The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2022

36 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Command Encounters I next encountered four-star General Powell in the early 1990s when I was the deputy chief of mission in Turkey, and he visited Ankara during the Gulf War on his way to the Turkish air base at Incirlik to see U.S. forces stationed there. After dinner at the ambassa- dor’s residence, Powell realized that one of his aides had failed to bring the full combat uniform he needed for the next day’s travel to Incirlik. Powell told those of us who had been summoned to solve this problem that he knew we would do so by morning, which we did, by borrowing stars from two major generals and combing the local U.S. military commu- nity for a pair of the right-size boots. Another lesson in command: Stay calm. Expect others to do their jobs and meet your expectations. It was also a lesson for those doing the work: Don’t panic. Focus on the task in front of you. As Director General of the Foreign Service, I next met then–Secretary of State Designate Powell in late 2000. On his first day at the State Department, he invited me to come see him. “What can I do to make a difference for the people here?” he wanted to know. Thanks to the creative thinking of experts in the Director General’s office, I told him that we needed 15 percent more people so that we could be as serious as the mili- tary about professional education. I pitched what we called the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative, a plan to hire 1,200 people over three years. He committed right then and there to putting it in the budget. And it got done. More leadership lessons: Reward new thinking and preparation, including always being ready for what the opposition might be planning. Show confidence in and then support the people who work for you. Decide. There would be many more lessons during the years it was my privilege to be Secretary Powell’s under sec- retary for political affairs, but Sept. 11, 2001, defined our tenure. On that dreadful day, Secretary Powell was in Peru at a meeting of the Organization of American States. Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage asked me to meet the Secretary at Andrews Air Force Base on his return in the afternoon. When the Secretary asked me what I knew, I did my best to convey the facts. We then sat silently on the way to the White House as Powell considered the present and the future. When he returned to the State Department late that night, he had the outline of our plan to move forward. Secretary Powell (at left) looks over a brief with President George W. Bush and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in the Oval Office, before meeting Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, Sept. 19, 2001. NATIONALARCHIVESANDREPORTSADMINISTRATION AFSA welcomes the new Secretary of State on the opening pages of the March 2001 AFSA News in the FSJ .