Georgi Arbatov

Georgy Arkadyevich Arbatov (; 19 May 1923 – 1 October 2010) was a Soviet–Russian political scientist. He served as an adviser to five General Secretaries of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and was best known in the West during the Cold War era as a representative for the policies of the Soviet Union in the United States, where his fluent English helped make him a frequent guest on American television.

He was the founding director and later emeritus director of the Institute for US and Canadian Studies of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (ISKRAN), the Soviet and Russian think tank for the study of the US and Canada. Arbatov died on 1 October 2010, at the age of 87. Arbatov is regarded as one of the leading Jewish figures in the Soviet Union and Russia.

Early career

Arbatov was born the son of a Bolshevik, Arkady Arbatov (1898–1954), who was of Jewish origin. Quote: "Goergii Arbatov, who was a Jew." Quote: "Born in Kherson, in what is now southern Ukraine, Arbatov suffered the disadvantage of having a Jewish father,.." Quote: "Q: How important is anti-Semitism? During your campaign for the People’s Congress you experienced some anti-Semitic attacks because your father was Jewish. A: It is at present not a strong force. These elections have shown that. Would I be absolutely not Jewish they would attack me anyway. They attack many people. like (Yegor) Yakovlev, (editor of the Moscow News) like (Vitaly) Korotich (editor of Ogonyok) as Jewish who are not Jewish at all." His father was part of several Soviet trade missions in the 1930s. Arbatov fought in the Red Army during World War II, taking part in the Revolution Day parade on Red Square on 7 November 1941 and heading from there to the front lines. Arbatov finished the war as chief of staff of the 17th Guards mortar regiment and was awarded the Order of the Red Star in 1943.

While recuperating from tuberculosis in 1944, Arbatov was in a hospital and read an item in a newspaper report stating that a state institute of international relations was being created in Moscow. He applied to attend the school and graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 1949, he was awarded a Ph.D. from the same institute in 1954.АРБАТОВ Георгий Аркадьевич
Institute for US and Canadian Studies. Accessed 4 October 2010. (Russian Language). He worked as a journalist and commentator on foreign affairs between 1953 and 1963 at ''Kommunist'' and the English language publication '' The New Times''.

Political scientist

Arbatov worked at the institute of global economics of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1963–64. He was founder director of the Institute for US and Canadian Studies (ISKRAN) from 1965 to 1995. He was appointed director emeritus of the ISKRAN in 1995. He was appointed adviser to the Central Committee of the CPSU on US matters in 1964–67. He was elected to the Central Committee in 1990 and served in the Supreme Soviet. As an adviser to five General Secretaries of the Communist Party, Arbatov was a frequent participant in arms control negotiations conducted between the US and USSR. According to the CIA, Arbatov was an intermediary between the Politburo and the KGB.

Arbatov became the face of the Soviet Union in the West, where he used his strong, though heavily accented, command of the English language to help foster ties with American officials and to present Soviet views to the American public, sparring on American television with such individuals as General Bernard Rogers, the former commander of NATO regarding the military deterrent in Western Europe to Soviet forces. Billy Graham, who had called communism "satanic", said that he had "met a very wonderful official here" after spending three hours together during Graham's 1982 visit to Moscow. Arbatov expressed sharp criticism of the Reagan administration, saying that it conducted a "campaign of demonization, of dehumanization of the other side", remarks that led to difficulties for Arbatov in obtaining visas to enter the United States during that period.Levy, Clifford J
"Georgi A. Arbatov, a Bridge Between Cold War Superpowers, Is Dead at 87"
''The New York Times'', 2 October 2010. Accessed 4 October 2010.

In his 1992 autobiography ''The System: An Insider's Life in Soviet Politics'', Arbatov credited himself as one of those individuals who had worked to implement reform "from the inside, and not from the outside, of the system" that laid the groundwork for the reforms implemented in the 1980s by Mikhail Gorbachev. Sergey Rogov

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