A Soldier’s Way: An Autobiography 0091791995, 9780091791995
The Number One International Bestseller. Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was born in Harle
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1
COLIN
Way iRAPHY
fs
ANAUTd
with Joseph E. Persico 1
I
Soldiers
Digitized by tlie Internet Arcliive in
2014
https://archive.org/cletails/soldierswayautobOOjose
A SOLDIER^S
WAY An
Autobiography
Colin L. Powell with Joseph E. Persieo
Hutchinson
London
© The
rights of Colin
Authors of in
this
1995 by Colin L. Powell
Powell and Joseph E. Persico to be identified as the
work have been
asserted by Colin Powell and Joseph E. Persico
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved
1
This edition
first
3 5
79 108642
published in 1995 by Hutchinson
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Mackay's of Chatham
Street Graphics
Great Britain by
pic.
Chatham, Kent
To
my
family
.
.
.
past, present,
and future
COLIN POWELL: SCENES FROM MY EARLY YEARS
Perhaps
this is the
beginning of
my
We
on a summer Sunday The family dream was owning a house in the suburbs.
fascination with automobiles.
are
outing to Uncle Joe and Aunt See's house in Jamaica, Queens, around 1942. to
move "up" from
renting an apartment in the city to
MY PARENTS Maud
Luther Theophilus Powell
Ariel Powell
These are the eadiest pictures I have of my parents, which I found after These are their original British passport photos. Pop's is from 1920, when he was twenty-two, and Mom's is from 1924, when she was twenty-two. It was with these documents that they came to the United States, met each other, and began new lives. their deaths.
"THE LION KING" I was too young to protest the indignity of this photo. It was not even our trophy skin! In those pre-animal rights days this was 1937 proud parents eager to show off their pride and joy asked for such photographic-studio props to suggest an affluence and level of importance the family did not yet enjoy.
—
—
A SUNDAY OUTING WITH
MY FATHER
Luther Powell, a snappy dresser, with his well-togged, big-footed son, Colin, around 1943 on a Sunday morning on 67th Street, just down from Prospect Avenue. We were on the way home from paymg our ritual after-church visit to my Aunt Beryl, 1
Luther's sister
MY ROOTS: IN JAMAICA AND THE BRONX Above: The cottage Elizabeth parish, where
at
Top
my
Hill in St.
father
photographed when Alma and 1992.
The cottage
house" and
is still
is
I
was bom,
visited in
referred to as "the old
being used.
My
grand-
parents are buried in the front yard just to the right of this
homecoming
Right: Kelly Street, where up,
is
was brought
being readied for a block parly to
celebrate V-J day in 1945. at
I
scene.
Our apartment
is
952 Kelly Street, the first building in the row of lower housing on the right. The picture was taken at the comer of 163rd Street, looking toward Westchester Avenue, with the elevated section of
the
IRT subway
in midpicture.
Below: Hanging out with Marilyn, in front of our
house
in the
my
first
sister,
apartment
Bronx, 980 Fox
Street.
A YOUNG MAN IN THE BRONX
I
am
in
my Sunday
year
1
best near Hunts Point in the
entered the City College of
dropped engineering
after
Bronx
New York
in 1953.
The following
to study engineering.
one semester and switched
to
geology to stay
I
in college.
My
"gang"
in the early
1950s, two blacks, two Lithuanians, and a Puerto Rican: typical
From left to right: Victor Ramirez; Eddie on leave from the Navy; and Robley Mcintosh.
of the ethnic mix of Banana Kelly then. Grant; me; Tony Grant, Eddie
s
brother,
I i
Gene Norman, my on Kelly
best friend
Street, lived just
across the street from us.
He
Marine Corps and then went into
served
in the
become Landmarks Commissioner for architecture, rising to
the City of
New
York.
I
entered
uniform.
1
ROTC
in the fall
of 1954. Here
had found something
that
I
I
am
in
loved and that
my I
first
did
we
THE PERSHING RIFLES, A TURNING
MY LIFE
POINT IN The 1957.
CCNY 1
On my
Pershing Rifles in
seated in the front row.
am
right
is
my
friend and role
model, Ronnie Brooks. Seated next to Ronnie is our faculty advisor.
Major Jones, who kept us off probation. Directly behind
row, fourth from right)
Mavroudis,
me is
who saw me
model. Tony was
(second
Antonio
as his role
killed in Vietnam.
John Young, behind Tony (third row, third from right), was also killed in Vietnam, as was another Pershing Rifleman, Alan Pasco (not pictured).
still
in
Ronnie died of a heart
The rest of us are touch as a group and have
attack in
1989.
frequent reunions.
The summer of my junior year was spent at ROTC summer camp at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Complete with .45 caliber
Left:
in college
pistol, safely
without
getting ready to
start
Company D
ammo,
my
duty
I
am
tour as the
officer.
I
BECOME A RANGER, AND GET MY FIRST FOREIGN POST
liarracks, Gelnhausen, Germany, in 1960. As a first lieutenant, at right, swagger watch with some anxiety as Lieutenant Colonel Jim Carter, commander of the 2d Armored Rifle Battalion, 48th Infantry, makes a final inspection of the honor guard I have trained and am about to take to the 7th Army Noncommissioned Officers Academy at Bad Tolz. Inset:
Coleman
stick in hand,
I
I met Alma Vivian Johnson on a blind date
Left:
in the fall of 1961.
She was twenty -four. This
is
her
at
age
fourteen.
Below: Alma and I were married on August 25, 1962,
at the First
Congregational Church in Birmingham, Alabama, where Alma grew
up.
My parents are to the
Alma's parents, Mildred and Robert
left.
"R. C." Johnson, are to the right. R.C. has a
resigned expression on his face: he's not quite
sure what his daughter
has gotten only met
into.
me
He'd
thirty-six
hours before the
wedding.
/
A GROWING FAMILY. AN ABSENT FATHER Our
Right:
marriage was blessed with three children.
Alma
with Mike, age
is
five,
and Linda, age three, in 1968, in
Birmingham, Alabama. Alma sent this picture to
me
in
Vietnam
Christmas. at
it
I
for
stared
for hours.
Below: The growing Powell family in 1975, after
Vietnam and
another year
I
had spent away from them in Korea.
From
left to
Annemarie, five, Linda, ten, and Mike, twelve. right,
ON PATROL IN VIETNAM
Above:
We
take a break in the tropical
jungle. I'm the big one with a bulging
pack
at left center.
me
is
Directly in front of
Captain Hieu, and
immediate foreground lost track
is
in the
Lieutenant So.
of them both for over thirty
years, but they
came back
into
my
life.
A
smashed Viet Cong bullet I've armored vest of our point man. It took persuasion to get the point squad to wear vests, but after this incident, I could do no wrong. Left:
just pried out of an
Below: Treating a wounded Viet Cong cadre
Shau
member we ambushed in the A Valley. He and his team were
armed, carrying documents and heading to a meeting in one of the villages along the coastal plain. Right: Standing outside
Shau uniform.
in
1963. This
On
is
my hootch at A my showoff
patrol, the white
name
tag
disappeared, as did the silver insignia.
The hand grenade was more carefully and not
my
belt
by
its
carried
much
just tucked in
handle.
I
SURVIVING A HELICOPTER CRASH IN THE JUNGLE
Above: Minutes after General Gettys's helicopter in Vietnam in 1968. The injured have been removed and the GIs are bending wreckage out
crashed of the
way
to allow rescue helicopters to get closer
and lower evacuation winches. with
I
am
the character
the bruised face in the right-hand
comer, keeping an eye on the circling helos. Right:
wreckage,
The general we pulled from
my commander
in the
the
Americal Division.
Major General Charles M. Gettys.
ON MY WAY TO A WHITE HOUSE FELLOWSHIP
After finishing graduate school
at
The George Washington University
in
1971,
I
served on the
Army staff for a year before being selected for a White House Fellowship. On my last day on the Army staff, was presented a Legion of Merit by my boss. Major General Herbert McChrystal. Alma is holding Annemarie, while Mike and Linda look on with reasonable interest. I
I
met President Nixon after
my
for the first time in the fall of 1972,
selection to be a
White House Fellow.
This was about as close to the White House as got when I was a White House Fellow in 1972 and 1973. The Fellowship was a unique program, which gave me invaluable insight into the workings of Washington. I
My
While House
the right, rear. the
left.
The
1
cllovvs class
on the South Lawn
ol ihc
WhUc House
ui
1972.
director of the program, Lieutenant Colonel Bernard Loeffke,
is
1
am
al
kneeling
Kneeling second from the right is Jim Bostic, who became the younger brother wanted. All my classmates went on from this program to distinguished careers.
I
at
always
COMMANDING THE 2D BRIGADE,
Above: Visiting soldiers of my brigade
lOIST
in field training at Fort
AIRBORNE
Campbell, Kentucky.
Right:
My official
101st Airborne.
I
file photo as a colonel in the looked like this and was no
doubt an odd sight when I went to Washington February 1977 to be interviewed by Zbigniew Brzezinski for a job on the National Security Council staff of the new Carter administration.
in
Far left: Greeting Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld when he visited Fort Campbell in 1976. 1 could never quite get
my
beret to look stylish.
Left: In the field at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, in the summer of 1976, training the 39th
Infantry Brigade of the Arkansas National Guard. The brigade commander. Brigadier General Harold Gwamey, is on the left. General Bernard Rogers, the commander of Forces Command, is on the right. Rogers went on to become the Army Chief of Staff.
ON THE RUN AT FORT CARSON, COLORADO
At Fort Carson, Colorado, 1982.
The command group of the 4th Infantry Division
(mechanized) leads the division in an annual organization
day run. As a brigadier general, I am running behind the division
commander, Major General John W. Hudachek. Hudachek found my performance wanting and said so an efficiency report could have ended
in
that
my me
is
career.
Behind
Colonel William
Flynn, division chief of staff. To my left is
Brigadier General
Rock
Negris,
my
fellow assistant division commander.
Behind Negris is Bob Dupont,
Colonel
the deputy post
commander.
FROMTHE FIELD TO THE WASHINGTON BELTWAY
Secretary ol Defense Caspar Weinberger, in 1984, presents President Reagan
with a mounted invasion.
From
AK-47
left:
rifle that was captured during the 1983 Grenada Vice President George Bush; me, military assistant to
Secretary Weinberger; Secretary Weinberger; General Jack Vessey, Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; William
Howard
Taft IV, deputy secretary of
I would become National Reagan and then Chairman of the
defense; and President Reagan. Within five years Security Advisor for President
Joint Chiefs of Staff for President Bush.
Preface
I
have had a great hfe, and
was not planning
I
this is the story so far.
to write
an autobiography and had- even helped
other authors write biographies about me. In
man
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, however,
The commercial prospects could not be
me
to
do
it,
but
"Oh, stop being have a story This
is
to
still I
Do
it!"
I
so
was privileged
historians of our times; but
I
I
I
change
my
mind.
ignored. Friends encouraged
have.
not a definitive history of the major
It is
to take part.
too self-serving for that purpose.
my
to
as Chair-
You owe it to your grandchildren, and you
And
a personal memoir.
events in which
began
months
hesitated until one particularly close friend said,
afraid, Colin.
tell.
I
my final
I
wrote
An
autobiography
hope the book it
is
much
will prove useful to
principally to share
my
story with
fellow Americans.
faced the problem
There
is
all
authors have to contend with, that of selection.
neither time nor space to
tell
everything.
I
was determined
to
via
Preface
produce a single volume of reasonable length, and avoid a "doorstopper" of the kind
I
was warned about by one of my media
heaven's sake, don't write another of those long, bloody 'And then
lunch with
Mine
is
.' .
.
I
grant family of limited
means who was
become
to
no early promise from an immiraised nn the South
Bronx and
the National Security Advisor to the President
of the United States and then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. a story of hard
work and good
mostly good times. about the people
It is
who
luck, of occasional
helped make
me what
me and maybe my
of faith
—
faith in myself,
story: love
by
faith in
am.
who
America. Above
happened
in
America.
a story
a story of
my
who went
It is
a story
all, it's
a love
will follow.
of family, of friends, of the Army, and of
story that could only have
It is
It is
the sacrifice of those
benefiting those
and
I
It is
rough times, but
a story of service and soldiering.
benefiting from opportunities created
before
had
books."
the story of a black kid of
somehow rose
"For
friends:
my country.
It is
a
Contents
Preface
vii
Part One: The Early Years
1.
2.
Luther and Arie's Son
3
A Soldier's Life for Me 3.
Courting
Alma
39
63
Part Two: Soldiering
"It'll
Take Half a Million 5.
6.
Men
Coming Home Back
to
Vietnam
to
Succeed"
105
130
X
^
Contents
White House Fellow
1.
"Go, Gtinfighter, Go!"
8.
9.
151
179
The Graduate School of War
205
Fart Three: The Washingtofi Yearl
10. In the Carter 1 1
The Reaganites
.
12. 13.
Defense Department
—and
a Close Call
The Phone Never Stops Ringing
"Frank, You're
Gonna Ruin
14. National Security
233
My
255
282
Caieer"
31
Advisor to the President
351
Fart Four: The Chairmanship
15. 16. 17.
One
Last
Command
399
"Mr. Chairman, We've Got a Problem"
When You've Lost Your Best Enemy 18.
A Line in the Sand
459
19.
Every War Must End
507
20.
Change of Command
543
21. Mustering
22.
Out
570
A Farewell to Arms
Colin Powell's Rules
Acknowledgments Index
619
592
613
615
414 435
Part One
THE EARLY YEARS
O
n
Luther and
I
USUALLY TRUST
proved
fatal.
MY
e
Ams Son
INSTINCTS. THIS TIME
The day was pure Jamaica
I
DID NOT, WHICH ALMOST
in February, the sun brilliant
overhead, the air soft with only the hint of an afternoon thundershower. Perfect flying weather, as
Alma, and
I
were
we boarded
visiting the island of
of Prime Minister Michael Manley. year, ever since the that
a
compelling
lilt
few days. Stay
at
the
My
helicopter.
wife.
my parents' birth at the invitation after me for a
Manley had been
Gulf War. "Get some the last time he
UH-i
had
rest,
called.
dear boy," he had said in
"Come home,
our government guesthouse." This time
if I
only for
accepted
with pleasure.
Even with Desert Storm behind
us, the pressure
on
me
as
Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had been relentless over the past year. With the
Cold War
ica's
fast fading,
defenses.
we were
The world had
presently organizing a relief
trying to rethink and reshape altered
airlift to
so radically that
help feed the Russians.
Amer-
we were
We had
a
* COLIN
4
L.
POWELL
.
Guantanamo
festering situation at our base at
in
Cuba, with Haitian
migrants piling up under conditions starting to resemble a concentration
camp.
And
down,
I
Saddam Hussein was trying to thwart UN inspectors' efforts to put him out of the nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons business. I welcomed a chance to get out of cold, gray Washington and into the island sun for a fe\v days.' And, on the way
We
a defeated but incorrigible
could stop and check out conditions
at
Guantanamo.
arrived in Jamaica the afternoon of February 13, 1992, and
swept up
in a
Alma and
I
whirlwind of West Indian
were whisked off
me
Kingston, Marie Atkins, presented
American-bom, Madame Mayor," handed
me
my
the keys to
ries, listening to
hospitality.
Ward
to the
The next morning.
with the keys to the
my
second home."
I
and peas. After
my
we
call
observed: "Only in Jamaica do
else in the Caribbean, they have
Up
is
'I'm
recalled
boyhood memo-
calypso melodies like "Fan Me, Saga Boy," hearing
roast goat, and rice
We
city.
response, "but you've
the pidgin-English poetry of Louise Bennett, and feasting
Powell
mayor of
Theatre, where the
said in
I
were
plantain,
speech. Councillor Ezra Cole rice
it
and peas. Everywhere
backward, peas and
it
on
rice.
General
a true Jamaican."
next visited the Jamaica Defence Force headquarters at nearby
Park Camp, where the chief of the JDF,
took
me on
was
carried off with great skill and
Commodore
Peter Brady,
a tour and had his troops go through their paces.
saluting, slapping of sides,
flair.
Much
The
drill
foot stomping, smart
and shouting of "Suh!"
this
and "Suh!"
that.
All very British and very professional.
After lunch,
we boarded
a Jamaica
Defence Force helicopter for a
quick hop across the bay to Manley International Airport. There
were
to transfer to
an American Blackhawk helo to
visit
U.S. units on
temporary duty in Jamaica. The original plan had been for us to
Blackhawk
all
Jamaican helo
the way, but our hosts
wanted us
to leave their headquarters,
their gesture of pride,
though
my
and
Alma smiled at me;
it
I
knew
Alma looked instantly that
sion had seized.
The
at
at
had been a lovely day.
soothing aquamarine of the Caribbean crrraack.
fly the
to use the U.S. -built
could not easily reject
antennae quivered. Kingston faded
behind us as the helicopter rose, leveling off feet.
I
we
when
I
about fifteen hundred I
was gazing out at the
heard a sudden sharp
me, puzzled.
we were
aircraft
in trouble.
began
to
sway
The
helicopter's transmis-
wildly.
We
were dropping
Luther and Arie's Son
into the bay.
knew
I
had already experienced one helo crash
UH-i
that if the
struck water,
What
open, the aircraft would sink like a stone.
we have
brain was,
three children and their
And
Vietnam.
in
would probably
it
blades would snap off and cut the air like shrapnel.
5
if
flip,
I
and the
with the doors
flashed through
my
mother and father were
about to die.
"Hunch
over!
"Why?"
she asked.
"Dammit! two
Grab your
Just
do
legs!"
I
as
it!" I yelled,
shouted to Alma.
we continued to plummet. I saw the through emergency proce-
pilots snatching at the controls, racing
dures.
They shut off the engines, and the only sound now was
ping of the blades as
moment,
the pilots
we
still
burst into flames.
"We
crashed,"
Later,
what of
is
the
told her.
I
when we were
unhooked
went over
to the
at a safe distance.
Jamaican
them on an impressive piece of emergency
"My
Prose poetry, the language of did not escape me.
had nearly become the
site
my
pilots
and con-
flying.
dear Colin, do you
causing the rustling of the trees you hear?
moment
birth
I
asked,
Michael Manley phoned me.
relief."
I
grabbed Alma, and dragged her away. This thing might
"What happened?" she gratulated
last
to nurse the helo over the shoreline for a
hard landing, scarcely twenty feet from the water's edge. seat belt,
whop-
continued to drop toward the bay. At the
managed
my
the
my inmiense sigh
It is
forebears.
What had been
know
And
the irony of
the land of
my
folks'
of their son's death.
We boarded the Blackhawk and resumed the tour. We visited an Ohio National Guard unit that was helping the Jamaicans with a roadbuilding project and a U.S. Air Force drug-tracking radar site poised on a breath-
taking bluff called Lover's Leap. With these stops completed, the official visit
We
was
over.
Now the
sentimental journey began.
piled into jeeps provided
headed north into the
interior.
by the Jamaican government and
We
turned onto a dirt road that cut
Handsome homes gave way to humThe road dwindled to a path, and we finally had to get out
through the red earth like a gash. ble cottages.
and walk.
We
had been on foot for about
nowhere, the "custus"
—
the local
fifteen
minutes when, out of
—and
government head
the police
chief and several other officials appeared and greeted our party.
walked behind them across gently rising
down
a rutted
trail
into a small valley
We
fields to a crest, then started
where something quite magical
* COLIN
6
POWELL
L.
happened. People seemed to emerge out of nowhere. Soon, about two
hundred people surrounded
some with
some
in tatters,
filled
with music.
us,
young and
some
old,
some barefoot. All
shoes,
colorfully dressed, at once, the air
was
A band appeared, youngsters in black uniforms play-
ing "The Star-Spangled Banner."
"The children
are
from the school your father attended," the custus
informed me. The musicians then shifted
me
to calypso tunes as familiar to
as our national anthem. The crowd began clapping, reaching out to
Alma and me,
tance, a smaller group started toward us. pass. to tell
The crowd parted
was choked with emotion. This was
I
me. Some
I
had met before. As for the
in their resemblance to each other,
arrived at
Top
From
taking our hands, smihng and greeting us.
Hill,
land of
my
Alma and I were
Aunt
Pat, in a blur
No
family.
others,
it
to let
was
I vie
them
one needed
in their faces,
resemblance to me.
father's birth.
started introducing themselves.
Uncle Claude, Cousin
in their
my
a dis-
We
Cousin Muriel,
Ritchie,
of faces and family connections.
led to folding chairs and asked to
sit
in the place of
honor while Joan Bent, a schoolteacher and the wife of one of cousins, delivered a speech of
had
They embraced me and
welcome
full
of colorful flourishes.
my We
walking again past several comfortable houses, with porches
started
painted a rich red earth color, to a tiny cottage.
Its
walls were
made of
rough stucco, the roof of rusted sheet metal, the eaves of hand-hewn boards.
Brown
shutters flanked six-over-six
cal dwelling an unlikely
New
The cottage contained four
windows, giving
this tropi-
England touch. cubicles,
no running water, no
electricity,
no kitchen, no indoor plumbing. The entire house was smaller than an average American living room. out of the place, scrubbed ing in the house where
We
it,
My
relatives
and swept
it,
had shooed the chickens
but that was
my father had been bom in
all. I
to the family burial plot, freshly
Once again
crowd surged around, waiting
something. for a while.
I
the
weeded and
for
me
thanked them for their welcome, and hoped to be I
wanted time
to retrace
my
stand-
1898.
went out back
tended.
was
father's footsteps
to say
left
alone
through the
roam among trees he must have known. I wanted to imagine was like to live here, scratching out a subsistence living from
fields, to
what
it
these austere patches of earth. But people kept pressing in
and
I
We
exchanged a few simple
said a prayer over the graves of gifts
on
us.
Alma
my grandmother and grandfather.
with members of the family; the
Luther and Arie's Son
women was
Alma
gave
And
lovely hand-embroidered linens.
7
lAr
then the visit
over.
We made
way back
our
land, the birthplace of
traveled along,
to the
Maud
Blackhawk and
Ariel
McKoy
wondered what dreams or
I
young Jamaicans
flev/
Powell, fears
over Westmore-
my
mother.
had prompted two
to cut the roots to their native soil, leave the people
they loved, and emigrate to a land so foreign to what they knew.
wondered
if
As we
they could have imagined
how much
this act
And
I
of courage
and hope would shape the destiny of their son.
I
bom
was
on April
1937, at a time
5,
Morningside Avenue in Harlem. ilyn,
bom
had been
five
when my family was
of the Harlem years. They say our earliest
Bronx.
was
I
four,
my
parents worked.
and the shock almost
lifting
scolding and hugging
me
have no recollection
to the
South
grandmother, was taking care
was playing on
I
stuck a hairpin into an electrical outlet.
I
memories usually involve a
we had moved
and
Gram Alice McKoy, my matemal
of me, since both
on
My parents' first child, my sister, Mar-
and a half years before.
trauma, and mine does.
living
remember
I
the floor and
the blinding flash
me off the floor. And I still remember Gram same fime. When my mother and father
at the
came home from work, much intense discussion occurred, followed by more scolding and fussing. My keenest memory of that day is not of the shock and pain, but of feeling important, being the center of attention, seeing
how much
The dominant inches
In
tall.
ment, and
subway
I
they loved and cared about me. figure of
my
youth was a small man, five feet two
my mind's eye, I am leaning out the window of our apart-
spot
station.
him coming down
He wears
the street
a coat and
fie,
from the Intervale Avenue
and a small fedora
on his head. He has a newspaper tucked under unbuttoned, and out stride.
He
is
it
is
perched
his arm. His overcoat is
flaps at his sides as he approaches with a brisk, toes-
whistling and stops to greet the dmggist, the baker, our
building super, almost everybody he passes.
he
is
a faintly comical figure.
Not
to
To some kids on
the block
me. This jaunty, confident
little
man is Luther Powell, my father. He emigrated from Jamaica in his early twenties, seventeen years before I was bom. He left his family and some sort of menial job in a store to emigrate. He never discussed his life in Jamaica, and I regret that I never asked him about those years. I do know that he was the sec-
* COLIN
8
POWELL
L.
ond of nine children born this
poor folk
to
in
Top
Hill.
No doubt he came to
country for the reason that propelled millions before him, to
become something more than he had been and to give his children a better start than he had known. He literally came to America on a banana boat, a United Fruit
Pop worked
Company
steamer that docked in Philadelphia.
on
as a gardener
estates in Connecticut
and then as a
building superintendent in Manhattan. Finally, he found the job that
was
to provide the base of our family's security
He went
arch of our clan.
work
to
and make him the
Gaines Company), manufacturers of women's Seventh Avenue
in
Manhattan's garment
ing in the stockroom, tually
My
moved up
patri-
for Ginsburg's (later elevated to the
to
suits
district.
He
and coats
at
work-
started out
become a shipping
clerk,
500
and even-
became foreman of the shipping department. mother was the eldest of her generation
came from
a slightly
more elevated
high school education, which
my
lawyer's office. Her mother,
when Pop
music
is still
to
my
soul.
common among
had bloodlines
Irish, Scotch, and probably
She had a fin-
pulled rank on family
had worked as a stenographer
Gram McKoy, was
whose English wedded African cadence of which
—and
("Him who never
father lacked.
Mom
children
social station in Jamaica.
ished high school," she would mutter, matters.) Before emigrating.
—of nine
a small, lovely
to British inflection, the
The McKoys and
in a
woman sound
the Powells both
Jamaicans, including African, English,
Arawak Indian.
My father's side even added
a Jewish strain from a Broomfield ancestor.
Some
of Gram's nine children were grown, but most were
still
dependent on her alone when she separated from Edwin McKoy, a
who lent the Scottish line to our ethnic mix. Gram left Jamaica in search of work, first in
sugar plantation overseer
To support her Panama, then eldest child,
family.
in
my
Cuba,
finally in the
United
States.
She sent for her
mother, to help her. She labored as a maid and as a
garment-district pieceworker and sent back to the children
still
in
Jamaica every penny she could spare. She eventually sent for her
my Aunt
youngest child, years.
Laurice,
To those of us spared
arations are
all
whom
she had not seen for twelve
dire poverty, such sacrifices
but unimaginable.
Gram had named my mother Maud Ariel, life as
soft
Arie.
brown
and family sep-
She was small,
eyes,
five feet one,
and brown hair done
but she was
known
all
her
plump, with a beautiful face,
in the forties style,
and she had a
^
Luther and Arie's Son
melting smile.
When
I
picture
Mom,
she
9
wearing an apron, bustling
is
around our apartment, always in motion, cooking, washing, ironing, sewing, after working
day downtown
all
garment
in the
district as a
seamstress, sewing buttons and trim on clothing.
Mom was
a staunch union supporter, a
Ladies Garment Workers Union.
of the International
My father, the shipping room foreman,
considered himself part of management.
We had that famous
Deal Democrats.
member
Initially,
New
they were both
wartime photograph of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, with the Capitol and the flag in the background,
hanging
in the foyer
of our apartment for as long as
I
can remember.
My
mother remained a diehard Democrat. But Pop, by 1952, was supporting
Dwight Eisenhower.
He was
the eternal optimist,
never changed, no matter died,
I
my
mother the perennial worrier. That
how much
would come home on leave
"Colin, take the
book
to the
our fortunes did. After to visit
Mom
bank so they can show
my
father
and she would
say,
my interest."
And I would explain, ''Mom, you don't have to do that. The bank will post the interest on the statement they mail you.
The
interest isn't
going
anywhere."
"How do you know
me?" she would say, using an She would go to her bedroom, fish
they won't 'tief
old Jamaican expression for stealing.
out an old lace-covered pink candy box from under the bed, and hand
me I
the
bank book.
would
dutifully trot
you please post the
"Of
down on
interest
to the bank, stand in line, this
"No,"
I
would
print sideways to
trip
say.
down
"My
show her
say,
"Will
account?"
course. Colonel Powell. But
That can save you a
and
we
also
show
it
on the statement.
here."
mother has
interest."
to see those red
And,
I
wanted
numbers you
to add, to prove
you
didn't "tief her.
According
my
to
my Aunt
Beryl, Pop's
sister, in
her nineties as of this
Gram McKoy's apartment in Harlem. Besides raising her own children. Gram took in relatives and Jamaican inmiigrants as boarders to earn a few extra dollars. One such boarder writing,
parents
met
was Luther Powell. Thus, same roof.
at
my
parents courted while living under the
After early years in Harlem and at a couple of other addresses,
up largely
at
952 Kelly Street
in the
I
grew
Hunts Point section of the South
* COLIN
10
my
Bronx, where
POWELL
L.
moved
family had
movie Fort Apache, The Bronx, where
police precinct
movie, the neighborhood
lived. In the
I
when I was six. The 1981 Newman, takes place in the
in 1943,
starring Paul
is
depicted
an urban sinkhole, block after block of burned-out tenements,
as
garbage-strewn
streets,
and weed-choked
lots,
populated by gangs,
junkies, pimps, hookers, maniacs, cop killers, a^d thirjd-generation welfare families
—America's
quite the Hunts Point
picket fences. steel
We
I
come
inner-city nightmare
true.
That
not
is
was raised in, although it was hardly elm trees and
kept our doors and windows locked.
I
remember
rod running from the back of our front door to a brace on the
a
floor,
so that no one could push in the door. Burglaries were
common. Drug use
was on
Gangs armed with
the rise. Street fights and knifings occurred.
clubs, bottles, bricks,
and homemade .22 caliber zip guns waged
turf
wars. Yet, crime and violence in those days did not begin to suggest the social
breakdown depicted
come.
When
I
was growing up
racial tolerance prevailed.
Apache, The Bronx. That was yet to
in Fort
And,
in
Hunts Point, a certain rough-edged
critically,
most families were
intact
and
secure.
We
four-bedroom apartment on the third floor of a four-
lived in a
story brick tenement,
When
I
two families on each
stepped out the door onto Kelly Street,
You went
left three
blocks to
my
I
saw
my
whole world.
my
grade school, one more block to
junior high school; between the two
was
a sliver of land
Margaret's Episcopal Church, our church.
where stood
St.
A few blocks in the opposite
was
the high school I would later attend. Across the street number 957, lived my Aunt Gytha and Uncle Alfred Coote. way to school, I passed 935 Kelly, where Aunt Laurice and
direction
from
floor, eight families in all.
us, at
On my
Uncle Vic and
their children lived. Farther
down,
at
932,
my
god-
mother, Mabel Evadne Brash, called Aunt Vads, and her family lived.
And
at
Amy
867 were
considered relatives.
ask
me why
and Norman Brash, friends "Mammale and Pappale" we
the Jewish diminutives, since they
Most of the black
families
I
knew had
so close they were called them. Don't
were also Jamaicans.
their roots in Jamaica, Trinidad,
West Indies. The Brashes' nicknames may have reflected
or Barbados, or other islands of the
the fact that in those
days Hunts Point was heavily Jewish, mixed with black, and Hispanic families. slightly curved,
The block of Kelly
Irish, Polish, Italian,
Street next to ours
was
and the neighborhood had been known for years as
Luther and Arie's Son
"Banana where
in
sense of
Kelly."
II
'A'
We never used the word "ghetto." Ghettos were someWe lived in the tenements. Outsiders often have a
Europe.
New
Actually, even
York as
now
it*s
big,
overwhelming, impersonal, anonymous.
a collection of neighborhoods
where everybody
knows everybody's business, the same as in a small town. Banana Kelly was like that. There was a repeating pattern to the avenues that connected our streets. On almost every block you would find a candy store, usually
owned by European Jews,
selling the Daily
News and
the Post and the
No one in my neighborhood read the New York Times.
Mirror.
tle stores
also carried school supplies,
As every New Yorker knows,
drinks.
penny candy,
These and
ice cream,
the specialty of the house
egg cream, consisting of chocolate syrup, milk, and
seltzer. If
was
store. Italians ran the
were big chain
of
I
the
—"two
Every few blocks you found a Jewish bakery and a Puerto
Rican grocery
houses.
soft
you did
not have a dime for the egg cream, you could just get the seltzer cents, plain."
lit-
stores, clothing
do not
recall
my boyhood was
shoe repair shops. Every ten blocks
and appliance merchants, and movie
An
any black-owned businesses.
the arrival of laundromats after
exciting event
World War
II.
My
mother no longer had to scrub our clothes on a washboard and hang
them out the window on a his shirts
done
clothesline. Pop, however, insisted
Chinese laundry.
at the
The South Bronx was an I
on having
exciting place
when
I
was growing
up, and
have never longed for those elms and picket fences.
My father adored my sister, Marilyn. Thanks to his job in the garment disshe was always well dressed, and she led a sheltered
trict,
whose
father
friends. I
owned
the
life
sisters,
pharmacy on the comer, were Marilyn's
closest
played the role of pesky
little
girls.
brother. Marilyn's first serious
boyfriend was John Stevens, whose family was also active in garet's
become parents.
make lyn
St.
Mar-
Church. John was an only child, and was being groomed to
made it). He and Marilyn were matched up by their My idea of fun was to sneak up on them in amorous embrace and a doctor (he
a nuisance of myself. John
would rage
fink
by Kelly
The Teitelbaum
She ran with the good
Street standards.
who
at
turned
pain in the neck.
her
little
would buy
brat brother.
I
me off with a quarter.
Mari-
thought of her in those days as a
me in for playing hooky, and I'm sure she found me On the whole, it was a normal sibling relationship.
a
* COLIN
12
POWELL
L.
One summer, when
was
I
cabins at Sag Harbor on
mumblety~peg, trying to
eight,
my
folks
and some
relatives rented
Lon^ Island. I was outside by myself playing make the knife stick into the ground, when a
my eyelid. I ran crying into the my Aunt Laurice managed to get the irritant out, while I bawling. When I went back outside, I overheard her say to
piece of dirt flew up and lodged under
where
cabin,
continued
Aunt Gytha, stung fifty
me
know about
"I don't
then,
and the
that boy.
remember
fact that I vividly
years later suggests
He's such a crybaby."
It
the incident almost
my youthful devastation. I remember thinking, me cry again. I did not always make
nobody's ever going to see
it.
When I was nine, catastrophe struck the Powell family. As a student at RS. 39,
1
passed from the third to the fourth grade, but into the bottom
form, called 'Tour Up," a
euphemism meaning
the kid
a
is
little
slow.
This was the sort of secret to be whispered with shaking heads in our family
West
Education was the escape hatch, the way up and out for
circle.
My
Indians.
And
college.
sister
here
student, destined for
was, having difficulty in the fourth grade.
I
drive, not ability.
was already an excellent
was a happy-go-lucky
I
kid,
I
lacked
amenable, amiable, and
aimless. I
was not much of an
One of my boyhood
athlete either,
friends,
though
enjoyed
I
street
Tony Grant, once counted
games.
thirty-six of
them, stickball, stoopball, punchball, sluggo, and hot beans and butter
among them. One
my
father
because
I
day,
I
coming down
was playing baseball the street.
was having a bad
while Pop was there, again, every time
I
was
I
day.
me
was always painful
for
sure that probably
was not
an empty
lot
and saw
But he stopped and watched. All the
never connected.
can
at bat. I
in
prayed he would keep on going,
I
still
A
swing and a miss, again and
feel the burning humiliation.
my
to disappoint there, since
father. I
It
imagined a pres-
he rarely uttered a word of
reproach to me. I
did enjoy kite fighting.
We
would smash up soda
bottles in a big
juice can and lay the can on the trolley tracks until the passing cars pul-
verized the glass.
We
then glued the powdered glass onto a kite string.
We fixed double-edged razor blades we
at intervals
on the
kite's tail.
Then
By maneuvering the cut down the kites of
flew our kites from the roofs of the tenements.
glass-coated string and razored
tail,
we
tried to
kids on other roofs, sometimes a block away, and watch the kites flutter
—our
to earth
version of World
War II
dogfights.
^
Luther and Arie's Son
My
have no recollection of the Depression.
I
13
parents were lucky
we were never really in want. And I was only four when America entered World War II, almost ending hard times overnight. Young as I was, I have vivid memenough
to stay
war
ories of the
of balsa
kits
employed throughout
years.
wood and
and directed
soldiers
I
the thirties, and
remember assembling
colored tissue paper.
I
ten-cent
deployed legions of lead
on the living-room
battles
model airplane
rug.
My
pals and
I
scanned the skies from the rooftops looking for Messerschmitts or Heinkels that might get through to
bomb Hunts
Point.
We
sprayed
imaginary enemies with imaginary weapons. "Bang! Bang! You're
am
dead!" "I
not!"
One
thrill
of
my
childhood occurred when Uncle
Armored Division, came home after the war and gave me a yellow German Afrika Korps helmet. I carried that helmet around for forty years until it finally disappeared on a move between Germany and Washington, liberated, I am sure, by the German movers. In 1950, when I entered high school, the country was at war Vic,
who had
again, in it
served in the 4th
Korea
this time.
often does for boys
World War
II
Warfare held a certain fascination for me, as
who have
changed
my
not yet seen
it
up
name. Before,
I
was Cah-\in,
pronunciation that Jamaicans used. the
war
who
v/as Colin P. Kelly,
Jr.
One of the
close.
first
the British
American heroes of
(pronounced Coh-lin), an Air Corps
attacked the Japanese battleship
won the Distinguished name was on every boy's
Haruna two days
after Pearl
flier
Har-
bor and
Service Cross posthumously. Colin
Kelly's
lips,
and
so, to
my
friends,
I
became
once asked
my family, I remain Cah-lin to this day. I my father why he had chosen the name, which I never liked.
Was
some
Coh-lin of Kelly Street. To
it
for
illustrious ancestor?
shipping ticket the day
I
Pop
said no, he
had read
it
off a
was bom.
As a boy, I took piano lessons; but the lessons did not take with me, and they soon ended. ing out of
it
I later
were
studied the flute. Marilyn thought the noises
hilarious. I
not be a jock or a musician.
gave up the flute too. Apparently,
Still, I
center stood
my
My
the next circle
by herself. These
father's only sibling in
America, Aunt Beryl, formed
circles rippled out in diminishing degrees
of kinship, but maintained considerable closeness. Family
looked out
for,
in the
my family formed. At the were my mother's sisters and
security of the concentric circles parents. In the next circle
com-
would
was a contented kid, growing up
warmth and
their families.
I
prodded, and propped up each other.
members
* COLIN
14
I
sometimes
POWELL
L.
felt as if I
were half spectator and half participant
play populated by character actors.
house
New Year's Day
Queens on
in
We
usually went to
for curried goat.
my Aunt
in a
Dot's
Dinner was
fol-
lowed by much drinking of Appleton Estate rum, dancing of the chotisse
and singing of calypso songs.
A note on the etiquette of Jamaican rum. Appleton Estate is the most famous.
It
comes
and ages. In
in different colors, proofs,
was considered an
serve anything else
rum, such as Bacardi, was an
insult.
my
family, to
Rican
affront; to serve Puerto
Appleton Estate ninety proof
A white version of 150 proof was used for
golden was the most popular. punch. Real
men drank the 150
for a week,
which
is
also about
Rum to Jamaicans
is
like tea to
proof neat. The smell stayed with them
how
long
it
took a drinker to recover.
an Oriental or coffee to an Arab, a sign
of hospitality and graciousness, usually served over ice with ginger ale
The Coke version
or Coke.
because of the Andrews especially
demure
my
Sisters' hit
mother,
"Just a touch."
when
at
I
phrase.
man
I
"Rum and Coca-Cola." Ladies, would respond with a
it
in too big a glass, just before she
did not understand the lyrics of the calypso songs
ble entendres.
My
known
for us
My mother would then complain that I had made
family gatherings. But as
Trinidadian
song
offered a snort
her "touch" too strong and had put
downed it. As a kid,
became too Americanized
later
I
grew older
I
started to
favorite calypso singer as "the
my
of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff.
office
sly
in
dou-
a master of the naughty
even
after I
became Chair-
My aides did not get the pidgin
and missed most of the innuendo
heard
was Slinger Francisco, a
Mighty Sparrow,"
played calypso tapes in
decode the
I
such tunes as "The Big
lyrics
Bamboo"
and "Come Water Me Garden." But then, you do not hear much calypso music
in the Pentagon's
At family gatherings, matter how
E-Ring. talk
would
invariably turn to "goin' home."
many years my aunts and uncles had been
they said home, they meant Jamaica. "Hey, this rice,
in
No
America, when
Osmond, you
goin'
home
year?" "No, don't have the money. Next year, for sure." "Hey, Lau-
you goin' home?" "No, but I'm packin' a
barrel to send to the
They would slip into nostalgia, all but my Shirley, Aunt Dot's husband, a dining-car waiter on
folks."
Railroad. Uncle Shirley
was Jamaican
godfather. Uncle the Pennsylvania
too, but in their eyes,
he had
gone "American," even shedding much of his West Indian accent
after
*
Luther and Arie's Son
many
riding the rails for so
home?" Uncle
Shirley
would
about *home.' You forget
and
ain't
I
15
years with native-born blacks. "Goin'
"You damn
say.
why we
left? Ain't
fools
sit
been home
around talking twenty years,
in
never going home." At which point the kids would laugh
uproariously, delighted to see Uncle Shirley provoked to heresy.
We
Aunt Dot and Uncle Shirley
liked to get
because their spats had the ^'Shirley,
that
folks, instead of sitting in front
TV all day," Aunt Dot would begin. was
that. It
of a Punch and Judy show.
reliability
you come over here with the
into an argument,
Shirley do this, and Shirley
of
do
watching a fuse bum. Finally, Shirley would explode:
like
"Woman! Mind your own damn business!" I later understood that the only way those two could fight like that for over forty years had to be out of deep love.
During summer vacations,
Uncle his
Shirley.
day
I
off, steak,
yet every time
I
long-ago
sometimes stayed with Aunt Dot and
my
godfather's idea of breakfast on
eggs, and ice cream. Dottie and Shirley are gone now;
spend an evening with
we amuse
Roger, and Sonny, ents'
I
especially enjoyed
tiffs.
their sons,
Our family was
I
start
cousins, Vernon,
ourselves by reenacting one of their par-
Sometimes these memories
out of nowhere, and
my
laughing
a matriarchy.
I
will strike
loved
my
uncles
whipped the kids
was
my
father.
appearance,
their wives.
into shape,
suddenly
—they were
sauce, the fun, and they provided the occasional rascal.
weaker personalities than
me
by myself.
all
The women
the
But most were
set the standards,
and pushed them ahead. The exception
Luther Powell, maybe small, maybe unimposing in
maybe somewhat comical, was
nevertheless the ringmaster
of this family circle. In 1950,
my
sister transferred to
Marilyn's send-off was pure Pop.
an upstate
We
all
New
York
went down
to
college,
and
Grand Central
Station to put Marilyn
on the Empire State Express bound for Buffalo
State Teachers College.
My father strode into the station, overcoat flap-
ping, smiling through his tears, tipping everybody in sight, the porter, the conductor, the trainman, telling them, "Take care of
make
sure she gets there safe and sound."
doling out the money, but that
would
tip the
was
I
my
httle girl,
was embarrassed to see him
his way.
Around
the holidays, he
mailman, the fuel man, the garbageman.
When
he was
young, hving in Harlem, Pop would dress up every Saturday in a vested suit,
a
checkbook with a zero balance stuffed
into his pocket.
He would
^ COLIN
16
Start off the
weekend
heavy
tion as a
POWELL
L.
shoeshine stand, where he also had a reputa-
at a
Avenue, the world was his
oyster.
During football season, block, though
had
to
was
far
had
his son
from
have the best helmet on the
to
the best player.
My first two- wheeler bike
be a Columbia Racer, with twenty- six^inch whitewall balloon
When
tires.
I
down Morning side
Afterward, as he strode
tipper.
I
needed a
was "Son,
suit, it
Macy's and take care of yourself." All
man who
—go
here's the charge card
from a shipping room
this
One
never earned more than $60 a week.
mother objected did every year.
my
to
father's inviting so
The work was
went out and invited about not handle
it,
getting too
fifty
to
fore-
my
Christmas,
many people over, which he much for her, she said. He
people and told
Mom that if she could
he would hire a caterer.
His take-charge manner was reassuring. Luther Powell became the Godfather, the one people
came
for help in getting a job.
He would
irregulars, at
bring
home
domestic arbitration, clothes, seconds
end bolts of fabric, from the Gaines Company, and
and
them
sell
wholesale or give them to anybody in need. Downtown, Pop was not
always able to play
much buy
this lordly role.
him on Kelly
to
a piece of the
Street.
When
frozen out. Whether or not after this disappointment,
where he spent the
rest
like
at night,
Pop was
he
it
meant so
Gaines changed hands, he
a serious bidder,
Gaines and went
left
tried to
to
I
never knew. But
work
in a similar
dealers in wholesale cloth.
And that
of his working days until the firm folded, and
let his
race or station affect his sense of
him had come
to this country with nothing.
self.
Every
home
at
supported their families, and educated their children.
If
morning they got on 8:00
was why
to get another job.
Luther Powell never
West Indians
that
and, in his view, had been unfairly
life,
Company,
position for Scheule and
he was too old
Maybe
company, but he was turned down. He had given the
firm twenty-three years of his
is
to for advice, for
they could do that,
that
how
subway, worked
like
dogs
all
day, got
dare anyone think they were less than any-
body's equal? That was Pop's attitude.
Of
course, there
was always
the
dream
that
it
earned by the sweat of your brow, that one day step in.
I
remember
the
morning
ritual,
confidentially to his sister: "Beryl,
one?
Hmmm.
my
father
might not have
Dame
to
be
Fortune might
on the phone talking
what you doing today? Four-three-
Straight or combination? Okay. Let's
make
it
fifty cents."
Luther and Arie's Son
Later, the
numbers runner would come by
they knew, they were going to strike In 1950,
it
up the
went out of the house
I
rich.
when
left
I
turned right for a few blocks. Marilyn had gone
Walton High School. And,
at
my
parents prompting,
to get into Stuyvesant High, another prestigious school.
report card with the guidance counselor's decision: it."
Someday,
bet.
entered Morris High School. Instead of turning
1
to the elite
to pick
17
"A"
I still
"We
tried
I
have the
advise against
Morris High, on the other hand, was like Robert Frost's definition of
home, the place where, when you show up, they have I
was
directionless.
still
I
was not
by anything.
fired
you
to let
My
in.
pleasures
were hanging out with the guys, "making the walk" from Kelly
Street,
up 163rd Street around Southern Boulevard to Westchester Avenue, and back home. Our Saturday-morning ater
and watch the
St.
folks always
worked on
dance, where you could calypso, get a
little tipsy,
In our neighborhood,
storefront churches. lights
on and off
On
go the the Tiffany The-
we had
Mom headed the
at children's services.
I
our
altar guild,
was an
acolyte.
the bazaar, the bake sale, and the annual
let
your Episcopalian hair down, do the
and even share a nip with the
we also had Catholic
at the
to
Margaret's Church, where
family pew. Pop was senior warden.
and Marilyn played the piano
My
was
and then a double feature of cowboy movies.
serial
Sundays meant attending
own
rite
Friday nights
I
churches, synagogues, and
earned a quarter by turning the
Orthodox synagogue, so
could observe the sabbath ban on
priest.
had
activity. I
that the worshipers
definite ideas of
what a
church was supposed to be, like the high Anglican church in which family was raised in Jamaica, with spires,
altars, priests,
my
vestments,
incense, and the flock genuflecting and crossing itself all over the place.
The higher
God;
the church, the closer to
Christmas, our priest. Father Weeden, turned ical place
of candles,
was how
that St.
lights, ribbons, wreaths,
can
still
and
them one by one by
holly.
lustily
God
At
I
The incense
loved
all
of it.
the head: "Defend,
Lord, this thy Child with thy heavenly grace; that he
and daily increase
come unto
it.
remember confirmation, watching those sweet, scrubbed
children as the bishop seized
forever;
saw
Margaret's into a mag-
burning during the holidays almost asphyxiated Marilyn. I
I
in thy
Holy
thy everlasting kingdom."
I
Spirit
may continue thine
more and more,
until
would swing the incense
chanting "Amen," convinced that
I
O
was witnessing the
he
burner,
spirit
of
entering that child's head like a bolt of lightning. St. Margaret's
^ COLIN
18
POWELL
L.
was imagery, pageantry, drama, and liturgy has
dom
changed with the times.
of the bishops
who
needed updating, just as something was
from
St.
lost for
I
have to yield to the wis-
believed the 1928 book of
replaced
it
its
at
a time
Common
Prayer
predecessor. But in the change,
me. Long years afterward,
Margaret's Church
placed by the new.
Times change, and the
poetry.
suppose
I
when
I
my
buried
the ©Id lituVgy
had been
God now seemed earthbound and unisexed,
the magisterial, heavenly father figure of
my
miss the enchantment of the church in which
youth. I
was
It
mother dis-
not quite
saddened me.
I
raised.
I was a believer, but no saint. One summer, in the early fifties. Father Weeden selected me, the son of two pillars of St. Margaret's, to go to a church camp near Peekskill. Once there, I promptly fell into bad company. One night, my newfound friends and I snuck out to buy beer. We
hid
The
our cache was quickly discovered.
in the toilet tank to cool, but
it
priest in charge
summoned
all
meeting hall. He did who was ready to accept man? We could probably have
campers
to the
not threaten or berate us. Instead, he asked responsibility.
gotten
Who would own up like a
away with our
struck me.
I
transgression by saying nothing. But his words
stood up. "Father,
did
I
it," I
more budding hoodlums rose up and
said.
When they heard me, two
also confessed.
We were put on the next train back to New York. Word of our sinning preceded
us. I
dragged myself up Westchester Avenue and turned right
onto Kelly Street like a felon mounting the gallows. As
Mom,
ber 952, there was ing scowl.
when
I
When
thought
I
Pop began. Just about damned. Father Weeden telephoned. he said. "But your Colin stood up and
she finished laying into me.
was
took responsibihty.
My
eternally
And
his
example spurred the other boys
parents beamed.
From juvenile dehnquent,
catapulted to hero. Something from that
rewards of honesty,
As
for the
reached num-
her usually placid face twisted into a menac-
Yes, the boys had behaved badly,
their guilt."
I
hit
home and
neighborhood gang
my
church camp, plus having
—
Fiorino's shoe repair shop
One day when I was mail
letters. I
had been the
stayed. I
traveled with, getting thrown out of
father catch
me
playing poker in
with off-duty cops, no less
mama's
fourteen,
was passing
admit
boyhood experience,
Sam
—boosted my
image. Usually, the other guys looked on me, not quite as a a "nice" kid, even a bit of a
I
to
sissy,
but as
boy.
my mother sent me to the post office to
Sickser's,
on the comer of Westchester and
Luther and Arie's Son
Fox, a baby furnishings and toy store,
Did
a finger at me. dish accent. store,
He
led
want
I
me
to earn a
to a truck
when
backed up
to the
you're a worker," he said. 'Tou want to
I
Many of the
store's
good
the
where they would liked,
how much
come
carriages."
I
started
to the
second
floor,
Yiddish—which model they
talk confidentially in
they were ready to spend. This schwarz knabe, what
had worked
day. "Collie," he said,
down and
at Sickser's for a
"you got
intelligence,
few
years. Jay took
to understand,
report to Mr.
and close the
deal.
me aside one
got two daughters.
I
I
got
Get yourself an education someday. Don't count too much
a son-in-law.
on the
I
in looking for a deal.
would escort them
who would come up, armed with my I
my youth.
my cousins upstairs and
say, "Collie, so take
could he understand? I'd excuse myself and go
After
throughout
last
customers were Jewish, and after a while
Jay would call me over and
to
come back tomorrow?" That day
picking up Yiddish. Relatives of Jay's would
show them
when he came by
had almost finished the job. "So
began an association with Sickser's that was to
He
store."
to deserve being
I
warehouse behind the
Sickser, the store owner. Later,
check on me, he seemed surprised that
took
in a thick Yid-
where I proceeded to unload merchandise for the Christmas season.
The man was Jay
S.,
man crooked
a white-haired
few bucks? he asked
19
'A
evidently thought that
I
had worked out well enough
brought into the firm, which
had never considered.
I
I
as a compliment.
it
have been asked when
understood that
I first felt
when
a sense of racial identity,
belonged to a minority. In those early years,
I
I
I first
had no
such sense, because on Banana Kelly there was no majority. Everybody
was
either a Jew, an Italian, a Pole, a Greek, a Puerto Rican, or, as
said in those days, a Negro.
Ramirez, Walter Schwartz,
were the
first
Tuesday
night,
Berle.
On
Manny
friends
were Victor
Garcia, Melvin Klein.
The Kleins
family in our building to have a television
we crowded into Mel's we watched Am^7^
Thursdays
was marvelous, did not
Among my boyhood
know
the best thing
that
we were
on
we
room
living
Andy.
television.
It
to
watch Milton
We thought the
was another
not supposed to like
Every
set.
Amos
'n
show
and we
age,
'Andy.
Racial epithets were hurled around Kelly Street. Sometimes they led to fistfights.
was more
But
like
it
was not "You're
—I'm
inferior
avenging an insult to your team.
the poison of bigotry, but
much
later,
and
far
I
better."
The
fighfing
was eventually
from Banana
to taste
Kelly.
COLIN
20
POWELL
L.
my
The inseparable companion of Norman,
more
West
also
A
restless soul.
remember
I
neighborhood, to peer over the horizon.
Marine Corps and Tony via the Navy. Tony remembers
via the
two groups on Banana Kelly
Among
undrugged."
our youth,^ "the drugged and the
in
were the three of
the latter
become landmarks commissioner of New York tion counsel for
White
In February of
1
us.
City,
Gene went on to and Tony corpora-
Plains.
954, thanks to an accelerated school program rather
my
than any brilliance on
part, I
graduated from Morris High School
two months short of my seventeenth
birthday.
My picture in the
Tower,
shows a kid with an easygoing smile and few screen cred-
the yearbook, its
and a
older, a better athlete,
was Tony Grant.
close white friend
their haste to get out of the
Gene
youth was Gene Alfred Warren
two
Indian, a year or
beside his name.
My
page
yearbook also
in the
Hunts
reflects the
Point mix of that era, three blacks, one Hispanic, four Jewish kids, and
two other whites. Except for a certain
facility in
yet excelled at anything.
I
was
unloading prams the
"good
at Sickser's, I
kid," the
had not
"good worker," no
more.
I
did well enough at Morris to win a letter for track, but after a
while
I
found slogging cross-country through Van Cortlandt Park bor-
and so
ing, it
over with
I
quit. I
faster,
switched to the 440-yard dash, because
but
I
dropped out
basketball team at St. Margaret's.
I
after
was
one season.
tall,
most of the time riding the bench, so coach. In later years,
I
I
We had a church
fairly fast,
warden's son, and the coach was inclined to give
me
it.
As soon
as
"back problem"
I
and the senior
a chance.
I
spent
quit the team, to the relief of the
frequently found myself asked to play or coach
basketball, apparently out of a racial preconception that at
could get
I
was old enough
to
be convincing,
I
I
must be good
feigned a chronic
to stay off the court.
My inabihty to stick to anything became a source of concern to my parents, unspoken, but in
one arena.
my
I
knew
I
unlike the Army.
—
22-5, the
call.
I
did,
however, stand out
it
tradition, hierarchy,
that I think about
it,
not
all that
prayer book was destined to be
Army's troop
the ministry in those days,
hear the
there.
Here was organization,
a world, now Maybe my 1928
pageantry, purpose
Manual
was
was an excellent acolyte and subdeacon, and enjoyed
ecclesiastical duties.
Field
it
drilling bible.
would have pleased
Had
I
gone
my mother.
I
into
did not
^
Luther and Arie's Son
I I
remained unprecocious and unaccomplished
21
in another department.
never received a word of sex education at home. The street was
teacher,
and a crude one. All the guys carried condoms
mine yellow and
who
with age.
brittle
few blocks away
lived a
I
that girl?"
at her. Later,
Not special?
where Marilyn spent the whole
my
sister said,
my girl
"What's so special about
was
the
began
beautiful.
my
squabbling, Marilyn's opinion mattered to me. If pretty in Marilyn's eyes, she
girl
that lasted throughout high school. I
had thought
I
in their wallets,
had a puppy-love romance with a
invited her to a family party once,
evening giggling
my
For
girlfriend
all
our
was not
to look less attractive in mine,
and
romance faded.
In later years,
have predicted
I
would turn out to be a good
no one would
student, but
then. Marilyn continued to set the Powell standard in
it
education. She had been an honor student at Walton High, and she
excelled at Buffalo State.
age of 78.3,
and because
1
And
so, in spite
of
my final high school avermy sister's example
started looking at colleges because of
my
parents expected
it
of me. Education meant the differ-
ence between wrapping packages or sewing buttons
day and having
all
a real profession. Education had led to an extraordinary record of
accomplishment
in
my family. Among my blood relatives and extended my cousin, Arthur Lewis, served as U.S.
family of lesser kinship,
ambassador
to Sierra
Leone, after a career as a Navy enlisted man. His
became a successful
brother, Roger,
architect.
Cousin Victor Roque
became a prominent lawyer. James Watson became a judge on Customs Court of ambassador another tion.
to
sister,
first
woman assistant secretary of state;
Grace, served as an official in the Department of Educa-
Another cousin, Dorothy Cropper, became a
of Claims judge.
from Jamaica, sister's
is
My
New York State Court
cousin Claret Forbes, one of the
a nurse, with
daughter, Leslie,
an
is
cousin, Bruce Llewellyn, thropist,
was U.S.
International Trade. His sister, Barbara,
Malaysia and the
the U.S.
two children
artist
in Ivy
last to
League
migrate
colleges.
My
with an M.A. from Yale. Yet another
Aunt Nessa's
son, is a businessman, philan-
former senior political appointee in the Carter administration,
and one of this country's wealthiest African- Americans.
Not every cousin became a professional. Some worked
men on
the
ical jobs.
New York
But
all
as motor-
subway, some had small businesses, some
cler-
of them have been good providers and parents,
keeping their families together and educating offspring
who
continue
22
* COLIN
to turn out well.
I
L
POWELL
.
look
at
children's children, and ductive, self-reliant
my
aunts and uncles, their children and their
see three generations of constructive, pro-
I
members of
society.
And
all
my
what-
relatives,
ever their professional status, enjoy equal standing in the family.
cousin stands above another in respect or affection.
Some have
No
experi-
enced disappointment. Some did not achieve l^e success they desired.
But they have useful their
human
all
been successful
in
what counts
in the end; they are
beings, useful to themselves, to their families, and to
communities.
Most of my
parents' brothers
and
sisters
children have turned out well there too.
stayed in Jamaica, and their
My Meikle cousins, Vernon and
Roy, went to the University of Toronto and the University of London
socialist turn
when
1970s,
respectively. In the
the Jamaican
government took a
and practically wrecked the economy, more
the island, this latest immigrant
of success began repeating
wave
settling in
relatives left
Miami. And the pattern
itself.
American blacks sometimes regard Americans of West Indian as uppity
and arrogant. The
sive record of
feeling,
I
origin
imagine, grows out of an impres-
accomplishment by West Indians. What explains
that suc-
cess? For one thing, the British ended slavery in the Caribbean in 1833,
well over a generation before America did.
And
after abolition, the lin-
gering weight of servitude did not persist as long.
mostly absentee landlords, their
own. Their
lives
ended
The
left
my
moment of a
geration;
still,
the
British
attendance mandatory.
less
on
crip-
slave's life. After the British
ancestors that they were
now
the rights of any subject of the crown. That
all
were
American plantation system, with white mas-
every waking
slavery, they told
zens with
British
more or
were hard, but they did not experience the
pling paternalism of the ters controlling
and West Indians were
They
British citi-
was an exag-
did establish good schools filled the
lower ranks of the
and made civil service
with blacks. Consequently, West Indians had an opportunity to develop attitudes of independence, self-responsibility,
not have their individual dignity beaten the fate of so
many
down
and self-worth. They did for three
hundred years,
black American slaves and their descendants.
Of course, my ancestors had also been ripped ruthlessly out of Africa, the ties to their past severed
by slave
traders. In Jamaica,
replaced this hole in their culture with British culture, ditions, its
governmental
institutions, its values.
its
some blacks
church,
its tra-
Others remained
at-
Luther and Arie's Son
tached to their African roots through the Rastafarian
movement with
rehgious Hnkage to the late Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopa. ciate
and admire the impulses
that
tual sustenance
from
have led many
was
well to reclaim the culture that
stolen
23
'A
I
appre-
African- Americans as
from them and
to
draw
spiri-
it.
American blacks and West Indians also wound up on American under different conditions. to
Jamaica
its
soil
My black ancestors may have been dragged were not dragged
in chains, but they
United States.
to the
Mom and Pop chose to emigrate to this country for the same reason that Italians, Irish,
and
and Hungarians
their children.
That
is
did, to seek better lives for themselves
a far different emotional and psychological
beginning than that of American blacks, whose ancestors were brought here in chains.
There
is,
undeniably, a degree of clannishness
My
Jamaicans included. entirely within the ilyn's
lege,
Jamaican community. Consequently, jolt.
The South Bronx was
parents
girlfriends,
a bit different
all
some of whom were family, and
my
her friends. In 1952, she announced that she was
home a boyfriend. She was in love. They wanted to His name was Norman Bems, and Norman was white.
bringing ried.
to col-
from what they were used to,
was not concerned. She was proud of her
welcomed
my sister, Mar-
Ever since she had gone off
home
Marilyn had been bringing
but Marilyn
Indians,
family socialized and found friends almost
behavior came as a real
white.
among West
get mar-
This bit of proposed integration was occurring two years before
Brown
v.
Topeka Board of Education, a time when few people, black or
white, could have identified Martin Luther King,
would not have known a source of
much
sit-in
from a
Jr.,
when Americans
sofa. Marilyn's choice
tut- tutting in the family.
Our
girl
was
the
from Banana Kelly
going with some white boy from Buffalo? What's going on?
Why
do
they want to get married?
The time came
He
for
turned out to be
Norm to meet the family and answer the question. a prince and obviously in love with my sister. An
interracial marriage, nevertheless, troubled Pop,
shelf life of youthful passions: year,"
he
said.
"See
In the meantime,
me. Buffalo,
Bems,
it
if
you
still
we went
"You two want
and he understood the to marry. Fine.
Wait a
do." to
meet Norm's
folks.
An
adventure for
New York, 460 miles from New York City. Out West! The
turned out, were a
little
more
tolerant than the Powells.
They
^ COLIN
24
took the attitude that let's
POWELL
L.
if
the kids were in love and
1953. Luther Powell's only daughter
would
the Bronx.
wedding was planned
was
and only the site,
on the Grand Concourse, the biggest hotel
A decade of skimping,
saving, and sacrifice
ished that day. But the light dancing in
money
getting married,
August
for
do: best caterer, biggest cake, finest band, and poshest
the Concourse Plaza Hotel
I
to get married,
wish them godspeed.
In the end, love triumphed, and the
best
wanted
my
in
must have van-
father's eyes said, what's
for?
might add that Marilyn and Norm, with
two daughters and one
their
granddaughter, recently celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary.
Following Marilyn's example and
Mom and Pop's wishes,
two
New York
I
colleges, the City College of
must have been
better than
and
thought, since
I
New York
applied to
I
University.
was accepted
I
Choosing between the two was a matter of simple arithmetic;
NYU,
a private school,
was $10.
1
chose
CCNY.
tuition at
was $750 a year; at CCNY, a public school, it My mother turned out to be my guidance coun-
My
She had consulted with the family.
selor.
at both.
two Jamaican cousins,
Vernon and Roy, were studying engineering. "That's where the money is,"
Mom advised. And she was not far wrong. In the boom years of the
fifties,
demand
for
consumer goods and
refrigerators, automobiles,
and
an engineering major, despite
The Bronx can be day
I
strong.
And
comer of 156th
my
neck
two bus Street
like a
so
I
was
to
be
science and math.
a cold, harsh place in February, and
got out and craned
at
for engineers to design the
was
my allergy to
set out for college. After
shivering, at the I
hi-fi sets
rides,
I
was
it
was
and Convent Avenue
bumpkin
in
frigid the
finally deposited,
from the
Harlem.
sticks,
handsome brownstones and apartment houses. This was
Harlem, where blacks with educafions and good jobs
in
gazing
the best of
lived, the
Gold
Coast. I
comer of Convent and 141 st and looked into the camCity College of New York. I was about to enter a college
stopped
pus of the
at the
established in the previous century "to provide higher education for the
New York's poorest and Those who preceded me at
children of the working class." Ever since then. brightest have seized that opportunity.
CCNY
include the polio vaccine discoverer. Dr. Jonas Salk,
Supreme
*
Luther and Arie's Son
25
Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, the muckraker novelist Upton Sinclair,
Edward G. Robinson,
the actor
New
Abe
York Times editor
the playwright
Rosenthal, the novelist Bernard Malamud,
New
the labor leader A. Philip Randolph,
Wagner,
Jr.,
winners.
As
Paddy Chayefsky, the
York City mayors Robert
Abraham Beame, and Edward Koch, and I
took
Nobel Prize
eight
grand Gothic structures, a C-average student
in the
out of middling Morris High School,
I
feU overwhelmed.
And
then
I
heard a friendly voice: "Hey, kid, you new?"
He was
man
a short, red-faced, weather-beaten
with gnarled hands,
and he stood behind a steaming cart of those giant pretzels that Yorkers are addicted
to. I
unaccountable reason,
bought a warm,
zels. I
had met a
"Raymond
CCNY
the Bagel
salty pretzel
fixture called, for
Man," though he sold
less intimidating. I
was
next four and a half years.
poorly of
my
to
become
And
it
some pret-
from Raymond, and we shot the
breeze for a few minutes. That broke the ice for me.
how
New
CCNY was some-
a regular of Raymond's over the
either speaks well of his character or
my memory of most of my profesRaymond the Bagel Man remains
scholarship that while
sors has faded, the
memory of
undimmed.
As
I
headed toward the main building, Sheppard Hall, towering
a prop out of a horror movie, ing.
I
passed by an undistinguished old build-
do not remember paying any attention
I
like
however, to become the focus of
my
to
life for
it
at the time. It
was,
the next four years, the
ROTC drill hall.
My
first
semester as an engineering major went surprisingly well,
mainly because to prepare
One
I
had not yet taken any engineering courses.
myself that summer with a course
I
decided
mechanical drawing.
hot afternoon, the instructor asked us to draw "a cone intersecting
a plane in space."
The other
while, the instructor
blank page. For the
came life
a plane in space. If this
My parents my
in
to
students went at
it; I
just sat there. After a
my desk and looked over my
of me,
I
shoulder
could not visualize a cone intersecting
was engineering,
were disappointed when
I
the told
game was them
that
over. I
was changing
major. There goes Colin again, nice boy, but no direction.
announced calls
my new
with
major, a hurried family council
flew between aunts and uncles.
studying geology? it?
What
at a
was
When
held.
I
Phone
Had anybody ever heard of anyone Where did you go
did you do with geology?
Prospecting for oil?
A
novel pursuit for a black kid from the
^ COLIN
26
POWELL
L.
South Bronx. And, most
security-haunted people, could
critical to these
geology lead to a pension? That was the magic word
remember coming home visiting
my
I
had been
this
Army?
twenty years
was
over.
During
I
I
had
it
something had caught
leftover
returned to school in the
Maybe
it
discus-
of 1954,
fall
was growing up
during the Korean conflict: the
my eye
CCNY was a hotbed of liberahsm,
in uniform.
Reserve Officers Training Corps, and sure why.
What What
mentioned
A pension? At forty-one? The
communism from where you would expect much of a
not a place
I
and
made.
some
radicalism, even
I
for five years
I
would get a half-pay pension. And I would only
my first semester at CCNY,
young guys on campus
When
Army
she asked, like a cross-examiner.
be forty-one. Her eyes widened. sion
in the
my life? Snatching at the nearest defense,
doing with
that after
I
our world.
well-meaning, occasionally meddling Aunt Laurice.
kind of career was
was
after
in
in
little
the thirties;
military presence.
inquired about the
I
ROTC.
enrolled in
I
World War
was
it
II
I
am
not
and coming of age
banners in windows with a blue
star,
meaning someone from
star,
meaning someone was not coming back. Back
was
the family
in the service, or a gold
Bataan, Thirty
to
Seconds over Tokyo, Guadalcanal Diary, Colin Kelly, Audie Murphy,
who went down
the five Sullivan brothers
Juneau, Pork
Chop
were burned
into
years. to
Or maybe
Hill,
my
it
and The Bridges at Toko-Ri. All these images
consciousness during
was
with the cruiser U.S.S.
common
the
my
most impressionable
refrain of that era
CCNY might not have been West Point,
had the
largest voluntary
dred cadets
at the height
ROTC
was not
but during the
fifties it
confingent in America, fifteen hun-
of the Korean War.
There came a day when
stood in hne in the
I
olive-drab pants and jacket,
brown
shirt,
brown
with a brass buckle, and an overseas cap. the uniform
on and looked
I felt
In class,
I
I felt
tie,
As soon
brown as
I
be issued
shoes, a belt
got home,
what
I
saw.
I
At
put this
mine was going to college.
I
The uniform gave me a sense of had never experienced all the while I was
cut off and lonely.
belonging, and something
growing up;
drill hall to
in the mirror. I liked
point, not a single Kelly Street friend of
was seventeen.
are going
officer. I
be drafted anyway, you might as well go in as an
alone.
—you
I
distinctive.
stumbled through math, fumbled through physics, and did
reasonably well
in,
and even enjoyed, geology. All
I
ever looked for-
Luther and Arie's Son
was ROTC. Colonel Harold C. Brookhart, Professor of MiliScience and Tactics, was our commanding officer. The colonel was
ward tary
a
2 7
'A
to
West Pointer and regular Army
to his fingertips.
years old, with thinning hair, of only
medium
He was about
fifty
seemed
height, yet he
imposing because of his bearing, impeccable dress, and no-nonsense manner. His assignment could not have been a coveted one for a career officer. I
am
would have preferred commanding a regiment
sure he
ROTC
to
New York campus. But the Korean War had ended the year before. The Army
teaching
bunch of smart-aleck
to a
was overloaded with
were doing was anything That
fall, I
on a
liberal
and Brookhart was probably grateful
officers,
land anywhere. Whatever he
city kids
felt,
less than
he never
us sense that what
let
to
we
deadly serious.
experienced the novel pleasure of being courted by the
on campus, the Webb
three military societies
Blade, and the Pershing Rifles,
ROTC
Patrol,
Scabbard and
counterparts of fraternities.
Rushing consisted mostly of inviting potential pledges
smokers
to
where we drank beer and watched pornographic movies. The movies, the sexually repressed
fifties,
and hollered with the
rest
were supposed
be a draw.
to
I
in
hooted
of the college boys through these grainy
8-millimeter films, in which the male star usually wore socks. But they
were not what drew
me
because they were the
elite
to the Pershing Rifles.
pledged the PRs
of the three groups.
The pledge period involved before upperclassmen, and
I
typical ritualistic
some hazing
that
bowing and scraping
aped West Point
traditions.
A junior would stand you at attention and demand the definition of certain words.
To
this
she talks, she's
day
I
can parrot the response for milk: "She walks,
made of
chalk, the lactile fluid extracted
female of the bovine species
dozen similar daffy
.
definitions.
and on and on.
.
When we
we were allowed to wear distinctive enamel
crests
on our uniforms.
I
I
from the
can spout half a
finished the pledge period,
blue-and- white shoulder cords and
found
that I
was much
attracted
by
forms and symbols.
One Pershing
Rifles
member impressed me from
Brooks was a young black man,
tall,
trim,
the
start.
Ronald
handsome, the sun of a
Harlem Baptist preacher and possessed of a maturity beyond most lege students. Ronnie
was only two years older than
I,
col-
but something in
him commanded deference. And unlike me, Ronnie, a chemistry major, was a brilliant student. He was a cadet leader in the ROTC and an offi-
* COLIN
28
POWELL
L.
He
cer in the Pershing Rifles.
then invisible in Colin Powell.
remake myself
set out to
My
drill
men
so that they
moved hke
Ronnie was sharp, quick, disciplined, organized, qual-
parts of a watch. ities
could
had found a model and a mentor.
I
I
Ronnie Brooks mold.
in the
experience in high school, on basketball and track teams, and
Boy Scouting had never produced
briefly in
a'
sense' of belonging or
many permanent friendships. The Pershing Rifles did. For the first time in my life I was a member of a brotherhood. The PRs were in the CCNY tradition only in that we were ethnically diverse and so many of us were the sons of immigrants. Otherwise, we were out of sync with both the student radicals and the conservative engineering majors, the latter easy
by the
to spot
We We
partied together.
had a
hanging from
slide rules
We
We
cut classes together.
fraternity office
PRs
their belts.
drilled together.
chased
tied out to class or, just as often, to the student lounge, to
master the mambo.
girls together.
on campus from which we occasionally
where we
sortried
served as an unlikely academic advisor, steering
I
other Pershing Rifles into geology as an easy yet respectable route to a degree.
The
discipline, the structure, the camaraderie, the sense of belonging
were what
I
craved.
became
I
a leader almost immediately.
selflessness within our ranks that
sphere within ing.
The PRs would go
was what
I
my family.
soldiering
Sickser's.
was
all
about, then
how I became
is
hood of Teamsters, Local
8
1
2. 1
furniture plant, screwing hinges
see
of the caring atmo-
the limit for each other and for the group. If this
But as the school year ended,
And that
me
Race, color, background, income meant noth-
maybe
worked occasional weekends and
still
more.
reminded
a
I
I
the
work
I
told
three
boss?"
I
him
that
I
soldier.
at
that paid
International Brother-
summer in
a
Harlem
My father was delighted to
to leave.
But within three
Pop was not happy. "You
just up and quit? What are you gonna tell the Pop that I could make more money shaping up
weeks and
explained to
every morning with the Teamsters. eyes.
be a
Christmas season
started out the
on cabinets.
had decided
to
wanted a summer job
member of the
had
wanted
me get up every morning and head for a paying job.
weeks,
found a
I
Shape up?
When
is this
I
could read the message
kid going to shape up?
I
in
Pop's
made up some
excuse for quitting and, to avoid embarrassment, sent a friend to pick up
my
last
paycheck
at the furniture plant.
Luther and Arie's Son
I
did earn
more shaping up every day
29
"A"
Teamsters Hall, usually
at the
One day the Teamsummer job that did not require shaping sters agent announced a steady up, porter at a Pepsi-Cola bottling plant in Long Island City. None of the white kids raised a hand. The job was mine, though I was not quite sure working as a helper on
what a porter did
bottling
do
machines were white.
to earn
dark.
$65 a week,
Whatever
I'd
skill the
tles
took the mop.
I
I'd
it.
mop I
it
was
came crashing down from a
all
in,
I
was handed
was what
the place until
it
I
glowed
I
had
to
in the
mop from
soon mastered. You
break your back.
to
a
the workers on the
If that
you want
forth, unless
could be godawful work, as
reported
were black and
job required,
back and
side to side, not
do
I
workers have had for generations.
that black
the other porters
all
When
in a bottling plant.
mop, an experience noticed that
soft drink delivery trucks.
It
the day fifty cases of Pepsi-Cola bot-
and flooded the floor with
forklift
sticky soda pop.
At the end of the summer, the foreman
said,
"Kid, you
mop
pretty
good."
"You gave me plenty of opportunity
"Come back
next summer," he said.
behind a mop,
I
next year, that
is
shift leader,
said.
I
I
wanted
work on
to
have a job for you." Not
the bottling machine.
where he put me. By the end of summer,
best,
because someone
returned to college in the I
"I'll
and had learned a valuable lesson. All work
Always do your Street.
to learn," I told him.
fall
is
And the
I
was deputy
is
honorable.
watching.
of 1955, commuting from Kelly
did not have to be an urbanologist to see that the old neighbor-
hood was
The decline was just the latest chapter in the York, people moving up and out as their fortunes
deteriorating.
oldest story in
New
improved, and poorer people moving in to take their places. The Jewish families
who had escaped Lower
Bronx were now moving
East Side tenements for the South
to the suburbs.
Poor Puerto Ricans were mov-
ing into their old apartments. Hunts Point had never been verandas and wisteria.
And now
it
was
getting worse,
from jackknives
to switchblades,
ijuana to heroin.
One
day,
I
from gang
from zip guns
came home from
gang wars,
fights to
to real guns,
from mar-
CCNY to find that a kid I
knew had been found in a hallway, dead of a heroin overdose. He would not be the last. I had managed to steer clear of the drug scene. I never smoked marijuana, never got high, in fact never experimented with any drugs.
And for
a simple reason;
my folks
would have
killed
me.
COLIN
30 As
L
POWELL
.
better-off families continued to flee, properties
even
to
from
their buildings. In years to
be abandoned. Landlords cut
their losses short
come,
my own 952
began
to decay,
and walked away
Kelly Street would
be abandoned, then burned out and finally demolished. But that was in the future.
For now, conversation among
"When you
began,
getting out?"
my
all
relatives typically
Aunt Laurie^ move'd
to the northern
edge of the Bronx. So did Godmother Brash. Aunt Dot was already
When were
Queens.
The their
secret
in
Luther and Arie going to leave?
dream of these tenement dwellers had always been
own home. And
to
own
so the Powell family began heading for the upper
Bronx or Queens, Sunday
after
Sunday, house hunting in desirable black
neighborhoods. But the prices were outrageous— $15,000, $20,000, with
my
parents'
combined income
totaling about
$100 a week. Week-
ends often ended with the real estate agent sick to death of us and
embarrassed
ter
my sis-
to tears.
My father also dreamed about numbers. He bought numbers books at the newsstands to
work out winning combinations. And he
still
went
in
every day with Aunt Beryl. They usually played quarters. Then, one
Saturday night,
my
father
dreamed a number, and the next morning
hymn
Margaret's the same number appeared on the
St.
surely,
the
was God taking Luther Powell by
Promised Land. Somehow, Pop and Aunt Beryl managed
up $25
to put
I still
the
board. This,
hand and leading him
the
on the number. And they
remember
hit
it,
to
to scrape
straight.
when our house. Pop
the atmosphere of joy, disbelief, and anxiety
numbers runner delivered the brown paper bags
took them to his room and tens and twenties,
at
dumped
more than
the
money on
three years' pay.
He
to
his bed,
let
me
$10,000 in
help
him count
The money was not going into any bank. This strike was nobody's business. The bills were stashed all over the house, with my mother terrified that the tax man or thieves would be coming through the door any it.
minute.
And
that
was how
the Powells
managed
to
buy 183-68 Elmira
Avenue, in the community of Hollis in the borough of Queens $17,500. The house was in transition; the whites
a three-bedroom
bungalow
in a
—
for
neighborhood
were moving out and the blacks moving
in.
My
folks bought
from a Jewish family named Wiener, one of the few white
families
The neighborhood looked
left.
beautiful to us, and the Hollis
address carried a certain cachet, a cut above Jamaica, Queens, and just
^
Luther and Arie's Son
3
1
St. Albans, then another gold coast for middle-class blacks. Our new home was ivy-covered, well kept, and comfortable, and had a family room and a bar in the finished basement. Pop was now a property
below
holder, eager to
mow
his postage-stamp
lawn and prune
his fruit trees.
Luther Powell had joined the gentry.
Mom. She
But owning a home frightened
making
friends left at
almost in
Banana
tears. "I
Kelly. After a
don't think
few months,
we can
Mom
he
stay,"
take the loneliness. I'm not sure she'll
years passed before
worried constantly about
She talked incessantly about her old
the mortgage payments.
make
overcame her
it
my
said.
father
came
to
me
"Your mother can't
Two
through the winter."
could carry
fears, realized they
the mortgage, and stopped running back to the South Bronx.
CCNY via the subway, which led to my first serious romance, with a CCNY student. We began riding the A train from the campus downtown, where we would transI
now began commuting from Queens
fer, I
out to
They were
parents.
My
Queens and
We
the girl out to Brooklyn.
I
took her to meet
interest
to
remained
ROTC
be secondary, though
and the Pershing
Rifles.
did enjoy the field
I
trips.
went upstate and clambered over formations of synclines and
clines.
We
had
you had an
to
diagram them and figure out
anticline here,
ing syncline bulging out right.
"You know,
you should be able
somewhere
me
Geology allowed
friends.
the
river,
up
to
I
else.
to display
Hudson
talking about? College kid.
River's a river."
my
perfectly polite to her, but reserved.
main college
Geology continued
to
my
to predict a
complement-
Very satisfying when brilliance to
my
that the
about Poughkeepsie. The Ice
Hudson was
I
got
the
are
Ocean
you
Hudson
a "drowned"
Age had depressed
riverbed to a depth that allowed the Atlantic
the
to flood inland.
Consequently, the lower Hudson was really a saltwater estuary.
proudly pinpointed the farthest advance of the Ice Age. Hillside
ing
down along
earn an
my
Avenue running through Queens. You can see that line into St.
Albans and Jamaica.
it
noncollege
"What
really isn't a river."
Schmuck. Everybody knows
would then explain
anti-
their mirror images. If
stopped
It
I
at
the ground slopI
was
startled to
A in one of my geology courses and wound up with three A's in
major by graduation.
In
my
junior year,
I
princely $27.90 a month.
two years
at
enrolled in advanced
My
idol
was
still
CCNY, Ronnie had become
ROTC, which
Ronnie Brooks. In
a cadet sergeant.
I
paid a his first
became
a
* COLIN
32
L.
POWELL
cadet sergeant. In advanced
mander.
became
I
became
ROTC, Ronnie became
commander. Ronnie was a
a battalion,
a drillmaster.
Ronnie had been the PRs' pledge
my junior year I became pledge way we went
thing about the
something wrong
a battalion
officer,
drillmaster.
I
and
officer,
which allowed me
after pledges.
comin
do some-
to
told the brothers there
way we could
I
was
members was with dirty movies. Besides, I said, all the fraternities are doing the same thing. So what's our edge? Let's use a little imagination. Let's show movies of what we do, like drill competitions. Let's show them what we're
all
the only
if
attract
about.
The Pershing
Rifles
had a basement room
in
one of the houses along
Amsterdam Avenue, provided by the CCNY administration to give this largely commuter campus a touch of college social life. I told the brothers to
from
go out on the
pom
movies
street, corral
kids after they had gotten their jollies
other houses, and bring
at
see movies about what the
PRs
did.
I
them over
was taking
our place to
to
a risk. Success as a
down made their
pledge officer was easy to measure. Pledges were either up or
from previous
years.
When
choice.
it
I
was
anxiously awaited the day the rushees
over, the Pershing Rifles
pledge class in years. This was a defining indication that
One
I
might be able
had attracted the
largest
moment for me, the first small
to influence the
outcome of events.
of the student pledges during this period was a rough diamond
whose destiny was
set the
day he joined
ROTC and the Pershing Rifles.
His name was Antonio 'Tony" Mavroudis, a Greek-American, also
from Queens, who worked part-time
as an auto mechanic.
coarse, profane, street-smart, full of life.
my
model
in
commuted
as close as brothers,
And
together.
more
During
my
loved him. Just as his
model
in
me.
I
had found
We
became
together, dated together, raised hell
our lives were to be indelibly marked together, Tony's
fatefully than mine,
at the time,
I
Ronnie Brooks, Tony found
Tony was
by a place neither of us had probably heard of
Vietnam.
my last three college years,
universe.
A
Major Nelson was
the drill hall
in
became
the center of
charge under the more remote
Colonel Brookhart. The major ran interference for us with the college administration as
^
we
courted probation for mediocre grades, cutting
ROTC was also my introduction to the backbone of the Army, the NCOs who drilled us and taught the nuts-
classes,
and pledge-week pranks.
and-bolts courses.
I
remember most
vividly a rough master sergeant
^
Luther and Aric's Son
33
named Lou Mohica: "Gentlemens, this is the Browning Automatic Rifle. I am going to teach youse how to disassemble and assemble the BAR. Listen to me, cuz if youse don't youse could die in combat. Any questions so far?" I
spent almost every Saturday at the
drawing an M-i
stretch,
Queen Mary
ticing the
trick drill, the fancy stuff,
my junior
of 1957,
Regiment Armory
New York
year, in
we
New
to seven
PR
drill
hours
at a
team, prac-
and diagonal marching with
you were
two competitions, regular
Rifles took part in
up
with the rest of the
rifle
salute, rifle spins,
fixed bayonets, a perilous business if
and
drill hall,
The Pershing which Ronnie led,
careless.
drill,
which he entrusted
to
me. In the spring
participated in a competition at the 71st
York against
ROTC
units
from Fordham,
University, Hofstra, and other institutions in the metropoli-
tan region.
We
Coke and Blackjack, two
arrived with our mascots.
squirrels.
Ronnie took ble
500
to lead the
team out on the
his
points to
win the regular
eighteen-man trick
floor
drill
and scored 460 out of a possi-
competition.
drill
team.
We
Then
And I had
team moved
the
as
drill
into
its
launched into a dance solo, a step popular
The audience went wild. took
place.
first
My
We scored 492
the Pershing Rifles, as
ends of the
drill
team captain would
have a desk
at the time, the
on
my
Advisor and of Staff.
I
just I
camel walk.
out of a possible 500 points and
become company com-
Ronnie had been, and sweep both
competition.
say,
none of the Pershing
Rifles' successes cut
much
ice
CCNY student body, which at best tolerated us as chau-
set that I
have carried with
me
for over thirty-five years,
two Scheaffer pens and pen holders mounted on a marble base. the set
we
At worst, the campus newspaper called for dissolving ROTC.
vinist nuts.
I
faces were
next maneuver. Instead,
CCNY regiment,
mander of
with the general
Our
ambition for the next year was to succeed Ronnie
as cadet colonel of the entire
Needless to
my turn
a few surprises in store that
had secretly rehearsed. Ordinarily, the
mark time
was
had polished our brass
with blitz cloths until we'd almost worn out the metal. reflected in our shined shoes.
it
desk in the White House when
at the
cherish
that begins
Pentagon when
it
on a day
for
what
in the
it
I
I
I
kept
was National Security
was Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs
says on a small attached plaque, a story
summer of
1957.
* COLIN
34 It
L
POWELL
.
was an anxious moment
for
my
father.
Pop had taken me
ROTC pals, Tony DePace and George Urcioli,
with two
Greyhound bus terminal
He was
Manhattan.
in
to
lunch
and then
to the
fidgeting, full of dire
My
warnings, convinced he was never going to see his son again.
and
friends
were off to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, for
my first venture into
training,
our
I
the South.
Father Weeden, to find
priest.
Pop
me
him to stop fussing. As it turned out, we were picked up by
I
isolated
ing for me,
it
Greeks. Here ing on the
I
rifle
and how to
set
from Southern in
met
virtually
Army
the
I
my
My
start.
spent the next six
was an ethnic awaken-
Fort Bragg
I
loved every minute of
"Best Cadet,
six
we fell out on the
weeks,
We
Company
was presented
encampment.
aside. said. I
parade ground for pre-
were judged on course grades, and demonstrated leadership.
I
came
in
me
that
second
day and
that I
still
treasure.
A
student
for the entire
my honor. And then,
the night before
we were turning in our gear, a white supply sergeant took me to know why you didn't get best cadet in camp?" he
had not given
came from
I
ROTC
a thought. "You think these Southern
it
go back
to their colleges
and say the best kid
was stunned more than angered by what he
a melting-pot community.
I
said. I
did not want to believe that
worth could be diminished by the color of
my
skin.
Wasn't
it
my
possible
Cadet Capron was simply better than Cadet Powell? got a
more elemental
taste of
racism while driving home.
Bragg with two white noncommissioned
ROTC at
was named
"You want
here was a Negro?"
I
range
in that category.
feeling marvelous about as
I
rifle
D." These are the words engraved on the desk
to
instructors are going to
that
also got
I
reputation for drilling troops had preceded
from Cornell, Adin B. Capron, was selected Best Cadet
we left,
it.
was named acting company commander.
I
scores, physical fitness,
was
bus depot
at the
first
up roadblocks, and
sentation of honors.
I
told
meeting whites
range, firing
At the end of our
set that
Fay-
who were not Poles, Jews, or WASPs. We spent our days train8 1 mm mortars, learning how to camouflage
was
off to a running
me, and
life. If
in
was embarrassed and
immediately and whisked off to Fort Bragg, where
weeks
he had asked
that
some black Episcopalians
near Fort Bragg, to look after me.
etteville,
told
ROTC summer
unit.
We drove
officers
I left
from the
Fort
CCNY
straight through the night, occasionally stopping
gas stations that had three rest rooms, men,
women, and
colored, the
^
Luther and Arie's Son
one
I
had
unisex.
we were
safe until tine
Blacks were apparently ahead of their time, already
to use.
did not start to relax until
I
33
we reached Washington,
north of Baltimore.
I
was reminded of
didn't feel
that old rou-
from the Apollo Theater: "Hey, brother, where you from?"
welcome you
''Alabama." "I'd hke to
to the
United States and hope you
had a pleasant crossing."
These brief episodes
apart, the
my they had never had from me I
was returning home
to
girl. I
—
And
excelled.
summer of
was bringing
proof, with
had found something
I
that
in college,
at
had informed
was
to
der of the Pershing Rifles.
was
I
trick drill competitions for the
had done before me.
trick drill
team
to an
I
I
was
had
I
could lead. The
my
in
other
ROTC. The
previous
was going
succeed
that I
to
CCNY reg-
company comman-
on winning both the regular and
intent
PRs
at last
age tv/enty.
also elected
meet, as Ron-
at that year's regional
led the regular drill
team and delegated the
imposing fellow named John Pardo, a fine
sensed early on, however, that the
I
I
that
be cadet colonel, running the entire
iment, then one thousand strong.
nie
me
me.
for
parents something
continued doing just enough to get by,
I
spring. Colonel Brookhart I
my
did well.
I
mediocre grades pulled up by straight A's
Ronnie Brooks.
was a triumph
my desk set,
man
discovery was no small gift for a young
Back
'57
team was losing
drill
leader.
its
John was distracted by girlfriend problems. Other members came
edge. to
me
complaining that his mind was not on the upcoming competition.
wanted
The
to take the
best solution
team away from John and give
was probably
to take
it
to
it
over myself, since
winning team the year before. But John kept saying,
competed
that year, as
I recall, at
the regular competition,
Overall,
we came
in second. I
the trick drill team, and
on
I
that floor unprepared,
That day,
I
which had
the 369th I led,
when
I
at
myself.
too,
it." We We won
by
I
had
letting
it.
When you
do,
better.
how
I
musty
learned that
unpleasant. If
you win the gratitude of the people who
have been suffering under the bad
situation.
I
learned in a college
make
competition that you cannot
let
pay
an individual. Long years afterward,
to spare the feelings of
failed
him go
started absorbing a lesson as valid for a cadet in a
being in charge means making decisions, no matter broke, fix
had led the
can do
college drill hall as for a four- star general in the Pentagon.
it's
else.
but lost the trick competition.
John Pardo
knew
"I
I
Regiment Armory.
was angry, mostly failed
somebody
I
the mission suffer, or
drill
the majority I
kept
* COLIN
36
POWELL
L.
my desk at the Pentagon that made the point
a saying under the glass on succinctly
people
if
"Being responsible sometimes means pissing
inelegantly:
off."
That brief lapse was not
fatal to
Myer were
soldiers at Fort
John Pardo. Nearly
thirty years later,
treated to a rare sight: the^ deputy national
security advisor to the President
and a prominent
New York
graphics
designer (Powell and Pardo, respectively) and other paunchy, middle-
aged
men
in front
We
carrying out a rusty version of their old trick
of my residence
at a
fireworks
drill
reunion of the Pershing Rifles.
—Tony DePace,
Mark Gatanas, Rich Goldfarb, Bill Scott, John Theologos, and others who made Army careers, retiring as full colonels, and Sam Ebbesen, a black, who rose to lieutenant general. Some who stayed in were killed in Vietnam. Most of those who did not remain in the military have been successful, hke all still
remain
touch
in
Pardo, in civilian careers. Vietnam also killed the
CCNY
the Pershing Rifles at
Not only did our
regret.
coming out of the inner
ROTC
in the early seventies,
program and
which
I
deeply
Army lose a special kind of officer, one but we have denied to these young people
citizen city,
an opportunity to maintain structure in their lives and to make a useful contribution to their country.
Too bad.
CCNY' s Aronowitz Auditorium. A few weeks before, my father had come into my room, sat on the edge of the bed, and, with a twinkling eye, handed me an envelope. He had cleaned out a savings account that he and my mother had been keeping for me since I was a child. Six hundred dollars. I was rich! The first On June 9,
thing
I
1958, at 8:00 p.m.,
did was to head
I
entered
downtown
the best military haberdasher in
to
New
Morry Luxenberg's, regarded
as
York, to be outfitted.
The First Army band was playing and I was wearing Morry's uniform when I strode past my parents onto the Aronowitz Auditorium stage. "I, Colin Luther Powell, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against foreign and domestic,''
I
repeated with
my
all
enemies
classmates, "and that
I
well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which
about to enter, so help
We
are embarrassed
me
God."
We
live in a
more cynical age
by expressions of patriotism. But when
those words almost four decades ago, they sent a shiver spine.
They
still
do.
will I
am
today. I
said
down my
^
Luther and Arie's Son
Because
I
was a "Distinguished Military Graduate,"
regular rather than a reserve conunission, to serve three rather than
two years on
which meant
active duty.
I
37
was offered a
I
would have
that I
eagerly accepted.
For me, graduation from college the next day was anticlimactic. The night before, after our commissioning, the boys.
We
mind had been
the
tended to look on
For
over to
ation
supposed
graduation, which in her
to
years.
I
geology as an incidental dividend.
in
much of our growing
is
my
whole point of the previous four and a half
my B.S.
up, Marilyn and
by ourselves or with neighbors and
left
at a college
My mother, knowing where to find me,
me
send a cousin to haul
to
had gone out celebrating with
had resumed the revelry the following noon
hangout called the Emerald Bar.
had
I
I
had been "latchkey
kids,"
relatives after school. This situ-
be a prescription for trouble. But that day, Luther
and Arie Powell, Jamaican immigrants, garment-district workers, were
two college graduates, with
the parents of
their
son
now an Army
offi-
cer as well. Small achievements as the world measures success, but
mountaintops
in their lives. Thirty-five years later, I
Parade magazine
to talk about those
"did not recognize their that taught us,
"If the values
ues."
I
I
own
recalled. "It
seem
two people.
strengths."
was
the
way
It
"My
was asked by
parents,"
I
was nothing they ever
they lived their lives,"
I
said,
said said.
correct or relevant, the children will follow the val-
had been shaped not by preaching, but by example, by moral
osmosis. Banana Kelly, the embracing warmth of an extended family,
Margaret's Church, and
St.
—
calypso I
also
system.
all
let's
in the
Jamaican roots and a
provided an enviable send-off on
owe an unpayable debt I
weave to the
typified the students that
and daughters of the inner
city,
life's
little
journey.
New York City public
education
CCNY was created to serve, the sons
the poor, the immigrant.
Many
of
my
college classmates had the brainpower to attend Harvard, Yale, or Princeton.
What
they lacked was
money and
influential connections.
Yet they have gone on to compete with and often surpass alumni of the
most prestigious private campuses I
have made clear that
I
was no
in this country.
great shakes as a scholar.
I
have joked
over the years that the
CCNY faculty handed me a diploma,
sigh of relief, and were
happy
this
to pass
me along to the military. Yet, even
C-average student emerged from
CCNY
and communicate effectively and equipped
from colleges
that I
uttering a
to
prepared to write, think,
compete against students
could never have dreamed of attending. If the
* COLIN
38
L
POWELL
.
Statue of Liberty opened the gateway to this country,
opened the door
Schools like
to attainment here.
and
State Teachers College
Princetons of the poor.
And
CCNY
my
ber where
I
Buffalo
sister's
have served as the Harvards and
they served us well.
I
am, consequently, a
champion of public secondary and higher education. them and support them
pubhc education
for as long as
I
will speak out for
I
have the good sense
remem-
to
came from.
Shortly before the commissioning ceremony in Aronowitz Audito-
me
rium, Colonel Brookhart called
down, Mr. Powell," he here. You'll
do well
He warned
me
said.
in the
that
I
did, sitting at attention.
Army. You're going
needed
I
into his office in the drill hall. "Sit
to
be
"You've done well
to Fort
careful.
Benning soon."
Georgia was not
New
The South was another world. I had to learn to compromise, to accept a world I had not made and that was beyond my changing. He York.
mentioned the black general Benjamin O. Davis, who had been with
him
at
West
Point,
where Davis was shunned the whole four years by
his classmates, including,
I
assumed, Brookhart. Davis had gotten him-
self into trouble in the South,
Brookhart
buck the system. The colonel was boat, to be a I
telling
said,
me,
because he had in effect, not to
tried to
rock the
"good Negro."
do not remember being upset by what he
said.
He meant
well. Like
of us, Brookhart was a product of his times and his environment.
all
Beneath the West Point armor, he was a caring human being.
him and I
took
thanked
left.
my
girl
after graduation,
would serve begin to
I
out to I
Coney
Island for a final fling, and a few days
headed for Georgia.
the three years,
and
make something of my
after that, life.
My
parents expected that
come back
to
I
New York and
Two A Soldier
Life for
I
CAN REMEMBER THE MOMENT HAD MY
I
had chosen.
I
It
happened
in the
and the
The
one hundred
large tree. This exercise
dal orders.
height looked small.
I
was
I
scared.
I
was.
our willingness to obey what seemed like suici-
The cable had been strung across a
and looked down
hur-
called the Slide for Life,
see if
either end, starting high, then sloping steeply. tree
I
seconds from being
feet,
was
Army was making me perform it to
slide also tested
DOUBT ABOUT THE CAREER
FIRST
mountains of northern Georgia as
tled along a cable at a height of
smashed against a
Me
at the troops
river,
At
attached to trees at
my turn, I climbed the
on the other
side,
who from
this
grabbed a hook attached to a pulley that ran along
the cable.
The challenge was
instructor
on the other bank
another instructor pushed
to ride the cable
and not
yelled, "Drop!" Before
me
off.
Suddenly
I
I
go
until the
had time
to think,
let
was careening down the
wire at terrifying speed, the tree on the other side, looking bigger and bigger, rushing
up to meet me. Would that bastard ever say the word? At
^ COLIN
40
what seemed the
L.
POWELL
water a dozen feet from the
The
tree. It
was one of
I
the
plunged into the
most frightening
my life.
experiences of
was one of
Slide for Life
two months
second, he yelled, and
last possible
Ranger school
at
the joys
cooked up for us during the
weeks of basic
that followed weight
The
infantry training at Fort Benning, Georgia.
two weeks of
first
Ranger school had involved physical challenges, designed
to
make
the
like a stroll down Westchester Avenue. The idea was weak before we moved on to Ranger training in the
seem
basic course
weed
to
out the
Florida swamplands. living off alligator
A couple of weeks of wading in swamp water and
and rattlesnake cured
me
forever of any desire to
invest in Florida real estate.
We then went to northern Georgia for mountain training. We
cold and the mornings damp. cabins, though
we
rarely
saw
Our Ranger
where the nights were
instructors led us to wild terrain near Dahlonega,
were supposed
the inside of them.
to
bunk
We
in
wooden
lived outdoors,
on three-rope bridges, patrolling
scaling chffs, crossing gorges
in the
dark of night in hip-deep water, and sleeping on the ground, never for very long.
We
learned the Australian rappel. With a rope slung behind,
you stepped off the edge of a tal to
Mother
Earth.
wall.
It
was
little
quite thrilling, once
to land face first
My Army
on the rocks
1
50
it,
in
my
towers.
the cliff
by
let-
Fred Astaire tap-dancing on a that
you were not going
feet below.
June 1958. That day,
home, on and
at
I
found myself standing
I
off, for the
next five months. Across the
if
and
rising
above
an amusement park, stood three 250-foot practice
studied
were regular Army,
in front
Fort Benning, Georgia, which
BOQ was the airborne training ground,
like a thrill ride at
jump
down
career had begun a few months before on a gloriously
sunny morning
road from the
like
to "run"
you accepted
of the bachelor officers' quarters
would be
you were facedown, horizon-
so that
You then proceeded
on the rope, a
ting out slack
cliff
them with considerable personal
you were
infantry, then
interest. If
you wanted
to
be the
you
best,
meant becoming a Ranger and a paratrooper. Those jump tow-
and
that
ers,
however, looked terribly high.
Newly commissioned heutenants from
ROTC
killed time waiting for
the latest class of West Pointers to finish their graduation leaves and join
us for the basic course. This marked the
first
time any of us would be
competing head to head with academy graduates, and the
seemed to think West Pointers had a median height of ten
ROTC
feet.
guys
When they
— A arrived, they turned out to
first
day,
endary Follow
men
into battle.
weeks
It
to follow
I
calling, I
its
all
in front
1
of the Infantry School by the leg-
was only forged metal was
4
if
got along fine.
bronze infantryman,
statue, a
to
rifle
me
held high, leading
at the time, but in the
to learn that this statue captured perfectly the
We
infantry officer's code.
and
we
we mustered
Me
Me
be like colts happily out of the corral after four
years of regimentation, and
That
Soldier's Life for
were about
to
be taught a deadly serious
creed was "Follow Me."
found the class work and weapons training easy enough. But the course turned out to be tough.
field
the gridlike streets of the South
hike to locate a stake planted
By the
One feat especially tested a lad from
Bronx
—
compass
a five-mile, nighttime
somewhere
in the
Georgia wilds.
time the basic course ended, the meaning of "Follow
Me" had
been hammered home. The infantry's mission was "to close with and destroy the enemy."
No
The
was
infantry officer
questions asked. to
go
into battle
age, determination, strength, proficiency, to
march
up and
ambiguity. front,
No
taught to
fulfill this
gray areas.
demonstrating cour-
selfless sacrifice.
into hell, if necessary, to accomplish the mission.
we were
time,
No
At
We were the
same
responsibility while trying to keep
men from being killed. For years, I have told young officers that most of what I know about military life I learned in my first eight weeks at Fort Benning. I can sum up those lessons in a few ourselves and our
maxims:
—"Take charge of the
Army's
first
—The mission —Don't stand —Lead by
this post
and
all
government property
in
view"
general order.
is
primary, followed by taking care of your soldiers.
there.
Do
something!
example.
—"No excuse,
sir."
always — —Never you an American infantryman, —And never be without watch, and a notepad. Officers
eat last.
the best.
are
forget,
a
The
soul of the
tured for
me in
Fort Benning,
way back to
Army,
an old It tells
the
a pencil,
particularly the infantryman's
poem by Colonel
C. T.
Army, was cap-
Lanham that
I first
the plight of the lowly foot soldier, going
Roman
legions,
and describes the
to face with blind obedience. It ends:
fear, the
read all
at
the
death he has
* COLIN
42
L
POWELL
.
/ see these things, Yet
am I slave,
When banners flaunt and bugles
blow,
Content to fill a soldier's grave,
For reasons
We
were taught
I will
never know.
?
^
Fort Benning, however, that American soldiers
at
must know the reason
Our GIs
for their sacrifices.
are not vassals or
mercenaries. They are the nation's sons and daughters. lives at risk only for
worthy objectives.
If the
recommend where I
to risk
when
spend that
rose to a position where
I
American
put their
duty of the soldier
risk his hfe, the responsibiUty of his leaders is not to vain. In the post- Vietnam era,
We
lives, I
life in
had
I
and Pershing Rifles preparation.
sional.
The Ranger school
I
to
never forgot that principle.
finished the basic course in the top ten of the class, validating
ROTC
to
is
was now a
that followed, with
certified profes-
Shde
like the
its tests
my for
Life and the Australian rappel, occupied us for the next two months.
One
of our most memorable Ranger instructors was a black
tenant,
Vernon Coffey, who seemed
to
be made of flexible
steel.
drove us mercilessly, push-ups, sit-ups, and running until ready to drop. Lack of motion offended Ranger Coffey.
of the man.
I
first lieu-
Coffey
we were
We stood in awe
could not imagine myself ever matching his strength and
endurance. Coffey was the of his game, the
first
so
first
good
black officer
knew who was at the him transcended race.
I
that respect for
top
The Army was becoming more democratic, but I was plunged back Old South every time I left the post. I could go into Wool-
into the
worth's in Columbus, Georgia, and buy anything did not try to eat there.
would take
my
I
While we were
wanted, as long as
street, as
I
did not try to use the men's room.
long as
I
did not look at a white
on Sundays, and the
Army
I
I
wanted
thoughtfully provided
half-ton truck and a driver, a white corporal, to take
There
I
woman.
training in the north Georgia mountains, the only
black church was some distance away in Gainesville. services
I
could go into a department store and they
money, as long as
could walk along the
I
me
to
me
go
to
with a
to Gainesville.
sang and swayed with the rest of the Baptist congregation. The
next Sunday, the corporal pointed out that because he had to drive church, he could not attend services himself.
wanted to know,
if
he joined
Would
it
be
me
all right,
to
he
me? The minister was a kindly man and said
A it
would
But
his flock.
What my
wanted
made
that
God, or share a meal
Racism was to
all,
succeed
now.
If
my
was
on
star
none of the
crippled because
and
I
for
two men
new
to
me, and
career.
my
way
its
I
had
rules, then
I
If
would play
that part of the field.
none of the
was not going
to let
someone
ings about myself.
wanted, above
the
hand
Nothing
to self-
dealt
me for I
was
happened
off-
field,
that
then
was going
to inhibit
myself become emofionally field. I
did not feel infe-
anybody make me believe
else's feelings about
I
was.
I
was
me to become my feel-
Racism was not just a black problem.
anger; but most of
After Ranger school,
I
all I felt
challenged.
I'll
It
was Amer-
sliding
slathering
show you!
reported for airborne training, physically
exhausted, underweight, and fighting a leg infection that
I
had picked
down a mountain. I said nothing about the leg and just kept the wound with antibiotic ointment. I was determined not to
behind. First week: dropped from parachute trainers a few feet off
the ground. ers,
way
And until the country solved it, I was not going to let make me a victim instead of a full human being. I occasionally
felt hurt; I felt
fall
house of
problem.
bigotry
up
the
people in the South
injustices,
to let
life,
way to cope
to find a
priorities. I
could not play on the whole
I
me
same bathroom.
did not intend to give
I
was not going
I
my
into
to sit together in a
in a restaurant, or use the
indignities,
not going to allow
ica's
was forcing
be confined to one end of the playing
to
well with the
sit
the corporal waited in the truck.
no matter how provoked.
performance.
rior,
wrong
on living by crazy I
going to be a post,
it
my Army
at
if
church might not
began by identifying
I
destructive rage, insisted
to ignore,
relatively
still
psychologically.
among
had feared, what Colonel Brookliart had warned
father
of, the reality I
code
might be wiser
It
43
great pleasure to have the corporal
his presence in a black
local white folks.
lunatic
him
ordinarily give
Me
Soldier's Life for
Second week: dropped from the top of those 250-foot tow-
astonished that the parachute actually saved
Third week: into the cold anxiety as
I
air
me from being pulped.
aboard a twin-engine C-123 transport.
I felt
a
stood in the door of the plane, battered by the wind,
waiting for the jumpmaster's signal. Jumping into nothingness goes against our deepest
human
instincts. Nevertheless, I
made
five jumps in
two days. Rappelling off
cliffs, sliding
answered a question
that I think
for
life,
and jumping out of airplanes
everyone secretly asks:
Do I have phys-
COLIN
44 ical
courage?
POWELL
L.
dreaded doing Ihese things.
I
If I
mind
that
first to
I
would do what had
to
be done.
conquering one's deepest fears
stiff as
practicality
of passage.' Physical danger
rites
some mystical way.
in
exhilarating.
is
The day came when we mustered on towers, standing
my
in
usually volunteered to go
and master together bonds them
that people face
jump
I
which may reveal more
get the chore out of the way,
than courage. These experiences are
And
never have to parachute
was never any doubt
again, that will be fine with me, yet there
the parade ground under the
jump
pikes in our Corcoran commercial
boots (paid for out of pocket, since no self-respecting paratrooper
would be caught dead wearing Army-issue
we were
not just infantrymen,
was "airborneranger," no cockier I
and received para-
complement our black- and-gold Ranger
trooper wings to
is
boots),
all
airborne Rangers; and the
one word. In
the
all
American
tabs.
way we
from the Deep South
to
like
someone returning from another
Queens, from rigid military disciphne
and uncles. One of
the Pershing Rifles and let
my
first
them see
stops
was
at
wonder
in their eyes,
on the launchpad of
life. I
me, though horrified when
was about
and
had a told
I
to see the world.
I
to mothers,
CCNY to
this extraordinary
reveled in
girlfriend.
them
I
My
I
visit
five-month I
could
was twenty-one and
parents were proud of
had jumped out of a plane.
And
My first orders sent me to the 3d Armored
Division in West Germany. In that Cold
seemed divided between white and front line, with our godless
it.
planet,
to casual
transformation in one of the brothers. "Colin! Airbomeranger."
I
it
infantry, there
from the rugged companionship of young men
fathers, aunts,
see the
said
soldier.
went home on leave
civilian life,
We were
red,
I
War
era,
was excited
when to
the globe
be going
to the
communist adversary deployed just across
the Iron Curtain.
While home, gal,
I
met
a
new member of the Powell household. Ever fru-
ever eager to earn an extra buck.
boarder
named
Mom
and Pop had taken
in a
Ida Bell. Miss Bell turned out to be a kindly soul,
prompt with the rent and always ready
She even trimmed
my
to pitch into
father's fingernails
from time
household chores. to time.
But when
Mom came into the living room one night to find Ida Bell cutting Pop's toenails, she
drew the
line.
debt. In difficult fimes to
My
sister
and
I
remain forever
in Ida Bell's
come, when both of us would be
far
from
Elmira Avenue, Ida Bell would serve as our parents' angel of mercy.
A
I
was
sent to Gelnhausen (which the GIs
*
Me
Soldier's Lije for
had Americanized
43
to "Glen-
haven"), a picturesque town nestled in the valley of the Kinzig River,
about twenty-five miles east of Frankfurt. The Soviet zone was forty-
My unit. Combat Command B of the 3d Armored
three miles to the east.
Division, occupied
Coleman Kaseme,
a former
concrete barracks clinging to the hillsides. leader to first field
Company command
B, 2d
—
Armored men. The
forty
soldiers, all shapes, sizes, colors,
had grown up with
I
had taken sibility. I
I
was
was
Rifle Battalion, 48th Infantry, first
morning
I
age,
at
home.
On
the other hand, the
my buddies;
and some even
also about to discover an
like the
Benning
they were
ethic
my respontoward
men
older.
Army
far different
from the romping,
Tom
stomping, gung ho airbomerangers of Fort Benning. Captain Miller,
my
faced them, shiver-
to take care of them. I felt instantly paternal
my own
close to
modem
as a platoon
and backgrounds, were much
These men were not
over.
was assigned
I
post near
lived in
my reaction was mixed. On the one hand, these
ing in the cold at reveille,
guys
German army
where most of the troops
the Vogelsberg mountains,
B Company Commander, my new
superior, typified the breed.
Miller was one of the battalion's five
company commanders, mostly
World War
officers, barely
lucky, they
II
and Korean-era reserve
would
stay
on for twenty years and
lieutenant colonels. If less lucky, they enlisted ranks. If really unlucky, they
thrown onto the
civilian
retire as
hanging on. majors,
would be reduced back
If
maybe to the
would be mustered out and
job market in middle age.
These men may not have been shooting
yet there
stars,
was some-
thing appealing about them, something to be learned from them, something not taught on the plain at
science and tactics, as
was about
my
Army had to have
non carried on twin Bertha.
in the texts
on military
experience with Captain Miller and a pistol
to illustrate.
In those days, the Air Force
so the
West Point or
its
and the Navy had nuclear weapons, and
nukes.
Our prize was
truck-tractors, looking
a
280mm atomic
Uke a World War
I
can-
Big
The Russians obviously wanted to know where our 280s were knock them out if and when they attacked. Conse-
so that they could quently, the guns
German forests to keep the Soviets One day Captain Miller summoned me. He was assigning my
trucks hauled
guessing.
were always guarded by an infantry platoon as the
them around
the
* COLIN
46
POWELL
L.
We
platoon to a secret mission.
my men.
eagerly alerted
was going I
loaded
my
to
was gone.
business.
was
I
when I reached down
far I
was
torn
petrified. In the
tain Miller
and
tell
Finally,
way
But, you see ...
sir.
I
jumped into my be briefed. I was excited;
for the reassuring feel of the
Army, losing a weapon
I
is
serious
look for the pistol and
to
realized that
I
had
Cap-
to radio
him what had happened.
"Powell, are you on your "Yes,
to
between taking time
on with the mission.
getting
guard a 280.
guard a weapon that fired a nuclear warhead!
had not gone
.45. It
to
.45 caliber pistol,
and headed for battalion headquarters
jeep, I
I
had been selected
"You what?" he
I
yet?" he asked right off the bat.
lost
my pistol." few seconds, added,
said in disbelief, then, after a
"All right, continue the mission."
After being briefed at battalion headquarters,
I
returned to pick up
my unit, uneasily contemplating my fate. I had just passed through a htGerman village when I spotted Captain Miller waiting for me in his at the wood Hne. He called me over. "I've got something for you," he said. He handed me the pistol. "Some kids in the village found it tle
jeep
where
out of your holster." Kids found
fell
it
it? I felt
a cold chill.
"Yeah," he said. "Luckily they only got off one round before
came and took
the shot and
possibiHties left
me
the
we
heard
gun away from them." The disastrous
limp. "For God's sake, son," Miller said, "don't
let
happen again."
that
He drove been
fired. I
off. I
checked the magazine;
learned later that
I
was
it
had dropped
it
full.
in
The gun had not
my tent before I ever
got started. Miller had fabricated the whole scene about the kids to scare
me into being more responsible. He never mentioned the incident
again.
Today, the yers,
and
Army would
likely
have held an investigation, called
in law-
my record.
Instead,
have entered a
fatal
black mark on
He
Miller concocted his imaginative story.
evidently thought, I've
got this ordinarily able second lieutenant. Sometimes he gets a
ahead of his skis and takes a tumble.
I'll
teach
him
little
a lesson, scare
the bejeezus out of him; but let's not ruin his career before
it
gets
started.
Miller's
the
example of humane leadership
book was not
'em
off,
lost
on me.
When
they
that does not
fall
always go by
down, pick 'em up, dust
pat 'em on the back, and move 'em on.
A I
my
gave Miller and
to pick
me up
—
for example,
Maybe
now.
made
it
I
when
I
lost the train tickets for
my men
have never spoken of these embarrassments
until
nobody ever
by never getting into trouble.
The Army's mission Defense Plan
my platoon
stranded in the
they will help young officers learn a lesson:
to the top
47
if
other superior officers plenty of opportunities
en route to Munich and found myself and Frankfurt Bahnhof.
Me
Soldier's Life /or
line.
Germany was
in
The
to
man
the
GDP,
the General
Fulda Gap, a
line cut north-south across the
break in the Vogelsberg mountains through which the Iron Curtain ran.
Every piece of artillery, every machine gun, tank weapon
moment
came pouring through
they
tle stretch
of the Iron Curtain.
come
at
were blocking our
would
Russians the
hit the
My platoon guarded a lit-
the gap.
the Russians be
my pay grade.
any time. The Cold War was
had leaped ahead
sians
Why
was above
did not know; the answer assault could
mortar, tank, and anti-
rifle,
in our division was intended to
coming?
I
But we assumed the frigid then.
The Rus-
They The Eisenhower
in space the year before with Sputnik.
traffic to
Berlin on the autobahn.
administration had adopted a policy of massive retaliation, which
meant keeping conventional forces on short
rations while beefing
our nuclear punch. Our strategists assumed that
Russians in conventional weaponry, so superiority. All Lieutenant
thinly deployed along the
we were to
ing,
we were
we had
to rely
Powell understood of
GDP, and that once
fight like the devil, fall back,
this
up
inferior to the
on our nuclear
was
that
we were
the Russians started
com-
and watch the nuclear
cat-
aclysm begin.
went home on leave during the sunmier of 1959 for the wedding of good CCNY friends, Chris and Donna Chisholm, and to see my new
I
niece, Marilyn's baby, Leslie, to see
we
my
girl.
We
and her older
talked about getting married before
did, she intended to stay in
school.
I
would have
to return to
months, not a promising
And
so, late
New
start for
York
Mostly
sister, Lisa. I
I
went
went back.
If
until she finished nursing
Germany alone newlyweds.
I
for another sixteen
needed Pop's advice.
one night, in the basement family room,
I
gingerly raised
Pop thought I wasn't ready. He did not elaborate. But he made no bones about it; he was dead set against this marriage. He had never rejected an idea of mine so flatly. Family
the subject. His reaction stunned me.
COLIN
48
POWELL
L.
approval was all-important to me, and
My
Luther Powell, the Godfather.
was not ready
I
leave ended and
to
go up against
returned,
I
still
a
bachelor, to Gelnhausen.
By
the
end of
that year,
I
my
got
promotion, to
first
first lieutenant,
an automatic advancement that had only required nfy staying out of trouble for eighteen months.
I
had
my
first
Army
experience with military law in Germany. Three
German road into a racetrack, speeding and passing each other on the way back to their post. One of these five-tonners skidded out of control and slammed into a Volkswagen in the oncoming lane. Three German civilians were killed. I was tapped to prosecute these drivers for manslaughter in a special court-martial. The truck drivers had decided to turn a
GIs had engaged a civilian lawyer Starting
the case.
from ground
Still, I
defend them.
to
zero, I inmiersed
was not Mr.
entered the tent where the
myself in the
District Attorney.
was
trial
On
facts
and law of
the appointed day,
be held, a young infantry
to
tenant up against professional lawyers engaged by the defense. theless
managed
to
I
I
lieu-
never-
win convictions against two of the defendants,
including the sergeant in charge.
As
I
walked out of the
court,
myself as about military law.
ROTC more
and Pershing
had
to
The
able to assimilate a
shape, and
The
trial
career.
duties.
trial
leadership roles with the
marked almost
do much original thinking, and a
day marked an awareness of an
I
had assumed
ability
I
lot
of
the first time that
it
it
intelligibly,
on
apparently had.
mass of raw information, pound
communicate
I
it
my
feet.
seemed
That to
be
into coherent
even persuasively.
assignment continued another pattern that emerged early in I
Once
was often pulled off I
was directed
two months.
I
regular assignment for unusual
was detailed to brigade headquarters
Still,
my
We took the
I was sent to command an honor guard for
was moving around so much
career track.
my
to run the division pistol team.
championship. Another time
I
first filled
serious responsibility. These situations, however, largely involved
had had
my
had learned as much about
going on active duty,
Rifles. Since
passing along canned orders. I
I
that I
I felt
that
I
was
efficiency reports
afraid
as assistant adjutant. I
might
slip off the
were encouraging. One, dated
July 20, 1959, by Captain Wilfred C. Morse, ended, "[Powell] cious, firm, yet polished in
manner and can deal with
is
tena-
individuals of any
A
Soldier's Life for
rank. His potential for a career in the military
developed on an accelerated basis."
was being taken floating
on
air,
seriously.
But just
months
me back
49
unlimited and should be
was twenty-two years
I
six
the next one brought
is
*
Me
and
old,
after that report
had
I
me
to earth.
Among the easygoing reserve officers in the battalion, we were about to
meet an exception.
I
had recently been reassigned as executive
offi-
Delta Company, 2d Battalion, 48th Infantry, and we were due for a new company commander. When he was named, near panic set in. Captain William C. Louisell, Jr., was a West Pointer and a former tactics cer.
instructor at the military academy.
cadets under Captain Louisell,
Some of our junior officers had been
whom
they judged one of the all-time
hardnoses. Louisell turned out exactly as advertised
book, I
brilliant,
—tough,
by-the-
sometimes unreasonable.
got an early taste of Louisell in the matter of the armored personnel
carriers.
One of my
responsibilities
was
always parked headed downhill, with the cle aligned with the right front
Red Army.
against the
to see that left front
comer of
our
APCs were
comer of one
the next, ready to
vehi-
pounce
Louisell measured the placement of these vehi-
and
cles practically with a surveyor's transit,
God help
us
if
any comer
was out of alignment.
One
day,
I
was
lieutenant at the top
aside and
my
room on the phone, shouting at a fellow of my lungs, when Louisell walked in. He took me
in the orderly
chewed me out
efficiency report.
for
To
Louisell had said of me,
my
the layman,
"He has
mature effort to control." But
had taken a
hit.
me
a quick temper which he
in the
It
received
might not seem disastrous.
it
makes
code of efficiency report writing,
in, sat
first
day
I
me down, and
had put on a uniform
was demeaning
explode occasionally.
in
ROTC.
raised the matter of the
phone. "Don't ever show your temper like that to
wamed.
I
These words marked the only negative comment on
performance since the called
behavior. Shortly afterward,
to everybody.
I still
And whenever I do,
I
a I
my
Louisell
blowup on the
me or anyone else," he
have a hot temper.
hear Bill Louisell's
I still
waming
voice.
While working could be like
if
as Louisell's exec,
the
Cold War ever
I
got a foretaste of what hot war
ignited.
It
was a moming
after pay-
summer of i960. Our brigade had gone to Grafenwohr The troops were to be billeted in over six hundred general-purpose tents. Our company had not yet arrived in force, but a
day
in the
for field training.
* COLIN
30
sister unit, the full I
of troops,
POWELL
L.
12th Cavalry, had still
come
were
in the night before. Its tents
asleep at this early hour.
was returning from a
exec, bringing rations
I
bartering mission with another company's
had traded for back
mess
to our
hall.
My
ears
pricked up at an odd, whistling sound overhead.'ln about a nanosecond, I
realized
it
impact area. in. It
was an I
artillery shell that
stopped, frozen, and actually saw the 8-inch round
struck a tent pole in the
The
burst.
had strayed wildly out of the
roar
1
come
2th Cavalry's sector, detonating in an air-
was deafening, followed by a
terrifying silence.
I
dropped the food and rushed toward the blast as dismembered
legs,
Money from
pay-
hands, and arms thumped to the ground around me.
day came
fluttering to earth.
Some
other soldiers joined me, wading
through the acrid smoke and fumes. Inside the sleeping bag, and what
was
left
looked
like
tent, I
zipped open a
an illustration of viscera in
a medical textbook. In an instant, a dozen lives had been snuffed out
and more men wounded. The tragedy was caused by human error
in aligning the gun,
later
ROTC
and Fort Benning had been about
indoctrination into
48th Infantry, the
me
life
what the Army
is
to
have been
and the battalion conmian-
der and other officers were relieved of their duties.
war movies, but nothing had prepared
found
I
had seen a hundred
for the sights
officers.
really about
I
saw
that day.
Gelnhausen was
—
soldiers.
Here
my
in the
revolved around the care of our men. In those days,
Army was composed
mostly of draftees. They tended to be better
educated than the volunteers, some even college-trained, and
we chose
our clerks and technical staff from them. The draftees wanted to put in their
two years and get back
friends.
We called them the
to school, jobs,
wives and kids, or
"Christmas help," the people
girl-
who came
in,
fought the nation's wars, and went home. They were not looking for trouble.
Most were well motivated, and sergeant, becoming part of Army's backbone. Others had enlisted aimlessly, and some out of
The volunteers were
a different
lot.
many would eventually work their way up to the
desperation, since in those days judges often gave troublemakers the
choice of jail or the Army.
I
had one eighteen-year-old volunteer come
me for permission to marry a German girl whom he had gotten pregnant. At the time, the Army deliberately made it difficult for young GIs to marry foreigners. Many of these couples were immature, and we to
A tried to
slow
down
their passion. Later, in the 1970s,
not to interfere with love tional right to
make
civilian. In the case
—an eighteen-year-old
a fool of himself as
try to
he said.
He
much
3
I
we were instructed
private
had a constitu-
as any eighteen-year-old
who came to me, since he and his girlhoneymoon in advance, I told him I
of the private
friend had obviously held their
would
Me
Soldier's Life for
expedite the paperwork. That was not the whole problem,
also needed permission to get his prospective mother-in-law
into the United States because he
had gotten her pregnant
too. This sit-
uation had not been covered in the basic course at Fort Benning.
Getting rid of troublemakers and misfits in the
months and required that all
piles of paperwork.
we needed was
fifties
consumed
We tried to persuade ourselves
better leadership to bring the delinquents
around. Meanwhile, the good troops saw the bad ones getting
with murder, a situation destructive of morale overall. another twenty years before the
of turning
GIs
who
all- volunteer
down people whom judges
Army
It
away
would take
gave us the luxury
did not want to jail and to "fire"
could not meet our standards.
Sergeants were a tough breed in those days. The wise lieutenant learned from them and otherwise stayed out of their way.
My
first
pla-
toon sergeant was Robert D. Edwards, from deepest Alabama, which
was
initially a
color
made no
cause of concern to me. difference to Edwards;
candy-striped for
all
he cared.
I
was
I
I
need not have worried.
could have been black, white, or
his lieutenant,
break in new lieutenants and take care of them. in the old
Army
third-person style:
My
and his job was
to
He always addressed me
"Does the lieutenant want a cup of
coffee?"
The troops feared Edwards, and with reason. Once, I had to explain to him why he could not keep a soldier who had gone AWOL chained to the barracks radiator. Edwards found my reasons puzzling and went off muttering about the decline of discipline. While he was feared, he was, at the
same
Edwards.
time, respected
He was
in their
he had one concern
and revered by the men. They understood
comer.
No matter how primitive his
—
the welfare of the platoon and the
methods,
men
in
it.
If
they soldiered right, he looked out for them.
came to understand GIs during my tour at Gelnhausen. I learned what made them tick, lessons that stuck for thirty-five years. American soldiers love to win. They want to be part of a successful team. They respect a leader who holds them to a high standard and pushes them to I
* COLIN
32
POWELL
L.
the limit, as long as they see a worthwhile objective.
American
They
will gripe constantly about being driven to high performance.
swear they would rather serve somewhere
I
learned what
it
at the
end of the
meant when
soldiers t)rougftt
you problems,
even problems as perplexing as that of the eighteen-year-old dual Leadership
is
problems
their
The day
solving problems.
lover.
you
soldiers stop bringing
you have stopped leading them. They have
the day
is
will
we do?"
day they always ask: "How'd
And
But
easier.
soldiers
either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.
Another of my memorable mentors was Major Raymond ''Red Man" Barrett, our battalion executive officer.
mother
young
to
club bar, the
"You go
to
officers.
We adored her. One late
Red Man explained
bed
at night.
His wife, Madge, was a den
Everything
ming. Everyone's accounted
for.
night at the officers'
the essence of Army leadership to us:
You
is
hunky-dory. The unit
is
hum-
think you're doing a helluva job.
You wake up the next morning and discover that in the middle of the night, when no one was looking, things got screwed up bad. Stuff happens.
You guys understand?
start all
man
my
over again."
Many
Stuff happens.
a morning
I
And
a leader's just got to
entered the Pentagon, as Chair-
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with the
Red Man's wisdom
ringing in
ear.
I
have a
warm
spot in
my heart for those long-ago
Major Barrett and Captains
officers.
Men
like
and even
Miller, Blackstock, Watson,
Louisell taught us to love soldiering and to care about and look after our troops.
And
they passed on to us the fun of the Army.
but don't take yourself too seriously.
Our
social life revolved
And we
Do
the job right,
certainly did have fun.
around the O-club, which was perched on a
hill
overlooking the Kinzig River Valley. Every evening the heutenants
adjourned to the bar to drink Lowenbrau beer served by Friedl, the bartender, while the old captains held court, regaling us with
war
stories
and passing on legends. Dinner was followed by more drinking,
which we staggered hill to
into our
after
Volkswagens and careened rashly down-
our quarters.
we played several drinking games, at encountered "7- 14-21." In this game, we took
In those socially incorrect days,
which
I excelled until I
turns rolling a
cup of five
dice, counting only aces.
Whoever
rolled the
seventh ace ordered a twelve-ounce drink that Friedl concocted of
A Straight
bourbon, scotch, gin, brandy, and cr^me de menthe.
whipped
this
the person
who
One
night,
I hit
Friedl
third glass passed out.
the backseat of
was obliged
at
my jeep
to
hold
chugalug
my obligation, downed the
I
was poured
2:00 a.m. for a surprise
lieutenant, that
to
twenty-one three times in a row.
today a social sipper, fulfilled
hauled out again
dead
As
game continued. Whodrink. The game ended when
rolled the twenty-first ace
Friedl's vile brew.
and on the
33
green concoction in a blender, the
ever rolled the fourteenth ace paid for the
who am
Me
Soldier's Life for
me
was not a night
alert. I
bed only
into
had
to
I,
stuff,
to
be
be strapped to
up. Fortunately for this near-brainthe Russians chose to
come
roaring
through the Fulda Gap.
For black GIs, especially those out of the South, Germany was a breath of freedom
—they could go where they wanted,
whom
where they
eat
The dollar German people friendly, since we was strong, the beer good, and the were all that stood between them and the Red hordes. War, at least the Cold War in West Germany, was not hell. You can serve thirty-five years in the Army and rise to the top, yet wanted, and date
your
first
they wanted, just like other people.
assignment always stands out as the most unforgettable, the
one against which
among my
future posts are measured. That
all
hausen meant to me.
It
marked
class of lieutenants.
is
what Geln-
the beginning of Hfelong friendships
We
needed each other
to survive.
shielded each other from occasional assaults by senior officers.
ered each other's mistakes and posteriors.
We
We cov-
And we competed
against
each other. Steve Stevens, Keith Bissell, Ike Smith, Hal Jordan, Tiger Johns, Walter Pritchard, Bill Stofft, Jim Lee, Joe Schwar, and others
remain vivid
in
my
Powells four years left
later
his wife, Pat,
when my pregnant
wife and
were I
Army was
were a new
not for them and
left.
A
officer generation, post-World
would serve our apprenticeship
handful
city.
made
Some
general.
post- Korea.
We
Gelnhausen, but
we
War
in places like
to save the
were practically
out in the street in a less than hospitable Southern
decided the
We
memory. Joe and
would undergo our baptism of fire halfway around
II,
the world in South-
where some, like Pritchard and Lee, would die. However memorable and valuable it was, I discovered a downside to the German experience. An unhealthy attitude had infected these garri-
east Asia,
son soldiers, a wiUingness to cut comers and make things look right rather than be right.
Here
is
a small but telling illustration.
The Army
^ COLIN
34 had
new equipment maintenance system
installed a
Nobody could
POWELL
L.
figure
Rather than blowing the whistle, rather than
out.
it
saying this system stinks,
for ordering parts.
was
it
easier to
go
junkyards and
to military
salvage the parts
we
needed. Then
make
the
cockamamie system had worked, thus
it
look as
ing poor
if
management
game, and junior
we would fudge
practices. Senior officers
officers
concluded that
this
paperwork
the
to
perpetuat-
went along with the
was how
it
was played.
This self-deception would be expanded, institutionalized, and exported, with tragic results, a few years later to Vietnam.
November
In
i960, while
which
place, the first in
I
was overseas, a
I
was old enough
paign penetrated Gelnhausen;
Kennedy
debates.
I
I
didn't see the
he and his party seemed to hold out a
famous televised Nixon-
my absentee ballot for my choice. In those days,
more hope
little
for a
young man
my roots. my two-year tour in Germany
I
completed
I
had succeeded
Bill Louisell as Delta
lieutenant in the battalion
by a
captain.
My
tholomees, asked
me
end of i960. By then,
Company's CO.
commanding
battalion
at the
I
was
the only
a company, a job usually held
commander. Lieutenant Colonel Jim Bar-
to extend.
But
I
was homesick.
had not seen for sixteen months. And
I
Not much of the cam-
did vote, however, and cast
JFK. Not much searching analysis went into
of
presidential election took
to vote.
I
had a
was ready
I
girl
whom
for a change.
me to Fort Devens, Massachusetts, where command another company. And Devens was just a few hours' drive from New York City, which appealed
Infantry Branch had assigned I
expected to have an opportunity to
to
me.
bid a sentimental goodbye to the 48th Infantry.
I
a rookie, and
Long
I
was leaving
afterward,
perked up
at
come upon
I
was
only one
I
had joined as
as a fairly seasoned pro.
telling
story.
my children about this period,
One morning,
and they
during maneuvers,
we had
a scout jeep from another unit parked on a narrow road near
Giessen.
"Hey, Lieutenant," one of
my men
shouted. '*Come on over.
Look
who's here." I
walked over
saluted
me
to the jeep,
and put out
where a grimy, weary-looking sergeant
his hand.
It
was Elvis
had shaken the King's hand astonished
my
Presley.
That
their father
kids. What impressed
me
at
A the time
was
Soldier's Life for
that instead of seeking celebrity treatment, Elvis
Fort Devens
is
55
had done
an ordinary GI, even rising to
his two-year hitch, uncomplainingly, as
the responsibihty of an
*
Me
NCO.
located near Ayer, Massachusetts, about thirty miles
west of Boston, a post then maintained mostly through the tenacity of the Massachusetts congressional delegation.
I
reported to Devens in
January 1961 in three feet of snow. The obsessive topic
was
troops
We
the bitter cold. Puerto Rican GIs
had one
whom we
was
still
weeks
were especially vulnerable.
time for clothing. Whenever Private
at that
to leave the barracks,
he put on everything issued, and he
AWOL,
miserable. Alas, he went
later sensibly
and the
MPs
shivering and griping
all
week could be
civvies, hitchhiking to the fleshpots of
was assigned
Brigade. well,
Jr.,
Stilwell.
found him
basking in Santurce, Puerto Rico. Interestingly, on
Saturday afternoon, after inspection, the same troops
I
the
called "Private TA-21," in reference to the
Army's Table of Allowance
TA-2 1 had
among
to the ist Battle
who had been
seen in their lightest, sharpest
Boston and
New York.
Group, 4th Infantry, id Infantry
The brigade commander was Brigadier General Joseph son of the legendary World
Our Joe was known
took up parachuting in his
War
II
general "Vinegar Joe"
as "Cider Joe" or
fifties.
Stil-
Not content
"Apple Juice Joe." to risk his
own
He
neck,
Stilwell cajoled the brigade chaplain into jumping, after a ten-minute lesson.
The chaplain
content never to taught himself to
hit the
flight
from California
knew him expect Cider Joe
My
at
like
Waterford
crystal,
jump again. Years later, long after Devens, Stilwell fly a DC- 3, or maybe did not learn all that well, since
he disappeared on a
beach
ground and shattered
to
to Hawaii.
show up someday,
still
Those of us who
in the pink,
on the
Waikiki.
first
assignment
at
Devens was
as Uaison officer in the battle
group headquarters, essentially a "gofer" for Major Richard D. Ellison, the group's S-3 officer, in charge of operations and training. Ellison
a genial Irishman, a World
War
II
was
and Korean War veteran several cuts
above most of my recent superiors in Germany. Commanding the battle group was a straitlaced colonel, Robert Utley, and our deputy commander,
Colonel
Tom Gendron, added the desired spice.
of the legendary ist Infantry Division, "the Big breathed, and slept his old outfit.
He named
Gendron, a veteran
Red One,"
lived,
his sons after ist Infantry
^ COLIN
36
POWELL
L.
Division generals. Only at his wife's insistence were his daughters
spared that honor. "You ain't got one," Gendron liked to say, "unless
you got a big red
one.''
Between Cider Joe, lous,
to
and Gendron,
Utley,
bubbled up constantly.
I
Dick and
all
dumb ones, and
strangle the
how most
the while keeping our superiors happy.
practically adopted this lonely bachelor. Dick's death in
me
ridicu-
were a gregarious, fun-loving couple, and they
his wife, Joy,
years later robbed
and
learned from the adroit Dick Ellison
push the smart proposals, derail the
embarrassing in the cradle,
ideas, good, bad,
of a beloved friend
much
Vietnam a few
too soon.
managed to escape the liaison job and became executive officer of Company A, making me second in command. Shortly afterward, the company commander was reassigned and I found myself in command of my second company since I had entered the Army, and while still a first lieutenant. My fellow company commanders and I I
eventually
were simultaneously competitors and partners. other tricks of the trade. sheets,
had I
you
plenty,
If,
for example,
tried the hospital trash
dump
We passed along to each
you found yourself short on or the mortuary.
They always
somewhat used but recoverable.
learned a valuable lesson about competition at Devens:
have
be cutthroat.
to
I
came up with competitions
it
does not
my company
for
not just in sports, but for best barracks, best day room, best weapons inspection, any performance that could be rated and rewarded.
more competitions,
the
chance to stand
I
out.
more each
was keenly aware of
my own
self-worth in uniform, and
theirs. I
saw
far less value in
Olympic-class performers
who
was secondary. The point was
among
individual
a lot of soldiers.
The
I
The
GI or platoon had
this need. I
intended to help
a
had discovered
my
troops find
"Super Bowl" competitions requiring spent
all their
time training. The event
to build confidence
and self-esteem
healthiest competition occurs
age people win by putting in above-average
when
aver-
effort.
The 2d Infantry Brigade was part of STRAC, the Strategic Army Corps, composed of elite units prepared to fight on any front on short
We used the acronym interchangeably as a noun and an adjective. STRAC was a state of being, a sharpness, a readiness, an esprit de corps.
notice.
STRAC?" "Yes, sir. We're STRAC") And, as often happens in the Army, we overdid it. Style overran substance. Being ("Sergeant,
is
the platoon
STRAC came to mean looking sharp more than being combat-ready. We
A had our
uniforms starched
field
our skin.
we
We
the pants unbuttoned and the fly unzipped;
last possible
we put on
It
Breaking starch
was
our boots
The
left
—
last
effort
all
was
meant breaking
starch,
and
I
broke starch with
tradition.
an example of foolish
is
we
an hour everybody's uniform was a mass of wrin-
STRAC
But being
the best of them.
open up the
minute;
of dressing without wrinkling the uniform.
pointless, since within kles.
to
could get our legs into our fatigues without ripping off
dressed for inspection at the
in the interest
51
as boards to achieve knife-edge
meant using a broom handle
creases. "Breaking starch"
pants so that
stiff
Me
Soldier's Life for
tradition.
Since Vietnam, the
Army has tried to eliminate pointless practices. We have sought to make work weeks
military life a
little
more
and weekends
free.
Barracks today resemble junior college campuses
like civilian life, with five-day
rather than minimum-security prisons.
We
hold inspections, but
still
they are designed to assess the preparedness of a unit rather than to gig a soldier for having his canteen a quarter of an inch out of hne. I
the
accept and support most of the sensible changes
abandonment of
we have made, and At the same
the senseless, like breaking starch.
time, traditions and rituals remain essential to the military mystique.
They
instill
have to confess
soldiers. I
the past.
a sense of belonging and importance in the lives of
young
my nostalgia for some of the lost practices of
Company commanders,
for example, used to handle
minor
and record them in a green-covered company punishment
infractions
book: "Private Russo,
ment book
AWOL,
fined $50."
Today
Miranda-like statement, provide witnesses,
rights ring.
company punish-
gone. To carry out routine punishment, you have to read a
is
and submit
the
to
make
review by higher authority. All that
But
it
damages something
sense of a family responsible for
vital in
itself,
a lawyer available,
may have
small
a nice civil
army
units, the
of officers and noncoms, like
wise parents, looking after the young people and yanking them back into line
when
they stray. Undeniably, occasional abuses occurred
under the old system. But the benefits
far
outweighed the
risks.
Today's
situation is like dragging the family into domestic court every time
there
is
The Army lost something valuable as the power upward to higher headquarters and the lawyers.
a kitchen spat.
to discipline drifted
Personnel and payroll used to be managed today, computers allow the It is
more
at the battalion level.
But
Army to consolidate these tasks higher up. we pay a price in an impersonalized ser-
cost-effective, but
38
* COLIN
POWELL
L.
have
vice. Officers are not as involved in the lives of their soldiers; they
a lesser role in advising
measure,
and straightening out
their
problems. In some
we have depersonalized the human links that bind soldiers and and make for high morale, that family feeling. I
their leaders together
am
sure that every ex-GI of a certain age
wooden
hall, a
remembers
hfs
company mess
building perched on cinder blocks, the kitchen at one
end, picnic-style tables and benches on
wooden
floors, a rail in
ner separating the officers' eating area, another sergeants, the garbage cans at the exit,
and the
company mess
halls.
comer reserved
for
mop rack outside. I know
that today's big, consolidated "dining facilities"
sense than the old
one cor-
But the
make more economic
hum and
clatter
of a
company mess hall is nostalgic music to me, and I miss the feeling of comradeship. Of course, I am mixing nostalgia with reality; and, intellectually, I know that today's GI and today's Army are superior. But I cannot help recalling those days through mists of fond memory, as
all
old soldiers do.
My
commander of become adjutant of a new tour as
again,
I
was a
first
A Company
was
short. I
unit, the ist Battalion,
heutenant in a captain's job.
id
was
Infantry.
and welfare."
My
I
was going
to
Lieutenant Colonel solid performer
motion
and "morale
new commander was Lieutenant Colonel William
teetotaling Baptist
chita Baptist University "golly."
Once
A battahon adjutant han-
dles personnel, promotions, assignments, discipline, mail,
Abemathy, a
sent off to
who
who
never uttered an expletive stronger than
have to clean up
my act.
Abemathy was no swashbuckler,
gave troop morale top
to private first class to
a promotion to colonel.
C.
from Arkansas and a graduate of Oua-
priority.
He
but he was a
expected a pro-
be handled with the same importance as
The men were
to
be paid on time. Soldiers
freezing their butts off in the field were to have hot coffee and soup available.
Any
trouble right troops; he
GI was not being properly looked after meant chain of command. Abemathy did not pamper the
sign that a
up the
worked them hard and disciplined them, which was another
way of caring. One day, the colonel informed me that I was to set up a system of "Welcome Baby" letters. My mystification must have shown in my face. Every soldier whose wife had a baby, Abemathy explained, was to receive a personal letter from the battalion commander congratulating the parents.
A second letter would go to the baby, welcoming the tot into
A Abernathy demanded
the battalion.
Me
Soldier's Life for
that
39
get these letters out the very
I
day the child was bom.
How
was
fathers?
I
When's she due?"
wife
I
is
pregnant, take one step forward! All right.
suspect
my
bachelor status also had something to
my lack of enthusiasm. In any case, I dragged my feet in setting system. Abernathy called me on the carpet. "Gee
do with up
about to become
could picture the battalion, massed on the parade ground:
man whose
"Every
men were
supposed to know which
I
this stork-alert
whiz, Colin," he said. "I'm disappointed you haven't done this yet."
would
had Red Barrett
rather have
than hear Abernathy 's pained reprimand.
my
positive feedback.
soldiers
Mothers wrote us
fulness.
husband's
their
The
Army
ine,
somewhere out
how
a letter
we
in place,
were impressed by Abemathy's thought-
life.
The babies were not
talking yet, but
there, a thirty-five-year-old
making her a member of
everyone in a
woman
the ist Battalion,
unit.
Make
filed.
strate caring in a
when
the
Army's
I
chafed
attitude was, if
at the adjutant's
to
be saying
I
demon-
to
at
have a
company until, one day, he
conmianded two companies,
only for short periods. You're working
is
to
he achieved
job and wanted to be commanding
kept nagging Abernathy for another
anyone
way
And this we had wanted you
the third time in less than three years in the likely
wondering
Infantry, got
issued you one.
said something curious. "You've already if
imag-
individuals feel important and part of some-
fundamentally rough business.
we would have
I still
even
is
2d
I
of
Find ways to reach down and touch
thing larger than themselves. Abernathy had found a
troops.
started getting
that they appreciated being considered part
Another lesson learned and
wife,
and
office
baby book.
into her
a time
my
my duties.
once we had the system
surprise,
with four-letter words
returned to
I
immediately added population reporting to
To
me
blister
I
going
to assign
now
in a captain's slot for
Army. At
this rate, it's not
you back to company level." He seemed
had already cleared the bar
at that height. I still
hoped
for
another company, but he was right.
In the
summer of 196 1,
in the
words of my relatives,
for the first time. For all the professional challenge,
excifing as
manning
the
Cold War ramparts
looking for an adventure; and so fare (I
I
in
I
was "goin' home"
Devens was not as
West Germany.
I
was
scraped together $182 round-trip air
was earning $290 a month
at the time) for
my
first trip to
* COLIN
60
POWELL
L.
Jamaica. Before leaving,
spent time with the family, poring over
I
genealogical data explaining
who was
related to
whom
so that I'd be
spared any social blunders.
Could two Jamaica?
same planet
parts of the
I
differ
was suddenly drenched by
flowers, and enveloped
mori than ^ort Devens and surrounded by lush
in sunlight,
aunts, uncles,
and cousins who took
me in
as
my life. In applying for my Army commission, I had had to list relatives living abroad; my answer totaled twenty-eight if
they had
known me
all
Jamaicans within the
one gaffe on
degree of kindred.
first
I
however, commit
did,
this visit. I failed to bring the presents
"rich" relative arriving
expected from a
from the bountiful U.S.A. Nevertheless,
myself shuttled from town to town, house
I
found
to house, aunt to uncle, like a
prize catch.
soon recognized the reason for the matriarchy
I
among West
Indians back home.
I
had observed
The women here were
harder-
working, more disciplined. They set the standards, raised the kids, and
And some
drove them ahead. presentable.
I
had met
of the menfolk were not considered quite
my
all
driving through Kingston with
man
"I
One
day,
I
was
my cousin Vernon Meikle, on the way to
Aunt Ethlyn and Uncle Witte. Vernon slowed
visit
to a
aunts but fewer uncles.
at a
Hght and pointed
standing on a comer. 'That's your Uncle Rupee," Vernon said.
want
to
meet him,"
answered.
I
"Can't," Vernon said.
"Why
not?"
I
wanted
I
insisted that
we
know. Rupee,
to
many
of the McKoys. Too
girlfriends
bring Uncle
it
seemed, was the black sheep
and no
Rupee
visible
means of
along. After
all,
support.
he was
my
mother's brother.
Vernon proved
right.
Aunt Ethlyn was not happy. But
nated. In this clan of characters. ularly lovable rogue, willing to
willing to underwrite his lasting three days.
I
keep up his
rum consumption, my money and
getting rid of a headache,
and then returned
By the summer of
could have
three years of service
was a young
black.
I
1
were
over.
did not
was
stories as long as
spent the last two days of
1961,
I
fasci-
Uncle Rupee turned out to be a partic-
my
was
his stories
leave back in
to Fort
I
Queens
Devens.
my obligated The thought never entered my head. I
know
left
the
Army, since
anything but soldiering.
What was
I
A going to do, work with
my father in
major, go drilling for oil in
stayed in the Army,
if I
nificent $4,320 a year.
as far as
my
talents
Soldier's Life for
the garment district?
Oklahoma? The country was
Me As
6
1
a geology
in a recession;
would soon be earning $360 a month, a magwas in a profession that would allow me to go
I I
would take me. And
for a black,
no other avenue
in
American society offered so much opportunity. But nothing counted so
much as the fact that I loved what I was doing. And bewilderment,
ily's
I
told
them
that
I
so,
much to my fam-
was not coming home.
A certain ambivalence has always existed among African- Americans about military service. Why should we fight for a country that, for so long, did not fight for us, that in fact denied us our fundamental rights?
How
we
could
serve a country where
we
could not even be served in a
restaurant and enjoy the ordinary amenities available to white
cans?
Still,
Ameri-
whether valued or scorned, welcomed or tolerated, hun-
dreds of thousands of African- Americans have served this country from its
beginning. In Massachusetts, where
and
were inducted into the
slave,
I
was now
militia as far
serving, blacks, free
back as 1652. During the
Revolution, over 5,000 blacks served under General Washington, helping the country gain an independence that they themselves did not enjoy. Nearly 220,000 blacks served in the
Union ranks during
the Civil
War; 37,500 of them died. Blacks were emancipated, but they returned
home
Ku Klux
to suffer bigotry, the rise of the
still
Klan, and
lynchings.
After the Civil War, Congress authorized four colored regiments, the
24th and 25th Infantry and the 9th and loth Cavalry. They became
known
as the "Buffalo Soldiers," so called
by the Indians, according
to
legend, because of their dark skin, kinky hair, buffalo-pelt coats, and
courage in
battle.
The
creation of these regiments, however,
of racial enlightenment. Washington merely wanted white tected
from the Indians as the West was
were
to help white folks acquire
most
part,
were not allowed
You can search ers charging
to
settled.
was no
settlers pro-
The Buffalo
and defend land
act
Soldiers
that blacks, for the
own.
Rough RidSpanish-American War and you
the paintings of Teddy Roosevelt and the
up San Juan
Hill in the
will not find a single black face portrayed.
have recorded them, because they were
awarded the Medal of Honor
in
A camera,
there.
however, would
Seven of them were
Cuba. In World War
II,
nearly a million
blacks wore the uniform. Some, like the Tuskegee Airmen, the
first
* COLIN
62
black fighter
pilots,
proved that no mission was beyond the
courage of black men.
Crow in the
POWELL
L.
Still,
came home
these black GIs
skills
or
1945 to Jim
in
South, to separate but unequal schools and colleges, to poor
job prospects, and to demeaning restrictions like separate
and
toilets
water fountains for the "colored." Racism in jnuch of the rest of the country was only less blatant in degree.
Why
have blacks, nevertheless, always answered the nation's call?
