Free Becoming American: Why Immigration Is Good for Our Nation's Future by Fariborz Ghadar Page A

various nationalities within the Soviet Union. His plan for doing further studies in Great Britain in preparation for a diplomatic career in Canada fell through on a technicality. Brzezinski then attended Harvard University to work on a doctorate, focusing on the Soviet Union and the relationship between the October Revolution, Vladimir Lenin’s state, and the actions of Joseph Stalin. He later collaborated with Carl J. Friedrich to develop the concept of totalitarianism as a way to more accurately and powerfully characterize and criticize the Soviets in 1956.
    Of his life spent in the Polish community in Canada, he says, “I admired the dedication and the determination of the first generation of Polish immigrants who struggled against adversity to shape for themselves a better life abroad and who in the process retained their links with Poland.”
    It is important to place his statement within a greater historical context. After Poland became part of the Soviet Bloc in 1945, Poland’s migration policies became isolationist and remained so until the collapse of communism in 1989. Consequently, passport and exit-visa policies became tight, and it was difficult for Polish citizens to leave the country. Those who made it out were only granted permission to leave temporarily and had to return by a predetermined date. Some took advantage of this system and left Poland to try to build a better life for themselves abroad. However, those who did so knew that they would never be able to return to Poland again. It truly took great dedication and determination to leave. 3
    Inspired by what he saw, Dr. Brzezinski became a U.S. citizen in 1958. Despite years of residence in Canada and the presence of family members there, he decided to immigrate to the United States because he felt he could make a greater difference in America.
I felt that America had the greater capacity for influencing world affairs for the good, and thus helping to fashion a more just international system that would therefore also help Poland. 4
    In 1960, Brzezinski moved to New York City to teach at Columbia University, where he went on to head the Institute on Communist Affairs. He remained at Columbia until 1989, but in the meantime he started a parallel political career.
    He was an advisor to the John F. Kennedy 1960 U.S. presidential campaign, urging a nonantagonistic policy toward Eastern European governments. Seeing the Soviet Union as having entered a period of stagnation, both economic and political, Brzezinski correctly predicted the future breakup of the Soviet Union along lines of nationality (expanding on his master’s thesis).
    In regard to his personal life, he married Czech-American sculptor Emilie Benes, and in 1963, his first son, Ian, was born. His second son, Mark, was born in 1965. And his last child, a daughter, Mika, was born in 1967.
    Meanwhile, in 1964, he supported Lyndon Johnson’s presidential campaign, the Great Society, and civil rights policies, and he saw Soviet leadership as having been purged of any creativity following the ousting of Khrushchev.
    Brzezinski continued to support engagement with Eastern European governments while warning against De Gaulle’s vision of a “Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals.” He also supported the Vietnam War. From 1966 to 1968, he served as a member of the Policy Planning Council of the U.S. Department of State (President Johnson’s October 7, 1966, “Bridge Building” speech was a product of his influence).
    Events in Czechoslovakia further reinforced his criticisms of the right’s aggressive stance toward Eastern European governments. His service to the Johnson administration and his fact-finding trip to Vietnam made him an enemy of the New Left, despite his advocacy of deescalation of the United States’ involvement in the war.
    Brzezinski called for a pan-European conference, an idea that would eventually find fruition in 1973 as the Conference for Security and Co-operation in