The fifteenth installment of the Reconsidering Russia podcast series features celebrated American Ambassador Jack F. Matlock, Jr.

In this wide-ranging interview, Ambassador Matlock discusses his life and career. It encompasses discussions of his interest in Russia, his first meeting with his wife Rebecca, his first assignment in Moscow in 1961, his diplomatic work in Africa, his time as Director of Soviet Affairs in the State Department in the 1970s, his work for Presidents Reagan and Bush, Sr. as the American ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991, and his first impressions of, and meetings with, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Ambassador Matlock also reflects on the folly of NATO expansion and an interventionist American foreign policy.

In addition to Ambassador Matlock’s illustrious diplomatic career, he also holds a PhD in Slavic languages and literatures from Columbia University. He is the author of three books: Autopsy of an Empire (1995), Reagan and Gorbachev (2004), and Superpower Illusions (2010).