Jan 5 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Friday nominated intelligence chief John Negroponte to fill a long-standing diplomatic vacancy as deputy U.S. secretary of state.

Negroponte will be replaced as director of national intelligence by retired Navy Adm. Mike McConnell.

Here are several facts about the new deputy-designate to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice:

* Negroponte became the first U.S. director of national intelligence in April 2005, filling a new job that had been created by post-Sept. 11 reforms which Congress mandated to safeguard the United States from major attack;

* The intelligence post was the second major Bush administration assignment in as many years for Negroponte, who also spent nine months as the first U.S. ambassador to postwar Iraq beginning in June 2005;

* He became Bush's ambassador to the United Nations a week after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, and remained in that post through the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq;

* Negroponte, who speaks five languages, has had eight foreign service postings including one in Vietnam since becoming a diplomat in 1960, and has served as ambassador to Honduras, Mexico and the Philippines;

* He became deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs in 1987 at the recommendation of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was then national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan.

* Negroponte was born in London on July 21, 1939, the son of a Greek shipping magnate. He married an English wife, Diana, with whom he adopted five children in Honduras.

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