Colin Powell

His parents came from Jamaica, his father a shipping clerk, his mother a seamstress, and he grew up in the South Bronx working at a baby furniture store where he picked up enough Yiddish from the shopkeepers to use it. He hired himself out to Orthodox families as a Shabbos goy. His parents said his name KOL-in. He changed it as a boy to KOH-lin, after a World War II flyer named Colin Kelly. At City College he called himself a C-average student until, about six months in, he found the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, joined the Pershing Rifles drill team and became a straight-A student in it. The Army commissioned him a second lieutenant on June 9, 1958. It had been desegregated for ten years.

Two tours in Vietnam: a punji-stake wound as an adviser to South Vietnamese troops, then a Soldier's Medal in 1968 for pulling three men, his division commander among them, out of a burning helicopter. He climbed through staff jobs, took an MBA at George Washington, and worked for Caspar Weinberger at the Pentagon. Reagan made him national security adviser in 1987. On October 1, 1989 he became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at 52 the youngest ever, the first Black officer and the first ROTC commission in the job, and he ran the military response to 28 crises, Panama and the Gulf War among them. The doctrine that carries his name asks whether the interest is vital, the force overwhelming and the public behind it. In 2001 he became the first Black secretary of state.

Three times the record does not fit the statue. As a major in 1968 he was handed a soldier's letter describing what had happened at My Lai, investigated it, and found nothing, an assessment later called a whitewash. In 1985 he helped move American TOW and Hawk missiles to Iran by way of Israel, after obtaining a legal opinion that doing so without notifying Congress would be a clear violation. The independent counsel Lawrence Walsh wrote that Powell gave Congress incomplete answers and that the concealment of Weinberger's notes seemed corrupt enough to meet the test of obstruction. He was never indicted. On February 5, 2003, holding up a model vial of anthrax, he told the UN Security Council there could be no doubt that Iraq had biological weapons. He later called the speech a blot on his record.

Bush had his chief of staff telephone Powell after the 2004 election, and the resignation came on November 15. He had declined to run for president in 1996 for lack of appetite for politics, and voters kept trying anyway: three faithless electors cast presidential votes for him in 2016. He endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. After January 6, 2021 he called for Trump to resign and left the Republican Party. He died on October 18, 2021 at Walter Reed of COVID-19 complications, vaccinated but immunocompromised by multiple myeloma, and lies at Arlington. Biographers harsh about the UN speech still credit him with rebuilding a demoralized State Department and blocking the effort to tie Saddam Hussein to September 11.

Colin Powell's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Operation Just Cause mission
  The invasion of Panama that removed Manuel Noriega 1989
• Operation Desert Storm mission
  The Gulf War, run from the chairman's office with overwhelming force 1991
• The Powell Doctrine other
  Vital interest, overwhelming force, public support —
• My American Journey book
  His autobiography, written with Joseph Persico 1995
• Presentation to the UN Security Council speech
  February 5, 2003 — he later called it a blot on his record 2003
• It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership book
  Written in retirement 2012

• April 5, 1937 aged 0 Born in Harlem to Jamaican immigrants
• June 9, 1958 aged 21 Commissioned a second lieutenant out of the City College ROTC
• 1963 aged ~26 Wounded by a punji stake in Vietnam and awarded the Purple Heart The infection cut his first tour short.
• 1968 aged ~31 Awarded the Soldier's Medal for pulling three men from a burning helicopter The same year he was assigned to investigate a letter alleging what became known as My Lai.
• November 23, 1987 aged 50 Becomes Ronald Reagan's national security adviser
• October 1, 1989 aged 52 Becomes the 12th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff At 52 the youngest ever, the first Black officer and the first ROTC commission in the job.
• January 20, 2001 aged 63 Sworn in as the 65th secretary of state The first Black American to hold the office.
• February 5, 2003 aged 65 Argues the case for war before the UN Security Council
• October 18, 2021 aged 84 Dies at Walter Reed of COVID-19 complications, aged 84

• Ronald Reagan 1911–2004
  40th president whose conservative domestic program and assertive Cold War strategy reshaped American politics. made him national security adviser
• George H. W. Bush 1924–2018
  41st president who managed the end of the Cold War and assembled the coalition for the Persian Gulf War. appointed him chairman of the Joint Chiefs
• Condoleezza Rice b. 1954
  First Black woman to serve as Secretary of State after directing national security policy under George W. Bush. succeeded him at State
• Donald Rumsfeld 1932–2021
  Twice Secretary of Defense who directed the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and pushed military restructuring. rival inside the war cabinet
• Madeleine Albright 1937–2022
  First woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of State and shaped 1990s policy in the Balkans. argued with him over Bosnia
• Barack Obama b. 1961
  44th President and first African American to hold the office, known for the Affordable Care Act. endorsed