“But the case that I saw for four-plus years was a case that I have never seen in my studies of aberrations, bastardizations, changes to the national security decision-making process. What I saw was a cabal between the Vice President of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.”
−Lawrence Wilkerson

Address at the New America Foundation, October 19, 2005

Position: Chief of Staff to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell
Tenure: 2001 to 2005

For sixteen years the careers of Col. Lawrence Wilkerson and Colin Powell were inextricably linked. For Powell’s entire tenure as Secretary of State, Wilkerson served under him in progressively more responsible positions, from speechwriter to Chief of Staff. The two men were inseparable both professionally and personally. All that came to an end after Powell’s resignation in January 2005, when Wilkerson began to go public with grave concerns about the direction of the country that had overtaken Powell during his time at State.

Wilkerson, the son of a World War II bombardier, dropped out of Bucknell after three years and volunteered for service in Vietnam. After the war he received a B.A. in English literature, followed by a graduate degree international studies. He taught at the Naval War College and served as director of the Marine Corps War College at Quantico. In 1989 he joined Powell as an assistant and speechwriter. He quickly gained Powell’s confidence as Powell’s career soared from a position in the National Security Council through Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Secretary of State during the first term of the George W Bush Administration. Wilkerson directed the review of intelligence information leading up to Secretary Powell’s address to the United Nations supporting U.S. war plans, a role he would come to deeply regret. “My participation in that presentation at the UN constitutes the lowest point of my professional career. I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council,” he related in a PBS interview in 2006.

Wilkerson suggests that pre-war intelligence was misused to further the ends of a small group of high-ranking government officials using the terrorist attacks of September 11 to centralize all decision-making in their hands. In a noted speech to the New America Foundation in October 2005, Wilkerson portrayed an inexperienced president who was easily manipulated by a small group advisors led by Vice-President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. He went so far as to characterize this group as a “cabal” that dictated key government decisions as it shut out dissenting views.

The incompetence he saw in the Bush Administration also angered Wilkerson. “This is really a very inept administration. As a teacher who’s studied every administration since 1945, I think this is probably the worst ineptitude in governance, decision-making and leadership I’ve seen in 50-plus years.”