Colin Powell, first black secretary of state, dies

WASHINGTON Reuters - Colin Powell, the first Black secretary of state and top military officer, died on Monday after paralysis from COVID - 19. He was fully vaccinated, his family said in a Facebook post.

We lost a great husband, father, grandfather and a great American, his family said.

Colin Powell was one of the foremost black figures of America for decades. He was named senior by three Republican Presidents and reached the top of the US Military in light of recovering its strength after the Vietnam War trauma.

Douglas Lewis, who was wounded in Vietnam, served as the U.S. national security adviser under President Ronald Reagan from 1987 to 1989. He was chairman of the four-star Army general and joined the Joint Chiefs of Staff of President George H.W. During the 1991 Gulf War in which U.S. troops expelled Iraqi troops from neighboring Kuwait.

Alma, a moderate Republican and a pragmatist, considered a bid to become the first Black President in 1996 but his wife Powell's worries for his safety helped him decide otherwise. In 2008, he broke with his party to endorse Barack Obama's campaign against Democratic politics. The first black as president of the White House was Barack Obama.

Powell will forever be associated with his controversial presentation on Feb. 5, 2003, at the U.N. Security Council, bringing President Saddam Hussein's defense that Iraqi President George W. Bush constituted an imminent danger to the world because of its stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.

Powell admitted later that the presentation was rife with inaccuracies and twisted intelligence provided by others in the Bush administration and represented a blot that will always be part of my record.