[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 115 (Wednesday, July 31, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9311-S9312]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




[[Page S9311]]



                           GEN. COLIN POWELL

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, few would dispute the fact that one 
of the most distinguished and highly respected public servants in our 
lifetime is Gen. Colin Powell.
  I read in Carl Rowan's column of a speech he gave at a commencement 
at Bowie State University.
  I contacted General Powell to obtain a copy of it, and I have just 
read his remarks for the second time.
  They are common sense. They are compassionate. They are forward-
looking.
  A significant part of his remarks, in my opinion, is what he has to 
say about affirmative action.
  Affirmative action can be abused like any good thing can be abused. 
His comments should be spread much more widely than simply to this 
graduating class.
  I ask that Gen. Colin Powell's remarks be printed in the 
Congressional Record.
  The remarks follow:

                      Remarks of Gen. Colin Powell

       I can never speak at a commencement such as this without 
     the years peeling away as I drift back into a reverie of my 
     own commencement some 38 years ago. The world you have 
     educated yourselves for is so very, very different from the 
     world that I started in those many years ago.
       I graduated as the Cold War was deepening, as lethal 
     arsenals of nuclear weapons were growing ever more ominous. 
     The world in 1958 that I entered was a world that seemed on 
     the verge of gloom and despair. For most of my years as a 
     soldier, for most of those 35 years, I participated in a 
     death struggle of survival between the forces of Communism 
     and the evil empire, and the forces of good, the forces of 
     democracy, that we represented. It was a long, long struggle, 
     a struggle that dominated most of my life.
       I can still remember the commission I got at my ROTC 
     graduation in 1958. It was signed by Dwight Eisenhower, and 
     the mission they gave Lt. Powell at that time was simple. 
     ``Lt. Powell go to Germany. Take command of 40 soldiers. Find 
     the City of Frankfurt. Go to the east of the City of 
     Frankfurt. You'll find the Iron Curtain. Lt. Powell, with 
     your 40 soldiers, guard a small section of the Iron Curtain. 
     In the time of war, don't let the Russian Army come through. 
     Got it?'' ``Yes, sir. Got it.'' And I did that for two years, 
     successfully preventing World War II from breaking out.
       The years went by, and 28 years later, I got a new 
     commission. This time from Ronald Reagan, and he made me a 
     Lieutenant General of Infantry And they gave me 75,000 proud 
     American soldiers to command. And 28 yeas later, my mission 
     was, ``General Powell, with your 75,000 soldiers, you'll be 
     in Germany, find the city of Frankfurt. Go the east of the 
     city of Frankfurt. Guard a slightly wider section of the Iron 
     Curtain this time. Try to do as good a job as you did when 
     you were a Lieutenant.''
       During your years here at Bowie, that Cold War came to an 
     end. The arsenals of nuclear weapons are being dismantled. 
     The Soviet Union has broken into 15 individual nations, each 
     seeking its own way down a difficult path of learning how 
     democracy works, mastering the mysteries of free enterprise 
     and market economic system. Communism lies discredited, its 
     few remaining adherents cling to the corpse of a dead 
     ideology.
       This historic reconciliation that has taken place between 
     East and West has changed the old Cold War map that used to 
     be red and blue with an Iron Curtain between the colors into 
     a new kind of map, a map full of mosaic pieces, different 
     colors as new nations and old nations seek to find a new way 
     in a different kind of world, a world structured as a world 
     trading system as opposed to a world in conflict.
       This reconciliation that took place between the Soviet 
     Union and us is matched by other historic reconciliations 
     that have taken place around the world in recent years. In 
     the Middle East, the peace process is moving forward that we 
     hope will be successful in finally bringing peace to that 
     troubled part of the world.
       In South Africa, Nelson Mandela who was on trial when I 
     graduated from college and who spent 27 years in prison, is 
     now the president of his country. And in his triumph, he 
     killed the evil ideology of Apartheid.
       In our own hemisphere, as I think back just seven years to 
     when I was National Security Advisor to the President of the 
     United States and we had all kinds of problems here in Haiti, 
     in Nicaragua, and Honduras and El Salvador and Panama and 
     now, all of those nations are moving forward down the road to 
     democracy with elected civilian leaders; all of them save 
     one, Cuba. But Cuba cannot withstand the winds of historic 
     change that are sweeping across our hemisphere. In Asia, the 
     pattern is the same as we watch the Philippines and India, 
     the Southeast Asia tiger, Vietnam, even China, emerging into 
     this new world trading system.
       You are entering a world where our former adversaries, 
     those that we were in conflict with for all these decades, 
     have now become our economic competitors as well as becoming 
     our new markets, new opportunities for us.
       It is not a world without problems or conflicts. Bosnia, 
     Liberia, North Korea, and other places of tragedy remind us 
     on our television sets every evening of the dangers that will 
