Scholars Online
Mark Garrison
Watson Institute for International Studies – Brown University
Filmed in October 2008.
- Who are you and what do you do? [1:02]
- How were U.S.-Soviet relations while you were in Moscow? [2:26]
- How was Gorbachev different from other Soviet leaders? [2:29]
- What were the key U.S. concerns after the end of the Soviet Union? [1:33]
- How did Russia react to NATO expansion? [1:54]
- What are the implications of proposed NATO expansion to the Ukraine and Georgia? [1:47]
- What are the most important issues on the US-Russia agenda in the coming decade? [1:14]
Filmed in July 2011
- What was the Cold War? [2:07]
- What was the status of US-Soviet relations just prior to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? [2:40]
- What was your role in Moscow at the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? [1:27]
- How would you characterize your meetings with Soviet officials? [1:48]
- How did President Carter react to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? [1:58]
- What was the Soviet Union's reaction to President Carter's letter? [0:59]
- What kind of advice did Ambassador Watson send back to Washington? [2:48]
- Was the U.S. response a surprise to the Soviet government? [1:32]
- How did the invasion affect U.S. policy towards the Soviet Union? [1:18]
Mark Garrison served from 1982-1993 as the founding director of Brown University’s Center for Foreign Policy Development. Prior to his work at Brown, Garrison served for 25 years in the U.S. Foreign Service. He served as deputy chief of mission and charge d’affaires in Moscow during the Carter Administration. His Foreign Service assignments also included reporting on Sino-Soviet relations from Hong Kong, assisting in the reopening of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Bulgaria, 1960-1962; heading the political/economic section in the U.S. Embassy in Czechoslovakia during the “Prague Spring” and subsequent Soviet invasion, and directing the Office of Soviet Union Affairs in the State Department. Garrison holds MAs from Indiana University and Columbia University. He was a senior State Department fellow at Stanford University and, while serving in the State Department in Washington, he taught at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He co-edited, with Abbott Gleason, Shared Destiny: Fifty Years of Soviet-American Relations (Beacon Press, 1985). Garrison is an emeritus member of the Watson Institute’s Board of Overseers.
