Richard V. Allen

Allen wrote a New York Times article in 2000 detailing his role in the recruitment of George H. W. Bush to be Reagan's vice president.

Also in 1981 Richard Allen said that an unidentified third country (possibly Canada) had passed on an offer of 50 Vietnam War POWs in return for $4 billion. In lengthy, closed-door testimony under oath to committee investigators on June 23, 1992, he generally confirmed Hanoi's 1981 offer. Allen was asked by a committee staffer, "Soon after taking office, did the Reagan administration become involved in an offer made by the Vietnamese government for the return of live prisoners of war, if you can recall?"

In November 1981, while serving as Reagan's National Security Advisor, Allen was accused of receiving a bribe from a Japanese journalist 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 check to avoid embarrassment for Nancy Reagan, then gave the check to his secretary, who put it in an office safe. Then when Allen changed offices, the check 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. A classified US government source later revealed that Allen and his Potomac Associates partners were caught soliciting bribes/"consulting fees" from Japanese corporations. Japanese security operations reported the crime to the US Embassy in Tokyo and requested the US government quietly handle the removal. Although the claims were never proven, Allen was eventually pressed into taking a leave of absence, his position being filled by his deputy, James W. Nance, and ultimately resigning his position on January 4, 1982.

Allen worked at the Center for Strategic and International Studies from 1962 to 1966. He was then a senior staff member of the Hoover Institution from 1966 to 1968, leaving to become foreign policy coordinator to Richard Nixon, and serving twice in the Nixon White House. He was then Ronald Reagan's chief foreign policy advisor from 1977 to 1980, before being appointed as Reagan's first National Security Advisor.

Richard Vincent Allen (born January 1, 1936) was the United States National Security Advisor to President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1982, having been Reagan's chief foreign policy advisor from 1977. He has been a fellow of the Hoover Institution since 1983. He is a past member of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee.

Allen was born in 1936 in Collingswood, New Jersey. A graduate of Saint Francis Preparatory School in Spring Grove, Pennsylvania, Allen received his BA and MA degrees from the University of Notre Dame. His MA from Notre Dame is in political science.