His Judgment Awaits Its Toughest Test : Powell Charts the Middle Course

When U.S. forces trained their guns on Iranian oil platforms and marauding speedboats in April, 1988, then-White House National Security Adviser Colin Powell was the President’s voice in the Pentagon’s basement command center.

When the critical calls were made, Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) recalled Thursday, “Powell’s judgment was almost unerringly on the prevailing side,” charting a middle course between military inaction and the more provocative attacks favored by some Ronald Reagan Administration officials.

His judgment will soon be put to its toughest test, following President Bush’s nomination of Powell Thursday as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Civilians and military officers, who have followed Powell’s rise through a succession of politically powerful jobs, admit that they do not know whether the power he has projected reflects the man himself or the senior civilian leaders--both Republican and Democratic--for whom he has worked over the years.

Has Won Hearts, Minds

But they said that the 52-year-old black infantry officer has displayed an uncanny ability to win the hearts of those below him and the minds of those above.

In the heat of the Persian Gulf operations, for instance, Powell would wander out of his office to look in on the White House Situation Room and chat with National Security Council staffers during their round-the-clock vigils. “It was like the captain of a ship coming down to an essential but quite removed part of the vessel to find out how things are going,” said one NSC underling. “It wasn’t on his way anywhere.”

“He’s not flamboyant, but there is a very clear leadership aura about him,” said former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, whom Powell served as executive military assistant at the Defense Department and as a White House fellow at the Office of Management and Budget in 1973. “He doesn’t need stars on his shoulders” to carry the day, Weinberger said.

“He’s a guy who doesn’t lead with his stars,” echoed Maj. Gen. John Stanford, a black Army officer who for years spent weekends with Powell fixing up old Volvos and BMWs. “He leads with his personal power, and he can do it because he has such immense personal power.”

While Powell is proud of his ground-breaking role as a black military officer, Stanford said, it has not been a central theme in his personal or professional life.

“The guy is a hero, an all-American hero,” said Stanford. “There are no nicks in his armor.”

‘Loyal Staff Man’

If a nick were to be found, it would be that Powell has built a military career on political posts rather than on the kind of no-nonsense operational commands that win a rank-and-file following among fellow military officers.

If he is to offer the President independent and authoritative advice on military affairs, some sources said privately, Powell must break the “loyal staff man” mold that has won him so many admirers among top leaders--including Bush and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.

Trained as an infantryman, Powell has held his most visible posts in Washington. After earning a master’s degree in business administration in 1972, Powell became a White House fellow during the Richard M. Nixon Administration. There, he worked in the Office of Management and Budget for two future defense secretaries, Weinberger and Frank C. Carlucci.

Shortly after Jimmy Carter moved into the White House, Powell became an assistant in the office of Defense Secretary Harold Brown, becoming Brown’s senior military assistant during the final two years of the Carter Administration.

When Reagan was swept into office, Powell stayed on briefly to advise Weinberger, and, after a two-year stint commanding troops at Ft. Carson, Colo., and Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., he returned in 1983 to serve as Weinberger’s military assistant.

Helped Restore Order

He is best known, however, for his tenure as Reagan’s sixth national security adviser. In that role, Powell helped restore calm and order at the National Security Council in the wake of the Iran-Contra scandal.

Even after spending so much time in Washington, Powell still regarded leadership in the field as his true calling.

“We used to accuse him of stepping in mud puddles during base visits, just to get the feel of being out with the troops,” said Michael Burch, a former Defense Department official and retired Air Force officer who worked closely with Powell at the Pentagon. “He couldn’t wait to get out of the Pentagon, back commanding troops.”

Back in the Field

Powell soon got his wish, serving in some of the most militarily sensitive positions in the U.S. armed forces. After Weinberger reluctantly let Powell leave the defense secretary’s executive suite, Powell took command of the U.S. Army’s 5th Corps, a unit stretched across the Fulda Gap, which would likely bear the brunt of an attack on West Germany by the Warsaw Pact nations.

Powell is currently serving as commander-in-chief of the Forces Command, a job that makes him responsible for the readiness of 1.6 million troops stationed in the United States.