Considering The Entire Life of Colin Powell

A young Colin Powell in Vietnam in 1963.

I’m somewhat ashamed to note that I was unaware that Colin Powell was both 84 and battling multiple myeloma. The combination of those things with a COVID-19 infection finally felled him:

Colin L. Powell, who in four decades of public life served as the nation’s top soldier, diplomat and national security adviser, and whose speech at the United Nations in 2003 helped pave the way for the United States to go to war in Iraq, died on Monday. He was 84.

The cause was complications of Covid-19, his family said in a statement, adding that he had been vaccinated and was being treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Md., when he died there.

A spokeswoman said his immune system had been compromised by multiple myeloma, for which he had been undergoing treatment. He had been due to receive a booster shot for his vaccine last week, she said, but had to postpone it when he fell ill. He had also been treated for early stages of Parkinson’s disease, she said.

Mr. Powell was a pathbreaker, serving as the country’s first Black national security adviser, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state. Beginning with his 35 years in the Army, Mr. Powell was emblematic of the ability of minorities to use the military as a ladder of opportunity.

His was a classic American success story. Born in Harlem of Jamaican parents, he grew up in the South Bronx and graduated from City College of New York, joining the Army through the R.O.T.C. Starting as a young second lieutenant commissioned in the dawn of a newly desegregated Army, Mr. Powell served two decorated combat tours in Vietnam. He was later national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan at the end of the Cold War, helping to negotiate arms treaties and an era of cooperation with the Soviet president, Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

As chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Mr. Powell was the architect of the invasion of Panama in 1989 and of the Persian Gulf war in 1991, which ousted Saddam Hussein from Kuwait but left him in power in Iraq. Along with Dick Cheney, the defense secretary at the time, Mr. Powell reshaped the American Cold War military that had stood ready at the Iron Curtain for half a century. In doing so he stamped the Powell Doctrine on military operations: Identify clear political objectives, gain public support and use decisive and overwhelming force to defeat enemy forces.

When briefing reporters at the Pentagon at the beginning of the gulf war, Mr. Powell summed up the military’s approach: “Our strategy in going after this army is very simple,” he said. “First, we’re going to cut it off, and then we’re going to kill it.”

The stunning success of the Gulf War vaulted Powell into public consciousness. Those of you who are younger may not recall just how popular he was. He gave inspirational speeches that left people in tears. He made people feel that this country could overcome its history of racism and discrimination. By 1995, Time magazine was touting him as “the Candidate of Dreams” for the Republican Party and my thoroughly Republican family desperately wanted him to run. But in late 1995, stories broke about his wife’s struggles with depression. That seemed to be the key to Powell giving up any Presidential aspirations, knowing that his family might be dragged through the mud if he ran. I will always think it was either the Clintons or one his Republican opponents who made that a national story as a shot across his bow. Powell, in an attitude years ahead of its time, addressed it in a straight-forward way, refusing to pretend that his wife’s depression was something shameful, describing it as a problem no different than his own hypertension.

One of the things I sometimes think about is how different history might have been had an election gone differently. Let’s say that Powell runs in 1996 and wins. How does history change? The Lewinski Scandal doesn’t happen, obviously. Does 9/11 happen? Do we invade Iraq a second time? Looking back, I think we would have had eight years of boring peace and prosperity, the kind we got under the last general a war pushed into the White House — Dwight Eisenhower.

Of course, his second act in public life was less inspiring.

He returned to public service in 2001 as secretary of state to President George W. Bush, whose father Mr. Powell had served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs a decade earlier.

But in the Bush administration Mr. Powell was the odd man out, fighting internally with Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for the ear of President Bush and for foreign policy dominance.

He left at the end of Mr. Bush’s first term under the cloud of the ever-worsening war in Iraq begun after Sept. 11 and growing questions about whether he could, and should, have done more to object to it. Those questions swirled in part around his U.N. speech, which was based on false intelligence, and which became the source of lifelong regret.

Powell would later call his support for the Iraq War the biggest blot on his career.¹ I don’t think Powell actually “lied”. I think he, like the entire Administration, saw what they wanted to see. Leaked e-mails would later show that both he and Rice were extremely critical of the post-war management of Iraq, which is where things really went wrong.

Powell would later become an outcast from the Republican Party, endorsing Obama in 2008 and, in the aforementioned leaked e-mails, describing Trump as a racist and a “national disgrace”. But he was also highly critical of both Clintons.

Whatever one thinks of his career in public life, the overall arc of his life was extraordinary. Born to immigrants, he was a mediocre student who found inspiration and meaning first in ROTC and then in active service. He dealt with segregation and racism, did two tours of Vietnam, rose through the ranks, became a general at the tender age of 42 and became involved in the Reagan and Bush Administrations. He established the Powell Doctrine and rode it to brilliant success in Panama and Kuwait. He became one of the most popular figures in America and later Secretary of State. He died at 84, survived by his beloved wife of almost 60 years, his three children and four grandchildren. Tributes from ordinary soldiers and their families have poured in, talking about the basic decency that they encountered when interacting with him. There are few who can claim to have had such an incredible adventure on this planet.

Trump, being Trump, release a repulsive statement this morning. Taking a cue from Glenn Kessler, I will instead post Powell’s 13 Rules for Life:

1. It ain’t as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.
2. Get mad, then get over it.
3. Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.
4. It can be done.
5. Be careful what you choose. You may get it.
6. Don’t let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.
7. You can’t make someone else’s choices. You shouldn’t let someone else make yours.
8. Check small things.
9. Share credit.
10. Remain calm. Be kind.
11. Have a vision. Be demanding.
12. Don’t take counsel of your fears or naysayers.
13. Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

He didn’t live up to those rules all the time. Who does? I understand those who blame him for Iraq as well as other mistakes and misdeeds of the Bush Administration. But I think, when you consider the man’s entire life, we were lucky to have him.

Requiescat in pace.

1. His willingness to say so was one of his many rare qualities.