Brent Scowcroft, a Cold War American foreign policy architect and national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George HW Bush, died at 95. Scowcroft, a retired lieutenant general in the U.S. Air Force, advised seven presidencies during his long tenure career.
“Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft died yesterday at the age of 95 of natural causes. Brent Scowcroft was an American patriot and high-ranking official with an extraordinary career for military and government services that spanned over 60 years,” he said. spokesman for the family in a statement on Friday.
Scowcroft served as a military aide to President Richard Nixon, and was elected by Mr. Ford to serve as National Security Adviser following Mr. Nixon’s dismissal. He oversaw the evacuation of U.S. officials from Vietnam in 1975. Although he left the White House after President Jimmy Carter was elected, he advised the president on arms control and helped formulate the Treaty of Strategic Arm Restraint II between the U.S. and the United States. the Soviet Union in 1979.
During the Reagan administration, Scowcroft served on a committee to determine options for deploying MX rockets. And he sat on another committee that investigated the Iran-Contra scandal.
Scowcroft was tapped in 1989 by President George HW Bush to serve again as National Security Adviser, where he helped develop U.S. foreign policy following the recent collapse of the Soviet Union. He also helped orchestrate Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the largely successful military conflict in the Persian Gulf. Mr. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work.
He was one of the few Republicans who challenged President George W. Bush’s decision to take part in another conflict in Iraq. In a 2002 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Scowcroft wrote that “there is little evidence to bind Saddam. [Hussein] to terrorist organizations, and even less to the 9/11 attacks. “He had urged George HW Bush not to try to trap Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War and correctly predicted that doing so ten years later” would be very costly – with serious consequences for the US and global economy – and could also be bloody to be. “
Scowcroft was well-regarded by President Obama, and helped advise Mr. Obama in choosing his national security team. In 2016, Scowcroft published signed Hillary Clinton for president.
Scowcroft was born in Ogden, Utah, in 1925. He attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for his undergraduate degree, and later received his MA and Ph.D. in International Relations from Columbia University.
In 1951, Scowcroft married Marian Horner, who died in 1995. He is survived by a daughter, Karen Scowcroft, and one grandmother.
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