What more is there to say about Colin Powell, long a public figure and one of the first African Americans to rise to national prominence? As it happens, plenty. Powell’s public persona is authentic, yet within this complex man is a long-suppressed desire for social justice for all Americans, along with the hard-won knowledge that social justice for minorities is rarely bestowed through benevolence. It is won by an educated populace who possess the tools to demand and work for that justice.
The son of Jamaican immigrants, Colin Powell was born in 1937 in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem. His father, Luther, worked as a shipping clerk, and his mother, Maud, was a seamstress. Powell grew up in the South Bronx and attended Morris High School. After school and on weekends he worked in a furniture store, where he learned Yiddish from his Jewish employers and customers. On Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, he served as a “Shabbos goy,” performing small but necessary tasks that Jewish families could not do for themselves because of their religious obligation to do no work on the Sabbath.
After graduating high school in 1954, he enrolled in the City College of New York, where he majored in geology and studied military science in the reserve officer’s training corps. He has more than once described himself as a C student. Powell graduated in 1958 with a BS and a second lieutenant’s commission in the reserve. After he completed the infantry officer basic course at Fort Benning, Georgia, he served as an infantry platoon leader in West Germany.
Powell’s thirty-five-year career as a professional soldier is among the most distinguished in American history. He served two tours in Vietnam, the first as an advisor to an ARVN infantry battalion. That first tour ended prematurely when he was severely injured by a punji stake. On his subsequent tour, Major Powell was the operations officer of the Twenty-Third Infantry Division. On a routine flight, his helicopter crashed and burst into flame. Despite his own injuries, Powell rescued the other passengers and crew from the fire, which earned him the Soldier’s Medal.
Powell recalled setting off for Vietnam in 1962 and feeling that his mission was a noble one: to halt the spread of communism. At the end of his tour, in 1963, he went home feeling that he and his fellow advisors, no less than the ARVN units they had advised, had been running around the jungle trying to catch people—the Viet Cong—who mostly could not be caught. Frustrated, the ARVN had resorted to burning villages and their fields of rice and manioc, later spraying defoliant on their crops. Powell realized that rebuilding a thatched hut doesn’t take long and crops could be replanted. After his second tour he concluded the war was not merely a struggle between communism and capitalism but something vastly more complex—namely, a war against the aspirations of a nation that rejected foreign interference, a war there was no way to win short of pouring millions of American troops in to occupy the entire country, a war that American voters would not support—hence, an unwinnable war.
Among the lessons he drew out of the Vietnam War was that it was vital to avoid a war with a nation that had a greater investment or a greater cause than we did and to understand the commitment of troops, funds, and political support that are required to win any potential war before committing them to combat. He concluded it was unwise to enter any conflict without knowing precisely what its military and political objectives were. When those objectives were clear, then one should immediately commit all the people and resources required to win decisively and quickly, in accordance with the ancient military doctrine of mass. From this came the Powell Doctrine, a set of criteria to determine when military force should be used—namely, as a last resort, with strong public support, and only if there is a well-defined national interest at stake. When troops are to be committed under those conditions, all operations should be executed with overwhelming force and with a clear exit strategy.
In 1971, after his second tour in Vietnam, Powell earned an MBA at George Washington University. During his long career, he progressed steadily through the ranks while serving in both command and staff positions. In 1973, he served as a battalion commander in South Korea. This was a difficult period for commanders at every level. Desperate to fill its ranks, the new all-volunteer army accepted some recruits who formerly would have been rejected. Many were undisciplined, comparatively poorly educated, or habitual drug users. Powell came up with ways to remedy his men’s educational deficiencies, imposed tough but fair disciplinary policies, and refused to tolerate drug use.
