From 2017: Colin Powell on The David Rubenstein Show

[Music] did you ever think that one day you would be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs was beyond any possible level of aspiration people said this man should be President United States it had never occurred to me any regrets about not having run some people say it's a great job now prove it new national career adviser came in and he wanted you as his deputy I said what's that important why doesn't the president call me hello general Powell this is Ronald Reagan yes sir would you fix your time please well people wouldn't recognize me if my tie was fixed okay just leave it this way all right I don't consider myself a journalist and nobody else would consider myself a journalist I began to take on the life of being an interviewer even though I have a day job running a private equity firm how do you define leadership what is it that makes somebody tick [Music] we're here today at City College the place that you graduated from a number of years ago thank you David why did you pick City College I was accepted at CCNY and I was accepted at NYU and the reason I went to CCNY is NYU is charging $750 a month or a year I couldn't handle it family didn't handle that so I took CC and why cuz it was free and because it was easy to get to and I'd heard a lot about it and you grew up in the Bronx I was born in Harlem about a mile from here and I grew up in the South Bronx section of New York the Hunts Point section and your parents were immigrants from Jamaica Jamaica yep so growing up in New York did you enjoy New York as a young boy I thought it was a wonderful place to be a kid it was such a diverse place that it really it really bonded on me that this is what the world is for those people of different backgrounds cultures colors you name it and of course CCNY replicate that we've done it perfectly I learned a little bit of yudish working for six years in a nother corner of the South Bronx at a place called Jay Sixers which sold juvenile furniture and carriages and toys he was a Russian Jew with me there was a Irish driver an Italian salesman in the store and one story I'd love to tell is after I'd been doing this for a couple of years with Jay he came up to me and he put his arm around my shoulder he says Kali Kali Jewish yet his diminutive Kali Kali but don't think you can stay here at the store this will go to my daughters in tears to their husbands I want you should get your education and go somewhere and do something and I had no intention of staying at that store and being what's called a schlep or somebody just drags boxes around she slept sure everybody knows her slept means it touched me so deeply that I remembered it for the rest of my life and wrote about it in my memoir he thought enough of me to tell me that I should get my education and move up and that's what I did and CCNY was the source of that education did you ever think that one day you would be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs secretary of state of the United States no people asking about this all the time it usually starts out with what year did you graduate from West Point oh I didn't go to West Point I couldn't I couldn't have aspired to go to West Point well did you go to Citadel or did you go to Texas A&M or Virginia Military Institute is's no they wouldn't let black guys in then it was beyond any possible level of aspiration or expectation what had happened why did it happen because I got a quality public school education that I didn't know was that high quality at the time elementary school junior high school high school and then CCNY let me in with my modest average then I was ROTC as he's you know why that really made the dip now you were a geology major did you think you were gonna go into the geology world er no I was a geology major cuz I busted out a civil engineer okay now you know didn't need to come up David thank you very much when you graduated you when you're an ROTC you have an obligation to go in the military you went to the South for a training I graduated in 58 and then went to Fort Benning which was still in a segregated state in a segregated city Columbus Georgia so I knew well that on post I was like anybody else but as soon as I left post there were places I could not go stores I could not go into places I couldn't even never think of even ordering a hamburger and I was thrown out of hamburger joints in Columbus Georgia he just would say we don't serve you it was even worse than that I stopped at a little hamburger joint late one night and I knew I couldn't go in so I just went to the window and asked for a hamburger this nice white lady from New Jersey said I'm sorry I don't know why but I can't serve you you can go around the back I said no thanks so I went back on to the base and that was in early 1964 and then the Civil Rights Act of 1964 the accommodations Act was signed in July just before July 4th and I July 5th I went back to that hamburger joint and they served me and what what America discovered is that segregation was not just a burden for blacks it was a burden for whites we're living in a crazy system you went to Vietnam and you were injured you and you came back to the states and you went back again to Vietnam about five years later went back and got injured again yeah and when you came back your career really took off a bit you became a White House Fellow I did I was one of about 15 people who would serve one year in Washington in one of the offices of the cabinet in my case I worked in the Office of Management and Budget oh and I learned a lot about government in that year after year White House fellowship you did what I went to Korea to command a battalion infantry battalion in Korea