When Col. Marc B. Powe’s picture appeared on the big screen before the audience at the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence Center of Excellence, there was a stillness. Not only was he being inducted into the Hall of Fame, alongside Harriet Tubman, but he was also one of just a few handpicked intelligence officers responsible for moving the Military Intelligence Center and School to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, in 1971-1972. It was there that Col. Powe, a Dallas native and graduate of Texas A&M University and its Corps of Cadets, with Col. E.E. Wilson, co-authored The Evolution of American Military Intelligence, long regarded as the “bible” of military intelligence. He also began instructing future officers in the art of human intelligence gathering, instruction that is continued today by others who followed in his footsteps.
There was an audible appreciation among the crowd as Col. Powe’s documentary began with the commentary, “Col. Powe’s 30-year military career reads like a spy thriller, beginning with his assignment as an operations officer in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in 1977. During a major fire at the embassy as the Moscow fire department and other Russians entered the building, Powe ensured the security of extremely sensitive classified areas. …”
During his illustrious career, Col. Powe was responsible for securing highly sensitive information and material throughout the world. Fluent in six languages and seemingly always in the “right place,” he secured the Soviet MI-25 Hind Helicopter in the Chadian Desert in Africa under intense negotiations (and still classified information). A YouTube video with the title The Hind Heist – The Secret Operation to Steal the Soviet’s Top Helicopter offers a very rare glimpse of Col. Powe in the field at the 8:59 minute-marker in the 10-minute video (just as there is a rare picture of him in the best-seller The Billion Dollar Spy, although he denied the image to be his). It was also during that time that he “acquired” a Chinese anti-ship missile at the behest of the U.S. Navy.
Only in 1987 while following a Soviet convoy through the desert of Kuwait was Col. Powe’s cover truly blown. Despite the Soviets’ denial of arming the Iraqis with weapons, a direct violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear (INF) Treaty, he discovered the truth, but he had also been exposed. As he saw Kuwaiti officials running toward him, he calmly destroyed the film in his camera and ate his notes before being captured and beaten for information that would never be obtained. It was Ronald Reagan who negotiated for the return of one of the U.S. Army’s top intelligence officers.
Col. Powe was the only living U.S. military officer to twice receive the Director of CIA Intelligence Exceptional Intelligence Collector Award. He also received such medals as the Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Soldier’s Medal, Bronze Star Medal and Purple Heart, among many others. He was inducted into the Department of Defense Attaché Hall of Fame in 1999. But for his family, his induction into the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence Hall of Fame offered peace of mind, as Col. Powe has not yet been given a funeral. Having died in August 2020, he is to be buried with full honors at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, alongside his wife, Karen W. Powe — the ultimate military wife, it should be noted. She was responsible for securing the picture of the underbelly of a Soviet tank in the late 1970s. Both Marc and Karen, also a Texas native, live on in the legal system while an investigation into the amount of radiation they endured from hostile foreign nations is currently being conducted.
After retirement, Col. Powe served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 2003 overseeing a U.S.-led coalition that overthrew Saddam Hussein. He was one of the first civilian cadre in country post combat and worked to repair the Iraqi police and army as a province advisor. His work with the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) to defeat the IED attacks on U.S. servicemen and women and the growing effect of ISIS/Al Qaeda/Taliban threats was both personally and professionally important to Col. Powe, and it was a reason that military intelligence instructor CW3 Matthew Carr requested to serve as escort to Powe’s family for the Hall of Fame induction.
On March 13, 2007, Carr’s younger and only brother, SGT Robert M. Carr, was killed in action while serving his country. The younger Carr was serving a second deployment to Iraq when the vehicle he was driving struck an IED. For CW3 Carr, who enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1999, and was already in the human intelligence and counterintelligence fields, Col. Powe’s résumé resonated. “The work he did helped save the lives of many. Years after my little brother was killed by an IED in Iraq, I was struck by multiple IEDs in Afghanistan and walked away due to the improvements that were made to our equipment. I know a lot of those improvements were thanks to Col. Powe and the work he did.”
Though he had never met either Carr brother, it was soldiers like these that drove the colonel, whose courage in the face of danger was matched only by his humility. His slow Texas drawl and seemingly easy manner were perhaps his greatest cover. Today, his works and research reside with the U.S. Army Military Intelligence Center of Excellence historical archive and are known as “The Powe Collection.” When a former colleague from the Pentagon summed up Powe as “the best of us … a Shadow Warrior who served this nation,” it did not yet begin to describe his ultimate desire for world peace and unity. Perhaps it was why he admired soldiers so much, as he knew their footsteps would surely surpass his own.
Written by Alex Allred
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