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President Kennedy didn't negotiate out of the Cuban missile crisis simply because he and Khrushchev got along well. Khrushchev didn't have the cards.

Colin Powell

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Colin Powell
Age: 87
Born: 1937
Born: April 5
Diplomat
Former United States Secretary Of State
Politician
Soldier
New York City
New York
Colin Luther Powell
Wells
Kennedy
Well
Cards
Crisis
Along
Khrushchev
Simply
Missile
President
Negotiate
War
Cuban
Didn
Missiles

More quotes by Colin Powell

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Even the greatest of all strategists must occasionally take into account the presence of an enemy.
Colin Powell
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You have to create circumstances where your first-tier leader knows what you are trying to accomplish, because he is the one who's going to get it done.
Colin Powell
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Don't let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn't go with it.
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When we have dealt with bin Laden and his network we will then broaden the campaign to go after other terrorists all around the world.
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So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? I think our judgment has to be clearly not.
Colin Powell
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Free speech is intended to protect the controversial and even outrageous word and not just comforting platitudes too mundane to need protection.
Colin Powell
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Wouldn't it be great if we could look forward to a whole world in which no child will be left behind?
Colin Powell
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Good and solid analysis and a formal way of looking at a problem [are the core ingredients of good decisions].
Colin Powell
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We want to approach this in a multilateral way, talking with our friends, consulting with our security council colleagues in the United Nations, hoping to find a way to solve this peacefully, but at the same time recognising that unless the threat of military force is there, Iraq will not disarm.
Colin Powell
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One of the greatest talents of all is the talent to recognize and to develop talent in others.
Colin Powell
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Our failure was that our intelligence community thought [Saddam Hussein ] had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction. That was a mistake. There is fallibility in human intelligence and in human decisions.
Colin Powell
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Great leaders are those who are able to look reality in the face, however painful it may be, and deal with it.
Colin Powell
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Think hard about it: I'm running out of demons. I'm running out of villians. I'm down to Castro and Kim Il Sung.
Colin Powell
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Today I can declare my hope and declare it from the bottom of my heart that we will eventually see the time when that number of nuclear weapons is down to zero and the world is a much better place.
Colin Powell
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I respect the fact that many denominations have different points of view with respect to gay marriage and they can hold that in the sanctity in the place of their religion and not bless them or solemnize them.
Colin Powell
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Everybody makes bad decisions. I am sure I have made my share of them over 40 years of service. Or I have made good decisions and have been overruled. The real challenge, when you are overruled, is to remember who the boss is and don't take it personally.
Colin Powell
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Give me the right people and I don’t much care what organization you give me. Good things will happen. Give me the wrong people and it doesn’t matter what you do with the organization. Bad things will happen.
Colin Powell
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I happen to hold a bachelor of science degree in geology... And my greatest contribution to the field of science is that I never entered it.
Colin Powell
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Every organization needs to be introspective, transparent, and honest with itself. This only works if everyone is unified on the goals and purposes of the organization and there is trust within the team. High-performing, successful organizations build cultures of introspection and trust and never lose sight of their purpose.
Colin Powell
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Look for intelligence and judgment and, most critically, a capacity to anticipate, to see around corners. Also look for loyalty, integrity, a high energy drive, a balanced ego and the drive to get things done.
Colin Powell