They have done so where
it
to exercise their rights as citizens in the
was permitted. They did
it
because they believed that
demonstrated equal courage and equal sacrifice for their country, then equality eral
Andrew Jackson,
one area
in fighting
if
and dying
of opportunity surely must follow. Gen-
for example, promised to give land to blacks
fought with him, particularly
they
at the Battle
who
of New Orleans. They fought
and some died. But when the shoofing stopped and the danger had passed, they got nothing.
Not
until July 26, 1948, did President
utive order ending segregation in the soldiers finally
were
to
Harry S Truman sign the exec-
armed
forces. If black
be allowed to die equally for
be permitted to serve equally
in the military. I entered the I still
closest friends in the Infantry Officers Basic
ning,
Don
each other
Phillips at
and Herman
would
their country, they
only ten years after that historic turning point.
my
American
Army
remember two of
Course
at
Fort Ben-
Price, the three of us standing next to
muster, in alphabetical order, looking as
if
the
Army were
ton.
made full colonel and became the black to command the Army's Honor Guard Regiment in WashingPrice went into medicine and became the Army's chief cardiolo-
gist.
Their careers, and that of other black officers, like Ranger Coffey,
still
first
segregated. Phillips eventually
who became from a
M. Nixon,
benefited
The Army was
living the
military aide to President Richard
fact that gets too little recognition.
democratic ideal ahead of the rest of America. Beginning in the less discrimination, a truer merit system,
and leveler playing
fiffies,
fields
existed inside the gates of our military posts than in any Southern city hall or
to love
Northern corporation. The Army, therefore, made
it
easier for
me
my country, with all its flaws, and to serve her with all my heart.
Courting
ONE NOVEMBER DAY
IN
1
96 1
bachelor officers' quarters at ingburg, also
popped
in to
ask
Alma
WAS STRETCHED OUT IN MY ROOM AT THE Fort Devens when a friend, Michael Hen-
I
me
from Queens and had a background about as mixed
The Heningburgs were
Mike was
for a buddy-in-a-pinch favor.
a black family with a
German
as
my
strain;
own.
Mike's
father
was named Alfonse and
girl in
Boston, Jackie Fields, and had flipped over her. "I'm asking you
to
town with
go
into
"A
blind date?"
blind date. Yet,
my
I
me
his brother
to pick off her
roommate," he pleaded.
asked warily. Mike nodded.
The odds of success seemed
relationship with
my
the sixteen-month separation, friends at Devens, Rifles days,
and
I
Tony DePace and
was
I
had never been on a
better in the
girlfriend in
Herman and Madeline
friends, Costelle
was Gustav. Mike had met a
New York
numbers
at loose ends. I
his wife, Sandy,
racket.
had not survived
had plenty of
from
my Pershing
Price from Fort Benning, and
new
"Coz" Walker and Ezra "Chopper" Cunmiings among
^ COLIN
64
POWELL
L.
them. But as far as romance, said. "I'll
We
was on
I
the inactive
"Okay, Mike,"
list.
I
run interference for you."
drove to the Back Bay section of Boston to pick up the
girls at
372 Marlborough Street. We were biizzed into a one-bedroom apartment on the ground floor in the rear of a brcy^nstoHe. Jackie Fields greeted us, and a few minutes
roommate. Alma Johnson," Jackie
She was
fair- skinned,
mesmerized by a
the other girl emerged. "This
later,
is
my
I
was
said.
with light brown hair and a lovely figure.
pair of luminous eyes, an unusual shade of green.
Miss Johnson moved gracefully and spoke graciously, with a
soft
Southern accent. This blind date might just work out.
Long
afterward,
Alma gave me
had had an argument with told
me.
"I
my roommate
bhnd
going to walk through that
when he
arrived.
me
meeting. "I
involved," she
dates,"
dates with soldiers.
by dressing up weirdly and suitor
for getting
first
Alma had told Jackie. "And I defHow do I know who's door?" Alma had worked off her annoyance
do not go on blind
initely don't go on
her version of that
piling
on makeup
unknown room, she was
to put off the
But when she peeked into the
surprised, she said, to see a shy, almost baby-faced guy, his cheeks rosy
from the
cold.
looked like a
She was used
little lost
to dating
men four or five years older. "You
twelve-year-old," she later told me. She had then
disappeared into the bathroom to change her clothes, redo her face, and
unvamp
We
herself.
took the
girls
few drinks, listened sure to girls with
and
New Yawky
spoken Southerner.
And Alma
listened entranced.
At one
enough I
have
in that era of
left in the
voices,
I
was much taken by
compulsory military
Army? Young men
career military. She looked at
and Mike and
I
she
service:
knew went
me
was not as if
most enjoyable night I
this soft-
did talk, most of the evening, while
point, she put a question to
minutes they sfiU had to serve.
had a
talked. After almost exclusive expo-
I
I
me
How much tell
getting out,
I
natural
time did
into the service
got out as soon as possible; they could practically
Finally, the
We
out to a club in the Dorchester section. to music,
and
you how many told her;
I
I
was
were an exotic specimen.
had had
drove back to Fort Devens.
I
in ages
called
came
Alma
to
an end,
the next day
and asked her out again.
We began to see each other regularly, liked.
and the more
Alma Johnson had been bom and
I
saw, the
raised in
more
I
Birmingham,
Courting Alma
Alabama. Her
Robert C. "R.C." Johnson, was principal of Parker
father,
High School, one of George
Bell,
was
63
if
two black high schools. Her uncle,
the city's
principal of
Ulman, the other black high school. Mil-
dred Johnson, Alma's mother, was a pioneer in black Girl Scouting and
Alma had
a national leader in the Congregational Church.
skipped
grades in school and graduated from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of nineteen.
She went back home
after graduation
and
had her own radio program for a while. Luncheon with Alma, on which she dispensed household hints and played music, mostly the rhythm and
management wanted. But when Alma
blues that the station
substituted
for a nighttime disc jockey, she got to play her kind of music, progressive jazz.
Alma had
never liked her hometown.
tionalized racism of ter,
Birmingham
spirit;
she found
world.
And
ogy
Emerson College. When
moved
so she had
life.
stifling
and wanted
Boston
to
met
I
Christmas.
We
my folks
meet
Alma would bred
girl
Cambridge
after
worked at a
love
we
enough
in audiol-
audiologist for all
over
coup was getting
greatest
to test the Jesuits' hearing.
Alma went home
to
Birmingham
for
New York
to
—
was going
West
to
be held
in
be exposed gradually
our basement family room. Vinyl
The walls and
A
to
Indians.
ceiling
tiny bar stood in
to hold the glasses, bottles,
were covered
in
one comer, barely big
and bartender. Coconuts carved
in
bar. President Roosevelt's pic-
had been transported from the Bronx and now occupied a place of
honor behind the
two
Her
form of pirates' heads hung over the
ture
Alma was an
the
New Year's Eve party on Elmira Avenue. I was sure my relatives but maybe not immediately. A well-
hideous brown cork panels.
the
met.
hid the concrete floor.
tiles
do graduate work
from a proper Southern family needed
party
more of
to see
out so that she would return via
it
to nosy, noisy, fun-loving
The
to
her.
the area giving people hearing tests. inside a monastery in
But Alma had an adventurous
Hard of Hearing, driving a mobile van
the Boston Guild for the
About a month
the institu-
Birmingham. Actually, as R. C. Johnson's daugh-
she led something of a privileged
at
was not so much
It
bar.
Benches lined the
tourist-class seats that
from an abandoned El Al plane
By tives,
the time
Alma and
I
walls,
and
in
one comer were
my Pershing Rifles friends and I had rescued at Idlewild
(now Kennedy)
arrived, the place
Airport.
was janmied with
dancing, laughing, drinking, eating, singing, and
my rela-
still
talking
* COLIN
66
POWELL
L.
about "goin' home." Food kept pouring
down from
the kitchen and a
stack of 78-rpm calypso records ran nonstop on a record player that
had bought I
my
sister,
Marilyn, for her sweet sixteen party.
Alma into this joyous as Don Corleone at his
escorted
sublimely ther.
Mom
He and
Pop
chaos, where
Pop was presiding
as
daughter's \vedding in The Godfa-
warmly embraced Alma and then
started intro-
ducing her around the room, from aunt to uncle to cousin, giving
everybody a close look.
Alma managed to survive the first round. The acid test came when she sat down in one of the El Al seats to catch her breath. Aunt Beryl, my father's sister, circled in for the kill.
own and compensated by was
Aunt Beryl had no children of her
doting on her nephews and nieces, of which
the chosen, her "Col-Col." In
Aunt Beryl's
eyes.
Alma
I
started out
with serious handicaps. She was not Jamaican, not even West Indian, and not from
New York.
Beryl planted herself next to
and down, wordlessly. The guests pretended
Alma and eyed
watched Aunt Beryl out of the comers of their eyes. Alma
Aunt Beryl got
up.
Alma moved two
Every time Alma turned around, there was face scrunched in skepticism.
At long relatives.
Aunt Beryl
last.
Alma could breathe
was going
to
Still,
drifted
my
aunt
finally got up.
moved two
Beryl
steps.
her up
keep partying but
to
at
steps.
her shoulder, her
she never said a word.
away and began
again. Col-Col,
talking to the other
Aunt Beryl
told the folks,
be twenty-five soon, marrying age. The family could not
The courtship could proceed, even if the poor child was not Jamaican. I did not know it was a courtship. I just thought I had a new girlfriend and we were dating. What an idiot. Back in Massachusetts, Alma began coming by bus to Fort Devens on wait forever.
weekends
to visit
me.
We
hung out with
my
bachelor pals in the Club
Rathskeller eating cheeseburgers, and spent the rest of the time visiting
my
married friends.
Alma met
the Prices, the
and the DePaces, and she began that of draftees aching to get out.
struck by the social integration the
start,
Abemathys, the
to get a picture of
Army
Ellisons,
life
beyond
And, as a black Southerner, she was
among Army
couples. She fitted in from
getting along with the wives of my seniors through her appeal-
ing combination of deference and independence, as
if
she were
bom to
the game.
Alma and
I
soon became inseparable.
inspections to end so that
was happening.
I
was
we
I
could not wait for Saturday
could be together.
in love, but I thought
it
I
was oblivious
would
clear up.
to
what
Courting Alma
Chubby Checker and
the twist
my
dancing had never been
strong
and
lubricated,
if sufficiently
were
all
the rage in those days, but
was good enough
suit. I
6 7
'A'
calypsos
at
could stumble through the lindy, meren-
I
gue, and cha-cha. Jamaican miscegenation, however, had blocked pas-
sage of both the basketball and the dance genes in me. Nevertheless,
when you are not white and have kinky hair, certain things are expected of you. Alma did a mean twist and tutored me until I became an acceptable twister.
By
summer of
the
1962,
had been
1
at
and was due for orders. They arrived Vietnam.
I
knew
Fort Devens for eighteen months in
August;
I
was going
South
to
about the country, except that President Kennedy
little
had sent a few thousand men there as advisors. Scattered reports had filtered
back from the
first
batch.
We were involved in something called
"nation-building," trying to help South
Red Menace
that stretched
Vietnam s^ve
itself
from the
from the Berlin Wall (thrown up the year
before) to the rice paddies of Southeast Asia.
was
I
excited;
I
was going
to war.
Of course,
I felt
So
is
we
are eager to
some
anxiety.
A test pilot is anxious before a flight.
a soloist before a concert or a quarterback before the kickoff.
was a
do the thing we have spent our
soldier. I
became
the envy of
my
lives preparing for,
and
I
fellow career officers, since
those picked to go as advisors to South Vietnam were regarded as ers,
But
walk-on- water types being groomed for bright futures.
com-
was
I
to
report to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in the fall for a five-week course as a mihtary advisor.
And
could expect to be promoted to captain
I
before being shipped out. I
eagerly called
my
parents and friends
sensed that she did not share explain to her
why
profession in earnest.
my
enthusiasm.
was good news.
this
When
us. I told
and
had no idea where
that
I
I
then I
I
I
would be
sent afterward.
hoped she would write
"we might
Alma went
waiting to see
if I
off to practice
my
mentioned the
know was what my
floored me: "I'm not going to write to you." If she
twenty-five.
I
orders
her that the Vietnam assignment was for one year,
cared deeply for her, and
a pen pal, she said,
Alma.
drove to Boston to
was going
to
called
I
that failed to register, I
upcoming promotion. All Alma wanted meant for
And
was
as well
on, and she
still
end
it
me
I
was going
I
Her reply to
be only
now." She was almost
had no intention of
in the picture a year
told her that
often.
sitting
from now.
around
^ COLIN
6 8
I
POWELL
L.
drove back to Devens dejected. Her reaction forced
myself something
mean
to
far.
I
my
lay in
Alma Johnson was
beautiful, intelligent, refined,
a fine family, got along with I
me
did this
ask
to
woman
bunk taking emotional inventory of the
was
with, and, all too rare in a romance, she
cook.
How much
me?
That night, tionship.
had not faced so
I
knew
What was
I
that she loved
me, and
I
my friend.
to
be
She came from
of friends, and was even a great
circle
Alma had
waiting for?
was a jerk
my
and fun
rela-
My folks loved her too.
loved her.
everything
I
would ever want
in a
for not acting before she got away. This nonsense that
wife.
I
if the
Army wanted you to have a wife it would have issued you one had
to go. I
to
could barely wait to drive back to Boston the next day and ask her
marry me. Thank God, she said yes.
Alma must have
loved me, because
off spending the
was not
I
not even buy her an engagement ring.
a romantic suitor.
I
did
we would be better Alma had already gone
told her that
I
money on household
items.
through one engagement with a ring and the works, and turned out well. She was wise enough to
know
it
had not
that the trappings tell
lit-
about success in marriage. "Don't worry about the ring," she told
tle
me. "You can make
it
up
to
me
Which
later."
I
eventually did, with a
fairly nice rock.
When we
called
my
they sounded relieved.
parents to
Alma
them we were
tell
called her folks too.
I
getting married,
had met her mother,
who seemed to approve of me. But I had yet to meet R.C., who me that her father had never found any of her beaus good enough. When they came to the Johnson home, R.C.
Mildred,
sounded formidable. Alma told
would give them
the silent treatment.
We had to move quickly if Alma was to come with me to Fort Bragg my training. We decided on a wedding just two weeks off, Saturday,
for
August 25, 1962,
in
Birmingham,
to
tional Church, with a reception at the I
alerted
be performed
at the
Congrega-
Johnson home.
Ronnie Brooks, who was
Rhode Island, Ronnie, Brown University. at had served the minimum six months in Providence,
completing doctoral work in chemistry
my role model, the perfect soldier,
of obligated service on active duty and then had chosen civilian
"Whoa," Ronnie
said,
"Hold everything."
I
when
was
I
told
life.
him about my imminent marriage. he came up to Boston to see what
to wait until
Courting Alma kind of jam
Alma had for
I
had gotten
When Ronnie
into.
arrived a
6 9
few nights
later,
a dehcious Southern dinner waiting for him. That settled
Ronnie Brooks. He got up, walked around the
table, kissed
it
Alma,
and nominated himself best man.
And
we
then
"Fm
a snag.
hit
not going to the wedding,"
informed me. "You wouldn't catch
me
dead
in
Pop
Birmingham." Luther
Powell was not about to go anywhere where he would have to assume second-class citizenship.
Mom,
wishes," he said.
was going
did; she
send you a telegram with
"I'll
bless her, said that she did not care
my
Pop had
reported in from Buffalo that they were coming to the wedding. to rethink his position.
As an
daugh-
interracial couple in the South, his
and son-in-law were bound
ter
Norm
son get married. Marilyn and
to see her
gonna
to get into trouble. "If they're
lynch Norm," Pop said, "we might as well
be
all
there. I
best
what Luther
may have
to
buy off the lynchers." I
a
went
to see
weekend pass
job
my
boss. Lieutenant Colonel
to get married.
I
promised
Abemathy, and asked
for
would be back on
the
that
I
Monday morning. Abernathy shook my hand warmly and
said, "I
think the battalion might survive three days without you. Lieutenant."
The next
ten days
were a blur as Alma and her mother went about the
preparations with the zeal of the Allies planning D-Day. Mildred found spare
rooms
duced a
Alma's
in her friends'
relative
sister,
instructed to still fit
and
who
homes where my family could
stay.
She pro-
volunteered to host the wedding-eve dinner.
Barbara, was to be the maid of honor. Ronnie and
I
were
wear our summer tan dress uniforms, assuming Ronnie
in his, after a
couple of years on civilian rations. In Boston,
Alma
bought simple gold wedding bands to exchange, and then she
I
went on ahead
to
Birmingham.
I
arrived in time for the dinner and
reception the night before.
R. C. Johnson turned out to be a big, deadly serious to
mince words.
diers
In later years,
I
would occasionally run
from Birmingham who had gone
When
I
fairly
standard reaction:
mentioned
"You married
go off for a year. And he
Indian son-in-law. After
into black sol-
was
my father-in-law.
I
got a
R.C.'s daughter? You're one
brave dude." Actually, R.C. was glad that
to
not one
to Parker High, R.C.'s school.
that their old principal
though he was not crazy about
man and
Alma was
getting married,
my occupation or the fact that I was about
definitely
was not overjoyed
at
having a West
we had phoned to tell the Johnsons that we were
COLIN
70
L.
getting married, R.C.
had muttered
my Ufe I've tried to and now my daughter's going
to his wife, "All
away from those damn West Indians
stay to
POWELL
marry one!" Between Luther, who resisted the South, and R.C, who
resisted Luther's kind, this should be
My
folks arrived in
some weekend!
Birmingham, and Pop,
{lavingT survived so far
He
loved parties, baptisms,
unlynched, began having a grand old time.
weddings, wakes, and funerals, anything that brought people together.
The Johnsons and had never
their circle
laid eyes
August
is
on them
Alabama
were now
his lifelong friends,
On the wedding day, in the packed rustling as women tried to cool themselves
Perry began the ceremony, Ronnie and
we
to a halt as
I
hit
clicked our heels, and stood at attention as tion.
tion
the aisle on the
the
Reverend
marched
Clyde
J.
in smartly
from a
our mark, did a right-face, if
we were
arm of a solemn-faced R.C.
radiant she looked and this beautiful
Afterward,
by her serene
in drill
Few
music. gift,
parlor,
refreshments.
do
it
I
competi-
was struck by how
self-possession. In a
woman was going to be my wife. we retired to the Johnsons' home
folks discovered that they
your
As
The funeral-home fans created a veritable wind as the congregaoohed and aahed. Alma, attended by her sister Barbara, came
down
my No
he
few hours before.
until a
with fans provided by a local funeral home.
came
if
at its hottest.
church, you could hear the
side entrance,
even
differently
You entered
few minutes,
for the reception.
down
South.
No
Here
booze.
the front door, dropped off
signed the guest book, went through the receiving line in the
continued on to the dining room, where you were handed a glass
of punch and a piece of cake, and kept moving toward the kitchen,
where you deposited your empty glass and plate before being ushered out the back door.
The reception
lasted a
little
over an hour.
On the
spot,
Luther and Arie started planning a different kind of wedding party for
New York. We spent
our honeymoon night
at the
A. G. Gaston Motel, the only
decent place in town for a black couple. A. G. Gaston was a millionaire
black entrepreneur
who had made
blacks, business white insurance
Alma and
I
a fortune selling
life
insurance to
companies ignored. The next day.
flew back to Boston. Jackie had conveniently
moved
out of
moved in. After its having played a fateful part in our lives, nothing more came of the budding romance of Jackie Fields and Mike Heningburg. Monday morning, as the apartment
on Marlborough
Street,
and
I
^
Courting Alma
promised,
work
returned to
A
reported in to Lieutenant Colonel Abemathy, and
I
few days
Alma
Boston Guild for the Hard of Hearing.
at the
answered the phone
later, I
71
was obviously puzzled
to hear a
in our apartment.
male voice on the
line.
The
caller
"Who are you?"
he asked. "Colin Powell,"
"Fm Alma's
I
answered. "And
fiance,"
"How do you
do,"
I
are you?"
he informed me.
"I'm her husband."
said.
The conversation stumbled
to
my
not had enough time to put
now spoken for. A week later, on
who
an awkward close.
on notice
earlier rivals
a Saturday morning,
I
We
evidently had
that
answered a knock
Alma was at the
door
barefooted, wearing only a T-shirt and chino pants. There stood a nice-
looking guy with a box of candy under his arm and a smile on his face,
which vanished
at the sight
of me. "What are you doing here?" he asked
indignantly.
my status in the household. Alma came into the room, and I thought it politic for me to fade. From the bedroom, I could hear parts of a brief, tense conversation. And then our visitor was gone. When I I
explained
came back,
I
an old friend.
noticed that he had taken his candy with him.
Alma told me,
their friendship.
He was just
with an exaggerated notion of the degree of
She has stuck
to this story for over thirty years.
The Powell wedding reception took place not long afterward Avenue. Our guests showed up early
basement family room, canydng on
which was pitality,
at
4:00 a.m.
charming everybody
see Luther and Arie staid,
Alma
at
Elmira
jamming the drop of rum gave out,
in the afternoon,
until the last
survived this second test of Jamaican hosin sight.
beaming over
What delighted me most was to new daughter-in-law. After the
their
clockwork Johnson reception, the Powell party was a cultural
one-eighty.
My
cousin Vernon Lewis, whose interests included cake-baking,
poker, the track, and his job as a cop, in that order, had been
sioned by
Mom to
bake a cake for
failed to materialize, Arie
this event.
As
became increasingly
commis-
the cake and
Vernon
distraught, fearing that
Vernon's number two and three interests had overtaken number one, not
an unheard-of development. At long the Versailles of
last.
Cousin Vernon appeared with
wedding cakes and disarmed
my mother with his usual
* COLIN
72
POWELL
L.
charm: "Auntie Arie, how, even for a minute, could you have ever
doubted that
I
would come through with a glorious creation?" And
when, Alma wondered, would
I
enjoyed being married.
I
this
parade of in-law characters ever end?
liked shopping withrAlmaTon weekends.
I
my wife meet my friends, I would race from Devens to our little nest in my car, a blue 1959 Volkswagen I had bought in Germany for $1,312. On one of these mad dashes, I was zipping along Route 2 liked having
when I noticed a convertible coming up fast behind me. Obviously, some New England Yankee intended to show me his dust. I pushed the Beetle to the limit. Then, to
The
over.
informed
today,
The
astonishment, a siren sounded.
me I
that
said,
fell
I
was doing ninety
"you know and
on unsympathetic
carefree life that
party for us. Bill
this car can't
after the
go
were living was about
I
Abemathy read from i
a beautifully hand-lettered scroll
st
Battalion,
2d
Infantry.
"Hear ye,
chief paper shuffler of the battalion,
being sent to the exotic land of poisoned darts and sharp .
.
He went on
to cite
On
to end.
wedding, the battalion threw a farewell
Abemathy began. "The ."
My
that fast."
my automobiles can do.
emblazoned with the insignia of the
sticks
and
and occasionally
ears. In those days,
Alma and
September 24, a month
hear ye,"
pulled
in a fifty-five-mile-an-hour zone.
know
I
tend to want to see what
I
I
driver got out, identified himself as a state trooper,
"Officer,"
defense
my
some of
the
memorable
bamboo
features of
my
service at Devens: "Battalion headquarters will miss the slam of the
telephone, the bang of the clenched
ments of your swivel
fist
on the desk, the violent move-
chair." Bill Louisell
would have nodded.
Soon afterward. Alma and I packed everything we owned (which one Volkswagen could acconmiodate), made a brief visit and headed for Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where itary Assistance Training
for
with a couple of Army buddies.
I
me
than the
trip
I
had
Elmira Avenue, to take the Mil-
to pull off the
a few years before
remember passing Woodbridge,
and not finding even a gas station bathroom
to use.
to
was
Advisor course. Driving through Dixie with a
new wife was more unnerving ginia,
I
road so that
that
Vir-
we were allowed
we could relieve ourselves in the
woods.
At Fort Bragg, we tracked down a black rental agent and started looking for a furnished place in nearby Fayetteville where
we
could stay
^
Courting Alma
while
I
completed the
MATA
The kind of black middle-class scarcely existed. I remember our first
course.
neighborhood we hoped to find stop, a dilapidated
with rusty floors if
it
house on a
tin cans, plastic
were covered with cracked linoleum and the furniture looked as
the next. Nothing else
rose.
trash.
was much
He was
solution.
He
We shook our heads and went on to agent told us that he
better. Finally, the
going to put us up in his
own home. Our hopes
stopped in front of a grim-looking place. The inside was even
grimmer, with old people vacantly.
sitting
The agent showed us
own
to provide our
room with
We
overgrown with weeds and strewn
lot
bags, and other rubbish. Inside the house, the
belonged outside with the
had a
a
bedding, and
faced
the bitter truth.
I
around a dark room staring ahead
bedroom
We
said thanks
top of the year
I
all
and
would have
anyway and
send
to
left.
Alma back
to Bir-
my time at Bragg alone.
spent
the gloomier because this separation
would be on
would be away. And Alma by now was pregnant.
On my first day at Bragg, I ran into Schwar, who was assigned there with Berets. Joe
I
We
share the kitchen and bath-
would have
stay with her parents while
The prospect was
in the back.
we would
the rest of his boarders.
mingham to
an old Gelnhausen buddy, Joe the Special Forces, the
his wife, Pat, invited us to dinner
the Powells' last night together for a while.
Schwars meet Alma, though
wished we were
I
was eager
I
Green
on what looked
in a small
in better spirits.
living
government-issue three-bedroom duplex on the post with
their three boys, Joey, Kevin,
and Steve,
under age
all
enjoyed swapping stories with Joe about
Barrett,
like
have the
to
The Schwar household was a happy bedlam. Joe and Pat were
ner, I
73
and other characters we had known
in
Tom
four.
During din-
Miller,
Red Man
Germany and watching
Alma and Pat get acquainted. In the meantime, Joey and Kevin used the living room for the Indianapolis Speedway while baby Steve squealed enviously from his high chair.
around to our housing plans.
Inevitably, the conversation got
explained that said.
Alma would have
She wouldn't
chimed
in,
let that
saying, "Sure
for the five Schwars,
to
go back
happen.
I
Oh no,
Pat
could stay with them. Joe
said, "That's nice it all
could leave the bunk beds in their
Alma and
Birmingham.
you can." The house was barely big enough
and Alma
impose." Pat insisted. She had
Steve's room.
We
to
I
figured out.
room and
would take over
of you, but
we
can't
The two older boys
sleep on cots in
the boys'
room and
baby
sleep in
* COLIN
74
L.
their kid-size bunks.
POWELL
Not exactly
was so genuine and Alma and and moved
I
the
honeymoon suite; but their offer much to part that we said yes,
hated so
in the next day.
The Sch wars' kindness was not cost-free
some of her neighbors, who were in
for them. Pat took heat
repelled by th^ idea of blacks
from
moving
with a white family, even sharing the same bathroom. Pat Schwar
from South Philadelphia and as tough as she ple
what they could do with
their prejudices.
two desperate newlyweds long years ago nesses that
Alma and I have
For five weeks
at
is
is
kind.
What
She
the Schwars did for
one of the greatest kind-
ever experienced.
Fort Bragg 's Unconventional Warfare Center,
classes studying French colonial history, learning the
I sat
reviewed the history of U.S. involvement to intervene in the fifties
when France was
Minh; how the country had then been divided between
1956;
how Ngo Dinh Diem,
We
—how President Eisenhower losing
its
year war against Vietnamese nationalists and communists under
and a Western-oriented government
in
methods of com-
munist takeovers, and trying to master a few Vietnamese phrases.
had refused
is
told these peo-
in the
Ho
eight-
Ho Chi
in the
North
South pending elections
in
president of South Vietnam, had canceled
the election in his half of the country and, facing
Kennedy
communist
to President
international
communism." Kennedy had committed
to save
attacks,
Vietnam from "the forces of
had appealed
the United States
Diem regime by sending in more counterinsurgency advirage then. By the end of 1961, 3,205 advisors were in Viet-
to support the sors, all the
nam. The group
I
was
part of
would bring
the total to well over
We felt we were in the thick of things, especially in October the to
Cuban
missile crisis erupted.
Rumors swept the school
be pulled out of class to fight the comimunists
Vietnam.
I
came home one
that his Special Forces
night to find that Joe
much
1 1
,000.
1962 when
that
we were
closer than in
Schwar was gone and
detachment had been alerted for movement to a
staging area in Florida. After days of heart- stopping tension, the super-
powers backed away from the brink, and we completed our advisor course on schedule.
We fall.
I
had cause for celebration
Both Joe and
was
still
wrapped up
I
in the
were promoted
Schwar-Powell household that
to captain several
months
early.
excited over the Vietnam assignment as the course
in early
December and
I
prepared to leave
my wife
of four
Courting Alma
73
months and the child she was carrying. By God, a worldwide communist
conspiracy was out there, and
ugly head.
I
had helped man the
we had to
frontiers of
stop
it
wherever
freedom
Now it was time for me to man another frontier in the other side of the world.
It all
in
it
raised
its
West Germany.
same
fight
on the
had a compelling neatness and simplicity
in 1962.
Shortly before Christmas,
we
said
goodbye
to Joe, Pat,
and the
lit-
Schwars and headed for Birmingham, where Alma would stay
tle
while
was gone. The
I
city lay in the heart of the
menace
rating all the
that phrase conjured
up
Old South, incorpo-
for blacks.
Alabama
Governor George C. Wallace's policy of "segregation forever" had
become the white rallying cry. Birmingham was turning into a racial war zone, the rising civil rights movement, with its sit-ins and demonstrations, pitted against Eugene T. "Bull" Connor, the city's brutal police chief, determined to hold Negroes
down and keep
white or black. Not a happy time; not a happy place.
agitators out,
Still, I felt
rea-
Alma there. Her folks and her aunt and new home for the four of them just outside Bir-
sonably relaxed about leaving uncle had just built a
mingham
in
what was regarded as a safe neighborhood. The house
had a spare room for Alma and the baby, and nearby was the Holy Family Catholic Hospital for Alma's confinement. Should the time
bomb
house at
full
Birmingham go
in
off.
racial
Alma's dad, tough old R.C., had a
of guns that he had taken away from students over the years
Parker High. I
remember
the
mixed emotions of those
last
days
at the
Johnsons'.
Alma and her mom went out and cut a Christmas tree, and we decorated it.
We
my orders called for me to leave by If the Army sent me to Vietnam after Christmas, I cannot
celebrated early, since
December
23.
imagine
would have upset the Cold War balance; but mine was not
it
reason why. intrude
We
exchanged presents
early,
and
I
felt
to
harsh reality
when we opened my mother-in-law's gift to us, a pair of tape Alma and I could communicate while I was gone. We
recorders so that said our
goodbyes
to the airport
that
morning, two days before Christmas, and
by myself, since
I
I
went
am not comfortable with public displays
of emotion. I
had learned something about Alma
young woman, soon
to
in those final
weeks. Here was a
become a mother, whose husband was
for a long time for a far-off, dangerous place.
leaving
She accepted our separa-
76
* COLIN
L
.
POWELL
Alma had never imagined herBut I knew that she was going to make the perfect
tion with stoic calm. Before self as life
an Army wife.
partner for this soldier.
I left
in
meeting me,
Birmingham
for Travis Air Force
Saigon on Christmas morning, 1962.
Base
in California r
t
and arrived
Part
Two
is: SOLDIERING
Four 151 Jt^l Take
Half a
Million
Men
to Succeed^^
MY IMAGES OF GOING TO WAR WERE FORMED BY fifties
in
movies, and early-sixties
black and white.
tions.
I
My
FORTIES NEWSREELS,
TV documentaries, and war was always
arrival in
Vietnam shattered
all
the preconcep-
came on did not storm down the
did not cross the Pacific in a crowded troop transport;
World Airways, a chartered commercial
ramp of an LCI and hit
flight. I
the beach in waist-high water.
I
I
checked into the
And
Rex, a hotel in Saigon turned into bachelor officers' quarters.
I
entered a world, not black and white, but painted in the colorful palette
of a semitropical capital.
They say
Irving Berlin
was inspired
to write
"White Christmas"
after
spending the hohdays amid palm trees during a Los Angeles heat wave. I
had the same out-of-sync sensation checking into the Rex
that
muggy
Christmas. That night, after a dinner in the hotel's rooftop restaurant
with other lonely
new
arrivals, I
looked
some boulevard with a touch of
Paris.
down on Tu Do
Street, a
White-uniformed
hand-
traffic
cops
* COLIN
so
POWELL
L.
directed a flow of cars and "cyclos," Vietnamese pedicabs, while fash-
ionable
women
night air
was
River," a song
a
ao dais
in silk
moved
and out of elegant shops. The
in
and, in the background, a jukebox played
soft,
whose
lyrics did not ease
"Moon
my loneliness.
The next morning. Major General Charles Mr Timmes gathered us in conference room at the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group
headquarters and delivered a rousing pep
Why
talk.
had we
left
our
Why had we come here to fight halfway around the
loved ones behind?
world? To stop the spread of Marxism; to help the South Vietnamese save their country from a communist takeover. That was the finest thing
we
could do for our families, our country, and freedom-loving people
everywhere.
I
was
up
fired
all
we were
over again. That afternoon
Son Nhut Airport
driven out to the American military side of Tan
issued field gear, jungle fatigues, jungle boots, helmets
to
be
—reminders of
where we were headed. After a few more days of indoctrination in Saigon
Army
join up with the
I
was
to
head north
of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN).
I
was
to
to
serve as advisor to the four-hundred-man 2d Battalion, 3d Infantry Reg-
iment, of the
border son,
at a
I
st
Division, posted in the tropical forest along the Laotian
place called
and getting
thirty hair-raising
grounded Finally,
17, at
ARVN
while
I
You could in.
either fly there in
The bad weather
grew increasingly itchy
to get
replacements, bags of
rice,
and
live
chickens and
darted and bounced through thunderheads and showers over
down
stamped out of the jungle. The
onto a crude perforated-metal pilot shouted for soldiers to
unload the helo before the Viet Cong started taking potshots I
jumped
pelled
moving.
Quang Tri, I boarded a Marine H-34 helicopter
dense jungle terrain and plopped airstrip
easy.
minutes or take weeks to walk
on January
We
A Shau. I had arrived in Vietnam in the rainy sea-
Shau was not
flights for days,
loaded with pigs.
A
to
to the ground,
backward
in time.
looked around, and
felt as if I
at us.
had been pro-
Shinmiering in the heat of the sun was an
earth-and-wood fortress ringed by pillboxes. But for the greenness,
Shau had a French Foreign Legion sand.
I
naires
quality.
stood there asking myself the question
must have asked
in
Gaul
—what
Beau Geste without I
the hell
A
the
am am I doing here? The A sure
Roman
legion-
Shau Valley ran down the narrow northern neck of South Vietnam near the Laotian border
and contained a crucial
stretch of the
Ho
Chi Minh
"It'll
Trail, the
Take Half
main supply
one of four
Million
a
to
A
running up to Laos, from which
goods and men
to the south.
*
Succeed"
enemy, the Viet Cong.
artery of our
fortified bases
interdict the flow of
Men
8
1
Shau was
we were
to
Rugged mountains
rose up on the western side of the valley, and a wooded jungle bordered the east.
Somewhere under that
ARVN troops American
trotted out to the helicopter
soldier
came
me
Sink led
compound, where a Vietnamese
"Captain Vo
officer saluted
and put out his hand. said in passable
my ARVN counterpart, the man I would be advising. with a broad face and an engaging
short, in his early thirties,
But for the uniform,
smile.
An
through a barbed-wire gate into
Cong Hieu, commanding 2d Battalion," he
EngHsh. Hieu was
He was
and began unloading.
up, saluted, and introduced himself as Sergeant
First Class Willard Sink.
the
canopy of growth was the enemy.
triple
I
would have taken him
for a genial
schoolteacher, not a professional soldier.
The
three of us
my new
headed toward a thatched hut of bamboo and
quarters. Inside
floor,
and not much
"The
A Shau Hilton,"
Hieu
I
would
like to
Directly behind it,
was a frame
else.
A
Sink
huge
said. I
cot, also
rat
grass,
of bamboo, set on a
dirt
scampered from under the bed.
threw
my
pack onto the cot and told
go outside and have a look around the compound.
A Shau, a mountain loomed over us. I pointed toward
and Hieu said with a
enemy could almost
roll
had been established
in
From
grin, "Laos."
rocks
down onto
us. I
that mountainside, the
wondered why
the base
such a vulnerable spot.
"Very important outpost," Hieu assured me.
"What's
its
mission?"
I
asked.
"Very important outpost," Hieu repeated.
"But
why
"Outpost
is it
is
here?"
here to protect airfield," he said, pointing in the direction
of our departing Marine helo.
"What's the
airfield here for?" I asked.
"Airfield here to resupply outpost."
knew our formal role here. We were to establish a "presence," a word with a nice sophisticated ring. More specifically, we were supposed to engage the Viet Cong to keep
From my
training at Fort Bragg,
them from moving through the
A
I
Shau Valley and fomenting
their
insurgency in the populated coastal provinces. But Hieu's words were the immediate reality. airstrip that
was
The base camp
at
A Shau was there to protect an
there to supply the outpost.
^ COLIN
82 I
POWELL
L.
would spend nearly twenty
years,
And
one way or another, grappling with
Vietnam
our experience in
this country.
made much more
sense than Captain Hieu's circular reasoning on that
over
time,
all that
rarely
January day in 1963. We're here because we're here, because we're
My first sensation ering over slight,
were
them and presenting a choice
and with
troops
They seemed barely
.
was one of tow-
They were
target.
smooth faces they looked
their
in their twenties.
dient.
among Vietnamese
being
at
.
short and
though most
like kids,
trained but willing and obe-
What went on in their heads I had no idea, since they were who hid their feelings behind a mask of polite
mostly conscripts submission.
At our
A
Shau base camp,
gnards, nomadic people
I
who
was surprised
populated
to find families of
this part
Monta-
of the country. Almost
no Vietnamese lived here, only these mountain tribesmen and a few other indigenous minorities.
Montagnards
I
had expected
to find the reputedly
living in the hills rather than
dered what they were doing here.
I
would
on a military
independent
post,
and
I
won-
find out soon enough.
came to my hut with the news We had our orders — we were going out on Oper-
After a couple of weeks. Captain Hieu I
had been waiting
for.
down
ation Grasshopper, an extended patrol
become tics,
A
Shau
Valley.
I
had
camp, working with Sergeant Sink, training
restless at the base
the Vietnamese in
the
marksmanship on the
rifle
range, teaching patrol tac-
helping with disciplinary problems, trying to be useful without tak-
ing over.
The high point of
my
much
day,
of
it
spent in
my
hooch
devouring paperback novels and smoking too much, was anticipating dinner, as the livestock that
the
menu. The Americans
stuck together with
rice,
ate
in with
me
what the Vietnamese
began appearing on ate.
Breakfast: rice
some glutinous substance and shaped
looked like an edible
more
had flown
Softball.
Lunch:
rice
into
with chunks of pork or goat and, as an occasional
two-inch-square omelet, actually quite
what
with vegetables. Dinner:
tasty. I
was introduced
treat,
a
to the
mam. Nuoc mam was GI vocabulary as a good-natured gibe at anything Vietnamese. The national airline became 'Air Nuoc Mam." An older Vietnamese woman was a "nuoc mam mama." ubiquitous Vietnamese fish-based sauce, nuoc
used so commonly that
it
entered the
At 3:00 A.M. on February
M-2
carbine over
my
7, 1
threw
my pack over my back,
slung
my
shoulder, and joined Hieu for a last inspection of
Take Half
"It'll
we moved
the battalion before
was swallowed up by force of
a
Million
out.
Soon
the dark jungle.
armed men moving
into the
Men
*
Succeed"
to
83
the long green line of troops
I felt
a tingling anticipation.
unknown has
A
a certain power, even
a touch of majesty, although the squealing pigs and cackling chickens
accompanying us tial
wicker baskets detracted somewhat from the mar-
in
aura.
On this
march,
I
discovered the reality of a triple-canopy tropical forest.
The lowest stratum consisted of saw trees struggling for
air.
and small
grass, bushes, vines,
Adolescent trees formed the second canopy,
densely packed, rising thirty or forty
feet.
The
canopy consisted of
third
mature hardwoods, some over one hundred feet high. Unless
we
broke
out into a clearing,
we
Even
sweat bathed our faces and our uniforms turned
in the shade,
The
soggy.
salt
could go
all
day long without seeing the sun.
from our perspiration formed gray-white semicircles
under our armpits and blotches on the backs of our fatigues. stantly
popped
tablets to replenish our bodies' salt supply.
We
con-
A distinctive
smell clung to us, a pungent mixture of mud, dirty bodies, and rotting
was an endless obstacle course,
vegetation. Every day
make
contact with the Viet Cong.
compartment,'' following
trails
We
down one
the other, clambering over craggy rocks ical
demands
validated every test the
as
we
tried to
were constantly going "cross steep side of a valley and
up
and fording streams. The phys-
Army had
put
me
through in
swamps and Georgia mountains. in clouds of insects. Worse were the leeches. I never understood how they managed to get through our clothing, under our web belts and onto our chests, through our bloused pants and onto our
Florida
We moved
legs, biting the flesh
and bloating themselves on our blood.
as often as ten times a
leeches
off.
end of a
The
to get rid of them. It did
no good
to pull the
Their bodies simply broke and the head remained biting
into the skin. lit
day
We stopped
We had to
cigarette,
stun
them with
bursts of insect repellent or the
which made a hissing sound on
contact.
we followed had been sown by the VC with snares and bamboo stakes concealed in a hole, the tip poisoned with dung. The first casualty I witnessed was a soldier who stepped
trails
punji spikes,
buffalo
onto a punji spike. For trail,
testing
my
all
the hardship,
I
was
still
excited to be on the
endurance, feeling especially alive as strength and
fatigue flowed alternately through
my limbs.
COLIN
8 4
POWELL
L.
Our column stretched for nearly a mile, be quiet, the noncoms constantly shushing
four hundred
men
trying to
the troops, everyone taking
care not to rusde a dry twig or step on a branch, eyes darting right,
grinding out our meager advance in eerie silence, except for the
and the chatter of monkeys^ Then,, at
calls of exotic birds
we made camp,
all hell
nightfall,
air.
The animals
screeched as they were slaughtered for our evening meal. The
around the
mess
fires,
futile to try to
fires,
men
kits clattering, talking freely as they ate.
keep them
quiet.
The
sat
was
It
and smoke must have
noise, fire,
announced our presence for miles. In the morning, dousing the
when
broke loose. The Vietnamese ht campfires, the
flames rising and smoke billowing high into the
down
and
left
after
making
tea,
cleaning out the rice pots, and dumping the hot water
we would resume
the hillside,
the trails, shushing each other
again and making our silent way. It
happened on the
hillside. I
was
had churned the file,
into a quagmire.
first
man.
that the I
we were coming down
way back
had been raining
It
trail
which meant
ing off the
day out as
a quarter of the
place for advisors.
gle
sixth
VC
in the
earlier,
As
a steep
column, the customary
and the men ahead of me
we were moving
usual,
in sin-
could halt the entire column by pick-
had repeatedly urged Hieu
into three or four parallel columns, but the forest
passes so narrow in places that Hieu
let this bit
to
break the battalion
was so dense and
of American
the
wisdom go
politely unheeded. I
had just arrived
at the
several sharp cracks. rifles
bottom of a narrow creek bed when
Incoming
and submachine guns,
I
fire,
the first
guessed.
I
I
I
heard
had ever experienced,
heard a scream up ahead. The
men began shouting and running around in utter confusion. I repressed my own terror and started to make my way forward to find out what had happened.
When
I
got to the head of the column,
namese huddled around a groaning
An ARVN noncom
I
saw a knot of Viet-
medic kneeling
at his side.
gestured toward the creek. Another small figure lay
there in a fetal crouch. His head
flowed across his
soldier, a
face. This
was turned sideways, and
man was
dead.
the creek
We had been ambushed. We
had taken casualties from attackers who had vanished before we had ever seen them. silence again I
gle.
—
—
The whole cycle silence, shots, confusion, was over in a couple of minutes.
wondered what you did with a dead man
The Vietnamese
rolled the
body
into a
in the
death, and
middle of the jun-
poncho and trussed
it
to a
"It'll
bamboo
The
pole.
Take Half
dead man litter,
Men
Million
to
85
Succeed"
Hieu told me, was too wild and rocky
terrain,
bury the soldier. Besides,
a
was Vietnamese custom
it
The troops put
to his native village.
the
to
to try to return a
wounded
soldier in a
and we resumed the march. The Vietnamese took turns lugging
we reached hand-cranked AN/GRC-9
our twin burdens through the entangling underbrush until high ground, where our radioman used a
The
portable radio to call a helicopter to evacuate the casualties.
was the
primitive; the operator
had
to tap out the
message
same way news was telegraphed a hundred years
in
radio
Morse code,
before, during the
Civil War.
Within a surprisingly short time,
and watched the
aircraft
heard the throb of an H-34's rotors
I
approach a clearing. The Vietnamese
corkscrewed the helo earthward
skillfully
flying over the jungle at
wounded man and
the
low
pilot
minimize
in a tight circle to
The Vietnamese loaded
altitude.
the
body aboard. The helo quickly disappeared, and
we were alone again. As night fell, we camped on high ground where we would be less vulnerable to attack than down in the valley. The usual tumult of rattling pots, squealing animals, shouting
threw
down my
and slumped aration of a
pack,
my
to the ground.
carbine, I
felt
my
damp
helmet
drained.
The
lark
fires
began.
liable to get killed
Somebody
over.
The
exhil-
it
was
real,
and
after.
This was not war movies
was
it
in a
Somebody was
got killed today.
tomorrow, and the day
on a Saturday afternoon;
I
with cold sweat,
was
cocky twenty-five-year-old American had evaporated
single burst of gunfire.
It
men, and billowing
ugly.
turned cold at night in the mountains, sometimes dropping to forty
degrees.
down
I
inflated
my
air mattress, set
sleeping bag over
myself
to get
added up
it,
and crawled
through tomorrow and
to a year. I
more acute because
I
all
was gripped by a could not share
it
on the ground, stretched
in,
shivering.
I
needed to
my
steel
the other tomorrows until they terrible loneliness
my fears.
I
was
made
the senior
all
the
Ameri-
can advisor, the one the others looked to for strength and guidance.
Those
lines
from Fort Benning came back
dier's grave, for reasons I will
And then
I fell
to
me: "Content
never know." Yet,
I
wanted
to
to
fill
a sol-
know why.
into a fitful sleep.
woke up with the sun splashing across my face, feeling oddly invigorated. Someone else was dead, but not me, a sense of elation, I was to learn, common to men in the wake of battle, even as they mourn dead I
COLIN
86
POWELL
L.
comrades. Somehow, the world did not look so frightening
awareness—that
day. This
me
to get
our
many
through
way along
I
tried to
the
I
a dark night.
no
same pack.
pinned
I
my
gear.
my
captain's bars onto the front of
was a white
they had taught us at Fort Benning, latter green,
across the front.
It fit
and carried
my
blouse,
an advantage.
kidded Sink. What the
hide.
always carried a pencil and
"Memorandum" By now it was discol-
government-issue, stamped
neatly into
ored by sweat and coffee
I
I
again,
by slouching became
the Vietnamese and
VC really were after, I told him, As
my color provided
from Hieu's men.
virtually indistinguishable
—was
t
ARVN. I wore the same uniform
was color-coordinated with
notebook, the
we were ambushed ^
And, for once,
of
We packed up and started making
casualties.
blend in with the
concealed by
things will look better in the morning
the valley, and within an hour,
but, this time, suffered
in the light
stains.
my
shirt pocket.
Typical entries read:
10 Feb.: Rain. Located evacuated village; destroyed houses and lOO
K [kilos] rice, 20 K corn. Harassing fire on 3rd Co. 11 Feb.: Rain. Killed 3 buffalo, pigs, chickens. Harassing fire
from
VC. 13 Feb.: 2nd Co.
made
contact with
possible casualty, since
we
still
VC. Bloodstains
indicate cas [a
had not seen the enemy]. Cross-
bows, quiver of possible poison located vicinity of river. 18 Feb.: Sprayed 2 hec [hectares] sweet potatoes, manioc destroyed. 21 Feb.: 0910.
Ambushed,
in action]. 1610,
On
February 18,
people had fled
move.
at
i
KIA.
i i
KIA
[killed in action], i
unconfirmed VC
we came upon
a deserted
We burned down the thatched huts,
bayonets
at fields
village.
The
woman too feeble to
starting the blaze with
Ron-
ARVN troops slashed away with
of corn, onions, and manioc, a Montagnard
starch staple. Part of the crop sions, the destruction
houses destroyed.
Montagnard
our approach, except for an old
son and Zippo cigarette lighters. The their
cas. 2
WIA [wounded
we
kept for ourselves.
became more
On
later occa-
sophisticated. Helicopters deliv-
ered fifty-five-gallon drums of a chemical herbicide to us, a forerunner
From the drums, we filled two-and-a-half-gallon hand-pumped Hudson sprayers, which looked like fire extinguishers. of Agent Orange.
Take Half
"It'll
Within minutes after
we
Million
a
Men
to
*
Succeed''
87
brown and
sprayed, the plants began to turn
wither.
Why
were we torching houses and destroying crops?
Ho
Chi Minh
had said the people were like the sea in which his guerrillas swam. Our
problem was
swimming
to distinguish friendly or at least neutral fish
alongside.
We
from the
VC
problem by making the
tried to solve the
whole sea uninhabitable. In the hard logic of war, what difference did
make
you shot your enemy or starved him
if
Montagnards, caught in the middle, with
were forced
why
on the South Vietnamese
to rely
nomadic people were
these
living
As
to death?
their crops
for the poor
and huts ruined, they
for food.
on the dole
it
at
That explained
base camps like
A
Shau. The strategy was to win their hearts and minds by making them I am sure these mountain people wished ARVN, the Viet Cong, or the Americans.
dependent on the government. they had never heard of the
However
homes and crops reads
chilling this destruction of
print today, as a
wisdom of my
young
officer, I
superiors,
and
had been conditioned
to obey.
to believe in the
had no qualms about what we
I
were doing. This was counterinsurgency
at the cutting
the peasants' crops, thus denying food to the Viet
edge.
Hack down
Cong, who were sup-
ported by the North Vietnamese, who, in turn, were backed by
and Beijing,
who were
in cold
Moscow
our mortal enemies in the global struggle
between freedom and communism.
It all
made
sense in those days.
My notebook for Saturday, February 23, read: "Rain/Fair. Marine H-34 evac. 2 KIA; WIA; about 1235 VC delivered harassing fire." This i
terse entry ties,
covered a bad patch. The day before,
we
and the following day,
dead and wounded.
We
radioed the base
climbed up to high, level ground to give the
helicopter a quick approach in and out and to set tect the aircraft
while
we had taken casualcamp to evacuate our
it
was on
the ground.
up a perimeter
Two
to pro-
U.S. Marine helos
appeared, one circling while the other descended into the perimeter.
loaded the casualties aboard and signaled the pilot to take
Marine wearing an armored tattoos,
As
crouched
in the
vest,
no
shirt, his
off.
We
A young
bare arms covered with
doorway behind an M-60 machine gun.
the helo lifted off, the
VC, unseen
in the jungle, started firing at
it.
The
pilot
The
ARVN soldiers on the defensive perimeter began shooting into the
jungle.
I
threw on
full
power and
tried to pull the aircraft straight up.
watched in horror as I realized what was happening. The young
* COLIN
88
L
POWELL
.
Marine gunner, seeing muzzle flashes from the perimeter, assumed he
had spotted the
VC
and
faded over the ridge,
commotion.
A
I
started blazing away.
As
the drone of the helos
heard shouts and screaming.
soldier
was hunched on
the
I
headed toward the
ground holding
his right
hand, which hung from a scrap of flesh where ^bullet -had torn away his
Two other men lay dead. The Vietnamese looked at me, hurt, shocked. "Why you do this?" a noncom asked. "Why shoot us?" I had no answer. War is hell? Terrible things happen? Slowly but steadily, I wrist.
had been gaining the confidence of these men, becoming something
more than
now
this
bloody blunder had undermined
long, lonely night,
ambushed almost
got under way.
their belief in
me. During a
my worst since we had taken that first casualty, I had
trouble erasing the look of betrayal
We were
on
the Vietnamese soldiers' faces.
morning, soon after
daily, usually in the
The point squad took
the brunt of the casualties.
switched companies around, giving everybody an equal chance
blown away.
men on
And
a tourist shadowing their daily encounters with death.
I
tried repeatedly to get
the point
wear armored
Captain Hieu to have
vests.
we
We
being
at
at least the
'Armored" was something of a
misnomer. The vests were crisscrossed layers of densely woven nylon. Still,
they offered good protection.
The Vietnamese were
Hieu
small,
pointed out, and the vests were heavy and uncomfortable in the sweltering jungle.
Still, I
ing over one of his
kept badgering him. The next time
men
writhing in agony,
have the point squad use the
We seen
men die. But I had yet to
VC in
had seen men
my
notebook,
stood around.
I
"VC
fire,
cas unconfirmed."
became annoyed because
My Benning
syndrome kicked
do something. "Follow Me!" the jungle, glancing over
my
stand-
hurt. I
had
we would away at an would dutifully
see the enemy. After a firefight,
the direction of the incoming
been attacked again,
No
I
blasting
Sometimes we spotted bloodstains, and
invisible foe.
enter into
finally
vests.
had been out for nearly two months.
pursue the
we were
persuaded Hieu to
I
I
picked up a
in.
trail
I
One day the
after
ARVN
we had
troops just
Don't just stand
there,
of blood and headed into
shoulder. Suddenly,
I
realized
The
greatest
I
was
alone.
one had followed me.
"Captain,
come back!"
the
men
shouted.
could befall Hieu was to lose his American. of pig blood, a
VC
trick, the
I
shame
that
might be following a
trail
men warned me.
I
turned back.
Still, I
Take Half
"It'll
found
maddening
it
to
phantom enemy who
Million
a
Men
be ambushed, to lose
and ran and
hit
men day
if
blended
we were in
How
to betray them*^
ground gained or
did
who were
we measure
lost, just
How
89
to this
with seeming impunity,
hit again,
achieving anything.
with local peasants
day
after
never taking a stand, never giving us anything to shoot
dered
*
Succeed"
to
did
often
won-
fight foes
who
at. I
we
sympathetic or too frightened
progress? There was no front, no
endless, bloody slogging along a trail lead-
ing nowhere.
On March
We had been
i8, the rain
momentarily ceased and the day turned
under way for
and, from the head of the column,
ended
in the usual
I
an hour when
sudden incongruous
silence, but this time without the
screams and groans of our casualties. Instead, ple of
umn
fair.
enemy fire erupted, heard our return fire. The shooting
less than
I
heard laughter.
A cou-
ARVN came to me, gesturing me forward. At the head of the col-
stood a private giggling nervously.
vest with a dent
punched
He was wearing an armored
in the back, a flattened bullet
still
embedded
From his few words of English, I pieced together what had happened. He had been point man, breaking the trail nylon layering.
in the thick
When
for the column.
the firing started, he rose and turned around to
signal to the rest of the squad
where the enemy was. At
that
moment, he
took a slug in the back which, but for the vest, would almost certainly
have killed him. Vietnamese,
back on the
I
who
rise. I
lem now was
pried out the spent bullet and passed
fingered
was a leader of wisdom and
vests for all the
Toward
the
camp
of the
saw
men who wanted
at a
place called
Be Luong on
to the
stock
was
The only prob-
I
could not get
them.
end of March, our mission changed.
We were to build a new
a hill in the southeast
comer
A Shau Valley overlooking a confluence of streams. I had a chain
airlifted in,
which dazzled the Vietnamese, who had never seen one
before. Until now, they
One
foresight.
around
My
with exclamations of awe.
that during the next supply delivery,
enough
base
it
it
day, as the
bang, bang of
had used axes or dynamite
camp went
rifle fire. I
up,
I
tracked
to cut
down
trees.
kept hearing an oddly regular bang, it
down and found two
ARVN troops
methodically loading and firing clip after clip of ammunition from their
M-is into a tree. What were they doing? I wanted to know. Dynamite was too valuable, they explained. They were shooting down the tree. These moments tested an advisor's diplomatic skills. A straight U.S.
* COLIN
90
POWELL
L.
Army
chewing-out would be counterproductive. At an appropriate
point,
I
apiece.
mentioned
Captain Hieu that cartridges cost eight cents
to
Hieu thought for a moment, then
expressed an opinion with which not
commit such waste. Trees should be
always liked the
One day
The men must
cut down, not shot down.
I
have
maxim that there is no end to what you can accomplish
you don't care who gets the
if
instantly concurred.
I
and he
his eyes brightened
credit.
the resupply helo delivered, along with our rations, a blond-
haired, sturdily built artillery officer. First Lieutenant Alton
Sheek was a welcome
sight, since
he was
be
to
my
Sheek.
J.
assistant battalion
advisor and was another American to talk to in this lonely world.
was
a quiet
and
solid
man
with a reserved manner and proved to be
He
all soldier,
reliable.
Along with
fortifications at
Be Luong,
the
ARVN constructed a cozy
bunker of coconut logs for Captain Hieu, Sheek, Staff Sergeant Wesley
Atwood, who had replaced Sergeant Sink, and me. By now, Hieu and
I
As soon as he concluded that I was not an Hieu warmed to me. My Vietnamese was hm-
got along extremely well.
American
know-it-all,
but his English was good enough to sustain a conversation.
ited,
never talked about the politics of the war.
Hieu showed
knew ica,
me
food, he
I
I
each child. Hieu was especially curious about Amer-
explained the wonders of the Interstate system and fast
would exclaim, "True? True?"
friend,
and was sure he
divide.
I
I
came
same way.
felt the
was no longer excess baggage
to
I
to consider
him
had crossed a
a
good
cultural
be pampered and protected.
I
troops.
He told me that the men knew I was
new husband and about to become
a father, and they were touched that
was accepted by him and his a
We talked about our families.
pictures of his wife and five children. After a while,
his plans for
and as
We
at
such a time in
my life I was far from home,
Unfortunately, soon after the
sharing their
lot.
Be Luong base camp was finished, Hieu
got orders. His replacement was Captain Kheim, uncharacteristically big and blustery for a Vietnamese.
I felt
the loss of Hieu deeply. Besides
being a friend, he was an able leader, respected by his men. thing told
me that Kheim was going to be neither of these.
thirty years It
would
was pleasant
pass.
to
On
I
would see him
be out of the
AM radio, and at night cast.
But
I
And some-
Hieu
left,
and
again.
line of fire for a while. I carried a httle
could pick up a distant English-language broad-
Saturday night, the station played country-and-westem music.
Take Half
''It'll
a
Men
Million
Marty Robbins's "El Paso" was a big
hit at the time,
*
Succeed"
to
91
and something about
me to translate the lyrics. I told them the sad tale of the west Texas cowboy who falls in love with a Mexican girl. He goes into a bar where one of the patrons mocks melody appealed
the
down and
go deep
let
kiss
Vietnamese. They asked
Mexican, and the cowpoke shoots his tormentor. As a posse
his love for a
tracks
to the
my
in
our hero,
kills
side.
From
we hear the
tragic refrain, "I feel the bul-
out of nowhere, Fehna
A Marine captain, had
I
One
lost to
anticipation
was almost
memory, became
would stand up on
the
tire,
you boys get
a reassuring smile that said, out.
latest
was I
my
in,
batch of
anticipating
never had a
power, ready for a
at full
He was
and we would
out,
man with you know I'll get
a big, bluff
into trouble,
For a few lonely Americans wandering around in an alien
My
wilderness, this Marine represented home. his helo took
the routine,
I
never
felt
German beer blubber and
A
Shau
Valley.
to a life raft.
physically better in
looked gaunt, but was in superb condition.
baths of the
attachment to him and
on the desperation of a man clinging
However rough
it
I
closest link
was due
a father.
he would lean
shout to each other over the engine's roar.
you
that the
with the Marine, since he stayed in the cockpit high
over the troop compartment, engine running exit. I
my
my
—and
my carton of Salems, and my mail from Alma telling me that I had become
real conversation
hasty
his helo
sexual. This flier brought
paperbacks, a letter
Httle
choruses of "El Paso."
in
Every two weeks, when
I
left.
was leading them
name
his
to the world
eat
caUing.
and Felina goodbye." Every verse ended with an aye-aye-aye
Vietnamese loved. Soon
of
is
had
I
my
lost twenty-five
hfe.
I
pounds
Fort Devens cheeseburger fat in the steam-
And
rice starts to agree with
At
three times a day, twenty-one times a week.
blobs had repelled me. In time,
I
became
you when you
first,
the glutinous
quite fond of rice dishes of
Our dining followed a pattern. The menu was hearty the first a resupply, when we had fresh vegetables, meat on the hoof,
every kind.
days after
and poultry on the run. The animals were slaughtered and the meat cut into small pieces,
cooked
in pots,
and stored
ammunition cans
in
greasy from the Cosmoline coating on the inside. ing printed on them:
"Do
fine. Either this diet
health or something
is
lurking
somewhere
destroy me. After a few days, the meat
and the
last
a warn-
not use as food container." After a while, pork
au Cosmoline tasted
bles,
The cans had
still
explains in
my
would run
few days before resupply we
my
present good
system waiting
to
out, then the vegeta-
lived
on
rice alone. If the
92
* COLIN
rice ran out, the
POWELL
L.
The Vietnamese would endure almost any deprivation. They would not move without it. Rice
war was
hardship except rice
over.
nourished the Oriental body and
empty,
I
and when the
spirit,
rice sacks
started scanning the terrain nervously for a landing
our Marine savior could deliver the next shipment.
began
to
zone where
•
My only diversions were writing letters and reading. I recorded in my notebook everything
that
McCullers's The Heart
I
read, Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night,
a Lonely Hunter, Hersey's The Child Buyer,
Is
Stegner's Shooting Star, Ryan's The Longest Day, and enough pulp
whodunits
During March, patrolling.
bookshelves of a half-dozen motel
to stack the
I
was
to report the
I
had a temporary
called to
from the camp and
respite
Quang Tri, our regimental headquarters. I was
2d Battalion's progress and
to learn the latest strategic
fashions concocted by Secretary of Defense Robert kids back at the Pentagon.
not even Saigon, but
Quang
was not
Tri
meant the
it
Tri, the
George B.
advisor to the entire
My
Price, a bold, brassy
late—he never stopped
guy going
He
places.
genetically. George's sister
became another mentor
in
was
my
was generous
it
was
American faces and
American superior
at
3d Regiment, was Major
powerful, athletic, and articu-
Army
parlance, he
came by
was
a "burner," a
his theatricahty
and voice
He
the opera star Leontyne Price.
career, a black officer,
who was making
ation ahead of me,
general) and
tall,
talking. In
evidently
home,
guy with a booming voice and near-
was
lethal self-confidence. Price
ARVN
McNamara's whiz
quite going
familiarity of
voices and not being shot at for a while.
Quang
offices.
it
one career gener-
himself (he retired as a brigadier
younger blacks along the way.
in helping
On this visit, I became acquainted with the latest Pentagon theory, the "oil slick."
By
securing one hamlet,
we would
generate security in
neighboring hamlets, a benign slick spreading stability to areas threat-
ened by the VC. What Tri,
me
to the officers'
remember most about those few days
namese
citizenship,
was counting
father
and when
mess
for a real
By now,
pancakes, cereal.
I
I
in
Quang
however, was not fashionable strategies, but George Price taking
and
the days I
however,
this rich
—
American breakfast
my
eggs, bacon,
stomach had taken out Viet-
American
diet
made me
on two timetables, when
I
sick.
,
would become a
would go home. The tape recorders Alma and
I
had
gotten for Christmas had proved inconvenient and inadequate for
Take Half
It'll
Men
Million
a
to
expressing our feelings.
We
had
What Alma
me
in her letters, thinking that
trouble,
did not
was
tell
the race situation
back on timeless
fallen
^
Succeed"
93
letter writing.
had enough
I
back home. The Pittsburgh Courier, a
black weekly, had designated Birmingham the "worst big city in the
U.S.A." The honor was not bestowed
lightly.
While
was
I
Vietnam,
in
bombing of black neighborhoods
there occurred the eighteenth
in Bir-
mingham ("Bombingham," as blacks then called it). While I was fighting the VC, a young Baptist minister, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had been arrested for leading a protest march on Birmingham's city
which he issued a document arousing America's conscience,
after
famous "Letter from a Birmingham
Jail."
Shau Valley
my
for conmiunists, R.C.,
shotgun across his
lap,
and pleaded with her all this. Little
While
knew
never
I
to get out of
news penetrated
home
that
my
A
was
his
patrolling the
up
A
nights, a
against fellow Amerifolks
had called Alma
knew almost nothing Shau Valley, and Alma wanted
Birmingham. the
I
father-in-law, sat
ready to defend his
cans of a different color.
of
hall,
I
me with her love, not alarm me with her concerns. my impending fatherhood. Alma and I had worked out a sigWhen the baby arrived, she was to write me and print on the enve-
her letters to support
As nal.
for
lope "Baby Letter."
Quang Tri
to
I
had already asked regimental headquarters
be on the lookout for
contents to
me
arrival of a
new, innocent
own I
life
had
the minute
seem more
lost
and
to
open
my own
survival
men and did not know how
man who
and radio the
Something about the imminent
more
made my
critical.
Kheim
failed to
to use advisors. I discussed
problem with Alton Sheek. Kheim was a kind of
knew, an insecure
it
the midst of this small hell
confidence in Hieu's replacement. Captain
connect with his the
arrived.
it
life in
valuable,
this letter
at
officer
we
both
expressed his authority by barking foolish
orders rather than exercising sound judgment.
On April
3, 1
was
in
my Be Luong bunker stretched out on a bamboo
shelf bed, trying to read a paperback
the
by candleUght. Sheek was out with
men, and Kheim was asleep. In the distance I heard the crump of mor-
tar fire
and went outside
to see
trying to drop a calling card right yet.
it
was coming from. The
VC were
on the new camp, but did not have the address
The rounds were exploding
in the jungle, missing us widely.
Kheim came bounding out of the bunker and gave the order fire. I told him that this response might not be wise. We were
Captain to return
where
* COLIN
94 on a
hilltop.
We
POWELL
L.
had cleared the surrounding
reveal our exposed position.
They were not
they could not see any better in the dark than doctrine called for returning
and our
trees,
hitting us,
we could. No, Kheim said,
fire.
Out went a few rounds. Within a minute, a huge white
my head.
about twenty feet above
because
said,
I
would
fire
Instinctively,
flash exploded
hit the dirt
I
and scram-
bled back into the bunker before the next mortar round could find us.
checked myself. moaning, and
I
I
was
went back
The next morning,
I
but outside,
all right,
I
I
could hear shouts and
to help.
saw exactly what had happened. The VC round
had struck a branch of a
tree that
had scattered
and right of me, wounding a half-dozen men
on
to the left
either side, but leaving
me
I
had been standing under. Shrapnel
unscathed. If the round had not hit the
it would have hit me, and I almost certainly would have been The men wounded in this attack included Kheim, who, by his rashness, had acted as the VC's spotter. His leg wound was just serious enough that he had to be evacuated and replaced, no great loss to
branch, killed.
the profession of arms.
capable
officer,
Kheim was succeeded by Captain Quang,
though he was
a
a bit reserved toward his advisors.
I
admired Quang, but we never struck friendly sparks the way Vo Cong
Hieu and
I
The day
had. after the
mortar attack a resupply helicopter hovered into
view over the camp. In the mail was a myself under a way,"
tree
letter
from
and read the usual family
my
mother.
chitchat.
I
planted
"Oh, by the
Mom had written, '*we are absolutely delighted about the baby."
What baby? What had happened to the baby letter? Was Alma all right? Was it a boy or a girl? I had the radio operator raise the base camp on the ancient AN/GRC-9, and we managed to get patched through to Quang Tri. The letter had suffered from something not unheard of in The envelope,
military operations, a failure of communication.
marked, was
sitting in a stack
read now,''
told the radio operator,
I
of undelivered mail. 'Tell them
and
early arrival of Michael Kevin Powell,
Holy Family Catholic Hospital after
in
that
was how
bom March
I
I
clearly
want
it
learned of the
23, 1963, in the
Birmingham. He was reverse-named
Kevin Michael Schwar, one of the sons of our Fort Bragg Samari-
tans, Joe
and Pat Schwar.
My emotions
at this
time were an odd mixture
healthy son and a strong wife; bewilderment as
I
—
I
had a
looked around
at the
elation that
Take Half
"It'll
alien
world
which
in
had come so close
A
father.
new
me; and a nagging
home was depending on me,
wanted desperately
I
to
95
Succeed"
to
being killed, to never knowing
to
family back
person.
had happened
this
Men
Million
a
anxiety.
I
had become a
I
including a small
to see this child.
I
had
to
make
it
through the year.
Quang was soldier.
technically the battalion
But since
was senior
I
was a
ARVN
army, the
in terms of service with the unit
men, something curious began
the confidence of the
sergeant major
commander, and he was a good
equivalent of tough old Sergeant
He trusted me, and we began playing
pretending
was not
I
abhors a vacuum.
The ARVN to train.
said. I drilled
speed. it
The
them
helicopter
to
be an advisor, not the
in quiet collusion. Leadership,
And I had been drawn
on how
to
was vulnerable.
in to
fill
a void.
it
landed and
I
unload a helicopter. The key was
It
drew
The quickest way was
the aircraft as soon as
start
fire.
for
We needed to unload
two men
to
jump
inside
throwing out the cargo. The
of the squad should form a line from the helo into the jungle, pass-
rest
ing the supplies from
man to man,
them under cover of the the
in
me
They smiled, nodded, and often ignored what
for hours
as fast as possible.
game, with
were courageous and willing but not always easy
soldiers
instructed.
I
was supposed
two of us were
leader. Nevertheless, the like nature,
I
Edwards back
little
major pretending he was not
in charge, the sergeant
taking orders directly from me.
a
happen. The
French colonial
lean, leathery veteran of the
Gelnhausen.
to
and had
dirt,
and we
Others form
The next
trees. I
drilled again
line.
bucket-brigade style, and stockpiling
scratched an outline of a helicopter into
and again. Aircraft lands.
Two men inside.
Pass supplies. Over and over.
day, a resupply helicopter put
down
inside our perimeter.
I
gave the unloading crew the signal, and the whole squad raced for the
doorway,
all
trying to climb inside the aircraft at once.
uncomplaining as got
It
I
began
them
all
over again, and
finally,
they
it.
was a hot afternoon
saw
drilling
They were
grass, sweating
in
May.
We
and slapping
were on patrol wading through the at insects,
when
the puttering of an
L-19 "Bird Dog" observation plane sounded overhead. The
pilot
radioed that he had special-delivery airmail for me, which soon
came
swaying
to earth at the
end of a big yellow handkerchief.
drop zone and found a box
full
I
ran to the
of Reese's peanut butter cups. At the bot-
* COLIN
96
POWELL
L.
box was an envelope marked "Baby
torn of the
and a photograph
fell out.
What
it
open,
A puffy red face peered out at me with all the
wonder of someone who has spent one day on like?
Letter." I tore
did he look like?
I
could not
earth.
Who
did he look
much, but he was
tell
real,
and
he was mine. Welcome, Michael Powell. THe VieCnamese crowded around, clucking and smiling.
my breast pocket and Later that May,
back
had another brief
I
headquartered.
was
I
cer, since,
assuming
Army had
to assign
to
capital
was struck by
aura.
to the
st
i
it
field,
I
ARVN
went
was
into
called
Division was
meet with an Infantry Branch assignments
came through the A Shau Valley me somewhere else after my tour.
from the
feels
Then
from combat.
respite
I
directly I
see the photo.
stayed there.
Hue, where the advisory group
to
fume
them
I let
and as
we approached
in I
one piece, the
helicoptered in
the ancient
the beauty of the city, with
its
offi-
Vietnamese
shimmering Per-
landmark Citadel, and the charming French colonial
River, the
Once on the ground, I experienced what every combat veteran when he is suddenly yanked to the rear the unnatural cleanHness,
—
the illusion of order, the abnormally
normal sounds, the incongruity
my M-2 slung over my shoulder and a hand grenade and knife dangling from my belt, and my boots still carried the mud of the A Shau Valley. I had not between where
was compared
I
to
where
I
had been.
bathed for a month, except for a quick splash in a stream.
had
I
My underwear
was a shade of yellow-gray and almost eaten through by sweat. I headed first
for the officers'
mess
dressed staff types looked
doing here?
And
maybe you've
I
queasy, longing for
checked
in
I
I
I
into a steak
felt sick. I left the
know why I'm and french
mess
here.
fries,
But
drank a
hall feeling lethargic,
my rice balls.
with a Lieutenant Colonel Spears, the assignments
infantry
had
offi-
By now I had been in the Army almost five
had about seven more months
know what the
what do you think you're
as if to say,
waded
cer, at division headquarters.
years.
me
at
American meal. There the neatly
returned a look that said,
forgotten.
milk shake, and again
I
for an
in
to pull in
mind next.
Vietnam.
I
In those days, the
was eager
to
Army had an
ingenious system for ranking officers in merit order. The key was a number arrived at by assigning points to factors in our efficiency reports. The colonel thumbed through "Infantry Officers
my
personnel
file,
looked up, and
Advanced Course, Fort Benning, Powell."
said,
Take Half
It'll
was
I
Men
Million
a
to
"I'm barely out of the basic course,"
surprised.
"Doesn't matter," he answered.
97
Succeed"
said.
I
He had that magic number in
front of
him, which he was not about to divulge. But he did say, "Don't be surprised
if
you get an early promotion
to major."
had been a captain for only seven months, and
I
oak
talking about an
my stomach,
I
ror of the past
leaf. In spite
walked out of that
this
guy was already
of the cannonball roUing around in
on
office
months and the months
to
air.
All the hardship and hor-
come seemed somehow more
bearable.
Back
in
the
A
Shau
Valley,
my
notebook entries resumed
their
monotony:
May, Thurs. Contact 0810. 3
16
destroyed, 3 hec manioc,
i
hec
17 May, Fri. ist Co. contact 161 5
The
entry for
May
18
WIA
VC
grenade. 2 houses
by hand.
rice, i
by
KIA.
is significant.
"Contact 0805.
VC
i
KIA.
." .
.
We had been patrolling a gorge fed by a rushing stream that covered up
VC before they spotted We nailed them. A hail of fire
our noise. For once, our point squad spotted the us.
For once,
we
did the ambushing.
dropped several VC, and the
man
rest fled.
lay motionless on the ground, the
We
first
approached gingerly. One
dead Viet Cong
that
I
could
we had killed. He lay on his back, gazing up at us with sightless eyes. The man was slightly built, had coarse, nut-brown features, and wore the flimsy black short-legged outfit we called pajamas. My gaze fixed on his feet. He was wearing sandals cut from an old definitely confirm
tire,
a strip of the sidewall serving as the thong. This
unseen enemy.
much
I felt
The
theirs.
had seen too
first
We took the wounded VCs prisoner and left.
confirmed
kill
ARVN. The numbers game, into use.
produced a boost later
in
morale among the
termed the "body count," had not yet
But the Vietnamese had already figured out what the
They were forever "proving" kills to me by patch of blood leading from an abandoned weapon or other circum-
Americans wanted a
I
death and suffering on our side to care anything about what hap-
pened on
come
was our fearsome
nothing, certainly not sympathy.
stantial evidence.
to hear.
Not good enough,
a grisly game, and a
I
told them.
I
became
the referee in
VC KIA required a VC body. No body, no credit.
* COLIN
98
Soon
POWELL
L.
Vietnamese lieutenant came
after the first sure kill, a
excitedly reporting another sure KIA.
dangerous," he replied.
I
repeated the
show you. Half an hour
say, I'll
handkerchief.
opened
I
it
That night around the campfire, ers
I
he returned and handed
at a pair
parts.
me
a
of freshly cut ears.
sunmioned the company command-
and senior noncoms. The rules needed refinement.
whole body, not component
me
"Show me," I said. "Too far, too rule. He shook his finger as if to
later,
and gaped
to
No
ears.
A
And no more
kill
meant a
mufilation of
the enemy.
July 23. Six months in the boonies and, at
a break.
We
had orders
A
east out of the
resumed the
Shau Valley
I felt
deep.
my
I
a sharp sting.
had stepped
boot into
my
toward the camp,
to a
one morning along a creek
late
and
directly over us,
I
had moved up toward
Suddenly
and the spike had pierced through
into a punji trap,
foot. still
getting
my right leg went out from under me I yanked my foot out of a small hole about a foot
the head of the column.
and
was
Be Luong base camp and proceed Special Forces camp for a rest. We
and were marching
trail
the battalion
to leave the
The sun was shining
bed.
last,
I
cursed
my
stupidity
and continued hmping
a couple of hours away. If anything,
embarrassment than pain and did not want
to let the
I felt
more
Vietnamese know
what had happened. I
had not gone for twenty minutes, however, when the pain became
excruciating.
I
found a branch
staggered the last mile, barely making
medic did not bother trying look
to unlace
it.
In the
the sole clear through the top of
camp, the American
spike had passed from
my instep. My foot was hugely swollen
and had turned purple as the poison from the dung spread. the
wound, and
On my me.
I
I
arrival,
had never
me
treated
like
was soon laid eyes
up
letter.
Dog
headed for Hue. pilot.
He was
a
Jack Dunlap, took charge of
the one, he told me,
Dunlap made sure
in the bachelor officers' quarters,
wound by
that
I
it
where a doctor cleaned the
memorable procedure. He shoved a
back and forth through
my
who had
got to a dispensary
treated fabric called
iodoform gauze into the bottom of the wound, pulled
and ran
He bandaged
on the man, though Dunlap inmiediately
an old friend.
delivered the baby set
airborne,
an L- 1 9 Bird
I
my boot but cut it off. He took one
wound and called for a helicopter. The
at the
and kept moving.
to use as a crutch
it
through the top,
foot like a shoeshine rag.
I
was
Take Half
''It'll
sure
was going
I
to faint with the pain, as
me
Afterward the doctor pumped
room I
in the
Men
Million
a
full
*
Succeed"
to
99
squeezed Dunlap's hand.
I
of antibiotics and put
me
in a
BOQ.
recovered quickly, but
my
days as a
were
field advisor
over.
I
had
too few months left to rejoin the battalion. In the seven months served,
I
was
the unit's thirty-fourth casualty
twenty-seven wounded.
It
would be dishonest
—
I
seven killed and
to say
hated to leave
I
combat. Hardship and death are easily abandoned companions. But by the time
I
but name.
was I
injured,
had become the battalion commander
I
had taken the same
eaten from the
same pots
risks, slept
as these
on the same ground, and
men and had
spilled
my
blood with
them. Challenges shared on Georgia cliffsides had bonded
own
kind. Shared death, terror,
ley linked verse.
me
I left
and small triumphs
just as closely to
men
with
in all
whom
I
in the
me
to
my
A Shau Val-
could barely con-
my comrades of the
2d Battalion with more than a tinge of
Army from
pushing the buttons that automatically
regret. I
tried to stop the
advise the next of kin
when
stepped on a sharp
not a land mine, and
stick,
a soldier
is
killed or I
wounded.
did not want
I
had
my family
unnecessarily alarmed. But the wheels of bureaucracy grind relentlessly. Notification that I
to both
Alma, who took
had suffered a minor wound went by telegram
it
calmly, and Pop,
who was
sure the
Army was
holding back the worst. Matters were not helped by a practice of the
South Vietnamese ruling family. bachelor President
Diem
Madame Nhu,
—she was
the wife of his brother
Nhu, who was head of the secret police "first lady."
—acted
as
Ngo Dinh
South Vietnam's
GI was killed or wounded, Madame Nhu sent man's family. Her message had a curious tone. It seemed
Whenever
a letter to the
sister-in-law of the
to say, sorry, but
a
you should know the
American GIs referred
to
sacrifices
Madame Nhu
our people are making.
as the
Dragon Lady, a
title
richly deserved.
Since
I
was out of
action, I
was reassigned
to
i
headquarters as an assistant advisor on the operations the officers' mess,
George
Price,
I
staff.
heard a familiar booming voice.
now promoted
ning) advisor to the ist
to a
ARVN
sured working with George. closely, since
ARVN
st
One day
in
turned to see
key job, G-3 (operations and plan-
Division and
He
I
Division
still
my new
boss.
talked nonstop, but
what he said usually made sense.
I felt
I
reas-
listened
^ COLIN
100
POWELL
L.
And much of what I observed at headquarters badly needed explaining. When I left the A Shau Valley, I shifted from a worm's-eye to a bird's-eye view of the war, and the
new vantage
point
was not comfort-
One of my assignments was to feed data to a division intelligence officer who was trying to predict when mortar attacks were most likely to occur. He worked behind a green door marked "No Entry" doing ing.
something called "regression analysis." but not me.
was not cleared
I
My
data got through the door,
One
to enter.
day, the officer finally
emerged. There were, he reported, periods when increased levels of mortar that?
By
fire
we
could predict
with considerable certainty.
When was
moon. Well, knock me over with a
the dark of the
rice ball.
Weeks of statistical analysis had taught this guy what any ARVN private could have told him in five seconds. It is more dangerous out there when it
dark.
is
The infantryman same
terrain,
in the
ambushed
boondocks, slogging back and forth over the
daily, taking casualties
from an enemy who
melts away, wonders, understandably, what good he
He
is
accomplishing.
seeks comfort in assuming that while he might not know, up there
somewhere, wiser heads have the answer. ters staff
exploded that assumption.
nation on earth.
We
My
service
on the headquar-
were the most sophisticated
We were putting our superior technology in the service thinkers, like my intelligence officer behind the
ARVN. Deep
of the
green door, were producing printouts,
filling spreadsheets,
crunching
numbers, and coming out with blinding flashes of the obvious, while an
enemy
in black
pajamas and Firestone
flip-flops
of the war with a piece of bamboo dipped in In the jungle
we
carried only
could put an officer out
manure.
what proved useful or hfe-saving. Yet
at
Hue, every helicopter crew chief sported a big knife with a carved handle
and a gleaming blade, ideal for reflecting the sun and giving away
one's position. Eighteen-year-old truck drivers hauling trash to the divi-
dump wore tooled shoulder holsters custom-made by leatherworkin Hue, who must have been getting rich on this sucker trade. I
sion ers
saw guys carrying six-guns
into
mess
cowboy-style, on the back of their belts. a sudden firefight? That didn't matter.
back.
It
was
STRAC
all
first
How did they expect to load in ammo looked sharper in the
The
over again.
This kind of behavior was just
my
halls with the bullets arrayed,
silly.
What seriously disturbed me was
exposure to the upper ranks of the Vietnamese military com-
Take Half
"It'll
mand. Most
officers
Million
and noncoms
The
able professionals.
a
in
my
Men
battalion
way
his
to
I
foot soldiers were brave and uncomplaining.
One such
becoming chief of
to increase
was Nguyen Cao Ky, on
rising rocket
the South Vietnamese air force at age
The flamboyant Ky, with
thirty-two.
10
had been dedicated,
But incompetence, corruption, and flashy uniforms seemed in direct ratio to rank.
*
Succeed"
to
his pencil
mustache and dark sun-
glasses, his pearl-handled, chrome-plated revolver, his scarf trailing
from and
his black flying suit, fought the
in
war with equal panache
in the air
I
wondered, for
whom
I
found service
in the
enjoyed a certain
status.
Saigon nightclubs. Were these the people,
ARVN grunts were dying in the A Shau Valley? I
must admit
that
rear pleasant.
And Hue,
As
with
a
its
my
having paid
combat dues,
wounded combat
veteran,
good
delicate beauty,
I
restaurants,
and diversions for
the troops,
was no hardship post. Even The barber not only trimmed my
a trip to the barbershop
treat.
hair but
from
my
regain ing
scalp, neck,
some of
and shoulders with
skilled hands.
A
the weight sweated off in the
Vietnamese beer.
And
I
tried to
I
started to
Shau Valley by
my digestive tract for steaks and Ba Muoi Ba,
ular
was a
massaged the tension retool-
''Number 33," a pop-
keep the weight down by playing
Softball.
Soon
after
I
joined the headquarters
and recreation. For some GIs,
rest
staff, I
flew to
R and R in this
for
indulgent city meant
Hong Kong meant
wall-to-wall sex. For others.
Hong Kong
a shopping spree.
I
picked up the mandatory custom-made shoes ($10 a pair) and tailored suits ($30)
Mikimoto I
and the lowest-priced stereo
pearls, a silk dress,
was broke and back There
my
I
career.
Hue
in
in the world. I
and a bolt of
silk cloth.
bought Alma
Within four days
Hue.
received another of the offbeat assignments that had marked
As an
additional duty,
I
was assigned
as
commander of
the
Citadel airfield, which handled C-7 Caribou transports, L-19S, and
One cocky pilot clearly resented that a nonaviator airfield. He challenged me one day to go up for a spin
other small aircraft.
was running in his
his
Bird Dog.
became
My ego was on the line,
clear that this hotshot
was
trying to
out of the L-19 as he performed barrel
nauseating aerial capers.
I
so
thought that
I
I
accepted.
dump me
It
or
immediately
my
rolls, vertical dives,
was going
out of sheer spite. Finally, as he leveled
off, I
stomach
and other
to die, but refused to
looked
down and was
^ COLIN
102
POWELL
L.
shocked to see an unfamiliar landmark, a railroad track running on top of an embankment.
did not
I
remember any such
"You know where we are?"
feature in our area.
shouted.
I
"A little north of Quang Tri," my pilot announced confidently. "You damn fool " I hollered through the howhng Wind, "turn
this
thing south and get us out of here. We're over North Vietnam!" It
turned out
puffed-up
I
was
right.
After dealing with intelligence wizards and
began developing another
pilots, I
experts and elites. Experts often possess Elites can
become
to death as
who
so inbred that they produce hemophiliacs
soon as they are nicked by the
On November
rule: don't be buffaloed by more data than judgment.
i, I
was back
real world.
my
in Saigon,
bleed
tour over.
I
had
to
be pro-
cessed out and would soon be headed home. South Vietnam, at the time,
was
in turmoil. President
to suppress
and Buddhist demonstrations against
dhist ceremonies stark photograph
Diem, a Cathohc, was trying
had shocked the world: a Buddhist
Bud-
his regime.
A
priest sitting cross-
legged in a Saigon intersection had poured gasoline over himself,
lit
a
match, and burned to death without moving a muscle, to protest the
Diem
regime. In August, while
I
was
still
in
Hue, the
city
had been
placed under martial law, and American forces were confined to quarters.
About a week
later.
President
Diem had
put the whole country
under martial law.
As I rode
out to Tan Son Nhut Airport this day to ship
my gear home,
something more serious was evidently under way. The Presidential Palace was shot up, and the streets were empty, except for troops in personnel carriers.
I
had arrived
in
Saigon
in the
middle of a coup.
A cabal
of South Vietnamese generals had just overthrown the government and
had executed President Diem and police chief. At age twenty-six, into ter,
what was happening.
I
I
his brother,
Ngo Dinh Nhu,
had no penetrating
thought like a soldier
the secret
political insights
who knew
his perime-
and not much more. To me, the coup was just another baffling facet
of this strange land. In spite of the early,
because
most recent upheaval,
I
we were supposedly doing
was being
sent
home
so well in Vietnam.
a
month
The num-
ber of American advisors had actually dropped slightly from a high of
16,600 to 16,300. The McNamara-era analytic measurements that were to
dominate American thinking about Vietnam were just coming into
Take Half
We
vogue.
around
a militia to guard
it,
Cong
not been killed by the Viet
Be Luong base camp.
the
South Vietnam.
.
.
and
A
nessed in the
103
had a certain number of
it
and a village chief who had
it,
weeks. While
in the last three
McNamara had made
Secretary
"shows
we
that
has meaning. Measure
it
*
Succeed"
to
I
was
in
a visit to
every quantitative measure," he concluded after
forty-eight hours there, it
when
rated a hamlet as "secure"
feet of fence
Men
Million
a
and
it
are winning the war."
nothing
real. Yet,
it is
I
Measure had wit-
Shau Valley indicated we were beating the Viet Cong.
Beating them? Most of the time
we
commandos had devised
mara' s slide-rule
McNa-
could not even find them.
precise indices to measure
the unmeasurable.
The Army's
attitude
seemed
to be, don't question those
better, including these slide-rule prodigies. If it is,
and maybe
will fix itself.
it
Germany had been shipped
spiracy of illusion
would reach
full
did
I
had
first
Vietnam. This con-
to
we
search-and-sweep nonsense,
which we knew was nonsense, even
as
it.
And, slowly
at first,
American
names began showing up among
the
dies to die in Vietnam, but not the Still,
few people
in
dead—Jim
in Korea,
compared
movement I
of
Lee, with
my
whom
I
had
Pershing Rifles bud-
last.
16,300 in Vietnam.
in
Europe and 49,000
And there was no antiwar
my
misgivings,
I
was leaving
the country
still
a true
had experienced disappointment, not disillusionment. that
it
was
right to help
independent, and right to draw the line against in the world.
in
back-burner issue. At the
strictly a
had 252,000 Army troops
to the
remained convinced
spite of
mount. Famihar
speak of in 1963.
to
In spite of believer.
first
to
America knew or cared what was happening
faraway country. Vietnam was
time, the United States
began
casualties
served in Gelnhausen; Alan Pasco, the
that
that
flower in the years ahead, as
to the secure-hamlet nonsense, the
the body-count nonsense, all of
we
working, pretend
The flabby thinking
witnessed in West
added
ain't
it
who know
The ends were justified, even
if the
I
South Vietnam remain
communism anywhere means were flawed.
In
what Secretary McNamara had found, the mission was simply
bigger and tougher than
we had
ing with the intelligence
staff,
had been
in the field,
out of thin
air. "It'll
anticipated.
I
I
was
at
an analyst had asked me, as
what the job was going
take,"
While
Hue worka guy who
to take. I pulled a
said, "half a million
men
number
to succeed."
* COLIN
104
I
was
L.
POWELL
sitting in the airport in Nashville,
Tennessee, thumbing through a
magazine while waiting for an afternoon noticed people clustering around a strange silence.
been
in
The
date
TV
was November
Vietnam on the day
flight to
Birmingham, when
I
set in the lounge, staring in a
22.
Thfee we^ks before,
that that country's president
I
had
had been assas-
sinated and the government overturned. This afternoon, the President of
my
country had been murdered.
And
while
I
the
freedom of foreigners, four
little
black
girls
bomb
had been off fighting for had been
killed
planted in Birmingham's i6th Street Baptist Church.
returned home,
it
seemed, to a world turned upside down.
I
by a had
1
V
e
5 Coming Home
ONE OF NORMAN ROCKWELL'S CLASSIC PAINTINGS GI, a Saturday II.
The young
Evening Post cover
soldier, duffel
bag
that
IS
CALLED HOMECOMING
appeared just after World
in hand, has just arrived
back
War
at the
old
neighborhood; his family runs out to greet him, including the dog; a pretty girl waits
demurely around the comer; grinning neighbors lean
out of doorways and windows; kids
coming home
the conquering hero. That
back from Vietnam
As for
I
wave
at is
him from up in a tree, welnot the way it was coming
in 1963.
stepped out of the Birmingham airport, one person was waiting
me. She looked beautiful and vaguely
familiar.
When two
people
have known each other for only a year, and are separated for another year, they are,
Alma
in
my
even
man and
wife, something of strangers.
arms, the strangeness began to dissolve, though
she was thinking,
my
if
who
is this
guy?
Do
I
really
As I
know him? We
I
took
am
sure
got into
old blue Beetle, another familiar sensation, and headed for her par-
* COLIN
106
new home
ents'
POWELL
L.
in a north
Birmingham area
called Tarrant City.
was
It
dusk when we pulled up and parked behind the house. Alma urged
go on ahead toward a large
to
me
My
in-laws, for the
this encouirter fof
months. Behind
sliding glass door.
moment, were keeping out of sight. had been preparing myself for
I
the glass door
open, and a at
I
saw, in the soft light of a lamp, a playpen.
little
me, wide-eyed, tousled curls piled on top of a red suit.
kill in
He
the door
I slid
eight-month-old person, clinging to the bars, stared up
picked him up. "Hi, Mike,"
I
his I
head and dressed
"Fm
said.
looked bewildered and kept gazing around for Alma.
almost every man's
life.
The
Now
eternal triangle.
it
to
your pop!"
happens
in
was happening
to
It
Michael Powell. I
had a homecoming
feast with
Alma and her folks,
while the baby continued to gape
came time
to put
Mike
to bed, the
at
me from
little tot
was
R.C. and Mildred,
When
his high chair.
in for another shock.
it
He
Mom. Now he was dispatched to a crib. The next came down to breakfast. Mike was happily cooing in the high
had been sleeping with morning,
I
chair, until
he saw me. This guy
A
he's never going?
is still
here?
disturbing thought.
When
Over
started to thaw. This big person fusses over
Maybe it
he's not so bad, though
would remain
Next
stop,
I
for a time, until stranger
Elmira Avenue
While we were
there,
Queens
in
Maybe
he going?
the next
me.
certainly prefer
is
He
few days, he
plays with me.
Mom. And
that is
how
and boy became father and son.
for Christmas with
Mike came down with
Mom and Pop.
a hoarse, racking cough.
We rushed him to the nearest mihtary facility, the St. Albans Naval Hospital, near my parents' home. The young Navy doctor who saw us seemed
to
have had about as
elevated what
we
much
experience with babies as
thought was a cough to a
crisis.
I
did.
He
Mike had an acute
case of the croup, the doctor said, and he put Mike in a crib under an
oxygen
tent.
He
placed an emergency tracheotomy kit at Mike's bed-
side and asked permission to use
mally.
What
did that
the child's throat
going to cut open
was
mean?
and
if
wanted
the
to
baby stopped breathing nor-
know. He would have
insert a tube, the doctor explained.
to incise
They were
my little boy? The jungle warrior turned to jelly. Alma
distressed too, but
tions.
I
it
She explained
never seen a bottle.
managed
to stay
calm and ask
to the doctor that the
How
baby was
intelligent ques-
still
nursing; he had
would he be fed? The doctor suggested
we go
Coming Home
home and relax. We
I
failed miserably at the latter.
I
We raced back to the hospital at the crack of dawn, and
could not sleep.
up
there, sitting
did the former, and
107
'A
milk from a
in the crib, guzzling
bottle, sat little
Mike,
weaned, apparently free of the croup, and smiling.
I
was standing on
feet,
open ramp of a cargo plane,
the
me
terror gripping
once more.
I
twelve hundred
at
my back, the old
eyes shut, wind buffeting me, a T-io parachute on
had already jumped
five times before
during airborne training and had no desire to toy with gravity again. Yet off
I
I
went, into the wild blue yonder.
had been assigned from Vietnam
was known, would not begin
months
off.
To
fill
Benning, Georgia, to attend
Advanced Course. However,
the Infantry Officers it
to Fort
until
part of the time, the
the "career course," as
August 1964,
still
Army had dispatched me to a one-
month-long Pathfinder course, advanced airborne Ranger
On my live.
began
arrival, I
was
I
Alma and
the
set out to find a place for
needed
unfil then, I
was limited
baby were
to black
ble to the Johnsons'
couraging
to join
me. Fort Bragg
all
off-
over again.
Columbus
area.
But
neighborhoods, and nothing remotely compara-
home
in
met a black
start, I
my family to
something
to find
Plenty of housing available for white officers in the I
training.
government housing when the career course
summer. But
in the
post, if
immediately
entitled to
almost eight
Birmingham was real estate agent
available. After a dis-
who
offered
me
a house
belonging to a Bapfist minister in Phenix City, across the border in
Alabama.
I
was wary. Phenix City was rough, a
sin
town
that the
National Guard had been sent in to clean out a few years before. The minister's house
the house itself
Still, I
was located on a back
grabbed
it
for
was a
I
roomed
new
place in shape for
gry,
I
among
a
bunch of shacks.
solid brick rambler with a yard for the baby.
$85 a month, grateful
In the meantime,
road,
at the
to find anything suitable.
Fort Benning
Alma and Mike. One
BOQ while I got the
night, exhausted
approached a drive-in hamburger joint on Victory Drive, okay,
pulled
and hun-
locked up the house and headed back toward the post.
I
know
in,
and
they won't serve
"No,"
I
inside, so I'll just
after a small eternity, a waitress
"A hamburger, She looked
me
please,"
at
said.
I
came
to
I
I
thought,
park outside.
I
my car window.
said.
me uneasily.
As
"Are you Puerto Rican?" she asked.
* COLIN
108
POWELL
L.
"Are you an African student?" She seemed genuinely trying to be helpful.
"No,"
I
"Fm a Negro. Fm an American. And Fm an Army
answered.
officer."
"Look,
Fm
New
from
"and
Jersey," the waitress said,
But they won't
understand any of
this.
you go behind the
restaurant,
FU
and
let
me
serve you.
I
Why
don't don't
pass you a hamburger out the
back window." Something snapped.
"Fm
not that hungry,"
I
said,
burning rubber as
As I drove away, I could see the faces of the owner and his customers in the restaurant windows enjoying this little exercise in I
backed
out.
humiliation. this
My
emotional reaction, or
way, was not
my
at least revealing
was not marching, demonstrating, or taking on an Army career for myself and a good world began on the post.
real
South as healthy
part in sit-ins.
life for
emotions
for trouble.
I
My eye was
my family. For me, the
regarded military installations in the
an otherwise sick body.
If I hurried,
I
could get
snack bar or the officers' club before closing and be served, just
to the like
cells in
I
my
was not looking
style. Ordinarily, I
everyone
else.
Pathfinders form an elite within an
paratroopers
elite,
ahead of airborne and helibome assault units zones.
The Pathfinder course turned out
to
to
who jump
in
mark landing and drop
be incredibly demanding.
My classmates were senior and master parachutists attached to airborne units,
We
while
I
was a
reluctant novice
started off with the daily
formed
And
until the last
man
then the day began
who had
dozen
collapsed.
not jumped in five years.
calisthenics,
each exercise per-
We recovered with a five-mile run.
—
classes in navigation, marking drop zones,
using radio beacons, guiding in aircraft.
And more jumping.
Pathfinder teams needed to hit the ground close together. Consequently, rather than our going out of a doorway, one at a time, the pilot
lowered the rear ramp of a twin-engine Caribou, and
jump
to
night,
adding another dollop of excitement.
outcropping, or cliff lurked below? In little
difference;
instead of
I
my
always jumped with
making a macho leap
into the
the rear and baby-step off the ramp.
As
all
sup-
Jumps were usually made
posed
rapidly off the back end.
we were
What body
of water, rock
case, night operations
my
eyes shut anyway.
unknown,
I
at
made
And
tended to shuffle to
a result, while others soared like
^
Coming Home eagles,
plane.
managed
I
Once
free,
to
my
bang
however,
butt
on the ramp and bounce out of the
experienced the
I
109
thrill that
hooks people on
parachuting, that magical sensation of floating to earth while the sighs in the chute above you. If only
you did not have
Near the end of the course, we were
jump
to
to parachute
wind
first.
from a helicop-
we marched cross-country all day long, until sufficiently exhausted. By the time we got to the helo, it had grown dark, the wind First
ter.
had come up, and
it
was pouring.
uary rain pelting our faces, and
was
floor. I
We
clambered aboard, the cold Jan-
jammed
ourselves onto the cramped
on board, but the jumpmaster was a hard-
the senior officer
NCO. As the helo took off, I hollered over the roar of the engine for all the men to make sure their static lines, which automatically opened the chutes when we jumped, were hooked to the faced, highly experienced
floor cable. In the dark,
on the
floor.
could hear hands rummaging along the cable
I
The helo leveled
off.
The wind had whipped up
where the jump could be hazardous. their
hookups one
last time.
Then,
like a fussy old
my way
checking each line myself, pushing ies,
running
alarm, one
to
to a point
recheck
to
woman,
I
started
through the crowded bod-
my hand along the cable and up to each man's chute. To my
hook belonging
to a sergeant
gling line in his face, and he gasped.
posed
men
yelled for the
I
check
was
was
loose.
I
shoved the dan-
He was
a triple failure.
His buddy was supposed to check
his line.
jumpmaster was supposed the door of the helo
It
to
check
and dropped
it.
it.
sup-
The
man would have stepped out rock. And he would have had
This
like a
only four seconds to pop his reserve parachute.
The weather worsened, and the jump had to be canceled. As we piled out at Lawson Army Airfield, the sergeant with the unhooked static line hugged me,
practically blubbering his gratitude.
The
lesson about
experts had been reaffirmed. Don't be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their
own
backyard. Just as important, never neglect details, even to
the point of being a pest.
exactly
Moments
of
stress,
confusion, and fatigue are
when mistakes happen. And when everyone
else's
mind
is
dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant. "Always check
small things" was becoming another of
On
graduation day,
I
my rules.
added the Pathfinder insignia
to
my Combat
Infantryman's Badge, airborne wings, and Ranger tab, the equivalents, in
my world, of degrees strung out after an academic's name. And to my
surprise, this ground-loving soldier graduated
number one
in the class.
* COLIN
110
was proud of
I
POWELL
L.
the honor, but
myself in a situation where
I
I
do not regret
had
I
to
am a marginal swimmer at best,
hardware sinking to
never again found
I
jump.
and here
was on
I
middle of a Georgia
in the
that
a
hunk of Canadian
Witii six
laj^e.
months
still
go before the Infantry Officers Advanced Course began, the Army
again had to stash
me somewhere. The answer was
a deadly-sounding
assignment, "test officer" with the Infantry Board, also located at Fort
Benning. Our job was to if
test
new weapons and equipment and
decide
they were acceptable to the infantry, anything from a redesigned
bayonet to a new machine gun. Each item was to be judged by three criteria
and
—did
effort
the thing work,
were required
to
how
keep
was
available
it,
working. The
it
and how much cost
Army had acronymed
RAM—Reliability, Availability, and Maintainabilto design RAM standards and put an item through
these standards as ity.
My
job was
these paces. I
was entrusted with
Accompanying
troops over sand, snow, or water.
Irishman
Articulated
awkward-looking vehicle, supposedly ideal for carrying
Carrier, an
Canadian
XM571
Canadian-made
testing the
liaison officer,
who wore
with the same
Major Colin G.
a regimental
kilt.
name, Forrest and
first
Forrest, a big, ruddy-faced
As descendants
I hit it
the manufacturer's representative, a fellow
Bill.
Both were eager
XM571 make
have the
of ex-colonials
off immediately.
was
to
horse was a
this iron
a
I
With him
remember only
as
good showing. Cana-
dian pride and profits were riding on the U.S. Army's decision.
We had put this
ugly duckling through her land
trials,
a couple of unplanned rollovers she had done well.
hurdle was a
swim
entire Infantry
test. I set it
up
Board was invited
tenant Colonel James Sudderth.
for
1 1
The
and except for last
remaining
to observe, including
To be on
my boss.
the safe side,
I
life jackets,
was a
shove
off. I
water.
We had
And
as
we
bottom.
I
I,
both
boarded the vehicle and gave the driver the order
little
concerned that the
XM571
to
rode so low in the
about six inches of freeboard between us and the lake.
got a third of the
that margin.
Lieu-
planned a
rehearsal for 7:30 that morning. Bill, the manufacturer's rep, and
wearing
The
:oo a.m. on Victory Pond.
way
across,
I
realized
we were
losing even
My feet felt wet, and I looked down to see water filling the
pointed this out to
problem; the bilge
pump
Bill,
who waved
aside
my
concern.
would kick in any second now.
And
it
No did.
Coming Home
pump
with one slight ghtch. The
but the water was coming in "Bill,"
I
at
bitch,"
We jumped
he concurred, "we
embankment,
came
disap-
out to pick us up. Approaching
looked up to see the thick, red-freckled legs of
I
The man was in a state of understandable agitation. This sort of news he wanted to send back to Canada.
the
was only about
Fortunately, the lake
wrecker and winch hauling
my
checked
arrive.
XM571
and watched the
Forrest.
was not
I
are."
out, paddling furiously,
pear from sight as a rescue boat the
discharged twenty gallons a minute,
about forty gallons a minute.
pointed out, "we're sinking."
"Son of a
Major
III
We
watch.
two hours
I
soon had a
Molly Brown out of the drink.
this sinkable
Still
and
ten feet deep,
go before the board would
to
waited impatiently for the water to drain, watching
spurt
it
We soon figured out the problem. The XM57 's earlier rollovers had cracked the chassis. We tried to start her. No luck. We kept trying. Coughing and sputtering, but no gratifying from every aperture
in the carrier.
1
roar. I
had the
carrier
towed
to the
demonstration
site
anyway, while
I
ran off to get myself into a set of dry fatigues.
What should I tell the Infantry Board? When the members arrived and we had all of them seated, I stood beside this product of Canadian and matter-of-factly described the
enterprise
including this morning's failure. Just
tell
tests
real.
stration, and,
Never
let
'em see you sweat.
should add, the
I
XM571
had gone through,
what happened. Don't crawl.
People want to share your confidence, however
however
it
We
thin,
not your turmoil,
completed the demon-
never became part of the U.S.
arsenal. I
stayed for almost five months with the Infantry Board.
neared for
asked
if I
me
would
like to
come back
to the
Board
testing officer
possessed one clear advantage:
somehow it
meant
after I finished the Infantry Officers
becoming happily adapted I
the time
board afterward. In an
of Rangers, Green Berets, and airborne Infantry
As
to begin the career course. Lieutenant Colonel Sudderth
would be pleased
to
to a stable
come
elites,
reassignment as an
did not sing.
Still,
that I could stay
on
the board
at
Benning
Advanced Course. And
home
life.
Army
Yes,
I
I
was
told the colonel,
back.
The Army has its own rites of passage. The career course at Benning was intended to prepare infantry captains to take over command of a
* COLIN
112
company and
L.
to serve
had already completed
POWELL
on a battalion
For
staff.
practical purposes,
all
I
this course, as a first lieutenant in a captain's slot
commanding companies in Germany and Fort Devens. And I had been a battalion commander in all but name in classrooms in the A Shau Valley
where they
youf head as on the
fired live anmiunition, not ovpr
practice range, but at you.
And I had also logged staff-level duty in Ger-
many, Devens, and Vietnam.
Still,
was a required
the course
professional development; and in beginning
now
could
I
it,
part of
bring
my my
family into government housing on the post.
I
was curious
cut.
Many
to
my classmates. In a sense, this was the first career
meet
infantry officers served their obligated
then were mustered out. At the advanced course,
I
two or three
was among four hun-
make
the
were divided into two classes of two hundred
men
dred captains, buddies and competitors likely to career.
We
the other class
was a
years,
Army
a
each. In
phenomenon, Pete Dawkins,
true walk-on-water
West Point All- American running back, 1958 Heisman Trophy winner, and a Rhodes scholar to boot. And we had other burners, like Thomas Griffin,
NATO in
who would rise to three stars and become chief of staff of the Command. The competition inspired and intimidated
Southern
about equal doses.
my
mili-
was now
certi-
During the course, the "prefix 5" designator was added tary occupational specialty. In
Army
fied in the use of tactical nuclear
employ them (though approval
lingo, that
weapons.
still
had
pay grade), how many enemy troops, atomic round would likely vaporize,
I
to
meant
presumably knew when
come from
civilians,
how
and
to shield
nuclear exchange, the amount of radioactive fallout
and when
it
area.
We
fired
from a
would be
I
to
well above
to
my
trees a particular
men
our
we
during a
could expect,
safe for our troops to pass through an affected
were not thinking
in terms of
Armageddon.
A
nuclear shell
203mm artillery piece, for example, yielded between
10 kilotons, compared to
15 kilotons for the
i
.
and
bomb dropped on
Hiroshima. Ours was not to question the wisdom of using these nuclear
weapons on the
battlefield.
Nor did
lation figure into our calculations.
nuclear.
Besides, to the
Was the Army supposed the Red Army had tactical
policymaking
level, I
would
the likelihood of the
enemy's esca-
The Navy and Air Force had gone to use
nukes.
muskets and minie balls?
Long afterward, when more skeptical eye
cast a far
I
rose
at the
— Coming Home battlefield use of nuclear
weapons. But
unquestioning captain, learning
In the
summer of
1
964,
1
went
at this stage,
I
113
was just another
my trade. same
to the
on Victory Drive and
drive-in
ordered a hamburger without being told to go around to the back. Since
my
previous stop, President Lyndon Baines Johnson had signed the
Civil Rights Act, outlawing discrimination in places of public
modation. That
fall,
LB J was running
against the conservative Republi-
can candidate, Senator Barry Goldwater.
Goldwater had disappointed against the civil rights the bill
bill.
me by
I
was no
casting the lone vote in the Senate
—but
—he had opposed
his opposition nevertheless gave
went out and slapped a
unintended encouragement to segregationists.
I
red-white-and-blue sticker on the bumper of
my
"All the
political partisan, but
Goldwater was not a racist
on constitutional grounds
accom-
Volkswagen reading
Way with LBJ," probably violating post regulations on political
activity in the process.
One evening
that fall, while
Benning, an Alabama
I
was driving from Birmingham
state trooper
flagged
me down
to Fort
near the town of
my surmy driving. He was handing
Sylacauga. Speeding? Not outside the realm of possibility. To prise, the trooper
out
bumper
was not concerned about
stickers for
Goldwater!
He
looked over the Volks, an alien
He checked my license plate New York State. Strike two. He spotted the LBJ sticker. Strike three. And a black at the wheel. I had somehow managed to accumulate four strikes. He shook his head, "Boy," he said, "you ain't smart enough to vehicle in sixties Alabama. Strike one.
be around here. You better get going." Which
I
Soldiers like Price, Mavroudis, DePace, and
Army. it
Still,
the officer corps
was white,
Protestant,
did, quickly.
me
had a future
had a dominant culture
in the
in those days,
and
and heavily Southern with a dash of Midwest.
Far more officers came out of Wake Forest, Clemson, the Citadel, Fur-
man, and
VMI than out of Princeton, or certainly CCNY
Our career course classes often met in small, windowless rooms, and was a relief to get out in the hallways to stretch a leg and have a smoke. I came out one day to find a cluster of white classmates dis-
it
cussing the presidential election,
all
praising Goldwater. "Hey, CoUn,"
one of them called out to me, "come on over." wary. "Are
we
prejudiced?" he asked. "Hell,
if
I
joined them, a
we
were, would
little
we
all
* COLIN
114 be
same
sitting in the
POWELL
L.
classes together?"
or disliking "colored people " the
did not care for this pushy
chimed
"A man
in.
wants with I
tell
government
telling
his friends just
how
people
to
of property rights," another classmate
sets
up a business, he ought^to be able
my
back up and lashed
to
do what he
it."
could have put
away
was not a question of liking
guy continued. He and
stuff, the
live their lives. "It's a question
It
in hopeless resignation. Instead,
you what property
rights
mean,"
out, or I
open
tried to
I
I
could have pulled their eyes. "Let
said. "If you're a soldier
me and
you're black, you'd better have a strong bladder, because you won't be
much between Washington, D.C., and them how it was trying to find a decent place to
Fort Benning."
stopping
eat
I
on the road
told
in the
South, or a motel where you, your wife, and your kid could stay, as
darkness began to
Medgar Evers of
fall.
the
NAACP
had been mur-
dered the year before in Mississippi. Sheriff Bull Connor had
set police
dogs against people. Murderers had blown up four children
in a Bir-
mingham
church.
"You
rights"!
And
owner should have the I
these people were arguing about "property
can't reduce this issue to whether or not a white hotel to rent a
room
to a black.
same league with human beings,"
know
don't
feelings off
my
more than just
The
that
chest,
sitting
soldiers
made any
I
and
I
You
can't put property in
told them.
converts.
But
it
was good
to get these
men know that tolerance meant man in a classroom.
to let these
next to a black
whose stock shot up
in
my
esteem during
this
period
were black officers from the South. After a lifetime of second-class
treat-
ment, segregation, and isolation in black colleges, they had found them-
whom they had not been allowed before whom they had been expected
selves competing alongside whites live, study,
bow and
or eat with, people
scrape.
During
fortable around whites;
my
growing-up years,
I
had never
felt
to
to
uncom-
I
never considered myself less valuable. Differ-
ent, yes; inferior, never.
These Southern blacks had never been told
anything else. Through the years that followed, as the
Army,
baggage
as
watched them rise
in
my admiration grew. Most of them simply refused to carry the
that racists tried to pile
same uniform good
I
on
their backs.
as everybody else, they
anyone
else.
cratic institution in
And,
began
fortunately, they
The day they put on
to consider themselves as
had joined the most demo-
America, where they could
These Southern black soldiers stand
tall in
the
rise or fall
my hall of heroes.
on
merit.
*
Coming Home Shortly before election day,
absentee ballot to treated
November
my New York voting
1964,
3,
LB J,
address.
mailed
I
in
And I
the way.
all
my
myself to another burger on Victory Drive.
my
This period was turning out to be one of the happiest in infantryman, Fort Benning, place.
113
The bachelor
home
of the infantry, holds a sentimental
sows
lieutenant
first post.
We
makes
his wild oats, gets married,
captain, gets orders to the career course,
Benning, often her
For an
life.
and brings his wife
bought our
from the same Columbus department
furniture
first
stores, delivered in
ing room, dining room, bedroom, and kitchen.
to Fort
on
credit
one load,
liv-
We visited each other in
our look-alike houses, small two- and three-bedroom ranches set on concrete slabs. Except for the rare couple with inherited wealth, there
was scant room
same paycheck and
On
most of us were bringing home the
for snobbery, since
weekends.
living the
Alma and
I
same
often packed
Birmingham.
a visit to her folks in
standard.
On
the
little
way
Mike
into the Volks for
we
out,
passed through
the senior officers' quarters, grand, gracious white stucco
by the side,
WPA during the
Depression. Most impressive of
homes
all
built
was River-
an earlier antebellum mansion dripping with wisteria and ringed
commanding
with magnolias, the residence of Fort Benning's
Every
year, the
men wore
CG
general.
hosted a reception for career course students. The
dark civilian
suits.
The women went out and bought
dress a captain's pay allowed.
toward Riverside as
if
we were
And we walked up
scene from
bit players in a
the best
that clipped
lawn
Gone With
the Wind.
After the reception for our class.
dream.
An
Alma asked me
if I
could guess her
upgrade from the Volkswagen to a station wagon? No, she
said, to live at Riverside
what her father liked
one day as the general's
lady.
to say about her mother, that
had a slave mentality; she wanted to
live in the big
I
kidded her over
Mildred Johnson
still
white house with the
columns. Alma's dream seemed harmless enough and about as remote in
1964 as
Benning
men is
going to the moon.
also
where Linda Powell arrived on April
missed out on Mike's little
earliest infancy.
person. But that day, at Martin
tiny, helpless creature, I
a
little girl. I
was going
had
By the time I saw him, he was a Army Hospital, as I studied that
was overcome with to catch
16, 1965. 1
the feeling a father has for
up on what
I
had missed
in
my
first
COLIN
116
POWELL
L.
round as a parent. The career course involved Linda, becoming an accomplished nanny.
Cross volunteer work
at the
little
heavy
Alma was
and
lifting,
spend as much time as
took advantage of the situation to
I
could with
I
up
tied
Red
in
time of Linda's six-week checkup, so
I
tucked the baby under one arm, held her diaper bag under the other, and
took her to the hospital myself.
happily joined the young mothers in
I
on
the waiting room, dispensing advice
was now
other lore in which
I
Anybody
my
entering
treating croup
and colic and
parent-qualified.
day would have found a U.S.
class that
Anny
major flinging a rubber chicken
at a
entered the teaching profession.
And I was engaged in that sine qua non
of
all I
roomful of officer candidates.
ranking
My
first
among infantrymen
in third in the
which
As
I
whole
class,
in
my
in
two-hundred-man
May
1965,
But
class.
I
topped by a tanker and an artilleryman,
found humbling.
planned,
returned to the Infantry Board after the career course.
I
reasons were mostly personal
awhile longer.
I
new
word
to report to Infantry Hall. I
infantry equipment.
the school
—
to
keep the family
one place
in
spent several relatively uneventful months again evalu-
ating
It
had
learning, motivation.
had completed the Infantry Officers Advanced Course
came
I
where
I
Then one
day, in the spring of
was being assigned
1
966,
1
got
to the faculty of
had recently been a student.
was now about eighteen months since President Johnson had used
an ''unprovoked" attack by North Vietnamese gunboats in the Tonkin
Gulf to push through a Senate resolution amounting
to a virtual
Ameri-
can declaration of war against the Viet Cong and North Vietnam. I left
Southeast Asia,
it
some 16,000 American Infantry
School
had
still
been a Vietnamese conflict involving
advisors.
faculty,
the
accommodate assignment,
not a mission the
Before
I
I
was asked
to join the
Army needed
to
produce more
to
offi-
Duty
as an instructor
was a coveted
sought after and an impressive career credential.
Instructors taught the officers tle,
the time
spanking-new building, had just been completed to
the expansion.
much
By
American involvement had begun
approach 300,000 troops, and the cers. Infantry Hall, a
When
Army
who would be
leading the troops in bat-
entrusted lightly.
could go near a classroom,
course. For three intense weeks,
I
had
to
complete an instructors
we learned how to move before a class,
^
Coming Home
111
use our hands, adopt an authoritative tone, hold center stage, project
what was inside our heads
ourselves, and transmit
We
had
my
to put
finger
on the pivotal learning experience of
could well be the instructors course, where
life, it
Years
in the class.
on television ing
when
later,
I
Gulf War,
more than using communicating techniques entered
my own
graduated
I
first
appeared before millions of Americans
to describe our actions in the
of a century before in the instructors course I
else's.
were peer-evaluated, merit-boarded, scored, graded, and critiqued
to death. If I
my
someone
into
I
I
was doing noth-
had learned a quarter
at Infantry Hall.
classroom with something new, an oak
had
leaf. I
received the accelerated promotion to major that the assignments officer had predicted back in Hue.
and
years,
I
As an
officers are divided
later
became
amphibious operations. But candidates,
young men
out to Vietnam as
new
I
the
from
and general
feisty
officer candidates to reserve
Marine lieutenant colonel,
Marine Corps Commandant,
P.
X.
to teach
my most important classes involved officer who would be
in their early twenties
infantry second lieutenants,
suffer the highest casualties
eager faces in
field grade,
field grade.
teamed up with a
who
Kelley,
less than eight
Army
entered another league.
instructor, I taught students I
Army
after ten or eleven
had just made
I
generals.
in the
broad categories: company grade,
into three officers.
had been
had attained a rank usually reached
And I had just
years.
I
among
officers.
shipping
where they would
A fair percentage
of those
my classes were not coming back, I knew, no matter what
taught them.
A healthy competition existed among the instructors. My was Major Steve PawUk, a Polish- American tor,
and
my patient coach in handball.
live wire, a
Steve and
I
chief rival
superb instruc-
were always trying
to
upstage each other, devising ways to grab and hold the students' attention.
One approach was humor.
woman
In those less correct days, with no
within a mile of Infantry Hall, part of the
macho
culture
open the class with a joke, usually of the raunchiest kind. These were not It
my forte.
But
I
had one
surefire joke
I
"What
The
to
new class. tiger. The mis-
told to every
involved a missionary about to be pounced on by a
sionary starts to pray.
was
stories
figer starts to pray.
The missionary
says,
a Chrisfian thing, to pray along with me." "Pray with you?" the
tiger says,
"I'm saying grace."
It
always got a laugh.
^ COLIN
118
One day my
POWELL
L.
story
was greeted with thunderous
backup joke. Grim, stone
silence.
What was going on? Had
faces.
I
I
tried a
possibly
exceeded even the Benning bounds of corny jokes? Afterward, a dead-
pan Pawlik asked Later
of
I
me how
the class
had gone. "Awful,"
learned what had happened. Pawlik had gotten to
me
and persuaded the students
to stiff
I
said, puzzled.
my class ahead
H6 had
me.
then slipped
behind the one-way glass on one wall of the classroom and thoroughly
my
enjoyed
agony. Steve carried his fierce competitiveness to our off-
duty games of hearts with another instructor and friend. Major Bill
Duncan. To us hearts was a game,
Our
ultimate challenge
to Steve a vendetta.
OCS
was teaching
candidates to prepare a
Unit Readiness Report. The conditions were diabolical. The class was held at 4:00
p.m., at the last
hour of the
last
after a three-day field exercise of forced
day before graduation
marches and mock
—and
battle,
end-
ing with a sleepless all-night operation. Nevertheless, the readiness report had to be mastered before a student
was allowed
to graduate.
This report would have been a crashing bore even for the most dedicated nerd.
involved a two-page form in which the officer recorded
It
the percentage of equipment in state Green, ready to go. Yellow, not
The
quite ready, and Red, out of commission. unit's training status,
had
officer
to report the
squad by squad, platoon by platoon: C-i, ready
go; C-2, got a few problems; C-3, serious problems; C-4, hopeless. students
would stagger back
to
Benning
to
The
after that all-night operation,
take a shower, have a hot meal, and then head for this final lecture, anticipating a
My over to
much-needed snooze
in an air-conditioned classroom.
approach was to project the readiness form on a screen and go
it,
block by block, computation by computation, on and on, trying
keep the students awake long enough
report into their befogged skulls.
were
to get
When
up and stand against the
was judged by how few
to
pound
the importance of the
students began to doze off, they
wall.
The
instructor's effectiveness
wound up
catatonic officer candidates
wall. In teaching the readiness report, the competition
and
me
One from a
at the
between Pawlik
reached fresh heights of ingenuity. day,
I
had an
gift catalog
came trooping
in,
inspiration.
I
ordered a plucked rubber chicken
and hid the chicken under the
enameled helmet
perately trying to look alert.
Within minutes,
I
I
liners
lectern.
The
students
tucked under their arms, des-
gave the order 'Take
could hear snoring. As the
seats,
first
gentlemen!"
student rose and
Coming Home headed for the wall,
fired a question at him.
I
answered. "That's wrong,"
said, seizing the
I
over my head. "And your punishment
is
..."
He
roused himself and
chicken and swinging I let
the chicken
class scattered in all directions as this realistic-looking
I
hunk of fake
and stayed awake for another ten minutes. The
my
chicken became a fixed part of tainment,
curriculum. Education and enter-
realized, are not unrelated.
At Benning, we lived a
life
not
all that
from
different
that of
Dad came home from the office.
suburbanites of that era.
day and the
the kiddie violations of the
One afternoon, Mike, age three,
latest
and wake him every hour
household catastrophe.
out of a tree and landed on his head.
fell
At about 3:00 dent
make
to
him home
sure he could regain consciousness.
A.M., the kid asked if
we would please leave him alone
so
he could get some sleep. Linda, a serious, thoughtful, and indepenlittle girl,
was becoming
the apple of her father's eye.
a neighborhood full of similar families, with similar
with similar joys this
Levittown
Mom reported
After a race to the emergency ward, the doctor told us to take
that
it
The
fly.
When they realized what I had thrown,
poultry sailed through the room. the students laughed
119
'A
—and
We
lived in
numbers of
kids,
menacing cloud hung over
similar fears, since a
otherwise apple-pie landscape.
hometown of
the infantry, thousands of
left their families
here while they went off to
Since Columbus was the officers
and noncoms had
Vietnam. Casualties were
When
now
a yellow cab pulled
knew he was
running well over one hundred a week.
up
to a
delivering a telegram
house and the driver got
services devised a
you
from the Defense Department and
Benning had another widow and a new family of
The system was unintentionally
out,
brutal,
fatherless children.
and as casualties mounted, the
more compassionate way
to deliver the
grim news.
Casualty notification officers, usually local recruiters, drew the hardest
job in the military, to go to the families of the to
fallen, to deliver the
word,
comfort them, and to offer whatever help they could.
One
day, walking through Infantry Hall,
my CCNY
days: "Hey, paisan!"
I
also
Vietnam
gone from
tour,
ROTC
and he was just
heard a raucous voice from
turned to see Tony Mavroudis,
Greek buddy from Queens. Tony was
He had
I
still
following in
into the regular
my
my
footsteps.
Army. He had done a
starting the career course while
I
was an
* COLIN
120
POWELL
L.
Tony became a
instructor.
fixture
around our house, and a great favorite
of the kids. The genteel but perceptive Alma came to appreciate the dia-
mond under the rough exterior. One day, as Tony approached the end of his course, he told me that he had volunteered
to
go back
"What's the hurry?"
I
to
Vietnam.
asked. "We'll
be g6ing again soon enough."
all
"Don't kid me," Tony answered. "If it weren't for Alma and the kids,
He was
you'd volunteer too."
right; as infantrymen,
we
thought that
was where we belonged.
By now, like
the
war had dragged on
myself could count on
three.
at least
for so long that an infantry officer
two
tours, a helicopter pilot likely
My return was just a matter of time. Tony went sooner rather than
later.
I
had
my
just finished tucking in
afterward
when
the
phone rang. Alma answered and
One of my Pershing remember.
I
Rifles buddies
what we can handle
killed instantly.
I
told
a trail
the bed, dry-eyed, wordless.
warmhearted
would take
me
of what
when
we
cannot.
had been taken from us
not long afterward I said.
for another
said. "It's inevitable."
told her. at
I
We
I
told
Ahna
that
what she
we had
had been lucky so
Vietnam
tour.
do not
grasp
at
lead-
He was
on the edge of emptier. That
an
in
instant. It
feels inside.
far.
to talk. "I'll
We
to
had stayed
college
at
it," I
that impassive expression
There was another interim
The
be
obviously
be ready for
was eligible for the Army Command and General
in the lives
We
Army was
"You've got
Alma's face assumed
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
possibility, I
Staff College
marked a critical turning point
of career officers. If the advanced course was our bachelor's
degree, Leavenworth
was a master's (and
the National
resented a Ph.D.). Not every major would
Army
sat
me.
did what
a firefight had broken out.
Benning almost three years, during a war. The
that cloaks
I
Tony had been
The house suddenly seemed
spirit
I
for
time to absorb the loss.
leaving here soon,"
me
which one
calling,
Alma what had happened. We
boisterous,
clocking
was
it
started asking about details.
I
in the face
company down
One evening
was
said
was too stunned. Tony Mavroudis was dead.
people do in such situations.
ing his
children one night several months
officers not chosen,
War College
rep-
be selected for Leavenworth.
and the odds were about 50-50, could
still
Coming Home have a
but would level off probably as lieutenant
fulfilling career,
colonels, or in unusual circumstances, as full colonels. eral officer,
Leavenworth was an
selected now,
would almost
I
On a spring afternoon in
all
more
1967,
to say,
Alma
immediately.
make gen-
to
back
we went to
and so
Alma
Vietnam.
to
bed.
had just finished teaching a class and
1
saw the long-awaited Leavenworth
was
But
but inescapable prerequisite. If not
certainly be going
understood; there was nothing
called
121
list
posted on a bulletin board.
I
could hear the relief in her voice. Vietnam
I
off for the time being.
was going
I
Command
to the
and General
Staff College.
You can roughly judge where life
or
by what he
Chevy
is
six
I
is at
any point
Benning and prepared
at
in his
swinging bachelor: Ford Mustang
new husband: Volkswagen; young
wagon. As we packed up worth,
my day,
driving. In
Corvette;
American male
the
father: station
Leaven-
to drive to
my next model change. I had watched sadly, Mr. Wayne Guest drove off with my beloved
was about to make
months before,
as a
blue Beetle, sold for $400.
needed more
Alma
insisted that a family with
space. Brand- and color-loyal,
I
two kids
showed up soon afterward
not with a station wagon, but with a reasonable facsimile, a blue Volks-
wagen van
Alma
that the kids loved.
declared, 'That heap has to go." She cers' club at Fort
Leavenworth
in a
drove
PX
twice to the
it
was not about
to pull
up
and
to the offi-
used miniature bus. Thereafter, the
Powells made the automotive equivalent of moving from company to field grade.
We
bought our
Air, and, with Michael, four,
in
a 1967
Chevy Bel
Queens.
reached the Missouri River
souri, so called because,
car,
and Linda, two, headed west, via our cus-
tomary detour, Elmira Avenue
We eventually
new American
first
even in 1967,
it
at the
cost a
Penny Bridge
penny
to use.
in
Mis-
We crossed
over into Kansas and entered Fort Leavenworth. Instead of going straight to the
had found for us the post's
my old Gelnhausen mentor Red Barrett
garden apartment in the adjacent
Memorial Chapel.
I
town of Leavenworth,
found what
sunken lane that ran down to the river
I
I
parked next
was looking
for, a
trails.
The
to link
rut in the earth that
grassy
we had just crossed. The pioneers
had come up the Missouri on flatboats and then headed overland
drawn Conestoga wagons
to
in ox-
up with the Santa Fe and Oregon
we were
standing in had been
worn by
* COLIN
122 these
wagons on
POWELL
L.
their
westward
moved me, and I wished my of history in
this spot. Fort
every morning on the I felt
thrilled to
way
A
trek.
sense of the past has always
children were old enough to feel the pulse
Leavenworth was founded
war games and read
to play
in 1827,
and
military history,
be walking along roads that had known the footsteps
of George Armstrong Custer, Philip Sheridan, Dwight Eisenhower,
George Patton, and other storybook
soldiers.
Until now, the infantry battalion of a few hundred verse. Leavenworth's mission
was
to raise
For the
our vision above the horizon
and give us an understanding of the
of a battalion-level infantry officer larger canvas of warfare.
men had been my uni-
first
time, in concentrated form,
I
began
dealing with artillerymen, tankers, engineers, signal corpsmen, quarter-
masters
—
the
whole panoply of an Army
in
which people with jobs and
outlooks as different as those of accountants and cowboys have to learn to
mesh.
By
the time the course ended, thirty-eight
know how to move a men by train or road, how to feed
weeks
later,
we were
division of twelve to fifteen thousand
expected to
it,
supply
it,
and, above
all,
fight
it.
My CCNY record notwithstanding, I had done well so far in my military education.
Officers
who
But Leavenworth was
in another league academically.
had finished in the top third of the Infantry Officers
Advanced Course might well studied hard and did
my
outwit multiple-choice
find themselves in the
homework. And by now
tests,
I
bottom
third here. I
had learned how
to
which the Army favored because they were
easy to grade and supposedly more objective than essay
tests. I
could
spot the throwaway and trick choices, which usually left two plausible
answers, giving you even odds of being right with an intelUgent guess.
We were graded on a i-to-4 scale, and I started racking up 's, the equivalent of As, in all my courses. And I still had time for extracurricular i
interests, particularly gin
raising cavalry officer
rummy, which
I
learned to play from a hell-
named Jim Amlong, and
to
which
I
became
we had a ten-minute break in class, and every lunch out came the cards. Any free time not devoted to gin rummy I spent
addicted. Every time
hour,
on the
Softball
player,
I
diamond, where,
after
was developing a reputation
The morning of February coffeepot, and turned
i
,
1968,
on the
TV
my
dismal performance as a kid
as a long-ball hitter.
came out of the bedroom, put on the news. I was stunned. There on the
1
Coming Home
123
'A'
screen were American GIs fighting on the grounds of the U.S. embassy
and
ARVN forces battling before the Presidential Palace in the heart of
Saigon.
The Viet Cong, supported by North Vietnamese Army
had launched a coordinated
strike against
provincial and district capitals.
sphere was one of disbelief, as
io8 of South Vietnam's
When I went to class if
units,
that day, the
atmo-
we had taken a punch in the gut.
Fight-
ing over the next few days continued to be fierce, and twenty-six days
passed before
where
I
Hue was
had served lay
liberated.
By
then, the lovely former capital
in ruins, with at least 2,800 of its people exe-
cuted by the enemy. The campaign had been launched on the eve of Tet,
New Year,
the Vietnamese lunar
Judged
in
for the Viet
and thus found
its
name
in history.
cold military terms, the Tet offensive was a massive defeat
Cong and North Vietnam. Their
troops were driven out of
every town they had attacked, and with horrific losses, estimated at
men committed.
45,000 of the 84,000
had said something
still
you must match your
But, 137 years before, Clausewitz
want to overcome your enemy,
relevant: "If you
effort against his
power of resistance, which can
be expressed as the product of two inseparable factors ... the
total
means
how
many
at his disposal
of the
and the strength of his
enemy we
killed.
will." It did not matter
The Viet Cong and North Vietnam had
the bodies needed to fling into this conflict and the will to
North simply started sending
in its regular
army
do
so.
all
The
units to counter the
losses.
The images beamed into American living rooms of a once faceless enemy suddenly popping up in the middle of South Vietnam's capital had a profound
effect
raising doubts in the
campus ment I
on public opinion. Tet marked a turning
minds of moderate Americans, not just hippies and
radicals, about the
worth of this
conflict,
and the antiwar move-
intensified.
disliked watching
wartime. Those of us
Americans demonstrating against Americans
who knew we were
ing. Politicians start wars; soldiers fight
the luxury of waiting for a better war.
in
going back to Vietnam would
do our duty undeterred by demonstrations,
at
point,
flag burning, or draft dodg-
and die
in them.
On March
We do not have
31, 1968, while
I
was
Leavenworth, President Johnson told the country that he would not
seek reelection.
It
was a statesmanlike gesture
—
as well as a pragmatic
reading of the writing on the wall. Johnson saw a dangerously divided
country that he could not hold together.
Still,
packing
it
in
and going
* COLIN
124
home
to the
American
POWELL
L.
ranch was not an option available to career
officers, or to
draftees, for that matter.
Leavenworth was
my
assignment where there were enough other
first
blacks to form a critical mass. In class and in formal social situations, the college
cers
was completely
hung out
together.
integrated. InformdHly, however, black offi-
We had our own parties, put on soul food nights,
and played Aretha Franklin records. Nevertheless, we had made
this
it
we had the ability to shift back into Monday morning. Leavenworth repre-
far up the ladder precisely because
the white-dominated world on
sented integration in the best sense of the word. Blacks could hang
around with the brothers
in their free time,
and no one gave
it
any more
thought than the fact that West Pointers, tankers, or engineers went off
by themselves. That was exactly the kind of integration we had been fighting for, to be permitted our blackness in a
and also
to
be able to make
it
mostly white world.
Five days after President Johnson dropped out of the 1968 presidential race, the
my
Reverend Martin Luther King,
Jr.,
was murdered. For me and
fellow black officers at Leavenworth, Dr. King's death was an
abrupt reminder that across the Penny Bridge, racism
still
bedeviled
America. Each of us had experienced enough racial indignities to understand the assassinafion.
unleashed in black ghettos in the wake of the King
riots
We
understood the bitterness of black GIs who,
were lucky enough
to get
home from Vietnam
poor job prospects and fresh professionals
first,
indignities.
one piece,
in
if
still
they
faced
However, we saw ourselves as
with our duty to our oath and our country.
And
because of the relative freedom in the militaiy, the American dream was
working for
us.
We had overcome humble origins,
worked our
tails off,
achieved field grade, proved ourselves anyone's equal, and were building better futures for our children.
We heard the radical black voices
Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver, and H.
"Bum,
baby,
bum!"
—
country burned down. I
came
with uneasiness.
We were doing well in
to understand that a
movement
and the tirades of the agitators were
waking up defenders of the better
be on the way.
We
status
Rap Brown with
were not eager it.
requires
his
to see the
In later years, however,
many
different voices,
like a fire bell ringing in the night,
quo with the message
that
change had
^
Coming Home
At Leavenworth
Army
time.
met a
I
lot
of officers with graduate degrees earned on
dawned on me
It
efficiency reports, citations,
When
competitive.
assignment officer
Army's Graduate
I
that
my
me more my
post-Leavenworth future with
Branch,
at Infantry
my
an advanced degree, along with
and decorations, would make
discussed
I
mentioned
my
interest in the
Civil Schooling Program. This gruff soldier, a fellow
major, pointed out that there
but
125
was
war
a
on.
was aware of
I
that, I said,
did not prevent others from applying to graduate school.
it
He looked
over
my
"You don't seem
college grades.
like graduate
school material to me," he said. I felt
a surge of anger, but
have to turn
me down
managed
to suppress
"because
in writing," I said,
it.
I
"You're going to intend to try any-
way." applied for the Army-financed graduate program, and, fortunately,
I
my record at Bragg, my good grades so far
my
superiors took into account
Benning, Gelnhausen,
Devens, and Vietnam and
at
Leavenworth.
I
was
approved. The next step was to take the Graduate Record Examination,
and
if I
passed, to apply to grad school.
Late one winter evening, after Alma and the kids had gone to bed, in the kitchen studying for
an upcoming
was a dark, cold night and
I
was
exam on Tactical Infiltration.
It
could hear the wind beafing against the
I
window. Suddenly, a voice sent a shiver through me. The television was on
in the
hving room, and
I
got up and went to
Tony Mavroudis, dead these many months, on She came out heavy
in her pajamas,
silence.
entitled
It
was an
And
there
logic, driving
home
here,
Tony
we know blood
NBC
was Tony,
is all
rest
I
my friend
called Alma.
of the program in
documentary narrated by Frank
McGee
dealing with blacks in the military in
in jungle fatigues,
.
.
.
We're
with his street-smart
Race did not matter out
the program's message.
said. "It doesn't exist.
is
There was
the screen.
and we watched the
Same Mud, Same Blood,
Vietnam.
it.
all soldiers.
The only color
mud and the color of the program, McGee said, "Five
khaki and green. The color of the the same."
we
At
the
end of the
was
killed
by an explod-
ing land mine." Scholars could take pages to express the
wisdom Tony
days after
had captured on
left
in a
this night than
him. Captain Mavroudis
few blunt words. The
on the day
I first
.
.
.
loss of this friend hit
heard the news.
me harder
* COLIN
126
I
L.
POWELL
was coming out of a class so
I 's
when
I
ran into
my
you know how well you're doing?" he asked me.
faculty advisor. ''Do
"All
in Intelligence Estimates
far," I said.
"Well, you're
damn
near at the top of the class."
honor graduate, he pointed
About a week
later, I
out, if
I
aced the
fihal
could well be the
I
exam.
entered a classroom with a huge
map of Europe
covering the front wall. The final examination of the course was not multiple-choice.
It
required essay answers to hypothetical tactical prob-
lems. There was no right or
wrong answer,
just the instructors' evalua-
tion of the appropriateness of our decisions. In the last question, to
respond to an armored attack on our division's flank.
was whether answer
should try to out-psyche the
I
My
test writers
dilemma
and give the
thought they wanted or should answer with what
I
believed.
I
chose the
counterattacking until
I
on
division
Good
Check the pool
decisions,
I
really
tactical defense, not
had better intelligence on the enemy's
deployment, and intentions. solid information.
my
kept
latter. I
we had
strength,
reasoned, are based on
I
for water before
you take a header off
the high board. I
should have
known
better.
On
the last
exam of the
last day,
Leaven-
worth's gung ho faculty would obviously want you to attack! attack!
scored
attack!
I
ranked
first
my
only
2, still
among infantrymen
a respectable grade. in
my
class.
But
I
At graduation,
came
in
artilleryman, a talented major, Donald Whalen (who went on
I
behind an to
become
a brigadier general). It
would have been
satisfying to be
number
one, but
answer was as good as what the instructor wanted. inclination to be prudent until
ready to
move
I
It
I still
think
revealed a natural
have enough information. Then
boldly, even intuitively. That
day
at
my
Leavenworth,
I
I
am was
only a student answering a hypothetical problem, and any casualties
were only on paper.
would be paid change ten
A time would come when my advice and decisions
for in real hves.
my approach.
—then
strike
For me,
it
And when
that
day came,
comes down simply
hard and fast with
all
the
to
I
would not
Stop, Look, Lis-
power you need.
my introduction to a more cosmopolitan world. Other nations sent the cream of their officer coips to the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. We studied together, ate together, and played
Leavenworth was
^
Coming Home
127
know men with whom we might (and later did) plan combined military operations. One of my Leavenworth buddies was a Belgian army major, Joseph Charlier. The Here was the
together.
next time
and
I
I
first
opportunity to get to
saw him, he was chief of
worked with him
NATO. Thus
in
of the Belgian armed forces,
staff
are old-boy networks born.
The townsfolk adopted these foreign
some separated from
their families.
officers, so far
They were
invited
from home,
by Kansans of
every stafion to picnics. Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, birthdays, and bapdsms. Years
when I was
later,
we
Advisor to President Reagan,
faced a minicrisis during the
Mohammad Zia
the president of Pakistan,
serving as National Security
ul-Haq.
When
visit
of
asked for the
of guests he would like invited to the White House state dinner hon-
list
oring him, Zia said he wanted
Ed and Dollie included. Ed and Dollie? It
when Zia was
a major studying at Leavenworth, Ed, a
turned out that
mailman, and his wife, DoUie, had just about adopted him. Zia was
warm memories of his friends, what astonished Ed and Dollie were flown filled
the
with
sfiU
and, consequently, a someto
Washington for dinner
at
White House.
While we were
at
Leavenworth, Alma, baptized a Congregationahst,
became an Episcopalian. She did so because we wanted
grow together
to
Alma's confirmation, like everything in Leaven-
spiritually as a family.
worth, occurred against a backdrop of history.
The small Memorial
Chapel commemorated the loss of 7th Cavalry troopers Bighorn on June 25, 1876. During Alma's confirmation, plaques on the chapel walls.
One
Thomas W.
Custer,
and other
I
studied the
next to the front door contained the
names of Lieutenant Colonel George A. tain
at the Little
Custer, his younger brother
officers
who
Cap-
perished that fateful day.
Other plaques were less historic but no less touching: "John Anthony
2d Lieutenant
Rucker, save the Uttle
life
boy
names on
.
.
.
6th
Cavaby
of a brother officer." They
at the
tell
chapel with his parents.
the plaques.
"They died
eight-thirty or the eleven?" the
boy
.
.
.
drowned
.
.
.
attempting to
a joke at Leavenworth about a
He wants
in service," his
to
know about
the
mother explains. "The
asks.
The pleasant life we were living was about to end. My orders had come through for Vietnam. That day, when I came home from class, I caught sight of Mike,
now
five,
careening around a comer on two
wheels of his tricycle and Linda playing with the Carter twins, children of close friends.
I
called to
my
kids and swept
them up
in
my
arms.
* COLIN
128
POWELL
L.
This parting was going to be far harder than the
no longer the adventure
had eagerly
I
on
set out
And war was
last one.
in 1962.
was a hus-
1
band and father now. I
pushed such thoughts
soldiers
I
aside.
Tony Mavroudis had been right. We were
by profession, and Vietnam was where we were supposed
Alma and
drove the family from Leavenworth to Birmingham, where
the kids
were
to stay while
was gone. Alma's
I
sister,
to be.
Barbara, had been
divorced, and the two sisters and their children, four cousins in
would be
living together in a rented
Alma's folks I
liked the
A
in Tarrant City.
economy of the
few days before
New
in the
been open
my
I
house about a mile and a half from
liked the location;
from
dining
to
all.
first
Alma had
said.
That night,
I,
in
territory
was
life
We
an idea.
want us
to
And
were
living
best tailored
Hong Kong walked
if
suit
into a
Our entrance into But what was the point
in sight.
the sit-ins, the marches, the battles in court
so long denied us?
go for our farewell
stylish as always,
slightly daunting.
martyrdom, the eviction of Jim Crow,
day
my
and Alma,
tour,
I
room without another black patron
it all,
secure.
Parliament House, the fanciest hotel in Birmingham,
Vietnam
once forbidden of
seemed
South. For the past four years, public accommodations had
Alma
my
it
sisters' splitting the rent.
departure,
boasted a fme restaurant. "That's where dinner,"
all,
and Congress, the
not to enjoy the fruits of every-
We followed the maitre d' to a table,
and we
were treated graciously.
Toward
the
end of dinner,
I
handed Alma an envelope.
"What's that?" she wanted to know. "Just put
it
away
in case," I said.
"In case of what?"
"In case something happens." In the envelope were
my
instructions in the event
from Vietnam. Alma was not one
to flinch
from
I
did not return
reality. I
had
friends,
Pershing Rifles brothers, pals from Gelnhausen and Devens, and infantry course classmates,
many Army widows wishes
—
for example,
Cemetery. Then
who had
at Fort
my
already died in the war.
Benning.
talked briefly
wanting to be buried in Arlington National
we went back to more
pleasant conversation.
Part of the difficulty in contemplating
mood
We
We knew about my
my
return to
Vietnam was the
of America. Losses in the war were perceived as
if
they were
^
Coming Home happening only
enough rifices
to get
to the military
shared by the country for a I
was
against an enemy
common purpose,
willing to do
country was concerned,
five
their families,
people unlucky
caught up in a messy conflict; they were not seen as sac-
a career officer,
price,
and
129
who
we were
my duty.
But as
far as the rest
doing
alone.
We
it
were
As
of the
in a
war
believed in his cause and was willing to pay the
however high. Our country was
more years
as in other wars.
not; yet
it
took our government
to get us out.
We had to get up while it was dark and the kids still sleeping in order for me to catch an 8:30 a.m. flight out of Birmingham. This time, I let Alma drive me to the airport parking lot, although I did not want her to come any
on
farther.
my way
We said our goodbyes in the car, and on July 2 again to Vietnam.
1
,
1968,
1
was
'
Back
THE SAIGON
HAD KNOWN
I
IN
to
1
VietnUm
962
NOW LOOKED
trampled by a giant. Where before the
now
jammed
they were
streets
IF IT
full
HAD BEEN
of pedicabs,
Army trucks. Where GIs now swarmed all over
with jeeps, staff cars, and
previously the U.S. presence had been muted, the place. Quiet bistros
AS
had been
had been displaced by noisy bars populated by
B-girls catering to our troops.
The charming
colonial capital
was
encir-
cled by American barracks, headquarters, storage depots, airfields, hospitals,
even military
town more than I
arrived at
World War
II
jails.
Saigon
now resembled
the Paris of the Orient.
Due Pho on
I
an American garrison
could not wait to go up-country.
July 27, 1968, assigned to the resurrected
23d Infantry Division, known as the Americal.
serve as executive officer of the 3d Battalion, ist Infantry,
Brigade.
The Americal' s
coastal plain.
headquarters was in
Due Pho was about
inland and to the south.
i
I
was
to
ith Infantry
Chu Lai on the northern
a half-hour hehcopter ride farther
Back
are a combination of fighting
Most armies
and our beast had a long
beast,
battalion had
all
the support
tail.
to
*
Vietnam
131
machine and bureaucratic
My job as exec was to make sure the
required to remain in fighting trim, and
it
ammo, to making sure the helos had fuel, to getting mail out to the troops. As soon as I arrived, my new boss, the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Hank Low-
my duties
der, a
included everything from ordering up
compact, feisty scrapper handed
me
another assignment.
I
was
to
prepare for the Annual General Inspection, a task better suited to peaceFort
time
at
took
its
Devens than Vietnam
in the
middle of a war.
Still,
Hank Lowder wanted me
inspections seriously.
to
the
Army
handle the
administrative headaches in preparing for the inspection so that he
would be
on fighting the war. Consequently, while
free to concentrate
he led the troops in the
was
field, I
at
Due Pho making
sure that the
fumigation schedule, troop inoculation records, and other endless reels of red tape were inspection-ready.
My
situation
the Peninsular
reminded
British Foreign Office in
and
bridles, tents
a
sum of one
ment,
tent poles,
shilling
number of .
.
and
all
Duke of Wellington during
purported to have written to the
manner of sundry items
elucidation of
my
.
.
.
me
to
London,
or,
which
Unfortunately, in
one
and there has been a hideous confusion as
my
jam
issued to one cavalry regi-
present purpose, which
instructions. ... i) to train an
perchance 2) to see to
it
is
to request
army of uniformed
British clerks in Spain for the benefit of the accountant in
for
and ninepence remains unaccounted for
jars of raspberry
This brings
.
is
London: "We have enumerated our saddles,
infantry battalion's petty cash to the
of the
little
Government holds me accountable.
his Majesty's
the
me
Campaign. Wellington
and copy boys
that the forces of
Napoleon
are
driven out of Spain?" In preparing for the annual inspection in Vietnam
and
in all
my
future service,
I
would think of Wellington's jam
whenever the purpose of the mission seemed
jars
to get lost in bureaucracy.
Though Due Pho was away from the main VC units, it was hardly a garden spot. The first thing I noticed, parked on the edge of the camp, was a "conex" container, the kind used to ship heavy equipment or household ary,
effects.
This huge crate,
I
learned,
used to hold Viet Cong dead until
the bodies.
knocked
me
The next thing
I
we
was our backyard mortu-
figured out what to do with
noticed was the odor, which almost
Excrement was burned
day long
in fifty-five-
gallon drums, and the whole post smelled like a privy.
The burning.
out.
all
* COLIN
132
KP, and other menial tasks, was done by Vietnamese
like laundry,
whom we
POWELL
L.
hired.
The workers'
loyalty
was supposedly checked out by
Lord knows how many people running
the local village chiefs, though
around inside Due Pho were moonhghting for the VC, including the chiefs.
We
were ambushed regularly and took occasional rounds of mortar
and rocket for
T
f
mines
fire.
Every morning the roads out of Due Pho had
to
be swept
VC might have planted during the night. While high-
that the
tech warriors back at the Pentagon were dreaming up supersophisti-
down-home remedy.
cated equipment for this task, our troops used a
The men
filled a five-ton
dump
truck with
dirt;
the driver put
it
in
down the road. If he hit a mine, it would blow off the and probably damage the rear end. But the truck could usually be
reverse and backed tires
salvaged, and the roads were cleared.
seldom a
We lost an occasional vehicle, but
driver.
