WASHINGTON (1010 WINS) – Gen. Colin Powell, who served under multiple presidents, including as the first Black U.S. secretary of state, died early Monday from complications of COVID-19, his family said. He was 84.
Powell was being treated at Walter Reed National Medical Center, according to his family, who said he was fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
“We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American,” his family said in a statement posted to Facebook.
Powell had multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells that suppresses the body's immune response, a source told CNN. While he was vaccinated against COVID-19, people with compromised immune systems are at greater risk of complications from the coronavirus.
Governor Kathy Hochul directed flags at all state buildings to be lowered at half-staff until sunset on Oct. 22 in respect to Powell's life.
"I am directing flags on all state buildings to be lowered to half-staff until sunset on October 22 in honor of General Powell's memory and his contributions to building a more perfect union," Hochul said. "New Yorkers' thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Alma, and his children, Linda, Annemarie and Michael."
President Joe Biden ordered all U.S. flags to be flown at half-staff at all public buildings and grounds until sunset on Oct. 22 in honor of Powell.
In a statement on Powell’s death, Biden said he and first lady Jill Biden were “deeply saddened by the passing of our dear friend and a patriot of unmatched honor and dignity.”
Biden noted Powell’s New York upbringing and said he “rose to the highest ranks of the United States military and to advise four presidents.”
“He believed in the promise of America because he lived it. And he devoted much of his life to making that promise a reality for so many others,” Biden said.
Vice President Kamala Harris addressed reporters on Air Force Two, where she called Powell “an incredible American.”
“He obviously served with dignity, he served with grace. He was the epitome of what it means to be strong, but at the same time, so modest in terms of everything that he did and said, in a way that it was never about him and it's about the country, and it was about the people who served with him,” Harris said.
Harris also denoted how Powell was a breaker of barriers, impacting generations of service members to come.
“He as the first Black person, Black man to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to be national security advisor, to be Secretary of State — every step of the way, when he filled those roles, he was by everything that he did and the way he did it, inspiring so many people,” said Harris.
Speaking with reporters in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Monday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III said, “The world lost one of the greatest leaders that we have ever witnessed.”
“Alma lost a great husband, and the family lost a tremendous father,” Austin said. “And I lost a tremendous personal friend and mentor. He has been my mentor for a number of years. He always made time for me and I could always go to him with tough issues. He always had great counsel.”
“We will certainly miss him. I feel as if I have a hole in my heart, just learning of this recently,” he added. “He was the first African American chairman of the Joint Chiefs, first African American Secretary of State and a man who was respected around the globe. Quite frankly, it is not possible to replace a Colin Powell. We will miss him.”
In addition to serving as secretary of state under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, Powell also served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton from 1989 to 1993.
“Mine is the story of a black kid of no early promise from an immigrant family of limited means who was raised in the South Bronx,” he wrote in his 1995 autobiography “My American Journey.”
Powell was born in Harlem in 1937 to Jamaican immigrants and raised in the South Bronx, where he attended Morris High School.
After graduating from the City College of New York, he took an Army commission and served in Vietnam before he rose in the ranks to become general. He was appointed as the head of the National Security Council by President Ronald Reagan and then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by President George H.W. Bush.
Powell became the highest ranking African American official in the history of the U.S. when he was appointed secretary of state under President George W. Bush.
As Bush’s first secretary of state, Powell led a State Department that was dubious of the military and intelligence communities’ conviction that Saddam Hussein possessed or was developing weapons of mass destruction. Despite his reservations, he presented the administration’s case that Saddam indeed posed a major regional and global threat in a 2003 speech to the U.N. Security Council in the run-up to the Iraq War.
That speech, replete with his display of a vial of what he said could have been a biological weapon, was later derided as a low-point in Powell’s career, although he had removed some elements that he deemed to have been based on poor intelligence assessments.
On Monday, Bush said he and former first lady Laura Bush were “deeply saddened” by Powell's death.
“He was a great public servant” and “widely respected at home and abroad,” Bush said. "And most important, Colin was a family man and a friend. Laura and I send Alma and their children our sincere condolences as they remember the life of a great man.”
During his daily briefing Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio called Powell “a truly great New Yorker.”
“What we all feel as New Yorkers is he was ours,” the mayor said. “He was an example of the greatness of New York City, an absolutely classic New York City story. Born to Jamaican immigrants, grew up in Harlem and the Bronx, graduated Morris High School in the Bronx. A graduate of our New York City public schools, went to City College. Just an absolute great example of the good, the talent, the ability that comes out of the city, but he took it to the next level.”
“He’s someone we’re going to miss a lot,” de Blasio added. “We’re particularly going to miss him because he showed the world what New York City is all about, that anyone here, anyone and everyone has the opportunity to be great, and that we foster it, we respect it, we believe in each New Yorker.”
In a 2012 interview with 1010 WINS for Black History Month, Powell said war was a terrible thing but sometimes necessary when diplomacy fails.
“I’m also a professional soldier, and I’ve trained to conduct war, and I’m pretty good at it, and I’ve done several,” Powell said. “And so, when our national leaders decide that we’ve gone as far as we can, then I’d had to do it, and I’ll do it well, and I’ll do it fast, and I’ll try to get it over as quickly as possible, so we can get back to peace.”
Asked how he wanted to be remembered, Powell said as “a guy who served his country well, believed in himself, and he raised a good family—period.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.