Public Remarks and Interviews by Ambassador Beyrle
Ambassador’s Interview in Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti (September 4, 2008)
Headline: “One Would Like to Hope That Not Everything Has Been Lost”
Teaser: U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Beyrle starts his new job under extremely trying circumstances.
Newspaper’s Lead: New U.S. Ambassador John Beyrle’s visit to St. Petersburg coincided with the appeals from the Federation Council and the Duma to President Dmitry Medvedev to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Independence has since been recognized. The U.S. and Russian positions on this issue are well known and will be repeated often in the near future. Our correspondent Anastasiya DOLGOSHEVA spoke with Ambassador Beyrle about his personal experiences in Russia as well as the current state of relations between the two countries.
Mr. Beyrle, you’ve worked in Moscow twice before. Your first time was in 1983-85. Did you get a chance to see perestroika?
I was in Moscow from 1983 to 1985. I was there right before the arrival of Mikhail Gorbachev. So most of the big changes were still ahead, but it was already clear then that some changes were coming. It was difficult to predict what exactly like these changes would be, but it was clear that changes will happen.
Some say, you didn’t believe in the possibility of the collapse of the Soviet Union…
I would not say that’s true. I would say that the collapse of the Soviet Union took most of the Communist Party’s leadership by surprise. Certainly the speed with which it happened in the late 1980s – early 1990s took a lot of the world by surprise. But I’d say I would count myself among those who always hoped for a better future for Russia – and Russia sees that better future now after all these changes.
You worked at the Embassy in Russia for a second time precisely 20 years later. What was it like – “to serve in the same place but in a different country?”
There was a very different manner of working after the Cold War was over. During the Cold War when we at the Embassy would go and meet our Soviet counterparts, we would have discussions many times across the table. When I came back 20 years later to work with my Russian colleagues at the Foreign Ministry or other ministries, many times we were sitting on the same side of the table, working on the same sheet of paper, trying to come up with new ideas which would allow our cooperation and our partnership to not only help ourselves – our two countries – but also help the world as a whole to be more stable and safer.
Finally, your third time in Russia, now as Ambassador: Your predecessor William Burns, in an interview with our newspaper, said that he would advise American diplomats in Russia to listen to their interlocutors. You probably don’t need this advice as you’ve worked in our country for so many years.
I’ve known Bill Burns for many, many years and have tremendous respect for him as a diplomat and consider him a friend. And I watched with admiration from my previous post [as the U.S. Ambassador to Bulgaria – A.D.] as he worked in Russia and I saw the bridges of dialogue that he was able to build. And I agree very much that the key to being effective as a diplomat is being a good listener, understanding the point of view of your interlocutor –and taking that into account – and then being as effective as you can in explaining that to Washington when you begin talking about building policies to help cooperation move forward.
Many high-ranking diplomats to Russia have previously studied in Leningrad. You are one of those. Was it easy for a young American student to get to Leningrad?
[The Ambassador switches into Russian with no accent whatsoever – A.D.] Yes,
it was really easy, even in the seventies, because there was an excellent student
exchange program then. I participated in this program and many of my colleagues
started their careers here, in Leningrad, at LGU, at the Philology Department.
We lived in a dorm, together with our Soviet roommates. Not only did this facilitate
our better learning the language, culture, and history, but also from a personal
point of view, we could better understand each other.
Does any one particular event stand out in your mind from those days?
I guess, I remember best of all the first Russian winter which I experienced here in Leningrad. I never expected anything of the kind! As the [Russian] saying goes, I could feel “on my own skin” what I had only read about in Russian novels and had then tried to imagine what a “Russian winter” was really like.
These days we also only have a vague idea of a “Russian winter.” Do you still have any Leningrad acquaintances from those days?
Of course, I guess they still live in Petersburg. Unfortunately, I lost contact with them many years ago.
You studied here at about the same time as Putin…
I know that the Philology Department was situated very close to the Law School, so we, in fact, could have run into each other. I don’t know for sure, of course, but it could have been …
When potential candidates for the position of U.S. Ambassador were under discussed, we heard a lot of stories about you. First, is it true that your father, Joseph Beyrle, served in the Red Army?
