Robert D. Crane
Encyclopedia
Dr. Robert Dickson Crane (born on March 26, 1929) is the former adviser to the late President of the United States
Richard Nixon
, and is former Deputy Director (for Planning) of the United States National Security Council
. He has authored or co-authored more than a dozen books and over 50 professional articles on comparative legal systems, global strategy, and information management.
. In 1945, at the age of 16, he entered Harvard University
to study Russian as the first step in becoming an international journalist. In 1948, he became the first American permitted to study at a university in Occupied Germany, having been accepted at the University of Munich. There he studied the sociology of religion
and prepared a book on the phenomenon of totalitarian ideology and on the spiritual dynamics of resistance
against it. As a result of what he describes as “field work” with the anti-Communist underground in Eastern Europe
, Dr. Crane says he celebrated his twentieth birthday as a prisoner in Stalin’s Gulag Archipelago.
Upon his return to the United States
, Dr. Crane got his B.A. from Northwestern University
, Evanston, Illinois
, in 1956, graduating summa cum laude, with majors in political science
, economic planning
and Sino-Soviet
studies. He went on to obtain his J.D.
from Harvard Law School
, Cambridge, MA in 1959 with specialty in comparative legal systems
and international investment
. His thesis was titled "The Accomomodation of Ethics in International Commercial Arbitration" and was published in the Arbitration Journal, Fall 1959. At Harvard, he also founded the Harvard International Law Journal
and acted as the first president of the Harvard International Law Society.
Dr. Crane was admitted to the District of Columbia Bar in 1960.
(CSIS). In 1966, he left to become Director of Third World
Studies at the first professional futures forecasting center, The Hudson Institute
, led by Herman Kahn
.
From the time of the Cuban missile crisis
in 1962 until the beginning of Richard Nixon
’s victorious campaign for the presidency in 1967, Dr. Crane was a foreign policy adviser, responsible for preparing a “reader's digest” of professional articles for him on the key foreign policy issues. During the campaign, Dr. Crane collected his position papers into a book, Inescapable Rendezvous: New Directions for American Foreign Policy, with a foreword by Congressman Gerald Ford
, who succeeded Nixon as President.
On January 20, 1969, Dr. Crane moved into the White House
as Deputy Director (for Planning) of the National Security Council
. In 1977-78 he spent a year as Principal Economic and Budget Adviser to the Finance Minister in the Emirate of Bahrain.
In September 1981, President Ronald Reagan
appointed Dr. Crane to be U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates
, but this also was short-lived. Dr. Crane has stated that President Reagan’s friend, Judge William Clark, who became Director of the National Security Council, wanted him as the first Muslim American ambassador, to pursue two-track diplomacy
by developing relations with the various Islamist movements in the Middle East
and North Africa
. According to Dr. Crane,the new Secretary of State, Alexander Haig
, did not agree with this policy and had him fired.
as its Director of Publications, and then helped to found the American Muslim Council
, now defunct serving as Director of its Legal Division from 1992 to 1994.
From 1994 until the present time he has headed his own research center, the Center for Policy Research, located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Washington, D.C. Since 1996 he has also been a board member of the United Association for Studies and Research and Managing Editor of its Middle East Affairs Journal. Dr. Crane has been a long-time principal adviser to Hamas official Dr. Ahmed Yousef, also associated with the Journal Middle East Affairs.
He is also an editor for the online magazine The American Muslim
.
Dr. Crane was also the founding President of the American Muslim Bar Association.
These books have been augmented by numerous monographs, including the following produced under the Islamic Institute for Strategic Studies before the September 11, 2001 attacks
:
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
, and is former Deputy Director (for Planning) of the United States National Security Council
United States National Security Council
The White House National Security Council in the United States is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials and is part of the Executive Office of the...
. He has authored or co-authored more than a dozen books and over 50 professional articles on comparative legal systems, global strategy, and information management.
