Meet Bud McFarlane

Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum
Yorba Linda, CA

Topics include a resurgent Russia, the economic and military challenges of an Imperial China, nuclear North Korea and Iran, and the immigration challenges posed for Europe by the Syrian civil war.

Mr. McFarlane has a distinguished record of public service including ten years in the White House and State Department serving variously as counselor to the Department of State, national security advisor to President Reagan, and military advisor to Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft.

In the Reagan years, he was the architect of U.S. policies which so stressed the Soviet economy as to bring it down, and in the process accelerated the collapse of Marxism in the former Soviet Union and the first reduction of nuclear weapons in history. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, served for 20 years as a Marine officer, was selected as an Olmsted Scholar, holds a Master of Science (License) from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, and was selected as a White House Fellow.

In recent years, Mr. McFarlane has focused on organizing investment in developing countries, brokering reconciliation between rival Sunni and Shia sects in Iraq, coaching the tribal leaders of Darfur, and leading the United States Energy Security Council, a bipartisan panel of former cabinet officers, senior retired military officers, and senior corporate executives devoted to forging a more coherent national energy policy. Currently he is focused, again with retired four-star military officers and distinguished American diplomats, on the prevention of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.