Zbigniew Brzezinski in the United States
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Introduction to Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Brzezinski, born in 1928, American political scientist and national security adviser under United States President Jimmy Carter. Brzezinski is known for upholding a firm policy against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and for encouraging U.S. involvement in developing countries.
Brzezinski was born in Warsaw, Poland, the son of a Polish diplomat. The family moved to Canada in 1938, and remained there after the Communist takeover of Poland during World War II (1939-1945). Brzezinski attended McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and earned his Ph.D. in 1953 from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, staying on to teach at Harvard’s Russian Research Center. In 1960, Brzezinski became a professor at Columbia University in New York City, where he helped found the Institute on Communist Affairs and subsequently served as its first director.
An active Democrat, Brzezinski became an adviser on foreign policy and security matters in the presidential campaigns of John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey, and in the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson. Known for his hard line against the USSR and Communism, Brzezinski often served as defender of U.S. policies during the early years of the Vietnam War (1959-1975). During the late 1960s, however, Brzezinski withdrew his support for U.S. bombing in Vietnam, and he also urged ‘peaceful engagement’ with the USSR. In 1973 Brzezinski became director of the Trilateral Commission, a privately funded forum of U.S., Japanese, and Western European leaders, organized to work out cooperative responses to common economic problems. Brzezinski first met Jimmy Carter as a fellow member of this commission, and Brzezinski subsequently served as a foreign policy adviser during Carter’s campaign for the presidency in 1976.
Throughout Carter’s administration, Brzezinski served as national security adviser. He maintained his strong stand against the USSR, although he espoused détente, or diplomatic contact, as a means to resolve the conflicts between the 2 countries. He objected both to the Soviet suppression of dissidence and to external Soviet military involvement, particularly in the Horn of Africa and in Afghanistan. Brzezinski also argued that the U.S. should improve its relations with developing nations that possess the greatest natural resources and largest populations. In 1981 Brzezinski resumed his academic career as a professor at Columbia University and as an adviser at the Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International Studies. A prolific writer, Brzezinski wrote or contributed to more than ten books, mainly concerning the USSR and Communist politics.” (1)
Resources
Notes and References
- Information about Zbigniew Brzezinski in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia