Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

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)
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From The Washington Post

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 in favor of a document called the Democratic Charter. "He knew from the start that what we needed were friends," his spokesman Richard Boucher told DeYoung. "We didn't know who did it, we didn't know why. But we needed democratic friends -- that was the only way, whatever this was, that we were going to beat it."

It was the thinking of a moderate Republican member of the internationalist foreign policy establishment -- one of the last. It was not the thinking of the president and his most influential advisers, especially the vice president and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who were more intellectually aggressive than Powell and far more ruthless in undermining their chief antagonist. In DeYoung's account, Powell believed for a long time that he was winning more than his share of interagency battles, partly because his meteoric rise through a system that operated in an essentially rational way had been almost untroubled. "But past experience was turning out to be a poor guide to the new reality," DeYoung writes, "and Powell was slow to grasp the extent of his -- and the State Department's -- isolation within Bush's national security team."

As the administration moved with blind self-confidence toward war in Iraq, Powell slowly became part of the machinery that he thought he was helping to brake. The process by which he began to accept the White House's terms of the argument makes for the best pages of Soldier, a fascinating study in bureaucratic maneuvering, groupthink and subtle self-deception. Powell's tactical successes obscured his larger strategic defeat: Once he persuaded the president to take his case against Iraq to the United Nations in September 2002, DeYoung writes, "Powell quickly moved to protect his right flank by establishing his bona fides inside the administration as a believer in the Iraqi threat and a firm supporter -- should diplomacy and international pressure fail -- of the use of force. Almost overnight, his carefully couched assessments of the state of Saddam's weapons programs were transformed into certainty." This change led directly to the moment for which Powell himself has said he will always be remembered: his dramatic speech to the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003, vouching for the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, later shown to be almost completely wrong. After that, the war was inevitable, as was the historical verdict on Powell's tenure in office.

His entire career had prepared him to be a first-rate secretary of state in a functional administration, and if he had had the good luck to serve under a better president, he might be remembered in the company of one of his heroes, George C. Marshall, another former general who became secretary of state, for Harry S. Truman. But as George W. Bush's principal cabinet officer, Powell was condemned by his own limitations. He took comfort in Marshall's reply to critics who thought that he should have resigned over his disagreement with President Truman's decision to recognize the newly created state of Israel in 1948. "No, gentlemen," Marshall is said to have replied, "you don't take a post of this sort and then resign when the man who has the constitutional responsibility to make decisions makes one you don't like." To Powell, Marshall had "done his job. He had given the President his best advice. He had presented it strongly . . . [and] used every, every opportunity to press his case."

It is easy to understand why this story inspired Powell. But there is a crucial difference. Powell never told Bush not to invade Iraq; out of a lifelong sense of propriety and restraint, he kept his best advice to himself. In 2003, the country needed someone more than the world's best staff officer.

Reviewed by George Packer
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 624 pages
• Publisher: Knopf (October 10, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400041708
• ISBN-13: 978-1400041701
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.7 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #366,458 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding biography of an outstanding American leader!, October 12, 2006

By	Dennis at Holy Apostles (Connecticut, USA) - See all my reviews

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Washington Post reporter Karen DeYoung clearly finds the mark in her most auspicious biography of, in my opinion, America's finest leader in recent memory. Colin Powell truly is a great American and merits such a treatment of his life's story. I had the good fortune of speaking with him at some length one time on the telephone and found him to be a leader among leaders, in charge without being dictatorial, and utterly "cool." I trust that he will continue to inspire budding leaders of like integrity and ability to step forward and serve.

DeYoung captures the essence of Powell by delving deeply into his world. This she accomplished through a series of comprehensive interviews that offer a full picture of the man. Powell may have his shortcomings, but try and find another like him! DeYoung also succeeds, because of her skills and experiences as a Washington insider. She talks Powell's language of "intel-speak" and "Realpolitik." A pragmatist and not an ideologue, Powell always has been a good soldier. He is at once loyal in service, yet also unafraid to raise a flag as a referee might do at a sporting event. He kept administration extremists at arm's length and tried to exert a moderating influence over policies and events.

As good as he is, Powell is not Superman. In some ways, he fell short of steering administrations away from such pitfalls as the Iran-contra affair and the present quandary in Iraq. Even the euphoria of the 1991 liberation of Kuwait did not translate into a regime change in Iraq, because it would have fractured the coalition, turned the Muslim world against the US, and left America hard-pressed to win the peace amid sectarian violence and groping to come up with an exit strategy. Like today.

