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Richard Vincent Allen (born 1936) was the United States National Security Advisor to President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1982.

Graduate of Saint Francis Preparatory School, Spring Grove, Pa.

Allen received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Notre Dame. He served as a senior staff member of President Nixon's National Security Council in 1968 and served various Republican administrations up to and including that of President Reagan.

In November 1981, while serving as Reagan's National Security Advisor, Allen was accused of receiving a bribe from a journalist from Japan for setting up an interview in January 1981 with First Lady Nancy Reagan. Ronald Reagan said, in his diary, that the Japanese magazine gave cash gifts to people that it interviewed, and that Allen had stepped in to intercept the cheque to avoid embarrassment for Nancy Reagan, then gave the cheque to his secretary, who put it in an office safe. Then when Allen changed offices, the cheque was found left in the safe. The FBI cleared everyone involved, then the Justice Department began its own investigation, and the story got leaked to the press. Reagan believed it was just political sabotage behind leaking the story.^[1] Although the claims were never proven, Allen was eventually pressed into resigning his position.

He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a member of the Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center Advisory Council, the Council on Foreign Relations, the United States Defense Policy Board, the American Alternative Foundation, and the United States National Security Advisory Group. He also serves on the advisory council of the Nixon Center.

Allen is president of the Richard V. Allen Company, a Washington-based consulting services firm. He provides consulting services to international companies and organizations. He currently serves on APCO Worldwide's Iraq reconstruction task force and is considered one of the most influential lobbyists in Washington for South Korean interests.^[2]

Richard Allen is also a fellow of St. Margaret's College, one of New Zealand's most prestigious residential colleges.^[3]

Bibliography

• Allen, Richard V. (1969). Yearbook On International Communist Affairs 1968. Hoover Institution Press. ISBN 0-8179-1801-9.

References

External links

• Richard V. Allen profile, NNDB.
• Statement of Richard Allen before the Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, October 11, 2001.
• Letter to President Bush on the War on Terrorism, signed by Richard V. Allen, September 20, 2001.
• Interview with Miller Center of Public Affairs - Presidential Oral History Program.

National Security Advisors of the United States Cutler • Anderson • Jackson • Cutler • Gray • Bundy • Rostow • Kissinger • Scowcroft • Brzezinski • Allen • Clark • McFarlane • Poindexter • Carlucci • Powell • Scowcroft • Lake • Berger • Rice • Hadley • Jones