Zbig: The Life Of Zbigniev Brezinski, America's Great Power Prophet, Luce - A*

     He was a seventeen year old living in Montreal when World War II ended in Europe. He understood that Stalin and the Red Army let the Germans destroy Warsaw as they waited across the Vistula. He wrote "It was not a liberation, but simply a change in the form of terror," and spent the rest of his life "trying to hold the USSR to account." This is an excellent book about a fascinating man who was 100% correct about the paramount issue of his time - if the west pressured the Soviets, they will collapse.

  He was born in Warsaw in 1928, and grew up in a sophisticated, cosmopolitan world that was " the epitome of metropolitan glamour." It was also fiercely nationalistic and anti-Russian. His father, Tadeusz, was a diplomat who took a demotion and an assignment in Canada. That decision saved his life and the life of his family. Zbig was an outstanding student who was at the top of every class, as he absorbed languages and read everything that passed through the consulate.  "It is hard to believe there were many people in North America - let alone adolescents -better briefed on the war than Zbigniew." He attended McGill University, studied Russian and received bachelor's and master's degrees. His MA thesis pointed out that the fundamental Achille's heel of the Soviet Union was the fifteen non-Russian republics who opposed Moscow's subjugation. He attended Harvard in 1950 and received his doctorate two years later. In 1955, he married Muska Benes, a member of the prominent Czech family. He consulted with Senator Kennedy on a speech on Soviet policy, and became an American citizen in 1958. In 1960, he joined the faculty at Columbia, and published his most famous book, 'The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict.' He obtained a grant from the Ford Foundation and created the Research Institute on Communist Affairs. He wanted to become a player in the upper echelons of the foreign policy world. Both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson consulted with him and he spent a short time in LBJ's State Department. He returned to Columbia, and worked with the Humphrey campaign.  Kissinger's appointment as Nixon's National Security Advisor opened his eyes to the idea that a European with a hard to pronounce name and an accent could rise to the heights.

    Zbig engaged continuously with his friend/rival, Henry Kissinger during the Nixon years. He began working with, and educating, Gov. Jimmy Carter, a foreign policy neophyte. The two hit it off and Carter announced that Zbig was his foreign policy advisor. During the 1976 campaign, both Reagan and Carter attacked Kissinger from different angles. Kissinger told his aides that "Brezinski's snide words " were being flung at him with a "smiling Georgia accent." Zbig was Carter's briefer for the foreign policy debate that stopped Ford's momentum. Over the objections of many about Zbig's "Polish bias," Carter appointed him as his National Security Advisor.

    Zbig and Vance fell out immediately over Zbig's Soviet hardline and indifference to SALT II. Both Carter and Zbig spoke out about human rights, which State felt was anathema to the Soviets. However, both advisors and the new president hoped to find a road to peace in the Middle East. America plans were dashed by the hardline approach of Israeli PM Menachem Begin. The press emphasized the differences between Zbig and Vance, but Carter's policy vacillations and inconsistencies were more likely due to the inner conflict between Carter "the Sunday School preacher" and Carter "the nuclear submariner." After the president prevailed with the Senate's approval of the Panama Canal Treaty, he sent Zbig to China to normalize relations. This outraged the American right and the Soviets. Carter then undertook the biggest gamble of his presidency. He brought Sadat and Begin to Camp David for two weeks of cloistered negotiations. The Camp David Accords were applauded around the world with Carter, Sadat, and Begin  hailed as peacemakers.

    Meanwhile, the regime of Shah Reza Pahlavi was imploding and no one in Washington understood why. As Iran was the arms industry's number one foreign customer and a darling of Wall Street, the US backed the regime to the hilt. The Shah left Iran in January of 1979. Many in the establishment pushed Carter to allow him to enter America for medical treatment. He finally agreed, but asked "What are you guys going to advise me if they overrun our embassy and take our people hostage?" After the Shah entered the US, Iranians occupied the embassy and took sixty-six hostages. The unfolding debacle in Iran was followed by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the following month. In the spring of 1980, an attempt to rescue the hostages failed, and Carter's response to the Soviets -  the boycotting of the Olympics was widely derided. Carter garnered the nomination over Sen. Kennedy, but the two failed to reconcile and once again, the Democratic Party was split. Carter's last hope for reelection in the fall came when Khomeni offered a deal to release the hostages.  The negotiations were never concluded, and many believed that the Reagan campaign offered Iran a more generous package of aid for their war with Iraq. After the loss, Carter and Zbig achieved a triumph, but one not recognized or acclaimed. Zbig was receiving raw intelligence from the CIA and understood that a repeat of 1956 and 1968 was at hand. Carter sent a stern warning to Moscow about invading Poland, the Pope and other western leaders did so as well, and the Soviets backed down. Zbig was fifty-two when he left Washington.

    He continued to live in McLean, Virginia, taught two days a week at Columbia, wrote his memoirs, consulted with Reagan, and had a close relationship with Pres. Bush.  He anticipated the coming demise of the USSR when he wrote, "Both glasnost and perestroika were bringing the national genie back to life." He was universally hailed for foreseeing the end when the Wall came down. He switched from Columbia to Johns Hopkins and Georgetown. He predicted that an unstable Ukraine would lead to "Russian revanchism," and the failure of economic reforms would lead to the end of Russia's brief experiment with democracy. He was instrumental in Poland's admittance to NATO. He opposed Bush's affection for Putin, the war in Iraq, and feared an anti-hegemonic coalition of China, Russia, and Iran. In his mid-80's, he began to fade and died on May 26, 2017.

   This is one of the most thought provoking books I've read in ages. That said, there is no fondness in any quarter for the Carter years, and although Zbig was adored by those who knew him well, his edgy, cutting and dismissive personality endeared him to few. Overseas, he was held in higher regard than at home. The Soviets were convinced he was the architect of their fall, and that he was the man behind the election of a Polish pope.  I am struck by his vision and agree with the subtitle's characterization of him as a prophet. I'll enumerate what I believe were some of his extraordinarily prescient observations:

1. He totally dismissed those in the 1950's who thought the Soviet economy would equal the US's.

2. Thirty years later, he made the same observation about Japan.

3.  When the USSR invaded Afghanistan, he predicted it would be their Vietnam.

4. During the interim between the Shah's abdication and Khomeni's return, some believed there would be a moderate government. Citing France and Russia, he said revolutions never go halfway.

5. Many in America believed that China would collapse after Mao. He assured them that Deng's reforms would work.

6. He understood that the USSR was the Russian Empire redux and that Gorbachev's policies would fail.

7. He believed that democracy would fail in Russia, and that Ukraine's attempt to become allied with west would lead Putin to Stalinism.

8.  Lastly, he thought that the US should worry about Eurasia coming under the sway of  China, Russia, and Iran.