Former advisor to President Carter
Born: March 28, 1928;
Died: May 26, 2017
ZBIGNIEW Brzezinski, who has died aged 89, was a national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter who helped break down economic barriers between the Soviet Union, China and the West.
Mr Carter had been impressed with the views of the foreign policy expert well before he won the presidency in 1980. That he immediately liked the Polish-born academic advising his campaign was a plus.
“He was inquisitive, innovative and a natural choice as my national security adviser when I became president,” Mr Carter said. “He helped me set vital foreign policy goals, was a source of stimulation for the departments of defence and state, and everyone valued his opinion. He played an essential role in all the key foreign policy events of my administration.”
Earnest and ambitious, Mr Brzezinski helped Mr Carter bridge wide gaps between the rigid Egyptian and Israeli leaders, Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin, leading to the Camp David accords in September 1978. Three months later, US-China relations were normalised, a top priority for Mr Brzezinski.
He also had a hand in two other controversial agreements: the SALT II nuclear weapons treaty with the Soviet Union and the Panama Canal treaties ceding US control of the waterway.
Born in Warsaw and educated in Canada and the US, Mr Brzezinski was an acknowledged expert in Communism when he attracted the attention of US policymakers.
In the 1960s he was an adviser to John F Kennedy, served in the Johnson administration and advised Hubert Humphrey’s presidential campaign. He was the first director of the Trilateral Commission, an international discussion group, serving from 1973 to 1976.
In December 1976, Mr Carter offered him the position of national security adviser. Mr Brzezinski had not wanted to be secretary of state because he felt he could be more effective working at Mr Carter’s side in the White House.
He often found himself in clashes with colleagues like Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. For the White House, the differences between Mr Vance and Mr Brzezinski became a major headache, confusing the American public about the administration’s policy course and fuelling a decline in confidence that Mr Carter could keep his foreign policy team working in tandem.
The Iranian hostage crisis, which began in 1979, came to dramatise America’s waning global power and influence and to symbolise the failures and frustrations of the Carter administration. Mr Brzezinski, during the early months of 1980, became convinced that negotiations to free the kidnapped Americans were going nowhere. Supported by the Pentagon, he began to push for military action.
Mr Carter was desperate to end the standoff and, despite Mr Vance’s objections, agreed to a long-shot plan to rescue the hostages. The mission, dubbed Desert One, was a complete military and political humiliation and precipitated Mr Vance’s resignation. Mr Carter lost his re-election bid against Ronald Reagan that November.
Mr Brzezinski went on to ruffle the feathers of Washington’s power elite with his 1983 book, Power And Principle, which was hailed and reviled as a kiss-and-tell memoir.
“I have never believed in flattery or lying as a way of making it,” he told The Washington Post that year. “I have made it on my own terms.”
The oldest son of Polish diplomat Tadeus Brzezinski, Zbigniew was born on March 28 1928. He attended Catholic schools during the time his father was posted in France and Germany.
The family went to Montreal in 1938 when the elder Brzezinski was appointed Polish consul general. When Communists took power in Poland six years later, he retired and moved his family to a farm in the Canadian countryside.
His climb to the top of the foreign policy community began at Canada’s McGill University, where he earned degrees in economics and political science.
After Mr Carter left office, Mr Brzezinski returned to lecturing, writing and serving on commissions, boards and task forces.
As well as his daughter Mika, he is also survived by his wife, Emilie, and sons, Ian and Mark.
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