Colin Powell

Colin Powell was an American statesman and four-star Army general who served as the 65th US Secretary of State (2001–2005), the first African-American to hold that position. He was born Colin Luther Powell on April 5, 1937, in Harlem, New York City, to Jamaican immigrants. He was raised in the South Bronx and graduated from the City College of New York with a Bachelor of Science in geology, having joined the ROTC program. He was commissioned into the US Army in 1958 as a second lieutenant.

His Army career spanned 35 years across multiple American military engagements. He served two tours in Vietnam (1962–1963 and 1968–1969), receiving the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star with Valor, and the Soldier's Medal. Through the 1970s and 1980s he rose through senior staff positions including White House Fellow under President Nixon (1972), commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division (1976), and senior military assistant to multiple Secretaries of Defense.

He served as the 16th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton (1989–1993), making him the first African-American and first ROTC graduate to hold the position. His tenure included Operation Just Cause (the 1989 invasion of Panama) and the Operation Desert Storm (the 1991 Gulf War). The Powell Doctrine — his framework requiring overwhelming force, clear political objectives, and a defined exit strategy before military intervention — has been continuously cited in American foreign-policy debate.

He served as President George W. Bush's Secretary of State from January 2001 to January 2005, during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. His February 5, 2003 speech to the United Nations — making the Bush administration's case for invading Iraq based on alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction — has been continuously cited as one of the most-controversial moments of his career, particularly after the WMDs were not found and Powell himself in 2005 called the speech "a blot" on his record. He died on October 18, 2021, at age 84, of complications from Covid-19 (he had been undergoing treatment for multiple myeloma).

His name Colin is the English form of the Greek-derived Nicholas (or possibly from the Old Irish Cailean meaning "young dog" or "young warrior"). Colin has been continuously among the most-popular American boys' names for decades.