Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter who helped broker the Camp David peace accords between Israel and Egypt, worked to normalize relations with China and launched controversial efforts by the U.S.to arm Islamic fighters battling the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, has died.
Brzezinski's death, at a hospital in Northern Virginia, was announced on Friday night by his daughter, Mika, on social media. He was known to his friends as Zbig, to his...
She called him "the most inspiring, loving and devoted father any girl could ever have".
Brzezinski was plucked by Carter from the academic world and saw numerous Soviet Union's foreign policy moves as evidence it could not be trusted.
"Dr. Brzezinski's influence spanned several decades". When Communists took power in Poland six years later, he retired and moved his family to a farm in the Canadian countryside.
Mr Carter had been impressed with the views of the foreign policy expert well before he won the presidency in 1980.
Before the seizure of the USA embassy in Tehran in 1979, Vance had resisted Brzezinski's proposal that Washington back a military crackdown against Iran's radical Islamic forces. The group was made up of politicians and business leaders from the US, Japan and and Western Europe, deemed the three (hence tri) most industrially advanced regions of the world.
Carter described Brzezinski as brilliant, dedicated, and loyal.
East Tennesseans honor heroes on Memorial Day
The president was accompanied to Arlington cemetery by Vice President Mike Pence, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Gen. Or Patriot Guard Rider David Engelhardt, who was one of many who rolled across the grounds with American flags in tow.
During the Iranian hostage crisis, which began in 1979, Brzezinski became convinced that negotiations to free American diplomats kidnapped by mobs in Tehran were going nowhere.
Carter eventually accepted Brzezinski's proposal for the ill-fated mission, in which eight servicemen died.
After serving in the Carter administration, Brzezinski continued to be a major voice in USA foreign policy.
He served as a counselor and trustee at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a professor at Johns Hopkins University.
In a 2011 book, "Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power", Brzezinski argued in favor of strengthening the U.S. presence overseas to maintain global stability.
Despite his retirement from US politics into academia, Brzezinski remained a sharp-eyed observer of successive USA administrations.
"M$3 y role was that of supporting the president, helping him formulate the USA strategic approach and sometimes indicating to him my own view that we ought to be tougher on some issues, that we ought to be more compromising on some issues; in effect, playing the role of a personal strategic adviser", Brzezinski told NPR in 2003.
He and his wife, Emilie, are the parents of Mika and two sons.
Comments