Bob Dole was in Abilene, Kans., when he heard the news of Colin Powell’s imminent resignation. The irony wasn’t lost on Dole. the Senate Republican leader, as he sat watching CNN in the hometown of another celebrated army general, who also had a warm smile and seemingly unlimited political potential. ‘As I watched that scene at the White House," Dole said, “it flashed across my mind: Ike again.”
Ike again: the comparison to President Dwight David Eisenhower has dogged Colin Powell ever since the gulf war turned him into a superstar, capping an already meteoric military career. Like Ike, Powell is more a bureaucrat than a combat hero. Indeed, he may be the most politically adept chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ever, and he’s sure to be remembered as one of the most successful. Like Ike, he radiates a sense of avuncular security. And of course he’s like Ike in another respect: both political parties are salivating at the prospect that he could sign on as their candidate.
Powell’s not tipping his hand and won’t for at least as long as he wears the army uniform. “I look forward to becoming citizen Powell and serving my community and nation in any way that I can,” he told NEWSWEEK. What is already clear, though, is that he also intends to take care of his financial future. An uplifting orator, he has signed up with the Washington Speakers Bureau Inc. and reportedly will command $60,000 per engagement. A cousin, Bruce Llewellyn, says Powell has been offered seats on more than 25 big-time corporate boards. Mega-agent Marvin Josephson, who scored $5 million two years ago for Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf’s memoirs, is working Powell’s book deal. The Carlyle Group, a Washington-based investment firm that has already signed up GOP heavies Frank Carlucci, James Baker and Richard Darman, says it will bid for Powell’s services after he leaves office next month. Powell can literally bank on overnight wealth. He’s about to take title on a house in the Virginia suburbs worth $1 million.
This could be interpreted as precampaign behavior. But friends insist Powell isn’t interested. Indeed, NEWSWEEK has learned, Powell has already turned down one direct GOP invitation. in the late spring of 1991, several Republican senators, led by Dole and fellow Kansan Nancy Kassebaum, appealed to the general to consider the vice presidential slot on the Bush ticket in 1992. Worried that Dan Quayle would lose the election for the Republicans, they offered to launch a “draft Colin” movement. Powell was “all grins and smiles but didn’t indicate that it was anything he really wanted to see happen,” Dole recalled. Powell has never disclosed his political leanings, and his roots in Harlem and the South Bronx might suggest Democratic proclivities. But those who know him best say be has no burning interest in high office and no deep knowledge or much curiosity about domestic issues. He’s simply “not interested in political office,” says Llewellyn. “He’s trying to solidify his financial position…so that if he chooses later on to do public service he can afford to do it.” One friend reportedly suggested Powell eventually wants to head a philanthropic institution such as the American Red Cross or the Ford Foundation.
Powell, 56, keenly feels a need to keep setting an example of service. To a remarkable extent, he has made white Americans forget the fact that he’s an African-American. But Powell hasn’t forgotten what he had to overcome. He can recite from memory the names of the few integrated motels where his young family could stay on trips to Alabama. He’s been known to remark on how ironic it was to be leaving for Vietnam while his father-in-law in Birmingham kept a loaded shotgun to protect Powell’s wife and baby son from civilrights turmoil.
During his tenure as JCS chairman, he found time to deliver inspirational speeches to scores of black audiences: the young must not forget the battles their elders fought, he preaches. In his office hangs a portrait of West Point’s first black graduate. His friends among the black elite may well argue that a Powell candidacy, whether or not he won, would represent another major contribution as a pioneer; he’s almost certainly black Americans’ best shot ever at fielding a candidate who is broadly acceptable to the white middle class. “He’s the man with no baggage,” says an adviser to Jesse Jackson, who speaks with Powell regularly.
Since the gulf war, opinion polls have used Powell as a kind of benchmark, the perfect score against which every other public figure is measured. “He’s one of the most respected public figures in America,” says GOP polltaker Bill Mclnturff. “He has lots of friends, and few enemies.” He even seems to have finessed any personal responsibility for blocking Clinton’s plan to end curbs on gays in the military. When he went to Harvard in June to give the commencement address, campus protests by gays fizzled.
But if Powell did choose to run, he couldn’t rely on his broad appeal alone. He lacks edge, and these days national politics is about acquiring the sharpness and focus a candidate needs to carve out a base.“Nobody knows where he stands, which is a credit to him as a military officer,” says GOP consultant David Keene. “But it’s a liability in a political career.” There’s no evidence that Powell has the stomach for the glad-handing and asking-of-favors needed to survive America’s brutal political process. He’s shown plenty of drive, but he’s not obsessive about politics. Then again, neither was Ike.
