Powell Won’t Rule Out Presidential Campaign, Says He’ll Decide by Fall

Retired Gen. Colin L. Powell says the time may be right for a third political party to represent the nation’s “sensible center.” He is giving himself a fall deadline for deciding whether to run for President--from within or without the major parties.

The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff indicates in his new autobiography, excerpted in Monday’s edition of Time magazine, that he is not inclined to make a White House bid.

But he also keeps speculation alive in an interview with the magazine by saying: “My plan right now is to keep my options open” until after his book tour, which begins this week.

“To be a successful politician . . . requires a calling that I do not yet hear,” he wrote in “My American Journey.”

“I believe I can serve my country in other ways.”

He condemned the current political scene and “the political passion of those on the extreme right who seem to claim divine wisdom on political as well as spiritual matters.”

“I am disturbed by the class and racial undertones beneath the surface of their rhetoric,” he said.

On the left, he is put off by “patronizing liberals who claim to know what is best for society but devote little thought to who will eventually pay the bills.”