Besides getting
Due Pho
in shape,
had
I
go out and make sure
to
were also ready for the annual inspection.
that field units
We
had sev-
—
FSBs (fire support bases) and LZs (landing zones) Dragon, Liz, Chevy located throughout our area. Early in August, I got a hehcopter eral
—
and flew out ties
to
check out
LZ Dragon.
I
had heard
were substandard. Bad chow proved
lems.
I
had not expected
discovered jolted me. over rusted
weapons
ammo
dirty,
As
left
I
to
be the
to find stateside spit
first
gone
I
Vietnam
in force,
and
buildup after the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. sight,
Still,
Still,
the
check on
Dragon back
their
moved on
I
nil,
in appearance,
American advisors the big
end was nowhere
into shape, told the officers
compliance, and
was
Sanitation
and deterioration of discipline and morale was obvious.
orders to get
what
practically stumbled
site.
was four years since
it
facili-
of Dragon's prob-
equipment neglected, and the troops sloppy
to
messing
and pohsh.
bearing, and behavior. Seven years had passed since
had
its
least
stepped out of the helo,
lying around the landing
that
I
I
in
issued
would be back to
to the next site.
These were good men, the same kind of young Americans who had fought, bled, and died winning victory after victory throughout our
country's history.
They were no
less brave or skilled, but
the war, they lacked inspiration and a sense of purpose.
administration
was
trying to conduct the
war with
by
this
time in
Back home,
as
little
the
inconve-
nience to the country as possible. The reserves had not been called up.
Taxes to finance the war had not been raised. Better-off kids beat the
Back
The commander
draft with college deferments.
was packing to aid
it
in at the
were deserting
to
air
been reduced to vice president.
same
Ky had
silk flying suit
hopscotched around the country
one [hero]
—
Hitler.
.
.
.
man
for
and
Ky had is
he did as they
said, "I
have only
so desperate
now
that
We need four or five Hitlers in Vietnam."
whose regime
finality as at Valley
second tour he had
trailing scarf as
in his plane.
Americans were dying every week
same
my
married a young airline hostess
But the situation here
one man would not be enough. This was the
LBJ himself, we had come
marshal to become South
Vietnam's premier by age thirty-four, though by
the
ally
133
of over 100,000 a year. That flying states-
man Nguyen Cao Ky had gone beyond
who wore
in chief,
end of his term. Troops of the
at a rate
^
Vietnam
even
three, four,
in 1968.
five
hundred
They were dying with
Forge or Normandy, but with
little
the
of the
nobility of purpose.
Our men fire,
in the field, trudging
through elephant grass under hostile
did not have time to be hostile toward each other. But bases like
Due Pho were had begun
increasingly divided by the
to plague
dozens of new
men
America during
same
racial polarization that
the sixties.
The base contained
waiting to be sent out to the field and short-timers
waiting to go home. For both groups, the unifying force of a shared mission and shared danger did not exist. Racial friction took
Young
blacks, particularly draftees,
saw
its
place.
the war, not surprisingly, as
even less their fight than the whites did. They had less to go
home
to.
This generation was more likely to be reached by the fireworks of an
H. Rap Jr.
Brown
than the reasonableness of the late Martin Luther King,
Both blacks and whites were increasingly resentful of the authority
them here
that kept
one goal was tent
and
mants attacks
I
to
for a dangerous
and unclear purpose. The number
do your time and get home
moved my
who might be
alive. I
was
living in a large
cot every night, partly to thwart Viet tracking me, but also because
on authority from within the battalion
I
Cong
infor-
did not rule out
itself.
Due Pho took crazy pendulum swings from the trite to the heartbreaking. One afternoon I was getting Coke and beer helicoptered out to the firebases when a daily priority the exec dared not miss Colonel Lowder sent word that he had run into a stiff fight at Firebase Liz and needed help. I ordered up a "slick,'' a bare-bones UH-i heliLife at
—
copter,
no
seats, just
—
space and a couple of door guns, had
it
loaded with
COLIN
134
POWELL
L.
5.56mm rifle and 7.62mm machine-gun ammo, and headed out over the
We
treetops.
landed
me
faced
Lowder
bility
of a helicopter on the ground
KHAs
(killed
told
by
killed in action)
we took off in
to take
back nine of our left little
the half-light,
I
slumped
for
now
an evac hospital, a
KIA,
slick.
As
to the flooi*, facing nine recently
stacked like cordwood.
We
landed
MASH unit. The tents were a hive of
with wounded being flown in from
activity,
time for niceties. The nine
ponchos and loaded onto the
into
grim-
The vulnera-
casualties.
Army's replacement term
hostile action, the
were rolled
healthy young American boys, in darkness at
A
Liz near dusk and quickly unloaded.
at
all directions.
People in combat develop a protective numbness that allows them to
go on. That night
I
saw
this shield crack. Eventually, the
bodies were
taken from the slick into the field hospital to be confirmed as dead.
Medical
each poncho and examined the bodies with
staffers unrolled
brisk efficiency, until the last one. it's
.
The
.
final casualty
I
"Oh my God, who had
heard a nurse gasp,
was a young medic from
their unit
volunteered to go out to the firebase the day before. Nurses and medics started crying.
Then finally
it
I
turned and
was back
them
left
to their duty.
bean counting for the annual inspection.
to
we were examined by
took place,
When it
a scrupulous but fair officer,
Lieutenant Colonel Carrol Swain, inspector general of the Americal Division. that
The
battalion scored highest in the division, an achievement
meant more back
at headquarters, I
ing the days until their tour
On
was
am
sure, than to grunts count-
over.
October 31, 1968, President Johnson called a halt to the bombing of
North Vietnam. To those of us on the ground, these geopolitical stratagems were as remote as sunspots. While back at
seethed with controversy over the war, sion on
its
merits
among my
I
do not
fellow officers
all
home
the while
nam. Questioning the war would not have made fighting a bombing halt meant anything to enemy and more grief for our men.
I
got
my
picture in the newspaper,
The paper was
my
the
us,
and
it
it
the country
recall a single discus-
meant
I
it
was
any easier.
less pressure
changed
my
in Viet-
life in
If
on the
Vietnam.
Anny Times, and the photo had appeared in a story on
graduating class from the
Fort Leavenworth.
Up
in
Chu
Command Lai,
and General Staff College
at
Major General Charles M. Gettys,
Back
commanding
the Americal Division,
me
issue of the paper and recognized
Landing Zone Liz.
On
as an officer he
as
my plans
sonnel, the
G-4
G-2
in
my
Of the among
burner
division and he's
him up
five jobs, the
why
armies
staff officers, the
G-3
and the G-5 for
ations are the reason fastest
major
for intelligence, the
for logistics,
with civihans.
briefly at
here. I
want
officer."
A division conmiander has five the
had met
finishing the piece, Gettys told his staff, *l've
stuck out in the boonies as a battalion exec? Bring
him
133
was reading a two-month-old
number two Leavenworth graduate
got the
*
Vietnam
to
G-3
civil affairs, is
exist.
the
G-i for per-
and planning,
for operations
involving relations
most coveted, since oper-
The job usually goes
to the
lieutenant colonels in a division.
Gettys had already earmarked a hot property. Lieutenant Colonel
Richard D. Lawrence, for his recently vacated G-3 spot. But out that Lawrence
sfill
had three months
to
it
turned
complete as an armored
squadron commander, and Gettys found himself in need of a G-3 once.
And
so, instead
of starting off as plans officer, a G-3 deputy,
I
at
was
picked by General Gettys over several lieutenant colonels for the G-3
job
itself,
Another
making me
officer
the only major filling that role in Vietnam.
had been considered as interim G-3 before me. But
General Getty s's aide. Captain
Ron Tumelson, had
with Gettys, telling the general the failings of his act that could
stuck his neck out choice, a bold
initial
have destroyed Tumelson's career. Gettys, to his
was persuaded by
facts,
credit,
and he took a chance on me, a major he barely
knew any of this until twenty-five years later when Tumelson wrote to me. The general's decision enormously influenced knew.
my
never
I
career. Overnight,
I
went from looking
after eight
hundred men
to
planning warfare for nearly eighteen thousand troops, artillery units, aviation battalions, and a fleet of
The Americal was not lineage
the Americal itself in
helicopters.
a division in the usual organizational sense.
was honorable enough.
Infantry Division in
450
It
had originally been formed as the 23d
New Caledonia during World War II
—America
Its
plus Caledonia.
The
and christened
division distinguished
Guadalcanal, Bougainville, and the Philippines campaigns.
Except for a brief resurrection deactivated as of
December
in the
mid-1950s, the Americal had been
1945. The name was revived
stitch together three unrelated brigades
from
in
Vietnam
to
different U.S. locations,
brigades that had not trained together or even arrived in Vietnam
* COLIN
136
together.
shifted
Once
POWELL
L.
there, battalions within the brigades
were
arbitrarily
around the country Hke so many pieces on a checkerboard. The
Once
revived Anrierical lacked tradition, cohesion, and even any future. the
war ended,
the division
was a good
would be dissolved. Even with these handiwould be forever
tar-
nished by one of the darker chapters in American military history
at a
caps,
it
place called
Briefing
is
division; but
its
My Lai.
a performing
art.
You
stand, pointer in hand, before
and have a splendid chance
charts,
seniors.
reputation
Not long
after taking over as
to
show your
G-3,
1
stuff,
maps and
often to your
headed for the Chu Lai
brief-
ing room, located in a Quonset hut, with other map-toting, chart-laden staffers. Inside this functional structure
were surprising touches
to brief
six
map board. This day,
the
General Creighton Abrams, commander of
all
plush general officer chairs and a backlit Lucite
Americal was
—
U.S. forces in Vietnam.
Abrams was a living legend, revered throughout the Army, the tank commander who punched his way through the German lines to relieve the surrounded loist Airborne Division at Bastogne during the Battle
of the Bulge. His boss respondents that ter
if
at the time.
they wanted to write about this officer they had bet-
—"He's so good, he hurry
with us,
still all
General George Patton, told war cor-
soldier, a
and blunt as a punch
man
A
going to
live long."
Abrams was
still
without a duplicitous bone in his body,
in the nose.
decoding their laconic boss.
He was
isn't
His aides had devised a system for
deep grunt? Abrams was
And
satisfied.
An
Abe took the cigar out of his mouth, stand by for the blast of a blowtorch. One overworked briefer who had tried to peddle warmed-over intelligence to Abrams had been abrupt groan?
fired
on the
We
dissatisfied.
if
spot.
could practically hear the tension crackling in the hut as
our seats and waited. Within minutes. General Abrams strode flew to attention.
we
in,
took
and we
A nervous General Gettys followed him. The two were
longtime buddies, which did not seem to alleviate Gettys 's anxiety. All the briefers
who preceded me were
lieutenant colonels. Finally,
Gettys stood up and said, "Major Powell will
had called on
my
instructor training
by
battalion, explaining
brief."
To prepare,
from Fort Benning, and
ming techniques from Fort Leavenworth. battalion
now
I
my
I
cram-
went through the Americal,
where every
outfit
was,
its state
of
Back
readiness, and
Vietnam
to
had committed the information
I
When
I
finished,
He gave
Abrams and
a grunt that
I
A few minutes
up and walked
we were
asked, "Sir, are
With the briefing
out, with Gettys traihng after him.
Gettys, having seen
later,
used no
could not decipher as long
or short, positive or negative, approving or rejecting. over, he simply got
I
in,
memory.
to
turned to General
I
there any questions?"
hut where
137
what operations the troops were presently engaged
and gave an extended forecast over the next several weeks. notes.
*
Abrams
milling outside, expectantly.
off,
returned to the
He was
grinning.
"Abe's happy," Gettys said.
"He
is,
sir?"
I
"How
asked.
could you tell?"
"For one thing, he wanted to know, who's that young major?" Gettys said, putting
Back
an arm around
shoulder.
Birmingham, on November 22, 1968, a Sunday morning, Alma
in
was returning
house she shared with her
to the
night at their parents'
sister after
Alma
spending the
home. Dangling from the doorknob was a notice
had a telegram, which she could pick up
that she office.
my
called, but
at the
Western Union
Western Union would not divulge the message
over the phone. She went back to the Johnsons to pick up her father for
moral support before heading into town to learn the contents of the gram.
It
was from
husband. Major
the
CoHn
Department of the L. Powell, 083771,
copter crash. Mail could be addressed to pital in
Army
informing her that her
had been involved
him
tele-
at the indicated
in a heli-
base hos-
Vietnam. Nothing more, and not a word about the nature of
injuries,
my
except that they were minor.
November 16, we had been flying west of Quang Ngai in General Gettys's UH-iH, a top-of-the-line helicopter, with only ninety hours logged in the air. The brightness of
The week
the day
before, Saturday afternoon,
was
reflected in the general's sunny
mood.
I
studied him,
dressed like any other GI, in jungle fafigues, soft cap, and canvas-andleather boots, a rotund, amiable tys
had reason
to feel
good. In
man, this
his
broad face
set in a smile.
Get-
cat-and-mouse war, with rarely a
decisive thrust, his ill-starred Americal Division had scored a clear victory.
nine
nth Infantry Brigade had uncovered twentyNorth Vietnamese Army base camps, including a headquarters and The day
before, the
a training post.
The
i
ith
had also captured a large cache of weapons and
* COLIN
138
POWELL
L.
enemy documents. The
commander had ordered a landing site and that was where we were headed. General
battalion
hacked out of the jungle,
Gettys wanted to see the battalion's prize.
As we flew along the steep, encroaching hillsides, the thought struck me that we had a lot of freight aboard one aircraft the division's twostar commanding general; his chief of staff. Colonel Jack Treadwell (a Medal of Honor recipient); Captain Ron Tumelson, the general's aide;
—
me, the division's G-3; and a four-man crew.
maybe
this
had thought
I
earlier that
landing would be better handled by a small slick piloted by
one of those nineteen-year-olds with a safecracker's touch and plenty of experience in shoehorning helos into tight
But the general's
Chief Wan'ant Oftlcer James D. Hannan, was an experienced
pilot. flier.
fits.
This was his general, his helo, his landing, and he expected no
problem.
We
spotted a
smoke grenade
signaling the
out of the heavy growth and headed for to the landing site, realized he
came
at
it
On
again.
it.
The
was coming
site
of the hole chopped
pilot
began
in too fast,
his
approach
backed
and
off,
the second pass, he hovered, then began his
descent. Bits of snipped-off branches and leaves swirled through the air
we moved down through the trees. Since I was sitting outboard, I could see how little clearance we had, about two feet at each end of the as
blade.
I
began
to shout, "Pull out!"
But
it
was too
late.
pilot struggling against a treacherous backdraft created
then,
whack! At
main
dropped
we were dead
went
weight, as
instantly
crash posture, head down, arms locked around the engine's futile
smashed
and
trees,
from 324 rpm to zero. The helo an elevator with a snapped cable. I reflexively assumed the
rotor blades like
watched the
a height of about three stories, the blade struck a tree
tmnk. One minute we were flying and the next the
I
by the
whine
for
my
knees.
I
listened to
what seemed an eternity before we
into the ground.
Standard procedure calls for getting away from the aircraft as soon as possible, before the door.
it
catches
tire. I
Ahead of me was
released
my
seat belt
and jumped out
the helo's gunner. Private First Class
Pyle.
We
did not get far from the wreck before
were
still
on board, none of them moving. Pyle ran back
the pilot's door. a pain in
my
started to
till
I
we
realized that others to
jimmy open
climbed back into the hold, noticing for the
ankle.
The engine was
the helo.
I
still
Bob
first
grinding away, and
time
smoke
found General Gettys, barely conscious,
his
Back
shoulder at an odd angle and probably broken.
him
seat belt, got
to
managed
I
*
Vietnam
to release his
and dragged him into the woods. By now, several
out,
on the ground had joined us as we went back for the
soldiers
victims.
found Jack Treadwell and managed
I
climbed aboard again and heard the pilot to free him.
139
Ron Tumelson,
him
to pull
moan
as
PFC
rest
to safety.
I
Pyle struggled
was slumped
the general's aide,
of the
over, his
head trapped between the radio console and the engine, which had
smashed through the fuselage as covered with blood.
managed
I
if it
saw no sign of
were an eggshell. Tumelson was life
and was sure he was dead.
shove aside the dislodged console and free him.
to
heard him groan.
And
the
into the
woods with
a
I
commanding
who
dragged
suffered a broken back.
general's helicopter goes down, other aircraft
materialize as if out of nowhere. cling a landing zone that
pilot,
I
was rescued,
the others. In the end, everyone
most seriously injured being the
When
then
noticed a dent where the engine had struck his hel-
I
met, which had provided just enough protection to save him.
him
I
looked up to see a swarm of helos
I
had not been big enough
to
cir-
accommodate even
one without a mishap. Finally, they backed off and made way for a dust-
One by one, we were winched
off bird, a medical evacuation helicopter.
up
swaying helplessly
to the aircraft,
wondering
in the breeze,
if all
eyes watching were necessarily friendly.
Back
at the
Chu
Lai base hospital, x-rays revealed
and bruises,
lacerations
I
that, in
had a broken ankle. Ordinarily,
would be evacuated. Army medical policy was
to ship
addition to
that
meant
I
anybody with
broken bones to Japan, since the dampness in our sector discouraged healing.
The
division, however,
was not about
lose a recently
to
acquired G-3 just because he had a cracked bone.
The doctors put me
a cast, and
was not
I
impaired as
hobbled around as best as
my commanding
could.
I
general. General Gettys
uled to meet his wife in Hawaii for
R
and
"Dammit, Colin, how's a man supposed
him
to
My
do with
arm
his
cast lasted a
I
was being
only troubled
me
me no
had been sched-
and complained
to
me,
do what a woman expects
it
started crumbling.
my
business.
I
replaced
it
with
The doctors warned me
foolish, but the ankle healed in about seven years. if I
stepped off a curb
duced a sensation similar gives
to
R
trouble.
in
as sensitively
in a sling?"
week before
an Ace bandage and went about that
I
at the
wrong
angle,
It
which pro-
to being electrocuted. Fortunately, today,
it
* COLIN
140
I
was about
my
spend
to
POWELL
L.
second Christmas
Vietnam. During the hol-
in
Chu Lai reeked of a strong, gamy
iday season,
odor. Gifts
from home of
smoked salamis and hams from the Hickory Farms mail-order company were all the rage. At first, they were heartily welcomed. Then they started to spill out of the
mailroom and the
seemed we were going
be overcome by smoke inhalation.
to
htits
ani hooches I
until
it
have not
been able to eat a smoked anything since.
On
my friends and I went to watch Bob Hope and the
Christmas Eve,
troupe he had brought to entertain the forces, the stunning Ann-Margret,
Les Brown (and star
Rosey
like
Grier,
war
it,
—what
as
else?
—
Band of Renown),
his
the pro football
and Miss World, Penelope Plummer. That was more
we remembered
it
from old newsreels. Afterward, we
retired to the officers' club to listen to a Filipino rock group. larly
remember
I
particu-
their rendition of the Patsy Cline hit "I Fall to Pieces,"
which on Filipino
lips
had a charm of
own: "Arfo do PZs." And we
its
drank too much. The helicopter pilots drank the most, especially those
Many were on
flying the next day.
casualty rate
was
their
second or third
high, and the highest risks of
all
tours. Their
were taken by the
crews of the dust- off helos of the Medical Service Corps such as recently ridden.
To pick up
the
We
save resulted in lives saved.
ring to fellow pilots
My had
had a near reverence for
their part, they faced their lot with
who went down
distinction as the only to end. Lieutenant
had
they had to hover in full view
enemy and slowly corkscrew down. Every minute
of the
For
wounded
I
they could
their courage.
black-humored fatalism,
refer-
in flames as "crispy critters."
major serving as a division G-3 inevitably
Colonel Dick Lawrence completed his six
commander and moved up to the G-3 slot Getty had promised him. Gettys told me that he knew the situation was awkmonths
as a squadron
ward, since
I
occasionally had had to overrule Lawrence while
G-3; nevertheless, he
hoped
I
would
stay as Lawrence's deputy.
I
I
was
gladly
signed on as his number two, and in the years that followed, Dick
became another valued mentor Since by January 1969
about
my
for the
1
to
me.
was halfway through
my tour, I began thinJdng
knew what I wanted. I had been approved Army's grad school program. The next hurdle was to pass the next assignment.
I
Back
*
Vietnam
to
141
I managed to find an Arco-type study Chu Lai offered few distractions, spent my evenings devouring this book. One drizzling Saturday morning, I crowded onto a slick that was taking a bunch of short-timers to Da Nang for their return home and made my way to a Quonset hut. There, with an unlikely-
Graduate Record Examination.
guide and, since
looking collection of would-be scholars,
months to
later
I
got
word
that
I
The George Washington University
across the
took the
I
had done well, and
Potomac River from
in
I
test.
A
Washington, D.C.
the Pentagon,
couple of
applied for admission
GWU, just
had become something of
a finishing school for the Washington military establishment. officers took degrees in internafional relations, ate.
But
at
about
this time, the
modern management so
that
computer age. Consequently,
Army began
would have
I
applied to the
ment and Business Administrafion, aiming had an additional appeal. By now I
figured that
ketable as an
when my
I
which seemed appropri-
steering
it
its
personnel toward
officers ready to enter the
GWU School of GovernM.B.A. This degree
for an
had over ten years
military career ended,
M.B.A. than
I
in the
Army. And
would be more mar-
Western European
as an expert in
Many
political
systems.
On January 22, 1969, Army charter flight P2 102 touched down at Hickham Field, Hawaii, the mihtary side of Honolulu International Airport.
R and R,
blessed
ily yet afraid that
R and R. it
I
got off the plane, impatient to see
was too good
to
be
true. I
my fam-
had arranged for reserva-
tions at the Halekulani Hotel, obtained plane tickets for the children as
well as Alma, and had a rental car waiting. into the terminal,
I
As I walked down
a corridor
could see up ahead families leaning forward, strain-
ing to pick out a familiar face.
"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!"
Little
Then
Mike,
I
now
heard a wonderful shriek: almost
with Linda, age
six,
came rushing toward me. Each one seized a leg dear life. The pressure of those small arms around me
three, toddling behind,
and held on for
was one of the most joyous sensations
We beach. lage
I
have ever known.
We went to the if I knew how). We saw the vil-
did nothing very original over the next few days. I tried
to teach
Mike
to surf (as
where the movie Hawaii was filmed, and the zoo, and a dolphin
show, and the blowhole where the blue waters of the Pacific spurt
through the rocks in a timeless geyser.
one night.
We managed
Alma and
to find a baby-sitter
I
went out alone
and took
just
in a luau at Fort
* COLIN
142
POWELL
L.
De Russy. We went to the International Marketplace to hear Don Ho, who must have sung "Tiny Btibbles" to every soldier who ever made it
R and R.
lyric stuck in my mind ."). make you feel fine And then it was over. The last night, we put the kids to bed without any fuss, just as if they were home, and AlmS and I sat out under the
to
Hawaii on
For weeks afterward, the
("Tiny bubbles, in the wine. Tiny bubbles
.
.
magical Hawaiian sky. Vietnam was a million miles yet only a plane
Alma did not way with career soldiers and wives. Alma, thank God, was not of that breed of service spouses who think they have been commissioned along with the husband and like to talk shop. They know who has been given an accelerated promotion and who has been passed over, who received the choice assignment and who was dead-ended. Alma never cared for that world of career poUtics. She made a home, ride away. ask.
That
did not talk about the past six months, and
I
is
usually the
me
raised the kids, kept at
happy, and impressed everybody at every post
which we ever served.
What we get used to
years
talked about that night
me
later, I
the first time
was gone
a few days, and
I
again.
was leaving
I
from
parental ballast, which,
were together here
again.
all
the children.
I
I
was
It
of family
life
was
was an afternoon
word
in
four
Hawaii for only
Alma to
counted on
evidence, she
provide the extra
was doing hotel,
nicely.
and
my
brief
over.
mid-March.
to expect a visitor
my office-hooch when I got inspector general's staff of MACV,
I
from the
Command
Military Assistance
in
to
afraid of becoming a here-he-
At midnight, an Army bus pulled up outside the taste
Mike had had
came home from Vietnam. Then,
We
comes-there-he-goes father, and
was
was
in
Vietnam. In the Army, such news
is
about as welcome as learning that the IRS intends to audit you. Tlie investigator turned out to be tight-lipped
explained the purpose of his tape recorder as he took sion.
No
tone.
He
journals,
1968,
1
visit.
and nonconmiittal; he never
He used an
old-fashioned reel-to-reel
my name, rank, position,
and duties
in the divi-
elaboration, just the questions fired off in a Joe Friday
then asked
and
I
said
I
if I
was.
explained that
I
was custodian of
mono-
the division's operational
He asked me to produce the journal for March
had not been with the division
at that time. "Just
get the journal," he said, "and go through that month's entries. Let
know
if
you find an unusual number of enemy
killed
on any day."
me
Back
I
knew what
sensed he
journal,
and
a unit of the
after a i
I
would
find.
ith Brigade
out.
On March
i6, 1968,
had reported a body count of 1 28 enemy dead
on the Batangan Peninsula. In
unspec-
this grinding, grim, but usually
was a high number. "Please read
tacular warfare, that
143
thumbing through the
started
I
few pages one entry leaped
*
Vietnam
to
that entry into the
tape recorder," the investigator said.
By now,
me
excuse
my curiosity and my guard were up.
both
while
I
called the division chief of
The
him," the chief of staff said firmly.
I
staff.
asked
if
he would
"Cooperate with
me
investigator asked
believed the journal accounts to be accurate, and
I
said they usually
if I knew Captain member of my tactical
were. Then, as he prepared to leave, he asked
Medina. Yes, tions center.
He I
answered, Medina was a
I
The
leaving
left,
would not
about.
By
investigator said he
me I
to question
as mystified as to his purpose as
learn until nearly
then,
was going
was serving
two years
in the
later
Washington
area,
Ernest opera-
Medina
when he'd
what
if I
next.
arrived.
was
this visit
and was called
all
to
appear before a board of inquiry conducted by Lieutenant General
William Ray Peers
at
The board wanted me
Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
to
give a picture of fighting conditions in the Batangan Peninsula in 1968. I
knew
it
had been a hellhole, a rough piece of territory inhabited by VC
sympathizers.
The French
in their
day had been driven out of the Batan-
gan Peninsula and stayed out. Every time expect dozens of traumatic amputations
we
sent units there,
at the
we
could
evacuation hospital from
mines and booby traps sown by enemy guerrillas and sympathetic peasants, including
women, even
children.
None of which excuses what happened date, a little over three
the
I
A platoon
headed by
of old men, into a ditch
ley
months before
I
Ith Brigade entered the village of
and
his
women,
First Lieutenant
that
March
16, 1968.
On that
arrived in Vietnam, troops
Son
from
My on the South China Sea.
William Calley herded hundreds
children, even babies
from the hamlet of
My Lai
and shot them. Subsequent investigation revealed that Cal-
men
in the journal
killed
formed
guilty of premeditated
347 people. The 128 enemy part of the total.
A
murder and sentenced him
ident Richard Nixon, however, intervened,
"kills"
I
had found
court-martial found Calley to life in prison. Pres-
and Calley's sentence was
reduced to three years of what amounted to comfortable house
arrest.
Captain Ernest Medina was also tried on murder and manslaughter charges for permitting the death of
some one hundred Vietnamese, but
* COLIN
144 was
What
acquitted.
the taciturn investigator
would be remembered
that afternoon
My
POWELL
L.
me
about
My Lai Massacre.
as the
Lai was an appaUing example of
had questioned
much
had gone wrong
that
in
Vietnam. Because the war had dragged on for so long, not everyone
commissioned was
really officer material. Just as critical, the corps of
was being gutted by
career noncommissioned officers
casualties.
Career noncoms form the backbone of any army, and producing them requires years of professional soldiering. In order to fight the
out calling up the reserves, the
we
Shake- and-bake sergeants, little
training,
astonished
Army was
war with-
creating instant noncoms.
called them. Take a private, give
shake him once or twice, and pronounce him an
me how
well and heroically
some of
him
NCO.
a It
these green kids per-
formed, assuming responsibility far beyond their years and experience. Still,
to
the involvement of so
breakdowns
to horrors like
many unprepared
in morale, discipline,
officers
and noncoms led
and professional judgment
—and
My Lai —as the troops became numb to what appeared to
be endless and mindless slaughter. I
we used
recall a phrase
in the field,
MAM, for military-age male. If
a helo spotted a peasant in black pajamas
who looked
MAM,
and
cious, a possible If
the pilot
would
circle
remotely suspi-
fire in front
he moved, his movement was judged evidence of hostile
the next burst
was not
able battalion
commander with whom
in front, but at him. Brutal? I
Maybe
had served
at
of him.
and
intent, so.
But an
Gelnhausen,
enemy sniper fire And Pritchard was only one
Lieutenant Colonel Walter Pritchard, was killed by
while observing
MAMs from a helicopter.
of many. The kill-or-be-killed nature of combat tends to dull fine perceptions of right and wrong.
My tour was to end in July was a
success. Holding
1969. Judged solely in professional terms,
down
the
Vietnam, as a major, was a rare highly favorable.
awarded
me the
cue. That
I
G-3 spot
credit.
it
for the largest division in
My efficiency reports continued
received the Legion of Merit, and General Gettys
Soldier's
was Vietnam
And, for a long time,
I
as
my role in the helicopter crash resexperienced by the career lobe of my brain.
Medal
for
allowed myself to think only on that
cer answering the call, doing his best, "content to
But as time passed and
my
fill
side,
an
offi-
a soldier's grave."
perspective enlarged, another part of
brain began examining the experience
more
penetratingly. I
my
had gone off
Back
to
Vietnam
And I
in
The pernicious game-playing
stark,
by
killed
more
could detect
it,
my
second It
had
I
tour.
killed in action
—
as
though
War
II
were refashioned MAFs, Marine Amphibious shipped overseas to
while you could be holding amphibious exercises off North
Who were we kidding, except ourselves? Years afterward,
had become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
the
we did not want to
and Korea as Marine Expeditionary Forces,
Why? "Expeditionary" raised images of men
I
the sting of the
that only self-deluding bureaucrats
In Vietnam, they
Carolina.
detected in
in those rice paddies.
MEFs.
die,
self-
Consider an expression
Forces.
and
and
and certainly not the poor KHAs. The Marines had fought
throughout World
fight
43
tour and had
first
removed some of
—
lies,
first
my
home by what really happened
was so meaningless
distinction
that
Vietnam during
hostile action.
KIA
familiar
upset the folks back
The
to
flowering during
its full
KHA,
like
eroded by euphemisms,
that foundation
Gelnhausen had been exported reached
I
1962 standing on a bedrock of principle and conviction.
had watched
deception.
*
Vietnam
to
Staff, the
Marine Corps, General Alfred M. Gray, threw out
obfuscafion. Marines left the country credit, restored
after
Commandant of that
Vietnam-era
on military expeditions. Al,
to his
MEF to its old standing.
Readiness and training reports in the Vietnam era were routinely inflated to please
the children of
The powers
and conceal rather than
to evaluate
and
Lake Wobegon, everybody came out "above average."
that
be seemed
could change the
to believe that
We
truth.
had
lost
by manipulating words, we
touch with
reality.
deluded by technology. The enemy was primitive, and
most technologically advanced nation on no
contest. Thus, out of the
"people the
correct. Like
sniffer," a
earth.
It
We
were also
we were
the
therefore should be
McNamara shop came
miracles like the
device that could detect concentrations of urine on
ground from an airplane (brought
to
you by the same people who
came up with Agent Orange). If the urine was detected in likely enemy territory, we now had an artillery target. But woe to any innocent
later
peasants or water buffalos that happened to relieve themselves in the
wrong
place.
The people
sniffer
was of a piece with McNamara's Line,
a series of electronic sensors strung across the country that to alert us
Minh
were going
whenever an enemy force began moving down the
Trail,
an idea
Ho Chi
stillborn.
The Legion of Merit
I
received?
war where medals were not
^ It
might have meant more to
distributed so indiscriminately.
I
me
in a
remember
* COLIN
146
L.
POWELL
once, as division G-3, attending a battalion change-of-command cere-
mony
at
one firebase where the departing
medal
Stars, the nation's third-highest
medals, after a tour lasting six months. heroically.
He was
CO was awarded three
Silver
for valor, plus a clutch of other
He had performed
ably, at times
popular with his men. Yet,' the troops had to stand
there and listen to an overheated description of a fairly typical perfor-
mance. Awards were piled on to a point where writing the justifying
became
tions
a minor art form.
The departing
cita-
commander's
battalion
"package," a Silver Star, a Legion of Merit, and Air Medals just for log-
ging helicopter time, became almost standard-issue.
package because everyone else
did.
the achievements of real heros
formed extraordinary
—
You accepted
the
These wholesale awards diminished
privates or colonels
acts of valor.
—who had
remember looking
I
per-
at the faces
the troops the day of the three Silver Stars and thinking, this
of
insane,
is
and we have brought these young soldiers here to witness the insanity. What lessons are we passing on to them? That bull works? A corrosive careerism had infected the Army; and
Dark episodes
like
I
was
part of
it.
My Lai resulted, in part, because of the military's
obsession with another semifiction, the ''body count," that grisly yardstick ally
produced by the Vietnam War. The nth Infantry Brigade had actu-
been awarded a Special Commendation for 128 "enemy" killed
My Lai, before the truth came out. The Army, needed something in this
What military
week's situation report? A
sequently, bodies
The
to measure.
press
knew
became
hill?
under Pentagon pressure
and
to justify the country's investment in lives
billions, desperately
objectives could
But body counts were
fell?
to
show
Finding out was not easy. The
for it?
VC
and
KHAs in the lat-
How many
NVA
tricky.
They simply
precisely the casualties on our side.
What do we have
we claim
A valley ? A hamlet? Rarely. Con-
the measure.
counted the caskets going out. Twenty caskets, twenty est firefight.
of the
enemy
did not use caskets.
They were
also skilled at breaking off contact and taking their
with them.
We
you have
produce the weapons, and reporters can count.
to
ies did not
make two
dead
might have used weapons captured as a measure. But
have to be brought back. Every night,
a tally.
at
"How many did your platoon get?"
for sure." "Well, if
became
bod-
the company would
"I don't
you saw two, there were probably
say ten." Counting bodies
Enemy
know. eight.
We saw So
let's
a macabre statistical competition.
Companies were measured against companies,
battalions against battal-
Back
Good commanders
ions, brigades against brigades.
counts.
And good commanders
inflating the counts, could
The enemy
actually
difference.
little
alties
147
scored high body
got promoted. If your competition
was
you afford not to?
was taking horrendous
As one
*
Vietnam
to
military analyst put
it,
casualties.
But
made
it
divide each side's casu-
by the economic cost of producing them. Then multiply by the
enemy was willing to pay that price, body counts meant nothing. This enemy was obviously prepared to pay, and unsportingly refused to play the game by our As long
poHtical cost of sustaining them.
scorekeeping. battle
—
as your
We were forever trying to engage the NVA in a knockout
a Vietnamese Waterloo, an
refused to cooperate.
Iwo Jima, an Inchon
—but
melt into their sanctuaries in the highlands or into Laos,
and come out
joined to
to fight again.
China Sea
the South
kill
the
NVA
No matter how hard we struck, NVA troops would
all
regroup,
refit,
We had our sanctuaries too, stretching from
the
way back
to the
U.S.A. The two forces
each other between the mountains and coastal plains of
Vietnam. Every Friday night, our side toted up the body count for the
week, then
we went to bed and
At the end of my
first tour, I
started all over again the next day.
had guessed
that finishing the job
take half a million men. Six years later, during
reached the peak, 543,400, and rain, the
kind of war the
was
it
still
my
second
would
tour,
we
not enough. Given the ter-
NVA and VC were fighting,
and the casualties
they were willing to take, no defensible level of U.S. involvement
would have been enough. I
remember
a soldier, while
stepped on a mine. punctured. hospital at I
One
leg
I
was
hung by a
still
battalion exec,
shred,
and
his chest
who had had been
We loaded him onto a slick and headed for the nearest evac Due Pho, about fifteen minutes away. He was just a kid, and
can never forget the expression on his face, a mixture of astonishment,
fear, curiosity,
and, most of
all,
incomprehension.
He
kept trying to
speak, but the words would not come out. His eyes seemed to be saying, why? I did not have an answer, then or now. He died in my arms before we could reach Due Pho. I
Fall
recently reread Bernard Fall's
makes
we had
painfully clear that
gotten ourselves into.
book on Vietnam,
Street Without Joy.
we had almost no understanding I
cannot help thinking that
if
of what
President
Kennedy or President Johnson had spent a quiet weekend at Camp David reading that perceptive book, they would have returned to the
^ COLIN
148
L.
POWELL
White House Monday morning and immediately
way
to extricate us
from the quicksand of Vietnam. In the years between
my first and second tours, base
— base —had
the logic of Captain Hieu's explanation
here to protect the airstrip, which
is
started to figure out a
here to supply the
is
becau^ we're here because resort. And when we go to war, we"
not changed, only widened. We're here
War should be
the politics of last
,
should have a purpose that our people understand and support; should mobilize the country's resources to
go
in to win. In
much
with
Vietnam,
we had
the
fulfill that
.
we
mission and then
entered into a halfhearted half-war,
of the nation opposed or indifferent, while a small fraction
carried the burden. I
I
witnessed as
am
proud of
much bravery
my
in
Vietnam as
I
expect to see in any war.
service in the Americal Division.
We
had our bright
moments and outstanding soldiers. Another officer who served in that division was a lieutenant colonel named H. Norman Schwarzkopf.
Norm
Schwarzkopf,
I,
and so many others who went on
to
major mili-
tary responsibility must have carried away something useful from the
experience. in a
I
soldiers
answered the
war so poorly conceived, conducted, and explained by
try's leaders.
the
am proud of the way American
CCNY
Dozens of my
friends died in that war.
Pershing Rifles lost
John Young. All
this
its
heroism and
do not squander courage and
third
member
As
in
their
coun-
small a circle as
Vietnam
in 1968,
sacrifice are precisely the point:
lives
call
you
without clear purpose, without the
country's backing, and without full commitment. I
particularly
condemn
the
way our
political leaders supplied the
—
The policies determining who would be who would be deferred, who would serve and who would who would die and who would live were an antidemocratic
manpower
for that war.
drafted and
—
escape,
disgrace.
I
young men
can never forgive a leadership that
—
said, in effect:
poorer, less educated, less privileged
—
These
are expendable
(someone described them as "economic cannon fodder"), but the are too erful
good
to risk.
I
am
angry that so
many
and well placed and so many professional athletes (who were
probably healthier than any of us) managed to wangle
and National Guard
units.
Of the many
class discrimination strikes all
rest
of the sons of the pow-
me
as the
slots in
tragedies of Vietnam, this raw
most damaging
to the ideal that
Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance
country.
Reserve
to their
Back
*
Vietnam
to
149
came to reexamine my feelings about the war, the Army, as an institution, would do the same thing. We accepted that we had been sent to pursue a policy that had become bankrupt. Our political leaders had led us into a war for the one-size-fits-all rationale of anticommunism, which was only a partial fit in Vietnam, where the war In time, just as
had
its
own
was going
and
historical roots in nationalism, anticolonialism,
beyond
strife
I
the East-West conflict.
badly. Yet they
pretenses, the
bowed
Our
senior officers
knew
war
the
to groupthink pressure and kept up
phony measure of body counts, the comforting
secure hamlets, the inflated progress reports. military failed to talk straight to
civil
its
As
illusion of
a corporate entity, the
The
political superiors or to itself.
top leadership never went to the Secretary of Defense or the President
and
my
war
said, ''This
is
unwinnable the way we are fighting
it."
Many
soned in that war, vowed that when our turn came to
would not quietly acquiesce
we
call the shots,
warfare for half-baked rea-
in halfhearted
sons that the American people could not understand or support. If
could
make good on
ship,
and
been
in vain.
On
June
that
promise
15, 1969,
with a few weeks
class in the School of
Earlier in the day,
company
of Vietnam would not have
left in
return
from
I
my
tour, I received a letter
had been accepted for the
Government and Business Administration.
had been out
I
patrol.
at
one of the LZs, watching a
The troops wearily climbed
ing into the weight of the rucksacks on their backs,
of them, another day crossed
Vietnam.
from
When
we
to ourselves, to the civilian leader-
to the country, then the sacrifices
from The George Washington University. fall
of
generation, the career captains, majors, and lieutenant colonels sea-
off.
the
hill,
M-i6s slung
rifle
lean-
in front
That was another irony of the war
the calendar hit a certain date,
you
just
in
walked away
it.
On my return to the
States,
Alma and I had planned to spend
a few days
We
by ourselves before joining the kids and my in-laws
in
arranged to stay in Atlanta, where Alma was to pick
me up at the airport.
I
had written ahead
telling her
Birmingham.
what hairdo, what kind of
what colors I hoped she would wear, orange and yellow.
and
had nourished
my imagination, and I wanted it fulfilled when I stepped off Alma did not fail me. We drove into town and checked into
a fantasy in that plane.
I
dress,
COLIN
150
L.
our hotel. That night,
I fell
POWELL asleep unfashionably early. Try as she might,
Alma could not keep me awake. She
kept tugging at me, saying
had
to
watch television because the astronauts were walking on the moon!
It
was July
20, 1969.
1
I
was exhausted, not just from jet lag, but deep
in
my
bones, sleeping off the emotional and physical fiatigue^of a year in Viet-
nam.
We managed to
Alma knew what
my children.
I
spend a day and a half by ourselves, and by then
wanted more than anything
else, to get
home
to see
Seven White House Fellow
WHEN
I
HUNG UP MY UNIFORM AND STARTED CLASSES AT THE GEORGE
Washington University
in
Washington,
been out of for eleven years. wearing
its
sively with tical
I
had lived
uniform, guided by its
I
its rules,
members, since leaving
was reentering a world in the
cocoon of the
I
had
military,
and associating almost exclu-
college.
Now I was, for all prac-
purposes, living as a civilian.
Alma and I immediately started house hunting. We had never owned our own home. So far, we had hved in transient military quarters, camped on
the doorsteps of friends
on the fringes of Army to do;
it
was
posts.
just a question of
tours overseas,
and
relatives, or rented
apartments
We had no fear over what we were
about
which mansion we chose. During
my
we had managed to put away nearly $8,000. Back in Birhomes went
mingham,
the finest
our range.
We found a real estate agent and started hunting through the
for $30,000 to $35,000, well within
northern Virginia suburbs where military families tend to gravitate.
* COLIN
132
POWELL
L.
After about the tenth cramped three-bedroom look-alike,
what
agent, "Is this
Welcome, he in
asked the
thousand dollars buys around here?"
thirty-five
told us, to the
tipped us off to a
I
world of Washington
new bedroom community,
real estate.
A
friend
called Dale City, going
Woodbridge, Virginia. Not particularly prestigiods. Not much
between the houses. And every
tinction
up
dis-
had been bulldozed.
last tree
But the developer was offering space, blessed space
—
—
five
bedrooms,
all for $31,520. We bought in Dale City, at 14605 DeSoto VA mortgage for $20 down and $259 a month. the word was out on the New York telegraph: "You hear?
three baths
Court, on a
Soon
new house
Colin's bought himself a big
soon?" "Can he carry
descended as they
I
it?"
underwent a
in
Washington, D.C." "So
We had barely moved
in before the relatives
check on Colin's judgment, and, as long
to see the house, to
had a place
—
to stay, to tour the nation's capital.
of confidence during
crisis
my first semester at GWU. The
Army had allotted eighteen months for me to complete an M.B.A. processing.
checked
I
in
with
my
leafed through
hmm, no in
my
statistics,
college record,
hmm, no
M.B.A.
my
academic past
I
that
I
As
Professor
He
McCarthy
"Hmm, no
heard him mutter,
economics."
touch with the Infantry Branch.
ing in
department chairman before starting
Jack McCarthy.
classes, a fine gentleman. Dr.
in data
math,
picked up a phone and got
heard McCarthy say that he saw noth-
would suggest success
in pursuing
an
My heart sank, until he added, "At least not in eighteen months."
He went
on, "Yes,
I
know. Fine record
at the Infantry School,
Command
and General Staff College, but they're not graduate school." Give Major Powell two years and two summer schools and there was hope for him,
McCarthy recommended. Fortunately It
was
true; I
daunting, and
was
was not relieved by the
the oldest student in
most
going through with
me had
finance types to terrain.
As
for
me, the
Army
rusty at academic scholarship.
classes.
found the work I
was
the half-dozen other officers
an edge; they were administrative and
whom economics and computers were already familiar
the professors plunged us into courses such as statistical
analysis and calculus
—
I
had already flunked the
latter at
CCNY—they
began
to experience
might as well have been speaking Swahili to me. the Impostor Syndrome.
They made
approved.
age thirty-two,
fact that, at
Even
I
What am
I
doing here?
a mistake in admitting me.
I
I
don't belong here.
*
White House Fellow
Between
classes, students
hung out
where we drank coffee and played
And there I made
In the class of the blind, the one-eyed student
low
officers but
My
was.
me
And,
to
my
That was
king.
is
most of the business majors were
my
lifted
it
He had complete
spirits.
astonishment,
how
Not only
my fel-
as bewildered as
me, he
faith in
my first- semester grades
went, until
Logic. For the final exam,
were
I
we were
to
said.
straight A's.
Computer
struck a reef, a course called
I
draw a flow chart of a software
program showing how the computer made decisions.
was back again
I
trying to visualize a cone intersecting a plane in space.
midterm examination but managed
the
a discovery.
Marvin Wofsey, Professor of Management, took
proctor. Dr.
aside and
union cafeteria,
at the student
cards.
133
B
to salvage a
I
pulled a
D in
in the course,
probably through divine intervention.
was eagerly scanning
I
the
Army Times
going to be promoted to lieutenant coloneL but
my
the
jump
was on I
not only professionally but financially. at a
$900 a month and sweating out
time
the promotion
was anxious It
to
list,
make
meant a boost from
when I was
taking
home about
$259 mortgage payment. Early in opened the Army Times and there were the numbers of those
July, I
who would be promoted number appeared. doing
I
sequence number had yet to come up.
$12,999 to $16,179 P^r annum
who was
those days to see
fine, a
It
that
to lieutenant colonel next
was not an
month, and
early promotion this time;
couple of years ahead of the pack.
I
still, I
managed
my was
to track
down a captain at the Military District of Washington and asked him how I went about getting formally promoted. "Damned if I know, sir," he
said. I
thought there ought to be some ceremonial fuss.
lem by assembling the troops Court.
Alma was
out,
and
I
in the family
was
baby-sitting.
room I sat
I
solved the prob-
at
14605 DeSoto
on the floor amid a
jumble of toys while Michael Powell, now age seven, pinned a leaf
on
my
silver
The witnesses were Linda, five, and our most Annemarie Powell, watching with minimal interest from
sport shirt.
recent arrival,
her infant seat.
Annemarie had been ber vividly the day bundle.
I
bom two months
before,
Alma came home from
used a movie camera
I
on
May
20.
1
remem-
the hospital with that tiny
had picked up
at a
PX
in
Vietnam for
$10 to record the moment for posterity. As Alma got out of the
car,
rushed up, excited and curious. Linda took a perfunctory peek
Mike at the
* COLIN
134
POWELL
L.
newest princess, spun on her heels, and
would
relationship that I
last for the
left,
a fairly
me
plenty of free time,
I
And
her.
since graduate
my
arms up
come
out and
liked carrying her in
and down DeSoto Court, waiting for our neighbors admire
sisterly
next twenty years.
thought Annemarie was absolutely beautiful.
school gave
common
We now had three healthy,
'to
handsome children and decided
not to strain the world's population further.
That
fall, I
was back
at
GWU,
a professional soldier in college at the
height of the antiwar movement. fraternity
sensation, passing
anti-
from windows and soapbox orators condemned
fluttered
sport
My brushes
with
the protesters
a disguised plant in the
enemy camp.
were peripheral, however, since there were few flag burn-
among M.B.A.
candidates taking courses such as Marketing
agement and Business Accounting. Like me,
my
Man-
classmates were less
concerned with pohtics than with boning up for the next exam and ishing their master's theses-
had yet
the term
In
my
final
to
They were
be coined.
the
On April
semester in grad school, Washington exploded.
24, over 200,000 opponents of the
all
fin-
the yuppies of tomorrow, though
war swarmed over Capitol
pressure Congress to get us out of Vietnam.
gas
by
war I had fought in. As I walked around in my chino slacks and
shirt, I felt like
ers
was an odd
houses where sheets painted with the peace symbol and
war slogans the
It
way from
I
Hill to
followed the smell of tear
GWU to the Capitol. There
I
watched "Vietnam
Veterans Against the War," hundreds of them, flinging their ribbons and
medals
understood their bitterness. Since
at the building. I
I
had
left
Vietnam, over five thousand more Americans had died in that muddled conflict.
But
my
heart could never be with these demonstrators.
I still
believed in an America where medals ought to be a source of pride, not
shame, where the uniform should be respected, not reviled, and where the
armed forces were an honorable
body
I
to
be rejected by
my
did not bother to attend
mood on campus and my felt
graduation that May. Given the antiwar
status as a
married
man
with three children,
no need for pomp, circumstance, or further protests.
degree all
part of the nation, not a foreign
it.
at the
I
picked up
dean's office. In two years of graduate school,
A's and the lone
B
in
Computer Logic.
My
I
I
my
had earned
mentor. Dr. Wofsey,
*
White House Fellow
me to stay on for a Ph.D., which the Army might well have under-
urged
written.
But
had a pretty clear picture of myself.
I
but no scholar, and a soldier before a student. the
133
I
was a good
was eager
I
student,
to get
back
to
Army.
The Pentagon forms
part of that interlocking
web of power, comprising
the White House, the Congress, federal agencies, the
and lobbyists, referred
M.B.A.
to the
courts, journalists,
to as "inside the Beltway." I reported
Pentagon
in July 1971, assigned to
the assistant vice chief of staff of the
A- Vice,
with
my
the office of
Army. The holder of that
position.
Lieutenant General William E. DePuy, was a physically small yet
dom-
who had forged a reputation as one of the toughest genercome out of Vietnam, famed for firing people left and right. He
inating figure als to
once explained the reason behind his severity:
commanders arrivals,
young Americans
killed in
World War
"You may be competent on your terms, but
petent on
where
get
watched incompetent
'T
if
II."
He
told
you're not com-
my terms, Fm going to get rid of you. You may do well some-
else, but
By now.
it
won't be under me."
President
"Vietnamize" the war.
Nixon had
As
this
started
withdrawing U.S. forces to
withdrawal went on, a sub rosa document
began influencing military thinking, a survey conducted by the
War College in Carhsle, all
of
mite.
whom
had served
The respondents
in
Vietnam. The survey results were like dyna-
blasted the
Army
its failures.
The
integrity of the senior leadership.
The
for not facing
surveyed indicted phony readiness reports, rampant careerism,
old-boy assignments, inflated awards, fictitious body counts facade of illusion and delusion. Their leaders had they said so. the
Army
Pennsylvania, of 450 lieutenant colonels, nearly
most devastating attack was on the officers
new
As
Army has
the final report put
it:
"There
is
let
—
the
whole
them down, and
widespread feehng that
generated an environment that rewards relatively insignif-
icant, short-term indicators
of success, and disregards or discourages the
growth of long-term qualifies of moral strength.
." .
.
The authors of the report did not try to find scapegoats outside the Army: "There is no direct evidence that external fiscal, political, sociological, or this less
managerial influences are the primary causative factors of
than
optimum
climate. Neither does the public reaction to the
Vietnam War, the rapid expansion of the Army, nor the current antimilitary
syndrome stand out as a
significant reason for deviations
from the
* COLIN
136
POWELL
L.
level of professional behavior.the
The Army had created
ideal."
bones about
who was
its
Army acknowledges as its attainable own mess, and the report made no
ultimately responsible: "Change, therefore, must
be instituted from the top of the Army."
The ever,
Carlisle survey leaked out
brushed aside.
and raised a
fuckus.^
It
was
not,
how-
was acted on by generals Uke William West-
It
moreland, George Forsythe, Bernard Rogers, Creighton Abrams, Walter
My
"Dutch" Kerwin, and Bruce Palmer.
stood in the front rank of these reformers.
new boss. General DePuy, He was not happy with our
doctrine, structure, or leadership or the ethical climate of the
the
wake of the Vietnam games that had
careerist
had assigned himself no
He had
debacle.
nothing but disdain for the
remaking, or
less a task than
Army. To do
at least rethinking,
so,
around him the sharpest lieutenant colonels he could
I
in
infected the military. This three-star general
the role and structure of the entire U.S.
them up
Army
he had gathered
find,
and had
set
as his personal brain trust.
spend
fully expected to
my time
in
A- Vice
installing
computer sys-
Army had sent me to grad school on chance. On reporting to the Pen-
tems, since that was the main skill the to learn.
Our
tagon,
was interviewed by a brigadier general heading
I
lives,
ment Information kept calling
wanted
made
in
Directorate.
it.
I
I
He
kept
"Fowler," even after
was resigned
to
my fate.
glumly concluded
Jr.,
who
Directorate, a part of
me
Manage-
waiting half an hour, then
politely corrected him. All he
real estate
was where
officer,
and the money
to
be
elite. I
I
belonged.
Major General Herbert
ran the Planning and
DePuy's
the
Given the education the Army had
that here
was rescued by an impressive
McChrystal,
I
was Washington
to talk about
financed, I
me
however, turn
J.
Programming Analysis
was summoned
to the third floor,
"Army Country," to see McChrystal's deputy. Colonel G. "Goose" Gosling. Goshng told me he had studied my record
sixth corridor,
Francis
and did not think
I
should be drawing computer flow charts.
I
ought to
be up here helping General DePuy design tomorrow's Army. The choice
was between a pompous, inconsiderate time server and men of vision. went from Goshng 's
office directly to Infantry
Branch and begged
to
I
be
saved from the clutches of the former and delivered into the hands of the latter.
The
Infantry
Branch went along. Thus, the Army was spared an
almost certainly mediocre computer hacker, and point in
I
was exposed
my career to the Army's best and brightest.
at a
key
White House Fellow
I
was assigned a cubicle and,
DePuy
eral
As
himself.
man.
fierce than the
He
treated subordinates well.
me
to
work on
One day early
not stand the slipshod or
was not what you
thought
I
showed communicating abiUty
was
He was
invited to attend a hush-hush meeting in
seated at one end of a long conference table
with a handful of officers, including Herb McChrystal; superior. Colonel
delivered, he
his speeches.
in 1972, 1
the general's office.
more
often happens, the reputation proved
the second-rate, and as long as that
and put
137
began working with Gen-
after a time,
DePuy simply could
Bill
*
John
P.
my
immediate
Chandler; and a sharp office neighbor, Lieu-
The door was
tenant Colonel A. A. "Tony*' Smith.
dued, atmosphere clandestine.
DePuy
Army's pullout from Vietnam was
closed, voices sub-
The
quickly got to the point.
accelerating.
The
failure of the
war
had soured the country on the military. Congress was tightening mih-
We had to look reahty straight in the eye, DePuy warned,
tary spending.
and anticipate the worst. After more bleak analysis, he
want you
to take a couple of bright guys,
thinking the unthinkable.
I
want you
said, "Powell, I
go off into a comer, and
to figure out
how we would
start
struc-
ture a five-hundred-thousand-man army."
We
were
all
astonished. Considering that in
Vietnam alone the
mili-
had had 543,000 troops at the height of the war, considering that there were i .6 million presently in the Army, considering that it had not
tary
been as small as 500,000 since 1940,
Was
this the strength the general
No, he
said, but
Security
beyond I
was
this
it
was
vital.
this
reduction seemed draconian.
expected to emerge? someone asked.
the force he wanted to be ready for, just in case.
Not a word of what was
said this day
was
to
go
room.
went off to
my comer, working principally with Tony Smith, and we
designed an absolute rock-bottom force called the "Base Army."
work leaked to senior officers. Terror stmck the Pentagon. Suppose the country came to believe that it could actually get by on a 500,000-man army? Military life could become stark. The Base Army was shelved and never saw the light of day.
Inevitably, our
Still,
the
no experience
wake of Vietnam,
after the
is
ever a total loss. Just as the Army retrenched in
all
Cold War ended.
Joint Chiefs of Staff,
I
of the armed forces would have to contract
When
I
faced this reality as Chairman of the
had already completed
force-cutting twenty years before under Bill
my graduate education in
DePuy.
* COLIN
138
POWELL
L.
me
General DePuy taught
something invaluable about holding on to
one's core of individuality in a profession
marked by uniformity and the
We were flying back late one night from a speech the general had delivered at Fort Leavenworth. We were alone in a small subordination of
self.
Air Force jet, one of those moments are just
atoms
to
two men
me that an officer had to withhold a part of himself
"Never become so consumed by your
service.
me, "that nothing
had
dissolves and
in the universe. This head-to-toe soldier, this military
paragon, was teUing
from the
when rank
is left
that belongs only to
career,"
he told
you and your family."
We
keep some part separate and inviolable. "Don't allow your prohe concluded, "to become the whole of your existence."
fession,"
remember thinking
None of us had
at the
I
time of somethang the staff had observed.
ever seen the inside of General DePuy's home.
Now
I
understood why.
In
some
of
my Pentagon
degree,
was already
I
living
companions knew
by
that
I
Bill
DePuy's philosophy. Few
served as senior warden of
Margaret's Episcopal Church of Woodbridge, or that
I
taught
St.
fifth-
These activities we had One day. Alma and I had been driving around, reconnoitering the new neighborhood, when we spotted, on a hill, a simple Episcopal church. It was called St. Margaret's, the same name as grade Sunday settled into
Dale
my boyhood
Bronx church.
my
became president of
We
became communicants of
way up from junior
the altar guild,
acolytes. Like Luther
and Arie before
us,
financier, soliciting the congregation as
once
I
we I
Mar-
Alma
helped organize church
became an
ecclesiastical
head of the every-member can-
church fund-raising drive. tried to sell the church.
Our
priest, the
Caulkins, was a popular pastor, and his flock St.
St.
to senior warden.
and Michael and Linda served as
bazaars, pancake suppers, and the thrift shop.
vass, our
after
City.
worked
garet's. I
began soon
school there.
Reverend Rodney L.
was growing so
fast that
Margaret's was practically bursting at the seams. The church sat on
twelve acres of prime suburban real estate, which a developer wanted to
He offered us a handsome price. Father Caulkins and I knew that with that kind of money, we could build a big-
buy
to put
ger, better
up a shopping
center.
church somewhere nearby to accommodate the congrega-
tion's growth.
The vestrymen approved the
sale.
The parishioners voted
*
White House Fellow
139
The bishop approved. The developer came up with the earnest money. But just as I was attached to the old 1928 prayer book, we had yes.
members attached urb,
is
to the old church,
though "old,"
a relative term. St. Margaret's, an
An
in a
A-frame
burgeoning sub-
structure,
had been
owned a small piece of land that we needed for access to Route i to make the property commercially viable, and the old-timers got to her. They won her promise not to sell the parcel and thereby outmaneuvered the Young Turks. The opponents' clinching argument was that they would never follow St. Margaret's to a new site. They would shift to Pohick near Mount Veronly ten years before.
built
elderly parishioner
non, which boasted an Anglican church dating from George Washington's time. Score
one for the
preacher. St. Margaret's
One summer,
No
traditionalists.
is still at its
sale for
old location and
the vestrymen decided to
go on a
Powell and the
still
thriving.
retreat at a confer-
ence center near Richmond. Quiet contemplation and the luxury of
examining the meaning of life were new to me.
I
enjoyed
it,
and so did
more quickly than expected, we were soul-searched second night, one of the brethren said, "Anybody got a
the others, until,
On
out.
the
deck of cards?" Thus was born the
weekly game
St.
Margaret's poker club, a bi-
and reached a point where a
that started for pennies
made Father debate. Was card-
plunger could drop $10 in a night. The poker club
Caulkins uncomfortable and sparked a theological playing a proper pursuit for vestrymen?
More important, should we cut
we
decided to respect the separa-
the pot with the church? In the end, tion of
At
church and
this time, I
state.
There was no
was driving a
split.
rusty white 1963
Chevy Bel Air, bought
from Alma's uncle Charles Smith for $88. Alma hated junker.
One Sunday morning,
I
to
be seen in
got up early and went to People's
Store and bought a can of white latex house paint. Before
this
Drug
anybody was
woke up Alma and brought her outside. She was thrilled. The car looked new. You had to come within six feet before
up,
I
had the job done.
I
you could see the brushstrokes. Shortly
afterward,
the
poker club volunteered to paint Father
The day was hot and muggy. We had brought beer along to salve parched throats. I was painting away in the back of the house when I noticed it was suspiciously quiet out front. I went to take
Caulkins's rectory.
a look, and there were
my
fellow vestrymen slapping red paint on
white car! They had finished a door and a half before
I
my
caught them.
I
160
-k
it.
L.
POWELL
went on driving the new two- tone; but Alma would have none
blithely
of
COLIN
There was nothing to do but give the Chevy a second coat of Peo-
ple's latex white.
During
period of our
this
we crystallized as
instead of on-post schools;
we shopped
we hved in our own home,
this life
stood our church.
I
my
the altar guild.
myself
in
my
public schools
at civilian stores,
not the PX;
And at the heart of
my
father's footsteps,
was following
mother's footsteps,
in
Alma was followworking on rummage sales and
it
in the bank;
watched Mike and Linda
I
own
not military housing.
counting the collection and depositing ing in her and
a family in our
We •tumerf to
without the props of the military.
right,
and
lives,
and saw
assisting at mass,
cassock waving the incense burner before the
altar
on
Kelly Street. The tradition had been passed to the next generation, from
one
St.
Margaret's to another, like an endless stream.
One day I was wandering through heard a voice
call out,
to see a black colonel.
the corridors of the Pentagon
'*Come over here.
At
that time,
I
want
you could
to talk to you."
circle the
I
when
I
turned
Pentagon's five
much less a full colonel. I went over to a stocky, distinguished-looking man who spoke with direct authority. "How come you haven't checked in yet?" he
rings all day long without seeing any black officers,
asked.
"Checked
in?
To what,
sir?" I
answered.
said,
Bobby G. Burke, gave me his address, and "You and your wife be at my home Saturday night. Eight o'clock."
With
that,
He
introduced himself as
he
left.
That was
my introduction to the Rocks.
Roscoe "Rock" Cartwright had been a black brigadier general,
fol-
lowing in the paths of Generals B. O. Davis and Daniel "Chappy" James. Cartwright and his wife had been killed in the crash of a commercial jetliner shortly before
I
reported to Washington.
A
group of
black officers in the Washington area had taken a leaf from the white
power
structure; with
Bob Burke
as their leader, they
had formed an
old-boys network. Originally, they called themselves the Club. But after
Rock
No Name
Cartwright' s death, they had rechristened them-
selves the Rocks.
Alma and I met them and
their
wives that Saturday night
Burke's home. Most of the officers were older than
peaked professionally, lacking the breaks early on
I
at
Colonel
was. Most had
that I
was now
get-
*
White House Fellow
ting. Still,
give
161
they wanted to help young black officers up the career ladder,
them the
dope on assignments good and bad,
inside
tell
them about
commanders able or incompetent, and talk up promising candidates to the right people. The Rocks also went to colleges to pass on their expe-
ROTC cadets. They awarded an annual prize
riences to promising black to the best
ROTC
cadet at historically black colleges.
more than provide a sympathetic
they did nothing
ied their heads against the walls of prejudice, and
And sometimes
ear.
They had blood-
now
they wanted the
next generation to climb onto their shoulders and reach the top.
The
of the Rocks appealed to me. They looked out for
spirit
along the way, and, in turn,
I
have
tried to spot
and help these officers realize
talent
me
young black military
their potential.
Blacks have prob-
ably looked after each other better in the military than in almost any other
American
the black
and
institution,
I
think
we
offer a
model
to the rest of
community.
The Rocks had good times too. Our major social event has been the annual Soul Food Dinner, or, as Alma calls it, "the heart attack special." The
social life
was
the
same
as at Fort Leavenworth, people getting
together out of an affinity, in this case, cultural, and no different from
bowlers or dentists enjoying each other's company. in
a comer for their kind of music or dancing,
When blacks go off
Fm tempted to say to my
white friends, ''Don't panic, we're just having fun."
There
may be one moment
say that, for good or in
November
1971, while
in the Infantry
was
I
me
asked. For a
talking about,
ested. I
was I
was already
in the Pentagon.
I
to
our lives
still
in
to tell
fill
we can
General DePuy's
me
in
after
later
office.
out by that weekend.
he explained,
I
I
An
was
had no idea what he
said that
I
was not
inter-
one of the most prestigious and promising offices
was not looking
right
came major
application for
for a detour. Besides, the idea of
becoming a White House Fellow seemed farfetched, especially thirty-five, I
A
and
he was sending over an eight-
White House Fellowship.
and
look back on
the turning point. For me, that day
was
Branch called
page application for
what?
ill, it
in
up against the program's age
my
since, at
limit.
The major made clear that Infantry Branch was not asking me. It was The then Secretary of Defense, Melvin Laird, had been
ordering me.
displeased because so few military candidates were applying, and con-
sequently the branch had
combed
the personnel files looking for
* COLIN
162
prospects.
POWELL
L.
had been drafted.
I
out the forms, provided the
filled
I
required references, met the deadline, and promptly forgot about the matter.
I
was one of over
fifteen
hundred applicants.
The White House Fellows program had been the brainchild of John W. Gardner, while he was serving as Secretafy of Health, Education and Welfare. Gardner's idea was to expose young comers, particularly from the
private sector, to the federal
The goal was
how
to give future
public policy
Gardner had sold the
government
American leaders a
was shaped and how
his idea to President
their
at the highest level.
better appreciation of
government operated.
Lyndon Johnson, and by now
White House Fellows program had been under way
Alumni eventually included CEOs of major
for seven years.
corporations, leaders in
the professions, outstanding academics, and a healthy sprinkling of
The program proved so
military officers.
effective that
some Fellows,
having had a taste of Washington, did not want to leave. They ran for
Congress or managed
come back through appointments
to
to high-
level federal posts.
The key question on the application asked why we wanted to be White House Fellows. I did not particularly want to be one. Nevertheless, I
had given the best answer
I
could. Because of the controversy
over Vietnam, the American military had become alienated from
own
people, which struck
quently, along with learning civilian
world
that gulf
CCNY was
me
as unhealthy in a democracy. Conse-
how
the
government worked,
to see that military officers did not
had widened was brought home
ROTC. The old drill hall, down. From a high of fourteen hundred
one turned out for
ROTC
I
wanted the
have horns.
me in June my home for
to
abolished
torn
its
How
far
1972 when four years,
students, only eighty-
in its final year, as interest in the military hit
rock bottom. This collapse saddened me, and not only because of sentimental associations. In a country where civilian control of the military is
fundamental,
found
I
it
unfortunate to have this source of citizen
offi-
cers reduced.
A
few weeks
ceived word that
after applying for the I
had survived the
invited to be interviewed.
Subsequently, the the running.
"Colin
is
list
I
had
to start
was pared to
The pressure was
White House Fellowship,
on.
I re-
was one of 130 appUcants taking this program seriously.
first cut. I
thirty-three finalists,
Word had
going to the White House!" "That's
and I was
still
in
leaked out to the clan that right.
Gonna help the Pres-
*
white House Fellow
ident."
What
if I failed
now? I could hear
suppose he did wrong?" "This
On
May
a
afternoon,
is
the
murmuring: "What do you
a scandal for the family."
boarded a bus with the other fmahsts
I
163
of the old Civil Service Building, headed
for Airlie House, a
in front
posh
estate
near Warrenton, Virginia, that had been converted into a convention center.
There
we were
be prodded, poked, and pinched for the next
to
would
three days in the final selection process. Seventeen of us
survive.
On the bus we were handed an information packet that included biographies of each candidate, our I
first
opportunity to size up the competition.
took a seat and was flipping through the packet
man
South Carolina.
Clemson
He introduced himself as James
me.
sat next to
I
glanced
resume
at his
White House Fellow
He
that
first
young black
E. Bostic,
I
doing in
league?"
this
my
from
I
the
said
rank and
be wondering the same thing.
to
Jr.,
black to get a Ph.D. from
me, apparently considering
at
advanced years, and seemed
on the ride out
"What am
finalists.
looked
—
a
At age twenty-four, youngest of
University, in chemistry.
to Bostic.
when
I
learned
Jim Bostic was one of several children from a poor
whom
Southern family, most of
worked
Somebody had
as laborers.
spotted something special in Jim, and mentors, black and white, had
helped him
a potential that might easily have withered
fulfill
from
neglect.
Once we were where between a
installed at Airlie
fraternity rush party
were scheduled into a rotating "commissioners,"
caUber
is
who were
suggested by one
Nobel Prize winner
in
man,
I
A
had devised a
candidate cooing, "Dr. Fried-
Theoretical
said.
Framework for Monetary
"What was
it
about
it
that
impressed
The poor guy had apparently not prepped
final interview
faced
impressive and occasionally tough. Their
Friedman
silence.
we
much to judge our poise and character as to find
moment beyond learning
in the
of interviews where
We
whom I remember vividly, Milton Friedman,
was so impressed by
you?" Dead
some-
and a police interrogation.
we knew. I remember one young
Analysis.'" "Really,"
The
series
fell
economics. Their questioning was deliberately
provocative, designed as
out what
House, the atmosphere
for this
the titles of Friedman's books.
took place on a Sunday evening. The directors
fairly fiendish
way of delivering
the verdicts.
Sometime
middle of the night, a note would be slipped under our doors
telling us if
we had made
some unstructured
the grade. In the meantime,
sociability.
Among
we were
free for
the other military candidates,
I
COLIN
164
POWELL
L.
had become friendly with Bob Baxter, John Fryer, Don Stukel, and Lee
Nunn,
Jr.,
from a distinguished Kentucky pohtical family. All of us were
accustomed
to being graded,
and we had faced
being judged for a high-class internship. tying,
and by the time
gratulations!
gives
It
I
got back to
me
And
my room,
tests
we
so
there
great pleasure to inform
been selected by the President's Commission
it
was back
to planet Earth.
drive back to Dale City. Street,
I
saw a
little
I
got into
my
boy
lost,
you
1972-73
Director."
first.
When
man
at his
my
I
and
1
8th
scooped him up and
family promptly hit
it
Jim
off.
Corpora-
marriage to Edie Howard, the daughter
who had
from West Point
were
in 1949,
White
the visit
'63 Bel Air for the long
of a military trailblazer. Colonel Edward Howard,
grated.
you have
that
to a brilliant business career with the Georgia-Pacific
served as best
"Con-
Jim Bostic, who had also been picked,
standing alone apparently with no place to go.
tion. I
the note.
On the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue
brought him home, where he and
went on
stayed up late par-
w^s
the bus for a visit to the
House, for most of us a powerful and moving ended,
lethal than
to serve as a
White House Fellow. Sincerely, Arthur E. Dewey,
The next morning, we reboarded
more
soon
after the services
graduated
racially inte-
Jim Bostic became the younger brother I never had, and we have
remained
fast friends for
As I prepared
over twenty years.
to begin the fellowship,
I
said
my goodbyes to General
DePuy, General McChrystal, and other friends on the A-Vice
good things were
to
come
out of the
Army
staff. If
over the next several years,
they would result, in no small measure, from the vision and drive of the
remarkable
DePuy and
his team.
I
can suggest the quality of the people
around him by noting that some of the lieutenant colonels in his orbit
went on
to
make
four-star general.
They included Max Thurman,
the
and leader before whom we all stood in who became commander in chief of the Southern Command; Lou Menetrey, who became commander of U.S. Forces in Korea; Fred Mahaffey, on his way to becoming the Army Chief of Staff until felled by a brain tumor at the age of fifty-two; and Carl Vuono, who did become Army Chief of Staff. soldier par excellence, a thinker
awe,
I
knew where
I
wanted
to
spend
my year as
a
White House Fellow
an agency whose very name would cause most eyelids to droop, the Office of Management and Budget.
I
—
at
OMB,
knew from my M.B.A. courses
.
A
White House Fellow
my
and
blood
163
time in the Pentagon that budgets are to organizations what
And
to the circulatory system.
is
department's jugular.
It is
one of the
OMB
had
its
hand on every
least understood yet most powerful
federal agencies in Washington.
At
OMB,
I
named Frank
was interviewed by a
dynamo
Carlucci, the deputy to the director, Caspar Weinberger.
Carlucci was already making his
young career Foreign Service ing to put
small, wiry, engaging
down
mark among Beltway
officer
insiders.
As a
he had been stabbed while help-
a riot in Zaire. Later, the versatile onetime diplomat
had helped salvage a foundering
when
relief effort
floods struck Penn-
sylvania.
was accepted
I
member
another
as the
OMB
White House Fellow and soon met
of the Weinberger team, William
Howard
Taft IV, a
grandson of the twenty-seventh President of the United States. Weinberger's executive assistant, was not the sort of person
Taft, I
had
encountered in the Army. Will was an erudite figure, as interested in the classics as in the machinations of I
spent the
New
first
government.
four months parked in an
OMB
Old FOB, the magnificent nineteenth-century House. to
branch outpost, the
Executive Office Building, as contrasted to the main offices in the
I
started out
fortress next to the
White
performing a makework job that actually turned out
be stimulating, even useful. President Franklin D. Roosevelt once
observed that the federal bureaucracy was a huge beast: you kicked the
tail
and two years
changed tives
later
it
felt the sensation in the brain.
in the intervening years. President
and no one knew what,
the Oval Office.
I
was given
if
Nixon would
it
in
Nothing had issue direc-
anything, happened after his orders
left
the job of finding out.
A woman came into my life at that point who considerably enriched my stay at OMB, Velma Baldwin, the director of administration. White House Fellows assigned to OMB came under Velma's wing. No place to
park your car? Velma found
this
courtyard of the Old
FOB, where
painted Chevy. Feel
left
would get you
into
The
newcomer I
a spot in the prestigious
had the nerve
to park the house-
out of serious department business?
Velma
key meetings. Need a travel advance? Velma found
Velma performed for me, however, was to point out that in every agency there was somebody just like her, a career administrator who knew in what pockets the funds were hidden, how you hired somebody without being strangled by Civil Service
the money.
greatest service
* COLIN
166
POWELL
L.
red tape, and where the bodies were buried. These people, explained, would
Thanks
to
still
be
cockroach died.
in place long after the last
Velma Baldwin,
got to
I
know
her powerful counterparts in
every cabinet-level agency, and had a catbird's view of
ernment worked, or failed
Not long
after
my
work.
to
left
how
0MB to head the Depart-
ment of Health, Education, and Welfare, where he sharpened cutting reputation as
"Cap
Reagan's budget director
men
at the time.
the cost-
the Knife" that he had earned as Governor
in California. Carlucci also
Weinberger's deputy, and Will Taft as counsel. to these
the gov-
.
^
Weinberger
arrival,
Velma
But they were going
I
went
to
HEW as
had only brief exposure
to
change
my
life.
game of musical chairs that followed Weinberger's and Carlucci 's departure, Fred Malek became deputy director of 0MB. Malek was a West Point and Harvard Business School graduate who had made a fortune rescuing a failing tool company in South Carolina. He had earned an earlier reputation in the White House personnel office as a hatchet man. Malek had cemented his status as the administration's In the
kneecapper by going to the Department of the Interior and rior Secretary
sundown.
was
Walter Hickle,
When
who had
fallen
from
a secretary called saying, "Mr.
favor, to
Malek
is
telling Inte-
be gone by
on the hne,"
money was due by midnight
Mafia
tell
you
Malek had been one of
my
interrogators at Airlie House.
like hearing the
that the
it
and no excuses. I
dropped
Fred a note congratulating him on his appointment, told him that
working he
let
in the
phoned, asking
if I
could be of any assistance. Almost immediately, he
me
to stop
by
his office.
lean, erect, soft-spoken yet decisive.
an office
and became Powell
was
bowels of 0MB as a White House Fellow, and asked that
me know
assistant in
I
in the
Old
his gatekeeper. If
I
Fred was hawkish-looking,
was soon
installed as his special
EOB overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue,
you wanted
to see
Malek, you had to see
first.
Fred was not
much interested in
the departmental pulling
and hauling
that
produce the federal budget. What he really wanted was to gain con-
trol
over the bureaucracy for the White House. The people elect a Pres-
ident to run the country, but Presidents soon discover that they don't
necessarily control the machinery of government. Their wishes are often thwarted during that two-year lapse between the kick in the beast's butt
and the sensation
in its head.
White House Fellow Fred went about gaining control of the government
opened the eyes of
this fledgling student
in a
is:
167
way
that
0MB
of power. Just as
is
the
nerve center of the federal bureaucracy, the budget and personnel
Fred started
offices are the nerve centers in individual departments.
own people
planting his
tion" slots in
key
in the
''assistant secretary for administra-
major federal agencies. Let the cabinet
speeches, cut the ribbons, and appear on
Meet
make the Anonymous
officials
the Press.
assistant secretaries, loyal to Malek, would run operations day to day,
and I
to the
Nixon administration's
much
learned
Fred wanted
in Professor
Malek' s graduate seminar. For example,
to breathe fresh life into
career bureaucrats and replacing ates,"
liking.
OMB
my
and
his strategy
explaining that
of layers of
them with new "management
associ-
I
me into his office one day and explained
role. Thereafter, I started
was
calling
dled by
OMB
was going
positions equal
any bureaucrat's
ear.
to
would
A function currently being han-
be transferred
Whoa! Let me
OMB
keep these
"But where can
officials,
to their agency.
Wonderful.
more funding, which equals more power, music
function and the bodies.
(We needed
to
phoning agency
on behalf of Mr. Malek with good news.
Their power was about to be broadened.
tors
rid
young Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton hotshots. Fred, however,
had a space problem. He called
More
by getting
slots
is
explain.
You
to
are getting only the
keeping the positions and funding.
and
Malek's young
salaries for
stars.)
we put the people you're sending us?" the administra"We don't have jobs for them. We haven't budgeted
plead.
funds for them." "Mr. Assistant Secretary,"
I
would
say,
"Fred Malek
has every confidence that between attrition and some imagination on
your
part,
you
will
work something
out."
bureaucrats were gone, their offices and
youngbloods moved rules:
in.
Out of
Soon
titles
OMB
freed up, and Malek's
that experience
emerged one of
you don't know what you can get away with
In January 1973, the
unwanted
the
until
White House Fellows gathered
in
you
my
try.
an anonymous
downtown office used by the CIA. The great adventure of the Fellows' year was to be a winter trip to the Soviet Union followed by a trip to Red China the following summer. While we waited back and forth about microfilm concealed the likeliest defectors in our group. tive turned out to
The
to
be briefed, jokes flew
in imaginative apertures
actual briefing
and
by a CIA opera-
be tame. Instead of giving us intelligence targets and
*
* COLIN
168
POWELL
L.
warned us against
instructing us in the use of microdots, he merely
bugged rooms, tapped telephones, and overly
The White House Fellows were looked
pliant Russian ladies.
after
by Lieutenant Colonel
Bernard Loeffke, a combination shepherd/chaperon/tour guide, a
who remains in
indelible in
my memory.
Colombia of an American
man
Bernie J^oeffke had been born
father and a Hispanic mother.
He com-
bined perfect military bearing with dark good looks and had a resume in technicolor.
Bernie was a West Pointer, a former White House Fel-
low himself, a master parachutist, a
pilot
who
taught himself to
fly,
a
physical fitness freak, a scuba diver, an Olympic-class swimmer, and a
man who
He had picked up
practically inhaled foreign languages.
three Silver Stars, four
Bronze
and a Purple Heart
Stars,
which was remarkable even by the Bernie was to lead us on our
in
Vietnam,
inflated standards of that era.
trip that
winter behind the then
still
formidable Iron Curtain.
Our memories of the bitterness of the Cold War have already faded considerably. But when I first set foot on Soviet soil in the winter of 1973, the ground was in
February
at
still
hard with suspicion and
Khabarovsk
The
a flight from Japan. Intourist guide,
first
Russian
I
met was Alia Fedorova, our
who spoke impeccable American
someone from
We entered
of Vladivostok, on
in eastern Siberia, north
rather attractive. Part of her attraction tery of
distrust.
English and was
grew out of the novelty and mys-
the other side, a dark-haired Russian and,
we
KGB.
assumed,
We were put up at a no-star hotel in Khabarovsk. impressions of this dour, dingy
city,
with
and smokestacks, permanently leaden
its
skies,
I
have only fleeting
forests of cranes, derricks,
and cold
that felt like ice
down your back. We were not allowed to approach people, became uneasy if we tried.
water poured
and they
Our
first
movie on
night at the hotel, the Russians chose to entertain us with a
seal hunting.
As soon
as the auditorium turned dark
film started, Bernie Loeffke whispered to me, "This
is
and the
a bore. Let's go."
We managed to slip away, but stayed inside the hotel, since we had been warned not
to leave.
perature outdoors
We
I
was
don't think forty
we would have
below
if
we
could.
The tem-
zero.
followed the sound of music to some sort of club in the hotel.
Inside there appeared to be the entire senior officer corps of the Soviet
Eastern Siberian
Command,
in uniform, with
wives and girlfriends.
*
White House Fellow
Bernie and
American
stood in the doorway in our blue business suits with httle
I
flag pins in our lapels, looking as if
the bear's cave.
toward
us.
please."
The waiter looked
Our
explained.
and were standing behind
two,
in the
KGB handlers had tracked us down
We
us.
''A table for
His fear and the silence
petrified.
into
in the place turned
Bernie spoke in Russian to a waiter:
were no doubt unaware, they
explained, that the seal hunting film
was not yet
over. Perhaps
we
like to see the end.
The next day we boarded the old Siberian exile city.
Soviet interior was
and
we had stumbled
The music stopped. Every head
room were quickly
would
169
still
country.
its
the Trans-Siberian Railroad for Irkutsk,
My
most powerful
endlessness.
We
first
impression of the
rode that train for three days
had not reached a destination less than halfway across the
The
first
day we spent watching a Dr. Zhivago landscape
unfold before us, the limitless horizons of Siberia, slim white birches
and herds of reindeer, which
we observed while
sipping sweet tea from
glasses.
The second
night, Bernie said, 'This
other half lives."
boring. Let's see
is
how
the
We slipped back to what seemed to be a third-class car-
riage full of bundled-up peasants. Bernie introduced us as Americans,
and
their faces
lit
up. "Ah, our brave allies in the Great Patriotic War.
Our comrades
in defeating the fascists."
vodka
No
bottles.
from the
friends
sooner had
state security
we would be more product of East German sure
partment where
I
we
They began passing around
started to enjoy ourselves than our
apparatus showed up again. They were
comfortable in our industry.
On
the
first-class car, a superior
way
saw off-duty customs
back,
car,
we
learned that one of the White
passed a com-
officials leafing
through a
When we
got back to
familiar-looking magazine and laughing bawdily.
our
we
House Fellows had had
copy of Playboy confiscated as obscene material not allowed
his
in the
Soviet Union.
We made Chita.
an interim stop
at
another military outpost, the city of
At the time, the tension crackled along the nearby border be-
tween the Soviet Union and China.
We were
stretch our legs, but not permitted into town.
any pictures. Bernie
made
allowed out of the train to
And we were
not to take
We heard the whistle blow, warning everybody to reboard. a quick head count, realized
two of
the Fellows
were not
back, and alerted Alia Fedorova. She disappeared, and the next thing
we
* COLIN
110
saw from
window was
the train
ing an otherwise
POWELL
L.
a half-dozen uneasy "passengers" pac-
empty platform. Not
up did these Russians board the
KGB
blew
detail
train.
until
our missing friends showed
And
that
was how the
fresh water on the Eurasian landmass. I
of our
cover.
its
Approaching Irkutsk, we skirted Lake Baikal, the
ries.
rest
learned, after the
body of
The shore was ringed by
Cold War had ended,
some of
those plants had killed off
largest
facto-
that the pollution
from
the world's richest fisheries.
Apparently, profit-seeking capitalists were not the only threat to the
environment.
The immensity of Russia
struck
Irkutsk. Besides the three days
Moscow. By now.
to fly to tive,
and
me
on the
Alia,
who had
looked ravishing. The flight was our it
over again after our day in
all
train,
it
took another seven hours
started out as
first
merely
attrac-
experience with Aeroflot,
had some of the quality of early barnstorming. The plane was
barely heated, and as
we walked down
the aisle, one passenger's foot
went through the floor into the baggage compartment. curious
when
cockpit
still
engines to
the aircraft
When
empty.
test
power, like a
was towed
them
MIGThe
as
were a
end of the runway with the
to the
is
towing,
They simply took
usually done.
zooming up
we
learned,
off, full
to intercept an intruder into
was intended
to save fuel.
was indeed performed by former MIG- 1 9 for the good old days.
the rocket takeoff
doubt nostalgic
bit
the pilots did arrive, they did not rev the
fighter 1 9
Soviet airspace.
We
And
pilots
no
who grew up during the fifties, whose first military assignment had been facing the Red Army across the Fulda Gap, who had
For someone
spent two tours fighting the communists in Vietnam, there
was some-
thing eerie about standing, during the Cold War, in the heart of what a future
American President would
ican
life
by
for
the
this adversary.
science, research,
previous
call the "evil empire."
years
twenty-five
American budgets, and domestic
politics,
priorities
Much of Amer-
had been
defined
weapons, foreign policy,
and the
lives
of millions of
much by what hapMoscow as by what happened in Washington. And here I was, member of the American military establishment, whose reason for
military-age Americans were influenced almost as
pened a
in
being was to contain briefed
by
this giant,
standing in
that elite of Soviet think tanks,
Red Square and then being the USA-Canada Institute,
White House
where they
seemed
all
111
Fello^^;
speak American English and could probably
to
give you the team standings in the National League. I
began
one
to get a visceral feel for this country,
that
comes from
touching, feeling, and smelling a place rather than only hearing or
reading about
it.
What
I
enemy. The people
tal
rubbed elbows with ideologues.
sensed was the
Russians
ple, including these
I
met on the
GUM
at the
They were
who were
at the
prospects of
all
peo-
passed in Red Square, and
department store were not political
the Soviet equivalent of tired father
my own
family, a
headed home
after a
more about
the soccer
against Kiev than about spreading
Marxism
ministry mailroom, kids thinking
Moscow
of
then supposed to be our mor-
train,
mother buying groceries for supper, a hard day
common humanity
globally.
At the same time, try, its
I
also felt the immensity and
terrifying capacity to intimidate
ability to
power of
own people and
its
this
its
coun-
apparent
match whatever military might we could muster, weapon for
weapon, system for system. What
I
could not see, from the superficial
was
perspective the Soviets afforded us,
the fatal
then had to be undermining their system,
weakness
dooming
it
even
that
to ultimate col-
lapse.
We
left
Moscow
for Sofia, Bulgaria,
and experienced a marvelous
We were still in the communist bloc, but all of a sudden there vivid colors. We went to Warsaw and there was life. Coming out
sensation.
were
of the Soviet Union, even to these countries, was like going from black-
and-white
still
photos to a movie in color. Our senses, deadened by the
grimness of Soviet existence, came to Hfe again. In
Warsaw, we
visited the
Year 2000
provide a vision of Poland's future, the
come
words of a professor who talked
man
which was supposed
Institute,
the millennium.
I
never forgot
to the Fellows, a big,
with a bemused look. "Look where
God
to
shambling
put Poland," he said.
"Between Germany and the Soviet Union. Every generation, one or the
Sometimes both.
other rolls over us. destiny." His
sound I
like
the
A
have been denied our Pohsh
words intrigued me. This conmiunist certainly did not
someone ready
had a sense
"ally."
We
that
on the barricades for the Soviet Union.
he and his countrymen would love to be free of
seed took root in
communist bloc
professor, stuck
to die
my
first
my mind
began
neck
out,
that day. Sixteen years later,
falling apart,
and predicted
I
remembered
their
when
the Polish
to an audience of high-
Z
* COLIN
72
ranking
Army
POWELL
L.
officers that, far
these sateUites
from staying with the Warsaw
would probably prefer
to join
The White House Fellows program meant
NATO.
instant entree to people
did not ordinarily encounter at Fort Devens or
were taken
to
Georgia
meet the governor.
to
Pact,
Chu
We
Lai.
one
Back home, we
had been permitted
bring our spouses, and as our motorcade headed out of the Atlanta port,
to
air-
with Georgia state troopers on motorcycles leading the way, sirens
wailing, and traffic halted in said to
Alma,
all directions, I
gazed out the window and
"Tall cotton."
The governor turned out blinding smile.
He
sat
us
be a boyish forty-nine-year-old with a
to
down and mesmerized
the Fellows with his
My knowledge
vision for Georgia and his grasp of national poHtics.
Southern politicians lace,
at this
of
point extended to Bull Connor, George Wal-
who
and the former Georgia governor, Lester Maddox,
liked to
The governor now before us repremember thinking, this man is presi-
distribute ax handles to fellow bigots.
resented the
New
South, and
I
Jimmy
dential timber. Three years later,
Carter
became
the country's
thirty-ninth president.
I
had a brief exposure during
this
Hyman
period to Admiral
G. Rick-
over, father of the nuclear submarine, irascible, unreasonable, an offi-
who
cer
could make strong
the Navy's nuclear sub
Rickover:
"Why
should
men weep. A
friend
program once described I
want you
in
my
me
his grilling
You don't look
to a swearing-in
ceremony
said only a
few words, but
I
you
fail
accomphsh any-
management don't much because of the people involved. Only by
thing, either. Theories of
succeed or
best people will
The admiral
have never forgotten his message. Organi-
zation doesn't really accomplish anything. Plans don't
matter.
Endeavors
attracting the
you accomplish great deeds. Admittedly, Rickover's
approach to handling people could be brutal that
as if
General Services
at the
Administration, at which Rickover was expected to speak.
be
by
diddly-squat."
had been invited
I
to
applied for
program? What makes you
think you can drive a nuclear submarine?
know
who had
—breaking them down
so
he could build them back up to his specifications. That could never
my
style.
But there was no denying the force of
from the mouths of curmudgeons
is
his insight. Truth
truth all the same.
*
White House Fellow
73
children watch the sex act," Joe Laitin, the public
"It's like letting little
OMB,
relations director at
I
once told me. Joe was explaining
why he
did
not approve of the White House Fellows program. Along with Fred
Malek, Joe had become another day, with traffic
house
in
OMB
mentor. At the end of the work-
backed up twenty-six miles from the Old
Dale City,
would hang around
I
Joe's bottomless fund of stories.
until
it
office
PR
He had
circles.
He was Brooklyn-bom,
under Lyndon B. Johnson and regaled
He had once
my
a former news-
institution in gov-
served for a time in the White House press
told the President tales at night so that fully.
to
lightened, listening to
paperman who had become something of a movable ernment
EOB
fed Johnson
me
with stories of
LBJ would go
to sleep peace-
some made-up economic
the President leaked to the press, causing the stock
how he which
gossip,
market
to
go goofy
for a session or two.
When
Fred Malek
first
took over as deputy, he had wanted to
fire Joe,
and the Nixon administration's former headsman was not given to threats.
I
asked Joe
if
he had been worried
something," he said. "Every
me.
It
new guy who comes
happens every few years.
two, they learn that Laitin
By week
three, they
is
They
one,
let's
me
tell
here wants to
get rid of Laitin.
you
dump Week
a career official and not so easy to unload.
have gotten themselves into a public relations jam
with the Washington Post or rescue.
Week
"Let
at the time.
idle
start thinking,
CBS
and the old firehorse comes
maybe
this
guy
ain't so bad.
to their
By week
four,
they love me." I
asked Joe what he had against White House Fellows.
and he and
I
got along fine. Joe explained.
function well in the light of day.
have to trade, change, deal,
from the
To
is
give and take. People
bend, compromise, as they
ipants look manipulative, unprincipled, two-faced.
ence. "But
went on, because
some of
I
It
make
the partic-
was okay
was old enough and had
for
me
experi-
these bright-eyed kids start wandering around the
West Wing and cabinet members'
how
move
the uninitiated, the process can be
messy, disappointing, even shocking. Compromise can
to witness this, Joe
was a Fellow,
Democracy did not always
Democracy
retreat,
ideal to the possible.
I
offices
and they're horrified
to find
things really get done."
The other side of the coin, Joe said, was that "some of them taste power before they can handle it. They get drunk on it." In their intoxi-
* COLIN
114
POWELL
L.
cation, they tend to overlook the fact that the
law eventually checks
unbridled power, and they can get into trouble. "Now, there's nothing
wrong with
sex," Joe
went on, "but there
is
something immoral about
know what they are watching." Laitin's views are not far removed from the wisdom of our Founding Fathers. Men like Hamilton, Madison, and Jefferson recognized that we having children watch
it,
until they
are imperfect beings. Consequently, they invented a arate
powers and checks and balances
human
to control the imperfections in
was not so sure
nature. Joe Lai tin understood that, but
White House Fellows could grasp In the
—
summer
of 1973,
I
Americans had ever seen, were on the fmal July 23
we had
was
the
young
yet.
it
in a village in
China, a world that few chieftain.
We
our White House Fellowship year.
On
listening to the
field trip of
government of sep-
arrived in Canton,
wizened local
where an endless
river of bicycles
I was surprised that The Chinese took us to
glided noiselessly past us on immaculate streets. a city could be so huge, yet so clean and quiet.
other major cities and the usual tourist stops
—
Great Wall. At a primitive rural hospital
the Forbidden City, the
we watched
woman
a
undergo a twenty-minute thyroid operation while anesthetized by acupuncture.
When
and walked
out. In
hard to
the
tell
it
was
over, she got up, drank a glass of lemonade,
Shenyang,
men from
shapeless unisex dress.
the
We
we
visited a
women
machine shop where
in that
was
age of padded, quilted,
learned that the workers put in a six-day
week with an occasional holiday
but no vacations and earned the
equivalent of $52 a month, including foremen, supervisors, and
would have
top management. Despite conditions that
workers
it
seemed
to the picket lines, they
sent
all
but
American
content.
One of our guides on the Chinese trip was a fifty-four-year- old professor who had studied in the United States. Early in his career, he told us, he had worked only to gain wealth and position. He had filled his students with
book
learning, conditioning
them
to strive for individual
success. Neither he nor they had possessed a speck of practical knowl-
edge or social conscience. tion. first
then
Our professor was dispatched
came
the Great Cultural Revolu-
to the countryside,
where
time, he said, he performed "honest labor." "Before that,
nothing. to
And
I
could not even grow cotton.
be reeducated by peasants."
He
I,
who had
for the I
knew
taught scholars, had
spoke with a sublime smile.
I
heard a
*
White House Fellow
lot
among
of gushing
the
younger White House Fellows.
manual labor
rience with
73
I
My own expekeep
in a Pepsi bottling plant helped
my
enthusiasm in check.
What
me
struck
about China, particularly after visiting the Soviet
Union, was the absence of paranoia. Our Chinese guides seemed less frightened than their Soviet counterparts.
They were not constantly
searching our baggage, restraining our movements, or stopping us from taking pictures.
Two
distinctive threads, however, ran through the Chi-
You could ask an ordinary person
nese experience.
Shenyang, or any village,
"How
invariably a smile and "Fine.
in Beijing,
Canton,
you doing?" and the answer was
are
Under Chairman
Mao we
have a sewing
machine, a radio, a bicycle." The thoroughness of thought control in so vast a country officials
was
frightening.
The second
iron rule
would admit shortcomings, but never
One day when we were
visiting along the
between China and the Soviet Union,
He
any military bases.
told
me
I
was
that
Chinese
error.
Amur
which runs
River,
asked our guide
if
we
with a benign smile that
could see
would be
it
impossible, because peaceful China maintained no bases along this
we suddenly heard two Chinese MIG- 9s streaking into
troubled border. In the course of a visit to a temple, a deafening roar.
We turned to
the sky, apparently
guide,
who
see
from a nearby
1
airfield.
"What was
continued to gaze ahead placidly and
that?"
I
asked our
"What was
silently.
what?" he answered. End of discussion. In the village
how he and
where the wrinkled old chief spoke
his people
cally with their bare
to us,
he explained
had burrowed through a rock mountain
hands
to reach fertile soil
on the other
practi-
side.
They
had then lugged broken stones up the mountain
to build terraces to
the soil in place. Just as they finished, the rains
came and washed away
all
hold
they had accomplished. But, armed with the thoughts of Chairman
Mao and the quotations from his until they
had
share a meal
httle red
built this bountiful
community. The chief invited us
from the harvest of these
could determine, was millet with a vegetable.
It
was plain
along with the
fare,
book, they started over again,
terraces.
little
The menu,
to
as near as
I
gravy and an unidentifiable
our host admitted, but nourishing, and,
wisdom of Chairman Mao,
After the meal, he rose and said that he
it
would
was
sustain us.
sorry he
had no
he wanted us to have a small rock with the date inscribed on
had been taken from a terrace and was given with the
it;
gifts,
but
the rock
heartfelt friend-
* COLIN
176
POWELL
L.
ship of his villagers. Colonel Loeffke
brought
and
our hosts. With
gifts for
that,
jumped up and said that he had Bemie produced a shopping bag
handing out buttons with happy faces, ballpoint pens, Nixon
started
inaugural pins, and other trinkets in a scene suggestive of the purchase
of Manhattan from the Indians. The village chi^f saidrwith an enigmatic
"You have given us so much, and we have given you so
smile,
litde.
Please forgive us."
White House Fellows' year wound
As
the
me
into his office. His television set
Watergate
was tuned
subcommittee.
investigating
Fred Malek called
to a close,
to Senator
"This'll
blow
my
Sam
Ervin's
Fred
over,"
observed.
He wanted
OMB
knew by now that my initial reluctance to White House Fellow was the error of a greenhorn. When the
to talk to
for another year.
become
a
me, he
said,
about
staying on at
I
Fellows discussed the power of the executive branch,
it
was with
Presi-
When we studied the legislative branch, it was with When the subject was social programs, we talked to the
dent Nixon.
U.S.
senators.
Sec-
retary of Health, Education
and Welfare. In the foreign arena, we met
with leaders of Japan, the Soviet Union, China, Poland, Bulgaria, and
West Germany.
We had lunches and dinners every week with journalists
like Eric Sevareid,
gram was
Dan
Rather, and
to let us inside the
engine
Hugh Sidey. The aim of room to see the cogs and
government grinding away and also panoramic view. In
all
Still, I
was ready
and lier
I
to return to the
officer,
Army. As a graduate
and a White House Fellow,
real soldiering for over three years.
ticularly,
had been a detour from a
was eager
Army
all
the courses
throughout the country, there could be nothing
to this education.
Pentagon desk
from
gears of
take us up high for the
the schools of political science, in
in public administration
comparable
to
the pro-
to get
Fellow
back on
had been away
The Fellows program,
par-
straight-line military career path,
track.
who had made
I
student, a
I
bore in mind the fate of an ear-
a big hit in the
White House. He had
work on domestic issues, which he did. And did not promote him to full colonel. The White House put pressure on the Army, and eventually he was promoted. But
been asked
to stay
guess what? The
on
to
Army
who had missed
an officer
who had
few other
stations of the cross while basking in
who was
passed over by his promotion board and advanced only
not yet
commanded
a battalion,
White House
a
praises,
— White House
He made
through political pressure, was finished.
*
Fellovs^
111
colonel, all right
permanently.
That was not the path
Malek
I
wanted. The
him
for his invitation, but told
seaworthy vessel. All
like a particularly
to the other side of the
tagon had
command
in direct
Devens
Potomac and
for a soldier eager to
in 1962.
For
all
despite
I
the
Nixon administration
wanted was
to cross over
what assignments the Pen-
find out
command
since serving as a
thanked
And
Ervin and the Watergate spe-
make
prosecutor were uncovering did not
seem
life. I
was ready to leave.
Sam
Malek's optimism, the evidence that cial
I
Army was my
troops again.
I
had not been
company commander
practical purposes,
I
at Fort
had been a battalion com-
my first tour, though I was carried on the books as an advisor. But during my second Vietnam tour, I served mander of Vietnamese troops during solely as a staff ofiicer.
Now,
by Infantry Branch,
ified
I
as a lieutenant colonel, evaluated as qual-
hoped
for a battalion of
to the Infantry
tenant colonel took
Branch assignments
down
by hand, were
Listed,
all
the battahons in the
who was
who was slated to get the who was scheduled to command it after Column
unit;
B,
looking for blank spaces, since
The process was not
quite as simple as
commanding
the board
ence.
Army, followed by
I
am suggesting.
system
The Army locks
three
In those days,
wanted you
is
in his
more objective and
a board of officers in a
microfiche. There
on behalf of
big enough so that one
The board pores over
nesses,
been
is
to intervene
before me.
and favoritism could influence the
room with a stack of personnel records on someone
it
currently
general, for example,
less subject to external pressure.
for
opened
lieu-
commanding the battalion next; and Column C, that. I went down Column B
division, that could clinch the deal. Today's
way
where a fellow
I
wanted something immediately.
I
office politics, the old-boy network,
assignment. If a
office,
a loose-leaf notebook and
columns: Column A, indicating
own.
White House Fellow,
In the spring of 1973, in those last days as a
went
my
is
almost no
fair-haired candidates.
member does
And
not have undue influ-
these records, weighs strength against weak-
and does not come out
until the best potential
identified. Since there are
more
qualified
commanders have
commanders than com-
mands, some candidates will inevitably be disappointed. The odd thing is that
the old system
and the new produce about the same proportion of
successes and failures. But at least with the
blame
lies
with
human
fallibility,
modem method, the credit or
not favoritism.
COLIN
178
POWELL
L.
wound up slated for Korea, not through preference or pull, but because command of the ist Battalion, 32d Infantry, id Infantry Division, Eighth Army, Korea, was one of the few blanks I found in Column B. The battalion was known as the Queen's Own Buccaneers, shortened to "the Bucs." The name reflected the battalioi^'s roots in Hawaii, when ruled by Queen Liliuokalani in the 1890s. The hard part was telling Alma where I was going. Korea was an I
"unaccompanied
which meant leaving her alone
tour,"
a year with three children, ages ten, eight, and three. ble
woman, was not
thrilled.
"Fm
in
My
make
asking you to
Dale City for wife, a sensi-
a sacrifice,"
I
admitted.
Alma this is
did not disagree. "But
what you think
Her support made
is
it
easier, but not easy. life
first
of
time
I
my
Korea was,
at that point, the
This marked the third time
I
had met during
were going
to
I
at
had ever faced.
the uniform again.
shape
The
my future in ways
me then. But first, I was off to Korea, where dier would teach me a unique brand of military leadership.
unimaginable to
I
would be
my wife and children to go off
most painful thing
that year
I
would be parted from Annemarie,
The White House Fellowship ended, and I put on people
said, "if
it."
son, the second time
her most enchanting age. Having to leave to
what you want," she
best for you, then do
would be absent from the leaving Linda, and the
if this is
an old
sol-
MY NEW COMMANDING fighter"
OFFICER,
MAJOR GENERAL HENRY
Emerson, had taken over the 2d Division
few months before
I
arrived in Korea.
I
at
E.
"THE GUN-
Camp Casey just
a
got an early hint of what he
might be hke from
my
Lieutenant Colonel
Zeb Bradford, another officer also out of the DePuy
staff,
change-of-command ceremony.
and a battalion commander
who had done
I
was replacing
a first-rate job with the
Bucs. Changes of command tend to be somewhat uncomfortable. There is I
only so
much you want
to hear about
how
the other
prefer the overlap to be brief, and in this case
The morning of
the ceremony, Bradford
deserted parade ground.
Vietnam
to
I
it
and
at these events,
his ship.
was. I
arrived at a nearly
had become accustomed
overblown hoopla
guy ran
in
Germany and
a big turnout, and the
shower of medals. But here, only a lonely-looking four-man color guard stood in the middle of the
field.
Five
company conmianders and
their
guidon bearers, representing the battalion's five companies, were spread
COLIN
180
POWELL
L.
A
out like solitary pickets.
handful of onlookers watched from the
stands. "Gunfighter doesn't care to have the troops stand in the hot sun
while a couple of colonels
tell
who handed them
Bradford,
was
major. That
started thinking
each other how wonderful they
The sergeant major presented
ford said to me.
me, and
I
might
Soon afterward,
I
like
went
Brad-
retupied them to the sergeant
The whole business took
it.
I
to
are,"
the battalion colors to
less than thirty seconds.
I
Gunfighter Emerson.
to division headquarters to report to the gen-
He came bursting out of his office and seized my hand, which he pumped like a well handle. The man was about fifty, tall, rangy, with a eral.
great eagle's beak of a nose, craggy features, a hot-eyed gaze, and a
booming
voice.
He
never stopped pacing as he welcomed me.
He had
earned his nickname in Vietnam by carrying a cowboy- style six-shooter rather than a regulation .45 caliber pistol,
and
revolver engraved on his belt buckle.
also aware that he
I
was
I
noticed that he had a
had won
a reputation there as a fierce fighter.
General Emerson scheduled a commanders stayed on to attend.
me, and
we
As my
fellow officers
morning, and
call for this
came
in,
the general introduced
Emerson con-
seated ourselves around the conference room.
tinued to pace. 'Today's subject," he announced, "is marksmanship." started off in a reasonable tone. subject.
blaze.
soldiers
never to change
all
was
that? Fists
the while
I
they would not win.
now
was always diers
And what the
served under the Gunfighter. I
A
modest
observed his
on every subject from deploying helicopters
accelerating excitement
DMZ to
to
pounding. The pattern was
premise, mounting fervor, and an apoplectic windup.
along the
marks-
If
would be unprepared! The eyes began
And if soldiers were unprepared,
hell kind of leadership
He
As he went on, however, he warmed to his
Marksmanship was important! The pacing quickened.
manship was neglected,
I
soldier correspondence courses.
the same, a vein-popping "If
we
And
his
punch hne
don't do our jobs right, sol-
won't win!"
His performance before the troops was no different. The witnessed
parade
it,
field.
we had assembled
the entire division on the
first
time
I
Camp Casey
Gunfighter started off calmly. "Our mission in Korea
is to
maintain the armistice agreed to on July 27, 1953, between the United
Nations and North Korea. Further, our mission our South Korean
allies
is to
come
should that armistice be violated."
Emerson's voice took on
velocity.
I
to the aid of
As he
spoke,
heard one of the sergeants whisper,
181
Go, Gunjighter, Go!"
"Here he goes." Pretty soon, Gunfighter was shouting, "And
DMZ,
North Korean sons of bitches ever cross that their asses!"
By now,
"And
his neck.
those
we're gonna kick
were flashing and the veins throbbed on
the eyes
the Chinese throw a
if
if
miUion troops across the border,
we're gonna kick their asses too!" The troops caught the
and
spirit
began shouting, "Go, Gunfighter, go!"
Emerson had
command. Morale in the 2d Division high, and discipHne was slack. I found it sound off with spirit and show a will to
inherited a tough
when he took over was
not
heartening to hear a leader
change. This division could stand a
On just my condition.
I
second night
was
in
my
in
camp,
I
little
gung
ho.
had gotten a
taste
of the division's
quarters, a metal half-Quonset with a shower,
bed, desk, and smelly diesel heater, getting ready to hit the sack
got a call asking
me
The
was
office.
night
winter in the air as I
come immediately
hurried
down
the hillside
MP
walked
in
still
impending Korean
buttoning
camp gate,
sergeant and a couple of detention cells.
oh a
my jacket.
containing a desk I
seemed
to
have
An MP was trying to handcuff about
fight with a wildcat.
50 pounds of unadulterated fury while a half-dozen others warily
A
cled this blur of arms and legs.
"Remember your
ring.
told
you
training,"
ten times, not one
I
to the provost marshal's
chilly with just a hint of the
entered a small building just inside the
for the
1
I
to
when
cir-
major, cool as ice, stood outside the
he was saying. "If
I
told
you once,
on one. Everybody on him!" With
I
that, the
MPs piled on and subdued the culprit. At the bottom of the pileup, I glimpsed a small private, who, I was informed, was from my battalion. As the MPs took him outside and wrestled him into the back of a van other
for transfer to the stockade in Seoul, the
The
private
camp
was
part of a
provost marshal.
gang
He and
in order to get arrested
major explained the
situation.
that allegedly intended to murder the
his pals
had created a deliberate ruckus
and tossed into the
when
cells.
While
there, they
came to break it up, the scrapper I had just observed was supposed to stab him with a long needle he had managed to sneak through the body search. The last I saw of the prisoner, he was shackled hand and foot, kicking out the back window as the van pulled away. This was my introduction
planned to
start
another fight, and
to the drugs, racial tension,
the provost marshal
and indiscipline plaguing the
Korea, without even the distraction of a war as in Vietnam.
Army
in
* COLIN
182
Today's
POWELL
L.
Army
all- volunteer
has high standards.
the case
We were in transition from the draft to the all-volunteer force. As
then.
we dragged on the
home from Vietnam, the Many of our troops, in Army
ourselves
military.
meager
Four," Category IV, soldiers possessing
and math. They were
ing,
was not
It
life's
nation turned
its
back
shorthand, were "Cat skills in reading, writ-
dropouts, one step above Category V,
who were considered unfit for Army service. Today, about 4 perof the Army is Cat Four, while in those days the figure was closer
those cent to
50 percent. General Emerson was determined to turn around
He gave
ized operation.
whom
a bachelor to
program
Army was
the
wife and mistress.
Life," not to be
a
it,
"was
to provide the soldier opportunities
rather than a loser in life."
Army
Given
conditions
favored "pro" anything, within reason, though reasonable-
I
ness was not always Gunfighter's long
He was
He had begun
confused with the antiabortion movement. Emerson's
become a winner
period, the
was
remaking the 2d Infantry Division which he called "Pro-
for
in Korea,
demoral-
the job his total attention, since Gunfighter
Pro-Life program, as he put to
this slack,
suit.
not a lone voice in his reforming zeal. In this transitional
Army was trying to make
get rid of aspects that
eliminated.
made people
The Army went to
military life
more appealing and
disinclined to stay
a five-day
in.
Hated
week with weekends
to
KP was
off wher-
ever practical. Barracks were redesigned to end the hospital- ward look
and
to provide a private
room and bath
Almost
for every three soldiers.
none of these innovations, however, had yet reached Korea. Gunfighter, nevertheless,
We
was determined
to
lift
morale.
in this country because of a war that had ended twenty years The Korean War stands almost hidden in the shadows of the two wars that flank it, the drama of World War II and the agony of Vietnam.
were
before.
Yet, 54,000
Americans died
tionately for
its
three years than suffered during the nearly ten years of
major U.S. involvement
much grew up
in this conflict, heavier casualties propor-
on.
I
in
Vietnam.
And Korea was
was eight when World War
ories are the sketchy recollections of a child.
sionable ages of thirteen through sixteen
Kelly Street went off to Korea. The GIs
II
But
when
the
war
ended, and I
was
pretty
I
my mem-
in the impres-
the older boys
from
who fought there returned talk-
ing about combat in a primitive place where things
moved by
oxcart
183
"Go, Gunjighter, Go!''
and the stench of dung was everywhere. Today, South Korea
is
Asian economic miracle producing everything from cars to microchips.
And when
I
VCRs
to
impending economic miracle was
arrived, the
humming
already beginning in a Seoul bristling with office towers and
with entrepreneurial energy.
another
A few miles beyond, however, the capital's
sophistication yielded to thatch-roofed villages, small vegetable farms,
and the ever-present oxen.
rice paddies,
Camp Casey, where I was to spend the next year, was about an hour's from Seoul, a straggly succession of World War
drive
stretching
up a valley and climbing the surrounding
II
Quonset huts
The atmo-
hillsides.
sphere was pure war zone, with none of the softening amenities of a post where families live.
DMZ,
And
the 2d Infantry Division
were there
danger ever
to obstruct a
lifted, the
we were
there, to put
North Korean attack.
Army would
need for building costly
summer and
was
frills.
If
and when
The Quonset huts were hot
that
was no
as ovens in
cold as charity during the bitter Korean winter, which
about to enter. The Quonsets were heated by inefficient diesel-
found
I
that
barracks were unheated for lack of this small part, a situation
reflecting the prevailing sloppiness
on the
post.
When my
supply clerk
ordered the valves, the maintenance battalion brushed him off stock."
valves
bluntly,
pull out. Therefore, there
fuel units that required a little carburetor valve to function.
many
it
of American flesh and blood.
to provide a buffer
the
were about twenty-five miles from the
the demilitarized zone forming the buffer between North and
South Korea.
We
We
I
went
—near
people,
who
to the
warehouse myself and raised
a stash of
World War
I
gas
mask
hell until
canisters.
I
—"Out of found the
The supply
could not find valves to heat barracks, said that they were
keeping the nearly sixty-year-old canisters because they were afraid to
throw them away. This was the environment Emerson was trying to change, and
On
I
was
all
for
it.
checking the battalion records,
term
AWOLs, men
I
was struck by
the
number of short-
usually gone only a few hours. "Yobos,"
tive officer explained.
yobo of his own,
for only
in
execu-
Yobos? Any eighteen-year-old who had had and a
girl,
Camp Casey,
and
trouble getting a date in high school could have an apartment
a
my
Tong Du Chon,
$i8o a month. The
girls
madam-yenta serving the American
the
town next
to
were provided by a combination garrison.
Given the grim accom-
* COLIN
184
L.
POWELL
modations on post, the appeal of these menages was not hard to under-
And from
stand.
preferable to the widespread patronage of
VD
driven the
was probably
a health standpoint, the arrangement
rate in
Camp Casey
$io
prostitutes,
who had
to lofty heights, with repeat per-
formers in some units propelling the rate to o\er loa percent.
Tong Du Chon was
Back home
industry.
movies
fly fashion
this
was
Army, but off duty, they sported every other super-
in the
—
three-inch heels, wild suits and capes, outfits the tailors of
cowboy
first visit to
with sidewalk I
who seemed
artists
away with longish
Tong Du Chon, to
I
for $20. For the
and denim
hats, fancy- stitched boots,
off-duty rage, and attempts to get
On my
family photographs.
strolled along a
be grabbing
at
were the
hair.
my
I
block jammed wallet. Finally,
Korean daughter, since no matter who these
aspect
was always
troops in
my
took out a snapshot of little Annie, and in twenty
minutes, for $10, a painter produced an oil painting of
I
shirts
understood through their pidgin English that they wanted to see
my
the
the era of Afros and black exploitation
Tong Du Chon could chum out almost overnight whites,
Army was
and Superfly. Black soldiers were not permitted
like Shaft
extreme Afros
a one-industry town, and the U.S.
Oriental. Elvis Presley
Tong Du Chon, Elvis painted on
was
almond
daughter
artists depicted, the
the big
draw
for white
velvet in every pose and size.
wonder how many American family rooms
portraits of the King, with
my
eyes, kept
are decorated with these
by paunchy men now
in
their fifties.
Whole
streets of
Tong Du Chon were
filled
with brassware sellers
offering candlesticks, ashtrays, plates, plaques, utensils
or shape into which brass could be beaten. the metal.
We
were conducting a night
pounding the side of to
pepper
"cease
it
fire."
What was
a hill with artillery
with small-arms
fire.
I
—any object
soon learned the source of
firing exercise that fall, first
and then sending
in infantry
A red-star cluster went off signaling
Immediately, the hillside twinkled with pinpoints of light.
that?
I
asked. "Koreans,"
my
exec informed me. Shadowy
shapes emerged out of shallow holes and trenches and headed straight for the firing range.
They
scavenging spent bullets,
were
still
hot.
Some
carried flashlights, even candles, and started shells,
and brass cartridge cases while they
got a head start by hiding in caves inside the
impact area. This was the source of brass found in the shops of Tong
Du Chon.
"Go, Gunjighter, Go!"
The second time had
to
my
went on one of these night
battalion
18 5
exercises,
I
send the exec into a nearby village the next day to inform the
chief that one of his people had been accidentally killed on the range.
The
chief's reaction
was a
matter-of-fact nod. These were desperately
poor people, and they were ready
to take lethal risks as the cost of doing
business.
"You
gentlemen,
see,
men on
if
you play
the field. Baseball, nine
football,
men
you've only got twenty-two
plus the runners. Basketball, ten."
General Emerson had brought us together one
fall
morning, and
was
I
not sure where this commanders call was headed. "But we've got eigh-
men
teen thousand
them
to play.
solution
We
in the division,"
want
was "combat
first
We would start with combat football.
platoon against second platoon,
We would play on the ball into the
soccer
opponent's
Run
we would
use two footballs
throw
field,
net.
explained.
it,
of
sports."
Instead of conventional eleven-man teams,
—
all
of them to feel like winners. Pro-Life!" His
all
Gunfighter went on to explain.
units
we want
he continued. "And
at
and the objective was
pass
it,
once.
it.
The
No
men
at
once.
to get the foot-
can, the general
up the
action,
You can
tackle,
to liven
rules? None.
block, clip, blindside, anything. Referees?
And no penalties. As soon as we started combat
And,
whole
field
eighty
How? Any way you
kick
it,
we would
maybe
rules, so
you don't need
any referees.
football, the division doctors
were
an uproar. They were being flooded with orthopedic cases, some ous.
They threatened
minimal
rules.
We
to
blow the whistle on Gunfighter.
put in a referee to stop play at least
went out of bounds.
We
We
seri-
instituted
when both
balls
replaced combat boots with sneakers.
banned kicking, clipping, and punching. The troops loved combat ball, at least the spectators did,
and Gunfighter Emerson adored
In every successful military organization, and
I
in
suspect in
We
foot-
it.
suc-
all
cessful enterprises, different styles of leadership have to be present. If the
man
at the
him have
top does not exhibit
all
to supplement. If the top
requires a
whip hand
man
has vision and vision only, he
to enforce his ideas. If the organization has a
visionary and a whip hand,
demands of
these qualities, then those around
it
needs a "chaplain" to soften the relentless
the others. In the
2d Division, the chaplain
formed by Brigadier General Harry Brooks, the
role
was
assistant division
per-
com-
* COLIN
186
mander and
the
first
POWELL
L.
whom I served directly. Where
black general under
Gunfighter was theatrical, impetuous, demanding, and unbending,
Harry Brooks provided
stability,
could steer combat football from
common
coolness, and
sense.
Brooks
only partial mayhem. Without
total to
the flywheel of a Harry Brooks, the laudable^ energy of a Gunfighter
would have
torn the division apart.
I
loved, admired, and learned
from
both men.
"Goooood morning. Camp Casey." The determinedly cheery radio voice woke me every day at 5:30 a.m. Another of Gunfighter Emerson's Pro-Life antidotes to brawling, drug abuse, boozing, lechery, and trying to stab provost marshals
was physical exhaustion. Consequently, we
began the day with a four-mile run,
to be
completed
utes or less. '*Last week's winner of the run
went on. "And today's temperature
was
zero. If
it
we
had
still
that cold,
our lungs
halfway point
at
to
Camp
Casey,
.
Oh God,
.
.
min-
the announcer
let it
from our warm bunks and
—up
Camp
.
was
."
be ten below
did not have to run. One degree higher, and
to pry ourselves
air that frosted
down
we
is
."
in thirty-two
a sloping
hill,
start
running in
then up a steeper
hill, to
the
Hovey, located on a mountaintop, then back
all
before breakfast.
We ran
two minutes
the last
men yelling their guts out. The curious thing to me was that the same men who griped constantly about the run were all over me the minute we crossed the finish line wanting to know, "What was the time. Colonel? How'd we do? Did we beat the 72d Armored?" at
a sprint, hundreds of
Gunfighter was on to something. I
had the only infantry battalion
in a brigade
of tankers.
A
couple
of old Gelnhausen buddies, Clyde Sedgwick and Bill Wiehl, com-
manded trot,
They made the run at a leisurely following the same cycle as my men
the neighboring tank units.
while
annoyance
I
went
flat out,
at getting
up
in the arctic cold, exhaustion
the run, and exhilaration at the finish line. the 1st Battalion of the
bunch of
soldiers
who
rode around
all
was determined
I
32d Infantry win.
I
day
halfway through
was not going
in
to
have
to let a
mobile pillboxes beat
infantrymen in a foot race.
We had troops tation to the U.S.
understrength.
more than
called Katusas
(KATUSA
Army), who could run
My
battalion rated seven
five hundred.
We
filled
stood for Korean
forever.
Our
units
Augmen-
were always
hundred men and
I
never had
out the ranks with Koreans.
They
^
"Go, Gunjighter, Go!''
competed troops
I
show up
learn.
his
the pick of the
They were
at all.
And they earned $3
on beer
On
units,
and conse-
The Katusas were among the have ever commanded. They never showed up drunk or
we had
quently
to
which got them out of their own
to join us,
187
in a night in
lot.
indefatigable, disciplined,
a month, less than one of our
finest
failed
and quick
to
men would blow
Tong Du Chon.
the rare occasion
when
a Katusa got out of line,
I
simply went to
Korean noncom. ''Sergeant Major, how are you today?" "Ah,
Colonel, Sergeant Major vate
Kim seems
private
is
very well, thank you." "Sergeant Major, Pri-
have a problem obeying orders." The insubordinate
to
would be gone within the hour, on
army. If Private
Kim was
his
way back
Korean
to the
worth salvaging, he and the sergeant major
might disappear behind the barracks, where
Kim was made
to under-
stand the error of his ways. In similar discipHnary cases, an American soldier
were
might write
at
to his
lawyer or congressman. Different cultures
work, presenting different trade-offs in the contest between
freedom and the group.
between the
order,
rights of the individual
and the needs of
On balance, though it can be far less tidy and inconvenient to FU settle for our way.
those in authority,
One
winter day, Gunfighter
summoned
his
commanders
were going into something called "reverse cycle
to tell us
training."
We
we
were
to
turn night into day. "After all," Gunfighter pointed out, "the North
Koreans won't be fighting us nine-to-five." to the hills
around the Imjin River, where
down, breakfast
8:00
at
until a 1:00 A.M.
p.m.,
And so I took my battalion we turned the clock upside
compass course through the wilderness
lunch break, assembling and reassembling weapons
and employing claymore mines and mortar
fire in the
"afternoon," from
2:00 A.M. to 7:00 A.M., dinner at 8:00 a.m., and attempted sleep from
9:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M.
We did this for ten-day stretches, trying to turn the
circadian clock around, which, for certain consfitufions, never worked.
The meals
at these
we had
go back
to
ungodly hours
literally
made some
soldiers sick,
same time other people
and
ate.
But
winter day in December. The roar of artillery
fire
to serving at the
Gunfighter was right. Wars assume irregular hours.
It
was a
crisp, clear
and crump of mortars were heavier than anything tours in Vietnam.
I
I
had heard
in
two
had the Bucs deployed on one side of the valley
* COLIN
188
POWELL
L.
along the Rodriguez Range, ready to storm the
"Move
side.
began
push toward the valley
to
on the opposite
hills
and the men on point
out, Buccaneers," a sergeant shouted, floor.
The North Koreans had not suddenly decided
to break the twenty-
We were simply engaged in a "Gunfighter Shootout," an
year armistice.
exercise involving live ammunition, and plenty of it, to
come
as close to
simulating actual combat conditions as possible without drawing blood.
We fired off hundreds of 8
1
mm and 107mm mortar rounds and io6mm
recoilless rifle fire against targets arrayed as advancing troops.
How
had we come by
my company com-
the firepower? one of
all
manders asked me. For a while the valley had echoed nothing.
want
It
would have been impolitic
ammo
for actual
from our war reserve, a
like
D-Day.
I
said
But Gunfighter did not
few pops from our meager allowance of
his division to mistake a
training
to explain.
We
combat conditions.
had
fired off shells
known to the North Koreans,
fact best not
or our
superiors in Washington.
down to C Company, pronto." The was the company commander, a promis-
"Colonel Powell, you got to come caller this Saturday afternoon
who had
ing
young
his
men between
coercion and persuasion.
hurried from
my hooch to discover a small crowd at an intersection
I
officer
C Company's
near
not yet found that fine balance in handling
rec room.
The men parted
to let
me
through. At the
center stood a soldier, either drunk or doped up, brandishing a pool cue. His eyes die!" he
was
were
afire
"Somebody's gonna
hollering.
Nobody's gonna put
jail.
"I called the
and his face contorted. "Somebody's gonna
me
in jail.
MPs, Colonel,"
die!
You put my buddy
Somebody's gonna die
in
first!"
the lieutenant informed me. "They're on
the way." I
nodded and
toward the
started
assailant, maintaining a distance
one pool cue. "What are you gonna do, son?"
"Somebody's gonna I
said. "Hit
of
me?"
he repeated.
spoke gently. "Son, put the cue down."
"No,
sir."
"Do you know who "Yes, "I
you
die,"
I
sir.
want you
to put
it
I
am?"
Colonel Powell." to put the
cue
down
before you hurt somebody.
I
want
down before somebody hurts you." I came closer. "You
see,
189
"Go, Gunjighter, Go!"
if
you don't do what
of you. Then, year.
What
when
you,
I tell
these
all
men
are going to
whip
hell out
they're done, you're going to the stockade for a
sense does that
make? So put
the cue
down, and we'll have
a nice talk."
And
His arm dropped, the pool cue dropped.
he started to
cry.
''Nobody understands. Nobody cares." Suddenly the homicidal maniac
had become a confused, hurt
We
him on
put
kid.
restriction for a
couple of weeks. Soon afterward,
passed him on the post and he threw
you
doin,' sir."
Powell, he's
He
me a snappy
salute. "Colonel,
grinned to some of his pals. "That's Bro
all right."
And Bro P became my nickname,
P,
I
how
Brother
at least
among
the black troops, for the rest of the tour.
Some
of the race friction at
fault lines.
Camp Casey could be traced along
musical
The whites wanted rock and country-and-westem. The
blacks wanted
soul,
Aretha Franklin, and Dionne Warwick. The issue
we summoned the Tong Du Chon headquarters to see if we could work out a
got so testy that
bar owners to divi-
sion
fair
They
formula.
agreed that they would feature roughly seven "white" songs for
finally
every three "black" songs.
As
a result of this compromise, the whites
were unhappy only 30 percent of the time and the blacks 70 percent.
The
soldiers
had worked out
their
own
tated toward bars in a certain part of line of
Crack
demarcation became
at as
mingham
much
peril to
known
town and blacks
as the Crack.
A
gravi-
The
to another.
white crossed the
himself as a black trying to enter a white Bir-
that
one group "owned" part of Tong
was unacceptable. The thought his safety at the
tension
White troops
bar before the Civil Rights Act. To Gunfighter, the situation
was anathema. The idea
"Racism
solution.
is
is
that an
American
soldier
had
Du Chon
to fear for
hands of other American soldiers was intolerable.
bad," Gunfighter told his assembled senior officers. "Race
not Pro-Life.
I
will not permit racism in
my division." We half
expected him to say, "Racism will end by zero seven hundred tomorrow
morning." Gunfighter had a plan. of
MPs
to
already ordered a special detachment
Tong Du Chon, he informed
going to walk every halls, bars,
He had
damn
street in the
us.
"And you gentlemen
are
Crack. You're going into dance
any place of public accommodation.
And if anyone is
threat-
ened or attacked, I'm sending in the Ready Brigade along with the
MPs
* COLIN
190
POWELL
L.
to clean out the place."
With
he gave us a tight smile and
that,
said,
"Now you go and have yourselves a good time." In one joint we ran into Father Gianastasias, a Catholic chaplain, who was dancing with a bargirl. Some officers were taken aback. I was not. I knew Father G's MO. He went wheref he would fmd his flock. The kid with a problem who felt uneasy about going to battalion HQ could locate Father
him beer soul.
We
studying it
at the
Kit Kat Klub, where the priest would match
for beer until the soldier felt comfortable
had other chaplains St.
did not do
unorthodox,
who
enough
to bare his
spent their time in their hooches
Paul's Letters to the Corinthians. All very admirable, but
much for troubled soldiers. And while his methods were we never heard a whisper that Father G ever violated his
priestly vows. I
We
cannot say that our march on the Crack produced integrated bUss.
had not achieved
that at
home, much
honky-tonk town
less in a
halfway around the world. But General Emerson's gutsy solution broke the color line. Thereafter,
No
no group owned any part of Tong
vigilante code superseded the authority of the U.S.
Du Chon.
Army.
We
had
shattered the mystique of the Crack.
Seeking racial harmony was no fleeting
went
at
it
Emerson
full throttle, as at
favorite,
everything else.
whim with Gunfighter. He One day, I learned that an
an unusually capable officer
elevated to a top position on the 2d Division troops as "darkies." I
thought
it
serious
I
looked into
enough
brigade commander,
who
it,
whom
staff,
he had recently
had referred
and the charge turned out
to bring to the attention of
my
to
to black
be
true.
superior, the
took the matter up to division. Gunfighter
relieved the offending officer that afternoon, though
I
know
the loss of
an able subordinate was painful to him.
White
officers
shirkers, but
and noncoms could be tough on white troublemakers and
many were
reluctant to crack
for fear of being labeled racists.
a corporal
whom
I
I
down on
recalcitrant blacks
had no such qualms,
as in the case of
My command
sergeant major,
shall call Biggs.
Albert Pettigrew, a soldier of the old school,
came
me
to
one day look-
ing distressed. "Begging the colonel's permission," Pettigrew said, "I
need
to advise the colonel that
from an "So?"
artillery battalion
we have
a
new man
just transferred in
up north. Corporal Biggs."
Go, Gunjighter, Go!"
*
191
"Corporal Biggs looks like trouble," Pettigrew said. "He's from that battalion
where the
Biggs was
CO got relieved because he lost control of his men. Now
the ringleader.
he's got himself transferred here to
Casey."
"Got himself transferred?"
managed
Pettigrew explained, had
wherever he wanted
asked.
I
The resourceful Corporal Biggs, have orders cut sending him
to
to go.
told Pettigrew.
"I'd like to see this soldier,"
I
Soon Biggs was before me,
a small, cocky-looking guy. "I'm really
down here," he "Why?" I asked him.
glad to be
me
Biggs informed
told
me.
in a confidential tone that
we had
serious racial
problems, but he thought he could handle them. "Really," in the
I
said. "That's nice.
But
let
me
tell
we go by explained how I
you the
Bucs." Biggs listened with bored courtesy as
I
rules
my battalion.
ran
The next
thing
I
knew. Biggs was holding meetings of black troops
behind the barracks, and proving a skilled organizer. ings of what white officers
He used three
would do
if
He gave dire warn-
blacks did not stand up to them.
drugs to manipulate himself into a position of control. After
weeks of
this provocation,
After studying the
file, I
you doing. Biggs?"
I
I
had Pettigrew bring
called the corporal to
me
Biggs's
my office again.
file.
"How're
asked.
Biggs looked grave. thought.
I
more
"Sir, the battalion's got
got here just in time.
We
trouble than
I
ought to get together every day to
talk things over."
"That won't be possible,"
"Why "You on
it
not?"
and when you get
"You
And
Out of this
was on
off,
is
do
some people
that to
done
division.
plane at Osan and you are going to be
going to Travis Air Force Base
they're going to put
can't
"I've already
I
said.
see. Corporal, there's a
today. That plane
papers.
I
it.
will be waiting with
you out the
in California,
your discharge
gate."
me," Biggs protested. You're out of
my battalion.
Out of this brigade.
Out of this man's Army. And you
solid ground, since
I
are unemployed."
had found enough nriisconduct in Biggs's
record to support an "administrative discharge," a soldiers for a miscellany of reasons.
I
way
to get rid of unfit
called in Sergeant
Major Pettigrew
* COLIN
192
POWELL
L.
and two of my biggest, toughest
went out
"You hear what Bro P did? Whacked Biggs.
to the battalion.
That's right. Biggs
NCOs to take the man away. Soon word
gone, man, gone.
is
You
don't mess with Bro P."
We had plenty of white problem soldiers. But proportionately we had more
Les^ opportunity,
disciplinary problems with blacks.
tion, less
ior in the States,
soldiers
were
and these
attitudes traveled.
less skillful at
I
a badge of black pride. Their attitude the white offender's attitude
Among the blacks, ever known.
I
seemed
was "Who?
had some of the
They had found
themselves.
nished by
I
also observed that black
manipulating the system than white trou-
blemakers. The blacks tended to be defiant, as
fulfill
educa-
less
money, fewer jobs for blacks equaled more antisocial behav-
if breaking the rules
to
Little
be "Take
me,
were
whereas
that,"
sir?"
finest soldiers
and
NCOs I have
Army a freedom in which they could
in the
did not like seeing their proud performance
nihilistic types, a
minority within a minority.
was someone
soldiers needed, like the kid with the pool cue,
tar-
What problem to care
about them other than a Biggs, with his siren song of self-destruction.
wanted
to care for
them
positively.
And, with
all his
I
excesses, so did
Gunfighter.
One
officer
who had
superior, the
i
st
caught the Pro-Life religion was
immediate
Brigade commander. Colonel Peter G. Grasser. Grasser
was an outstanding troop affection.
my
trainer,
As winter deepened,
demanding
yet able to
the temptation
hibernate in their hooches or spend
was
all their free
win respect and
great for the troops to
time with their yobos,
rather than engage in healthy outdoor activities.
What
the brigade
needed, Pete Grasser concluded, was a skating rink to be ready by Christmas. Gunfighter heartily endorsed the plan.
work finding
the flattest piece of earth in
We
put the troops to
Camp Casey and ringed it with
sandbags to a depth of about six inches, sealed with rubber from fuel bladders.
We
had benches
installed
use as fireplaces in which the
men
and cut
fifty-five-gallon
where, and bugged us daily about our progress.
as
in his
to
could toast marshmallows and roast
chestnuts. Grasser ordered ice skates shipped in
sugarplum visions dancing
drums
—
head
I
from God knows
could just imagine the
soldiers
ghding along the
Johnny Mathis sang "Chestnuts roasting on an open
fire
.
.
."
ice
and
Bing Crosby crooned "White Christmas," with booze, yobos, and Bgirls in
Tong Du Chon
all
but forgotten.
193
Go, Gunjighter, Go!''
Finally, late filled
one afternoon, the rink was completed, and the
for the ice to form,
At one
We
with water.
it
point,
I
retired to the officers' club for drinks, waiting
which
in
Korea
December should not
in
take long.
noticed a bunch of young lieutenants laughing slyly.
antennae always quiver their eyes.
men
when
My
junior officers get a devilish gleam in
Soon they got up and
left. I
called to
my exec at the other end
"Go and see what those guys are up to," I said. He came back about a half hour later, red-faced either from
of the bar.
ments or from laughing himself five-gallon
drum of
antifreeze
the ele-
These lads had taken a
silly.
fifty-
from the motor pool. The exec had
caught them just as they were about to pour the stuff into Colonel Grasser's rink, which then
below zero.
It
made no
would not have frozen
difference.
The
degrees
at fifty
rink hardened, but the surface
resembled concrete and was unusable.
was
Gunfighter's favorite tool for promoting racial tolerance
the 1970
Song, about the friendship between the black pro football
film Brian
player Gale Sayers and his white Chicago Bears teammate Brian Pic-
We ran the movie in the post theater and followed it with a discussion. How far apart had these two men started? What divided them? colo.
What brought them their story
together in genuine friendship?
have for the troops
in
Camp Casey?
Gunfighter loved the movie and had point,
counted that
I
I
it
was an
lessons did
effective tool.
shown again and
had seen Brian 's Song
We got word one day that H.
It
What
again.
At one
six times.
Minton Francis, head of the Pentagon's
equal opportunity program, was coming to
Camp
Casey. Gunfighter
He wanted Francis to witness the troops watching and then talking about Brian's Song. My battalion drew the assignment. One problem! Most of my men were out in the field on training exercises, was
ecstatic.
and most had seen the movie almost as often as plan to get us through the predicament.
We
I
had.
I
came up with
would show the movie
a
to
about forty available troops in the battalion service club, where Gunfighter I
and Francis could observe the discussion
had
an intimate
setting.
my staff pull together a roomful of men still available in the bat-
talion area.
I
had timed
it
so that Gunfighter and Francis
for the last ten minutes of the just started running the film
chief of
in
staff.
would
movie and the discussion period.
when
I
got an urgent phone
Colonel Paul Braim, was on the
line.
call.
arrive
We had
Emerson's
Gunfighter wanted
* COLIN
194
my
entire battalion
Maybe
impossible. the in
movie and
POWELL
L.
watching the movie. I
I
tried to explain
why
this
was
did not understand, Braim said. Gunfighter wanted
the discussion in a /w// theater, and he
would be
arriving
twenty minutes. stopped the movie and told the projection«crew tb set up in the post
I
theater
—and
was locked attend the
—
to get
up.
an ax from the firehouse en route in case the place
Every warm body
in the area
asleep, awake, drunk, sober.
main road and
told
them
to divert
I
was
to
be dragooned
posted a couple of sergeants on
everybody they saw
no matter what battalion they belonged
to.
to the theater,
They found one guy
in
hand-
by two MPs. All three were redirected
cuffs being escorted to the jail
to
to
We managed to fill the house with bewildered troops by the
the theater.
time Emerson and Francis showed up. I
had just about enough time
When
ater.
few plants throughout the
to place a
the film ended, one bright lieutenant spoke
the-
up on cue.
"I
think this film shows what people of different backgrounds can achieve
when mutual
respect, not race
.
.
."
Gunfighter beamed.
He and
stayed for about five minutes of this edifying talk and then
go about
thing had been another exercise in breaking starch, the
kind of hollow effort I
saw
the
men
into step alongside
was
things.
I
abhorred.
I felt
shaking their heads,
walking away. The
"It
stupid,"
first
like a fraud. I
put
me. 'That was a hoot, I
my
Outside the theater,
head down and
sergeant of the combat support sir,
wasn't
it?"
started
company he
fell
said.
blurted out. "I hate to see the troops do stupid
hate to be the one responsible for
I
went
their business.
The whole as
left. I
men for coming, and told them they were now free
onstage, thanked the to
Francis
it."
He was quiet for a time. "Colonel Powell," he said, "don't worry. We know what that was all about. But the men know you wouldn't have cooked up anything that dumb on your own. They trust you. They don't
won't hold
it
against you.
We went along because you needed
it.
Relax,
sir."
In
all
my years in the Army, among all the citations, medals,
motions,
words
It
I
never appreciated any tribute more than
at that
low
I
and pro-
did the sergeant's
point.
was a cold April
ing for four hours.
night, about
i
:oo a.m.
The only sounds
My battahon had been march-
in the stillness
were
rifle butts slap-
ping rhythmically against hips, leather boots thumping against the
dirt
*
Go, Gunjighter, Go!"
We had been on reverse cycle
road,
and
for a
week, sleeping by day, training by night. Finally
feet splashing through puddles.
19 5
we had
reached
our destination. The exercise was over, and the exhausted, out-of-sync
slumped
soldiers
Casey.
going
I
was
to the ground, waiting to be trucked
back
particularly eager to return because the next
home on
As
leave.
was
I
my
one of
sitting there,
to
day
feet
and
started, too
was
to trans-
We would have to march the remaining
The men wearily dragged themselves
thirty or so kilometers.
I
officers ap-
proached with a message that the division lacked enough gas port the battalion back to camp.
Camp
to their
exhausted even to complain.
We were passing through a Korean village where the only sound was a
dog howling
My
in the night.
operations officer. Captain Harry
W.
"Skip" Mohr, dropped back from the head of the column to talk to me. ''Sir,"
Mohr
mood, "we've got just
a
little
the battalion into high speed,
hike to qualify for the EIB."
I
more than twelve miles
we can
finish
it
in three
weeks.
I
was
trying to qualify as
already met the physical training requirement and the
and other
tests.
kick this
many
Badge, which
by fewer than one infantryman out of
ordinarily earned
we
hours and use
as possible for the EIB, the Expert Infantryman's
igation,
to go. If
had put the battalion through a punishing
series of tests over the past three
men
weary
said with an excitement out of keeping with the
five.
We
is
had
map reading, nav-
The only remaining hurdle was completion of
the twelve-mile hike in three hours.
I
looked back over the ragged col-
umn and said, "Skip, you've got to be kidding." Mohr kept at it. "Sir, it's flat terrain until the
last
couple of miles.
I
know these men. They can do it." One thing I had learned in the Army: you don't step on enthusiasm. The word went up and down the column to pick up the pace. The men fell into
the
rhythm
like a train slowly picking
up speed. Over the next
down faces in the frigid of hundreds of men sounded like a
couple of hours, parkas flew open, sweat trickled night,
and the huffing and puffing
peculiar wind.
Casey.
I
We
faced one
did not see
how
the
final, steep
men
mountain leading into
could make
it.
every couple of hundred yards to take in gulps of
And in a
then,
up ahead,
I
started
whipping
As we crossed this
myself had
Camp to stop
air.
heard a few isolated voices counting cadence
Jody chant, then a few more,
talion's singing.
I
until the
mountains rang with the bat-
the gate into the camp, the sergeants
herd into precision ranks. As
and passed division headquarters
in
we hit the paved road
parade-ground order, our raised
196
* COLIN
voices
woke up General Emerson. Gunfighter came beaming
in his bathrobe,
moment,
POWELL
L.
now welded into
of the treasured memories of
more men
qualified
boring infantry brigade.
If
it
if I
had been tough
Alma
^
r
for the Expert Infantryman's
And
to
go
to
my
Vietnam
tour in Korea
was
showed
at
Dale City, loss
I
went home on
what
responsibility,
price.
in 1962,
the
I felt
at
was with
it
was now
I
leave, feel-
had not been for
If
mind of
the
duty,
had
a twenty-
But the
far.
trip
missing out on beautiful moments in
it
I
home
a confusion of emotions on leaving the
my
that they all
had not been for people
that other family waiting for
would have been mere
When
thirty-seven. Profession-
most satisfying so
and even a twinge of regret
doing fine without me.
I
our
in
family for Korea the previous Septem-
ten-day leave was even harder.
dren's growing-up, a touch of guilt at not bearing
it
Badge
in all three battalions of our neigh-
the next day,
to leave the
house
at
was magical, one
a spirited whole,
life.
five-year-old off on an adventure. ally, the
this
were leaving one family for another.
ber, the separation after left
my
were qualified
single battalion than
ing as
out of his quarters
passed in review. For me,
middle of the Korean night, with seven hundred once
in the
bedraggled soldiers
We
men
as the
my chil-
share of the
seemed
to
be
like Gunfighter, if
me, going back to Korea
unredeemed by any joy.
returned in time for Gunfighter's latest enthusiasm, the Korean form
of karate, tae
kwon
do.
He brought
Korean army
in
instructors to teach
us the fine points. Everybody in the division was to perform tae
do every morning. Everyone was a belt.
And everyone was
to
wear the
form. If you were going to do right.
Our G-4
to join a team.
it
Everyone was
traditional tae
right,
kwon do
to earn
white uni-
Gunfighter said, you had to look
(logistics) officer tried to explain that the U.S.
ment did not provide taxpayer funds
kwon
for
Korean martial
govern-
arts attire.
Gun-
any nitpicking excuses. Soon every Korean
fighter did not
want
tailor in sight
was working day and night producing thousands of
tae
when one day
my
kwon do
uniforms.
driver landed a
and
I
to hear
I
had progressed
to a green belt
backward heel kick on
went down
like a felled tree. I
my
temple.
My
woke up to hear the
"Oh my God! I killed the CO. I'm going never made the next belt.
head exploded
driver moaning,
to the stockade for sure!"
I
191
Go, Gunjighter, Go!"
One morning "Everybody
at
commanders
a
in this division is
General Emerson announced,
call,
going to be a high school graduate."
Probably half of our troops were dropouts. at
Many had
never succeeded
anything, never stuck to or completed a task, beyond enlisting in the
Army or getting drafted. We were to fmd teachers, start classes, and prepare these men to take the GED, the General Educational Development program. And they'd damn well better pass.
We
had brought
diers
civilians
P.M.,
were
Korea
to
at their
own
expense.
We
hired
in barracks, rec
when
We
in class,
in
from
set
From
rooms, dayrooms, and supply rooms.
men came
the
sol-
American
and assigned qualified officers and noncoms to teach.
up classes 3:00
whom some
scoured the countryside, hired American wives
field training, until supper, they
studying Enghsh, math, science, and history.
When
the
general asked what percent of our eligible soldiers were enrolled in
program and we reported 85 percent, he said, "Dammit, where's the other fifteen?" As Gunfighter saw it, the U.S. Army had entered into a
the
young people.
contract with these
We
had told them
would make something of them, give them something useful back
to civilian life. If they left without
back
to the
bottom of the heap.
division almost flunked the the
sion's
to take
an education, they were headed
While Gunfighter was promoting sound minds
fail
Army
that the
in healthy bodies, his
Annual General Inspection and
did, in fact,
equipment maintenance phase. After reviewing the 2d Divi-
maintenance program, the inspector general concluded that
not really have one. building
men
Emerson did not
care.
He was more
it
did
interested in
than in maintaining machinery.
His morale building could occasionally put a hole in a good night's sleep.
I
don't think Gunfighter
chant, but he
had them,
all
knew
that the
knew rock and
men missed
roll
from a Gregorian
rock concerts
at
home. So we
night long, every couple of months, during which
quarters reverberated like a drum.
One of the young
had an
lieutenants
idea that tickled Gunfighter. In the States they had held Woodstock. all-night musical bashes
It
was a day
in spring.
Our
were called Gunstock.
As I approached the brigade
ted a soldier wearing the
my
Bucs
crest
headquarters,
coming out of the
building.
I
spot-
He was
* COLIN
198
in dress greens
POWELL
L.
on a post where just about the only time anybody wore
He
anything but fatigues was to be court-martialed. curiosity,
said,
I
not
made
it,
competition "I'd
caught ing,
he
Maybe
is stiff.
attention.
had more time
I
I
asked. I
He had "The
said.
to prepare,"
he said. That
When had he gotten the word? I asked. This mornfurious, not so much because my battalion had
was
I
missed out on an honor, but because sloppy
young man from
been interviewed, he
just
had he made out?
next time."
better, sir, if
he answered.
How
Month.
looking disappointed. "I^jnderstand,"
said,
have done
my
He had
"What's up, son?"
said, for Soldier of the
saluted, and, out of
work had turned
staff
this
a potential winner into a loser. Instead of recognition,
he had experienced rejection.
I
patted
him on
the back and said
I
was
proud of him anyway.
When
I
my
finished
business at brigade,
and summoned Sergeant Major Pettigrew.
I
I
went back
wanted
to
went about picking candidates for Soldier of the Month turned out to be hit-or-miss. "If prepared.
We
we go
into battle,"
I
to
my
office
know how we in the
said,
Bucs.
"we go
It
in
don't send American soldiers into combat unprepared.
don't look at this situation any differently. This just throwing a kid into competition." his first sergeants
month
ordered Pettigrew to gather
—with plenty of time
We won
Soldier of the
Month
to
I
the last fime we're
and produce a system for finding the best soldier
the battalion every
the competition.
I
is
groom him
all
in
meet
to
the next five times in
a row. If
you are going
habit in
little
attitude.
My
to achieve excellence in big things,
matters. Excellence
conviction
—
that
is
not an exception,
you go
in to
win
my
career. If
it
is
a prevailing
—was shaped
encounters, such as going after Soldier of the Month.
conviction throughout
you develop the
I
was
in
small
to carry that
you are considering getting
into
Vietnam, Kuwait, Somalia, Bosnia, Panama, Haiti, or wherever, go with a clear purpose, prepared to win
—
in
or don't go.
Officers of the rank of major and above got no medals under General
Emerson. His explanation was characteristically in
medals for senior
you perform
and
if
And
that's all
officers.
A
field
blunt: "I don't believe
grade officer's job
is
to perform,
well, you'll get an outstanding efficiency report.
you need. So don't waste your time writing up
tions for each other.
Don't waste the clerks' time."
silly cita-
199
"Go, Gunjighter, Go!''
Junior officers
still
got medals.
NCOs
And medals were show-
too.
ered on the other enlisted men. In Emerson's view, these were kids
who
didn't quarterback the high school football team, didn't date the
cheerleaders, didn't get elected to the student council, had never
received enough recognition in their lives.
make them winners
He was
finally
going to
something. Newly arrived officers, on learning
at
Gunfighter's attitude, were thrown off stride, particularly since his no-
medal policy was so in
result,
however, was extraordinary. Soon medals did
The bloated
citations, the artificial pressures, disappeared.
Vietnam. The
not matter.
We just
odds with what they had known, especially
at
got on with our jobs.
boards were
who had
Some grumbling
going to take decorations into account for people
still
served elsewhere, under
commanders other than Gunfighter
Emerson. But having observed the abuses that
continued. Promotion
reform has to
start
somewhere,
I
in
Vietnam, and believing
supported Gunfighter's guts and
wisdom. In the
fall
my tour was winding down, and my career might have
of 1974
fallen into
jeopardy had General Emerson been a lesser man. The
September evening
me
at
started out civilly
enough, with a farewell party for
our cubicle-size Bucs battalion officers' club.
Lieutenant Colonel Robert Newton,
commanding
As
it
turned out,
a sister unit, the 2d
Aviation Battalion, was also celebrating his departure.
And
forces and headed for the airmen's Mile-High Club.
