Interview with Ambassador Robert William (Bill) Farrand, 2021-06-21, 2021-06-26, 2021-07-02
Scope and Contents
Ambassador Farrand talks about his long successful career in the U.S. State Department, the importance of the Soviet psychiatric abuse to the U.S. government and the larger context of the U.S. - U.S.S.R. relationships. As a person who worked closely with Ambassador Richard Schifter for many years, Mr. Farrand describes Schifter's goals and vision of the 1989 psychiatric mission to the U.S.S.R.
Mr. Farrand describes the process of negotiating the terms of the visit and shares insights about interacting with a superpower as the Soviet Union was at that time. He also talks about the the peculiarities of governance in the U.S.S.R., and power dynamics inside the country. Mr. Farrand describes the efforts to preserve transparency and independence of the mission as well as managing its financial aspects and its highlighting in media. Mr. Farrand also talks about glasnost, perestroika, and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Olena Protsenko, a Post-doctoral Research Associate in Psychiatry and Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, conducted this interview remotely over the Zoom application.
Dates
- Creation: 2021-06-21
- Creation: 2021-06-26
- Creation: 2021-07-02
Creator
- From the Collection: Roth, Loren H. (Person)
- From the Collection: Bloom, Joseph D. (Person)
- From the Collection: Borissow, Kyrill (Person)
- From the Collection: Carpenter, William T. (Person)
- From the Collection: Farrand, Robert William, 1934- (Person)
- From the Collection: Hirschfeld, Robert M. A. (Person)
- From the Collection: Hopkins, William H. (William Hugh), 1942- (Person)
- From the Collection: Keith, Samuel J. (Person)
- From the Collection: Kleyman, Felix, Dr. (Person)
- From the Collection: Kovalev, A. A. (Andreĭ Anatolʹevich) (Person)
- From the Collection: Mercer, Ellen Robertson (Person)
- From the Collection: Monahan, John (John Thomas), 1946- (Person)
- From the Collection: Reddaway, Peter (1939) (Person)
- From the Collection: Regier, Darrel A. (Person)
- From the Collection: Smith, Carolyn (Person)
- From the Collection: Stern, Leon (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
Robert William Farrand did not request any additional restrictions on access to this interview beyond those that the University of Virginia has made for all the oral histories from the Soviet Psychiatry Oral History Project (2021-2022).
Biographical / Historical
Robert William Farrand retired in 1998 after 34 years in the U.S. Foreign Service. He served as Ambassador to Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu from 1990 until 1993.
In 1988-89 he led the U.S. delegation of medical and forensic professionals to investigate the Soviet Union’s political weaponizing of psychiatry, for which he received a Superior Honor Award.
Farrand was concurrently Supervisor of the Bosnian city of Brčko and Deputy High Representative for the northern sector of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1997 to 2000).
Extent
From the Series: 138.5775 Gigabytes
From the Series: .25 Cubic Feet
Language of Materials
From the Series: English
From the Series: Russian
Repository Details
Part of the Arthur J. Morris Law Library Special Collections Repository
Arthur J. Morris Law Library
580 Massie Road
University of Virginia
Charlottesville Virginia 22903 United States
archives@law.virginia.edu