Authors: Colin Powell
It Worked For Me (20 page)
S
tudent exchange programs are wonderful things. Sending young Americans overseas, if only for a few days, opens their eyes to new experiences and gives them an understanding of a world that is not America—and a greater appreciation of what it means to be a citizen of this country.
Exchanges in our direction are no less important.
Bringing youngsters from around the world to the United States lets them experience the real America and the great people who live here. They’ll see an America they’ll never see on a screen.
The late Robin Cook was the United Kingdom foreign secretary during my first months as Secretary of State. In 1997 I founded a program called America’s Promise, which helps youngsters in need get mentoring, safe places, and education.
Inspired by that program, Robin suggested that we exchange high school age kids between our two offices. I would find two young Americans to spend time with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London and he would send a pair of young Brits to hang out with my staff. It worked great, and it was fun for me to check on how the kids were managing to wrap their brains around our vast, complex, and strange organization. It was especially fun on their last day, when I’d bring the youngsters into my office and let them phone their “mums” back in the United Kingdom. After they and their parents had rattled on awhile, I’d take the phone for a minute and chat with the parents, which always pleased everybody.
The program continued under Jack Straw, Robin’s successor. By then a way to improve it had come to me. “We both go out of our way to pick kids who are overachievers and professional winners,” I told him. “Maybe you could send a couple who are not on their way to Oxford or Cambridge?”
He got it! Did he ever! He sent two young men who were not college-bound and came with all kinds of troubles behind them. They’d had run-ins with the law. They’d been busted for drugs. Their dress was not Savile Row, but council housing (public housing).
During their two-week stay, they met important people, visited our monuments, and spent a day with me. I took them to meetings at State and even to a congressional hearing. They saw what a Secretary of State actually does for a living. That afternoon I took them to the White House and we wandered around the fabulous eighteen acres. When we got to the Rose Garden I suggested that we check to see if the President was in the Oval Office. If he was out, we could see it. Surprise, surprise—I had earlier called President Bush and explained that I was bringing these boys with their troubled past to the White House. I knew he would be in.
We walked past the receptionists and right into the Oval Office, and there was President Bush waiting for us. The boys were amazed. There was small talk to break the ice. And then in a moment I will never forget, President Bush talked briefly but openly about his own onetime alcohol addiction and about how he had overcome it and gone on to create a new life, which eventually led to the Oval Office. After we left, I took the two speechless young men back to my office. Their lives were changed. Back in Britain they spread the word about this marvelous experience and the wonderful, kind, and generous people they had met.
The State Department has several youth exchange programs. One of them, Youth Ambassadors (YA), began in Brazil and was then exported to Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, and throughout the region. High school students come to the United States for a few weeks, meet important people, see the sights, and take their impressions home.
In the winter of 2002, I received in my office a group of Brazilian YA students. We had a nice chat, but I could tell they were edgy. It had started to snow outside . . . their first ever snowfall. Since getting outside into the snow obviously seemed far more exciting than spending time with me, I let them go early.
Maybe six months later, I made a trip to Brazil. Curious about how the program had affected those kids, I asked our ambassador, John Danilovich, a great guy, to round them up so I could chat with them.
John located them, and we assembled in the backyard of his residence. The kids, sitting in a semicircle facing us, filled us in on their lives and their plans for the future. Since they were a highly selective group, they had expectations of future success—like owning companies or becoming their country’s president.
I asked them if they had enjoyed the United States. I wanted to know specifically if anything had surprised them, or made them especially happy or especially sad.
There were questioning looks, but that didn’t last long—they were teenagers.
One young man raised his hand. “One day we were having lunch at a school,” he said, “and I was surprised, very surprised, when the American students laughed at me because I put ketchup on my pizza.”
“Most Americans think pizza comes with a sufficient quantity of tomato paste,” I explained kindly, doing my best not to smile.
Another young man quickly followed up. “I couldn’t believe,” he said with an expression of comic disgust, “that they served milk with pizza.”
I again suppressed a smile. Time didn’t permit an exposition about the place of the dairy lobby in the American political system.
Then a young girl tentatively raised her hand, “Let me tell you what happened to us in Chicago,” she said.
“Uh oh,” I thought.
“After a day of sightseeing, we went to a neighborhood restaurant,” she explained. “I think it was an Outback Steakhouse. After we ate and the check came, we added up our money. We were short. We weren’t used to paying with dollars. We couldn’t pay the bill.”
There they were, a dozen unchaperoned Portuguese-speaking kids in a chain restaurant in Chicago imagining all the horrors that could fall on foreigners who can’t pay. When the waitress came back, the kids told her they couldn’t cover the check. She looked at them, gave a nod, and went away. They didn’t know what to expect.
A few minutes later, she came back. “Don’t worry about the check,” she told them with a warm smile.
“Will you have to make up the difference?” they asked, worried.
