Professor Zbigniew Brzeziński, the former National Security Advisor under President Jimmy Carted, one of the most influential political thinkers and architects of US foreign policy died at the age of 89. In 2000 Prof. Brzeziński was conferred an honorary doctorate of the Jagiellonian University.
As Alma Mater monthly reported, “Professor Brzeziński was honoured for his global perception of international relations ... , the role he played in preventing the Warsaw Pact armed intervention in Poland in 1980-81, the support he provided to Polish scholars during the most difficult times of communism in Poland ... , and being both Polish and American Patriot, as well as a global citizen who was always proud of his Polish roots ...”
“Professor Zbigniew Brzeziński is a world famous authority on international relations, governmental systems, international public law, political strategy and theory of politics. In his adopted homeland, the USA, he is considered an eminent expert on Russia (and, formerly, the Soviet Union), a scholar who has played a key role in shaping the American policy toward this country ... . He is an eminent political historian, a distinguished researcher on international treaties and an expert on the functioning of supranational non-state organisations. He is one of the very few scholars whose academic ideas have significantly shaped international politics”, said Prof. Krzysztof Pałecki in the honorary doctorate laudatory address.
Professor Zbigniew Brzeziński was born on 28 March 1928 in Warsaw. He graduated from McGill University, Montreal, and completed a PhD thesis on Soviet totalitarianism at Harvard University. In 1960 he became professor of Columbia University, New York. Since his young age he had been linked to the Democratic Party. He was an advisor to John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. As a co-founder of the Trilateral Commission, an organisation of politicians and business leaders aimed at strengthening ties between the USA, Europe and Japan, he invited the then Governor of Georgia Jimmy Carter to join it. After becoming president, Carter appointed Brzeziński as his National Security Advisor.
Professor Brzeziński also rendered enormous services to Poland. In collaboration with the Polish diaspora in the United States, he strongly supported our country’s accession to NATO. In his talks with Washington correspondents he frequently made comments and gave advice regarding the situation in Poland.