From 1987 to 1989, Powell served as national security advisor to President George H. W. Bush. Nearing the end of his army career, he was promoted to four-star general. From October 1, 1989, to September 30, 1993, he served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the army’s highest position. This assignment included advising the commander in chief on the conduct of Operation Desert Storm in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Before leaving the army, Powell planned a second career by earning fees for speaking engagements. Journalist and humorist Art Buchwald, a World War II marine who served in the Pacific with the marine air wing, was Powell’s friend and a much-in-demand speaker. Buchwald offered to suggest which lecture agencies would best serve his friend, so one of Powell’s staff telephoned to invite Buchwald to lunch at the Pentagon. Buchwald joked, “Lunch? Don’t I get a parade? I was in the Marine Corps three and a half years and I never had a parade.”
By the time he became a public figure, Buchwald was well past his youth, a balding, comical, roly-poly figure. Few believed he had served in the marines. Nevertheless, Buchwald was very proud of his wartime service.
When he came to the Pentagon, Buchwald was escorted to the general’s office, where Powell, skipping all the usual pleasantries, said, “Follow me,” and led his visitor into a very large room. Fifty of Powell’s staff, a group of senior officers, came to attention, saluted, and paraded by, each stopping to shake Buchwald’s hand. Buchwald had his parade.
When he actually retired from the army, Powell embarked on a speaking career. He also wrote several books, including a best-selling autobiography, My American Journey.1 Soon after that, he became chairman of America’s Promise, the Alliance for Youth, a national nonprofit dedicated to mobilizing people from every sector of American life to build the character and competence of young people. In 2001, he was unanimously confirmed as secretary of state under President George W. Bush, the first African American to serve in that position.
Soon after taking office he faced the national crisis that followed the disastrous events of September 11, 2001, when terrorists commandeered American civilian airliners and crashed them into Manhattan’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field.
Seeking to use the respect and admiration accorded Powell, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney used cooked intelligence reports from what turned out to be a single, dubious source: an Iraqi, code-name “Curveball,” seeking permanent residence in Germany, who told German intelligence officers whatever he believed they wanted him to say. Powell was persuaded to go before the United Nations and accuse Iraq’s Saddam Hussein of possessing and building weapons of mass destruction, a pretext for invading Iraq. No evidence of such weapons was found by the American and Allied forces who occupied Iraq. While Powell has not publicly addressed this, many, including the authors, believe that Powell was tricked into presenting a canard before the UN to justify Bush and Cheney’s desire to invade Iraq. Powell resigned his office and left the Bush administration in 2005.
For reasons still unclear, the commander in chief, acting on ambiguous and faulty intelligence, chose to ignore the Powell Doctrine. US troops were sent into Afghanistan and then Iraq without clear public support, an exit strategy, or sufficient strength to pacify either country.
After leaving office, Powell focused his attention and energies on what had become his passion: education, especially for children from poor families like his own. Specifically, he put time and energy into what is now called the City University of New York.
“In the late nineties, some very generous friends, the Rudin family, decided it would be a good thing to name a small center in CUNY after me,” Powell explained. “They called it the Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies.” Powell was unable to pay much attention to it until after he had completed his term as secretary of state. “Then I went up to CUNY to see what was being done in my name,” Powell recalled. “I found a small center and met with some of the students. I was so inspired by these students. They were mostly minorities, including many immigrants. They went around the table, telling their individual stories of how they came to this country, or that they were born here with immigrant parents. Each had a story to tell of why they were now in college and what they intended to do in the future. When they got back around to me, I was crying. I said, ‘My God. This is me fifty years ago.’” He decided he wanted to get more involved with the center.
In 2013, the president of the City University decided to expand this small center into an entire school of the university. It became the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership. Powell said, “Notice that both ‘civic’ and ‘global’ are in there. As a result, all of the social science departments are now under the Powell School, as well as several smaller activities that were folded into it. I also wanted to focus on the leadership capability of these young people as much as their service. To connect what they learn in school with services they would do in the community or elsewhere in the country. And that became the motif of the Powell Center.”
Because the school bearing his name fills a vital need, the Powell Center is now a major element of the CUNY. “Roughly 25 to 30 percent of the entire student body take classes in the Powell School,” explained the former secretary of state. “Consequently, I spend much more time involved with it than I might have years ago. It touches something deeply personal. Ninety percent of our students are one kind of minority or another. Upwards of 80 percent identify themselves as either being born in another country or as the first in their family to attend college. This resonates with me. My parents were immigrants who came to the United States on a banana boat, and they did not go to college.”
