podesta were all floated, but Obama preferred to confer the interim title on Rouse—telling him that, in the end, he might ask Rouse to accept an upgrade.

As the story notes, the job eventually went to Bill Daley, a J.P. Morgan executive and longtime Democratic Party powerbroker.

(photo: Pete Souza/The White House, via Wikipedia)