Choice of Powell to Head Joint Chiefs Praised : Congressmen, Reagan Hail General as ‘Right Man,’ ‘Perfect’ Selection

President Bush, praising Gen. Colin Powell as “a complete soldier,” named the 52-year-old Army officer and former White House national security adviser Thursday to head the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the next two years.

“He will bring leadership, initiative and wisdom to our efforts to keep our military forces strong and ready,” Bush said in announcing that Powell would replace the outgoing chairman, Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., on Oct. 1.

Powell’s nomination, which must be confirmed by the Senate, was widely hailed on Capitol Hill.

Called ‘Excellent Nominee’

Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, praised him as “an excellent nominee,” noting that Powell’s “proven abilities and his experience provide a strong foundation for his advice on wide-ranging defense issues in times of severe budget constraints and a rapidly changing international scene.”

Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), the ranking minority member on the Senate defense panel, called Powell “the right man for the right time.”

Although Powell is widely admired at the Pentagon, some of the military’s top brass privately expressed surprise that the general, who has held a succession of political appointments in Washington, will vault over several more senior officers with longer field experience to head the top military panel.

‘A Lot of Smirking’

“There’s going to be a lot of smirking around this building about him being a political general,” a senior defense official said. “Everybody knows that he was (former Defense Secretary Caspar W.) Weinberger’s and (former Defense Secretary) Frank Carlucci’s protege, and, whenever anybody comes up like that, with powerful friends, that happens.”

Former President Ronald Reagan, whom Powell served as White House national security adviser, called Powell “the perfect choice” for the job in a statement released by his office. Reagan noted that Powell had played a key role in improving U.S.-Soviet relations and called him “a soldier’s soldier” and a “man of peace.”

In accepting Bush’s nomination, Powell said that “it is a special privilege to be the spokesman for all the millions of young men and women who are serving their nation voluntarily in uniform.”

Administration sources said that Powell was the first choice of Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, who had worked closely with the general when Powell was national security adviser and Cheney, then a Republican congressman from Wyoming, was the ranking minority member of the House committee that investigated the Iran-Contra scandal.

Another General Supported

Knowledgeable sources said that the outgoing chairman, Crowe, had thrown his support behind Gen. Robert T. Herres, who has been his vice chairman for more than two years.

Crowe argued that Powell would benefit from longer experience as commander of the Forces Command, which is responsible for the readiness of military units stationed in the United States--a post he has filled since April.

Crowe, whose four-year tenure as chairman was characterized by Bush as “absolutely splendid,” will retire on Sept. 30. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff normally serves a two-year term, although the length of his tenure is up to the President.

The office that Powell is to assume has become more influential in the wake of a 1986 defense reorganization act. Before the legislation, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs served largely as a consensus builder, relaying decisions and advice jointly agreed on by the chiefs of staff of the Army, Navy and Air Force and by the commandant of the Marines Corps to the President through the defense secretary.

Top Military Adviser

But the 1986 legislation made the chairman of the Joint Chiefs the principal military adviser to the President, the defense secretary and the National Security Council.

In addition, the 1986 bill freed the chairman from the need to express the consensus views of the chiefs of staff by encouraging the service chiefs to relay their own dissenting views through the chairman.

Powell was born in New York, the son of Jamaican immigrants.