Colin Powell : biography

Early life

Colin Luther Powell was born on April 5, 1937, in Harlem, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, to Jamaican immigrant parents Maud Arial (née McKoy) and Luther Theophilus Powell. He also has Scottish ancestry. Powell was raised in the South Bronx and attended Morris High School, a former public school in the Bronx, from which he graduated in 1954. While at school, he worked at a local baby furniture store where he picked up Yiddish from the shopkeepers and some of the customers. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in geology from the City College of New York in 1958 and was a self-admitted C average student. He was later able to earn a Master of Business Administration degree from the George Washington University in 1971, after his second tour in Vietnam.

Despite his parents’ pronunciation of his name as , Powell has pronounced his name since childhood, after the heroic World War II flyer Colin P. Kelly Jr. Public officials and radio and television reporters have used Powell’s preferred pronunciation.

Potential presidential candidate

In 1997 Powell founded America’s Promise with the objective of helping children from all socioeconomic sectors. That same year saw the establishment of The Colin L. Powell Center for Leadership and Service. The mission of the Center is to "prepare new generations of publicly engaged leaders from populations previously underrepresented in public service and policy circles, to build a strong culture of civic engagement at City College, and to mobilize campus resources to meet pressing community needs and serve the public good."

In the 2000 U.S. presidential election Powell campaigned for Senator John McCain and later Texas Governor George W. Bush after the latter secured the Republican nomination. Bush eventually won, and Powell was appointed Secretary of State.

Political views

A moderate Republican, Powell is well known for his willingness to support liberal or centrist causes. . He is pro-choice regarding abortion, and in favor of "reasonable" gun control. He stated in his autobiography that he supports affirmative action that levels the playing field, without giving a leg up to undeserving persons because of racial issues. Powell was also instrumental in the 1993 implementation of the military’s don’t ask, don’t tell policy, though he later supported its repeal as proposed by Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen in January 2010, saying "circumstances had changed".

The Vietnam War had a profound effect on Powell’s views of the proper use of military force. These views are described in detail in the autobiography My American Journey. The Powell Doctrine, as the views became known, was a central component of US policy in the Gulf War (the first U.S. war in Iraq) and U.S. invasion of Afghanistan (the overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks). The hallmark of both operations was strong international cooperation, and the use of overwhelming military force.

Powell was the subject of controversy in 2004 when, in a conversation with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, he reportedly referred to neoconservatives within the Bush administration as "fucking crazies." In addition to being reported in the press (though generally, the expletive was censored in the U.S. press), the quote was used by James Naughtie in his book, The Accidental American: Tony Blair and the Presidency, and by Chris Patten in his book, Cousins and Strangers: America, Britain, and Europe in a New Century.

In a September 2006 letter to Sen. John McCain, General Powell expressed opposition to President Bush’s push for military tribunals of those formerly and currently classified as enemy combatants. Specifically, he objected to the effort in Congress to "redefine Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention." He also asserted: "The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism.""Sen. McCain Releases Letter from Gen. Colin Powell," Washington Post (September 14, 2006). http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2006/09/14/GR2006091400728.html