The
Switching
Yard

Topic 05 · The Passholder · Zbigniew Brzezinski, 1928–2017

A dark hall. A row of heavy doors stands open onto lit rooms — a library, an office with a globe, a presidential office. Railway track is set into the marble floor and curves into each doorway. In the foreground a worn pass tag and a brass key lie on the stone.
Illustration. Drawn for this file. The pictures here are not photographs of anything and they carry no evidence — every finding on the page rests on the documents in Road 11, not on the art.
A worn cardboard pass tag on a cord, a red stripe down one edge, the word PASS and an arrow.

He crossed the Atlantic at ten because his father had been posted to Montreal. Sixty-seven years later he died a few miles from the White House, having held the senior foreign-policy office of a country he was not born in, was not a citizen of until he was thirty, and never once stood for election in.

Between those two points are twenty doors. Three were applications. One stayed shut, and it is the one that redirected everything. The rest were opened by somebody who was already inside.

A heavy panelled door standing open onto a lit, columned corridor.
Road 01

Twenty doors

Every entry of a single working life, dated, with the way it opened and the name of whoever held the handle. Switch the kinds off to see what the career looks like without them.

3AppliedA university, a doctorate, a citizenship certificate
7AppointedAn institution decided, and he was told
7InvitedA closed body asked; there was no way to ask it
2CircumstanceA posting, and then a war
1RefusedHarvard, 1959
0ElectedHe never once stood for anything
How it opened

  1. 1938

    Canada

    Aged ten, he arrives in Montreal because his father has been posted there as Poland's consul-general. He sails from Europe to New York in the autumn of 1938 — the same season, on the same ocean, as a fifteen-year-old Jewish refugee from Fürth named Henry Kissinger.

    Circumstance The Polish foreign ministry Library of Congress ↗

  2. 1939–1945

    Staying

    The war closes behind him and the country he was a diplomat's son of stops existing in the form his family served. A posting becomes a life.

    Circumstance Nobody Justin Vaïsse ↗

  3. 1945–1950

    McGill University

    BA in 1949, MA in 1950. His master's thesis is titled Russo-Soviet Nationalism — the argument he spends the next sixty-seven years on, written at twenty-two. The typescript is in his papers at the Library of Congress.

    Applied McGill admissions Library of Congress ↗

  4. 1950–1953

    A Harvard doctorate

    PhD 1953, then instructor and research fellow at Harvard's Russian Research Center.

    Applied Harvard admissions Library of Congress ↗

  5. 1956

    Assistant professor, Harvard

    Assistant professor of government and research associate at the Russian Research Center and the Center for International Affairs. The same year he publishes The Permanent Purge, and, with Carl Friedrich, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy.

    Appointed Harvard Library of Congress ↗

  6. 1958

    United States citizenship

    Naturalised at thirty. It is the last door on this list that any adult in the country could have walked up to on the same terms.

    Applied Statute Library of Congress ↗

  7. 1959

    Tenure at Harvard

    The Department of Government had no room. The tenured chair that year went to Henry Kissinger. Eighteen years later the two men would have held the same office in the same building.

    Had I been given tenure at Harvard, I would have been delighted and I would have stayed. But then I was forced to think, what do I really want to be? … I want to influence the world, shape American policy. And New York was better for that.Brzezinski, quoted in Vaïsse

    Refused The Harvard Department of Government Justin Vaïsse ↗

  8. 1960

    Columbia University

    Associate professor; full professor from 1962, and director of the Research Institute on Communist Affairs — an institute the Ford Foundation helped build.

    Appointed Columbia Library of Congress ↗

  9. 1961

    The Council on Foreign Relations

    Membership is by nomination and election; there is no application. Hamilton Fish Armstrong, the editor of Foreign Affairs, takes him under his wing. His first article in the journal comes at thirty-three.

    Brzezinski, for his part, was made a member in 1961.Vaïsse — note the voice of the verb

    Invited The Council Justin Vaïsse ↗

  10. 1966–1968

    The State Department's Policy Planning Staff

    His first door into government. He does not apply. Henry Owen, then director of Policy Planning, and Walt Rostow, then National Security Adviser, offer him the position. Owen will be in the room six years later when the Trilateral Commission is agreed.

    Invited Henry Owen and Walt Rostow Justin Vaïsse ↗

  11. 1968

    A presidential campaign

    Principal foreign policy adviser to Hubert Humphrey, whom he had come to know at Policy Planning. He accepts an invitation to lead the campaign's foreign policy team.

