Engineer Memoirs
Soviet Mission, Geneva, Switzerland. Ambassador Edward L. Rowny, second from right, June
1984.
You have spoken about the importance of U.S. negotiators being able to speak
Russian. Where did you learn to speak Russian?
I went to the Yale graduate school in 1947. I really wanted to study international
A:
relations, but the Army said they didn't have any programs in this field. They said
I could, however, study engineering. As a result, I moonlighted. I earned two
master's degrees simultaneously-one in engineering and the other in international
relations. To get a master's degree you needed to be proficient in two foreign
language. I had studied French and decided to pursue it as one of my languages.
And since I decided to deal with nuclear weapons and that meant dealing with the
only other superpower, I decided to study Russian. I'm not at the translator level
but understand and speak Russian fairly well.
144
Previous Page