“Oh, no,” she said, her smile broadening. “When I told the manager about your problem, he picked up the whole bill and gave me a message for you: ‘I’m glad you came to our restaurant and hope you enjoyed the meal. I’m glad you’re in our city and hope you enjoy your stay in America.’ ”
They were stunned. They never expected such kindness.
When the girl ended her story, the others remained silent. It had been a powerful experience for all of them. We had introduced them to congressmen, cabinet Secretaries, and other dignitaries, but a restaurant manager in Chicago made the strongest impression on them and gave them their most enduring memory of America.
Another young lady raised her hand. “We were boarding the plane to leave Chicago,” she said. “After I sat down, a woman got in the seat next to me. ‘Excuse me,’ she said. I was confused. ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I brushed against you when I took my seat. I hope I didn’t disturb you.’
“I’ll never forget that,” she concluded.
A simple courtesy that most of us would have forgotten before the beverage cart rolled down the aisle left an indelible impression on a young Brazilian girl. It’s hard to say why. Maybe she didn’t expect such obvious niceness here, or maybe she wasn’t used to that kind of gesture in Brazil. Whatever the reason, the moment has stayed with her.
When they returned home, the YA alumni appeared on Brazilian media and became multipliers of goodwill to the Brazilian people, especially to young people. There are now alumni in every Brazilian state.
None of the YA students have so far become corporate big shots or their country’s president. But a few, like Casio, stand out.
When Casio returned to his small town, he decided to share his experience. “I realized the secret of my success was my mastery of English,” he told John Danilovich. So he started his own language school, called Backpack. “Branding is important,” Casio said. “You have to have a name they will remember.” He marketed his school with his own website, and then went to the mayor of his town. “I’m going to start a language school that will help our town’s young people,” he told the mayor. “You should give me books for them.” The mayor gave him books.
When Casio told this story to Ambassador Danilovich, John realized that the embassy could help, too, and they gave him books.
Later, YA alumni who got into the University of Brasilia began an entry exam preparation program run by Casio to help economically disadvantaged students prep for the rigorous entry exam. They charged ten reals, or about four dollars, for a semester of classes. “You cannot give it to them for free,” Casio explained. “They won’t appreciate it if it’s free.” Casio will have a brilliant future in marketing.
The YA success is a State Department success (it breeds lots of goodwill), but it’s much more than that. It’s an American people success. Our own people are our best ambassadors and promoters.
You never can tell what kids are really seeing (much less control it), but they are always seeing, and always judging. If we can provide them with rich enough experiences, they’ll take something good away with them that they can use to make their own and other people’s lives better.
M
y parents were proud British subjects. Although they became American citizens and loved their new country from the depth of their hearts, their Jamaican roots and their original British passports never let them forget their home. I was born in New York, yet I inherited their feelings about home and considered myself not only Jamaican but just a bit British.
I was given a very British name, Colin, pronounced “Cah-lin” by Brits and Jamaicans. In my youth in the early days of World War II, an American B-17 bomber pilot named Captain Colin—“Coh-lin”—Kelly heroically and successfully attacked a Japanese warship. His plane was severely damaged by Japanese fighters, but he held on until six of his crew members could bail out. The plane then exploded, killing Captain Kelly. He was one of the first American heroes of World War II. My friends started calling me by this Irish variant. No one cared until I became National Security Advisor, and the press demanded to know how to pronounce my name. I answered, “Coh-lin,” to the dismay of my family.
British West Indians are proud of their heritage and Commonwealth connections. They also kid each other. My Jamaican family used to laugh over the message that tiny Barbados supposedly sent to King George VI at the beginning of World War II: “Carry on, England, Barbados is behind you.”
It was many years before I was returned to my British roots. After the First Gulf War, in which the United Kingdom played an important role, Her Majesty’s government saw fit to award me an honorary knighthood as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. Because I am not a Brit but a citizen of a once rebellious colony, it was only honorary and had to be presented in a modest manner.
On December 15, 1993, Alma and I arrived at Buckingham Palace for the ceremony, which was to be hosted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. We were instructed by the Equerry that we would be announced into Her Majesty’s office, she would make the presentation, and she might or might not choose to invite us to sit and chat. She would be alone in the room; there would not even be a photographer.
At the appointed moment, we entered the queen’s small, elegant office. As she walked across the room toward us, she passed by a small table and picked up a leather box with the award inside, and approached us. “How nice to see you again, General and Mrs. Powell,” she said, then added, “I’m pleased to give you this,” and handed me the box. No pomp, no sword, no ermine robe, no photographer. She then invited us to chat, and we had a lovely fifteen minutes. Alma and I would enjoy her gracious company a number of times in the years ahead.
After leaving the palace, we posed outside for a photo and stepped into the marvelous Rolls-Royce limousine provided for us by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The liveried driver looked over his shoulder and said to Alma, “And where would you like to go now, Lady Powell.”
“To Harrods, my good man,” she replied with a royal smile. And she’s never been the same.
