Hans J. Morgenthau

Hans J. Morgenthau
Founder

Hans J. Morgenthau, (1904-1980) was a founder of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy in 1974 and its first chairman. As he defined and illuminated the national interests of the United States from the perspective of political realism, he became a seminal theorist of international relations. Accordingly, the National Committee’s Hans J. Morgenthau Award is presented in his memory to individuals whose intellectual and practical contributions to American foreign policy have been judged to be so exemplary in the tradition of Professor Morgenthau that they merit the singular award.

Born and educated in Germany, he fled his country at the age of 33 and settled permanently in the United States where he was appointed to prestigious university positions, including chairs named for the Albert A. Michelson Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and Modern History at the University of New York (CUNY). In addition to teaching at CUNY’s Graduate Center, he served as a visiting professor at Harvard, Columbia, Northwestern, the University of California, and Yale. Professor Morgenthau was an adviser to both the U.S. State Department and the Defense Department.

His acclaimed work in the fields of international relations and foreign affairs includes Politics Among Nations; Science: Servant or Master?; A New Foreign Policy for the United States; Politics in the Twentieth Century; and In Defense of the National Interest.