Colin Powell, who served as the nation's top soldier, diplomat and national security adviser in four decades of public life, and whose speech at the United Nations in 2003 helped pave the way for the United States to fight in Iraq, died on Monday. He died of complications of Covid - 19, his family said in a statement. He had been fully vaccinated and was treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Md. Where he died, his family said. M. Powell had undergone treatment for multiple myeloma, which compromised his immune system, a spokeswoman said.
Mr. Powell was a path-breaking man, serving as Africa s first national security adviser, chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state.
Born in Harlem of Jamaican parents, Mr. Powell grew up in the South Bronx and graduated from the City College of New York, joining the army through the Reserve Officer Training Corp program. From a newly decorated 2nd Lieutenant commissioned in the dawn of a young corps, Mr. Powell served two decorated combat tours in Vietnam. He was later a national security adviser to President Mikhail S. Gorbachev at the end of the Cold War, helping to negotiate arms treaties and an era of cooperation with the Soviet president Ronald Reagan.