Early life and education
Crane was born in Cambridge, MassachusettsCambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
. In 1945, at the age of 16, he entered Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
to study Russian as the first step in becoming an international journalist. In 1948, he became the first American permitted to study at a university in Occupied Germany, having been accepted at the University of Munich. There he studied the sociology of religion
Sociology of religion
The sociology of religion concerns the role of religion in society: practices, historical backgrounds, developments and universal themes. There is particular emphasis on the recurring role of religion in all societies and throughout recorded history...
and prepared a book on the phenomenon of totalitarian ideology and on the spiritual dynamics of resistance
Resistance movement
A resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups, dedicated to opposing an invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign state. It may seek to achieve its objects through either the use of nonviolent resistance or the use of armed force...
against it. As a result of what he describes as “field work” with the anti-Communist underground in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
, Dr. Crane says he celebrated his twentieth birthday as a prisoner in Stalin’s Gulag Archipelago.
Upon his return to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Dr. Crane got his B.A. from Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
, Evanston, Illinois
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
, in 1956, graduating summa cum laude, with majors in political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
, economic planning
Economic planning
Economic planning refers to any directing or planning of economic activity outside the mechanisisms of the market, in an attempt to achieve specific economic or social outcomes. Planning is an economic mechanism for resource allocation and decision-making in contrast with the market mechanism...
and Sino-Soviet
Sino-Soviet relations
Sino-Soviet relations refers to the diplomatic relationship between China and the various forms of Soviet Power which emerged from the Russian Revolution of 1917 to 1991, when the Soviet Union ceased to exist.-Russian Civil War and Mongolia:...
studies. He went on to obtain his J.D.
Juris Doctor
Juris Doctor is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law.The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree Juris Doctor (see etymology and...
from Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
, Cambridge, MA in 1959 with specialty in comparative legal systems
Comparative law
Comparative law is the study of differences and similarities between the law of different countries. More specifically, it involves study of the different legal systems in existence in the world, including the common law, the civil law, socialist law, Islamic law, Hindu law, and Chinese law...
and international investment
International finance
International finance is the branch of economics that studies the dynamics of exchange rates, foreign investment, global financial system, and how these affect international trade. It also studies international projects, international investments and capital flows, and trade deficits. It includes...
. His thesis was titled "The Accomomodation of Ethics in International Commercial Arbitration" and was published in the Arbitration Journal, Fall 1959. At Harvard, he also founded the Harvard International Law Journal
Harvard International Law Journal
The Harvard International Law Journal is the oldest and most-cited academic journal of international law in the United States. It is run and edited by students at Harvard Law School, but relies on input from peer reviewers...
and acted as the first president of the Harvard International Law Society.
Dr. Crane was admitted to the District of Columbia Bar in 1960.
Political career
In 1962, Dr. Crane became one of the four co-founders of the first Washington-based foreign-policy think-tank, the Center for Strategic and International StudiesCenter for Strategic and International Studies
The Center for Strategic and International Studies is a bipartisan Washington, D.C., foreign policy think tank. The center was founded in 1962 by Admiral Arleigh Burke and Ambassador David Manker Abshire, originally as part of Georgetown University...
(CSIS). In 1966, he left to become Director of Third World
Third World
The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...
Studies at the first professional futures forecasting center, The Hudson Institute
Hudson Institute
The Hudson Institute is an American think tank founded in 1961, in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, by futurist, military strategist, and systems theorist Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation...
, led by Herman Kahn
Herman Kahn
Herman Kahn was one of the preeminent futurists of the latter third of the twentieth century. In the early 1970s he predicted the rise of Japan as a major world power. He was a founder of the Hudson Institute think tank and originally came to prominence as a military strategist and systems...
.
From the time of the Cuban missile crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
in 1962 until the beginning of Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
’s victorious campaign for the presidency in 1967, Dr. Crane was a foreign policy adviser, responsible for preparing a “reader's digest” of professional articles for him on the key foreign policy issues. During the campaign, Dr. Crane collected his position papers into a book, Inescapable Rendezvous: New Directions for American Foreign Policy, with a foreword by Congressman Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
, who succeeded Nixon as President.
