Powell Not Wearing Hero Halo This Time

Four years ago, Colin L. Powell stood before the Republican National Convention in San Diego as a towering figure--retired four-star general, best-selling memoirist and trailblazing African American who had spurned efforts to draft him for a presidential run.

Tonight, Powell will address another GOP convention in an equally choice slot: 20 minutes on opening night before a national television audience.

However, with rampant speculation that Powell, 63, would serve in the Cabinet if another Republican named Bush wins the White House--perhaps as secretary of State--he no longer appears the above-the-fray figure he did before the last election, when he seemingly levitated above both major parties.

What’s more, Powell’s recent accomplishments as head of a 3-year-old group that seeks to help disadvantaged youth are less easily defined than the smashing victory over Iraqi troops in 1991 that made him a household name.

No one would call Powell just another pol. His life story will always set him apart: the son of Jamaican immigrants who, after a boyhood in the South Bronx, rose to become a key national security counselor to three presidents and the first black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

But Powell clearly has deepened his ties with the Republican Party while building a new two-track career as both high-paid speaker and unpaid chairman of America’s Promise: The Alliance for Youth.

“The relationship has grown; let me just leave it at that,” said Powell spokesman Bill Smullen.

Powell’s refusal to seek elective office has helped preserve his stature, ensuring that he remains insulated from the critical scrutiny of the campaign trail.

“I would have been the first to embrace him if he said he wanted to run for president, but I’m glad he didn’t,” said Rep. J.C. Watts Jr. of Oklahoma, the only black Republican in Congress. “He’s a knight in shining armor. I kind of like that.”

Powell, who declined interview requests before the convention, told Fox television in June that the GOP “is certainly not seen as the black guy’s party.”

He added: “I think too often the Republican Party has said, ‘We know what’s best for you,’ as opposed to listening to the African American community, understanding some of the despair that exists in the African American inner-city communities.”

In 1996, Powell seized his prime-time opening to plead with his party to make room for opposing views on divisive issues such as abortion and affirmative action. Tonight’s speech is expected to focus on community service.

Powell, in his 1995 book, “My American Journey,” described himself as “a fiscal conservative with a social conscience.” That sounds something like the “compassionate conservatism” of Republican presidential aspirant George W. Bush. But Powell parts with the younger Bush on some issues. For instance, Powell supports abortion rights, while the Texas governor does not.

Powell lives in the Washington suburb of McLean, Va., and keeps an office in nearby Alexandria, Va. Much in demand on the lecture circuit, he commands fees as high as $70,000 an engagement, public speaking experts say. But his signature effort nowadays is the chairmanship of America’s Promise, launched after an April 1997 summit on volunteerism in Philadelphia that drew President Clinton and three former presidents.

The organization, which employs 55 people on a budget of more than $7 million a year, aims to spur public and private institutions to commit to helping American youths with five goals: providing adult mentors, crime-free neighborhoods, good medical care, effective schooling and an opportunity to give back to their communities. Powell hands out miniature red wagons as tokens.

Some critics suggest America’s Promise has inflated the results of its campaign, a point Powell associates hotly dispute.

Bill Treanor, publisher of the Washington-based newspaper Youth Today, said Powell has suffered from a lack of knowledge about the field of youth services. Asked to rate Powell’s accomplishments, he said: “To use a baseball analogy, I might give the guy a stand-up double, but he could have hit a home run.”