Former President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser will give the next Benedum Lecture Series talk at 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 23, at West Virginia University’s Creative Arts Center.

Zbigniew Brzezinski will lecture onU.S. National Security in the New Erain the CAC ’s Lyell B. Clay Concert Theatre. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Terrorism and National Security Policy: International and Domestic Implicationsis the theme for this year’s lecture series. In its 23 rd year, the lecture series brings nationally and internationally known researchers and scholars to the WVU campus to speak on timely topics.

Brzezinski is counselor for the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Robert E. Osgood Professor of American Foreign Policy in the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C.

He served as Carter’s national security adviser from 1977-81 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981 for his role in normalizing U.S.-China relations and his contributions to the nation’s human rights and national security policies.

His other government activities include serving on the State Department’s Policy Planning Council from 1966-68 and the President’s Chemical Warfare Commission, the National Security Council-Defense Department Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy and the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in the 1980s.

A native of Poland and son of a diplomat, Brzezinski obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science from McGill University and his doctorate in political science from Harvard University. He taught at Harvard from 1953-60 and at Columbia University from 1960-89.

In 1973 Brzezinski became the first director of the Trilateral Commission, a group of academics, business leaders and politicians dedicated to strengthening relations among the United States, Western Europe and Japan. Carter also served on the commission, and when he declared his candidacy for the White House, Brzezinski joined the campaign as an adviser. He became national security adviser following Carter’s victory in1976.

Brzezinski has written several books on global affairs. They include his latest work,The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership,and his best-seller,The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives.

The Benedum Lecture Series is sponsored by the Claude Worthington Benedum Endowment and the Office of the Provost and coordinated by the Distinguished and Chaired Professors of WVU .