Colin Powell Dies: Trailblazing General and Secretary of State

Colin Powell grew up in the South Bronx, the son of Jamaican immigrants. He joined the ROTC at City College, served two tours in Vietnam, and rose through the Army to become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the first Black man to hold the position. He commanded the Coalition forces in the Gulf War. As Secretary of State he presented evidence of Iraqi weapons programs to the UN Security Council in February 2003. Much of it was wrong. He called it a blot on his record for the rest of his life. He died in October 2021 of COVID-19 complications, having been immunocompromised. Powell was born on April 5, 1937, in Harlem and grew up in the Hunts Point neighborhood of the Bronx. His parents emigrated from Jamaica, and he spoke Yiddish as a child from working in a Jewish-owned furniture store. He graduated from City College of New York with a C average but excelled in the ROTC program, which launched his military career. He served as a military advisor in Vietnam in 1962-63 and returned for a second tour in 1968-69, during which he was injured in a helicopter crash. His rise through the Army was accelerated by the political skills he demonstrated in Washington assignments, serving as National Security Advisor under Reagan and then as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs under George H. W. Bush, where he developed the Powell Doctrine: overwhelming force, clear objectives, and an exit strategy. His February 2003 UN presentation, which argued that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, drew on intelligence that proved fabricated or exaggerated. Powell later said the presentation was "painful" and the intelligence failure the "lowest point" of his career.