In a study of Scowcroft’s career, historian David F. Schmitz notes that Scowcroft had been at the center of several post-Vietnam War discussions on American foreign policy. He was part of the presidency administrations that struggled with American responses to the collapse of communism in Europe, the collapse in China following the Tiananmen Square protest, and Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and the ensuing Gulf War.
‘The main indications of his thinking, shaped by World War II, were that national security policy should protect the nation from aggression, provide international stability, control weapons while maintaining readiness, and create an international environment conducive to for the purposes of America and needs, ”Schmitz wrote.
Described as both soft and hard, a brilliant coordinator who was most concerned with results, a restless worker who spent 18 hours a day, Scowcroft offered a self-assessment to The Washington Post on the eve of George HW Bush administration: ‘I do not have a fast-paced, innovative mind. I do not automatically think of good, new ideas. What I do better is pick out good ideas from bad ideas. … It’s comforting to do things that make a difference. Ultimately, it is the task that is more important. ”
Scowcroft was born March 19, 1925, in Ogden, Utah, where his father owned a wholesale store business. He graduated from the American Military Academy at West Point in 1947 and then joined the Army Air Corps, which soon became the Air Force. Only a few months after completing the pilot training did he break his back in the crash of an F-51, which put him in hospital for two years.
His focus on his military career on strategy and planning made Scowcroft a master’s degree at Columbia University in 1953 and then taught Russian history at West Point. In 1957, he began studying at the Strategic Intelligence School in Washington. Two years later, he was an assistant air attaché at the US Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, then taught political science at the US Air Force Academy.
Scowcroft was assigned to the Air Force Headquarters and Department of Defense in the 1960s and received a doctorate in international relations from Columbia in 1967. He was appointed military assistant to President Richard Nixon in 1972. A year later he became deputy national security assistant under Henry Kissinger, Nixon national security adviser.
After leaving the White House with the election of Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976, Scowcroft set up a consulting firm serving international companies and eventually joined Kissinger in creating Kissinger Associates, a consulting firm with similar goals.
Scowcroft served on Carter’s Arms Control Advisory Committee and chaired President Ronald Reagan’s Commission on Strategic Forces, which focused on efforts to modernize U.S. nuclear weapons. He also served on the Three Committees of the Tower Commission, which investigated the hostage-taking affair that took place during the Reagan administration.
Scowcroft has been a close friend of George HW Bush since serving together in the Nixon administration. With the Bush election in 1988, Scowcroft was interested in leading the Pentagon as Secretary of Defense during the Bush administration. He accepted a return trip as national security adviser when he realized he would be on the side of the president instead of carrying out the massive bureaucracy at the Department of Defense.
After Bush lost his bid for re-election to Democrat Bill Clinton in 1992, Scowcroft returned to consultation. He co-authored with Bush a book on the Cold War, “A World Transformed,” published in 1998, and with Carter National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski the book “America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy” in 2008.
In 2002, Scowcroft angered the White House of his friend’s son, President George W. Bush, when he publicly expressed the view that not much evidence bound Saddam Hussein to terrorist organizations and warned that war with Iraq could be damaging. if not destroy American alliances in the region.
In a column for The Wall Street Journal, Scowcroft wrote: “The key point is that any campaign against Iraq, whatever its strategy, costs, and risks, is sure to divert us from our war on terror indefinitely. Worse, there is a virtual consensus in the world against an attack on Iraq at this time. As long as that sentiment persists, it would require the US to pursue a virtual go-it-alone strategy against Iraq, making all military operations correspondingly more difficult and expensive. “
Considering his relationship with the Bush family, Scowcroft’s criticism of the administration carried particular weight. “I thought they rushed to the verdict and made a serious mistake,” Scowcroft recalled during an interview with the West Point Center for Oral History. His concerns, made private before he spoke in public, were “fairly dismissed” by the younger Bush’s White House, he said.
President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, said in a statement Friday that they were saddened to learn of Scowcroft’s death.
“This patriot has had a long career of distinguished service to our country. As a retired Air Force general, he gave sound and thoughtful advice to several presidents. He was a very important adviser to my father – and an important friend, “Bush said.
The current National Security Adviser, Robert O’Brien, said he had long admired Scowcroft and made it his goal to follow the “Scowcroft Model” in the service of President Donald Trump.
“In general, Scowcroft set the standard for effective leadership and defined the modern role of the NSA, and acted as an ‘honest broker’ by moving to the president’s office, well-considered and thoroughly debated policy options and advice for his consideration, ‘O’Brien said in a statement.
Scowcroft married Marian Horner in 1951; she died in 1995. He is survived by a daughter, Karen, and a granddaughter, Meghan.
