Colin Powell Dies of COVID at 84: Family

The family of Colin Powell says he has died of complications from COVID at age 84, reports the Washington Post. (He was battling cancer that left him vulnerable to the virus.) "We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American," said their post on Facebook, adding that Powell had been fully vaccinated. He was treated at the Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Powell served under multiple Republican presidents in high-ranking positions, becoming, as the New York Times notes, "the nation’s top soldier, diplomat and national security adviser." He served as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under George H.W. Bush, but his bigger—and most controversial—role came as secretary of state under George W. Bush.

In a speech at the UN in 2003, Powell cited faulty intelligence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and his position helped pave the way for the subsequent war. Powell himself called this a "blot" on his record, notes CNN, which suggests that the episode perhaps even prevented him from becoming a candidate for president. "I regret it now because the information was wrong—of course I do," he told CNN's Larry King in 2010. "I will always be seen as the one who made the case before the international community." Powell was also the first Black national security adviser, a position he held near the end of the Reagan administration. (More Colin Powell stories.)