Birthday: April 5, 1937 (Aries)
Born In: Harlem, New York, United States
Colin Powell
(The First African-American Secretary of State)
Colin Powell was the first African-American to hold the key positions of the U.S Joint Chief of Staff and the Secretary of State. Born to Jamaican immigrant parents, he joined the U.S. Army and saw limited action in Vietnam. As a White House Fellow in the Nixon administration, he impressed Casper Weinberger and became his senior military assistant, when Weinberger became the Secretary of Defence. He rapidly climbed up the military ranks to become the youngest Joint Chief of Staff. ‘The Powell Doctrine’ calling for the use of maximum power over Iraq during the Operation Desert Storm, so as to minimize fatalities was applied during his tenure. After his retirement from the army, he was appointed the 65th Secretary of State of the United States. He was reluctant to support the Bush administration’s plans to invade Iraq, and only did so when convinced that diplomacy had failed. He was able to convince the members of the UN Security Council about the grave threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. He was proved wrong on this contention later, as nothing of that sort was found by international weapons inspectors. Though he was a Republican, he was a liberal, and endorsed President Obama’s candidacy. Powell died on October 18, 2021, of complications due to Covid-19.
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