Although Powell lives in Virginia, he spends much of his time at CUNY. He chairs the board of visitors and raises a lot of money for the university.
He is also very proud that nine other US elementary and middle schools bear his name. “I have visited all nine and have a pretty good idea of what they’re about,” Powell continued. “These are all new schools, and none are for the children of wealthy families. They are for kids like I was, with hardworking parents who want their children to have better lives than they themselves had.”
In 1997, Powell became the founding chairman of America’s Promise Alliance, a national coalition of organizations devoted to improving the lives of children. His wife, Alma, an audiologist, now chairs it. “There are five things a child needs to be successful in life,” Powell explained. “Five promises that we must make to every child.
“The first is having responsible, caring, loving adults in their lives. If not their family, then their coaches, ministers, rabbis, friends, and teachers. Adults that live good lives. We must have some in the lives of children early, or else the child doesn’t know how to behave. The child doesn’t know what is possible. We have too many children who are being brought up without that kind of adult presence in their life,” Powell explained. In a chapter of his book It Worked for Me, titled “We’re Mammals,” he described how a tiger raises its cub and how an elephant raises its calf.2 “Read it and you’ll see how we’re supposed to be raising our children,” he added.
“The second promise is to provide safe places for our kids to learn and grow, such as after-school programs or programs from the Salvation Army, Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Boys and Girls Clubs—there are hundreds of them across the country. But still not enough. We spend much of our time encouraging communities to have more and more of these kinds of programs. And hardly a day goes by that I don’t run into somebody who has started such a program.
“The third promise is a healthy start for every kid. It’s disgraceful that we don’t have universal health care.
“The fourth promise is a marketable education, that is, an education that will prepare each child for a job. My own parents continuously pushed me on that idea, and that was to help keep me in school,” Powell explained.
His fifth and last promise is to require that early in their lives, all young people must find ways to give back to their communities, to their country, to the world. “I believe in service,” he said. “I don’t think it should be mandatory in civilian life, but I think we should start encouraging kids to serve others in school systems. There you can make it mandatory. More and more high schools are making service programs mandatory in their curriculum. A number of colleges are doing likewise. For example, each student must get so many hours or so many credits in a service capacity before they can graduate.
“In recent years, America’s Promise has focused on the high school graduation rate,” Powell continued. “That is now roughly 83 percent—the highest ever. My wife, Alma, is pushing to get that up to 90 percent by 2020. That last 7 percent is very tough to achieve because it encompasses kids living in very distressed neighborhoods and in very difficult life circumstances. Nevertheless, we’re going after that 90 percent. We think it’s achievable.”
In retirement, most of Powell’s time is split between America’s Promise, CUNY, and the speaking circuit, which is his principal income source. “I love it,” he declared. “Not so much for the income, which is nice, but because it gets me around the country to talk to different groups of people. I learn so much about the different industries, the companies and associations, and every sort of thing that’s taking place in the country. The speaking circuit is also the principal source of my continuing education. I study every organization I’m going to speak to.”
Powell also speaks without taking a fee at any of the schools bearing his name, whenever he finds himself in their vicinity. “I’ll call and ask to come to the school. I love doing that,” he said. The one closest to his home is in Centreville, Virginia, some forty minutes from the Powell residence, and he’s been there several times.
In war or peace, in uniform or civilian garb, few Americans of any generation have contributed to their nation and their communities as much or as long as Colin Powell, son of hardworking immigrants, a warrior for peace and education, an elder statesman of those who served in the Vietnam War.
Colin Powell’s Thirteen Rules of Leadership3
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.
6. Don’t let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.
7. You can’t make someone else’s choices.
8. Check small things.
9. Share the credit.
10. Remain calm. Be kind.
11. Have a vision.
12. Don’t take counsel of your fears or naysayers.
13. Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.