Melor Sturua

Fall 1990
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Melor Georgievich Sturua was born in Tblisi, Georgia in 1928, the son of one of the founders of the Social Democratic Party in Russia and former President of Georgia. His father was removed from office after he wrote an autobiography in which he tried to resurrect the names of his friends who were prosecuted by the Stalin regime. All of this profoundly affected Mr. Sturua's future. Because of his father's \background\, he could not pursue a diplomatic career and had difficulties joining the newspaper Izvestia until he received the help of the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Mikoyan. Until the 20th Congress of the Communist Party, Mr. Sturua rose to the position of Deputy Foreign Editor for the newspaper. When Mr. Kruschchev's son-in-law, Mr. Agjubey, became the editor-in-chief of Izvestia, Mr. Sturua was invited to join the so-called \brain-trust\ of the new head of the Soviet State and combine his job at Izvestia with the duties of one of the speech writers for Mr. Kruschchev.

Between 1964 and 1968, Mr. Sturua was Bureau Chief of Izvestiain the United Kingdom, then from 1968 to 1972 he was Bureau Chief in New York and between 1972 and 1976, he was an acting Foreign Editor of the newspaper. From 1976 to 1982, he was Washington Bureau Chief, and from 1982 to 1984, he was Foreign Editor. Since 1982, he has been a political columnist.

During his almost forty years with Izvestia he accompanied Mr. Krushchev, Mr. Brezhnev and Mr. Gorbachev on their foreign trips. Mr. Sturua has written about thirty books, mainly about the United Kingdom and the United States, many of which are best-sellers. Mr. Sturua was the first Soviet journalist to interview Secretary of State Baker, and he covered almost every Soviet-American summit beginning with Krushchev's meeting with Eisenhower and the last of which was between Gorbachev and Reagan. Since June 1989, Mr. Sturua has been at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as a Senior Associate, working on Evolving Soviet-American Relations.

Disclaimer: This information is accurate for the time period that this person was affiliated with the Institute of Politics.

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