INDIANA UNIVERSITY ALUMNUS NAMED NEW U.S. AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA

NOTE: Professor Alexander Rabinowitch will be attending the swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday (Sept. 2) and can be reached for comment that evening at 812-339-8575.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- James F. Collins (M.A. 1964), an alumnus of Indiana University's Russian and East European Institute (REEI) and Department of History, will be confirmed Tuesday (Sept. 2) as the new U.S. ambassador to Russia. The swearing-in ceremony will be held at 11:30 a.m. in the State Department Treaty Room, 2201 C St. NW, Washington, D.C.

Collins, who speaks Russian, German and Turkish, assumes the ambassadorship after four years as ambassador-at-large to the new independent states of the former Soviet Union, and three years as deputy chief of mission at the American embassy in Moscow. He has also served on the staff of the National Security Council and is a former director of the State Department's operations center.

"We are pleased to see another member of our alumni family succeed," said IU President Myles Brand of Collins' appointment. "He joins a distinguished group of IU graduates who play a leading role in world affairs. Indiana University has a tradition of excellence in the study of Eastern Europe, including Russia, and Ambassador Collins' alma mater stands ready to assist him as he assumes his duties. We offer him our best wishes for success."

Patrick O'Meara, dean of International Programs at IU, noted that the university "is doubly honored by the appointment. "Not only is James Collins a graduate of IU," said O'Meara, "but so is his wife, Naomi, who until recently served as executive director of NAFSA: Association of International Educators." Naomi Feldman Collins earned her Ph.D. in British history from IU in 1970. The Collinses have two sons, Robert and Jonathan.

A native of Aurora, Ill., Collins earned his bachelor's degree from Harvard University. Before joining the State Department, he worked as an assistant professor at the U.S. Naval Academy. His honors include distinguished, superior and meritorious honor awards.

"He was a very hard worker, very bright and very determined," said Alexander Rabinowitch, who was a friend and IU classmate of Collins' and also a former director of the institute. "I think those qualities have served him well. I've been with him one or two times at the Moscow embassy. He worked like a bear then and he works like a bear now."

At IU in the 1960s, Collins studied with some of the leading specialists in Russian affairs, including the late Robert F. Byrnes, Distinguished Professor and founding director of REEI, and Professor Emeritus Darrell Hammer, a well-known scholar of Soviet and Russian politics.

"The institute has one of the largest and most diverse groups of specialists in Russian history in the country," Rabinowitch said. "Some faculty have purely academic backgrounds and some have government backgrounds, so students are exposed to a lot of different influences and perspectives. For example, Bob Byrnes, who was one of Jim's mentors, had been a consultant to the CIA. John Thompson, who mentored both Jim and me, had been in the foreign service. They were both also very good historians."

The interdisciplinary nature of the institute is just one of its strengths, as are the dedication and commitment of its faculty and staff, O'Meara said. "They are continuing a legacy that began when IU Chancellor Herman Wells supported the institute at a time when McCarthy-era politics made it unpopular to study Russia."

Collins' most recent visit to campus was in May 1996 after he delivered the keynote address at an REEI-sponsored forum in Indianapolis, "Russian Presidential Elections 1996: International Business and Policy Implications."

"The talk, in which Collins laid out U.S. policy toward Russia and the other states of the region, was warmly received by the nearly 100 guests from the Indianapolis business, government and professional communities," said current REEI Director David Ransel. "This forum was just one in a continuing series of informational meetings sponsored by REEI that bring many leading government and academic specialists to Indiana each year."

For more information, contact Jeff Austin, Office of Communications and Marketing, 812-855-0084, jeaustin@indiana.edu

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