1978: NOAA announces gender-neutral hurricane naming system
Federal News Network presents a daily update of important moments in the history of the U.S. government.
On this day 19 years ago, President-elect George W. Bush announced his nomination of Colin Powell to become secretary of state, the first African American to hold the Cabinet position. Hearings were held Jan. 17, 2001, and Powell was confirmed by a voice vote in the Senate three days later. Powell was a retired four-star Army general who had previously served as National Security Advisor, commander of the Army Forces Command, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the latter of which during Operation Desert Storm of the Persian Gulf War. He is the son of Jamaican immigrants, grew up in the South Bronx in New York City, and graduated from the City College of New York before receiving a commission as an Army second lieutenant upon graduation. During the Gulf War, media dubbed his approach “The Powell Doctrine,” which emphasizes U.S. national security interests, overwhelming strike capabilities with an emphasis on ground forces, and widespread public support in order to decide whether to go to war. However, in his 2003 presentation to the United Nations Security Council to garner international support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, he presented what was later reported to be faulty evidence of biological weapons or weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Two months before resigning in 2004, Powell told the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee that the sources who provided much of the information in his UN presentation were wrong, and pushed for reform in the intelligence community, including the creation of a national intelligence director who would assure that “what one person knew, everyone else knew.”
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