Colin Powell

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Colin Powell (2001)
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Colin Luther Powell (born April 5, 1937 in New York City ) is a former four-star general in the US Army and politician . From 1987 to 1989 he was National Security Advisor and then from 1989 to 1993 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff . After his retirement he went into politics and was Secretary of State of the United States in the first term of US President George W. Bush (2001-2005) .

youth

Colin Powell is the younger of two children of Maud Ariel McKoy and Luther Powell, an immigrant couple from Jamaica . His father was a warehouse worker, his mother was a seamstress in a textile factory. He grew up in New York in an African American- dominated neighborhood, the Bronx . Powell attended public schools and studied geology at City University in New York . He then enlisted in the Reserve Officer Training Corps and completed a master's degree in business administration at George Washington University as a soldier .

Military career

Colin Powell as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989)

He completed his officer training in 1958 and became First Lieutenant in the US Army. In 1962 he married Alma V. Johnson. The couple has three children. First with the 3rd US Panzer Division in Gelnhausen , West Germany, he was deployed in the Vietnam War in 1962/63 and wounded in the process. In 1963 he received the Purple Heart award . In 1968 he returned to Vietnam and commanded as deputy commander, a battalion of infantry .

In 1972 he was transferred to Washington. From 1977 he worked in the office of the Minister of Defense. From 1979 to 1981 he served as Senior Military Assistant to Secretary of Defense Harold Brown and from 1983 to 1986 he served as military advisor to the Department of Defense under Caspar Weinberger . In 1986 Colin Powell was promoted to Lieutenant General . He was given command of the 5th US Army Corps in the Federal Republic of Germany. He held this position until 1987. In January 1987, he became the first black American to become Deputy US Security Advisor to the White House . After the previous National Security Advisor Frank Carlucci was appointed Secretary of Defense, US President Ronald Reagan appointed Powell as his successor on November 5, 1987.

In this office he participated in the disarmament negotiations with the Soviet Union . During this time he was also promoted to general . In early 1989, under President George Bush, he took command of all of the United States' land forces. In August 1989 he was appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by the President . In addition to being the first African American in this position, Colin Powell was the first CJCS to graduate from the Reserve Officer Training Corps. In the same year he supported the US invasion of Panama and in 1990 took part in the preparations for the Gulf War (Desert Storm) . In 1993 he retired into private life.

In 1997 he founded the America's Promise - The Alliance for Youth aid organization for socially disadvantaged children in the USA.

Political career

On December 16, 2000, President-elect George W. Bush announced that he would appoint Colin Powell as the new Secretary of State ; his appointment followed in January 2001. Powell, who is considered moderate, was seen in the Bush administration's cabinet as an opponent of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld . In the summer of 2002 there were open differences on the Iraq issue. Ultimately, however, Powell backed the US attack on Iraq in March 2003 . On 5 February 2003 was followed by Powell's memorable appearance before the Security Council of the United Nations . Powell pleaded for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein because he was in possession of weapons of mass destruction . In September 2005, Powell regretted this speech in an ABC television interview in which he tried to convince the UN Security Council of the necessity of the Iraq war with allegations of fact that were later recognized as false and described it as an "eyesore" in his career.

Colin Powell at the Ellis Island Family Heritage Awards ceremony

There were also massive differences between the State Department under Colin Powell and the United States Department of Defense under Donald Rumsfeld regarding the postwar order of Iraq . Colin Powell announced that he would withdraw from political life after the first term of US President George W. Bush and that he would not be available for a second term as Secretary of State. This was taken as an indication of an increase in power of his main adversary Donald Rumsfeld and a strengthening of the hardliners in the US government.

On November 15, 2004, just two weeks after the 2004 US presidential election , Colin Powell actually submitted his resignation from the post of Secretary of State. Governments around the world regretted Powell's resignation, who was seen as a moderate figure within the Bush administration. His position was taken on January 28, 2005 by the previous national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice .

Career after civil service

In July 2005, Powell rose as a partner in the California investment company Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers , a (KPCB), one of the most well-known venture capital -companies, for example, the rise of Internet companies Google and Amazon.com had financed.

On October 19, 2008, Powell announced on the television program " Meet the Press " that he would support the Democrat Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election . On this occasion he also criticized the shift to the right of the Republican Party under its candidate John McCain . In the run-up to the 2012 presidential election campaign, he again supported Obama. After his re-election, he criticized the Republican Party again.

