Oral history interview with Vladimir Petrovsky, 2000

Biographical Note

Director-General of United Nations Office in Geneva

Scope and Contents

Born 1933 in Stalingrad, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Volgograd, Russia). Education: Moscow State Institute of International Relations. Career: Soviet Union mission to the UN; chief of protocol for prime minister of USSR; personal secretary of USSR foreign minister; assistant in UN Secretariat; head of American Department of Foreign Policy Planning Staff in Soviet Foreign Ministry; deputy foreign minister for the USSR; head of political department of UN Secretariat; Director-General of UN Office in Geneva. Themes: early international experiences during World War II, interest in diplomacy and negotiation; Helsinki process (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE); disarmament and nonproliferation negotiations; belief in importance of democratic, evolutionary change in Russia; importance of multilateralism; problems of USSR militarism and isolation; preventive diplomacy; UN activity in Geneva versus New York; focus on individuals rather than states in UN; challenges of representing unpopular Soviet policy decisions; Non-Aligned movement; personal diplomatic relations; linkages of issues in diplomacy; human rights; changes in USSR in 1980s; legal institutions in international diplomacy; importance of regional organizations; usefulness of diplomatic conferences; relationship between academia and policymaking; problems of UN bureaucracy; role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs)

Subjects

• Arms control.
• Democracy--Russia (Federation)
• Diplomacy.
• Diplomats--Soviet Union--Interviews.
• Interviews
• Non-governmental organizations.
• Nonalignment.
• Nuclear nonproliferation.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
• Petrovskiĭ, Vladimir Fedorovich--Interviews.
• Soviet Union--Foreign relations--1945-1991.
• United Nations--History.
• United Nations--Officials and employees--Interviews.
• United Nations--Soviet Union.
• United Nations Office at Geneva.
• Weiss, Thomas G. (Thomas George), 1946- interviewer.

Access Conditions

Copyright by the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, 2002