In pictures, Remembering Colin Powell’s life and legacy
Colin Powell poses for a portrait in 2012.
Stephen Voss/Redux
Updated 1:44 PM ET, Mon October 18, 2021
Colin Powell poses for a portrait in 2012.
Stephen Voss/Redux
Colin Powell, a trailblazing military leader who went on to become the United States’ first Black secretary of state, has died at the age of 84.
Powell died from complications from Covid-19, his family said on Facebook, noting he was fully vaccinated. Powell had multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells that suppresses the body’s immune response, as well as Parkinson’s disease, Peggy Cifrino, Powell’s longtime chief of staff, confirmed to CNN.
Powell’s leadership in several Republican administrations helped shape American foreign policy in the last years of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st. He was the country’s first Black national security adviser when he served at the end of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, and he was the youngest chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George H.W. Bush.
Powell’s popularity soared during the 1991 Gulf War, when he became one of the administration’s most trusted spokesmen. He was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal in March 1991 “in recognition of his exemplary performance in planning and coordinating” the US response to Iraq’s invasion.
With a prominent national profile, Powell was often floated as a potential presidential candidate. But he declined, citing a lack of “passion” for electoral politics.
He became George W. Bush’s first Cabinet selection, and as Bush’s top diplomat, he was tasked with building international support for the War on Terror. In 2003, he delivered a speech before the United Nations in which he presented evidence that the US intelligence community said proved Iraq had misled inspectors and hid weapons of mass destruction. He later called his UN speech a “blot” that will forever be on his record.
After leaving the Bush administration, Powell returned to private life. His later years saw him supporting Democratic presidential candidates and harshly criticizing top Republican leaders.
Powell married his wife, Alma, in 1962, He joined the US Army in 1958 and served two tours of duty in South Vietnam.
From Colin Powell
A young Powell takes a photo of himself in a mirror. Powell, a son of Jamaican immigrants, was born in Harlem, New York, in 1937 and grew up in the South Bronx. He attended the City College of New York, where he participated in ROTC, leading the precision drill team and attaining the top rank offered by the corps.
From Colin Powell
Powell serves as an adviser to a Vietnamese infantry battalion while deployed in 1963. Powell was wounded that year by a Viet Cong booby trap. He was also wounded in a 1969 helicopter crash in which he rescued two soldiers.
From Colin Powell
Powell confers with US Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger during a Senate committee meeting in Washington in 1985. Powell stayed in the Army after returning home from Vietnam, attending the National War College and rising in leadership. He was promoted to brigadier general in 1979, and he became a senior military assistant to Weinberger in 1983.
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Powell became the nation’s first Black national security adviser in 1987. From left here are White House Chief of Staff Howard Baker, Secretary of State George Shultz, Powell and President Ronald Reagan. They were discussing an upcoming summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
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Powell advises Reagan in 1988 during an Oval Office meeting of the National Security Council.
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Powell accompanies Reagan on a trip to Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1988.
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In 1989, Powell was tapped by President George H.W. Bush to head the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Here, he speaks during a Pentagon briefing about Panama. At left is Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, who later became vice president of the United States.
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Although Powell was initially reluctant to commit US troops when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, he became one of the administration’s most trusted spokesmen when the assault on Saddam Hussein’s army finally came.
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Powell addresses the crew of the USS Wisconsin during Operation Desert Shield in 1990.
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Powell joins President George H.W. Bush and other key advisers at the President’s summer home near Kennebunkport, Maine, in 1990. Bush is on the left in the blue hat.
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Powell and Cheney talk to reporters during a Pentagon briefing in 1990.
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Powell playfully uses the head of Air Force Sgt. Thaddeus Fernandez while autographing a Saudi monetary note in 1990. Powell was visiting an Air Force base in San Antonio.
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Powell makes a point about entrenched Iraqi troops during a Pentagon briefing in 1991.
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Powell addresses the Veterans of Foreign Wars in 1991, shortly after the end of the Gulf War.
