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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.

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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...