    Invited Hubert Humphrey Justin Vaïsse ↗

  12. 1970

    A column in Newsweek

    The same year he publishes Between Two Ages. A column is a rung on the escalator, not a job: it is what makes an administration consult you.

    Invited Newsweek Justin Vaïsse ↗

  13. 1960s–1970s

    Bilderberg

    Attended repeatedly. Admission is by invitation and there is no way to seek it.

    Invited The Bilderberg steering committee Justin Vaïsse ↗

  14. 1971

    A year in Japan

    Paid for by a Ford Foundation grant. Vaïsse links that year directly to what came next.

    Invited The Ford Foundation Justin Vaïsse ↗

  15. 1973–1976

    Director of the Trilateral Commission

    The body he had described in print three years earlier. As Director his job is to identify and invite the members — the first door on this list that he is standing on the other side of.

    Appointed David Rockefeller and the regional chairmen Rockefeller Archive Center ↗ Topic 04 →

  16. 1975–1976

    Jimmy Carter

    He had been offering his services to several candidates at once. In 1975 he settles on the governor the Commission had picked, and by early 1976 is his chief foreign policy adviser.

    Invited Jimmy Carter Library of Congress ↗

  17. December 1976

    Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs

    No Senate confirmation. No statutory basis. No routine testimony to Congress. One person decides, and that person had been a member of the body he directed.

    Appointed The President-elect, alone National Archives and Records Administration ↗

  18. 16 January 1981

    The Presidential Medal of Freedom

    Four days before the administration ends. Harold Brown and Gerard C. Smith are decorated in the same ceremony.

    Appointed The President, alone Public Papers of the Presidents ↗

  19. 1981

    Counselor, Center for Strategic and International Studies

    Out of the White House and straight into the think tank, while returning to his Columbia chair. He holds a position in the policy world for the next thirty-six years.

    Appointed CSIS Library of Congress ↗

  20. 1989

    The Robert E. Osgood chair, Johns Hopkins SAIS

    Thirty years after Harvard had no room for him, a chair is named and he is put in it.

    Appointed Johns Hopkins Library of Congress ↗

An ocean liner alongside a quay in an engraved style, a gangway running down to the dock, a harbour behind.
Road 02

Two crossings, one autumn

Two men entered the United States in the same season on opposite terms — one fleeing a state, one representing one — and arrived at the same desk eight years apart. Whatever the pipeline selects for, it is not origin.

Both sailed from Europe to New York in the fall of 1938 — Kissinger a Jewish refugee fleeing persecution from the Third Reich, Brzezinski the son of a Polish diplomat to be posted in Montreal as consul general.
Justin Vaïsse, Zbigniew Brzezinski: America’s Grand Strategist, chapter 1.
Henry KissingerZbigniew Brzezinski
BornKissingerFürth, 1923BrzezinskiWarsaw, 1928
CrossedKissingerAutumn 1938, as a refugeeBrzezinskiAutumn 1938, as a diplomat's son
DoctorateKissingerHarvardBrzezinskiHarvard
Harvard tenure, 1959KissingerGrantedBrzezinskiRefused
National Security AdviserKissinger1969, under NixonBrzezinski1977, under Carter
Secretary of State alongsideKissingerWilliam RogersBrzezinskiCyrus Vance
A closed door in a stone facade with a single red lamp burning above it.
Road 03

The door that shut

One entry on the list was refused. Harvard’s Department of Government had no room in 1959, and the tenured chair went to the other immigrant. He was thirty-one, and it is the hinge of the whole life.

Had I been given tenure at Harvard, I would have been delighted and I would have stayed. But then I was forced to think, what do I really want to be? … I want to influence the world, shape American policy. And New York was better for that.
Brzezinski, quoted in Vaïsse, chapter 1.
What he was refusing

In the same answer he describes the life he did not want: crossing the Harvard yard year after year carrying a folder marked lecture number 7, joke used last year, class reaction, in a tweed jacket.

What the refusal bought him

Two years later Harvard offered him a tenured chair and he turned it down. Thirty years after that, Johns Hopkins named a chair and put him in it. The only door that ever closed on him closed for one year.

A broad stone staircase rising between lamps toward a lit doorway, and another beyond it.
Road 04

The escalator, already written down

The route from a university office to a government one was not a secret and not an accident. His biographer sets it out as a sequence, in a book written from his own papers.

