US army general. Born Colin Luther Powell on April 5, 1937 in
New York City. The son of Jamaican immigrants, Powell was raised in
the South Bronx and graduated from the City College of New York. A
member of ROTC, he took an army commission after graduation and
later served in Vietnam.
Powell was a professional soldier for 35 years, holding a series
of senior commands and rising to the rank of 4-star General before
being appointed Head of the National Security Council by President
Reagan in 1987. Two years later, he took over the Army Forces
Command, and was made Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by
President Bush. The post is the the highest military position in
the Department of Defense and Powell is the first African-American
officer to receive this distinction. He oversaw 28 crises,
including Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
In 2000, President George W. Bush appointed Powell Secretary of
State, and he was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. During
his tenure, Powell came under fire for his role in building the
case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. His chief role before and after
the invasion was to garner international support for a
multi-national coalition. In 2004, after acknowledging that it was
unlikely that Iraq possessed stockpiles of weapons of mass
destruction, Powell announced his resignation as Secretary of
State. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice was his
successor.
Since his retirement, Powell has remained vocal on political
topics, openly criticizing the Bush Administration on a number of
issues. In 2006, he was a speaker at a special series called Get
Motivated, along with former New York Mayor Rudolph Guiliani.
Powell also joined Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, a
Silicon Valley venture capital firm, as a "strategic limited
partner."