hey that's a year that I've considered one of the most rewarding years I've had in the army we're just starting out on the volunteer army it was my opportunity not only to train these young people but to give them a GED education and English as a Second Language you've actually went to Europe I was in Europe as a young lieutenant for two years and then period you're talking about as I work for cap Weinberger the secretary of defense secretary of defense and I was as military assistant a senior military system and we became exceptionally close and after two years it was time for me to move on to get back in the army and they got me an assignment in Germany where I was gonna take command of the division I was now a two-star general and then one day the chief of staff general Wickham walks in and says we've changed I said what do you serve the families pact we get the houses a little stuff good stuffs moving mr. Weinberger wants you to stay here for another year I said and not take a division that's right and then he said something which was quite right he says just remember : you're here to serve and you serve where we need you I can find division commanders anywhere mr. Weinberger the secretary defense wants you to stay longer yes sir and then I went in that evening to see mr. Weinberger secretary Weinberger and he knew I was kind of disappointed and so he looked at me and he says well you know : you're not gonna get a division now and I know that disappoints you but next year you're gonna get a corps and that's two divisions right Corps is much larger organization 70,000 people in the fifth Corps and a year later he let me go and I went to Germany and took command of the fifth United States Corps headquarters in Frankfurt guarding the Fulda gap the invasion routes we expected the Russians to come so that was a great job it was a great job at last at four months because what happened was there was the iran-contra scandal yep new national court adviser Frank Carlucci came in and he wanted you as his deputy and I said Frank it can't be that important he says it is that important so then I said okay see if you can risk your entire career by saying the next sentence I said well Frank if it's that important why doesn't the president call me huh half hour later you had a call from hello general Powell this is Ronald Reagan yes sir I really really want you to come back here he's reading he's reading a talking price that Frank gave him I really really want you to come back here and be the deputy national security adviser we'll be right there so you came back yeah nine months later Frank got assigned to become the Secretary of Defense and I'm saying good I can go back to the army now and then Wednesday was chairing a National Security Council meeting and suddenly the door opens and the president walks in he gets to the head of the table and Frank comes around to the side and while the meeting is going on Frank rips off a piece of paper and scribbles something on it and he sends it down the table to me and I open up the little piece of paper and it says you're now the National Security Advisor no interview no nothing so the last year and a half of my time in the White House was with President Reagan came an extremely close and strong relationship when the administration ended you went back into a military position but not that long afterwards President George Herbert Walker Bush president United States right after Ronald Reagan said I need you to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff I'm in Atlanta Georgia with a great command a beautiful house a nice headquarters and I'm at a conference in Baltimore area with all the Army's senior four-stars and I get a call secretary Cheney now the Secretary of Defense wants to see you and so I said oh so I go to the Pentagon and chinos and the polo shirt and go into his office he says President Bush wants to make you the chairman all of a sudden when you were doing your book tour people said this man should be President United States it had never occurred to me and then suddenly the book came out and it caught media attention and lots of people are coming to me saying you know you need it right any regrets about not having run why some people say it's a great job now prove it early in the Bush administration Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and was it clear to you that we should go in and try to kick him out well it was clear to me that this was this is a horrible invasion and could not be allowed to stand and the first challenge was to make sure he didn't go south into Saudi Arabia and so general Schwarzkopf was the commander in this region and he and I were pretty close so we talked about all of this you invented something that became known as the PAL doctrine not quite it was invented by a Washington Post reporter who came to see me one day and he said I'm already an article about the Powell doctrine I said great what is it he said what you always say and what you did when we invaded Panama and took out Manuel Noriega one make sure you go to war after all diplomatic and political possibilities have been dealt with and there has to be a clear political objective not just a military objective and then the second part of the Powell doctrine is I used overwhelming force once but what I've always said is decisive force so that people don't think you have to sort of have a gazillion people just have what you need to have a decisive outcome you get the order from the president to kick Saddam Hussein and his troops out when that decision came down that we could not find a diplomatic solution I received the order and I gave the order to norm and we were ready so there was a famous military maneuver rather than going