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2012 William E. Simon Lecture on Public Affairs 

Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft, USAF (Ret.), is one of the nation’s preeminent authorities on international policy.  He is also President of The Scowcroft Group, Inc., an international business advisory firm.

General Scowcroft served as Assistant to the President for National Security to Presidents Gerald R. Ford and George H. W. Bush. He also served as Military Assistant to President Richard Nixon and as Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs to Presidents Ford and Nixon. Prior to joining the Bush Administration, General Scowcroft was Vice Chairman of Kissinger Associates, Inc.

In the course of his military career, General Scowcroft held positions in the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Headquarters of the U.S. Air Force; and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. Other assignments included faculty positions at the U. S. Air Force Academy and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and Assistant Air Attache in the American Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

General Scowcroft currently serves as a Director of the Qualcomm Corporation.  He serves as Co-Chairman of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future.  He also serves on the University of California President’s Council on the National Laboratories.  He is President of the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation and the Chairman of the International Advisory Board of the Atlantic Council of the United States.  He is also a Member of the Board of the Gerald R. Ford Foundation, the George C. Marshall Foundation, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the International Republican Institute, the National Defense University, and the American Council on Germany.  He is a member of the Advisory Board of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

General Scowcroft has chaired or served on numerous policy advisory councils, including the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board; the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change; the Eisenhower Institute; the President’s General Advisory Committee on Arms Control; the President’s Commission on Strategic Forces; the President’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management; the Defense Policy Board; and the President’s Special Review Board (Tower Board) investigating the Iran-Contra affair. He served as Chairman of the American-Turkish Council (ATC), and on the Board of the Alliance for Climate Protection Board.  He also served as Co-Chairman of the Committee on Science, Security, and Prosperity of the National Academies of Sciences.

General Scowcroft has an aeronautical rating as a pilot and has numerous military decorations and awards. In addition, President George H. W. Bush presented him with the Medal of Freedom Award in 1991, the nation’s highest civilian award.  In 1993, he was presented with the insignia of an Honorary Knight of the British Empire (K.B.E.) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace.  In 2009, he was presented the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.