Zbigniew Brzezinski

Zbigniew Brzezinski is a counselor and trustee for the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a professor of American foreign policy at the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC.

From 1977 to 1981, he served as national security advisor to the President of the United States. In 1981, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for "his role in the normalization of US–Chinese relations and for his contributions to the human rights and national security policies of the United States."

He has been involved in many public and pro bono activities. Among others, he has served as an honorary chairman of the AmeriCares Foundation, a private philanthropic humanitarian aid organization; a member of the board of trustees of International Crisis Group; a member of the Board of Directors of Polish–American Enterprise Fund; a member of the Honorary Board of American Friends of Rabin Medical Center; and a member of the International Honorary Committee of the Museum of Polish Jews in Warsaw.

Brzezinski has served as an international advisor to many major US and global corporations and has been a frequent participant in annual business/trade conventions. He is also a frequent public speaker as well as a commentator on major domestic and foreign TV programs, and a contributor to domestic and foreign newspapers and journals. He was a member of the Policy Planning Council of the Department of State; in 1985, a member of the President's Chemical Warfare Commission; from 1987 to 1988, a member of the NSC-Defense Department Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy; and from 1987 to 1989, a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a presidential commission to oversee US intelligence activities.

From 1973 to 1976, Brzezinski served as director of the Trilateral Commission; in 1968 he served in the presidential campaign as chairman of the Humphrey Foreign Policy Task Force; and in the 1976 presidential campaign he served as principal foreign policy advisor to Jimmy Carter. In 1988, he served as co-chairman of the Bush National Security Advisory Task Force. Brzezinski is a past member of the Board of Directors of Amnesty International, Council on Foreign Relations, Atlantic Council, and the National Endowment for Democracy, and a former co-chairman American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus. In 2004 he was co-chair of the Council on Foreign Relations, a sponsored independent task force.

Brzezinski served on the faculty of Columbia University from 1960 to 1989, and on the faculty of Harvard University from 1953 to 1960. His most recent book is America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy, co-authored with Brent Scowcroft and moderated by David Ignatius. He is also the author of Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower; The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership; The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives; The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the 20th Century; Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the 21st Century; Game Plan: How to Conduct the U.S.-Soviet Contest; Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Advisor, 1977-1981; The Fragile Blossom: Crisis and Change in Japan; Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technotronic Era; The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict; and many other books and articles in numerous United States and Foreign academic journals.

Brzezinski has received many honors and awards. In 1995, he was awarded the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest civilian decoration, for his contributions to recovery by Poland of its independence. He was also awarded the highest civilian decorations from the governments of Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, and Hungary. He received honorary degrees from Georgetown University, Williams College, Fordham University, College of the Holy Cross, Alliance College, the Catholic University of Lublin, Warsaw University, the University of Tbilisi, the University of Vilnius, the Ukrainian Free University, and the Jagiellonian University. He received Honorary Citizenship from the City of Lviv; the Centennial Medal of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences of Harvard University; the Hubert Humphrey Award for Public Service from the American Political Science Association; the U Thant Award; and the David Rockefeller International Leadership Award; as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Ford Foundation. In 1969, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 1963, he was selected by the United States Chamber of Congress as one of America's Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Year.