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Powell tours a Soviet air base in 1991.
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Powell reads aboard the USS Wasp while it was off the coast of Somalia in 1993.
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Powell salutes as he tells a story about himself and former President Ronald Reagan in 1996. He was attending Reagan’s 85th birthday celebration at a restaurant in West Hollywood, California.
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Powell flies over Arlington, Virginia, in a Blackhawk helicopter in 1996.
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Powell joins Republican candidate Bob Dole, center, and Dole’s running mate, Jack Kemp, while the two were campaigning in Louisville, Kentucky, before the 1996 election.
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Powell and Cheney fly to Waco, Texas, for a meeting with President-elect George W. Bush in 2000. Bush would later nominate Powell to be secretary of state.
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Powell takes photos beside his wife, Alma, at Bush’s inauguration in 2001.
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Powell is joined by his wife as the President swears him in as secretary of state in 2001.
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Powell testifies about various foreign policy issues during a Senate committee hearing in 2001.
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From left, Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Powell share a laugh in Rumsfeld’s office in 2001.
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Former President Bill Clinton pats Powell’s back as they depart the Washington National Cathedral in 2001. They were there on the National Day of Prayer and Remembrance, honoring those who died in the September 11 terrorist attacks.
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Bush and Powell meet in the White House Oval Office in 2001.
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Powell shakes hands with Afghan Prime Minister Hamid Karzai in 2002. It was the first time a US secretary of state had visited Afghanistan since 1976.
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Powell prepares to testify about Bush’s budget proposal before a Senate committee hearing in 2002.
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Powell receives a pat on the cheek from national security adviser Condoleezza Rice during an Oval Office meeting in 2002. In 2005, Rice would succeed Powell as secretary of state.
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Powell and Bush attend a NATO summit in Prague, Czech Republic, in 2002. Behind them are Rice and Rumsfeld.
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Powell holds up a vial, which he described as one that could contain anthrax, during a speech to the United Nations Security Council in 2003. Powell presented evidence that the US intelligence community said proved Iraq had misled inspectors and hid weapons of mass destruction. “There can be no doubt,” Powell warned, “that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more.” The United States went to war with Iraq just six weeks after Powell’s speech. Inspectors, however, later found no such weaponry in Iraq, and two years after Powell’s UN speech, a government report said the intelligence community was “dead wrong” in its assessments of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capabilities. Powell later called his UN speech a “blot” that will forever be on his record. “The event will earn a prominent paragraph in my obituary,” Powell wrote in his 2012 memoir.
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Bush meets with his war council in the White House Situation Room in 2003. Powell is next to Bush on the right.
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Powell appears before a Senate committee in 2003. He spoke on various issues, including North Korea and the post-war situation in Iraq.
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Powell speaks to the media after UN weapons inspector Hans Blix delivered a speech to the UN Security Council in 2003.
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Powell stands with Bush before the President signed a $15 billion global AIDS bill in 2003.
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Powell takes reporters’ questions during a 2004 news conference at the State Department.
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Powell reads over papers while standing in the Oval Office in 2004.
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Bush and Powell wave from Powell’s home in McLean, Virginia, in 2005.
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From left, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Powell and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attend a groundbreaking ceremony for the US Diplomacy Center at the State Department in Washington in 2014.
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Powell, left, joins national security leaders past and present while meeting with President Barack Obama in 2015. The meeting was about the national security implications of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade pact. From left are Powell, former Secretary of State James Baker, Obama, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Albright.
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Powell salutes as he and other former military commanders pay their last respects to former President George H.W. Bush in 2018.
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Powell shakes hands with President Donald Trump during the Ford’s Theatre Gala in Washington in 2019. Though the large majority of Powell’s time as a public servant was spent in Republican administrations, the later years of his life saw him supporting Democratic presidential candidates and harshly criticizing top Republican leaders. Powell endorsed Obama, voted for Hillary and also supported Joe Biden. He once called Trump a “national disgrace and an international pariah.”
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