Colin Powell: Skip Gates Could Have Avoided Arrest

[Evang. Felecia Spaulding]

Gen. Colin Powell says that Harvard Professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates could have avoided arrest and the ensuing controversy by just talking calmly to Cambridge, Mass., Police Sgt. James Crowley and coming outside his house.

"I'm saying Skip, perhaps in this instance, might have waited a while, come outside, talked to the officer and that might have been the end of it," Powell says in an interview with Larry King, airing Tuesday night on CNN.



Powell added that the whole incident "might have been resolved in a different manner if we didn't have this verbal altercation between the two of them."

Crowley had gone to Gates' home to investigate a possible break-in, and the two engaged in a heated exchange. A disorderly conduct charge against Gates was dropped.

When asked if he has ever been racially profiled, Powell furrowed his brow and said, "Yes, many times." He said it makes him angry, but that "anger is best controlled."

As an example of racial profiling in his own life, he refers to an incident at National Airport when he was President Reagan's national security adviser, which he wrote about in his autobiography, "My American Journey."

Powell recalled driving up in a limo, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, for a planned meeting. The private plane terminal staff had been alerted to meet with Reagan's NSA.

After walking around the terminal for a long time, Powell finally approached the counter and asked about the meeting, to which the airport official responded, "Oh, YOU'RE General Powell." Powell recounts to King that "it was inconceivable to him that a black guy could be the national security adviser."

Powell believes "there is no African-American in this country who has not been exposed to this situation," but that "a better course of action is to take it easy and don't let your anger make the current situation worse."

Powell's full interview will air Tuesday on CNN's "Larry King Live" at 9 p.m. EDT.