Brian Crozier

Brian Rossiter Crozier (4 August 1918, in Shire of Cloncurry, Queensland – 4 August 2012)^[1] was a historian, propagandist and journalist. He was also one of the central staff members of a secret propaganda department belonging to the UK Foreign Office, known as the Information Research Department (IRD) which republished and supported much of his work,^[2]

Early life

Crozier was born in a small village in Australia, where his father worked as mining engineer. In 1923 his family moved to France. In 1930, it moved to England, where he received a scholarship to study piano and composition at the

Crozier worked as the director of Forum World Features, set up in 1966 by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, which had ties to the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). While editing the Economist's "insider" news sheet Foreign Report, Crozier, as he later recorded in his memoirs, kept some of the best stories that reached him for the CIA. He stated in 1975 that Forum World Features had broken all ties to the CIA when he became its director in the 1960s.^[7]

In 1970, Crozier founded the Institute for the Study of Conflict, based in London, to study insurgencies and terrorism. He presided over it for most of the 1970s. According to a profile written by David Rees in 1985 for the American fortnightly National Review "the Institute... was the first private think-tank devoted to the study of terrorism and subversion". Under his direction (he left in 1979) the institute specialised in the study of the "peacetime" strategy of the Soviet Union. Its analyses, including the Annual of Power and Conflict, which it published for ten years, have been used in war colleges throughout the West.^[6]

For many years, Crozier wrote a regular column, "The Protracted Conflict", in the National Review. Joseph D'Agostino of Human Events stated, "Crozier has another distinction: in 1988 he appeared in the Guinness Book of World Records for having interviewed the most heads of state or government, 58 in all".^[5]

Crozier provided advice to the British

Crozier was a co-founder of the group The 61, an organisation that wanted to counter Soviet communist propaganda.[3]

HarperCollins published Crozier's autobiography, Free Agent: The Unseen War 1941–1991, in 1993, which was revised and corrected in paperback edition in 1994.

Crozier was a Distinguished Visiting Fellow on War, Revolution, and Peace of the Hoover Institution.^[9] He was also a member of the international advisory council of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.^[10] In 1985, he signed a petition in support for the far-right paramilitary Contras (Nicaragua).^[11]

Personal life

Crozier was married twice. He had three daughters (Kathryn-Anne, Isobel and Caroline) and a son (Michael).^[3]

He died on 4 August 2012 after a long illness at 94.^[3]

Selected works

External videos
Washington Journal interview with Crozier on The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire, 14 November 1999. C-SPAN.

Books

• ISBN 978-1258501716
  .
• ISBN 978-1135351274
  .
• South East Asia in Turmoil. London:
  ISBN 978-0684129969
  .
• ISBN 978-0802310354
  .
• ISBN 978-0413267702
  .
• LCCN 77-79368
  .
• LCCN 78-136438
  .
• ISBN 978-0684129969
  .
• ISBN 978-0241024584
  .
• ISBN 978-0684146867
  .
• Strategy of Survival. London:
  ISBN 978-0851171432
  .
• This War Called Peace, with Drew Middleton and Jeremy Murray-Brown. Universe Books (1985).
  ISBN 978-0876634639
  .
• The Gorbachev Phenomenon: Peace and the Secret War. Great Britain: Claridge Press (1990).
  ISBN 978-1870626217
  .
• Free Agent: The Unseen War, 1941-1991. London:
  ISBN 978-0060171179
  .
• The KGB Lawsuits. Great Britain: Claridge Press (1995).
  ISBN 978-1870626026
  .
• ISBN 978-0761520573
  .
• The Other Brian Croziers. Great Britain: Claridge Press (2002).
  ISBN 978-1870626644
  .
• Political Victory: The Elusive Prize of Military Wars. New Jersey:
  ISBN 978-0765802903
  .

• LCCN 64-25786
  .
• "Der Spiegel: Confirmation from the East." In: Counter Culture, vol. 2, by
  Sir James Goldsmith
  (1993), pp. 99–105.

Articles

• "The Diem Regime in Southern Vietnam."
  doi:10.2307/3023970
  .
• "The International Situation in Indochina."
  JSTOR 3035143
  .
• "France and Algeria," with
  doi:10.2307/2610008. A discussion at Chatham House
  , March 8, 1960.
• "Peking and the Laotian Crisis: An Interim Appraisal."
  JSTOR 763326
  .
• "Indonesia: Retrospect and Prospect."
  JSTOR 40393419
  .
• "Peking and the Laotian Crisis: A Further Appraisal."
  JSTOR 651454
  .
• "The Communist Struggle for Power in Burma."
  JSTOR 40393589
  .
• "The Struggle for the Third World."
  doi:10.2307/2610827
  .
• "Latin America." Encounter (Feb. 1965).
• "The Study of Conflict." Institute for the Study of Conflict (1967).
• "The Conflict of Information: 'Detente', Freedom & Constraint," with Leonid Vladimirov. Conflict Studies (1975). Institute for the Study of Conflict.
  ISSN 0069-8792
  .
• "Russia's Revolutionary Base." New Lugano Review, vol. 2, no. 8-12 (1976).
• "My Pilgrimage to Kent (Connecticut)." New Lugano Review, vol. 2, no. 11-12 (1976). pp. 8–24.
• "Pour une bribe d'empire." Revue des Deux Mondes (Apr. 1989), pp. 249–253.
  JSTOR 44185802
  .
• "Creating 'A Lot on Her Hands,'" with
  doi:10.2307/27515929
  .