We were privileged over the years to meet other members of the royal family. All of them were memorable, but Princess Diana was the most memorable.
We first met her in October 1994, at a luncheon in her honor at the British embassy in Washington. She was every bit as lovely in person as in her photos. We got along splendidly. I suspect the British ambassador had assured her that because of our military penchant for secrecy, she could relax and need not be guarded in her conversation with us. And she wasn’t. Neither of us ever broke that confidence.
About that time a London newspaper wrote an article suggesting that Princess Diana and I shared a genealogy that could be traced back to the Earl of Coote, who lived in the 1500s. Though that seemed a stretch, I pocketed the news immediately.
We met again in 1995 in New York at a charity fund-raising dinner for cerebral palsy research. It was an A-list, black-tie event where both of us were being honored. Barbara Walters was to introduce me and present my award. Henry Kissinger would then do likewise for Her Royal Highness. Needless to say, I was the second banana in this act, and Henry was in seventh heaven—the envy of every man in the room. Standing in the receiving line next to Diana, I got a sense of how hard it must be for her to endure the smothering public life she led. I almost tossed one guy out of the line when he shoved himself between us, draped his arm around her, and shot a self-portrait with a pocket camera.
After dinner came the presentations. I was first, and I wanted to put Henry, a beloved old colleague, off his pace (for fun). Barbara made the presentation, then I took the lectern, thanked the sponsors, praised the charity, and closed by announcing how especially humbled I was to be sharing the honors with Her Royal Highness, “with whom I had a relationship.” The room was silent for a beat. Then came a small, general gasp. Alma shot me a wife look.
I sat down and Henry took the stage, a little off balance. But pro that he is, he recovered and gave Diana a splendid introduction.
Her remarks began, “Dr. Kissinger, ladies and gentlemen and Cousin Colin, good evening.” Match point, Henry!
But the fun did not last. A few minutes into her speech came another incident highlighting the terrible demands of celebrity. A woman in the audience shouted out, “Why aren’t you home with your children?” Everyone was stunned, but Diana didn’t miss a beat, saying, “They are just fine, thank you very much,” to much applause. I only hope that the anonymous doyenne raised her children as well as Diana raised William and Harry.
It was a year later at another black-tie charity event that we really became friends, this time at a dinner-dance for breast cancer research in Washington. Earlier that year, she’d been in Chicago for another black-tie dinner-dance. Before the event, a stalker had sent an incredible profusion of flowers to her hotel suite; when the dancing began, the stalker had managed to get into the queue and dance with her. Scotland Yard security was not happy, and since they did not want a repeat, there would be no strangers in the queue for the Washington dance. I was asked to be the first gentleman to dance with her. I would be followed by Oscar de la Renta, and other New York fashionistas. Well, it was tough duty, but someone had to do it.
At a British embassy luncheon earlier that day, Diana and I sat next to each other; one of the topics we touched on as we chatted was the dance that evening. After lunch she suggested that we practice a little. That seemed sensible, so we danced, without music, in a room next to the embassy dining room. When I asked about music that evening, she told me that any would do, but she offered one caution. Her dress for the event was backless; I would have to decide where to place my hand. I thought I could handle that, and raced out to buy new shoes. The evening was a tremendous success, and guys were staring daggers of envy at me.
In the years that followed we exchanged Christmas cards and an occasional letter until the terrible night in Paris when she was killed.
The celebrity of her position as the People’s Princess created the conditions that led to her death. Paparazzi, tabloids, the expansion of the Internet, the explosion of social networks, and the introduction of cameras into phones and ever smaller cases make everyone in public life much more vulnerable. Intrusions by the media are no longer an occasional irritation; they’re constant. All of this feeds an insatiable, often vicious appetite for the celebrification of our society. The more outrageous, misanthropic, and narcissistic the behavior, the more it sells. We suck it all up. The news and gossip cycles now move so fast that a falsehood goes around the world at the speed of light and is embedded in a million depositories. The correcting truth seldom gets that kind of distribution. And so what? Another story has already grabbed people’s ever-roaming attention.
Attending a reception with three hundred people means exposing yourself to three hundred cameras that can send photos and videos with voice instantly into the cloud, complete with accompanying text and Photoshopping instructions. It gets even crazier. I have been followed into airport bathrooms by camera-carrying jerks looking for a money shot. I now use a closed stall.
Princess Diana was beloved, and she used her fame and position to advance many worthy causes. But her celebrity was a terrible cross to bear.
The challenge in public life is to keep your balance. Most people are decent, and want to reach out to you in kindness. Be pleasant to everyone who is pleasant and civil to you. Ignore the pests, hangers-on, and parasites. Always remember that celebrity is bestowed on you by the public; use the influence it gives you for worthwhile purposes and not just to pump up your ego. In other words, use your position for good, but don’t let it go to your head. Don’t believe all you hear or read about yourself, good or bad. Don’t make your public life your full-time occupation, and hide frequently from the madding crowd.