directly to where the enemy is you kind of went around yeah whose brilliant idea was that any infantry captain could have figured this out it didn't take in general and several generals have made claims that have worked ok it was the only conflict I've ever been in or ever read history about or I could say to the president United States there is no question about the outcome the Iraqis have made several mistakes but three and essentially they put their line of soldiers right on the border with Saudi Arabia and they were stuck they couldn't move air power would not let them move and then they had four divisions along the coast and they were very light all we had to do is fix these two forces in place and go around them the left hook is this also researcher and that's what we did but to my surprise the night we launched the ground attack after the air attacks for several weeks and I was expecting that the Marines who were right opposite the Iraqis they were told and I told him attack but don't get decisively engaged I wanted don't want to lose a bunch of Marines I just want you to freeze the Iraqis in place same thing on the coast and fibia operation is what you're not going to shore just freeze them because we're gonna go around them all but the Marines being Marines they did what they were told but some soldiers in the Marines the Marines found ways to penetrate the fire barriers that they put in place the fire trenches the bob wires the minefields and cut a path right through the Iraqi army facing us and so when that happened the military doctrine says exploit a success like that so we told the Marines go and they burst right through the Iraqi force and they were heading to Kuwait City before we even launched the left hook so ultimately the war is over you decide to write a book about your life called my American Journey all of a sudden when you were doing your book tour people said this man should be President United States it had never occurred to me and then suddenly the book came out and it caught media attention and lots of people are coming to me saying you know you need a run well I didn't ever think of running and I had no particular passion than to run but I felt an obligation to consider the matter and so I did you know I'm a servicemen and I try to do what I think is right most of the Republican Party did not want me to run as a Republican they even put out statements saying we don't want him in the party because you were too moderate early yeah probably because I was too moderate yeah any regrets about not having run no why well some people say it's a great job now prove it well so when you decided not to run a lot of people were disappointed and you stayed in the private sector and then george w bush is elected president he calls you and says i'd like you to be sec State I sensed he was the kind of Republican that I would want to be and so I was pleased to be able to go back in the government and serve my country your Secretary of State and then 9/11 happens when did you realize that you would have to be involved the governor had to be involved in some kind of military confrontation well you can't let something like that go by without doing something about it and my job was to not immediately get involved in military matters but to pull the international community together and it was a very rewarding experience for the first time in NATO's history they invoked what is called Article five which said if any member of the Alliance is attacked we were all attacked so they were all on our side subsequently we turned our attention to Iraq and President Bush decided that we would do an invasion of Iraq to go after Saddam Hussein what I said to the president before that was mr. president you need to understand that if you take out this government you become responsible as the new government you become responsible for 27 million Iraqis who will be standing there looking at us you take on great responsibility and you sure you understand that you want to do it and we were privately having this conversation and he said well what's the alternative I said the alternative is to have the UN be in the first position they're the ones who have violated and they're rather resolutions have been violated so let's have a diplomatic approach President Bush said I agree with your idea after going to the UN and convincing them did before taking military action he wanted to present our case to the United Nations publicly and so in a Thursday afternoon I was in with him he said would you take the case next Tuesday to the UN yeah you made the case that Saddam did have or we thought he had weapons of mass destruction when it turned out he didn't right do you think you know you were embarrassed by that or do you think that the u.s. was embarrassed or do you think had we known he didn't have weapons of mass destruction President Bush would have gone ahead anyway no he would not have gone ahead and I asked him that specific question when we were going through this I said mr. president if Saddam Hussein can prove that he has no weapons of mass destruction then you do not have a basis for war are you prepared to accept that even if it means son of Hussein will stay in place hesitantly he said yes I will accept that so that's why I went forward so I went out and spent three days that the CIA with the intelligence communities and prepared the document that I would present and every word in there was was approved by the CIA was written by the CIA and so we went I gave the presentation it seemed to go well I was confident that I went well but then within a few days or a couple of weeks it started to fall apart so yes I was more than embarrassed I was I was mortified because even though the President had