Gen. Powell Retires But Is Not Expected to Fade Away

With the thunder of cannon and the roar of jets, Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, rode into retirement Thursday--but not into obscurity or poverty.

The most popular and powerful American military man in a generation will remain before the public eye with the writing of his memoirs (at $6 million), frequent lectures (at $60,000 each) and a nationwide guessing game about his future political plans.

Powell’s retirement ceremony at Ft. Myer, Va., was attended by President and Mrs. Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, former President George Bush and Mrs. Bush, former Vice President Dan Quayle and rank upon rank of dignitaries and diplomats, senior military officers and politicians.

Powell’s already beribboned breast was loaded with a half-dozen more medals, including a special citation from Queen Elizabeth II, who named the general an honorary knight commander in the military division of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath.

Under sunny skies on a chill early autumn afternoon, Clinton extolled the 56-year-old general as “strong and wise, forthright and honest,” the perfect model of the perfect soldier.

“You are truly a hard act to follow,” Clinton said. “Your reward is a grateful nation and a bright future.”

Powell delivered an emotional and deliberately apolitical paean of thanks to American men and women in uniform, to the civilian leaders who entrusted great responsibility in him and to his immediate and extended family, especially his wife of 31 years, Alma.

With four silver stars glittering on each shoulder and a second Presidential Medal of Freedom draped about his neck, Powell said: “The Army has officially advised me that, for record purposes, I have served 35 years, three months, 21 days, and as we say in the infantry, a wake-up (the morning of one’s final day). I loved every single day of it. And it’s hard to leave. . . .

“I have never wanted to be anything but a soldier, and my dream has been fulfilled for almost four decades,” said Powell, who ended his career as far more than a simple soldier.

Powell sheds his uniform after rising from a beginning as the son of Jamaican immigrants in the tough South Bronx to wield the most government power of any black in the nation’s history.

The veteran of two tours in Vietnam emerged from the pack in 1972, when Caspar W. Weinberger, then former President Richard Nixon’s budget director, plucked him from a group of White House scholars and shepherded his career through assignments from the Energy Department to the White House, where he eventually became national security adviser under former President Ronald Reagan.

Bush named Powell chairman of the Joint Chiefs in 1989, where he managed the military during a period of upheaval, including the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of communism, the invasions of Panama and Iraq and a severe reduction in budgets and forces.

Clinton and Powell spent a private hour together at the White House Thursday morning “discussing his career and his long service,” according to spokesman Mark D. Gearan. He had lunch with his fellow military chiefs of staff and the heads of U.S. military commands around the world.

Clinton has named Army Gen. John Shalikashvili to replace Powell at the Joint Chiefs, but his confirmation awaits the naming of his successor as North Atlantic Treaty Organization commander. Clinton is expected to appoint Army Gen. George A. Joulwan, currently head of U.S. forces in Latin America, to the NATO post.