Mr. Tenet is to be replaced by his deputy, John McLaughlin, who will serve as acting director. Mr. Bush is unlikely to nominate a permanent successor before the November election, Republicans said, because a confirmation battle this summer would attract more attention to the agency's assessments of Saddam Hussein's weapons.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/04/politics/04TENE.html

In another resignation at the C.I.A., a senior intelligence official said Thursday evening that James Pavitt, the head of the agency's clandestine service, is to announce Friday that he is retiring. The retirement of Mr. Pavitt, a C.I.A. veteran whose current title is deputy director of operations, had been planned for some time and had nothing to do with Mr. Tenet's resignation, the agency official said.

"If criticism either actual or anticipated was a factor, he would have left a long time ago," said David Boren, the former Democratic senator from Oklahoma and a mentor to Mr. Tenet who talked to the director on Thursday afternoon. "It's been months of his desiring to leave."

Mr. Tenet had talked so often of leaving, friends said, that last December Mr. Bush personally asked him to stay. Mr. Bush even appealed to Mr. Tenet's wife, Stephanie Glakas-Tenet, telling her that her husband's service was important to the country.

But last weekend, a person familiar with Mr. Tenet's thinking said, the intelligence chief decided during discussions with his wife and high-school-age son that he really was stepping down.

He informed the president in the family quarters of the White House on Wednesday night, when the two men met alone for an hour. Mr. Bush asked Mr. Tenet to stay through the end of the year, the person said, but Mr. Tenet responded that summer was a natural break point and a good time to depart.

The timing of the announcement appeared to take even senior White House officials by surprise. As one recounted the events, Mr. Bush had just walked back into the Oval Office after finishing a morning news conference in the Rose Garden with Prime Minister John Howard of Australia. At that point, Mr. Bush informed a small group in the Oval Office that Mr. Tenet had resigned. The group included Mr. Cheney; Secretary of State Colin L. Powell; Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser; Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff; and Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director.

Minutes later, Mr. Bush reappeared on the White House lawn to make the short walk to Marine One, the presidential helicopter. En route, he stopped to make the statement about Mr. Tenet's resignation to a group of reporters.

Both praised Mr. Tenet's performance, and Mr. Warner said that Mr. Tenet put his wife on the phone and that she told him the decision was "predicated on carefully thought-through family considerations." Mr. Warner said that the remark convinced him that Mr. Tenet was leaving of his own volition.