ambassador rudolf v. perina - Association for Diplomatic Studies and ...

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Confederation of Independent States (CIS) The Friends Group Russian goals South Ossetia conflict Transnistria conflict Russian Kozak approach US role in conflict resolution State Department; Deputy Director, Policy Planning Staff 2004-2006 Duties Influence of NSC Iraq invasion State-Defense differences Use of NSC by Secretaries of State Africa US diplomacy in the Muslim World Comments on Secretaries of State Darfur Relations with Europe Retirement 2006 Q: When and where were you born? INTERVIEW PERINA: I was born in Czechoslovakia on January 3, 1945 in a town called Tabor in southern Bohemia which was the seat of the Hussites in the 15th century. Q: I always think of the Hussites and their armored vehicles. That's quite a legacy. What do you know about your family on your father's side? PERINA: I see myself as a product of 20th-century Central European history. My father owned a lumber mill in southern Bohemia started by his grandfather in the 19th century. It was a fairly large enterprise that exported lumber all the way to Germany and throughout Central Europe in the inter-war period. He was thus considered a capitalist by Communists, which came into play after World War II. On my mother's side, her father was a civil servant in Bohemia. He was also trained as a lawyer and served as a type of deputy mayor in the town of Tabor. He was during World War II one of the many Czechs executed following the assassination in 1942 of Reinhard Heydrich, the head of the German occupation of Bohemia and the most senior Nazi successfully assassinated during the war. The well-known destruction of the town of Lidice was one part of the retaliation for Heydrich’s death but in fact thousands of people 4
throughout the country were executed as well. The Germans targeted public figures and those suspected of being Czech nationalists. My grandfather, as a representative of the town government, and his brother who had been a military officer in the Czech army, were arrested within days of Heydrich’s death. They were executed by firing squad on June 10, 1942. About 180 other people from Tabor were also executed over the course of the next few weeks. My mother was 17 years old at the time and learned of her father’s and uncle’s execution through the newspapers. It was a defining experience for the rest of her life. Q: Would you talk a little more about the town of Tabor and how far back it goes. Where did the town fit into Bohemian history? I don't know much about that area. PERINA: Well, the name Tabor comes from Mount Tabor, which is referred to in the Bible. The town was founded by the Hussites in the early 1400’s. The Hussite movement was really a type of religious uprising by followers of Jan Hus who was a precursor of Luther in criticism of Church corruption. He was invited to meet with representatives of the Pope at the Council of Constance in 1415. Though guaranteed safe passage, he was in fact arrested and burned at the stake as a heretic. This sparked other social and ethnic tensions of the declining feudal order and led to a kind of peasant uprising against the Church and the establishment. The rebellion gained momentum and led to what is known as the Hussite Wars. All of this was, of course, more complex than I am making it sound here. The most famous leader of the Hussites was a fellow named Jan Zizka, and it was his followers who established this town of Tabor. He was a brilliant military commander who defeated Papal armies across Bohemia despite eventually losing both eyes in battle. Tabor is very identified with this history and with Jan Zizka, whose statue is on the main square. My mother’s side of the family moved there from the Pilsen region after World War I. My father’s side of the family, as far as I know, had been in Tabor much further back. Q: Sudetenland or not? PERINA: No. It was outside the Sudetenland. It was part of Bohemia and then it became part of the Bohemian Protectorate established by the Germans. Q: Given the Hussite history, was this a Protestant area? What was your family? PERINA: Following the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620 when the Hapsburgs defeated the Bohemian forces, there was a counter- Reformation and most of the country was re-Catholicized. So most Czechs are Catholic but not very good Catholics. The Church does not have the standing that it does in Poland, for example. This applies to my family. We were technically Catholic but not practicing Catholics or particularly devout. Q: What about the education of both your mother and father? PERINA: My father was raised to inherit the family lumber business as was the custom 5
Page 1 and 2: The Association for Diplomatic Stud
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Page 11 and 12: Q: You said that after Cleveland yo
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Page 17 and 18: Q: What was the background of your
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Page 23 and 24: Q: During the Vietnam War, there wa
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Page 27 and 28: Q: So you were there from 1979? PER
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Page 47 and 48: PERINA: Yes, they did. Jumping ahea
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Page 51 and 52: PERINA: That is exactly right. The
Page 53 and 54: Q: OK, in 1989 you’re going to th
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PERINA: This was an issue because o
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position in Europe, and really the
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Soviet domination. They had histori
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Q: That was my impression as well w
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welcoming dinner in a restaurant an
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Q: How were you received by the Ser
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eard, and he functioned as everythi
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Part of the reason that we didn’t
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One of the more interesting people
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Q: So what was happening with Kosov
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Albanians were very anxious to have
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I remember Holbrooke’s first visi
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cannot now remember what finally tr
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Q: And this was not an idle comment
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price for having a very bad leaders
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PERINA: Certainly during the period
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Q: So you took over the Holbrooke r
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PERINA: Not really. We coordinated
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why I believed that it was not wort
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Q: Can you give a brief summary of
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PERINA: Well the American interests
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shorter visits of three to four wee
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Q: How so? PERINA: Well, he felt un
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Q: Still, it strikes me that all of
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As for the European Union, most Mol
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PERINA: Nagorno-Karabakh is the mos
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e called the “Prague Process” w
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we physically crossed the front lin
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were about three-quarters of the po
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down to the Black Sea. Since I was
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PERINA: It is difficult to say. He
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political interests to keep it goin
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a huge personal embarrassment. It l
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clearly followed the advice because
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good governance and so on. In its b
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Deputy Secretary, Richard Armitage,
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PERINA: Relations with Europe were
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End of interview 129
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