Once, a Man Straddled Two Worlds

By James A. Thomson

James Thomson is president and chief executive officer of the RAND Corporation.

Jeremy R. Azrael 1935–2009

When he died at age 73 on March 19, 2009, Jeremy Azrael was wearing several hats. Director of the RAND Center for Russia and Eurasia. Director of the RAND Business Leaders Forum. Holder of a RAND Corporate Chair. He also was the first person to receive a RAND Medal for Excellence, which recognizes those who develop something completely new at RAND.

As a student at Harvard University, Jeremy was among the first American graduate students admitted to study in the Soviet Union under the first exchange agreement signed in 1958. He began building a network within the country during this period, and he was at one time declared “persona non grata” by Soviet authorities.

His RAND innovation sprang from those experiences. In the early 1990s, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, he had the astounding idea that post-Soviet Russia should become a RAND client. This would be good for Russia and good for RAND’s domestic policy researchers and Soviet specialists, the latter of whose traditional sponsorship had vanished. I bought the idea, no matter how nutty it seemed at the time.

While Jeremy’s original idea did not bear fruit, a companion idea of his did: a Russian-American business leaders forum wherein business executives from both countries could exchange views on mutual challenges. RAND could charge for attendance, Jeremy suggested, and use the proceeds to pay for the forum and for a program of research related to Russia.

We weren’t sure if this would work. It was unclear whether the Americans would show up. The same went for Russian business executives, who at that time had little love for one another and were not wild about airing dirty laundry in front of Americans. But, as one Russian business executive told me, “The only person who can get us Russians in the same room is Jeremy Azrael.”

In the early years, there were several times when we thought we would lose Jeremy, ten years before we all actually did. Before and during the meetings, he would be wound tighter than a watch — pacing, smoking, swilling coffee, and in the evening stronger stuff, speaking Russian and English on his cell phone constantly.

That Jeremy succeeded is testament to his entrepreneurial spirit, keen sense for interpersonal relations, and talent for organization and detail. He was a serious scholar of the Soviet Union’s ethnic and national minorities and of the challenges they posed to the state’s leadership.

He began his relationship with RAND as a consultant in 1961 and became a full-time employee in 1974, only to leave a few years later to serve as the CIA’s National Intelligence Officer At-Large and then as Secretary of State George Shultz’s senior adviser on Soviet affairs. He returned to RAND in 1985, just as Mikhail Gorbachev was coming to power. The political changes under Gorbachev permitted Jeremy to return to the USSR for the first time in many years. He was able to reestablish numerous personal relations cut off by the time he spent in government.

The RAND Business Leaders Forum continues to this day, meeting twice a year. It has been a remarkable achievement, and it is hard to think of a single figure in the world of international security, diplomacy, or business with substantial dealings in Russia who has not attended.

Jeremy Azrael made a major contribution to Russian-American relations and to the emergence of a more civilized global society. As one forum member told me, “The best way to erect the monument to Jeremy [that] he deserves would be to continue with the tradition of the RAND Business Leaders Forum.”

We intend to erect that monument. As this issue is being distributed, we will be convening the next meeting of the forum in New York City.