Zbigniew Brzezinski.
My mind crush of late.
You might not know who he is, but you definitely should. His biography could double as a modern history textbook.
Born in Warsaw in 1928 to the nobility. His father was a Polish diplomat stationed in Germany from 1931-35, meaning Zbigniew saw firsthand the rise of the Nazis as a child. In 1936 the family changed posts to the Soviet Union and stayed there until 1938, he was also witness to Stalin’s Great Purge.
The Brzezinskis were moved to Canada in 1938 and a year later Poland was invaded. In 1945 the Allies put Poland under Soviet influence meaning the family could not go back safely.
Zbigniew went to Loyola High School in Montreal, and started McGill in 1945. In ‘49 he got a Bachelor of Arts and in '50 a Masters. He won a scholarship to study in Great Britain, his plan was to become a diplomat in Canada, but it was revoked because he wasn’t a British subject. Instead he went to Harvard and earned a PhD by 1953.
Three years later he helped develop the term “totalitarianism”.
Because by that time he was also a professor at Harvard. When they wouldn’t give him tenure in 1960 he moved to New York and taught at Columbia instead.
Which is where he taught Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
He would remain a professor at Columbia until 1989. He currently teaches at Johns Hopkins in D.C.
In 1960 he advised John F. Kennedy’s campaign and predicted the future breakup of the Soviet Union along nationality lines. Something he had already posited in his masters thesis 7 years earlier.
He supported Johnson’s presidential campaign and civil rights policies in '64. And in '66 Johnson’s “Bridge Building” speech was a direct result of his influence.
In 1973 he co-founded the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller, and selected Georgia governor Jimmy Carter to be a member.
In 1975 he became Carter’s foreign policy advisor, and in '76 then President Carter made him National Security Advisor. He also helped to write the President’s inaugural address where he added in parts to send positive messages to Soviet dissidents. Together they helped attain the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty.
He encouraged an emphasis on human rights when other advisors wanted détente. He told Radio Free Europe to increase the area of their broadcasts and supported East German dissidents. He went back to Warsaw and met with a Cardinal in the Catholic Church showing support for opposition to communist rule. He went to Beijing to start relations between the China & the US.
In 1979 he saw the Iran hostage crises and predicted the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. He developed the Rapid Deployment Forces. He called the Pope at midnight to warn him that Poland might be in danger again.
And in 1981 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
1985, he was on the Reagan’s Chemical Warfare Commission.
1987/88, the US National Security Council-Defense Department.
1987-89, President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
1988 he published “The Grand Failure” (one of 12 books he’s written) in which he predicted the failure of Mikhail Gorbachev and the collapse of the Soviet Union within a few decades (it happened in 1991), and total removal of communism by 2017.
1989 he went to Russian and asked the Soviet government to acknowledge the truth about the Katyn Massacre. Ten days later the Berlin Wall fell.
In 1990 he came out against the Gulf War. He thought that it would lead to resentment of the US throughout the Arab world.
He was critical of Clinton for hesitating to intervene in the Bosnian War, spoke out against Russia in the First Chechen War and became an advocate of NATO expansion after he was concerned when Putin became President.
He was a major critic of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and President Bush’s “War on Terror”. In 2007 he endorsed then candidate Barack Obama. In 2011 he supported NATO intervention against Gaddafi.
Zbigniew is married to a Czech-American sculptor named Emilie Benes.
His son Mark served on President Clinton’s National Security Council and is currently the US Ambassador to Sweden.
His daughter Mika is co-host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
His son Ian was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Europe and NATO and is currently on the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Advisors Group.
His friends call him Zbig, and you can follow him on twitter.