Membership was
so
acquired by consummating the act of love in an airplane
making
we joined
aloft,
a credible claim to the achievement, since witnesses
or by
were hard
to produce.
now headed for the more coincided with a new social ini-
After a few rounds, our combined group
Our arrival
staid division officers' club. tiative.
civilian
Single American
women
employees of the
lived in Seoul, mostly teachers
military,
Camp
and the division
some of them up
to
civilized officers
were not necessarily limited
quarters. tive
The women might
husbands,
And
at
staff
and
had invited
Casey. The intent was to demonstrate that to
Eighth
Army
head-
find equally desirable dates, even prospec-.
Camp Casey.
then our party barged into the 0-club.
What happened
next
is
perhaps best conveyed in the after action report prepared by the club
manager. Major
Raymond H. Wagner: "Upon
entry into the
main
bar.
* COLIN
200 there
off
were two
.
.
.
POWELL
L.
officers sitting
they refused.
.
.
.
The
on top of the jukebox. and the 32d
time that four or five officers grabbed
throw him over the
match
bar,
.
.
.
One
Infantry. ...
causing breakage to bottles. ...
.
One
.
was
at
officer picked
.
.
Fif-
.
was
became a verbal
It
The language used was
hardly what could be considered in good taste as there were .
It
unidentified officer
as to infantry versus aviation capabilities.
the far end of the bar.
to get
LTC Powell and attempted to
This resulted in a general ffee-for-all.
bar.
teen to twenty officers were involved.
thrown over the
them
division G-i indicated there might be trou-
ble between the 2d Aviation Battalion this
told
I
women
at
up the patio tables and
threw them over the ledge, followed by the willful destruction of all the glasses they could find.
.
.
.
The swinging doors
at the
bar entrance had
been destroyed. The Foosball game had been turned upside down.
Newton
offered very
little if
any assistance
Powell seemed to have control of his the incident
My
to the
Adolescent Club
The next morning, while
me
officers. ... It is
a freshly typed letter
to "
LTC LTC
my judgment that
was provoked by members of the 2d Aviation
recommendation would be
Club
in maintaining order.
Battalion.
.
.
change the name of the Mile-High
my head was still throbbing, my exec brought
from the deputy post commander. Lieutenant
Colonel Chumley W. Waldrop, detaiUng damages to the club of $41 1.40 to
be paid by
hours.
I
my unit and the 2d Aviation Battalion, payment due by
called
Bob Newton
ing through wool I
Ordinarily,
I
to
"A
his
fogged
state,
Newton
fair
I
thought
it
apportionment of
my guys and the
in the battalion
prudent to breakfast
He
smile.
mess
at the division
gauge General Emerson's mood. Gunfighter must have no-
ticed that several of his officers sported shiners, bruises, lips.
1600
were speak-
did not argue.
had breakfast with the troops
This morning
mess
reported the situation.
added, 'would be a hundred dollars from
from yours." In
hall.
I
as if he
'
the damages," rest
—and
—he answered sounding
said nothing.
We
But
I
and puffed
detected on his seamed face a
bemused
paid our end of the damages, and that was the end of this
puerile caper. It is
a different Army today. Such improper behavior, while not in the
women
same league
as the Tailhook affair
would
have resulted in disciplinary action and ruined careers,
likely
including
my
the brawl
would probably pop up
and involving no
own. Once word leaked out in a
directly,
some crusading journalist, major newspaper or on TV news to
*
Go, Gunjighter, Go!"
and might cost Emerson his neck forgotten front. the
Nobody
Army, and very few stationed
But Korea was then an almost
too.
much
paid us
at
We had few women
attention.
an outpost like
Camp
Casey.
was occasionally animal house. But a
behavior, admittedly,
201
in
Our
certain
common
sense provided a practical solution to
the misbehavior of lonely, bored
men. Years of dedicated service were
stretch of the rules
not destroyed for
and
moments of foolishness.
my
Right to the end, Gunfighter had surprises in store. In called
me in and
bat basketball.
It
said he
wanted
my battalion to try out a new sport, com-
game.
We would put twenty men on each side. The game, would be
objective, as in the conventional
to get the ball
the hoop.
But instead of just passing and dribbling the
advance
by kicking
it,
rolling
it,
or tucking
it
ball,
through
you could
your gut and plung-
into
ing ahead like a fullback. Blocking and tackling were also permitted. to give
more fellows a chance
sounded crazy
It
he
did not sound quite as lethal as combat football, until he
started describing the
it
last days,
to
me, but
to shine, it fit
we would
And
again use two balls.
General Emerson's athletic philoso-
phy. Conventional team sports, with their rigid regulation, favor
stars.
But
skills
developed
in anything-goes, no-holds-barred sports, finely
become marginal. The ninety-six-pound weakling can county six-footer as easily as anyone
else. In
combat
trip the
all-
football, every-
one's a quarterback. In combat basketball, everyone's a forward, a guard, a center. Gunfighter' s goal
was maximum
participation.
We
inaugurated combat basketball in a big Quonset hut with steel beams arching
down
to the
hardwood
floor. I
ambulance and medical team by the tion
when
exit,
"The Secretary of the Army
your son, while slam dunking, was
mayhem ended combat basketball. Gunfighter wanted me to extend my moment, strong,
it
was tempting. But the
pull of
.
.
.")
tour,
(I
commands had been
at the
few months each. They had
left
regrets to inform
you
single episode of
and for a
flicker of a
my family at this point was too
drew
company
me
could imagine the
One
and a coveted next assignment awaited me.
a deep sense of fulfillment as this tour field
which proved a wise precau-
players began bouncing off the girders.
possible outcome: that
took no chances and posted an
I
did,
to an end. level
however, feel
My two previous
and had lasted only a
with a sense of uncertain achieve-
ment. In the intervening eleven years,
I
had performed other worth-
COLIN
202
POWELL
L.
while assignments, but they did not satisfy I
lived for
that
I
was
my
reason-for-being.
commander of infantry.
to be an able
was, but after the Korean tour,
I felt it
in
I
might
tell
my bones. All
What
myself
self-doubt
had vanished.
I
knew
command
my
my
any elaborate fanfare on turning over
better than to expect
when I arrived. We were out on maneuvers on Rodriguez Range, and when the day's work was done, I shook my successor's hand, passed him the colors, wished him well, climbed into a helicopter for the ride back to to
good
I left
Korea with
less ritual than
and flew home.
No
medals.
as his word, however.
He
skipped the fireworks, but he gave
Camp Casey, as
successor.
No
speeches. Gunfighter
an excellent efficiency report, including a conclusion that
I
was
me
was general
officer material.
I
can easily put that man's occasional excesses into perspective. In the
end, results are what matter. While
AWOLs
I
served under General Emerson,
dropped by over 50 percent. Reenlistments jumped by nearly 200 percent. And while impetuous youths might in the division
occasionally punch each other out, racially related brawling practically disappeared. Gunfighter went on to
make
XVIII Airborne Corps before he
retired.
three stars and to
Many
command
of his initiatives,
hatched in the isolation of Korea, would probably not have withstood the scrutiny of the press, or the
man
new Army,
the Judge Advocate General's Office, the
Medical Service Corps back
inspiring.
He had
in the States. Yet,
I
found
this
an instinct for knowing what gave soldiers
pride, especially the rank
and
file
who had
rarely tasted any in their
lives.
Gunfighter remained true to himself in every circumstance. After he
commander of XVIII Airborne such an elevated post required a wife. He
got the big job with the big house as
Corps, he decided that recalled the
name of a
fine
had once met. He found cession.
Alma and
I
woman from
a prominent family
whom
he
her, romanced her, and proposed, in rapid suc-
were among the wedding guests
at Fort
McNair.
Chaplain Gianastasias was brought in to conduct the ceremony. Father
G gave a lovely homily drawn from the wedding at Cana, weaving into his
remarks his service with Gunfighter
started
down from
in Korea.
As soon
as the priest
the pulpit, the general, to the astonishment of the
guests, started
the pulpit.
up the
Everyone
"Did you hear what
steps.
in the
that fine
was with me, a key
wedding
if
203
"Did you hear that?" he exclaimed from church
The groom went
sat stunned.
on.
man of God just said about Korea? Yes, he
part of our Pro-Life program."
and veins throbbing, Gunfighter proceeded Life speech as
*
Gunjighter, Go!"
''Go,
With eyes blazing
to give as rousing a Pro-
he were addressing the 2d Division instead of his
guests, with only the profanities omitted. His refined, artistic
bride had not realized that she
was marrying an Army
corps, not just
a man.
Had
it
not been for a
Tom Miller and Red
Abernathy and Cider Joe Stilwell
at
men gave
period over twenty years ago, that
We
a Bill
I
would have
left
Army
the
our lives a flavor, a spice, a texture, a mood,
an atmosphere, an unforgettableness.
of an age.
Germany,
Fort Devens, a Charles Gettys in
Vietnam, a Gunfighter Emerson in Korea, long ago. These
Barrett in
my
I
realize, looking
service in
that
Korea marked the end
Army
were moving from the old
back on
to the
new, from
draftees and enlistees to an all-volunteer force of unprecedented stan-
dards, the
from an
Army
with few
end of the hard-drinking,
had grown up.
No
women
been
told,
left,
your
right,
Army
longer would hundreds of
Eskimo [anatomy] your
left
.
.
.
).
with many.
hell-raising, all-male culture in
post, throaty voices raised in profane I've
to an
are
men march
Jody chants
.
pals put
which
I
through the
don't know, but
(I
mighty cold.
As one of my
was
It
.
.
Give
it, it
me
your
was "our
last
Army
chance to be old-fashioned infantrymen before the lace-curtain took over."
Was
the old
superior, as
Storm
proved
better than the
some
And
I
It
was
Cause
not.
in
Today's force
is
Panama and Desert
do not forget the bad, which
I
have
vowed to myself that I would never not the way we did it in the old days." Yet,
detail. In fact, I
my retirement, "That's at night, when my thoughts
say in
new?
in operations like Just
in the Persian Gulf.
inventoried in
late
Army
drift, I
fondly recall those days.
I
savor
the intense camaraderie, the irrepressible characters, the coltish high
And
spirits.
I
recognize that thirty years from now, today's heutenants
and captains will have gone gray and will mistily
Army." just as
I
I
recall their "old
am proud to be part of the leadership that created the new Army am proud to have been part of the old one that had to change. I
came home from Korea having served the happiest year of my militaiy career, in many ways because of what was and can never be again.
204
* COLIN
Just before
I left
POWELL
L.
Korea,
I
had bundled up
all
the letters
Alma
sent me.
One of them I had read at the time with no particular reaction. But I have reread it since with a sense of wonder. On August 13, 1974, Alma wrote: "I feel we are on the verge of something exciting. I sDmehow don't feel that we will settle into a comfortable rut living out our lives in Dale City with you coming and going to the Pentagon. ... I don't know what is in store for us, but
something big and exciting will happen."
N
n
1
e
The Graduate School of War
WHILE select
I
WAS
Army
enough
to
IN
KOREA, FIVE GENERALS HAD MET IN WASHINGTON TO
officers to attend the service
colleges.
be selected. The Army, Navy, and Air Force
gious institutions, but the likelihood was that College.
war
The president of
I
would go
the selection board
all
I
have
to the
was one of
was lucky
my
mentors.
Lieutenant General Julius Becton. Becton decided instead that
go
to the National
War College
at
ians
from
all
the
should
armed forces
The
140 students
as well as civil-
from the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the
U.S. Information Agency. Becton was an
When you
are in
been crouching I
NWC graduate.
Korea on twelve-mile marches and bellowing Jody
chants, the National
that
I
Fort McNair, in Washington, D.C.
NWC, the Harvard of military education, was open to about yearly, with equal attendance
presti-
Army War
War College seems
in the
mud
had been chosen for
as remote as the stars.
on a Gunfighter Shootout when
NWC.
I
I
got
I
had
word
returned to the States in September
* COLIN
206
POWELL
L.
our national
The month
1974
at a strange interlude in
ident
Nixon had resigned
as
got home, Nixon's successor. President Gerald Ford, pardoned
I
Nixon.
in the
life.
wake of the Watergate
before. Pres-
scandal, and just
remembered Fred Malek's words on Watergate when
I
I
had
decided not to stay on with the administration and bad gone instead to Korea: this will
NWC
blow
all
over.
August 1975, and so I was temthe Pentagon, where I expected to mark time for nine
would not
classes
porarily assigned to
start until
months. William Brehm, assistant secretary of defense for manpower, reserve affairs, and logistics, had other ideas. "Colonel Powell,"
almost as
said,
came through
I
Brehm
the door, "we're in hot water with
Congress. We're supposed to produce an annual projection of the mihtary's
care
manpower needs. And we've been
how you do
For the
it,
but your job
time,
first
I
is
late for the last
to get the report in
few
together, since our report to
had the
deserved.
was
the
its
to cover the
manpower each
As I began my task, I found that the Air Force
to supersonic speed.
service, fought as if
Navy was
A new challenge
to try to get the four services pulling
Congress had
fastest reaction time, not surprising
from people used
don't
began working with career Pentagon civihans,
for me, but old to these hands,
it
I
on time."
under hring Greenberg, a thoroughgoing professional.
service thought
years.
every
from the youngest service and
The Marines Corps,
manpower position was
most cautious about revealing
performance? Sohd, dependable, but not
its
a battleground.
intentions.
all that
the smallest
The
And the Army
imaginative.
Experiencing interservice rivalries firsthand turned out to be an important education for me.
competing
interests
A
time would
would become almost
exposure introduced
me
come when
my
juggling these
full-time job. This initial
to an eternal paradox: the rivalry
among
the
services produces both the friction that lowers performance and the distinctiveness that is to strike I
we
I
performance. The challenge then, now, and forever
the right balance.
worked
boss, and
lifts
like a
dog those months,
went through endless
drafts.
submitted the report to Congress
for the National
What
pleased
cance,
was
my immediate It was a happy day for me when
as John Brinkerhof,
—ahead of time—and
I
could head
War College.
me
NWC, as much as the career signifito uproot my family. We could go on liv-
about attending
that I did not
have
The Graduate School of War
ing in Dale City as
Arsenal
commuted
I
McNair. There
at Fort
where the college
located.
is
to
NWC
at the historic
a majesty about the
is
From
the grand entrance,
*
207
Washington
1907 building
you step into a
marble three-story rotunda, encircled by balustraded galleries and
crowned by a Spanish-tiled dome eighty hushed aura, something that the
like the
feet high.
Lincoln Memorial.
It
The place has was near
a
this site
Lincoln assassination conspirators were hanged, and the ghost
of one of them,
Mary
haunt a nearby building.
Surratt, is said to
At the college we were subjected to nothing so mechanical as multiplechoice questions. In
we
intellectual stimulation
took no examinations. The courses in his-
and military theory were designed for
diplomacy,
politics,
tory,
fact,
and growth rather than the mastery of technical
Mornings we attended
material.
lectures in an auditorium resembling
the medical school amphitheaters
Our
ings.
you see
in nineteenth-century paint-
teachers were diplomats, academics, chiefs of the military
services, writers, top people in every field.
great military thinkers and their ideas
on airpower, and Clausewitz on war
We
were introduced
to the
—Mahan on sea power, Douhet we had
in general. In the afternoon,
a choice of electives in subjects such as Futuristics,
Media Impact on
National Security, and Radical Ideologies. It
was
good time
a
searching
—
the
to
be
NWC.
at the
In the
what-went-wrong syndrome
wake of Vietnam
—
the soul
created a lively ferment.
A teacher who raised my vision several levels was Harlan Ullman, a Navy lieutenant commander who taught military strategy. So far, I had known men of action, but few who were also authentic intellectuals. Ullman was
command minds
I
enabled
that rarity, a scholar in uniform, a line officer quahfied for
at sea, also
possessed of one of the best, most provocative
have ever encountered. Ullman and his fellow faculty members
me
to connect
my
worm's-eye experiences
the interrelated history, culture,
and
to
an overview of
politics of warfare.
That wise Prussian Karl von Clausewitz was an awakening for me. His
On
light
War, written 106 years before
from the
"No one
past,
still
Clausewitz wrote, "without
by
that
cal leaders
must
first
no one
in his senses should
beam
of
Which
do
so,"
being clear in his mind what he intends
war and how he intends
ber one in Vietnam.
like a
illuminating present-day military quandaries.
starts a war, or rather
to achieve
was bom, was
I
to achieve
led to Clausewitz's rule
set a war's objectives,
it."
Mistake num-
number two.
Politi-
while armies achieve them. In
* COLIN
208
POWELL
L.
Vietnam, one seemed to be looking to the other for the answers that never came. Finally, the people must support a war. Since they supply the treasure and the sons, and today the daughters too, they
vinced that the sacrifice
That essential
pillar
had crumbled
Vietnam War ground on. Clausewitz's gfeatest^lesson
as the
fession
was
that the soldier, for all his patriotism, valor,
one leg
just
is justified.
must be con-
in a triad.
Without
and
for
my pro-
skill,
forms
three legs engaged, the military, the
all
government, and the people, the enterprise cannot stand.
my
In
world, thus
far,
had centered on contemporaries
social life
rank,
maybe
tives.
Harlan Ullman knew no such boundaries.
lan
and
in
a notch above or a notch below, plus neighbors and rela-
his British-bom wife, Julian, invited
On
one occasion, Har-
Alma and me to meet some
of their friends at a dinner in their Georgetown townhouse. The guest of
honor was
to
be Vice Admiral Marmaduke G. Bayne, president of the
National Defense University, which included both the National
College and the Industrial College of the
commanders did not
lieutenant
Armed
ordinarily
Forces. In
my
War
circle,
hobnob with admirals, yet
Harlan Ullman did. The admiral was friendly enough, but a flicker of
puzzlement crossed his face when
we were
introduced.
He had come
expecting to meet Lewis Powell, associate justice of the Supreme Court, not a student from his
At
the
Julian
Years
to hear
On drowsy Washington
awake
school.
wives were permitted to audit the elective courses, and
Ullman often came
together.
stay
NWC,
own
Harlan lecture. She and afternoons,
it
listening to "lessons for us today
later, after I
Ullmans came
to
I
usually sat
was not always easy
to
from the Punic Wars."
had become deputy national security advisor, the
my
fiftieth
when
came time for with whom I shared the same
birthday party, and
it
me to make
a
birthday, to
my side. I put my arm around her, and confided to the guests
that while
was a student
I
little
speech,
I
called Julian,
at the
war college, she and I had
slept together,
adding, after an agonizing pause, "during her husband's lectures."
In February 1976,
promotion
midway through
NWC,
I
received an accelerated
Many thoroughly respectable military careers and I wondered how much further mine would go.
to full colonel.
top out at that grade,
The
the
military then operated
on a
rigid career principle
—up
or out.
The
system was hard, competitive, and more ruthless than civilians probably
*
The Graduate School oj War
realized.
209
Those who did not make the next grade did not simply mark
time in place. If passed over more than once for promotion, an officer
make way for the next generation. The competition got stiffer at every level. Of one hundred career lieutenants starting out, perhaps only one would make brigadier general. had
I
to retire to
that accelerated
the
my career expectations with caution. Yet, soon after
always tempered
war
promotion to colonel,
college,
was
I
Airborne Division
war college
class to
to take
of the 2d Brigade of the loist
Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
at
make
more good news. After
received
I
command
I
was
the youngest in
Army
colonel and one of only two
my
officers in
command. In Korea, I had led a battalion of would be commanding three battalions, totaling over
the class chosen for brigade
700 men. Next,
I
2,500 men. With
all
the caution in the world,
I
could not add up
this evi-
—National War College, accelerated promotion, upcoming commight have mand—without concluding
dence
that
I
might make general.
I
was excited
Still,
that after the
a future at the senior level.
I
there
was a long way
war college
I
to go.
would be joining
borne Division, "the Screaming Eagles," a storybook
had been formed
the loi
outfit.
st
Air-
The loist
mid- 1942, along with the 82d Airborne Division,
in
from the merger of
five parachute
regiments of the deactivated 82d
Motorized Division. In the famous photograph of General Eisenhower saying farewell to paratroopers with blackened faces just before D-Day,
men
of the loist. The loist jumped into Holland
he
is
in
Operation Market Garden, immortalized in the book and movie
A
talking to the
When
Bridge Too Far.
was
Bastogne was surrounded during the Battle of
commander. Brigadier General Anthony
the Bulge,
it
McAuliffe,
who issued the legendary reply when the Germans demanded
the loist's
surrender: "Nuts."
And then
I
hit a
The loist added mine.
I
to
its
was supposed
fighting reputation in Vietnam. to replace
Colonel Fred Mahaf-
DePuy protege,
fey, the fastest
of fast burners, another
us expected to
become Army Chief of Staff someday
the officer (until his
death).
Major General John Wickham, commanding the
inform
me
that
Mahaffey was being promoted
would be leaving meant
that
the
2d Brigade
Wickham would have
right away. to
fill
I
was
distressed.
I
was
untimely
loist, called to
to brigadier general
I
and
Mahaffey 's early departure
my slot with someone else,
he could not wait another two months until lege.
most of
since
graduated from the war col-
also not ready to give up.
^
2 10
COLIN
L
POWELL
.
The National Defense University had
you could not
a policy that
Major General James Murphy was
leave the course early. Air Force
War College, under the university's president. Admiral Bayne. I went to Murphy and explained that if I could not leave early, I was going to lose this command and have to get back in the queue. Murphy was sympathetic, but reiterated the policy. would have to finish my classes, go on an out-of-country field trip, and come back president of the National
1
for graduation. I
saw
a crack of daylight. Since
had made
I
and China as a White House Fellow, maybe
sia
more
profitably elsewhere.
10 St? 1
"Hmm," Murphy
to present I
your
final report
contacted General
open.
I
How
I
said, then assign
Wickham and asked him
to
little
brought
my
to
hold
I
sleight of hand, but hit
the
war
college. Okay,
OMB
weeks
In those days,
my
I
return to
would have been
solution back to General Muiphy. "Just one thing,'' he
went out
six
my command
too.
Campbell when you come back? back
class."
"Would you mind leaving your jump boots and
ment."
the
come back
me assume command on tempo-
let
war college temporary. Velma Baldwin of
said.
field trip
—home of
then
that,
Campbell permanently and make
proud of me, and Fred Malck I
might do
was on permanent duty with
me
could make a
and graduate with your
another roadblock. They could not
the
just
hurried to Infantry Branch to pull a
rary duty while
I
about Fort Campbell
"You
said.
abroad to Rus-
field trips
to
don't have to flaunt our arrange-
Campbell without
later,
tlie
We
loist patch at
the family, took
and graduated from the
command, came
NWC.
rule for Washington-aiea real estate was,
up just keeps on going up.
We
what goes
sold the house in Dale City, after living
there for seven years, for about twice
what we'd paid for
it.
Alma was
now that her husband was a bird colonel with a we should rate Army housing approaching elegance. As usual, we drove kids and all from Washington to Fort Camp-
ready for a change, and brigade,
—
—
bell, this
time in a monster Chrysler, which I'd bought from a war col-
lege classmate. Bill Bramlett, for
per gallon. Fort Campbell
is
$50 and which averaged seven miles
in rural
country astride the Kentucky-
Tennessee border, about an hour north of Nashville. tions to
We followed direc-
Cole Park, where the residences of the commanding general
and brigade and battalion commanders were located.
On
the
way
in,
we
*
The Graduate School oj War
211
passed a rustic masterpiece, a log cabin mansion, General Wickham's
We passed a small Capehart home, named for senator who sponsored military housing legislation. We passed
home. Alma's eyes the U.S.
lit
up.
another Capehart, and another and another,
narrowed. These, ders' houses. us.
The
We
it
all
the same. Alma's eyes
turned out, were the brigade and battalion
stopped before 1560 Cole Park, the house assigned to
three kids sprang
from the car
like tigers released
and started exploring the outdoors while Alma and "Nice,"
Alma
wood floors,
comman-
"Same house we had
said.
at
dishwasher, and air conditioning
I
from a cage
went indoors.
Benning with the hard-
when you were
a captain,
except here we've got linoleum floors, no dishwasher, and no air conditioning,
and now you're a colonel. Colin," she asked, "when are we
going to get one of those fancy houses you promised?" "Soon,"
I
said.
John Wickham was the kind of officer
whom gruffer types
grate as a "political general" because he military assistant to
had served
in the
ordinarily
quarters, a short, wiry
demeanor. the Viet
I
went
man
was surprised
Cong had thrown
up so badly
that
to
an aviator.
C. Honeycutt,
I
—he had gotten
met him
at division
a
head-
with steel-gray hair and a quiet, confident
at
how
agilely
Wickham moved.
In Vietnam,
a satchel charge into his bunker; he
he spent over a year
in
had paid his dues and was every inch a
Wickham's
Pentagon as
two Secretaries of Defense, James Schlesinger and
Donald Rumsfeld. Wickham faced another prejudice
command that
like to deni-
assistant division
Army
hospitals.
was
torn
John Wickham
soldier.
commander, Brigadier General Weldon
my immediate boss,
had been a classmate of mine
bom
at
Fort
who had come out of Vietnam a hero and who may have been the most profane man in the Army, where the competition is fierce. "Powell," he greeted me when I first reported in, "besides Leavenworth, I don't know shit about you, but
Leavenworth. "Tiger" Honeycutt was a
welcome
to the loist
green earth." sion.
He
sat
warrior
anyway. Best son-of-a-bitching division on God's
down and
left
me
standing as he reviewed the divi-
"We've got three infantry brigades," he
—
"Yours
dead-ass — Colonel Arthur Kinzel said.
is
You got Kinzel" ^Lieutenant "the best battalion commander out here, running your 501st Infantry. But your 502d and the 506th are at the bottom of the heap. So fix 'em. Now get last.
your ass outta here."
* COLIN
212
Thank you,
POWELL
L.
I
my
had been
If this
sir.
eycutts of this world,
first
exposure to the Tiger Hon-
might have been upset. The Army, however, was
of them. They provided the pepper that stings, but spices as well.
full
Colonel Ted "Wild Turkey" Crozier, General Wickham's chief of
was another memorable
figure.
His nickname derived from a spiritous
product that he favored and from his explosive enthusiasms.
been sent by the Pentagon
staff,
Campbell presumably
to Fort
He had
to ride out his
time to retirement in serenity. Instead, he had gotten the key chief of staff
job and continued to live up to his reputation. At Campbell, John
Wickham provided to get the
crew
to
the vision. Honeycutt and Crozier applied the lash
comply. Fortunately,
chaplain role. Brigadier General
commander
who
for support,
we had two
Chuck Bagnal,
officers fulfilling the
the assistant division
and Colonel Arthur Lombardi, an old-timer
ran day-to-day post operations. While the enforcers ranted and
raved, Bagnal and
Lombardi spoke with calmness and reason. While
others raised hackles, these
two smoothed
you get no follow-through. With enforcers but leaves a lot of wreckage.
Good
With vision
feathers.
the
only,
only, the vision is realized
chaplains pick up the pieces and put
everything together again. At Campbell, fortunately,
we had
all
three
roles filled.
The 10 1st had
a unique mission, helicopter-borne assault, and General
Wickham was
its
the world to
combining
move them
The
was
swiftly around the battlefield. certainly
took flak from both sides.
were
division
the only air assault unit in
light infantry battahons
And we
paratroopers.
we
apostle.
and helicopter battalions
We
were airborne, but not
were not heavy armor. Consequently,
Any
airborne troops
who
"legs," the paratroopers' term, not intended as a
soldiers
who
flitted
around
jump compliment. Any did not
in anything as flimsy as a helicopter
would
not last five minutes on a battlefield, said the heavy armor people. mission, John
Wickham
was
believed,
to
Our
prove both sides wrong.
"Reforger" was the upcoming show that
fall
of 1976.
It
stood for
"Return of Forces to Germany," an annual exercise through which the
United States assured our
NATO
allies that
the Continent. This year, the loist
was
we
could rapidly reinforce
to carry out Reforger,
go back as a colonel and brigade commander
and
was
to the haunts
hoping
to
where
had served as a lowly lieutenant eighteen years before.
I
I
The Graduate School of War
Two
of the loist's three brigades were to go on Reforger and one
would be
my
213
'A
my
behind for stateside duties. To
left
brigade, the 2d,
disappointment,
bitter
to stay home. I moped we were not going to listen to the when they got back. We were going to
had already been designated
for half a day and then decided that
other two brigades'
have our
own
war
Uttle surprise.
Air assault school paratroopers.
stories
I
to the helicopter forces
is
decided to qualify as
the school, starting with me.
commanders had been .
air assault school.
did
my
last
primed
far,
many of my
is
to
soldiers as possible at
none of my fellow infantry brigade
able to pass the physical training test to get into
presented myself to the noncoms
push-ups,
flunked the ciently
I
So
what jump school
squats,
by a tenth of a second.
At age
ran the
ran the obstacle course
pull-ups,
to pass the test.
who
I
went back a week
thirty-nine,
I felt
twelve-mile forced marches as the senior officer
—and
later suffi-
like an old
trying out for college football, rappelling out of helicopters
test,
man
and making
among about one hun-
dred enlisted soldiers. After
I
my air assault badge, I gathered my battalion com-
had earned
made an announcement. "Some of you are not air-assault-qualified," I said, pointing to my new badge. "On October 30, we are going to be photographed together, and manders, company commanders, and staff and
anybody this I
in that picture
brigade as far as
went
to
I
without the badge will be out of the picture in
am concerned."
my three chaplains
course too. To
make
and told them
easier for them,
it
I
to enroll in the air assault
locked up the chapel, except on
weekends. Chaplains belonged with the troops, troops did not always frequent the chapel.
He had
objected.
me.
If
not entered the
he expected to comfort
Army
my
suggested, and the
I
The
Baptist chaplain
commando, he advised said, he was going to com-
to play
troops,
I
plete air assault school along with every other officer.
complied and broke his leg during the interval,
I
first
finish the course," I answered.
grudgingly
week. After an appropriate
asked him when his cast was coming
"So you can
He
He
off.
"Why?" he
asked.
got himself transferred
to another brigade.
Six weeks
later,
the rest of the division returned
ing had a successful exercise. General
accomplishments
in
assault quahfication
his
absence
among my
—
from Germany, hav-
Wickham was impressed by
our
100 percent
air
Since he did not want
my
particularly the
officers.
* COLIN
214
POWELL
L.
brigade to feel like Cinderella, he had Ted Crozier lean on
men
awards for outstanding achievements.
in for
names. But
I
was of the Gunfighter Emerson
currencies and medals.
you get the
My
dirty
came
folks
I
had
end of the
to Fort
sharpen
Campbell
it
submitted a few
school. Inflation debases
my own reward
stick,
I
me to put my
in the lesson learned. If
an^ turn k into a useful
to celebrate
Thanksgiving
tool.
in 1976.
Mom enjoyed catching up on her grandchildren and helping Alma in the kitchen.
But Pop had come
to Fort
Campbell
to see
and be seen.
bun-
I
my
dled him up in a black coat with his ever-present fedora and had
had never heard
driver take us all around the post in a jeep. Since Luther a
gun
see
fired in his life,
what
went
row
Wickham
as if he
wanted
My
our places trimmings.
fine
sat
anywhere
had known generals
else,
sat
and he chatted with
all his life.
Mom and Pop another taste of the world I lived in.
used the old-fashioned company mess
CO's
table
looked around
went
and
halls,
We
for Thanksgiving dinner.
and the cooks served us turkey with at
one point, and Pop was gone.
I
meal they had put on. Then he
that
took
all
the
spotted
them
started table-hopping through
Omar Bradley mixing with the troops before an invaWhat impressed me was my father's total aplomb. He was never
mess
sion.
I
We had drinks at the officers' club. We
he had never
the Powell family at the
range so that he could
in the kitchen talking to the cooks, shaking hands, telling
what a the
still
rifle
boxing matches with General Wickham. Luther
if
to give
brigade
was where
him
as
M- 1 6
took him to an
his son did for a living.
to the division
in the front
I
I
hall, like
daunted by rank, place, or ceremony. Luther Powell belonged wherever Luther Powell happened to be.
On
his last night with us.
Alma in the kitchen and whispered, "Colin 's going Alma asked how he knew. He had been talking, Pop to
to
Pop
sidled up
be a general."
said, to
General
Wickham. The next
day,
I
drove
my
folks to the Nashville Airport.
headed for the terminal. Pop, for once, made no fuss about his bags. His step
growing
old.
was slower,
As we
my carrying
My
father
was
a few passions, one of which
was
his face a
little
drawn.
And it shocked me.
The admirable General Wickham had
thermostats. These were the days of the energy crisis and rocketing oil prices.
The general had promulgated one
inviolable rule: thermostats in
The Graduate School of War
"A
213
every building on post were to be set at sixty-eight degrees.
It is
a civi-
lized temperature if
you are
The men of
structure.
in a
modem,
the id Brigade, however, were in
two-story, uninsulated barracks heated the first floor. If your
well-insulated, evenly heated
bunk was near
by one
oil
World War
comer of
furnace in a
you received the
the fumace, then
promised sixty-eight degrees. But the farther away you were, the correlation there ture.
And
Every
it
was between
gets cold in
the thermostat setting
Kentucky
in the winter.
night, the division duty officer spot-checked,
ple order.
I
and
if
anybody
to report per-
Wickham to explain why he could not enforce
have never
felt quite
commanding general of the thermostat in one of
my
less
and the tempera-
had touched the thermostat, the brigade commander had sonally to General
II,
so foolish as
I
a sim-
did standing before the
loist Airbome Division explaining
why the
barracks was discovered at a tropical seventy-
three degrees.
The men and
officers
were ready
soldiers
now became engaged
We
had
steel
and put locks on the boxes.
When the
ammo
War
to
were
They continued
to
boxes nailed over the thermostats
men began jimmying them
open.
punished,
have keys made.
were college graduates, some with advanced degrees,
the products of the
National
in peacetime.
cmde gambit were caught and
more cunning types managed officers
it
First the
the perpetrators of this
Most
of wits. These
to die for their country in wartime, but they
not prepared to freeze to death for raise the setting.
in a battle
Command
and General Staff College, even the
College, the heirs of Washington, Grant, Lee, Pershing,
Eisenhower, and Patton. Were
we
to
be outmaneuvered by privates and
corporals? Apparently yes, because as the winter wore on, something peculiar occurred. the
men
The thermostats remained
at sixty-eight degrees, yet
stopped complaining. Those even in the remotest reaches of the
warm as toast. Spring approached before we Some electrical genius had figured out that by
barracks were
solved the
mystery.
sticking a
straight pin into the wiring at
an undetectable place, you could short out
the system and, in effect, free the stat.
Even
thermostat
if
fumace from control by
the thermo-
the duty officer found the barracks hot as the equator, the
still
showed
sixty-eight degrees.
When
the heat
became
came the straight pin, until the temperature dropped. Everybody was happy, from General Wickham to the thinnestblooded private in the farthest, draftiest comer of the barracks.
uncomfortable,
out
* COLIN
216
L.
POWELL
Officers have been trying for hundreds of years to outsmart soldiers
and have
not learned that
still
it
cannot be done.
on the native ingenuity of the American GI and
of
streets
had
flock
can always count
from ourselves,
win wars.
to
Every afternoon,
I
We
to save us
my
I
walked a fixed
route, at the
same
time, through the
three battalions, deliberately letting myself be ambushed.
lifted a leaf
out of Father Gianastasias's book.
Go where
did not take long for the soldier with a gripe, the
is. It
your
noncom
with a problem, to figure out where he could waylay the brigade com-
mander
Good NCOs and
for a private minute or two.
understood what
They knew sions that
that
I
I
was doing.
would undermine
office hours
I
was not breaking
would never agree
junior officers
the chain of command.
to anything in these curbside ses-
their authority. If anything,
gave them a chance to blow off steam
my
outdoor
too.
Mike and I were playing pitch and catch behind the house in Cole Park one day when he volunteered that he liked it at Fort Campbell. "All the kids are like us," he said. "Everybody's mom and dad do the same thing." His words were a relief to me. I grew up in the same neighborhood with the same kids well into my college years. One attraction of Dale City had been that even though family stayed in the same
home and
I
was gone
part of the time,
the children stayed in the
my
same
school system. Service parents worry about the effect on their children
And common
of constant uprooting.
was
fine, that the
fortable
Life
common ground was good
restructuring.
at
here was
my
son telling
experience of the fathers
me
that the
made
for a
com-
do a
little
for the kids.
Fort Campbell, although
we had
to
We found only a tiny Episcopal congregation,
organist for the hymn-singing or a cross for the processions. I
worked with
post,
many
of
the Episcopal chaplain to
whom had
move
without an
Alma and
find other communicants on the
slipped into the inactive reserve.
We
sat
down
over several nights and wrote notes, inviting them to get active again.
We
located a pianist and a processional cross and conscripted our kids
once more as acolytes. The congregation began
to grow,
we were never after we left Dale
and we found
our faith anchored once again. But
able to recapture
entirely the spirit of St. Margaret's
City.
My kids attended on-post schools operated under the authority of the federal Department of Health, Education and Welfare. We had a school
^
The Graduate School of War
board, and
was appointed board president by General Wickham,
I
which put the Powell children on the the brigade
217
commander, he was
Not only was
spot.
also the
guy who
their old
hired, fired,
man
and paid
their teachers.
My kids were turning out to be good students, who began
first
grade
at Fort
on the junior high baseball team, which allowed
showed an aptitude
for music.
including Annemarie,
Campbell. Mike became the
At
first
me to bask a bit.
flute
Linda
we rented a flute for her from the
school. She progressed quickly, and the teacher
Linda have a
star catcher
recommended
of her own. Ever the dutiful father,
I
that
scanned the "For
Sale" section of the Post Daily Bulletin and parted with $25 for a used flute.
Linda was appalled. Alma was appalled. So was the
This instrument leaked more
air
bought her a better
She continued
flute.
flute teacher.
than a '72 Vega with 100,000 miles.
and the
to excel,
improved. She topped out, fortunately, before
we
We
flutes
reached the $25,000
gold top-of-the-line model.
More important tional gift at
than flute lessons, Linda received the greatest educa-
Campbell, a teacher
who made
a difference. Betty Querin
taught sixth grade and possessed the rare capacity to communicate with
budding teenagers. The middle child often occupies an anomalous position
between the firstborn and the baby, and Linda found
that with Betty
she could share her innermost feelings. This teacher awakened
my
daughter intellectually, and to this day they remain close. Every child deserves at least one Betty Querin.
We rarely know what our children think of us,
what, from the flood of
childhood impressions and memories, stands out and what fades. Recently, the photographer Mariana
Cook
did a book on fathers and
daughters and asked Linda and Annemarie to provide an observation to
accompany our photograph. Linda wrote: but, as a child,
I
my
also
stomach. But
trail
I
The
carried
me home."
I
picked up speed
sat
I
it
would
went flying
stunned and crying on the asphalt.
me
up, held
me
close,
and
remember the incident, but she never forgot. the same book: "Dad is the smartest person I
did not
Annemarie wrote have ever known.
I
from nowhere, scooped
father appeared
I
net got caught in the spokes and
over the front of the handlebars.
My
a gentle man,
—
bicycle as decoration so that as
color behind me.
is
a little afraid of him he was so big. when he did, my heart would drop through remember once weaving a pink- and- white net
voice, but
my
father
remember being
He rarely raised his around
"My
in
He
always wins
at Trivial Pursuit.
He's always been
* COLIN
218
frank with
L.
POWELL
me when it was necessary. He looks great in a tux or his dress me; they just make me proud. He's
blues. His successes never surprise
mechanic
the best
in town.
I
have always had the secure feeling that he
could and would take care of us, no matter what."
Who am
I
my
to quarrel with
daughters' judgments, especially re-
garding mechanics?
Where
the children are concerned,
I
never believed that possessions
could buy love, popularity, respect, or accomplishment. Consequently,
I
have always been careful about giving them money. They received an allowance of $2 a week
when
they reached age twelve.
nothing; but they were taught not to want too much. idays, Christmas
They wanted
for
And on the big hol-
and birthdays, they got the big presents.
When Mike reached his teens,
him some grounding in the facts of life. The way I handled the matter was direct, but I am not sure how courageous. I stopped by his room one night and handed him
I
thought
bag with a book
a paper
this?" he asked. ''Read
it," I
in
it
it
was time
entitled
answered, "and
let
to give
Boys and Sex. "What's
me know if you have any
questions."
As each of my ter trying to fit
of my
pass along what
I
"You now begin
road to manhood.
.
.
.
you
be the remaining
I
wrote him or her a
hoped was wisdom, or
right choices and mistakes.
other things,
will
children reached age sixteen,
Mike was
to leave
first,
at least the
and
I
wrote,
childhood behind and
bene-
among
start
on the
will establish definitively the type person
fifty
let-
you
years of your lifetime. Temptations will
come your way, drugs, alcohol, opportunities for misbehaving. You know what is right and wrong, and I have confidence in your judgment. Don't be afraid of failure. Be more afraid of not trying. .
.
.
.
Take chances and
remember that I
that
.
actions but actions
which could
promise success and great reward.
And always
risks
result in failure, yet
—not foolhardy
.
no matter how bad something may seem,
it
will not be
bad tomorrow." watched with fascination what each side of the family contributed
the character of our children.
more
different.
Johnsons while
to
Alma's folks and mine could not have been
Mike and Linda, when they were small, lived with the I was in Vietnam. We managed to visit my parents "on
way" no matter in which direction of the compass we were travehng. The Johnsons were not much for emotion. They lived disciplined, austere lives. They were voracious readers. They read to the children, and the
*
The Graduate School oj War
From them, my kids absorbed a sense of From the Powell side, the children
reading tends to be contagious. discipline
and
a respect for learning.
absorbed a love of
who
219
life.
They met
funny, irreverent characters, people
laughed, deep from the belly, without restraint, people
who
played
as hard as they worked. Let's have a party. Let's have a song. Let's dance. I
enjoyed watching both strains blossom in
From
Pop pulled up
the day
began a love
children.
952 Kelly Street with a 1946 Pontiac, I I loved to drive them, but what went on
to
with cars.
affair
my
under the hood might as well have been magic. In Dale City, door to a fellow
and I'd
say,
who would
"Check
known what
listen to
me
was.
I
lived next
car problems
which would have been fme
the voltage regulator," it
my
gripe about
I
bought a Chevy manual, and
by
little
began demystifying the gizmos under the hood. Pretty soon changing
my own
Across the a hobby.
time tor,
I
I
was
another Dale City neighbor rebuilt Volkswagens as
had been
my
first car. I still
even after family expansion forced
me
reached Fort Campbell,
I
had a
to sedans
hanging around, handing tools to
started
little I
oil!
street,
A Volks
if
soft spot for
and
this guy, learning
them
wagons.
station
more.
By
I
the
could adjust the timing on the distribu-
solder a radiator, and trouble-shoot the electrical system.
While
I
my my pro-
enjoyed sports, they never became obsessions, no doubt because of
modest
athletic ability.
fessional
whether
life,
But automobiles had a special appeal. In in field
dealing with unpredictable situation
compounded
as
I
people, lack temperament.
conmiands or desk jobs,
human
beings, their foibles
I
was always
—and mine. The
rose in rank and responsibility. Cars, unlike
When
working on them,
I
was dealing not
with the gods of the unknown, but the gods of the certain; not the gods of abstraction, but the gods of the concrete. If something malfunctioned in the engine, fix
it,
and
I
proceeded
the only area in life
logically,
where
I
had
could identify the problem and
I
that
kind of control.
mechanical puzzles absorbing and relaxing.
Alma found
ship to the wives
officer
was somewhat analogous
She became the mother figure
into volunteer
I
my
found these true hobby.
her avocation at Fort Campbell. This was the
where her husband was a commanding
cers.
I
had found
work
at
a fime
to the
when
the
to
and where her
first
post
relation-
my relationship to my offi-
younger women. She plunged
women's
liberation
movement
had taken off and some feminists disparaged unpaid hospital work, bake
* COLIN
220
and fund
sales,
drives.
That
gular nature of military
moment's
we
"If
life.
When
notice.
POWELL
L.
or
Alma believed,
attitude,
overlooked the
Husbands of service wives might leave on a
if
they were coming back was never certain.
know each other now," Alma would
don't get to
sin-
say,
"how can we
help each other through the tough, lonely times^?" Beyond their immediate value, the traditional volunteer activities
were providing just what the
feminists championed, sisterly support.
It
had been only two years since
Korea. At Fort Campbell,
I
had bade farewell
we were
Army. The new jargon was coming that the old
mess
hall
became
sergeant
to the old
Army
almost, but not quite, into the into vogue.
gave way to the "dining
It
was during
facility"
the "dining facility manager."
this
in
new
period
and the old mess
The post laundry be-
came the "Installation Fabricare Facility." I almost gagged. The new all- volunteer force was to be evaluated by modern management measures reenlistment rates, AWOL rates, drunk-driving rates,
—
annual physical fitness
rates,
medical appointment show-up
rates,
and
delinquency rates on supply store accounts. Every month, each brigade, battalion,
and company got a printout reporting how well
compared
to other units.
You needed
it
was doing
these statistical measures to judge
comparative performance in a huge organization like the Army. But
numbers alone cannot measure feeling that a unit
is
factors
hke morale, leadership, and
that
combat-ready. Gunfighter Emerson could not have
focused on a printout of these
statistical indicators if
you held a
pistol to
his head.
had long since learned
I
You pay
to
cope with
the king his shilling, get
him
doing what you consider important.
Army management
off your back,
If,
fashions.
and then go about
you
for example,
are going to
me on AWOL rates, I'm going to send a sergeant out by 6:30 a.m. to bloodhound the kid who failed to show up for 6:00 a.m. reveille. The
judge
AWOL until midnight. So drag him back before then and keep that AWOL rate down. vigorously set out to better every guy's not considered
I
indicator
on
to I
by which
do the things
detected a
who
my brigade that
I
common
was
statistically
judged.
And
then went
thought counted. thread running through the careers of officers
ran aground even though they were clearly able
—
a stubbornness
about coughing up that shilling. They fought what they found foolish or irrelevant, and consequently did not survive to do
ered
vital.
what they consid-
^
The Graduate School of War
Once, however,
I
violated
221
my own rule. The new Army, sensibly, had We had too many alcohol-fogged
to curb excessive drinking.
decided
many
performances, too
wrecked by
families
killed in alcohol-related car crashes.
was picked up
soldier
commander were
all to
an explanation. Then
Wickham
many people
rode this one hard.
If a
and
his
for driving under the influence, he
company commander,
sergeant,
drink, too
report to
Wickham upped
driving under the influence
commander, and brigade
battalion
Wickham
was
or Tiger
the stakes.
Honey cutt and
Any
give
officer caught
to receive an Article 15 proceeding,
mean
nonjudicial punishment that could
a ruined career.
MPs
were
posted outside the officers' club to pounce on any officer suspected of
having had one too many. I
called in
my officers. I was
all
by creating what amounted
to a
announced. "No Happy Hour.
0-club
Not
at all.
going to save them from themselves
job action. "The club's off-limits,"
No
Italian-night dinner with wine.
for the 2d Brigade."
As
I
said this,
I
No
you could have
heard a cork drop. Receipts division
at the
club took a nosedive.
commander who
Chuck Bagnal,
the assistant
ran Fort Campbell's clubs, asked
if I
had
lost
my mind. "We can't have it both ways, sir," I said. "You can't have MPs parked outside waiting to nab my officers while another part of the Army
is
selling drinks for a quarter at
Within a couple of weeks,
I
Happy Hour."
had Wild Turkey Crozier on
my
back.
"Powell," he said, "you can't put the club off-hmits to your brigade."
"I'm already doing
it," I
said,
and repeated
my
sermon on hypocrisy.
The Army could not condemn behavior with one hand and promote
it
with the other. "Bullshit!" Crozier explained. I
knew
that
I
did not want to day.
had played out
make
Some days
brigade. But
I
it
"Back
this
I
my last fight. You
the dragon wins.
also
hand.
off."
made
I
sure that
had fought the good
officers' club to
my
officers understood the conse-
quences of anything more than one social drink. The ing outside; and in time
but
cannot slay the dragon every
reopened the
my
fight,
Happy Hour became
MPs
stopped lurk-
a thing of the past in the
Army.
I
had an
adjutant.
Major James D. Hallums, whose duties included run-
ning the brigade sports competitions, which at Fort Campbell were redhot. "Sir,
we can
take the division boxing championship," Hallums told
* COLIN
222
me
We
one day.
Hank, he teams.
had a sergeant
known
in the brigade
as
Hammering
near pro with a lot of experience in coaching boxing
said, a
Hallums
told
I
POWELL
L.
to
go ahead. Never step on enthusiasm.
Soon he was back with a
conspiratorial smile.
Not only was the 2d
Hank had
Brigade team looking strong, but Hammerir^
scouted the
competition, and not one outfit at Fort Campbell had a featherweight, the
120-125-pound
we had
class. All
to
do was
field a fighter
could win the division featherweight championship
That was
But
true, I agreed.
I
pointed out that
we
strictly
and we
with byes.
did not have a feath-
erweight. '^Colonel,"
Jim went on, "do you remember
that kid
who kicked in almost a thousand dollars for the Wee something?" I certainly did. Most of the
United
from the 506th
Way Drive,
Pee
troops contributed $1.
This soldier's donation had been so out of line that
I
had told Hallums
him to my office so that I could see if he was all right. His name was Rodney 'Tee Wee" Preston and he turned out to be a shy little guy to bring
who might weigh 120 pounds soaking wet. He explained his philanthropy by telling us that the Army took care of all his wants, and therefore he should
do
"Let's get Pee
Wee
for our featherweight,"
"Has he ever boxed?"
What fight.
he could to help others.
all that
difference did
He was just going
Hallums managed
to
make, Hallums
to
He
replied.
wasn't going to
draw byes.
Wee to join the boxing team. His Pee Wee would not have to go with
persuade Pee
most persuasive argument was his battalion
said.
asked.
I
it
Hallums
that
on jungle training exercises
in
—
Panama
the soldier had an
obsessive fear of snakes. Even though Pee Wee was not going to fight. Hammering Hank proved to be a coach of integrity and insisted that Pee
Wee had
to train along with
everyone
else.
The boxing tournament began, and our strategy worked. Pee Wee drew byes
at
one
level after another until
he was headed for the loi st Airborne
Division featherweight championship, without, so laid
on him. In the championship matches, our
the division's Support
mand, on
to
our
little
having had a glove
fighters
Command. The commander
went up against
of the Support
Com-
scam, had scoured his ranks and also discovered a
featherweight. Consequently, night, a
far,
when Pee Wee stepped
into the ring that
Panamanian kid resembhng a miniature Roberto Duran climbed
into the opposite comer. This lad
bounced around, snorting
like a bull.
223
The Graduate School of War
pumping warm-up uppercuts stood in his
and I
I
am
comer looking
watched from the
first
Pee Wee,
like pistons.
lamb
like a
row,
that this
was not
As Hallums
turned to Jim and said, ''The deal's
I
not going to be an accessory to murder."
and told him
meantime,
in the
slaughterhouse.
at the
in his contract.
I
went
He
to
off.
Pee Wee's comer
did not have to fight.
"Oh no, sir," he said. "I have to. The whole 5o6th's here." Which was tme. Pee Wee's battalion was present in force and in comwere going
bat fatigues, since they
Wee had
Panama, which Pee
in
had come
The
to
bell
escaped.
bag.
I
maneuvers
fight to
was not sure whether they
I
laugh or cry.
sounded for round one. The Panamanian bounded
of the ring and began hitting away as
ter
from the
directly
winced. Pee
Wee
did what
if
Pee
Wee were
Hammering Hank had
to the cen-
a punching
taught him.
kept his arms in close to his body while his gloves protected his face.
kept circhng to his ing round one. Pee
left,
taking the pounding, until the bell sounded, end-
Wee had
not thrown a punch, but he was
still
stand-
Some modest cheering went up from Pee Wee! Hang in there, kid!"
ing and apparently unhurt. side. "Attaboy,
Round
two, a carbon copy of round one.
Pee Wee. Pee
Wee
He He
our
The Panamanian pummeled
kept his guard up, circled, and never punched. But
noticed that his opponent had slowed as though the sheer effort of beating
down toward
the
I
end of the round,
on Pee Wee had tired him. End round
two.
By now the cheering for Pee Wee had become loud and enthusiastic.
We
could see his opponent in his comer shaking his head, gmmbling
about something to his trainers.
Hammering Hank,
in the
begging Pee Wee, "Just throw a punch, kid. Just one.
Round ners, the
three, the final round.
Panamanian
meantime, kept
Any punch!"
The two boxers came out of
sluggishly.
It
was becoming
their cor-
clear that this
guy
knew how to box, but was out of shape. Out of nowhere. Pee Wee hit him with a right to the jaw. The Panamanian's arms dropped and the guy quit! The place went crazy. The whole brigade was screaming, "Pee Wee! Pee Wee!" The referee declared a TKO. Pee Wee had become the legitimate featherweight champion of the loist Airbome Division. His battalion descended on him, hugging him, kissing him, carrying him on their shoulders.
Frank Capra could not have done
better.
yelled, "Cut! Print it!" at this point.
champ, now had
to
go
to Fort
Bragg
Although Capra would have
Pee Wee, however, as division to fight the featherweight
cham-
* COLIN
224
POWELL
L.
pion of the 82d Airborne Division for the XVIII Airborne Corps championship. There
I
had the pleasure of
commanding
present
Emerson
my
with
sitting
old boss, the
general of the corps, Gunfighter Emerson.
the story of Pee
I
told
Wee. His eyes shone and he kept saying,
"Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! You hear what^his man
saying?
is
You
hear what that boy's accomplished?"
This night, Pee
Wee
again
managed
rounds but was outpointed and
had
less
pumped
general
We
meet Pee Wee.
to
hand
his
lost
believed, the httle
ing
Sixteen years
inspiration.
down. (At boxer
uniform.
I
NBC
I
Pee
to
in the
Joint Chiefs
example of
have her crew track him
wrong Pee Wee, Mike Caruthers, another
with the same nickname.) She had Pee
He was now
Daddy?" Pee Wee had
a big show.
to retire,
Wee Preston
a metalworker in Shelbyville,
I
"What did
quite a story.
me
that the old sol-
and XVIII Airborne Corps was going
Emerson had personally requested me
troops for the parade.
begged
my
Pentagon for
story as an
got a call from Gunfighter' s staff telling
was about
"By
Gunfighter
married, and with two kids. If those kids ever asked,
One day dier
me Wee
interviewed
told her the
they found the
in the war.
off.
about! You're the real
Chairman of the
retiring as
She was intrigued and managed
first
all
break
given half a chance, could for one shin-
if
was
interviewed for the program.
you do
it's
to
a winner.
later, as I
in the brigade
Illinois,
was going
it
in fact, the incarnation of everything
of Staff, Katie Couric of last profile in
for all three
room, where the
in the locker
until I thought
guy who,
moment become
gamely
in
on a decision. Gunfighter neverthe-
found him
God, son," he gushed, "you're what
champ!" Pee Wee was,
hang
to
off.
Fort Bragg
was
the
to put
on
to command the home of the 82nd
Airborne. Even though the loist was part of Emerson's corps, the paratroopers of the 8 2d
10 1 St the
come over
phone
here.' " It I
into
went
to lead their troops.
again.
"The general
sounded
to Fort
marching
would not appreciate having someone from
like the
Bragg and
trim,
much
On the appointed day, fighter stood
said, 'Tell
later
an aide was on
Powell to get the hell down
Gunfighter to me. started
as
I
whipping these brawny paratroopers
had done as a
drill
team leader
at
CCNY
thousands of people were in attendance and Gun-
on the reviewing
slapping every back.
Ten minutes
the
I
stand, shaking every
was standing before
hand
in sight
and
the troops at parade rest
The Graduate School of War
when
I
saw him gesture
me
for
come
to
over.
223
"A"
He thanked me
for taking
charge of the parade and said he had something special he wanted do.
When
he gave the word,
I
was
to order the officers to
me to
do an about-
face, so that they would be facing the troops from about eight inches
away.
me
started to question
I
not to worry.
him about
this
went back and managed
I
to the other officers
command, but he told get the word passed along
novel to
on parade.
The ceremony began with speeches and awards honoring Emerson. the time came for Gunfighter to speak, he could barely compose
When
He began weeping,
himself.
names of long-dead comrades. He paused at
me, and shouted, "Now!" "Officers
—and
summoning
repeating himself, and
officers only
—
"
I
at
one point, looked
the
straight
ordered, "about face!" There
we
stood almost nose-to-nose with the soldiers, wondering what was sup-
posed
to
happen
next.
Then Gunfighter bellowed from salute
gesture, pure Gunfighter
symbolism said everything who,
"Officers,
stand,
your soldiers!"
was a moving
It
the reviewing
in the end,
that
most deserves
After
my
racial
environment.
had
to
experiences in Korea,
to
Emerson, and
in
its
simple
be said about armies and about
be saluted.
I
was highly
One of my early
acts at Fort
sensitive to the
Campbell was
Army's
to call in
my
executive officer. Lieutenant Colonel Henry B. "Sonny" Tucker,
and
tell
him
I
wanted
affirm.ative action.
meet the
to
NCO handling equal opportunity and
Sonny, a big, casually powerful Alabaman, eyed
strangely, but said he
would produce
the
me
man.
Tucker ordinarily had a wonderful way of handling soldiers and their
problems, which
wall:
"Come
unhappy. So
here, son,
see
let's
could overhear through our adjoining office
I
you make
how
fast
Two
days
later, I
colonel unhappy, you
overnight. But this time nothing hap-
repeated that
I
wanted
to see the
com. "We're looking, we're looking," Sonny assured me. not find the man, this subject?
how much importance
After
my
third
EEOC If
non-
he could
could the brigade be giving to
demand. Tucker brought
sergeant wearing low-quarter shoes and white socks. ited duty
make me
you can make us both happy again."
Somehow, problems disappeared pened.
my
in a fat, listless
He was on
because of a leg injury, and coasting out his
last
lim-
months
COLIN
226
before retirement.
POWELL
L.
I
man and
dismissed the
Tucker. This guy was a dud.
then tore into Sonny
What kind of attention were we giving this
mission?
"Calm down, Colonel," Sonny
said.
We
erjack sergeant on this problem.
"We don't have to waste
a crack-
haven't l^ad a racial complaint in
the brigade in months."
poking around, asking questions, testing Tucker's report.
started
I
He turned out to be right. While we had not achieved perfect racial harmony, the present Army nowhere near resembled the one I had left in Korea. The reason was largely the all-volunteer system. By now, draftees were long gone. And the current recruits, white or black, were doing well
in everything, including race relations,
were better educated and
the
in
Army by
recruited a top-notch equal opportunity
mostly because they
choice.
NCO
to
I
make
nevertheless sure things
stayed that way.
Sonny about attendance
also pressured
I
courses.
"Most of these
high school equivalency
at
soldiers are already high school graduates," he
informed me. What about our classes in English as a second language?
"We
don't take recruits anymore
who
don't speak English," Sonny
maybe not as much fun as the Army of my sentimental reveries. But then, fun was not its reason for being. The post- Vietnam reforms were taking hold. The Army was rebuilding itself with a restored sense of pride and purpose. explained patiently.
It
was becoming a
better Army,
I
was happily immersed
in
commanding
I
received a call to
come
to
Washington.
troops
A
my
But
was more influenced by a
vote
Watergate, the country needed a fresh as a
permanent resident of
party, I
nor have
New
in
February
977 new administration had been
inaugurated on January 20, one for which
impressed on meeting Jinmiy Carter when
when
I
I
had voted.
I
1
had been
was a White House Fellow.
belief that, after the ordeal of
start. I
was
still
voting absentee
York City and had not enrolled
in a
ever,
I
had been summoned
to
Washington
to
be interviewed for a National
Security Council job by Carter's National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Here
not want
it.
I
we go
went
again,
to see
I
thought, off the career track, and
John Wickham
first,
who was
I
did
not only
my
superior officer but an operator skilled in the Washington labyrinth.
"Go,"
Wickham
said.
"At least you have to talk to him."
The Graduate School of War
was doing something
I
that
I
loved to do and needed to do
myself once again as a true infantry
from the old
transition
shock.
officer. I
hated the idea of leaving again so soon.
I
had taken over the brigade,
Whenever
loist tradition.
you
to
I
had been handed a special coin, another
a fellow
member
been successfully challenged. From brigade
And,
my heart. When
of the division challenges
produce the coin, you do, or you buy the drinks.
my
coin was always in frankly,
I
I
more about
soldiering
for now,
was
I
I
have never
command to chairman,
that
wallet.
was hoping
borne Division after
validate
to
had served with other
I
had captured
divisions, but the loist, so full of legend, I
too
—
7
make the much culture
had managed
new Army without
to the
22
'A'
to
become
chief of staff of the loist Air-
gave up brigade command.
by doing
that job for the wise
could learn a
I
lot
John Wickham. But
off to Washington, hoping against
hope
that
I
could
escape the Beltway vortex and stay with the division.
A
few days
later, I
found myself back
Executive Office Building, where at
I
in a
famihar haunt, the Old
had worked as a White House Fellow
0MB. The OEOB has an aura of quiet power with its endless pillared, History practically seeps out of
silent corridors.
ning of World
War
II,
this building
and the War Department, the
buttoned-down
jump
until the
staff in the
boots, bloused pants,
its
walls.
wrong
guy.
I
the begin-
had housed the Department of State
Pentagon was
built.
This day,
treated
I
OEOB to a rare sight, an Army colonel in
and greens.
I
was making a
brigade commander, loist Airborne, and happy where the
At
made my way up
statement. I
I
am a
am. You've got
a wide curving staircase to the third-
floor location of the National Security Council.
ornate nineteenth-century office where
I
met
I
was ushered
Dr. Brzezinski, a
into an
man
with
him was his seat, which I did,
sharply planed Slavic features and an intense manner. With deputy, David Aaron. Dr. Brzezinski asked
on prominent
flat-footed, with the boots
me to take a
display.
After showing surprising familiarity with
my
past, particularly the
White House Fellowship, Brzezinski got down looking for a soldier
we'd It
like
you
sounded
who knows how
to run the like a
want
NSC's defense program
ing isn't me.
I
don't
staff,"
he
said.
him I was flattered, but my command," I said. "I Fort Campbell. And this work you're describ-
golden opportunity.
to leave
"We're
to operate at this level. Frankly,
I
told
not interested. "I'm not even halfway through really don't
to business.
know
anything about
it."
* COLIN
228
POWELL
L.
my
Instead of dampening Brzezinski's enthusiasm,
whetted but I
it.
"That's exactly what
someone who can bring us
we
want," he said. "Not an academic,
fresh thinking."
continued to demur, saying, "I'd rather stay with the troops."
By now, David Aaron's seemed
to
be saying, what
expression and his Un^ of questioning
guy with combat boots doing here
is this
anyway? He says he doesn't want the job.
my
on him. Yet,
anyone could
that
Finally,
he
closer to the end of your
you
to
started to leave
resist the siren
said, "Let's leave
command,
job we're discussing now. But
had
Let's not waste any
more time
reluctance continued to fan Brzezinski's ardor.
seemed fascinated
House power.
I
resistance only
it
this
we want
song of White
When
way.
we'll talk again.
It
He
may
you're
not be the
you."
when Brzezinski added, "Before you
meet the fabulous team we've put
together."
I
go,
I
want
spent the rest of the
afternoon moving from office to office along the third floor,
much of the
time listening to frighteningly naive arms control proposals, which
were
to fall flat as
When
I
Kansas when
trip.
career.
Wickham was
eager to
"Colin, you didn't take this job," he said, "but they'll
be back, or somebody else
I
presented to the Soviets.
got back to Fort Campbell, General
hear about the
Army
later
Some
You're not going to have a conventional
will.
officers are just not destined for
it."
quickly put Washington behind me, went on with the training exer-
cises, the
boxing matches, the pleasures of command.
one crack battalion and two
make
three tops before
all
"You'd better have
way my exec
that
were becoming
that thing
fussed over me,
my
neck.
I
had inherited
My
goal was to
I left.
I
looked
It
at, sir,"
Sonny Tucker
did not need parents.
was concerned about was a growth the left side of
so.
that
said.
The
The "thing" Sonny
had appeared one morning on
did not hurt, but
it
did not go away.
It
just
kept getting bigger. I
went
said,
"We
to the post hospital,
don't
know what
where one of the examining physicians
it is,
but
it
could be cancerous."
He
ex-
plained that they would have to perform a needle biopsy, and then cut out the mass. If the biopsy proved cancer-positive, he said, "we'll have to
go I
all
was
the
way
to
your
throat.
You may wake up
not speaking."
forty years old, the father of three children, in the
personal and professional
life,
and
I
was
prime of my
scared. Within days, they
had
*
The Graduate School of War
me
in the operating
room. Alma stood
remember him looking
at the
vigil.
doctor as
229
So did Sonny Tucker.
if to say,
mess up
*'You
I
my
colonel and I'm gonna bust your arms." I
did not have a malignancy. After the biopsy, the doctors clamped the
incision and let
pled scar on
it
my
heal,
neck.
which It
it
did, inside out, leaving
I
smoked
it
is
a
wound.
in those days, but
If
they ask,
Today, I'm no longer a smoker.
As my command of
the
id Brigade wound
as his word, again asked
me
to
come
John Wickham's prophecy was proving
I
am
I tell
a
the
became increasingly uneasy
after this experience.
good
with a dim-
looks like a bullet wound, and since
combat veteran, people assume unheroic truth.
me
to
to a close. Dr. Brzezinski,
Washington.
right.
I
wondered
if
I
Part Three
It THE WASHINGTON YEARS
T
± In
the
Carter Defense
Department
ALTHOUGH
SERVED MOST PUBLICLY DURING THE REAGAN-BUSH YEARS,
I
my
actually cut
in the Office tion. In
May
teeth
of the Secretary of Defense during the Carter administra1977,
1
again went to Washington to meet with Zbigniew
He
Brzezinski at the National Security Council.
had
initially
filled
highly resistible, since
I
dience. This time,
I
I
was
was
in
I
not
come easily to
told Brzezinski that I
Washington,
to see
I
me
I
had
on Mr. Kester.
I
I
that the
staff,
job
I
had been
found the offer
job. Still, turning
a soldier schooled in obe-
needed to think the matter over.
got another
someone named John
long, "Special Assistant to the Secretary
Defense."
assistant.
had already rejected the top
down the White House does
tagon.
told
been offered, running his defense program
by Victor Utgoff, who now needed an
While
I
on national security during two and a half years
call, this
Kester,
time from the Pen-
who had
a
title
a mile
and the Deputy Secretary of
my sources in the building,
and
I
used them to get a line
learned that he was an ambitious, driving young lawyer,
* COLIN
234
POWELL
L.
close to the Defense Secretary, Harold Brown, and that Kester's hard-
nosed
style
had ruffled feathers
Kester's huge office
and
all
was on
over the Pentagon.
Eisenhower Corridor,
the E-Ring, the
He was
right next to the Secretary of Defense's office.
young,
two years younger than I^not always the desirable
at thirty-eight
relationship
between a prospective superior and subordinate. And John
He made
Kester was brash.
clear that he and the deputy secretary of
show
defense, Charles Duncan, ran this
made no bones about his
Kester
indeed
Brown. And
for Secretary
position as a de facto chief of staff
who
was determined to gain control over this sprawling bureaucracy and ride herd on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Kester had created a four-person team of military officers to help him, and he wanted
me
to run the unit as his
executive assistant.
So it
far, in this first
was
my
turn.
"How
checked you
"I
He had
things."
Army
encounter, Kester had done
all
me?"
did you happen to send for
out," Kester replied,
access to a nomination
officers, including
"and
own
military assistant.
He had been
and
field
my
White House Fellowship and
"I
who was
checked you
out, too,
to Fort
commander
tlie
E-Ring.
his chief of staff. aviator, a
to chief
He
Of his
also
A good
sign;
My
know
hope
On my
made
return.
office,
I
to
wanted.
I
had
move up from
General Wickham, as an
wanted
clear that
I
to
hear the latest gos-
was not going I
Army
is
to
become
was junior and not an
assignment. "Besides,"
this
and the its
was
still
brigade commanders,
the system,
which
of staff of the loist Airborne and have
key qualification for
opportunity to have one of ever,
bluntness.
I
We finished the interview and I went
alumnus of the Defense Secretary's
said, "I
by
heard was not so good,"
I
high-level job offers, neither of
Washington forget about me.
from
particularly impressed
He appeared amused by my
had enough off-track assignments.
sip
to recruit
Campbell.
now had two
brigade
book
having been a Vietnam veteran
and everything
he was not looking for a yes-man.
I
my
to cross
commander.
said with a smile.
back
The assignment,
points in the future. Kester had used this
my
of good
lot
profiling a half-dozen
however, went to Air Force Colonel Carl Smith,
for his
asked.
considered for the job of
junior mihtary assistant to the Secretary of Defense.
life at critical
I
heard a
I
book
who had been
me,
the talking. Finally,
Wickham
not going to pass up an
people in either of those key jobs."
he did not want to influence
me
as to
which one
I
How-
should favor.
For that advice,
DePuy protege
called another trusted friend, Carl
''Carl," I said,
Fm not eager to leave the Army again.
But ril go wherever the chief thinks Rogers, and the answer
now work-
it
best." Carl
checked with General
came back: we want Powell
in Kester's opera-
Kester and Rogers had been toe-to-toe on several turf issues, and
tion.
may have
Rogers
seen some advantage in having an
Kester's operation. After expressing ski, I
went
to
work
for
my
Army man
in
Zbigniew Bzrezin-
regrets to
John Kester.
The family returned from Fort Campbell to the Washington area, and we contracted to have a home built in Burke Center in Virginia's suburban Fairfax County, a move which swallowed up
we had made on
the Dale City sale.
capital. "Close-in" is the
Our new home was
magic phrase
in
Washington
all
the profit
closer to the
real estate. In
those days, every mile nearer to town added about $10,000 to the price
of a house.
A brigade commander at Fort Campbell has about as much idea of what shapes defense policy as a Chevy dealer in Kansas knows what happens inside the General
Motors boardroom.
I
was
in for an education.
John
me in a small office outside his suite. From that vantage point, I watched him, a tall, lanky man who stayed that way through disKester installed
ciplined jogging and
who spoke
authoritative manner.
I
and
style,
He was
style that
Kester.
Though
plain of speech
he was something of a Renaissance man. Classical music
purred in his office. French.
in a high-pitched voice that belied his
was intrigued by
I
occasionally heard
him on
the
phone speaking
widely read and wrote so clearly and in such a lively
you would never suspect he was a lawyer and government
official.
Kester was a player.
power
lines ran
physicist, a
I
soon observed that
significant
Pentagon
through his hands. The Secretary, Harold Brown, a
former Johnson administration Air Force Secretary and
director of defense research
and engineering, and most recently
dent of the California Institute of Technology, but Kester had so arranged
Secretary
all
it
that
made
presi-
the final decisions;
nobody or no piece of paper got
Brown without going through him
to
first.
There are in-boxes, there are out-boxes, and with Kester there was limbo.
I
was
x!'^ ^
Chief of Staff, General Bernard Rogers.
toward the Defense job.
"I lean
235
Vuono, a fellow
recently promoted to brigadier general and
Army
ing for the
I
^
Department
In the Carter Defense
talking to John one day as he flipped through a paper that
COLIN
236
L.
POWELL
an assistant secretary of defense had submitted to Harold
document
decision. Kester flung the
few days
later,
the author of the
into a
memo
Brown
for a
box behind him. Limbo.
called to ask about
A
its fate.
John's secretary stalled him. Mr. Kester was out of the office. Mr.
Kester was on another retary.
line.
The document was
Mr. Kester was
still
in
in
conference with the Sec-
Mr. Kester's briefcase. The document
had been temporarily mislaid. More days passed before Kester
him about
allowed the distressed official to see
John went off on a tangent. Had date that John had sent to
saw the
the fate of his paper.
very able candi-
this fellow hired the
him? The man mumbled excuses, and
afternoon,
He was sorry; he had not had time to get around to it. He the man right away. That was wise, Kester said. And that the languishing memo came out of Hmbo and went sailing That was the Kester
into the Secretary's office.
reward, one for you and one for
style,
punishment and
him (and sometimes two
for him).
another occasion, John announced that no promotions above
GS-13, the middle management range, could be made the Secretary of Defense without still
finally
light.
would see
On
finally
in the Office of
On
Brown's (read Kester's) approval.
another occasion, he ordered that nobody in the Pentagon could
hire an outside consultant without his say-so.
As
a career soldier and a colonel,
four-star generals.
John Kester did
No
longer would
lists
stood in
awe of
three-star
Not only had he gathered
not.
ian promotions into his hands, but he tions as well.
I
went
after senior military
for brigadier
and
civil-
promo-
and major general be
signed pro forma by Secretary Brown. Kester would carefully review
them. John also changed the service chief's traditional prerogative of
recommending generals and admirals stars.
for promotion to three
Past pracfice had been for the chiefs to submit a single
each opening. No, Kester
said, they
and four
name
for
must now submit two candidates,
and the Secretary of Defense would choose. The chiefs were not happy. General Rogers had informed one general that he was going to have
him promoted
Army
to four stars
and give him
FORSCOM, command
forces in the United States. Kester stepped in and said,
of
all
oh no,
give us the required two nominations, which Rogers did. Defense Secretary
Brown, Secretary of the Army Clifford Alexander, and Kester
then reviewed the candidates' qualifications in their
while Rogers fumed. Finally, Secretary it
was not Rogers's
choice.
Brown made
own good
time,
the decision, and
In the Carter Defense
Shortly afterward,
ceeded to
was summoned
I
to Rogers's office,
serve as a punching bag. "This
is
^
Department
237
where
I
pro-
the worst personnel experi-
ence I've had in thirty-five years of service," Rogers said, venting his
annoyance over Kester.
"I
how some
cannot understand
can override the judgment of the Army's senior general."
assistant
When
he finally stopped to take a breath,
stand your frustration,"
I
said, "but
Kester
I
is
spoke up.
choice." Rogers, of course,
just trying to
knew
that,
my
went against the
sions
I
under-
make
and he cooled down.
dismissed me, he acknowledged, just as he had to the job, that
"Sir,
clear
belong to Secretary Brown, and he has to have a
that these positions
me
civilian special
when he
first
loyalty remained with Kester, even
When
he
assigned
when
deci-
Army.
Kester had gained control over the flow of people, paper, and promotions in
America's huge defense establishment. His approach was as
man himself Rewards for good little boys and girls and punishment for naughty ones. He sought and exercised power not for his own ego ^John's ego needed no stroking but because he believed he direct as the
—
—
was best serving the
interests of his
boss and the Carter administration.
Kester was the political horse in a troika.
Tom
The other two members were
Ross, assistant secretary of defense for public
affairs,
and Jack
Stempler, assistant to the secretary of defense for legislative affairs, the
department's liaison with Congress. Every morning, Secretary held a meeting of his closest staff in his office.
room,
like a fly
on the
I
sat at the
Brown
back of the
wall, next to a grandfather clock that
chimed
solemnly every half hour. The Secretary of Defense clearly needed these players. Harold
Brown was
brilliant,
one of President Carter's
best appointments; but this physicist-intellectual preferred paper to
people. if
we
over
I
always had the impression that Brown would be just as happy
slipped his paperwork under the door and left
it
or to
work out theorems.
If his wife,
him alone
to pore
Colene, wanted to have din-
come to the office, where Harold way through a pile of papers in a tiny, hiero-
ner with her husband, she often had to
nibbled and scribbled his glyphic scrawl.
Harold Brown had earned his Ph.D.
Baltimore.
about a
at
Columbia University. Jack
came from the back streets of One morning, the Secretary opened the meeting muttering congressman who had angered him. The man was a hypocrite.
Stempler' s degree in practical politics
^ COLIN
238
POWELL
L.
Brown complained. He told you one thing one day, then voted the opposite way the next. "I refuse to have anything more to do with him," Brown announced. "All right, Harold," Stempler said, "you've got that out of your sys-
now? But
tem. Feel better
the
congressman
j;iappei>s to
be one of the
people's elected representatives, and you need his vote on the
Services Committee. You've got fact, I
want you
Brown
And
to
to kiss him.
You've got
On
groaned.
if that
did not win the congressman's heart, John Kester chimed
another occasion. Secretary
Brown was
Washington Post that he thought was editor,"
Brown
"Not on just
to love him. In
have lunch with him tomorrow."
we'll put a mihtary base in his district on the hit
in,
list.
upset by a story in the
"I'm writing a
unfair.
this one,"
Tom Ross, the PR man,
what they want you
to
do
to
said. "They'll love that. It's
keep the story
alive.
Harold,
I
into fights with people
sat there taking
lege had been field
Tom went on,
he was going to write. "Harold,"
Never get
letter to the
declared.
wrestle with a pig, the pig has fun and you just get dirty." insisted
Armed
my
my notes
who buy
and thinking
classroom in military
when you Brown
Still,
"just take the hit.
ink by the barrel." that if the National
politics, I
War Col-
was now out doing
work.
As Christmas 1977 approached, I got in touch with my sister, Marilyn. She and her husband. Norm, had finally had it with the snows of upstate New York and had moved from Buffalo to southern California. I urged them to come East for the holidays. For the past year, I had watched the change in my father. The man who had fussed over his little plot of land like a plantation owner now preferred sitting indoors all day. The man
who
could talk the birds out of the trees went silent for hours on end.
thought
it
wise to get the whole family together
Avenue.
It
turned out to be a happy but muted Christmas.
obvious
—Pop had slipped from ringmaster
A couple my
of months
mother on a
point.
ably
later,
visit to
My
mother took
inconsolably. She and
year
at
I
Elmira
One thing was
to spectator. 1
went home
to
accompany
Pop's doctor. The doctor went straight to the
Pop had cancer of the
less.
early in 1978,
this
my
liver. It it
hard.
father
was
terminal,
When we
maybe
a year, prob-
were alone, she cried
had contained
their feelings
toward
Department
In the Carter Defense
each other for so long that
now found myself on
was surprised by
I
the shuttle
the flood of emotion.
from National Airport
New York almost every weekend as Pop continued I
arrived at Elmira
Avenue on Saturday, April
now bedridden and occupying my
239
"A"
to
La Guardia
in
to decline.
who was
22, to see Pop,
The
old room.
I
hospital could
do
nothing more for him, and the doctors had sent him home. The bed he lay in
had a sentimental significance for me.
employee's discount while contribution
I
was working
I
had ever made
had bought
I
to furnishing
our home.
On
were the two photographs Pop always had nearby, Marilyn school graduation and
me
Mom and Miss Bell, less,
while two
the doorway.
you look
were married."
a boarder,
Mom
started laughing.
I
The moment captured
and
saw
I
women
left
awkward
silences.
I
her high
sheets.
He
watching from
my mother said,
us alone.
started laughing.
down my
plumped I
"Will
in all the years
we
Miss Bell
the irrepressible Jamaican family spirit,
After they had cleaned Pop,
room, the
at
a flicker of a smile cross Pop's lips.
the face of joy or sorrow. Tears rolled
He was
his son stood
I'm seeing more of him now than
burst out laughing too,
eyes.
were changing Pop's
they turned over his naked body,
at that.
the dresser
shook me. That proud man lay there help-
It
women changed him and
As
with an
as a second lieutenant in Gelnhausen.
still
had become incontinent.
it
at Sickser's, the first serious
talked to him,
trying to say something.
cheeks.
his pillow,
kept talking. Finally,
Pop
humor in
my
and sprayed the
words followed by
struggled to focus his
leaned forward. "Colin," he
I
whispered, pointing toward his head, "there's nothing up there any-
more." They were the Saturday, he died.
Mom,
last
words
The formative
while grieved by her
I
ever heard him
figure in
loss, did
my
not
life
utter.
was gone.
let it interfere
cal streak nurtured over a lifetime of penny-pinching.
Pop's estate,
all
but his '64 Chevy.
I
asked
The following
if I
with a practi-
We
might have
it.
had
settled
Of course,
Mom said, and gave me the car, for $400. John Kester served two masters. Secretary of Defense Brown and
Brown's deputy Charles Duncan.
number two man in the Pentagon, Democrat, Duncan had all the credentials of
secretary,
Though
a
the
a country-club Repubhcan. His business background had been capped
by the presidency of Coca-Cola, he possessed wealth, and he combined shrewdness and charm.
He
ran the department day-to-day and handled
* COLIN
240
POWELL
L.
the three service secretaries.
He had
a particular gift for handling
defense contractors and politicking on the
Duncan's military a
assistant,
DePuy alumnus and an
Hill.
Major General Joe
Palastra, was, like
infantryman. "I hate this job," Palastra told
more than once. Joe enjoyed working
Dunpan, but he chafed
for
Pentagon duty and was never really happy unless he was troops. Joe
me,
had recently been promoted
to
at
in the field
major general and was
me any
with
in line
command. Duncan, however, was not going to let Palastra he had a suitable replacement. The military assistant's job rated
for a division
go
until
a brigadier general. Palastra expected that
at least list,
and
this possibility fired his imagination.
was asking
if I
would
like a
I
tion. Palastra the warrior
Iran
oil crescent.
And Iran
was America's staunch
who was into the
knew, Joe
trip
Saudi Arabia,
was
already wired with
was being
set
up
for an audi-
East.
It
way of the
occupied the center Soviet Union's his-
ally,
Shah
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a man
we
believed, and
was leading them
support his reign, the United States had stuffed
modern weaponry. The
ostensible purpose of Duncan's trip
gauge how well these arms were being integrated into Iran's
to
armed
I
Middle
in the
stood in the
beloved by his people, so
modem age. To
Iran with
was
I
hankering for a warm-water port on the Persian Gulf. Ruling
torical
Iran
thing
the
had become Palastra the matchmaker.
was America's bulwark
of the
sensed that
I
The next
trip to Iran,
could go with him. The
Kester and Duncan, he said.
would soon be on
break from the daily grind. In October,
Deputy Secretary Duncan was making a Kenya, and Egypt.
I
forces.
But there had been rumblings of late.
A fanatical Islamic
fundamentalist, the AyatoUah Khomeini, in exile in Paris, was caUing for the overthrow of the Shah.
Duncan was
also going to Iran to see
how
well our ally was holding up.
We
flew to Tehran on October 23, 1978, and were greeted by the
head of the U.S. Military Mission There
I
met
my
first
to Iran,
Major General Philip Gast.
Iranian generals, bemedaled, proud, imposing,
speaking excellent English. After a lavish meal of lamb served officers' club,
we mounted a reviewing
all
at the
stand to watch a parade of Iran's
crack troops, the "Immortals," in tailored uniforms, berets, and gleaming ladder-laced boots, martial total.
flair.
The
men who performed
Iranian officer next to
The Immortals
me
will fight to the last
with
much
shouting and
explained, "Their loyalty
man
to protect the Shah."
is
In the Carter Defense Department
We visited Isfahan,
an exotic city of the ancient world, and watched
one of the world's most modern
the centuries blur as a formation of
which we had provided
fighter planes, the F-14,
hosted by local officials,
ing from the street.
It
I
heard a familiar
sounded
sound com-
rat-tat-tat
machine-gun
like
to the Iranian air
mosque. During another
force, streaked over the lovely Lutfullah feast,
241
if
but our hosts
fire,
played dumb.
We next visited the
airfield at Shiraz,
installation as sophisticated as
where the F-14S were based, an
any in the United
young American Air Force captain who was good was it
this air force really? I
came pouring
two
upper
pilots,
They could take
crust.
level passes,
he
The
men
took aside a
first,
in the F-14S,"
he
off,
perform the flashy high-speed, low-
and get the plane back on the ground. "But,
WSO
said, ''and
he explained, came from the Iranian
mattered in an F-14, he continued, was the
The
How
he was uneasy. Then
hell.
could teach you that stuff in a week." The one
said, "I
officer.
I
training the Iranians.
asked him. At
"You've got two
out.
social classes."
States.
WSO,
the
Colonel,"
who
really
weapon systems
operated millions of dollars' worth of the most
advanced aeronautical technology on
earth, including the plane's attack
was
systems. This critical though less glamorous function, however,
relegated to homofars, the equivalent of warrant officers, barely edu-
cated
men from
humbler
the
classes. "It'll take a couple of generations
before those guys have any real grasp of what they're doing up there," the captain told me. "Until they do, all you'll see flying around here
half an airplane." precision,
I
As
is
the F-14S continued to roar overhead with flawless
wondered, was
this
show
the aeronautical equivalent of
breaking starch? Later that night,
Duncan. force
I
came down
to
our hotel lobby to meet Secretary
We were supposed to attend a formal dinner that the Iranian air
was hosting
formed escort
officer
would not be able fundamentalist
The next
at the
met
commandant's us,
to leave the hotel. Fighting
we
had told me.
before, and
I
began
to
I
beautifully uni-
I
we
had broken out between
streets
took off for Saudi Arabia.
ing F-14S arrayed on the hardstand, and instructor
A
apologized profusely, and said that
mobs and the police. The
day,
quarters.
I
of Shiraz were not
looked
at
safe.
those gleam-
thought of what the American
thought of the turmoil in the streets the night
wonder; had Charles Duncan and
inside of Iran, or only the shell?
I
seen the
^ COLIN
242
We were
POWELL
room at a Saudi Arabian fighter base at Dhahran commander instruct his pilots when the door flew open
in a briefing
listening to the
and a Saudi
He was
L.
wearing a
and a checkered scarf strode
in.
only a major, but something about hjs presence sucked up
all
Duncan and me
as
officer
the authority in the room.
"Major Bandar."
I
flight suit
He was
introduced to
my first Saudi royal.
was meeting
Prince Bandar Bin
Sultan, son of the minister of defense and aviation,
Fahd, and a
ambassador
About
man who would
to the
become
eventually
nephew of King
the oil kingdom's
United States.
a year after this first encounter.
Bandar was
living in
Wash-
ington and attending the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
We
Officers Athletic Club, he and
I
Duncan and General
against Charles
David Jones, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Prince Bandar coming out of the
POAC
gym bag
He
slung over his shoulder.
after
flicked
our
it
It is
often
good
work
to
be a prince,
I
first
game. He had a
off with a shrug,
extended his hand into empty space, and pulled it.
remember
Staff. I
woodwork and caught
aide materialized out of the
in
Pentagon
started playing racquetball together at the
it
it.
back with a Coke can
we would
thought. In the years to follow,
and the vast social gulf between us began
together,
and an
The prince
to shrink
between the kid from the South Bronx and the
until the familiarity
prince from a royal palace approached the outrageous and the profane.
The 1978
my
trip
first visit to
the pull
I
abroad with Charles Duncan included a stop in Kenya, Africa. Exotic as
expected.
it
My black roots
seemed, the continent did not exert
were
in
West Africa, and
that
emo-
tional experience lay in the future.
Less than thiee months after the driven from his country.
I
saw
on January
trip,
in the
16, 1979, the
Washington Post photos of the
naked bodies of executed generals who had been our out on mies.
morgue
slabs.
The homofar
class
The Immortals had not fought
like a crystal goblet
on the
first
went over
to the last
day of
Shah was
hosts, stretched
to the Shah's ene-
man. They had cracked
fighting.
My
suspicion of elites
and show horse units deepened. Keep looking beneath surface appearances,
I
reminded myself, and don't shrink from doing so because you
might not
like
what you
find. In the end, in Iran, all
our investment in
an individual, rather than in the country, came to naught.
When
the
In the Carter Defense Department
Shah
fell,
our Iran policy
fell
with him. All the billions
^
243
we had
spent
there only exacerbated conditions and contributed to the rise of a fun-
damentalist regime implacably opposed to us to this day.
Nothing further was said about a change I
returned from our
was passing by
my
trip.
Then, one day
cubicle, he gave
appearing into Kester's office.
found both
John
said.
my
in
me
a
my
status after
Duncan and
December 1978, as Charles wink and a wave before dis-
A minute later, John buzzed me to come
men wearing Cheshire-cat grins. ''Congratulations," "You've made brigadier general." Before I had a chance to news, Duncan added, "And I want you to come to work as
in. I
absorb the
in
military assistant."
Promotion from lieutenant colonel colonel to brigadier general
is
to full colonel is a step up.
a giant leap.
did not take this promotion
acted more like a kid on Christmas morning.
coolly.
I
mother
to
We
brought
my
Washington for the promotion ceremony. Aunts, uncles, and
cousins also flooded to Burke Center. house.
I
From
Mom was
Our home turned
nervous as a bride, constantly bugging
into a
Alma
mad-
to help
her fix her hair, iron her dress, and approve her wardrobe until you
would think she was getting the
star.
The formal promotion ceremony
for
me
and Colonel Carl Smith,
was held on June i, 1979, in the room of the Secretary of Defense. I walked into a room
Secretary Brown's military assistant, elegant dining full
of family and friends from past posts, even
now my boss, ing hole
among
ROTC.
Charles Duncan,
The one gapsomewhere strutting
did the honors for me, and with great grace.
was Pop.
Still, I felt
the other souls saying,
that
he was up there
"Of course, what did you expect?"
Secretary Brown's protocol officer at the Department of Defense, Air
Force Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Purviance, presented quotation by
Abraham
Lincoln.
It
me with a framed
seems a telegraph operator
Department had informed the President one day
at the
War
that the Confederates
had captured a bunch of horses and a Union brigadier general. The operator
was surprised when Lincoln expressed more concern over
horses. Lincoln supposedly explained, "I can in five minutes.
horses." That
But
was
it's
make
the
a brigadier general
not so easy to replace one hundred and ten
the quote Purviance
had framed for me.
On the back,
Stu had taped an envelope marked: "Not to be opened for ten years."
obeyed his wish.
When I did open the envelope
I
in 1989, the note inside
COLIN
244 "You
read:
At
become Chief of Staff of the Army."
will
that point,
I
POWELL
L.
I
smiled to myself.
had become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
framed utterance by Lincoln has followed
me
The
Staff.
to every office
have
I
occupied since, the perfect cure for a swollen ego. After the formal ceremony,
over 150 guests
She and the
tions, but she
made me,
at
at
a Powell
Mom thought
home.
relatives
we had
it
first,
was
^ catered affair for
a terrible extravagance.
had always done the cooking for family celebra-
adapted herself admirably to the luxury. The promotion
age forty-two, the youngest general in the Army.
dren were beaming.
My relatives
hoped Alma was beaming.
were beaming.
I
was beaming. And
This really would be a coup, since
always kidding her about her controlled enthusiasm victories, large or small.
Leavenworth, she'd
you anyway."
My chil-
in the face
I
was
of
my
When I told her I had graduated number two at
said, 'That's nice, but I
An unawed
wife
is
also
good
always expect the best of for keeping your hat size
constant. This night at
Burke Center, however, Alma was beaming.
A
new
of passage for
rite
generals
was
series of orientations beginning with a Staff,
I
"charm school," a
to attend
welcome by
the
Army
Chief of
then General Rogers. Fifty-two of us gathered in a Pentagon con-
ference
room
lating us,
to hear
words
that
I
have never forgotten. After congratu-
Rogers put everything into perspective. "Let
keen the competition
is at this level,"
me
tell
you how
he began. "All of you could board
an airplane and disappear over the Atlantic tomorrow, and the fifty-two
We
colonels we'd replace you with would be just as good as you are.
would not be able to accept that
to tell the difference. Furthermore,
you have had your last promotion. So do your best, and let
the future take care of itself." Half of us
most, ten of us would
would make four
He was proud also
said,
you become
make
tests
of rank.
somebody
"Some of your
"because you think the little tin
star puts
four of us
careers will stall out,"
you above the
rules,
and
Some of you will top out because you can't Some of your careers will falter because your
they got the promotion.
Rogers went on. "Everything in this
And maybe
At
gods.
start acting as if
thetically,"
lieutenant general.
general.
of us, he said, and he expected us to do well. But he
handle the responsibility.
wives
would make major
stars.
warned of the
Rogers
many of you have
room."
I
I
am
am
not speaking hypo-
saying will happen to
Department
In the Carter Defense
With
that,
of confidence. But
almost every day, occasions,
was
also
I
we
saw
his prophecies
had become
was
Rogers's expression
borne out by others.
fast friends.
We
played racquetball
traveled the world together, and on one or to take a drink together.
getting ready to leave work, he asked
Camp
me
One
to stay awhile.
in upheaval. President Carter
two
night, as
I
The Carter
had recently retreated
David, discovered a malaise in the country, and resolved to
renew the nation's battered
up
in that class fulfilled
we had been known
administration to
I
Duncan and
Charles
243
he wished us Godspeed and good luck. As the years went
most of the new generals
by,
^
his cabinet to
spirits.
Part of the renewal included shaking
remove, among others, Joseph Califano, Secretary of
Health, Education and Welfare, and
James Schlesinger, Secretary of
Energy. I
sat
down on
the
couch
in
Duncan's
office
and waited
to hear
wanted. ''CoUn," he began, "I'm leaving. The President wants over the Department of Energy."
I
was sorry
a ray of sunshine breaking through.
what he
me to take
to hear this but, frankly,
Here was
my
chance
saw
to escape the
and go back to the Army. Charles went on, "And I want you come with me." I had been sidetracked before, but this was going over the cliff. As I started to object, he raised his hand. It was all set. He had already cleared the matter with the new Army Chief of Staff, General Edward "Shy" Meyer. Duncan promised that he would let me go as soon front office
to
as he
had
his feet
wet
Also joining the
at
DOE. I had no
choice but to accept.
DOE transition team was the general counsel for the
Department of Defense, Deanne Siemer, a tough player the ultimate accolade: she
supposed
a
to reorganize the entire
front office.
its
was
And
I
match
The
transition
whom I offer
John Kester. Deanne was
Department of Energy, while
had an unwritten
stand up to this juggernaut at Defense,
absorber between Siemer and
for
to
Duncan
at
duty. Since I
was now
I
set
up
had managed
to
I
shock
to provide a
DOE.
team also included a sharp, ambitious lawyer named
who was to make a permanent contribution to my phiOne day we were having a particularly fiery debate, and another
Bernard Wruble, losophy.
DOE lawyer went off in a sulk when his position was demolished. Wruble
walked over
school.
Never
let
to
him and
said,
"You forgot what you learned
in
law
your ego get so close to your position that when your
position goes, your ego goes with
it."
Those words stayed with me.
* COLIN
246
For the
time since
first
Long
Pepsi plant in
POWELL
L.
I
had manned the bottling machine
Island City,
The Department of Energy was
I
found myself
at the
in a purely civiUan job.
a patchwork of the old
Atomic Energy
Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and three other once independent agencies.
They behaved
stepchildren from
and not happy about
different marriages forced to live together
Congress, however, loved the
likfe
new arrangement.
DOE
was going
it.
to
save Western civilization by supporting experimental energy schemes in congressional districts all
mirrors, gas
from
coal, oil
over the country
from
shale.
—
solar windmills, solar
The quest
for energy indepen-
dence was a golden wand wafting federal funds over the land.
My job
in organizing the front office really involved deciding
stayed and
who had
to go.
I
was assigned
who
always unpleasant task so
this
Duncan would not come out as the heavy. Thankfully, two and a half months, Duncan had as firm a grip as he was ever
that Secretary after
going to get over
him
that
I
meshed.
to leave.
DOE was easy.
Parting from ties
this bureaucratic jury-rig.
was eager
We
I
both believed that you work hard, play hard, and take
the job seriously, but not yourself.
He awarded me
Energy's Distinguished Service Medal, and
were
DOE
national
episode marked the
news magazine. In
described
me
as
when he pinned
its
first
time
September
I
it
on, there
field,
my name
ever saw
1979, issue,
3,
one of Harold Brown's "whiz
wage, in the energy
the Secretary of
and mine.
tears in his eyes
The
my part and told
had done
Duncan was gracious about releasing me. Leaving Charles was hard. Our personali-
Newsweek
kids," brought to
"the moral equivalent of war."
in a
DOE to
Wow
My hopes for a return to the Army were torpedoed. W. Graham Claytor, Jr.,
previously Secretary of the Navy, had
the
number two man
at
came out of
who was
the
Navy
mihtary assistant. tactical
into
Duncan's spot as
me to become his Navy Captain Jack Baldwin, a
Defense, and Claytor asked
military assistant, working alongside
superb officer
moved
Claytor' s current assistant. Because Claytor
side of the Pentagon
and already had one naval
Army Chief of Staff General Shy Meyer saw it as a Army man at Claytor 's elbow. My escape
advantage to have an
route had been sealed.
Graham
Claytor was sixty- seven years old, a gentleman of the old
school with an occasional cantankerous streak.
He had
graduated from
Harvard
Law
a powerful
^
Department
In the Carter Defense
School, clerked for a Supreme Court Justice, and
Washington lawyer, but scored
241
become
his greatest success as an
executive running the Southern Railway. Trains were his passion.
He
many
dating to the
nineteenth century, and he had them displayed from floor
to ceiling all
had accumulated a priceless collection of toy over his Georgetown home. while he was
The
My
first
exposure to Claytor had occurred
Navy and I was working
Secretary of the
still
trains,
for
Duncan.
Saratoga was scheduled to be overhauled,
aircraft carrier U.S.S.
Navy had analyzed
considerable cost, and the
at
the issue exhaustively,
concluding that the most economical place for the job was the naval shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia. Claytor, as Secretary of the Navy, concurred in the recommendation. Vice President Walter Mondale, not
always the mild gentleman of his public persona, heard about sion and called
Duncan
to say that there apparently
He had promised
derstanding.
So make
Duncan, a
me
realist, called
and
in
said, "I
building experience, this I
rebuilt in their
was going
did the best job
I
want you
to disappear
rationale for overhauling the ship in
Philadelphia rather than Norfolk." Since
me.
would be
happen.
it
somewhere and come back with a
for
had been a misun-
the people of Philadelphia, during the
1976 presidential campaign, that the Saratoga shipyard.
this deci-
to
I
had no naval and
less ship-
be an exercise in creative writing
could, and a few days later
handed Duncan
a single-spaced, three-page argument for rebuilding the Saratoga in Philadelphia.
The next
thing
I
knew, Graham Claytor came barging
guns blazing, flinging
my
report
had made a professional judgment of the best yard the Saratoga^ he said. retary of the Navy,
Claytor said,
And he to
in
which
supported their conclusion.
and he did not expect
"who has
in,
16-inch
on Duncan's desk. His naval experts
to
be overruled.
go before the House
Armed
to rebuild
He was
Sec-
"Fm the one,"
Services
Com-
recommended Norcalm him down. They were men of the
mittee and argue this flip-flop after I've already folk."
Duncan managed
world, Charles said.
to
They understood
the game.
And the
administration
wanted Philadelphia.
my paper,
Claytor grumpily snatched back told his
Navy
analysts to
opposite of their got
first
come up with
conclusion.
returned to his office, and
a recommendation the exact
The Virginia delegation
word of what was happening and
in
Congress
cried foul. And, as he had feared,
COLIN
248
POWELL
L.
Claytor had to go up to Capitol Hill and defend the department's
new
was astonished. He made
the case for sending the Saratoga
to Philadelphia so persuasively that
you could not imagine rebuilding
position.
the ship that
I
anywhere
when your
else.
Never
your ego get so close to your position
position goes under, your Qgo goes with
knew
Claytor, an old lawyer,
bridge when
let
this.
Graham
it.
Vice President Mondale was on the
the Saratoga sailed into the Philadelphia yard.
Thursday, April 24, 1980, was a clear, sunny day in Washington.
my
at the office at
Graham Claytor was
usual time, 7:00 a.m.
there, looking preoccupied.
As
morning wore on,
the
I
I
arrived
already
could feel tension
mounting along the Eisenhower Corridor. Claytor kept slipping out of meetings and into Secretary Brown's
"The Secretary doesn't want any saying, whatever ''this" was. as
I
office,
keeping
me
military assistants in
drove
home
that night as
arm's length.
at
on
this,"
he kept
much in the
dark
any other commuter.
The next morning
7:00 a.m., a knot of early birds gathered around
at
a television set in the deputy secretary's office as President Carter, his
face ashen, explained what had happened the day before.
had been made
to rescue the fifty-three
my was my was
American embassy
in
Tehran
the President said, had failed. "It
decision to attempt the rescue operation," Carter went on. "It decision to cancel
bility is fully It
The mission,
attempt
American hostages seized by
Iranian "students" and held captive in the for the past five months.
An
it
when problems
developed. The responsi-
my own."
took a while longer for the details to dribble out. The operation,
Navy RH-53 helicopters and six force of commandos aboard drawn
designated Desert One, involved eight
C-130 Hercules from the four
transports with a
services;
most of them were Army paratroopers. They had
set out for Dasht-e-Kavir, the
was
to
have the helicopters
remote Great Salt Desert
fly next to
Agents on the ground, working for the United trucks to bring the
in Iran.
The plan
another staging area near Tehran. States,
conmiandos from the helicopters
were
to provide
to the
American
embassy, where they would attempt to overpower the guards. The helicopters
would
fly out
of their hiding place, land
at the
embassy com-
pound, pick up the freed hostages, and take them to transport planes a seized airfield nearby from
The planners had figured
which they would be flown
at
to freedom.
that six of the eight helicopters, minimally.
249
In the Carter Defense Department
were necessary for the success of the mission. But mechanical malfunctions knocked out two helos before the rendezvous in the Great Salt
Desert could occur, and a third suffered a hydraulic failure on arrival.
Though a technical failure at this point. Desert One was not yet a pubhcly known embarrassment or a human tragedy. That was still to come. As one sur-
Upon
getting this news, the President aborted the mission.
viving hehcopter return flight, into flames.
four I
its
maneuvered
to get into a refueling position for the
rotor struck the fuselage of a C-130.
Ammunition exploded. Eight men were
Both
aircraft burst
killed outright
and
more severely burned.
had never heard a whisper about Desert One. Yet,
I
had had enough
experience in helicopter operations in Vietnam, Korea, and the loist
Airborne to be surprised
at the
way
this
operation had been conceived
and conducted. Helicopters are notoriously temperamental. For a mission this
demanding of men and machines,
should have been launched to thy to carry out the
make
demanding second
also erred in counting
far
sure that six
more than would
this
vice flew helicopters of another.
be airwor-
One
leg of the mission. Desert
on a "pickup" team drawn from
and brought together just for
eight helos
still
mission
in
Weaknesses
all
four services
which men from one
ser-
command,
in the chain of
communications, weather forecasting, and security further contributed to the failure.
There can be no question of the bravery of the
headed out into the Iranian
desert.
But more than bravery was required.
Consequently, the mission failed, and
men paid with their lives. Colonel
Charles Beckwith, the Delta Force commander, said
it
best:
not take a few people from one unit, throw them in with another, give
them someone
with a top-notch fighting I
my
men who
else's
"You cansome from
equipment, and hope to
come up
outfit."
would remember Beckwith's words responsibility to plan
in the future
combat operations
at the
when
it
became
You
highest levels.
have to plan thoroughly, train as a team, match the military punch to the political objective,
some
go
in
with everything you need^
—and not count on wishful
One's chances of success itary operation.
And
at a
thinking.
hundred
the failure
may
I
—and
then
would have rated Desert
to one, foolhardy
odds for a mil-
well have fatally
wounded
the
Carter presidency. I
also felt that the
cations fiasco.
I
handhng of this
affair
had been a public communi-
blew off steam by writing a facetious "Guide for Han-
^ COLIN
230
POWELL
L.
dling Disasters" that went as follows. Release facts slowly, behind the
pace
at
which they are already leaking out
whole story
do
until forced to
so.
to the public.
Emphasize what went
euphemize what went wrong. Become indignant poor judgment or mistakes. Disparage any
Accuse
critics
Don't
at
tell
well,
the
and
any suggestion of
f^cts other than
your own.
of Monday-morning generalship. Finally, accept general
responsibility at the top, thus clearing everybody at fault below.
Our civilian leaders eventually recognized the need to forestall future Desert Ones even before the military did. Several years later, in 1987, against the opposition of the Defense Department, Congress enacted legislation creating the Special Operations
Command (SOCOM)
under
a four-star general, to provide the planning, coordination, and supervi-
democ-
sion lacking in Desert One. In Just Cause, the mission to restore
racy to Panama, and in the 1991 Gulf War this
I
continued working for
liked and admired all tor.
we were to find out how well
overhaul worked.
Consequently,
ings.
I
Graham Clay tor
my
for the next eight months.
Pentagon bosses, Kester, Duncan, and Clay-
approached election day
I
I
had supported Jimmy Carter
in 1976.
1980 with mixed
in
This time,
I
feel-
could not. The
Carter administration had been mauled by double-digit inflation and the
humiliating spectacle of the Americans held hostage in Iran. Desert
had been a military and psychological security, admittedly,
was not
work had begun on nearly time of the Gulf War. for this pioneering
neering,
who
whole, the
all
all
the
A Brown
disaster.
national
bad. During Harold Brown's watch,
weapons systems
subordinate
was William
The record on
One
who
that
matured by the
deserved major credit
Perry, director of research
and engi-
became Secretary of Defense himself. But on the vibrations coming out of the Carter White House were not later
comforting to the military profession. Dropping the B-i bomber was wise, but other force cuts were so Staff,
damaging
that the
Army
Chief of
General Meyer, went before Congress complaining of a "hollow
Army," thus handing the Reagan forces a potent campaign withdrew the meat cleaver and started defenses, but
it
was too
sion of Afghanistan had tations of a
late.
By
made his
then, the
to build
December 1 979 Soviet
administration look naive in
harmonious era of East- West relations
drop our guard.
issue. Carter
up the country's
in
its
inva-
expec-
which we could
In the Carter Defense
The case of Master Sergeant Roy insensitivity
the
P.
23
Department
Benavidez epitomized for
toward the military during
this time.
me
1
an
Benavidez had earned
Army's second-highest decoration, the Distinguished Service Cross,
for valor in Vietnam,
where
1968 he had saved the
in
trapped Special Forces troops, in the course of which he nine times. Years
lives
of eight
was wounded
additional evidence of his bravery
later, after
was
reviewed, Benavidez 's award was upgraded to the Medal of Honor.
This highest military decoration was traditionally presented by the President,
armed
which would have given a boost
ego of the
to the battered
forces at the time. But President Carter never got around to pin-
ning the medal on Benavidez.
That November
and mailed
it
1
980,
back
to
1
my absentee ballot for Ronald Reagan
checked
New
York.
I
knew
who
officers
did not vote in
presidential elections in order to remain politically pure, depriving
themselves of registering a preference for their
That was going too far for me.
I
my ticket.
also split
my way
about crossing party lines as
commander I
in chief.
had no hesitation
of expressing nonpartisanship.
Ronald Reagan was elected handily. At the Pentagon, we now waited for the other shoe to drop.
Who would be the next Secretary of Defense?
Soon
Reagan
after the election, a
partment. Old career hands warned predictable course. Victorious offices,
the opposition.
them
They had
Young Turks would
as if they
lost.
at the de-
me that the transition would follow a
making a few peremptory courtesy
but otherwise treating
team showed up
transition
calls
fan out to assigned
on leading lame ducks,
had leprosy. After
What could
they
all,
they were
know? The newcomers
would be
attracted to the disgruntled in the department, those just wait-
ing to
them how
tell
terrible the previous administration
had been. Since
these complainers had not gotten along with the losers, the transition
team would assume Little
that they
must know what they were talking about.
thought would be given to
Every gripe would be taken
why
the grumblers
at face value.
had fared poorly.
Out goes the baby,
the bath-
water, and the bathtub.
The
first
Reagan wave
to hit the
Pentagon beaches was led by
William Van Cleave, heading the Defense Transition Team. Van Cleave
and his band prowled the corridors finding and felonies and were impatient
They prepared
fat transition
to
poke
all
kinds of misdemeanors
into classified military plans.
books of issues
to
be resolved, failings to
* COLIN
232
L.
POWELL
be fixed, people to be dumped. At this point, a new Secretary of Defense
had not yet been named, and Mr. Van Cleave and company were working in splendid isolation. Finally, the other shoe fell,
and a shudder went through the Pen-
tagon. Caspar Weinberger, his reputation hoiked in the
ment of Health, Education and Welfare Secretary of Defense.
berger was
known
make
"Cap
as
the Knife,"
was
to
be
comfort each other. At least Wein-
tried to
as a strong manager.
gan. His knife might
more
We
Nixon Depart-
He was
close to Ronald Rea-
the department leaner, but also tougher and
efficient.
Van Cleave and
his transition
team happily presented the Secretary-
designate their blueprint for a new, improved Pentagon. Weinberger
management
quickly showed his
style.
He asked Van Cleave when he
The following June, he rephed. Weinberger thanked Van Cleave and told him his services were "no longer required." Van Cleave had fallen victim to the same psychology the outwould
finish his work.
going administration had suffered from him.
He was
not Weinberger's
man. What could he know? Early in January
1
own advance party arrived. One Naval Academy graduate and recent
981, Weinberger's
member was Richard Armitage, a member of Senator Robert Dole's thirties, big, bald, brassy, built like
staff.
an
step into the ring next Saturday at the
was one of
Armitage was
anvil,
he looked as
about, and that he
six years in
pumped
if
mid-
he could
World Federation of Wrestling.
the people he talked to about the transition.
Armitage had spent
in his
learned that
I
much
to talk
which gave us
less to
Vietnam, which gave us
iron every morning,
I
talk about. I
was
told
one day
to give a
hand
director of political appointments. lican former state
needed a twenties,
worked Ms.
job.
I
The
title
newcomer, Weinberger's
suggested a grizzled Repub-
chairman or a defeated
was introduced instead
Marybel
for
to another
to a
GOP
congressman who
young woman
Batjer, the daughter of a
in her
mid-
Nevada judge. She had
Cahfomia's Bechtel Corporation, as had Cap Weinberger.
Batjer's political
mentor was Senator Paul Laxalt, Republican from
Nevada. Despite her youth, she struck me as bright, capable, and mature
beyond her
years.
One
thing could be said for the newcomers, especially Armitage and
Batjer.
Unlike the previous transition know-it-alls, they were shrewd
enough
to realize that a
23 3
Department
In the Carter Defense
new broom may sweep
They discov-
too clean.
They
ered a base of knowledge in the department worth preserving.
rec-
ognized that some people actually knew what they were doing and need not be fired on the spot.
They
willingly sought help from older hands,
instead of stumbling around in the corridors of their
own
ignorance.
Because Weinberger had once been director of the Office of Manage-
ment and Budget, and because there,
I
I
had served
was dispatched one evening,
bring
him
to the
hotel
was
filled
Pentagon
to
my White House Fellowship
shortly before the inauguration, to
look over his
new
with prosperous-looking Republicans, flushed with vic-
eagerly awaiting the inaugural festivities.
tory,
The lobby of his
office.
from the desk and went up designate opened the door.
I
to Weinberger's
He was
had myself announced room. The Secretary-
dressed impeccably but soberly, his
manner somehow formal yet warm. He greeted me with a kind of Victorian cordiality.
said that he
honored,
I
He
flattered
was delighted
me that he remembered me from OMB and we would be working together again. While
wondered what those words might augur
for
my
hopes of
going back to the Army.
That was what Alma wanted I
was unaware:
ral habitat, I
I
was much more
much more
was working with
ries,
and values. The
more
relaxed,
much more
a
man
in his natu-
fun in straight military assignments. In the Army,
political
assignments were far more frustrating and
was a comparison with working on
easily under the military
boxes of politics.
my
She pointed out something of which
band of brothers who shared backgrounds, memo-
a
tension-ridden. There fix things
too.
And while assignments
hood than
cars.
You could
in the messier gear-
abroad had kept
me away from
family for long periods, working in the Office of the Secretary of
Defense had almost the same
effect. I
was gone before
my children were
awake and came home
after they
On January 20,
arrived at the office early as usual.
suites
198 1
were empty.
,
1
An
had gone
to bed.
The executive
unnatural quiet had settled over the Eisenhower
Corridor. Passing the torch
from one administration
to another leaves a
vacuum in the halls of power. A few days before, I had chatted with Graham Claytor as he cleared out his desk. He and the rest of the
brief
Democratic Defense appointees had fought the good fight and I
had a sense
that they
lost. Yet,
were not devastated by Carter's departure,
not from the national security perspective.
I
liked
at least
and admired Graham
234
* COLIN
L.
POWELL He was soon back on his favorite of Amtrak, and deserved much of the credit
Claytor and was going to miss him. track,
becoming president
for saving the country's rail passenger service.
On
his last
day
in the Pentagon,- Claytor held a small
mony. At the end, he shook prised I
if
you end up
as
remember thinking
prophecy.
my
hand and
Chairman of the
that
it
awaids cere-
said, "C^olin, don't
be sur-
Joint Chiefs of Staff someday."
was a nice compliment, but an unlikely
even The Reaganites—and a Close Call
I
WAS WALKING PAST THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE'S OFFICE JUST AFTER THE
inauguration
when
a familiar figure with the compact, wiry frame of a
had been) stepped
wrestler (which he
into the hallway.
He wore no
jacket and his shirtsleeves were rolled up, very un-Pentagon. "Mr. Carlucci,"
I
said,
"welcome
to the department."
He stopped. "Oh, yeah, Colin Powell," he said with a smile. "I remember you from OMB. Good to see you again. You're going to be my military assistant,
I
understand."
In the years since
we had been
become an inside-the-Beltway tugal
together at
star.
He
OMB,
Frank Carlucci had
had served as ambassador to Por-
between 1975 and 1978, a time when the administration was
worried about that country swinging from a rightist dictatorship to com-
munism. Carlucci had enabled the United States course until Portugal could find
number two more
its
own way
to
often than Avis, deputy at
to steer a subtle center
democracy.
OMB,
He had been
undersecretary at
256
* COLIN
HEW,
and deputy director
L.
POWELL CIA. He was now waiting out Senate
at the
confirmation as Weinberger's number two at Defense. His talents had
been recognized and employed by both
parties,
which tainted him
in the
eyes of some conservative purists. To them, Carlucci had conmiitted an especially grievous sin. During the Carter adipinistrs^tion, he
CIA under Admiral
in the
on the
right for Turner's wholesale firing of covert operatives.
House poHticos did not want Carlucci
As I had observed
Defense, nor did powerful Sen-
at
in
Weinberger's handling of Bill Van Cleave, the Sec-
with his polished, Old World manner, had a will of
part of this portable entourage,
Taft
IV
him
at
White
Helms. But Weinberger did want him, and purists be damned.
ator Jesse
retary,
had served
whose name provoked rage
Stansfield Turner,
steel.
Weinberger had brought William Howard
Defense as his general counsel, the position Taft had
to
Also, as
filled for
HEW
"Mr. Secretary,"
I
me know what
said to Carlucci, 'let
I
can do for
you."
"For one thing, don't
"Okay,
I'll
stick to
"Not Mr. Carlucci
me I
call
Mr. Secretary," he
Mr. Carlucci," either,
I
said.
responded.
and certainly not Mr. Ambassador. Just
call
Frank." finally accepted that
"But,"
I
behind closed doors
added, "don't embarrass
front of all these generals.
This
we
me
isn't
They
me by
it
would be Cohn and Frank.
forcing
me
to call
are never going to call
you Frank
in
you Frank openly.
HEW. You're running the armed forces of the United States, and
don't caU our bosses Jim Bob, or Freddie, or Frank."
Carlucci was finally sworn in on February 4 over in a deal that
ment
ham
brought Fred
Helms 's
objections
Ikle, a stainless conservative, to the depart-
as undersecretary of defense for policy. Carlucci took over Gra-
Claytor's old job and office.
And
I
remained
in place,
now
as
Carlucci 's senior military assistant.
The man mate
so modest in forms of address enjoyed playing the
insider.
One day when
unlikely context,
I
finally said,
consum-
Carlucci kept referring to "Cap" in an
"Weinberger?" No, Frank explained, he
meant Carlos Andres Perez, charismafic president of Venezuela.
amused by
the contrasts
between
his style
and
his substance.
I
was
Frank
could be planning Machiavellian machinations while changing the diaper on his baby daughter, Kristin,
Saturdays
when
his wife, Marcia,
whom he brought to the Pentagon on was
tied
up with her job.
The Reaganites — and
"I
want you
few days held in
into the
to the
Munich every February and sponsored by
a
German pubhshing
magnate, Baron von Kleist. Heavy-duty papers with Strategic
237
Close Call
Wehrkunde with me," Carlucci informed me a new administration. The Wehrkunde was a conference
go
to
a
titles
hke
New
Paradigm for Europe" were delivered. National security wonks
hungered "Fine,"
to I
go
to the
Wehrkunde. have the Air Force lay on a plane."
told Frank. "I'll
"No," he said, "just get us a couple of seats on a commercial did as Frank asked, and
I
''A
we
trotted out to Dulles Airport.
flight."
we
There
waited while our departure was delayed for hours because of an engine
breakdown. Frank eyed his watch nervously. Frank took his
first-class seat, to
We
which, by rank, he was entitled.
on moving. "Where you going, Colin?" he asked. Frank," flight.
I
Consequently,
said.
And we
lost
we
and
finally boarded, I
kept
only rate coach,
"I
could not work together during the
another day of work coming back by accommodating
ourselves to the airline schedule.
my office than General Robert "Dutch" Huyser, commander of the Military Airlift Command, pulled me by the ear. "That was dumb," Huyser said. How could he provide secure communication when we were off flying Pan Am? How could he safeguard top-secret I
no sooner got back to
documents? The next time we bypassed miUtary official travel,
it
was
off with
my
aircraft designated for
head. Frank finally agreed, and
we
started using military planes.
One
became apparent about the Reagan administration: the generation was back in the saddle. The President's mili-
thing soon
World War
II
tary screen credits
the
Hollywood
and he liked
to
may have been modest
front
—but
dwell on
the
it.
war was
—he made
training films
on
a defining experience for him,
Cap Weinberger had
from private
risen
to
captain in the Pacific theater, serving under General MacArthur.
There he had met his wife, Jane, an Army nurse.
He too was shaped by
that era.
One morning in
a staff meefing, Weinberger
me, "I'm puzzled. Are you cers
on
my
all in
staff in uniform."
become common during
mused to Carl Smith and
the military or not?
We
I
seldom see
offi-
explained that wearing civvies had
the early seventies to
make
it
appear that
fewer military personnel were serving in Washington. Weinberger har-
* COLIN
238
rumphed and word went
L.
POWELL
said, "If you're in the military,
out,
and
that
you wear a uniform." The
wa^ that.
"There's something that bothers a lot of us around here,"
one day.
I
Secretary
explained
Brown
how we had been
to present
I
told Carlucci
unable to get President Carter or
Master Sergeant koy Benavidez the Medal
of Honor he had earned. Benavidez had performed his gallant deeds in 1968;
it
was now 1981.
his due,"
I
said.
would mean a
"It
The idea leaped
lot to
us to see this hero get
from Carlucci
like a spark
to
Wein-
berger to the White House. Reagan's image maker, Michael Deaver, seized on the possibilities.
A
Democratic administration,
was
President. Pull out
all
Hispanic-American, neglected during a finally to
be honored by a Republican
the stops.
The scenario chosen was for President Reagan to come tagon. The ceremony was to be held on February 24, 1 981,
to the
Pen-
in the
huge
center courtyard, with the whole Pentagon invited. Ordinarily, a military officer
would read
medal around the said,
"This
is
recipient's neck.
something
some experience with
and the President would hang the
the citation
Reagan looked over
the citation and
I'd like to read," pointing out that
scripts.
he had had
He thus became the first President ever to
recount the heroic deeds personally before bestowing the nation's highest military honor.
marked had
Even more than inauguration
the changing of the guard for the
to hide in civvies.
A hero received
armed
day, that afternoon
forces.
a hero's due.
We
The
no longer
military ser-
vices had been restored to a place of honor.
More
substantial proof that a
new
era had
dawned came
as the
new
administration took over the defense budget. Ronald Reagan had run on
a strong defense platform and against the "hollow
Shy Meyer had deplored. Even though
Army"
that
General
the final Carter budget,
the Republicans inherited, increased defense spending
which
by over 5 per-
word went out from Weinberger's office asking the service chiefs how much more they needed. This was Christmas in February. This was tennis without a net. The chiefs began submitting wish lists. The cent,
requests initially totaled approximately a 9 percent real increase in
defense spending.
heard words
I
I
with Frank Carlucci and
sat in the Secretary's office
had never expected
to hear in
my
life.
That was not
enough. Weinberger ordered the chiefs back to the drawing boards.
They went from
their
wish
lists to their
dream
lists,
pulling out propos-
— The Reaganites — and
als
a
they never expected to see the hght of day.
^
Close Call
The
latest figures
259
went
to
Management and Budget, and the word came back, not enough. 0MB 's conclusion was based on no strategic analysis; the Reagan White House was simply telling the Pentagon to spend more money. The military happily obeyed. Manna, they realized, does not fall the Office of
from heaven every day. Weinberger managed to up the inherited Carter budget by or $25.8 billion, the pattern for the foreseeable future.
embarked on
percent,
We
had not
a pointless spending spree. After successive lean years,
armed forces were
the
1 1
poor shape. The glamour investments
in
research for sophisticated weapons, primarily
—had been well funded.
But the bread-and-butter expenditures that support the services and
make
had been neglected. The forces were
military life tolerable
tumbledown house with a
that
like a
BMW parked in the driveway. The Reagan
budgets funded pay raises, spare parts, training,
modem communica-
tions centers, repair facilities, child-care centers, family housing, dental clinics
—items
that in
And Congress
II.
Cap
the Knife
many
had become,
to his critics.
Cap
War
The once-feared
readily approved these increases.
the Ladle.
Those of us on
were undernourished.
We
to restore the country's military strength, purpose,
and
the inside, however,
needed a ladle
cases had been neglected since World
knew
that the services
pride.
Late in February, in
my
capacity as Carlucci's gatekeeper,
I
made an
appointment for the new Secretary of the Army, John O. Marsh, see Frank. Jack
congressman
Marsh was
whom I knew
to
a thoughtful, soft-spoken former Virginia
only
slightly. I
ness was that day with Carlucci, but the hallway. There, the
Jr.,
had no idea what
when he came
mild-mannered Marsh tossed
out,
his busi-
he led
me
into
me a hand grenade
with the pin pulled out. "Colin," he said, "I'd like you to consider resigning from the military. the
Army." He added
that
Fd
like
you
to
become undersecretary of
he had just checked out the idea with Carlucci
and the White House personnel office and had a green
Though
stunned,
for being able to
Marsh
also
I
understood what was going on.
move
hoped
the Pentagon bureaucracy.
light.
had a reputation
More
to the point,
to place a qualified minority executive in a senior
composed almost 40 percent of would have to sleep on this one.
pohtical position in an organization
minority soldiers.
I
I
told
Marsh
I
* COLIN
260 I
Alma my days
ordinarily spared
would change both our
We
did not lose
POWELL
L.
much
at the office.
lives so radically that
sleep over
general with a good future.
was a
it. I
had
I
to
But
this decision
have her opinion.
forty-four-year-old brigadier
The Army was my
Resigning and taking
life.
would confirm everything I wanted to spike
a political appointment
my own
suspicion, sometimes in
soul, that
I
was becoming more
—
the
politi-
Alma agreed lOO percent. And a plunge into the uncerof political appointments made her uncomfortable. The next
cian than soldier. tain waters
day,
thanked Marsh for the honor, but turned him down.
I
The day
after
Marsh's
with him, but, by now, four years. "Frank,''
I
offer, I
had been
said, "I
I
went
in to see Carlucci. I liked
working
in the front-office suites for nearly
want
to
go back
to
doing what brigadier
generals are supposed to do."
"Yeah, sure, we'll get around to to
it,"
he answered and then proceeded
unload a bundle of new assignments on me.
At talk
end of the day, before going home,
the
I
liked to stretch out and
shop with now Rear Admiral John Baldwin, Carlucci 's other mili-
One March
tary assistant.
evening, Baldwin said, "Cohn, you'll never
get out of here."
"Why
not?"
"First, Carlucci
has no incentive to
He
He's not military.
you
real boss is
I
asked.
Shy Meyer, and he would prefer
Jack Baldwin's words rang out like a
morning,
I
went
away too
deeper and deeper."
in
the second reason?"
"Your
you go. He's happy with you.
doesn't understand our need not to stay
long. He's just getting
"And
let
to
keep you here."
fire bell in the night.
into Carlucci's office again
and
The next
said, "Frank, I've got
to go."
"Yeah, yeah, we'll talk next week."
By aged
He
early spring, however, to pull
assigned
it
off.
me
by constantly badgering Carlucci,
ADC
job
is
for operations
and
(Mechanized), Fort Carson, Colorado.
an apprenticeship for I
command began
of a
telling
full division. I
my
friends about
To my surprise, many whose judgment I valued did my enthusiasm, including Major General Dick Lawrence, whom I had served as deputy G-3 in the Americal Division in
not share
under
commander
as assistant division
could not have chosen better myself.
my good
man-
General Meyer proved unexpectedly understanding.
training, 4th Infantry Division
The
I
fortune.
The Reaganites — and
who had
Vietnam, and Julius Becton, College, both of "Colin,"
whom were members
Lawrence
told
going to Fort Carson."
uneasy vibes,
me,
Why?
Lawrence
said,
"I I
a
me
steered
^
Close Call
26
1
War
to the National
of the armor fraternity.
would give anything not
wanted
to
know.
to see
He had "bad
you
mojo,"
because of the 4th Mech's commander,
Major General John W. Hudachek. He knew Hudachek, and the guy was, well, said.
difficult.
"He shouldn't have been given
Juhus Becton called
me
to express similar reservations.
warned of potential problems involving wife. I
I
was not discouraged.
I
my
I
was
also
my new commanding general's
was eager
had always gotten along with
Dick
a division,"
to get
back
to the troops.
commanders, good guys
like
And Red
Barrett and tough guys like Tiger Honeycutt.
I
had come
to
admire the rare Carlucci mix, tough and energetic in pur-
suing his goals, yet thoughtful and kind in his dealings with people.
I
continued to be impressed by his lack of ego. Frank Carlucci did not
need people scattering petals before him.
me
which he awarded
we
He
threw a farewell party
at
the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, and
parted as close friends.
The
last
people
I
goodbye
said
to before
were Rich Armitage and Marybel
Batjer.
heading out to Fort Carson
Rich was about
assistant secretary for international security affairs.
become
The man cussed like
a sailor and spoke sense in simple declarative sentences.
him and he understood me.
to
I
We had connected immediately.
understood I
had made
not simply a service friend or a job friend, but a friend of the heart.
Marybel,
who probably
doorman before she came
to the Pentagon, displayed a native shrewd-
ness at sizing up people, a talent invaluable in ical
And
could not have distinguished an admiral from a
someone handling
polit-
appointments. The three of us had informal channels reaching into
almost every comer of the Pentagon, the only
way to tap into
the stream
of information flowing beneath the department's formal reporting sys-
And almost every day, we exchanged this useful intelligence. I did not know it then, but this relationship would endure and become invalu-
tem.
able for the rest of
my career.
For a lad from the South Bronx whose idea of a view was to stand on an apartment house rooftop and see Brooklyn, the intoxicating.
The post
is
situated at a point
site
of Fort Carson was
where the Great Plains
col-
COLIN
262 lide
POWELL
L.
with the Rocky Mountains. Pikes Peak and Cheyenne Mountain,
towering hke twin thrones, are visible from Fort Carson. "There's too
much
Alma had
sky,"
from?" And she missed the
trees. I
and the Rockies somehow dwarfe^ a person.
less prairie
Colorado Springs
is
a
handsome city built on the fortunes of nineteenth-
century gold-mining barons. military organizations, of
emy
"Where did it all come knew what she meant. The vast, tree-
said on the drive out.
north of town, with
The present gold mines
which the prize
its
is
the U.S. Air Force
airy architecture
brightest
young men and women
NORAD,
the North
Acad-
and four thousand of the
in the country in its cadet wing.
American Air Defense Command,
Cheyenne Mountain and
are three major
is
located inside
also at nearby Peterson Air Force Base.
NORAD monitored the skies for enemy bomber and missile strikes and NORAD's
operated the forces to intercept attackers.
come back
natural setting
many Canadians and Americans who
so magnificent that
is
served there
to the area to retire.
South of town
is
Fort Carson,
home
of the 4th Infantry Division
(Mechanized), the blue-collar brother-in-law. The 4th hellish racket with
its
guns;
it
chewed up
Mech made
the landscape with
its
a
tanks
and unleashed thousands of libidinous nineteen- and twenty-year-olds
pumped more money
onto Colorado Springs. The division also
into the
economy than the other two organizations combined and, consequently, was welcomed, even loved a bit, like a rough, self-made mil-
local
lionaire uncle.
Three
flat
ranch houses had been built on top of a bare
of the post, one for the sion
commander
ADC
for operations
for support.
Alma was
still
commanding and
on the edge
general, one for the assistant divitraining,
The houses provided
not about to get the
hill
home
my job,
and one for the
living space but
no charm.
she had dreamed of for a gen-
eral's lady.
On my
first
modem,
day
fifties-style
my predecessor. new boss
at Fort
aide.
Carson,
I
walked up
to the
second floor of a
headquarters building and had a conversation with
Brigadier General Grail L. Brookshire. Afterward,
Captain Fred Flynn, took
commanding
the 4th
Brookshire and Flynn,
I
me
across the hall to meet
my
my new
Mech, Major General Hudachek. Both
had noticed, had been strangely
reticent about
The Reaganites — and
man.
the
Close Call
a
263
'A'
entered a large office, the walls covered with the usual
I
plaques and power photographs, the windows affording a panoramic
view of the parade ground and the Rockies. There
medium
of
My
His main interests were training and management.
to business.
would be
responsibility
training.
He spoke
place impressed me. After ten minutes, he
was
As
over.
from him.
learn
officer
brisk no-nonsense handshake and got
gently on the subject, without wasting words.
tion
met a stocky
height with close-cropped hair and a serious aspect.
Hudachek greeted me with a
down
I
I
in
clear that the conversa-
sure
knows
his stuff.
no smile had crossed
also noticed that
this first encounter.
The programs he had
made
thought, this guy
I left, I
forcefully and intelli-
I
can
his lips during
Jack Hudachek was clearly not a Red Barrett, a
Charles Gettys, or a Gunfighter Emerson.
The mission of the 4th Mech was the battlefields of Europe.
been scant.
And
so
I
My
to fight the
communist-bloc armies on
experience, particularly with tanks, had
set out to qualify
myself as an expert gunner on an
M-60A1 tank. As division ADC, I did not have to do this. But coaches who have never played lack a certain credibility. I began my training under a trio of tough tanker sergeants who were respectful, but unawed by
my It
single
was
star.
my first day on the qualification course,
commander,
as tank
meters off as
we
denly, the tank
elevated the
tank
came
training the
and
main gun on a
I
was performing
target
one thousand
barreled over what appeared to be flat terrain. Sud-
nosed down. Realizing
main gun
that
tube, but too late.
I
we had hit
a dip,
I
furiously
heard a sickening scrape. The
to a halt.
You don't spit into the wind. You side. You don't run ships aground.
Certain things simply are not done. don't
And gas.
mount horses from
the right
tankers never stick their
main gun tube
into the dirt or run out of
Infantrymen believe that tankers will urinate in the fuel tank rather
than be caught empty.
And tankers elevate the gun tube before,
not
after,
going into a decline.
The sergeant looked
at
me with weary patience.
got to take a break and check the tube."
tube was not bent.
By the
third pass,
gunner.
We I
swabbed
was
it
"Sir,"
he
We bore-sighted
it.
said,
out and were soon on our
nailing the target,
and
I
"we've
Luckily the
way
again.
qualified as expert tank
^ COLIN
264 I
POWELL
L.
was not naive enough
assigned to instruct a general
up by a crack gunner,
myself too much
to give is
loader,
rarely a pickup team.
and
my
playing the expert's badge on
credit.
had been propped
I
enjoyed
driver. Nevertheless, I
desk.
And few
A tank crew dis-
experiences are more
exhilarating than racing along at thirty miles an hour with fifty tons of
iron under you.
We
how much practice ammunition a tank One thing we knew was that Soviet crews fired about one-tenth as many rounds in training as American crews did. The cost differential was tremendous. Every time we were trying
crew had
from a
fired
to figure out
to fire to
tank,
it
become
proficient.
cost the taxpayers
from $200
on the type of round. And each of our crews hundred rounds a
year.
The Army's
to $1,000,
fired
approximately one
simulators and devices like video
games
become
ammo. We wanted
proficient using less live
combination of actual the best performance.
firing
One
had designed
training technicians that
depending
would allow our crews to find out
what
and the use of training devices produced
tank battalion was given the
maximum num-
ber of rounds. Another got fewer rounds. Another got fewer rounds
and more time on the simulator- trainers. The acid differently prepared battalions out to the
them
the
test
to
win even
new
if
men
to take these
best.
be "none of the above." The battalions
did best were those with the best commanders.
could motivate his
was
to excel
A
under any conditions. "We're gonna
they give us one lousy round" was the winning attitude.
technologies were adopted, and they did
what make
units succeed.
the art of accomplishing
that
good commander
make
The way
more than
I
But we comman-
leadership
is
management says
is
like to put
the science of
The
a difference.
never lost sight of the reality that people, particularly gifted ders, are
still
major qualification range, give
same number of rounds, and see which did
The answer turned out
to
it,
possible.
General Hudachek's leadership style was that of a tough overseer. The job got done, but by coercion, not motivation. Staff conferences turned into harangues. Inspections
became
The endless negative staff. The 4th Mech was a
inquisitions.
pressure exhausted the unit conmianders and
capable ship, but not a happy ship. Given his customary dour mood,
was astonished one day when
the general
came bounding
into
I
my office
The Keaganites — and
and
doing a great job. I'm going
said, 'Towell, you're
report
and see
if
two
stars.
my
was one of
I
class, a special report could give
Hudachek
called in his aide, a captain
machinery
set the report
to put in a special
you can't make the next board." The selection board
major generals was about to meet, and while brigadiers in
in
me
named
had
I
seemed
Soon
to
after
you did the job
came
Philip Coker, to
The personnel
to nothing.
at
It
seemed
office
at least sixty
right,
at Fort
he would
I
Carson,
was informed
I
treat
you
poked around
right.
my
family went.
to find out
that Episcopal services
9:00 a.m. in the Catholic chaplain's
Sunday we walked down the
I
to say that despite his prickly
be the Episcopal missionary wherever
our arrival
our congregation met.
Sundays
at
not, to receive special consideration. Nevertheless,
appreciated Hudachek's effort. personality, if
the junior
an early shot
informed us that an officer had to be in his assignment I
for
motion.
In the end, the special report
days, which
263
Close Call
a
officel
where
were held
The following
side aisle as the Catholics filed into the
We made our way to the office in the back, where eight folding chairs had been set out. We sat down, and half an hour later, the chapel for mass.
Episcopal priest showed up, a lieutenant colonel in the Chaplain Corps.
He passed around a hymnal that I had never seen before and began the service. Two women strummed guitars accompanying what sounded to me more like a folk song than a hymn. I tried to get into the spirit as best I
could, but yearned for the old-time religion.
After the service,
I
went up and introduced myself to the
turned out to be Colin
War
P.
Kelly
III,
nounced your
was an
first
name
Irish variant,
"Cah-lin."
I
all
I
said.
these years?" "Coh-lin," he said, which
how
I
had
who
said
started out British-style but
had
yielded to peer pressure as a kid after his father
name.
British,
became
a household
"Why do we hold our service in a Catholic office? Why don't we have our own church?" There were too
And
priest's
''How have you pro-
and considered incorrect by the
explained
who
son of the American hero of World
"I've got a question, Father Kelly,"
II.
priest,
then
I
asked,
few Episcopalians, he
said. I
suggested that
if
the setting
were more
we might attract more. I knew that the old World War 11 barcomplexes of the kind we had at Carson contained wooden
appealing,
racks
chapels. "Please find us one of those. Father," to consider replacing the folksy
I said. I
also asked
him
Songs of Living Waters hymnal with
I
COLIN
266
POWELL
L.
something containing the old anthems
God."
He
like
"A Mighty
Our more
Fortress Is
eventually found us a chapel and the service took on a
traditional flavor.
We
had one child out of the nest by now. Ju^t before we
Carson,
Fort
left for
my son, Mike, had graduated from Lake Braddock High School
Mike had come out with us to Fort Carson that summer, but by August he was off to the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. I never tried to tell him what he should do with in Burke, Virginia.
his
life.
But
I
did try to guide Mike. For the previous year,
had ridden
I
herd on him to get his college applications submitted on time. fussed over his essays like a schoolmarm. Point and had also
won
a four-year
which would be a blessing
He had been accepted
Army ROTC
I
at
had
West
scholarship, either of
for our family fortunes.
I
was pleased when
he chose the College of William and Mary. The service academies are prestigious,
and
I
was proud
that he
had been accepted
to
West
Point.
Still, I
suspected that Mike would get a more rounded preparation for
life in
a school
should he
settle
more broadly focused than
a military academy.
on a military
man had
career, the old
badly with his geology major and an
not done
all that
ROTC commission.
That year, Linda entered Cheyenne Mountain High School
uprooting did not seem to affect her. She was on her finalist.
We
eleven, in a Catholic school, the Pauline
in Col-
Somehow
orado Springs, her third high school in three years.
National Merit Scholarship
And
way
to
the
becoming
a
enrolled Annemarie,
now
We
liked
Memorial Academy.
the discipline the nuns provided, though they could
do
little
to control
her irrepressible nature. Annemarie became a cheerleader. She
fell in
love with ice skating (certainly not an inheritance of her Southern
mother or Bronx located in the
father),
and she took classes
Broadmoor
Alma expected to be
Olympic-style rink
Hotel, where she glided like a swan.
as active in volunteer
been on previous posts. While dent of the
in the
in
work at Carson
Armed Forces Hostess
Association, which performed a
A sergeant's wife, for example,
could
come
Hostess Association in the Pentagon, and learn pitals, rents,
had
Washington, she had served as presi-
popular service for families facing the anxieties of moving globe.
as she
all
all
about schools, hos-
and just about everything from the temperature
religious activities at her husband's next post.
over the
to the offices of the
to local
At Fort Carson, Alma
The Keaganites — and
was hoping
to put her old
audiology
She was surprised, however,
pital.
a
back
skills
to run into a
261
Close Call
work
to
post hos-
at the
wary resistance among
other wives to getting involved in volunteer work.
We
were soon
to
find out why.
from fellow
started hearing complaints
I
commander
Fort Carson. While General
at
subordinates, the wives reported that Mrs.
officers that
we had
a co-
Hudachek rode herd on
Hudachek did
the
his
same on
them. The Hudacheks were a devoted couple, and the general had made
running the post.
his wife his partner in
nently on
the advisory councils he
all
missary, the
PX, the child-care
Ann Hudachek
had
up
set
served promi-
to oversee the
com-
She obviously had a
center, everything.
deep commitment to the welfare of the soldiers under her husband's
command and
to their families.
Hudacheks went about grievances. Finally,
queen far. I
their roles.
had been watching
An ADC I
was
leadership. to their
months and saw morale sagging.
Some commanding while they
back and watch. Hudachek stood
sit
I
—or
"Why
I
to talk to
"Colin,"
cus-
had a sense
Tom
told
at the
he would have been just
that
Which
division,
did not
and we were
make what
I set
wiser.
Blagg, the chief of
under his thumb.
wanted
By Army
generals are happy to delegate broadly
two ADCs disappeared. He ran the
if his
out to do any easier
I
I
to act.
permitted to study at the master's knee.
Tom
Carson had gone too
Fort Carson to soak up the skills and mores for division
ADCs
happy
way both
the lightning rod for these
situation at Fort
for four
it
other end of the continuum. as
became
a division conmiander on training wheels.
is
at
But the
had a responsibility
I
I
the brusque
decided, yes, pay the king his shilling, and the
too, if necessary.
believed that
tom,
I
The rub was
staff,
sat outside
Hudachek's
Tom that the division had do
and
serious problems, and
Hudachek about how we might
said, "don't
office
fix the situation.
it."
not?"
"Because,"
Tom went on,
"its
even admit. I'm warning you
—
not a problem
Hudachek can discuss
or
you won't help him. And you might hurt
yourself."
Tom was no had managed tagon.
I
fool,
and only a fool would dismiss his counsel.
to navigate in
was sure
I
some of the
trickiest currents
Still, I
of the Pen-
could handle a talk with Hudachek. "Tom,
I
don't
* COLIN
268
have any choice,"
POWELL
L.
I said. '1
would be neglecting
this one."
The next morning
"when you're
free I'd like to
"Busy," Hudachek said.
Toward the end of the
I
is it?"
to
my
Hudachek asked
as
I
I
came
in.
training items.
think
to find a
way
to
started tiptoe-
I
with the wives.
The response was She wants
ideas.
to
little
more
a blank
do so much
their families." Still, a stony silence. "I think
pursue her interests with a
the other wives."
Then
we could do more
pushed on. "Ann has wonderful and
office.
day, his secretary informed me, "He's free now."
are not as involved as they should be."
for the troops
said,
I
t
^
went back
I
ing into the minefield. "Sir,
stare. I
ducked
if I
have a word with you on some training
went over a few diversionary
They
duty
leaned into the general's office. "Sir,"
I
matters and about the wives."
"What
my
"
'
we need
participation
The conversation did not end, or even develop.
by
just
It
withered. I
no sooner got
in the
door that night than Alma
said,
"What did you
do?"
"Did
I
do something?"
"Ann Hudachek called about an hour ago and asked me over for a cup of tea. 'Alma,' she told me, of you and Colin.
We
T'm
thought
we
The general and I
are really fond " could at least count on you two.'
so sad.
my visit as soon as I left continued going about my duties,
Obviously, Hudachek had called his wife about his office. Strike
rehshing
one?
I
nevertheless
my work with the
troops, trying to put post gossip, suspicion,
and intrigue behind me.
While about the
I
was
how
at Fort
Army was engaged
Carson, the
best to check on unit readiness.
Annual General Inspection.
The
in a hot debate
traditionalists favored
had been a battalion exec on
I
ond Vietnam tour when we had
to carry out
reviews in the middle of a war. To
me
tor arrives
an inspection once a year was the
enemy in
and
the cellar.
and hope you don't
attack, pray that they
do
fall
it
Look
apart afterward.
later
you
wash
the cur-
great the day the inspec-
And, should the
just after the inspection
peak form, because two weeks
habits.
sec-
one of these exhaustive
spring cleaning approach to preparedness. Beat the rugs, tains, clean out the attic
my
will be
when you
back
to
are
your bad
The Keaganites — and
The new school of preparedness preached
a
^
Close Call
269
should be
that inspections
an ongoing process, instead of one gigantic exercise in breaking starch.
The proponents favored
hitting a
company
company
here, a
there,
unan-
nounced, until over the course of a year a whole division would be
would have
inspected. Every unit rather than just
to
be on
its
year.
Not
two weeks out of the
toes for twelve
months
surprisingly, unit
com-
manders favored the old system. Nobody welcomes a surprise attack on an unprepared position.
I,
however, was a convert to the new thinking.
way
While the debate was under Fort Carson.
me
Hudachek
told Jack
I
was not buying.
out, but
Pentagon,
in the
Strike
that this
was
I
the
extend
tried to
way
to go.
He
it
to
heard
two?
One afternoon, after I had been with the division for about nine months, the commanding officer of one of the brigades showed up at my office wearing a troubled frown. I asked him in and closed the door. He told me that a sergeant in one of his battalions had come to him charging that the man's commanding officer had become sexually involved with the sergeant's wife.
Such conduct
ously in the Army.
become,
I
As
is
devastating to morale and taken seri-
the experienced officer that
I
thought
post lawyers or the Criminal Investigation Division. Instead, to look into
and
it
myself
if so, to
told the brigade
to
me.
advise General
command and a can of
I
commander
battalion
My
commander
hope was
Hudachek
transferred. In short,
I
decided
to bring the suspect
to find out if the
that the ofticer
guy did
it,
be relieved of
hand the boss a solution instead of
script
went haywire. The
officer denied
choice but to take Hudachek the worms. 'Tine. said. "Fll take care
of
it."
He
tion nailed the officer,
never called I
down
all.
Thank you," was
all
he
and the CID. The subsequent investiga-
to
motel receipts for his
trysts.
me in again on this matter, never discussed it,
might have handled
now had no
I
then did the professional thing: he turned
the matter over to the lawyers
it."
had
worms.
But the
out that
I
should have turned the matter over for investigation to the
it
better. Just
'Thank you.
Hudachek
never pointed
I'll
take care of
Strike three?
By May 20, 1982, I had completed my first man who ten months before had wanted to major general selection board called
me
year put
at Fort
Carson. The
my name
before the
into his office. "Sit
down,"
* COLIN
270
Hudachek his
hand
He was
said.
handed
as he
said, "Is this
I
it,
ize the effect
it
a chain-smoker, and the cigarette trembled in
me
a two-page document. This
your considered judgment?"
will have,"
said.
I
And
assured me.
Army
he would be rating
was coming along
I
me
my he
fine,
again next year. "The next
excused myself,
I
left.
efficiency reports are written in code words. If
the code,
annual
He nodded. "You real-
report will take care of you," he added. Unconvinced,
got up, and
my
"This report wi|l probably end
Oh, no, Hudachek protested.
career."
was
My future hung on these pages. When I finished read-
efficiency report.
ing
POWELL
L.
you don't know
you cannot crack the meaning. For example, one box
reads,
"Promote ahead of contemporaries." Another reads, ''Promote with contemporaries."
And
a third,
"Do
not promote."
The choices seemed
clear
enough. But by now, these reports had become so inflated that you
needed
to
checked
have box one checked to remain in the running. Hudachek had
me
in
however, was nearly
tion,
a "trainer."
fatal.
become
report
Hudachek did not have
still
had
to be
Lieutenant General
Command,
whom from
I
a
man
was ignored.
in his
narrative evalua-
I
had not been sent
completed by a "senior
M.
rater."
Collier Ross, deputy
to
commander.
judgment, had flunked.
He was
the last word.
the "rater."
My
That officer was
commander of Forces
over two thousand miles away in Atlanta, Georgia,
had met exactly once. Two weeks
FORSCOM
The
a trainer, but to qualify as a division
had attended divisional prep school, and Still,
lethal.
He had praised my performance solely as
My command potential
Fort Carson to I
box two. Damaging, but not
later, I
opened an envelope
with a certain trepidation. General Ross repeated
Hudachek's praise of my
ability as a "trainer"
and added, "He deserves
command headquarters. The rater considers this more Colin's forte than command full
consideration to be a principal stajf officer in a major
at this
time and
Ross also had
to
I
concur.
check a
.
set
The words were damning enough, but of blocks. Block one meant top of the heap, ."
.
block two, some risk to promotion, and block three, forget
me
a block three. This
General Ross.
was
He had no
Hudachek's opinion. At
the
real
coup de grace.
Yet,
I
it.
Ross gave
could not blame
knowledge of my performance other than
least.
Alma
got a promotable rating. "Powell
has a truly gracious wife," Ross had written, "fully capable of representing the assigned."
Army and
supporting her husband wherever he
may be
The Reaganites — and
went
I
bed
to
professional
^
Close Call
a
271
my head in a whirl. This was the worst on me in twenty-four years in the Army.
that night with
judgment passed
Bemie Rogers had warned at charm school that 50 percent of us were not going to make two stars. I now knew which half I fell into. At GOMO, the General Officer Management Office in the Pentagon, young lieutenant colonels think, this
who move
generals around would look at this report and
walk-on-water soldier has finally been punctured. Powell
turned out to be just a political general. Can't hack
Meyer would
see the report and shake his head; Colin's been
And
the troops too long.
unblemished record I
away from
would look
the next promotion board
now, and wonder, what happened to
until
Shy
in the field.
it
at
an
guy?
this
slept poorly that night.
The next morning, however, as
had learned on
I
went
I
into the office
Vietnam
that hillside in
and
I felt fine.
Just
my
first
after witnessing
death in battle, things always look better in the morning. of self-pity. But not for long.
him what had happened.
my
begun with
which
regrets.
I
had done what
I
I
had blown
thought was
and graded
me
it,
I
right.
Tom.
told
Still, I
Hudachek had done
accordingly.
I
was not going
Hudachek, or go into a funk.
at
had
I
would
with the consequences.
live
went on enjoying
ing itself from the
retooled
around
my
resume for the
was an odd time
I
But part of my brain I sat
I
for
me, one foot I
thought
to stay at Fort
with a lieutenant colonel,
my desk at home
was not going
year before,
who
I
still
I
and
hang
to
could have been
in the service, the other
would give
you
—
it
GOMO
Carson for another said,
year.
"Funny you should
just about to get in touch with you. We'll call call us, we'll call
at
started disengag-
Army!
where?
was going
down
civilian market.
until forced to retire. Just the
to step out, but
sure
my duties.
Army. One night
undersecretary of the
It
right
whine or appeal, get mad
I
trouble had
handling of the officer involved with the sergeant's wife. That
what he thought was to
Blagg and told
The
said.
capable
going to Hudachek about the wives, he believed. To
one drove the nail into the coffin.
no
Tom
warned you,"
Tom
am
added, yes, and arguing with Jack about annual inspections,
I
my
and
"I
stopped in to see
I
I
always sounds
a call to I
ready
make
got in touch
call;
we were
back tomorrow." Don't
like a brush-off.
Now
I
was
* COLIN
272
totally in the dark.
POWELL
L.
Was
going to be good news or the ax?
this
spent
I
another uneasy night.
was
I
watching a tank gunnery exercise when
in the field
shouted over the roar of the firing that I
my
aide
GOMO was trying to reach me.
drove back to headquarters and put through a c^l to the Pentagon.
