Colin Powell Quotes

After being surrounded by the Germans for seven days at what would later be called the Battle of the Bulge, a German officer notified the Americans that they would accept their surrender. McAuliffe’s one word response summed up the resolve of the Americans who were surrounded. The Americans managed to hold the line and defeat the German’s last major offensive of World War II.

Conant was also one of America’s premier scientists why had served on all the government policy committees about the atomic bomb development and use. He was the only scientist who had the respect of the greatest of the scientists and also was a respected government administrator with the confidence of the politicians. The “super” was the name then for the Hydrogen Bomb, a logical next step that could be taken according to the laws of physics. However J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Atomic Energy Commission General Advisory Committee he was chairing voted unanimously to NOT develop the Hydrogen Bomb at the time. The feeling was that if we did, the Russians would feel that they too would have to also, and their physicists were estimated to be easily capable of doing it. They thought that we could easily build more atom bombs—enough to wipe out Russian civilization if they attempted to use any of the atomic weapons they had built. The Chairman of the AEC and some other civilian officials who did not really understand the science but were they thought knowledgeable about international power politics, wanted to go ahead and build the “super” which Edward Teller had recommended and led the very few scientists on that side of the issue. The civilian hawks’ logic was that the Russians were so inferior to the United States that they could not have developed their atomic capability without having the information from their spies who had penetrated out program. If we built a supply of hydrogen weapons, they argued, the Russians could never gain parity if we maintained proper secrecy. They were not good enough scientists. Therefore we would dominate the world and could contain communism. Conant and most other American scientists knew that the Russians could develop supers and then we would be in a scientific arms race which in all probability we would not win every stage. Better they thought to have a stand off. However, the AEC Chairman started a campaign to destroy Oppenheimer’s credibility with the public as he was the public face of American Physics. The scientists lost the worst fight in American history between politicians and scientists. Conant, himself was appointed to literally be the peacetime ruler of West Germany and had a brilliant success there, but he was unable to stop the super development after Oppenheimer had been publicly castigated as a security leak. The Russians then developed their hydrogen weapons and the arms race continued throughout the Cold War as most of the scientists thought it would.

After the military victory in Iraq, Garner was in charge of reconstruction and getting Iraqi civil servants paid. Then the President appointed Paul Bremer as the do facto Governor of Iraq. No sooner did Bremer arrive and take charge than he alienated most Iraqi and even American officials including Garner. Bremer wanted direct control of all civilian and military staff including Garner’s staff. Garner did go home, and Bremer totally controlled a difficult situation in post-war nation building of Iraq. By the end of Bremer’s tenure, the situation had deteriorated almost beyond repair.

MacArthur had been the Commander of our Military Forces in Korea. He had a huge ego, and he wanted to cross the border and attack China since Chinese Troops were aiding the North Vietnamese. He had previously assured the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President that the Chinese would not send troops into Korea, but he was then wrong. And when they had attacked, they had erased the territorial gains that MacArthur had previously gained. The Joint Chief’s of Staff, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State had decided upon a strategy which this time did not follow MacArthur’s strategic advice. The President approved the strategy, but MacArthur spoke and acted contrary. The President met with MacArthur and reiterated the strategy that the President approved. But MacArthur did not follow the orders of the Joint Chiefs. At the time, he and Eisenhower were America’s two most famous military leaders, and of the two MacArthur was senior and thought that he should be President. After he was fired, MacArthur addressed a Joint Session of Congress and gave his "Old Soldiers Never Die" speech which was his first active step towards the Presidency. It was a very sentimental speech with little content and nothing about why he had disobeyed orders. He was totally shocked when it was Eisenhower who was selected to run for President and not him.

At that moment Hoover was the first politician to ever use the then new technology of a Teleprompter. Hoover was video recording a political speech for the Republican Convention. The teleprompter operator had not kept up with his pace of the speech, and with no protocols or other procedures, this quotation is what Hoover said. Hoover, a great engineer before politics was always interested in new technology. When Secretary of Commerce, he was the first politician ever to appear on television.

Powell, after being assured that the intelligence about the Iraq WMD showing that they were about to deploy a nuclear weapon and they had poison gas was absolutely true, was the major spokesperson to the UN and much of the United States justifying the Iraq War. It was all untrue, and Powell’s credibility which had been exceptional was hurt very badly. He soon resigned.