Born Ogden, Utah
For several decades, Brent Scowcroft helped shape the foreign relations of the United States, advising on major strategic decisions in national security and other state affairs. Although he originally wanted to be a fighter pilot and joined the Air Force soon after graduating from West Point in 1947, he survived a crash-landing and instead turned to international relations. Scowcroft worked closely with Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger during the Nixon administration and accompanied President Richard M. Nixon in the historic trip to China in 1972. During that time, he also improved the United States’ relationship with the Soviet Union.
Scowcroft served as the national security advisor to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush. For the latter, he masterminded the strategy in the Persian Gulf War in 1991. That same year, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
“There’s always the danger when you read intelligence, especially about personalities, that when you meet somebody . . . you already have a portrait in your mind. And the danger is, in my mind, that you fit his behavior into your portrait rather than the other way around, rather than seeing a blank slate out there and piecing together from how you interact with him what his portrait is.” General Brent Scowcroft, November 1999
