t doubtless grieved Colin Powell that what he will be most remembered for was his 2003 United Nations presentation on the case for war in Iraq. Not only because he came to have so many regrets about the position he took and the subsequent conduct of the war by the Bush administration, but also because it overshadows a public life of such consequence. Governing over diversity is hard, and some of the lesser-noticed things for which Powell deserves to be remembered are models for strengthening our republican governance. He used his stature to highlight continuing racial barriers; exhibited a quiet understanding, shaped over a decades-long study, of how Washington, D.C. worked; strengthened the institutions he led; and, most of all, brought integrity to politics and everything he did.
Powell, who died this year at 84, was a big man — physically imposing and intellectually commanding, a leader of incredible magnetism. He was the first Black secretary of state and chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; he once plaintively told me he looked forward to the day when there were so many others that he might be remembered instead as the youngest chair. But Powell didn’t just achieve consequential firsts, he opened opportunities and flooded the zone with talent. That was how the American military had succeeded at racial integration, and for all his subsequent jobs and achievements, it was always soldiering that conditioned his behavior.
