Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell
 
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From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Washington Post reporter DeYoung covers Powell's entire career in this nuanced, comprehensively researched first complete biography to bring to life the Jamaican immigrants' son who became chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, secretary of state and a widely supported potential candidate for president. DeYoung presents her subject as above all a soldier, with an ethic of honor and service shaped by his career in the U.S. Army, during which he brought a combination of intellectual force and moral courage to his senior military appointments that distinguished him among his contemporaries. DeYoung, who obtained six in-depth interviews with Powell, explains that he wrestled with whether or not he had the duty to run for president in 2000, but ultimately realized he didn't want the presidency from the "depth of [his] stomach or soul." She correspondingly demonstrates that his continuing commitment to public service drove his ascension to secretary of state--a commitment that was strained to the limit during Powell's four years in office. DeYoung paints a favorable but balanced portrait of Powell, and she avoids using him as an instrument for Bush-bashing. Powell emerges from her account as a person who grew to meet his wider responsibilities. Photos not seen by PW. (Oct. 10) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com The subject of Karen DeYoung's new biography doesn't quite attain the stature that his many admirers might wish for him: that of a tragic hero. The Colin Powell portrayed in Soldier comes across as a disciplined and talented beneficiary of genuine equal opportunity, an inspiring leader of bureaucracies, "the world's best staff officer," a cool operator in Washington's political wars, an uncommonly decent man, a stellar product of great American institutions. But when those institutions failed -- when the Bush administration took the country to war in Iraq, rashly and under false pretexts -- Powell did not have the imagination to challenge or, finally, defy the system that had made him. DeYoung, an associate editor at The Washington Post, had Powell's cooperation in the form of six extended interviews, but as she notes at the end of the book, they covered only the most recent ground -- the years since Powell told his own story in his 1995 memoir, My American Journey. For this reason, and because a man of Powell's supreme self-control is even more opaque than most public figures, her march through his early years and his rise through the ranks of the Army has a dutiful feel -- a blur of promotions and Powell family relocations without any strong sense of his inner life. In spite of DeYoung's reportorial talents and sympathetic understanding of her subject, the first half of Soldier should have been greatly compressed; Powell's career is simply not important or interesting enough for a full-dress biographical monument. (Would anyone want to read 500 pages about Brent Scowcroft?) DeYoung might have done better to limit herself to Powell's years as secretary of state. She imbues this story with narrative tension and a steady accumulation of detail that shows exactly how he allowed himself to be used, mastered and then cast aside by his antagonists in the administration, above all by his longtime colleague Dick Cheney, now the vice president. It illustrates what critics, including Powell's former chief of staff Lawrence B. Wilkerson, have described as broken policymaking, with disagreements turning poisonously personal and key decisions, such as the jettisoning of the Kyoto accords or even the historic decision to invade Iraq, made without the knowledge of leading officials, usually Powell himself. Powell had the devotion of those below him, and his instinct for the right word and gesture was never surer than on Sept. 11, 2001, when, marooned in Lima, Peru, at a meeting of the Organization of American States, he insisted on staying long enough to cast the American vote

Submitted On:

09 Sep 2007

File Author:

DeYoung, Karen

File Size:

5.48 MB