General Hudachek was leaving,
I
was informed, going
off to
Korea
to
be chief of staff of the Eighth Army. Major General Ted Jenes was coming out from Fort Leavenworth to replace him. directly
concerned me. The colonel
at
So
GOMO went on.
staying at Fort Carson, he said. In August,
I
was going
Fort Leavenworth to take over Jenes's job as deputy
of an operation called
eral
none of
far, I
to
this
would not be
be assigned
to
commanding gen-
CACDA, Combined Arms Combat Develop-
ment Activity. hung up the phone suspended somewhere between hope and bewil-
I
derment. Jenes was a two-star. The job he was vacating and that
going to was a two- star
slot.
I
was
Either the folks at the Pentagon had not seen
my latest efficiency report or I had been brought back from the dead. On
an afternoon toward the end of July,
ference
room down
the hall
Alma and I headed
from General Hudachek 's
for the conoffice.
The
brigade commanders, battalion commanders, division staff officers, and
wives greeted our entrance.
their
general.
We had managed to create an
old pal
Tom
able, if not
and our commanding always a happy,
ship.
delivered a gracious speech and presented
with the division's going-away
sculpted by a prominent Western
with
officers
as buffer, lightning
Blagg was gone by now, replaced by a new chief of
staff named Bill Flynn. Flynn
me
had often served
and father confessor between these
rod,
My
I
my own farewell
gift, artist,
cowboy in chaps Michael Garmon. I followed
a statue of a
speech. All the while these festivities were going
Hudachek remained twenty feet away, behind his closed The party broke up, Alma went home, and I returned to my
on. Jack
office
door.
office
to
pack up a few
"The general standing in
sounded
my
like
things.
will see
you now."
doorway. As
"Best of luck."
the division seal glued on
parade had marked
banners or bugles.
my
it.
I
I
turned to see Hudachek' s secretary
went
Same
in,
to you.
he mumbled something
He handed me
that
a plaque with
We shook hands perfunctorily, and I left. A
arrival at Fort Carson, but I departed without
The Reaganites — and
As
prepared to go to Fort Leavenworth,
I
Mother Army was up crash-dived.
I
to,
but
began
I
new
position had provided a launch
ous incumbents.
Richard G.
pad
career had not that not only
shoulder, but the all its
previ-
how I had been rescued from oblivion. GenCavazos, commander of FORSCOM, was the superior learned
I
my
hero during the Korean War, was an
Army
what
meant
it
to
be a
efficiency report. Cavazos, a
legend.
Cavazos kept a close eye on and he had come out
to tears.
this officer
life in
the ser-
The deeply con-
commanders
division
all
to Fort
When
your
soldier, to offer
grown men
vice of your country, he brought scientious
my
rank for
to higher
of General Ross, the senior rater on
FORSCOM,
not sure what
my
on
star
273
"A"
still
to believe that
going into a two-star job with one
I
talked about
was
I
had done some poking around and learned
was
eral
Close Call
a
Carson occasionally
to
in
look
over the Hudachek operation. After the last such
trip,
Cavazos had flown back
to Atlanta with
As Becton later reported the conversation, Cavazos had told him that he was concerned about Hudachek's division. "Did you notice anything in that conference room today?" Cavazos had asked Julius Becton.
Becton. "The only one
was Powell. The
rest
who dared
of them were
rating chain; his deputy, Ross,
rating systems eral, the
say anything in Hudachek's presence terrified."
had rated me. But
in the
Army
in
my
there are
and there are rating systems. Until you become a gen-
promotion machinery
is fairly
over drinks at the officers' club, phone bulls sniffing the air
calls, the
and figuring out what
as important as efficiency reports. that, yes,
is
What this
right,
at that level.
Chats
gossip mill, the old
really
happening become
inner circle had apparently
Powell got into trouble
had done what he thought was
many
formal. There are not that
network operates
generals, though, so an informal
concluded was
Cavazos was not
at
Carson. However, he
and had risked putting his head in
He probably needs to watch his mouth and his step. In the end, however, it came down to the fact that the generals knew the officer being rated and they knew the officer who had rated him. My future was a noose.
not foreclosed.
At this time, nus,
Tom
I
received a letter from a White
O'Brien,
who worked
at
Harvard.
House Fellowship alum-
Tom
asked
if I
was
ested in a job as the university's director of financial programs.
knew about academic finance would
fit
on a dime.
Yet,
it
inter-
What
was nice
to
I
be
* COLIN
214
POWELL
L.
wanted, particularly after the close
however,
I
could tear up
Harvard nibble. after
I
I
it.
Given the new assignment,
my civilian-tailored resume
was going back
had attended
glad of
call.
Command
to Fort
and turn down the
Leavenworth, fourteen years
and General Staff College
there,
Shortly after the family arrived ^at Leavenworth, the
major general promotion
list
came
out;
I
was on
it
and
new
and could expect
to
be promoted within a year.
My new job at Leavenworth was vital to the Army, but would not sound particularly thrilling to laymen.
Under
had divided U.S.-based forces
into
its latest
reorganization, the
Army
two commands. Forces Command,
FORSCOM, controlled the units and prepared them for war. Training and Doctrine Command, TRADOC, developed war fighting doctrine and operated training facilities to provide the trained troops to FORSCOM. A prime
TRADOC
objective
was
and
infantry, armor, artillery,
to
make
sure the different schools
air defense, for
example
forces to fight as a team, rather than solo performers.
ated an organization to promote that objective, the bat
Development
Activity.
I
was now
caught up in an assignment near to the heart of
trained their
TRADOC had cre-
Combined Arms Com-
CACDAs
under an energetic three- star general. Jack Merritt.
—
I
deputy commander, quickly found myself
my
old mentor. General
John Wickham, designing a lighter-equipped, smaller infantry division for faster battlefield mobility, particularly useful in Third
World
One of the
i
Scott. Built in
PX
of those days.
1
841,
historic
houses
at Fort
had originally been the
it
Leavenworth was 6i sutler's place, the
conflicts.
Generals William Tecumseh Sherman, Philip Sheridan, and George
Armstrong Custer had according to legend,
And the
Bighorn.
dan had
left the
all
left
lived under this roof.
from
this
house when
ghost of Mrs. Sheridan
still
The impetuous
haunted 61
left
1
Scott. Sheri-
unhappy woman behind when he went off on a
Chicago, and she died while he was gone. Thereafter, her edly never
Custer,
he set out for the Little
the house. Today, 611 Scott
is
spirit
trip to
suppos-
a ten-thousand-square-
foot gleaming white mini-mansion set above the Missouri River.
The
room easily seats forty. The grounds are beautifully landscaped, and a handsome gazebo rises on the front lawn. This was now our home. Alma finally had her mansion. And I, at long last, was redeemed in dining
her eyes.
The Reaganites — and
a
273
Close Call
move meant we had to uproot the girls again and plunk them down in new schools. It took Annemarie her usual day and The
latest
family
a half to get settled and start
showing up with
and frustration the disruption
inflicted, she
little
friends.
Whatever pain
confided and confined to a
diary she kept.
By now, Linda was tive for
attending her fourth high school, a
disrup-
little
any teenager. Leavenworth High School, however, had more
black students than her earlier schools, which led to a formative experi-
ence in her
life.
Linda's high school drama department had decided to
stage an anthology of scenes
from several
ing Linda, had chosen something
plays.
The black girls,
includ-
from For Colored Girls Who Have
Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow
Is Enuf.
The content
rough for high school students, and their choice sparked a
furor.
is fairly
A week
before the performance, the administration canceled the black segment. I
my
promised
angry daughter that
would read the
I
the jarring fact for a father that his daughter tute, I
thought the work was strong and honest.
expressed
my
Apart from
I
prosti-
called the principal and
opinion. Linda wrote an editorial for the school paper
The administration stuck by
attacking the cancellation.
made one
play.
had been cast as a
its
decision, but
when
concession. During the part of the performance
the
scene from Colored Girls would have been presented, the black stu-
would be allowed
dents
to discuss with the audience the issue of the
cancellation. I
told
Linda
and Army-like,
On
we had both gone through the chain of command, was now her responsibility to abide by the decision.
that it
the last night of the performances, however,
store.
During the discussion period, she stepped forward and
think you might like to see
proceeded to perform her burst into applause.
We
Linda had a surprise
I
ture. Instead,
After
do not know
we were
said, "I
what we have been talking about." She then
part.
thought, however, that
in
if
we were
initial
astonishment, the audience
Alma and I have ever been prouder. only observing a
witnessing a young
girl's
brave ges-
woman choosing her destiny.
Linda was determined to become an actress and never looked back.
One
afternoon in September,
I
slipped out of a marathon briefing on
Army communications and came home need a haircut."
I
had not done
aged to dredge up from
early. "Colin,"
Alma
said, '*you
that well at the post barbershop
and man-
my memory a shop in the black section of Leav-
^ COLIN
276
enworth
that
I
POWELL
L.
had patronized fourteen years before.
and there was the shop, just as
remembered
I
I
drove downtown,
down to the
it,
striped bar-
ber pole in front. Inside, faded pinups advertising ancient hair tonics
covered the wall. Dog-eared magazines
had
that
littered a rack,
and the place
unique barbershop fragrance. The sl^op wa^ empty except for a
barber older than his posters.
He
put
down
newspaper and waved
his
me
"Welcome,
to a chair.
General," he said, introducing himself as "Old Sarge" and draping a
me. As he snipped away,
striped sheet over
over the mirror, black generals, including ton,
I
studied the photographs
Rock
Cartwright, Julius Bec-
Roscoe Robinson, Emmet Paige, and Harry Brooks,
generation just ahead of me. diary.
The barber handed me
"I'm going to ask you to sign
all
from the
a small red-covered
my book when we're done," he said.
The cover was stamped "1959." I started thumbing through it, studying the signatures, caught up in the parade of familiar names. His little red book read
like
black military history. Early signatures were mostly of
majors, then a few lieutenant colonels, and in forting
number of more
in 1968,
1
senior officers.
more recent
And then I
found "Cohn Powell, Major, USA."
I
com-
years, a
stopped short. There,
had no recollection of
signing the book.
"You don't remember me," Old Sarge
He ded
held up a hand mirror so
my
approval.
He removed
I
said, "but I
could see the back of
the sheet and shook
pen and signed the book,
this
"What's your name again?"
I
remember you."
it
my
head.
I
nod-
out. I fished out a
time as "Brigadier General Powell."
asked.
"Jalester Linton," he said, "loth Cavalry, Buffalo Soldiers." I
We
was not only reading black got to talking about
the sites
all
diers of the past, like Grant
Sarge
if
anything
at
military history,
I
was shaking
its
hand.
on the post named for fabled
Avenue and Eisenhower
Hall.
asked Old
I
Leavenworth commemorated the Buffalo
"Well," Linton said, "there's 9th and loth Cavalry avenues."
sol-
I
Soldiers.
had never
heard of them. I
became curious about
reading everything
with pride
I
the history of the Buffalo Soldiers.
could lay
at the feats these
black
the injustices and neglect they
about
all
my
hands on. What
I
I
started
learned filled
me
men had achieved and with sadness
had
suffered. Blacks
had fought
at
in just
of America's wars. They served to prove themselves the equal
of white soldiers, which was precisely
why some
whites did not want
The Reaganites — and
blacks in uniform.
My
Confederate general, blacks.
"Use
all
me
reading led
who
the negroes
advised Jefferson Davis against arming
you can get
for
.
.
cooking, digging, chop-
.
Cobb
good
he warned, "our whole theory of slavery
upon
"But don't arm them.
said.
Frederick Douglass put
another way: "Once you
it
him
his person the brass letters 'U.S.,' let
ton and bullets in his pocket, and there
deny
277
words of Howell Cobb, a
to the
ping and such," soldiers,"
^
Close Call
a
is
If slaves will
let
wrong."
is
the black
get an eagle
make
on
man
his but-
no power on earth which can
he has earned the right to citizenship in the United States."
In 1867, Congress officially put that eagle lets in the
pockets
when
it
on the buttons and put bul-
created four black regiments. For twenty-two
years, a white officer. Colonel
of them, the loth Cavalry.
Benjamin H. Grierson, commanded one
When
Grierson finally bid goodbye to his
troops, he said, "The valuable service to their country cannot
sooner or years
get
later, to
later, it
fail,
meet with due recognition and reward." Ninety-five
was too
late for
reward, and
I
did not see
much recognition
of the Buffalo Soldiers either. I
read about the fate of Lieutenant Henry O. Flipper. Imagine a child
born into slavery, yet possessing the U.S. Military
Academy
in
himself admitted to the
grit to get
1873, just ten years after Emancipation.
Every black cadet before Flipper had been shunned, reviled, and mately hounded from West Point. Flipper took
He was
out breaking and graduated in 1877. join
Troop A, loth Cavalry, the
Buffalo Soldiers. Three years
first
later,
it
for four years with-
all
West
sent out
managed
author,
and newspaper
A
and he spent the
final years
him on
a
court-martial found
unbecoming an
resilient Flipper never-
to carve out successful careers as a editor.
to
given a dishonorable discharge, his
by age twenty-five. The
military career in ruins theless
He was
1878
black officer ever assigned to the
Flipper innocent of that charge, but guilty of "conduct
and a gentleman."
in
bigots in uniform framed
charge of embezzling from commissary funds.
officer
ulti-
But the of his
stain
on
his
mining engineer,
honor obsessed him,
life fruitlessly
trying to clear his
name. The finding of the court-martial was finally reversed
in
1976
through the determined efforts of a white schoolteacher from Georgia
named Ray MacCoU. During the court-martial. Flipper's attorney had put the question squarely:
"Whether
it is
possible for a colored
position as an officer of the
Army?"
My own
man to
secure and hold a
career and that of thou-
COLIN
278
POWELL
L.
we
sands of other black officers answered with a resounding yes. But
knew tion
that the path through the
had been cleared by the
underbrush of prejudice and discrimina-
who had gone we owed every-
sacrifices of nameless blacks
before us, the Old Sarges and Henry Flippers. To them thing. after
my
visit to the
barbershop,
cemetery and came upon an abandoned
crumbUng concrete platforms and an I
saw a
to
I
was jogging past
trailer park.
the post
Nothing was
left
but
intersection of gravel roads. There
leaning, weather-beaten street sign
marking 9th Cavalry Avenue
and another marking loth Cavalry Avenue.
back
,
^
Not long
I
was
upset
still
when
got
I
my quarters. I took a shower, went to my office, and called in the
post historian, retired Colonel Robert von Schlemmer. "Is that the best
we
can do?"
"Sir,
blow
'Two
I said.
roads in an abandoned
dirt
trailer
park?"
you're right," von Schlemmer said patiently. "But before you
a gasket,
you should know what I went through just to get the Buf-
falo Soldiers even that recognition."
"Fine,"
I
where do we go from here?
said, "but
more appropriate honoring "I'll tell
you what," he
the
memory
want something
I
of those men."
said. "If you'll take the lead, I'll get the
enworth Historical Society behind you, and we'll throw
money, maybe
you want
to do."
equestrian statues,"
I
the Buffalo Soldiers.
it
all
morning. "Leavenworth
It
of
ought to stand on the bluff overlooking the Mis-
Five thousand dollars was not going to produce
Schlemmer warned. The to raise
first
thing
I
much of a
von
how
I
had a duty
my
way.
to those black troops
who had
Building a memorial to the Buffalo Soldiers became I
statue,
was going to have to learn was
money.
believed
sade.
is full
pointed out. "I'd like to see a statue here honoring
with the cavalryman facing west, headed toward the future."
souri,
I
some seed
thousand dollars. But you've got to figure out what
five
had been thinking about
I
in
Leav-
eased
my
personal cru-
called in Captain Phil Coker, Hudachek's former aide,
whom I had
brought from Fort Carson. "You're loth Cavalry, aren't you?" Phil. Yes,
Coker
said,
he had been part of the squadron
at Fort
I
asked
Carson,
obviously long after the loth had been integrated, which occurred during the
Korean War. "You're going to immortalize your old
outfit," I told
him.
"You're going to dig up the history of the Buffalo Soldiers." Coker went at
it
as if
we were
talking about his ancestors.
He
scoured the archives
The Re aganite s — an d
while
I
started looking for
a
were
finally
John Wickham came back into In the spring of 1983,
He
Staff.
called
219
money. Those troops had suffered second-
class treatment after serving as first-class fighting that the Buffalo Soldiers
^
Close Call
going to go
men.
I
was determined
first-class.
my life while I was at Fort Leavenworth.
Wickham was
me from Washington
about to become
Army
Chief of
he had drawn up a
to say that
list
of thirteen of the brightest lieutenant colonels and colonels he could find.
He asked me,
as a brigadier general, to lead
them on a one-month
crash study to find out where he ought to be taking the next four years. Since
I
was
Army
over the
the fourteenth officer, he called the enter-
prise Project 14. It
was now nearly a dozen years since
the U.S. withdrawal
from Viet-
Army was almost completely recovered from the trauma of that conflict. On May 27, 1983, we turned in the Project 14 report, recommending to Wickham some modest course corrections. The one point we underscored was that the Army could not stand another Desert One fiasco. The Army exists to win battles and wars, not just to manage itself well. If we expected to restore the nation's confidence in us, we nam, and the
had I
to
succeed in the next
test
of arms.
flew to Washington to brief General
final report.
Wickham and
his staff
on the
Afterward, as the two of us walked back to his office,
I
took
the opportunity to seek his counsel about something troubling me.
Wickham's predecessor, General Shy Meyer, had assured me intended to keep for a division
me
at
Leavenworth for two years, then put
command, which
ing this trip to Washington,
he
in line
wanted more than anything. But dur-
I
had heard disquieting rumors.
I
me
that
"I hear
I'm
being considered to replace Carl Smith as Weinberger's senior military assistant,"
report
I
told
Wickham, hoping
against hope that he could
down.
"That's right,"
Wickham
think you're better suited."
said. It
"Pete Dawkins's
was hardly
my long-ago classmate at the Infantry the
name
the answer
School
at
I
is
up
for the job,"
I said.
twenty-two months. I've paid assistant to three
"I've only
my
too.
But
I
wanted. Dawkins,
Fort Benning,
Army's golden boy, the exemplar of exemplars. "I'm
Dawkins
me
knock the
all
was
still
for Pete
been out of the Pentagon for
dues. I've already served as military
deputy secretaries. General, don't
let this
happen
to
again." I feared being branded permanently as a military dilettante.
COLIN
280 I
Wickham remained noncommittal, and I got out of town and
told him.
back
to
POWELL
L.
Kansas as
fast as I could.
Carl Smith, Weinberger's current military assistant, had been pro-
moted in
to brigadier general
Harold Brown's
office.
with
me
Two
days after
on the same day four years before
my
retwn
worth, Carl called. Secretary Weinberger wanted
Washington for a even
have
if I
chat, Carl said, adding, "Colin,
to stick
to
it
an old buddy to do
me
to Fort to
Leaven-
come back
to
I'm getting out of here
it."
A few days later I was walking down the familiar E-Ring to the SecAs
retary's office.
warmly
know General Smith wants
to leave.
"No, Mr. Secretary, I'm happy where
wherever I'm "I
my
shook
hand
gentlemanly manner. "CoHn," he said without wasting
in his
words, "you
entered, Weinberger rose and
I
Do you want his job?"
am. But,"
I
I
added,
serve
"I'll
sent."
expected you to say no
less,"
been disappointed
if
more minutes and
parted, with
Weinberger answered.
a soldier didn't prefer the field."
me
still
"I
would have
We chatted a few
praying for deliverance by Pete
Dawkins. Before
I
could get out of the building, Carl Smith found me.
I
had the
me with evident relief. Within minutes, Wickham confirmed the news. "We haven't had an Army man in that spot since I left in 1976," he explained. "And we want it. But don't worry. I'm arrang-
job, he informed
ing a house for you at Fort Myer, Residence 27A, two minutes from the
Pentagon and a fine place. with your second Still, I
goodbye
had
to
And when you come back
here,
it
will be
star."
go back and
tell
Alma
that after less than a year,
it
was
Leavenworth and the beloved house of history.
to Fort
I
particularly regretted leaving the Buffalo Soldiers project unfinished,
I
had been able
out.
I
had a black
Dougherty, "Lonnie," it
to light a fire
I
civilian
who was said,
over to you.
and
I
did not want that
go
fire to
my staff whom I trusted implicitly, Alonzo
"you know what
I'll
it,
also an officer in the Kansas National Guard. this project
continue to do whatever
counting on you to keep
On
on
under
it
alive here."
June 29, 1983, one of the
last
I
means
to
me. I'm turning
can, long distance.
Dougherty agreed
days of
my CACDA
But
I
am
to carry on.
tour, I stood in
Grant Auditorium and Lieutenant General Carl Vuono,
now deputy
The Reaganites — and
a
28
Close Call
1
commander of TRADOC, pinned that second star on me. The promotion to major general was welcome enough professionally. Emotionally it meant that I was finally out of purgatory. I had taken a gut wound and had survived.
It
After eleven
would not be wise, however, all
to run that risk again.
too short months, the Powell family
enworth and reluctantly headed back to Washington.
left
Fort Leav-
w
e
V
1
e
The Phone Never Stops Ringing
OVER THE PREVIOUS TWO MONTHS I HAD BECOME A LIGHT SLEEPER. HEARD I
the
phone
this night,
the receiver to
me
September
1983, on the
i,
as if in a trance, without
first ring.
waking
up.
I
Alma passed
glanced
at the
red readout on the clock radio: nearly midnight.
"General Powell, tions.
He was
this is the
calling
DDO" —the
deputy director of opera-
from the National Military
which monitors the globe around the clock. The frequent nocturnal communicators of
formed me. "A Korean
jetliner out of
late.
Command
Center,
DDO and I had become
"Got a problem," he
Anchorage en route
to
in-
Seoul has
dropped off the radar screen." I
would have
to decide
Defense and give him
more?"
I
this
I
should wake up the Secretary of
news fragment. "Do you have anything
asked.
"That's I
whether
all
for now," he said.
"The plane just
lay there in the dark, deciding
with anxious families wondering
what
to do,
why the
left the
scope."
imagining Seoul Airport,
delay.
I
phoned the
Secretary.
The Phone Never Stops Ringing
had gone down
If the jet
in the Pacific,
we might want
^
283
to call out U.S.
forces for a search-and-rescue mission.
Cap Weinberger sounded
composed
at
me
asked
I
hung
It
was
as
**General."
up, the
passed
Pentagon.
at the
He
phone rang again.
the duty officer again. "It looks okay.
report that the plane probably I
noon
keep him informed.
to
As soon
middle of the night as
in the
as
word along
this
made an emergency
to Weinberger. Still, I
We just got a
landing."
could not get back to
My instincts kept nagging me. You do not lose and find airplanes
sleep.
that casually.
I
had just started
to
doze off when the duty officer called
a third time. "Sir,
Burning Wind intercepted some odd
Air Defense
may have
traffic
between the Soviet
Command and one of their fighter pilots. The Korean plane Wind was an air Pacific using RC-135
violated Soviet airspace." Burning
gence operation
we
carried out over the
intelli-
recon-
naissance planes.
"What
are
you suggesting?"
"Don't know
yet,"
That
is
asked.
knew we were both feeling the have shot down a commercial jet-
he answered.
same foreboding. Could liner full
I
the Soviets
I
of civilian passengers?
how
a tragedy unfolds in the Pentagon
plete paragraphs of
—not
in the neat,
newspapers or the rounded sentences of
TV
com-
corre-
spondents, but in fragments. Finally, enough information dribbled in for the Secretary of State,
morning saying Korean
airliner.
The
initial
to issue a statement at 10:45 that
that a Soviet fighter plane had, in fact, shot
"The United States
Shultz said. "Loss of
whatever for
George Shultz,
life
down
a
reacts with revulsion to this attack,"
appears to be heavy.
We
can see no excuse
this appalling act."
Soviet response was a
punctured by the
truth, the
flat denial.
When
that story
was
Russians said the plane had intruded into
Soviet airspace and that they had tried to direct
it
to the nearest airfield,
but the pilot just kept on flying. Finally, the Soviets admitted they had shot
down
the plane, but claimed
it
was on a
"deliberate, thoroughly
planned intelligence operation," directed from the United States and Japan. It
would be years before the whole
of the Soviet Union tore flight
away
truth
came
out, after the collapse
the veil of state secrecy.
Korean Air Lines
007, en route from Alaska to Korea, had accidentally drifted 360
miles off course and had in fact flown over Soviet airspace twice,
first
COLIN
284
POWELL
L.
over the Kamchatka Peninsula and then over the island of Sakhalin. The
Command
up by the Soviet Air Defense
pilot sent
007, Major
Gennady Osipovich,
that the intruder
flying a Sukhoi-15 fighter, reported
was using navigation
and the flashing
lights
beacon commonly employed on ^commercial night
collision
Osipovich had also flown along the right side of the
do not know) for a closer look. The Soviet
own
pilot,
jet
anti-
flights.
(how close we
who had logged at least
American military
a thousand interceptions against their outlines as well as his
KAL
to intercept
aircraft
and knew
plane's, claimed he did not recognize
Boeing 747 as a commercial jetliner. He dropped back, locked his radar on the target, and when given the order, shot down KAL 007 just the
was
as the plane
exiting Sakhalin
airspace. Osipovich fired
two
tore off half of the left wing.
plane and eral
its
and about
missiles. It
One
to reenter international
struck the
tail;
the other
took twelve minutes for the stricken
269 passengers to plunge into the ocean
a speed of sev-
at
hundred miles an hour.
Why
did the Soviets shoot
down an
innocent civihan aircraft? The
best answer appears to be that the then Soviet leader, Yuri Andropov, trying to
buck up sloppy military discipline and had promulgated a tough
new "Law on officers
was
the State Border." Thereafter, intimidated Soviet military
had carried out the law's requirements hke unthinking robots.
During the Cold War, almost no event stood
Every
in isolation.
occurrence had to be forced into the matrix of East- West confrontation.
The Russians had
tried to pass off
falsehood to a tragic blunder.
KAL
From our
007
side,
I
as a spy plane, adding
watched Cap Weinberger
and George Shultz wrestle for policy dominance on
this issue.
Wein-
berger saw the incident as a morality play, with the Soviet Union per-
forming
its
role as evil incarnate.
He
argued that Shultz should cancel
an upcoming meeting in Madrid with the Soviet foreign minister,
Andrei Gromyko. Shultz took the position that our heart's content, but
we
should not
ident
Reagan did a
bit
of each.
however
mutual
tragic,
interests. Pres-
called the Soviet behavior "an act of
bom of a society which wantonly disregards individual rights
and the value of human to
He
could condemn to
let this incident,
derail negotiations with the Soviets to further our
barbarism
we
life."
Yet,
he wanted the Shultz-Gromyko talks
go forward.
The downing of taken over
KAL 007
my new job as
occurred less than two months after
military assistant to Weinberger.
I
I
had
drew some
^
The Phone Never Stops Ringing
from the
useful lessons
incident.
Don't be stampeded by
your judgments run ahead of your
Don't
let
posed
facts in hand, question
them
if
tions
may
is
better than
smooth that
discredit (the trap the Soviets fell into).
international event intrinsic
its
instincts. I also learned that
end anyway. Avoid putting a spin on a story
the
And, even with sup-
best to get the facts out as soon as possible, even
contradict the old Untidy truth
—
expand
meaning.
or contract
And
finally, in a
first reports.
they do not add up. Something
deeper and wiser than bits of data inform our it is
facts.
283
when new
lies that
unravel in
subsequent revela-
Be prepared
—
destruction, don't be surprised if they explode
bristling
an
to see
for political ends apart
world
facts
from
with engines of
from time
to time.
when I had become National Security Advisor, we faced a similar situation when we had to explain to the world why the American cruiser U.S.S. Vincennes shot down an Iranian airFive years
bus, killing
later, in
1988,
290 passengers and crew.
and released the facts publicly as
I
had received
phone
that initial
which we were supposed
to
the officers' club.
We
call
new house
as
on
KAL 007, not at Quarters 27A,
at Fort
Myer, but
officer. I set aside a
it
made
I
names.
we moved
small
room
And
the
back
at the
Alma knew them
the phones never stopped ringing
all
from the
in.
was now working with a Weinberger team much changed since
left
in
the place look like ganglia under a micro-
Potomac telephone crews were forever
house, repairing, replacing, reconfiguring, until
day
Quarters 2 3 A,
had been bumped from the grander digs we had
scope. Chesapeake and
their first
at
my secure conmiunicafions center, and the bundles of
wires running into
by
We said so
from the unending noise and bustle of
been promised by a higher-ranking the
was a tragic blunder.
fast as possible.
occupy
a small house across the street
It
in 1981.
end of 1982
to
I
had
Frank Carlucci had departed government service
become
president of Sears
World Trade,
Inc.
at
A busi-
nessman, Paul Thayer, replaced Frank as deputy for a time; but Thayer ran into legal difficulties and had to resign. Will Taft replaced Thayer as the second in
command
of the Defense Department. Along with sharp
judgment honed as general counsel, Will had a special
qualification.
was one of a handful of people who enjoyed Weinberger's dence and
who
He
total confi-
could influence the headstrong Secretary's views.
* COLIN
286 I
had inherited from
tary,
POWELL
L.
Nancy Hughes,
my predecessor,
Carl Smith, a
gem
in his secre-
smart, level-headed, tactful, and possessed of a
priceless gift, the capacity to anticipate a boss's thinking. Nancy, with
would work
brief interruptions,
You don't tamper with While
for
me to the end of my military career.
perfection.
had been on Harold Brown's
I
^
r
staff, I
used to
sit
inconspicu-
ously against the back wall of his office taking notes during staff meet-
As Weinberger's
ings.
military assistant
Weinberger held his meetings punctually court," since
Brown
at
I
made
8:30 a.m.
symbohc
a I
leap.
should say "held
he was far different from the cerebral and solitary Brown.
tolerated a tight
little circle,
though he would rather have been
alone. Weinberger liked to be surrounded by an entourage. Brown pre-
ferred get-it-over-with informality. Weinberger enjoyed meetings dis-
playing ritual and structure. armchair. tant.
To
at the
To his
He
in another armchair, sat his legislative affairs assis-
left,
on a couch,
his right,
presided from an overstuffed pale blue
sat his public affairs assistant,
while
I
sat
other end. Across a coffee table, facing the Secretary, sat his
deputy and general counsel. The seating of principals remained as fixed as a constellation in the heavens, even as the meeting grew. Fred Ikle,
the
number three
department, soon wanted
official in the
said fine; and Ikle
managed
couch. If his boss, Ikle, was
in.
Rich Armitage wanted
assistants
wanted
to
come
too.
Why
Weinberger
empty middle
to claim the
berger agreed. Others asked to come.
in.
not,
seat
on the
to attend.
Weinberger
WeinTheir
said.
Weinberger concurred. The morning
meeting grew so large that five minutes before, enlisted receptionists started hauling in chairs
Allied
Van
from neighboring
Lines. This gathering
Territorial Imperative.
offices like
You staked out your
turf the
way
they urinate on trees. Your scent had to be stronger than or you
would be elbowed
movers from
was an affirmation of Robert Ardrey's tigers
do when
someone
aside. Neither the jungle nor the
reaches of government have any unclaimed space.
It is
else's
upper
already taken, or
seized by the stronger.
The only real toes
issues covered at these meetings
and pending
legislation reported
islative assistants.
were media hot pota-
by the public relations and
After they had had their say, Weinberger would go
around the room, calling on everyone. The only ones length were those
leg-
who
did not understand the game.
who spoke I
at
always had
plenty to discuss with the Secretary, but not before a crowd.
The
staff
The Phone Never Stops Ringing
meeting served one useful purpose, however. pants' egos
and made them
own
return to their just told
berger
me
.
glow of reflected
Or
they could say.
.
The big
.
.
was
tent
better
stroked the partici-
It
Afterward they could
feel part of the team.
staffs in the
glory.
I
'The Secretary
"I just told
Wein-
adopted myself
in the
still,
a technique
287
'A'
future.
I
had received an early education
my
days on the job.
first
A.M. and
was
On
in the style of
July 26, 1983,
1
my new boss on one of
had arrived
at
about 6:30
flipping through the Early Bird, the Pentagon's overnight
news summary, when an item plucked from the Washington Post caught
my
eye.
The Navy had established
Bethesda Naval Hospital
Maryland
in
treatment of battlefield injuries.
been anesthetized, then I
Alarm
shot.
Navy's
Weinberger was going
me
that
something
to practice
to
called
know what
to
nobody was available morning," he
later in the
this
Bethesda
at
said. I told
my
was
head. sac-
counterpart in
all
about. Paul
this early. "I'll get
him he'd
something now. The Secretary was due any minute.
ment of
my
Snoopy had been
that Lassie or
had
that
Captain Paul David Miller. Secretary
office.
want
on dogs
bells started going off in
I
at the
medical students in the
to train
medical experimentation.
the Secretary of the
told
"Wound Laboratory"
They were
had visions of Americans learning
rificed to military
a
better give
you
me
A vote on the place-
MX missiles was the hot issue this morning, and the Secretary
had scheduled early interviews with
all
three networks. Miller passed
along what httle information he had. I
first
had barely hung up when Weinberger came through the door. His
words were "What's
bergers
owned
a collie
this
named
about shooting
important
.
it,"
he
com-
said.
kind of medical research
"Tell the
Navy it.
are in
.
"Sir, this
I
when Marines
."
"Put a stop to
to consider
dogs?" (The Wein-
Kiltie.)
"Sir," I started to explain, "it's
bat situations
little
it's
over.
is
helping
The program
is
." .
.
canceled.
They
are not even
Is that clear?"
called Miller back, transmitted the order, and got a lot of disbeliev-
ing "but-but-but."
I
to get the Secretary
told
him
down
ond floor and wired up for
that
to the
I
would explain
later.
For now,
we had
Pentagon broadcast studio on the sec-
his first appearance
on the Today show.
288
COLIN
-A
L.
POWELL
The world could have been on the brink of nuclear extinction, but Bryant Gumbel's first question was about the Washington Posfs dog story.
No such thing could happen, Weinberger answered coolly. He had
already given orders canceling any such program,
if
indeed one ever
existed. His other interviews led off with ^the sapie question,
and
in
every case, the Secretary assured the nation that the military would not
be shooting
little
dogs, for whatever allegedly good purpose.
Weinberger's reaction that day had been
intuitive.
He had not called
for a blue-ribbon panel of surgeons, psychiatrists, veterinarians, and
People for Ethical Treatment of Animals to masticate the issue.
had recognized
instantly, in a nation of pet lovers, that
scientific premise, this idea
Mail came pouring
spot.
in.
And so he killed it on the Phone calls jammed the Pentagon switchwould not
fly.
boards. Editorial writers sang Weinberger's praises. Weinberger hero.
I
He
whatever the
had learned a lesson from a master
was
a
in public relations. Certain
matters are sacrosanct. Also, you can face the messiest public issue and, if you tackle
it
head-on and quickly, you can move a
liability to
the asset column.
One September morning, Weinberger informed me on I
should prepare myself for hot- weather
Central America,
my
first trip
travel.
abroad with him.
We
his arrival that
were going
On September
departed from Andrews Air Force Base aboard a
6,
to
we
DC-9 with 'The
United States of America" emblazoned across the fuselage; the plane
was
part of the 89th Airlift
VIP
fleet.
As we boarded,
I
Wing, which operates the government's
Armitage and fourteen reporters,
who
made clear that he represented the National Security From the moment we were airborne, he started worming his
quickly
Council.
way
among the party, including Rich a new face, a confident junior staffer
noticed
into Weinberger's presence,
though the Secretary's formal facade
usually kept outsiders at arm's length.
As we worked around
a small
conference table, preparing ourselves for meetings with three Central
American
chiefs of state, our
newcomer,
assertive
and well informed,
deferred to no one but Weinberger, apparently seeing himself as the
Who
second-ranking dog on
this sled.
looked him up
book, which contained
in the trip
is this
guy?
I
wondered.
itineraries,
I
maps and
bios that our staff had prepared. There he was: Oliver L. North,
Major,
USMC.
^
The Phone Never Stops Ringing
289
Secretary Weinberger and his wife were extremely close, and he always
wanted Jane along on
his foreign trips.
means constant exposure
For spouses,
stream of polite chitchat,
to unfamiliar faces, a
and smiles so fixed that they almost have to be pried off Weinberger was ligent
a
more
official travel
at night.
Jane
warm,
intel-
private person than her husband, a
woman, one-on-one, who had
enthusiasm for her public
little
Weinberger often invited other spouses along as companions for
role.
On September
Jane.
22,
we were
scheduled to begin another
one around the world, and Weinberger insisted that under "invitational travel orders," of the party.
I
thought
it
trip, this
Alma come along official member
which made her an
might be stretching a point
the Secretary's chief horse holder,
to bring the wife of
dog robber, and
gofer, but
Wein-
Alma came, and the first night she expressed her puzme. Was she a tourist? Excess baggage? What exactly was
berger insisted.
zlement to
she supposed to do?
As
between. She could not
Alma became
the trip progressed, her role emerged.
—
tell
a handy go-
hostesses things that Jane Weinberger could
for example, that the Secretary's wife
was
just beginning to suffer painful osteoporosis),
overtired (Jane
and perhaps the tour of
the Etruscan ruins might be cut short. Jane felt comfortable with
and
after the last receiving line
was
had folded and the
last
Alma,
formal dinner
ended, they would unwind, comparing notes on the day's doings before turning
in.
always
I
Alma
left
off the foreign trip passenger
always put her on. "Mr. Secretary," really
no basis for Alma
to
"Nonsense," he replied.
I
said
Alma had found
On
October
13,
Weinberger
on one occasion, "there
come this time." "A unique addition
wish for her to come. Say no more about
lists.
to the traveling party.
is
I
it."
her niche. She was Jane's lady-in-waiting.
we
learned that Judge William Clark, the President's
man struggling in a job for which he had little bent or taste, was stepping down to become Secretary of the current National Security Advisor, a
Interior. Clark,
along with Weinberger, was part of the Reagan Califor-
nia crowd. Clark's replacement
was an outsider who
filled
Weinberger
with apprehension. Clark's deputy, a former Marine heutenant colonel
now
in his mid-forties,
was Robert C. "Bud" McFarlane. McFarlane
* COLIN
290
was not
POWELL
L.
man whom Weinberger
the sort of
McFarlane had, furthermore, an
would respond
manner of expressionless
infuriating
noncommitment. "Hnmmi. Thanks to the Secretary's
could regard as a peer.
Have
for calling.
phone
a nice day," he
behavior which drove
calls,
Weinberger mad. Bud McFarlane replaced Judge Clark as National Security Advisor on October 17.
McFarlane's most visible subordinate turned out to be the brash
Marine from the Central American colonel. North
was
fast
trip,
OUie North, now a lieutenant
becoming a legend,
the
guy you went
to to get
things done. North displayed remarkable imagination and energy, but
every tants
now and then, came
to
strange things happened.
my office
and
said, "General,
One day, one of my
assis-
Colonel North wants a per-
mit to carry a gun."
"Why wanted
does he need a gun around the National Security Council?"
I
know.
to
"People are out to get him,"
my
assistant said.
"Who?" I asked. "He didn't say." Ollie North's personal security
Navy
of Defense. Let the
had nothing
do with the Secretary
to
figure out if he needs to be
Executive Office Building,
I
said, since
armed
in the
Old
Marines come under the Navy
Department.
On October 23, Advisor, Military
I
six
days after Bud McFarlane became National Security
received another middle-of-the-night call from the National
Command Center. This
ing Weinberger immediately.
Marine barracks
came out
A
at the airport
in dribbles.
a Defense Secretary
Each
time there was no question about terrorist truck
bomb had
alert-
struck a U.S.
near Beirut, Lebanon. Again, the news
time,
I
had
to
convey the mounting horror
who I knew was squeamish
about death.
On
to
taking
over his Pentagon office, Weinberger had gotten rid of a portrait of
James
Forrestal, the first Secretary of Defense,
who had taken
a suicide
plunge from the Bethesda Naval Hospital. Weinberger replaced Forrestal' s picture
with a rosy Titian on loan from a Washington museum.
This night, each of
my
calls
Eighty bodies pulled out. toll
was
like a physical
blow
to the Secretary.
A hundred. A hundred and fifty. In the end, the A near- simultaneous terrorist attack at a
reached 241 Marines dead.
barracks in
downtown Beirut
killed seventy-seven
French
soldiers.
291
The Phone Never Stops Ringing
Our Marines had been stationed in Lebanon for the fuzzy idea of providing a "presence." The year before, in June 1982, the Israehs had invaded Lebanon in one final push to drive out
move had
was attempting
to referee the
it
to
start,
fight-
but lost the policy debate in the
McFarlane and Secretary of State George Shultz.
was developing Department
a strong distaste for the antiseptic phrases coined
officials for foreign interventions
bloody consequences for the military, words "signal," "option
was
to
"inter-
out in the Shouf Mountains. Weinberger had opposed the
White House I
all
remain between two
Lebanese army and Syrian-backed Shiite units
the
Marines' involvement from the
State
withdrawal of
what State Department euphemists called an
positional force." Translation: the Marines were
powder kegs,
The United
The Marines had been deployed around
foreign troops from Lebanon. the Beirut airport as
This
terrorists.
upset the always precarious Middle East balance.
States, consequently,
ing
PLO
on the
fine if beneath
were used
to give the
On August
lay a solid mission.
16,
in Beirut,
"symbol,"
of credibility." Their use
But too often these words
appearance of clarity to mud.
29, before the airport truck bombing, two Marines had
been killed by Muslim mortar October
like "presence,"
table," "establishment
them
by
which usually had
fire;
on September
to
two more, and on McFarlane,
now
have the battleship U.S.S.
New
two more. Against Weinberger's
persuaded the President
3,
protest,
Jersey start hurling 16-inch shells into the mountains above Beirut, in
we were softening up the beaches on some Pacific atoll prior to an invasion. What we tend to overlook in such situations is that other people will react much as we would. When the
World War
II style,
shells started falling
as if
on the
Shiites, they
eree" had taken sides against them. battleship, they
And
found a more vulnerable
assumed the American
"ref-
since they could not reach the target, the
exposed Marines
at
the airport.
What I saw from my perch
in the
Pentagon was America sticking
hand into a thousand-year-old hornet's nest with the expectation our mere presence might pacify the hornets.
When
its
that
ancient ethnic
hatreds reignited in the former Yugoslavia in 1991 and well-meaning
Americans thought we should "do something" bodies of Marines
at the
in Bosnia, the shattered
Beirut airport were never far from
arguing for caution. There are times
when American
risked and lost. Foreign policy cannot be paralyzed
my mind in
lives
must be
by the prospect of
292
* COLIN
casualties.
But
lives
POWELL
L.
must not be risked
until
we can
face a parent or a
spouse or a child with a clear answer to the question of of that family had to
die.
why
a
member
To provide a "symbol" or a "presence"
is
not
good enough.
The Beirut bombing was soon followed by our invasion of Grenada on October 25. The Caribbean island had fallen under control of a young whose regime was building a jet runway with Cuban aid; the strip was going to be made available to the Soviet Union. Then Bishop was assassinated, and the chaos following his murder Marxist, Maurice Bishop,
threatened nearly a thousand American medical students studying on
Grenada.
We
attacked with a combined force of
and Navy SEALs. try
It
Army
paratroopers. Marines,
should have been easy enough to take over a coun-
of 84,000 population defended by a Third World militia of about two
thousand poorly armed troops and a Cuban construction battalion. Yet, took most of a week to subdue dents.
all
resistance
and rescue the medical
it
stu-
The invasion was hardly a model of service cooperation. The cam-
paign had started as a Navy-led operation, and only
at the last
minute
was Major General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, then commanding Army's 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized), added Joseph Metcalf 's
staff to
make
sure
to
the
Vice Admiral
someone senior was on board who
understood ground combat. Relations between the services were marred
by poor communications, fractured command and parochialism, and
demonstrated
how
micromanagement from Washington. The operation far cooperation
among
The invasion of Grenada succeeded, but only a fly on the wall
Weinberger was a
control, interservice
at the time,
man
said "stubborn" period.
but
it
I filed
the services
was a sloppy
away
battle
Hke a
had
success.
to go. I
was
the lessons learned.
of stubborn principle. His
He would
still
critics
lion against
would have any cabinet
peer or antagonistic congressman. But he could not bear to cross probably the most pliable
man
in the administration. President
Weinberger's attachment and loyalty to the President were ceral.
He
quently,
dishked causing discomfort to the
man he
when Ronald Reagan was persuaded
total
Reagan.
and vis-
idohzed. Conse-
to put
Marines in an
untenable position for an imprecise purpose in Beirut, Weinberger
would not confront him on
the issue.
The Phone Never Stops Kinging
While Weinberger never hesitated
White House policy
others in
293
George Shultz and
any unpleasantness
disputes, he hated
in-
own workaday staff. I could not get him to fire a driver who when he went to pick up the Weinbergers after a Thanks-
volving his
was
to battle with
^
so drunk
giving holiday that he greeted
Cap Weinberger was then stayed in them.
them with "Happy
man who worked
a
would
I
exactly 6:58, Weinberger's driver
would
the Secretary
my
arrive in
arrive in
Easter."
grooves into his
office
would inform
two minutes.
by 6:30
me by
On
life
a.m.,
and
and
at
car phone that
the dot, Weinberger
stepped from his private elevator, followed by the driver, lugging an old-fashioned lawyer's briefcase with a big metal clasp on top. Wein-
berger headed for the Pershing desk, an elaborately carved walnut piece
over nine feet long, formerly belonging to General John "Black Jack" Pershing,
War
I.
commander of
the
American Expeditionary Force
Weinberger unloaded the briefcase of
its
in
World
homework, papers
that
would launch multimillion-dollar defense purchases, make people admirals or generals, or send surface-to-air missiles to anticommunist
The
guerrillas.
briefcase empty, Weinberger sat
seconds, simply gazed ahead, as
He
next buzzed in the
Brief, a
gence.
CIA
who
delivered the President's Daily
heavy vellum report containing the cream of overnight preferred the Early Bird with
I
stories. In the
its
intelli-
compendium of newspaper
evening, Weinberger packed up the ancient satchel and
adjusted his chair so that
He
and, for a few
bracing himself for the day ahead.
if
courier
down
it fit
flush, exactly centered, against his desk.
tapped his foot on the base of the chair, signaling the end of the
workday. The
ritual
was unvarying.
Weinberger's outward gravity concealed an impish wit and unexpected quirks.
My job,
and hence
the Secretary's time, the one quently,
I
morning,
was I
and
in
surprised
my
commodity he could not
out, conferring
him reaching
full
to control
stretch.
Conse-
with him a dozen times a day. for something
hand drawer. Before he could close drawer was
borrowed power, was
it,
I
from
One
his top right-
spotted the contents.
The
of chocolates, candy kisses and chocolate bars, treats
I
munched on when no one was around. The Secretary of Defense was a closet chocoholic. On another day, when I surprised him polishing off a Hershey bar, he said, "Colin, the subsequently discovered that he
only real power
I
exercise in this building
to prepare a chocolate dessert
when
I
is
that I
can order the kitchen
entertain important guests."
^ COLIN
294
My
had no
duties
tuxedo from
home
and ran from Weinberger's
specific definition
bag
strategic advisor to
POWELL
L.
carrier.
On
one occasion,
I
had
to retrieve his
so that he could change in his office for a soiree.
stood there briefing
him on
I
the evening's event while he emptied his
pockets, the contents of which revealed an upexpcQted side to this for-
mal man. Out came a explained, since he
was
He had
stub of a pencil.
little
a child.
An
carried
it,
he
Australian halfpenny emerged, a
memento of his wartime courtship of his wife in the Pacific. "I'm always more comfortable with these around me," he explained shyly. Like Harold Brown and John Kester, Cap Weinberger was a cultivated man. His tastes ran to the classics in literature and music. We bought him a small clock radio with a cassette player, and he worked when alone to the
accompaniment of Bach and Beethoven.
the
man
appealing, something not found in that
at times, I felt
my own cultural inadequacy.
habits got worse during this period. I
found the cultured side of
I
might get
tv/o
the time
pages into a good book before
Weinberger also had a Pentagon, the
By
But,
taste for
many if I
infantrymen; and
got
home
dozed
off.
pomp. Long before
my
I
my reading
anything,
at
9:00
p.m.,
return to the
CIA had reported that Libyan hit men were en route to the
United States to assassinate the President and other American leaders.
was a
false alarm, but,
among
It
other measures, sentries in service dress
uniform were posted outside the suites of the Secretary and the deputy
We wound up with twelve useful men and women working in
secretary.
assigned to an essentially useless duty, since the Pentagon had
shifts
perfectly adequate civilian police. tant,
When
I
took over as military assis-
with the assassination threat long since proved only a rumor,
wanted
to
end the guard
detail.
Weinberger would not hear of
it.
I
He
loved having these strapping troops, the American equivalent of the
Tower of London's Beefeaters, posted outside the sentinel on duty
ever he
came
whenever he
left the office
doorway.
He
saluted
and saluted again when-
back.
Frank Carlucci had once counseled their fights with
Weinberger
me
that
yourself for the serious
stuff.
wise subordinates picked
selectively. "If it's small potatoes,"
had warned, "don't waste your energy. Even
wall."
his
And even
if
he's dead wrong. Save
then you'll probably hit a stone
Weinberger could indeed be obstinate, as
case of "Star Wars."
Frank
I
was
to find out in the
The Phone Never Stops Ringing
On March
23, 1983, about four
months before
had returned
I
295
"A"
to the
Pentagon, President Reagan delivered a major pohcy speech announcing that the United States intended to pursue a "Strategic Defense Initiative/'
The President had been persuaded by
and other advisors controlled
by
that
satellites
we
the Joint Chiefs of Staff
could create a defensive shield in space,
and capable of destroying incoming Soviet mis-
The President immediately grasped that such a shield could change the nuclear equation. The present situation was a balance of terror. Mutually Assured Destruction, MAD. You destroy us, and we siles.
But
will destroy you.
if,
because of
then the huge nuclear arsenals
us,
this shield, they
could not destroy
growing on both sides made no
still
further sense.
Immediately following the President's SDI speech, Senator Ted
Kennedy branded
the idea a "reckless Star Wars scheme," a term which,
because of the wildly popular movie, stuck. This phrase scared the hell out of people with the prospect of nuclear megabursts going off in the
heavens and radioactive debris raining
down
to earth.
ically liberal or conservative, but I believe the liberal
a serious mistake if it
this
am not ideolog-
community made
concept out of hand as unwise even
could be done. The real problem,
critics
tual
by ridiculing
I
think,
I
was
that
Ronald Reagan's
could not bear the thought that he had proposed a major concep-
breakthrough in the nuclear stalemate.
Weinberger became more Catholic than the Pope on the subject of SDI and served as the administration's point man in hearings on the Hill. One day, on his way to testify before Congress on the subject, Weinberger sought
to defuse Star
War
fears
head of research and engineering, Richard that
by asking the Pentagon's
De
Lauer,
if the
x-ray lasers
would destroy Soviet missiles would be powered by nuclear explo-
sions. "Is
it
a
bomb?" Weinberger asked De
generated the laser beams,
Lauer. That
De Lauer explained, by
was how you
detonating a nuclear
device in space.
"But
it's
not a
bomb,
is it?"
Weinberger asked, looking for semantic
elbow room. De Lauer found a useful euphemism: "No, not a bomb,
would be a nuclear
event." Thereafter,
Weinberger
it
in congressional tes-
timony and elsewhere refused to admit that SDI required a nuclear blast.
He would begin rolling two No.
gers, a Captain
Queeg talisman
2 yellow pencils between his fin-
indicating that his
combat mode. He preferred the word "generator"
mind had gone
to
"bomb."
into
* COLIN
296
POWELL
L.
And
Technically he was wrong.
When the two
feared that in his obstinacy he
I
would look
evasive.
to explain.
"Mr. Secretary, a nuclear device does have to explode in
of us were alone in his office,
space to generate the enormous energy required to
work. The power
is
Con
not supplied by
Edison."
make
I
tried
the system
t
"Generates energy, you say," he repeated with satisfaction. "Then
you agree with me. After a time,
I
not a bomb.
It is
realized that there
It's
a generator."
was method
in his stubbornness.
As
long as he never yielded on this point, no headline could ever scream,
Bombs
"Weinberger Confirms Nuclear
New I
Star
in Space:
Kennedy Demands
Wars Hearings."
soon understood
Members
why Weinberger was
not overawed by Congress.
often displayed a well-developed talent for hypocrisy.
We
endured torrents of righteous wrath from lawmakers shocked by Weinberger's budget requests. But the
same guy whipping us on
day would be on the phone the next, begging us
to
add
the floor one
to the
Pentagon
budget some vaguely military program for a conmiunity college in his
As one committee chairman put
district.
flown the debate,
to
me, no matter how high-
end of the day, he had
at the
than 50 percent, or no budget passed.
some people
it
to
have one vote more
And what swung
votes
was what
called pork and others called national defense.
I
soon
understood the difference. Pork was national defense spending in another member's It
was not easy
district.
to stand
But the
their votes.
line
up
had
to
to
members of Congress,
since
we needed
be drawn somewhere. Once, while serv-
ing as Weinberger's military assistant,
I
got a call from Congressman
Charles Wilson of Texas. Charlie Wilson was a defense stalwart and a particular rainmaker in
had
winning aid for the mujahedin
communist regime and Soviet forces
ing the
earlier called
who were
in Afghanistan.
fight-
CharUe
our Legislative Affairs Office to arrange military
He wanted to bring along his girlbeen turned down. He then called me.
transportation for a trip to the region. friend.
He
had, quite correctly,
He complained straighten
about nitpicking bureaucrats, and
them
counted on, and
out. I I
was well aware
it."
I
of government
would
Wilson was a vote we
took a deep breath before answering. "Charlie,"
"that's unauthorized use
approve
that
knew
aircraft.
I said,
The Secretary cannot
*
The Phone Never Stops Ringing
What was
he demanded, anti-bachelor? "I'm damned
I,
to travel all
over the world without the
answer was
still
"Suppose
"The officer I
I
show up
at the airport
on the spot
Wilson reminding
I'll
I
I'm going
a pretty lady."
My
with her?" he asked.
pilot will refuse to fly her," I said,
for three stars.
7
no.
just
like that."
me
that he
to
do what
still
be around
said, "Please
think
I
up.
from Congressman
later to get a letter
would
wrote him and
keep trying
"and you shouldn't put an
He blew more smoke and hung
was disappointed a few days
and
company of
if
29
if I
ever
came up
do what you think
is right."
is
right
What he thought was
was to cut three C- 1 2 attache aircraft from the next defense budmaking no pretense about why he was doing it. Open vindictive-
right get,
ness was not going to hurt a good ole boy from a safe east Texas district.
The
girlfriend episode
of Congress, and
I
marked
my first serious run-in with a member
came away with
this conclusion.
adversaries, but not enemies. Today's adversary ally. I
managed
to
afford
may be tomorrow's
remain friends with Charlie and to accommodate his
substantive requests.
Sometime
You can
And we
continued to get his vote on key issues.
after the airplane incident, at a
girlfriend, a stunner.
formal dinner,
"See what you cost me," he
said.
I
met Charlie's
He had
a point.
My boss was a good man to be on the right side of, but he was the wrong man
to cross.
Richard Perle, a determined Cold Warrior, had come into
the department as assistant secretary of defense for international security policy. Perle,
known around the
building as "the Prince of Darkness" for
his unremitting anti-Soviet stance,
had brought with him a kindred
soul,
named Frank Gaffney. I watched Gaffney 's debut at a Weinberger staff meeting. He lectured the a bearded and brash former congressional staffer
Secretary on the evils of softness toward the Reds and referred to the four-star
Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, General
"Jack." After the meeting broke up, Weinberger took that
young man?" he asked. "What
following year, no matter
remained
to
Weinberger the
is
his
name?"
I
me
aside.
"Who
is
told him, but for the
how often Frank Gaffney surfaced, he man without a name. I gave Perle's protege
a course in bureaucratic table manners, and Weinberger able to utter "Gaffney," even eventually to nominate post.
John Vessey, as
But second chances with Cap Weinberger were
was eventually
him
rare.
for a higher
* COLIN
298
Early on,
I
accompanied Weinberger when he went had
for a meeting he until
to attend in the Situation
to the
Room.
White House
waited outside
I
he and the President came out and headed for a small nearby
for a private chat. close.
him.
POWELL
L.
It
was
the
Weinberger gestured
What
ing smile
me
come forward and introduced me
to
me as the President took my hand and gave radiance the man generated. He was perfectly
was a
looking as
if
me
to
a meltattired,
knotted just so, the snowy white shirt
tie
We
he had just broken starch.
and he and Weinberger turned
stayed with
office
had eyer seen Ronald Reagan up
I
struck
not a hair out of place, the
antries,
time
first
to the business at hand.
What
brush was the paradox of warmth
after this brief first
and detachment Reagan seemed
exchanged a few pleas-
to generate simultaneously, as if there
could be such a thing as impersonal intimacy.
I
was a juggler
trying to keep the egos of three service secretaries, four
service chiefs, the
pashas
all in
retary,
who
them was
Chairman of the
the air at once.
Joint Chiefs, and other Pentagon
They expected
welcome
did not always
the toughest part of the job,
performance.
their attentions.
tried to get
was probably
the Navy,
Dealing with
and not everyone applauded
One Pentagon powerhouse
Lehman, Secretary of
instant access to the Sec-
me
fired.
my
John
the ablest infighter in
Lehman would never budge an inch in the competition among the services. To him, the Navy position was always the Alamo. Not content to run the Navy, Lehman was forever pressing on Weinthe building.
berger his ideas for running the entire defense establishment. Weinberger did not enjoy Lehman's aggressiveness, and heavy, keeping
him
at bay.
Not
surprisingly,
I
had
to play the
Lehman blamed me for He went
depriving the Secretary of the benefit of his brilliance.
around the building claiming that
I
was not serving
the Secretary, but
ingratiating myself with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to guarantee future.
my
His displeasure reached a point where he went to see Will Taft
and urged Taft
to
of the incident.
I
have Weinberger get
was not amused.
Paul Miller, and told him that
performance, he ought to
tell
I
if his
me
of me. Will jokingly told
rid
Lehman's military
called
to
boss was displeased with
my
face, not try to
Nothing changed. Weinberger continued continued to blame me.
And
I
to resist
me
assistant,
my
sandbag me.
Lehman. Lehman
did not get fired. In the course of these
^
The Phone Never Stops Ringing
clashes, however,
new
299
did pick up from John Lehman's vocabulary a
I
on an old bromide: "Power corrupts; but absolute power
twist
is
really neat."
My father had already passed away, and so had Alma's mother, in
1972.
my mother.
As we entered 1984, Alma was about to lose her father and I
R. C. Johnson died in Alma's arms on February 5, 1984, at the age of
eighty-one.
I
had
sibly worse, a
and pos-
started off as a suspect son-in-law, a soldier,
West
Indian.
By the time R.C.
died,
I
had overcome these
demerits and could affectionately kid this sober educator, get take a rare drink, and tease
my I
toolbox into
him about
tools
him
to
somehow migrating from
his.
took on the responsibihty of wrapping up R.C.'s estate.
I
had gone
through the Birmingham house and rounded up the arsenal of guns he
had accumulated
weapons Brooks,
in drawers, closets,
in the trunk of
who ran the message center for the
ested in a Smith
Japanese army
down
&
rifle
to see
Wesson of
to the rifle.
I
looked
it
put the
my
what
.38, a
I
was a
had brought back. Jim was
inter-
couple of
own. He bought the
Magnums, and an pistols,
During one lunch hour, we went
and
over and said he would think about
it
and
old
finally
we
to the parking lot
left. I
my
car.
Jim
had put the
back into the trunk when a patrol car pulled up. Out came an
rifle
Jim
Secretary of Defense,
could show him the piece, stowed in the trunk of
so that
I
my car and took them back to Washington.
gun collector and wanted
got
and the basement.
offi-
cer from the Department of Defense police force.
your car?" he
"Is this
"Yes,"
I
said.
answered.
"Please open the trunk." I
started to explain about the
"Open I
the
collection.
the trunk, please," the cop said.
weapon that would have been obsolete even Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
opened
when
gun
"Come
it
to reveal a
with me," he said, taking
my rifle.
"Look, I'm Major General Powell,"
I
said.
"I'm Secretary Wein-
berger's military assistant."
"Please
come with me,
seat. I refused. I told etly,
but
I
sir."
He tried to lock me in the caged-off back-
him, as they say in the movies, that
intended to ride up front.
I
would go
qui-
* COLIN
300
POWELL
L.
We entered the police station in the basement of the Pentagon, where a sergeant sat behind a desk ready to
Miranda
rights. I
book people and read them
was not looking forward
their
to this scene. Suddenly, a
police lieutenant appeared. "General, what are you doing here?" he asked.
"I'll
And
take over," he told the patrolman.
"You can go back
When
to
got back,
I
happened.
your
my
office,
sir. I'll
secretary,
turning to me, he said,
see that your rifle
is
returned."
Nancy Hughes, explained what had
A vigilant secretary on the fourth floor of the Pentagon, up in down
Air Force country, had seen two people dling a
t
^
Fm being arrested," I said.
"I think
rifle.
Terrorists!
in the parking lot han-
She had immediately called the pohce. The
savvy and tactful Nancy got wind of what was going on and notified a
man
called
Doc Cooke.
The Secretary of Defense ran
the department, but
David O. "Doc"
Doc was deputy assistant secretary of defense for administration. Functionally, he was the chief fixer. Need to kick somebody upstairs who was not doing his job? See Doc Cooke. Want a private bathroom worthy of your rank as assistant secretary? Doc can install it. Can't get a parking place in the prestigious River Entrance lot? Try Doc. Need to spring a major general who is about to Cooke ran
the building. Formally,
get busted? Doc's your
man. His power was formidable,
of the Pentagon.
Doc was
had been unable
to outv/it.
the one player
this
Godfather
whom even crafty John Kester
Doc had all the understanding of the
military
bureaucracy of a Navy captain, which he had been, and the wiles of a
Doc Cooke, the Pentagon would not open in the morning. No one else would know where the keys were. Doc and Nancy had arranged my release without bond, bail, or further
lawyer, which he was. Without
embarrassment.
My
mother died a hard death. She had had a heart attack
before.
She survived only
to get cancer, requiring a
mastectomy. Then
she had a second heart attack. Toward the end, as with
found myself flying up
to
five years
my
father, I
New York almost every weekend. Even in her When she knew there was
constant suffering, her spirits never flagged.
no hope, she uttered the typical Jamaican sucking sound followed by the untranslatable "Chuh!" "Chuh, Colin,
throw some ivy over me, and forget
it." I
you
just put
thanked
God
me
out there,
for Ida Bell,
by
^
The Phone Never Stops Kinging
now
a twenty-five-year boarder in
my
mother's home. Miss Bell had
my father during his terminal illness. Now she was same for my mother. I will always be indebted to Ida Bell.
doing the
helped
Maud
"Arie" Powell died on June
ing the end
what
I
bound
was
near,
I
my
wife and
before,
know-
New York
to
for
touched me, the closeness that
last visit. It
my
three children to
all
The week
1984.
3,
had driven the whole family
sensed might be the
301
mother.
The kids
all
called
her "darling," a pleasing sound they had picked up because that
was
what she called them.
My
father
had been the formative figure
mother was no habits of hard
less important.
work and
until incapacitated.
I
self-discipline.
to feel anything but
my mother and father, in the
funeral service
South Bronx.
meant so much
to
I
She had never stopped working
I
never understood
how
day, yet never allow
By now,
at St.
had taken
the modernists
me, the imagery, the poetry, the
new
service,
had taken modernism
was more emotional than
the
sister or
I
was
and the present young
to the extreme, rendering
But
I
found
it
way you would want
disconcerting
on could move.
raised
"God" mentioned once.
Mom. We'll do
had
had been
attachment to the forms of the
intellectual.
rock of faith
over. All that liturgy,
received a unisex, low-key, nontriumphant burial service.
"Don't worry.
she could
my
Margaret's, our old family church
God genderless and ordinary. I knew my
hearing the word
my
could not have been luckier.
was held
priest at St. Margaret's
to discover that the
role of
mothered. Parents are a luck of the draw. With
changed. The church had adopted a
past
The
Yet the necessity to earn a living had never inter-
work so hard away from home every
The
life.
absorbed from her as well lifelong
fered with her perfect mother love.
me
my
in
I
I
My mother
do not recall
found myself whispering,
something better
later,
because
this is not
to go."
Cap Weinberger was an
avid Anglophile. His manner, speech, and
appearance, his patrician never-apologize-never-explain attitude, had a certain Englishness,
minus the accent. Consequently, when the Secre-
tary received an invitation to take part in the
debates, he could not resist.
against an
Oxonian Marxist
"Resolved, there
is
The
famed Oxford Union
him to compete Thompson, on the issue
students had invited
professor, E.
P.
no moral difference between the foreign pohcies of
the United States and the Soviet Union."
American embassy
officials in
* COLIN
302
POWELL
L.
London, on learning the news, begged the Secretary not
Oxford students were heavily
leftist,
to
do
it.
The
capable of vocal abuse, and unim-
pressed by anybody. Such an argument could not be won, the embassy staff argued,
and a loss would lead
to embarrassing stories in the
pean media. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, staunch of the Secretary, urged him to reconsider.
It
ally
was unseemly
Euro-
and friend
for an
Amer-
ican Secretary of Defense to take part in a venture involving unavoidable risks and a doubtful prize, the opponents argued. Their arguments
only hardened Weinberger's resolve.
We
left
Andrews Air Force Base
1984, and arrived in
London
busy with other matters and,
I
late in the
evening of February 27,
early the next morning. Weinberger noticed,
had given
was
his debating notes only
a cursory glance during the flight. That evening
accompanied him
I
through the halls of the Oxford Union, walking past portraits of prime ministers
whose own debating
The
carrying his No. 2 pencils.
of
Romans
at the
the lions. Professor
What we had was
had been perfected
my man mount the
place and watched
me
skills
here.
my
stage to argue the "con" position
students in the packed house reminded
Colosseum waiting
Thompson had
for a Christian to be
thrown to
a formidable reputation as a debater.
had been a former television
talk
show
host, a
reviewer, and a highly paid lawyer. His peroration that night
Were
took
forgotten in the hurly-burly of running the department
that our chief
terful.
I
book
was mas-
the Western and Soviet systems different? "I leave
you with
one thought," he concluded. "When you leave here tonight, there will be
no midnight knock
at
your door."
berger was as excited as
man. Though little
his victory
insurance.
The way
I
By
a close margin, he won. Wein-
have ever seen
was
this
emotionally contained
clear-cut in our eyes,
the debate winner
is
determined
by counting how many people leave via the "pro" the "con."
We made
sure that every
every staffer and secretary
I
knew
left
we had
exit
member of our
taken out a
at
Oxford
is
and how many by
security detail
and
via the "con" exit.
that Weinberger, for all his
outward self-possession, had been
deeply troubled by the tragic bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut. I
did not realize
his office.
He
how
asked
deeply until a singular draft document came out of
me
to take a
istration's national security
look
at
it
and circulate
it
to the
admin-
team. Weinberger had appHed his formidable
lawyerly intellect to an analysis of when and
when not to conmiit United
303
The Phone Never Stops Ringing
States military forces abroad.
He was
and "presence"
"interpositional forces"
way without
U.S. troops in harm's
put off by fancy phrases like that turned out to
when
putting
He objected to our word. He had come up
a clear mission.
troops being "used" in the worst sense of that
with six tests for determining
mean
commit American
to
forces.
Weinberger's antagonist, George Shultz, was dismissive of Cap's approach.
I
had watched the irony of
Secretary of State
even
in a
was often ready
to
their squabbling for
commit America's
What was
no-man's-land like Lebanon.
military might,
the point of maintain-
you did not whack somebody occasionally
ing a military force if
demonstrate your power? the forces that
months. The
to
On the other side was the man responsible for
would have
do the bleeding and dying, arguing against
to
anything but crucial commdtments.
Not only did Weinberger want istration;
to sell his guidelines inside the
he wanted to go public that summer.
possible speaking platforms, but
any such controversial speech
White House
We
admin-
started considering
political operatives
nixed
was
over.
until the presidential election
After Reagan's reelection, Weinberger addressed the National Press
Club on November 28.
1
went with him
recommended "when we abroad." (i)
we commit, do
(2) If in
Commit
to hear
him describe
are weighing the use of U.S.
only
if
our or our
so with
all
combat forces
allies' vital interests are at stake.
the resources necessary to win. (3)
only with clear political and mihtary objectives. (4)
change the commitment still.
(5)
if
the tests he
Be ready
Go to
the objectives change, since wars rarely stand
Only take on commitments
that
can gain the support of the
.American people and the Congress. (6) Conmiit U.S. forces only as a last resort.
In short,
and go
is
the national interest at stake? If the
is
yes,
go
in,
in to win. Otherwise, stay out.
Clausewitz would have applauded.
my
answer
And in the future, when it became
responsibility to advise Presidents
on committing our forces
to
combat, Weinberger's rules turned out to be a practical guide. However, at the
time of the speech,
I
was concerned
publicly proclaimed, were too explicit and
that the
Weinberger
would lead
tests,
potential ene-
mies to look for loopholes.
In
May
mony
1985,
at the
1
was
invited to speak at the
ROTC
commissioning cere-
College of William and Mary. Twenty-seven years had
* COLIN
304
passed since
my own
I
POWELL
L.
had stood
in
Aronowitz Auditorium
at
CCNY to receive
Among the cadets I was to commisPowell. When it came time for me to admin-
second lieutenant's bars.
sion this day
was Michael
ister the oath, I instructed the cadets to
were looking out
at the
do an about-face so
that they
audience of parents ^nd loved ones, a gesture
When
had appropriated from Gunfighter Emerson's retirement parade. it
was Mike's
turn to
come
I
across the stage, he got an embrace along
with his commission, a powerful son. In the audience, besides
moment
of continuity for father and
Alma, were Mike's
sisters,
Linda, a
William and Mary sophomore, and Annemarie, soon to be a freshman there.
I
like to think that
Thomas
Jefferson, an uneasy slaveholder,
would have appreciated the Powells'
getting a first-rate education at the
college from which he graduated.
As a just-commissioned second lieutenant, Mike wanted to take a new car to Fort Knox for his basic training in armor, his assigned branch. I tried to persuade him to wait until he got to Germany, where he was going eventually, and where he could buy a European way. Mike had had enough of after the night
when he had
my
hand-me-down Volvos,
to steer while
I
car.
No
especially
towed a broken-down Volvo
on the end of a rope for ninety miles from Richmond
to
our house, a
Enough of Pop's penny-pinching. Mike wanted a new Honda now. I took him to a Honda dealer and introduced him to the art of the deal. To Mike's utter humiliation, I spent hair-raising experience for the towee.
three hours haggling with five salesmen and
two managers. But
in the
we got our price. By now, I was buying Volvos presumably dead and bringing them, like Lazarus, back to life. People started seeking me out for my Volvos.
end,
Others happily gave slap
me
their
moribund models.
I
$99 worth of Earl Scheib paint on them, and
became ginia
brisk.
I
would
resell
fix
them
up,
them. Business
even tried to get a dealer's license, but the
state
of Vir-
would not consider Fort Myer a legitimate business address. Over
the past ten years, over thirty Volvos have passed through
only Sweden awarded a Nobel Prize for recycling
its
my hands.
If
cars.
A large part of my day in the Weinberger office involved going through correspondence addressed to him to decide what required his personal attention.
The document dated June
17, 1985,
National Security Decision Directive
(NSDD)
was a
stunner, a draft
entitled "U.S.
Pohcy
The Phone Never Stops Ringing
Toward
Iran," printed
on White House letterhead, addressed
*
303
to
Wein-
berger and Secretary of State George Shuhz, and classified top secret.
Our copy of Only
for You."
thing.
As
I
NSDD
the eight-page
was
marked "Sec Def: Eyes
also
Weinberger nevertheless expected
read through the
NSDD,
I
realized
me
what
it
to screen every-
represented:
Bud
McFarlane, the current National Security Advisor, was making a bid for Kissingerian immortality.
Kissinger, former holder of the job
McFarlane now held, had demonstrated, along with President Nixon, the conceptual audacity to think the unthinkable, to
Communist China
that
America had kept shut
NSDD proposed opening
open a door
for a generation.
to
The
a dialogue with Iran to include sending U.S.
arms to the Iranian government of the Ayatollah Khomeini, a regime
had held fifty-two Americans hostage for over a
that
United States had formally declared a
Reagan had
said the United States
terrorist state, that President
would never deal with,
United States had boycotted and was urging
and
well,
was linked
that
Beirut? Could anything be
to the
was eager
I
to hear
all its allies to
that the
boycott as
bombing deaths of 241 Marines I shot this document in
to
Rich Armitage also take a look
at
more audacious?
the Secretary with a suggestion that it.
year, that the
in
Weinberger's reaction.
When the memo came back, I felt proud of my boss. Across the cover memo Weinberger had written: "This is almost too absurd to comment on.
.
.
.
It's like
asking Qaddafi to Washington for a cozy chat," referring
anti-American strongman.
to Libya's
Normally, Weinberger found tive as a stone,
Bud McFarlane about
as
communica-
one reason he disliked dealing with him. But
after this
dismissal of his brainstorm, McFarlane asked for an appointment with
Weinberger.
I
watched the usually phlegmatic Bud make an earnest
pitch to Weinberger,
me"
who
sat
behind his Pershing desk with a "show-
impassivity. This bold initiative could
McFarlane argued. filled the
It
could get us back into Iran before the Soviets
power vacuum we had
release of seven
in Iran,"
was fooHsh
to expect
It
left there;
and
American hostages currently held
"The only moderates cemetery."
win over Iranian moderates,
it
could achieve the
in Beirut.
Weinberger answered, "are
good
in the
faith in obtaining the release of
hostages from the same regime that had countenanced their seizure. The
Khomeini regime, he Soviet Union.
told McFarlane,
As McFarlane
left,
was equaled
Weinberger turned
in evil only to
by the
me and said that
* COLIN
306
he hoped
POWELL
L.
we had heard the
last
of this nonsense. George Shultz
had condemned the arms deal with equal force;
was Weinberger's
happened during
few
he put
it
into the
The notes ranged from entries Hke "McFarlane
As he completed
to "Call the vet for Kiltie."
a pad,
When the drawer told me he had fol-
middle right-hand drawer of his desk.
he stored the pads in a
filled,
lowed
habit to keep a record on httle white pads of what
his day.
NSDD"
meeting on
was
at State
the
where he and Weinberger agreed.
areas It
was one of
it
this practice for years.
He once
closet.
Did this small mountain of notes
constitute
a "diary"? As a result of McFarlane's arms-for-hostage plan and the sub-
sequent Iran-contra scandal, the question would one day have legal implications for Caspar Weinberger
One
afternoon that summer, John
called
me on
—and
news.
two years as military assistant, and the time quently, I
I
was expecting
was going
to
orders,
"Bill"
Fort
I
was
was supposed
was just about
to take
to replace
command
that night floating on
air. I
go back
trip to
I
I
of the 8th Infantry
officers. I
after nearly
Secretary,
up. Conse-
went home
to
was going to leave the Beltway
behind to return to real soldiering and, to
to put in
Major General Charles W.
Dyke, one of the Army's most dynamic
Myer
I
Staff,
and Wickham's news was good indeed.
be sent to Germany
Division (Mechanized).
me.
Wickham, now Army Chief of
He had some
his hot line.
for
Germany. In a subsequent
twenty-seven years,
West Germany with
took the opportunity to drop in on Bill
Dyke
the
for a briefing.
could not wait to take over the division.
My euphoria lasted three weeks. Wickham came down to my which struck your
me
ability to
as a
bad
sign. "Colin,"
he
said, "I
I
said.
"But Secretary Weinberger has been talking total trust.
vital a role
have no doubt about
command."
"Yes, but ..."
man's
office,
He relates
to
you
in
to
me. You have the
an extraordinary way. You play as
here as you would in any field
command. I'm
afraid I've
come with good news and bad news." I
did not need tea leaves to guess the bad news.
"I
can always find another division commander,"
"And news
the Secretary needs is that in
you
Wickham went
here. So, you'll be staying.
about a year, we'll give you a
going through a division command."
full corps,
on.
The good
without your
^
The Phone Never Stops Ringing
Wickham
and
left,
chocolate bar.
I
went
He greeted me
in to find the Secretary nibbling
like a father
307 on a
who has just prevented a fool-
ish son from running away from home. "Then
decided. You'll stay,"
it's
he said. "And next year, instead of one division, you'll have two." People like the Secretary understood the politics of defense.
My
always understand the culture of the Army.
skipping a division and
going directly to a corps would not necessarily
my
Some,
peers.
rightly,
would resent
in fact,
elicit
convinced.
Wickham had assured me move without enraging the
promoted
remembered
I still
that
was
different, I
was not
White House Fellow who had been
the
to colonel through political pressure,
manding nothing but a desk outside
I
I
mutter, quite
old bulls.
which
ished his military career. For the next year, however,
Every morning
admiration from
move and
this
about "politics."
and could pull off the
But they do not
I
effectively fin-
would be com-
the Secretary's office.
received a black plastic case stamped "Top Secret" con-
winging around the world and
taining the choicest inteUigence
inter-
cepted by our electronic eavesdropping enterprise, the Nafional Security
Agency. Vice Admiral Arthur Moreau, the assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs,
came
Secretary's office the
NSA
me
to
was not
one morning with an odd revelation. The
some of
getting
plucked out of the
air.
On
share this withheld material with
the
own me. What I his
most curious
traffic that
hook. Art had decided to read amazed me. Foreign
intermediaries were, for a price, evidently cooking up arms deals
between Reagan administration ates."
McFarlane's
tent of the
I
initiative, evidently,
messages was
much was why
officials
startling
was very much
alive.
enough, but what troubled
The con-
me just
as
the Secretary's office should be cut out of the loop.
showing the intercepts
started
and the alleged Iranian "moder-
to Weinberger.
Each fime he called
McFarlane, trying to find out what was going on, the National Security
Advisor remained close-mouthed. Finally, an exasperated Weinberger
summoned me one day and sages from?"
I
said, "Colin,
who
are
we getting
these mes-
explained that they were bootlegged to us by Admiral
Moreau, who got them from the NSA. "Indeed," Weinberger said. rity
"And don't
I
control the National Secu-
Agency?"
He
did,
I
said. It
director. Lieutenant
was under
the Department of Defense.
The NSA's
General William Odom, was Weinberger's subordi-
* COLIN
308
"Would you
nate.
POWELL
L.
General Odom," Weinberger
call
him who he works for?" I phoned Odom as soon what was going on. between two
reefs.
as
I
got back to
my
office
sensed the discomfort of a
I
said,
"and remind
and asked him
man
being tossed
McFarlane's NSC, using the authority of the White
House, had instructed
Odom to
give these intercepts the narrowest cir-
culation, excluding the Secretary of Defense.
We straightened that mat-
ter out in a hurry.
Weinberger continued
arms
to rail against the Iranian
appeared to have attracted the sleaziest sort of rug merchants.
remained the dominant element
alty to the President
The proposed arms deal was cannot
President.
own
And
on
fall
this
down
scheme looked,
greatest appeal of the it
we
it
would
arms deal
White House and followed him on
He wanted
political risks to
do
it.
I
was bad
die of
its
underestimated the President's sup-
to
NSC
staff to pull
it
off.
Ronald Reagan was the pos-
offered of freeing the hostages. Their families
affected him.
it
the presidency. Senior
at the time, as if
port for the plan or the determination of the
The
loy-
swords every time they disagree with a
their
foolishness anyway. But
sibihty
Still,
Cap's mind.
a bad idea. But at the time,
policy, not a criminal act liable to bring officials
in
which
deal,
came
to the
his speaking trips. Their appeals
the hostages freed,
and was willing
to take
myself believe that hostages taken by
terrorists
we must do what we can
to obtain
represent individual tragedies, and
freedom. Nevertheless, hostage taking and terrorism cannot be
their
allowed to drive foreign policy decisions. Ransom, however euphemized, is
and
ers
still
ransom and should never be
can only demonstrate to them that their weapons work.
terrorists
Early in
December 1985, Bud McFarlane decided to resign
Security Advisor.
We
was with Weinberger from WilHam
was
upset.
paid. Giving in to hostage tak-
J.
Cap
were hardly encouraged by in
Europe for a
his
as National
Ukely successor.
I
NATO meeting when he took a call
Casey, head of the Central Intelligence Agency. Casey told
me
after
he hung up. Admiral John Poindexter,
McFarlane's deputy, was the leading candidate to replace Bud. "He's not
up
to
it.
the job
Cap," Casey had said. Poindexter lacked the depth and breadth
demanded. Casey wanted Weinberger to use
President to help I
him
derail Poindexter's appointment.
had dealt with John Poindexter and had
ability.
He was
his influence with the
brilliant,
my own opinion of his suit-
but in a narrow, technical sense. Poindexter
The Phone Never Stops Ringing
would
rather
communicate with a colleague next door by computer than
person face-to-face.
talk to the
309
iK
had
I
him one day
to call
to discuss a
troublesome story on the front page of the Washington Post. "I don't read the Washington Post,'' he informed me.
'Tou don't have
but you have to
either,
with what you read,"
to agree
know what papers
Times are saying to operate in "I don't read the
this
understand
said, "I
go with John Poindexter. John
is
up
to the job.
So
Bill
Bill
said.
like the Post
call to the
Bud
and the
I
don't
New York
has
John answered.
White House. and
left
''Mr. President,"
that you're planning to
Casey has called me, and
asked
"Often
town."
New York Times either,"
Weinberger did put through a Weinberger
I
Bill doesn't think
me to call you." I watched Weinberger
nodding as President Reagan apparently gave his reasons for sticking with Poindexter. Weinberger closed saying, "Mr. President,
comfortable with John, I'm sure we'll
In
all
you're
if
get along just fine."
mid-December 1985, Weinberger had two
issues to discuss with
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the super- secret F-117
British
Stealth fighter
and a military
cellular
phone system. The
British
had
developed a phone system called Ptarmigan, and the French had a sim-
system called Rita. Both were well ahead of anything
ilar
develop for years. Consequently, the
two
allies to
plus deal.
why
It fell
the Brifish
to Britain,
Downing me.
buy one of their
Street,
Weinberger
accompanied
French.
to leave the
said, "Colin, I think
this matter."
I
accompanied him
American embassy
for 10
you should come with
Our ambassador, Charles
Price,
us.
were admitted
fortable place with chairs,
taken bids from these
Prime Minister Thatcher
to explain to
lost the contract to the
and as he prepared
want good notes on
I'll
We
had
could
cellular systems off the shelf, a $4-billion-
Weinberger
to
Army had
we
to
Mrs. Thatcher's receiving room, a quiet, com-
two couches facing each
and a blazing
fireplace.
secretary, Charles Powell,
minister, perfectly coiffed,
We
other, a scattering
were greeted by the PM's private
who pronounced his name came
in
of easy
wearing a
The prime managed to look
"Pole."
suit that
both feminine and businesslike.
Cap Weinberger
started easing his
ing
first
about the F-i 17.
cut
him
off.
way
into his unpleasant task, talk-
He had barely opened his mouth when the PM
* COLIN
310
POWELL
L.
"My dear Cap, I want you to know how this
am by
shabby business of the Ptarmigan," Mrs. Thatcher began. "Nothing
you can say
me that there wasn't dirty work at the crosscheated. Do you hear me? Cheated. And don't try to
will convince
We've been
roads. tell
very, very distressed I
me
otherwise."
^
r
The two admired and
liked each other, especially after Cap's vigor-
ous support of Thatcher in the Falkland Islands War. as she continued the
He remained
stoic
When
mantra of "dirty work" and "cheating."
she
stopped long enough to catch her breath, Weinberger started explaining the U.S. decision, but the
she said, as
if
the
PM
cut
word were an
him
off at the knees.
epithet.
"The French!"
Those awful people had obvi-
ously done something improper. "I'm sure they did not play
fair."
She
turned to me. "Don't write that down, young man." Her opinions of the
French and her expressions of disappointment with her American cousins continued unbroken for ten more minutes. Finally, Weinberger tried explaining again, patiently, sensibly.
"But Cap," she
said, like a
schoolteacher upbraiding a pupil, "I say there was dirty work crossroads! Didn't
I tell
you not
to tell
me
at the
otherwise? Haven't you been
listening?"
The performance was the target,
I
suspect,
garet Thatcher
fascinating to the spectator.
from the wilted look on Weinberger's
was every
bit the Iron
face.
I
have ever met; and
seen her swing her famous verbal handbag right
at
for
Mar-
Lady of her public image,
one of the most formidable leaders
tainly
Not so pleasant
I
cer-
had
Weinberger's head.
Every time we thought the Iran-arms proposal had a stake through the heart,
had
Weinberger would return from the White House
risen. After
one such
return,
he asked
me
Israehs gave the Iranians arms from their stocks,
them.
I
went
to
Hank
I
how,
we might
it
if the
replenish
Gaffney, in the Defense Security Assistance
Agency, the Pentagon office that sold and suppHed arms
and
to report that
to figure out
asked him to prepare a
memo describing
to other nations,
the legal implications of
various transfers. Reflecting Weinberger's lack of enthusiasm,
I
asked
Gaffney to accentuate the negative. The response came back that the proper
way
to carry out a replenishment
was through
the
Arms Export
Control Act, which would require notification of Congress as to both the inmiediate and ultimate destination of such arms transfers. This was precisely the information that the
NSC
did not want to reveal.
I
gave the
311
The Phone Never Stops Ringing
memorandum
Weinberger just as he was headed for another White
to
House meeting, hoping
we had
that this time
a stake that would kill
the beast.
On
January 17, 1986, the President signed a top-secret "Finding of
was
Necessity," declaring that the covert sale of arms to Iran
country's interest. gality, in
The scheme was
what came
other elements,
foolhardy, but
still
be known as the Iran-contra
to
namely the diversion of funds
to the
now
in
our
legal. Ille-
grew out of
affair,
Nicaraguan contras
and perjured testimony given by participants before Congress. The day
Weinberger was told
after the President signed the finding,
implementing
He
it.
directed
me
of 4,000 (later raised to 4,508)
TOWs
were
to
go
to the
to start
to arrange for the transfer to the
CIA
TOW missiles, an antitank weapon. The
CIA under
a federal law called the
Economy
Act, which allowed government agencies to transfer material to each other.
This stratagem was legal as far as the
Army was
concerned. The
TOWs were then to be transferred by the CIA to Iran. Weinberger supported the indirect approach because he clandestine supply of
weapons
to another country
was
felt that the
the CIA's line of
work, not his department's. "I want nothing to do with the Iranians,"
Weinberger told me.
removed
as
much
"I
want the task carried out with the department
We
as possible."
TOW
treated the
transfer like
garbage to be gotten out of the house quickly. I
called General
Max Thurman, now
vice chief of staff of the
Army,
make the TOWs available to the CIA. I told him nothing more. I had known for months that the arms plan was kicking around. But it was not until the moment Weinberger directed me to carry out the transfer that I knew the President had definitely decided to and asked him
to
go ahead with
it
Soon
and send the weapons
after delivery
of the
first
to Iran.
batch of
TOWs,
I
got a call from a
worried Lieutenant General Arthur Brown, director of the
"We
don't
know where
hell isn't staying
this stuff is going,"
with the CIA. The
us that you should be aware that
if
Army arms
Brown
Army
said, "but
it
staff.
sure as
general counsel has advised
in that
amount
are going to a
foreign country. Congress has to be notified."
"Put
all that in
a
memo," I told Brown. On wisdom was to draft a
decided that the course of
getting his
memo
of
memo,
my own
I
to
Poindexter repeating the legal requirement that Congress must be noti-
* COLIN
312
fied if these
L.
arms went
POWELL
to a foreign country.
I
showed
the
memo
to
an
unhappy Weinberger. Precisely what he had warned against was coming
home
to roost, the risking of the administration's credibiUty in a
reckless cause.
I
memo to Poindexter personally at the the NSC chief j;ield with Weinberger and
handed the
weekly breakfast meeting
George Shultz. What we did not know was pany did plan
to notify
Congress
—
that Poindexter
week of
in the last
and com-
Reagan
the
administration, three years off. Timely congressional notification might
have blown
this
scheme out of the
water.
Throughout the early months of 1986, rying out tine
operated in a twihght zone, car-
1
my job while at the same time planning to leave
would have made no sense
as a job description.
I
My daily rou-
it.
might
day deciding which memoranda Weinberger should see and editing the Secretary's next speech. In between, tled chief's ego, arrange to
waiters and must have looked like
rate
tasks
which consisted
raw racism
I
day
stroke a disgrun-
did leave one mark.
entirely of Filipino
The
calls
would evapo-
Secretary's office
located in the Eisenhower Corridor of the Pentagon. a special affmity for
finish the
to our foreign visitors.
and a thousand and one phone
with time. But
out the
have the parade ground reseeded, and integrate
the Secretary's dining-room staff,
Most of my
would
I
start
I
have always
is
felt
Dwight Eisenhower, a war hero who did not have
to bark or rattle sabers to gain respect
and exercise command, a Presi-
who did not stampede his nation into every world trouble spot, a man who understood both the use of power and the value of restraint and who had the secure character to exercise whichever was appropriate. It was Ike, for example, who had resisted pressure to intervene in dent
Vietnam when the French went under a soldier, a President,
The
corridors in
at
Dienbienphu.
I
admired him as
and a man.
Army, Navy, and Air Force country were decorated
like
mini-museums, while the Eisenhower Corridor was hung with a
few
pictures. Ike's hall, I believed, should
matically. Weinberger, a lover of history
memory more
dra-
tradition, concurred.
Doc
honor
and
his
Cooke was the man I went to see to push through my plan to remake the corridor. Doc found the money in some budgetary cookie jar, gave me his talented staff artist, Joe Pisani,
and we went
to
work. For months,
the corridor, draped with drop cloths, looked like a Jackson Pollock retrospective.
The hammering and sawing seemed
to
go on
forever.
313
The Phone Never Stops Ringing
Midway through the project, Marybel Batjer dragged me out into the hall. Were we opening a bordello? she wanted to know. The corridor commemorating
the architect of victory in
Europe was being painted
fingernail pink.
"Does
"We It
look right to you?"
this
I
asked the foreman.
"We just
don't pick 'em, General," he said.
turned out the paint
and the hallway had
to
it
on."
number had been transposed on the work order,
be redone. In the meantime, some wiseacre hung
Opening Soon."
a sign in the corridor: "Powell's Pizza Parlor,
Nine months
slap
after the
work first began, John D. Eisenhower,
the late
President's son, presided over the dedication of the refurbished corridor.
We
had found an old sign reading "Buying Station
—The
Bell-
Springs Creamery," from the creamery where Ike worked eighty hours a
week
We
as a boy.
displayed his West Point yearbook, opened to his
photo with the inscription "Daredevil Dwight, the Dauntless Don. He's the handsomest
fateful
corridor today
is
life
.
the Corps."
"go" for the invasion of Normandy.
could trace Ike's
.
Among the glass display cases military career of the Allied leader who gave the
man in
were mementos of the
.
from Abilene, Kansas,
From
to
the exhibits
you
the White House. The
an attraction on the Pentagon tour and a lasting source
of pride to me.
On March
25,
sat
1
with
Alma
in
probably the most stately setting in
Washington, the Diplomatic Reception State,
which Weinberger had borrowed
all
Room at the Department of my farewell dinner. I ac-
for
cepted the tribute as a mark of friendship and the almost sonlike relationship
I
presented
enjoyed with Weinberger. The next day, Cap personally
me
with the third star that went with
my new job
as a corps
commander.
My breaking away had required the intercession of Will Taft. After all my pleading to
sit
down and
assistant if
failed,
was
Will had gone in and finally persuaded Weinberger
pick a replacement for me. Weinberger's
be Vice Admiral
to
they picked Beetle Bailey. Faithful John
mand V Corps
I
Don Jones. By
just
wanted
new
this time, I
did not care
out.
Wickham proved as good as his word. I was
in
military
Germany. The assignment
stirred
off to
com-
powerful emotions
me. I was returning to the place where I had begun my military career commanding forty troops; I was now to command 75,000.
in
* COLIN
314
POWELL
L.
As an additional farewell treat, Weinberger took me along on Air Force One when President Reagan went to Grenada to receive the thanks of the island's people for the October I983 U.S. invasion that threw out the
communists.
It
my
was
first trip
with the president, and as
sat in
I
the rear of the plane, with stewards passing drinks and snacks, watching
my
individual
Later,
TV
screen,
I
me
Weinberger took
thought, this
is
way
a pleasant
to travel.
forward to the private cabin for a photo op
with the President. Ronald Reagan's greeting was so cordial that not
tell if
he actually remembered
me
or
if I
was experiencing
I
could
the stan-
dard Reagan seduction. The President was wearing the customary
snowy white
shirt
and perfectly knotted
up and he wore jogging pants
tie.
But
was hanging
his jacket
to save the crease in his trousers.
have never witnessed an outburst of mass emotion to match the
I
President's
welcome
84,000 people, and sports stadium.
Grenada. The island's population was about
in
all
of them seemed to have been packed into the
Ronald Reagan was introduced as the
liberator, the
Messiah, the savior, and the crowd went wild.
He gave
speech, greeted by a thunderous ovation. Yet,
observed what
noticed in
him
"Crowd
Two
years and ten months
cheers,"
and he accepted
—and
it
little
brilliant advocate, a
man who,
a lifetime
had passed.
man
quirks, but at the core, he
He projected
and supreme self-confidence. Yet in a
near-empty 707
the Mediterranean.
It
in the
happened
in
I
had served. Cap great fighter, a
few simple objec-
strength, unflappabil-
will never forget a revealing
October 1984 on the
final leg
of one
We had done business in
we had been caught in a the area. None of our party
Tunisia, Israel, and Jordan. In the Sinai,
lung-infecting mist that frequently blankets
was
the Pen-
dark of the night somewhere over
of those draining capital- to-capital marathons. Italy,
I
I left
was a
like his President, set a
and did not deviate from them.
moment
had
as part of the script.
tagon with the warmest feelings toward the
Weinberger had his
ity,
I
before, a certain professionalism, as if the directions
read,
tives
I
a masterful
feeling well, least of
were Rich Armitage and
I
all
Weinberger. Sitting in a cabin up forward
on one side and Weinberger on the
other.
We
We thought he was asleep. But then that silence. We always looked on the Secretary as
could barely see in the dark.
deep voice broke the
unshakable. Yet, he was saying, to himself,
it
seemed, "This
is
a lonely
The Phone Never Stops Ringing
You make
life.
body and
real
enemies but few
spirit. I try to
if
man
real friends. It exhausts a
serve the President as faithfully as
my
313 in
strength
come easily to him or his wife." moment as though he suddenly realized how nakedly he He paused for a had revealed himself to us. He went on, "I can speak to you two. I trust you." Finding that this seemingly indomitable man shared the same anxieties as the rest of us made him more, not less, admirable in my eyes. But this was a face we were permitted to see only on that one permits. But gratitude does not always
occasion.
Weinberger's more customary dogged certainty was both the man's strength and his weakness. During his years in the Pentagon, the world
had
shifted, but
Weinberger had
not.
His calls for ever-increasing
defense spending started to sound like a stuck whistle. ally lost
Congress's attention.
was
even as
it
right,
was
owe itary I
it
He
hated to
let
And he
go of the
starting to dissolve before our eyes. Yet,
at precisely the right time.
eventu-
"evil empire,"
when he was
To Weinberger and Reagan we
the resurgence of the United States as a respected
and credible mil-
power, after the debacle of Vietnam and the fiasco of Desert One.
readily give credit to the Carter-Brown era for getting
modem weaponry
on the drawing boards. But had
Reagan- Weinberger buildup, that
would have wound up
—on
is
it
much-needed
not been for the
where most of those weapons
the drawing boards. Possibly the greatest
contribution the Reagan- Weinberger
team made was
to
end the long
estrangement between the American people and their defenders. During this time, the rupture
armed
was healed, and America once more embraced
On March
1
6, 1 left the
Pentagon
saluted as
I
had never managed to dislodge).
I
to prepare for
my new
assignment.
passed the sentinel in front of Weinberger's office
I
my
its
forces.
River Entrance parking permit.
I I
turned in
my
have never
true
felt
(whom
badge of
status,
anything but pride
my country. This day, I walked taller than ever. And it may have been my imagination, but it seemed to me that during the Reaganat serving
Weinberger years, everyone in the military started standing
taller too.
Thirteen ^Tranky You re
Ruin
I
My
Gonna
Career^
FACED TAKING OVER V CORPS WITH CONFIDENCE TINGED WITH A TOUCH OF
anxiety.
It
was
ten years since
I
had been
in
command of the 2d Brigade,
loist Airborne Division, at Fort Campbell. In
ment,
I
had been an
assistant division
my previous
field assign-
commander under Jack Hudachek,
where I had not exactly emerged as George Patton. And about skipping a division
command and
determined to prove that
I
uneasy
I still felt
going directly to a corps.
I
was
was an able commanding general and not a
Pentagon-bred political general. I
had hoped
to
ing. Lieutenant
short his
assume command
ied
getting
German
I
was
replac-
General Robert L. "Sam" Wetzel, was in no hurry to cut
own tour,
since after this
fore did not report to
months
in April, but the officer
Germany
back up
to
speed
command he would be retiring.
until at
June 1986.
I
spent the intervening
combat schools. Alma and I
also stud-
eight hours a day, five days a week, for three weeks.
slim edge over her, a
C and a D in the
there-
I
language at CCNY, and my
I
had a
earher
My
"Frank, You're Gonna Ruin
Germany, where
tour in
had
Worse was those days,
irregular verbs did not entrance
yet to come. Because of the terrorist threat in
West
They had us barreUng around
Virginia.
taking curves at eighty-five miles an hour, practicing
We
were taught how
wind up going
Germany
both had to take a course called Defensive Driving,
stock-car track in
ists.
Alma, and
I
hold a gun to her head to get her to go to class.
to
we
317
picked up a vocabulary consisting mostly of
German
Bier und Schnitzel. practically
I
^
Career"
to spin the car
around
in the opposite direction, like a
final test involved
ramming
how
in
at a
the track
to elude terror-
breakneck speed and
at
Mafia getaway
You had
a car blocking a road.
driver.
to hit
it
The just
way without destroying your own car or kiUing yourself Ahna did not graduate with honors and did not much care. I went to West Germany first, and shortly afterward, Alma, Linda, right to
knock
it
out of the
Annemarie, and our
cat.
Max, flew
into the
Rhine-Main
met by Second Lieutenant Michael Powell. While gone through jump school and
wound up
he
in
airport to be
ROTC, Mike had though
air assault school, just as I had,
as a tanker rather than an infantryman.
active duty serving as scout platoon leader,
He was now on
2d Armored Cavahy^ Regi-
ment, VII Corps, stationed in Amberg.
Came
the day for the
change of command, July
2,
1986.
V
Corps
assembled on the headquarters parade grounds with American and West
German government and Wetzels,
Sam and
military officials
his wife, Eileen, arrived,
words of greeting. Wetzel and
I
were turned over
command
king
is
dead.
to
Long
In one sense, not
West German
on the reviewing
me, and
The
and we exchanged a few
inspected the troops, the
V Corps colors
formally changed hands.
The
live the king.
much had changed in the
tour.
stand.
quarter century since
When I had first arrived in Gelnhausen
in
my last
December
1958 as a twenty-one-year-old second lieutenant, Dwight D. Eisen-
hower was President of the United
States
and Nikita Khrushchev the
Soviet premier. Twenty divisions of Soviet and communist-bloc troops
faced five U.S. divisions, plus our Allies' forces, across the border
between East and West Germany.
Two
years before, the Soviets had
crushed the freedom fighters in Hungary.
One
year after
my
departure,
they had put up the Berlin Wall, and subsequently they stamped out bids for
freedom
virtually
in
Czechoslovakia and Poland. East and West then stood
warhead
to
warhead. As
I
took over
V
Corps, in 1986, four
COLIN
318
L.
POWELL
American divisions and nineteen Soviet divisions
confronted each
still
other over a border bristling with even deadlier weaponry.
we had M-113
replaced old
M-60A3
On
our side,
tanks with sophisticated M-is, obsolete
new Bradley
personnel carriers with
Fighting Vehicles, and
aging tactical nukes with more accurate and^evastating models.
a
Yet,
much had changed. For
new
Soviet man, age fifty-four, energetic, dynamic, preaching the
the past
two
years, Mikhail Gorbachev,
openness of glasnost and the reforms of perestroika, had ruled the Soviet Union. Margaret Thatcher, no pushover, had said that Gorbachev
was a chap we could do business
with.
The previous November,
dent Reagan and the Soviets had held their
first
summit
at
Presi-
Geneva. Rea-
gan had annoyed Gorbachev by insisting on pressing ahead with
SDL
they were negotiating arms reductions and trying to reduce the
Still,
possibility of nuclear annihilation.
was, however, a soldier, not a politician, and
I
was
to
be prepared
to
present mission
engage Soviet forces the instant they advanced
weave of valleys forming
across that
my
the Fulda Gap, the
same
role
I
had
had as a young lieutenant a quarter of a century before.
V Corps headquarters
was located
in Frankfurt
and occupied one of the
Abrams Complex, named in honor of late Army Chief of Staff General Creighton W. Abrams, whom I had
largest buildings in all Europe, the
the
had been constructed
briefed long ago in Vietnam.
It
renowned German
Hans
the
I.
architect
Poelzig, to house the
1920s by the
main
office of
G. Farben Petrochemical Company. For a time after World
General Eisenhower ruled as Supreme Allied the suite piece,
I
was
mucked
to occupy.
The
up, however,
dows were about
As
I
moved
set
on
to
into
my
Commander Europe from
building's lobby
was an
my
arrival,
art
deco master-
magnificent leaded glass win-
be taken out to vent the hamburger
my new
War II,
by a greasy snack bar and other commercial
concessions. At the time of
was
in the
office, a
Gothic cavern, the
desk a photograph of a
broad smiling face and wavy
hair,
grill.
man
first
thing
I
did
in his mid-forties with a
wearing army fatigues.
He looked
like a steelworker, the
kind of guy you might want to have a beer with
in a Pittsburgh tavern.
I
was
my
of the
wanted
his picture before
me
because
opponent. General Colonel Vladislav A. Achalov,
Red Army's eighty-thousand-man
across the Fulda Gap.
8th Guards
this
man
commander
Army, positioned
Gonna Ruin My Career"
"Frank, You're
319
My division commanders were older than me and had more time in serMajor General Orren R. "Cotton" Whiddon ran the 8th Infantry
vice.
which had almost been mine the year before. Whiddon was a
Division,
lanky, self-confident
Texan who knew
his business.
commanded by Major General Tom
Division was
way back with me
to the Infantry Officers
The 3d Armored
Griffm,
who went
Advanced Course
at Fort
commander was my National War College classmate Major General Line Jones. Colonel Thomas
me
Benning. Backing
as deputy corps
White, an architect of post- Vietnam fighting doctrine, had also just joined
V
And
had a crack chief of
I
Crossley. ell,
I
the corps.
nth Armored Cavalry Regiment.
the
staff in Brigadier
General Ross W. "Bill"
had brought from the States Sergeant Major William Now-
command
as
commanding
Corps,
sergeant major, the senior noncommissioned officer in
was counting on Nowell
I
my
to serve as
pipeline to the
morale and needs of the troops.
Immediately
change of
after the
Crossley gather the team together I.
G. Farben workers' canteen.
I
command ceremony,
at the
impression of the
commanders ship.
V
Army,
that
I
knew
that
whatever
priorities
—
said this day
and
that this
stick. I told the
Corps' reason for being was to whip Achalov's 8th Guards
if
and when the time came. Every scout on the front
word had an almost holy
had spent a
make
lot to
that not a dollar
commander,
I
the
As
line
and
for steward-
The American people corps combat-ready. We had to make sure ring for me.
was wasted. They had
daughters to our care.
and
Bill
war-fighting and steward-
every mechanic in the rear was here for that purpose. ship, the
I
sunset,
new corps commander would
had two top
had
V Corps officers' club, once the
would reverberate over the corps telegraph before first
I
The one thing
that
also entrusted their sons and
would guarantee trouble
for a
promised, was not tending to the well-being of soldiers
their famihes.
had been taught
What I had
at Fort
to say this
day did not
differ
from what
I
Benning over a quarter of a century before:
accomplish the mission and look after the troops. Back in the States, the night before
my
son, Mike,
had shipped out for Germany,
over him after he had gone to bed, given
him I
to
him
I
had leaned
a fatherly kiss, and told
look out for himself and to take care of his soldiers.
also
wanted
kind of leader
I
to give the
was. "I
fit
commanders some understanding of
no stereotype,"
I said. "I
don't chase the
the lat-
* COLIN
320 est
management
POWELL
L.
Vogue phrases such
fads."
management" were not
tralized versus decentralized
down" and "cen-
part of
my
would give each of them whatever help was needed
ulary. I
job done. Sometimes
them a
give
as *'power
would hover over them;
I
long, loose leash.
One
vocab-
to get the
would
at other times, I
technique was not right and the other
wrong. The situation would dictate which ap{)roach would best accom-
phsh the team's mission.
Command
is
lonely,
I
said,
and
was not
that
just a romantic cliche.
Sharing a problem with the boss, in this corps, would not be seen as
weakness or
of mutual confidence.
failure, but as a sign
On
the other
hand, they did not have to buck every decision up to me. "I have a wide
zone of indifference,"
I
said. "I don't care if
you hold
reveille at five-
And don't ask me to decide." of loyalty. "When we are debating
thirty or five forty-five a.m.
my idea an issue, loyalty means giving me your honest opinion, whether you think I'll like it explained
I
or not. Disagreement, at this stage, stimulates me. But once a decision
has been made, the debate ends. cuting the decision as
if it
From that
point on, loyalty
This particular emperor expected to be told
own
did not care to freeze to death in his thing
than
is
wrong, speak up,"
later.
Bad news
isn't
I
if
to find out
when
you screw up,"
hold grudges. "I will give it's
I
I
it
when he was
naked.
wine.
was too
still
handle a problem. But
late for
advised, "just
it
doesn't improve with age."
It
vow
me to make to
do
sooner
would
I
I
did not
a difference.
better next time.
I
"And don't
don't keep book.
you clear guidance
as to
what
I
want,"
I
continued. "If
not clear, ask me. If after a second and third explanation you
don't get
it,
there
your receiver.
was
I
may be something wrong
with
my
won't assume you are deaf or stupid." The worst thing
for subordinates to labor in ignorance in order to conceal their
office
ask,"
I
and don't understand what
told
U.S.
I
my
want, just march right back in and
said.
them
that I
the mission. "If
will
still
transmitter, not
confusion and wind up doing the wrong thing. "If you ever leave
I
He
ignorance. "If you think some-
told them. "I'd rather hear about
not jump in too early if they could
want
means exe-
were your own."
Army
we
would
fight for everything they
don't have
it
in Frankfurt,
Europe. "If they don't have
back you
all
the way."
it,
I'll
I'll
go
go
to
needed to
to
perform
USAREUR"
Washington. But
I
Gonna Ruin My Career"
"Frank, You're
I
them
told
with
my
that
as
if,
commanders, they found themselves
was predisposed
staff, I
however,
to take their side.
"If,
ple without
good cause, you can bet
I
I
explained that during these
first
I'll
come
in a fight
staff existed to
dumping on my peo-
find that any of you are
serve them.
The
321
'A
to their rescue."
few weeks,
I
expected to
visit all ten
West German communities where the corps was stationed. "You'll be advised the
time
first
the Biirgermeister,
visits
and other and get
child-care centers
my
come, since
I
would be on
to
want
I'll
local officials.
to
meet your senior
My wife will visit clinics and
know your wives." But
short notice, "just
officers,
after that first round,
enough fime
to let
you get the
coffee table dusted and the underwear picked up. I'm not trying to play 'gotcha.'
was
But
it's
reflecting
the only
my
way
wasted
mad
as hell."
is
I
knew
that
planned
visits
ual's hurt feelings
Finally,
I
a sure sign of an insecure commander,"
told them.
drill
team, an individ-
run a distant second to the good of the service.
attempted to convey the deep love
at a
I
had for the Army. "The
breakneck pace. Take leave when you've earned
Spend time with your it's
I
be enjoyed, not endured. Have fun in your command. Don't
to
always run
unless
sight of white-
said.
I
learned long ago, with John Pardo and the losing
Army is
always produce a
"From fime to fime, I'm going to make you Making people mad was part of being a leader. As I had
be frank,"
"I'll
to learn what's really going on." I
"The smell of fresh paint and the
effort:
washed walkways
me
continuing distrust of the Annual General Inspection
syndrome of preparedness. flurry of
for
families.
absolutely necessary.
I
don't intend to
And
I
it.
work on weekends
don't expect you to do
either.
it
Anyone found logging Saturday or Sunday hours for himself or his troops had better have a good reason. Remember, this could be your last command, and it's probably mine. So let's enjoy it." Just a couple of days after
my
arrival, like the pull
a sentimental journey back to Gelnhausen. Scott.
On my
arrival,
parked in front of
D
met us and escorted
I
of a magnet,
took only
aide,
made Bruce
we drove
to the familiar Coleman Kaseme and Company's barracks. The company commander
me
to the orderly
room,
all
the while giving a run-
ning conmientary on the company's current doings.
was
my
I
I
barely heard a
word.
I
eral's
uniform, surrounded by old memories and faces from the past,
lost in reverie, a lieutenant,
Tom Miller, Red Barrett,
unaccountably wearing a gen-
Sergeant Edwards.
* COLIN
322
Once
my
again,
POWELL
L.
family had to be resettled. Linda went back to William
and Mary, and with Mike
in the
Army,
that left three of us.
We moved
commander's quarters and enrolled Annemarie
into the corps
in the
American dependents' Frankfurt High School. Our Jiouse resembled a checkpoint
at a hostile
border crossing.
was
It
from
eight miles
my office
Bad Vilbel and consisted of two cramped stories by one orderly. One bathroom had been converted into an armor-
suburb called
in a
served
plated sanctuary in which
we were to lock ourselves until rescued in case
of a terrorist attack. The house was encircled by barbed wire, and in front
MPs
stood a guardhouse with one-way glass from which residence twenty-four hours a day.
Watching the general's house
dom
all
Home
sweet home.
day struck
me as the height of bore-
for teenage soldiers (other than catching an occasional glimpse of
Annemarie sunbathing). To help break
me on
guards with
the monotony,
a helicopter ride to Grafenwohr.
had told him
he was going
with the corps commander.
ahead, son," "Well,
I
sir,"
to travel
to ask
he
said, "it's the jogging." I frequently
an
I started,
would pop out of the guardhouse and run guys," the corporal went on, "wondered
the guardhouse in case
on
soldier, I
his
rorists
away
But
was just
For
you knew
that
"The
on our week-
hated.
Some
in a cell
on the
the kind of overkill that
I
bombed the
to sit all
Frankfurt
always ran different routes regularity.
source, and then
I
could take care of myself. If ity.
if
took a run across
MP or two in jogging togs
day
I
might run for twenty minutes. Admittedly, security was a
depend on
my
"Go
gulped.
discreetly behind me.
supposed free time, had
problem. Terrorists had arrival.
He
you go for a jog."
said nothing, but this
off chance
they learned that
provost marshal always picks guys to suit up and wait in
off, the
poor
asked him what
urged him. "Don't be afraid."
the countryside, and as soon as
ends
took one of the
I
I
me when
the guys at the barracks
I
scanned our
I
at
PX the month before my
unexpected times, and
waited a few days in order not to give
told the provost marshal to I
ter-
got shot,
it
would not be
knock
it
off. I
his responsibil-
He looked unconvinced. security, I
had an armor-plated white 380 SE Mercedes. Staff
Sergeant Otis Pearson, a black soldier from rural Alabama, became driver. Otis, tall, lean,
handsome, and
taciturn, had, like
my
many young
Frank, You're Gonna Ruin
Army
men, used the
now
Career"
my
connected to the
323
"A
overcome a rough upbringing. The Army was
and he soon became part of the Powell family
his family,
had driven for
to
My
too. Otis
predecessor,
Sam
Wetzel, an avid sportsman, well
German upper
crust
and an occasional guest
hand-
at
lodges. Consequently, Otis had spent a lot of time haul-
some hunting
ing dead animals out of the
woods
for Wetzel. Neither the
crowd
Wetzel traveled with nor his favorite pastime appealed to me. ferred racquetball alley.
Soon
we worked on garage
at
Bad
and auto
my
after
repair,
arrival,
together.
I
pre-
I
both of which were right up Otis's
bought an almost new
BMW 728, which
My idea of fun was to come roaring out of the
Vilbel like
Batman and have
my
an hour on the autobahn before
the
BMW up to
105 miles
guards could figure out what had
happened.
While the West Germans enjoyed the security of 75,000 V Corps troops stationed between
happy
if
we had
them and
the Soviets, they
would have been
just as
stayed in our barracks until war broke out. Tanks and
personnel carriers chew up roads, and our armored columns barely
room
were constantly interfering with
air traffic at civilian airports.
particularly unpopular with the "Greens," the ists
left
Volkswagen. Our helicopters made a dreadful racket and
for a
who were
V Corps was
We
were
German environmental-
strong in the states of Hesse and Rhineland-Pfalz, where
stationed.
One morning
Armored Division commander, Major General Tom Griffm. The Greens had planted a hundred young I
got a call from the 3d
trees during the night right
"General,
down
the middle of our tank driving range.
Fm just gonna flatten 'em," Griffin told me.
"Hold on, Tom," many. Instead,
I
said.
One does
not casually run over trees in Ger-
we dug them up and replanted them in
Griffm then arranged an Earth Day-type celebration. politicians, the press, invitation.
We,
landscape.
As
with a
I
can
little
still
invited local
had learned
in the
them
improve our
for helping to
Weinberger dog-rescue operation,
imagination you can turn a knock into a boost.
how proud me to guard
recall
Miller assigned
my
We
and the Greens, although the Greens ignored our
nevertheless, thanked I
our housing area.
I felt
that
back
280mm
in
Tom
1958 when Captain
atomic cannon
—
until
.45 pistol in the course of the mission. In those days, at
I
lost
my
pay
* COLIN
324 grade,
POWELL
L.
gave no thought to the wisdom of using nuclear weapons in the
I
was simply "Yes,
field. It
sir!"
Airborne Ranger! Twenty-eight years
command center with my senior officers war-gaming an 8th Guards Army attack. My G-3, Colonel Jerry Rutherford, was at the map board with a pointer explaining that if the ^nemy crossed the was
later, I
in the
Haune and the Fulda rivers heading toward the Vogelsberg mountains, they would then be into the valley of the Main River. From there the terrain was flat, giving them a clear shot all the way to Wiesbaden and the bridges over the Rhine River. NATO forces would be cut in half, and the enemy could swing north all the way to the English Channel. "So our
defensible position
last
explained, "and at that time
it
is
the Vogelsberg range," Rutherford
may be
necessary to ask for release of
nukes."
"Give
me
the plan,"
said.
I
"We'll hit 'em with Lances and jectiles.
"The radius of
without affecting our
"What about
effect will
own
civilians?"
"There won't be any
AFAPs"
—
be just enough
strikes.
I
civilians."
We'll just hit
wooded
said.
I
in their villages, out
What do you
well.
Every
"You're a
German
emergency broadcast system really think is going to
BMW and Volks
in
of the
areas." civilian.
You've
that the Russians are
coming, and you should stay put so you don't get way.
to close the roads
asked.
"Let's think for a minute," just heard over the
atomic pro-
troop movements."
"Where did they go?" I wanted to know. "The plan is for the Gennans to stay put,
way of our
artillery-fired
in the
Americans'
happen? You know damn
Hesse and Rhineland-Pfalz
is
going
to be stuffed with everything, including the family schnauzer,
and
headed west."
We
were not talking simply about dropping a few
a crossroad.
No
matter
would be crossing a
how
threshold. Using nukes at this point
one of the most significant
political
on,
moment, I
And
the world's heart
began rethinking the
would mark
was going
retaliate,
to skip a
maybe escalate. At beat. From that day
practicality of these small nuclear
weapons.
when I became Chairman of the Joint would have some ideas about what to do with tactical
Chiefs of
a few years
Staff, I
we
and military decisions since
Hiroshima. The Russians would certainly that
artillery shells at
small these nuclear payloads were,
later,
nukes.
Gonna Ruin My Career"
"Frank, You're
I
was
My every need was
settling in comfortably.
anticipated
23
3
"A"
by Bruce
my able secretary, who had served several V Corps commanders before me and who knew where all the land mines were buried. A ballroom just a few feet from my secondScott,
my
and Judi Reaume,
aide,
floor office
had been converted
to a racquetball court,
shape playing every day against other officers and Otis, I
quickly grew fond of the
the disfiguring
we had
and
I
my driver.
Abrams Complex and was eager
perpetrated.
I
kept in
to
undo
had the post engineers locate the
original 1928 design and flew Joe Pisani over from the Pentagon
to
undertake a redesign similar to what he had done in the Eisenhower Corridor.
The lobby
Weimar Republic.
I
started to look again as
make way
to
restoration continued
and was seen through
cessor, Lieutenant General Jack
another of
my
statue of a
nude
I
days of the
in the
hamburger
for the
to
woman
was that
The
my
suc-
completion by
required two successors beyond
intentions
grill vent.
Woodmansee.
realized, finding
Woodmansee
before
and returning a lovely
had once graced a courtyard behind the
The lady had been banished
headquarters. the
it
had
saved the glorious curved leaded-glass windows
from being removed
Nevertheless,
it
in
1947
at the insistence
of
fuddy-duddy wife of an American colonel.
found
it
deeply satisfying to see
how
Pentagon were being translated into tangible improvements
Thanks
to the
into the corps,
all-volunteer
Reagan- Weinberger buildup,
modem
and the troops' quarters became more
Army was
fully in place,
educated enlistees in history.
I
had
won by
the budget victories
and
to smile
in
Germany.
equipment rolled
livable.
we were
the
By now,
the
getting the best-
when my commanders com-
plained that their strength levels had dropped below 98 percent.
soon they forgot the Cat Fours, the lowest-level acceptable
How
recruits, so
when force levels often dropped below 70 percent. I was not eager to commit troops to battle. But if that day came, Comi ade Achalov and his Red divisions would face prevalent just a few years before, and the days
a helluva foe.
Marybel Batjer sent
somehow
I
loved what
me week-old copies
of the Washington Post, but
could no longer get worked up about Beltway tempests. I
since leaving.
was doing, and had not looked back
at
I
Washington once
* COLIN
326
L.
POWELL
My immediate boss was a distinguished officer, commander of all U.S. Army as well, heading the Central
my V
under him,
General Glenn Otis,
forces in Europe and a
Army Group.
NATO commander
Otis had two
my
Corps and VII Corps, where
American corps
son, Mike, served.
My
VII Corps was commanded by Lieutenant General Andy Chambers. taking over
V
Corps meant
three-star generals.
proof of to
how
were commanded by black
that both corps
The heartening
blind to race the
thing
no one took any
is that
Army had become and
European misperceptions about American race
notice,
a nice corrective
relations.
Despite living in a semifortress, our family was happy in Frankfurt.
Except during ished with a
field exercises, the
game of
workday usually ended
at five. I fin-
went home, had dinner, did a
racquetball,
little
paperwork, and relaxed. The phone was not constantly ringing in the
middle of the night with the
By
firestorm.
into the easy chair.
my
1982
Social
DDO
reporting the latest international
comparative standards, I
whiled away
I
had jumped from the frying pan
my happiest free
BMW with the help of Otis. demands were
fairly heavy,
Alma belonged
was often on a
dais
German- American
cul-
however, and
with a Biirgermeister or snipping a ribbon ture center.
names
time tinkering with
to at least four
at
a
I
women's organizations with But
as unpronounceable as Steubenschurzgesellschaft.
pleasant to have others performing for
me my
horse holder. Whenever a fund drive began,
I
it
was
old roles as gofer and
was expected
to
make
the
symbolic contribution. Whenever the 0-club held a charity auc-
first
Alma and I were expected to make the first bid. And when the annual blood drive came along, the corps medical
tion.
me
cer wanted
for the first drop.
I
went with him
by photographers from the corps newspaper. around again,
my arm
to take
my
and then once more.
blood pressure.
He went
offi-
to the hospital, trailed
A young medic put the cuff He
looked puzzled, took
to the medical officer,
it
who came
back and took the reading himself. The doctor canceled the photo op and
my
role in the blood donation drive.
phone
calls
their toll. I
and fourteen-hour days
The years of middle-of-the-night
in
Washington had evidently taken
had moderately high blood pressure.
and h^mcontinued
it
I
was put on medication
ever since, with the pressure nicely under control.
Though we were in the same country, we did not see much of Mike. Most of our contact was via letters, and Mike's news took me back to
"Frank, You're Gonna Ruin
my own
days as a young
der outpost, his troop
officer.
to take the call.
officer
Career"
32
"A"
7
wrote that one night, while on bor-
commander had
phone rang, and since the had
He
My
was
gotten drunk and passed out.
feeling and hearing nothing,
The squadron executive
officer at the other
The
Mike
end of
demanded to know why the commander come to the phone. Mike had to tell the truth. The next morning the commander was relieved of duty. It had been a tough call for Mike. He had done the right thing, though some of his contemporaries, the line, suspecting something,
could not
out of misguided loyalty to their superior officer, criticized him. I felt
particularly close to
stray shell at
Grafenwohr
first
carrier
men
I
knew
had
As
itary,
a father,
to live
these experiences essentially alone. There is
soft shoulder
to death during a late-night exercise.
that a soldier
and-death responsibility
when
is
that
young Americans. An
had rolled over a
shared his anguish in a long letter to me.
and help. But
told us about experiencing
experience had occurred
tore apart a tent full of
M-113 armored personnel crushed one of Mike's
Mike when he
My
his first death in the field.
I
ached
to
and
Mike
jump
in
through and learn from
no profession
in
which
life-
placed on younger shoulders than in the mil-
and Mike was growing up
fast.
The accident
also
reminded Alma
we needed reminding, that even in peacetime, soldiering is And parents are never entirely free of anxiety. Reports coming to me through the grapevine indicated that Mike was
and me, as
if
dangerous work.
doing exceptionally well and had a chance of becoming troop executive officer after
wanted
to
making
make
the
first lieutenant.
Army his life.
It
He had made
pleased
his choice.
He
too
me that he had reached this
decision on his own.
In the early fall of 1986, I
had a
we were
fairly standard pitch for
visited
by a congressional delegation.
such visiting firemen. This particular
group included a forty-five-year-old four- term Republican congress-
man from Wyoming whom I had never met before, Richard B. Cheney, then a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. I was aware that Cheney, when he was only thirty-four, had served as White House Chief of Staff under President Gerald Ford.
Rather than put on the usual dog-and-pony show,
I
took the group into
my private office. I picked up the photograph of General Achalov from my desk. "This man is the reason V Corps is here," I began. Achalov, I explained, had started out as a paratrooper,
smashed
a few years ago, and switched to heavy infantry.
his legs in a
"He
is
jump
younger than
I
* COLIN
328 am,"
POWELL
L.
went on. "He has had more
I
The man was a
training."
military
who had written a half-dozen articles on European land warfare. had read them all. He commanded eighty thousand troops, more men
thinker I
than
had, and his soldiers were just as well trained and
I
They were just I
command,
to hold
sixty-six miles
from where we were
nevertheless, can stop them,"
I
said.
setting.
"The forces
"We might not be able to
stop Achalov."
Congressman Cheney was
reticent
and asked few questions. What he
did ask, however, knifed to the heart of the issue, and
was
as mine.
back successive divisions, which are backed up practically
Moscow. But we can
I
armed
in the presence of
then that in the years to
an exceptional mind.
come
the
I
I
recognized that
could not have
known
two of us would be bound closely,
fac-
ing not potential but real enemies.
One of from
the spoils of
World War
II that
the
American Army inherited
Third Reich was a private railroad train embodying the
Hitler's
magnificence of a bygone age. The train had a fully equipped kitchen, a of stewards, and a lounge area and slept six passengers.
staff
available to senior
become
American commanders
in
Germany. Alma and
close friends of Ronald Lauder and his wife, Jo Carol.
served as a deputy assistant secretary of defense while
tagon and was
I
was
now American ambassador to Austria during
was
It I
had
Ron had
in the
Pen-
a testy time
when
the Nazi-tainted Kurt
fall, I
decided to enjoy a touch of grandeur absent in the subway-riding
days of
my
and Aerin,
but
I
to Frankfurt to join us
man
elected president. That
invited the Lauders and their
I
come
Ron, a
Berlin. travel,
youth.
to
Waldheim had been
on the
two daughters, Jane
train for a
journey to
of considerable means, approved of this
disappointed
him
in Berlin
by
my
mode
of
cheeseburger palate and
acceptance of wine served in screw-cap bottles. In our subsequent friendship,
we worked out
and the wine, and
While tine
I
I
was immersed
NSA
a division of labor.
Ron
picks the restaurants
enjoy them.
messages
I
in
running
V Corps in
had brought
to
Germany, those clandes-
Weinberger's attention in Washaffair.
On
from A / Shiraa, a Beirut magazine,
that
ington finally uncoiled spectacularly in the Iran-contra
November
i,
the world learned,
the United States
had been secretly
selling
arms
to
Khomeini's regime,
despite President Reagan's pledge never to deal with terrorists.
I
had
Gonna Ruin My Career"
"Frank, You We
329
TOW antitank missiles transferred to
played a part in getting the Army's
Then came the next shocker, revealed by Attorney General Edwin Meese on November 25. The Poindexter-North operation had jacked up the prices of weapons sold to the
CIA, which then shipped them
Iran
and siphoned off the
for the
to Iran.
profits into private
Nicaraguan contras.
bank accounts
had not known of
I
fund help
to
this diversion,
the President, the cabinet, or Congress. Poindexter resigned
nor had
and Presi-
dent Reagan dismissed Ollie North.
The President now had and
I
lucci
to appoint a
was
the leading candidate, a wise choice.
when
however,
Reaume
Judi
congratulated him, but his
you've got to
me
clean
do
come
up.
it
"Frank, to
new National
Security Advisor,
heard through the Armitage-Batjer back channel that Frank Car-
I
I
make
that job as well as
"Why
dentials.
Service?"
who had
I
was immediately wary,
called out that Frank
first
my
words made
to
be
can."
the line.
I
I
need you to help
my deputy."
the mess," I
was on
heart sink. "Colin,
back. I've taken over a mess and
want you
didn't
I
I
I
said.
"You can
find a dozen guys
my
pointed out to Carlucci
thin cre-
don't you pick one of your friends from the Foreign
asked. "Or what about Jon
replaced
me
Howe?" —-the
sharp admiral
as Carlucci 's military assistant at Defense.
"Jon's already been a policy planner at the State
Department"
I
pointed out.
"I'm not looking for a foreign policy expert," Carlucci
said.
"I'm
who knows how to make things work. I need what you did for Cap and me, someone who can impose order and procedure
looking for someone
on the NSC." "Frank, I'm finally back in the real Army," I
did not want to leave until
mander.
I
I
had proved
did not want to be the guy
who ran
I
pleaded.
I
was an able
I
a
company
him that corps com-
told
for a couple of
months, a battalion and a brigade for a year, skipped a division, and ran out on a corps after just five months.
Poindexter and North, another military
"We need
is at
with
could not believe the country would stand for
in the
NSC. is serious.
Believe me,
stake."
my last card. "You know I had a role in this business." I my arranging for the delivery of the TOWs under President
played
described
after the experience
you, Colin," Frank went on. "This
the presidency I
man
I
And
Reagan's Finding of Necessity.
* COLIN
330
POWELL
L.
have Justice and the White House lawyers look into
"I'll
"Frank, you're gonna ruin" my career,"
it,"
he
said.
told him.
I
"We'll talk again," he said and hung up.
man fallen overboard grasping for a life ring, I called General Wickham. He was sympathetic but gave me the ol^ line: "I told you long ago, Colin, you may not be destined to be a commander. It's your decision, but I believe you should do what they ask you to do." He Like a
added, however, that he would see that
come back to the Army but Wickham was due same accommodating ably
Two
days
attitude. If I
saw
it
would prob-
mounted. Soon
I'm sure you'll do what's
right
said.
He had checked
out any poten-
TOWs, and I was clean. I became blunt, is only one way I can make this the only way I'll be able to face my fellow officers,"
can't
"Okay," he
Two
this job, I feared
the line. "Colin,
come from you, commander in chief. That's
I said. "It
Frank.
It
has to be a request directly from
the one thing
my world will understand."
said.
days passed and nothing happened.
dodged the
I
dared hope that
I
had
bullet.
On December party
took
the last exit closing. "There
departure honorable,
the
it,
problems regarding the
tial legal I
still
knew he meant
career. Still, the pressure
Carlucci called again.
later,
I
could
I
His replacement might not take the
to retire.
hour of the President's need," he
in this
as
as soon as the crisis passed.
mark the end of my Army
Cap Weinberger was on
took the post,
if I
Alma and I had just come home from a Christmas and were sitting in the kitchen when the phone rang. I picked it up 12,
and heard the com_manding voice of a White House operator. The President
mate,
was
calling.
homey
Ronald Reagan came on the
tone, hoping, gee,
line
and spoke
he had not called
at
down the
Arms
Control and Disarmament Agency,
with the
"talking points" (prepared
an
inti-
an inconvenient
time, and gee he wasn't used to giving orders to generals.
going
in
He
started
by Ken Adelman, head of the
who was
helping Carlucci
NSC transition). What a pleasure it had been to have me along
He knew what a fine job I was doing with V Corps. He knew how much the command meant to me. He knew how happy Alma and I were in Frankfurt. It on
that inspiring trip to
would only be a detour country that straighten out
Grenada, the President
in
my
military career, but
come home. He needed me the mess at the NSC.
I
said.
it
was
to help
critical for the
Frank Carlucci
My
"Frank, You're Gonna Ruin
answered. "Fll do
"Yes,
sir," I
"God
bless you," he said.
My
331
Career"
had no choice.
it." I
appointment as deputy assistant to the President for national
was announced on December
security affairs
i8, 1986.
I
went back
alone to Washington for a few days to arrange for quarters, buy a car,
my
and enroll
daughter, Annemarie, in the school she had been pulled
out of just five
about the job
months before. And
we
faced
met
I
Frank Carlucci
briefly with
demoralized NSC.
at a rudderless, drifting,
I
returned to Frankfurt in time for a chaotic Christmas with our house
by the movers, and formally gave up
torn apart
Corps on the
last
mand of all
U.S.
Army
promotion
at
forces in Europe,
I
from
Sam Wetzel, and my team had made
that
had
I
set in
motion paid off soon
NATO
two major
stayed for
to four stars
and com-
had taken over a crack corps it
even
after I left.
Two initiatives V Corps won the next better.
competitions, the Boselager Cavalry competition,
which the United States had never won before, and the Canadian
Cup
tank competition, which
M- 1 Abrams little
the
we had
not
World Series and
NATO
the Super
But
I
sure wish
I
had
in
call
still
was
this
Bowl
Woodmansee, was kind enough to
won
recently,
Army
even with the
These competitions may mean
tank, the best in the world.
to the layperson, but in
the credit.
V
Had I
for just over five months.
might have had a shot
I
of
day of 1986.
I had commanded V Corps
a full tour,
my command
the equivalent of winning
one season.
My successor. Jack
me at the White House and share
been
in
Germany
to
watch the
tro-
phies being presented.
On
January
and
suits
2,
1987,
I
found myself wearing one of
sitting in the
West Wing of
the
my
White House
old civilian in a cubicle
my V Corps office. Next door, in an sat my new boss, or rather my old boss
about the size of the bathroom in airy,
prestigious corner office,
in his
new
job, Frank Carlucci,
President.
with
much
now
National Security Advisor to the
The White House was eerily quiet. The President, along of the staff, was still not back from the Reagans' holiday
vacation in California.
Frank and
now? Our
I
were asking ourselves the same question: What do we do
situation
was
where the commanding losing
team
after the
similar to taking over a demoralized battalion officer has just
coach has been
been relieved, or inheriting a
fired,
or acquiring a
company
3
* COLIN
32
POWELL
L.
Ken Adelman, Marybel Batjer, and Grant Green, Carlucci's former military assistant, had already come over to the NSC to help Frank through the changeover. Adelman had the hardest job, sandblasting the old staff down to bare metal before returning to his job at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agepcy. What Carlucci recently looted
and
I
had
was
I
by
its officers.
do was rebuild almost from the bottom up.
to
trying to figure out
still
how my phones worked when
nasal voice called out, 'Is he in there?" Suddenly, filled
he
by a
tall,
"Want
said.
lean, exuberant figure, to
welcome you
Frank have come over. Going
was
still,
in
my mind,
to
a bonus-baby rookie I
my doorway was
hand extended. "George Bush,"
to the
White House. So glad you and
make
a grrreat team."
At
this point, I
an infantry general, and the Vice President of the
United States had just popped in to greet
President and
a hearty,
me on my new job.
welcomed by one of
were even going
This was something to
tell
the club owners.
to share the
Alma
same bathroom,
I felt
like
The Vice I
learned.
tonight.
The National Security Council had been created in 1947, the year the old War Department, Navy Department, and other services were folded into
one Department of Defense.
charter
Its
larly instructive: to advise the President
was
brief and not particu-
"with respect to the integration
of domestic, foreign and military policies relating to national security." In plain English, a lot of different agencies and people
President's ear
compete
for the
where war and peace are concerned, and consequently
he needed a "referee," a body with no ax to grind that would present to him, balanced and unbiased, the views of each contender, along with the National Security Advisor's
own
position.
A
good advisor was an
honest broker. Henry Kissinger had taken the office to the heights of
power, eclipsing the State Department and running China and Soviet policy directly out of his
West Wing
of State, he held on to the
NSC
office.
When he became
post for a while to
make
Secretary
sure no one
could do the same to him.
Under McFarlane, Poindexter, North, and company, gone off the
worked cabinet
who
The
situation
was not
the
NSC
entirely their fault.
had
They
who did not like to step between his powerful members and make hard choices. They worked for a President for a President
said he
did not
rails.
wanted the hostages freed and the contras kept
much
concern himself with details as to
how
it
alive
and
was done. Con-
My
"Frank, You're Gonna Ruin
sequently, the
its
own
had
my
The
wars,
result
and
me
own State Department, carown CIA, carrying out clan-
its
its
had been the Iran-contra
the first day. Carlucci
first fight
speeches and sent
where a
little
secret diplomacy,
destine operations.
I
draft speech for the President
had always hated dealing with
NSC
to represent the
fiasco.
on the defense budget was being
Tony Dolan, a
now
occu-
asked
if the
scrappy former investigative reporter, a Pulitzer Prize winner,
pying the far-right
stall in
speech was not a
bit shrill.
my
pointing tirade on
stable.
I
Dolan jumped up and delivered a
was being
I
understood what was going on. The
tested. I held
my
be an even tougher neighborhood than the Pentagon front
A
few days
office.
the President had returned, Carlucci
my doorway. "Come on," he said,
new
ground, but this was going
to
later, after
finger-
microscopic credentials to critique anything
beyond an infantry manual. kid on the block
Reagan speech writing
the
meeting
at a senior staff
reviewed. Pushing the draft was chief speechwriter
head into
333
NSC had filled a power vacuum and had become its own
Defense Department, running rying on
^
Career"
poked
his
"we're going to brief him."
Senator John Tower was heading an investigation of the Iran-contra affair,
and one
failing
he had encountered in the White House was the
absence of any record of what the National Security Advisor or his staff
had said
to the President
was
lucci explained,
"but your main job
and what he had agreed
to.
My duty, Car-
to close that gap. "Feel free to speak out," is to
take notes on what
I tell
he
said,
him and what he
decides."
As we entered
the
Oval Office, the President was being briefed on
other matters by his Chief of Staff,
Donald Regan.
President rose, smiled warmly, and
moved
the fireplace.
President
He
Bush came
sat
on a couch.
sat
Don Regan. The
learned,
I
to
apologized again for taking in
On
our
an armchair to the
me
On
left
left.
Carlucci
another couch across from us
President started off by telling a joke (which,
was standard procedure).
spotted something odd.
How
My
eyes went to his
feet,
where
and every other occasion, his shoes always looked as
being worn for the
first
time.
I I
could his shoes, besides being mirrorlike,
have none of those creases across the instep caused by normal wear? this
of
out of Germany. Vice
and took the armchair to Reagan's
sat at the other end.
arrival, the
if
On
they were
* COLIN
334
POWELL
L.
After going over world events of the past twenty-four hours, Carlucci got to the immediate challenge,
wreckage of Iran-contra.
the
how we intended to rebuild the NSC from Mr. President," Carlucci
"First,
NSC
gotten rid of Olhe North's office. We're taking the operations." all
He
explained further that
I
asking: (i) Is (3) Is
achieving
it
by the CIA. "We've come
Do we know what
legal? (2)
it
out of covert
Frank continued. For every such operation
tests,"
"we've
woul^ be cojiducting a review of
current covert operations being conducted
up with four
said,
it is
we were
supposed to achieve?
objective? (4) If this operation should suddenly
its
appear on the front page of the Washington Post, would the American people say, "Aren't
bunch of boobs"?
we
If a
we would recommend
clever httle devils," or
its
tests,
say,
"What a
Carlucci said,
elimination. "And," he concluded, "we're hir-
ing a lawyer, Paul Stevens, to
At
would they
program could not pass these
make
this first briefing. President
sure everything
Reagan
we do
is
listened carefully
kosher."
and asked a
few questions, but gave no guidance. This became the pattern almost every morning
when we
briefed him.
We would lay out the contrasting
views of various cabinet officers and Congress and wait for the President to peel them back to get at underlying motives.
Most unnerving, when Carlucci presented say
until
little
It
did not happen.
options, the President
Frank gave his recommendation.
And
would
then the President
would merely acknowledge that he had heard him, without saying yes, no, or
maybe. Frank and
Frank muttering, "Was
I
would walk down
that a yes?"
We
the hall afterward with
eventually assumed that the
knew we had balanced competing views and had given him judgment. He evidently felt it unnecessary to do more than
President
our best
acknowledge what we would be doing
in his
name. That,
at least,
was
our optimistic interpretation.
The den on
President's passive us. Until
we
management
got used to
it,
we
style placed a
felt
tremendous bur-
uneasy implementing recom-
mendations without a clear decision. Would the decision hold criticized later
morning
after
by one of the losers? Would the President
we had
control issue, Frank
run
this
recall it?
if
One
gotten another decision by default on a key arms
moaned
as
we
left,
"My God, we didn't
sign on to
country!"
Carlucci noticed that between us principal secretary
we had
inherited five secretaries.
My
was a capable, gracious woman named Rorence
"Frank, You're
Gonna Ruin My Career"
335
who had been at the NSC for over twenty years. I asked Florence why we needed so many secretaries. Because, she explained, in the past
Gantt
the staff tended to too.
work twelve- and fourteen-hour
who
discussed the situation with Carlucci,
I
them."
We
days, and
weekends
said, "Transfer
could do enough damage working reasonable hours.
two of It
was
who had driven the administration to the brink of ruin. And that was how we worked, out by 7:00 p.m., occasionthe around-the-clock fanatics
ally in
on a Saturday, and never
on Sundays. Carlucci was capable of
in
slipping off for tennis at 3:00 p.m. all.
And he
could
still
make sounder
But
ular hours.
I
it
was not
more
civi-
of these jobs to conform to reg-
in the nature
brought work
at a
home and was soon back
to the
Weinberger
The good old days of Frankfurt were behind me.
pace.
The
faithful
John Wickham had arranged a temporary Georgian man-
sion for us at Fort
McNair on
Army
we had
residence
approached
it,
the Washington Channel, the
yet occupied.
Alma needed
worst of
all,
there
quiet
I
time the family
in her best Scarlett
O'Hara
cut off
from the world. Every
had
to drive over the 14th
a spool of thread, she
The place was so
first
handsomest
never be poor again!" All very
I'll
McNair was
splendid, except that Fort
Street Bridge.
The
Annemarie threw up her arms
impersonation and said, "I swear
time
were going home
at
more ground
decisions and cover
We
than the previous midnight moles. lized time.
on a Friday and not coming back
called
was no garage where
I
it
Menopause Manor. And
could tinker with
my cars. We
were just as happy when Wickham got us a more modest house bustling Fort Myer. This
was going
to
be the third family move in
at
less
than a year.
On
February 26, the Tower Commission released
contra
affair. It
its
report on the Iran-
depicted President Reagan as confused and uninformed
and found that his hands-off management style was the reason he did not
know what was going on
in his
became our owner's manual.
We
own
presidency.
did what
it
The Tower Report
recommended. Carlucci
NSC was not to become involved in operations. We advised Presidents; we did not run wars or covert strategies. We had issued an order that the
a Defense Department and a
With the issuance of the give the
American people
CIA
for those roles.
report, pressure built
up
for the President to
his explanation of Iran-contra, which, so far,
he had resisted doing. Landon Parvin, a veteran speechwriter, was
* COLIN
336
brought
was
in,
POWELL
L.
and, at Carlucci's instructions,
I
worked with Parvin on what
to be the definitive Iran-contra address.
The Tower Commission had come down hard on Cap Weinberger and George Shultz for not being aggressive enough Poindexter's
bered
NSC
was up
vividly
I
Weinberger's office and hearing him
sitting in
idiocy of the arms deal.
Department's role to
And
instructions.
in finding out
This was an unfair rap.
to.
I
had helped him
I
knew
with
remem-
against the
rail
hmit the Defense
try to
minimum compliance
what
NSC
requests and
that Weinberger, as well as the rest of us at
Defense, had no knowledge of the most illegal aspect of the
affair,
the
diversion of Iranian arms sales profits to the contras.
Learning that
Weinberger
I
was involved
in preparing the President's speech,
me know that he hoped his role
let
could be
he and also George Shultz had opposed the scheme,
clarified.
Since
tried to get the
I
President to say something exonerating these two reluctant players.
came up with suggested language simple fairness, however,
for the President:
must say
I
that
I
believe the [Tower]
commis-
conmients about George Shultz and Cap Weinberger are incor-
sion's
Both of them vigorously opposed the arms
rect.
We
"As a matter of
so advised
me
several times.
sales to Iran,
and they
The commission's statements that the two They did sup-
Secretaries did not support the President are also wrong.
me
port
despite their
known
opposition to the program.
I
now
find that
both Secretaries were excluded from meetings on the subject by the
same people and process used whole
to
deny
me
vital
information about this
matter." In the last draft of the speech that
I
worked
on, this lan-
guage clearing Weinberger and Schultz was included.
On March
4, President
Reagan addressed
from the Oval Office, probably the ered.
'A few months
people tions
As
I
the
least pleasant
me
that's true, but the facts
Tower Board
deteriorated, in
its
reported,
my own
original strategy
we had
It
The paragraph
wound up on
speech he ever deliv-
what began
My
heart and
and evidence
my
tell
American best inten-
me
it is
not.
as a strategic opening to Iran
implementation, into trading arms for hostages. This
runs counter to
but no excuses.
on television
ago," the President began, "I told the
did not trade arms for hostages.
still tell
the nation
beliefs, to administration policy,
in
mind. There are reasons
why
it
and
to the
happened,
was a mistake." letting
Weinberger and Shultz off the hook, however,
the cutting-room floor. President Reagan's political advi-
sors killed
it,
believing the passage diluted the
main message,
ident's willingness to accept full responsibility.
omission. Ten days
later, in his
I
me
weekly Saturday radio broadcast, how-
pubhc mea
his
remained pure. For the
rest
and Secretary
culpa. But in his heart of
of his term,
Once anybody
subject like poison ivy.
Reagan would launch
the Pres-
strongly not to pursue the initiative."
Ronald Reagan had made hearts he
337
was unhappy about the
ever, the President did at least say that Secretary Shultz
Weinberger "advised
^
Gonna Ruin My Career"
"Frank, You're
accidentally hit the tripwire,
into a twenty-minute
had not been arms-for-hostages; and
we learned to avoid the
how
monologue on why did
we know
the deal
were no
there
Iranian moderates?
Three issues dominated the NSC.
First
was
changed East-West
the
dynamic created by Mikhail Gorbachev. Next was the muddle tral
America made even muddier by the Iran-contra
finally there
was
the
Middle
and endangering the free flow of
To perform our
NSC
role,
revelations.
And
warring
held captive in hiding places in
Iran.
we had
to
add
to the alphabet
Beltway crazy. Since the
ble for pulling together positions
still
through the Persian Gulf, and
oil
still
Lebanon, despite the arms given to
drives citizens outside the
Cen-
where Iran and Iraq were
East,
where American hostages were
in
NSC
was
soup
that
responsi-
from several departments and agen-
cies for the President's consideration,
we needed
and created the PRG, the Policy Review Group.
a coordinating body,
We put together an out-
standing collection of subcabinet officials. Rich Armitage attended
from
DOD, which
present.
From
affairs, attended.
me was hke having my brother and bodyguard Mike Armacost, the undersecretary for polifical
for
State,
A
career foreign service officer, Armacost had also
been a White House Fellow, and
we had known each
other for years.
The JCS was represented by Lieutenant General John Moellering and later
by Vice Admiral Jon Howe. Howe, who replaced
assistant to Carlucci, also served at the State
me
as military
Department as director of
pohtical military affairs and as Vice President Nelson Rockefeller's national security advisor.
The CIA was represented by Dick
agency's number three man. sor
on national
Don
Gregg, Vice President's Bush's advi-
security, also attended.
on the issue on the
table.
Kerr, the
Others were added, depending
But the above group was the
core.
We all knew
each other well and knew the Washington ropes and snares.
* COLIN
338
my
Just ten days after
became
the
PRCs
POWELL
L.
first
on January
arrival,
Gulf
12, the Persian
order of business. All departments were
informed that henceforth only one channel of communication existed
between the United States and
Iran, the State
arms hustlers or James Bondian
NSC
North had done on a secret
(as Ollie
We
United States. slingshot from
made
also
the arms
pumping through an
would be met.
embargo
We
icy that
was so
trying to create,
passive, a
since the
as crucial to us as blood threats to Kuwaiti oil
request to put
its
tankers
under America's protection.
which had not existed before, was
a pol-
few people had previously made end runs around
unknown
tinually scrapping,
to others.
we
his
Because Weinberger and Shultz were con-
often had
wanted clear positions
I
And
everybody understood and agreed on. Because the President
authority
and
its
flags, thus placing the vessels
What we were
lasted.
as a
advised the Kuwaiti government that the
United States was willing to respond to
under U.S.
would not get so much
and Iranian
artery, Iraqi
No more
cakes and Bibles
Tehran) were to speak for the
from the Persian Gulf was
free flow of oil
tankers
trip to
clear that Iran
America while
Department.
staffers bearing
more
fights than cooperation. Carlucci
that the cabinet
helped shape, that the Pres-
ident blessed, and that the Congress understood.
When,
for example, a
few months
later,
the U.S.S. Stark
was
acci-
we had to Congress why the
dentally attacked by an Iraqi Exocet missile in the Persian Gulf,
a policy in place, so that
ship
was
we did not have
there in the first place.
the lives of thirty- seven
The
American
to explain
attack had been a tragedy, costing
sailors; but
it
was
occurred in the course of an overall coherent goal
When
open.
—
a tragedy that
to
keep the
a Kuwaiti tanker carrying a U.S. flag hit a
we could manage the context of the
the resulting flap because the incident
same policy
—
to
keep the
had been missing previously and had led Policy Review
mine
oil
oil lanes
in the
Gulf
happened
in
flowing. Such coherence
to the Iran-contra debacle.
Group became our instrument
had
The
for achieving a broadly
understood and agreed-upon foreign policy within the administration.
The next big question was what still
to
fighting the Marxist Sandinista
do about the contras, who were government
in Nicaragua.
The
back-door aid to the contras that Ollie North had arranged to get around a congressional affair.
How
But
ban had created the messiest part of the Iran-contra
that fact did not detract
from the
justice of the contra cause.
to deal with the contras, however, produced a fault Une that split
"Frank, You're
the administration right
ported them. George
down
ShuUz
at State
saw the contras
come
vein, like the
in a serious
those
who
sup-
as useful for keep-
to democratize their country
were freedom
where
and stop
the contras in a romantic
mujahedin fighting the Soviets
these Nicaraguans
339
to the bargaining table,
communism. Cap Weinberger saw
exporting
I
them
to persuade
among
the middle, even
ing pressure on the Sandinistas to
we hoped
^
Gonna Ruin My Career"
in Afghanistan.
To him,
fighters deserving of our full support
bid to throw off the Marxist yoke in Managua.
my
like to get
truth
from the ground
level. In this case, the best
source was a
man named Alan
Force
CIA, who was responsible for getting weapons, ammuni-
at the
tion, transportation, food,
PRG
meeting,
mately field?"
hope
I
Fiers,
head of the Central American Task
and medical supplies
to the contras.