I would say he is one of the few Americans, maybe the only American, who served both in the U.S. Army and the Red Army fighting against the Nazis in WWII. He was a paratrooper, who jumped into Normandy on D-Day, but he was captured by the Germans very soon after that and he spent six months in prison camps. He escaped and was re-captured twice, but the third time he escaped and managed to link up with a Russian tank unit in what is now Polish territory, on the 2nd Belorussian Front. And he fought with them for several days or several weeks – we do not know for sure, until he was seriously wounded and treated in a Russian hospital. In that hospital he was fortunate to meet Marshal Zhukov who was making an inspection of that region and who heard there was an American soldier who was fighting with the Red Army. Marshal Zhukov gave him a letter of transit -- and with that letter of transit he was able to return to the United States through Moscow in February 1945.
The second story: Did you, in fact, meet with Alexey Maresiev?
Yes, I will never forget this meeting. We met not only with Maresiev, we met with General Batov. This was in 1979, and I remember very clearly that Maresiev gave me a copy of the book written about him – “A Story of a True Man” – with his autograph. And I still have that book and I read it soon after that. I will never forget that meeting. Never.
What did your father think about your studying Russian? He had not told you about his military service for a long time.
Well, he did not tell us a lot about his wartime experiences, because some of those things were so terrible – you don’t tell your children about those things. But the fact that I began to study Russian and began to travel to Russia was a source of great pride to him and allowed him to come again to Russia, visit me, and meet people like Maresiev and Batov and even receive a medal from Boris Yeltsin in the Rose Room of the White House. But people often say to me: “You’ve opened a lot of doors for your father in Russia.” Actually, my father opened many more doors to me here in Russia.
There is a book about your father’s life. What impressed you most of all?
Oh, I think without a doubt, the story about how he was tortured by the Gestapo, because he never talked about that.
Another rumor: Is that true that you know the song “Victory Day” by heart?
[Back to Russian – A.D.]. Not only that one. I also know Vysotsky’s “Wolf Hunting.” How come? I worked as a guide at American exhibits which were part of our cultural exchanges. And for someone who lived in Russia for years and studied Russian culture, it would be a shame not to know at least a few songs by Vysotsky.
Excuse me please, a question about vodka. They say that you drink it Russian style, without water.
Well, frankly I prefer bourbon. But when I drink vodka, I drink it from a shot glass and with no ice.
This interview was supposed to be about your personal life, but nevertheless: Did you ever start a new job with such difficult challenges – I mean our different positions on Georgia...
I’ve been working in the area of U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Soviet relations for most of my life. So I’ve seen a lot of periods when we had a lot of confrontations between our two countries. As I said, we – America and Russia – have a large responsibility for the stability not only of our own two countries but for the rest of the world. That just means that I will have to work at lot harder at my new post.
But there will be consequences for the relationship. What exactly those consequences will be, perhaps it is too early to say, but there will be consequences for our ability to work together, and we regret this very, very much. We regret that Russia’s actions have made it more difficult for us and for others in the world community to work with Russia.
We were frankly dismayed by Russia’s decision to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. We do not see this as constructive because it is a direct affront to the territorial integrity of Georgia, and contradicts previous agreements regarding the conflict to Georgia -- including UN resolutions that were only recently supported by Russia as well.
In general, I think the history of U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Soviet relations is a history of very successful, lengthy cooperation with moments of tension and disagreements. And I’d say that at this time, when we are going through a period of some tensions in our bilateral relations, it’s important to remember that Russians and Americans are serving together on a space station; it’s important to remember that the joint work we are doing to fight global terrorism and to reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation is continuing. One would like to hope that not everything has been lost. But it will be a lot more difficult to continue on the same way that we have before.
What do you see as your primary goal as a U.S. Ambassador?
Well, the goal – the job – of any ambassador – of any diplomat – is to promote his country’s interests. And the important thing is to do this by finding areas of commonality with the country he serves in, which helps to promote your own country’s interests – and find points of commonality with the country where you are serving.
Could you please say a few words about your family?
I have a wife to whom I’ve been happily married for 25 years. My wife is also a Foreign Service officer, a diplomat, also specializing in Russia and she speaks very good Russian. And we have two daughters, one of whom is a college student and she studies in the U.S., and the other will go to high school here, in Russia. They speak Russian a little bit.
Do you always start speaking in Russian when talking about your youth?
You know, I switch into Russian without even noticing it. Russian is not the
most difficult foreign language for me, because I started studying it when
I was 18. Czech was the most difficult language for me to learn, because I
started learning it when I was over forty.
