JUST LIKE IKE

By Michael Kramer

Finally, in the person of Colin Powell, we have someone for whom the overworked cliche "piece of work" is precisely descriptive. Watching Powell consider running for President as a Republican or as an independent, or perhaps on the bottom half of the G.O.P. ticket, is to encounter a master of animated caution. He is charismatic and focused. His thoughts are ordered and formed in complete sentences--a truly dying art. His entire aspect is commanding and confident. He can appear compassionate and tough, sober and humorous in the same instant. But for all his brilliance as a performer, what Powell says as he begins a nationwide swing ostensibly designed only to pitch his memoirs (for which Random House has reportedly paid him $6 million) is so essentially noncommittal and even vacuous that one reaches back to an earlier soldier-politician for instruction.

Colin Powell has clearly gone to school on Dwight Eisenhower. The comparison here is between two politicians, not two generals. All during the late 1940s and early 1950s, the nation wondered whether Ike would seek the White House--as a Democrat or Republican didn't matter. Ike professed no interest but stealthily fed the boomlet, as recounted by his biographer Stephen Ambrose, who also happens to be a key cog in the draft-Powell movement. "To be a successful candidate," Ambrose has written, Ike "had to appear not to be a candidate. His speeches had to be forceful without being controversial, seeking the great middle ground of politics while avoiding any position on current specific disputes. He knew better than anyone else [that] his activities kept his political options open." Everything Ike did and said, says Ambrose, "made certain that the possibility" of becoming President "remained open, indeed that it increased."

Eisenhower privately explained his method in words we may eventually learn that Powell too has used among friends. A potential candidate, said Ike, needs to retain an "aura of mystery" about his future. "The seeker," he astutely observed, "is never so popular as the sought. People want what they think they can't get." Embracing detailed positions, Ike added, would "alienate more strength than it would develop." Specifics, he said, should be avoided for as long as possible: "A premature consumption of all the ammunition in a battle is certain to bring defeat." Or, as Powell puts it near the end of his book, "I am fully aware that in taking stands on issues, I would quickly alienate one interest group or another and burn off much popularity."

So what does Powell believe? All the same motherhood-and-apple-pie bromides Ike intoned all the way to the prize. "I believe frantically in the American form of democracy, which rests upon free enterprise," said Eisenhower. "Everything I observe affirms my belief in free enterprise," writes Powell. Like Ike, Powell bemoans high taxes and government bureaucracy. When pressed for details, Powell and Ike meander. "It seems necessary to walk around some of the questions presented," Ike told colleagues. "I sense a difference between a man's convictions and what he believes is politically feasible." Hearing those words last week, Powell merely smiled. We may never have a better summation of Powell's political philosophy than the one Ike propounded almost 50 years ago. "Gad," said Eisenhower (who wondered why he couldn't head both tickets), "how I wish that both parties had the courage to go out for militant advocacy to the middle of the road."

There is virtually nothing in Powell's book that locates his thinking on the current crop of divisive national issues. He says "our leaders" must be "willing to talk straight to the American people" about entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, but he doesn't--and refused to elaborate in last week's interview with TIME. Affirmative action is good except when it's bad, he says. Jobs "are the best answer to most of our social ills...We have to start thinking of America as a family." And so he goes, on and on in a series of deflections covered in a breathy tease: "What you're going to hear for the next few weeks is what I think and what I believe. I am in one of the best positions I will ever be in. I am free to say what I believe. I'll speak out from my heart and experience."

What passes for Powell passion was visible only once last week. In speaking about welfare reform, his tones were decidedly un-Republican--or at least un-Newtonian. Powell--grab your seats--fears for the children of welfare recipients when their mothers are treated harshly. That's not much, but it's a start toward the middle that could lead to Powell's running as an independent, which increasing numbers of Americans tell pollsters they want.

The marketing of Colin Powell, author and potential President, is coming to your television soon. You won't want to miss it. Powell may be less appealing if he ever gets specific, and reporters are sure to scrutinize controversial episodes in his career, most notably Iran-contra. But his story (and, like Ike, his platform would be his life) is a warming affirmation that the dream still lives, which may be enough for an electorate saddled with a choice between Bill Clinton and whomever the Republicans offer. As dice rolling goes, taking a chance on another general is something of an American tradition and may not seem like a large risk in 1996. Meanwhile, Powell will sell a lot of books.