COLIN POWELL (book review)

book/mark April 2009


The Man who Might Have Been Obama

Book Review by Gary Goss

COLIN POWELL: American Power and Intervention from Vietnam to Iraq by Christopher D. O'Sullivan

Rowman & Littlefield, 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
(www. rowmanlittlefield.com)
218 pp., Hardcover

Chris O'Sullivan, the author of this analysis of Colin Powell's long sojourn in well-polished corridors of power, is a writer with serious credentials. He teaches history at the University of San Francisco, is a fellow at the Center for International Studies at the London School of Economics and was a recent Fulbright visiting professor at the University of Jordan, Amman. (He has also been named "The Smartest Man in Healdsburg," an honor not listed, for some reason, on the book jacket.)

O'Sullivan has published two earlier books, THE UNITED NATIONS: A CONCISE HISTORY and SUMNER WELLES, POSTWAR PLANNING, AND THE QUEST FOR A NEW WORLD ORDER. The second book won an American Historical Association Gutenberg-e Prize in 2003. He served as the keynote speaker at the United Nation's sixtieth anniversary celebrations in 2005.

The author began well situated to examine Colin Powell's career. While O'Sullivan's politics tend to be realistic and progressive, his father and grandfather were generals; he's familiar with military culture and its strengths and weaknesses. O'Sullivan brings a balanced approach to his subject, backed by an unusual memory--his conversation is marked by his command of historical data, examples, anecdotes and parallels. His book on Powell, although documented, is quick and entertaining. It's written in straightforward prose that deepens our grasp of Powell's life and clarifies Powell's interactions with Reagan, Shultz, Clinton, Cheney, Rumsfeld and George W. Bush.

Powell himself seems engaging on television. I think of him as the man who might have been Obama, except that he lacked Obama's hope and audacity. (Also Powell is a member of a political party that seldom nominates moderates.) Powell is impressive, the sort of man that many people like and respect almost instinctively, in a way that might be only partly earned.

Colin Powell worked under ten Presidents, was the first black chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the first black Secretary of State, yet many consider him a failure. On occasion he challenged power--he opposed Clinton's war in Bosnia, where Serbs had murdered 200,000 Moslems. But, as O'Sullivan points out, much of the time Powell served power rather than spoke truth to Presidents, even when he understood that Presidents were wrong. As a young officer Powell had aided in the cover up of the My Lai massacre. Powell's first loyalty then was to an institution, the army, not to the truth. As Secretary of State Powell could have stopped or slowed the rush into the second war against Iraq. He could have resigned. Instead he finally went along, supporting disastrous choices, stooping to lie.

One of the striking things about this short biography is the range of people briefly portrayed in it, the power brokers with whom Powell interacted. This book is good place, for example, to catch up on what it was like, existentially, to have worked with President Ronald Reagan.

Ten years years ago I read an autobiography by the President of Israel, who described being left alone in a room with an addled President Reagan. Reagan's mind had begun to fail, yet today Reagan is frequently portrayed in the popular media as a superb President.

For an early look at the President's decline in short term memory (an symptom of Alzheimer's), you might read PRESIDENT REAGAN: THE POWER OF IMAGINATION by Richard Reeves. Toward the end of his second term, Reeve reports, Reagan had to be led into a room by a young press assistant, who said to him, "You're in the Oval Office, Mister President. These people are British, and they will ask you for a short comment about Prime Minister Thatcher."

About four years after leaving office, Reagan was diagnosed as having Alzheimer's disease, a terrible neurological disorder. He lived for another ten years, the last four of which, according to Nancy Reagan, he did not open his eyes.

Reagan's incapacity in office may not be acknowledged in public for another 100 years. As you may know, each state in our union is entitled to two statues to represent it in Washington's Statuary Hall. In June of this year, California will replace one of its two exhibits with a seven foot bronze of an Alzheimer's victim in a business suit. Republican party leaders simply don't care that for many years the United States was governed by a man incapable of making informed decisions. Facts don't matter. If the current Republican party had to face facts, it would no longer exist.

Fortunately, as O'Sullivan points out, during the Cold War end game with Mikhail Gorbachev, Reagan was guided by a competent staff, including George Shultz and Colin Powell, who, in effect, made decisions for him.

As National Security Adviser, Powell had to work with Ronald Reagan's failing mental powers. O'Sullivan writes: "Reagan had his own private version of reality, which frequently conflicted with the reality around him. Powell revealed that Reagan saw Chernobyl as 'a biblical warning to mankind,' and Reagan's frequent comments about possible invasions from outer space made Powell particularly uneasy."

Concern that we would be invaded by little green fellows from distant galaxies was a frequent Reagan theme toward the end of his Presidency. This, O'Sullivan points out, provided some of the motivation for the President's insistence on building the useless Star Wars defense system.

The wooden-brained George W. Bush, the neo-cons, cowardly Dick Cheney, little Rumsfeld--O'Sullivan's brief analyses of this collection of creeps is an education in how things can go wrong. Working with merchants of death could not end well; it led to Powell's good reputation running through his fingers like plasma.

Gary Goss