Colin Powell's wife reveals she got hate mail during time he considered bid for president

Jet, May 6, 1996

Alma Powell, wife of (Ret.) Gen. Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said not everyone was thrilled about the possibility of her husband running for president and sent him hate mail to voice ill feelings.

"You think everybody loves Colin Powell. Everybody doesn't like Colin Powell. One day I got two letters-one telling me what a wonderful man I was married to and how much the country needed him; the other said Colin Powell is a scumbag and proceeded to list all his evils," she said in the Ladies Home Journal. "A Black man running for president is going to be in a dangerous position."

Those who did want to see Powell in the presidential election were just as enthusiastic about getting their message across. She said she remembers one man who told her son that he had driven all the way from Florida to find their McLean, VA, home and beg the general to run for president.

Mrs. Powell talked to the magazine about her life with the general, including how they met on a blind date and eventually became husband and wife.

"We had a wonderful time, and I thought he was the nicest man I ever met, but not really my type," she re-called about the first date. "I sort of liked sporty, flashy guys with must aches. My mother always used to say, `Why do you date traveling salesmen?' That's the kind of men they were, here today and gone tomorrow. But they were cute!"

The relationship soon got serious. "We could sit and talk about everything with none of those little sexual games singles play," she said. "We would go to the movies and just have fun."

She admitted one of the defining moments in her relationship with Powell was when she met his family, which was larger than hers.

"My family is small and very reserved. But this family... you're just welcomed in. They were all having such fun-little kids, grandparents, aunts, uncles. I liked it. After that, I never dated anyone else."

The two lovebirds were married after eight months of dating in 1962 before Powell fulfilled a year's assignment in Vietnam.

The Powells have been married for 33 years and their marriage has been called one of the greatest love stories of the century.

They have three children, Michael, an attorney; Linda, an actress; and Annemarie, a producer for ABC's "Nightline"; and two grandchildren.