Colin Powell to be named first-ever Black US state secretary

Colin Powell to be named first-ever Black US state secretary
Chidanand Rajghatta

WASHINGTON, DECEMBER 15: President-elect George W. Bush is set to name General Colin Powell as his Secretary of State on Saturday to launch Washington's quadrennial revolving door process that will see some prominent faces trickle into the Republican administration.

By announcing the candidature of the popular African-American Gulf War hero as his first choice to a key cabinet post, Bush hopes to mollify the seething Black constituency that vote 1-9 against him.

He is also expected to name another African-American, former Stanford University provost Condoleeza Rice, as his National Security Advisor. It will be the first time in U.S history that two top cabinet posts go to blacks, ironical for a party that is dominated by white conservatives. Powell will be America's first black secretary of state ever.

Quickly seeking to assuage the anger of the black community over their perceived disenfranchisement in Florida, Bush also phoned the African-American spokesman Jesse Jackson yesterday and asked for a meeting.

He is also expected to offer at least one cabinet post to a Democrat, following Ronald Reagan's tactic of recruiting conservative Democrats to back the Republican agenda. One such Democrat, Lousiana Senator John Breaux, is said to have declined a cabinet post after meeting Bush, but they are said to have discussed other candidates.

Washington is thick with names being bandied about for key administration posts as Bush tries to play catch-up in a transition delayed by the controversial election.

The President-elect and his top aides, including vice-president-elect Dick Cheney and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, will riffle through thousands of resumes and application to fill in between 3,000 to 8,000 discretionary appointments. The process could take up to a year to complete.

Of the posts, some 1,000 key appointments will be from the Senior Director upwards in the White House, and the Departments of State, Defense, Commerce, Treasury, and Energy.

The U.S Presidential bureaucracy has grown manifold. The Clinton White House, for instance, had 29 assistants to the President, 35 deputy assistants and 76 special assistants. The 141 assistants compared to around 20 or so for Kennedy and a couple for FDR.

Similarly, the defense department, among others, has contrived to create some truly extraordinary titles, notably deputy assistant under secretary and assistant deputy under secretary.

The Republicans, who often railed against the Democrat's big government, will have their task cutout in sizing down the bureaucracy, given the enormous pressure they will face from a laity that has been in the wilderness for eight years. Thousands of Republicans are crawling out of academic woodworks and political exile looking for rehabilitation.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are beginning to pack their bags and head out to life outside the government. On the heels of speculation that President Clinton could become President of his alma mater Oxford University, there have been reports that vice-president Al Gore could head Harvard University, of which he is an alumnus.

Another Clinton confidante, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, is also going back to his alma mater Yale to head an international studies group.

In another quadrennial debate, many Democratic administrators will now move to lobbying firms and large corporations. The outgoing Defense Secretary William Cohen, for instance, is tipped to join the lobbying firm Vernon Liipfert on the heels of Washington heavyweights like Bob Dole and George Mitchell. The firm counts among its clients big tobacco companies, Las Vegas casinos, and the Government of India.

Lanny Davis, a former Special Counsel at the Clinton White House, joined Patton Boggs, the lobbyists for Pakistan. Some officials will go directly to large corporations. State department undersecretary and former U.S.Ambassador to India, Thomas Pickering, is joining Boeing as a senior vice-president of international relations. Pickering was also ambassador to Jordan, Nigeria, Israel, and Russia.