After a scholarly book, publishing a more policy-oriented piece in Foreign Affairs made you an interesting potential contributor to the New York Times. An op-ed in the Times or a piece in Newsweek would then catch the eye of the administration, which would consult you. That would lead a think tank to invite you into its task force and the Bilderberg to admit you as a member, offering in turn new social connections, increasing your value as a prominent university professor, and ultimately making you an influential public expert.
Vaïsse, chapter 1, describing how the profession worked in the 1960s and 1970s.
  1. 01
    A scholarly bookThe Permanent Purge, 1956. The Soviet Bloc, 1960.
  2. 02
    A piece in Foreign AffairsFirst published there at thirty-three, under Hamilton Fish Armstrong.
  3. 03
    An op-ed, or a columnA Newsweek column from 1970.
  4. 04
    The administration consults youPolicy Planning Staff, 1966–68.
  5. 05
    A think tank puts you on a task forceCouncil task forces; later CSIS.
  6. 06
    A closed body admits youThe Council in 1961; Bilderberg through the 1960s and 1970s.
  7. 07
    You are an influential public expertFifteen books, two universities, four decades.
Five signal lamps on a steel plate — red, amber, green, amber, red — fed by brass pipework.
Road 05

Where he thought it ended

Asked later how far he had expected to get, he answered plainly, and the answer is the most human thing in the record.

In 68, I worked for Hubert Humphrey, I was his principal foreign policy advisor. … To give you a sense of how modest my expectations were, I thought maybe I might become an Assistant Secretary of State for Europe. Well, it may be strange, but I wasn't ready, and what suddenly boosted my expectations was Henry. Nixon won, he made Henry. It never occurred to me he would get that. It never occurred to me when I was Humphrey's principal advisor that I could be National Security Advisor. It was not in my sense of what was feasible in America at that time.
Brzezinski, quoted in Vaïsse, chapter 1.
A railway point lever beside tracks that split four ways in a yard.
Road 06

He worked it

He worked the pipeline, and his own papers show it.

  1. 1972

    Sends analyses, talking points and suggestions to Hubert Humphrey through intermediaries as Humphrey seeks the nomination again.

  2. 1972

    Sends some of the same memos and talking points, unchanged, to Edmund Muskie and Ted Kennedy. Vaïsse calls it an older version of cut and paste.

  3. 1972

    Also sends material to Henry 'Scoop' Jackson.

  4. 1975

    Stops hedging. Settles on one candidate and, in Vaïsse's phrase, becomes a monogamous adviser.

A brass letter slot set into a dark metal plate.
Road 07

Carter was a slot

The candidate who would appoint him was not discovered. He was recruited to fill a gap in a membership table, and the man holding the pen was the man who would be appointed.

In 1973, while composing the American membership, he and his colleagues needed a Democratic governor from the rapidly industrializing South, and they picked Carter, who proved an eager student at the Commission meetings, since he was lacking international experience.
Vaïsse, chapter 1, on the composition of the Commission’s American membership in 1973.
A sealed envelope with a red stripe, a large brass key lying across it.
Road 08

The last door has no lock on the outside

Of every entry on the list, the final one is the only office that no vote, no committee and no statute stands in front of. Congress says so itself.

Is it subject to Senate confirmation?

“The National Security Adviser is not subject to confirmation by the Senate.”

Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress
Has anyone tried to change that?

“Proposals to require Senate confirmation of the Security Adviser have been discussed but not adopted.”

Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress
Does Congress hear from the office?

“Congress annually appropriates funds for its activities, but does not, routinely, receive testimony on substantive matters from the National Security Adviser or from NSC staff.”

Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress
Everyone else at the table

Cyrus Vance, who sat across from him for three years, was confirmed by the Senate. So was Harold Brown. So was Gerard C. Smith, as an ambassador. The adviser was not.

What that means for the list

Twenty-one doors, and the last one has no lock on the outside. It is the only office in the sequence that no vote, no committee and no statute stands in front of — and it is the one the whole escalator was pointed at.

A stack of worn file folders and loose typed sheets, the top one carrying a blank label.
Road 09

What came out from behind it

What the unconfirmed office produced was the least filtered document series in the government.

