Valerian Aleksandrovich Zorin

Born Jan. 1 (14), 1902, in Novocherkassk. Soviet diplomat, state and party leader. Member of the CPSU since 1922.

Zorin is the son of a teacher. From 1922 to 1932 he occupied directive posts at the Moscow city committee and the Komsomol Central Committee. In 1935 he graduated from the Higher Communist Institute of Education, after which he engaged in party and pedagogic activity (1935–41). From 1941 to 1944 he served on the staff of the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of the USSR. He subsequently was appointed ambassador to Czechoslovakia (1945–47). Deputy minister for foreign affairs of the USSR from 1947 to 1955, he was also permanent representative of the USSR to the Security Council of the United Nations from 1952 to 1953. In 1955–56, Zorin served as Soviet ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany. He was again deputy minister for foreign affairs of the USSR from 1956 to 1965 and simultaneously, from 1960 to 1962, both permanent representative of the USSR to the United Nations and representative to the UN Security Council. In 1965 he became USSR ambassador to France. In 1971 he was appointed ambassador-at-large by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR. At the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, Zorin was elected candidate member of the Central Committee, and at the Twenty-second and Twenty-third Congresses a member. He has been awarded three Orders of Lenin, three other orders, and medals.