Brent Scowcroft

Brent Scowcroft served as National Security Advisor to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush.

In 1982 Henry Kissinger and Scowcroft founded Kissinger Associates. In 1999 former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Mack McLarty's consulting organization merged to form Kissinger McLarty Associates. The firms split up after Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful 2008 presidential bid, but there remains overlap between members serving with both organizations.

The Scowcroft Group, a firm similar to McLarty and Kissinger's group, also had on its board of directors Bob Strauss. Strauss rebuilt the Democratic party in the 1970s as DNC Chairman after George McGovern's defeat. Strauss managed the 1976 Democratic convention which nominated Jimmy Carter. When Carter was elected Scowcroft was out of a job.

Brent Scowcroft toasting Qian Qichen after the Tiananmen massacre, hoping to preserve the U.S.-CCP relationship.

Scowcroft returned as National Security Adviser to President George H.W. Bush in 1989. Bush Sr. appointed Bob Strauss Ambassador to the Soviet Union, which in short order made Strauss the first US Ambassador to the Russian Federation, setting an example to the infant democracy how a two-party system and bipartisanship work. In 1992 when the Clintons took the White House, Scowcroft was again out of a job. Scowcroft and Bush Sr. then collaborated on a book about the end of the Cold War entitled, A World Transformed, an obvious take-off of Henry Kissinger's book on Prince Metternich A World Restored.

Scowcroft is not a neocon. He was vocal in his criticism of George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, and the other neocons of what they did and were doing in the Iraq war. By 2015 Hillary bowed to Scowcroft's point of view on the issue, and Scowcroft became an enthusiastic supporter for Hillary among GOP establishment types.

Scowcroft was famously photographed toasting the butchers of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre shortly afterward. The Chinese government killed at least 10,000 of its own people and many survivors were sent to the Chinese gulag. Scowcroft flew to Beijing to assure them trade agreements would remain in place (e.g., selling cheap Chinese made consumer goods at Walmart where Hillary Clinton sat on the board of directors) and there would be no sanctions. There has not been any similar mass pro-democracy movements in China since for nearly 30 years now.