Odd Man Out

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That, or he's given up a fight he thinks he can't win. Powell knew from the outset that this was Bush's one cherished foreign policy. "It comes directly from the President," says a State official. "He's asking every day, 'How's it going? What progress is there?'" It colors everything else in the Secretary of State's portfolio. "The constant question is, How will this or that impact on missile defense?" says another senior diplomat. Missile defense isn't Powell's No. 1 priority, but a top official from the Reagan-Bush era says he has made the decision that if this is theology with Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush, "it's not his desire nor is it his style to go to battle on it."

That leaves Powell to tinker on the margins. He's not averse to walking away from the ABM treaty. He's for Rice's "grand bargain" to couple a new defense shield with way-low offensive arsenals. But he's at odds with the others on how and when to get out of the treaty. He would like to do it more delicately, while making a sincere effort to talk Russia into agreement.

Moderates look to Powell for that. Says a British diplomat: "We view him as someone who will be proved right in the end." But two weeks ago in Moscow, arms-control envoy Bolton implied that Bush wanted the "ranch summit" with Putin in November to constitute a deadline for a deal. Only hours later, Washington officials insisted that it was a mistranslation, but rumors still swirl of an impending deadline "a very few months away." An official deeply involved in the issue tells TIME, "There'll be something by Crawford, because the President is never wrong."

Powell has certainly had his successes. He brilliantly rallied the troops at State and rebuilt a demoralized institution. The White House lets him run free on Africa and AIDS. But he has had little time to put a distinctive mark on policy, in part because he is too busy cleaning up messes. He fought Rice to get Bush to renege on his campaign promise to bring home U.S. troops from the Balkans. He moved Bush back toward talking to North Korea. He quelled hard-line rumbling when he took charge of retrieving the American spy-plane crew from China; Pentagon officials seeking retaliation were forced to withdraw their announcement that the U.S. would sever ties with the Chinese military. In the past month, Powell's advocacy has brought a gun-shy Administration to consider re-engaging in the Middle East, the toughest issue out there. He has been heard to complain to friends: "Do you know how much worse it would be without me?"

So perhaps the real Secretary Powell has yet to stand up. The downside of his great eminence is that he is judged by higher standards. People are not itching for him to fail; they are disappointed if he doesn't do great things. When he said in those famous Gulf War briefings, "Trust me, trust me," everyone did. Many would again, given the chance.

In his previous roles, the more elusive Powell's essential beliefs seemed, the more his stature grew. In this job, it's the opposite. So he must step into the spotlight, at least now and again. Admirers from Capitol Hill to the capitals of Europe like to say the great man is just biding his time. "He's playing for the long term," says a close friend. "There is a real danger in underestimating Colin. In time this will all be taken care of." A longtime former military pal says, "His idea is to wait until the conservatives screw up, and then he'll come in and take over." Yet another old friend notes, "No one has screw-you rights like he does." As Powell told TIME, "I can eat bullets. I can be nasty if I have to be." He is still an independent power; Bush can't afford to fire him, and he can't afford to let him walk away mad. But "in seven months," said Powell, "I've never seen the situation where I haven't been able to work within this Administration. 'Do it my way or else I walk'--it's not my style."

When you ask Powell where he had put his foot down, he pauses a long time, then says, "Hmmm." He's most intent on preserving team harmony. He portrays himself as done with ambition: "I don't have any personal need to shine." He says he's a "problem solver," the practical man who knows how to make the system work with minimal friction, the one who carries out the vision, not the one who imagines it.

So those hoping for a Secretary of Stature setting a course for the 21st century may mistake the nature of the man. Maybe it is unreasonable to expect something else from the ultimate staff guy, the good soldier who punched four stars in 35 years in an organization that rewards loyalty and prizes the chain of command--just like his boss. In today's messy world, maybe doing nothing stupid is the only doable agenda. Powell, surely, sees himself as a man who is worth more than history's appreciative footnotes. But you need to impress something of your own shape on the world if you want to rise to the level of the men whose portraits hang in Powell's office--George Marshall and Thomas Jefferson.