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Zbigniew Brzezinski to speak at BYU Jan. 12

U.S. national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter

Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, will be speaking at Brigham Young University in the Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni and Visitors Center Assembly Hall Tuesday, Jan. 12, at 7:30 p.m.

A professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University, Brzezinski will be speaking on “Geostrategic Challenges Facing the United States.” His address will be hosted by BYU’s Wheatley Institution and David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies.

Brzezinski received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from McGill University and a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1953. He was a member of the Harvard faculty until 1960 when he became a member of the Columbia University faculty. He also holds honorary degrees from Georgetown, Williams College, the College of the Holy Cross, Warsaw University and the Catholic University of Lublin.

He was a member of the Policy Planning Council of the Department of State from 1966 to 1968. He also served as chair of the Foreign Policy Task Force in the 1968 presidential campaign. He later served as principal foreign policy adviser to Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential campaign and became national security adviser for President Carter. In 1981, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his role in the normalization of U.S.-China relations and for his contributions to the human rights and national security policies of the United States.

He has also served as a member of the President’s Chemical Warfare Commission, the National Security Council–Defense Department Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy, and the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. In 1988, he was co-chairman of the Bush National Security Advisory Task Force, and in 2004 he was co-chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations task force.

Brzezinski is the co-chair of the American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus and a member of the International Advisory Board of the Atlantic Council. He has been the recipient of many honors and awards and has written many books, including “Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower,” “The Geostrategic Triad: Living with China, Europe and Russia” and “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives.”

For more information, contact Richard Williams at (801) 422-5883.

Writer: Brandon Garrett

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Photo by Julie Hillebrent

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