In the election for the President of the United States by the electorate on December 19, 2016, three of the Washington State electorates originally intended for Hillary Clinton voted for Powell, who thus got the third most votes after Clinton and the new President Donald Trump .

Political positions

Powell often takes divergent views from the Republican party line. He spoke out in favor of same-sex marriage, called for higher taxes for the rich and a liberal immigration law. Powell also supported Barack Obama . He also admitted that he regretted the war in Iraq . For example, after the president said after the war began that he slept like a baby, he replied: “I also sleep like a baby. Every two hours I wake up and scream. ”For the 2020 presidential election , Powell again supports Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden .

Honors

On April 23, 1991, he received the Congress Gold Medal of Honor . On September 30, 1993, he received the Medal of Freedom ( "The Presidential Medal of Freedom"). These medals are the two highest civil awards in the United States. He also received the Spingarn Medal in 1991 . He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1998 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009.

Selection of decorations, sorted based on the Order of Precedence of Military Awards :

Fonts

  • My way . Piper, Munich [u. a.] 1995, ISBN 3-492-03836-0 (Original: My American Journey , Ballantine Books (Reprint 1996), 978-0345407283)
  • A Soldier's Way: An Autobiography . Arrow Books; 2nd Revised edition 2001. ISBN 978-0-09-943993-6 .
  • Leadership. Teachings that guided me through life . Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-455-50290-9

literature

  • Richard Steins: Colin Powell: A biography . Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn. [u. a.] 2003, ISBN 0-313-32266-X
  • Oren Harari: The leadership secrets of Colin Powell . McGraw-Hill, New York [et. a.] 2002, ISBN 0-07-138859-1
  • Alice K. Flanagan: Colin Powell: US general and Secretary of State . Ferguson Pub, Chicago 2001, ISBN 0-89434-372-6
  • Judith Cummings, Stefan Rudnicki: Colin Powell and the American dream . Dove Books, Beverly Hills, Calif. 1995, ISBN 0-7871-0936-3
  • David Roth: Sacred Honor: A biography of Colin Powell . Zondervan [u. a.], Grand Rapids, Mich. 1993, ISBN 0-310-60480-X
  • Carl Senna: Colin Powell. A man of war and peace . Walker, New York 1992, ISBN 0-8027-8180-2
  • Howard Means: Colin Powell: Soldier, statesman - statesman, soldier . Fine, New York 1992, ISBN 1-55611-335-8
  • Clarence Lusane: Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice: Foreign policy, race and the new American century . Praeger, Westport, Conn. [u. a.] 2006, ISBN 0-275-98309-9

Web links

Commons : Colin Powell  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
Wikisource: Colin Powell  - Sources and full texts (English)

Individual evidence

  1. 2nd Bn 48th Infantry ( English ) Archived from the original on March 8, 2016. Accessed May 31, 2020th
  2. ^ Fritz Wirth: Vita of a general - open end . In: The world . Axel Springer SE. February 19, 1996. Retrieved May 31, 2020.
  3. Secretary Colin L. Powell Remarks to the United Nations Security Council ( Memento of 10 December 2008 at the Internet Archive ), New York City, February 5, 2003
  4. Powell: "Schandfleck my career" , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 9, 2005
  5. Powell supports Obama , FinanzNachrichten.de, October 19, 2008
  6. ^ Zeff Zeleny: Powell Gives Obama His Endorsement for a Second Time. In: The Causus. The Politics and Government Blog of The Times. October 25, 2012.
  7. spiegel.de January 14, 2013: Republican Powell complains about racism in his own party
  8. ^ A Historic Number of Electors Defected, and Most Were Supposed to Vote for Clinton
  9. Giuseppe di Grazia: Collin Powell in an interview with Stern: “Republicans ignore reality in America”. In: Stern.de , April 10, 2013.
  10. ^ Fred Kaplan: The Tragedy of Colin Powell: How the Bush presidency destroyed him. In: Slate , February 19, 2004 (English).
  11. Biden's wife outshines Bill Clinton , accessed August 19, 2020
  12. ^ Congressional Gold Medal Recipients
  13. Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipients on senate.gov, accessed on March 25, 2014.
  14. ^ Member History: Colin L. Powell. American Philosophical Society, accessed February 5, 2019 .
  15. Tom Goeller: Colin Powell and the War , Review of Colin Powell: Leadership. Lessons that led me through life, Hoffmann and Campe , In: Andruck - The magazine for political literature , broadcast on March 18, 2013 on Deutschlandfunk