An adviser to three presidents, internationally recognized expert on foreign policy and Utah native son, retired Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft became the ninth inductee into the University of Utah Hinckley Institute of Politics political hall of fame Thursday at a ceremony on the school's campus. Later in the day, he spoke to a crowd of about 500 gathered for an awards banquet hosted by a Salt Lake civic group.
Scowcroft, who was born in Ogden, served as an adviser to Presidents Nixon, Ford and George H.W. Bush and founded the nonprofit, nonpartisan policy think-tank the Forum for International Policy. He's held positions in the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the headquarters of the Air Force and the Office of the Assistant
Secretary of Defense. Scowcroft is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and earned master's and doctorate degrees from Columbia University.
Scowcroft was honored by past and present Utah political figures, including Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., former Congressman James Hansen and former Sen. Jake Garn. Also speaking at the event were Gen. Amos "Joe" Jordan and Scowcroft's grand-nephew, Jim Hinckley. Jordan described Scowcroft as a singular and unique individual in the world of beltway politics.
"He had the willingness to say and do the right thing under pressure," Jordan said. "To speak truth to power ... something that doesn't always make you popular in Washington."
Scowcroft told those in attendance that, although he had not lived in the state for 65 years, the principles on which he based his political career where ones formed while growing up in Ogden.
"Utah has the best workers in the country ... the most honest and hardworking with integrity," Scowcroft said. "That was the environment in which I grew up, and whatever success I've had is due to that and due to the people around me."
He joins previous Hinckley political hall of fame inductees: Govs. Scott Matheson, Calvin Rampton, Norman Bangerter and Olene Walker, U.S. Sens. Frank Moss, Wallace Bennett and U.S. congressmen Hansen and Wayne Owens.
On Thursday evening, Scowcroft appeared as the keynote speaker for an award event hosted by the Utah Coalition for Civic, Character and Service Learning at the Little America hotel in Salt Lake. In his address, Scowcroft touched on the perilous new set of circumstances that face the country and posited ideas for new policy directions.
Scowcroft contrasted challenges now facing the nation with the Cold War environment that was the chief concern of administrations he worked under as a foreign policy specialist.
"The problems that came out of the Cold War were very different from the ones we face now," Scowcroft said. "Instead of one existential threat ... nuclear annihilation, we now have hundreds of smaller threats that, taken together, could, like the Lilliputians and Gulliver, effectively tie us down."
In this new, post-9/11 world, Scowcroft said the country may have misused its considerable power to "make the world a better place" by focusing on the most volatile part of the world, the Middle East, and going after a vicious dictator and enacting the "Wilsonian edict" of forcing people to be free. This act, he said, has resulted in serious consequences.
"Toppling a dictator was well meaning and heroic but created problems of a severe nature," Scowcroft said. "This latest policy approach has come to be seen by the rest of the world as a unilateral policy of arrogance."
Scowcroft urged that the next policymakers move toward a structure of problem solving that is inclusive and recognizes the political and financial interconnectedness that is so relevant today — a reality he said is reflected in the current global economic upheaval.
"This crisis has demonstrated clearly that we have an economic system that is a single world ... and a political world that is atomized," Scowcroft said. "Our initial reaction was focused on what we (as a country) could do ourselves ... now, maybe, we're figuring out that we need to work together with the rest of the world."
Scowcroft, now 83, remains active in politics and last month published a book with Democratic foreign policy expert Zbigniew Brzezinski titled, "America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy."
E-mail: araymond@desnews.com