By
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Colin Powell, mixing flattery, humor and his vision for the future, introduced himself Sunday to State Department employees, who offered him a warm and sometimes raucous welcome.
''There will be consistency, there will be some coherence in our foreign policy but there also will be changes coming. That's what elections are all about,'' Powell said.
Standing before hundreds of employees, Powell spoke a few feet from where former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright bowed out with farewell remarks Friday.
As he entered the cavernous lobby at 8:20 a.m., the crowd of career diplomats and civil service employees applauded him for more than a minute. Afterward, Powell went to the White House for a meeting with Bush.
He clearly struck a chord with the gathering by promising to rely heavily on the expertise of the career diplomatic corps. A common complaint among Foreign Service personnel during the Albright era was that she looked to her inner circle of advisers rather than State Department veterans.
''I'm going be asking many of you to come up and tell me directly what you think,'' Powell said. ''I want to make things move faster, cut through things more quickly. ... You are the experts. I want to hear from you as directly as I can, with minimum number of layers in between.''
The comment drew cheers and enthusiastic applause.
Another well-received line: ''I'm not coming in just to be the foreign policy adviser to the president although that is what the title is. I'm coming in as the leader and the manager of this department.''
The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff made several references - some of them humorous - to his military service.
''You'll have to forgive me if I occasionally lapse back into my original language, which is infantry,'' Powell said.
He also pledged to try to spread American values around the world.
''We're going to show a vision to the world of the value system of America, what we're all about, what democracy and freedom is all about. It works, the other systems do not work,'' Powell said.
''We're going to talk about these values all the time and hope that it is the light that we send forth that will influence people around the world.
''We will do it from a position of strength, our political strength, our economic strength, our military strength and above all our diplomatic strength,'' the retired Army general said. ''We're going to have a great time.''
