The General Takes Command

As a young Army major selected for a fellowship to the Nixon White House in 1972, Colin Powell came to the attention of two emerging bureaucratic stars: Caspar Weinberger and Frank Carlucci, director and deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. Powell was recruited into their inner circle, and has risen with his bosses ever since. Last week Lieut. General Powell, 50, took another large step upward, succeeding Carlucci to become Ronald Reagan’s sixth National Security Adviser.*

But back in March, Carlucci had to pull out all the stops just to get Powell to join the NSC as his deputy. In late 1986 Powell had taken command of the Army V Corps in Frankfurt, West Germany, after some five years in the Pentagon as an aide to Carlucci and then Weinberger. He was reluctant to quit his post after only six months. But Carlucci was determined to get his friend back to Washington. When President Reagan, at Carlucci’s urging, personally phoned Powell to offer him the NSC job, the general had little choice but to obey his Commander in Chief.

In the sometimes Machiavellian atmosphere of official Washington, Powell is the beneficiary of a rare commodity: universal acclaim. “Loyal almost to a fault,” says former Under Secretary of Defense Richard DeLauer. “He’s just super to have around,” gushes another Defense Department aide. “Powell has become quite well known to the President and the chief of staff,” says a White House aide. “They like him.”

The secret of Powell’s success seems to be a combination of scrupulous efficiency and disarming charm. His tenure at the NSC is a case in point. Powell is given a good deal of the credit for restoring order and collective confidence to an organization that was fractured and demoralized during the Iran-contra scandal. As Weinberger’s de facto chief of staff from 1983 to 1986, Powell knew early on of the Administration’s secret arms sales to Iran. Weinberger told the Washington Post last spring that Powell “was the person I used to carry out the President’s directions to make the arrangements for transferring the arms to the CIA.” Added Weinberger: “And it ended there.” Indeed, Powell was never deeply immersed in the controversy, and emerged with his reputation intact.

The son of Jamaican immigrants, Powell grew up in the South Bronx. A member of the Reserve Officers Training Corps during his years at City College of New York, he joined the Army as a second lieutenant in 1958. Throughout his career he has shuttled easily between military outposts and Washington’s corridors of power: he won the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart for service in Viet Nam, did a stint at OMB, commanded an infantry battalion in Korea, served as a Pentagon military assistant in both the Carter and Reagan administrations.

Not everyone in Washington is pleased to see another military officer running the National Security Council. In the wake of Admiral John Poindexter’s excesses, it is believed that Congress’s upcoming Iran-contra report will recommend that the head of the NSC be a civilian. In fact, Powell would prefer to be back on active duty; his true goal is to be Army Chief of Staff. But many observers believe it is just a matter of time before Powell wins the Army’s top job — and perhaps more. “Colin would make a great Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” says Amtrak President and CEO Graham Claytor, a former Deputy Defense Secretary who has worked with him. After a moment’s consideration, Claytor adds: “Colin would make a great President of the United States.”

FOOTNOTE: *The other five: Richard Allen, William Clark, Robert McFarlane, John Poindexter and Carlucci.