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Military figures often carry an intrinsic appeal as tough, decisive leaders, and Powell starts with that quality. He advanced rapidly inside the Army, was the youngest Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and got huge credit for his organization of Desert Storm. But his appeal overflows the confines of the armed services. On a photo of Powell and Ronald Reagan going over a document together, Reagan wrote, "If you say so, I know it's all right." At a press conference following the mission to Haiti, Powell stole the show from former President Jimmy Carter, Senator Sam Nunn and President Clinton.
His performance in public is superb. Gerald Ford, who even as President never had such bearing, calls Powell "the best public speaker in America." In many recent speeches, Powell has taken his audience with him into Buckingham Palace as he received his honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth in a way that makes him seem like a regular guy but also reminds people of how much he has accomplished. In San Diego in early June, he had the audience laughing at the little indignities he suffers now that the full power and glory of being Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is no longer his. He tells them he can't get his wife Alma to make him lunch and says, "One of the saddest figures in all Christendom is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, once removed, driving around with a baseball cap pulled over his eyes, making his strategic choice as to whether it's going to be McDonald's or Taco Bell."
''He has that rapport good politicians have with people," says Paul Wolfowitz, former Under Secretary of Defense. "A lot of them go through the motions very well and convince people that they care. Then there are the gifted ones who are really connecting. He does that, and I think it's related to the fact that there are things he cares deeply about. There is an intensely human quality about Powell that I think is exceptional."
The personal story of Colin Powell is exemplary. Born in Harlem and raised in the South Bronx, he grew up in a solid and supportive family, worked hard to move up (although not so hard in college, getting only average grades) and succeeded mostly despite his race but sometimes because of it. The Powell success story is reassuring to those Americans who want to believe that although racism persists, the system is not so corrupted by it as to prevent talented minorities from succeeding.
Powell plays to that emotion in his speeches, talking unselfconsciously about race. "How did I deal with racism?" he asked rhetorically at a speech in San Antonio, Texas. "I beat it. I said, 'I am not going to carry this burden of racism. I'm going to destroy your stereotype. I'm proud to be black. You carry this burden of racism, because I'm not going to.'" He seems to be aware of the peculiar advantages of his race. In 1972, when he was plucked from a successful but still obscure career to become a White House Fellow, he remarked with knowing irony to a friend, "I was lucky to be born black."