A president-elect must make consequential choices, nowhere more than in the family he assembles. In the naming of former Cincpac Commander Dennis Blair as Director of National Intelligence, Barack Obama has made a remarkable choice indeed.

He dipped deep into the ranks of those available to find someone who was passed over for more than a decade for the jobs for which he was the most obvious choice. Perhaps it is just because he is too nice a guy, too honourable, and far too thoughtful, someone who always takes a long view.

Admiral Blair’s forebears are the naval history of America, back to Commodores at the time of the Civil War. Of course, he attended the Naval Academy, and then in 1968 he got the nod for the highest honour a young man could then attain - a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford.

The same batch had a young man from Arkansas, who differed from Blair in matters of personal honor and probity - Bill Clinton. Dennis (yes, I am entitled to tutoyer him) has had only one woman in his wife, Diane, and on weekends they double dated with Clinton in Oxford, and by all reports, the Blairs-to-be had to cover for Clinton’s merry-go-round of companions.

Blair worked his way up the naval ranks notch by notch. There was never the slightest doubt that he would make it into the inner circle of naval leaders, and some of us had equally little doubt that he would transcend those too. He got his first service outside the Navy in 1975 when he won election to a White House Fellowship, a national selection from thousands of candidates, for an assignment sitting next to a cabinet member.

Yours truly was in the same batch and some of the time we shared hotel rooms on our trips abroad. At Airlie House in rural Virginia, where the final selection of Fellows is made, I found a way to learn who had won many hours before our presentation (and thus our selection) in the White House Rose Garden late Monday afternoon.

Early on Monday, after the rigorous weekend of interviews with White House Commissioners, I called my wife and learned that she had been summoned from Boston to Washington for the ceremony much later in the day. The calls had been made to give spouses time to get from distant places to the nation’s capital.

Smugly I urged Dennis to call Diane; there was little doubt in my mind that he also would be among the elect. He showed rare irritation.‘That wouldn’t be cricket,’ he replied. Part of the challenge - and honour - was enduring the long wait.

Navy had passed over him

One evening in Paris together, after a Fellows’ trip around Africa, we had a charmed dinner on the Left Bank and discussed our aspirations. What did we want from life? It was easy to see a gilded future for Dennis, but he was plainly sincere in saying he hoped to reach flag status and do a fine job in the Navy. And after that?

There would be many years past retirement for one as fit as himself. He’d leave that to fate. He was sure that if he served the Navy well, he’d have chances for more service. ‘The nation is in trouble now, we need people who put the nation first - for a change. This was during the Watergate era.

In his penultimate naval assignment, he never once called upon his long friendship with the Commander-in-Chief to advance his career. But finally President Clinton called him and asked him to be Cincpac - Commander of the Seventh Fleet.

In 2001, he came to Manila as Cincpac to take charge of America’ role in the Mindanao counterinsurgency. At a small dinner at Malacanang Palace, in the presence of the entire national security team of President Arroyo, the president himself, and one American, he quietly laced into them for abusing American military materiel and assistance. They were demanding more equipment.

‘If you stopped cannibalising what you’ve got, you wouldn’t need any more,’ he said to an astonished group. Thanks to his mild manner he got away with it and began to elicit the kind of cooperation needed.

The most problematic part of his career, until recently when the president-elect named him to the mighty job of Director of National Intelligence, was after the Navy. He retired from it with dignity but disappointment. The Navy had passed over him for all its top posts. He filled some routine jobs consulting, professing, and advising.

He seemed to have resigned himself to this when he and Diane built a new house near Carlyle Pennsylvania, a military school being nearby. He came to Washington frequently and bore his disappointments well - in any case he was more disappointed by what the nation seemed to be doing under President George W Bush.

Long view of national interests

In August 2007, Dennis and Diane attended a party for my partner and me in Bethesda, a Washington suburb. Our friends wanted to know Dennis’s views on foreign policy. ‘I was expecting an adult foreign policy,’ which summed everything up.

There are higher jobs in the Obama administration, but no one will be physically closer to the president than Blair, who will brief him every morning.

And none of Obama’s appointments are to a person more like himself - a man confident, careful, who looks to the long view. My guess is that Director of National Intelligence will not be the only position he holds.

Right now Obama needs a scrappy secretary of state like Hillary Clinton, to further a tough agenda around the world. But after a while, Obama will need an adviser who can take the long view of the national interests, however it impacts on his own career.

The New York Times opined that Hillary ‘lost her bearings’ in her ambition to become president. Blair has his bearings; he is comfortable in his own skin and only interested in the national welfare. He will ascend to the heights later in Obama days.

PROF W SCOTT THOMPSON is a national security expert who served four American presidents and is a professor emeritus at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He is the author or editor of 13 books on world political issues and resides in Washington, Bali and Manila.