From the 1980s on, Powell has rubbed shoulders with the likes of Gorbachev, George W. Bush, and almost everyone of power in between. Most of them he influenced for the better. A few got the better of him. Powell's 2003 UN presentation on Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in Iraq exposed some of his flaws, but we can be sure that Powell did his homework. Perhaps his priorities got discombobulated, since hindsight now tells us that North Korea is a WMD threat, Iran is well on the way, and Iraq was grossly exaggerated.

DeYoung presents all this and much more in a book that may well have a shot at a Pulitzer Prize or National Book Award. DeYoung gives us Powell's personal life as well, including a vignette about how relieved he and his family were when he finally let go of his quest for the presidency. Somewhat of an outsider, Powell was better suited to become an appointed Cabinet member and sounding board for a president open-minded enough to take advice from someone gutsy enough to disagree with him. And Powell is centrist enough to have served with such polar opposites as Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. DeYoung also reveals that Powell is pro-choice on abortion, a stance that I disagree with strongly. Overall, however, the Colin Powell that DeYoung presents is a person I admire and one who continues to do much good for his country. Even the dust cover shows him wearing a little red wagon lapel pin, the symbol of his brainchild project America's Promise, an effort to help American children to become competent and caring adults. Like Colin Powell! With a boost from this outstanding biography, may he continue to inspire new leaders to follow his example and help make this world a better place. Rev. Dennis J. Mercieri

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good and informative read, November 12, 2006

By	D. Cheatham "Notalawyer" (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Having read Powell's "My American Journey," I enjoyed contrasting the first 250 (or so) pages of this biography with his autobiography. With that in mind, Karen DeYoung does a good job addressing Colin Powell's early life as well as his military career outside of Washington. However, it's obvious that those topics are not her primary interests. Her writing is not bad as she covers these non-political topics, but the discussion ALMOST seems obligatory in nature.

Once Colin Powell's life starts revolving around Washington, though, the author's strengths really do come out and the book becomes a very good read.

Like many (all?) of the other reviewers, I am a fan of the book's subject, so I had a strong desire for this book to succeed from the moment I saw the title. However, that positive bias alone would not be enough to grant four stars. This is a quality book.

I do, though, strongly encourage people to read Powell's autobiography prior to reading this biography. The combination (in that order) will allow you to develop a much more informed picture of the man.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Colin Powell Portrayed Honestly and Extraordinarily Accurately!, November 2, 2006

By	Peter Senese "A book is a free ticket to anyw... (Los Angeles, California) - See all my reviews

There are two verses that appear to summarize the essence of Colin Powell, as portrayed by Karen DeYoung in her brilliant biography of this beloved American hero.:

" . . . soldiers didn't' quit when they disagreed with the decisions of their commanders . . . he would be a soldier until he drew his last breath."

"I've had tough days. I've had great days . . . There are days where things don't go so well and a position you might have been pushing isn't successful . . . That just comes with the business. And if that's going to put you into a blue funk, then you're in the wrong business . . . I've been shot at for real, as opposed to the way I get shot at now."

The reviews of excellence written about DeYoung's large-scale undertaking about this extraordinary man are accurate. The story of Powell's life from the time he was asked to resign by President Bush to his family ties in Jamaica, and his beginning in the United States Armed Forces and back again, to give a speech at the War College . . . and everything in between is simply brilliantly and fluidly portrayed.

DeYoung answers, as I needed answers, why this man of great integrity appeared to have lost his credibility during the sent off mission he was asked to extend himself to with respect the WMD issue during the Iraq War. DeYoung further answers a very important question of why Colin Powell, now going on age 69 (I didn't know that!) chose not to become involved with electoral politics. Nevertheless, here is Colin Powell, personally the one individual who could have brought this nation closer together in a way not seen since the times of President Lincoln. Missed opportunity or a soldier being a soldier? Perhaps a little of both. Somehow, I believe Colin Powell is far from done. Let's hope so.

In this superb journalistic work, Karen DeYoung does not back off the hard questions about Colin Powell, cross references and makes accessible her diligent research, and stylistically writes in a manner most every reader will appreciate. There is no meandering, no drifting, and no wondering: simply put, DeYoung has written an extraordinary book about an extraordinary man, who I like many hope he realizes that his duty to the public is far from over.