Richard Vincent Allen (January 1, 1936 – November 16, 2024) was United States National Security Advisor under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1982.

[2][3][4] A graduate of Saint Francis Preparatory School in Spring Grove, Pennsylvania,[citation needed] Allen received his B.A.

[3] He then joined the Hoover Institution as a senior staff member of from 1966 to 1968, when he left to become foreign policy coordinator to Richard Nixon.

[1] In July 2000, Allen wrote an article for The New York Times, detailing his role in the recruitment of George H. W. Bush to be Reagan's vice president.

A classified U.S. government source later revealed that Allen and his Potomac Associates partners were caught soliciting bribes, paid as "consulting fees" from Japanese corporations.

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?"

[9] Allen became a senior fellow at Stanford University's 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 served on APCO Worldwide's Iraq reconstruction task force and is considered one of the most influential lobbyists in Washington, D.C. for South Korea's interests.