On January 20, 1969, Dr. Crane moved into the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
as Deputy Director (for Planning) of the National Security Council
United States National Security Council
The White House National Security Council in the United States is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials and is part of the Executive Office of the...
. In 1977-78 he spent a year as Principal Economic and Budget Adviser to the Finance Minister in the Emirate of Bahrain.
In September 1981, President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
appointed Dr. Crane to be U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...
, but this also was short-lived. Dr. Crane has stated that President Reagan’s friend, Judge William Clark, who became Director of the National Security Council, wanted him as the first Muslim American ambassador, to pursue two-track diplomacy
Track II diplomacy
Track II diplomacy is a specific kind of informal diplomacy, in which non-officials engage in dialogue, with the aim of conflict resolution, or confidence-building...
by developing relations with the various Islamist movements in the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
and North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
. According to Dr. Crane,the new Secretary of State, Alexander Haig
Alexander Haig
Alexander Meigs Haig, Jr. was a United States Army general who served as the United States Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan and White House Chief of Staff under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford...
, did not agree with this policy and had him fired.
Conversion to Islam
According to Crane, "Allah converted me to Islam when I was five years old, and again through a religious experience when I was 21, but I did not know there were other persons in the world who understood what Allah showed me until I met an old man in Bahrain who told me that there is a word for what I worshiped, and this is "Allah." I figured that all Muslims could not be bad, as I had thought before, if this man was so good and was an admitted Muslim. I did not choose to become a Muslim. I am and have always been a Muslim, but did not know it self-consciously until I was 50 years old.”Muslim activism
From the early 1980s, Dr. Crane has worked full-time as a Muslim activist in America. From 1983 to 1986, he was the Director of Da’wa at the Islamic Center on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C. In 1986 he joined the International Institute of Islamic ThoughtInternational Institute of Islamic Thought
The International Institute of Islamic Thought is a privately held non-profit organization.The Institution is concerned with issues of Islamic thought...
as its Director of Publications, and then helped to found the American Muslim Council
American Muslim Council
The American Muslim Council is an Islamic organization and registered charity in the United States. Its headquarters is located in Chicago, Illinois....
, now defunct serving as Director of its Legal Division from 1992 to 1994.
From 1994 until the present time he has headed his own research center, the Center for Policy Research, located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Washington, D.C. Since 1996 he has also been a board member of the United Association for Studies and Research and Managing Editor of its Middle East Affairs Journal. Dr. Crane has been a long-time principal adviser to Hamas official Dr. Ahmed Yousef, also associated with the Journal Middle East Affairs.
He is also an editor for the online magazine The American Muslim
The American Muslim
The American Muslim began as a quarterly print journal, in print from 1989 to 1995. Founded by Editor Sheila Musaji, The American Muslim featured original art, Islamic calligraphy, diverse articles and prose...
.
Dr. Crane was also the founding President of the American Muslim Bar Association.
Publications
His more than a dozen authored or co-authored books include:- Détente: Cold War Strategies in Transition, DullesEleanor Lansing DullesEleanor Lansing Dulles was an author, teacher and United States Government employee. She was a member of a diplomatic dynasty which spanned three generations. Her grandfather, John Watson Foster, served as United States Secretary of State under President Benjamin Harrison...
and Crane, CSIS, Praeger, 1965 - Planning the Future of Saudi Arabia: A Model for Achieving National Priorities, Praeger, 1978
- Shaping the Future: Challenge and Response, Tapestry, 1997.
These books have been augmented by numerous monographs, including the following produced under the Islamic Institute for Strategic Studies before the September 11, 2001 attacks
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
:
- Meta-law: An Islamic Policy Paradigm, 49 pages
- The Grand Strategy of Justice, 83 pages
- Kosovo and Chechnya: Products of the Past, Harbingers of the Future, 32 pages
- The Role of Religion in America, 24 pages
- The Muslim Challenge in America and the World, 35 pages