WASHINGTON (AP) – Friends, family and former colleagues are honoring Colin L. Powell, the widely praised soldier-diplomat who rose from humble Bronx beginnings to become the first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and later served as the first Black secretary of state.
Powell is being remembered at a funeral Friday at the Washington National Cathedral. President Joe Biden is expected to attend but not speak. Eulogists are to be Madeleine Albright, who was Powell’s immediate predecessor as the nation’s top diplomat; Richard Armitage, who was deputy secretary under Powell and had known him since they served together in the Pentagon during the Reagan administration; and Powell’s son Michael.
During her tenure as ambassador to the United Nations during the Clinton administration, Albright sometimes clashed with Powell, although they became good friends. Both have recalled the time, during his final months as Joint Chiefs chairman, when she argued for a U.S. military intervention in the Balkans, asking why the United States had built a superb military if it couldn’t be used in such circumstances. Powell recalled being so irritated by her statement, “I thought I would have an aneurysm.”
Powell’s view was that the United States should commit its military only when it had a clear and achievable political objective, a key element of what became known as the Powell Doctrine.
Powell died Oct. 18 of complications from COVID-19 at age 84. He had been vaccinated against the coronavirus, but his family said his immune system had been compromised by multiple myeloma, a blood cancer for which he had been undergoing treatment.