  • Begun about a month after the inauguration and continued for four years.
  • Written by one man to one reader, and described by the archive as intended for the President's eyes only.
  • Did not pass through institutional filters — not the State Department secretariat, not the NSC's.
  • Many carry Carter's handwritten replies in the margin.
One of them

NSC Weekly Report #122

21 December 1979 · Top Secret · Brzezinski to the President

Written three weeks into the hostage crisis, the memo presses the President to consider military action and steps to remove Ayatollah Khomeini.

In the margin Carter's handwritten notes show he is not opposed to planning for all possible approaches, so long as they do not open the United States to international condemnation.

Beyond the rescue attempt, the administration did not take up the more dramatic proposals.

Road 10

What a list of doors does not show

A door opening says who decided. It does not say whether the decision was right, and it says nothing at all about the person on the other side of it.

Does a sequence of opened doors mean the man had no merit?

No, and the record points the other way. He published fifteen books across sixty-one years, held chairs at two universities, and wrote a master's thesis at twenty-two on the subject he was still writing about at eighty-eight. The doors opened onto someone who had done the work.

What would settle it
Nothing. Both things are true at once, and a page that could only hold one of them would be the weaker page.

Does it mean the doors were unearned?

Unanswerable from a list of doors. What the list shows is the shape of the access, not its justice: three applications, no elections, and everything else decided by someone already inside.

What would settle it
A comparison population — scholars of the same cohort, output and field who were never invited. Nobody has assembled one.

Is this the whole man?

Not remotely. The Library of Congress holds 163,200 items of him across 189 linear feet, in English, Polish, Russian, French and Chinese, including journals, appointment books and family papers reaching back to 1798. This is one dimension of a life, chosen because it is the dimension the rest of this series is about.

What would settle it
The papers themselves. Part of the collection is still classified.

Is the pipeline a conspiracy?

It is a published description. The sequence quoted above comes from a standard scholarly biography, written from his own papers, and it is offered there as a description of how a profession worked, not as an accusation. Nothing here is concealed and nothing here needed to be.

What would settle it
Nothing.

Road 11

The record

Seven sources. Two are archival finding aids, one is Congress describing its own blind spot, one is a scholarly biography written from the man’s own papers, and one is the man receiving a medal. Where a source is scholarship rather than a filing, it is marked.

  1. Zbigniew Brzezinski Papers — finding aid ↗Library of Congress, Manuscript Division · Filed163,200 items, 470 containers, 189 linear feet, spanning 1798–2017. Carries the dated biographical chronology used for most of the doors on this list, and the scope note describing the campaign and NSC files.
  2. Zbig, Henry, and the New U.S. Foreign Policy Elite ↗Justin Vaïsse, chapter 1 of Zbigniew Brzezinski: America's Grand Strategist (Harvard University Press, 2018) · PublishedThe standard scholarly biography, written from the Brzezinski Papers and published in full as a PDF by Johns Hopkins. The source for the escalator, the tenure vote, the Policy Planning offer, the 1972 hedging and the Carter slot. Scholarship, not a filing.
  3. Zbigniew Brzezinski Collection: A Guide to His Papers at the Jimmy Carter Library ↗National Archives and Records Administration · FiledThe federal half of the record: the directorship, the invitation duty, and the December 1976 appointment.
  4. The National Security Council: An Organizational Assessment (RL30840) ↗Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress · FiledCongress's own description of the office: not Senate-confirmed, not statutory, and not a routine witness before committees.
  5. Presidential Medal of Freedom — Remarks at the Presentation Ceremony ↗Public Papers of the Presidents, 16 January 1981 · StatedThe citation, and Carter's remarks naming him the most controversial member of the administration.
  6. Brzezinski NSC Weekly Reports to the President ↗National Security Archive, George Washington University · FiledThe declassified weekly memos, several published in facsimile with Carter's marginal replies. Report #122 of 21 December 1979 is the one quoted here.
  7. The Trilateral Commission (North America) records — finding aid ↗Rockefeller Archive Center · PublishedThe body's own deposited records. Used here only for the dates and terms of the directorship.
20Entrances on the list, from a gangway in 1938 to a named chair in 1989
3That were applications anybody could have made
0That were elections
1That was refused — and it is the one that changed the life
51 yrsBetween the first door on the list and the last
163,200Items of him held by the Library of Congress
189 ftLinear feet of the same collection
0Senate votes ever cast on whether he should hold the office he is remembered for
Road 12

Circulate

Eight cards. Each is one entrance, or one sentence he said about them, and each links back here.