First choice expected to heal divisions

WASHINGTON - Colin Powell, nominated at the weekend as the first black United States Secretary of State, is one of the most respected men in America, with wide experience in national security and a flair for conciliation.

Powell, aged 63, was long assumed to be President-elect George W. Bush's top choice for the State Department post and was the first of his cabinet to be named.

After the bitterness of the contested election that brought Bush to power, in which many blacks felt disenfranchised, his selection of the retired general was expected to help heal national divisions.

Powell, who oversaw the US military during the Gulf War and was national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan, was courted by Democrats as well as Republicans after he stood down as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1993.

Many believe Powell could have added US President to his resume and been the one doing the appointing rather than Bush.

But the eloquent and charismatic Powell, citing a lack of commitment, resisted entreaties to run for the White House, despite early public opinion polls that showed him to be the favourite to succeed outgoing President Bill Clinton.

Although he will become one of only a few career military men to hold the Secretary of State job, his record suggests he will share Bush's commitment to reining in foreign military interventions, which reached a peak under Clinton.

Although Powell appeals to a broad spectrum of the population, there is no question where his political sympathies really lie.

He joined other Republican foreign policy luminaries in publicly backing Bush's candidacy, after concern over Bush's lack of international expertise was heightened by his failure to name several foreign leaders in an impromptu pop quiz.

He was a prominent guest of the Bush family at presidential campaign debates. In this way, he offered crucial assurance to voters that Bush, who has virtually no foreign policy experience, was assembling a cadre of sage advisers.

Admirers say he is no prima donna, despite his celebrity, and that he remains loyal to old friends on both sides of the aisle regardless of the political temper of the times.

Powell has liberal social views. A key exception was refusing to allow gays to serve openly in the military - as Joint Chiefs chairman he publicly opposed Clinton's moves to liberalise US policy.

That did not preclude Clinton from asking Powell in 1994 to become Secretary of State, to succeed Warren Christopher, who was considering resigning.

Powell, who mostly served Republican Administrations in senior jobs, including as Reagan's National Security Adviser, declined and Christopher stayed on.

Powell's biggest test may be whether his strategy of favouring military intervention only if there is a clear strategic goal, popular support, and the use of crushing force survives post-Cold War realities.

He achieved star status in the Gulf War, when Bush's father George Bush was President; his doctrine underpinned the US-led invasion that ousted Iraq from Kuwait in a 100-hour ground attack.

But in their book The General's War, Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor said Powell argued in internal Administration debates for leaving the Iraqi Army in Kuwait and confronting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein only if he pushed on into Saudi Arabia.

Powell wanted to limit the US response to economic sanctions against Iraq and felt "the American people do not want their young dying for $1.50 a gallon oil," the book said.

In his autobiography, My American Journey, Powell acknowledged that at one high-level Administration meeting, he questioned "if it was worth going to war to liberate Kuwait," prompting then-Defence Secretary Dick Cheney, now Vice-President-elect, to warn him to "stick to military matters."

Under Clinton, Powell opposed intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo, putting himself on collision course with Madeleine Albright, then United Nations Ambassador and later Secretary of State.

Powell, writing in his memoir, recalled Albright asking: "What's the point of having this superb military that you're always talking about if we can't use it?"

"I thought I would have an aneurysm," he wrote. "American GIs were not toy soldiers to be moved around on some sort of global game board."

Powell, who lost a close friend in Vietnam, recalls graphically in his book seeing comrades blown up by a stray artillery shell early in his military career.

Bush has made creation of a missile defence system a priority and said he would jettison the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Russia if this were needed in order to go ahead with a system.

Military experts say that when he was Joint Chiefs chairman Powell was not a fan of missile defence, an idea developed under Reagan, nor did he oppose the ABM treaty.

The son of Jamaican parents, Powell was born in New York's Harlem on April 5, 1937. An early love of the military in the Reserve Officer Training Corps at City College of New York - where he was, by his own admission, a so-so student - gave him a sense of belonging and presaged tours in Vietnam.

"War should be the politics of last resort," he declared in his memoir.

"And when we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support ... In Vietnam, we had entered into a halfhearted half-war, with much of the nation opposed or indifferent, while a small fraction carried the burden."

Despite his opposition to outlawing abortion, support for affirmative action programmes promoting racial and gender equality and backing for gun control - views which match Clinton's and clash with those of many Republicans - Powell joined the Republican party in late 1995.

He campaigned for Republican candidate Bob Dole against Clinton and could have been Dole's running-mate had he wanted. But in November 1995, after a 26-city tour to promote his best-selling book, he put a stop to the presidential talk.

"To offer myself as a candidate for president requires a commitment and passion ... the kind of passion and the kind of commitment I felt every day of my 35 years as a soldier, a passion and a commitment that despite my every effort I did not yet have for political life," he said then.

"Such a life requires a calling that I do not yet hear."

All this from the son of a seamstress and a shipping clerk who, Powell likes to recall, arrived in America aboard a "banana boat" - a United Fruit Company steamer - in 1920.

His tenure as chairman of the Joint Chiefs ran from October 1989 under President George Bush through September 1993 under Clinton, when he retired after 35 years of service.

Powell and his wife, Alma, have a son, two daughters and two grandchildren.

- REUTERS

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