The Strategist: Brent Scowcroft and the Call of National Security

Scowcroft, national security adviser to Presidents Ford and G.W. Bush, is a self-effacing mastermind of statecraft in this fulsome biography. University of Texas political scientist Sparrow styles him the perfect mix of realism, internationalism, patriotism, and pragmatism: hawkish on communism's threat yet willing to engage it through d%C3%A9tente and arms control; eager to attack Saddam in 1991 but not in 2002, when his public opposition to the looming Iraq War enraged the Bush Administration. Sparrow's authorized biography credits Scowcroft with a chess-master's knack for strategic improvisation in global crises and Washington political wrangles and with a superlative character: he's "brilliant," "selfless," "modest," and "caring"; an "honest broker" who seeks consensus through a competent "process." (Sparrow does critically examine some Scowcroft initiatives, noting a deficit of vision in his vague "new world order" concept.) Sparrow's exhaustively researched insider's narrative of U. S. foreign and military policy-making is lucid and readable, but 600 pages of Scowcroft's dreary centrism can drag, and one is grateful when colorful figures like Kissinger horn in. Unfortunately, in celebrating Scowcroft's embodiment of America's national security consensus%E2%80%94in dubious adventures from Vietnam to Panama to the Persian Gulf%E2%80%94Sparrow avoids taking a deeper look at the assumptions and worldview underlying that consensus. Photos. Agent: James D. Hornfischer, Hornfischer Literary Mgmt. (Feb.)