     lurk ahead. Yet, I want you to see this as a time of hope and 
     optimism because our value systems have prevailed.
       There is no cross-border war anywhere in the world today. 
     No nation is fighting with any other nation across a national 
     border. American troops on this Memorial Day are not at war. 
     Instead, they are conducting peacekeeping operations. In 
     Bosnia they are even working alongside Russian soldiers who 
     were once their sworn enemies.
       The world that you are entering to make your contribution 
     will increasingly be structured not by armies staring at each 
     other across iron or bamboo curtains. Instead, it will be 
     structured by free world trade, by the power of the 
     information and technology revolutions, by the instantaneous 
     flow of capital, data, ideas, values. The cellular telephone, 
     the fax machine and the Internet are breaking down all the 
     old Cold War boundaries that once divided people.
       What will not change is the responsibility that America 
     will have to burden the very difficult, difficult task of 
     world leadership. We have power that is trusted. We are still 
     a beacon of freedom, and we are still an example of what can 
     be achieved, what can be accomplished when free people are 
     allowed to determine their own destiny.
       With the end of the Cold War, we have now turned inward 
     here in America to start to deal with those vexing problems 
     that, perhaps, we overlook while we were worrying about 
     nuclear warfare and World War III. We look inward and know 
     that we need a more rapidly growing economy to provide good, 
     well-paying jobs for all Americans. We know that we have to 
     do something about the problems of violence on our streets 
     and violence in our schools. We have to do something about an 
     education system, while it serves you well, it is not 
     structured to serve all our youngsters well.
       We must do something about the scourge of drugs that 
     threatens to wipe out an entire generation of young people. 
     We will have to deal with the breakdown that has occurred in 
     the norms of civility within our society which have led to 
     such public and political rancor that causes us to wonder 
     what kind of a society we are becoming. We must do something 
     about the racial separation that exists in our nation and 
     keeps us from the dream of an integrated society that Dr. 
     King set out for us.
       In some ways, the new world that we face will be more 
     complex and demanding than the old world, both here and 
     abroad. But despite the challenges, incredible opportunities 
     await you in this new world, opportunities that await 
     educated people. The education you received here, the 
     additional education you must acquire in whatever field of 
     endeavor you enter--because in this increasingly technical 
     and competitive world, success will go to those who realize 
     that education must now become a lifelong pursuit.
       America will not be going back to smokestack industries. 
     The corporate restructuring that you see taking place allow 
     us to be more competitive, more agile, more ready to deal 
     with the challenges of a world economic system. You each face 
     the prospect of several different careers in several 
     different companies in different places around the country 
     and around the world as you go about your working career.
       America has changed in so many, many wonderful ways since 
     my graduation in 1958. When I graduated as a black man, I 
     was, by law, a second-class citizen. When I graduated in 
     1958, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights 
     didn't fully apply to me. I entered at that time perhaps the 
     only institution in America that permitted a black person to 
     rise in an integrated setting limited only by my own 
     willingness to work hard and my dreams and ambition. And that 
     institution was the United States Army.
       The Army led the nation, and the nation followed. The young 
     Captain Powell who was once refused service at a lunch 
     counter in Georgia, when I came home from Vietnam after a 
     year of fighting for my country, that Captain Powell was able 
     to become General Powell, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
     Staff for the Armed Forces of United States.
       But I didn't do it alone. I climbed on the backs of the 
     those who came before me and those who broke the trail, the 
     Buffalo soldiers and Tuskegee Airmen, and the other black 
     military pioneers. I climbed on the backs of men and women 
     who knew that they served a country that was not yet prepared 
     to serve them. But they did it anyway because they had faith 
     in what the future held for them and for their country.
       I benefited from the sacrifices of Dr. Martin Luther King, 
     Jr. and Jesse and Rosa and Andrew and so many, many others--
     black and white--who were determined to build an America that 
     would be faithful to the dreams of its founding fathers. 
     The men and women who are honored along with me today, 
     your teachers and parents and family members who are 
     present today, they struggled as well.
       We succeeded because we worked hard, we believed in 
     ourselves, and because we believed in the fundamental 
     goodness of the American people and we believed in the 
     redemptive potential of our society; and we did it all for 
     you. We now expect you to do even more. We expect you to 
     climb higher. We expect you to take advantage of the 
     marvelous opportunities that are before you, opportunities 
     that were not there for us. We expect

