WASHINGTON — National-security adviser Condoleezza Rice flew into Jerusalem on June 28, 2003, and immediately rushed to a meeting on the West Bank with Palestinian officials. During the session at a Jericho hotel, a rapt Rice watched a flashy PowerPoint presentation on a security fence being built by the Israelis that had begun to encroach on Palestinian lands.

The 10-minute report included photographs of a concrete wall dividing the homes of Palestinian farmers from their fields and depicted a proposed route that would leave most of the Palestinians inside the fenced areas but 91 percent of the West Bank settlements outside.

The security barrier previously had not been a major factor in U.S.-Israeli relations. But the next day, Rice — who grew up in the segregated South — met with the cabinet of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and shocked them by confronting them over the barrier's proposed route. She asked Sharon to redraw it in a way that showed greater sensitivity to Palestinians.

The incident, during one of Rice's few solo trips overseas during President Bush's first term, offers insights into Rice's style as she prepares to replace Colin Powell as secretary of state, moving up from an inside-the-White House staff job to the chief spokeswoman for U.S. foreign policy.

Though she has made frequent television appearances to promote the administration's agenda, she has largely operated behind the scenes in the first term, receiving mixed reviews for her management of the clash of personalities and ideologies of Bush's top foreign-policy advisers.

"Now her challenge is not to just deal with strong and different points of view and coordinate them; she is now one of them," Powell told National Public Radio last week.

U.S. officials and foreign diplomats say Rice is often eloquent and charming, but as the dispute over the security barrier shows, she can be direct and blunt in private with foreign officials when necessary. She also appears willing to act on new information and keep her options flexible.

"She is perfectly capable of altering a position when presented with new information," said Coit Blacker, a Democrat who worked for former President Clinton and is a close friend of Rice's. "She believes that it's better to make a bad decision than no decision at all, as she's likely to get a second cut at it. She is not comfortable wallowing in debate."

Rice's own foreign-policy views are still somewhat unclear, even to administration insiders who say she rarely tipped her hand during internal debates. Rice, who faces confirmation hearings tomorrow and is expected to be easily confirmed, plans to sketch out her vision for the State Department and U.S. foreign policy in her opening statement, U.S. officials said.

In a sign of her early priorities, she plans to especially emphasize the promotion of democracy in the Middle East, a key presidential goal; changes in the United States' efforts at public diplomacy; Middle East peace; and confronting the worldwide spread of HIV/AIDS.

Former national-security adviser Brent Scowcroft, who was Rice's mentor and brought her into government during the administration of Bush's father, said Rice might face a tough transition from being an inside player.

"When you are simply making policy in the abstract, you have to be concerned with how others see it, but you are not actually in the job of going out and rustling up support," he said. "That's a different way of approaching people. You have to get them to like something they are not very disposed to like."

Scowcroft added that Rice may do well because she can be "really charming." But unlike Henry Kissinger, the last national-security adviser to become secretary of state, he said Rice does not have the same breadth of foreign-policy expertise or international contacts. "She's very good in Russia and the Soviet Union, good in Europe, but it tapers off after that."

White House records show Rice made six trips by herself in the first term: three that included stops in Moscow, one to London, one to Asia and one to the Middle East.

But Blacker, director of Stanford Institute of International Studies, said that based on her experience as Stanford provost, "it will be a fairly seamless transition, taking the staff hat off and putting the principal hat on." He said she successfully managed both the inside and outside roles of being Stanford's chief administrative officer.

"Condi has never had any problem between the inside and outside role," Blacker said. "A lot of the time provosts will drop the ball on the outside role. But Condi didn't."

U.S. officials say that Rice values personal interaction and that during the first term she has sought to build up overseas contacts through meetings in less-structured settings.

Starting in September 2003, for instance, she organized dinners every two months with her foreign-policy counterparts from nine European countries, alternating between the United States and Europe. Rice would choose the topic for the discussions, which were intended to move beyond talking points. No note takers — and few officials of lower rank — were included.

At a dinner at the Watergate hotel a year ago, Rice used the meeting to explain to European officials the administration's interest in promoting democracy in the Middle East, which was controversial at the time.

David Manning, the British ambassador who once was Rice's counterpart at 10 Downing Street, in November threw a surprise 50th birthday party for Rice. More recently, Rice charmed the French when in December she went to the residence of the French ambassador for a private meeting with the foreign minister.

"She attaches a lot of importance to face-to-face interaction," Blacker said. "I will predict that at the end of four years she will be the most-traveled secretary of state in history."

Powell, by contrast, has preferred to transact a lot of business over the phone and is the least-traveled secretary of state in three decades.

Rice had made the trip to the Middle East shortly after Bush declared she was his point person for fostering peace between Israelis and Palestinians. But the effort floundered, and she never returned to the region. However, her complaint about the fence — backed by presidential intervention as well — did lead the Israeli government to eventually alter the route.

Though the Bush administration has had close relations with Israel and has generally avoided putting pressure on the Jewish state, Rice another time reprimanded Sharon's chief of staff in late 2002 when the Israeli forces encircled Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's compound.

She told Dov Weisglass during a White House meeting that the attack was "stupid and counterproductive," according to a former U.S. official who was present.

"Israel has had no better friend than this administration, and no better friend in this administration than me," Rice said, the official recalled. But she said, "If you have the same conversation with me a week from now, you will have a serious problem in this building and you will have it with me."

Weisglass immediately agreed to negotiate terms of Israel's pullback.