Summary
Zbigniew Brzezinski, the hawkish Polish-born Cold War strategist and former top aide to US president Jimmy Carter, has died, his family said.
Born in Warsaw to a diplomat father, Brzezinski moved with his family to Canada in the late 1930s. He went on to attend McGill University in Montreal then earned a doctorate from Harvard, later becoming a US citizen.
He was a driving force behind the failed US commando mission to rescue the hostages, after which he resigned. He believed Soviet influence would sweep through Iran if US strength did not prevail in the drama.
A tough critic of the Soviet Union, he also helped broker the Camp David accords and worked on normalizing relations with China.
Though a rigorous anti-communist, he held that US interests around the world should be addressed in terms of strategy and practicality, not ideology.
Brzezinski was the commission's first director.
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