New Secretary of State Powell is reversing tradition by filling the senior appointed staff spots with career mid-level officials rather than bringing in the traditional supply of policy wonks and out-of-office politicians. Also breaking with tradition, new Defense Secretary Rumsfeld (who was once the youngest man to hold that job and will now be the oldest) is bringing in outsiders (most of them ex-military people who left the service during the last eight years to work in the defense industry) to break up the power blocks of "new age thinkers" that now control the mid-levels of the Pentagon.--Stephen V Cole