At one
asked Fiers, ''How large a force could the contras
ulti-
men
any
Maybe
that this force
fifteen
thousand
can come out of the
army?" Not a chance, Fiers
said. "Is there
tops,
hills
he
said. 'Is there
and beat the Sandinista
any possibility the Nicaraguan
people will rise up to support the contras?" Unlikely, Fiers answered.
That settled
it
for
me. The contras were a card
to play in pressing for a
negotiated solution; but not a solution themselves.
We had recruited a fiery anti-Castro Cuban, Jose Sorzano, to guide us on Latin American
me
that Latin
affairs.
Jose addressed
me
as
mi general, reminding
Americans had over two centuries of practice with
this
salutation.
To give me
with several of their leaders
Miami.
I
me to meet by the CIA in
a better feel for the contras, Jose arranged for
who were
being supported
found a mixed bag. Colonel Enrique Bermudez, military com-
mander of the
contras, impressed
me as a true fighter ready to die for his
cause. Others were just unregenerate veterans of the corrupt regime of
Anastasio Somoza,
who had found
the Sandinistas took over.
themselves on the wrong side
when
"Gucci comandantes," someone dubbed
them. But in the old days of East- West polarization,
we worked
with
what we had.
Working with Jose Sorzano and two White House
Dave Addington and Alan Kranowitz, I became advocate, trying to win tras afloat.
before
it.
legislative aides,
the chief administration
enough congressional support
to
keep the con-
Every few months. Congress had another contra-funding
We had little trouble winning
support for nonlethal aid.
bill
And I
could count on staunch bipartisan support for lethal arms aid from con-
* COLIN
340
gressmen
POWELL
L.
Bob Michel and Mickey Edwards and Warren Rudman, and Ted Stevens. But among
like Representatives
Senators David Boren,
most Democrats,
was next
it
to impossible to get approval for
and ammunition.
One night, I
during a conference committee^debat^ on
found myself getting nowhere trying
that
middle of the
the jungle. I've in
Vietnam
that
"Let
fight.
men
to
fighting for
a story,"
I
You
can't imagine
how
to supply us every
desperately
no
been
said. 'I've
we
two weeks. Our
It's
democracy
that
it
in
was
waited for
lives,
not just
different for the contras
was not some foreign policy seminar we were conducting
today." This
room,
in a fancy air-conditioned
men who
or be
another bill,
been where the contras are now, except
in 1963.
Marine helicopter
whether
still
convince the Democratic side
me tell you
our comfort, hung on that delivery.
live
to
you did not summarily cut off aid
in the
weapons
"
left
I
pointed out. "We're talking about
United States are going to
placed their trust in the
to die."
The room became
still,
and some of the
Democrats nodded. Within an hour, we had almost worked out a
deal.
We took a break to give both sides a chance to caucus. On
our return,
I
noticed Ted Stevens and Warren
behind, whispering to each other. After ference room, that
I
was about
to tell
we were
Rudman
lagging
seated again in the con-
Democratic Congressman Dave Obey
we had an agreement when Ted
Stevens jumped up and said he
could not go along unless the Democrats also agreed to a new date by
which Congress must consider additional aid previously turned
down by
the Democrats.
to the contras, a
Rudman
demand
shouted that he
agreed with Stevens, and the tv/o of them started walking out. At that point,
everyone wanted to go home, and so the Democrats wearily con-
ceded. After the meeting,
Stevens and
I
was rounding a comer
in the Capitol with
Rudman when both men broke out laughing.
had been a performance, and political" to
it
had worked. They said
have been cut in on the game.
I
I
Their walkout
was too "non-
may have been
a graduate
student at the Pentagon and White House. But at Congressional U.,
was
still
I
a freshman.
Overarching
all
other concerns
was our
relationship with the Soviet
Union. Our defense strategy and budget were almost wholly a reflection
we read them. The size and state measures against which we built our forces.
of Soviet capabilities and intentions as of the
Red Army were
the
"Frank, You're Gonna Ruin
Our choosing
My
Career"
^
341
was almost always
sides in conflicts around the world
new
Soviet leader,
Mikhail Gorbachev, however, was turning the old Cold
War formulas
decided on the basis of East- West competition. The
on
their head.
Gorbachev appeared
to
be more intent on solving the
Soviet Union's internal failings than in embarking on fruitless adventures
from Angola
to Afghanistan.
pick up the tab for huge
He had little
Cuban and Nicaraguan
interest in continuing to deficits.
Only by reduc-
ing East-West tensions could he cut the Soviet Union's voracious
defense spending and turn the country's resources to crying civilian needs. Consequently,
by
willingness to negotiate missiles.
cruise missiles. cal
sunmier of 1987, Gorbachev had shown a forces
—INF
That meant eliminating the Soviets' SS-20 missiles and for
Army's Pershing
the
late
away intermediate-range nuclear
II
us,
missiles and the Air Force's ground-launched
Ronald Reagan was operating from a position of politi-
and military strength. From
this posture,
he had the vision and
flex-
many knee-jerk Cold Warriors, to recognize that Gorbachev was a new man in a new age offering new opportunities for peace. The prospects brightened that we could get an INF treaty; and lacking in
ibility,
meant
that
that for the first time since the
class of nuclear
weapons would be destroyed.
While we were tackling global issues
was
tion
affair,
dawning of the atomic age, a
at the
NSC,
the country's atten-
riveted to the joint congressional hearings
which
started
on
May
on the Iran-contra
5 and were drawing audiences like a soap
opera. During the hearings, the country witnessed the extraordinary
performance of Ollie North, lain,
who had been cast by the committee
least half the
his motives. North, along with Poindexter
weapons
sales to raise
representatives of the
money
and
tee,
was not
for purposes prohibited
cerning I
I
by the elected
American people. He had done so
called to testify
but on June 19
had used the
others,
avoided accountability to the President and Congress. I
as vil-
managed to emerge as an appealing patriot for at viewers. I was not one of them. However well-intended
but brilliantly
It
in a
way
that
was wrong.
by the congressional investigating commit-
did give a deposition to committee lawyers con-
my role in helping arrange the transfer of the TOWs to the CIA. Room with Arthur Liman, chief Sen-
met in the White House Situation
ate counsel, tatives.
and Joseph Saba,
staff
counsel for the House of Represen-
They were most interested in finding out why
the
Department of
* COLIN
342
POWELL
L.
TOWs
Defense had transferred the
CIA
to the
rather than directly to
Weinberger's reasoning. "He did not see
Iran. I repeated Secretary
something that was the Defense Department's role
weapons ernment
to take place,
the transferring of
should be handled by elements of the gov-
it
and agree
that are able
Offhandedly,
as
such as Iran. To the extent that such a transaction
to a country
was going
—
it
Liman
handle such transactions."
to
"Maybe
said,
I
know
should
this,
but did the
Secretary keep a diary?"
"The Secretary,
to
my
knowledge, did not keep a diary,"
"Whatever notes he kept, does with them."
mon
I
I
don't
know how he
had never seen anything
understanding of a diary. But
remembered
the
white pads
little
never read these jottings, so terized
by
me as
a diary.
I
I
Time magazine
them on
his last
week
answered.
uses them or what he
would meet
the
com-
alluded to "notes," because
Cap kept
desk drawer.
in his
I
I
had
did not think that they should be charac-
expected the lawyers to press
up questions, but they went on secret.
I
that
I
to other matters.
The notes were not
a
of Weinberger packing
later printed a picture
in office.
me with follow-
They were subsequently placed
in the
Library of Congress and not destroyed or spirited away. I
hoped
affair.
this session
would mark
the
end of
my
involvement
in this
However, those notepads would surface again as Lawrence
Walsh, the independent counsel, prolonged his investigation of Iran-
my
contra ad infinitum. In 1991, four years after
first
independent counsel's staff reviewed the pads Congress. They concluded, erroneously in
my
at
view, that
been truthful when he said that he did not know that
had been shipped
to Iran in the fall
mal authorization
in
entries in the pads,
Weinberger's lawyer,
on the matter. In
I
Bob
staff
Cap had
not
Hawk missile parts
questioned
was now permitted Bennett, then asked
that deposition,
Library of
of 1985, prior to the President's for-
January 1986. The
which
interview, the
the
I
made one
me at length on
to read for the first time.
me
to give a deposition
casual reference to the
notepads as a "diary."
Bingo! That did
me
it.
in a contradiction.
have a diary to
The independent counsel Four years before,
my knowledge,
though
I
I
figured he had caught
had said Weinberger did not
had made the allusion
to notes.
Now, having seen those notes and having been questioned on them by the prosecutor's staff, I had referred to them as a diary. That was sufficient offense for Walsh to write me up in his final report.
"Frank, You're
When
that report
"was privy
*
Gonna Ruin My Career"
came out on December
3,
1993,
it
said that
arms shipments
to detailed information regarding
343 I,
too,
to Iran"
Dead wrong. I knew of proposals to ship missiles at the not know that shipments had actually been made until some-
during 1985. time.
did
I
time in 1986, after President Reagan signed the Finding of Necessity authorizing the deal with Iran. "Powell's early statements regarding the initiative
on
were forthright and consistent," the report concluded. ".
say,
to
.
.
It
went
some were questionable and seem generally
but
designed to protect Weinberger. Because independent counsel had no direct evidence that ever, these matters I
was not
Powell intentionally made false statements, how-
were not pursued."
was furious
be judged on whether or not
to
ments. Walsh simply implied that the unfair
I
I
at the implication.
made
actually
false state-
did and dropped the matter, leaving
I
and unfounded conclusion.
I
was not
Armitage
alone. Rich
and others received similar unjust treatment.
But
at least the report
was tough on Weinberger. He was
counsel, however,
President
many
ended Iran-contra for me. The independent
Bush pardoned him
others,
I
had spoken
indicted,
just before leaving office.
to the President
though
Along with
reconmiending the pardon.
Weinberger was a proud and honorable man. His indictment was a
dis-
grace. This was the man who, from day one, had branded the scheme of arms for hostages as "absurd." He fought it every step of the way and
only stopped fighting
when
made
President Reagan
ahead. Instead of being praised, he
was quibbled
the decision to go
to death
control independent counsel with unlimited time and posal.
The charge
Frank Carlucci
against
left the
Cap Weinberger was
by an
money
out-of-
at his dis-
a travesty of justice.
PRC meetings almost entirely in my hands.
Hav-
ing suffered through endless, pointless, mindless time- wasters for years, I
had evolved certain rules for holding meetings.
First,
everyone got a
chance to recommend items for the agenda beforehand, but the final agenda, started,
I
distributed before the meeting.
no one was allowed
the meeting last ten
which
would
one hour. The
minutes belonged to me. In those
why we were meeting and what had sion.
to
a meeting
Everyone knew
to switch the agenda.
last exactly
controlled
I
Once
first five
first five
that
minutes and the
minutes,
I
reviewed
be decided by the end of the ses-
For the next twenty minutes, participants were allowed to present
their positions, uninterrupted. After that,
we had
a free-for-all to strip
* COLIN
344 away
L
POWELL
.
posturing, attack lame reasoning, gang
up on outrageous views,
and generally have some fun. Fifty minutes into the hour, trol,
and for
In the last four to five minutes,
I laid
my
understood
out the conclusions and decisions to
disapproving of the outcome could go back
it
was
over.
home and complain
Those
to their
could appeal to Carlucci. This approach seemed to work.
Mary
Late in May, the family returned to William and uation.
I
sunmiation for one minute.
be presented as the consensus of the participants. Then
who
resumed con-
minutes sunmiarized everyone's views as
five
them. Participants could take issue with
bosses,
I
On the way home,
for Linda's grad-
Linda told us that she was dead serious about
an acting career. All our children had been active in school dramatics; but a profession?
The
the courage to ask if to her astonishment,
lottery offered better odds. I
I
Linda also screwed up
would support her through acting
am
sure,
agreed. But then, what
I
school.
is
Much
a father but a
banker provided by nature? Linda enrolled in a two-year program Circle in the Square Theatre School in Manhattan.
my
one of
ingly left
children
was going back
to the
found
I
New York
it
at the
strange that
roots
I
had
will-
nearly thirty years before.
my
on the afternoon of June 27 just as Lieutenant General Andy Chambers, still commanding VII Corps in Germany,
I
returned to
phoned me. wanted
was happy
I
—was
office
it
to hear
to talk about
my
news. "Mike's been badly hurt," not going to die."
He gave me
lieutenant, Ulrich Brechbuhl,
from Andy, but wondered what he
son,
Mike?
Andy
I
said,
was
it
was bad
adding quickly, "but he's
the sketchy details.
had been riding
Mike and another by an
in a jeep driven
The jeep went out of
enlisted driver, Speciahst Boese.
and
right,
control on the
autobahn and flipped over. Mike was thrown out, and the vehicle landed
on him before
minor
rolling to a halt.
injuries. I
Nuremberg with
would soon be details
The other two men had getfing a call
on Mike's condition.
from the Army hospital It is futile
ture one's reaction to such news, with part of the
part struggling to figure out
going
home
to break the
what
news
to do.
to
I
suffered only
mind
in
to try to recap-
reeling, the other
told Florence Gantt that
Alma. Florence immediately
I
was
started
arranging to get us to West Germany.
Alma was
in the kitchen
unloading the dishwasher
and she asked what had brought
when
I
arrived,
me home so early. I told her. At first she
My
"Frank, You're Gonna Ruin
was
and then
quiet,
How
I
saw
Career"
^
343
that steely resolve take over her expression.
soon, she wanted to know, could
we
see
Mike?
I
would have a
strong partner to lean on in this hour of trial, probably stronger than she
would have. Grant Green, executive secretary of the NSC, had already alerted his wife. Ginger, about Mike's accident.
The Greens were among our
and Ginger, a lawyer, dropped everything
est friends,
come
to
clos-
to the
house, helping us wait out the next desperate hours. Finally, the call
came from
Mike had suffered a broken pelvis and serious His condition was critical. That evening, thanks to Flo-
the hospital.
internal injuries.
rence and the Air Force,
we clambered
over the payload of a C-5 cargo
plane up to a tiny compartment behind the cockpit and flew to West
Germany.
We
found Mike
looking terribly bloated, but smihng,
in intensive care,
thanks to the painkilling morphine. The pelvis carries blood vessels
Mike's case, had been ruptured.
that, in
units of blood, twice the body's
from
thirty
sions.
He had been
given eighteen
normal supply. The swelling resulted
pounds of fluid accumulated
The Army's surgeon general
in
in his
system from the transfu-
Europe, Dr. Frank Ledford, had
come down from Heidelberg, and after our visit with Mike he took us into a small room to explain our son's condition. Mike would need pelvic surgery of a kind
still
in the experimental stage.
His recovery would take four to six
injuries included a severed urethra.
months, Dr. Ledford
said.
The
His other major
extent of his recovery
was unknowable
at that point.
Not
months afterward did we learn through a friend of Mike's
until
exactly what had happened after the accident.
had
the jeep
initially
been taken
to a
Brechbuhl,
who spoke German,
can do for
this one," referring to
off the examining table
American in
had
Mike's
A
shell
right,
"No. You
And
that
say,
Americans
"There's nothing
that, the lieutenant
in
we
leaped
can't leave him. Call the
was how Mike had wound up
in desperate condition but holding
to return to
side.
Mike. With
three
hospital. There, Lieutenant
heard a doctor
said,
hospital, right away."
Nuremberg, I
and
German
The
on
to life.
Washington the next day, while Alma remained
at
A couple of days afterward, the hospital became a bedlam.
had exploded during a
and ambulances
full
field exercise, killing
of injured
men
two
soldiers out-
arrived at the hospital.
One
346
* COLIN
soldier
whom Alma saw
and most of
brought into Mike's ward had
As she watched
his fingers.
the breaking point, at the desk,
POWELL
L.
Alma
volunteered to help. The staff put her to work visitors.
Within four days of the accident, Mike was in
Van Dam, perhaps one of the
tainly
professional.
he added, "You
know your
Dam was
Van
rarely attempted.
military career it
and
cer-
thoughtful and
dad."
I
As he was
over, don't
is
Mike kept
you?" Mike
saying, "I want to talk to
got to the hospital as fast as
the first time since this ordeal
leaving,
out of his thoughts.
there at the time, and
me my
dad. Get
Army
explained to Mike that he and the chief urologist
had not known, or had blotted
my
Walter Reed
the best orthopedic surgeon in the military
finest in the country. Dr.
He
in
later
emergency.
Washington. There he was examined by Dr. Bruce
would be performing procedures
Alma was
General Otis
citation for her contributions during tbe
Medical Center
both legs
the medical staff stretched to
answering phones and directing
awarded her a
lost
had
started,
I
my
saw
I
could, and for
son demoralized. "I
know what else I can do," Mike kept repeafing. "I always expected to make the Army my life. What am I going to do now?" On my way out, I spoke to Dr. Van Dam regarding Mike's shattered don't
wish you had shared that news with
career. "I
He was
understanding but firm.
doctor said.
The
"It
had
night of the
first
for the rest of us too. itself,
plate
The
to
the reality," the
is
later."
operation was terrible, most of
all
for Mike, but
pelvis, the doctor had told us, would heal by
but in a crippling, disfiguring
had
first," I said.
'Tm sorry, but this
be faced sooner or
to
me
way
unless the surgery worked.
A
be bolted to the back of the pelvis and a rodlike contraption
bolted across the front literally to hold
pain would be unbearable,
phine necessary to
kill
After the operation,
Mike
we were warned. And
pain at that level would
we were
Afterward the
together.
kill
the
amount of mor-
the pafient.
permitted to see Mike,
who was
a
mass
of tubes, with the morphine he was permitted barely reducing the agony.
Alma
busied herself in the room. But the three-star general, the
great coordinator, facilitator, administrator, never felt his
life.
Just
when
I
thought
I
ordeal any longer, a pert nurse said.
"How we
could not endure witnessing
came bounding
into the
doing here? Let's cut back on
enough of that. You're going
to
more
be
all right."
this
how
my
son's
room. "Hi," she
morphine. That's
She moved
screws sticking out of Mike's body. "Let's see
useless in
to the rods
this
and
Erector set
is
My
"Frank, You're Gonna Ruin
*
Career"
347
doing," she said, as she tightened the nuts with a Sears Craftsman
name was Barbara Cilento, and something about her brisk, upbeat competence made us think everything was going to be all right. She reminded me of one of my own preachments, "Perpetual optimism is a force multipHer." In the Army we were always looking for ways to wrench. Her
multiply our forces.
And
was one way. This time
a positive outlook
was on the receiving end of the optimism, and
Mike would have
to
it
undergo several more operations.
grateful to skilled physicians, like Dr.
Van
I
worked.
Dam
Still
we were
and Drs. Stephen A.
McLeod, who brought our son from a point had been written off to putting him on the road to recov-
Sihelnik and David G.
where
his life
And we
ery.
rank, along with those M.D.s, Barbara Cilento, R.N.
became Mike's angel of mercy, and, we thought
for a time,
She
maybe
a
budding romance as well. For the next six months. Alma's got there as often as
tal. I
the
mend,
and mine centered on the hospi-
could between
NSC
fiber within
him
in
Our son was on
crises.
partly through excellent medical care, but as
some unbreakable
One
I
life
much because of
which we took enormous
pride.
challenge in guiding Reagan foreign policy was to help the Presi-
dent rule with his head as well as his heart.
East terrorists
now
By
held nine Americans captive. For
destruction of his presidency,
Hawk
both by compassion and an awareness of the
President to tone
by a hostage
down
all
Reagan would have gone
hostage-freeing scheme at the drop of a
Carter's presidency
the fall of 1987,
crisis.
Middle
the near
for another
He was moved damage done to Jimmy missile.
Carlucci and
I
worked on the
his public utterances about the kidnappings, not
because the kidnappings were not cruel, which they were, but because the attention effective into
and publicity were exactly what made hostage-taking
and led our enemies
to seize
more people. To put
some kind of perspective, we pointed out
that just as
cans were lost on the streets of Washington every ism.
week
to
the matter
many Ameriurban
terror-
We could not let our foreign policy be driven by the political karate
of a handful of zealots. Similarly, the
President fiths,
POW/MIA
was moved,
issue
particularly
came up
regularly.
by able leaders
like
And
Anne
again the
Mills Grif-
who had a brother missing in action and who headed the respected
National League of Families. But
MIA families
were also manipulated
348
* COLIN
by con
artists fabricating
tenses for their to
POWELL
L.
own
money under
evidence and raising
enrichment.
It
false pre-
helped keep the issue in proportion
had been approximately 78,750 MIAs in World Korea, and 2,230 in Vietnam. I knew that often a booby
remember
that there
War II, 8,100 in trap made from a bomb or a fighter plane expjoding^ would produce an "MIA" about whom, sadly, we would never learn anything further. Despite this awareness, I believe that we must keep pressure on the Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians until we have the fullest possible accounting for
In early
all
of our MIAs.
November, Cap Weinberger informed the President
that
he
intended to resign as Secretary of Defense. Jane Weinberger's osteoporosis and other
ills
had worsened. The Secretary had spent seven gru-
marked
eling years on the job. This year
the second time that Congress
had resisted Weinberger's budget boosts, and the White House had not backed him. He
still
had the President's personal
loyalty, but
Wein-
Nancy Reagan, never strong, had continued to no small setback in this administration. The pragmatic First Lady
berger's standing with slip,
viewed Weinberger, with
his unremitting hostility
Union, as swimming against the
which pained Weinberger. He
feud, she increasingly took Shultz's side,
was enough of a performer ident to relieve
The search
him
to recognize
toward the Soviet
chronic Weinberger-Shultz
tide. In the
an exit
line.
He
asked the Pres-
as Secretary of Defense.
new
for a
Secretary was short. Will Taft, Weinberger's
able deputy and close confidant,
was
a candidate.
But the
call
went once
again to Frank Carlucci, whose performance in every national security
department made him a perfect
fit.
Taft
would
stay
on
as Carlucci's
deputy secretary.
With Carlucci going return to the
me
to the Pentagon,
Army. That
one morning and led
is,
until
me
I
saw an opening
for
me to try to
Chief of Staff Howard Baker cornered
into his office. "If
we
offered you National
Security Advisor to the President," he said, "would you take it?"
"Howard,"
I
answered, "after Poindexter, you can't possibly put
another active duty officer in as head of the
NSC.
You'll be crucified."
"The President can appoint anybody he wants," Baker I'm asking It is
is,
what
will
my Army
"What
you say?"
not easy to say no to a President, and options by
said.
now anyway.
I
had probably played out all
"If offered,
I
would
accept,"
I said.
"Frank, You're
On October
NSPG, the National Security Planning Group, the NSC, met in the White House Situation Room. Frank
and the President entered and it
read.
me
spoke to
"He is
a note.
The President himself never
about the job, never laid out his expectations, never pro-
tion or congratulated
was not
I
me
down. Frank passed
sat
delighted with you."
vided any guidance; in
House,
349
i6, the
inner circle of the
"Done,"
*
Gonna Ruin My Career"
fact,
he had not personally offered
me on
getting
surprised. That
the posi-
After ten months in the White
it.
was
me
the
Reagan way, and
I
was hon-
ored by the confidence he had in me.
On November 5, the air, we filed
1987, a sunht day with a hint of autumn crispness in into the
nation's gratitude to
He
again.
Rose Garden. The President expressed
Cap Weinberger
for
the
making the country strong
pointed out the superb quahfications of Carlucci as Wein-
And he
berger's successor.
then announced that Lieutenant General
Colin L. Powell would succeed Carlucci as the President's National Security Advisor.
Alma and my
my eyes was
the mist to
on a
his hospital bed, put first
the presence of suit,
my
son,
who had
gotten out of
and stood, with the aid of crutches, for the
time since his accident.
Over the previous ten months, deputy that
bility as
job.
daughters were there; but what brought
I
was
the sixth
I felt
I
had been delegated so much responsi-
fully confident about handling the top
Reagan appointee
referred to as the administration's
mined
to
be Reagan's
last
in that position,
Bermuda
Triangle.
which someone
And I was
National Security Advisor.
NSC
I
deter-
confess that
I
also felt along with the pride a certain burden to prove myself as the first
African- American to hold the position.
Rowan this
put
it,
As
the columnist Carl
"To understand the significance of Powell's elevation
to
extremely difficult and demanding post, you must realize that only
a generation ago
it
was an unwritten
rule that in the foreign affairs field,
blacks could serve only as ambassador to Liberia and minister to the
Canary Before
Islands."
I
could be formally appointed, a hitch developed. Several influ-
ential
people did object to having an active-duty officer heading the
NSC.
Critics included
Staff;
Alexander Haig, President Reagan's
Admiral Crowe, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of first
Secretary of State and
^ COLIN
330
once the deputy
at
L.
NSC
POWELL himself; and Brent Scowcroft, also a former
National Security Advisor, to President Ford.
I
myself had told the
New
York Times in an interview that the National Security Advisor should be a civilian political appointee. Democratic Senator
Tom
Harkin of Iowa
had, in fact, proposed legislation (S. 715) prohibiting an active-duty officer
from being National Security Advisor. Passage of this
bill
would
pose a real headache for me.
The post of National Security Advisor did not require Senate confirmation. But as a three- star general, I would have to be confirmed for any job
in order to
hold on to
my rank.
If I
dropped back
could be appointed without Senate confirmation. But
be demoted
in the
Army
so that
I
I
to
two
stars, I
was not eager
to
could be promoted in a civilian post.
A bit of suspense hung over my future.
Fourteen National Security Advisor to the
ON DECEMBER
1
8,
1
987,
I
President
GOT A CALL FROM SENATOR SAM NUNN'S SECRE-
me to make sure that on the next afternoon I watched C-Span, TV channel that, among other things, covers Congress. When
tary telling
the cable
the time came,
I
was
curious, and a Httle anxious. After the Iran-contra
fiasco,
Nunn, powerful chairman of the Senate Armed Services Com-
mittee,
had become strongly opposed
to having military officers serve as
By now, I had moved from the Wing comer office recently vacated
the President's National Security Advisor.
deputy's cubicle to the grand West
by Frank Carlucci, and hoped nothing require
heard on C-Span was going to
my departure.
The next afternoon, I turned on the Nunn,
I
office television set,
and there was
bashing away: "A military officer knows promodon depends on the Secretary of Defense and the top and admirals in the Pentagon," Nunn was saying. any
in his earnest drawl,
that his next
generals
active-duty officer
.
who
serves in that position
may be
.
subject to an
^ COLIN
332
POWELL
L.
inherent conflict between his responsibilities to the President and his
own
professional future in the service. Assignment of a military officer
to this senior, sensitive position also raises serious questions about the
Bui suddenly, Nunn took a
civilian control of the military." turn:
"Why,
make an exception now?"
then,
answer his own question. "...
He
cirumstances."
I
l^e
1
8o-degree
asked, and proceeded to
believe that this
is
a rather unique set of
pointed out that only about a year remained in the
Reagan administration and "we have had considerable turmoil office of the National Security Council." said.
We
in the
needed continuity, Nunn
Consequently, he was willing to support confirmation of this par-
ticular
nominee.
"Will the gentleman yield?" The C-Span camera turned to Republi-
can Senator John Warner, the ranking minority
member on
Services Committee. Warner too had said
a
was
it
bad idea
Armed
the
to put a sol-
dier in this highly political spot, but praised "the unusual distinction that this fine officer has
Nunn moved
that
brought to the nation and himself."
my
nomination be approved, and
like
was subse-
Nunn and Warner
quently confirmed by the Senate. Within minutes,
were on the phone laughing
I
schoolboy pranksters, asking
enjoyed the performance. Of course,
I
if I
was pleased. Not only had
had the
my case been a compliment, but Senate approval allowed keep the NSC position and still hold on to my three-star rank.
exception in
me
to
While
I felt
up
what had happened
to the job,
still
dizzying. Ten years before,
Old
EOB
in
my jump boots
Security Advisor, that his operation.
him had
held.
I felt
I
in this soldier's life
had thumped down
to tell
Zbigniew Brzezinski, then National
no qualification for and wanted no part of
And now I had the job that he and Henry I
was
the corridors of the
Kissinger before
was no longer someone's aide or number two.
I
would
be working directly with the President, the Vice President, and the secretaries of State
and Defense, who formed the NSC.
I
was
to
perform as
judge, traffic cop, truant officer, arbitrator, fireman, chaplain, psychiatrist,
and occasional
hit
man. And
I
would not only be organizing
views of others to present to the President;
him my own
national security judgments.
with cabinet-level
Around City's
status, if
this time, I
saw a
I
I
was now
the
expected to give
had become a "principal,"
not the rank.
story in the
New York
Times about
new landmarks commissioner. Gene Norman,
the
New York
same Gene
I
National Security Advisor
stickball with
had played since he invited
went off
Gene and
on Kelly
to join the
the
to
Street,
whom
Marine Corps over
I
had seen
for lunch at the
another old pal
who had
once I
alumna, to join
We
White House mess.
talked about
Tony Grant, now a lawyer
recently resurfaced,
and corporation counsel for White Plains,
just
333
thirty years before.
his wife, Juanita, another Kelly Street
Alma and me
^
President
New York.
All the while
we
were laughing and carrying on, an unspoken undercurrent flowed: had
happened
all this really
In the mess.
Nearly
the
all
to a
bunch of kids from Banana Kelly?
Gene noticed something that had always bothered me. waiters in the White House mess were Filipinos. The
mess was a wholly Navy-run operation; grating waiters in the Pentagon, but
I
had been successful
in inte-
did not have any leverage in
I
my
new job to crack this monopoly. The same held true for the White House ushers. They were mostly black, including those who served at formal dinners, creating an atmosphere suggesting a plantation in the
antebellum South rather than the White House in the twentieth century.
These jobs were practically handed down from father prized.
The ushers
liked the situation just fine the
They were
to son.
way
it
was. And, no
thank you, they did not need some upstart African-American general to break up a good thing in the pursuit of integration.
Though not
yet formally confirmed,
on an acting basis since November to take
over
at
had been
I
i8, the
filling the advisor's
day Frank Carlucci departed
Defense. Just two days into the job,
I
had briefed a group
of Knight-Ridder newspaper editors in the Roosevelt ation in Nicaragua.
Among them was
job
one black
Room on the situ-
editor,
Reginald Stuart,
who
so far had asked no questions. Finally his hand went up. "Being the
first
black person to occupy this position," Stuart asked, "what do you
feel are the
chances no one will
pass you?"
I
if I
was a
NSC
managed
tokenl
my
—and ticked off the
for ten months;
Bermuda
try to
to conceal
I
tax treaties;
I
undercut you in the post, or by-
surprise
am
I
Two weeks
afraid
later, I
had akeady worked
I let
said,
was asking
my
I
to
directly with the President
was
neither undercuttable nor
annoyance show.
attended a reception hosted by the Joint Center for
Political Studies, a black
went up and
the brother
had dealt with every issue from arms control
and the secretaries of State and Defense. bypassable.
—
had already been with the
facts: I
Washington think tank, and spotted
"Man, why did you
hit
me
with that one?"
Stuart.
I
COLIN
354
He gave me room was
POWELL
L.
an amused smile. "That's what every white guy in the
thinking, but
was
afraid to ask.
So
I
asked
December, Mikhail Gorbachev was coming
In
first
to
for them."
it
Washington for the
time for his third summit meeting with. President Reagan and to
sign the treaty to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear force missiles.
INF
missiles had a range of about three thousand miles,
them between
nukes and intercontinental
tactical battlefield
aimed
missiles
at targets like
which placed
New
Washington, Moscow,
ballistic
York, and
Leningrad. INFs were the missiles that the Western Allies and the
would hurl
Soviets
November,
I
INF
and
treaty
at
each other in the event of war in Europe. In
traveled to
Geneva with Secretary Shultz
American embassy.
I
work on
December summit. Shultz
to prepare for the
mission and did most of the talking the
to
at
the
led the
our sessions with the Soviets
listened, observing the
men around
at
the table,
beginning with Eduard Shevardnadze, Soviet foreign minister, hand-
some, silver-haired, with the expression and mild speech of an Anglican
vicar.
The
figure
my
eyes kept returning to was an older, small, spare,
tough-looking soldier. Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, ter
of defense and, as chief of the Soviet general
military forces. ally
had
manding
As
to reverse
V Corps,
I
first
staff,
deputy minis-
head of all Soviet
studied this "Hero of the Soviet Union,"
mental gears. Only a year before,
whose
sole mission
armies, specifically the 8th Guards
was
Army.
to hurl
I
I
continu-
had been com-
back Akhromeyev 's
Now I was National Security
Advisor, engaged in negotiating agreements that should start to
make
V Corps and the Soviet 8th Guaids Army obsolete. That evening the Americans hosted a candlelight dinner for the Soviet team in the residence of the American ambassador. sation hit a lull at shal,"
I
said,
active duty."
one point, and
I
leaned toward Akhromeyev. "Mar-
"you must be one of the (It
The conver-
last
World War
II
veterans sdll on
was now forty-two years since V-E Day.)
The marshal nodded.
"I
am
the last of the Mohicans," he said.
I
laughed, surprised at his familiarity with James Fenimore Cooper. "Oh,
"many Russians of my generation have read Cooper and Jack London, Mark Twain, all your best writers." I asked Akhromeyev what he had done during the war. He had enlisted in the Red Army at seventeen, he said, right off the farm. His yes," he said, smiling,
National Security Advisor
unit
was posted about
thirty-five miles
to
^
President
the
335
from Leningrad during the siege
by the Germans, which lasted 890 days and cost 830,000 civihan alone from
bombardment and
"For eighteen months," Ahkromeyev said, "I never building, even
when
of doors through two winters, never
always hungry." The room was
from
my
my
knew
below
to fifty
a
set foot inside a
warm
Akhromeyev the need for
to the old marshal's story
I
and one other
to accept that so
—admiration
how
hard
much blood had been
Before going to Geneva,
going to replace absences.
I
me
must be
for
shed, not only to
He
understood
as
I
had had
NSC
make
to
faith.
who was
a key decision:
deputy and run the store during
my
had been closely associated with Cap Weinberger, a former
Secretary of Defense. Carlucci.
it
for the
change and supported perestroika. But he and Gorbachev
both clung to reforming, not abandoning, the old
I
was out
he spoke. "And such loss of life.
silent as
save Russia, but to preserve the false god of Marxism.
ment.
I
day, always fighting,
age died during the war. Only
courage of a fellow soldier and recognition of
that the
zero.
high school class of thirty-two survived."
two reactions
I felt
went
the temperature
Eight out of ten boys
lives
starvation.
And
NSC
I
was a
was
was just
I
as close to the current Secretary,
military man.
a wholly
owned
I
needed
to spike
Frank
any perception
subsidiary of the defense establish-
found just the man, John D. Negroponte, off in the unlikely out-
post of assistant secretary of state for oceans, the environment, and international organizations. Negroponte, a career Foreign Service officer,
had the management
style
I
liked,
going manner, a rare combination. officer, I
made
toughness applied in an easy-
And
John would help dispel the perception a
few other changes
Paul Stevens
in the
moved up from legal
Department career
as a State that
I
was Defense's man.
team Carlucci and advisor to be
and Nick Rostow took over the legal job.
I
had put
my executive
together.
secretary,
Roman Popadiuk became my
press assistant. In the military,
we
are constantly judging
and replacing personnel. Picking People.
What
I
loyalty, integrity, a
human
material, placing
had developed Powell's Rules for
I
looked for was intelligence and judgment, and
most critically, a capacity ued
By now,
to anticipate, to see
high energy
around corners.
I
level, a certain passion, a
ego, and the drive to get things done.
Academics and subject
also val-
balanced
specialists
* COLIN
336
POWELL
L.
are valuable for their expertise. But, above
me make
the
all, I
needed people
to help
NSC trains run on time.
After the Geneva
trip, I
flew to California and went to the Reagans'
ranch in the Santa Ynez Mountains above S^anta Barbara, where the first
family was spending Thanksgiving and where
President on the
now completed INF treaty. I was
was
I
to brief the
surprised at the
mod-
esty of the ranch house, small and lacking even central heating.
entered and found President Reagan in a plaid
man
clearly in his element.
And
was Nancy Reagan, never missing
beamed
as
reported the deal
with reason.
He was
the
we had made
first
I
and boots, a
hovering, just within our peripheral
vision,
I
shirt, jeans,
a word.
The President
with the Soviet Union, and
American leader
to begin dismantling
nuclear weapons.
The White House
staff
was booked
Four Seasons
into the Biltmore
in
when I got back there from the ranch, the President's press secretary, Marhn Fitzwater, cornered me. 'It's time to lose your virginity," Marlin said. He wanted me go to the nearby Sheraton Hotel to brief the White House press corps on the INF treaty and other Santa Barbara, and
issues covered at Geneva.
I
was
to
speak
''on
background," which meant
become one of those anonymous "senior administration officials" quoted in news accounts. The White House press corps can be a carnivorous lot, and I braced I
was about
myself for
me
to
this first
thirty years before at the Fort
course
—how
to stand,
gonna
tell
nication
Sam I
'em,
tell
Benning Infantry School
to organize
'em, then
tell
your thoughts
'em what you're
(tell
'em what you just
communication, whether
is still
instructors
move, use the hands and the voice (never cough
how
or shift your feet);
to
exposure by relying on the techniques drilled into
told 'em).
of
to a class
OCS
Commu-
students or
Donaldson.
nevertheless felt as
if I
questions.
The
air
went
to
opened the floor
to
were approaching a minefield as
the mike, explained the treaty and other issues, and
was quickly
filled
I
with the Sanskrit of arms control
"encrypting telemetry," "throw weights," "multiple independently getable reentry' vehicles."
wood on every
pitch.
by us and the Soviets
My
confidence grew as
The questioning turned
I
two
to
for verifying disarmament.
managed sites
tar-
to get
agreed to
Magna, Utah, and
National Security Advisor
Which one was
Votkinsk, Siberia. ingly.
my
"Given
I
They began laughing. laxed. folks.
By I
the
was
promised, I
Magna,"
"We
will
I
said.
make
Votkinsk was quite
sure
CNN gets there."
started not only to act relaxed, but to feel re-
end of the conference,
like a child
337
"A"
preferable? a reporter asked teas-
druthers, I'd take
a desolate place. But,
President
the
to
who has
I felt
positively
warm toward these
not yet seen any tigers in the jungle and
therefore concludes there aren't any.
On
however,
this first outing,
ers. I realized that the
I
interviewee
did pick up a few useful press pointis
the only
one
at risk in this duel.
The
media report only stupid or careless answers, not stupid or unfair ques-
when
tions. Also,
trouble
I
reporters ask a follow-up question, you're
—so break
looked anxiously
ful
apply power, gain altitude, or
off,
at
my
my office,
of Russians in
Reagan summit. Unlike suits that
looked as
#2, Minsk.
if
eject.
November morning.
this
I
had a room-
the advance delegation for the Gorbachev-
their
dapper new leader,
this
group
still
wore
they had been tailored by State Garment Factory
My life was now consumed by the thousand and one logistisummit meeting demands. This morning,
cal preparations a to sell the
watch
headed for
I
was
trying
Russians on helicoptering Gorbachev in from Andrews Air
Force Base so that he could get a panoramic view of Washington.
concerned about
"A/y^r," they said,
security.
Gorbachev must come
in
by motorcade.
Weeks
before,
I
speech before the
had committed myself
women
Outside
made
my window,
the Russians feel at
a sixteenth of an inch of
had asked Florence Gantt if
Day luncheon
of the James Reese Europe Post #5 of the
American Legion Auxiliary sity.
to a Veterans
at the
an early,
Howard Inn near Howard Univerheavy snow was falling. It probably
home, but presented a problem for me, since snow is sufficient to paralyze Washington. I to call the
good
ladies of Post
#5
to find out
they intended to cancel the lunch. Oh, no, they were expecting Gen-
eral Powell.
There was, for me, something touching about these women, many of
them widows of black GIs who had fought
World War
II, still
meeting to honor
to the
Howard
Inn,
Imagene Stewart, and
men. Therefore,
I left
the Rus-
summit planning session to skid and sUde my way
sians in the middle of a
up
their
in the segregated services of
where
my
I
was greeted by
my hostess,
the Reverend
audience, nine elderly ladies in a
room
set
up
* COLIN
338 for
two hundred. To
were
there,
POWELL
L.
my
astonishment, the television cameras of C-Span
which magnified
my impact somewhat,
since
my
C-Span ran
speech to the nine ladies three times nationwide. Subsequently, this appearance spawned a continuing relationship
between
Once
me
after
I
"Don't send
and
my hostess's
homeless
facility, the
House of Imagene.
me
ran a Pentagon clothing drive for her she sent
me
any more old clothes.
I
need
suits to dress
a note:
up these
folks for job interviews!"
With or without me, the Soviet advance party was having a good
On
Madison Hotel, they
their first night at the
rooms
to the tune of $1,400.
restocking the bars.
I
was
We
minibars in their
hit the
asked the hotel management to stop
also playing referee
own
their
KGB
between the
our security agencies. The Soviet team had arrived with
And when Gorbachev came,
electronic equipment.
time.
and
kinds of
all
they would bring
nuclear release system, the equivalent of our "football," car-
ried wherever the President went. ITie National Security Agency, our
eavesdropping
outfit,
was
intercepting gear onto the
licking
chops for permission to move
its
shot too. Spooks spying on spooks spying on spooks.
across the White
The
to
security chief for the Soviet advance party
our Secret Service found out that
telling
West Wing of
into
for
summit
the
I
them
that as
down
to the bare walls.
a top
KGB
How
to.
official
do we know what's
bug? Suppose he
his
own
strip-search
sticks a pin
drops.
him
What
are
in the East
you going
Wing?"
soon as Kryuchkov was gone they could sweep
Kryuchkov had wanted
When
in his
mike
said, "I don't think the Soviet security chief
summit meetings makes
when Gorbachev comes,
me.
to see
White House, they panicked. There was no
tries to plant a
your sofa? "Fellas,"
let
KGB
was a senior
who asked
intended to
I
what Kryuchkov might be up
shoes? Suppose he
the
be microwaved.
deputy minister, Vladimir A. Kryuchkov,
into the
Anybody walking
House lawn wearing a pacemaker during
would be lucky not
its
White House grounds. The CIA wanted a
to see
me, he
of the safety of Comrade Gorbachev."
I
said, "to
make
I
We
do
assured
my
office
absolutely sure
outlined the security arrange-
ments, and he nodded approvingly. "Yes," he said, "we have been
impressed by your Secret Service.
to
much
could learn from them," and he
added, "just as you could learn from us."
He
then gave
me
a sly smile
National Security Advisor
and
"We
said,
hotel.
are pleased too to see so
The FBI headquarters must be
Less than a year after his
to
President
the
339
'A'
many new employees
our
at
depleted."
visit to the
White House, Vladimir A.
Kryuchkov became head of the KGB.
The mistake Ronald Reagan's
liberal critics
made was
to
assume
that
because he was a conservative and because he supported a huge defense buildup, he
was some
Reagan was a
sort of
visionary,
was what
annihilation. That
dude-ranch warmonger. Wrong. Ronald
dreaming of reversing the threat of nuclear
INF
the
treaty
was
about. That
all
is
what
SDI was aimed at. The SDI "umbrella" was intended to make nuclear weapons obsolete. The science of SDI (or Star Wars, as its critics insisted on calling it) was mind-boggling, but the strategy was fairly elementary. The present situation was tantamount to two enemy soldiers each in his foxhole armed with a hand grenade. If you throw yours to destroy
me,
I'll still
Assured Destruction, gets a
This
rifle.
is
Seeing
known
President
arms
And
sword needs
the
#2
gets himself a
SDI was intended
race.
Reagan saw SDI
right hand.
ple,
MAD. In order to give himself an edge,
this, soldier
as an
have a shield on our
the
have time to throw mine to destroy you. Mutual
rifle,
to
and on and on.
break the
circuit.
as a shield as contrasted to a sword. If
we
to be.
arm,
The SDI
shield
was designed not
to destroy peo-
only to protect them.
ated.
The
enemy
the shield image, although
actual strategic edge of
missiles,
it
SDI was
it
that while
was a it
bit
exagger-
could not stop
sure they could deliver a nuclear knockout punch. Therefore,
SDI technology with the
futile.
SDI would
Reagan had offered
Soviets, an offer they never beheved.
of our planners did not believe Reagan meant
he was sincere. Only when the Soviets also
it
either,
though
felt secure,
to share
And many I
knew
the President
reasoned, would they be ready to shorten their nuclear sword. That the visionary' in the
were cheaper
all
could destroy enough so that the Soviets could not be
render the continued nuclear buildup
man. But Gorbachev took the position
to build than supersophisticated shields,
Soviets could just keep building
we
#i
we don't need such a massive sword in our more secure we feel behind the shield, the smaller
left
The President loved
that
soldier
them
to
was
that nussiles
and therefore the
overwhelm whatever defense
constructed. That argument omitted the economics of the equation.
We had the money
to
go
either route,
SDI
or
more
missiles, while, eco-
* COLIN
360
POWELL
L.
nomically, the Russians were "hurting. At the Reykjavik
Gorbachev had shown himself wiUing Soviet strategic arsenal,
to trade off a
we would abandon
if
Summit
in 1986,
major portion of the
SDI, which showed that
it, he actually feared t^e new technology. knew he would come to Washington in December still fighting SDI. We And we knew that Reagan would stick by it. A few days before Gorbachev's arrival, I was briefing the President on the summit agenda when he interrupted to show me two small boxes.
while he pretended to dismiss
He opened them and,
with a smile, held before
links depicting figures beating
had been given
his inspirations, the cufflinks
The President was going
to
wear one
pair the
and give the Russian leader the other pair ing in the Oval Office.
wore French
we had
a lot
to
him by
I
a California pal.
day of Gorbachev's
at their first
pointed out that
I
me two pairs of gold cuff-
swords into plowshares. Like many of
arrival
one-on-one meet-
did not think the Russians
He was not deterred. On this and subsequent days, of homework to cover; Gorbachev was going to be sharp. cuffs.
Yet, every time
I
went
in to brief the President
on summit
issues,
he also
brought up the cufflinks. The disarmament and economic issues would eventually be dealt with, he knew. But he also wanted personal symbols that
bonded
the
With just days over to
my
two men who were
to go,
office as
I
to resolve them.
asked Soviet Ambassador Yuri Dubinin to come
soon as possible.
I
had a problem, and so did
he.
Dubinin, a big, white-haired, usually affable man, looked miserable as
I
explained the dilemma. Sweat glistened on his brow. Mrs. Reagan was furious,
I
told him.
She had extended invitaUons
to the Soviet leader's
wife, Raisa Gorbachev, to tea, to lunch, to whatever she preferred. after repeated inquiries
yes, a no, not
received.
by our
staff,
we had
And
heard nothmg back, not a
even an acknowledgment that the invitations had been
Tom Griscom,
the
White House communications
director,
my
cochair in planning the summit, a wit and popper of ego balloons,
"What is this, animal house? A food fight between two First Ladies?" Knowing Mrs. Reagan's iron will, I told Dubinin that we were on the verge of jeopardizing a cordial summit meeting if she did not get observed,
a simple, civil response, and
damn
quick.
"Colin," Dubinin said, shifting uncomfortably, tion.
Mrs. Gorbachev
is
.
.
."
about demanding First Ladies.
"it is
His words petered out. Still, I
told him,
a delicate situaI
understood
"Get cracking
if
all
you do
National Security Advisor
that
new
Twenty-four hours
Yes,
I
day
don't
we
received a cabled acceptance from Raisa
later
at the
speed of
light
by Russian standards.
I still
had more
My staff and I had choreographed the treaty-signing on the first summit
to get the
Brooklynite, sent
Why
fax of yours and get us an answer, quick."
a bit about strong-minded First Ladies. But
as the hour.
I
silly.
1
to tea.
knew
to learn.
36
KGB
Gorbachev, decision-making
She agreed
^
President
summit over something so
not want to screw up this
you crank up
the
to
Ken
off to a dramatic
We had selected
start.
1 1
:oo a.m.
Ken Duberstein, an energetic, politically savvy young was the President's deputy White House chief of staff, and
the suggested schedule.
He
later
Not
signing had to take place at 1:45 p.m. foul up the entire day.
Ken
repeated,
i
phoned me
possible,
:4s p M-
I
told
I
to say that the
said; that
him maybe
would 1 1
.-30,
or at the very latest, noon. Duberstein insisted on 1:45. His behavior
was so cial
arbitrary
and out of character
about one forty-five?"
neither
would he budge.
accommodate
He would
that
I
said,
not give
We had to bend the
this inexplicable
"Kenny, what's so spe-
me
a straight answer, but
schedule
all
out of shape to
demand.
Some weeks later, Duberstein finally told me the reason. And that is how I became one of a half-dozen people in the White House to learn the secret.
Now the whole world knows that Nancy Reagan consulted an
astrologist to decide
where and when the President should conduct the
business of the United States; and this California seer, Joan Quigley,
had decreed
that the stars
were
right for a favorable signing of the
INF
treaty at 1:45 p.m.
Nancy Reagan's
interest in astrology
was not out of step with
mystical streak in the President himself.
what had happened
at
Chernobyl.
If
He had been much
a quasi-
affected
by
an accident in a Soviet nuclear
power plant could spread radioactive poison over so much of the globe, what would nuclear weapons do? The President had learned
that the
name Chernobyl derived from a Russian word meaning "wormwood." Because of wormwood's harsh taste, the plant is mentioned in the Bible as a symbol for bitterness. The President's train of thought ran from Chernobyl, to wormwood, to rancor, to Armageddon. He told us that what had happened in that city was a biblical warning to mankind. December 7 came, Gorbachev landed, and we were sticking nicely to the script: arrival of the general secretary
on the south lawn of the White
* COLIN
362
POWELL
L.
House; a brief one-on-one meeting with the President Office; Reagan's eager presentation of the cufflinks,
Oval
in the
which Gorbachev
pocketed with a simple 'Thank you." The two leaders then led their del-
Room
egations to the East
for the signing of the
time in history," President Reagan
first
control'
was replaced by
INF
said,' "the
'arms reduction.' "
We
treaty.
'Tor the
language of 'arms
had
laid out
two
leather-bound copies, blue for the United States, red for the Soviet
Union, which Reagan and Gorbachev signed, a It
was now time
and he wanted
to derail SDI,
country.
for substance over ceremony.
We wanted the
to
make
staff to
1
145 p.m.
Gorbachev
still
wanted
a pitch for economic aid for his
Soviets out of Afghanistan and wanted Jews to
be free to leave the Soviet Union.
immediate
httle past
meet
in the
had arranged for the principals and
I
Oval Office
2:30 p.m. But the State
at
Department wanted so many people included, American and Soviet, that, at the last
minute, George Shultz asked to
My
Cabinet Room.
move
to the
much
Ronald Reagan off his form. Unwisely,
I
yielded to Shultz.
When everyone was seated in the now jammed Cabinet Room, ident invited Gorbachev, as his guest, to speak
first. I
down my impressions
from
as the Soviet leader spoke
Quick turning
notes: "Bright. Fast.
radius. Vigorous.
Gorbachev was tossing off terms
orful speech."
larger
antennae started quivering. Sudden changes threw
the Pres-
started jotting
his handwritten
SoHd. Feisty. Collike
"MIRV" and
"depressed trajectories" and the throw weights of SS-i2s, -13s, -i8s,
and -24s,
one of Ken Adelman's wonks
like
in the
Disarmament Agency. At one point Gorbachev
Arms
said, "I
Control and
am
aware you
new chemical weapons at your facility in Pine Bluff, Arkansas." He even knew that these weapons would be fired are getting ready to produce
from
155mm
which
artillery shells,
I
did not know.
The President
hs-
tened with a fixed, pleasant expression. Suddenly, he interrupted to say
he had a cards,
story.
We knew
that
most of the gags fed
Gorbachev yielded the
to
he kept a stack of Russian jokes on
him by
driver
was a
in a
in
Moscow.
cab on his way to the airport for a
Union," the President began.
student.
embassy
floor.
"An American professor was flight to the Soviet
the American
'When you
finish
your
"It turns
out the cab
studies,' the professor
asked him, 'what do you want to do?' 'Don't know,' the cabbie haven't decided
yet.'
file
said.
'I
National Security Advisor
President
the
to
^
363
"At the other end of the flight the professor was taking a cab into
Moscow and student too.
He was a do when he fin-
struck up a conversation with the Russian driver.
So
what he's going
the professor asks
to
ishes school. 'Don't know,' the cabbie says, 'they haven't told
me
yet.'
That," the President said amiably, "is the basic difference between us."
As he table,
finished the story the
Americans wanted
to disappear
under the
while Gorbachev stared ahead, expressionless. This was his third
meeting with the President, and by
now he knew Reagan's
style.
He evi-
dently considered getting what he wanted
more important than being
offended; he turned again to the agenda, as
if
The
On
he had heard nothing.
President's performance continued to reveal his thin preparation.
diplomatic questions, he would turn to Shultz and say, "Well,
George, you might want to say a word about
On
that."
military matters,
he turned to Carlucci: "Frank, I'm sure you would like to address that point."
After the meeting ended, our side retreated to the Oval Office.
George Shultz courageously said what had that
was
a disaster. That
man is tough.
to
be
said:
"Mr. President,
And you can't just
He's prepared.
there telling jokes."
sit
The President knew
the session
scolding in stride. But he
now?" he
had not gone well and took the
was not devastated. "Well, what do we do
said.
The President and Gorbachev had another working session scheduled for the next morning.
today, part of to
do
is
which
stay in the
I
I
was determined not
accepted as
Oval Office,"
the next thing, Mr. President,"
I
the evening,
and
I
He was
"The
first
thing we're going
George Shultz now agreed. "And
said, "is to get
ing points." Ronald Reagan's ego ther lecturing this day.
my fault. said.
I
to repeat the mistakes of
was not going
you a
better set of talk-
to benefit
from any
fur-
hosfing a state dinner for Gorbachev in
suggested he might want to go back to the residential
quarters to get ready.
I
assured
him we would have everything prepared
him by morning. As the meeting ended, Shultz
for
still
had suffered a first-round knockout. breath, buckle
down, and
fix the
had Florence Gantt round up
Ledsky of my paragraph
staff.
Army
looked distraught, as though I
suggested
problem.
Fritz
As soon as they
I
Ermath, arrived,
we
went back
I
Bob
all
to
take a deep
my office
and
Linhard, and Nelson
gave them the classic
field order: Situation: serious;
we
five-
we lost the first engage-
COLIN
364
POWELL
L.
ment. Mission: retake the
Execution: counterattack by prepar-
initiative.
ing the President better for the next day. Logistics: three or four pages
of tightly written talking points to be prepared by this
and control: here
Command
staff.
room, with approval of the talking points by the
in this
Secretary of State. "Fll see you around midni^t,"
said, "after the state
I
dinner."
The event went swimmingly, with Ronald Reagan doing the thing he seemed bom to do, speaking warmly, convincingly, wittily and he was
—
well prepared.
my
got back to
I
usual chaos of crash projects,
down
women's
to half mast,
messy with scribbled plastic
spoons
sors, printers
edits,
men
little
before midnight to the
in rolled-up shirtsleeves, ties pulled
hair disheveled, people
spewing out the
latest draft. I
Wing by 5:00
looked bleary-eyed.
dent's talking points.
I
texts
to grab a
few winks.
I
staff,
glanced
at
7:00 A.M. for his shot at our work.
my
at
word proces-
looked over the current ver-
now draped over Ermath handed me the latest The
a.m.
directions.
away
good enough,"
sion and said, "Good. But not
home
hunched over
half-empty foam cups of cold coffee and
littering desks, secretaries clicking
corrections and went
new
office a
gave some course
I
was back chairs
in the
West
and couches,
version of the Presi-
watch. Shultz would be over by
"One more
They roused themselves and
time,"
sat
I
down
few
said, giving a
again around the
conference table. Shultz it's
came
in
on the
dot,
good," George said, "but
and let
I
me
showed him what we had. take
it
back
"I think
My
to the department.
people need to have a look."
make
"Better sees
Gorbachev
it
at
fast," I said. "I still
have to brief the President, and he
eleven a.m."
The President looked refreshed and relaxed as I reviewed points with him. They were laid out double-spaced, like a
the talking script.
The
pages covered SDI, arms control, regional conflicts, human
rights,
and
economic
aid.
He behaved
mood was determinedly ing. Perpetual
"Good
optimism
stuff. I've
got
went over the talking
He was drawer
sitting in
to the table
as if yesterday
had never happened.
My own
upbeat. Things always look better in the mornis
it,
a force multiplier, even for Presidents. I've got
it,"
the President said, nodding as
we
points.
an armchair next to an end
table. I
and slipped the three pages into
it.
opened the
"After
we have
National Security Advisor
the official opening ceremonies," to
I
President
the
363
"A
went on, "we'll be coming back here
the Oval Office." Gorbachev's aide
whom Griscom
to
(a sinister-looking
had dubbed "Dracula") would open
KGB
official
his briefcase
and
hand Gorbachev a steno pad with the handwritten notes. "That's when you casually take your talking points out of this drawer," ident. "Just
make
sure,
sir,
you speak
that
I
told the Pres-
first."
Later that morning, the President greeted Gorbachev on his arrival at the
White House, and the two men and Office.
their staffs then
went
Oval
to the
We had the photographers in for a photo op, then settled down to
business.
Gorbachev already had
President,
who was drawing his
his steno
pad
in hand.
He
ing naturally and persuasively.
still
had much
to do.
looked to the
He began talk-
noted that yesterday had been a
proud day. As the general secretary himself had of them
I
notes from the end table.
said,
however, the two
He was encouraged by
the Soviets' will-
ingness to limit ballistic missiles to between 4,800 and 5,100 warheads.
Offensive missiles had kept the peace for over forty years, but our peoples deserved better. That
world
stability
the purpose of
by removing any incentive
The scene was playing
we wanted
was
to strike first in a crisis.
the discussion to take. All the while,
what we had done
I
eyed Gorbachev and
man was. He knew in an instant
to reverse yesterday's direction.
Gorbachev
would improve
It
perfectly, with the President setting the course
again recognized what a quick study the
finished,
SDL
When
the President
started talking, flipping through his pad.
and was giving a
fact-filled presentation out
displaying total
command of SDL Contrary to
his material.
objections to
distortions in the U.S. press,
abandoned
it
Union was not developing
said, the Soviet
United States wanted to proceed
down
He its
He soon
of his head,
stated his
still
strong
Gorbachev
own SDL But
that path, that
was our
The Soviet Union, however, would have a response. But
his
if the
business.
main
thrust
remained positive, to continue the search for agreements to reduce nuclear arsenals.
The
talk
went on for over an hour and a
half. Shultz, Carlucci,
and
I
Though Gorthere was not a
occasionally had to backstop the President on details.
bachev was clearly superior
in
trace of condescension in his
manner, none of this business of Vienna in
1962,
when
President,
mastery of the issues,
Nikita Khrushchev had bullied a young, inexperienced
John
F.
Kennedy. Gorbachev's attitude was more
like
Mar-
* COLIN
366
garet Thatcher's.
gan
in absorbing
The
two
British
PM
Reagan
in
issues.
But both she and Gor-
had won over Americans
the qualities that
The man was not only
presidential elections.
many ways
the
practicality,
and optimism. Wise fellow heads of
embodiment of
more cynical
fact;
nobody's
Ronald Rea-
also stood heads above
and articulating complex
bachev recognized in
POWELL
L.
President, but in
his people's' down-to-earth character,
And
leaders did not.
recognized
state
this
Mikhail Gorbachev was
fool.
The morning of December lo was dreary and drizzly,
crowds gathered
as
on the White House south lawn for Gorbachev's departure. Gorbachev,
who has just won a primary,
which,
he had. Gorbachev had stopped his motorcade on i6th
Street,
however, was as sunny as a politician in a sense,
on the way from the Soviet embassy
to the
White House, and
working the crowd, with great success, estabhshing, as we that
ing of 5,100 ballistic missiles, and this difference
before
we
could
settle
—
we wanted
move from
the Soviets
We
4,800.
INF
the
be lobbed over the ocean
We
at
each other's
were huddled with the Soviets
the allowable
number of ballistic
We
still,
wanted a ceilhad
to resolve
treaty to a
START
weapons designed
treaty to limit strategic long-range nuclear systems, the to
later learned,
he was more popular outside than inside the Soviet Union.
however, had one big, dangUng detail to
started
cities.
Cabinet
in the
Room
missiles, while the
arguing over
Reagans and Gor-
bachevs were waiting for us to finish so that they could begin the departure ceremony on the rain-soaked south lawn. Finally, Carlucci
suggested to Akhromeyev that 4,900.
Our team went
tion after Shultz
and
I
we
split the difference
to the President,
assured
him
it
who
was a good
same sensation Carlucci had expressed his people.
earlier.
He was going to take your advice,
right," indicating a level
It
experienced the
I
Ronald Reagan trusted
briefing
him one day
so, Colin,
it
in
must be
of trust that could be a Httle frightening.
Gorbachev also agreed
we
deal.
you say
to the
compromise
Washington afternoon, the world continued In January 1988,
at
so you had better be right.
The President once signed a photograph of me the Oval Office with the inscription "If
on the missiles
accepted the recommenda-
to
limit,
and on
become
that rainy
a safer place.
entered the last year of the Reagan administration.
began on an interesting note for someone
like
me who had come out of
National Security Advisor
the
to
the
^
President
wings and onto the national stage barely one month before.
I
367
received
copies of an exchange of notes between Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska
and Vice President Bush. Just
had
after Christmas, Stevens
written:
Dear George, I
am
really
impressed with Colin Powell. In
on your "short
list"
my judgment,
he should be
for potential vice presidents.
A few days later, on January 5,
Bush answered:
1988,
Ted,
You
A class guy in every way.
are right about Colin Powell.
A nice compliment, but not exactly concurrence; and Bush never said anything about the matter to me.
Democracy was triumphing
in Latin
Nicaragua under the Sandinistas or
had known for some time to
that the
in
America
that season, but not in
Panama under Manuel Noriega.
Nicaraguan contras were never going
march through Managua, banners and rifles raised
were not strong enough. istas at the
Still,
initial
contras, not through the
spending some of
we had
my
most
back
at
V Corps
cessions.
He
to a
we
we
to the I
was
almost had a deal. If only the
I
had not reckoned, however, with
House Minority Whip Dick Cheney,
whom I had briefed
Cheney would not agree
to
any more con-
preferred losing on principle to winning through further
to defeat.
3, the
A month later, we had to
administration proposal settle for
deal to hold the contras together, just barely, with
On February
arms
few minor concessions, we could win the
compromise. Consequently, on February
went down
had
that in
frustrating days trying to sell a contra
needed.
in Frankfurt.
They
sides
beheved
to continue to supply
arms package. As February approached,
Democratic swing votes
I
back door, but with Congress's approval.
Repubhcans would agree the character of
was working. The two
agreements the previous August.
order to keep the pressure on,
still
aloft in victory.
they were our leverage to keep the Sandin-
negotiating table, a tactic that
entered into
I
19, 1 flew
a less desirable
more nonlethal
aid.
with Secretary of State George Shultz to Finland
en route to Moscow, where
we would plan
the next
summit meeting,
to
* COLIN
368 be held
in the
POWELL
L.
summer. By now, Shultz and
one of the most distinguished public
knew him,
the
more impressed
I
the substance into
7:00 A.M. in
administration,
and
I
made
had met, and the more
I
as heads of
vision.
We
met every morning
we
three
NSC
staff
at
worked
competing bureaucracies. In
George Shultz was the single minister of foreign
sure that the
I
admired Shultz not only for
along with Frank Carlucci; and
team rather than
as a
I
He was
close.
way he determinedly managed to put
Ronald Reagan's
my office
had become
officials
became.
his intellectual powers, but for the
I
this
policy,
understood that and backed him
all
the way.
On this trip, we stayed in Helsinki at the lovely Kalastajatorppa Hotel to
shake off our jet lag before going on to face the Soviets. Shultz gra-
ciously gave a dinner at the hotel for our traveling party of about fifteen,
where we turned out Japanese tourists
As our group
to
at the
be intensely interesting specimens to a group of next table.
swarmed around us
started to break up, the Japanese
with their cameras. They wanted to have their pictures taken with the
famous man. Shultz and were circling someone
I
else.
primped ourselves a
The
celebrity they
but the Japanese
bit;
wanted
to
pose with was
Charles Redman, the State Department's assistant secretary for public
Redman was the one who went before TV cameras every day to brief the press. Redman was the one the Japanese recognized from their own television. We had entered an age where TV images formed peraffairs.
ceptions, and these perceptions eclipsed reality. distorting
phenomenon
increasingly at
work
I
was going
to see this
our foreign policy
in
deliberations.
When we tory,
got to
Moscow,
I
met with
a figure right out of
Anatoly Dobrynin, Soviet ambassador
must have been made of cork. He had survived munist regimes and was the era of glasnost
now
Chemenko. Dobrynin these hard-line
all
a senior advisor to
and perestroika.
an old czarist mansion, istry,
still
his-
United States in the
to the
eras of Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, and
Cold War
com-
Mikhail Gorbachev
We had spent the
day
at
in
Osobnyak,
a guesthouse belonging to the Foreign
Min-
working with Dobrynin and Eduard Shevardnadze on the upcom-
ing summit.
At the end of
we ought
to
the day,
have a
little
Dobrynin sidled up chat, just the
to
me
and said he thought
two of us. His driver took us
in a
National Security Advisor
Zil limousine to a
the Kremlin.
Moscow
massive grand hotel across the
The lobby was almost
^
President
the
to
deserted, and
369
River from
asked Dobrynin,
I
"What kind of place is this?" "For the big guys," he said, in his comfortable American English. "Politburo, KGB." We took an elevator to the fourth floor,
where Dobrynin led
me into a private dining room. One
did not ordinarily travel to the Soviet Union for the cuisine, but this
meal was sumptuous. cient
And
was served by
it
a set of twins, briskly effi-
young Russian women.
Dobrynin had a
my
was on
guard. "Colin," he said, as
what's going on here. Gorbachev
is
ning this country since Lenin. That
A
realize.
society run
because there
is
and a disarming manner.
big, open, avuncular face
the is
we
ate,
first
a
by bureaucrats issuing
no recourse
make
Gorbachev
a place run
by party hacks." Dobrynin went on
leader's
approach
trying to
to the military
run-
than you
diktats can't function,
There
this a nation
is
no remedy
of laws instead of
to point out that the
new
was unprecedented. "He's driving
generals crazy," Dobrynin said. "Gorbachev says,
we have
we have had
critical point
to these apparatchiks.
for reform.
is
"you must understand
lawyer
more
I
'Why do you
tell
the
me
weapon just because the Americans have it? I'm not out to conquer the Americans. So tell me why do we need this for our own security?' " Nobody had ever questioned the milto
have
itary before, it
this
weapon
Dobrynin
or that
said. In the past, the military
always got anything
wanted.
He asked me their side.
he
said.
"You
to try to see
what Soviet imperialism looked
are always beating
like
from
up on us about Cuba, Cuba, Cuba,"
"Do you know who gave Cuba to us? You did. Castro was a revHe came to the United Nations. He
olutionary, not really a Marxist.
stayed in the Hotel Theresa in Harlem. Your government ignored him,
made him a pariah. So he dropped into our laps. "You beat up on us constantly over Nicaragua," he all
we
will give the Sandinistas
enough
is
enough
to
continued. "But
defend themselves. Not
to bother their neighbors. In the future,
you won't see us so
quick to join somebody else's revolution." Those days were ending,
Dobrynin went on.
Union
No more
billions of rubles
foreign adventures that cost the Soviet
and returned nothing but despotic regimes and
bad relations with the United
States.
What Gorbachev wanted, Dobrynin continued, was to fix the Soviet Union at home. The new regime wanted to move toward free markets.
* COLIN
370
POWELL
L.
But the switch was not easy.- "You take bread," Dobrynin cheap that
sidize the cost. It's so
than slop.
costs
It
more
it's
more economical
for the plastic to
wrap
it
you don't just cut off impose higher taxes
to
in than for the
bread
was
I
revolutionary
silk. Still, I I
tried to
make the country more fiscally responsible, "But spirit."
smooth
listening to an old pro, a diplomat as
Dobrynin told me.
But
Then we would
had also
said,
then you run the risk of killing off any entrepreneurial
knew
sub-
bread
a bread subsidy after sficty years.
have another revolution," Gorbachev, he
really
I
"We
to feed pigs
We know this is insane. We know it can't go on much longer.
itself.
I
said.
as pre-
did not automatically discount what Anatoly
went back
to
my hotel
and wrote down every word
could remember.
On March were
i
President Reagan
,
NATO
fifteen
heads of
rattling all
state.
was
our old comfortable assumptions.
Helmut Kohl, whose country was West war, wanted ons, like our
in Brussels to
meet with the other
The changes shaking the Soviet Union
German Chancellor
the likely battleground in any East-
further agreements to reduce tactical nuclear
Lance missiles with a range of
sixty miles.
weap-
At home, the
Reagan administration was under pressure from people who wanted know, with the Soviet threat reduced, almost four times as
much
why we were
still
to
spending
per capita on defense as our average
NATO
partner.
NATO
The
leaders sat around a huge circular table at the Brussels
headquarters with their staffs occupying satellite chairs behind them. President Reagan
of the
first
was
to
be the
day, as his turn approached, and after hearing his predeces-
sors burbling over Gorbachev, for
of the sixteen to speak. At the end
last
Reagan were adequate. At
I
was not
pered, "Sir, your notes are really not afraid you're going to have to
sure the notes
the next break,
wing
I
went
we had prepared
to
good enough, and
I
him and whisapologize. I'm
it."
He looked at me pleasantly. No panic. "Okay," he
said.
He was to fol-
low Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who began by saying he
knew
a
little
compared
about living next door to a superpower too. Mulroney then
the three-thousand-mile undefended border
between
his
country and ours to the bristling border between the Eastern bloc and the West. That
armed
frontier represented the past,
he
said.
The
U.S. -Canadian model must represent the future. Mulroney was elo-
National Security Advisor
quent, and he helped steer the day
dominated so
away from
*
President
the
to
the
Gorbamania
371 had
that
far.
He spoke about what we were trying to achieve with the Soviet Union. He covered our goals and expectations simply and convincingly. He spoke without notes, and his Finally,
it
was President Reagan's
turn.
words obviously moved the other heads of
more complex man than paint.
On
state.
Ronald Reagan was a
the one-dimensional figure his critics tried to
he again showed his grasp of the historic changes
this day,
taking place in our relations with the Soviets; and he conveyed his
homey, uniquely Reaganesque terms. He was confident and
beliefs in
own
comfortable in his
skin,
As we were coming out of News, asked camera for a
to interview
first, if
good
more than anyone
NATO
the
me. 'I'd
have ever known.
session, Chris Wallace, of
like to get
you don't mind," Wallace
fifteen minutes. "Let's
I
said.
I
some background
the
were going
talks
go on camera now," he
when
inevitable
many
so
fine,
off-
agreed and briefed him said,
did for a twelve-minute taped interview. During that time, that
NBC
which we
I
told
him
although some disagreement was
me
leaders met. After the interview, he asked
follow-up questions, off-camera, for another ten minutes. Altogether
had talked back to
to
Wallace for well over half an hour, and
my room to
grab a
someone from
know
if I
talking about.
I
what
I
was jolted awake by back
had done.
was informed
President and had shot
to get
that
I I
the phone.
It
was
White House wanting
in the
did not
know what
the caller
to
was
had disagreed publicly with the
him down on network
television.
immediately went to Marlin Fitz water's press center and had the
I
staff bring
his
I
the press office
realized
was happy
little rest.
must have dozed off when
I
I
I
up the taped
NBC Nightly News
on a monitor. Wallace and
crew had caught the President coming out of the meeting, and Chris
had asked him
if
there
had been any disagreement among the
partners over the continuing Soviet threat.
The President had
had never seen such harmony. Wallace asked the President
if
NATO said he
they had
disagreed about anything? "No," Reagan said, as the camera cut to Wallace.
agreed about
Wallace continued.
ing,
that,"
"Where you have
there will be differences
away
"But even some of his own advisors
from him and back
And
sixteen nations,
all
there
I
was on camera
dis-
say-
each sovereign, certainly
and there will be heated debate and discussion
* COLIN
372
from time
to time."
POWELL
L.
These were the seven seconds plucked from over a
half hour of substance
Shortly afterward,
I
had given the guy.
I
ran into Wallace and told him, '*Chris, that was a
cheap shot."
He remained unfazed.
needed an angle,"'he
"I
saiS.
"And
if that's the
worst that ever happens to you, you're lucky."
By now, ington,
I
was well aware
had
Panama on April
briefed the press on
I
that this jungle
5,
tigers.
Back
in
Wash-
my fifty-first birthday.
we might consider kidnapping Manuel Noriega. And I replied with one of my new rules for handling the media: "I don't discuss options." As the conference neared an end I
was asked about a leaked account
and
I
was about
to get off
one's teeth sink his advice
in.
with
my skin still intact, I suddenly felt some-
The Reverend
Jesse Jackson had recently delivered
on Panama, and a reporter asked me,
Jackson to involve himself the
that
"Is
it
in foreign affairs?" I instantly
understood
game. This reporter was saying, "Won't you please take a shot
Jesse so "I
we can
get the brothers arguing and
am an admirer of the Reverend Jesse Jackson," I said,
me
"and
"You
I
appre-
ain't
gonna
and Jesse bashing each other for your entertainment."
More
lessons in the care and feeding of the media.
answer every question put
you get
at
make some news?"
ciate his, as well as anyone's, opinions." Translation:
get
proper for Jesse
to you.
to pick the answers.
And
I
They
You do not have
to
get to pick the questions. But
way from the Chris who is asking the audience of millions who
learned the hard
Wallace encounter to aim beyond the audience of one question.
Shape your answer,
will be watching
you on the
Sometimes breaking
can
aircraft
tube.
starch for appearance's sake reaches global levels.
The Kuwaitis wanted us F/A- 1 8
instead, to the
to sell
them Maverick air-to-ground missiles and
from which they could be launched. AIPAC, the Ameri-
Israeli PoUtical
Action Committee, the major lobby of the American
Jewish community, had beaten back a sale of Maverick missiles to Saudi
Arabia about a year before. planes to the Kuwaitis.
I
AIPAC
also officially
opposed the
sensed, however, that AIPAC
sale of the
was not looking for
another knock-down-drag-out fight with the Reagan administration. not the plane
we
object to so
much," an AIPAC
official
"It's
confided to me,
"but the Maverick missiles they carry." There were two types, he knew, a smaller
D
model and a bigger
G model. The
Saudi sale that
AIPAC had
National Security Advisor
D-model Mavericks. "We have
successfully blocked involved sistent," the
AIPAC official
So we have
to
I
said.
"You
can do, plus a hell of a
"We need
to
in
town
I
can do I
all
prince,
to try to close the sale.
who were
could not
we could
sell
sell the
D
"Yet you won't
G model?"
I
went
Oakley of
to the prince's hotel suite to
my
National Security Coun-
explaining to his highness the problem with the sale.
him F/A-i8s with
D and G Mavericks.
the smaller D-type, but
plane with the more destructive G-type,
The prince asked me each other as
the
Saad Al Abdullah Al-Salim Al-Sabah,
described to the prince the difference between the
We
damage
the
said.
they carry the bigger
join Rich Armitage and Robert cil staff,
G
basis."
more, don't you?"
if
be con-
be consistent," he repeated.
The Kuwaiti crown was
realize the
lot
oppose the sale of F/A-i8s
to
373
"We opposed the Saudis on the D model.
oppose the Kuwaitis on the same
listened, puzzled.
^
President
the
to
to repeat.
I
"And they
if to say,
I
thought
pointed out.
I
he and his advisors looked
did, as
call us mysterious."
He asked
if
at
they
might withdraw for a private consultation.
When
the Kuwaitis
the prince said, yes, they
would write out and sign
if I
feared that
nobody would believe
this
arrangement.
the deal otherwise.
Everyone was happy. AIPAC had blocked the ericks to the Kuwaitis, just as
it
had
where
had a big
in Alice in
sale.
I
I
figured they
agreed.
sale of
D-model Mav-
to the Saudis, thus saving face.
Kuwaitis got a mystifying windfall. facturers
would be
buy the F/A-i8s and the G-model Mavericks with the bigger
willing to
bang,
came back,
And
The moral?
It
the aircraft
The
and missile manu-
can probably be found some-
Wonderland.
While the President had the
final cut
House approval on those touching on
on
all
speeches,
national security.
us this day, to be delivered on April 2 1 to the
Western Massachusetts
I
in Springfield,
World
had
The
initial
White
draft before
Affairs Council of
had been shepherded by Tony
Dolan, chief of the hard-line speechwriters and a master of the Reagan voice. tion
Ronald Reagan wanted
to continue
moving away from confronta-
and toward cooperation with the Soviet Union. But behaving hke a
pushover
is
not a good bargaining tactic. Dolan therefore wanted
bite in this speech.
the country
some
Furthermore, the President was a conservative, and
was going
into an election year.
Reagan would not be run-
ning himself, but the administration was determined to hold on to
its
con-
* COLIN
374
and hand
servative base
POWELL
L.
it
to the next
Republican candidate. The speech,
consequently, had been written as an old-fashioned West-versus-East
Moscow
stem-winder to anchor the Republican right wing before the
Summit.
I
was
a shade apprehensive about the diplomacy of
a hard-nosed political standpoint,
On
I
reckoned
sense.
April 22, the day after the President delivered the speech,
with George Shultz in the Kremlin, in the Hall of nificent czarist
chamber with high
St.
Catherine, a
I
was
mag-
ceilings, ornate yellow-and-white
and massive crystal chandeliers shimmering above. Across the
walls, table
made
strategy
tlfe
but from
it,
from us
ping the
condemning
air,
in Springfield
"that there
erwise,
Mikhail Gorbachev, face grim, voice
sat
hand chop-
Reagan had given
twenty-four hours before. "I have to beheve," he said,
backward movement and an attempt
is
how
the tough speech President
tight,
to explain
to
preach to us." Oth-
Reagan's old-style Soviet-bashing?
''Is
this
sum-
mit going to be a catfight?" he asked. I
noticed
how Gorbachev had
prepared himself for his attack.
not have his steno pad today. In front of him
which he had written
all
was an empty
I
did
folder
across the front, the back, and the inside,
ing out horizontally and ending up scribbling diagonally
comers.
file
He
down
on
start-
into the
could picture the scene the night before: "Comrade Chair-
man, here are your briefing papers for tomorrow." Short pause while
Gorbachev
leafs
through them and throws them aside. "This rubbish has
been overrun by events. Fll do
it
myself."
During our meeting, the Soviet leader pointed out
had recently
criticized the
living
by
INF treaty. "Nixon has taken
memoirs
labor of writing his
bachev noted
sarcastically.
Richard Nixon
a break
from the
to take part in political debates,"
Gor-
"The dead should not be allowed to take the
and drag them back
the coattails
that
to the past."
We should resist
"who want to put sticks in the spokes of Soviet- American normalization." What was he to make of this renewed belligerency? Was
people
this a return to the old politics, or
to the
American
was President Reagan simply playing
right? Very perceptive, Mikhail,
The dressing-down went on
I
paid for the Springfield speech. But
around the
to his
table.
He
own
had worried about the price we had I
began
to sense that
Gorbachev too
constituencies represented by the Soviets
could not
pearing to strike back.
thought.
for a full forty-five minutes, including
the translation. In the beginning,
was playing
I
let his
nation be
pummeled without
ap-
National Security Advisor
to
President
the
37 5
ik
George Shultz had been out of town while the Springfield speech was
He had
being cleared.
never seen
it,
and he was a
stunned by Gor-
little
bachev's harangue. Shultz, however, wisely ignored the browbeating
and when Gorbachev stopped
at last,
proceeded calmly to the agenda.
Gorbachev's tone changed. The Russian began describing his objectives
He was going to reform this lumbering giant of a nation. He was going to make the Soviet Union efficient. He was going to make it responsive to market forces. He was going to change the Communist Party. He was going to change the USSR in ways we never imagined. He was saying, in effect, that he was ending under perestroika and glasnost.
the
Cold War. The
they had
He
lost.
battle
between
their ideology
looked directly
at
and ours was over, and
me, knowing
was a
I
and said with a twinkling eye, "What are you going you've
lost
I
felt
was no ruse bed,
I
to
man,
do now
that
your best enemy?"
That night, back day, and
military
in
my
hotel room,
a conviction deep in
disarm
to
us.
This
Up
until
my
bones. This changed Soviet line
man meant what
realized that one phase of
about to begin.
thought over this extraordinary
I
now, as a
front, contain, and, if necessary,
my
said.
Lying there
in
had ended, and another was
life
soldier,
he
my
mission had been to con-
combat communism. Now,
think about a world without a Cold War. All the old verities
I
had
to
we had lived
by were now as misleading as an out-of-date timetable.
After
Moscow, George Shultz went with Eduard Shevardnadze
visit to the
route in
Republic of Georgia, and
London
to update
I
Minister,"
for as long as
can.
will
come and
I
I
replace
Back home,
said, "
last
Gorbachev
T am going
to
do
line.
as
said,
as
I
can else
with a dismissing wave, "don't believe
Why, even I say
the intelligence
me
much
make it irreversible. And then someone me when I've worn myself out.' " things like that
from time
to time."
and policy communities were having a
hard time coping with the changes in the Soviet Union. cialists told
was ush-
"He told us,
will
"Oh, dear boy," she everything you hear.
I
I
we talked for almost an hour. As I was
mentioned one
Madame Prime
headed home, with a stop en
Prime Minister Thatcher. Again
ered into her sitting room, where getting ready to leave,
I
for a
CIA
Soviet spe-
about an upcoming meeting of the Communist Party
Central Committee at which, this time for sure, the hard-liners would
3
* COLIN
76
hand Gorbachev bachev
fired a
POWELL
L.
his head.
The meeting was
and afterward Gor-
held,
dozen or so generals and hard-liners.
our Kremlinologists. The world they had studied and had for forty years
was losing
its
structure
sympathy
I felt
and rules. With
known
for
so well
expertise,
all their
they could no longer anticipate events mucji better than a layman
watching television. I
had seen what was happening up close and began
George Shultz also
less attention to the experts.
Soviet assessments.
dump
to
less
that
and
CIA
Gorbachev was
end the economic burden of the arms
Soviet puppet states onto Western bankers, and get out of
the wars-of-liberation business.
Our
professionals were reluctant to
predict a future bearing no resemblance to the past.
bachev would
fail,
and he
did.
They thought Gor-
They did not think he would
the left for not being revolutionary enough, but instead for
pay
started to ignore
The evidence was increasing
dead serious about wanting race,
to
fail
from
from the
right
abandoning the Soviet dream, now turned nightmare. Our foreign
policy and intelligence old joke goes,
"What
community was
losing
will all the preachers
its
archenemy; as the
do when the devil has been
saved?"
On May house
6, the student
of yesteryear
who
to sitting in his college classes
preferred drilling in the field
was on
versity in
Clemson, South Carolina, about
doctorate.
Jim Bostic,
tual
my White House
to
the dais at
Clemson Uni-
be awarded an honorary
Fellowship classmate and
vir-
younger brother, was now a successful executive with the Georgia-
Pacific Corporation.
Jim had also become one of Clemson 's alumni
jewels, and had nominated
me
for the degree.
Nine days
later, I
was
at
William and Mary to give the commencement address and receive another honorary Ph.D. flier
payoff for
all
I
my
told
the checks
I
audience that
this
was
my
had sent and would continue
frequentto send to
Mike had been class of '85, Linda class of '87, and Annemarie was entering William and Mary that fall. Next, I was invited to be conmiencement speaker at her graduation from Washington and Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia. Around this time, I phoned my Aunt Nessa Llewellyn. She had seen me on TV, she said, advising the President, getting those fancy degrees. "Lord," she said, "how all these
the college.
pickaninnies done well!"
National Security Advisor
On
a hectic afternoon in
doorway and
said, "Charlie
when he goes
the light switch be
we were
left
was now
my
staff
poked
to
when he
into his
trying to
head
in
my
know which elevator gets out,
where
will
room?" Along with preparing
Z. Wick, a close
director of the U.S. Information
was swamped
his
377
'A
handling the logistics headaches of the
upcoming Moscow Summit. Charles nia friend,
aides
Wick's people want
he goes up, does he turn right or
the substantive issues,
my
May, one of
President
the
to
make arrangements
Reagan
Califor-
Agency; and while for over eight hun-
dred people to go to Moscow, Charlie's staff seemed to take up 40 percent of our time. I
called
Wick and
you want
said, "Charlie, if
guys had better not make another phone immediately called off his auxiliaries. This
to
go
to
Moscow, your
call to this office." Charlie
what goes on behind the
is
drama of summit headlines. Ronald Reagan was always looking
homey touch, some way to
for the
He wanted
break through suffocating protocol to camaraderie.
Gorbachev by first
his first
name. "You know," the President
met the Western leaders
Ron.'
And
'Margaret.'
We
in a "
few hours
it
at the
economic summit,
was 'Ron' and
I
said,
said,
and the State Department. George Shultz said he thought
state for
a
good
European
force the intimacy.
idea.
Rozanne Ridgway,
affairs, disagreed. It I
was young enough
to
it
was too
struck
'My name's
White House
that using first
early,
Roz
argued. Don't
we were
still
deal-
me as unseemly. Gorbachev
be Reagan's son, and
I
was
sure he
would be
uncomfortable caUing the President of the United States "Ron." As
when Reagan did hazard "Mikhail" Gorbachev always came back with "Mr. President."
turned out, during the summit,
couple of times,
We
I
his assistant secretary of
sided with Roz. Glasnost or not,
ing with a tough customer. Besides,
"when
and 'Fran9ois' and
'Brian,'
batted this cosmic issue back and forth between the
names was
to call
it
a
On May 15, the Soviets had started to pull their troops out of Afghanistan. And during this summit,
were going
we
to
Moscow
with high hopes.
expected to complete the nuclear arms reduction breakthrough.
Reagan and Gorbachev had already signed time,
had
it
to
the
INF
treaty. In the
mean-
had been approved by the Supreme Soviet Presidium, but be
ratified
by
the U.S. Senate.
We
still
expected approval, but not
without a fight from conservatives. Republican and Democrat. The
* COLIN
78
3
treaty
was
L.
bitter for these
POWELL people to swallow because
we would have
to
some weapons and because a residue of distrust of the Soviet Union persisted. I became part of the. administration's sales staff, trying give up
to
promote the
On May
treaty to Senate hard-liners
28, the
day before our
was sloughing
dential party
Senate had ratified the
The next
my way
and
arrival in
fence-sitters.
Moscow, while
off jetlag in Finland,
we
the presi-
word
got
that the
treaty.
day, as Air Force
One began
to
to the President's private cabin.
descend on Moscow,
He had
occasions scheduled during this summit, and talking points for events
on
his
chance to catch him before he
immediate
I
wanted
arrival.
left the plane. I
made
I
about thirty speaking
go over the
to
This was
my
last
entered the cabin to find
him sitting alone, looking out the window as we descended low enough to make out houses and farms on the Russian landscape. "Look, there's almost no
traffic,"
he
said, barely
acknowledging
my
presence.
"Mr. President,
I
wondered
if
you have any questions about your
cards for the arrival statements,"
I
started going over the cards, but he
was not
flaps I
was
said, sitting
down
listening to
next to him.
me.
By
I
now, the
were dropping, the wheels were coming down for the landing, and getting panicky, especially
when
the President finally turned to
me and said, "What were you saying?" He was not concerned about my anxieties. He was "evil empire."
finally seeing the
During the previous summit, he had wanted
to fly
Gor-
bachev across America so that he could show him our bustling high-
ways and
the factories pouring out
the almost
consumer goods. To Ronald Reagan,
empty Russian roads symbolized the
They reinforced
his conviction that
he had
failure of
to help
communism.
Gorbachev turn
Soviet society in our direction.
Once we got on
the ground and he stepped before the cameras and
microphones, he was, as usual,
During the
first
the Soviet leader
they include
gan read
it
it
letter-perfect.
one-on-one meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev,
handed the President a
when
and liked
the time it.
came
draft statement.
to issue the final
He
suggested
communique. Rea-
The language seemed unobjectionable:
".
.
.
the
two leaders believe that no problem in dispute can be resolved, nor should be resolved, by military force."
And
"Equality of
all states,
non-
interference in internal affairs and freedom of sociopolitical choice
National Security Advisor
379
President
the
to
must be recognized as the inalienable and mandatory standards of international relations."
The President asked
the staff to consider Gor-
bachev's proposed language. I,
newcomer, saw nothing particularly dangerous
as a relative
went through
statement. But the old Soviet hands in our delegation like a bomb disposal unit defusing
Ridgway urged
a
booby
Baltics
—Lithuania,
Latvia,
it
George Shultz and Roz
The statement was code
the President to say no.
guage giving our unintended blessing
trap.
in the
to the Soviets to hold
—which we
and Estonia
still
on
lan-
to the
did not con-
cede as belonging to the Soviet Union. Underneath the appealing phrases, the statement said, essentially, is
ours
is
ours,
and
let's
The matter had been memorable summit
what
is
set aside
spectacles:
courageous enough to come
we
while
Ronald Reagan
Spaso House, the
at
Russian dissidents
to
here and describe the oppressions they had
American President talking
Soviet Union the "focus of evil in the to-shoulder in
yours and what
turned to other issues and
Moscow Univerwho had labeled the
to students at
under a gigantic bust of Lenin; the President
sity
is
stay off each other's turf.
American ambassador's residence, hstening
suffered; the
yours
modem world" standing shoulder-
Red Square with Mikhail Gorbachev.
Then, during the
last
working session
in St. Catherine's Hall,
Gor-
bachev again shoved the suspect statement across the table to the President and urged
Next door, were the
him
to accept
it.
in St. Vladimir's Hall, a
setting
session
two leaders of the INF
to
end
in minutes.
crowd had gathered and the media
treaty instruments of ratification.
to
Reagan
had suggested when they met the
that this
first
day.
was
at the
which he was
in
President's head.
the
same language he
The President had
why not sign now? The pitch was high,
and aimed
was
up for coverage of the signing and the exchange between
Gorbachev pointed out
then, so
The
liked
it
hard, right past the staff,
Reagan looked uncomfortable,
improvised situations. Gorbachev suggested he talk the
matter over with his advisors one last time.
comer and we went to ours like seconds heavyweight match. What was so bad about this innocuous state-
The Russians went in a
to their
ment? the President asked. He and Gorbachev were getting along so well. Weren't
we
here to promote peaceful relations?
We
repeated the
arguments against, which the President accepted with a disappointed
shmg, as we rejoined the Soviet group, where Gorbachev stood waiting
* COLIN
380
L.
POWELL
and smiling. Reagan told Gorbachev his advisors.
Gorbachev turned
that
he did not have the support of
What was the objections made
to us, the smile vanishing.
problem? Shultz explained our position. None of these
any sense, Gorbachev shot back, practically boring a hole through Rea-
gan with
^
his stare.
Until this
moment,
guy who made the
I
NSC
niew Brzezinski, with grounds. But
said that this
He had
was not Henry Kissinger or Zbig-
their Ph.D.s
and international relations back-
The matter called for closure. Looking
was not an
his political
interests
trains run. I
did not like the inconclusive, teetering nature of this
I
last-minute debate. I
had seen myself largely as an administrator, the
problems
would not be served
at
if
home, and we had
Everyone was
I
Our advice
be
think, so
the room, saying,
to President
this statement, I said.
Gorbachev looked around the
what the President's generals
Reagan out of
Our mutual
ours.
spoke evenly and coolly, deliber-
he should not agree to silent.
moment.
the President took back something that
home.
at
ately intending to cut off further discussion. that
Gorbachev,
issue to be resolved on the spur of the
could divide his supporters
Reagan was
at
it,
he
said.
"Come, people
circle. If this
With
that,
was
he led
are waiting for us."
They headed toward
the lights and cameras in St. Vladimir's Hall,
where they signed the
ratifying documents.
The previous December, on the INF
in
Now, both
treaty.
Washington, the two leaders had agreed
their nations
of intermediate-range weapons could
and 350 on ours nals, but a
had agreed. The destruction
now
begin, 1,500
—not so many, perhaps, given
on
their side
the total size of the arse-
momentous beginning.
The mood aboard Air Force One was jubilant exhaustion as we flew out of Moscow. We had worked like dogs, and the President had made history. Someone had discovered that today was the birthday of Jim McKinney,
who
performed
managed ward
ran the White
logistics miracles
to
on the
trip.
produce a birthday cake
to the private
to join us.
House Military Office and who had
We
all
The
plane's stewards
to celebrate the event.
compartment and asked the President and
I
somehow went
First
for-
Lady
gathered around and sang ''Happy Birthday" to Jim.
Several people seized the occasion to congratulate the President on his
Moscow
triumph.
The plane was
sweat behind the scenes had
filled
made
with White House aides whose
his victory possible.
The moment
r
A NEW CHALLENGE— NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT
In the Rose Garden on November 5, 1987, the day I was announced as President Reagan's choice to be the new National Security Advisor. Cap Weinberger (left) has just stepped down as Secretary of Defense and Frank Carlucci (right) has just been announced as his successor.
Weinberger and Carlucci played crucial roles
restored and proud military force.
in carrying out
The legendary Senator John C.
chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee,
is
Reagan's vision for a
Stennis, former
in the rear.
IN THE THICK OF
OUR ARMS-CONTROL PLANNING
an arms-control issue The National Security Planning Group discusses around the table from Clockwise in 1988. in the White House Situation Room Baker Secretary of Jim State; of Secretary Shultz, President Reagan: George of Staff, me. Bill Chief Howard Baker, Treasury; Jim Miller, Director of OMB;
the
Graham, Science Advisor to the President; Ken Adehnan, Director of Control and Disarmament Agency; Admiral Bill Crowe, Chairman of the Staff;
the
Aims
Joint Chiefs of
and Frank Carlucci, Secretary of Defense. Against the back wall are Assistant Secretary of State Rozanne Ridgway and Ambassador Paul Nitze.
Oval Office with President Reagan, July 1988. Apparently had something to laugh about just before beginning a meeting.
In the
SUMMIT MHETINGWITH GORBACHIiV
A
tense moment in the Kremlin on May 30, 1988, during the Moscow summit. Reagan and Gorbachev are debating a last-minute change Gorbachev wants to make to the final summit communique. We were just about to adjourn to the next room for the two presidents to exchange the instruments of ratification for the INF Treaty, which would begin the destruction of nuclear weapons, reversing the Cold War arms race. Secretary of State George Shultz is on the far left. Jack Matlock, the U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, is on my right.
Presidents
^ight:
Tending
Force
One on
summit on
to the press in the
the
May
way home from 3,
back of Air the
NATO
1988. Marlin Fitzwater,
the President's outstanding press secretary, is
Selow:
hovering over I
me
in shirt sleeves.
flew overnight from
Geneva
to
meet
with President Reagan at his ranch in
Ynez Mountains outside Santa November 25, 1987. have just briefed him on the INF Treaty,
the Santa
Barbara, California, on I
which Secretary Shultz had concluded with the Soviets the day before in Geneva.
IN THE CHAIR, IN THE FIELD—AND IN THE GALLEY
The Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time of Desert Storm. Left to right: Admiral Frank Kelso, Chief of Naval Operations; General Carl Vuono, Chief of Staff of the Army; me; Admiral David Jeremiah, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; General Al Gray, Commandant of the Marine Corps; General Merrill "Tony" McPeak, Chief of Staff of the Air Force. We were a close-knit team with one job: help Norm Schwarzkopf win a war.
Swamped by marines and
aboard the amphibious ship U.S.S. Wasp, off the coast of Hope. Pocket-sized cameras have converted the armed forces into an army of paparazzi photographers. I loved every minute of it.
Somalia on
my
sailors
birthday, April 5, 1993, during Operation Restore
A
my Soviet counteq^art, General Mikhail Moiseyev, while aboard one of our ships in San Diego harbor in 1990. Guess who won ...
potato-peeling contest with
visiting the galley
SADDAM HUSSEIN INVADES KUWAIT
AND WE PLAN OUR RESPONSE
With General H. Norman Schwarzkopf outside the Pentagon on August 15, 1990. We are waiting for President Bush to speak to a large crowd of Pentagon employees. Desert Shield has been under way for ten days and Norm would soon leave for Saudi Arabia to
large force that
command
was assembling
the
in the Gulf.
BRIEFING THE PRESIDENT The date available to
ON DESERT SHIELD
is September 24, 1990. I am briefing President Bush on the status of the two options him to deal with the Iraqis sanctions or war. Others, left to right: Secretary of Defense
—
Dick Cheney; National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft; and Chief of Staff John Sununu.
GOING TO CUT IT OFF, AND THEN WE'RE GOING TO KILL IT" "FIRST WE'RE
I wasn't aware of how often I used the "six gun" method of caUing on reporters at Pentagon press briefings on the Gulf War until Saturday Night Live strung together about ten similar shots and added gunfire sound effects.
With our troops in the Gulf during Operation Desert Shield. Dick Cheney and I would spend time with Schwarzkopf and his staff, then fan out to visit units. The troops were glad to see us and they did wonders for our morale, too. They were the best and brightest of American youth.
Jorm Schwarzkopf's war room in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. At the table, left to right: Paul Wolfowitz, undersecretary of defense for policy; me; Dick Cheney; Schwarzkopf; Lieutenant General Cal Valler, deputy commander in chief of CENTCOM; and Major General Bob Johnston, CENTCOM Chief of Staff. Standing just behind us: Lieutenant General Walt Boomer, Marine Component
'ommander; Lieutenant General Charles "Chuck" Homer, Air Component Commander; Lieutenant reneral John Yeosock, Army Component Commander; Vice Admiral Stan Arthur, Navy Component Commander; and Colonel Jesse Johnson, Special Operating Forces Commander.
PEOPLE AND PLACES
Below
left:
In front of the Buffalo Soldier statue at Fort
dedication in July 1992. This black button, a coat of blue,
and a
1
Leavenworth on the day of its
0th Cavalry trooper, with "U.S." on his collar, eagles on his
rifle in
hand, was every
deserving of the same benefits of citizenship.
He and
bit the
equal of his white comrade and
thousands like him
In
my
the
way
easier for me.
Harlem Globetrotters March 1991. I needed help spin the ball on my index finger. office with the in
to
made
FAMILY ALBUM
Alma, sponsor and mother of the U.S.S. Kearsarge, kisses her ship after christening her with a bottle of champagne in
Pascagoula, Mississippi, in 1992.
We
took pride
Alma. Mike
downed
his accident
Captain Scott O'Grady, in Bosnia in June 1995.
Powell family photo taken
in
in
my life
Secretary Cheney's office just beiorc
is
slowly recovering from
and has
to lean against the
chair to stand up.
my welcoming ceremony
new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on October 3, 1989. Left to right: Dick Cheney; Norm and Marilyn Bems, my brother-in-law and sister; my son, Mike; Alma, me; daughters
as the
Linda and Annemarie; and
in
1987, Annemarie, Mike, and Linda with
in the role
of Kearsarge as the mother ship for the rescue of a pilot,
The most important people
my daughter-in-law, Jane, holding our grandson, Jeffrey.
WORKING WITH PRESIDENT CLINTON
1
I me and Secretary of on April 8, 1993. He met with the new leaders of the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
President Clinton leaving the Pentagon escorted by
Defense Les Aspin civilian
after Clinton's first visit
In the East
the
Room
of
White House on September 19,
1994. President
Jimmy Senator
and
I
Carter,
Sam Nunn, have just
returned from Haiti,
where we persuaded the illegal Haitian military to step
government down and
accept the arrival of U.S. forces and the return of President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide. President
Clinton
is
briefing
the press
on
the results of
our mission.
MY LAST SALUTE IN UNIFORM
Retiremenl day national
al
anthem
Fori Myer, Virginia, is
played.
My
September 30,
only regret
is
that
I
1^)93.
Alma and
could not do
it
all
I
salute as the
over again.
THE JOURNEY CONTINUES
On
the speaking circuit in retirement.
American
flags at the Bakersfield
I
am
preparing to speak to fourteen thousand people waving
Business Conference
in Bakersfield, California, in the fall
of 1994.
National Security Advisor
cried out for the President to thank
done
it
to
them and
381
President
the
to say, "I couldn't
have
without you." But he simply acknowledged the praises and said
Nor did Mrs. Reagan thank us. By now I had come to know Nancy Reagan quite well. I knew that her love of Ronald Reagan and her devotion to him were total. She protected his well-being and his presidency. She comforted him and nothing more.
brought him joy.
If
she went
away
for a
few days, we could see the Pres-
ident get out of sorts as he pined for her.
Ronald Reagan was incomplete
without his Nancy and she without him. She could be
difficult, as
she
watched out for her man. She could be tough with people when the
was
President could not. She
her role was
vital.
By
the
criticized
end of
friends, a friendship that has
But
on the plane,
grown with
was surprised
I
to
some
his administration she
become
that day,
and feared
extent, but
and
would
I
the years.
that neither the President
nor the First Lady expressed gratitude for what their staff had done for them.
I
finally
concluded that their silence did not indicate ingratitude.
come
It
just did not
it
was suggested
commemorative
spontaneously.
A few days after we returned,
to him, the President sent us all
when
thank-you notes and
gifts.
One weekend in July, my son, Mike, came to my office with a surprise. He was going to marry a young woman named Jane Knott, whom Alma and I knew and liked very much. Nevertheless, our reacdon was mixed.
On
the one hand, this development
after,
by now, fourteen surgical procedures
Most promising, Mike had gone
is
in the
Pentagon as a
made Alma and me
uneasy, despite the happy nearly forty-
my
Marilyn, to
sister,
—we were not
Norm Bems.
actually opposed.
what the younger generation may
work
work
Nevertheless, the idea of an interracial
year marriage of
"uneasy"
to
and
wheelchair to crutches to
affairs.
specialist in
marriage
Japanese
to reconstruct his pelvis
He had moved from
repair internal injuries.
cane.
marked Mike's continuing recovery
still
have to
learn.
tough enough even under ideal conditions.
make it tougher. Mike had first dated
Jane, a
while they were students time, and,
I
at
Navy
stress the
The
word
Making a marriage You do not need to
captain's daughter, years before,
William and Mary. They broke up
suppose, both families
dent, the courtship revived.
I
The older generation knows
felt relieved.
sensible next
But
after
move was
after a
Mike's acci-
for the families
* COLIN
382
POWELL
L.
know each other. Alma and I invited the Knotts over to our at Fort Myer for dinner. The atmosphere was stiff at first, until we
to get to
place
started rediscovering an old universal truth: people are individuals
not racial stick figures. pie,
you are going
what they
When you come
to like
are, not
what
first,
into personal contact with peo-
them or not, respect tHem or not, depending on pigmentation
their
is.
And by
end of the
the
evening, the Powells and Knotts were getting along fine.
That summer, the
Army and
Navy were in a battle royal. U.S. milimajor commands led by CINCs (stand-
the
tary forces are divided into ten
"commander in chief and pronounced *'sink"), all four-star officers. One such commander, the CINC for CENTCOM, was about to
ing for
retire.
CENTCOM,
Command, covered
Central
parts of the
Middle
East and Southwest Asia. The Persian Gulf nations, however, did not
want American bases on headquartered
at
MacDill Air Force Base
in Florida, served
seven hundred and able to call on U.S. units
Choosing the
right
CINC
all
CENTCOM was critical.
for
in
CENTCOM 's
Army and Marine eral
George
Crist,
domain. So
officers.
was about
to
wrap up
of
If
would
you had
to
likely
come
had alternated between
since
now had
it
it
Army
expected
its
forces in the Gulf
was high time a Navy
down the The Army and Air Force wanted an .\rmy man, and the Navy
admiral got middle.
it
his tour, the
escorting reflagged Kuwaiti tankers, thought
CENTCOM.
staff
Since the present commander. Marine Gen-
The Navy, however,
turn next.
the job
far,
by a
was
over the world.
put your finger on the hottest part of the globe,
down
CENTCOM
their soil; consequently,
The
Joint Chiefs of Staff
were
split
and the Marines wanted an admiral. The chairman. Admiral Crowe, broke the
now
tie,
in the
three to two, voting for the
Navy man. The
decision
was
hands of the Secretary of Defense, Frank Carlucci.
The Army's candidate was Lieutenant General H. Norman Schwarz-
man Myer I knew
kopf, fifty-five, a burly, brilliant, volatile, six-foot-three bear of a
whom
I
had
neighbor.
first
come
to
know
a few years before as a Fort
We had never served together and were not close,
his reputation as a superb troop leader. brilliance
and the explosiveness
"Stormin' Norman.'* in the personnel
should get
As National
that
was
also aware of both the
produced the apt nickname,
Security Advisor,
assignment loop; yet
CENTCOM,
I
I
but
I
was not formally
had strong opinions about who
especially after long talks with
my
Pentagon
National Security Advisor
We
confidant Rich Armitage.
sense.
More
agreed that having the
Navy run
383
military
CENTCOM had been designed as a rapid
important,
deployment task force
fidence in Schwarzkopf.
I
made my
And we had
strong preference
Frank himself was not keen on having an admiral
And
and overruled the JCS recommendation.
Schwarzkopf came
The job
to fight land battles in the desert region.
clearly belonged to a soldier or Marine, not a sailor.
lucci.
^
President
the
where navies were few, weak, and insignificant made
forces in a region little
to
to obtain the
command
that
known
con-
to Car-
at
CENTCOM
is
how Norm
would propel him
that
into
history.
On August showed me back
1
6,
while
I
a message
was on
my secretary, Florence Gantt, my NSC Latin American experts
the road,
from one of
Washington, Jacqueline Tillman. "Please
in
mi
tell
general,''
read, "that his ever alert, sharp-eyed staff immediately noticed
nowhere
New
to
be seen when the President boarded Air Force
Orleans.
.
.
third floor of the I
was
there to
New
in
make his
Naturally, wild
.
rumors are sweeping the
One
out of
halls of the
OEOB." Orleans final
at the
time with the President,
who had gone
speech as party leader to the Republican National
Convention before turning over the reins inee.
1988 presidential nom-
to the
Vice President George Bush. This was
my
first
convention, and
thoroughly enjoyed the combination of circus and democracy.
had a
I
I
also
tiny bit part.
The previous December, Senator Ted Stevens had gesting ever,
it
he was
me
was
to
George Bush
sent the note sug-
as his possible running mate. That,
a private communication. Earlier in the year,
how-
Howard Baker
had found himself on a television show being questioned about a lack of racial diversity in the Republican Party.
had Jesse Jackson emerging from
By
contrast, the
Democrats
their ranks as a national political fig-
ure. Baker, political to his fingertips,
saw an opening when he was
He threw my "Howard, why did you
asked about Republican vice presidential prospects.
name
into the pot.
When I saw him later,
do that?" He answered with thought
it
was
a
good
that
I
said,
oh-shucks Tennessee drawl,
idea." Baker's
mention
"I just
stirred several pundits,
including George Will, Charles Krauthammer, William Raspberry, and
Clarence Page, to write about
me
as a
VP
prospect.
Richter scale, this attention ranked below a boomlet.
On
the political
Still, at
the con-
COLIN
384
some of my
vention,
L.
POWELL had a
friends
fun with the idea.
little
was
I
sitting
when I heard people laughing and smiling around me. I see some White House pals holding up a sign proclaiming,
in the stands
turned to
"Bush/Powell '88." After President Reagan's convention speech, the s\aff had gone out to the airport to fly to California,
vacation.
One.
It
TV
was
when my Washington
then,
that Jackie Tillman
is
reboarded Air Force
me board, Where was Colin? Amid all
George Bush's running mate, the
he staying behind with Bush in
be? The answer was
it
staff failed to see
had sent her message.
the speculation about
wondering,
where the President planned a brief
cameras filmed the entourage as
far less exciting.
I
New
began
staff
Orleans? Could
it
had boarded the plane by the
rear door.
On the
airport tarmac, just before
we
took
off,
Bush had revealed
choice of running mate to Ronald Reagan: Senator ana.
At the
time, the choice of me, or a
spothght was fun;
And
it
was
Dan Quayle of Indi-
dozen other long
shots, could not
My fifteen minutes in the national polit-
have been any more surprising. ical
his
flattering. It also
embaiTassed
Vice President Bush certainly never said anything to
me a little. me on the
subject.
I
got a call from the President's secretary, Kathy Osborne, late one
afternoon that spring of 1988. "General Powell, I've got a line,"
she said. "I
you should
talk to
know him
man on
he's an old friend of the President, but
first.
He
I
the
think
says he's been in touch with Mr. Ghor-
banifar about releasing hostages."
God rules
help us. Here was one of our recurring headaches.
around the White House:
we
We
had two
did not negotiate with terrorists, and
we did not talk to the President about every harebrained idea that came down the pike for freeing the hostages. And here was an old California pal who wanted to talk to him about one of the charter phonies in the arms-for-hostages scam, a man with three dates of birth, three passports, and six aliases, a former source dropped by the CIA as an "intelligence fabricator and a nuisance," a man who flunked every CIA he detector test he ever took and who got only his name and nationality right on one of them, and a man who had almost destroyed Ronald Reagan's presidency two years before. told her that, yes,
I
I
thanked Kathy for alerting
would take care of the gentleman.
me
and
National Security Advisor
I
me
on the phone telUng
paid half a million dollars
businessman was forever
this
He
had been a guest
the level, he said, because he
He once reported that Ghorbanifar had of his own money to get the hostages released.
should be working with him, the President's friend advised. started out reasonably, explaining to the old
I
Califomian
should not deal with Manucher Ghorbanifar, and bother the President on this matter. opportunity for adventure.
this
into the
We
I
to talk to
him
to a
on the NSC.
are only going to
under his nose.
am
I
said,
harm your
"When
he might be coming to
if
him.
He was on
the next
CIA
"You
are dealing with
official
I
"You
I let
I
said.
Kelly read
aren't going to free
friend,
leave here,
Ronald Reagan."
I
him
the rap sheet
any hostages. You I
stuck
my
finger
am going back to the White House,
going to instruct the telephone operators to disconnect you call again.
Don't make It
summer and
remote comer.
on Ghorbanifar. Then
I
all
We met a dapper,
you are playing a dangerous game,"
you ever
not
who was elderly man and
one of the world's leading sleazebags."
and
coming
took Barry Kelly with me, a
intelligence director
"Sir,
asked him
I
why he must
friend, however, could not resist
calls kept
needed
why he
arranged to meet in the lobby of the Watergate Hotel on a
Sunday morning. escorted
I
The
The
Finally, in October,
fall.
Washington area soon;
plane.
my
383
man's Paris penthouse.
in the
the
^
excitedly of Ghorbanifar's latest strategy.
knew Ghorbanifar was on
We
From then on,
could not get rid of him.
President
the
to
You
are forcing
me
to turn
you
if
into a nonperson.
me do it."
apparently worked.
We heard no more from him.
Mike Powell and Jane Knott were married on October i I kidded my son about postponing his honeymoon so that he could accept a speaking invitation. Strange priorities for a red-blooded American youth, I said. The speech, however, meant a great deal to Mike. Frank Carlucci had .
asked him to speak the
at a
ceremony honoring handicapped employees
at
Department of Defense, where Mike was now working. Alma and
went
to the
I
Pentagon auditorium with our new daughter-in-law and
Dick and Eleanor Knott, her parents. intended to say.
We
We
had no idea what Mike
watched him, supported by
his cane,
make
his
way
slowly to the rostrum.
He began to speak in a clear, firm voice. He likened the struggle of the to combat. He described his feelings in the hospital as the
handicapped
* COLIN
386
painkillers
began
POWELL
L.
were reduced and the stream of
to dwindle.
He spoke of the day when two rehabilitation therapists was
told him, bluntly, that the easy part, being sick,
making
part,
morning, he
had
I
I
I
was
Mike went on
to fight
back
wounded
concluded.
handed
me
That
fight,
war was
how he went from
it
real,
and
I
was
rock bottom that
renewal of hope, the war that every hand-
and
little
me from a bed;
a cane; and
to cry, uncontrollably.
different
from the struggle of a
"The power of human
in battle.
"It lifted
began
I
it
has allowed
sol-
will is amazing," he
stood
me up from a wheelchair;
me
walk through
to
life
it
again."
down my face. I glanced at Alma and Jane, who
We did not have to exchange a word. The pride was in our eyes.
fall,
The
my crutches with a catheter coming
entire life. This
to describe
Tears were streaming smiled.
my
to his present
icapped person has to dier
of weight.
stood trembling, and
I
lowest point of
at the
losing."
day
lost a great deal
stood supported by
out of my stomach.
My hair wa^ a mess, dried out My face was colorless
looked in the mirror.
said, "I
and unshaven.
and the hard
over,
broken body work again, was about to begin. The next
his
by medication.
and flowers
visitors, cards,
the
heavy
lifting in the
had swung
spotlight
White House appeared nearly
George Bush and
to
his
campaign
over.
for the
presidency against the Democratic nominee. Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts. Since his the
first
hearty greeting on
White House nearly two years before,
well. ident,
had studied
I
his behavior in
where he said
little,
I
had come
my arrival in
to
know Bush
Oval Office meetings with the Pres-
preferring to give his advice to the President
privately.
During one of I
had gone
defense
to a
at the
"Mrs. Bush,"
I
my
early days as deputy,
had met
his wife, Barbara.
luncheon given for the visiting French minister of
French embassy and found myself seated next
"how
said,
"Fine " she answered,
"My
I
are
"and
you today?" call
me
Barbara."
mother would never have allowed
me
"I'm not your mother," she told me. "Call
to
do
me
that," I said.
Barbara." She spoke
with warmth, but with an unmistakable firmness.
moment It
on, Barbara
was not
a half that
I
and
I
to her.
And from
that
began a close friendship.
until I
had worked with George Bush for nearly a year and
saw a
different
Office meetings.
It
man from
the unobtrusive figure in Oval
occurred over Panama.
On
February
4,
1988, the
National Security Advisor
for drug
387
President
Manuel Noriega,
U.S. Justice Department had indicted dictator,
the
to
Panamanian
the
and racketeering. The United States
trafficking
imposed sanctions against Panama. Thereafter, the pohtical situation in
down an
continued to deteriorate. In March, Noriega put
that country
Panama Defense
attempted coup. His PDF, the
up the opposition and making mass
Force, started roughing
Reagan
political arrests. President
accepted Frank Carlucci's advice that
we send more
troops to Panama,
an unsubtle hint of what might happen to Noriega. Over the next several
weeks
in
Washington, a hawks-doves debate seesawed over
We knew
deal with this tinhorn tyrant.
about the indictment.
which States
I
would
lift
if
thing:
best to
Noriega was worried
offered us our most powerful leverage in prying
It
him from power. Secretary of concurred:
one
how
State Shultz
came up with
a proposal in
Noriega would get out of Panama, the United
sanctions against his country and drop the indictment
against him.
On
him on but
Sunday afternoon
a
this proposal. It
we had
to
in
May,
was not
I
the
called the Vice President to brief
most wholesome
keep our eye on the objective,
out of power, and try to bring democracy to Panama.
had no problem with
A couple of days around.
this initiative,
later,
He had been
police chief, Darryl Gates,
who
I
admitted,
to get this thug
The Vice President
he told me.
he came back from a
to California
deal,
which was
and had spoken
told
him
that
turned completely
trip
to the
Los Angeles
dropping the indictment
would be a serious mistake. Nailing Noriega was a law-and-order issue,
and the Shultz deal would do a
terrible disservice to
thousands
of police officers laying their lives on the line every day in the war against drugs.
At a meeting
that
weekend
in the President's second-floor residence.
Bush did something none of us had ever seen him do
before.
He
argued
with the President directly in front of the rest of us. The deal was bad, bad, bad, and the President should not go through with
Reagan, ing,"
he
I
must
say,
said, "but
counterargument.
The next
I
it.
was unmovable. ''Ummm, George,
think
it's
No raised
a deal worth taking."
me
insisted.
that's interest-
And that was that. No
voice. Just "No."
day, outside his office, with his nose about
mine, and punctuating his arguments with his finger in told
Bush
one inch from
my
chest,
Bush
the Noriega proposition stank. "I have never been so sure of
anything in
my life, and I will do whatever I have to do to kill this deal,"
^ COLIN
388
he promised.
POWELL
L.
had not been chewed out so professionally since
I
Gelnhausen days. In the end, we did offer the deal through.
We
would have
incident, however,
was a
I
him some
to deal with
to Noriega, but
other way.
it
From
assume you are
On November
fell
this
learned two things about George Bush. First, here
man than I had seen before; and second, do home free with Bush after the first reading.
tougher
far
my
White House
9, after the presidential election, the
not
staff
held a simple ceremony in the Rose Garden to welcome the victorious
George Bush back from the campaign to
my
West Wing
Mr. Pres
—Mr.
walked
I
Afterward,
was returning
I
and since we were next-door neighbors, the
office,
Vice President and
trail.
together. "Well, Mr. Vice Pres
President-elect.
What should
be now?"
it
—excuse me,
I
Bush
asked.
laughed and said he did not know.
When we I
got to his office, he said,
"Come on
need an update on what's been happening."
of the international scene.
few people
When
White House
in the
have some options
I
rity
"Or you can have
Advisor for a while,
"I'm
flattered,"
"No, no," Bush
I
That night liant career
Chief of
I
the
said,
until
led
me
in,
and
to
I
an end,
was
military gray
this
sitting
Carl
is
I
owe me anything
me
a no-nonsense
business about being
over."
to tell I
to stay in the
away too
added
Army I
told
that the
NSC job
I said,
Army,
sector.
One retired
me he was leaving
would make a good
the five-figure salary
guy and came
,
where
bril-
me to retire. I had thirty years
from the private
staggered. "Carl,"
what I really want is
I
i
either and, with the
might be the time for
was
it
Myer. Carl's
at Fort
the President-elect.
eminence had recently stopped by
on a board,
while, but
Think
time.
to his upstairs study at Quarters
he told
you
to do."
in his rise to the top as the four-star
getting interesting offers
When
like
I
I'm certainly not owed anything."
the board of a major corporation and thought
replacement.
team.
as National Secu-
you decide what you want
stopped by Carl Vuono's house
He
one of the
new
confirmed where Baker was
"we want you. Take some
certainly did not
coming
to consider for the
—which
him about my conversation with
Army
finished, he said, "You're
want
bit.
gave him a quick survey
CIA. Or you can stay on
said, "but
had culminated
Staff.
Let's chat for a
hope you'll think about. Jim Baker would
as deputy secretary of state"
going.
I I
I
in.
I
would
"I've
get just for
been away for a
if there's
a job for me."
right to the point. Forget this
long, he said.
My
standing with the
National Security Advisor
President
the
to
389
"A"
Army college of cardinals was still good. He wanted me back, and the Army wanted me back. In fact, he said, he had a job for me, commander in chief of Forces Command, FORSCOM, responsible for all Army based in the United States, almost one million troops,
field forces
Guard and Reserve
including National
When I got home, decision:
"Go" on
I
It
spook the
drew up a balance
a demotion.
usually do
sheet.
I
when faced with
put "Stay" on the
Army
a personal
left side
or going out were
And I
and
my
number
did not want to be the nation's chief
CIA. That was not me. And there was no point lingering
at the
at
I knew Bush had his own man in mind, the able Brent wound up with nineteen reasons on the "Stay" side and few on the "Go" side, which came down to "new career, make
NSC,
since I
some money." After mulling in
I
did not want to go to the State Department as
I
would be
Scowcroft.
only a
did what
the right side, since staying in the
only intentions. two.
I
units.
the matter over for a couple of days,
and told Vice President Bush that
I
wanted
to return to the
I
went
Army, a
decision which he accepted graciously. Immediately afterward, at our regular morning briefing,
"FORSCOM
I
told President
four stars, isn't it?" he asked. Yes,
is
Army's highest rank. "Good, good," he
The man who had done so much so
much
Reagan what
to save the
after Iran-contra,
had decided.
answered, the
said.
to shape
my
life,
Reagan-Bush presidency by
was leaving
I
I
too. After all
Frank Carlucci, and
rehabilitating the
Frank had done,
I
NSC
thought
Defense was not handled gracefully.
his departure as Secretary of
got a phone call from one of Bush's aides,
He
who informed Frank that the
President-elect's choice to replace him, former Senator John Tower,
was about
be announced
to
agreed to stay on
at
to the
news media.
My old friend Will Taft
Defense, running the department during Tower's
confirmation proceedings (which turned out to be protracted and unsuccessful).
I
was delighted when the Bush administrafion
later
Taft's talent
and loyalty by naming him U.S. ambassador
In the dying
weeks of the Reagan administration,
sure subside.
I
accepted engagements
pass up. In mid-November,
Academy
I
I
I
ordinarily
was attending
to
rewarded
NATO.
could feel the pres-
would have had
to
a dinner at the National
of Sciences honoring the dissident Soviet physicist and Nobel
laureate Andrei Sakharov.
I
was about halfway
into the
meat course
* COLIN
390 when
a security
needed street,
me
to see
and so
I
man
style.
Charles call.
slipped
right away.
me
The
a note from George Shultz. Shultz State
Department was just across the
walked over and took the elevator
George was behind can
POWELL
L.
his
desk
to the seventh floor.
gem
in his office, a small
of Early Ameri-
With him were Ambassador Roz Ridgway.and
Hill.
They greeted me, and George explained
He had been
notified
his assistant,
the urgency of his
by Yuri Dubinin, the Soviet ambassador,
Gorbachev was coming back
to the
United States.
We
all
that
gave out
simultaneous weary sighs.
"He's going to address the
more I
UN, and he wants
time," Shultz said, handing
read
dent,"
it.
Dubinin's communication.
"And obviously Gorbachev wants
said,
I
me
handing back the message.
remind Mikhail Gorbachev
one
to see the President
I
meet the next
to
suggested that
that in this country
we had
Presi-
we needed
to
only one Presi-
dent at a time.
The next morning, we
He was
willing to
briefed President
Reagan on Gorbachev's
meet Gorbachev again, but
game the meeting was not Gorbachev was going
to
at this late stage
trip.
of the
be treated as a summit.
to address the
UN
on December
7,
approxi-
mately three weeks away. Shultz thought he had an inspiring place for the President in
and the Soviet leader
New York to
Gorbachev would be
to meet. Since
UN, why not use the Metropolitan Museum man a taste of American culture? As a native strike me as such a hot idea. A meeting at the
address the
of Art, and give this Soviet
New Yorker,
that did not
Metropolitan, with the motorcades and entourages of the two world leaders running around Manhattan,
As we shopped George's
would
practically paralyze the city.
idea around, the Secret Service complained
that this site presented serious security headaches.
The advance people
claimed that the Met would create a logistics nightmare. They had a better idea
—Governors
Island, in
up anybody. The island was River,
New York Harbor. That site would not tie
just a short
hop from the
and security would be a cinch. Shultz
still
UN via the East
did not like the idea,
but gave in to the White House stage managers.
As the planning went forward, I called Ambassador Dubinin to hammer home one point. This was not to be a meeting on substance. It was too late for anything in the Reagan administration and too early for the
Bush
administration.
prises pulled
No
deals.
No
initiatives.
No
eleventh-hour sur-
on the old leader going out or the new leader coming
in.
National Security Advisor
Also, on this occasion, Ronald Reagan was
still
391
President
the
to
President, and
George
Bush, though President-elect, would be there only as Vice President.
On
the day of Gorbachev's
UN
appearance, the President's party
waited on Governors Island for the boat that would bring the Soviet leader to us.
We had taken
Guard
ing the First Coast
waited,
we monitored
UN
his arrival in the
and
District for the occasion,
General Assembly Hall us.
to
thunderous applause;
On their own,
from the West, Gorbachev announced their
and while we
a stream of messages on Gorbachev's progress:
which impressed
his speech,
command-
over the residence of the admiral
with no quid pro quo
that the Soviets
were going
to cut
armed forces by 500,000 men.
At one
point. Vice President
to step out
with him into
where the foliage was now brown and withered. He had
the garden,
been unusually
He and
Bush asked me
jittery
ever since Gorbachev had asked for the meeting.
who would soon
Brent Scowcroft,
succeed
surance from
me
Vice President,"
new
kid on the block.
that there I
said, "I
would be no
have gotten
to try to
Bush was looking
for reas-
bolts
all
as National
was going
Security Advisor, were concerned that Gorbachev
put one over on the
me
from the blue today. "Mr.
the assurances
I
can from the
Russians, short of putting words into Gorbachev's mouth. But he certainly
knows our
And the
feelings.
President
is
prepared to knock
down
anything they try to float on short notice."
Our lookouts reported
that
Gorbachev's boat had been sighted. The
President's party gathered in front of the admiral's house to greet the
Soviet leader, Ronald Reagan out front, his face ruddy and glowing, his hair
blown by a
stiff
wind.
The lunch was warm and
intimate.
With no contentious matters on the
agenda, the President was in his element.
was leaving been able
office with only
He
told
one mission unaccompHshed.
to reinstate the horse cavalry in the
horses. Nothing
was
better for the inside of a
than the outside of a horse.
Gorbachev
Had he known
He had
which
started
not
Army, and he loved
man, the President
said,
the President's wishes, Gor-
bachev answered, he could have helped. The Soviet Union was horses,
he
that
him reminiscing about
his
own boyhood
full
of
experi-
ences on a farm. I
was looking
at
my watch like a coach with a one-point lead praying
for the clock to run out before any last-minute fumbles.
And
then
* COLIN
392
POWELL
L.
George Bush spoke. He had said nothing
until this
nation of investors," the Vice President said.
what things are situation. So,
today and
like
"An
moment. "We're
investor wants to
even more interested
is
Union
three
know
in the prospective
Mr. General Secretary, what assurance can
investor about conditions in the Soviet
a
o^r
we
give an
four or five years
from now?"
Gorbachev laughed. "Mr. Vice President, even Jesus Christ could not answer
that question." President
Reagan smiled
Savior. In spite of all the talk of godless
at the
reference to the
conmiunism, Reagan had told
us often that he thought Gorbachev might have a religious streak,
although
seemed
it
me
to
There was no doubt
in
that
he was only using Russian idiom.
my mind that this meeting, for all the goodwill
between Reagan and Gorbachev, had been engineered by the Soviets
American
get a close-up look at the next
by Gorbachev's next words. Looking
knew what Bush's still
leader, a conviction
straight at
advisors had been telling him.
would soon
He knew
that skeptics
we needed
his
own
at
said,
a revolution. But by 1987, our revolution
Now in
but the cheering has stopped." said, not for
the past fourteen months,
final
He
still
was
1988, the revolution
had
I
said
said, yes,
on, and the
still
goes on,
to continue his revolution,
our benefit, but for his country.
meant what he
"when
be a revolution, everybody cheered. They
to
cheering began to die down.
The
home. "In 1985," he
said,
He had
however, that he had no time for games.
learn,
was going
America
lull
Union could take advantage of us. Mr. Bush, he
enough troubles of there
confirmed
Bush, he said that he
thought he was playing some kind of game, trying to
so that the Soviet
I
to
had watched
and there was no doubt
in
this
he
man over
my mind
that he
said.
photo op
cameras on a small
at
Governors Island had three
jetty with the Statue of Liberty
men
posing for the
and the
New York
skyline in the background, Reagan, Gorbachev, and Bush, the past, present,
I
and
future.
had received several presents from Gorbachev during our encounters,
but the one
I
prized most was a shotgun with a beautifully engraved
metal breech. Since the gun was no doubt worth more than $ 1 80, to turn
it
in to the
then have
first
auction block.
General Services Administration for appraisal.
crack
The
at
buying
it
back. Otherwise,
it
I
1
had
could
would go on
the
GSA must have had Sotheby's price the gun. I would
have been better off with a pawnshop appraisal. Nevertheless,
I
wanted
— National Security Advisor
the
weapon.
^
President
393
the wiser.
But
going over our checking account, she
in
across the stub, and she confronted me: "Colin Powell, twelve
came
hundred dollars for a
My daily
life in
the
where best
mament
to
shotgun!"
silly
West Wing amounted
and then passing along
my
New York to helping craft nuclear disar-
we
get, the
instincts.
more we
somebody
picking
trust
then use
right?
it
is to
I
dig up
We all have it.
had developed a decisionall
the information
I
When I am
can.
faced with a decision
call in people.
I
you
a certain intuition, and the
for a post, or choosing a course of action
up every scrap of knowledge whatever
By now,
summit.
making philosophy. Put simply, go with your
decision-making
to constant
recommendations, issues ranging from
hold a summit in
treaties at the
can, then
I
the
swallowed hard and wrote out a check, hoping Alma
I
would be none
older
to
I
—
I
dredge
phone them.
I
read
can get my hands on. I use my intellect to inform my instinct. my instinct to test all this data. "Hey, instinct, does this sound
I
Does
it
smell right, feel right,
fit
right?"
However, we do not have the luxury of collecting information
indefi-
we can have every possible fact in hand, we have to decide. The key is not to make quick decisions, but to make timely decisions. I have a timing formula, P = 40 to 70, in which P stands nitely.
At some
point, before
for probability of success
information acquired. give
me
until I
less than a
I
and the numbers indicate the percentage of
don't act
if I
have only enough information to
40 percent chance of being
right.
And
have enough facts to be 100 percent sure of being
by then
it is
almost always too
late. I
go with
I
don't wait
right,
because
my gut feeling when I have
acquired information somewhere in the range of 40 to 70 percent.
January 20, 1989, a Friday morning, inauguration day.
I
was
sitting in
my little office at home at Quarters 27A, Fort Myer, since I had not been invited to the inaugural ceremonies. No reason why I should be, since I was
part of the departing old guard.
The phone
rang.
It
was Ken Duber-
who had succeeded Howard Baker as White House Chief of Staff. "I'm coming over to pick you up," Ken said. "I think we should be
stein,
with the President in his office on his I
last day."
had enjoyed working with Ken and was going
fourteen months that he had run the White the smoothest, years.
I
most congenial operation
ran the national security shop.
I
House
to
staff,
miss him. In the
he had achieved
had seen during the Reagan
Tom Griscom,
as the public
com-
* COLIN
394
POWELL
L.
munications chief, oversaw the speech, press, and other information activities.
to
And Ken
directed the whole show.
The
three of us
do our jobs with few coUisions and a touch of fun. At one
me
staff kept pressing
to get approval for a National Security
seal for our stationery. Duberstein did not
separately from the
up one day
at
want the
from
neck
its
was a
seal. It
little
tions
had known running the White House, our group proved
I
could do a job without
beyond
the ego
game.
trip.
friction,
And Ken
showed
stuffed seal with
that read "National Security
And
ended our ego
Council
his staff
staff."
that
my
N3C to be identified
White House. Nevertheless, he and
my office to present a
a bracelet dangling
managed point,
Council
Unlike some personality combina-
even with pleasure,
you
that
you could get
if
Duberstein deserved most of the credit
for that atmosphere.
On
that last
arrived at the
my
by
office
maintenance
day of the administration. Ken picked
me up
White House a few minutes before io:oo a.m.
On
first.
staff
the day before inauguration, the
stopped
White House
emptying
all
the
files.
With everything
freshly painted and scrubbed and the sofa pillows fluffed,
now
we
had come through the West Wing taking down every
picture, cleaning out every desk,
intruder in
I
and
my own
office.
I
did not dare
a neutral space suspended
sit
between
I felt
like
an
on anything. The room was
me
and
my
successor. Brent
Scowcroft. I
went
to the
Oval Office and found the President
sitting
behind his
With
desk, wearing a black suit with a striped
tie,
him were Duberstein, Marlin
Kathy Osborne, and Jim Kuhn,
Fitzwater,
the President's personal assistant.
The
as impeccable as ever.
was strangely naked,
office
already stripped of any personal traces of Ronald Reagan. ted, the President
placed his
last call. It
was
to
As we
chat-
Bonnie Nofziger, the
wife of his political consultant Lyn Nofziger; the Nofziger 's daughter.
Sue Piland, was terminally his
concern to the family.
ill,
He
and the President was caUing
to express
got off the phone, and started reminiscing
Room, his favorite in the residential quarters of the White House. Someone suggested he carve his initials on his desk. He about the Yellow
laughed and said he had already removed the "kickboard" as a souvenir. "I left a note for
George
The President turned about this?"
He
in the
to
desk drawer too," he
me. "Oh, Colin," he
said,
said.
"what should
I
do
pulled from his pocket the nuclear authentication code
card he had carried
all
these years.
National Security Advisor
"Hold on
to
it,
Kuhn
sir,"
said.
"You're
still
395
President
the
to
President. We'll turn
it
over after the swearing-in.
"Mr. President," he continued, phers in for the last photo op. ing behind the President,
"it's
time."
They took
who was
He
the press photogra-
let
several group shots of us stand-
The photographers
seated at his desk.
then positioned themselves behind a sofa, cameras aimed leading to the Rose Garden.
"Now, Mr.
Jim
President,"
Camera. Reagan got up and headed for the door, with letic
As he reached
spring in his step.
took one
last
And
look back.
As
that familiar ath-
image the cameras captured and
era.
the President left for the Capitol,
I
went back home
inauguration on television. Just as the ceremony ended, that
I
had
House hne and
I
somebody
to call it
said. Action.
the doorway, he turned around and
that is the
end of an
sent out to the world of the
my
picked up
at the office. I
I
to catch the
remembered
private
the
White
was akeady dead.
had just completed the most crowded, momentous year of
was leaving
door
at the
White House with two problems nagging
my
life. I
me, the
at
unsolved issue of Manuel Noriega in Panama, and the contras,
still
hanging by a thread, while a Marxist regime ruled in Nicaragua. Yet,
had also taken part
in the historic turning point in the
second half of this
century, the seismic changes occurring in the Soviet Union.
worked closely with major world Reagan
me had
not have
ers to
And
do
that.
had
I
had helped shape the
I
policies that reversed the race toward nuclear
best part for
may
figures.
I
Armageddon. The
been working directly with Ronald Reagan. He
commanded
every detail of every policy; but he had oth-
The editor and author Michael Korda once wrote a per-
ceptive definition: "Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers,
who
cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution every-
body can understand.
.
The man had been
.
."
That description
fit
Ronald Reagan.
elected President twice
American people wanted, and even
rarer,
by knowing what the
by giving
gave us was inspiration and pride, described best
New York editorial
Times, not ordinarily a bastion of
on the President's
last
day
in,
Reagan
in office, the
it
to them.
of
all
What he
places, the
support. In the lead
Times noted:
".
.
.
he
remains to the end, both amazing and comfortable." The editorial cited a key to the President's secret, sticking to his guns tal
— themes "strengthen defense and
cut taxes."
on a few fundamen-
The piece
also caught
COLIN
396
the essence of the
L.
POWELL
man. "President Reagan," the Times noted, "has come
across as something Hke Professor Harold Hill," from Meredith Willson's 1957 to
hit,
The Music Man, about the dream merchant who comes
town and promises, "River City's gonna have her Boys' Band
sure as the said,
and
was
made
Ronald Reagan has done
entitled "Exit the
and
was now
the job
I
little
.
.
Harold
Hill, the
I
that for
—
as
Times
America." The piece
Music Man." The show happens
thought the tribute was
to
be
my
apt.
leaving the service of this remarkable man, content with
had done, but eager
troops, the
."
the children of River City "swell iA pride in their will, unity
potential.
favorite, I
Lord made
green apples.
Army.
to return to
my first love,
the uniform, the
Part Four
THE CHAIRMANSHIP
Fifteen One
EVERY TIME
I
SAT
DOWN
McPherson, Georgia, over there as
Luther King,
I
IN
THE FORSCOM CONFERENCE ROOM AT FORT
faced a legendary pacifist. Shortly after
commander Jr.,
Command
Last
in chief, I
given to
me by
I
took
put up a framed poster of Martin
Mrs. King, and inscribed with Dr.
King's words: ''Freedom has always been an expensive thing."
wanted the poster there
to
remind me, and everyone who
I
sat in that
Army had played in defending freedom and advancing racial justice. On one of my last nights in the White House, at a reception in the East Room, a black usher had come to me and said, "Sir, I was a private in the Army in World War II, the old
room, of the leading role the
segregated Army.
I
never thought
general would be in this house.
I
I
just
would see want you
the to
day when a black
know how proud we
all are."
"I appreciate that," I said, "but
one who's proud of what
all
you don't have
of you did to pave the
it
quite right.
I'm the
way for the rest of us."
400 I
* COLIN
POWELL
L.
once quoted Dr. King's words in a speech
tion of
Black Journalists
and must be defended. flak. I
was probably
I
to the National Associa-
freedom
to express the idea that
got a cool reception and took
stretching a point
by trying
expensive
is
some
editorial
cham-
to connect the
pion of nonviolence to the military profession, and
I
never used the line
agam. Since
I
had served
in the
election, people in Atlanta,
White House during
the 1988 presidential
and elsewhere, occasionally asked how
I felt
about the Willie Horton television spot used against Michael Dukakis, the Democratic candidate. Horton, a black convict,
woman
had raped a
and stabbed a man while on a weekend pass from a Massachusetts
was the state's governor. Was the ad Of course. Had it bothered me? Certainly. Republican strategists had made a cold political calculation: no amount of money or effort could make a dent in the Democratic hold on the black vote, so don't try. Some had gone even further if the racial card prison during the time Dukakis depicting this incident racist?
—
could be played to appeal to certain constituencies, play
ad served that purpose. I
It
was
it.
The Horton
a political cheap shot.
nevertheless tried to keep matters in perspective.
I
had been given
responsibility at the highest level in a Republican administration.
National Security Advisors to Presidents are not chosen as tokens. The
job
is real,
demanding, and
critical.
Never
vAth Ronald Reagan and George Bush did racial prejudice in their behavior.
principal
message
to black
They
I
in the
two years
I
worked
detect the slightest trace of
led a party, however,
Americans seemed
to be:
lift
whose
yourself by
your bootstraps. All did not have bootstraps; some did not have boots. I
wish that Reagan and Bush had shown more
I
took consolation, nevertheless, in the thought that their confidence in
me
represented a
commitment
to the
sensitivity
American
ideal of
on
this point.
advancement
by merit.
The
late
Whitney Young, when he was
Urban
director of the National
League, used to commute from his suburban Westchester County to his office in
station in
Manhattan.
And
home
as the train approached the 125th Street
Harlem, Young would ask himself, should he get out and
demonstrate, or should he continue on the role of the
movement's
cluding that what he did ican corporations
was a
hell-raisers.
downtown
to
downtown? Young appreciated But he stayed on the
train,
promote jobs for blacks
better use of his talents.
The crusade
in
con-
Amer-
for equal
^
One Last Command rights requires diverse roles, just as an
Army
401
needs clerks and cooks
along with airborne Rangers.
On assuming command
of
FORSCOM,
highest military rank, four stars.
I
had reached the nation's
had been National Security Advisor
I
My career should serve as a model to fellow blacks, in
to the President.
or out of the military, in demonstrating the possibilities of
Equally important,
life.
I
hoped then and now
that
my
American
might cause
rise
prejudiced whites to question their prejudices, and help purge the poi-
son of racism from their systems, so that the next qualified African-
American who came along would be judged on merit alone. I
am
my career may have given some "What, me prejudiced? I served
also aware that, over the years,
bigots a safe black to hide behind:
with/over/under Colin Powell!"
I
have swallowed hard over racial
Had
provocations, determined to succeed by surpassing. militant,
would
who marched, who rode past
admire the shock troops
admire the job makers those
who
been more
have been branded a troublemaker rather than a pro-
I
motable black? One can never be sure. But I
I
I
sat in,
and demonstrated, and I
125th Street.
making an example of
serve by
agree with Whitney Young.
I
their lives.
further admire
And
I
salute the
countless thousands of ordinary African-Americans who, day in and
day
go
out,
cans of
to
work, support their families, and
all races,
are,
along with Ameri-
me
a quarter of a mil-
backbone of this country.
the
As commander of FORSCOM, lion active duty troops
I
now
]\a^
under
and another quarter of a million
reservists,
and
I
presided over the training of almost half a million National Guard soldiers. I
was constantly on
Florida to Alaska. division.
tions
What
I
I
came
the road, dropping in
to
know
on these forces from
well the generals
commanding every
discovered far exceeded our most optimistic expecta-
from the Reagan- Weinberger buildup.
We
had a well-trained and
well-equipped force in a high state of combat readiness. But to fight
whom, and where? With
the
manders
battle
been lith. I
still
on a
fixated
in a position to
had
sat across
Cold War
tary
I
thawing,
I
found our comI
had
observe firsthand the cracks in the Soviet mono-
from Mikhail Gorbachev
ton and on Governors Island and heard
Cold War.
fast
between us and the Soviet Union.
in
Moscow and Washing-
him acknowledge
defeat in the
had watched Gorbachev unilaterally chop the Soviet miH-
by half a million men.
I
had seen our old enemy cooperate with us
^ COLIN
402
POWELL
L.
Angola and Namibia and in
the
war
fellow officers foresaw the need to change course.
My
in achieving peaceful settlements in
between Iran and
Some
my
of
Iraq.
mentor John Wickham had created
fast-moving divisions for
light,
operations unrelated to the Soviet threat.
Army
Vuono was
from the
anticipating the tough transition
Chief of Staff Carl budgets of the
fat
And
past to inevitable shrinking funds for the military in the future.
a
few others glimpsed what was happening. But for most of the American military establishment,
it
was
as if our principal adversary
U-turn and headed home, while lision. I reality.
we were
decided to use the pulpit of
A
bracing for a head-on col-
FORSCOM
perfect opportunity presented itself
Combined Arms Combat Development General Jack Merritt, invited Association of the
Jack headed. not go
still
I
down
me to
when my
at a
Army
old boss at the
seminar sponsored by the
which
the service's trade union,
accepted, but warned Jack that what
well with the
dose of
to deliver a
Activity at Fort Leavenworth,
speak
United States Army,
had taken a
I
had
to say
might
who
leaders or defense contractors
attended these shindigs.
On May College,
I
1
6, at a hotel in Carlisle,
Pennsylvania, near the
galaxy and enough tycoons to arm half the world. tled (with a
Be."
I
there
bow
to
I
gave a speech
Yogi Berra) 'The Future Just Ain't What
enti-
Used
It
to
pointed out that in spite of the vast changes staring us in the face,
were
still
those
who saw Gorbachev
trying to trick us into letting our guard
nation for his behavior
and
Army War
stood before enough three- and four-star generals to form a
failure.
trustee."
I
as a Machiavellian
down. No,
I
schemer
said, the real expla-
was "Soviet domestic and foreign impotence
The Soviet system
is
bankrupt, and Gorbachev
is
the
described those areas where Gorbachev's government had
helped promote peace and said, 'As a public and military matter, our
now wearing a Smokey hat and carries a shovel Our bear is now benign." I had intended this speech as
bear
is
and nobody had dozed I
off; I
had two more ideas
restored,
in
to put out fires.
a
wake-up
call,
could feel the tension in the room.
my
prepared text that
I
had crossed
out,
No reporters were present that day, and my colleagues now, when could I? And
and crossed out again.
if I
could not speak bluntly to
so,
back
in 1989,
1
predicted: "If
tomorrow morning we opened
NATO
new members we'd have several applications on our desk within a week Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, maybe Estonia,
to
—
^
One Last Command Latvia, Lithuania,
and maybe even the Ukraine. In
fact,
403
members of
now public opposition parties in Soviet Georgia actually debated week whether their region's future should include nonalignment or membership in NATO." My observations seemed about as likely to this audience as my predicting that we would join the Warsaw Pact. the
last
"The Soviet military machine," as
it
"is still as big, bad,
and ugly
I believe it will." What did Army? The American people would still support But "the kind of growth we had in the early eighties
for the U.S.
a strong defense.
You can count on
is
a thing of the past.
to
spend wisely and well."
before others put
it
We
had
it."
For the future, "we've got
to put a
hard question to ourselves
"Do we need this item?" And when the Our challenge, I said, was to accept yet continue to maintain "the best damned
to us:
answer was no, we had
to say no.
we had to retrench, Army in the world." that
I
went on,
ever was. That fact hasn't changed. But
mean
that
I
could not immediately judge the audience reaction. People stand up
and cheer when they hear what they want
to hear rather than
ought to hear. But Jack Merritt said afterward, "Colin,
what they powerful
that's
Army magazine." The speech was reprinted in the magazine, where it was pounced on by a retired Army major general, stuff. It
belongs in
Henry Mohr, a columnist
for Heritage Features, an
Mohr
vative Heritage Foundation. letter,
"You may be
saying:
ence in which the 1990s'
participated a
I
came
to a
sent
me
interested to
much
arm of
the conser-
a courteous but disbelieving
know
that a planning confer-
few weeks ago on 'National Strategy for
different conclusion than yours.
The
net
assessment of key participants (including the personal views of a representative of the
1990s from
CIA) was
stronger militarily than It
was going
that the Soviet
Union
will
emerge
in the early
ongoing 'reorganization and modernization' much
its
to take
it is
today."
more than one wake-up
call
by one
CINC
to
shake up a military conditioned by forty years of Cold War.
My travels and talks around the country had another purpose that was going to pay off in the future. of
men
like
Norm
Tampa, Florida.
was able
Schwarzkopf,
now
My FORSCOM
Yeosock, an old National
commanding
I
War
to judge,
running
up
close, the talents
CENTCOM
in
nearby
deputy. Lieutenant General John
College Softball teammate, doubled as
general of the Third Army, working out contingency
plans with Schwarzkopf.
I
war
watched tough Lieutenant General Carl
* COLIN
404
Stiner drive the
POWELL
L.
XVIII Airborne Corps
Bragg. At Fort Lewis, Washington,
manding
peak fighting trim
to
was much impressed by
I
officer of the 9th Infantry Division,
at Fort
the
curious background. Major General John Shalikashvili had been
and raised and
in
Warsaw. His mother was the daughter of a had
his father
com-
an artilleryman with a
bom
czarist general,
the Soviet Republic of Georgia to serve in the
left
German army during World War II (in the Nazi Waffen SS, it was later discovered, unknown to John Shalikashvili). Shalikashvih had not come to the United States until he was sixteen and had entered the Army as a draftee. I remember concluding at the time that there was no limit to this officer's potential. As we moved away from the Cold War, I was judging teammates for hot wars much closer than I imagined. army and
Polish
when
In peacetime,
commanding
the
in
later
a corps, a division, or a battalion
officer has, frankly, a picnic
dusk pressures of a place people working for me. again,
my
I
old
I
like the
V
Corps
5:30
whom
mansion. Quarters
Alma and me
dence; and time for
command
home by
driver, Otis Pearson,
Atlanta; a fine Victorian
ents. Jeffrey
life:
well run, the
to the
NSC. At FORSCOM,
set out a clear
could lead the good
compared
is
to enjoy
dawn-to-
had good
Once
philosophy.
p.m.; racquetball I
with
had transferred
10, as the
our
I
new
CINC's
to
resi-
status as grandpar-
Michael Powell had been born to Jane and Mike just
move to Atlanta. enjoyed many perks in my job
before our I'd
as National Security Advisor, but
no home-to- work transportation was authorized by Congress post.
work
So in
there
I
in
my new
was, running a million-person operation and driving to
a gasping, gas-guzzling sixteen-year-old Chrysler station
wagon which
left
oil
puddles in front of
$40 million headquarters. But once mately chauffeur
me
around
to
my
FORSCOM's
I got to the office, Otis
official
brand-new
could
legiti-
appointments in a gleaming
government-issue Mercury.
The Chrysler was parts,
and kids
my
to college.
everyday workhorse for lugging
But by now
One was
I
tools, spare
was deeply involved
in
my love
Model 122 with a balky twincarbureted engine. When something went wrong that I could not figure out right away, I would retreat to my study in Quarters 10 and pull out affair
with old Volvos.
the manual.
I
would
sit
a 1967
there, schematics of the fuel
and
electrical sys-
One Last Command
When
had eliminated every explanation but one,
I
would go back to the garage and say,
all right,
cannot exaggerate the satisfaction
you.
I
a car
problem by reading a book. For
or bowling
300 was
405
of me, and through the process of elimination
terns spread out in front
trace the problem.
^
gave
it
you
little
SOB,
I
I've got
me to analyze and solve
me it was like hitting a hole in one
for other guys.
My idea of a good time is to disconnect every wire, tube, hose, cable, and bolt of an engine, unhook the driveshaft from the transmission, sling a chain
around the engine, hook the chain to the
the engine out of the hood, as
umphant.
I
I
kibitz.
And
how
that is
cannot see that
my
I
do not
I
spent
much
in early
tary of
Defense
wanted
to see
summer (after
I
got
word
that
like
of
seamed
tri-
having buddies
my
free time in
makes any
particular passion
than hitting dimpled balls, fuzzy balls, or
One day
and winch
stand there, grease- stained and
enjoy best working in solitude.
drop by to Atlanta.
I
rafters,
less sense
balls.
Dick Cheney, the new Secre-
John Tower's nomination had fallen through),
me. As National Security Advisor,
with Congressman Cheney,
who was
I
had worked closely
then House minority whip, re-
sponsible for rounding up Republican votes for
Reagan administration
FORSCOM and wanted to stop by to be briefed on his way back to Washington from visiting CENTCOM
poHcies.