[[Page S9312]]

     you to let your shoulders be used by those who still search 
     for success, who wonder if the dream is still there for them. 
     Because you see, the struggle is not yet over. We're not 
     where we have got to be. We're not where we want to be. We 
     have a great America. We can make it a greater America.
       There are those who say, ``Well, you know, we can stop now. 
     America is a color blind society.'' But it isn't yet. There 
     are those who say, ``We have a level playing field.'' But we 
     don't yet. There are those who say that, ``All you need is to 
     climb up on your own boot straps.'' But there are too many 
     Americans who don't have boots, much less boot straps.
       A few--a few Horatio Alger stories, not enough to give hope 
     to our fellow citizens who still live in the despair of 
     racism, who are trapped in tightening circles of poverty and 
     poor education, who wonder if compassion and caring are still 
     the pillars of the American dream. There are those who rail 
     against Affirmative Action. They rail against Affirmative 
     Action preferences, while they have lived an entire life of 
     preference. There are those who do not understand that the 
     progress we have achieved over the past generation must be 
     continued if we wish to bless future generations.
       And so, Colin Powell believes in Affirmative Action.
       I believe it has been good for America, and I know that we 
     can design Affirmative Action Programs that will satisfy the 
     Constitutional requirements, because what we want is 
     Affirmative Action that provides access for all Americans to 
     the opportunities that rightfully belong to all Americans.
       In my travels around the country since retirement, I have 
     visited with many corporate leaders, and I have been pleased 
     to see how committed American industry is to Affirmative 
     Action. They understand that we cannot waste any human 
     potential. They understand that in the future that is ahead 
     they must have diverse work forces. They must be prepared to 
     operate in a world trading environment that is increasingly 
     minority, as we would call it, becoming a majority.
       I'm very, very proud of what I've seen in American 
     corporate life. In one case, one company leader said to me, 
     ``We don't care what the government does with respect to 
     Affirmative Action. We believe in it. We believe it's the 
     right thing to do. We are going to continue to move 
     forward.''
       Affirmative Action finds and prepares qualified people for 
     entry into the education system and into the work force. We 
     must resist misguided government efforts that seek to shut it 
     all down, efforts such as the California Civil Rights 
     Initiative which poses as an Equal Opportunity Initiative, 
     but which puts at risk every outreach program. It sets 
     back the gains made by women, and puts the brakes on 
     expanding opportunities for people who are in need.
       I don't speak about Affirmative Action from an academic 
     sense. I speak from experience. In the military, we worked 
     hard to include all Americans. We used Affirmative Action to 
     reach out to those who were qualified, but who were often 
     overlooked or ignored as a result of indifference or inertia. 
     We used Affirmative Action in the military to create the 
     level playing field and to create the color blind environment 
     that so many people speak of.
       We didn't wait for it to happen. We made it happen in the 
     military. We created an environment where advancement came 
     from performance and a striving for excellence and not from 
     color or gender. But first we had to open the gates to let 
     people in. As a result, we produced an Armed Force rich in 
     its diversity and the very, very best in the world, a 
     reflection of what all of America should look like. So we 
     have to keep it up. We have to commit ourselves. There is no 
     alternative.
       When one black man graduates, at the same time, 100 black 
     men are going to jail. We still need Affirmative Action.
