I am behind on my reading goals and I am also now driving to and from my internship site at least 2 days per week. This gives me a window for ear-reading through audiobooks. I went to my local library bookstore in search of something that I would like to read. The pickings were slim, because i am not into most beachy romances or thrillers. When I saw this one, I decided to give it a try. Mostly I picked it up because (a) I read his autobiography quite a while ago and thought it was informative; (b) I wanted to see if he would address the infamous speech at the UN; and (c) my brother is always interested in reading books on leadership and I could pass the book to him.

General Powell tells good stories -- it is what he does for a living and he does it well, with a good cadence and inflection that keeps even management tips from being dry. He had a lot of good lists and ideas about what makes a good organization and good leadership -- and I have enough experience with toxic organizations and toxic management to have come to many of these conclusions myself, if in a less eloquent manner. I would be interested in seeing the lists again in a separate format, as I thought they were useful. My brother will definitely enjoy this book and could probably learn a thing or two if he is open to it.

General Powell did address the speech -- very briefly early on in the book when stressing the importance of having all the facts before acting and being sure that the facts are properly verified, which, as we all know, had not been done with that speech. And then he did an entire chapter on it towards the end of the book (Disc 6 out of 7 in the audiobook). While he did reference the fact that President Bush had already decided on war -- without ever holding an NSC meeting on the question -- prior to the speech, I think this is the one spot in the book and in his life in which the magnitude of the truth was too painful to fully accept. In short, as I have long believed, he was set up by people he trusted because those people knew that the world trusted him. He was given a short period of time to prepare for the speech, provided with a written speech/briefing that was completely unusable and had been drafted that way on purpose at the express direction of VP Cheney -- who should not have had his hands on it at all -- and the information in the speech was conjecture and the facts as Bush and Cheney wanted to believe them to be in order to achieve their objective of going to war in Iraq. While Powell had the responsibility to verify the information, he did his best to do so under the circumstances and time constraints he had and then had to rely on the integrity of people he had a long and trusting relationship with -- but who lacked the integrity that he had.

I am gald to have read this book and I was curious and saddened by wondering what his opinion would be on the current state of affairs in our natuion. Many of the ideals of America which he cited so proudly and the values he based his leadership on and expressly outlined in the book are not currently reflected by the powers that be. I like to think that he would be sad and/or disgusted about the current political mess, but he has not spoken publicly on the issue.