used the same information Congress had used the same information secretary Rumsfeld Condoleezza Rice all of us were using the same information but I'm the one who made the biggest presentation of it so it all sort of fell on me that's the show business huh but today in hindsight would you say the invasion was a mistake I'd say the execution of the invasion was not done properly we abandoned the army without any discussion back in Washington and then we abandoned something worse the bath party and said that anybody who worked for the bath party could not work in the new government those were too monstrously bad strategic decisions and we did not have enough force in there to do what we wanted the Iraq army to do and the place fell apart now right now Iraq has a democracy it's tricky but it's a democracy they have elections and they are trying to restore order in their country if they do all of that I think it's bad that we went about it in such a terrible way my humble judgment others will not agree with me that if they come out through this difficult process right now as a democracy no weapons of mass destruction and no thought I'm saying then I think you'd have to judge this differently that was being judged now what is it in your view that makes a person a great leader a person who understands that they're leading followers a person who understands that they are there to put a group of human beings into work that has value as a purpose and the leader will give them the inspiration needed to achieve that purpose and the leader will make sure they have everything they need to get it done President Bush is reelected in the second term you retire a Secretary of State and do things in the private sector one of the things you did was to set up the colon Powell school at CCN and why tell us about the coulomb house : when I left the State Department I came up here to see a little center the colon Powell Center that had been endowed by the Rudin family and I wanted to see what they were doing they've been new and the answer was that they hadn't been doing much it was more of a mini think tank and I sat in the conference room here CCNY and about a dozen students came in and I saw incredible diversity among these 12 kids and I saw passion in their eyes I saw them hungry for a better life I knew that most of them came from families where nobody had yet graduated from college and this was the first generation of that family and when it got back to me and I said my god this is me this is me 50 years ago I got to be a part of this I know you're very proud of the school as you should be if you look back on your extraordinary life in public service did your parents live to see your success they were both saw me make colonel and they were proud of that but my father was failing I could see that and then he died about a year and a half later so he didn't seem to make general the mother was there when I was promoted to general and she stood there in this line of people very proud she was only about this tall five foot three or so and there was a Secretary of Defense and the deputy secretary defense and all these generals watching and so she was very proud she and my wife pinned my stars on and from then on in in an almost Yiddish expression she was saying to everybody my son to general you've seen many great leaders in your career political leaders military leaders obviously been a great leader so what is it in your view that makes a person a great leader a person who understands that they're leading followers a person who understands that they are there to put a group of human beings into work that has value has a purpose and the leader will give them the inspiration needed to achieve that purpose and the leader will make sure they have everything they need to get it done so I've always taken on every job I've had what am I trying to do what's the purpose was the vision what's the purpose why are we here what are we doing and then get that down to the lowest person in the organization and then make sure they have whatever they need whether it's diplomatic weapons or real weapons of war and make sure that I took care of them that gave them every opportunity to be successful so that's what leadership is all about inspiring followers there's a story about Lincoln that I've always appreciated in the early days of the Civil War he would go to the old soldier zone outside of the swampy area washing up in the north part of the city and there was a telegraph office there and one night a message comes in and the telegraph operator writes it down and mr. president say it's not good and he hands it to him and the message says you know the Confederates have just raided a link a Union outpost out by Fairfax station and they've captured a a hundred horses in the Brigadier General and Lincoln says God hate to lose a hundred horses so the telegraph operator asked him Oh what about the Brigadier General and Lincoln's reply was I can make a brigadier general in five minutes but it's hard to replace all hundred horses somebody gave that to me the day I may bring in their general and it has been by my desk ever since to this day it's there if you came to the house now you see it it always reminded me that your job pal is to take care of the horses don't worry about being a brigadier general take care of the horses the soldiers the employees the clerks the students the faculty whatever it takes to be successful on whatever it is you're trying to achieve

Channel: David Rubenstein

Views: 116,805

Keywords: Bloomberg, David Rubenstein Show, Colin Powell, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Iraq War

Id: akIpf0iva3Q

Length: 24min 4sec (1444 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 29 2017