Cheney had not
yet been to
Command, SOCOM, also in Tampa. I went Brown Airport to pick him up and brought him
and the Special Operations out to Atlanta's Charlie
my
headquarters, where
my
presented a briefing on the
back
to
state
of the country's strategic ground reserves, which
Then we went
He was
the
staff
I
commanded.
to Quarters 10 for lunch.
same Cheney
I
had
first
met
with on the Hill, incisive, smart, no small
in
V
talk,
Corps and worked never showing any
more surface than necessary. And tough. This man, who had never spent a day in uniform, who, during the Vietnam War, had gotten a student deferment and later a parent deferment, had taken instant control
him
of the Pentagon. His congressional friends had apparently warned that if
he did not put his brand on the Defense Department right
away, the generals and admirals would eat him alive. In his
first
week
on the job, he publicly slapped down the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General Larry Welch, at a televised press conference because
Welch had discussed
MX missile deployment options with Congress.
COLIN
406
POWELL
L.
—
The public chewing-out "it's inappropriate for a uniformed officer," Cheney had said ended ^ith an ominous "Everybody's entitled to
—
one mistake." Welch,
I
knew, had been done wrong. His talks with the
Congress had been okayed by Cheney's then deputy, Will Brent Scowcroft, the current National Security Advisor.
enough time
game
in this
to recognize the 'move.
an early opportunity to say, this job,
run them.
I
his mettle.
I
am not
He had made
had spent
I
Cheney had seized
afraid of generals or admirals. In
his point.
But Welch also showed
A powerful group of retired Air Force officers wanted to go
Cheney's scalp. Larry told them
after
and
Taft,
professionals," this veteran
Vietnam
to
back
off. "I've
been shot
at
by
fighter pilot told them. "Let's get
on with our work."
was
I
ing on
Cheney had not stopped
fairly sure
FORSCOM
mouthed man
training.
in Atlanta
only for a brief-
But during our conversations,
gave no hint of any other reason
this close-
why he might have
My message to him was that I was content where I was.
come.
That June,
I
got a call from David Wallechinsky, a writer for Parade
magazine, the newspaper supplement that goes to almost every American
home on Sunday.
David
said.
office in the
"General, your
life is
a great
American
"Poor minority kid from the South Bronx
White House, earns four
stars."
Parade wanted
me, probably for the edition coming out the week of July
story,"
high
rises to
4. 1
to profile
was
to get
mug shot and all. I agreed, and Wallechinsky came down with Eddie Adams, the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who in the Vietnam War took the unforgettable picture of the South Vietnamese police chief executing a Viet Cong officer in the street during
the cover story,
the Tet offensive.
Parade finished the out in
its
story; yet the Fourth of July
came and went
with-
appearing. In the meantime, the purpose of Dick Cheney's drop-
began
to
come
into focus. In September,
Admiral
Bill
Crowe's
second term as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would end. Unexpectedly, did,
Crowe declined nomination
for another two-year term.
He
however, have a strong candidate to succeed him, his vice chair-
man, Air Force General Robert Herres, a superb choice. other
names were
A
half-dozen
also bandied about in the press, including mine.
The
succession sweepstakes was on, though nobody, including Cheney, had said a
word about
the job to me.
And
I
was not seeking
it.
The way
I
^
One Last Command
My thinking was that I would
read the tea leaves, Herres was a shoo-in.
my assignment at FORSCOM and possibly be a candidate for
serve out
Army Chief
of Staff
might have a shot might
retire after
at
when Carl Vuono retired. And, conceivably, I the chairmanship when Herres retired. Or I just
FORSCOM.
I
had over
thirty years in,
and there were
attractive private offers out there.
still
On
407
Sunday, August
6, I
flew up to Baltimore for Carl Vuono's annual
Commanders' Conference of senior Army and-docksiders, let-your-hair-down
generals.
It
held this year
affair,
House, an estate-turned-conference center outside the
ward
to the next three days.
Chief of
Staff;
Butch
I
was a
would be among
my
sport-shirt-
Belmont
at
looked for-
city. I
fraternity
—Carl
as
now CINCUSAREUR, Norm Schwarzkopf from
Saint, a friendly rival,
commanding our Army
forces in Europe;
CENTCOM; and a dozen others whom I had grown up with in the service. We were going to brainstorm where the Army ought to be headed, my favorite subject. That morning, coming up on the plane,
I
had seen a story
in the
New
York Times headlined ''Scramble on to Succeed Chairman of Joint
The
Chiefs of Staff."
had been keeping ters."
in touch
Dead wrong.
required of
all
reporter, hunting for
I
an angle, had written that
with Secretary Cheney through "frequent
had sent one quarterly report
let-
Cheney, as
to
CINCs.
We were into the last day of the conference when at about 2:00 p.m. received a note. Secretary
Cheney wanted me
to call him.
of the room, trying to look inconspicuous while
Cheney had already conference ended, right away.
I
I
left his office,
a
I
knowing wink and
slipped out
eyes followed me.
but fifteen minutes
got another message: would
Vuono gave me
all
I
I
later,
with the
come to the Pentagon said, "FU fix you up
with a helicopter." I
picked up
Alma and
off we went.
met by a driver with a van. Entrance,
polo
shirt,
I
When we
asked Alma to wait while
went
At the Pentagon helipad, we were
I,
in to see the Secretary
with a smile, oblivious to whether
I
reached the Pentagon's River
dressed in loafers, chinos, and a
of Defense. Cheney greeted
was wearing casual clothes or
something out of Gilbert and Sullivan.
He
is
that kind of
man. He
wasted no time. "You know we're looking for a chairman," he "You're
my
candidate "
He
me
then ticked off
my
said.
qualifications in his
* COLIN
408
judgment.
I
POWELL
L.
knew my way around
White House.
the Pentagon and the
I
command credits. I understood arms control, an item high on the Bush agenda. And he thought he and I could get along. He asked me how I felt about the job. had the required military
"Of
course, I'm flattered,"
President want me,
I'll
take
"And, obviously,
said.
I
and do
it
my besf.
and not looking
cern. This
would be a tough assignment.
to
was
I
the
my
my
genuine con-
most junior of the
teen four-stars legally eligible for the chairmanship.
been on
the
But you know I'm happy
move." Unspoken was
in Atlanta
you and
if
fif-
My fourth star had
shoulder for barely four months, and several of the senior
more impressive
candidates had far
military credentials.
George Bush evidently had similar reservations, since Cheney next said,
"The President wonders
you with
for
knew
I
I
the other
more
if
your appointment would be a problem
senior generals and admirals."
could count on Vuono's support, and
I
with the other service chiefs. "I'm not worried about
had good relations
Never
that," I said.
'em see you sweat.
let
"Fine,"
you know, I
Cheney answered. "I'm going
Alma until we were we go again," she said.
said nothing to
Atlanta. "Here
Wednesday, August
day,
9,
in the Learjet
Cheney
dent had approved his recommendation;
The President wanted me back announcement. in Atlanta,
recommend
you. But, as
the President's decision."
it's
The next
to
I
the next day for a
where she had a prior commitment.
Annemarie, were also tied up, so Mike stood
me on August
10 as President
to
called to say the Presi-
would succeed
flew to Washington that night.
I
headed back
Bill
Crowe.
Rose Garden
Alma chose
to
remain
My daughters, Linda and in the
Bush congratulated
Rose Garden with Bill
Crowe
for his
outstanding performance as chairman and then announced his intention to
nominate I
had
six
me
weeks
confirmation. four- star port,
be the twelfth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
to
Over
to detach
the next
from
I
was
and prepare for Senate
few days, each of the chiefs and the major
commanders checked
which
FORSCOM
Staff.
in to offer their congratulations
certainly going to need.
and sup-
The
President's concern had
my
nomination as chairman
been answered. I
ran into one
when
a
hurdle.
On
my
the
day
office receiving congratulations
from
young lieutenant wearing rubber gloves appeared
in the
was announced, friends
more I
was
in
One Last Command doorway. The
Army takes drug
abuse seriously and looks for drug users
through random urinalysis testing.
myself and took the
test. I
409
"A
My number had come up.
I
excused
passed.
me
Parade came out with a cover story on
Sunday
the
announcement. The timing seemed to indicate that
my
after
someone
at the
magazine had an inside track on the chairmanship. Actually, Parade lays out
weeks
issues
its
in
advance, and in this case, well before
David Wallechinsky's
the President's choice. Either
was
The
right on.
instinct or luck
story did produce one surprising side effect.
Army
him
off that
my
secre-
tipped
kept motivational sayings under the glass cover of
David called and asked
desk. I
I
did: "It ain't as
"Check small
sergeant
Wal-
named Cammie Brown,
lechinsky had been looking for a human-interest angle, and tary in Atlanta, an able
was
I
if I
would read him some of them, which
bad as you think.
things,"
and other lessons
life
"Be
my
careful
It
will look better in the morning,"
what you choose. You may get
had taught me. He collected
it,"
thirteen of these
thoughts and ran them in the Parade article as "Colin Powell's Rules." I
began getting hundreds of requests for the rules from
country, to a point
where
cards. In case readers are
back of
this
Three days
I
had
still
have them printed
over the
in quantity
on
interested, the rules are included in the
book.
after the
announcement of
was yanked back, suddenly and nie Brooks,
to
all
my
my
nomination as chairman,
sadly, to the roots of
my
calling.
I
Ron-
model, mentor, and inspiration during the days of the
CCNY Pershing Rifles, died of a massive heart attack at the age of fiftyfour.
flew up to the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Albany,
I
and spoke
Ronnie's funeral, praising
at
this
good man,
other
PR
them,
I
had
raised.
never met the inspiring Brooks, the perfect cadet
become
a civilian chemical researcher,
course
did?
ter
courageous
As I looked at my pals present, Roger Langevin and Gabby Romero among could not help being struck by the randomness of life. Had I
wife, Elsa, and the three fine sons they
Just
his
New York,
it
two weeks
after the
would
my
who
life
preferred to
have taken the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Prime Minis-
Winston Churchill came
to
Washington with the "Chiefs of Staff
COLIN
410
POWELL
L.
Committee," the heads of British land,
sea,
and
air forces.
This body,
which had existed since 1923, coordinated his majesty's soldiers, sailors, and airmen's fight against the Axis powers. The United States had no comparable body British,
work out combined operations with
to
the
and so President Franklin Roosevelt created a "United States
Joint Chiefs of Staff," representing the
the Navy.
Army,
the
Army Air Forces, and
Admiral William Leahy, Roosevelt's confidant and
assistant,
presided over the group and served as liaison to the President. Leahy carried the
title
''Chief of Staff to the
Commander
in
Chief of the
Army
and the Navy." The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff became the organization that led us through
World War IL
In 1947, a permanent Joint Chiefs of Staff
was established by
act of
Congress, and in 1949, the position of chairman was created. General
Omar
Bradley became the
first to
occupy the
position. This
remained
the structure that ran the U.S. military for almost forty years, with occasional
amendments
to the law.
The Marine Corps Commandant,
for
example, was authorized to participate in most JCS deliberations in
1952 and became a
full
The system was was
member
of the
seriously flawed.
the head of his
own
JCS
Each
service yet also expected to vote against ser-
vice parochialism in the national interest.
The
in 1978. chief, except the chairman,
It
chiefs had trouble going "purple," the
was
a tough balancing act.
metaphor used
in the
Pen-
tagon for mixing green, blue, and white uniforms. The deck was stacked against the very thing these dual-hatted leaders were supposed to achieve, "jointness," the
word we use
in the
miUtary to describe
teamwork. Yet, almost every great military campaign of the has been a joint effort
Navy
to
—General Ulysses Grant's joining with
move down
the
Mississippi and
Mac Arthur's brilliant landing greatest
more
combined
at
enterprise of
split
The JCS
the
the
Union
Confederacy;
Inchon during the Korean War; and the all,
D-Day. Jointness
often produced out of the necessity of the
built into the
modem era
in
our time was
moment
rather than
machinery.
also
had the responsibility
to provide military counsel to
the Secretary of Defense and the President. But
advice, not separate opinions.
agree on their advice was
it
had
to
Almost the only way the
be consensus
would
chiefs
by scratching each other's backs. Conse-
quently, the sixteen-hundred-member joint staff that
worked
for the
JCS spent thousands of man-hours pumping out ponderous,
least-
^
One Last Command common-denominator documents
that every chief
411
would accept but
few Secretaries of Defense or Presidents found useful. The tortuous routines
worked out
would have done
for processing this paper flow
credit to a thirteenth-century papal curia
—successive white
drafts, buff
green drafts, and finally the sanctified, red-striped decision
drafts,
These
paper.
judgment,
JCS were more than
failings in the
this
amorphous setup explained
in part
my
bureaucratic. In
why the Joint
Chiefs
had never spoken out with a clear voice to prevent the deepening morass
in
Vietnam.
The flawed arrangement ninth chairman, spoke
up
David Jones, the
persisted until General
in frustration in
1982 just after
he
retired.
Jones recommended that the JCS Chairman become the "principal" military advisor to the Secretary of
Defense and the President and be
given greater authority over the staff serving the chiefs. Shy Meyer,
Army
while
Chief of
wanted
Staff,
to
do away with the Joint Chiefs
them with a National Military Council whose members would have no responsibility for their particular service and and replace
entirely
could therefore devote their forces.
full
energies to coordinating the
These proposals sparked a debate
Goldwater and Congressman
that resulted in Senator
Bill Nichols sponsoring
sage of the Defense Reorganization Act of 1986,
armed Barry
and winning pas-
commonly
referred to
as the Goldwater-Nichols Act.
This
As
act, for the first time,
gave the Chairman of the JCS real power.
"principal military advisor," he could give his
to the Secretary
and the President.
He was no
own
counsel directly
longer limited to present-
ing the chiefs' watered-down consensus recommendations and then
whispering his personal views. The chiefs, however, were
and encouraged
to give their counsel
still
advisors
and even disagree with the chair-
man. Goldwater-Nichols also placed the sixteen hundred people on the Joint Staff under the chairman, not the multiheaded corporate chiefs.
of
Even with
command,
went
chairman was not in the chain
but the Secretary of Defense could require that military
orders go through Bill
this reorganization, the
him to the
field
commanders, which Cheney had done.
Crowe had been the transition chairman,
into effect in the
would be the
body of
first
since Goldwater-Nichols
middle of his watch. Assuming
I
was confirmed,
I
full-term chairman to possess Goldwater-Nichols
was formally confirmed by
powers.
I
become
the youngest officer, the
first
the Senate
on September 20
African- American, and the
to
first
412
* COLIN
ROTC
graduate to
fill
Bronx now occupied
went
ended
at
in the chairman's job.
things.
at the
CCNY drill hall could see me now.
content, but weary. Bill Crowe's term
i
midnight the day before, and
practically deserted
had gone
I
to
Pentagon just
Crowe had kept
this
my new
to look
office that
morning
send
and the shelves were empty.
me
now
I
around and drop off some
made
the
the green-bound World War
call, Bill's assistant
in the
a colorful collection of military headgear on
old Gelnhausen buddy Bill Stofft, to
had
my first day
SunSay had been
the bookshelves covering the entire wall behind his desk. the hats,
the South
the highest uniformed mihtary post in the land. If
bed on October
to
The immigrant's son from
this office.
only Colonel Brookhart
I
POWELL
L.
taken
a mental note to call
Army
II histories. I
my
and ask him
historian,
me how many books
asked
He had
Later,
wanted.
when I
I
did
told him,
'Thirty-five feet worth."
The windows of
the chairman's office had been painted over for
security purposes, since they
were just a few
feet
from the busy main
Pentagon River Entrance where the shuttle buses stopped. The paint denied I
me
a stunning
view across the Potomac River
to the Capitol.
could not see the sailboats plying the Tidal Basin or even the
Pentagon parade ground. That too had to change. The answer Doc
Cooke's people eventually
on was one-way, bulletproof Mylar.
hit
could look out, but employees lined up for the buses could not look
Over
the years,
I
found myself
human drama, from
little
in
I
in.
an ideal position to watch the daily
cabals of Pentagon officers to lovers arrang-
ing trysts.
On that first day, fer
pens that
Company
I
a
placed on
had won
at
my desk the marble
Don
hang
my
I
going-away present from the
was
me when
easier to
I
got
my
first star,
my cousin Arthur S.
who had gone from
Apache
letter that
the one in
make new generals than to Alma and I went to
That afternoon.
thrown by
I
FORSCOM
Stivers print entitled 'Tracking Victorio," depicting the
intended to put up the framed Lincoln
given
with the Schaef-
have ever occupied.
loth Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers on patrol against an I
set
Fort Bragg in 1957 for being "Best Cadet,
D," and that has been on every desk
also intended to staff,
I
warrior.
And
Stu Purviance had
which the President said
it
replace lost horses. a family party in Washington
"Sonny" Lewis,
that extraordinary
man
an enlisted Navy career to ambassador to Sierra
One Last Command Leone
after picking
brother-in-law, over.
up degrees
Norm, and
at
Dartmouth.
aunts, uncles,
We had a double-barreled celebration
Jane's
first
anniversary. All the fun and
My
motel ters
at
I
warmth of
job,
my
all
and Mike and
Jamaican boyrum.
got to bed at about midnight at Wainwright Hall, the
VIP
Fort
when
Marilyn, and
to the last tot of
Myer where we were
were being refurbished for
hours
413
and cousins came from
—my new
hood came flooding back, and the party went on
Alma and
sister,
^
the
phone rang.
us.
staying while the chairman's quarI
had been asleep only a couple of
Sixteen Mr. Chairman^
Wew
Got
a Prohlem^^
HAD BEEN CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF JUST OVER TWENTYfour hours when the Joint Staff operations officer, Lieutenant General Tom Kelly, woke me up to alert me to a coup brewing against the NorI
iega regime in Panama.
me, from General
I
could expect a
chief of the Southern
Welcome back to the big leagues. Though Max Thurman had been in in
mine,
potential crisis.
few minutes, Kelly
told
Max Thurman, who had just taken over in Panama as
CINC SOUTHCOM, commander in
had been
call in a
it
his job only a
was reassuring having him
Max was
in
Command.
day longer than
I
Panama during
a
a legend, considered one of the smartest,
toughest officers in the Army, a hardworking bachelor
who appeared to
have no interests outside of his job and who, because of his compulsiveness,
had acquired the affectionate nickname "Mad Max."
Noriega had been on and off my radar screen over the past I
had
first
met him on the
trip to
Latin America with
six years.
Cap Weinberger in
"Mr. Chairman, We've Got
*
Problem"
a
413
September 1983, when OUie North had been so conspicuous a part of our party. During that
new puppet Espriella;
we had
visit,
held a pro forma meeting with the
president of Panama, Stanford-educated Ricardo de la
and then
we went
to
meet the country's
real ruler, Brigadier
General Manuel Antonio Noriega, chief of the PDF, the Panama
Defense Force,
in his headquarters building, the
Comandancia.
I
found
Noriega an unappealing man, with his pockmarked face, beady, darting eyes,
was
and arrogant swagger.
in the
presence of
I
immediately had the crawling sense that
I
evil.
CIA and the Defense Intelliyears. He had also cut deals with
Noriega had been on the payrolls of the
gence Agency going back twenty-five
Cuba, Libya, and other intelligence customers, and he permitted the
KGB
to operate freely in
but you could rent him.
arms
to the
dinistas. I it
was
to
later, in
Panama. You could not buy Manuel Noriega,
We ourselves were using him as a conduit to get
Nicaraguan contras
remember thinking
be treating a thug 1985,
when
kid-glove treatment.
I
not, of course, the
recall
only despot honored
politics
Zaire.
arms
to
still
how odd Two years
encounter
giving Noriega the
Weinberger had invited him
promoted himself
in his case, to funnel
Cold War
first
like a respected national leader.
was President Mobutu of
Mobutu,
time of this
this occasion,
the Pentagon after Noriega
was
at the
met him again, we were
On
war against the San-
in their guerrilla
to four-star general.
at the
to
He
Pentagon. Another
I
But again, we had our uses for anticommunist rebels
in
Angola.
sometimes made for creepy bedfellows.
Noriega played a cunning hand.
He kept on
the
good
side of Director
of Central Intelligence Bill Casey by supporting anticommunist covert
tions to satisfy the U.S. lions
He
down minor drug
opera-
Drug Enforcement Agency while raking
in mil-
operations in Nicaragua.
occasionally shut
by laundering Colombian drug money. Noriega, however, began
to overplay his hand.
His complicity in the
PDF
murder of
his leftist
enemy Hugo Spadafora in 1985 had drawn a flock of investigative reporters to Panama and brought down the wrath of Senator Jesse Helms.
And by
February 1988, Noriega's drug deals had provided
enough evidence
for grand juries in
Miami and Tampa
to indict him.
This was the indictment that George Bush, as Vice President, had told
me we must I
not bargain away.
had been National Security Advisor
debate over the
wisdom of indicting
at the
time and had to referee a
a "friendly head of state."
We had
^ COLIN
416
POWELL
L.
The administration had allowed the indictments go forward, yet we were still paying Noriega. The Drug Enforcement Agency had even awarded him a letter of commendation. The gotten ourselves into a box.
administration finally took a clear stand on Noriega. All U.S. agencies
were
to
drop him.
He could not be under criminal indictment and on
the
'
same
payroll at the
time.
After the indictment, the Panamanian people took to the streets to
demonstrate against Noriega, assuming that the United States was
now
ready to help them get rid of this crooked caudillo. Noriega responded by
dumping
him
yet another puppet president, Eric Delvalle, and replacing
with Manuel Solis Palma, the education minister. George Shultz began
pushing for aggressive action to remove Noriega, including U.S. military
Frank Carlucci, then Secretary of Defense, and Admiral
intervention.
Crowe, Chairman of the JCS, disagreed. As detestable as Noriega
Bill
we could not justify the use of U.S. forces to remove Though it may surprise some people, the military is not necessarily
was, they argued,
him.
eager to apply force to achieve political ends, except as a intellectual
diplomats
community
fire off their
we have
apt to say
is
diplomatic notes. But in the end,
forces that bring back the
body bags and have
to explain
it is
He
armed
the
why to parents.
President Reagan had never really considered an invasion of short of a direct provocation.
The
last resort.
"do something," and
to
Panama
believed that the United States should
we did not affairs. And there
avoid looking like the "gringo" bully, invading just because like the
was no i
way
Panamanians handled
the
communist
serious
had thought
all
threat lurking there.
along that
if
dumping Noriega would not end PDF.
When we
take his place.
we
ever did get involved in Panama,
the problem. His
got rid of Noriega, another
And
replace
him and
several
PRO
or a
their internal
his
PDF goon would
we had not seen a man on henchmen. As National Security
so far
meetings trying to find a
Panamanian
civilian leader
who
PDF
bring
down
savior, a
bona
the dictator.
me
was
this
Advisor,
paragon?
I
on the outs with Noriega.
ington,
spirited Herrera out of Tel
where
I
met him
in
my
spent
agency might
wanted
military attache to Israel, then
The CIA
I
who might
I
told,
to
above Noriega
that the
was Eduardo Herrera Hassan,
was
up
PDF opposition. At
fide anti-Noriega liberal
Who
rise
the
a white horse to
officer a cut
could survive
one point, the CIA's operations director told have found a
power base was
to
help
know. He
Panamanian ambassador and
Aviv and brought him
White House
office.
He
to
Wash-
turned out to
"Mr. Chairman, We've Got
be handsome, charming, and
Herrera said
slick.
from the
against Noriega, though he suffered
*
Problem"
a
all
the right things
I-I-I
syndrome. The
words "freedom'' and "democracy," however, never passed
He was most concerned about
417
his lips.
the welfare and future of the
PDF.
I
concluded that Herrera was a smoother Noriega. Herrera returned to brought him back
might
As
wind of
but Noriega got
Israel,
to the
and
Reagan era came
to
an end in January 1989, President Bush
The strongman continued
inherited the Noriega problem.
contempt for democracy by roughing up the
making mass
when
The CIA
fired him.
prove useful.
still
the
his trip
United States and supported him in case he
political arrests.
his opponent,
He
to
show
political opposition
stopped the elections of
May
his
and
1989
Guillermo Endara, seemed to be winning, and Nor-
PDF toughs beat up Endara's vice presidential candidate in
iega had his full
view of American
the
JCS
in the fall
TV
cameras.
By
the time
I
became Chairman of
of 1989, Noriega's ouster and replacement by a
democratic government was gaining priority in the Bush administration,
and President Bush's personal
had not
distaste for the dictator
diminished. In the
up on ing,
wee hours of October
Tom
he
3, as
promised.
Max Thurman
followed
me a fuller briefing. The uprisPDF officer, Major Moises Giroldi
Kelly's earlier alert to give
said,
had been planned by a
Vega, and was supposed to begin in about six hours, at 8:30 that
morning.
"What do we know about Giroldi?" allies?
"We
Are any don't
units
on
I
asked Max. "Does he have any
What does he want from us?" about him," Max said. As for his
his side?
know anything
Giroldi appeared to represent disgruntled unpaid
coup seemed
to
be,"
he responded, though
scant information I
asked
soldiers.
His
be a job grievance more than a blow for democracy.
And he was not asking us for anything yet. "Are we trading one Noriega for another?" "Could
PDF
motive,
we
it
I
asked Max.
was tough
to
know, given the
had.
Max to keep me informed and then phoned Secretary Cheney.
This was a key
call, the first
man's responsibility
time
I
would be carrying out the JCS Chair-
to provide military advice to the Secretary of
I was impressed by Cheney's coolness as I woke him up and him what we knew. I passed along Max's and my view that we did
Defense. told
not have enough information to
commit ourselves
to Giroldi.
Cheney
COLIN
418
POWELL
L.
agreed and then called Brent Scowcroft, advised President Bush.
who
also concurred
and so
-
*
The next morning, 8:30 came and went without a coup. Max called to had apparently run
report that Giroldi
postponed his move
into logistics
problems and had
until later in the day.
Later that morning,
1
went
White House
to the
ident and his national security team.
from the Oval Office, got the
latest
I
called
to
meet with the Pres-
Max Thurman
directly
word, and then told the President
what Thurman now knew. Giroldi commanded the PDF's 4th Infantry
Company, which provided
security for Noriega's headquarters in the
Comandancia. He had helped Noriega put down the most recent
men were
attempted coup, and the two
personally close. Noriega
the godfather of one of Giroldi 's children. Giroldi
was asking us
U.S. troops to block access to the Comandancia so that side the city could not
come
to Noriega's rescue.
however, of turning Noriega over to iega
would accept
his fate
and
officials in
The whole and
I still
affair
Panama
sounded
family.
He was He had
like
amateur night, and Cheney, Thurman,
agreed that the United States should not get involved. All of
uneasy that
if
Giroldi failed,
we were
we might be accused
his mind. Giroldi
not support
This was
had
still
said nothing about democracy.
him unless he made
my
was surprised
first
a
commitment
a
little
of passing up an
opportunity to get rid of Noriega. President Bush, however, had
made up
And we would
to restore civilian rule.
opportunity to see the Bush team in action, and
that critical deliberations
preparation or follow-up planned. I
Nor-
to provide sanctuary for them.
the President's other advisors concurred, although
and
that
retire peacefully to the country.
own
out-
intention,
He had the odd notion
us.
taking no chances, however, about the safety of his
asked U.S.
PDF units
He had no
was
to use
The
I
were taking place with no
PRG system that Frank Carlucci
had created had been dismantled by the new team. Brent
Scowcroft, a sharp player, later diagnosed the problem and reimposed order by reincarnating the
Bob
PRG as the Deputies Committee,
Gates, his deputy. But
all that
was
Oval Office debate was a free-swinging all
was
in the future. affair,
and the
the President's Chief of Staff, John Sununu.
this day, the
freest
He
to bother the President.
and made sense when he did
talk.
He
suf-
cut people off
midsentence and pursued his pet tangents, a behavior,
which did not seem
swinger of
Sununu did not
fer fools gladly, or smart folks either, for that matter. in
On
chaired by
I
noticed,
Bush hstened, spoke
little,
repeated that the plotters had to
"Mr. Chairman, We've Got
we
express a clear intention to restore democracy "or
He
then brought the meeting to a close.
staying in constant touch with
At one point during and
set
the
new
I
went back
don't commit."
to the
Pentagon,
Thurman.
this tense day,
eyes on someone
was hosting
I
419
Problem''
a
I
went
Cheney's conference room
to
had never expected
to meet.
The Secretary
Soviet minister of defense, General Dimitri Yazov,
and with Yazov was General Colonel Vladislav A. Achalov, former
commander of the Soviet 8th Guards Army, which faced my V Corps in Germany. Cheney introduced us, and we smiled at each other across the two
table with evident irony,
who had once
soldiers
each other. "General Achalov,"
I
"you know,
said,
my desk in Frankfurt." He gave me a crafty smile and said, my desk."
studied
how
to kill
used to keep your
I
picture on
Night
fell,
and the
last
Game
day.
called
that the Giroldi
take place the next morning. Giroldi held Noriega in the
Max Thurman
that
he could take custody of Noriega only
ate action to seize him. Noriega, in the retire to his
loyal subordinates in
lapsed.
Panama City and
own
rescue.
Rio Hato, seventy-five miles early afternoon, Noriega had
and the coup, such as
out to the River Entrance parade it
was time
chairmanship.
I
it
was, col-
thing had lasted just five hours.
Cheney and I walked
After reporting the debacle to the White House,
belt,
initi-
meantime, showed no sign of
in
By
talk Giroldi into giving up,
The whole
if
hacienda. Instead, he picked up his phone, called
away, and arranged his
managed to
We
do with him.
to
he was offered to us by the conspirators. But Thurman was not to
wanting to
coup
on account of darkness.
Comandancia, but then did not know what instructed
kept your picture on
I
word out of Panama was
would take place the next
The coup did
"Yes, and
for the official
field.
With one
crisis
ceremony marking
did not find this an auspicious
the beginning
start,
my of my
already under
but
I
had learned a
few things already: Cheney was cool and sohd; the Joint Staff was a fast-moving, professional organization; and President Bush, while erating the noisy swirl of advisors around him,
essence of issues and Giroldi
was
made sound
finished.
the U.S. fallout
and Republicans
to the
decisions.
Noriega soon ordered that he be executed, but
from Giroldi 's in
saw through
tol-
failure
was
just beginning.
Congress began jumping
all
Democrats
over the administration
COLIN
420 for
POWELL
L.
blowing a supposedly golden opportunity
Jesse
Helms
Cheney and I had
led the pack.
ten to second-guessers berate us for not
X plotter were the
Brand
aid, as if this
to
to
dump Noriega.
go up
coming
next
Senator
to the Hill
and
lis-
instantly to Giroldi's
Simon
Bolivar. I consoled
myself with the words of Clausewitz: "The vividness of transient impressions must not
make
us forget that such 'truth they maintain
of
is
And few events could have been more transient than the coup of Major Moises Giroldi Vega. I remained convinced that we had a lesser stamp."
made the right decisions. Thurman and I had received and determined
recommend
that if
we
quite a baptism.
We
compared notes
ever were forced to act in Panama,
getting rid of the
PDF.
Max
began
to
we would
develop a plan to do
just that.
The Saturday
was helping Alma
after the failed coup, I
get us settled
new home, Quarters 6, the chairman's residence, when Bob Woodward of the Washington Post called. Woodward was doing a story into our
on the failed coup for the Sunday edition and said he just wanted
check a few
facts
and give
me
a chance to give
my
to
interpretation of
what had happened. Woodward had the disarming voice and manner of a
Boy Scout
offering to help an old lady cross the street.
that anything in
said
far,
me
news
stories recounting
as the fair-haired
was not averse
of note.
I
assured
would be on "deep background," which
anonymity beyond "a senior administration
So
I
I
He
my
one step
today
." .
.
my role in the Panama coup had painted
boy who had
to getting
official said
is
me
fallen flat
on his
face. Consequently,
version of events across in a newspaper
agreed to talk to Woodward.
His story the next day was not inaccurate, but neither was
The experience reminded me of posing
for
it
helpful.
what you think is going
to
be
a reasonably flattering photo, only to find out that the photographer has
chosen theless,
to print the shot I
of you with your mouth hanging open. Never-
continued dealing with Woodward, though
Alma warned me
to handle with care.
Over the next two months, rumors of more coups
They came ning.
An
to nothing, but
existing plan,
Thurman
floated out of Panama.
accelerated his contingency plan-
code-named Blue Spoon, was beefed up
include taking out the entire
PDF
as well as
to
removing Noriega. Under
"Mr. Chairman, We've Got
the revised
in
421
Army South
Blue Spoon, thirteen thousand troops of the U.S.
and supporting units
*
Problem"
a
Panama would be reinforced by another ten thou-
sand troops of the XVIII Airborne Corps from the United States. Lieutenant General Carl Stiner,
would command the seize all
commander of
joint task force. If
PDF installations,
put
we
did attack, this force was to
down PDF resistance, and
Endara government
legitimately elected
XVIII Airborne Corps,
the
help bring the
Blue Spoon further
to power.
included a raid by Delta Force to rescue an American citizen, Kurt Muse, a
CIA
source
who had been
placed in sohtary confinement in Modelo
Prison by Noriega for spying. Noriega had threatened that
Panama, Muse would be
States
moved
retary
Cheney's approval,
ment and
against
units into
was a
little
With Sec-
killed instantly.
we quietly began to infiltrate
additional equip-
Panama.
Myer
Quarters 6 on Grant Avenue at Fort there
the United
if
like living in the
is
a stately
home, and
White House. Alma and
I
fashionably appointed public rooms for entertaining on the
and lived
in
an apartment on the second
White House was
that our apartment
two of us with hardly enough room
I
was
sitting in the
TV
set
Tom
had
first
big,
floor
difference from the
tiny, just
big enough for the I
spent
my
and a secure phone.
December
study on Saturday evening,
got another call from
I
was
The
for an overnight guest.
free time there in a small study with a
when
floor.
living
i6, 1989,
Kelly. "Mr. Chairman," Kelly said,
"we've got a problem." As usual, the
first details
were sketchy.
I
learned
only that a U.S. Marine had been shot in Panama. Soon afterward,
I
was
informed that four officers in civvies had driven into Panama City for
where they ran
dinner,
into a roadblock near
Panama's annual armed forces day, and soldiers
yank the Americans from
the gas and started to pull away.
Robert Paz was
tenant
headquarters.
hit
The PDF
fired,
their car.
It
was
PDF
Adam
Curtis,
interrogation. Curtis
was forced
A Navy officer. Lieu-
and his wife, Bonnie, who had witnessed the
by the
PDF
and taken
to a police station for
was roughed up and threatened with
to stand against a wall while
until she collapsed.
driver hit
and died soon afterward.
grew worse as the night wore on.
J.
The
and Marine Lieutenant
situation
shooting, were detained
Curtis
PDF
suspect that a lot of the
had been drinking and carousing. At the roadblock a group of
these soldiers tried to
The
I
PDF
death. Mrs.
soldiers
pawed her
* COLIN
422 I
reported
POWELL
L.
we considered whether we had an He -informed the White House, and a meeting
Cheney, and
all this to
unignorable provocation.
was
with President Bush for the next morning.
set
That Sunday was hectic.
went
I
the Pentagon to check with
first to
Thurman on Saturday's events. Although our officers had taken a wrong turn and had blundered into the roadbfock, the PDF's behavior was
still
inexcusable. Moreover, the shooting represented an increasing
"How's Blue Spoon proceed-
pattern of hostility toward U.S. troops.
ing?" ers
I
Max.
asked. ''Rehearsed and ready to go," said
Command
of the Transportation
Command
and told them
I
called the lead-
and the Special Operations
be ready to move, then went to Cheney's
to
room were Paul Wolfowitz,
office for a io:oo a.m. meeting. In the
undersecretary of defense for policy; Pete Williams, the assistant secre-
my judgment the best in the business; and Bill NSC. We went over the options. By the time Cheney
tary for public affairs, in
Price from the
ended the meeting, Wolfowitz and Price were
"smoking
stay behind.
When we were
"Max and I izens," nal.
I
both believe
said. "Besides,
alone, he asked,
we
my
final
not sure
"What do you think?"
should intervene to protect American
cit-
Noriega's not a legitimate leader. He's a crimi-
He's under indictment."
hold off
we had a Cheney asked me to
still
gun" justifying military intervention.
I
told Cheney, however, that
recommendation
had a chance
until I
I
wanted
to
to talk to the
chiefs.
"Okay," Cheney
said. "I'll set the
meeting with the President for
this
afternoon."
Panama was It
the
major foreign
first
crisis
of the Bush administration.
also presented the first serious test of the chairman's
Gold water-Nichols. In the
past, the chiefs
had voted
new
role under
to achieve a con-
sensus that the chairman could carry to the Secretary of Defense and the President.
Now,
I
was
the principal military advisor.
They were
great skill and experience.
and ready forces
to the
But now, as chairman,
Back
at
my
Quarters 6 at the Pentagon
office 1
I
CINCs. I
I
the ones
was not
1:30 a.m.
I
Tom
to a
messenger
press, setfing off all sorts of alarms. I
made
coffee,
wisdom. role.
me
at
horsepower coming
to
Kelly to have the chiefs meet
did not want
all that
to
be spotted by the
Soon they began
and we
sat
had
who provided the trained
on a Sunday morning. They were sure
church and home.
chiefs
likely to ignore their
was no longer limited
asked
The
down
arriving
in the library
from
on the
1
"Mr. Chairman, We've Got
first floor.
"Sorry you lost a man,"
Commandant. Gray nodded Sheafer,
my
I
said to
Tom
grimly.
a
gave them
I
be overlooked. Blue Spoon should go with
it.
But
Carl Vuono, the
I
is
a
good
423
Al Gray, the Marine Corps
Kelly and Rear Admiral Ted
intelligence officer, briefed the chiefs. After
over the military options,
*
Problem"
my judgment. plan.
we had
talked
"Paz's killing can't
We're ready, and
I
think
we
want your views."
Army
Chief of
Staff,
Carl Trost, the Chief of Naval
Bob Herres all agreed. Larry Welch, the Air Force Chief of Staff, still debated if we had sufficient provocation, but soon concurred. Al Gray wondered if we needed to move as quickly as Blue Spoon required. Al knew that the plan, as it stood, contained only a minor role for the Marines. He wanted time to bring Marine amphibious units to the party. Al," I said, "Max has a solid plan, ready Operations, and Vice Chairman
'
to go,
and we're not going
to delay
understood, and in the end, Blue
it
or add anything unnecessary." Al
Spoon had
the
unanimous support of
the chiefs.
It
was a strange time
was hurrying down Kelly
at
my
side,
to plan for war.
a festively
lugging his
Sunday afternoon, December
decked corridor of the White House,
map
case,
17,
Tom
when our way was blocked by
Christmas carolers in eighteenth-century costume.
We
shook hands
with them, exchanged holiday greetings, and continued on up to the
Bushes' private apartment on the second
The President was on
his chest,
sitting in his
chewing
his
floor.
pensive pose, slouched, chin resting
lower hp.
He wore
slacks and a blue blazer
with red socks, one marked "Merry" and the other "Christmas." called in
Dick Cheney; Jim Baker, now Secretary of
Scowcroft and his deputy. secretary.
Bob
He had
State; Brent
Gates; and Marlin Fitzwater, the press
John Sununu was not present, which promised a
little
less
blindsiding.
Cheney
led off with a review of
what had happened
described our proposed response in general terms. stage over to
maps, and
I
me
to explain the military plan.
began to
brief,
Tom
He
in
Panama and
then turned the
Kelly uncovered his
using a pen-sized laser pointer that threw a
beamless red dot on the map. The disembodied dot seemed to amuse the President.
Except for Cheney, the others were hearing an expanded Blue Spoon plan for the
first
time.
I
started off with our
prime objective:
we were
COLIN
424
POWELL
L.
going to eliminate Noriega and the PDF. running the country until a
new
iega,"
security force. Since this plan I
paused
No
implications.
went
I
to
make
If that
we could establish
succeeded,
we would be
a civilian government and
went well beyond "getting Nor-
sure that this point had sunk
in,
with
all its
one objected.
We
into the military details.
which we had been quietly beefmg up
woulcf use the forces in place,
to a current total of thirteen thou-
sand troops. That number, however, was not enough. Thurman and Stiner had a strategy to strike at every major military installations.
Army Rangers would Panama
barracks at Rio Hato, west of
down
panies used to put Stealth fighter
for
port the Rangers. Paratroopers of the in
key
all
parachute onto the main
and take out the PDF comOur Air Force's new F-117A the first time in combat to sup-
City,
past coups.
would be employed
PDF unit and seize
82d Airborne Division would
from Fort Bragg and drop on objectives
east of the city.
from the 7th Infantry Division would be flown fornia, to extend our control of the country
in
and
fly
More infantry
from Fort Ord, Cali-
to help restore
law and
Panama would seize the Comanproper; and Navy SEALs would take
order. U.S. troops already stationed in
dancia and objectives in the city the airfield
where we knew
that
Noriega kept his "getaway" plane. Spe-
we
Forces units would search for him, a tough assignment, since
cial
had not been able
Panama was
him day
to track
to day.
A
Marine company
in
Bridge of the Americas over the Panama
set to secure the
Canal, and the Delta Force had the mission to rescue Kurt Muse, the
CIA
dancia. I
Modelo Prison across the street from the ComanThe Blue Spoon force would total over twenty thousand troops.
source held in
predicted that within hours of H-Hour, Noriega, captured or not,
would no longer be
in
power and we would have created conditions
would allow the elected Endara government take office. a man."
I
Then
my
finished
out of hiding and
briefing pointing out that "the chiefs agree to
sat like a
patron on a bar stool coolly observing a brawl
while his advisors went hard
edge
come
the questions began flying.
George Bush
tating
to
that
that took getting
and his intent admirable.
at
it.
Brent Scowcroft's manner had an
used
to,
irri-
but his intelligence was obvious
He wanted to leave the President with no com-
fortable illusions: "There are going to be casualties. People are going to die,"
Scowcroft
said.
The President nodded, and
Jim Baker believed
we
we had
let
the debate roll on.
an obHgation to intervene; that was
maintained military forces to meet such obligations.
He
why
could not
Mr. Chairman, We've Got
Problem"
a
*
425
resist
mentioning that the State Department had urged intervention for
some
time. Scowcroft kept
all this
and
possible,
we
feet to the fire.
don't nab Noriega? That
said, since
I
my
we
did not
"Suppose we go through
makes me nervous." That was
know where he
escaped into the jungle? That too could happen, and to hide.
Brent hammered away
Numbers.
I
to get hurt
and
said
was. Suppose he
was an easy place
it
Numbers, he wanted.
at casualties.
could not be specific. Obviously, people were going
I
and
die, soldiers
We
going to be chewed up.
A lot of real estate was
civilians, I said.
could anticipate chaos, especially in the
early stages.
The key
We
issue remained whether
had reasons
we had
—Noriega's contempt
ing and indictment, the death of the
sufficient provocation to act.
for democracy, his drug traffick-
American Marine,
the threat to our
treaty rights to the canal with this unreliable figure ruling
Panama. And,
unspoken, there was George Bush's personal antipathy to Noriega, a third-rate dictator
thumbing
his
nose
at the
United States.
I
shared that
distaste.
The President himself pushed me on
I
be more specific."
said, "I can't
"When
casualties. "Mr. President,"
will
we
be ready to go?" he asked.
"In two and a half days,"
We're well equipped
replied.
I
"We want and
to fight in the dark,
to attack at night.
that should give us tacti-
cal surprise."
The questions continued,
we were
drifting
meeting with
in his first
after
away from
thick and fast, until the decision at hand.
this
I
started to look as if
could see
Tom Kelly,
group, growing uneasy. But then Bush,
everyone had had his say, gripped the arms of his chair and rose.
"Okay,
let's
Back
do
at the
it,"
he
said.
Pentagon,
I
"The
called
hell with
H-Hour
at
it."
Max Thurman
ders and spoke again to the chiefs.
A
it
D-Day was
and other key comman-
set for
December
20,
and
0100.
few weeks
earlier,
"You're off to a good
Cheney had
start as
called
me
to his office alone.
chairman," he said, offering
me
"You're forceful and you're taking charge. But you tend to funnel
a seat. all
the
He went on to say that he expected information from numerous sources. He had me dead to rights. Information is power. He knew it as well as I did. And I had tended to control it. I told him I understood, as long as we both recinformation coming to me. That's not the
ognized
my
way I want
it."
obligation, as his senior military advisor, to give
him
my
^ COLIN
426
POWELL
L.
choppy
counsel. Matters could get
advice or information of which
we understand each other know that the relationship was as
my place
in
from
was unaware.
.
.
he were to operate on military
Colin."
.
still
The
"Fine," he said, "as long slight hesitation let
familiar but that
it.
eventually
I
I
if
that of the paternal, courtly
was being shown
^
f
became accustomed
I
me
man's manner, so different
to the
Cap Weinberger. Cheney was
a cere-
Wyoming cowboy, used to wide-open spaces where one did not have to deal with many people. He was a conservative by nature and in his pohtics, a loner who would take your counsel, but preferred to go off by himself to make up his mind. And he was supremely self-confident, bral
managed
or the next best thing, he
someone
else
who had learned
Here was
to give that impression.
never to
let
'em see you sweat.
I
enjoyed
working with a master of the game.
As D-Day approached,
I
told
Tom
make
Kelly to
every scrap of information about Blue Spoon.
I still
the Secretary myself, or at least be present while he
over the next feverish forty-eight hours
our recent discussion
I
five
SEALs
hundred feet? He wanted
why.
When
the dust settled
on
it
all
data.
Why
carry?
have
to
was
want Cheney
from any source. He began vacuuming up squad? What equipment do
preferred to brief briefed.
would not have time, and
certainly did not
I
Cheney got
sure
after
to feel cut off
How many men
in a
do Rangers jump from
by H-Hour, and
this invasion, I
But
would
still
I
understood
be an advisor;
but he and the President would have to bear the responsibility. In one of
my
tioned that Blue
but
it
several
phone conversations with
Spoon might be
was hardly a rousing
You do
fine as a
call to
Max Thurman, I men-
code name
to hide
arms when the time came
not risk people's lives for Blue Spoons.
an operation, to
go pubhc.
We kicked around a num-
ber of ideas and finally settled on Max's suggestion. Just Cause. Along
with the inspirational ring, est critics
War
would have
planning
is
I
Uked something
to utter "Just
it.
Even our sever-
Cause" while denouncing
us.
a mosaic of thousands of troubling details.
weather was turning bad, and affect
else about
icing conditions stateside
our ability to assemble the required
airlift.
The
were going
to
Rules of engagement,
when they could use deadly Thurman to change the F-i 17A
the instructions to our troops as to
force,
had
to
target
list.
We
be approved.
I
had
did not want to
to tell
bomb
Noriega's country villas in the hope he
might be there and end up killing maids and children instead.
"Mr. Chairman, We've Got
The
last night
backseat of
my
427
before the invasion, sitting alone in the dark in the
car on the drive home,
I felt
Had
to spill blood.
I
been right? Had
I
was
had urged, one
that
of foreboding.
full
going to be involved in conducting a war, one that
was sure
*
Problem"
a
I
my
advice been sound?
What if the icy weather in the States hampered the airhft? How would we then support the troops already in Panama? What would our casualties be? How many civilians might lose their lives in the fighting? Was it all worth it? I went to bed gnawed by self-doubt. When I got to the Pentagon early on Tuesday morning, December 19, I
found that
my
Joint Staff, under
Mike Cams, and Max Thurman's on top of fully
things.
its
able director. Lieutenant General
SOUTHCOM
Panama were Army Lieutenant General Howard Graves was skill-
NSC political and diploWe were "good to go."
merging our military plans with State and
matic
efforts. All loose
staff in
ends were being tied up.
My confidence came surging back. My worries vanished, the
I
entered
calm before the storm.
That afternoon, with the country going to war I
and
had a student named Tiffani Starks
why
I
girl's
had chosen a military
my
office asking
me
The conversation was
to explain
part of the
high school project to interview a "famous person." Earlier,
had lunch with Thomas after
career.
in
in less than ten hours,
my
P.
I
had
Daily, an Annapolis midshipman, the payoff
losing a bet on the recent
Army-Navy
football
through these innocent encounters as scheduled to
game.
I
went
make my day look
normal and thus protect the security of Just Cause. After talking with Miss Starks,
one
last
I
slipped off to the White
House
for
meeting. Jim Baker and the State Department had worked out a
plan to spirit Endara from his hiding place just before
Clayton,
home
president.
We
to Fort
South, where he would be sworn in as
did not yet have Endara's agreement to the plan and
would not know participation
Army
to U.S.
H-Hour
if
was
he would go along until
later in the evening.
Endara's
the last check-off point before the invasion. If
we
did
him on board. President Bush would have to decide whether to go ahead without him or to abort the mission. What about Noriega? the President kept asking. Were we going to not have
nab him? Was
this
operation going to be branded a failure
not deliver Noriega's head? "Mr. President,"
way of knowing where be El
Jefe.
he'll
He won't be
be
able to
at
I
said,
his face."
I
we
could
"we don't have any
H-Hour, but wherever he
show
if
is,
he won't
also cautioned against
^ COLIN
428
POWELL
L.
demonizing one individual and resting our success on Still,
that policy is war,
A
abstractions.
was
And Noriega was
flesh-and-blood villain serves better.
home
at
at
t
7:40 Tuesday night
when Cheney
Endara was on board. Just Cause could go forward. Pentagon while.
I
And when
tough to arouse public opinion against poHtical
it is
rich villain material. I
his fate alone.
a President has to rally the country behind his policies.
Alma
at 8:30, telling
did not elaborate.
I
only that
was
tired
I
called to say that
went back
I
to the
might not be home for a
from the incessant tension of the
my office. At 11:30 p.m. I Military Command Center, a maze
previous days and grabbed a quick nap in
joined Dick Cheney in the National
jammed
of rooms
with computers, maps, radios and telephones, and
action officers scurrying all over the place.
carved out a
crisis
room
Tom
Kelly had recently
middle of this jumble for me,
in the
pal staff officers, and the Secretary of Defense.
We
my princi-
sat there at a table
with two large television monitors in front of us on which to receive
sit-
uation reports from Panama. Behind us on another table were tele-
phones, providing direct, secure lines to Thurman, Stiner, and their staffs in the
Tom said.
headquarters at Quarry Heights in Panama.
Kelly leaned over
"But
all
my
planes are in the
Pope Air Force Base, next States.
The
reporting
as a
air."
show of
would be hard
They were headed
to
Panama from
and bases around the United
spotted the unusual air activity, but
was
We
had
force or a reinforcement operation.
now
achieved strategic surprise. But
Tom
"The weather held us up,"
to Fort Bragg,
we knew, had
press,
it
shoulder.
that our forces
were on the way,
it
to maintain tactical surprise.
The Panama Defense Force had figured out by 9:00 p.m. that something was up, but was not sure what to do about it. PDF troops began firing around Fort Amador soon after midnight and mortally wounded an American schoolteacher. General Stiner decided fifteen minutes,
and
at
0045
hours,
December
to
on the roof of Modelo Prison. in.
.
down
into the city to
Comandancia. Just Cause was under way. Reports dribbled
into the crisis center in frustrating bits
Force
193d
20, troops of the
Infantry Brigade swept out of their barracks and attack the
move up H-Hour by
.
.
Kurt
Muse
.
.
.
out of his
copters from the roof
It's
coming down! No,
it's
cell.
okay. No!
going
and pieces: "Delta Force landing
Delta has killed the guards. .
.
.
.
.
Delta
Delta Force leaving in heli-
The helo
down
.
the
is
taking
street
.
.
fire. It's hit! It's .
it's
hit
.
.
.
it's
"Mr. Chairman, We've Got
down
.
.
.
they're okay.
.
Problem"
a
*
429
This rescue operation took six minutes that
.
lasted an eternity.
The
Intense fighting erupted around the Comandancia. quarters
was soon
in flames,
and the
fire
PDF
head-
spread to a neighboring shanty
The Rangers landed at Rio Hato, preceded by F-i 17AS dropping two-thousand-pound bombs to stun Panamanian soldiers in the bararea.
racks long enough for the paratroopers to hit the ground.
More Rangers
and the 8 2d Airborne force began dropping over the Torrijos International Airport
complex
the Americas.
On
east of the city.
The Marines took
82d Airborne
the Atlantic side, 7th Division and
troops entered the city of
Colon against
stiff
the Bridge of
opposition.
The PDF was
putting up a better fight than expected, though our casualties were light.
The biggest
loss, so far,
Paitilla Airport,
We
attack.
was sustained by Navy SEALs attacking Punta
where four of them were
killed in a poorly conceived
had made the mistake of assigning the SEALs, however
tough and brave, to a mission more appropriate to the infantry.
Almost every report coming
into the crisis center corrected the pre-
vious report, confirming the old adage "Never believe the
you
hear." Sitting in that small
Center,
I felt
as if
I
room
in the National Military
were on an emotional
cially night fighting, is
in the
people
Command
Combat, espe-
fully appreciate the opportu-
who have to make hfe-and-death decisions
midst of chaos with limited, even wrong, information. Cheney sat
there that night quietly observing his first war.
relevant questions, report
thing
organized confusion. Journalists, historians, and
Monday-morning quarterbacks can never nities for error facing
roller coaster.
first
line to
I
talked to
to
Scowcroft and the President. The chain of
clean and clear.
talked to me; and
kept asking sharp,
and every hour or so he moved into the next room
on a secure hot
command was
He
The President
talked to Cheney;
Max Thurman, who
Cheney
talked to Carl Stiner.
Thurman and Stiner were the pros on the scene, and our job in Washington was to let the plan unfold without getting in their way. At 7:40 the next morning, the President went on television to explain to the American people why we had invaded Panama. The cameras then shifted to the Pentagon, where, at 8:30, in greater detail the
was
my
first,
describing
provocations that had led to the invasion. Then
it
turn to explain the military operation.
During sis
Cheney spoke
that night, while the fighting
was
center and had gone to an adjacent
still
room
raging,
I
to think
had
left
the cri-
through what
I
COLIN
430 wanted
to say
when
faced the pubhc and the press.
I
Melnyk, an operations
maps and
POWELL
L.
officer
charts for me.
I
on Tom Kelly's
sent
staff,
Army Major Ray
had prepared briefing
them back because they were
full
of mih-
tary jargon, suitable for Fort Benning, maybe, but not helpful in explain-
ing to the American people what their sons aivi daughters were doing in
Panama. Melnyk quickly drafted simpler maps, and
memorizing the missions, the
units,
That morning, on television, detail
down
spent the next hour
I
and our twenty-seven
after
Cheney spoke,
to the last platoon assault. I
I
targets.
explained every
reminded the audience
was an ongoing campaign. Most of our objectives had been expected continued resistance from
So
far,
taken, but
we
remnants and paramilitary
"Dignity BattaHons," mostly street gangs armed by Noriega.
units, called
ties.
PDF
that this
we had
lost
only four soldiers, but
we
should expect more casual-
My intention was to convey a sense of calm and confidence that we
knew what we were doing. The reputation of the American armed forces was on the hne. Desert One, the bombing of the Marine headquarters in Lebanon, the messy Grenada invasion, and the shootdown of the Iranian airhner had leadership.
contributed to skepticism about the U.S. mihtary and
all I
remembered our Project 14 advice to General Wickham we have got to win cleanly the next time.
its
six
—
years earier I
to
took questions from the reporters, and right off the bat they wanted
know about
Noriega. If
invading Panama?
I
we
did not catch him, what was the point of
responded,
"We have now decapitated him from the
make life miserable for the U.S. down there, a reporter asked, if Noriega was still mnning around Panamanian wilds? "It's been some years," I answered, "since
dictatorship of his country." Wouldn't
forces in the
Mr. Noriega
.
.
.
had been
it
living in a jungle. He's used to a different
kind of hfestyle, and I'm not sure he would be up to being chased
Army
around the countryside by infantry units."
Another reporter persisted: could we
Cause successful operation that
is
Rangers, Special Forces, and light
as long as
we
really consider Just
did not have Noriega in custody? "The
I said, "because we cut off the head of new government that was elected by the would be more convincing, I knew, if we
a success already,"
government, and there
Panamanian people."
is
Still, it
a
could produce the head.
When
I
"You were
got back to
my
office the
pretty good," she said.
passing grade.
phone was
My
ringing.
sternest critic
It
was Alma.
had given
me
a
"Mr. Chairman, We've Got
By
the next day,
most of the fighting was
a
Problem"
We
from town
PDF
to
down
the remainder of the
town shouting
troops to maintain order.
We
packed Panama City with more
We put up temporary housing for Panamanians down
several blocks,
Comandancia.
H-Hour and
President Endara had been sworn in a few hours before
was now
the
PDF. These troops went
displaced by the fighting and fires that had burned particularly around the
comb
which convinced the once feared
*'boo,"
detachments to surrender.
eluded
still
brought in more infantrymen from the 7th Division to
countryside and run
1
over, except for scattered
skirmishes with the Dignity Battalions. Noriega, however, us.
43
'A
Twenty-four Americans gave their
in the Presidential Palace.
Panama to achieve this victory for democracy. My private estimate to Cheney had been that we would lose about twenty troops. Our armed forces had acquitted themselves superbly, although we had made lives in
some mistakes.
We
did not plan well enough for reintroducing civil
government. Our press arrangements produced recriminations on both
We
sides.
were slow
in getting the press
couple of hundred reporters
Consequently, the press I
knew,
we needed
to
to the
tried to
Panama loaded with a whom we could not properly accommoate us alive, with some justification. In the
compensate by sending a commercial
future,
Panama and
Defense Department spokesman,
action. Pete Williams, the
date.
pool to
do
airliner to
a far better job.
Yet things had happened on the press side during Just Cause that tested to the limit
my
day of the invasion, conference.
I
customary support of the media.
On
the second
watched President Bush during a televised press
He was visibly upbeat after the quick success of Just Cause.
The President could not know
that as
he was giving occasionally smil-
ing answers to reporters, the networks
were simultaneously showing on
split
screens a transport plane at
unloading the bodies of the
make
first
Dover Air Force Base, Delaware,
American
casualties.
The
effect
was
to
the President look callous. Sensational images, but cheap-shot
journalism. I
was angered when
as cover
it.
the press started trying to direct the
war
as well
Near the center of Panama City stood a radio tower. Every
armchair strategist knows that you have to knock out the enemy's capacity to communicate.
And
look
at that, the
U.S. military had fool-
ishly left this transmitter operating, broadcasting prerecorded
Noriega
propaganda. The White House started taking flak from the press over
COLIN
43 2
the still-standing tower. I
him
told
that the
POWELL
L.
And I
started taking flak
tower was not bothering
troops in that part of town to take
down anyway, because
No
and
us,
we
did not yet have
We did not want to knock the tower
President Ehdara would need
The press heat was too
dice.
it.
from Brent Scowcroft.
great and
tl^e
day or
in a
it
tower had to go.
so.
told
I
Thurman and Stiner to destroy it. They were mad as hell at being overmanaged from the sidelines and for being ordered to take a pointless But soon, Cobra attack helicopters were shooting missiles
objective.
the girders, not unlike
with a
my
old Vietnamese buddies shooting
down
trees
rifle.
After the
first
night at the crisis center,
we were back in
our offices.
me
got another call at the Pentagon from Brent Scowcroft telling
were trapped
several correspondents
"We've got
City.
at
in the Marriott Hotel in
Brent
to put troops in to rescue them,"
"Tney're in no danger,"
I
that
Panama
said,
pointed out. "I've checked the situation.
I
They're safe in the basement of the hotel. The fighting will soon sweep right past them." I
thought
I
had convinced Brent
until I got a
second
call.
He was
ing terrific presssure from bureau chiefs and network executives in
tak-
New
York. "We've got to do something," he said.
"We petent
Were
shouldn't do anything,"
commander on Manhattan?
suites in
American of
all
citizens in
reiterated.
"We've got a perfectly com-
the ground. He's got a plan, and
supposed
kibitzers
I
I
to direct the fighting in
reminded Brent
it's
Panama from
that there
Panama, and we were trying
working." executive
were 35,000 other to ensure the safety
of them. Only a few minutes passed before Cheney called. There
was no discussion. Do Again,
I
it,
he
said.
reluctantly called
No more
arguments.
Thurman and
Stiner. "I hate to tell
you
this," I said as I
explained the situation. "But get those reporters out, and
ITl try to keep
Washington off your backs
in the future." Stiner sent in
units of the 8 2d Airborne to storm the Marriott.
We
into a stiff firefight. ties,
three GIs
killed I
wounded, one
by American
told
Cheney
fire
that
I
seriously,
the way, they ran
and a Spanish photographer was
while covering the rescue.
did not want to pass along any
"If the press has to cover a war,"
the risks of war."
On
got the reporters out, but the 82d took casual-
Cheney
I
said, "there's
more such
orders.
no way we can ehminate
called Scowcroft and asked
him not
to issue
any more orders from the sidehnes. This was a new, tough age for the
,
"Mr. Chairman, We've Got
military, fighting a try
war as
was being
it
reported.
a
*
Problem''
We could not, in a counwe were
pledged to free expression, simply turn off the press. But
going to have to find a
way
My
garage trying to relax by pulling
on one of my Volvos when
my cellular phone started ringing.
Tom
exec,
for. I let
I
whoop and
out a
was
in
White, was caUing with the news
found Noriega!"
him
unprecedented situation.
my
Early on Christmas Eve, the engine
to live with this
I
we had been hoping 'They
a holler and ran back into the kitchen.
shouted to Alma. Our troops had been searching for
for days in hideouts
and hinterland
villages.
We had missed him on
the first night while he hid in a whorehouse. Noriega
sanctuary,
433
Tom had told me,
Panama City. He
Papal Nunciatura in
in the
had just sought
had called the papal nuncio, Monsignor Sebastian Laboa, and asked be picked up in a Dairy Queen parking the
strongman was found waiting
shorts,
lot
to
near San Miguelito. There
in a dirty T-shirt, shapeless
and an oversize baseball cap pulled low over his
all
Bermuda
too recog-
nizable face.
My signor
relief
was even greater ten days
later
on January
3,
when Mon-
game was up and that he the Americans. The Vafican looked on Nor-
Laboa persuaded Noriega
should turn himself over to
that the
iega as an accused criminal with no legitimate claim to political asylum.
As soon
as the
Panamanian people learned
that
Noriega was
in U.S.
custody, they started dancing in the streets. Until then, they had been afraid that he I
flew to
troops.
Panama
said.
in early
January for a firsthand look and to
visit the
While with the 8 2d Airborne, commanded by Major General
Jim Johnson, I
might yet return to power.
I
was
carried away.
"Goddam, you guys did
Fred Francis of NBC caught
Anyone know that
my outburst on
a
good job!"
camera, and
I
made
the evening news.
fearing a moral decline in this country
be heartened to
the Joint Staff
may
mailroom was soon flooded
with complaints about the chairman's language.
Our euphoria over our
victory in Just
Cause was not
the United Nations and the Organizafion of
American
universal.
Both
States censured
our actions in Panama. Reports circulated of heavy civilian casualties.
Some human rights in
organizations claimed that the invasion had resulted
thousands of Panamanians killed. At the time.
SOUTHCOM
staff
Max Thurman's
estimated Panamanian casualties in the low hun-
dreds. Subsequently, the
House Armed Services Committee
carried out
* COLIN
434
L.
a thorough investigation,
nians were killed, of
POWELL which estimated
whom
that three
one hundred were
hundred Panama-
civilians
and the
rest
members of the PDF and the Dignity Battalions. The loss of innocent lives was tragic, but we had made every effort to hold down casualties on
all sides.
^
r
A CBS poll conducted soon after the installation of President Endara showed
that nine out of ten
Panamanians favored the U.S. intervention.
Bush had been vindicated in a bold political decision. Thurman Generals and Stiner and all the troops under them had achieved a victory for democracy with minimal bloodshed. The AmeriPresident George
can people supported the action and were again proud of their armed forces.
The
We had a success under our belt. lessons
I
absorbed from Panama confirmed
all
my
convictions
over the preceding twenty years, since the days of doubt over Vietnam.
Have sary,
a clear political objective
and do not apologize for going
sive force ends threats
we
I
stick to
it.
Use
in big if that is
all
I
intended to
the force neces-
what
wars quickly and in the long run saves
faced in the future,
bedrock of my
As
and
make
it
takes. Deci-
lives.
these rules the
military counsel.
write these words, almost six years after Just Cause, Mr. Noriega,
convicted on the drug charges contained in the indictments,
American prison is still
Whatever
cell.
Panama has
a
new
security force,
a democracy, with one free election to
its credit.
sits in
an
and the country
Seventeen When Youve
Lost Your Best
Enemy
I
MAY OWE ONE OF MY BEST
the unlikely figure of
PIECES OF
Arnold Schwarzenegger.
myself into good physical condition the
Beltway pressure cooker,
night
I
found myself
fessed that
I
WORK AS CHAIRMAN OF THE
sitting
I
was
at
I
had managed
FORSCOM.
JCS
to
whip
But now, back
starting to get out of shape.
TO
in
One
next to Arnold at a charity dinner and con-
had relapsed.
"You need a Lifecycle," Arnold "I can't take
said. "I'll
send you one."
anything from a contractor or a manufacturer,"
I
pointed
out.
"You won't have and I now started did I
he answered. "Consider
it
a personal gift from
A stationary bike with computer-controlled resistance soon arrived,
me."
I
to,"
some of my
my day working out on it as soon as I got up at 5:30 a.m. clearest thinking during the half
was pumping away on
hour on the Lifecycle.
a Saturday morning,
weeks before the Panama operation, when
I
November
4,
started to crystallize
some what
I
^ COLIN
436
wanted
really to
move
the
happening
to
L.
POWELL
accomplish as chairman.
I
saw
armed forces onto a new course, one world today, not one chained
in the
as
it
my
main mission
paralleling
what was
to the previous forty
As soon as I was out of the shower, I went to my study and started jotting down thoughts on purple-bordered notepads. iThe color had been years.
chosen deliberately
symbolize that the chairman belonged to no indi-
to
vidual service.
What
was hatching amounted
I
to analysis
by
was not
instinct. I
going on inteUigence estimates, war games, or computer projections.
And
I
intended to avoid the
machinery of the Joint
My thoughts were guided simply by what
world summits, by
I
had observed
I
like to think of as
at
Staff.
rather ponderous, paper-churning
still
informed
my experience at the NSC, by what was going
intuition. I
expected to happen over the next five years and
to project
try to
Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps to match these expectations. top of the pad, "Strategic Overview
at the I
down what I foresaw
wrote
parties.
(You can't win 'em
of 40 percent, ing
—
in the Soviet
manpower
all.) I
I
I
wrote
— 1994." Union: "Rise of opposition
Western investment, market pricing, and Gorbachev
authority."
what
design an Army,
still
supreme
predicted Soviet mihtary budget cuts
cuts of 50 percent, a cap
on naval shipbuild-
in short, a Soviet force intended strictly for a "defensive posture."
And then
I
really stuck
my neck out:
by 1994, "No Soviet forces
in East-
em Europe"; "Warsaw Pact replaced"; "East Germany gone"; all Easternbloc countries "neutral states with multiparty systems."
regarding Germany,
"reunified,"
I
also wrote,
and Berlin, "undivided." In South
by 1994 a "black majority government," and in Latin America, "Cuba isolated, irrelevant." Of course, trouble spots would perAfrica,
sist,
and
pines." it
I
I
anticipated
identified
I
them
made another
as "Korea, Lebanon, the Persian Gulf, Philip-
heading, "Potential U.S. involvement," and under
hsted two places, "Korea, Persian Gulf." I
began matching these projections
structure for the U.S. military. feelings,
I
wrote,
"From
And
to a
commensurate strength and
here, going almost entirely
on gut
a 550-ship to a 450-ship Navy, reduce our
troop strength in Europe from 300,000 to between 75,000 and 100,000,
and cut back the active duty
Army from
760,000
to
525,000." The
Marines, the Air Force, and the reserves would be cut as well.
These liner
levels
would be tough
to sell to
Cheney.
He was
still
a hard-
and not ready to bet on a "kinder and gentler" Soviet Union. But
Enemy
Wheti You've Lost Your Best
43
7
he was also savvy, and not long out of Congress, where he had sensed the
mounting
back on defense spending and
political pressure to cut
declare a peace dividend.
Cheney had already approved
a budget for the
next fiscal year that reflected real reductions in spending. But
we had
pasted that budget together without any overarching strategic vision.
Early on,
Bush administration commissioned
the
National Security Review No. 12, to
NSR
2
1
a
new
strategy.
But
was being drafted by career bureaucrats and few administration
appointees.
The study team did not have
guidance from the President and his this
come up with
major study.
a
a vision or practical political
NSC
The
team.
principal value of
study seemed to be to provide the administration with a defense
against critics of inaction
House could eralities
say.
But
—NSR
NSR
12
and truisms, doomed
12
is
came up
looking into
short, a
White
that, the
bland work,
of gen-
full
to the dustbin.
Meanwhile, Congress, independent national security think tanks, and self-styled freelance military experts
posals. tiny.
were blanketing the town with pro-
We had to get in front of them if we were to control our own des-
Paul Wolfowitz, the undersecretary for policy, and his
began
work.
to
I
was determined
tary strategy train, so
sented hunches allies
I
to
have the Joint Chiefs drive the mili-
had scoped out certain
more than
analysis.
could rally around and give our
wanted
I
critics
drove
weekend
in
which
I
had done
my
even
ideas,
to offer
something
than having military reorganization schemes shoved
After the
new team
if
they repre-
something our
to shoot at rather
down our throat.
solitary brainstorming, Otis
me to work in the chairman's Cadillac. My mind was so afire with
ideas that
I
hardly heard what Otis was talking about, until he extended
an arm into the backseat holding a Beretta
pistol.
He
me
assured
he
my
driver-
on the tape player and went over
my jot-
had obtained legal permission
to carry a gun,
and
that as
bodyguard, he ought to be armed.
Once tings
in the office, I turned
one more time with the help of a
called in Lieutenant General
little
subliminal Mozart.
Then
I
George "Lee" Butler and Major General
John "Dave" Robinson, directors of the Joint Staff responsible for
strat-
egy and budgeting respectively. They and their aides had already done
some work on notes from the
And I wanted
restructuring.
weekend and
I
told
gave Butler and Robinson
them
the graphics within
to recast
them
two days. The
title
my
rough
as briefing charts.
of this slide show
^ COLIN
438 was
my own,
POWELL
L.
"Strategic
Overview — 1994," but
I
paraphrased a subtitle
from Mikhail Gorbachev, *'When You Lose Your Best Enemy." Although
had been chairman for only a month
at this time, I
had
cautioned the chiefs that change was inevitable and had shared
my
I
thoughts with them. These were bright, sophisticated see what
was happening
in the Soviet
reductions
And
institution with a
massive
each chief naturally preferred to have force
more heavily on
fall
could
Union. But each of them, as the
head of a service, ran a huge bureaucratic investment in the past.
men who
the other guy. Within the JCS, only the
chairman and vice chairman could assume bureaucratic years of watching the chiefs,
knew
I
tribute
more than loose change
would
practically have to be
that they
neutrality. After
would not willingly con-
as the collection plate
was passed. They
mugged, and preferred
to
be mugged
to
prove to their institution that they had fought the good fight before the
budget ax
fell.
The Army and Air Force were most invested
Army, a
in fighting
battle that
the
most vulnerable. They had the
an air-land battle in Europe against the Red
was almost
certainly never going to be fought.
Army
Vuono and Air Force chief Larry Welch knew that they would have to cut deeply, but not as much as I had in mind. The Navy was next in line for a substantial whack, since its major chief Carl
mission was to protect the Atlantic sea-lanes so that
Europe
to fight
craft carriers
World War
was
III.
we
could get to
Part of the rationale for the Navy's air-
power ashore against an invading Red
to project
The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Carl Trost, who had only eight months left on his watch, was not disposed to give up much naval power just because the Army and Anny, a
role fast
becoming
obsolete.
Air Force might be losing their enemy. Trost argued that the Soviet navy
was
still
growing and,
American
fleet
until intelligence reports
showed otherwise,
the
should not be shrunk drastically.
The Marines were on soniewhat firmer ground. With
justification,
they presented themselves as the nation's "911" response force, with or
without a Soviet Union. General Al Gray, the Marine colorful
guy who chewed tobacco
in our meetings),
Commandant
would
(a
fight to the
death against anything beyond a symbolic nick in the size of the Corps. Yet, the
Marines had also benefited from the Reagan buildup, which
had been aimed
would have
at the
now
fading Soviet threat.
to take its hits too.
The Marine Corps
When You've Lost Your Best Enemy There was no way
I
39
4
could get group consensus. The chiefs also knew,
however, that with the
new Goldwater-Nichols
authority,
I
did not need
my recommendations to the Secretary of Defense and the President on my own. Still, realistically, I knew that we
consensus.
had
to
A
could give
I
new
shape the
few days
later,
military as a team.
on November
lo, the
most brutal symbol of com-
munist oppression, the Berlin Wall, cracked open, with the East German government's acquiescence. East Germans came pouring through for a taste
of freedom. The most hard-shelled anticommunist had to see that
the old order
ber 14,
1
was not simply changing;
was
falling apart.
On Novem-
my strategic overview to Secon the spot, but gave me a fair
took a deep breath and submitted
He
retary Cheney.
did not embrace
hearing. If our defenses had to be
hand, not
some
it
chopped back, Cheney too wanted his
outsider's, guiding the ax.
weeks Bush was heading
a few
it
to a
He was also concerned that in
summit meeting with Gorbachev
in
Malta and did not have a strategic concept for the future. After examining I
my
charts,
went back
he to
said, "All right.
We'll take
this to the President."
my office and told the staff to have a clean set of charts
ready by the close of business, since the Secretary and to the
I
would be going
White House the next day. They looked stunned, and
could
I
understand why. In the past, sea changes far less radical than what
proposing took years rather than days to work their
I
was
way through
the
Joint Staff labyrinth.
The next day,
as
we entered the White House
displayed an uneasiness Gates, Scowcroft's
I
had not seen before. Until
NSC deputy, had both been saying that the hard-line
communists might well knock off Gorbachev and days.
Now
Cheney was
letting his
to test his
wanted the President this
to
restore the
I
gave Dick
credit.
He
bedrock beliefs against fresh evidence; and he have the same opportunity. The Situation
day held the heart of the Bush team: the President;
dent,
bad old
chairman make a pitch to the Presi-
dent premised on just the opposite. Uneasy or not,
was willing
Room, Cheney now, he and Bob
Situation
Dan Quayle; John Sununu,
his
Room
Vice Presi-
the Chief of Staff; Secretary of State
Jim Baker; Treasury Secretary Nick Brady; Brent Scowcroft; and Gates.
Dick Darman, director of OMB, was also
there,
about to be thrown into
shock—a defense team proposing less spending. I made my presentation. The President listened but remained noncommittal. I had gained as much as I hoped for at this stage; neither a
cardiac
* COLIN
440
green light nor a red tion. President
that
we
light,
but
maybe
Bush posed two
a yellow light. Proceed with cau-
questions.
What was
was about
to
embark on
the
we
would have answers
Vuono had
for
him before he
said that
making sure of one thing
—
I
that
we
my comer
by
left.
always kept them informed.
violated that rule. Although they were generally aware of
should have given them the specific "Strategic Overview ing before taking time.
The next
secure
room
it
day,
in the
to the President. I
at
said that
Cheney
could keep the chiefs in I
expect in
summit with Gorbachev
within days, the questions were crucial.
Carl
the bottom line
should present to the Soviets, and what should
return? Since he
Maha
POWELL
L.
I
my
had just ideas,
I
— 1994" brief-
My only excuse was the pressure of
gathered the chiefs in the "Tank," the flag-draped
Pentagon reserved for meetings of the Joint Chiefs.
(The expression "Tank" derived from a tunnel the service chiefs had to pass through to reach their Interior building before the
side each chief's seat
first
meeting room
Department of
in the
Pentagon was completed
in 1942.)
Along-
were the customary dishes of candy and dried
some disdained and others devoured. I presented the same show I had given to the President the day before. I could see the
fruit that
slide
raised eyebrows.
make
I
had blindsided them, not a mistake
again.
Before President Bush departed for Malta, Cheney and to
intended to
I
him
that
he
let
I
recommended
Gorbachev know the changes we were contemplating.
In return, he should press
Gorbachev
withdraw Soviet troops from
to
home where
Eastern Europe rapidly and bring them present an offensive threat.
He
they would not
should also press Gorbachev for greater
reductions in Soviet defense spending and the end of Soviet support of
Third World insurgencies.
I
did not have to wait long before events began to vindicate
tion of trouble spots. In late
November 1989,
coup and before Just Cause, we had
to
respond to a coup against Presi-
dent Corazon Aquino of the Philippines. dent
Dan Quayle's
my predic-
after the failed Giroldi
I
have read former Vice Presi-
description of this uprising in his book. Standing
Finn, "I was the one asking the questions, seeking the options and pushing for a consensus," Quayle wrote. "I can [the acting Secretary
remember Larry Eagleburger
of State] saying afterward that
if I
hadn't been
When You've Lost Your Best Enemy there,
we might
great hour
moment
not have stopped the coup in the Phihppines.
in the relations
me
for
personally."
44
1^
It
1
was a
between our two countries, and a great
Some
of us remember the incident a
little
differently.
On November
29,
Cheney and
I
had just returned from a conference
in Brussels.
Cheney, exhausted and
stayed there.
I
went
to
with the
ill
went home and
work the next day, returned home, and gratefully An hour later, the phone rang, and I was
sack soon after dinner.
hit the
informed by
Tom
Kelly that a coup was under
headed by a General Edgardo Abenina. National Military 1 1
flu,
:oo P.M.
I
situations.
entered a
It
was
room designed
Pentagon, arriving just after
my
steps
way
cold, kept that
the supersensitive electronic gear.
to the
specifically for dealing with such
small, low-ceilinged;
The room was
carpeting.
in the Philippines
went immediately
I
Command Center in the
way
We were
were muffled by gray
to aid the
performance of
new
using a
teleconferenc-
ing system that allowed people from various agencies to confer with-
was
out leaving their buildings. This
used in an actual
On
one
I
would be
the first time the system
a table facing five television monitors.
crisis. I sat at
could see the White House Situation Room, with Vice Presi-
dent Quayle at the center of the table. Quayle was there because President
Bush was
the air flying to Malta for his meeting with
in
Gorbachev. The face of Larry Eagleburger
second screen.
filled a
On
a third
was
at the State
Bill Webster, the
Department
CIA
director,
and on a fourth, Harry Rowen, assistant secretary of defense for national security affairs,
myself on the
fifth screen.
who had
chairman,
who was Next
to
upstairs in the Pentagon.
me
sat
General
Bob
also been a candidate for chairman. Herres
Bob went home
one of us would be fresh
CINC
to get
in the
some
rest after
was
there too, having
I
was
me down
relieved
him so
to
that
morning. Also, by pure chance, the
for all our forces in the Pacific,
Hardisty,
could see
Herres, the vice
approaching retirement, but would be of enormous help to his last day.
I
inter-
Admiral Huntington "Hunt"
come from Honolulu
to the
Pentagon
for budget talks.
President Corazon Aquino, presidential palace in
planes.
I
was informed, had reported
that the
Manila was being bombed and strafed by rebel
She had requested U.S. military intervention
to stop the attacks.
Eagleburger argued hard in favor of answering Aquino's appeal.
sponsored
this
democratic government," he said, "and
"We
we have
to
^ COLIN
442
POWELL
L.
respond." Sporadic reports kept arriving; there was gunfire here and there,
and a possible need
to rescue
Aquino from
the palace. But
we
were hearing more confusion than hard information.
Our ambassador request that
World War
in Manila, Nicholas Piatt,
we bomb an
airfield
prop-driven trainers, based at this
II
to update him.
He
was eager
field,
Cheney wanted
It
The Vice President on the Giroldi coup
seemed
hit,
rather than deal with
me that in military decision-making
in
Panama
to
in October. If
I
be stampeded.
I
wanted
to
overcome any
We
started asking questions.
I
we know who we would The
rebels or loyalists?
flying their first
Bush soon
should have plunged ahead now. But
tured a neat, surgical strike. Instead,
I
State
if
we
were inevitably going
up planes on the
and
I
airfield,
no matter which side we
pic-
hurt."
My we
warned the other teleconfer-
can guarantee you that the Filipinos are going to blast us
funerals,
Who
be bombing?
Department probably
envisioned anxious young pilots
started shooting
to kill people,
I
could
combat missions, not precision-tooled automatons.
concern was that
ees, "I
I
had taken a media beating for holding back
I
the airfield, but did
would we
to
home
to stay
by secure phone.
said he needed to contact President
impression of indecisiveness,
bomb
Dick
called
to deal directly with the President.
with a recommendation.
was not about
I
intended to handle his end this night from his
Cheney preferred
Quayle on the monitor.
were the planes
to respond.
sickbed, since he could reach the President's plane also suspected that
official
under rebel control! Mothy old T-28s,
attacking the capital. Again, State
Cheney
reconfirmed an
at their
We were still, in some quarters,
viewed and resented as former colonial masters.
we
Before
wanted
did anything rash,
to talk to Fidel
eyeball account.
It
Ramos,
just
ordinarily posted to our this night, upstairs
book with
the
on-site information.
embassy
that the in
American military attache
Manila was also
officer. ''Just
conmiand
keep dialing,"
I
center,
where
I
Pentagon
in the
phone numbers of all top Fihpino defense the
I
the Philippine defense minister, to get an
happened
with Harry Rowen. This officer had a
him to send it down to watch
we needed more
black
little
officials. I told
handed
told this officer, "until
it
to a
you get
Navy
me a
military officer at the top."
You might cations
—
think, given the billions
direct lines, secure lines,
we spend on
scrambled hues,
request would be a cinch. Instead, the
Navy
defense communisatellites
officer
—
that
my
informed me, "I
^
when You've Lost Your Best Enemy can't reach their guys with this hardware, General.
we
telephone." In this supersophisticated center
ordinary
Go to it, Our
A
line. I
need a plain old
I
did not have a single
sergeant popped up and said, "I can get you one,
and he started tearing up the floor panels
said,
443
sir."
to run a line in.
resourceful sergeant quickly produced a functioning commercial
telephone. In the meantime,
Hardisty and
I
described to Quayle and the others a plan that
had devised: have our F-4 Phantom
I
jets stationed at
Clark Air Force Base buzz any T-28S daring to come onto the runway
at
the rebel-held airbase. In short, scare hell out of them. If any of these
planes started to take
them down.
off, fire in front
hostile intent." I called
called
me back
military action,
Our
aircraft
shoot
demonstrate "extreme
to
agreed.
He tell
we had
and just as
I
"Go," Cheney
was about
for the F-4S to take to the
air,
Presi-
Secretary of Defense through
me
said.
was happening, Dan Quayle had
all this
contacted Air Force
me we had the
a clear line of authority for graduated
commander in chief to
to the appropriate military units.
While
who
were
within ten minutes to
Cheney,
dent's approval. In short,
dent's plane,
And if any took off,
concocted a phrase to include in the order to convey the
I
desired sense of menace.
One and
of them.
also called the Presi-
have Hardisty transmit the order
to
Andrew Card, John Sununu's
deputy,
—
came up on the screen and said, "Hold up the Vice President is getting new instructions from Air Force One." I already had instructions from Air Force One!
I
waited uneasily before calling Cheney back to
of the crossed wires. This was untidy crisis management. I
saw Quayle come back
into the Situation
Room
that
mean we can go?"
I
him
On my screen,
wearing an uncon-
cerned expression. "I've talked to the President," was
"Does
tell
all
he
said.
asked.
"Oh," he replied. "I thought you already had." I
turned to Admiral Hardisty and gave
hairy minutes
I
had been
in the
masters, a prescription for confusion.
buzzed the
airfield repeatedly,
would happen
him
the
go
and no Filipino
pilot
took off to see what
next.
cer
managed
and
his chief of staff.
was
For a few
The F-4S were launched. They
Finally, after dialing for nearly forty minutes, the
situation
order.
uncomfortable position of serving two
to locate Fidel
Ramos,
Navy watch
offi-
the Philippine defense minister,
General Renato
dicey, but under control.
De Villa. They Bombing?
told
Who
me
that the
was asking us
^ COLIN
444 to
bomb
POWELL
L.
we were
anything? Don't bomb,
told.
Within hours, the coup
collapsed without our getting further involved and without the F-4S
And we
shooting up anybody or anything.
learned that there had
indeed been forces loyal to President Aquino at the
days
later.
A
airfield.
few
General Abenina, the coup leader, 'said, '^We were about to
take over the government. Then the U.S. warplanes appeared.
We sim-
ply cannot hope to win against the stronger power of the United States
Air Force."
The night
coup ended,
the
I left
the Pentagon feeling good.
Maxim No.
applied Clausewitz's teachings, or Weinberger's
own
forming military advice: take no action
rule in
We
clear objective.
had applied
and
my
you have
a
restrained, proportionate, calibrated
And
force, linked to a specific goal.
until
3,
had
I
it
had worked.
A few days later, Dick Cheney was well and back in the saddle. After a
morning
meeting, he asked
staff
me
to stay behind.
"That went rea-
sonably well," he said of the PhiUppine episode. "But don't worry, you
From now on, the channel of times. You can be sure of that." I
will never be put in that situation again.
communication
will
be clear
could read between the the
White House
passed during a
When
I
read
as to
lines.
how
at all
There had evidently been a discussion
instructions
from the President would be
crisis.
Dan Quayle's book,
I
could understand why, after the
media drubbing he had taken over the previous months, he wanted look presidential.
But when Quayle's
it
was
role.
at
And
he did perform well in the Philippine situation.
over, his aides put a spin
The Los
to
on the story
Angeles Times reported,
".
.
.
it
that exaggerated
was a chance
to
shine and one that [Quayle] seized with gusto."
With the Philippine
we
Cheney would have
99 1 -1 992, and
for
and Just Cause ended
in
Panama,
could get back to redesigning the armed forces. In February 1990,
Secretary 1
crisis resolved,
my
I
hoped
to
submit a defense budget for
to use the time in
plan to reshape the force.
could with a
still
meet our world
label, the
the services.
to
win
his support
What I had shown him and
dent thus far had been influenced by
DePuy's operation when we had
between
the Presi-
my experience years before in Bill
tried to project the smallest
responsibilities. This time around,
"Base Force,"
fiscal
to describe
The question now was how
such a far
Army I
came up
minimum level
below present
that
for all
levels
we
*
when You've Lost Your Best Enemy could safely set that base. the
JCS
—
was thinking
I
terms that
in
comfortable routine.
I
office. I favor a light
touch with
my
you have absolute
finally getting into a in the
chairman's
which you can achieve
trust
and
who do
not mis-
members who take people who work hard
like staff
I
seriously, but not themselves. I
was
associates,
take an easygoing style for lax standards.
and play hard.
I
wanted a congenial atmosphere
whom
only with those in
work
knew would jar
15 percent, 20 percent, even 25 percent.
After three stimulating months as chairman,
their
I
445
I
like
long ago concluded that organization charts and fancy
office
my staff that they should go in and without exaggerated ceremony. I was well on my way
to achieving this
atmosphere by surrounding myself with able, compat-
titles
count for next to nothing.
my
out of
I
told
who did not lose their cool even when I was bouncing off the walls. And since I am not one of those managers who believe the new broom has to sweep clean, I happily retained a gem from my predecesible souls
Admiral Crowe,
sor.
to
handle media relations. Colonel
William
F.
Smullen. I
next took a look at the directors of the Joint Staff. These were two-
and three- star admirals and generals directly for the
who
ran a large staff and worked
chairman and not the Joint Chiefs. The chairman's more
made
powerful position
the Joint Staff an attractive assignment.
More
to the point,
Goldwater-Nichols had made service in a joint position a
criterion for
promotion to higher rank. Consequently,
recruiting first-rate talent. staff I
anywhere
think
it is
The
Joint Staff
became
I
had no trouble
the finest military
in the world.
important for a boss to be frank about his temperament
and work habits so stand and adjust.
I
that people
warned the
working for him have a chance
staff that
to under-
when I am preoccupied, I can be
short-tempered over interruptions or questions. In high-pressure situations, I
tend to snap into a single-minded mode.
focused, oblivious of the world around me. into the office without so
brought
him
to
mood
me some
much
my
way.
I
become
On those days,
as a hello. If
issue not immediately relevant,
keep out of
I
my I
I
intense,
might walk
executive officer
might growl and
tell
advised the staff not to overreact to these
swings. Ride them out, and
I
would soon be back on an even
keel.
The more senior I became, the more precious became my time, one commodity I could not stretch. I developed some simple rules:
the the
* COLIN
446 Staff
was not
ment,
or
trip,
And when
I
POWELL
L.
commit me
to
any meeting, speaking or social engage-
to
ceremony without my approval. Not even
did schedule a meeting,
it
was
to start
keep other people waiting are being inconsiderate.
who show up
people
ing in stalled traffic. I
instituted Kester's
every time
I
about as patiently as
late
And my
was
to return
to something,
I
I
I
tp a taxi
phone
knew of bosses who allowed
me
meter click-
calls promptly.
that a dated
me
that
me but the most innocu-
their secretaries to sign their
names to correspondence of substance, a practice Kester also taught
react to waiting for
created a legal document.
Consequently, no one should sign anything for
ous paper.
do
on time. People who
law on signatures. John Kester taught
my name
put
office
I
for five minutes.
I
never permitted.
document became even more
Consequently, no pre- or postdated signings.
I
sign only
legal.
on the actual
date on the document. I
ordered
ture.
my
prepare any "bedbug" letters for
staff not to
The expression originated with an old
Central Railroad.
A passenger writes to
story about the
my signaNew York
the railroad's president report-
ing his outrage at being bitten by a bedbug in his Pullman bed.
A letter
of apology comes back from the president of the railroad explaining the lengths the
company went to
and assuring the passenger
to ensure that
that
it
such things never happened,
would not happen
ger reads the letter feeUng pretty good until a ten note
"Send
from the president
this
SOB
the
bedbug
little
again.
The passen-
scribbled handwrit-
to his secretary falls out of the envelope: letter."
My staff might get a letter from some citizen with a gripe and draft a form reply for
me
saying,
"Thanks for your concern, but these things
happen"; or "Sorry, wrong department."
"Find out the problem and see writer
who
can.
As chairman,
if
But no bedbug I
stuck by
my
I
we can
would scrawl across
fix
it.
And
if
we
the top,
can't, tell the
letters."
old
maxim to check small things, reinwhen I had discovered the
forced long ago at Pathfinder school sergeant's static line unconnected.
purposes. trast to
It
reveals to the
Checking small things achieves two
commander
the real state of readiness in con-
And a general's attention know that his link is as vital
a surface appearance of readiness.
detail lets the soldier far
down
the chain
to
as
the one that precedes or follows. In running the large Joint Staff,
I
relied
on techniques picked up from
Brown, Weinberger, Carlucci, and others over the
years.
Every morning
*
447
room
for an
When You've Lost Your Best Enemy at precisely
083 1 hours
I
entered the Joint Staff conference
0830 meeting. My principal staff officers, mostly two- and three-star generals and admirals, about twenty in all, knew that they had one minute to avoid being considered
late. I
abolished the formal briefing format used
by previous chairmen, which kept the graphics off charts.
I
went around the
me what was that
signals
I
wanted
The meeting
ff the
all
night running
from five
and launch the day, rather than
had another more important purpose.
any penalty for
to thirty minutes. to resolve issues.
wanted the
I
tell
honest answer was ''nothing,"
to hear, without
lasted
up
and had the generals and admirals
going on in their area,
was what
response.
table
staff
I
this straight
used
it
to
check
The meeting
staff directors to
also
check
me out. Was I mad? Was I in a joking mood telling old war stories? Was I passing out cially if
comphments
infects the organization.
the leader's
same
or "dammits"?
something was going bad and
token,
mood is.
The worst
I
always tried to be upbeat, espe-
we faced trouble. The boss's mood
situation is
My staff could tell first thing in the morning. By the When you meet with people
could detect the same in them.
I
when no one knows what
every day, you learn to read them at a glance, you lem,
who needs help or bucking up, who
morning meeting was meant done
in small
groups around a
for
is
know who
has a prob-
expecting a butt chewing. The
team building. The serious work was
little
round table
in
my office.
In bureaucracies, small matters can have large symbolic value.
Al Gray, the
feisty
ument had gone
Marine Corps Commandant, pointed out
to the Secretary of
Defense over
my
One day,
that a doc-
signature on Joint
Chiefs of Staff stationery. "If you're going to send out stuff in the
of the chiefs," Al said, of paper before
it
"we
all
have to okay
went up." Al was
Under Goldwater-Nichols,
I
was
it,
I
needed a symbolic gesture
independence.
I
to
it
make
the point of the chairman's
I
threw out the old stationery and
pipeline for the composite opinions of the chiefs.
terhead
to the Secretary
made
did not
it
threw out forty years of JCS bureaucratic tradition.
myself
I
recommended anything. I would be foolish not to do
I
ordered a batch of stationery that had "Chairman, Joint
Chiefs of Staff' printed across the top.
with
never saw that piece
principal military adviser.
did not even have to consult them, though
But
I
right.
have to take a vote among the chiefs before
so.
and
name
that clear
and the President. and legitimate.
I
was not
the
was speaking
for
I
A one-word change in
a
let-
COLIN
448
initiated a
I
Increasingly,
I
POWELL
L.
couple of other
new techniques
for doing business.
had the chiefs meet alone without any
staff officers or
notetakers present.
Not very good
encourage candor.
also preferred meeting with the chiefs in
I
which carried
instead of the Tank,
body.
The
I
way
for historians, but a great
the
to
my office
baggage of the old corporate
JCS meetings.
also stopped putting out fixed agendas for the
chiefs did not mind, but their staffs did not like
Without an
it.
know what papers to prepare for As a result, the chiefs did not come
agenda, they did not
their bosses
before the meetings.
to
loaded with positions that they
had greater freedom
in
They
they had to defend.
felt
speaking their minds. Since
my
we no
office
actually
longer voted,
they did not have to go back to their bureaucracies and defend a vote.
Some
will
chiefs
more
bought
them
no doubt dispute me, but
I
believe this
clout than they had enjoyed as a
their ideas,
as strongly as
was ready
I
my own.
ation, rather than the
to take
them
new
style
gave the
more formal body.
to
If I
Cheney and advocate
In this way, their advice got real consider-
almost automatic dismissal accorded to the pon-
derous, toothless consensus reports of the past.
At
the time
we were
brainstorming a reshaped military
at
home,
I
had a
chance to see up close what shape our old adversary was taking. Jack Maresca, our ambassador to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe,
was involved
defuse East- West tensions. the
It
in organizing a
CSCE seminar designed to
was unprecedented. The
military chiefs of
NATO nations and the Warsaw Pact countries and nonaligned Euro-
pean countries were going
to
meet
in January
1990
at the
Hofburg
Palace in Vienna, where the Congress of Vienna had taken place in to
redraw the
asked
me
map
to attend the seminar,
and
I
agreed.
a huge U-shaped table and
saw across from
ted as a soldier even if he
had not been
He was
me a man I
in the
took
my
place at
would have
spot-
uniform of a Soviet gen-
who had replaced Sergei Akhromeyev Akhromeyev, in his staff. What a switch
World War
II
—
vintage, small, grandfatherly;
fifty-one, big, energetic, forceful in
In
1
Mikhail Moiseyev,
as chief of the Soviet general seventies,
8 14
of Europe after the defeat of Napoleon. Maresca
Entering the gilded conference hall on January 16,
eral.
1
my remarks,
I
wanted
to
manner and
make
a point that
and Moiseyev,
bearing. I
thought had been lost
ever since history had thrust the United States into superpower status.
*
When You've Lost Your Best Enemy With
all
our power,
was
it
still
449
not easy being a military figure under our
political system. "I was required to take an oath to support and defend
the Constitution of the United States,"
document "looks
that this
Army,
vice, the
times of I
ple
And
explained
I
my
at the military and, in particular, at
ser-
as a necessary but undesirable institution, useful in
and
crisis,
pointed out.
I
be watched carefully
to
pointed out further that
at all
from our country's
other times."
birth, the
American peo-
had resisted the idea of a standing army. One author of the Consti-
recommended
tution
a limit of
two thousand
And
troops.
George Washington's response: *'An excellent idea
—
if
I
quoted
we
only
can
convince our collected enemies to maintain no more than an equivalent
amount."
And
pointed out that
I
I,
as
my
chairman with
four
stars,
not the highest-ranking military figure in America. That person
commander ence of
in chief, the President, a civilian.
allies, adversaries,
was
was
And I reminded this
the
audi-
and potential enemies of the fundamental
purpose of American arms: "The American people have insisted that
when we have
to raise armies, their posture
must
rationale for their size
my
today,
This I
is
the
had
fore,
I
forces
Congress
way
it is
is at
in a
home
democracy, and
would take
tapes.
I
all
whispered
know
this
our Army.
no other way."
and nonbelligerence. There-
the
his aides distributed.
came
become
that little
had stuck
I
I
canned
my neck out claim-
a different place, while Moiseyev's per-
had changed.
concern to Ambassador Maresca.
man better,
Moiseyev took
off like a recorder spouting
was concerned because
my
it
here
the stock, stale, confrontational cliches, all
bound booklet
ing that the world had
formance said
to shrink
I sit
like the Soviet counterpart of America's knee-jerk
questions after his speech and
Kremlin
As
new chief of the Soviet armed when Moiseyev's turn came to speak. I was disap-
He sounded
neatly printed in a
ways
would want
I
tried to set a tone of conciliation
Cold Warriors. Out came
I
thinking up
was eager to see what approach
pointed.
must be defensive and the
be relentlessly examined.
said, to see if there
I
needed
to get to
was anything more here than
an old Soviet warhorse. Maresca arranged a small private dinner in his
Vienna apartment for utive assistant,
that evening.
I
took with
me Tom White, my exec-
and Peter Afanasenko, a superb Russian interpreter from
the State Department.
When our guest came we had the wrong man.
through the door that night, All the bluster
I
thought
maybe
was gone. Moiseyev seemed
* COLIN
430
warm and relaxed. We that at least
POWELL
L.
one thing
I
"Yes,"
I
in the Soviet
1958?" he
in
I.
Union, the intelligence
said.
*
answered.
"And so did
and he quickly demonstrated
to dinner,
worked
Army
system. "You entered the "Yes,"
down
sat still
You were married
in
1962?"^
^
answered again.
"And so was
You have
I.
was commissioned
a son, and he
in the
Army?" "Yes,"
me
said.
have a son
"I too
and
I
in the army."
said, laughing,
"But
I
Then Moiseyev wagged
have accomplished
his finger at
all this at fifty-one,
while you are almost fifty-three!"
That broke the
ice.
As
the
vodka flowed, the atmosphere continued
to
warm
up.
father
had been a gandy dancer on the Trans-Siberian Railroad who
Moiseyev
told us about his
never missed a day no matter
mother
still
of the Baltics came up pied nations
—
did
—
how low
hometown
lived in their
boyhood
in Siberia,
his
the temperature dropped. His
in Siberia.
the United States
still
Only when the subject regarded them as occu-
glimpse the old Soviet belligerence and
I
where
this
man's
He had lost seven uncles in World War II, Moiseyev said, who died liberating places like Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia from the Nazis, and now they hated the Soviet Union? toughness. soldiers
Toward
the end of the evening, he and
I
had become two old infantry-
men swapping war stories. I felt comfortable enough to start raising some questions. "We all know the Soviet Union's in the midst of change," line?"
He
said.
also
"What's the point of peddling
knew
from bases
pletely I
I
that the Soviet armies
in the bloc countries.
that old threadbare party
were going
"Why
to pull out
don't you do
it
com-
faster?"
asked. "Because the children have to finish the school year," he said.
The answer was so another that
I
perfectly understandable
burst out laughing.
through that night, but as
me and
said, "I feel
felt that I
hke
we I
I
from one soldier-parent
do not know
parted,
if
to
any of my advice got
Moiseyev threw a bear hug around
have known you
all
my
hfe."
For
my
part, I
had met someone hovering between an old-fashioned com-
munist adversary and a new army buddy.
Room Armed
21 18 of the
Raybum
Building, the hearing
room of
the
House
Services Committee, has a plaque in front of the dais that reads:
*
When You've Lost Your Best Enemy
431
SEC 8 U.S. CONSTITUTION— ART THE CONGRESS SHALL HAVE POWER TO RAISE AND SUPPORT ARMIES PROVIDE AND MAINTAIN A NAVY MAKE RULES FOR THE GOVERNMENT AND REGULATION OF THE LAND AND NAVAL FORCES. I,
.
.
I
assume the plaque
I
were
in
Room
2
1 1
to
Lay out
meet
it.
.
who,
On
February
i
,
Cheney
8 to defend the proposed Pentagon budget for
1991-92. In the past, determining what easy.
.
there in case anyone does not understand
of defense, controls the pocketbook.
in matters
and
is
.
.
.
.
.
we needed
militarily
had been
and come up with whatever was required
the Soviet threat
But with the Soviet military shrinking, we faced a
stampede by members of Congress arguing that there was no
likely threat,
hence no need for a large military. "Peace Dividend" had become a fashionable phrase. Since shifting
money
in
cuts in
it
did not need so
to schools or
before, President
and
we
many
guns,
we could
housing or crime prevention. The day
Bush had delivered
his State of the
Union message,
he had reflected the changed world by proposing the
American troops
in
first
deep
Europe.
Cheney and I went before mittees to promote the
start
the
House and Senate armed
Bush defense budget
services
com-
as proof that the adminis-
new world climate. Yet, as we left Capitol Hill, we knew that unless we came up with an overarching strategy to guide reductions, the Pentagon's political enemies were likely to come
tration
was responding
after us
to the
with a chain saw. Consequently, while
Base Force concept, Cheney urged
me
face the old threat
a specific airlift requirement to to
world.
We
Gap, but
shift
I said,
For example,
move
X
but
move huge still
maintain
we might no longer have
million tons of materiel to still
needed the
stores to unpredictable trouble spots
might no longer face the 8th Guards
we
from a solely
we had to
meet a potential Soviet invasion. But we
capability to
it.
and capability-based force. We might not
from the Soviet Union,
certain fundamental capabilities.
Europe
refme
my
members of Congress,
began promoting a rationale for the Base Force, a
threat-based force to a threat-
not embracing
to continue to
Inside the Defense Department and in talks to I
still
Army
around the
across the Fulda
needed the capability to project power elsewhere.
I
proposed forces capable of performing four basic missions: one to fight
^ COLIN
432
POWELL
L.
across the Atlantic; a second to fight across the Pacific; a contingency force at
home
be deployed rapidly to hot spots, as
to
and a reduced but I
made some
still
vital
I
did in Panama;
nuclear force to deter nuclear adversaries.
among my
early converts
kopf understood what
we
was
after,
colleagues.
Norm
Schwarz-
and so did GenerahJack Chain, head-
Command. Another powerful ally was General SACEUR, commanding all NATO as well as U.S. forces in
ing the Strategic Airlift
Jack Galvin,
Europe. The Joint Chiefs were coming along. Yet, the death grip of old ideas
I
was astonished by
on some military minds. The Navy kept argu-
Why?
knew that the Soviet Union was building more carriers. How did it know? Because sateUite photographs taken years before showed a keel plate laid down in a ing for
more
aircraft carriers.
Because
it
Soviet shipyard. Obviously, the keel was for a carrier, and therefore Soviet carriers were it
made no
coming on
still
line. I
argued with Navy bosses that
sense to believe that the Soviet Union was pulling out of
its
old empire in Eastern Europe, yet building a navy to rule the seas.
Today, the Russians are selling their aircraft carriers for scrap. I
was rethinking other
era, sitting in the
Chief of
verities too.
Tank with
my
Staff, for a briefing
I
remembered,
old mentor John
on a new
artillery
in the
Weinberger
Wickham,
this,
we
I
The new smart weapons were
became chairman we faced
nuclear artillery shell.
was not
It
Army had performed
sterile
by gas
injection.
safety problem,
me
it.
like accurate rifle fire.
Shortly after
the
The nukes were like an olda blanket of random destruc-
down
tion in order to destroy anything under
more
as foolish.
At
a time
as safe as
we
Then
the nuclear
wanted. Consequently,
bomb
That struck
when we were dismantling huge intermediateshould we be putting money into refitting
why
The Army did not want
to give
up
My its
argument ran into a
battlefield nuclear fire-
power. Hard-line Pentagon civilian policymakers opposed including Dick Cheney. that tactical nuclear
them
builders solved the
to reverse the vasectomy.
small tactical nukes of questionable value? v/all.
a problem with a certain
a vasectomy on these rounds, rendering
and they wanted
range nuclear missiles,
stone
Wickham
don't need to have messy tactical
nuclear firepower on a battlefield."
fashioned artillery barrage, laying
Army
weapon, the Copper-
head, which could be guided electronically to a target. argued, "With accuracy like
the
Still, I
me
too,
was becoming more and more convinced
weapons had no place on a
battlefield.
^
when You've Lost Your Best Enemy
On
February
stood on a stage at The George Washington Univer-
8, 1
Charles E. Smith Center, with the sensation of decades whirhng
sity's
by.
1
The
last
time
I
had been on
the spring of 1971, winding
Stephen Trachtenberg,
ation ceremony.
this
campus was twenty years president,
I
was back,
commencement speaker
began by pointing out
I
that this
wanted
to register
the world since
had
I
was
left the
at the
was
degree and that this one had cost the government a I
my
the recipient
winter gradu-
second
lot less.
The
the unimaginable change that
When
campus.
before, in
my M.B.A. At the invitation of
up work on
GWU's new
of an honorary degree and
point
433
I
was
serious
had swept
GWU
a
GWU
student,
I
pointed out, Nelson Mandela had been a convict in a South African prison.
A few days ago, Mandela had finally been freed. And before the
year was out, Mandela would address a joint meeting of the U.S.
Congress.
When
I
was
a grad student, 600,000 Soviet troops
stationed in Czechoslovakia.
Now
a playwright and former dissident,
Vaclav Havel, was the Czech president. business administration, the
had been
When I was
GWU,
at
studying
Warsaw Pact armies had been running them all the way to the Atlantic.
offensive maneuvers designed to carry
Now
the pact
was a shambles.
I
reminded the audience
George Kennan, the diplomat-historian, had counseled
that in 1947,
that if
we
con-
communism, the system would eventually fall of its own weight. Kennan had been proved right "The Soviet system shuddered and stopped," I said. 'And now we are watching it collapse." After the ceremonies, as I was getting into my car, I stopped for a moment and thought about the day I had walked from Smith Center to
tained
Capitol Hill, tear gas burning
my
eyes, to
watch hundreds of Vietnam
veterans fling their medals at the Capitol. While the largest
mass
arrest in
thirteen thousand antiwar protesters jailed in
had
felt
sion.
was
I
was a
GWU student
America's history had taken place, with over Washington. At the time,
deeply depressed about the public's attitude toward
I
my profes-
We had managed to turn that situation around. The challenge now to maintain our restored respect.
today's realities,
I felt,
Praise the Lord.
A
was
And matching
today's force to
key.
long shot was coming
in.
Not
that
Alma and
I
had
ever doubted the talent of our daughter Linda. But the laws of theatrical
supply and
demand work against even
the
most
gifted.
Yet here
we were
* COLIN
434
POWELL
L.
on a March evening,
dressed up, headed for Lisner Auditorium
all
The George Washington University
to
at
watch Linda performing with a
road company in Play to Win, the story of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball. Linda had a lead, as Jackie's wife. She
marvelous.
About for a
And
she was getting paid!
month
Shriver.
summer replacement series. While there, she was the home of Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife,
It
was a
thrill
for Linda, getting an inside
wood life. But she decided Hollywood was not to come back and pursue her career in the East.
me
Dick Cheney urged though he
to California
to film a
invited to dinner at
Maria
y
^
Linda got another break. She went out
this time,
was
still
peek
at
Holly-
quite real
and preferred
Frankly,
was
I
relieved.
keep pushing ahead with the Base Force,
to
reserved judgment.
As
part of
my
missionary work,
I
May 3 to two journalists covering the Gordon of the New York Times and R. Jeffrey Smith
granted separate interviews on
Pentagon, Michael
of the Washington Post. selling job.
ment
is
I
proposing? he asked.
Finally,
admitted to both that
"What I'm
I
I
had a tough
internal
trying to put across to the depart-
that the military threat is different."
a hard-news peg, saying I
I
told Smith,
Smith kept pressing
me
for
my story so far was too soft. What size cuts was resisted being specific, but
I
relented and said,
"Somewhere
twenty to twenty-five percent."
in the
Smith persisted.
neighborhood maybe of
On May 7, in a front-page story, the Post
reported that "the nation's top military officer" predicted a restructured military could lead to "a 25 percent lower defense budget."
prised at the fuss the
New
my
remarks caused, not only
York Times and
all
I
was
sur-
in the Post, but later in
other major newspapers, and even in The
Economist of London. Jim Baker, the wily Secretary of
which suggested
might be
I
Cheney's reaction.
He
State, called to congratulate
in trouble.
And
I
me,
was concerned about
too had publicly proposed cutting the Pentagon
budget, but by only 2 percent a year over the next six years after taking inflation into account.
contradicted.
"Pretty
good
When we met As
piece."
started rolling in.
chiefs
Dick Cheney was not a boss who enjoyed being
I
the
day of the Post
story,
Dick said
only,
the day wore on, however, second opinions
learned through the Pentagon grapevine that the
were unhappy;
my
cut recommendation had been too specific.
Conservative Republicans on the Hill asked Cheney
how
they could
*
When You've Lost Your Best Enemy
own chairman was
defend the President's budget when his shce even deeper. Our
NATO
complained.
allies
States
was ready
The next day
to cut so
he
saying to
could they go to
when
the United
deeply?
me
sunmioned
the Secretary
Cheney frown. "We have
How
defense spending
their parliaments asking for serious
435
to talk about
to his office,
what you
wearing the
told those reporters,"
said.
"Yes,
sir."
have to know
"I
if
you support the President.
I
need
to
be sure you're
on the team."
was taken aback.
I
"Maybe
ing.
reporter
was
I
I
made
the cautionary count-to-ten before answer-
spoke out prematurely,"
the writing on the wall.
I
I
said.
But what
regretted causing
had told the
I
him
a
problem
my being on the team." It was a tense moment, and the air was crackling. We by speaking out of turn,
I
said, "but there can't
be any question about
And we
both, however,
knew enough
tinued work on
the Base Force, and to achieve the 25 percent reduction.
to pull
Seven years had passed since
back from the brink.
started the
I
campaign
con-
to erect a statue at
Fort Leavenworth to honor the Buffalo Soldiers. Just before leaving that post, cial
I
had passed the torch
to
Alonzo Dougherty, an Army
and now a National Guard
could, but without
Commander
much
support or
money
what he
the project languished.
Then
Carlton Philpot, a black naval officer, reported to Leaven-
worth as an instructor Philpot
civilian offi-
brigadier general. Lonnie did
became
at the
Command
and General Staff College.
enthralled with the Buffalo Soldiers project.
charge of the moribund effort and breathed
life
back into
not content with a statue of a soldier on horseback.
it.
He
took
Philpot
He wanted
was
a park
He wanted a foundation established to raise money for a Buffalo Soldiers Museum and to finance educational programs in black military history. Philpot contacted me and asked me to reenlist in the campaign. How much money would his with a reflecting pool and the statue.
plan take?
what
I
asked. "Half a million," he said.
I
gagged, but agreed to see
could do.
I
Walter Annenberg, the wealthy publisher of
ambassador ter
and
years.
I
to the
Court of
St.
his wife, Lee, through
James's.
my
I
TV Guide, was
had become
trips to California
a former
friends with
Wal-
during the Reagan
wrote to Walter and told him about our dreams for Fort Leaven-
436
^ COLIN
worth.
He
called
POWELL
L.
back and said
that the kind of
memorial we were
ing about could not be accomplished with $500,000;
$850,000.
like
It
was not
the
news
I
it
talk-
would take more
wanted, but Walter did agree to give
we could raise a matching sum. fund-raiser. Money began to come in $25,000
the project an initial $250,000, if I
became
a part-time
—
from cousin Bruce Llewellyn; $50,000 from Zachary
New
able
York philanthropist and friend of the
months, Walter called again.
happening
He
Fisher, a remark-
military. After a
hated loose ends, he said.
campaign?
to the Buffalo Soldiers
I
few
What was
explained our modest
He believed in this project, he said, and wanted to see it move He was sending the fund a check for $250,000. We could worry
progress.
ahead. later
about the matching funds.
Thanks
to Walter's
jump
was able
start, I
to travel to Fort
worth on July 28 for a groundbreaking ceremony. field
I
where the barracks of black cavalrymen once
played and flags fluttered.
Among
stood in an empty rose, while a
the dignitaries at the
Commander
the stars that day
Philpot,
band
ceremony were
Lieutenant General Leonard Wishart, the Leavenworth general.
Leaven-
commanding
and Brigadier General Dougherty. But
were Sergeant Major William Harrington and
First
Sergeant Elisha Kearse, both ninety-five years old, authentic Buffalo Soldiers
who had
served long ago in all-black regiments.
their gnarled hands,
and
to blacks
Juan
Hill, all
els into the
who
I felt
connected
to
my
As
I
shook
past, to Lieutenant Flipper,
fought on the Western plains and charged up San
but invisible to history.
As we drove
the ceremonial shov-
ground, the story of those two old soldiers was a hole in his-
tory about to be filled.
Quarters 6
is
a substantial brick structure with a
at a cost
of $19,202 as a duplex to
man
1
set
on
The house was built in 1908 accommodate the families of two lieu-
Grant Avenue in Fort Myer's historic
tenants. In
wide veranda,
district.
96 1, Quarters 6 was remodeled as the residence of the Chair-
of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff.
Behind Quarters 6 were two garages,
my Volvos and worked on them. I also managed to persuade neighbors to let me store more of my adult toys in their garages.
where
I
I
parked
enjoyed bringing foreign guests to Quarters 6 for lunch or dinner.
Afterward,
I
took them outside, where America's history lay spread
before us. Standing on a broad lawn overlooking the Potomac River,
I
could point out the Capitol, the Jefferson Memorial, the Washington
*
When You've Lost Your Best Enemy Monument, and to
each
site.
and attach a
the Lincoln Memorial,
There was just one
A
glitch.
young
little
457
history lesson
tree stood right in the
And it was still growing. One day, Major Tim Livsey. "Tim," I said, "that
middle, marring the panoramic view. I
summoned my
tree
aide at the time.
has to go."
mean
Livsey looked stricken. "Sir, you don't really tree?"
He
ticked off the opponents
neers, public affairs officers,
I
would be taking on
finest
is
story,
only going to get bigger until
views of Washington,"
—
a
the post engi-
and budding environmentalists. And sup-
pose the Washington Post got wind of the
"That tree
down
to cut
I
he warned. it
destroys one of the
have
said. "Tell the post engineers to
it
removed."
The Fort Myer post engineers decided, just
to
be contrary,
think, to
I
schedule the tree removal for Earth Day! Shades of the plan to shoot
dogs to carry out wound research. Once the deed
tle
you explain retreat
and
that
let
you cut down a
I
made
how do
a strategic
scar.
And
to cut
get
it
all
down done
morning, when Otis arrived to drive wait a few minutes while
I
in
me
an hour,
I
told Tim.
else
seem
make
to notice
it
I
The next
him to lawn. The view
to the Pentagon,
wandered out onto the
the thick grass and could barely
strategy.
the tree, pull the stump, and lay
Potomac was magnificent, unobstructed.
Nor did anyone
my
called in Livsey again and laid out
The post engineers were
across the
I
done,
the matter rest.
A few weeks later, sod over the
on Earth Day?
tree
is
lit-
I
told
looked down
at
out where the tree had stood.
was gone.
Surprise, stealth, and
swiftness have historically been key elements in successful campaigns.
August
I,
1990, began conventionally enough.
out on the Lifecycle, had
my
standard breakfast, raisin bran, a banana,
orange juice, and coffee. Arrived
at the
Pentagon before 7:00, where
received the usual overnight briefing from the
me
Up at 5:30 a.m., worked
CIA
I
analyst waiting for
in the outer office.
This was, however, to be no ordinary day. In one respect, triumphant. For the previous eight months
I
it
should be
had been shepherding the
Base Force through the bureaucratic maze, fighting reluctant chiefs and service secretaries
and gaining key support from Paul Wolfowitz, the
who had reached own analysis. Dick Cheney, who
tough-minded undersecretary of defense for policy, conclusions similar to mine through his
* COLIN
438
L.
POWELL
kept an open mind throughout, despite early doubts, finally approved the
The
concept.
new
my
were mostly on board. Admiral Dave Jeremiah,
chiefs
was a strong fellow advocate. At
vice chairman,
times,
I
had been
discouraged by setbacks and had almost given up hope. But the day Dick, Paul,
and
became
I
briefed President
Bush and won
2,
The President was going
to
Aspen, British
prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, and give a speech tute
Symposium announcing
new
his
new shape of America's armed enormous, from a million.
The
The plan
strategy
forces.
was going
to
Aspen
Insti-
and the Base Force as the
The changes envisioned were
strategic heart, the four forces
the President
at the
duty strength of 2.1 million
total active
Base Force
where he would meet with the
the administration's position.
Colorado, the next day, August
his approval, the
I
down
to 1.6
urged, had survived intact.
propose would effectively mark the
end of a forty-year-old strategy of communist containment, a strategy that I
We
had succeeded.
were
to
go
had won. The next day, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and
to Capitol Hill to start selling the
Base Force
to the
armed
services and appropriations committees.
Also, this day,
had asked
I
Norm Schwarzkopf
to
come up from
CENTCOM headquarters to brief the chiefs and Cheney in the Tank on alarming rumbles along the Iraq- Kuwait border. I
went through the usual ceremonial hoops
in a
chairman's day, a
photo op with one of the Joint Staff colonels getting his
first star,
and
observing a parade in front of the Pentagon for President Gnassingbe
Eyadema of Togo. Later, I went to Eyadema. The State Department
Blair
House
for a luncheon honoring
liked having black African leaders
meet prominent African- Americans and milked these occasions for
all
they were worth. I
plowed through the
dinner. Afterward, full
of paperwork.
I
rest
of the day, and was
retired to
A
Iraqi
was
calling to tell
army across
7:00 p.m. for
study to go through an aviator's bag
few minutes before 8:00
rang, rarely the harbinger of Joint Staff,
my
home by p.m., the
good news. Mike Cams,
secure phone
director of the
me that Saddam Hussein had just sent the
the border into Kuwait.
h
e
t
n
e
5" A Line in
the
Sand
SADDAM HUSSEIN'S INVASION OF KUWAIT OCCURRED ABOUT NINE MONTHS after
I
had projected,
in
my
''Strategic
Overview
— 1994,"
and the Persian Gulf were the two world hot spots U.S. forces.
The
Iraqi
and Iran ended
that
likeliest to involve
army had made me uncomfortable ever
their
bloody eight-year war
in
Korea
since Iraq
1988, while
I
was
Once Saddam, with an army over one milto worry about, I feared he would look for mischief somewhere else. Iraq was nearly $90 billion in debt after the war. As a proportion of its gross national product, it was a sum that made the U.S. deficit look prudent. Saddam blamed Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for preventing Iraq from working its way out of this Grand Canyon of a hole. They had thrust a "poisoned dagger" into Iraq's back by busting
National Security Advisor. lion
men
strong,
no longer had Iran
the oil quotas set
by OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries, thus driving prices
down and reducing
Iraq's
income.
^ COLIN
460
POWELL
L.
Kuwait, he further charged, had siphoned off $2.5 bilHon in
Rumaila
field,
oil
from the
which the two countries shared. And he covetously eyed
Warba and Bubiyan, which blocked his wei-e not Arab brothers, but "greedy
two Kuwaiti-held
islands,
access to the Gulf.
The Kuwaitis
lapdogs" of the West.
On
a trip in early July 1990 to Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan,
I
found
these states optimistic about finding an 'Arab" solution to Iraq's financial
less
problems. However,
when
I
went on
to Israel
sanguine about Saddam's intentions. The
work. In Jerusalem
my
I
trip
found the
counterpart, Lieutenant General
the Israeli chief of staff, threw a party for me, at
Israelis
had not been
which
all
Dan Shomron, surprised the
I
some Bronx-acquired Yiddish. Word got out that I even con-
guests with
ducted a private meeting with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in Yiddish; not true, but too
Back
good
to deny.
Washington, during the third week in
in
Mike McConnell, and spread
my Joint
satellite
July,
Staff intelligence officer,
photos on
my desk.
'The
Rear Admiral
came
to the office
have deployed three
Iraqis
men so far," images. He could
divisions near Kuwait's border, about thirty-five thousand
McConnell
told
me, as he traced the
startlingly clear
Saddam Hussein's who were equipped with hundreds of modern Soviet-made
identify the force as part of the Republican Guard, elite troops,
T-72 tanks. Saddam's deployment near the border was ominous. But
what did
it
he ready
to
By
represent? Intimidation? Pressure? Invasion?
far
was
go?
July 24,
was concerned enough
I
MacDill Air Force Base
in
Tampa.
itarily in the Persian Gulf,
CENTCOM, Asia, the
How
it
If the
to call
Norm Schwarzkopf
United States got involved mil-
would be
in
Norm's
he was responsible for our military
Horn of Africa, and
at
critical parts
cussed the continuing Iraqi buildup, by
court.
As CINC of
activifies in
of the Middle East.
now
South
We
dis-
four divisions and over
100,000 troops. Arab leaders kept telling us not to worry. Arab brothers did not war against each other. Nevertheless, to
come up with But
if his
told
Norm,
"I
want you
a two-tiered response." Tier one should provide for a
range of retaliatory options "if tion."
I
Saddam commits
intentions turned out to be
a
minor border
more ambitious,
"I
infrac-
want
to
how we'd stop him and protect the region." Norm said. He already had a leg up on the problem.
see a second-tier response, "I'll
get started,"
CENTCOM had grown out of the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force
A Line created during flict
Jimmy
Sand
the
in
461
'A'
Carter's presidency to deal with a possible con-
between our then
and the Soviet army.
friend, Iran,
An enormous
amount of time and money had been spent on a bizarre U.S. response
army from ever coming through
stop the Russian
of northern Iran. After the
fall
the Zagros
to
Mountains
of the Shah, Iran went from friend to
enemy, and the likelihood of the Soviet Union heading toward the Persian
Gulf seemed far-fetched.
posed
attention to the threat Iraq
Military
men
CENTCOM, consequently, had turned its to its smaller neighbors.
enemy
look for three surefire clues that an
ing to attack. Is
it
moving
munications?
it
reinforcing
Is
By
and ammunition? southern Iraq.
I
called
come up tomorrow
its artillery
it
laying
prepar-
down com-
were present
three conditions
all
Schwarzkopf
again.
Cheney and
to brief
Is
is
forces logistically, with stocks of fuel
its
July 31,
forward?
force
''I
want you,"
the chiefs
in
said, "to
I
on your assessment
of the situation and your contingency plans." It
was
ident
the next day that
Eyadema of Togo.
Pentagon.
I
I
After lunch,
was impatient
uled for 2:00 P.M.
I
attended the Blair House luncheon for Pres-
arrived at the
Cheney. The chiefs rose, and off. I
I
to return for
we
Tank
had Otis whip
me back
to the
Schwarzkopf's briefing, schedat
about the same time as Dick
took our places. Cheney had
me
lead
quickly turned the floor over to Schwarzkopf, whose robust six-
foot- three-inch
frame and force of personality
filled the
room.
Norm
gave a sobering ninety-minute survey.
"What do you
think they'll do?"
"I think they're
going to attack,"
Cheney asked.
Norm
said.
He
a limited attack to seize the Kuwaiti part of the
Bubiyan
Island.
He
did not think
Saddam
Kuwait and topple the ruling family. Earlier,
thought
Rumaila
it
would be
oil field
intended to swallow
On that
note, the
and
all
of
meeting ended.
Dick Kerr, deputy director of the CIA, had given us the same
judgment. The Bush administration, however, seemed intent on keeping out of inter-Arab squabbles. During a meeting with
days
five ".
.
.
earlier,
we have no
Saddam Hussein,
our ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, told him,
opinion on the Arab- Arab conflicts like your border
disagreement with Kuwait." Afterward, the ambassador sent a cable to
Washington urging Iraq and
message
that the
Kuwait could to
United States "ease off on crificism"
settle their dispute
until
themselves. In a subsequent
Saddam, President Bush cabled
that his administrafion
COLIN
462
POWELL
L.
We had Arab states
"continues to desire better relations with Iraq."
was going
ing nothing
anything did,
to
say-
happen, and the United States saying that
if
was not our concern.
it
Several suggestions had surfaced in the State Department and the
Pentagon as
how we might
to
deter the Iraqis.
One was
to
speed up the
Independence, already headefd to the Persian Gulf. Al
aircraft carrier
Gray, the Marine Corps
Commandant, had suggested sending Marine
Prepositioned Squadron ships already loaded with Marine equipment that
were presently stationed
unless
we
were reluctant
in the Indian
to get out in front of the
taken had been to
fill
a request
Ocean.
and have no deterrent
had not considered warning
Iraq,
At
effect
that stage,
and Cheney and
I
White House. The only action
from the
UAE for two U.S. Air move
likely to
By now, I regretted our earlier political and military inaction,
although
Force tankers to help conduct
Saddam
strike terror into
it
invisible
publicly announced the purpose behind them.
the administration
we had
Diego Garcia
at
These moves, however, would be
was not
air surveillance,
Hussein.
clear that Hussein
would be deterred by token moves. After
Schwarzkopf's briefing, as Cheney and "Dick, this
is
serious.
not a
I
were leaving the Tank,
We can't ignore what's going on.
ident should get off a tough
message
to
off."
Dick was
as concerned as
ing bases at the
NSC
and State
to prepare a protest.
we
Before
could
fire a
I said,
think the Pres-
Saddam today. Even call him, but
him
try to scare
I
I
was and began touchBut
it
was too
late.
diplomatic warning shot, eighty thousand of
Saddam's Republican Guards were across the border roUing toward
Kuwait
City.
The President called a full NSC meeting for 8:00 a.m. the next day. Schwarzkopf was already back in Tampa. I asked him to jump on a plane and bring his maps and plans to the White House meeting. This was Norm's
first
wanted him
to get a feel for the people with
working. cused.
It
was
chance
to see the senior policy
quite an introduction.
As much time was
the price of oil as
The
crowd
whom
talk
in
acdon, and
he was likely to be
was disjointed and unfo-
spent discussing the impact of the invasion on
on how we should respond
to
Saddam's aggression.
The overhanging question was Saddam's next move. Would he taking Kuwait or strike Saudi Arabia next? Should Just
how
far
I
were we prepared
to
we
stop at
seek sanctions?
go? Before the meeting, the President
A Line had been asked by reporters replied, "I
The
am
if
not contemplating any such action."
House debut describing
Norm made
been overrun,
discussion did not
one about
this
dent,"
I
to end,
asked, ''should
his
White
his contingency plan for defending Saudi Ara-
come
to grips with the issues.
uncomfortable with meetings that do not arrive
saw
463
"A"
he intended to send troops, and he had
tier-one response having
bia. Still the
Sand
the
in
conclusions, and as
tried to get clearer guidance.
I
we
at
think about laying
am
I
down
I
"Mr. Presi-
a hne in the sand
concerning Saudi Arabia?" Bush thought for a moment, then said, yes,
we
should. But the fate of
diately for
Kuwait was
Aspen, Colorado,
give the speech
to
I
we had labored over
Base Force
went
to supersecure
to leaders of the
But
sight committees.
Bush
left
imme-
so long laying out his
new
national
Base Force. Cheney, Paul Wolf-
Room S
407
in the Capitol to pitch the
Defense Department's congressional over-
we
all
unresolved.
meet with Prime Minister Thatcher and
security strategy, incorporating the
owitz, and
left
heard was, yeah, sure,
right.
But what's
going on in Kuwait?
On
Friday, after the President returned
together again in the Cabinet
Room.
''It
from Aspen, he called the sure has been
some twenty-four
hours," he said, as he took his customary place at mid-table.
so
far,
though. Prime Minister Thatcher and
we can
I
He was
particularly pleased that
"Doing
see eye-to-eye.
I
expect in
one old mold appeared
to
have been broken. Mikhail Gorbachev had not treated
this crisis as
another East- West confrontation, with the Soviet Union willy-nilly ing up behind rity
its
fine
economic action
get our friends to support joint political and
the Gulf."
NSC
onetime friend Saddam. The day before, the
lin-
UN Secu-
Council had voted 14-0 to condemn the invasion and demand
immediate and unconditional
Iraqi
withdrawal from Kuwait, and the
yea votes included the Soviet Union. Bill Webster, the Iraqis," If
he
Saddam
Yemen
director,
gave us a bleak status report. "The
said, "are within eight tenths
stays
oil reserves.
cent. He'll
CIA
where he
And
a
is,
he'll
of a mile of the Saudi border.
own twenty
percent of the world's
few miles away he can seize another twenty per-
have easy access to the sea from Kuwaiti ports. Jordan and
will probably
extort the others.
We
tilt
toward him, and he'll be in a position
can expect the Arab
to
states to start cutting deals.
Iran will be at Iraq's feet. Israel will be threatened."
Saddam Hussein,
^ COLIN
464
POWELL
L.
Webster concluded, would become the preeminent figure in the Per-
sian Gulf.
make a response," Brent Scowcroft modating Saddam is not an option.". "We've got
"You
to
"When the Iraqis hit the Saudi border,
they're 5nly forty kilometers
"We
from
We have the potential here for a major conflict."
Larry Eagleburger, deputy secretary of urged,
"and accom-
Kuwait from Saudi Arabia," Cheney added.
can't separate
the Saudi oil fields.
said,
state, sitting in for
Jim Baker,
ought to go for a Chapter 7 from the UN," which would
authorize military force and economic sanctions.
on the phone with the Arab
"I've already been said.
He had
talked to President
Jordan, and King
we've got
He sounded
to get the international
Cheney turned the
Mubarak of Egypt, King Hussein of
Fahd of Saudi Arabia. "They
an Arab solution."
to
me
Schwarzkopf plan
to
leaders," the President
me they can find whatever we do,
still tell
unconvinced. "But
community behind
us."
review military options. Again,
for defending Saudi Arabia.
we could
put into the Gulf region in a hurry.
the Iraqis
had not yet decided
I
I
went over
I
described the units
was reasonably
to invade Saudi Arabia.
I
was
sure that
also confi-
dent that they did not relish a war with the United States. "But important,"
I
said, "to plant the
American
we can get embolden Saddam further.
soon as possible, assuming inaction to
it's
flag in the Saudi desert as
their okay."
We did not want our
Cheney and Eagleburger agreed. Scowcroft had taken
this position
within hours of the invasion. "We're committed to Saudi Arabia," the President said.
We could start alerting units to be prepared to defend the
country.
was worth going to war to liberate Kuwait. It was a Clausewitzian question which I posed so that the military would know what preparations it might have to make. I detected a chill in the room. The question was premature, and it should not have come from I
me.
then asked
I
if it
had overstepped.
was only supposed
was not
the National Security Advisor
to give military advice. Nevertheless,
tled with the politics
the White House,
I
I
now;
had wres-
and economics of crises for almost two years
in this very room.
I
had
I
in
participated in superpower
summits. More to the point, as a midlevel career
officer, I
had been
appalled at the docility of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, fighting the war in
Vietnam without ever pressing the
political leaders to lay out clear
A
we
objectives for them. Before
we
need,
I
*
Sand
the
in
463
how many diviwe have to ask, to
about
start talking
and fighter wings
sions, carriers,
Line
said,
achieve what end? But the question was not answered before the
meeting broke up. Later that day. President
my
dar,
States.
and
old racquetball partner,
They wanted Bandar
know
to
and we were
Cheney's
at the
to give
we
my
we
table,
I
United
understand the threat his country faced
come
to its aid. Afterward,
Pentagon. Bandar was coming over, he
his usual
his arrival at
Americanized, jaunty fighter-
from a foam cup and
stirring
it
with a gold
addressed each other in terms bordering on the
printable favorites including
"Bandar the Magnifi-
cent and "Bandar, you Arab Gatsby," while he This day
to the
him another dose of reality. On
pilot role, drinking coffee
pen. Ordinarily,
now Saudi ambassador
prepared to
Bandar played
office.
obscene, with
to
we were
that
Scowcroft called Cheney said,
Bush and Scowcroft spoke with Prince Ban-
did not kid around.
As we
sat at
called
me
"Milord.''
Cheney's small round
traced on reconnaissance photos the Iraqi forces practically on
Saudi Arabia's doorstep. Bandar studied them, an unlit cigar clenched
between
his teeth, but
"We're ready
he said nothing.
to help
you defend yourselves from Saddam," Cheney
said.
Bandar gave us a look of bemused skepticism. "Like Jinrniy Carter did?"
He was
come
to
referring to an earlier crisis in
which President Carter had
Saudi Arabia's aid with ten unarmed F-15
"Tell Prince
Bandar what we are prepared
"We'll
by bringing
start
to do,"
Cheney
in the ist Tactical Fighter
82d Airborne, and a
''and the
aircraft.
carrier." I
said to me.
Wing,"
I
began,
kept adding follow-up units.
Bandar's interest quickened, and he interrupted me. "What's that add
up to?" he asked. "All told," "I see,"
"We
I
said,
Bandar
"about one hundred thousand troops, for
said.
"You are
serious."
suggest you urge King Fahd to accept our offer to protect the
kingdom," Cheney concluded. Bandar his
way
starters."
to report
left,
assuring us that he
was on
what we had advised.
After he was gone,
Cheney brought up our
President. "Colin," he said, "you're
earlier
Chairman of
meeting with the the Joint Chiefs.
You're not Secretary of State. You're not the National Security Advisor
anymore.
And you're not Secretary of Defense. So
stick to military mat-
^ COLIN
466 ters."
He made
however, that
clear that
I
POWELL
L.
I
had taken
had spoken out
liberty for license.
I
was not
White House. What
at the
I
sorry,
had said
about giving the military clear objectives had to be said.
on the
Publicly, the President kept his counsel
had told the American people so
Iraqi invasion. All that
"We're
far was,
riot
vention. ... I'm not contemplating such action." That ters stood,
from Friday
until
On
followed.
to
ment, armament, the
Camp David
in
Maryland's
Saturday morning, the national security team
The centerpiece was
what we could do
was where mat-
Sunday afternoon.
In the meantime, the President went to
Catoctin Mountains.
he
discussing inter-
to
be a Schwarzkopf briefing in depth on
defend Saudi Arabia
—troops
required, deploy-
watched the President nodding as
air strategy. I
this big, bluff, articulate, reassuring soldier spoke.
When Norm finished
with Saudi Arabia, he added a postscript: "Now,
you want
Iraqis
and restore Kuwait it is going
to take
tional troop requirements running to the
.
.
."
if
to eject the
He then reeled off addi-
hundreds of thousands and a
timetable taking eight months to a year.
It
was a muggy,
were on
their
drizzly
way
our offer of help.
Sunday afternoon. Cheney and Schwarzkopf
to Jidda in I
was
at
Saudi Arabia to urge King Fahd to accept
home
in
my
httle study, feet
on the desk,
CNN as the President's helicopter landed on the White House lawn on his return from Camp David. A clutch of microphones had been watching
set up,
and the President approached them, walking into a fusillade of
questions.
The
reporters kept pressing
to take military action?
him on one
His face hardened.
point.
He began
Was he going
jabbing the
air
with his finger. ""This will not stand, this will not stand," he said, "this aggression against Kuwait." I
sat upright.
From "We're
not discussing intervention" to "This will
not stand" marked a giant step.
Had
the President just
United States to liberating Kuwait? Did he mean to do
and economic pressure or by force? Had
become the front-end option? Though we can never know what goes on
committed the
it
by diplomatic
a tail-end option suddenly
in another person's
had an idea of what had happened. After we had briefed him
mind,
I
Camp He felt
at
David, the President understood the resources at his disposal.
confident. His meeting earlier at Aspen, with the British prime minister,
A Line no doubt influenced him
too. Eight years before,
had a Thatcheresque
that "This will not stand"
He had consulted by phone own counsel, he had come
ring.
He had
however, was pure George Bush.
also struck
It
The
with world leaders.
ing his
to this
I
it
at the first
me
thought pro-
listened quietly to his
advisors.
revealed
467
Margaret Thatcher had
reversed an Argentine seizure of the Falkland Islands.
cess,
^
Sand
the
in
And then,
tak-
momentous decision and
opportunity.
turned off the television set and went to a
map on my
desk.
I
might
have just received a new mission.
on Monday, August
At 3:30
P.M.
He had
just left
6,
King Fahd, he
Dick Cheney called
"We've got
said.
me from Jidda.
his approval.
Fve
informed the President. Start issuing orders to move the force."
Unleashing the American military leviathan prise.
We
is
an
awesome
had already alerted the 82d Airborne Division
North Carolina, Third cal Fighter
Wing
at
Army
at Fort
headquarters in Atlanta, and the
Langley Air Force Base
in Virginia.
the air
Command,
the
armed
component of a sprawling
TRANSCOM,
Base
in Illinois
to the 2
1
st
Air Force
at
War
Tacti-
MAC is
system called
headquartered
and led by General H.
another classmate of mine at the National
Cheney's order
air
Command,
the U.S. Transportation
Scott Air Force
and
st
MAC, the
forces' Federal Express.
land, sea,
Bragg,
But not one
paratrooper was going anywhere until he could be airlifted by Military Airlift
i
enter-
College.
T.
at
Johnson,
He
McGuire Air Force Base
relayed in
New
Jersey and the 2 2d Air Force at Travis Air Force Base in California, our
East and West Coast
MAC nerve centers.
At any given moment, about 80 percent of MAC's planes are en route somewhere. tem,
all
say, to
When
a high-priority order
other orders are canceled.
Ramstein, Germany,
is
now
unload, and head home. This activity Scott Air Force Base, a
tem
plots every single
is
flashed throughout the sys-
A transport plane
flying spare parts,
to land at the nearest terminal, is
repeated
all
huge display board hitched
over the world. At to a
computer
sys-
MAC aircraft. Scott knows what cargo is aboard,
who is in the amount of flight time left before each crew member has to
the fuel remaining, the plane's maintenance schedule,
crew, and the
be rested and replaced. Cheney's order was going to divert hundreds of planes from what they were doing and eventually head
new
destination, Saudi Arabia.
The
MAC
fleet
them toward a
would zoom from 80
* COLIN
468
POWELL
L.
percent usage to lOO percent, putting aloft everything that could
fly.
Over sixteen thousand paratroopers of the 82d Airborne Division would board C-141S. Enough ammunition, spare
start to
parts,
and mainte-
nance equipment to support an entire wing of about seventy-two ers
would begin
would take
mammoth C-5
rolling aboard
fight-
Galaxies. Flying tankers
F-15S headed'towarS the Persian Gulf.
to the air to refuel
MAC would hire dozens of commercial air charters to round out the airlift.
A winged armada was about to fill the skies over the Atlantic.
And
security for this top-secret operation
The evening into
my
lift is
office.
I
was blown completely.
Tom Kelly popped When so massive an air-
relayed the order, a disbelieving
"They did
it
again!"
Tom
said.
launched, hundreds of classified messages fan out from the 21st
and 22d Air Forces, alerting bases, supply depots, and terminals
These orders
the globe.
at the
breach of security occurred
all
over
lower level had gone out uncoded. This
at a
time
furious over leaked covert operations.
when I
the President
blew up and
damn message! Cancel it!" it?" Kelly asked. "Do you want
was already
started shouting,
''Cancel the
''Cancel I
gave up.
I
would have
the flow to start or not?"
to ask Bill Smullen,
check the newscasts and newspapers and pray key
air base.
irritation. It is
secret for long.
The order morning the in
press officer, to
no reporter was
at
a
But a sharp correspondent at the Pentagon, CBS's Dave
Martin, broke the story.
my
that
my
to
It
was embarrassing.
nevertheless suppressed
next to impossible to keep so
The Republic,
MAC
first
I
I
told myself,
went out August 6
at
mammoth
a
move
a
had survived worse. 8:45 p.m.
By
9:45 the next
loaded C- 141 took off from Charleston Air Force Base
South Carolina.
We knew from CIA estimates that the Iraqis had at least a thousand tons of chemical agents. We knew that Saddam had used both mustard and nerve gases in his war against Iran. We knew that he had used gas on Iraq's rebellious
sand Kurds.
Kurdish minority in 1988, killing or injuring four thou-
We briefly considered
and then rejected sending over U.S.
chemical weapons. The Iraqi chemical threat was manageable. Our troops had protective suits and detection and alarm systems. In battle,
we would be fast-moving and in the open desert, might be.
A chemical attack would be a public relations crisis, but not a
battlefield disaster. ever,
not trapped as civilians
What
to
do about
Iraq's biological capability,
remained a more troubling question.
how-
1
A
Line
"Look, I'm not going to be briefing generals.
So keep
leaders.
With those
chart."
sent
my
simple.
it
graphics
I
don't want a
in
469
be talking to political
I'll
fistful
of charts.
directions, given late in the evening of staff,
*
Sand
the
want one
I
August
14,
under Colonel Tim Lawrie, chief of the Joint
Operations Division, back to the drawing board. The next day, President
Bush was coming give a speech.
I
to the
wanted
Pentagon for a briefing by the chiefs and
to
to seize the opportunity to lay out a troop
buildup schedule for the weeks ahead and
we would be needing from him
let
him know what decisions
at various trigger points.
Tampa to see Norm Schwarzkopf. Norm had been antsy. "I need to know where the hell this operation is heading," he said. I understood his uneasiness. As chairman, I could live with a certain degree of fuzzy policy. But the CINC, the commander in chief who was going to Saudi Arabia to direct troops, ships, and planes, The day
before,
wanted clear-cut but
needed
I
I
had gone
instructions.
to
The answers would eventually emerge,
to set the stage for the President to
The graphics technicians brought
provide them.
in a chart, simplicity itself, a line
graph, the vertical axis showing increasing troop strength, the horizontal axis projecting the
weeks through December.
to plant a timeline in the President's
know when he would have
My objective was
mind. This chart would
to give us the
word
let
him
to reach certain troop
levels.
I
had only a fifteen-minute window of opportunity between the end of
the chiefs' briefing
and the speech the President was
steps of the Pentagon.
Cheney arranged a meeting
to give
from the
in his office
with only
me present. We sat at the round me go ahead. I set copies of my chart before everyPresident," I began, "let me tell you how the buildup is going."
Bush, Cheney, Scowcroft, Sununu, and table,
and Cheney
one. "Mr. I
let
pointed to the current date on the chart and noted that as of this
we had sion
is
nearly thirty thousand troops in Saudi Arabia.
to deter
moment
"Our current mis-
and defend Saudi Arabia. Within a couple of weeks we'll
have completed the deterrent buildup.
Saddam from
We
should have enough power to
As troops and equipment kept pouring in, I pointed out, we would move from the deterrent to the defensive phase, starting in early September. By about December 5, I went on, we would have some 184,000 troops in place, and there would be no doubt we could defend Saudi Arabia. discourage
attacking, if that's
what he has
in mind."
* COLIN
410
The President
POWELL
L.
listened in his intent way, saying httle, as
took him
I
through the operation, week- by week, also making clear its cost, $1.2 billion through September 30 and $1 billion every month after that. I pointed out that
we
if
kept up the present pace, he would have to begin
caUing up the reserves; and he would have to make that decision within about a week. "Sir," jobs. It's
It
I
said, "a call-up
affects businesses.
It
means
jJuUing people out of their
means disrupting thousands of
families.
And very soon he would have to activate CRAF, the Civilian Reserve Air Fleet, which
a major political decision."
a contingency plan called
meant diverting commercial
aircraft to military use.
Six days before, the United Nations Security Council had unani-
mously voted a trade embargo against your goal sure
is
Saddam
sometime clear,
Iraq.
This prompted
me to
say, "If
only to defend Saudi Arabia and rely on sanctions to presout of Kuwait, then
in October."
It
we
should cap the troop flow probably
would take a month or so
for the pipeline to
We
producing those 184,000 troops by early December.
also need to consider a troop rotation based
got about two months,"
The President shook
I
on a six-month
said, "to assess the
his head. "I don't
would
"We've
tour.
impact of sanctions."
know
if
sanctions are going to
work," he said, "in an acceptable time frame." If,
then, he
was thinking of driving Saddam out of Kuwait, assuming
he could not be negotiated or sanctioned out,
needed
I
to
know some we would
time in October, so that instead of letting the pipeline empty,
keep
we
filling
it.
There was something else
are going to eject
while we're
Each
made
at
it,
Saddam,
is
to destroy his
we needed
to
know,
the objective only to free
war-making potential
at
said. "If
I
Kuwait
some
or,
level?"
option required a different force level and affected the timetable. it
time to
And,
clear that
make up I
I
was not expecting decisions now. The President had
his mind.
was thinking
Baghdad? Do we
we want to
I
I
was simply
to myself,
try to force
leave Iraq?
alerting him.
do we want
Saddam
to
go beyond Kuwait
out of power?
to
How weakened do
Do we necessarily benefit from a Gulf oil region
dominated by an unfriendly Syria and a hostile Iran?
The President thanked us
for the briefing
and headed for the Pen-
tagon River Entrance to a speaker's platform the White House advance
team had erected overnight. In
his
remarks to a large Pentagon crowd,
he thanked everyone for the preparations so goal:
far.
And
then he stated his
"The immediate, complete, and unconditional withdrawal of
Iraqi forces
from Kuwait; the
all
restoration of Kuwait's legitimate gov-
A emment." Norm and
man wiUing
sound hke a
On August
glanced
I
17,
at
with the Saudis.
He had
each
in
to
The President did not
other.
Riyadh
471
Sand
the
to wait long for sanctions to
Dick Cheney flew
leaving, but something
Line
work.
for further consultations
expressed no particular concern to
me
before
must have happened when he found himself
alone in his private cabin aboard the 707 high above the Atlantic.
me
called
at
home
over a secure radio telephone, sounding uncharacter-
istically agitated. "Colin,"
ers over there, "I
know,"
"We
I
Dick
and a wing or so of said, "but the
all
isn't a
knew
we do
is
damned
that too.
"remember what
dam
"we've only got a few paratroop-
aircraft,
so
far."
flow goes on."
provoke Saddam, push him to invade the Saudis? thing
I
we
could do."
But there was no point
Here was a rare Cheney
to get
said,
don't have enough muscle there to stop anybody yet," he said.
"Suppose There
I
He
told
who needed
everybody when
some people and hardware
in
worrying him
at this time.
reassurance. "Dick," this thing first
in place right
away
broke?
I
said,
We have
as a signal to Sad-
He doesn't want to fight the United States. I'm why we had to get those early forces over there. That's
of our intentions.
sure of
it.
That's
the real deterrent, sticking the
American
'Okay, do you want to mess with us?'
"But
"Not
if
flag in the desert
and saying,
"
Saddam moves, we can't protect the
Saudis,"
Cheney
insisted.
yet, at least."
"If they
were going
to invade Saudi Arabia, they'd
have done
it
by
I
answered. "Remember, Saddam's never had to extend himself
before.
He's always operated on interior lines of communication,
now,"
against Iran, next door, and fields are another
now
against Kuwait. But Saudi Arabia's oil
block away. He's never projected force that far across
open, hosfile desert. Relax, Dick."
twenty minutes, hoping fident,
I
was
right.
I
went on
in this vein for at least
By the fime I had finished,
measured timbre had returned
to
Cheney's voice. Everybody
needs a shoulder to lean on from time to time. reassuring to learn that the lone for
me
in the difficult
that con-
cowboy did
too.
And it was somehow He would do the same
months ahead.
The operation in the Gulf now had a name. Norm Schwarzkopf's staff and mine had kicked around a number of ideas. The image of a shield cropped up early. "Peninsula Shield"— too awkward. "Crescent
^ COLIN
412
Shield"
had
POWELL
L.
—too Arabesque.
just the right ring.
Finally,
we
settled
on a name we
Cheney approved, and
all
thought
the mobilization in the
Saudi sands to defend the kingdom thus became "Desert Shield."
As we
started to develop an offensive option alongside the defensive stance,
Norm and I talked about how to differentiate the two. Desert Shield, Phase II? Norm suggested "Desert Storm." Stdrmin' Norman's storm. It was a natural, and we all went for it. Schwarzkopf had by now set up headquarters in the Ministry of Defense building in Riyadh, the Saudi Arabian capital. He spent his days wrestling with the tangle of problems posed by putting a force in place to defend the kingdom.
I
spent
my
days funneling troops and
equipment into the pipeline from the U.S. end. The service chiefs had the key roles.
mary
While
their troops served
under Norm, the chiefs bore
responsibility for ensuring that these units
combat-ready. Since Schwarzkopf was the fellow CINCs, worldwide, were backing
By early
CINC
him
all
were equipped and with the
on the way, streaming
to airports
The President had authorized the
were already
and seaports
all
priority, his
the way.
September, the buildup was starting to reach
portions. Tens of thousands of troops
pri-
mammoth pro-
in the
Gulf region or
over the United States.
call-up of up to 200,000 reservists and
guardsmen, and many volunteered even before the
call.
We
could not
have gone to war without them, and they were to perform superbly. Four aircraft carrier battle
battleships
groups would soon be on
station,
supported by
and cruise-missile-firing submarines. Transport ships long
were reactivated. Hundreds of fighter planes, bombers, and
in mothballs
cargo planes circled the Arabian Peninsula looking for places to land.
