Scowcroft, a national security adviser for two GOP presidents, dies at 95

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, a national security adviser for two Republican presidents, died Thursday. He was 95.

Scowcroft served under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush. He died of natural causes at his home in Falls Church, Virginia, according to the Associated Press. 

He was the only national security adviser to serve in two administrations. Ford appointed Scowcroft in 1975, after he retired from the Air Force. He served in the Bush administration from 1989 to 1993.

His career in public service is highlighted by his foreign policy work on such matters as the fall of communism in Europe, the response to China’s handling of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and the Gulf War.

Scowcroft was born March 19, 1925, in Ogden, Utah, the son of the owner of a wholesale grocery business. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1947, then joined the Army Air Corps, which later became the Air Force. 

Scowcroft broke his back in an F-51 crash soon after completing flight school, hospitalizing him for two years.

Scowcroft also earned a master’s degree at Columbia University, and he studied at the Strategic Intelligence School in Washington. He taught at West Point and the U.S. Air Force Academy.

He was preceded in death by wife Marian Horner. He is survived by a daughter, Karen, and a granddaughter, Meghan.