       When half of all African American men between the ages of 
     24 and 35 years of age are without full-time employment, we 
     still need Affirmative Action. When half of all black 
     children live in poverty, we need Affirmative Action as well 
     as quality education systems and a thriving economy to 
     produce the good jobs, the good jobs that free enterprise and 
     capitalism can produce, the jobs that at the end of day are 
     the only solution to the problems we face.
       Some people will say that Affirmative Action stigmatizes 
     the recipients. Nonsense. Affirmative Action provides access 
     for the qualified. And for anybody who feels stigmatized, go 
     get A's instead of C's. Knock them dead. And then--I tell the 
     story in my book about when I was a young Lieutenant and one 
     of my commanding officers back then in the late '50s came up 
     to me and said, ``Powell, you're doing great. You're one of 
     best black Lieutenants I've ever known.'' And I just said, 
     ``Thank you, sir.'' And I said to myself silently, ``That 
     ain't going to be good enough. You may have a stereotype of 
     me, but I intend to be the best Lieutenant you ever saw.'' 
     And I will--for the way to handle stereotypes and stigmatism 
     is to let it be somebody else's problem. You just perform and 
     do your very, very best.
       Because you see, the Army put me in an environment where I 
     could be a winner, and I wanted to be a winner. Beautiful 
     graduates before me this morning are all winners. You have 
     benefited from the sacrifices of those who went before you. 
     You have worked hard. And today, you receive your reward. You 
     are filled by the love and by the dreams of your parents and 
     families. You are nourished by the education you have 
     received from the dedicated teachers here present who 
     have given you the priceless gift of learning.
       We expect you to go forth and prosper and contribute to the 
     economic growth of this nation. We expect you to lead a life 
     of service to your community and to serve those who have not 
     had the advantages that you have. You are people of 
     accomplishment. You are now role models. Each of you must 
     find a way to reach down and back to help someone in need, 
     someone in pain, someone who wonders if anybody cares, 
     somebody who wonders if the American dream is still there for 
     them.
       In order to have a complete life, make sure you share your 
     time, your talent, and your treasure with these who are less 
     fortunate. We expect you to raise strong families. We expect 
     you to raise children who are inspired to do even better than 
     you are. Marry well, and marry for life. Be parents of value. 
     Teach your children the difference between right and wrong. 
     Teach your children the place of God in their lives.
       Teach your children the value of hard work and education. 
     Teach them to love. Teach them to be tolerant. Teach them to 
     be proud of their heritage, their color. And teach them to 
     respect their fellow citizens who may look different but who 
     are not different.
       Teach them to respect themselves, to believe in themselves. 
     Teach them, above all, to believe in America as you must 
     believe in America. America, a noisy, noisy country, the 
     noise has a name. It's called ``democracy.'' Democracy as we 
     argue with each other to find the correct way forward. 
     America, a wonderful place. A place with problems, problems 
     that are now yours to solve and not just to curse, because we 
     are a good people. We want to do the right thing. We must 
     have faith in ourselves. We are, as Lincoln put it, ``The 
     last, best hope of earth,''
       I am so proud of you today, so very, very proud. Go forth 
     now to make this a better land. Go forth to find your 
     destiny. Go forth to find happiness. Go forth on your 
     American journey. Go forth with my congratulations and with 
     God's blessings. Have a great life. Thank you.

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