"I think 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 said in an interview with CNN's Larry King. "I think he should have reflected on whether or not this was the time to make that big a deal."
Powell said that under the circumstances, Gates may not been in the appropriate frame of mind to best handle the situation. "He was just home from China, just home from New York. All he wanted to do was get to bed. His door was jammed and so he was in a mood where he said something," Powell said. He recalled a lesson he was taught as a child: "When you're faced with an officer who is trying to do his job and get to the bottom of something this is not the time to get in an argument with him."
The former secretary of state said he was racially profiled "many times," including an incident that took place while he was the national security advisor to President Ronald Reagan.
"Nobody thought I could possibly be the national security advisor to the president, I was just a black guy at Reagan National Airport," Powell said. "And it was only when I went to the counter and said is my guest here waiting for me, that someone said, 'Oh, you're General Powell.' It was inconceivable to him that a black guy could be the national security advisor." - CNN Story
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