No tracking. No cookies
Subscriptions
Subscriptions
Support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system
Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features
This week I was privileged to attend the memorial service of Ambassador Richard L Armitage, a highly-decorated former US Navy Officer, renowned diplomat and international statesman, who died in April of a pulmonary embolism. During a long and distinguished military and diplomatic career, Armitage served three tours of duty in Vietnam, worked in numerous senior capacities at the Pentagon and State Department in the Reagan and first Bush Administrations, before becoming Colin Powell’s Deputy at State Department during the years of the 9/11 attacks and the starts of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Among his many US and international awards, in 2005 he received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II.
Armitage was something of a legend within national security circles in Washington – partly because of his formidable size, and imposing physical presence, and partly because of his courage, daring and conviction. His most famous exploit came on the eve of the fall of Saigon, when he facilitated the evacuation of South Vietnamese naval ships and personally escorted an estimated 30,000 refugees to safety in the Philippines, defying the wishes of both the US and Philippines governments. At his memorial service, one of those Vietnamese Naval Officers whose life he saved described him as having an “unshakeable resolve to do what was right.”
He was also known for his tough, no-nonsense talking style. In a memoir, President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan said Armitage was the US official who threatened to bomb Pakistan “back to the Stone Age” if it did not cooperate in the war against Al Qaeda. Armitage later disputed the language used, but never denied that Pakistan was put on firm notice to help America’s war effort.
How Russia’s Fake Spirituality Became a Key Weapon in the Kremlin’s Disinformation Toolbox
Under Putin, Christianity has been turned into a political tool to spread false narratives about the war in Ukraine
Powell and Armitage were a formidable team at the State Department. At his memorial service, Powell’s son described the strong bond of friendship between his father and Armitage, a “friendship of the heart” which allowed them to “argue, disagree but never divide.”
They were known as a moderating force within the Bush Administration, who tried to rein in the more aggressive instincts of Vice President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, especially over the conduct of the war in Iraq, and the challenges of reconstruction after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Armitage said in a 2009 interview that he had not known anything about the CIA’s waterboarding programme, which he described as torture, and that “I hope, had I known about it at the time I was serving, I would’ve had the courage to resign.”
According to Dov Zakheim, who was under-secretary of Defense working for Rumsfeld at the time, in a tribute to Armitage for ‘The Hill’, “The rifts between Rumsfeld and Powell, and their respective policy staffs have been well documented. Armitage was deeply affected by Powell’s frustration and could not hide his anger. He once said to me of a senior Defense official, “if I ever meet him in a dark alley, I’ll crush his balls.” One did not want to meet Rich in a dark alley.”
According to former US Ambassador Bill Burns, who served as Deputy Secretary of State in the Obama Administration, and as CIA Director in the Biden Administration, the Powell/Armitage years were “a Golden Age of US diplomacy.” Speaking at the memorial, he said Armitage’s approach was distinguished by three particular features – professionalism, especially the recognition that US national security depended on more than just military power, but encompassed diplomacy, intelligence, humanitarian and development assistance; humanity, including genuine care for the people who worked with him; and character, including the willingness to speak truth to power, and to operate based on the courage of his convictions.
How Our Politicians Created an ‘Island of Strangers’ So They Don’t Have to Make Our Lives Any Better
By presenting tougher immigration as a solution to people’s discontent, Keir Starmer and others sidestep the real reasons why people feel estranged in their lives – it’s a cynical and simplistic political ruse that keeps everyone alienated, writes Hardeep Matharu
For all his reported toughness, Armitage was known for his ability to establish trust with friend and foe alike, and for having a surprisingly deft diplomatic manner. The former Japanese Ambassador to the US, Ambassador Ryozo Kato, said at his memorial that “although he looked like a bull in a china shop, he had a cultural sensitivity, and became a great friend and mentor.” US-Japan expert, Yuki Tatsumi of the Stimson Center wrote about him that “for those of us in Tokyo and Washington who work to support a robust, reciprocal, and enduring U.S.-Japan alliance, he was a guardian angel.”
Armitage was a heavyweight in every sense of the term, operating at a time when US power and prestige were at its zenith, alongside other titans of American national security. The speakers at his memorial service did not gloss over the fact that he sometimes made mistakes. But, there was never any doubt about his sense of honour, patriotism and integrity.
During the memorial, no-one made any overt references to Trump or any of his serving officials. But every tribute to Armitage served as a quiet rebuke to this administration. The painful contrast between Armitage’s “grit and grace”, his “acts of quiet service”, his “valor and conviction” and the crass, self-serving, ignorant and incompetent nature of the current national security team was impossible to miss.
It is hard to imagine any American dignitary, let alone a foreign one, ever describing current Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, current Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, or other senior national security officials in such glowing terms. Instead, they, like all others who have served alongside Donald Trump, are likely either to fade into obscurity, or to face enduring ignominy for their role in facilitating America’s decline on the world stage.
ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE
Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.
We’re not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.
In conversations with attendees after the service, several former high ranking US officials could not disguise to me their sense of utter disgust at the current administration. One former Ambassador told me that morale at State Department was at rock bottom under Marco Rubio, who had overseen a “betrayal” of everything which State Department stood for. He was also appalled by the sheer, petty cruelty of this administration. Several attendees felt that in fact this administration’s only guiding purpose was personal grift and advantage – with the never-ending series of headspinning decisions emanating from the White House designed purely as distraction. Unfortunately, things were going to have to get a lot worse, before the American people truly woke up to what they had unleashed.
In 2020, Armitage, along with over 130 other former Republican national security officials, signed a statement that asserted that Trump was unfit to serve another term, and “To that end, we are firmly convinced that it is in the best interest of our nation that Vice President Joe Biden be elected as the next President of the United States, and we will vote for him.”
If only more people had heeded that sage advice not to let Trump back into the White House again, in 2024. As Michael Powell said at the service “we felt safer with Armitage in the world.” When will America find his like to replace him?