Brzezinski, Zbigniew Kazimierz [key], 1928–2017, American political scientist and public official, b. Warsaw, Poland, grad. Harvard (Ph.D, 1953). The son of a diplomat, he was raised in Canada and became (1958) a U.S. citizen. A professor of international relations at Harvard (1953–60), Columbia (1960–89), and Johns Hopkins (1989–2017), he was a Soviet specialist and an influential voice regarding political affairs in the Communist world. As President Carter's national security adviser (1977–81), he advocated a hard line toward the USSR and was skeptical of détente. In 1981 he resumed his academic career, writing extensively on U.S. strategic relations, the collapse of Communism, and America's security challenges.
See his memoirs, Power and Principle (1983); Ideology and Power in Soviet Politics (1962, repr., 1976), Between Two Ages (1970, repr. 1982), The Grand Failure (1989), The Grand Chessboard (1997), The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership (2004), Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower (2007), and Strategic Power: America and the Crisis of Global Power (2012); study by C. Gati, ed. (2013).
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