A cautious strategist at the Cold War's end
He worried that the Malta Summit was premature, yet ultimately helped make it happen.
Brent Scowcroft was a former U.S. Air Force officer and national-security official whose realist approach emphasized disciplined policy coordination between presidents, diplomats, and military leaders. As national security adviser to Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush, he helped manage arms policy and European diplomacy during the final years of the Cold War. He initially regarded the 1989 Malta Summit as premature because it might raise expectations without producing results, but then helped the administration navigate the meeting and the rapid transformation of U.S.-Soviet relations. In later years he continued to favor alliances and international institutions, criticizing the Iraq invasion and unilateralism.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1947Graduated from West Point and commissioned as a U.S. Air Force second lieutenant
- 1953Earned an M.A. in international relations from Columbia University
- 1967Earned a Ph.D. in international relations from Columbia University
- 1972–1973Military Assistant to President Richard Nixon
- 1973–1975Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
- 1975–1977National Security Adviser to President Gerald Ford
- 1989–1993National Security Adviser to President George H. W. Bush
- 2001–2005Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board
Related historical events
Iran–Contra and the Tower Commission: Reassessing the NSC Process
In November 1986 the Reagan administration was thrown into a severe political crisis when it emerged that the United States had secretly transferred arms to Iran and that some of the proceeds had possibly been diverted to support the Nicaraguan contras. That December the president created a special review board, the Tower Commission, to conduct a comprehensive reexamination of the role and procedures of the National Security Council (NSC) staff. Scowcroft served on it alongside former Senator John Tower and former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie. The board delivered its report in February 1987.
The commission's mandate was not to determine individual criminal culpability but to assess how the arms-transfer decision had been made and how the NSC staff had operated. The report faulted the staff for running the operation itself rather than through the CIA, for never informing Congress, and for leaving the president unaware of key elements of the operation, and it noted the central role played by private and governmental intermediaries. Treating the affair as a case study, the board examined the NSC system's performance across twelve crises dating back to the Truman administration and produced the first presidential commission review devoted solely to how the NSC staff and the national security adviser had grown in power since the National Security Act of 1947.
This work connected to a concern Scowcroft held throughout his career: he saw the national security adviser's core task as institutionalizing policy coordination between the president and the diplomatic and military bureaucracy while keeping the process transparent. His experience on the Tower Commission fed into his effort, after returning as national security adviser in 1989, to rebuild an NSC shaken by the Iran-Contra affair and reestablish it as a body of consequential policy decision. His reputation as a largely nonpartisan expert rested on precisely this institution-centered approach.