Charitable Powell

0 Comments | Insight on the News, March 5, 2001

The general is not pleased and, in the margins of the Washington Press Foundation's annual Salute to Congress dinner on Feb. 6, Colin Powell made that clear to all.

His irritation wasn't connected with the Israeli election victory of Gen. Ariel Sharon, but with the orders from White House lawyers that he must relinquish his board positions on numerous charities.

That includes the chairmanship of the Alliance for Youth, the national nonprofit organization that seeks to mobilize citizens from every sector of American life to build the character and competence of young people.

Other nonprofit groups that he will have to step away from include the United Negro College Fund and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.

The instruction has infuriated Powell, who maintains that no danger of conflicts of interest could arise from his charity roles. And he questions how retaining nonprofit positions could pose any ethical dilemmas for a secretary of state.

The White House has been insistent though. According to former White House counsel C. Boyden Gray, the administration attorneys have no choice. Though sympathetic to Powell's position, Gray says: "It has to be so -- charities also have business before the government. No one is happy when they have to give up charities"