The
light infantry of the
82d Airborne and the
ist
Marine Expeditionary
Force would soon be joined by armored formations of the 24th Infantry Division sailing from Georgia and the
i
st
Cavalry Division from Texas.
Huge bases had to be built in Saudi Arabia to receive this flood
of troops
and materiel. In this early stage,
would resort to war to
we
still
did not
fulfill his
know
definitely if President
Bush
"This will not stand" stance on the occu-
we had to have contingent strategies Norm and his army component commander. Lieu-
pation of Kuwait. Nevertheless,
ready for
all
options.
tenant General John Yeosock, trated
my former deputy at FORSCOM, concen-
on devising a defense of Saudi Arabia. The Air Force
came up with an
air
staff quickly
campaign, the brainchild of Colonel John Warden, a
A brilliant,
Line
in
Sand
the
473
ik
brash fighter pilot and a leading Air Force intellectual on the
use of airpower. Before leaving for Saudi Arabia, vSchwarzkopf had been
impressed by Warden's work and arranged for him to brief me on August 1 1
on a plan called 'Instant Thunder." "What
den
we
said, "is that
and control facilities,
attack deep inside Iraq,
propose. General," War-
I
knock out
installations, transportation systems,
and
defense networks."
air
I
command
their
production and storage
was impressed
Warden's
too.
approach could destroy or severely cripple the Iraqi regime.
But we also needed an if it
came
to that.
Saddam out of Kuwait, Schwarzkopf and I asked Warden to expand his strateair
plan to help drive
army deployed
gic plan to include tactical strikes against the Iraqi
in
Kuwait. Warden went to Saudi Arabia and worked directly with two Air
Force generals, Lieutenant General Chuck Homer, Schwarzkopf's
component commander, and Homer's
assistant.
air
Brigadier General
"Buster" Glosson. Warden's original plan would undergo numerous modifications and there would be
much
debate over targets, but his
original concept remained the heart of the Desert Storm
air war.
Schwarzkopf formed a ground-planning equivalent of Warden and team called the "Jedi Knights," composed of bright colonels.
Army
his
heutenant
The Jedi Knights were closeted and told to come up with a con-
tingency plan for a ground attack to kick the Iraqi army out of Kuwait.
In
September
had
I
go
to
Madrid
for a
NATO meeting,
airport,
I
and
I
On September
Saudi Arabia onto the front end.
to tack a trip to
Riyadh
to
stepped out of an Air Force 707 and
1
decided
felt as if I
The temperature was 105 degrees, and morning. At least I had had a good night's sleep on the
entered a blast fumace. still
early
When
I first
became chairman,
the Air Force
had provided
the
2, at
me
it
had
was
plane.
with a
C-135, a modified aerial refueling tanker with VIP accommodations suggesting a flying motel room.
The problem was climate
control, since
between the floor and the ceiling the temperature ranged from equatorial.
I
was always wrapping blankets around
head sweated.
And
I
usually
came home with
my
a cold.
I
feet while
maybe no longer up to presidential
my
asked the Air
Force for something more temperate, and they started flying old Air Force One,
arctic to
me
m
an
standards, but not
exactly no-frills transportation.
Norm Schwarzkopf had been in Saudi Arabia only a couple of weeks when I arrived. He now had the weight of the world on his shoulders.
* COLIN
414 and
showed.
it
I
POWELL
L.
asked him about troop
arrivals.
A little ragged, he said.
What about deployment of the enemy? We had them spotted practically down to the battalion level, he told me. He also set up a whirlwind tour for
me, the 24th Infantry Division, the
i
st
Tactical Fighter
Marine Expeditionary Force, the U.S.S. Blue Ridge
At
i
st
command and
'
control ship), and the battleship Wisconsin.
morale among our troops was high, but the desert
this early stage,
was a
(a
Wing, the
bleak, forbidding world,
hedged
in
by
Mushm
moral
strictures
uncongenial to GIs from the Western world. At one point. Prince Bandar warned me, ''No Bibles." "Are you kidding?"
I
inundated with Bibles from religious groups, and military trying to
tell
said. I
We were being
could imagine the
these folks, "The Arabs will take your sons, but
not their Bibles."
"Saudi customs officials will have to confiscate the Bibles," Bandar insisted.
We
finally
worked out
a deal
whereby we flew the Bibles
directly to our air bases, while Saudi officials looked the other way.
Then Bandar informed me Arab
soil for
that
no religious services could be held on
our Jewish troops. "They can die defending your country,
but they can't pray in it?"
I
asked.
"Colin, be reasonable," he answered. "It will be reported on
What
CNN.
will our people think?"
We
found a practical solution.
We
planned to helicopter Jewish per-
sonnel out to American vessels in the Persian Gulf and hold Jewish services aboard ship.
Bandar also worried about
crucifixes.
I
told
him our
soldiers
would
be ordered to wear them inside and not outside of their T-shirts.
But what about these American women, with T-shirts, driving vehicles?
There seemed no end
their bare to
Arab
arms and
sensitivities.
Actually, our service women provoked a mini social revolution. Saudi
women saw them
driving,
and some
they were violating Islamic law, the
Bandar and
I
made one
last
started driving themselves. Since
women were
arrested.
gentleman's agreement. If any trouble
grew out of sexual hanky-panky between an American and a Saudi, he
would
call
me
and we would be allowed
to
whisk the American out of
the country and take appropriate disciplinary action ourselves before
Islamic law clicked ries.
in.
American troops
duct. I
was proud of
This likelihood proved to be the least of our worin the region
had
less than usual rates of
miscon-
their discipline. But, frankly, part of the
good
A Line behavior resulted from another Arab taboo:
in
Sand
the
we had
*
473
agreed not to allow
our troops any alcohol in Saudi Arabia.
The big question on the troops' minds during my visit was rotation. How long before somebody else took their place? The issue went to the root of our
which
likely
meant staying
we could
long
in place for the duration?
leave tens of thousands of restless
I
wondered how
young Americans
baking in the sun, under Islam's prohibitions, wondering which
there,
way
commitment. Would the President wait out lengthy sanc-
which would require rotation? Or would he opt for an offensive,
tions,
their
government would go.
In Saudi Arabia,
I
witnessed the beginnings of a formidable force
gathering as our allies started to arrive, the British
committed
Canada,
forces, along with France,
first.
Italy,
The Gulf states
Egypt, Syria, and
others eventually totaling twenty-eight nations. Countries unable to
contribute troops helped finance the buildup.
We at
had been planning for
this
kind of war on a grand scale for years
NATO. But we had assumed it would be fought amid hills and forests
against a Soviet enemy, not across sand dunes against an
From
the outbreak of the crisis
NATO
I
had spent much of
my
Arab
foe.
time with
my
and other coalition counterparts or dealing by phone with them.
Every nation had an equivalent of a JCS Chairman answerable to political leaders, as
coalition allies
I
was answerable
who had much
to
Cheney and Bush. Luckily,
its
the
invested in this adventure had extraordi-
nary defense chiefs. Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir David Craig of
Great Britain and
I
became
close.
I
had
solid relationships with General
Maurice Schmitt of France, General Domenico Corcione of Italy, General
John de Chastelain of Canada, and General Dogan Cures of Turkey,
whose country was providing bases
for us.
Leading such a diverse force presented a challenge not unlike that
which General Eisenhower faced Europe during World War
II.
as
Supreme Allied Commander
Every country involved
sovereign and wanted assurances as to
Very possibly.
Norm
force, without offending
weld
this
forces
in the
would be used.
babel of armies into one fighting
dozens of heads of
Schwarzkopf was also a master
Arab
its
Schwarzkopf's greatest single achievement was
his extraordinary ability to
He had
how
in
Gulf was
lived in the region as a
culture. Big, profane
at getting
state.
along with his Arab hosts.
young man and was a serious student of
Norm could sit and drink tea with Arabs and
^ COLIN
476
POWELL
L.
exchange courtesies for hours with the best of them. He became a favorite of
and an
King Fahd. Prince Khalid Bin
air force general,
was appointed commander of
and became Schwarzkopf's link
returned
September
Arab forces had the
successfully. Khalid
was big and tough enough to stand
royal clout to get things done, and he toe-to-toe with
the
to the royal family. Despite occasional
two of them worked together
flare-ups, the
I
Sultan, Bandar's half brother
Norm.
home from my
trip to
Madrid and the Middle East on
Saturday night, looking forward to a quiet Sunday to
15, a
woke up early the next morning and went to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Alma was already at the table and pointed to the front page of the Washington Post. The headline was "U.S. to Rely on Air Strikes if War Erupts." It was the worst possible message at this time. The President was already being oversold on shake off the jet
was not
lag. It
to be.
I
airpower. In one meeting he had told me, "Colin, these guys have never
been seriously bombed. Bandar fold.
Mubarak, Ozal
knock 'em out I
me
tells
a couple of
in Turkey, they all tell
me
the
bombs and
same
thing.
they'll
We
can
in twenty-four hours."
understood his impatience.
He wondered how
long he could keep
the tide of troops flowing to a distant rampart, build an international coalition,
and hold on
swift, so
seemingly surgical.
though, so
far,
to public support. Air strikes are so tempting, so
full
He
you leave the
gets to decide
campaign
might be able
to
win a war by
no one had. "The trouble with airpower,"
the President, "is that
enemy.
We
—
air,
when
land, sea,
he's
initiative in the
had enough."
and space
—
to
We
remove
I
air,
had warned
hands of your
were planning a
the decision
from
Saddam's hands.
The source
for the Post story
was General Michael Dugan, who had
replaced Larry Welch as Air Force Chief of Staff just three months before.
Dugan
too had just returned from a trip to Saudi Arabia and had
treated the traveling press to an on-the-record interview for hours
an act of supreme courage, but not too prudent.
Dugan twice
before about statements he had
made
I
on end,
had warned Mike
to reporters that did
not square with administration poHcy. Within just ten days of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, he had publicly claimed that air
Among
the things
Dugan was quoted
that "airpower is the only
power could do
the job.
as saying in the Post article
answer that's available
were
to our country"; that the
A had advised him "the best way
Line
in
the
Sand
*
477
Saddam" was to target his family, his personal guard, and his mistress; that Dugan did not "expect to be concerned" with political constraints in selecting bombing targets; Israelis
that Iraq's air force
to hurt
had "very hmited military capability"; and
that
its
army was "incompetent." The Post piece ended by quoting Dugan
as
telling an F- 1 5 squadron stationed in the desert, "The American people will support this operation until the body bags come home."
Dugan had made the Iraqis look like a pushover; suggested that American commanders were taking their cue from Israel, In a single story,
Arab
a perception fatal to the
alliance
we were
trying to forge; sug-
gested political assassination, which a presidential executive order for-
bade; claimed that airpower was the only option; and said in a
way
lugubrious
that the
administration strategy.
American people would not support any other
Dugan was
not in the chain of
command and
should not have been commenting on operational matters anyway. His
remarks had been an obvious grab for Air Force glory.
been
pack more impolitic,
difficult to
indiscreet,
It
would have
and parochial
state-
ments into a single interview.
ence, the
down Dugan in Florida, where he was attending a conferand woke him out of a sound sleep. "Mike," I said, "have you seen
tracked
I
PostT
"No."
"Then item. I
He
let
me read you
something."
I
went through the piece, item by
seem concerned.
did not
who had not seen the Post article either. "We've him. He would get back to me, he said, after he
next called Cheney,
got a problem,"
had a chance
Cheney
I
told
to read the paper.
called
me right back.
"What do you want "I'll
do?"
to
brief Scowcroft,
I
"That was dumb, dumb, dumb," he
said.
asked.
and then I'm going
to take a
walk along the
C&O Canal," he answered. I
called
Mike Dugan
braced him. Brent Scowcroft, the Nation that morning,
administration officials tive
weekend
stories.
don't be surprised
Mike answered
him I had talked to Cheney, and knew, was going to be on CBS's Face
again, told I
and a
was
traditional part of that
to carry out
damage
appearance for
control against nega-
"Stand by to have your butt chewed,"
if it's
on network
television."
only, "Right, yeah,
I'm ready."
I
said.
"And
* COLIN
418
POWELL
L.
Scowcroft shot Dugan down, as expected.
At 7:45 the following Monday morning,
was working
I
up desk, going through the overnight intelligence
commuters phoned.
arrive through the
He wanted me
Don Atwood. said,
I
I
said,
fire
come up
make
him
to join
I
have
lost
sure the punishment
Cheney's expression
Deputy Secretary
ari^d
me when Cheney
confidence in him."
fits
I
the crime,"
I
said. I
watched
hardening concrete.
set like
"As soon as you leave the room," he
I'm relieving him."
and watching
talk about it?"
"Fm going to fire Dugan. "Let's
stand-
Mike Dugan."
we
"can
my
one-way Mylar window when Cheney
barely had the door closed behind
"I'm going to
"Dick,"
to
reports,
at
said,
assumed, correctly as
it
"I'm calling Dugan, and turned out, that Cheney
had already obtained the President's approval.
With Cheney, there was never any doubt when you had
My job now
was
hit the wall.
to start thinking about a replacement, since
would be out of his
office before the sun set
lier trip to the Pacific, I
on the Pentagon.
Dugan
On an ear-
had met General Merrill "Tony" McPeak, a
lean-as-leather fighter pilot, fifty-four years old, bursting with energy
and imagination. prone to
I
Cheney and
Don
to
that
McPeak was
a hip shooter,
ideas in one burst, of which three might be good.
fire off ten
Not a bad average, well,
had been warned
recommended McPeak to He was their pick as new Air Force Chief of Staff. Dugan was
as ideas go,
I
thought.
I
Rice, the Air Force Secretary.
and Tony became the
being replaced by another airpower advocate, one,
I
hoped,
who would
be a tad more discreet.
On September 24 1 went to Dick Cheney's "the President's really getting impatient. He keeps
Something was bothering me. office.
"Dick,"
asking
if
we
had
We
told
said,
can't get the Iraqis out of
Cheney
"Yes,"
him."
I
said.
air strikes."
"He's concerned that time
is
running out on
both understood the President's restlessness, even though
him back on August
to decide
Kuwait with
I
15 that he had until sometime in October
between continued sanctions or war. George Bush was
invest-
ing enormous political capital in Desert Shield. His administration had
come almost to tion.
And
a domestic standstill as the Gulf swallowed up his atten-
he did not think he could hold the intemafional coalition
together indefinitely.
A "You know how Norm,
the chiefs, and
And
is to
in
479
Sand
the
feel," I said to
"We
Cheney.
a force in place that can
going to take time."
that's
"So what do you want
"Our policy now
I
we have
shouldn't go on the offensive until
guarantee victory.
Line
do?" Cheney asked.
to
hope sanctions
will work,"
said.
I
But
pointed
I
out that by next month, the President had to decide whether to continue
we owe him
sanctions or keep building up to go to war. "I think
complete description of
would work,"
I
said.
how
more
long-term sanctions and strangulation
we ought
thought
I
a
to lay out the
advantages and
disadvantages so that the President would have an alternative to going to war. "In the
meantime,"
said, "the
I
buildup goes on."
I
had already
discussed such an alternative with Baker and Scowcroft. Baker had
been interested, but Scowcroft shared Bush's lack of
faith in
long-term
sanctions.
"The President's available over and you can lay
it
all
out for him."
handwritten notes before Dick and It
Cheney
this afternoon,"
I
I
went
said.
had time only to the
"We'll go
to grab
some
Oval Office.
was a warm, drowsy autumn afternoon. The President was seated desk talking with Scowcroft and Sununu. Secretary of State Baker
at his
and the other members of the national security team were not present,
was
since this
meeting.
a spur-of-the-moment gathering and not an
NSC decision
picked up a certain preoccupation in Bush's demeanor.
I
I
was
we had the President's undivided attention. He was meeting President De Klerk of South Africa later that day and negotiating
not sure
with
with Congress on a budget deal that would
new
kill his
"Read
my
lips;
no
taxes" pledge.
"Mr. President," Cheney said, "the chairman has some thoughts for you."
The President nodded
"Sir," I
began, "you
the offensive option." I
me
to proceed.
have two basic options available. The
still
I
for
we had
also explained the air option
in place,
should
another provocation requiring our instant response. "I that
we
I said.
continue preparing for a full-scale "If
you decide
first is
walked him through the mobilization schedule.
to
go
air,
land,
Saddam attempt still recommend
and sea campaign,"
that route in October, we'll
be ready to
launch sometime in January."
But there was
still
the other option, sanctions.
I
described
how we
could maintain our defensive posture in Saudi Arabia while keeping sanctions in place.
Even
if
we
built
up
to
an offensive force,
we
could
COLIN
480
always ratchet
it
POWELL
L.
back down
Containing Iraq from
to a defensive level.
further aggression through our defensive strategy
remained a
into withdrawal through sanctions
there
is
a serious disadvantage,"
when
with the Iraqis to decide
they had
war or
if
sanctions,
"Of
live option.
conceded. Sanctions
I
taught us that sanctions take time, cating either route,
and strangling her
left
course,
the initiative
ha^ enough. And history had work at all. I was not advo-
they
on
this day.
both options had to be considered fully and
simply believed that
I
No decision would be
fairly.
required from the President for weeks.
When
finished, he said, 'Thanks, Colin. That's useful. That's very
I
interesting. It's
good
to consider all angles.
have time for sanctions to work." With In his
that, the
Woodward
Oval Office. (He has
me
has
it
really don't think
I
we
meeting ended.
book The Commanders, Bob Woodward
ture of this scene in the ber.")
But
paints a dramatic pic-
occurring 'In early Octo-
wanting to steer the President toward a
aggressive course in the Gulf, but fearful to press
less
my point hard enough
because none of the other advisors present backed me. After his book
came
out, there
Guilty.
War
is
was a
lot
of talk about Powell the "reluctant warrior."
a deadly game; and
of Americans hghtly.
My
I
do not believe
in
responsibility that day
spending the lives
was
to lay out all
options for the nation's civilian leadership. However, in our democracy it is
I
the President, not generals,
had done
my duty. The
ident
was
right, if
make
sure
we were
In early October,
I
who make decisions about going to war.
sanctions clock
he decided that
it
was
ticking
down.
must be war, then
If the Pres-
my job was
to
ready to go in and win.
found myself standing next
to a Soviet general inside
a missile silo at Ellsworth Air Force Base in North Dakota, with the missile targeted toward his homeland.
recesses of
NORAD,
Colorado, explaining siles. I
the North
I
also took
him
into the secret
American Air Defense
how we would
Command
in
track his country's incoming mis-
was squiring General Mikhail Moiseyev, chief of the Soviet gen-
eral staff,
around America
in the
midst of the Gulf buildup. The task was
an intrusion, but necessary. In building the new harmony that Soviets both wanted, personal relationships had cially given their cooperation so far in the
The warm carried over.
feelings I
liked
from
become
we and the
critical,
espe-
Gulf crisis.
my first Vienna meeting with Moiseyev had
and admired
this
man. Beyond the obligatory grand
A tour of American martial might,
America, to feel
to sense
it,
it,
too,
I
it,
know
to
to see
48
1
everyday
the real strength of a
took him to a military installation or
weapons system, he looked bored
a
*
Sand
the
in
wanted Moiseyev
touch
to
free society. Besides, every time
showed him
also
I
Line
stiff.
we have one
"Yes,
only better."
On October had arrived,
I
i
.
the
day
after
Moiseyev and
his wife, Galina losifovna,
had rousted the general from the VIP quarters
Air Force Base and taken him to
visit
at
my favorite Washington
Boiling
We
sites.
had with us again as interpreter Peter Afanasenko, always a joy as a
companion and a scholar of the Russian soul
We began ferson
is
in the stillness
my
dawn among
of
special hero
as well as the language.
Memorial, since
at the Jefferson
Founding Fathers.
the
admired his modesty on assuming the presidency: dience to the work," he had said in his
from
it
And
in the
I
this station
it
better choice
it is
in
same message, he revealed a realism
who has been
about public office that rang true to anyone learnt to expect that
advance with obe-
inaugural, ''ready to retire
first
whenever you become sensible how much
your power to make."
from
"I
Jef-
particularly
I
there: '1
have
man to retire
will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect
with the reputation and favor which bring him into
it."
explained to Moiseyev the excerpts from the Declaration of Inde-
pendence chiseled onto the southwest wall of the memorial. "Those words,"
I
said,
"launched the country
in his
I
am
am
going to show you."
seem an unlikely hero
Jefferson might
American,
I
aware of the contradictions
me. As an African-
for
man who
in a
could pledge
second inaugural address, "Equal and exact justice to
whatever
state or persuasion," yet
own
slaves.
all
men, of
We all are the products of
our time, however, and as Jefferson once observed, people change, or
"we might as well him when a boy." else
I
require a
man
to
wear
still
at,
and then took him
clearly impressed him.
the simple wall cut into the earth
Memorial.
I
to the Lincoln
He was most moved,
which
fitted
Monument, which he
next drove Moiseyev by the Washington
barely glanced
the coat
Memorial, which
however,
at
our
last stop,
on the Mall, the Vietnam Veterans
showed him how we could
locate,
by computer, the name
of any of the more than 58,000 fallen, using
my
late friend
Tony
Mavroudis as an example. Moiseyev was quiet as we trooped along the wall.
At the end he
enough."
said,
"We need
to
do more.
We
don't
remember
COLIN
482 I
knew he was
L.
not speaking of World War
every Russian village.
in practically
own Vietnam,
Union's
and which
POWELL
his
I
took
poem
my
VA
thinking of the Soviet
families^ of the,dead to grieve.
it
The
wall brought us together as brothers in the profession of
we
served, '^content to
a soldier's grave,"
fill
goes.
him
guest to the Department of Veterans Affairs to give
we did for those who had borne the battle.
sense of what
over as
commemorated
government blotted from public awareness as though
arms, no matter what flag as the old
He was
is
Afghanistan, which had cost over 13,000 lives
had never happened, leaving only the visit to the
which
II,
officials
described GI benefits and
VA
a
His eyes glazed
But when
hospitals.
we reached a display of prosthetic devices, we had his attention again. "We don't do enough," he repeated. "We should do more." The war in Afghanistan, with the heavy mujahedin use of mines and booby traps,
had been I
on Russian Hmbs.
hell
took Moiseyev to the General Motors Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac
Assembly Center
in Detroit,
industry. Robert Semple,
Michigan, to give him a
chairman and
and when the tour of the assembly test track,
CEO
of
line ended,
where the company had
GMC,
and
of American
was our
host,
Semple escorted us
set out several
to a
late-model cars. All
GM driver to take
eyes went to a sleek red Corvette. Semple asked a
Moiseyev and then
taste
me on a ride in the two-seater, I waved the driver off
said, "I'll take the general for a spin."
had made a couple of turns around the
Moiseyev and
track,
and
I
I
got
in.
We
had the Corvette
pushing ninety, when Moiseyev gestured that he wanted to drive. brought the car to a halt and
we changed
places.
He bucked
speed sports car up to seventy and suddenly downshifted revving the Corvette to about 6,000 rpm. GGGrrrr!!!
never
wound up on any
At another
point,
dealer's
I
posed a
race.
A
the
Toward
the
Washington.
galley,
He
hope
this car
in
he decided to show off his
signaled
Cold War; but
The champ was Moiseyev from Moiseyev and
to first,
couple of cooks were peeUng potatoes, and
for a peeler.
We won
it
were inspecting one of our ships
San Diego, and when we reached the
Moiseyev motioned
the six-
lot.
Moiseyev and
proletarian credentials.
I
I
day
to take one,
we
Siberia over Powell
end of the week-long his wife at the
that
me
visit, I
lost the
and pro-
spud war.
from Banana
Kelly.
hosted a dinner honoring
Smithsonian Air and Space
Museum
in
On our last night together, the Soviets threw a caviar-laden
— A Line
By
and vodka-drenched reciprocal dinner.
^
Sand
the
in
48 3
then, Galina, or Galla as
we
had come to know her, and Alma had become as close as the two old soldiers. Then it was time for us to take our friends out to Andrews Air Force Base for their flight back to Moscow. Alma and Galla rode in a limousine behind me and Moiseyev, and afterward Alma described Galla's conversation. During the stay, she to the try,"
United States.
We
will not
my
be fixed in
October
phone.
lost the
6, I
was a
It
called
had had a good introduction
do not envy anything
Galla told Alma. "I
enty years.
On
"I
am
not jealous.
I
have seen
I
am just
Norm Schwarzkopf The
Riyadh over
in
Norm's button was
comer, and
and
phone rang
his
the President
in the right-hand
I
asked
in
Norm resisted:
because
haven't got the ground forces."
"I got
He
had
all I
do was
to
knew what Norm was worried divisions, a
use
if
we had
had only one corps, he
wamed
me.
about. All he had
Marine
to drive
no goddam offensive plan
still
pointed out. "I can't get there from here," he
Army
in the left-
attention-demanding ring.
we would
on the offensive strategy
point were four
secure
send a team to Washington to brief
to
from Kuwait.
I
it
Riyadh, easy as talking to the guy in the
Norm
the Iraqis I
my
was
President's button shrill,
it
And
lifetime."
beautiful system.
office next door.
wasted sev-
opportunity to do what you have done.
hand comer of the console and had a
punch
We
sad.
your coun-
in
division, an
coming
at this
armored cavalry
regiment, a British armored brigade, a French light brigade, a mixed
Egyptian/Syrian force, and a collection of small coalition elements all told,
just over
200,000 troops.
He would have enough
to
defend
Saudi Arabia, but hardly enough to drive out an entrenched Iraqi army estimated
at half a
million men.
Still, I
needed
to brief the President
on
what Schwarzkopf could do with what he had. And since he had maintained from the beginning that he offensive,
"Look,"
I
I
wanted
to
know how much more he
told him, "your air plan
White House needs
to
"All right,"
Norm said,
no, his presence
is
be briefed on
what the ground plan looks
him
would need more force
was
like,
even
it.
also
go on the
required.
coming together I
to
need
to
nicely,
show
and the
the bosses
complete."
if it isn't
"but I'd like to conduct this one myself." far
more important
in
I
told
Riyadh.
Schwarzkopf reluctantly dispatched a briefing team headed by Marine
Major General Bob Johnston,
his chief of staff.
I
wanted Cheney and the
* COLIN
484
POWELL
L.
White House.
chiefs to hear the briefing before taking Johnston to the
We
met
in the
Tank on
the afternoon of October lo. Johnston reviewed
the overall plan and then called
on Brigadier General Buster Glosson
Warden had
brief the air portion. Since Colonel John for
me
in early
August,
Homer and
to
laid out the air plan
Glosson^ had niade
it
even more
impressive, involving Navy, Air Force, and coalition aircraft and cruise missiles.
The
target
the Iraqi trenches in
list
stretched
Kuwait and
from
of supply and communication in
all lines
between. The plan was bold, imaginative, and
When
solid.
Glosson finished. Lieutenant Colonel Joe Purvis from the
School of Advanced Military Studies the Jedi Knights, briefed
on forces allocated so Marines would
feint
involved three feints and a main attack. The
an amphibious assault to hold
A
second Marine
would conduct a
end of the Kuwaiti-Saudi border. The main
would
divisions,
drive
down
Iraqi divisions
would take place along
feint
between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia just
multinational coalition forces
American
who was heading
Leavenworth,
at
on the ground phase. This plan was based only
far. It
along the Kuwaiti coast. the border
em
around Baghdad to
installations
in
from the
third feint
coast.
The
on the west-
attack, consisting of all
up the middle into the
Iraqi
main
defenses with the aim of reaching a key road junction north of Kuwait
We
City.
would be outnumbered and heading
straight into the Iraqis'
kilhng zones.
Schwarzkopf was had been reluctant
right;
it
was a weak
have
it
presented in Washington.
to
plan,
and
I
could see
more
divisions and a corps headquarters in order to
What
surprised
me was
CENTCOM could do if
He wanted two do a
better job.
and Purvis did not show what
that Johnston it
why he
did have such a force. But even with only the
one currently available corps, the plan was
outnumbered attacking force
into the
faulty.
You do not send an
enemy's jaws. Furthermore, an
obvious stratagem had not been addressed. Frontline Iraqi infantry were
dug
into
Kuwait and therefore could not
mechanized forces would not be
easily attack south.
The
Iraqi
likely to strike south into the endless
if we attacked them on their right and from the air. The curmade no attempt to exploit this vulnerable Iraqi westem flank. During the Tank briefing, Cheney asked a few perfunctory questions
Saudi desert rent plan
and
left.
He
did not look pleased.
with the chiefs what
we had
I
heard.
excused the briefers and discussed
We
held a
common
one-corps plan should have been prepared. Even
so,
view: a better
any one-corps plan
A Line was too
risky.
I
saw Cheney
later,
in
and he told me,
the
"I
*
Sand
may be
483
a layman,
but that strategy disappointed me."
He was
right to feel that way,
just seen a first cut,
something
better.
The next
day.
in the Situation
"Gang of
I
agreed. But
and we've seen
We've
it
I
reminded him, "We've
under Norm's protest. We'll get
got time."
still
Bob Johnston and his team presented the same briefing Room to the President and what was now called the
Eight," President Bush, Vice President Quayle,
Jim Baker,
John Sununu, Brent Scowcroft, Bob Gates, Cheney, and me. The plan continued to impress. But the reaction to the ground strategy predictable. Scowcroft, a retired Air Force lieutenant general,
over
all
my own
jumped
pointed out again that Schwarzkopf had unveiled this plan
it. I
under protest, and that In
air
was
mind,
I
we had
time to
had concluded
come up with something
better.
Schwarzkopf's senior ground
that
commanders had been so consumed with deployment and
the defense
plan that they had not given ground offensive planning their priority attention.
told the President that
I
Bob
relaxed.
effect that
Gates, however,
was
"General McClellan
we would do
better.
He seemed
heard to make a crack to the
later
lives," referring to the Civil
mander who would not budge because he never had enough
how many Lincoln gave him. called Norm the next day, October
War comtroops,
no
matter I
The
air briefing
Then
I
and gave him the reviews.
had gone well, but the ground strategy needed work.
said mischievously, holding the receiver
"You know, some people
Norm yelled.
13,
took the
bait.
"You
show him
"I'll
away from
my
ear,
are saying we've got a McClellan out there."
the
tell
me what
difference
son of a bitch said
that,"
he
between Schwarzkopf and
McClellan!" I felt
slightly guilty.
his ribs to
goad him
plan. After
I
to
hung
up,
I
had deliberately shoved the bayonet between
into thinking harder about our I
decided
it
was time
for
me
to
ground offensive
make another
trip
Saudi Arabia.
Cheney kept assigning me last-minute tasks as I prepared to leave. want to know the high-side number for an offensive force," he said. want to know when
"I "I
Norm can give me a go for an attack." He had a third
my notebook simply as "Prefix 5," my nuclear qualification code dating back to my Infantry Officers Advanced
question, and
I
jotted
it
down
in
^ COLIN
486 Course
at Fort
POWELL
L.
Benning
in 1964. "Let's not
"You know we're not going
said.
"Of course
Cheney
not,"
even think about nukes,"
I
to let that genie loose."
"But take a look to be thorough and
said.
just out of curiosity."
told
I
Tom Kelly to gather a handful of people in the
in the building to
work out nuclear
me. To do serious damage desert
I
showed
last
in the
it
destroyed. If
nukes on the
field
clinched them.
words before
offensive plan with a
little
I left
Schwarzkopf's war room,
in the
Saudi Ministry of Defense,
below ground.
five stories
a long table in the center of the
boards. Present were
for Saudi Arabia were: "Let's see an
imagination this time."
By Monday, October 22, 1 was
Army commander;
practicality of
cell
unnerved
tactical nuclear
Cheney and then had
this analysis to
battle, this report
Cheney's
in
results
one armored division dispersed
had had any doubts before about the
of
The
would require a considerable number of small
weapons. I
to just
strike options.
most secure
room
We
sitting
gathered
facing a wall plastered with
Norm; Lieutenant General John Yeosock,
at
map the
Lieutenant General Walt Boomer, the Marine com-
mander; Admiral Stan Arthur, the Navy commander; Lieutenant General
Chuck Horner,
Cal Waller,
the Air Force
commander; and Lieutenant General
CENTCOM's deputy commanding general. We talked a lit-
about the one-corps offensive;
tle
aside.
The
Jedi Knights had
it
was
come up with
still
a loser and quickly set
a two-corps plan that
would
take advantage of our superior armored capability and the helicopter
mobility of the loist Airborne Division. This latest plan also took
advantage of the exposed Iraqi western flank, but just barely. "Thanks," I
said to the briefers, but after they
do
Later that evening, he
made
available
came
told
Norm, "We've
still
got to
my suite at a resplendent guest palace We talked about how we might better
to
by the Saudis.
exploit the enemy's static position. in
left, I
better."
Kuwait. The sea was to the
south. In effect, they
ming
the doors shut
east.
The
Iraqi
Their
army was just
sitting there
own fortifications were to their
had trapped themselves.
We
talked about slam-
on the west and north and cutting off their
lines of
"We can use a heavy armored corps to roll fast and deep around western flank," I said, "and we can send the XVIII Airborne Corps
support.
the
farther west
and then north
to
block the Euphrates River Valley and cut
A off their lines of reinforcement
them out on
ideas, sketching
we were coming
strategy
stationery
to required
The next morning, we met again
from the United
division.
beefed up
I
I
States.
found
487
continued trading
in a
desk drawer. The Iraqis' disposition
us.
at
Schwarzkopf's headquarters to
Norm
repeated his request for a
agreed and said
We
*
Sand
We
no genius. The
flesh out our ideas of the night before.
two-division corps from Europe.
I
the
in
and withdrawal."
of forces practically wrote the plan for
division
Line
would
we would add
a third
Marine
also send another
his request for additional fighter squadrons. Aircraft
We had paid for this stuff. Why not use it? What for? We had learned a lesson in Panama. Go in big, were we saving quickly. We could not put the United States through another and end Vietnam. We could be so lavish with resources because the world had changed. We could now afford to pull divisions out of Germany that had carriers? Let's send six. it
it
been there for the past forty years
to stop a Soviet offensive that
was no
longer coming.
"Norm,"
Cheney
will give
worry,"
I
you anything you need
Schwarzkopf for the
my
to get the job done.
And
don't
added, "you won't be jumping off until you're ready. We're
not going off half-cocked."
this
understand that the President and
said, ''you've got to
I
moment,
first
"I felt as
shoulders."
As
I
spoke,
time since
I
saw the tension flow out of
I
had
arrived.
though he [Powell] had
And I went back to Washington
As he
later described
lifted a great
load from
feeling better than
I
had
in weeks.
was nearing 3:30 p.m., October 30, as Otis drove through the gate and pulled up before the West Wing entrance to the White House. I told him It
to let
me
then drive on farther and park.
off,
these occasions. the gate. If
House,
my
I
I
The
TV
I
played a
game on
little
camera crews were usually gathered outside
wanted news coverage of
removed them from
hand,
I
had Otis drop
the trunk
me
off,
me
taking
myself
maps
into the
If I did not
then discreetly bring
want
me
the
White to tip
maps
inside the lobby.
Of
all
the times
we had
had grabbed Kuwait, pulled together the
town.
We
had
this
gathered in the White House since
Gang of Eight,
to resolve the
crucial.
fundamental question
August and September: do we
Saddam
The President had minus Dan Quayle, who was out of
day was the most
I
had posed back
in
limit ourselves to defending Saudi Ara-
* COLIN
488
POWELL
L.
Saddam out of Kuwait? Or do we him out? Defend or eject? the Situation Room, which pleased me. Gatherings in the
bia and count on sanctions to squeeze
gear up to drive
We
met
in
Oval Office tended
on a bull-session informality; between cups
to take
of coffee and people gazing out into the Rose^ Garden,
keep a discussion on the
two options
succinctly.
it
This day, Brent Scowcroft led
track.
"We're
at a
was harder off,
laying out
Y in the road," he said. If we took
the route of ejecting the Iraqi army, that raised a critical question.
we
UN resolution
try to get a
could not get
it,
authorizing the use of force?
were we prepared
allies?
Jim Baker was about
cussed
how much more
to
to
go
to
embark on
And
Did
if
we
alone with other willing
it
a trip to Europe, and
we
dis-
help he could hope to enlist from our friends.
We next went over the supersensitive need to keep Israel out of the fight. Arab
If the
states
were
to
be held together against an errant brother, the
one thing they would not tolerate was fighting alongside Eventually, the President said, "Okay, I
set
my acetate overlays
The President
let's
on an easel
I
snapped on the pen-size
smiled. "I just got back from Riyadh,"
report that the
phase of the mission
first
is
went
company, the
into a detailed explanation of
how Norm I
said, "is
how we would go on
battle. let
I
began, "and
I
can
accomphshed.
By early December,
unit
I
was posted, and
After about ten minutes
new
a
laser.
pole will be in place."
where every
of describing the Saudi chessboard, here,"
last tent
intended to fight a defensive
I
just about
We'll soon be in a position to defend Saudi Arabia. the last division, the last
Israelis.
hear what Colin has to say."
overlay drop.
"And
the offensive to kick the Iraqis out
of Kuwait." The President leaned forward. This was what he was waiting to hear. attacks into
sweeping
from the
When
I
described the air campaign, then the frontal supporting
Kuwait
left
down
to pin
hook against
the occupying Iraqi army, while a
the western flank
would cut off the
Iraqis
rear. I
Scowcroft asked, "What size force are
finished,
we
talking
about?"
"We're approaching two hundred and phase,"
I
said.
"But
if
fifty
thousand for the defensive
the President opts for this offensive, we'll need a
hell of a lot more."
"How much more?" "Nearly double," troops."
I
Scowcroft asked. said.
"About another two hundred thousand
A Line "Whew," Scowcroft I
glanced
said, his
in
*
Sand
the
489
gasp echoed by others around the room.
He had not blinked. Dick Cheney added that whom we had briefed earlier, were all on board
at the President.
he and the Joint Chiefs, for the offensive plan.
Bush asked again about airpower. "Colin,
President
won't do
"Fd be
that
it?"
the happiest soldier in the
bombs
the
you sure
are
start falling," I said. "If
for deploying the
Army
turned
if the Iraqis
tail
when
they do, you can take the expense
ground forces out of
my
pay." But,
reminded the
I
group, history offered no encouragement that airpower alone
would
succeed.
We considered issuing an ultimatum to Saddam by a certain date:
get
we make
the
out or be thrown out. Jim Baker suggested February
we have
threat,
to
mean
it," I
We
and then he shut
would go
Iraqis
were
to
still
Just after the
announced
in
off.
in three
midterm
made
"We have to be ready He let the talk ramble a
to
bit,
it,"
months
sanctions did not
if
said.
to war."
as
was
his
We had a decision.
"Okay, do
he
go
work and
the
Kuwait.
that another
Gulf, and he tion has
war
it
"If
.
said.
Again, the President nodded. habit,
i
their
elections,
on November
President
Bush
way
to the
8,
200,000 U.S. troops were on
their
mission unmistakable: "to insure that the coali-
an adequate offensive military option." The howling in the
Congress was loud.
Was
this
George Bush,
whom some
manhood by
cized as a "wimp," trying to prove his
people
starting a
criti-
war? The
debate throughout the country started to take on the acrimony of the
hawk-dove controversy of the
On November
sixties
over Vietnam.
29, the United Nations
was scheduled
whether or
to vote
not to sanction military force to get Iraq out of Kuwait. Resolution 678
displayed the usual fuzziness of documents written by
many
hands. Jim
Baker had wanted plain language, arguing for "use of force." But the Soviet foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, wanted something less
naked.
A
They compromised on
bullet fired through a
"all
necessary means."
euphemism
is still
It
a bullet.
did not matter.
The
resolution
passed the Security Council 12-2, with Cuba and Yemen voting no and
China abstaining. History was made
that day. If
it
came
to war, the
United States and the Soviet Union would not be antagonists for the first
time since World
War II.
COLIN
490 The
UN
century,
POWELL
L.
approval capped an extraordinary feat of diplomacy in this
and the
lion's share of the credit for this
triumph belongs to
George Bush, superbly aided by Jim Baker. By the time Resolution 678 was passed, a remarkable coalition had been welded together, mostly over the phone from the Oval Office.
were contributing
By
no^y, thirteen
NATO
to the multinational force, including large contin-
Kingdom and France. Nearly
gents from the United
all
the
Egypt and Syria contributing a combined
joined, with
nations
Arab nations
fifty
thousand
had only just slipped out of the Soviet yoke came
troops. Countries that
on board, including Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Bulgaria. Poor countries, like
Bangladesh, Senegal, Somalia, and Zaire, had pledged what
they could. Thirty-five nations were providing manpower, armaments, or money. All told, 200,000 coalition troops
would be deployed along-
side the Americans.
UN
made clear that the mission was only to free Kuwait. However much we despised Saddam and what he had done, the The
resolution
United States had
little
years, Iran, not Iraq,
desire to shatter his country. For the previous ten
had been our Persian Gulf nemesis. and a counterweight
to continue as a threat
to Iran.
We wanted Iraq
Our Arab alHes never
intended to set foot beyond Kuwait. Saudi Arabia did not want a Shiite
regime breaking off from Iraq
in the south.
Kurdish regime spUtting off from Iraq only a
The a
rest
still
Iraq,
little
more than
was
still
half of the Iraqi
hostile Iran. In
army was committed
none of the meetings
I
knew
also
and
to
a
that
Kuwait.
to fend off
attended was dismembering
conquering Baghdad, or changing the Iraqi form of government
coming hoped
fury.
But
We hoped that Saddam would not survive the
his elimination
Saddam overthrown. The
was amazed, given
was not a
UN
the forces and
passed the sanctions exit,
would
down
exit,
lose, but as
the
standing,
had given us our marching
orders,
power now anayed against Saddam still
had not blinked. He had
the defense-buildup exit, the offensive-
and now the UN-authorization-of-force
kept barreling
still
What we
to stay within them.
Hussein, unmatched since D-Day, that he
buildup
stated objective.
a postwar Gulf region was an Iraq
for, frankly, in
and the President intended
I
We
in Iraq, able to maintain internal order
ever seriously considered.
with
The Turks did not want
in the north.
highway
to disaster.
He had
And know
exit.
still
he
to
that
he
long as he could survive in power, he was apparently
A willing to pay the price for his President's instincts return
work.
in
do was becoming
They helped,
in
Sand
*
491
dead
Iraqis.
The
As he
start.
weapon
interests
at heart,
at heart.
armory of
who have
the
because sanctions hurt the
most often imposed against regimes and the retention of power
would not
in the
people and the country more than the leaders. The problem tions are
his
meltdown of apartheid
for example, to hasten the
country and people
me on
inevitable.
South Africa. But sanctions work best against leaders
interests of their
told
sanctions
visit to the troops,
believe that sanctions are a useful
I still
nations.
to
the
in
Kuwait adventure
had been right from the
from a Thanksgiving
What we had
Line
that
And
is that
sanc-
have only their
own
since these leaders are
going to have a roof over their heads, food on their table, gas in
still
their tank,
and power in
Saddam was President
their hands, sanctions rarely
work against them.
the perfect example.
Bush had taken
to
demonizing Saddam
had Manuel Noriega. ''We are dealing with Hitler
in public just as
revisited,"
he
he said on
one occasion, and described Saddam as "a tyrant unmoved by human decency."
I
suggested to Cheney and Scowcroft that they might try to
get the President to cool the rhetoric.
but the demonizing left
me
uneasy.
I
Not
that the charges
were untrue,
preferred to talk about the 'Iraqi
regime" or the "Hussein regime." Our plan contemplated only ejecting Iraq
from Kuwait.
Within these
It
limits,
did not include toppling Saddam's dictatorship.
we could not bring George Bush Saddam Hussein's
And I thought it unwise to elevate public expectations by making man out to be the devil incarnate and then leaving him in place.
scalp.
the
While the country faced the prospect of war being driven I
home by
had been invited
arranged
Room
at the
was
a remarkable television event. Earlier in the year,
to a lecture
on the Lincoln years
White House. Afterward,
talking to a
that fall, war's reality
I
that the
Bushes had
was standing
in the East
young man. "That period
"Really," this fellow said.
fascinates me,"
"You know, I'm doing a
I
said.
television series
on
Would you like to see the tapes we've finished so far?" That is how I first came to know of Ken Bums and his now famous documentary. My family was so moved by the tapes Ken sent that I told the President how we had been glued to the television set for hours. He
the Civil War.
asked to see them.
I
sent the tapes to the
White House, and he and Bar-
^ COLIN
492
POWELL
L.
bara were so impressed that After
Ken Burns
September 23,
gift.
it
me
them back.
to get
me a complete set. I gave who presented them to Norm Schwarzkopf as a From the moment the program aired nationally on
finished the series, he sent
the tapes to Cheney,
1990 Christmas
took forever for
it
held the country spellbouncj for fiye nights. "At least
now people know what war is about," I said to Norm during one of our 'It's damn good they do," he answered, as his own
phone conversations.
preparations accelerated.
Ken Bums's Civil War renewed his deterhold down casualties to the minimum. Thanks to Bums's
Schwarzkopf later wrote mination to artistry,
millions of Americans understood that, yes,
high principles, but
Norm ally full
that
you should not go
into
it
you went
in transoceanic shouting
of barracks profanity.
war
for
with any romantic illusions.
Schwarzkopf, under pressure, was an active volcano.
found myself
to
I
occasion-
matches with him
The cussing meant
that
were
The anger
nothing.
passed, the mutual respect continued, and a deepening affection grew.
I
recognized the root of his rages. Blowing up acted as a safety valve for
from him, yet
his frustrations. His subordinates took plenty of heat
remained fiercely
However,
loyal.
his exasperations,
which were
real
enough, he also vented upward, principally his conviction that his position
and
his needs
he going to
in Washington. Who was The Secretary of Defense? The President of the
were not always understood
against?
rail
United States? So he blew up I
that
understood
we had
but
this;
the right
after his first trip to
at
me.
Cheney occasionally required
man
in
Riyadh. Dick
Saudi Arabia with
is
Norm
a
man
to sell
my
reassurance
of plain
style,
and
King Fahd on ask-
ing for our help, he mentioned a couple of incidents to
me that had both-
ered him. During the fifteen-hour flight to the Saudi capital, passengers
had formed a major had
line to get into the
finally
worked his way
called out, "General!"
same
trip,
Cheney
bathroom. According to Cheney, a
to the front,
He had been
said that he
and when he got
had seen a colonel on
his
he
there,
keeping a place for Norm.
On
the
hands and
knees on the floor of the plane, pressing Schwarzkopf's uniform. After that
Norm. Most
trip
and on subsequent occasions, Cheney asked
recently,
know. The presidency
he had is
said,
riding
dent about Schwarzkopf?"
on
"This
is
this one.
me
about
for all the marbles,
Are you absolutely
you
confi-
A Line
in
*
Sand
the
493
There was nothing particularly subversive about Cheney's question. Inevitably, reports of
back
to
Norm's rough treatment of subordinates seeped
Norm
Washington. Cheney dealt with
him every
talking with
day. Consequently,
infrequently, while
Dick
relied
on
I
was
my judgment.
him that my faith in Norm was total. Still, a good commander always has a replacement in the back of his mind. People have heart attacks. They step in front of buses. A soldier takes a hit. Norm, under enormous pressure, was not immune. He had I
told
already that
come down with
the flu a couple of times. Once,
he go off and give himself a
rest.
For
all his
I
had
to insist
pyrotechnics and
histri-
Norm was a brilliant officer, a born leader, and a skilled diplomat in the region. He was the right man in the right place and I was onics, however.
happy
to reassure
Cheney from time
to time.
On Monday, December 3, Cheney and I testified on Desert Shield before the Senate Armed Services Committee, a fairly tough sell, since Sam Nunn, the chairman, opposed going sanctions a hard ride.
much
Nunn reasoned
war over Kuwait without giving
that sanctions should
time to work as they required, which seemed to
tunnel with no end. I
to
power
be given as
like entering a
reviewed the progress of the coalition buildup, and
I
gave a cold, hard appraisal of what
military
me
in the world.
we faced.
Iraq
was
the fourth-largest
Saddam's forces deployed
in
and around
Kuwait numbered over 450,000 men, 3,800 tanks, and 2,500
had announced
pieces; plus he troops. Also, ical arsenal
came,
I
hanging
his intention to send another
like a specter
artillery
250,000
over the desert was the Iraqi biolog-
and Saddam's feverish drive for nuclear capabiUty.
had no intention of letting anyone on
that
committee think
If
war
it
was
going to be a cakewalk.
That night,
I
flew to
S. Churchill, a
London with Alma.
member
Sir Winston, to address
liamentary
Group
of the House of
MPs
I
had been invited by Winston
Commons and
and members of the
in the Palace
the grandson of
British- American Par-
of Westminster. The room where
resembled a miniature Chamber of the House of
Commons, and
I
spoke
there
I
As
I
described the operations in the Gulf and the Base Force concept.
spoke in father,
this seat
bom
as
before me, and
of Western democracy, the image of
humble I
my
mother and
British subjects in a tiny tropical colony, flashed
wished they could see where
fate
had taken
their son.
^ COLIN
494
was curious about
I
POWELL
L.
the
man I was
to
meet
next, in office at this point
whom I turned out to be his first foreign visitor. John Major greeted me, my executive assistant, Colonel Dick Chilcoat, the British secretary of state for defense, Tom King, and my for less than a week,
and for
counterpart, British chief of defense staff. Marshal of the Royal Air
Force Sir David Craig, in a forty-seven,
was
sitting
room at lo Downing and
boyish- looking
Major,
from
switch
a
quite
Street.
at
the
redoubtable Mrs. Thatcher. Underneath the PM's mild exterior, however,
I
detected a steehness. Major shot quick questions at me.
the training going in the Gulf? attack?
How
How
would
the Iraqis
long would that campaign last?
soon as he caught the whispered in his
ear.
drift
and
He
The prime minister had to
respond to the
cut off
fired his next round.
How was
my
air
answers as
An aide came in and
leave.
He ended the con-
versation cordially but briskly.
Underneath the high drama of preparing for war, the bizarre also went
What, for example, did one horse
on.
mobilization in the Persian Gulf?
in
Minnesota have
The wild card
to
do with our
in this conflict
whether or not the Iraqis might resort to germ warfare.
I
was
assigned
Brigadier General John Jumper to oversee our defenses against chemical
and biological weapons, which Jumper did as head of a team dubbed
'*Bugs and Gases."
sessed
only
One
was botulinum
way
to neutralize
biological agent
toxin, its
we
believed the Iraqis pos-
one of the deadliest known to man. The
lethal paralytic effects
body produced by one old horse named
was through an
anti-
First Flight, stabled at the Vet-
erinary College of the University of Minnesota. First Flight had so far
produced some three hundred
liters
of antibody plasma, a valiant
effort,
but a drop in the bucket given the forces to be inoculated,
approaching half a million. Johnny Jumper and his team
now
recruited
another hundred horses to produce antibodies against botulinum toxin
and
to give First Flight a rest.
We hit other bumps on the road to readiness. Early in the buildup, the Saudis
made
a simple pronouncement.
any reporters into
their country. That,
They were not going
we knew,
to allow
could not stand. You do
not send nearly half a million Americans, plus thousands of other nationals, halfway
around the world
to prepare for a
major war and then
impose a news blackout. We implored the Saudis to issue press visas. They grudgingly admitted a handful of correspondents. Some favorable
A Line news
Maybe,
stories followed.
were
right.
And
became
a
letters
Sand
the Saudis reasoned, the
49 5
'k
Americans
some 2,500 correspondents eventually
major headache for
Mail began clogging the mas,
the
they then opened the floodgates to a point where han-
dling the press crush, with accredited,
in
Norm
Schwarzkopf.
As we approached Christswamped the military postal sys-
arteries of war.
and packages to the troops
tem. Everything imaginable and unimaginable arrived, insect repellent,
suntan lotion, frozen pizzas, Christmas trees, wiffle balls, surgical
and lollipops (200,000 of them).
gloves, Frisbees, Passover food,
Arnold Schwarzenegger begged
me to let him
send a planeload of Life-
cycles and weight-lifting gear to keep the troops in fighting trim.
we were moving ammunition make room for his gift later, which we did.
explained to Arnold that
would
try to
The
letters sent
volume
to sink a troop transport.
Thousands of generic
with addresses like "Any Soldier schoolteacher the troops.
A
graphic detail
who poured
in sufficient
letters arrived
USA." One had been
her heart out telling
week and
that
by schoolkids were touching but came
how proud
sent
by a
she was of
hormonally hopped-up soldier wrote back describing
how he would
like to
I
in
repay her kind words. She com-
we had to send a letter to the lad's commanding officer teUing him to have his men knock off any fur-
plained to the Defense Department, and
ther
heavy breathing by mail.
The deluge reached
a point where every day
we were filling
four C-5 Galaxies, those flying warehouses, just to
and
gifts to the troops.
We tried to deliver everything,
important to morale on the front.
American
wanted
to
civilians
make up
home
front as
it
and
was on
because
the
it
was
as
imminent war
were rallying around the troops as though they
for the neglect during the
sion of yellow ribbons
three
accommodate mail
on
trees,
national unity not felt since
Vietnam
years.
The explo-
homes, jackets, and blouses recalled a
World War
II.
We
welcomed morale-building USO entertainers, but other visiting firemen became too much. Members of Congress on fact-finding trips began to show up at all hours, chewing up Schwarzkopf's priceless time to a point
where Cheney had
to
go
to the Hill
and put a stop
to
it.
We
rationed congressional visits to one delegation per week.
Even
in the
grimmest of enterprises there are tension breakers. At one
point, the tabloid National
Enquirer ran a story headlined "Bush and
Saddam Are Cousins" and
offered genealogical
"proof
that not only
* COLIN
496
was George Bush
Bush
President
sades." This
it
related to the
share a
common
news prompted
national security
by
POWELL
L.
memo
the President to circulate a
"No
to the
make will be affected with Saddam Hussein. Th^ Quean and I would have
team
my relationship
queen of England, but "Hussein and
ancestry dating back at least to the cru-
that said,
decisions
I
no other way."
Lawyers got
into the act.
We
could not complete a
list
of
air targets
until the
Pentagon general counsel's office approved. In one prelimi-
nary
we had targeted a triumphal
list,
victory over Iran in the eight-year
arch celebrating Iraq's proclaimed
war and a huge
Saddam,
statue of
my legal advisor, came to see me
both in Baghdad. Colonel Fred Green,
with a battery of lawyers. They had gone over the
and approved
list
everything except the arch and the statue. "Sorry, General," Fred said,
"you can't touch them."
"Why
not?"
I
asked, puzzled.
"You'd be bombing cultural landmarks of no military significance." "Cultural landmarks!
Gimme a break.
I
want
show
to
his people Sad-
dam's not out of bounds." "Can't do
General," Green said. "It would be like
it,
ing the Lincoln
someone bomb-
Memorial or the Washington Monument.
It
contravenes
international laws governing the conduct of war."
The arch and
the statue
were crossed off the
target
When
list.
I
explained what had happened to Cheney, he shook his head and muttered,
We
"Lawyers running a war?" ran into unexpected problems in getting the sinews of battle
shipped from U.S. and European ports to the Gulf. panies
demanded exorbitant premiums
ing into a potential
coverage.
war zone.
to cover
Some
commercial vessels
materiel, nevertheless,
we
weeks of Desert
than in the
months of the Korean War. The
for this miracle of logistics
Pagonis, an
Army major
Shield,
belonged to a
short,
had spotted Pagonis as a comer when he was
Need
still
more
No
lion's share
of credit
wiry dynamo named Gus
still
I
a lieutenant colonel
shelter for the troops in the baking desert?
to provide the
shelter?
stupe-
general and the Desert Shield logistics chief.
Nothing daunted the man.
Get the West Germans
was
brought in more tonnage
fying. In the first six
three
sail-
We had to beat them down or find cheaper
The flow of manpower and first
insurance com-
huge
Get the Saudis
tents they
used for
festivals.
to lend the colorful tents they
used for hundreds of thousands of Muslims making the annual pilgrim-
A Line
in
the
49
Sand
Com-
age to Mecca. Gus was stymied by only one obstacle, his rank.
manders with more horsepower leaned on him to give
7
their units priority,
Gus in an impossible squeeze. Norm Schwarzkopf explained to me what Gus was going through, and our solution was to give Gus a third
putting
star,
so that he had enough rank to match his responsibility.
Dick Cheney and
went
I
to
Riyadh on December 19
Norm and
At one
stop,
Stealth fighters, surrounded
state
with
was proceeding on schedule, we
satisfied ourselves that all
visited the troops.
up the
we met
to size
of readiness and report back to President Bush. After
we
F-117A
stood alongside sleek
by Air Force personnel and
soldiers.
Dick
gave a talk both blunt and inspirational. The troops were going to stay here until
Saddam
Kuwait, he
left
keep twenty percent of what you
said.
"We
stole."
you can
can't say, okay,
Saddam had
to leave or
driven out. In accomplishing the mission, however, our forces
be
would
get everything they needed, he promised.
We were stinting on nothing.
He asked
us.
if
anyone had any questions for
been inconceivable ter
—ordinary
Such an
offer
would have
army, or in most armies, for that mat-
in the Iraqi
soldiers given an opportunity to question their nation's
top defense officials.
A pilot asked me I
said, "but in
about airpower. Airpower will be overwhelming," '
every war,
the infantrymen
it's
who have
to raise the flag
of victory on the battlefield."
"How
long
"Wars
is it
gonna take?" another GI asked.
are unpredictable,"
fortune-teller.
But
I'll tell
said,
I
you
this.
"and I'm not a bookmaker or a
We
are not going to be
bogged
down." The President had already promised that the Persian Gulf would not
become another Vietnam.
After the massing
armored vehicles, found If
it
we had
ammo dumps,
witnessed of planes, tanks,
and hundreds of thousands of troops,
hard to believe that Saddam,
he had any military
they would have to
men on
tell this
On
Still,
I
at the last
minute, would not fold.
his staff with an
ounce of guts or sense,
nonsoldier, nonstrategist that his
madmen have ruled roof down on their own people. madness.
artillery,
way was
nations before and have pulled the
Christmas Eve, immediately upon getting back from Saudi Arabia,
Cheney and I flew
to
Camp David and were taken to rustic Holly Cabin.
^ COLIN
498
POWELL
L.
Already there were the President, Brent Scowcroft, and Scowcroft's deputy,
Bob Gates. We
the President
of
Western
briefed
I
latest edition
George Bush was under enormous pressure, and
in his taut features.
it
while Dick and
on the readiness of coalition forces and the
the strategy.
see
sat before a roaring fire
He was
I
could
trying to balance^ Arab states, Israel,
Congress, and the American public, like a
allies, the Soviets,
juggler spinning plates on the tops of poles, wondering
how
long he
could keep everything in the air
Between
my own field
juggling
commander on
sonality.
I
had
into combat.
are
we
Norm
him
to reassure
At
the
was
Schwarzkopf's anxieties,
same
had
by
his excitable per-
constantly that he would not be rushed
time, the President
When
can
was leaning on me: ''When
we go?" Dealing
hand grenade with the pin
like playing
I
displayed the natural apprehensions of a
the edge of war, magnified
going to be ready?
like holding a
ident
act.
Norm
and
his impatience
with
Norm was
pulled. Dealing with the Pres-
Scheherazade, trying to keep the king calm for a
thousand and one nights.
The discussion alties.
No
figure
this
is
day
at
Holly Cabin inevitably got around to casu-
harder to divine through the fog of war. The worst-
case scenarios were frightening, our troops advancing against hundreds
of thousands of entrenched Iraqis, a sea of mines between them and the
enemy, ditches
full
of oil that were to be set ablaze as our
men advanced,
and hanging over our heads the unknowable elements of chemical and biological warfare. Military pundits
all
A respected think tank,
sixteen, seventeen, eighteen thousand. ter for Strategic
the
Cen-
and International Studies, produced a projection of
teen thousand U.S. casualties.
when word
over town had their predictions,
fif-
The grim guessing game turned grimmer
got out that the Defense Department had ordered fifteen
thousand body bags. Actually the order had nothing to do with Desert Shield.
It
was generated by
as a possible
a
computer
at the
need over an indefinite
Schwarzkopf, and
Norm was no more
Defense Logistics Agency
future.
eager than
Cheney had pressed I
to project the unpro-
came up with a figure of five thousand casualties. I completely rejected the highest estimates. They were extrapolated from old war game formulas in which the U.S. and Soviet armies would grind each other down in Europe. That was not our strategy.
jectable.
First,
But he
finally
we planned
to
punish the Iraqi ground forces with an
sive of an intensity the
world had never witnessed. The
air
air offen-
war was
to
Sand
*
be followed by a ground campaign employing not World
War
A Line
infantry charges but swift, heavily
armored units engaged
the Iraqis' lightly defended
hook around
the
in
Western flank.
I
499 I-style
in the left
resisted giv-
ing anything as slippery as casualty estimates to the President, and so far
to avoid specifics. But, when pressed to the wall, I came in below even Schwarzkopf's estimate, at three thousand wounded and missing.
had managed
finally killed,
a sobering figure,
Still
From
Christmas Eve.
I
thought, as
Kuwaitis
—murder,
withdrew now,
We
Iraqi
Saddam would
concluded
that
visited terror
on the
of museums. If the Iraqis
theft, rape, the destruction
that
I
withdrawal from Kuwait. Over
Saddam's occupation had
would be with impunity
it
would also mean intact,
and demeanor,
his questions
George Bush no longer wanted an the past four months,
studied the President's face that
I
for their crimes.
A
pullback
leave Kuwait with his huge
army
ready to fight another day. also talked that night about the controversy raging in Congress
over whether to wait for sanctions to
work or to go on the
offensive.
The
President listened distractedly. Suddenly, his words brought us up short. "I'll prevail,"
that
he
be impeached."
said, "or I'll
I
interpreted this to
he had completely resigned himself to war.
opinion would not matter; and
if
he
lost,
If
mean
he won. Congress's
he was prepared to lose the
presidency.
Cheney and got
home
in
I
My
my
sister,
mas and learned "Colin,
I
cannot
It
who had
was
I
a sub-
loved ones
My mood was not lightened when
Marilyn, to wish her and her family a Merry Christ-
that she
tell
would have
you how
to
difficult
be treated for breast cancer.
it is
to tell
you
this."
The
caller
British colleague. General Sir Richard Vincent, vice chief of the
defense
staff.
"Yes, Dick,"
"You
see.
ter to brief
So
my family.
thoughts were with the families
Gulf region on the eve of war.
called
was a
helicoptered back to Washington late that night, and
time to spend Christmas Eve with
dued holiday. in the
I
far,
I
said.
"What
is it?"
Air Chief Marshal Patrick Hine met with the prime minis-
him on
the plan."
no problem.
"After the meeting,
Paddy turned
over to his executive officer
." .
.
his briefcases
and laptop computer
*
* COLIN
300
"Andri
my breath.
seems the executive
'It
ping
held
POWELL
L.
.
.
.
officer
parked his car and did a
and the briefcases and the computer were
"What was
them?"
in
"We've recovered the
I
"When
briefcases.
did this happen?"
"That's the second thing
week ago." "A week ago!" Most alarming, next few days,
said.
I
stolen."
No need to woi?y. But the hard disk
I
I
battle plan."
asked, in disbelief.
dread telling you," Vincent
"And now you're
the British tabloids
we
of shop-
asked with a sinking heart.
computer may have contained the
in the
bit
held our breath.
said.
telling us!"
had gotten hold of the
My
"About a
For the
story.
press officer. Colonel Smullen,
monitored the British and European media for signs that the information
had
fallen into the
patriot, not
wrong hands. Nothing appeared. Our thief was
either a
about to divulge the secrets of her majesty's government for
personal gain, or a crook so out of touch he did not even read the news.
Earlier in the year, Coretta
King had invited me
the parade in Atlanta marking the January
Martin Luther King, Blacks,
Jr.
who represented
Then
to
be grand marshal for
1 5 birthday of the Reverend
the political weather started to change.
approximately
tion over age sixteen, represented
1 1
percent of the U.S. popula-
26 percent of U.S. troops
in the Gulf.
Obviously, casualties would hit them proportionately harder than
A New York Times/CBS
whites.
poll that
month showed
that only half
of blacks, compared to 80 percent of whites, supported the hberation of Kuwait. Joe Lowery, of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, I
know during my FORSCOM you know I respect you, but ..."
had come
"Colin,
to
whom
tour in Atlanta, called me.
"But what, Joe?"
who
"There are those
man
to serve as
The the
that
I
wanted was
of this
was going
anyway, and so
I
to
human
might be inappropriate for a military
to
have anything mar an event honoring
rights crusader.
As
it
turned out,
now knew
pulled out.
Democratic Congressman Ron Dellums from Cal-
and forty-four other members of the House
district court to
I
be tied up in Washington on the date of the parade
On November 20, ifornia
it
grand marshal for Dr. King's parade."
last thing I
memory
think
prevent President
Bush from
filed suit in federal
initiating a
war against
A Line
the
in
At about
Iraq without a congressional declaration.
*
301
this time,
JuHan
Sand
Dixon, a Democrat representing Los Angeles, grilled Dick Cheney and
me, during one of our appearances on the
Hill,
about the high number
of blacks in the war zone. Cheney answered the question, and Julian
was ready
to let the matter lie.
as a serious misunderstanding.
But I
I
wanted
said that
I
up what
to clear
black or white, might die in combat. But black fighting
women,
particularly in an all-volunteer force,
think that color.
Go
when duty into the
sergeants there that
NCO
club at Fort Bragg,
we have too many of them
than any other institution in
they flocked to the
ties for
blacks,
I
But as soon as ting the force
said. Tell the
black
Army.
them
in the
Tell
get.
American
society, I pointed out. Naturally,
said.
you complain
that we're reducing opportuni-
Now you're saying, yes, opportunities to get killed.
this crisis passes, you'll
be back, worried about our cut-
and closing off one of the best career
Do you want
to
have blacks
fields for African-
in the military
hmited
percent of blacks in the population, and throw the rest out? so.
basis of
armed forces. When we come before Congress saying
to cut the forces,
Americans.
I
to
had given African-Americans more equal opportunity
military
we have
would be offended
would be excluded on the
See what kind of reaction you
the fighting.
men and
have to stay behind while their white buddies go off to do
that they will
The
called, they
regarded
I
regretted that any American,
But you cannot have
it
the military in peacetime
both ways
—favoring opportunity
and exemption from
risk for
I
to the
don't think
for blacks in
them
in wartime.
There was only one way to reduce the proportion of blacks in the military: let the rest
of American society open
its
doors to African- Americans
and give them the opportunities they now enjoyed
At about the time
I
was having these
in the
discussions,
I
was
armed
forces.
gratified
by the
words of Gary Franks, a young representative from Connecticut, the only
came up
black Republican in Congress. Franks
him and fellow freshman members on uary. "I
want
to
thank you for helping
to
me
after
the situation in the
me
I
had briefed
Gulf
that Jan-
get elected," Franks said.
"Me help you get elected?" I answered. "I don't do politics." He gave me a big grin. 'Tn my district, it's important for white voters to see that a black man can be competent in something besides civil rights. Thanks to you, they've seen a black man who could cut it in a white v/orld. And that helped me." I
appreciated what Franks said, since
of blacks
who went
before me.
I
too had stood on the shoulders
COLIN
302
POWELL
L.
The President had begun White House
custom of
he returned from
after
We gathered there
a
on January
6,
Camp David on Sunday
would
said. In nine
in
Geneva with
whether
week ahead,
the
that leave the President?
the debate
not approve.
I
to
go peacefully and stave off war.
House and Senate were going
to grant the President authority to
welcomed
had a decision
the Iraqi foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, in a
Cheney thought opponents might defeat would
We
Baker was off to Europe, where he was
last-ditch attempt to get the Iraqis to
Also, in the
evenings.
UN ultimatum for Iraq to leave Kuwait
days the
expire. Secretary of State
going to meet
to the
1991, and after dinner, he led us into a
small office he used in the residential quarters.
make, he
Gang of Eight
inviting the
go
to
to debate
war over Kuwait.
George Bush had said publicly
and was ready
where
the resolution, and
to run the risk that
that
he
Congress might
myself favored having Congress take a stand.
I
had wit-
nessed the contortions the government had gone through during Viet-
nam to avoid
saying war
is
war
("killed
by
hostile action" instead of the
blunter "killed in action," and other transparent dodges). that
also
I
knew
whatever Congress decided, President Bush was not going to back
down. The decision he wanted
to
make
this night
was when
to
go
to war.
He
turned to me. "Seventeen zero three hundred, Mr. President,"
said
—January
17, at
I
3:00 a.m. Riyadh time.
The early-morning H-hour for launching the air war had been agreed on for some time. Striking in the dead of night gave our fighter-bombers enough time to get in and out of Iraq in near- total darkness. The hour was also selected to minimize collateral damage, since most Iraqis would be at home, not on the street or at their jobs. The date, however, provoked a debate. The time.
So why not
UN deadline expired on the
strike at
others, that looked too calculated, as if
ping bombs.
On
15th,
Washington
0300 on January 16? someone suggested. To
the other hand,
we
we
could not wait to
start
drop-
did not want to wait too long after
the deadline for fear of losing credibility and having fresh political
obstacles tlirown up
by congressional opponents. About two days,
I
argued, seemed a reasonable compromise.
I
found
it
interesting to contrast the
sional warrior,
approached.
and Cheney,
Norm
moods of Schwarzkopf,
the resolute civilian, as the
continued to be edgy.
He was
the profes-
hour of
battle
the one with half a
A million lives depending on his
judgment
by nature, short-tempered, doubtful could grasp battlefield
that
Norm
in
*
Sand
the
in the field.
And
that
303
he was testy
armchair strategists
The calm
realities.
had not yet descended over
battle
Line
at
home
descends on the eve of
Schwarzkopf.
Cheney, after one brief lapse, had again become the picture of possession. lunch.
As D-Day approached,
He had had
a coronary bypass
enforced by his secretary. this
day
I
him down
invited
I
We rarely got together in
to order cheeseburgers.
my
and was following a
self-
office for
strict diet,
and
a social setting,
thought he deserved a culinary break while
Nancy Hughes
to
we talked.
I
asked
We went over the target list one
He seemed to have memorized it. The man had become a glutinformation, with an appetite we could barely satisfy. He spent
last time.
ton for
Command
hours in the National Military with questions.
How
do tanks work?
Center peppering
Patriot missiles?
How
my
staff
do you put
What does armored infantr>' do on a battlefield? How He left his briefers drained. But at the end of the day, we had a civihan Secretary of Defense who knew what he was talking about militarily. By the end of this cheeseburger together an air plan?
do you penetrate a minefield?
lunch,
I
considered Dick's education complete.
tions officer,
Tom
Kelly, organized a ceremony,
My
Joint Staff opera-
we
and
presented Dick
with a certificate stating that Richard Bruce Cheney was orary graduate of
Of course, lation.
the
all
war
now an hon-
colleges.
the cool Cheney, in Washington, enjoyed a layer of insu-
The uneasy Schwarzkopf had
to direct people to fight
and die on
the scene.
On
D-Day approached,
January 15, as
British counterpart. Sir
got an anxious call from
David Craig. "Colin, do you
Iraq's biological installations?" that,
I
he asked.
I
still
said that
eh?" Craig's concern was not baseless.
Two
we
intend to
bomb
did. "Bit risky
days before,
I
given the President our best military judgment. There was a risk in ting these plants.
my
had hit-
The bombing would probably destroy any disease
agents present. But
it
President, but one
we had
might also release them. to take.
He was
It
was a gamble,
I
told the
already agitated, and this
added worry did not soothe him. I
remained
less
concerned over possible Iraqi use of chemical
weapons. Our forces would be wearing protective clothing, and many
would be
in fast-moving shielded vehicles.
But the biologicals worried
COLIN
304
POWELL
L.
me, and the impact on the public the
we were
since
we
we had
to
we
hacj^
unconventional counter-
even without resort to nuclear weapons.
deadline was to run out,
I
Only conventional weapons
be used in
will
On
day the
the
warning to Saddam.
started drafting a
Geneva Convention and commonly accepted
It
read:
accordance with the
strict
rules of warfare. If you,
how-
chemical or biological weapons in violation of treaty obligations
ever, use
we
casuaUy keeled
be prepared for Saddam's worst impulses.
faced unconventional attacks,
strikes ready,
first
We could not retaliate in kind,
a signatory to international agreements banning biologi-
cal warfare. Still, If
time the
first
over to germ warfare would be terrifying.
will:
destroy your merchant
fleet,
destroy your railroad infrastructure, destroy your port
facilities,
destroy your highway system,
destroy your oil
facilities,
destroy your airline infrastructure.
I
saved the worst for
and
last,
it
was a
would
fear in him, an action that our lawyers
wrote,
we would
destroy the
dams on
bluff intended only to strike veto. If driven to
and flood Baghdad, with horrendous consequences. the
a conventional war, unless
would be
As
was not
Saddam
it
started circulating
on our
lost
side.
could be
it
We would fight
swift and crushing.
far as
bombing
biological arsenals and the attendant risk of I
told Sir
David Craig,
heads south, just blame me."
President
Bush had
a knack for putting people at ease
entered the Oval Office.
A
big grin, and "Hi, Dick,
hear the one about the psychiatrist
we met on
places in the still
who
January 15, the day the
acknowledged the dent
I
drove us to other means, which
unleashing rather than preventing a catastrophe, "If
I
message through channels, but time ran out before
cleared. Its meaning, however,
it,
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers
arrival
U of seats
of the
.
UN
.
."
Colin.
they
Did you
There was no smile when
deadline ran out.
Gang of
and couches
hi,
when
Eight.
We
He
barely
took our usual
in front of the fireplace, the Presi-
occupying the armchair on the right which he had broken
in
A Line for eight years as Vice President.
unconscious gesture when
I
We
emotional cue from the President.
We
abruptly, others testily.
unbuttoned
tense.
I felt
the
in
my
*
Sand
uniform jacket, an
Everyone seemed
to take his
were on edge, some speaking
argued over the best response to a
over the biological weapons threat one more time.
last-
we went
minute diplomatic brainstorm the French were pushing, and
We debated what the
President should say in the speech he intended to
when
303
make
to the nation
the fighting started.
"Fm going to have to said, "if
we
send General Schwarzkopf an execute order,"
I
are going to set this thing in motion." That sparked another
heated discussion. According to the joint congressional resolution
passed three days before (by 250 to 183 in the House and 52 to 47 in the Senate), the President
exhausted
all efforts
was supposed
to get Iraq to
to satisfy
Congress
comply with twelve
he had
that
UN resolutions how
before he could go to war. While the others were arguing about
handle this requirement,
I
When I finished, I interrupted the crossfire long enough to say,
ing.
President,
maybe
this'll
to
took out a yellow legal pad and started writ-
do
it." I
read what
I
"Mr.
had written: "The Secretary
of Defense has directed that offensive operations begin on 17 January 1
99 1. This direction assumes
by Section
2 (B)
House
make
this afternoon."
Dick signs
it," I
I
said, "ITl
UN
the determination required ."
Joint Resolution 77.
When I finished, no one said anything. approval. "After
comply with relevant
Iraqi failure to
resolutions and that the President will
.
.
mean
tacit
Norm
later
took the silence to
send the order to
This handful of words would unleash a war.
Norm and I had a method for transmitting messages, a secure fax line, which we used when we wanted distribution kept to an absolute minimum. My executive assistant, Dick Chilcoat, would take the fax to a tiny communications center near executive officer would take
saw a transmission. At 4: 15
my it
p.m.
office,
off.
and
at the other end,
Never more than four or
on January
15, 1 leaned into the
of Chilcoat's office next to mine and said, "Send the
On
the evening of January 16, the pre-battle
my office,
CINC
Norm's
five
people
doorway
the execute."
calm descended over me.
I
CNN. Once the dice have left your hands, there is nothing to do but watch how they come up. was
sitfing in
shirt collar
Not even small things remained
to
open, watching
be checked. The
battle
was
in the
* COLIN
306
L.
POWELL
hands of the gods, particularly the arbitrary Mars. At 6:35 watching
CNN's Bernard Shaw,
current-day the
Peter Amett, and John
Edward R. Murrows, broadcasting from
p.m., I
was
HoUiman, Uke
the ninth floor of
Rasheed Hotel, speculating over the meaning of sudden streaks of
tracers exploding across the black,
the answer.
empty sky above Baghdad.
I
knew
B-52 bombers, taking off from Barksdale Air Force Base
Louisiana hours before, had launched cruise missiles. helicopters had crossed the border and shot
up
in
Army Apache
Iraqi early-warning
Young Americans were flying F-117A Stealth fighters from Saudi airfields and Navy A-6s from aircraft carriers. Tomahawk land
radars.
attack missiles had been fired the
Red
from our warships
in the Persian
Gulf and
Sea. Iraqi air defense emplacements were lashing out blindly
over the Iraqi capital.
It
was January 17
in the
Middle
East.
phase of what Saddam Hussein had called "the mother of
all
The
air
battles"
had begun. I
had no doubt we would be successful.
weapons, and the plan. What take,
I
did not
We
had the troops, the
know was how
long
and how many of our troops would not be coming home.
it
would
Nineteen Every
War Must End
WAS UP MOST OF THE NIGHT OF JANUARY 1 6-1 7, ON THE PHONE CONstantly, watching television out of the comer of my eye as we conducted
I
our
first
war while
it
Just after 5:00 a.m., first
summary
was being broadcast
live
from the enemy
report of the air campaign.
fessional to be carried
away by
with his
"We
too
much
the pro-
the first blush of victory, but he
pressed to conceal his excitement. missions," he told me.
Norm was
"We
capital.
me
Washington time, Schwarzkopf called
was hard
got off eight hundred and
fifty
clobbered most of the targets." Iraq's key
The Iraqis' western air defense system was knocked out. Supply dumps were in flames. Two Scud missile launching sites had been struck. "The ITT building in downtown Baghdad is glowing," he said, "and we've blown down one of Saddam's palaces."
biological
weapons and nuclear
That was the good news. losses?"
I
sites
had been
hit hard.
waited apprehensively. "What about
COLIN
308
"Colin," he said, craft
POWELL
L.
"it's incredible." It
appeared so far that only two
air-
were down, while we had anticipated losing as many as seventy-
Our F-117A
five planes in this first strike.
Stealth fighters, used in
action only once before in Panama, slipped through the Iraqi air
defenses like ghosts. Iraqi antiaircraft gunnery proved wild and ineffectual.
And Saddam's
air force
war went throughout the Air
first
barely got off the ground. That
seven hundred coalition combat aircraft
launched
in
combat
swarms of
phone
initial strikes, I
in front of a
young
first night,
One hundred and sixty flying The
task of con-
bombers, tankers, and missiles made
fighters,
Chicago's O'Hare look like a county After the
the
Cruise missiles were
hit Iraq.
for the very first time.
The
feat.
tankers circled the skies to refuel this aerial armada. trolling these
how
unopposed success.
day, almost
alone was an astonishing
traffic control
is
airport.
watched a
TV
fighter pilot just
reporter shove his micro-
back from
his first
combat
mission, helmet tucked under his arm, hoses dangling, face sweatstreaked, hair matted. After answering the reporter's question, the flier started
walking away, then he turned back to the camera and
said, "I
God I completed my mission and got back safely. I thank God for love of a good woman. And I thank God I'm an American and an
thank the
American
fighter pilot."
wanted the country
sat there, melting.
I
to see, not the old stereotyped
wheresville, but smart, motivated, patriotic
and the
This was the military
I
dropout from no-
young Americans, the best
brightest.
The euphoria of the
first
day actually created a problem. Reports by
CNN's Wolf
Blitzer
remained was
to organize the victory parade.
from the Pentagon made
Defense Department's spokesman. "Pete," other press guys to cool
it.
This
I
seem
it
as if all that
called Pete Williams, the
I said, "tell
Blitzer
and these
the beginning of a war, not the
is
end of
a ballgame." In this age of instant information, people tended to expect instant results.
Over
euphoria to a funk.
The
truth
shown
was
the next
Why
few days, the mood
hadn't
that, in spite
we won
yet?
shifted quickly
of heavy punishment, the Iraqis had not
the slightest sign of caving in, despite the expectations of the
most fervent
air
power
apostles.
On the morning of the
22nd,
I
went
upstairs to see Secretary Cheney.
"Dick, we've got to get this thing into perspective," the
from
Was something wrong?
American people had seen on
I
said.
At
this point,
television only staff briefings out of
Every War Must End Saudi Arabia and the Pentagon. So
far,
*
no senior administration
509 official
had explained how the war was going. "Somebody should be doing that," I said.
"We'll hold a press conference tomorrow," Dick decided. I
ics.
then called
my chartmakers and had them put together some graph-
Along with a detailed
sound
bite that
I
tried out
it.
it."
No. Cut
Closer, but
and
forceful, unmistakable
I
it
"We
was
are going to cut off the Iraqi
off and "attack" still
short.
it.
dissatisfied. I
The
Maybe. Cut
Dave looked a "Are you sure
I
it
off
wanted something
vice chairman. Admiral
Dave
my indispensable right-hand man, always looking out for me,
stopped by the office. "Dave,"
Bill
wanted a
getting ready for the press conference.
I
said, "I
want you
to hear
written. 'Here's our plan for the Iraqi army. First, we're " off, and then we're going to kill it.'
and
also
my desk jotting down phrases and
sitting at
one combination that went: neutralize
and "destroy"
Jeremiah,
was
my mind,
running them through
army and
I
would capture the essence of this campaign.
Late that afternoon,
I
on the operation,
briefing
Httle
that's
going to cut
it
uncomfortable. "Sounds a bit stark," he said.
what you want
Smullen came
repeated the
something I've
to say?"
in to discuss the press conference arrangements,
line.
Smullen's eyes widened. "Is that too strong?"
I
asked. "It
doesn't leave any
room
for misunderstanding," Bill answered.
The next day, at 2:00 p.m., Cheney and I faced the press in the briefing room on the second floor of the E-Ring. Dick led off with brief comments, and wrapped
it
up saying
the basic course of the conflict.
that
Saddam Hussein "cannot change
He will be defeated." He then turned the
stage over to me. I
explained the battle plan.
We
were using our airpower
destroy the Iraqis' air defense system and their
communications
to render the
enemy
deaf,
command,
dumb, and
first to
control,
blind.
We
and then
intended to tear apart the logistics supporting their army in Kuwait, including Iraqi military installations, factories, and storage depots.
And
then w^e would expand our attack to the Iraqi forces occupying
Kuwait.
My presentation was deliberately understated and unemotional. And then
I
delivered the punch line.
very simple,"
I said.
"First
we
"Our
strategy in going after this
are going to cut
it
off,
army
is
and then we are
* COLIN
310
going to
kill it."
POWELL
L.
Those words led the press coverage on
evening, and in the papers the next day.
They
let
—and
the world
particularly
I
wanted.
Iraq—know our war aim unmis?
went over the charts
to describe
laundered them so you can't really I
I
*
takably.
As
television that
They achieved what
"I've
I said,
what I'm talking about because
tell
know what I'm
don't want the Iraqis to
bgmb damage,
And
talking about."
I
added
with a smile, "But trust me." The reporters seemed amused and did not
me
press
As
further.
war continued,
the air
one occasion and
I
dealt less than frankly with the
later regretted
it.
Norm
media on
Schwarzkopf, briefing from
Riyadh, had become a comforting television presence, big, confident, witty.
At one press conference. Norm ran a video of one of our smart
bombs
As
streaking toward four cylindrical objects.
the screen filled
with one of those Nintendo images of an exploding bull's-eye
announced
that four
hit,
he
Scud missile launchers had just been blown away.
Or had they? Rear Admiral Mike McConnell, my intelligence chief, came to me about an hour later. "Mr. Chairman, we've got a problem," Mike said. "We don't think those were Scuds. We think they were four Jordanian fuel trucks pulled up at a rest stop."
"Where'd you get that?"
"A
captain, an analyst,
"So have the captain
made a mistake." "Nobody over mistake,"
McConnell
"Then how button on said,
and
there
is
it's
asked.
call
staff,"
going to
tell
Norm Schwarzkopf
tell
said.
him they
he made a
said.
know?"
I
answered.
my console. The CINC came on immediately.
I
pushed a
"Hey, Norm,"
I
explained what McConnell had just told me.
I
felt like
a hot rock. "Not Scuds! Jee-zus!
You
easy being over here undercut by a bunch of Washington
chairwarmers? Can't "Relax,"
I
said.
I
"We
get any support
from anybody?"
got the info from your
intelligence people analyze the strike again,
argue about
own
staff.
and we'll
Just have your talk. Let's
not
it."
Norm was tainly
McConnell
General Schwarzkopf and
the hell is he supposed to
The phone suddenly think
I
on Schwarzkopf's
soon back on the phone. "By God," he
said, "those cer-
were Scuds. That analyst doesn't know what he's talking about.
He's just not as good as the others. But I'm telling you,
I
can't put
up
Every War Must End
with
much more of this crap, going on television,
511
then having your guys
second-guess me." "Just trying to protect your credibility,"
I
said. "It's a precious asset."
The next day our photo reconnaissance experts came tures that
were hard
tainly not Scuds.
to
me
with pic-
to deny, four burned-out hulls of tanker trucks, cer-
I let
the story stand, without correcting
it.
Norm's
burdens were so heavy and preserving his equanimity so important that I
did not want to undercut him. But the truth will out, as
it
did
when
a
CNN
camera crew shot film of the destroyed vehicles from ground
level.
Another good media rule: better to admit a mistake than be caught
in one.
The Scud was a cheap, crude, inaccurate Soviet engine of destruction.
chummier days, the Russians had provided the Iraqis with hundreds of these missiles, which had a range of less than three hundred miles and carried only a small payload. The Scud was the only offensive air weapon the Iraqis used. They boosted its range by welding two of them end to end, which produced a rickety, even more wayward conIn
traption that could carry only a
i6o-pound warhead.
struck within two miles of a target, cities
present targets that size, and
Aviv and Haifa, the Israeli
coalition,
we had
if
to
was considered
we were
keep the
a hit.
when Scuds began
Israelis instinctively
government could be seen as
an Arab attack. Yet
it
wanted
Scuds
If these
However,
to fall
on Tel
to lash back.
failing to protect its
No
people from
going to preserve the Arab end of the Israelis out of this fight.
The Scud,
a
lousy military weapon, thus was proving, for the Iraqis, a useful political
weapon, since the
Israelis
began planning to take over Scud hunt-
ing themselves.
On January 28, Cheney asked Paul Wolfowitz, the undersecretary for policy, and me up to his office. Three very determined Israelis would be there,
he
said:
Rear Admiral Abraham Ben-Shoshan, the defense
attache at the Israeli embassy;
David Ivri,
their defense director general;
and General Ehud Barak, deputy chief of around Cheney's table and listened to the bined
air
staff.
asked
coalition.
I
two of us
retreated to
if I
A
might
six of us sat
Israeli's intentions
and ground assault into the western
destroy Scud launchers.
The
—
a
down com-
Iraqi desert to find
and
daring plan, but disastrous politics for the talk to
my office.
Barak alone, soldier
to soldier.
The
* COLIN
312
POWELL
L.
"These attacks are devastating began. in
to the
morale of our people " Barak
countered, mentioning the performance of our Patriot missiles
I
downing Scuds. Not good enough, he answered. Some Scuds were
still
us,"
Barak went on.
ers risk their lives in our defense.
"It is
We
hard forJsraehs to have oth-
want
to
be involved."
I
the familiar arguments about the fragility of the coalition. "If
go
in
and clear out the Scuds," Barak
nerve gas or a biological warhead
fire
happens, you
know what we must alert.
had an assault force ready
Israel
would
our
don't to
offensive.
cities. If that
Israeli missile
go against the Scud
to
crews were firing? sites,
Barak
over Jordan or through Saudi
fly
Schwarzkopf had already warned
airspace.
at
And who knew what they would be
explained. Israeli planes
we
do."
had a pretty good idea what he meant.
reportedly on full
repeated
"Saddam may use them
said,
when you launch your ground
deliver chemical warheads
They may
I
"You
getting through, terrorizing the Israeli civilian population.
must understand
never accept such an Israeli intrusion.
Still, I
me
that the Saudis
would
understood the intensity of
Barak's feelings. His nation had survived for the past forty years by taking no guff from
its
enemies. You could hear the echos of "Never again"
in everything Israeli leaders said.
Barak and
Finally,
we had
to
keep
the Scuds.
combat
I
rejoined the others.
Israel out of this war,
It
was
clear to our side that
and there was only one way: stop
Norm Schwarzkopf began
diverting
many
aircraft to Scud-busting, as
more and more of
as a third of all missions
flown. British and U.S. special operations troops shpped behind lines to search cut Scuds.
help protect major Israeli
Sometimes we restraint.
American
cities.
Patriot missile units
enemy
were sent
to
came through, but less often. sometimes the wisest weapon is
Scuds
fight with fury;
his
still
Prime Minister Shamir showed a special brand of statesman-
ship in resisting heavy pressure from those around
The forbearance of the
Israelis, in the face
completely against their grain, in
him
to strike back.
of intense provocation, going
my judgment
helped keep the coali-
tion intact.
By
the third
week
in February, the air
rupted for thirty-five days,
I
wanted
to
war had been going on
make
uninter-
sure the President under-
stood that war was going to look a lot different once fighting began on the ground.
i
I
took advantage of one of our almost daily briefings to
*
Every War Must End
"Once
paint the contrast.
war begins,"
the ground
I
313
"we don't
said,
When
these antiseptic videos of a missile with a target in the cross hairs.
you don't lose a
a battahon runs into a firefight, lose fifty to a
hundred
sight. You'll see a kid's
men
in minutes.
And
not a pretty
is
scorched torso hanging out of a tank turret while
ammo cooking off inside has
torn the rest of the crew apart.
some ugly images."
brace ourselves for
you can
pilot or two,
a battlefield
get
also
I
made
We have to Cheney
sure that
and the President understood that ground combat cannot be reported as quickly as air strikes. "There's going to be confusion.
what
is
And
happening for a while.
You won't know
so in the early hours, please don't
press us for situation reports."
The cold bath of
reality
was important. Notwithstanding Panama,
Cheney had never seen war on a grand only from the air during his
As
the
own
scale.
into sharp focus, particularly
started to
what happened on February
direct hits
shelter.
number of civilians died
13.
on the Al Firdos bunker
which we regarded as a command and control claimed was an air-raid
had, but
long-ago fighter pilot days.
bombing continued, one downside of airpower
two of our aircraft scored
large
The President
site
That day,
Baghdad,
and which the
Whatever use the
in the strike,
in
come
Iraqis
structure served, a
which the whole world
wit-
nessed on television as victims were hauled from the smoking rubble.
Schwarzkopf and
I
we
discussed this tragedy. Did
downtown Baghdad over a month
into the
war?
still
need
How many
to
times could
you bomb the Baath Party headquarters, and for what purpose?
was and
sitting there I
If
Cheney and
I
had made
10,
Schwarzkopf had
As soon
.
to hit.
one
Schwarzkopf
closely before each day's missions.
combined air/ground offensive and end the war. During a quick
2
1
more
started reviewing targets
Tomahawk
No
nothing else, the Al Firdos bunker strike underscored the need to
start the
visit
waiting for the next
pound
as
called and told
told us that he
Cheney and
date to an impatient
me
to the
I
war zone between February 8 and
would be ready
got back to Washington,
George Bush. Three days
that the 21st
"The President wants
to
to get
was
later,
go by February
we
reported this
however.
Norm
out.
on with
this," I said.
"What happened?"
"Walt Boomer needs more time," Schwarzkopf answered. Boomer's 1st
and 2nd Marine Divisions were deployed to drive head-on from the
center of the line toward
Kuwait
City.
But
first
they had to breach a sav-
age complex of entrenchments that the Iraqis had spent months erect-
* COLIN
314
POWELL
L.
The Marines would have
ing.
more mine-
antitank mines, tangled rolls of booby-trapped barbed wire,
and deep tank
fields,
traps,
and then climb twenty-foot-high berms and
cross trenches filled with burning
under
fire
from
and
Iraqi troops
oil.
All the while, they would be
artillery.
Boomer wanted time where one
his point of attack twenty miles to the west,
position had been largely farther
the
abandoned under
He
back was incomplete.
enemy defenses
air attack
wanted more
also
to shift
Iraqi defensive
and another
line
airstrikes to
weaken
to put off the
ground
before his troops moved.
Norm
cost a few days,"
"It'll
and
to penetrate belts of antipersonnel
said.
He wanted
offensive until February 24.
"Remember
the strategy,"
intended only to
reminded him. The
down the entrenched Iraqis, and that included the "If Boomer hits serious resistance, he's to stop," I
Having engaged the enemy,
their mission
off the left
need to
One
his troops
would have accomplished
by allowing VII Corps and XVIII Airborne Corps
hook
kill a
in the sparsely
defended western desert.
bunch of kids singing 'The Marines' Hynm,'
of my fundamental operating premises
is
always right and the rear echelon
is
the field
is
otherwise.
The
field
commander
directing the troops, facing
Cheney
to accept
were
frontal assaults
tie
Marines' mission. said.
I
is
that the
"
to pull
"We I
don't
said.
commander in
wrong, unless proved
on the scene, feeling the
and judging the enemy.
Norm's recommendation. Cheney
I
terrain,
therefore advised
reluctantly
went
to
the President and got a postponement to February 24. I
backed Norm, though
the previous weeks,
I
I
thought he was being overly cautious. Over
had watched VII Corps, with
its
tens of thousands
of troops and hundreds of tanks, pour into Saudi Arabia. secretly
em
moved our armored and airborne forces
flank,
and
we had been
to Iraq's
We
had
exposed west-
holding our breath to see
if the Iraqis
responded. All they did was send another undermanned division to that part of the desert. That's
our moves hinting
at a
it,
I
told myself.
They had been sucked
in
by
major frontal assault and an amphibious landing
on Kuwait from the Persian Gulf. They had shown us everything they had, and
it
was nowhere near enough
had worried to support
that the desert soil
to stop our left hook.
Earher
we
on the western flank might not be able
heavy armored vehicles. The engineers had tested the sands,
however, and gave us a "Go."
We
confirmed the solidness of the
terrain.
questioned local Bedouins, and they
*
Every War Must End
The offensive timetable was
On February i8, the Iraqi foreign minister, Tariq Moscow to hear a plan under which we would stop hos-
Aziz, went to tilities if It
Gorbachev tried
peacemaker.
to play
bind.
further clouded as Mikhail
515
the Iraqis
was too
withdrew from Kuwait. President Bush was
late for this
in a
approach, he believed. After the expenditure
of $60 billion and transporting half a million troops eight thousand miles.
Bush wanted
Kuwait.
He
to deliver a
knockout punch
did not want to win by a
to the Iraqi invaders in
TKO that would allow
Saddam
to
withdraw with his army unpunished and intact and wait for another day. Nevertheless, the President could not be seen as turning his back on a
chance for peace.
On ers
February 20,
and needed
still
Norm
called saying he
maybe
port,
which equaled higher
me
clearing on the 26th.
sufficiently convincing
still
now
I
was on
the spot.
did not feel that
So
far,
Cheney
Norm was
giving
arguments to take back to Cheney and the
Boomer needed
Marines needed more
weather
Bad weather equaled reduced air sup-
casualties. I
counsel. But
President, first that
latest
and bad weather was predicted for the 24th and
25th,
my
command-
to his
He had the
another delay, to the 26th.
report in hand, he said,
had accepted
had talked
air support,
to
move
his Marines, then that the
then that the weather was bad, and on
another occasion, that the Saudi army was not ready.
What should I
expect next, a postponement to the 28th?
"Look,"
I
Norm, "ten days ago you
told
wanted the 24th.
told
me
the 2 1 st.
Then you
Now you're asking for the 26th. Fve got a President and my back. They've got a bad Russian peace
a Secretary of Defense on
proposal they're trying to dodge. You've got to give
postponement.
I
a better case for
don't think you understand the pressure I'm under."
Schwarzkopf exploded. "You're giving don't want to
me
tell
the President not to
me pohtical reasons why you
do something
unsound!"
militarily
He was yelling. "Don't you understand? My Marine commander says we need to wait. We're talking about Marines' lives." He had to worry about them, he said, even
That did
I
it.
if
nobody
else cared.
had backed Norm at every
step,
fended off his
one hand while soothing his anxieties with the that
on me!"
I
on me! Don't putting on
yelled back. "Don't tell
me I don't care
some kind of show
you
other.
critics
with
"Don't you pull
try to lay a patronizing guilt trip
about casualties!
in front of
What
are
you doing,
your commanders?"
* COLIN
316
POWELL
L.
He was alone, Schwarzkopf said, in his private office, and he was taking as much heat as I was. "You're pressuring me to put aside my military judgment out of pohtical expediency. I've felt this way for a long time!" he said. Suddenly, his tone shifted from anger to despair. "Colin,
my
I feel like
Maybe I'm
head's in a vise.
leasing
Maybe I'm
it.
losing
my objectivity." I
took a deep breath. The
mander ing
it," I
in the field over the said.
last thing I
needed was
edge on the eve of
battle.
"We've just got a problem we have
the full confidence of all of us back here.
At
to
push the com-
"You're not los-
work out. You have
to
end of the day, you
the
know I'm going to carry your message, and we'll do it your way." It was time to break off the conversation before one of us threw another match into the gasoline.
Within half an hour,
Norm was back on
the
phone with the
latest
weather update. The 24th and the 25th did not look too bad after
"We're ready," he
It
was not
my
We had a go for the
said.
custom
to
show up
sweater and sport jacket, but
home for a meeting
I
at the
24th.
White House
in a turtleneck
had been summoned suddenly from
10:30 on Thursday evening, February 2 1
at
the President in his study.
all.
.
1
found
He had just come from Ford's Theater, where
he had seen a great play, he
said, Leslie Lee's
Black Eagles, about the
Tuskegee Airmen, the black fighter pilots of World War II fame. Cheney
showed up
next,
wearing a tux, fresh from a reception for the queen of
Denmark. The others to
make
arrived,
rounding out the Gang of Eight,
a decision about Gorbachev's pending peace proposal.
Russian leader had called Bush about ident's
We
problem was how
to say
no
it
to
earher in the evening.
had
The
The Pres-
Gorbachev without appearing
to
throw away a chance for peace.
"You've got two options," Brent Scowcroft Russians to butt out. The other I
looked
at
Cheney,
he was thinking.
who was
I
"One
to tell the
is
get better conditions and accept."
sitting
on the arm of a
chair. I
knew what
He disliked and distrusted the Russians and hated seeing
them use world opinion turn out to be a
is to
said.
bad
to pressure us
solution.
and then get
credit for
what might
He preferred to throw out the Iraqis forcibly.
could hear the President's growing distress in his voice. "I don't
want
to take this deal,"
after he's
come
this far
"But I don't want to
stiff
with us. We've got to find a
way
he
said.
Gorbachev, not out."
317
Every War Must End
I
raised a finger.
"We
don't
stiff
The President turned
to
Gorbachev,"
pointed out that world opinion
said. I
I
me. "Got something, Colin?"
had supported the UN's January 15 deadline for Saddam Kuwait. "So
let's
We
put a deadline on Gorby's proposal.
idea, as long as they're
completely on their
you get the Nobel Peace
urday. If they go,
to clear out of
way
say, great
out by, say, noon Sat-
Prize, Mr. Gorbachev.
If,
as
I
suspect, they don't move, then the flogging begins."
The room was
silent as
everybody seemed to chew on the
about that?" the President asked.
quickly
won agreement
"What about you, Dick?"
except from Cheney.
Cheney looked
He
as if he
idea. all
"What
around,
the President asked.
had been handed a dead
rat. "I
guess
it's
okay," he said.
At 10:40 A.M. the next morning. President Bush stood before the cameras until
in the
Rose Garden. "The
noon Saturday
to
coalition will give
Saddam Hussein
do what he must do," a grim-visaged Bush
said,
"begin his inmiediate and unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait."
At noon on Saturday, February
23,
Saddam
let
the Russian withdrawal
proposal go by and passed the last exit. At 4:00 a.m., Riyadh time, the fol-
lowing day, in darkness and cold brigade, followed
rain,
U.S. Marines and an
Army
tank
by Saudi, Egyptian, Kuwaiti, Syrian, and other Arab
troops, crossed the border into Kuwait. Far to the west,
XVin Airborne
Corps jumped off with the 82d Airborne Division and a French Ught
armored division covering the
left flank.
The
loist Airborne Division
(Air Assault) and the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized)
moved straight
north into Iraq, heading for the Euphrates River Valley.
Between these
forces,
Vn Corps, with the British
i
st
Armored Division, stood poised to it was clear that the support-
launch the left-hook main attack as soon as
ing attacks were holding the Iraqis in place.
Too keyed up from
Tom
The ground war had begun.
to sleep, I stayed in the office
Kelly and
Mike McConnell.
would know the picture the rather than merely pinning
enemy defenses and were
rest of the
down
already
I
and took incoming reports
also
watched
world was
CNN
getting.
so that
I
The Marines,
the Iraqis, had broken through the
moving toward Kuwait
City.
The way
had been prepared by Marine reconnaissance teams who, days before,
had exposed themselves wire and over the
to terrifying risks, crawling through the barbed
oil-filled
troops to race through.
trenches to lay out cleared lanes for the assault
* COLIN
318
POWELL
L.
In the west, General Barry McCaffrey's 24th Infantry Division
punched
sixty miles into Iraqi territory
etrations
were so swift and so deep
up the left-hook timetable by
The initial penSchwarzkopf was able to move
on the
that
first
day.
fifteen hours. In those twenty-four hours
of land combat, ten thousand hungry,
stunned by thirty-eight days of
air
thirst)^
exhausted Iraqi soldiers,
bombardment, surrendered. Gary
Luck's XVIII Airborne Corps alone took 3,200 prisoners, while suffer-
man wounded. Our total casualties the first day were eight dead,
ing one
twenty-seven wounded.
By in
morning of the second day, the
the
i
st
Marine Division was fighting
and around Kuwait City International Airport. The Marines would
have
fulfilled their
Instead,
mission even
if
they had only fied
down
Iraqi forces.
by the end of the day, they had encircled Kuwait
amphibious
Kuwaiti coast tied down more Iraqi
feint off the
XVIII Airborne Corps
An
City.
units.
thrust deeper into Iraq. VII Corps, under Lieu-
tenant General Fred Franks, had the master strategic role, the flanking
from west
attack
to east to cut off the Iraqi
particularly the vaunted
ing as fast as
On
that
missile
we
army
in
Kuwait and
kill
it,
RepubUcan Guard. But VII Corps was not mov-
expected.
second day,
we
suffered a heavy blow.
A
Soviet-made Scud
slammed into a makeshift barracks near Dhahran, kilHng twenty-
The casualty hst presented a harsh reality of our modem army; women were among the victims. On February 26, the third day, I called Schwarzkopf at about noon his
eight American soldiers.
time.
I
told
him
that
could not understand
I
hated second-guessing field commanders, but
why VII Corps was
you get Fred Franks moving
faster?"
I
still
I
not fully engaged. "Can't
asked. Schwarzkopf himself had
already been leaning hard on Franks, and was just as happy to pass
along additional pressure from the chairman.
He soon
got back to
me
with word that VII Corps was finally in the thick of the
fight.
Franks 's
troops had almost completely destroyed one Republican
Guard
division
and had driven two others into U.S. Marines, U.S.
Army
retreat.
Special Forces, and Saudi, Egyptian,
Kuwaiti, and other Arab troops liberated Kuwait City. XVIII Airborne
Corps was approaching the Euphrates River Valley. Our intelUgence indicated that of forty-two Iraqi divisions in the
had already been destroyed or overrun. and more kept pouring
in.
war zone, twenty-seven
We had taken
38,000 prisoners
Our casualties remained hght, though we
suf-
*
Every War Must End
fered disturbing losses rate
was
from friendly
Overall, however, the casualty
below even our most optimistic estimates, thanks largely
far
the constant pounding our
air forces
Before the war began, someone on tled
fire.
Every War Must End, by Fred
was undersecretary of defense
were
my
inflicting
staff
Ikle. I
on the
had given
me
had worked with and
for policy
I
spent two tours in a
war
that
to
Iraqis.
a
book
Ikle
enti-
when he
was Cap Weinberger's
mihtary assistant. The theme of his book intrigued me, because
fare is
319
seemed endless and often
pointless.
I
had
War-
such an all-absorbing enterprise, Ikle wrote, that after starting
one, a government
Thus
may
lose sight of ending
can happen that mihtary men, while
it
it.
As he put
skillfully
it:
planning their
intri-
cate operations and coordinating complicated maneuvers, remain curiously
blind in failing to perceive that
of the campaigns within nation's interests.
it,
it is
the
outcome of the war, not the outcome
that determines
how
well their plans serve the
At the same time, the senior statesmen may
insist that these beautifully
hesitate to
planned campaigns be linked to some clear ideas
for ending the war. ..."
As an example,
mentioned the cunningly conceived attack on
Ikle
Pearl Harbor, as contrasted to the scant thought the Japanese had given to
how
war they
the
ideas that
started
would end,
I
was so impressed by Dde's
had key passages photocopied and circulated
I
Chiefs, Cheney, and Scowcroft.
to the Joint
We were fighting a limited war under a
Hmited mandate for a Hmited purpose, which was soon going to be achieved.
about
I
how
thought that the people responsible ought to it
thinking
would end.
On the afternoon of February 27, House
start
for the
Gang of Eight's daily
Otis Pearson drove military briefing.
me to the White
The heavy armor-
plated bulletproof Cadillac held the road with a reassuring hug, around
huge Pentagon parking
and into
up Route 27 over the Memorial Bridge, Washington. As we rode along, words from Ikle's book ran
through
my
the
where a
mind:
.
.
lot,
fighting often continues long past the point
'rational' calculation
would
indicate that the
war should be
ended." I
Norm Schwarzkopf earlier in the morning we were nearing endgame. The prisoner catch
had already spoken to
and told him
I
sensed
was approaching seventy thousand. Saddam had ordered
his forces to
* COLIN
320
L.
POWELL
withdraw from Kuwait. The
way
last
major escape route, a four-lane high-
leading out of Kuwait City toward the Iraqi city of Basrah, had
turned into a shooting gallery for our
and
fleeing soldiers
littered
The road was choked with
fliers.
with the charred hulks of nearly fifteen hun-
dred military and civilian vehicles. Reporters began referring to
this
road as the "Highway of Death."
would have
I
to give the President
soon as to when to
tion
added, was starting to
stop,
make
it
I
told
and the Secretary a reconmienda-
Norm. The
look as
if
television coverage,
we were engaged
I
in slaughter
for slaughter's sake. "I've
been thinking the same thing,"
Norm
said.
asked him what he wanted. "One more day should do
I
answered.
By
he
it,"
then he would be able to declare that Iraq was no longer
mihtarily capable of threatening realize, if
we
lasted five
days?
stop
tomorrow
its
neighbors.
he added, "Do you
ground campaign will have
night, the
How does that
And
sound, the Five-Day War?"
Since that chipped one day off the famous victory of the Israelis over the
Arab
states in 1967, 1 said,
At about 2:00
P.M., I
me
stairway to the
left,
I'll
pass
let
map
me out, parked, case as
I
waited in the lobby.
from the Soviet ambassador
Force
officer.
to a Girl
Major Bruce Caughman,
me
set
I
went up the
past the Chief of Staff's office, to avoid going
there,
helped
along."
and then discreetly brought
through the reception room. You never knew
tant,
it
rode through the gate to the West Wing entrance
of the White House. Otis a big black leather
"Not bad.
up an easel
in the
who you might Scout delegation.
run into
An
Air
the President's personal assis-
Oval Office facing the
fireplace.
George Bush was upbeat and relaxed. The Gang of Eight, plus Richard Haas, Scowcroft's Middle East speciahst, formed the usual the fireplace. pros.
At a
Someone joked about flue.
in front
of
the President leaving the fire to the
briefing a couple of days before.
without opening the
U
Bush had
lit
the fire himself,
The Oval Office had instantly filled with smoke.
Alarms rang. Secret Service agents ran around frantically, throwing doors open, while freezing February winds blew in from the Rose Garden.
This morning, positions: the
I
snapped on the laser pointer and began describing the
Marines and Prince Khaled's Arab force
VII Corps closing
its
noose around the
with only the Republican Guard the far west,
still
in
Kuwait
Iraqi forces trying to flee
City,
Kuwait,
offering any serious resistance. In
XVIII Airborne Corps had driven deep
into Iraq to the
*
Every War Must End
banks of the Euphrates. board,
"Mr. President,
I said,
army
Tlie Iraqi
Our
When
is
finished describing the military chess-
I
going
it's
much
better than
broken. All they're trying to do
now
we had
achieved
it.
is
we
expected.
get out."
by the UN,
forces had a specific objective, authorized
Kuwait, and
521
to liberate
The President had never expressed any
desire to exceed that mandate, in spite of his verbal lambasting of Sad-
We
dam.
presently held the moral high ground.
We
And, as a professional want
to
could lose
honored the warrior's code.
soldier, I
by
it
had warned about.
fighting past the "rafional calculation" Fred Ikle
"We
be seen as killing for the sake of killing, Mr. President,"
don't
I
said.
"We're within the window of success. I've talked to General Schwarzkopf,
I
expect by sometime tomorrow the job will be done, and
I'll
probably be bringing you a recommendation to stop the fighting." "If that's the case," the President said,
caught
me by
you
surprise. "I'd like
"why
all to
not end
it
today?"
He
think about that," he added,
some undesirable those scenes of carnage. You say
looking around the room. "We're starting to pick up public and political baggage with
all
we've accomphshed the mission.
Why
air
not end it?"
and announce a suspension of hostilities
"That's something to consider," first." I
Oval Office.
I
military operator put
"Norm,"
"When
I
I
need
he
said.
to talk to
Norm
is
picked up a secure phone, and the White
me
through to Riyadh.
said, "the President
wants to know
if
we can end it now."
now?" he asked.
"We're looking that
this evening,
"But
replied.
could go on the
excused myself and went into the President's small private study
just off the
House
I
He
at this evening."
would mean stopping the war
Given the eight-hour time difference, in the
middle of the night
in the
Gulf
region. "I don't
'em
out,
Norm
have any problem,"
and we've done
it.
But
unless they've run into a snag
I
let
said.
me
don't
"Our objective was
talk to
know
my
about,
I
to drive
commanders, and don't see
why we
shouldn't stop."
"Cheney and said. I
have to go up to the Hill and brief Congress soon "
"We can talk
again
when
I
I
get back."
did not anticipate any objection from Schwarzkopf's field conmian-
ders. I
I
Norm had just
:oo P.M.
ings,"
given a televised press conference from Riyadh
Washington time, and
he had
said,
in this
at
now famous "mother of all brief-
"We've accomplished our mission, and when the
* COLIN
-522
come
decision-makers
nobody
will
to the decision that there should
be happier than me."
ing Iraqi forces,
he amended
want
POWELL
L.
"The gate
this
is
statement
He had
also said, regarding the flee-
no way out of here."
closed. There is
to:
"When
I
be a cease-fire,
say the gate
is
closed,
I
to give the impression that absolutely npthingns escaping."
Later,
don't
Heavy
tanks and artillery were not getting through, he said. "I'm talking about the gate that
is
closed on the war machine.
." .
.
went back into the Oval Office and reported
I
to the President that the
proposal looked okay to Schwarzkopf and to me, but
check with his commanders.
Jim Baker was concerned about the
on world opinion of pointless
that fighting
Cheney
would meet
Cheney and
I
taste
said that
over what was so
what mattered was
we knocked
tanks
again, however, for one last discussion after
returned from Capitol Hill.
Before heading for the Jeremiah, and told
him
Hill,
I
called the vice chairman,
to brief the chiefs
decision to bring the war to an end. all
Brent Scowcroft thought
how many more
achieving the coalition's aims, not
We
killing.
beyond necessity would leave a bad
far a brilliant military operation.
out.
to
No one in the room disagreed with the ten-
tative decision to stop the war.
effect
Norm wanted
Dave
Dave
on the President's tentative called
me
later
and said
that
the chiefs concurred.
Cheney and
I
briefed the Senate at 3:00 p.m. and the
House
at
4:30 p.m.
Their respective hearing rooms were packed for both presentations.
gave the members essentially the same map-and-chart show
We
we had put
on for the President. But we mentioned nothing about the war possibly ending
By
this day.
5:30 P.M.
we were back
at the
White House, where we joined the
President in the small office off the Oval Office.
I
took note of the time
made his final decision to suspend hostilities, 5:57. It was the commander in chief's decision to make, and he had made it. Every member of his policymaking team agreed. Schwarzkopf and I agreed. And there is no doubt in my mind that if Norm or I had had the slight-
the President
est reservation all
the time
we
We moved
about stopping now, the President would have given us needed.
into the
Oval Office and
He also began
Bush would make
and
to the
Ameri-
calling his coalition partners.
We ini-
content of the announcement President
can people that night.
started discussing the timing
*
Every War Must End considered having the President go on the air
tially
announce a "suspension of
9:00 p.m. to
at
of 0500, February 28, in
hostilities" as
Riyadh. The word "suspension" was picked deliberately to that this
our
323
make
clear
was not a cease-fire negotiated with the Iraqis, but a halt taken on
own initiative.
I
said that
would like
I
to give
Norm a few more hours
of dayhght so that he could check the battlefield and clean up any loose
it
effective
John
"Why
which prompted an inspiration from John Sununu.
ends,
midnight our time? That'll make
The
said.
the
it
Hundred-Hour War,"
President agreed, and shortly after 6:00 p.m.,
phone again with Schwarzkopf.
him
told
I
make
not
the President
I
got on the
would speak
at
9:00 our time to announce that the fighting would stop at 8:00 a.m. the following morning Riyadh time. That would give
more day he had asked
Norm
almost the one
for in our conversation earlier in the morning.
The President and then Cheney came on
CINC. "Helluva job. Norm,"
the line to congratulate the
the President said.
Schwarzkopf was soon back on the phone with a cautionary
The gate was units
and T-72 tanks could
slip
and I would get back to him. the others.
I
Although we were
Some Republican Guard
he told me.
slightly open,
still
away.
I
told
note.
him
keep
to
hitting them,
passed Norm's report to the President and all
taken shghtiy aback, no one
felt that
what we had heard changed the basic equation. Tlie back of the
army had been broken. What was was no need to
left
of
it
was
retreating north.
fight a battle of annihilation to see
we knew, the war.
barring a lucky
We
way World War
total capitulation, the
bomb
hit, that
further accepted that
and
it
was being achieved. The President reaffirmed I
that there
forces, but that this condition
At 9:02 "Kuwait
P.M., the
his decision to
end
him that the
would be some leakage of
Iraqi
was acceptable.
President spoke to the nation from the Oval Office.
is liberated.
met," he began. "I
from some
a clear mandate,
then called Schwarzkopf again and relayed to
White House understood
em
we had
And
likely survive
face criticism
quarters for not continuing the fight. However,
the fighting.
II
would
had ended.
Saddam would
we would
There
how many more com-
batants on both sides could be killed. Obviously, the President
have preferred
Iraqi
Iraq's
army
is
defeated.
Our military
objectives are
am pleased to announce that at midnight tonight, east-
standard time, exactly one hundred hours since ground operations
commenced and
six
weeks since the
start
of Operation Desert Storm,
U.S. and coahtion forces will suspend offensive combat operations."
all
* COLIN
524
L.
POWELL
After the President's speech, he and Mrs.
Bush
up The ushers passed usual rum and Coke. The atmosphere invited the group
to the residential quarters for a quiet celebration.
drinks around, and
was one of
relief
another V-E Day.
sipped
I
more than Still,
he
I
festivity.
had not given George Bush
he believed, and
was back at Quarters 6
we had just won
We
"Fm comfortable. No second thoughts."
said,
We had done the right thing, an hour
my
a war. But she
at Fort
Myer.
was already
we had prevailed. Within wanted to tell Alma that
I
asleep.
Over 130 years after the event, historians are still debating General George Meade's decision not to pursue General Robert E. Lee's forces after the Union victory at Gettysburg. A half century after World War
II,
scholars are
still
arguing over General Eisenhower's
decision not to beat the Soviet armies to Berlin. And,
from now, historians
will
still
and destroyed more of the
ask
if
I
expect, years
we should not have
fought longer
Iraqi army. Critics argue that
we
should
have widened our war aims to include seizing Baghdad and driving
Saddam Hussein from power, as we had done with Noriega and the Panama Defense Force in Panama. The critics include even Admiral Crowe, who testified in Congress for continued sanctions and against going to war; but in his memoirs he argues that we should have continued fighting and expanded the mission to go after Saddam Hussein. Matters were not helped when, one month after the war's end.
Norm
Schwarzkopf appeared on a PBS program. Talking with David
Frost.
Regarding the decision to end the fighting. that situation to
General Powell.
And
Norm
he and
first said, "I
I
reported
discussed, have
accomplished our military objectives, the campaign objectives.
answer
is
yes."
But a moment
later,
Norm
said, "Frankly,
mendation had been, you know, continue the march.
them
in a rout
destruction
And the
my
recom-
mean, we had
and we could have continued, you know,
to reap great
upon them."
The next morning
the direct
White House
with that insistent shrillness that
made me
been consulted about stopping the
have ended then
if
my
console rang
attention.
George Bush
line
sit at
sounded more hurt than angered. What did tainly
I
we
Norm mean? He had
fighting.
he had asked for more time.
myself," the President said.
on
cer-
The war would not "I talked to
Norm
525
Every War Must End
shared the President's disappointment. In
I
what Schwarzkopf had told David story won't fly,"
made
look as
it
ignored
you gave him a
if
I
different
was mad
fact, I
called
Norm in made
"You're saying the President
said.
I
Frost.
as hell at
Riyadh. "That a mistake.
You
recommendation, and he
it."
"That's not what "That's what
meant
I
came
at all,"
across,"
Norm replied. "And
said.
I
the
media
are beating
up on
And
criti-
him."
Norm Schwarzkopf cism
had stopped too soon had chipped
that the fighting
did not like
it.
The
was, deservedly, a national hero.
it
was important
to
keep the record
party to the decision, and it.
I
him
telling
straight.
now he seemed
to
not to worry.
He
feeling
Still, I felt
Schwarzkopf had been a
be distancing himself from
put out a public statement, after clearing
"General Schwarzkopf and
his pedestal.
Norm was
President, ever loyal, learned that
abused and called him once again,
the
it
with Norm, that read:
both supported terminating Desert Storm
I
combat operations at 12:00 midnight, 27 February 1991 (EST), as did all
the President's advisors.
tion.
.
.
There was no contrary recommenda-
.
There was no disagreement. There was no debate."
Norm began
back off from
to
his Frost statement,
Doesn 't Take a Hero, he explained
My
gut reaction
ued
to attack
was
that a
army
quick cease-fire would save
American people
for
it
to
we
It
contin-
in
anybody's mind that we'd
it is still
right. Yet,
through charges that the job was
left
it?
this
left
of
guy's
won decisively, and we'd
Schwarzkopf was absolutely
with very few casualties.
mission:
enough
be a regional military threat ... we'd kicked
no doubt
end
it
lives. If
that there wasn't
Why not killed tomorrow? That made up my mind. done
book.
his thinking:
What was more, we'd accomplished our
I'd just finished telling the
butt, leaving
in his
through Thursday, more of our troops would get killed, proba-
bly not many, but some.
Iraq's
and
Why
unfinished.
get
somebody
else
hard to drive a stake
The
truth is that Iraq
began the war with an army of over a million men, approximately half of
whom
were committed
to the
Kuwait theater of operations, where
they were mauled. Iraq took such a battering in the Gulf years afterward, ranks,
I
am
its
army
is
half
its
original size.
And
sure that horror stories are told about
War
that four
within the Iraqi
what
it
was
like to
* COLIN
326
POWELL
L.
endure the wrath from the skies and on the ground during Desert Storm.
The remaining
Iraqi
army
hardly a force with a will to fight to the
is
death.
In October 1994,
Saddam Hussein
sent twenty thousand Republican
Guards toward the Kuwaiti border, a paltry attempt to look tough while trying to get relief
UN
from
from the simple- solutionists:
only
if
Saddam had been polished off dur-
ing the Gulf War, he would not be stirring up trouble now. 23, the
New
York Times printed on
its
book excerpt was headlined **How it,
Iraq
the authors stated that
Escaped
still
October
from a
"much of
reporters.
to Threaten
The
Kuwait
Iraq's crack troops, the
Republican Guard, had not been destroyed," and that was could
On
front page a long excerpt
book on the Gulf War coauthored by one of the paper's Again." In
went up
sanctions. Immediately, the cry
why Saddam
wield threatening military power.
Saddam pulled off some sort of Dunkirk at the end of Desert Storm may have a superficial attraction, I want to cut it off While the
and
kill it
belief that
once and for
true that
all. It is
more tanks and Republican
Guard troops escaped from Kuwait than we expected. And could have taken another day or two to close that escape hatch.
we
could have
killed,
wounded, or captured every
Republican Guard in that
trap.
But
it
we
yes,
And yes,
single soldier in the
would not have made a
bit
of
dif-
ference in Saddam's future conduct. Iraq, a nation of twenty million people, can always pose a threat to
its
tiny neighbor, Kuwait, with only
750,000 people. With or without Saddam and with or without the
Repubhcan Guard, Kuwait's
security depends
on arrangements with
friends in the region and the United States. That
The other
reality is that in
we met
199 1
the Iraqi
is
the strategic reality.
army
while fulfilling the United Nation's objectives, dealt
and
left it less
than half of what
But why didn't we push on
it
to
its
it
in the field and,
a crushing defeat
had been.
Baghdad once we had Saddam on
the
run? Why didn't
we move
the
United States
we finish him off? Or, to put it another way, why didn't goalposts? What tends to be forgotten is that while the led the way, we were heading an international coalition
carrying out a clearly defined
UN
mission. That mission
was accom-
The President even hoped to bring all the troops home by July 4, which would have been dramatic but proved logistically impossible. He had promised the American people that Desert Storm would not become a Persian Gulf Vietnam, and he kept his promise. plished.
Every War Must End
From the states,
521
geopolitical standpoint, the coalition, particularly the
Arab
never wanted Iraq invaded and dismembered. Before the fight-
ing, I received a
ambassador
to
copy of a cable sent by Charles Freeman, the U.S.
Saudi Arabia. "For a range of reasons," Freeman said,
"we cannot pursue us. It is
Iraq's unconditional surrender
It
would not contribute
by
and occupation by
weaken
not in our interest to destroy Iraq or
Iran and/or Syria are not constrained sador.
*
it."
it
to the point that
Wise words, Mr. Ambas-
we want
to the stability
in the
Middle
East to have Iraq fragmented into separate Sunni, Shia, and Kurd polit-
The only way
ical entities.
have avoided
to
this
outcome was
to
have
undertaken a largely U.S. conquest and occupation of a remote nation of twenty million people. ple signed
up
I
don't think that
is
what the American peo-
for.
Of course, we would have loved to see Saddam overthrown by his own people for the death and destruction he had brought down on them. But that did not happen. And the President's demonizing of Saddam as the devil incarnate did not help the public understand why he was allowed to stay in power. It is naive, however, to think that if Saddam had
fallen,
some
he would necessarily have been replaced by a Jeffersonian in
sort of desert
democracy where people read The Federalist Papers
along with the Koran. Quite possibly,
we would have wound up
with a
Saddam by another name. Often, as
I
travel
say, "General,
the
we want you to
Gulf War."
I
me and — know our son" — daughter "fought
around the country, parents will come up to
am
always a
everything turned out
or
when
ask, "I
hope
They usually say yes and express
their
little
all right."
thanks that their soldier
in
apprehensive
came home
safely.
I
One hundred and
forty-
seven Americans gave their lives in combat in the Gulf; another 236 died from accidents and other causes. Small losses as military statistics go, but a tragedy for each family.
I
have met some of these famiUes, and
their loss is heartbreaking. Sadly, their tragedy is
high incidence of casualties caused by friendly don't have to say to ter
many more
parents,
died in the siege of Baghdad."
decision to end the
I
compounded by
fire. I
the
am relieved that I
"I'm sorry your son or daugh-
stand by
war when and how he
my role
did. It is
in the President's
an accountability
I
carry with pride and without apology.
Not only did Desert Storm accomplish
its
political objective,
started to reverse the climate of chronic hostiUty in the
Middle
it
East.
* COLIN
328
POWELL
L.
King Hussein of Jordan and Yasser Arafat, chairman of the PLO, were the only
two major Arab leaders who showed any support
for the Iraqi
weakened by
their stance.
position during the Gulf War, and both were
As
a result, three years
later,
they were trying to reach accommodations
with Israel and their other neighbors. The I^adridr Middle East Peace Conference, following Desert Storm, started the process that resulted in
between Arafat and
the historic agreement
Israeli
Prime Minister Rabin
September 1993 and the peace treaty between King Hussein and Israel in October 1994. The United States today enjoys access to the in
region denied before Desert Storm. Even the hostages in Lebanon were released in the aftermath of the conflict. lated, kept in I
am
check by
And Iraq remains weak and iso-
UN inspectors. Not a bad bottom line.
content with the judgment rendered on Desert Storm by proba-
bly the world's foremost contemporary military historian, John Keegan.
"The Gulf War, whatever ten,
"was a triumph of
now
it is
fashionable to say," Keegan has writ-
incisive planning
tion." It fulfilled the highest
and almost
faultless execu-
purpose of military action: "the use of force
in the cause of order."
Many
coiTespondents covering the war, and their media bosses back
home, complained were confined field
that they
were overcontrolled by the
to press pools.
without military escorts.
military.
They
They could not roam around the battleThe image of World War IFs legendary
Ernie Pyle, filing stories from European foxholes and Pacific beachheads, was thrown in our faces by our
Desert Storm was unprecedented. overall, 1,400 this figure
Of
critics. Yet,
press coverage of
the 2,500 accredited journalists
crowded the theater of operations
at the
peak.
with twenty- seven reporters going ashore with the
Compare first wave
Normandy on D-Day. Desert Storm correspondents totaled nearly four times the number covering Vietnam during that war's height. And, for the record, Ernie Pyle and his fellow World War II reporters were at
strictly
censored. In the Gulf War, stories were reviewed
for security purposes. reporters,
Storm,
Of
one was changed
we tried to
by
the military
1,350 print stories submitted by press pool to protect intelligence procedures. In Desert
maintain military security while handling the largest
concentration of correspondents ever gathered for a combat operation.
For good or for tionized
ill,
instantaneous visual communication has revolu-
news coverage
in our time. Jet travel, satellites,
and minicams
allow
live,
around-the-clock coverage, like
old print media
filters
The inmiediacy of
*
War Must End
'Every
329
CNN, and have removed the
between the reporter and the audience.
made
television has
life
more
difficult for old-
fashioned hard-nosed correspondents. In the old days, reporters could
SOB, asking tough questions in a tough way to get Their methods made little difference, since nobody was going play the
reporter, only the story, filtered
neat
column heads. But when
the best reporters
of us;
We were
we were
through editors, and presented under
watch journalists
the public got to
in
sometimes came across as bad guys.
the time Cheney,
the dynamics.
to see the
and sometimes asking unreasonable questions, even
action, shouting
By
the story.
Norm, and
I
went on
television,
we
understood
talking not only to the press assembled in front
talking to four other audiences
foreign nations, the enemy, and our troops.
I
—
American people,
the
would
say anything for domestic consumption and ignore
never, for example,
its
impact on
Iraq, or
knew that we had won the battle for public opinion during Desert Storm when I watched a Saturday Night Live skit just before the vice versa.
I
ground offensive got under way. In officer,
this spoof,
an
Army public
relations
"Lieutenant Colonel Pierson," appears in desert camouflage at a
press conference and faces the usual forest of
waving hands and
shouted questions: "Colonel, where would you say our forces are most vulnerable to attack?" "Are
Kuwait?
And
to start the
if so,
we
where would
planning an amphibious invasion of that
be?" "On what date are
ground attack?" To anyone
questioning at press briefings, there
was
who had watched
we
going
the actual
a touch of truth in the hilarity.
This time, the press, not some inept General Halftrack from the Beetle Bailey comic
strip,
was
the butt of satire.
During the Gulf War,
we
auditioned militar}' spokespersons. In the
TV world, we could no longer put just anyone, no matter how well informed, in front of the cameras. We picked
twenty-four-hour coverage of the
the Joint Staff operations chief. Lieutenant General
Tom
Kelly, as our
Pentagon briefer because Kelly not only was deeply knowledgeable, but
came
across like
Norm in the
could relate to and
trust.
sitcom Cheers, a regular guy
whom people
Kelly's partner for the press briefing, Rear
Admiral Mike McConnell, was the perfect authority to Kelly's neighborhood sage.
foil,
playing the bookish
Norm Schwarzkopf and I,
eight
thousand miles apart, watched Marine Brigadier General Richard
"Butch" Neal brief reporters in Riyadh for the
first
time.
He was the third
* COLIN
330
candidate
we had
auditioned.
came
unflinching honesty
and
said, "I think
Our
priority,
ment we had
POWELL
L.
The
press roughed Butch up a
through. After
you've got yourself a
star."
was
But
of course,
to learn
fighting.
debut,
in this
I
but an
called
Norm
new media environhow to make the
something as old as Clause\\^tz:
people understand and support what after the
NeaFs
bit,
we were
doing. Polls conducted
war suggest that we succeeded. These surveys indicated that 80
War
percent of Americans polled thought press coverage of the Gulf
had been good or excellent.
Even before Norm Schwarzkopf came home discuss his future with me.
in triumph,
he wanted to
SACEUR, Supreme AUied Commander
Europe, a desirable and prestigious assignment, was already taken by
Jack Galvin. "You probably could be chairman "but
Fm
not going anywhere yet.
Of
at
some
point,"
I
said,
course, Vuono's retiring. That
would open up Army Chief of
Staff."
answered. "Sure,"
said, "but let
me tell you what I really think. Now is
you
You've been away for a long time. You
I
the perfect time for
to retire.
He might be
Norm
interested.
when you come home. You're a I knew that no slot enough now to contain a man of his fame and
don't realize what's going to happen national idol. People are going to in the
Pentagon was big
stature.
"You've got
go crazy over you."
thirty-five years in," I said. "You'll
be getting
all
kinds of offers. Now's the time to leave." Shortly afterward, after talking to other friends.
back, "I'm going to retire," he said. "1
do over the next few
years.
have the stomach for that. cians and
all
You have
Norm
know what you guys
called
will
to tear the services apart.
me
have I
to
don't
And I don't want to deal with the damn politi-
the crap you'll have to put
up with."
him I hoped we would be reshaping the forces, not tearing them apart. Still, he had made the right decision. Norm Schwarzkopf did not suffer fools gladly, which you can get away with in the absolute comI
told
mand environment comes with
of the battlefield. But suffering the insufferable
the territory in Washington.
For a moment,
it
looked as
if the
Iraqi Shiites in the south rose
war might flare up
up
in
arms
to
demand more
from Baghdad. Saddam responded by sending the uprising. In the north, the
Kurds
again. In
tried to
March, the
recognition
in his troops to suppress
shake off the Iraqi yoke.
*
Every War Must End
331
Neither revolt had a chance. Nor, frankly, was their success a goal of our policy. President
Bush's rhetoric urging the Iraqis to overthrow Sad-
dam, however, may have given encouragement
was
practical intention
threat to an Iran that
we
Nevertheless,
to leave
remained
to the rebels.
Baghdad enough power
bitterly hostile
But our
to survive as a
toward the United
States.
could not ignore the worsening plight of the rebel-
Saddam had lashed back, driving over half a miUion of them from their homes to barren mountains in southern Turkey. There, lacking lious Kurds.
food, shelter, or medical care, they began dying at a rate of six hundred
Bush
a day. President
Comfort, headed by
directed us to launch a relief operation. Provide
now Lieutenant General John M.
Shalikashvili.
The
Kurds, however, could not survive indefinitely in this bleak mountainscape. Their best
hope was
to return
home. The challenge was
to get
them back while protecting them from Saddam's vengeance. Jack Galvin, operating out of Mons, Belgium, as our European
commander, had long-distance control over our forces
One Sunday each with a
afternoon, with
map
me
in front of us,
in
Washington and Jack
we
I felt
like
in
Belgium,
sketched out a "security zone," a
Saddam's troops would not be
sector around Kurdish cities in Iraq that
allowed to enter.
in this region.
one of those British diplomats
in the
1920s
carving out nations like Jordan and Iraq on a tablecloth at a gentle-
man's club.
I
magne," and
I
called Galvin, in his trans-European role, ''Charletold
him
lining out the security
They
refused.
We
now he was truly a kingdom maker. After zone, we ordered the Iraqi military to get out. that
rattled the saber,
and they withdrew. In seven
weeks. Provide Comfort brought nearly half a million Kurds home.
watched Shalikashvili run terful skill
this political
and concluded, once again,
I
and military maze with masthat here
was
a soldier
up
to
any mission.
The troops came home tory parades in
Broadway vertible.
in
to a wildly cheering
America.
Chicago and Washington and
New York. Alma
and
I
I
took part in vic-
in a ticker-tape
parade up
rode in a white 1959 Buick con-
Ahead of us were Cheney and
his wife,
Lynne, and behind us
Norm Schwarzkopf and his wife, Brenda. Our security people wanted the men to wear armored vests. "Not me," I said. "I look chubby enough already." Norm agreed, and Cheney went along with our military judgment.
It
was an emotional moment
to
be
at the center
of an
* COLIN
332 event
had seen only
I
POWELL
L.
books and newsreels, celebrating a
in history
Lindbergh, or an Eisenhower, or a MacArthur. Norm, a
and
a
I,
New Yorker, riding through a blizzard of tape, confetti, and bal-
loons while thousands cheered their heads
boys
New Jerseyite,
who had made
were two hometown
good. The generals anc^ admirals marching in the
victory parades, John Yeosock, Walt
Arthur,
off,
Boomer, Chuck Horner, Stan
of us, were surrogates for the real heroes, the troops of
all
XVIII Airborne Corps, VII Corps, and the U.S. Marines, the airmen, sailors,
and Coast Guardsmen,
Our
in their country.
allies
who had given back to Americans
were also represented
Korea and Vietnam veterans marched
pride
in the parades,
too, finally getting long
and
overdue
recognition. Sitting in the stands, their contributions largely unsung,
who had
vice chiefs
so superbly prepared their forces and
were the
ser-
who had pro-
vided invaluable counsel to Cheney and to President Bush. The nation
owes eral
its
gratitude to General Carl
Vuono, Admiral Frank Kelso, Gen-
Tony McPeak, and General Al Gray,
as well as to the vice chair-
man. Admiral Dave Jeremiah, and the Conmiandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral
Kime. Desert Storm had been a team
Bill
commands worldwide, Washington maps, and
effort involving
our
as well as the little-known defense agencies in
that provided the logistics, intelligence, conmiunications,
the other unheralded elements of victory.
all
All of us in uniform had been solidly backed by civilian leaders at State, the
Pentagon, and the White House. Most deserving of praise was
President Bush.
He had
kept his promise, *'This will not stand," and he
had led a worldwide coalition
The
celebrations
to victory.
were no doubt out of proportion
to the achievement.
We had not fought another World War n. Yet, after the stalemate of Korea and the long agony
in Southeast Asia, the country
was hungry for victory.
We had given America a clear win at low casualties in a noble cause, and the
American people
looked
at
it,
if
we
fell in
got too
love again with their armed forces.
much
adulation for this one,
neglect the troops had experienced
That spring
I
was
it
made up
am no great down
invited to throw out the first ball at Yankee
shakes as a jock, but
I
I
for the
coming home from those other wars.
swear
my pitch was
the East River Drive and gazed at the
Stadium in
White Sox.
I
a strike. Later,
I
the season opener between the Yankees and the Chicago
rode
The way
huge Pepsi-Cola sign
*
Every War Must End
across the river. Suddenly,
was a kid
I
floors of the Pepsi bottling plant.
again, swinging a
The next
day,
I
spoke
333
mop across the Waldorf-
at the
Astoria Hotel to a breakfast meeting of the Association for a Better
York. "In
my
youth,"
I
belonged to Local 812, International
said, "I
Brotherhood of Teamsters.
New
Is there
anybody here from 812?"
they were not expecting that, and a table of Teamster officials
I
guess
let
out a
whoop and a holler. The most moving part of this trip was my return to Banana Kelly. The community that my parents had fled when it started to turn into a crimeinfested slum was making a comeback. Our old building at 952 Kelly Street, abandoned, burned out, and finally torn down, was now the site of new garden apartments. I watched kids playing ball and skipping rope in Kelly Street Park, which had been a garbage- strewn
lot just
a
few years before. Afterward,
I
walked a couple of blocks and up the worn stone steps
of Morris High School. The wooden floors
opening and closing the
and the gym, where disinfectant. I
recalled
before. "I that
I
want
still
what
it
hung where
I
remembered,
had the familiar smell of sweat and
to speak,
had been
remember
like to
this place,"
I
be here as a boy thirty-seven years told them. "I
But you can.
it.
But wanting
be
to
enough. You've got to study for heart and soul."
I
isn't it,
remember
When I was coming
were limited. But now they are
to be.
creaked, the poles for
looked over a sea of mostly Hispanic and black faces and
you can't make
tunities
was
I
windows
tall
still
there.
the feehng
up, the oppor-
You can be anything you
enough. Dreaming about
work
for
it,
fight for
pointed out that 97 percent of GIs
it
isn't
all
your
now were
high
it
with
school graduates. Their diplomas proved one thing: that they had the drive and discipline to stick
Choose a
role model,
I
said.
it
out. I
appealed to them: "Don't drop out."
"And feel
free to
a general or a teacher, or just the parents world."
I
do not know
if I
choose a black or a white,
who
brought you into the
reached a single youngster that day. But
I
was
determined to leave Morris High with a message for those kids. Reject the easy path of victimhood.
Dare
to take the harder path of
work and
conmiitment, a path that leads somewhere. I
had urged the kids
to pick their role
models from any
race, because
am concerned that the admirable ideal of black pride can be carried to an extreme where it produces isolation. I am all for instilling pride and
I
a sense of tradition in African-Americans, particularly
among
the
i
334
* COLIN
young.
I
made
POWELL
L.
the Buffalo Soldiers
back on a proud past
my cause so that blacks could look
in another chapter of their history. I
want black
youngsters to learn about black writers, poets, musicians, scientists,
and
artists,
and about the culture and history of Africa. At the same
we have to accept that black children i^^ America are not going to have to make their way in an African world. They are going to have to make their way in an American world. Along with their black heritage, they should know about the Greek origins of our democracy, the time,
British origins of our judicial system,
national tapestry of Americans of
young African-Americans
all
and the contributions
kinds and colors.
to learn to live
is
My message to
where you are and not
where you might have been born three centuries ago. The is
to our
cultural
gap
too wide, the time past too long gone, for Africa to provide the only
nourishment to the soul or mind of African- Americans. The corollary is
equally true.
Young whites
They must be taught
will not
be living in an all-white world.
to appreciate the struggle of minorities to achieve
their birthright.
On
white-majority college campuses, in our inner
every area of social interaction,
we
disillusioned blacks
the promise of America. ing, "If that's
almost
see an unhealthy resegregation
occurring, sometimes self-imposed, sometimes
When
cities, in
imposed by economics.
go off by themselves, they withdraw from
They then allow whites
what they want, so be
Even
it."
to
walk away
too, say-
justified, well-intended
number of blacks in Congress has allowed the hook in looking after black constituent
redistricting to increase the
nonwhite members off
The black agenda has been given over to the Congressional Black Caucus. The concerns of African- Americans stand in danger of issues.
riding again in the tunity
and
back of the bus.
We are a nation of unlimited oppor-
serious unsolved social
ills;
and we are
all in it together.
Racial resegregation can only lead to social disintegration. Far better to
resume the dream of Martin Luther King, whites and blacks I
have lived
in
sit
side
by
and risen
me
to build a nation
where
side at the table of brotherhood.
in a
white-dominated society and a white-
dominated profession, but not by denying chain holding
Jr.:
my race,
not by seeing
it
as a
back or an obstacle to be overcome. Others may use
my race against me, but I will never use it against myself. My blackness has been a source of pride, strength, and inspiration, and so has my being an American.
I
started out believing in an
America where anyone.
*
Zvery War Must End
given equal opportunity, can succeed through hard
beUeve
On
in that
glanced
at the
work and faith.
2, 1
went
to the kitchen,
Washington Post on the
table. I
my coffee,
poured
had a story based on
it.
This
article
and
was front-page news. Bob
Woodward's book The Commanders was coming out in the Post
I still
America.
morning of May
the
333
a
few days, and
proved to be the opening
On May 5, the Posfs "Book World" made The review. And on May 13, Post-ov/ncd Newsweek
salvo in a publicity blitz.
Commanders
its
lead
magazine had a cover story with
my picture and a banner reading
Reluctant Warrior: Doubts and Division on the sure takes care of I
turned out to be a central figure in Woodward's story of life in the PenI
had no quarrel with the
he presented. But the emphasis
pages of the book implying that
I
in the
total picture
to propel
Woodward's work
The
members of Congress who had voted
war and other opponents Except for calls I
Cheney of
reluctant-
against the
friends,
my phone was eerily silent
took a pounding from the media and the Beltway gossip
my
heard nothing from
my
is
Dick Cheney. Part of
boss,
probably happy to see
into
Powell really was with us."
to say, "See,
from a few close
me
opposed the President on the
best-sellerdom through the booster rocket of controversy. warrior theme allowed
of
media barrage was on the few
privately
Gulf War, a publicity strategy designed
as
"The
The Post
to War."
own.
its
tagon and the White House. that
Road
me cut down to
size.
circuit. I
me was
The
saying,
better angels
nature said, that's just Dick; you get into trouble in this league,
and you get yourself out.
The same morning to say that President
the story appeared, a
Bush was coming on
"Cohn, pay no attention "Don't
let
to that nonsense.
'em get under your
"Thanks, Mr. President,"
"Barb says
hello.
Later that day,
the line.
I
waited uneasily.
Don't worry about it," he
said.
skin."
I said.
See ya." Chck.
at,
of
all
places, a gathering
reporters hit the President with
said. "I don't care
on
agricultural policy,
more questions about me,
Woodward's book. "Nobody's going and me," he
White House operator called
to drive a
wedge between
what kind of book they've
unnamed sources they have, how many quotes they put ." somebody when they weren't there. .
.
as depicted in
got,
[Powell]
how many
in the
mouth of
* COLIN
336 I
at a
POWELL
L.
will never forget this loyalty
when
time
On May
22,
I
needed a
Cheney
from the President of the United
friend.
called
me up
reappointed as chairman," he said.
was not up
time to think about
my
a
lijtle
puzzled, since 1
you
be
my term
thanked Dick.
to reappoint
baggage,"
"It's
early."
"He's got plenty of
I said.
this one."
"You don't understand," Cheney
said.
"He wants
to
end any specula-
your standing in the administration."
tion about
"When
was
"He wants
the President's idea," he said. to carry
to his office. "You're going to
I
on September 30.
for over four months,
"He doesn't have
States
does he want to do
it?" I asked.
"Tomorrow."
The next day
found myself
I
in the
Rose Garden with George Bush
me and telling the press and assembled officials, "I'm taking now to demonstrate my great confidence in his ability and the
pointing to this step
tremendous respect
I
have for him."
When the President finished, I followed with brief remarks. Brit Hume of ABC put a question to me: "General, would you care to comment on a
the recent account of the Gulf War suggesting that
minimum, some I
had
want
"I just it
started to
serious misgivings about the use-of-force option
answer when the President adroitly brushed
said.
to accept
more than anyone options, in
my
over The
picked it.
He
is
who
else,
I
"It
aside.
.
.
after all
.
view, were exhausted, for drawing the line in the sand." the second floor of the
White House. "Right up
That ended that line of questioning, and the controversy
up, dusted
that kind of
for the
moment. George Bush had
me off, and put his arm around me when I needed
man.
For me, the war did not end on February 28, not while
we
still
had the
reverse logistical challenge of bringing thousands of troops and tains of
.
was Colin Powell,
think deserves the credit
Commanders died down
me
." .
He recalled the day I had suggested a deadline for
Gorbachev's peace proposal.
The President pointed to in that office."
me
at
be on the record as saying that he spoke his mind; he did
Bush
openly,"
Saddam
to
you had,
moun-
equipment home (which proved as hard as sending everything
over), not until
we had
Operation Provide Comfort in place, not until
the controversies quieted
down. Early
in June,
Alma and
I
finally
*
537
at the
week-
Every War Must End escaped to Maryland's Eastern Shore to spend a few days
end home of our close friends Grant and Ginger Green.
spied a
I
ham-
mock that Grant had strung up between two trees near a creek. I crawled into
it
and
felt the
bone-deep exhaustion
for the first time in nearly a year.
was
I
finally start to seep out of
slept the sleep of the dead.
me
The war
finally over.
On July
22,
1
flew to the Soviet Union for another round of confidence-
building sessions with
came with me. Moiseyev and
my
was
It
Soviet counterpart, Mikhail Moiseyev.
like old
his wife, Galla.
Army showcase
there,
I
as
we were
reunited with
was dragged through Red
exercises, paratrooper operations so choreographed
resembled skydiving
that they
home week
Once
Alma
ballets; tours of
mess
halls
where
my
guides would have you believe the Soviet chief quartermaster was Escoffier; inspections of fighter aircraft, T-80 tanks,
and AK-47
rifles
was ready to scream. The Soviet minister of defense, Dimitri
until I
me a gift, a pistol. If I carried every weapon the Soviets had to me over the years, I would look like a poster boy for the
Yazov, gave presented
National Rifle Association.
We
were
sea battle
we had
thing else
facade, the rot
but
my
of Vladivostok on
in the port
among gleaming seen,
was
ships of
a
mock
This exercise, like every-
had a Potemkin-village thinness. Behind the
evident.
request to see
Navy Day watching
the line.
I
how
was allowed
watch
elite paratroopers,
who had been
Soviet troops
Eastern Europe were living was denied.
to
pulled out of
The fancy photos of seven
bal-
anced food groups displayed in the mess halls did not square with the stew ladled out to
Red Army
soldiers
from huge conmiunal
the shining warships performing for us
rusting hulks.
who was bor and
Gorbachev
me, cast an expert eye around Vladivostok har-
During the
He seemed beaten down by the
in this
I
the Mikhail
incessant batter-
convulsed country.
tour, I tried to
meet and
into Vladivostok
talk with ordinary Russians, carriers.
We
on a Friday, and while we were driving
into
though Moiseyev kept steering
town,
And
whom I met on this trip was not the supremely confident fig-
was taking
had flown
could see dock after dock of
"Here's a fleet that's going bye-bye."
ure of earlier sunmiits.
ing he
Behind
Admiral Jerry Johnson, the vice chief of naval operations,
traveling with said,
we
vats.
me
to
armored personnel
noticed heavy traffic going in the opposite direction. Then, on
* COLIN
338
Sunday
night, as
reversed. five
L
POWELL
.
we were
driving back to the airport, the pattern
asked our driver about
I
hundred
it.
"People get private plots, maybe
hundred square meters," he
to six
"So on weekends,
said.
they go out to the country and tend vegetable gardens.
They
anything decent in the state stores. The garden gives them a
and maybe a
to eat
income. They work like
little
what they produce." The tionately
more productive than
As we prepared
to fly
ble getting one present
collective farms spoke
home from Vladivostok on
Moiseyev and Galla were there
fond of
this
said,
base. After
to say
it
it
volumes about
District into the
was
crated, the elk
aboard.
goodbye, the four of us standing
mosquitoes attracted by the floodUghts.
"Misha, take care of yourself."
honest soldier, and
I
I
meant it.
was worried about him.
perched on a structure that was verging on collapse. sadness in his eyes told
and
were propor-
me a massive elk's head, complete with
mounted on a heavy wooden
Moiseyev and
see
July 28,1 had trou-
from the Far Eastern Military
required four burly Russian soldiers to lug
in a cloud of Siberian
more
communism.
hold of our 707. They had given horns,
can't get
little
You should
ants.
fact that small individual plots
the fundamental defect of
was
me
he understood.
We
all
I
I
I
hugged
had grown
saw a man
A fleeting
look of
embraced, and
Alma
boarded the plane for home.
I
As
for the elk's head,
it
scared the devil out of
my
two-year-old
we displayed it in Quarters 6 at Fort Myer. I finally move the beast closer to home, at least symbolically. I gave
grandson when
managed it
to
my
to
friend
Ted Stevens, the senior senator from Alaska,
to
hang
in
his office.
I
had
just fallen asleep, at about twenty minutes after midnight
August tary
19,
when
Command
I
Center.
A
coup against the Gorbachev government was
under way. President Bush was in his summer place
Maine. Vice President Quayle was
in Arizona.
Canada. Jim Baker was fishing in Wyoming. called Cheney's deputy secretary, fill. I
hit the usual buttons
alert status
tem
on
got a call from the duty officer in the National Mili-
in
Kennebunkport,
Cheney was I
was "home
fishing in alone." I
Donald Atwood, and gave him a quick
and found that there had been no change
in the
of conventional Soviet miUtary forces. The Soviets had a sys-
called "Chegev," using a device the size of an attache case that
allowed a handful of leaders to communicate in the event of a nuclear
j
k
Every War Must End
crisis.
i