Jonathan Dean

Jonathan Dean (born June 15, 1924 in New York City , †  January 14, 2014 in Mesa , Arizona ) was an American diplomat whose career began in the Cold War . He developed into the most respected specialist in disarmament matters on the part of NATO and went public in 1987 with the thesis that the climax of a military confrontation in Europe had passed at this point in time.

Life

After serving in the infantry during World War II , he joined the United States diplomatic service in 1949. He worked where the power blocs touched along the Iron Curtain . At the beginning, in the 1950s, he advised the federal government on the development of the German Bundeswehr as the representative of the US High Commissioner. He married Theodora George in 1950 - they later had five children together - and moved with her to Bonn in 1951 , where he served until 1956.

From 1962 he worked in Elisabethville as a UN commissioner during the so-called "Congo turmoil" . From 1968 he was again employed at the American embassy in Bonn, this time as the first political counselor. At the same time he was deputy head of the American delegation during the four-power negotiations on Berlin . In Dean's opinion, such a change in Soviet policy towards the West seemed to be taking place during these negotiations in particular , that fears of an impending surprise attack by the Eastern Bloc were no longer tenable. In 1971 Dean - 47 years old at the time - carried the title of "best reporting officer" won in the international competition of the US diplomatic service - he had the habit of taking down every word.

Dean attended the Vienna Troop Reduction Negotiations (MBFR) from the beginning and headed the American delegation with the rank of ambassador from 1978 to 1981. Dean left the foreign service of the USA in 1982. He was then "resident associate" at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

At 16, he began studying at Harvard University , which he graduated from Columbia College in New York after a break from military service . The degree of a “ Ph.D. “In political science he received from George Washington University .

Works

• Watershed in Europe . Lexington Books, Lexington / Toronto 1987
• Meeting Gorbachev's Challenge. How to Build Down the NATO-Warsaw Pact Confrontation . St. Martin's Press, New York 1990
• Ending Europe's wars. The continuing search for peace and security . Twentieth Century Fund Press, New York 1994

literature

• Hans Günter Brauch , Teri Grimwood: Jonathan Dean. Pioneer in Détende in Europe, Global Cooperative Security, Arms Control and Disarmament , Springer Verlag, Cham u. a. 2014, ISBN 978-3-319-06661-5 .
• Christian Krause: The myth of the surprise attack . In: Der Spiegel . No. 16 , 1987, pp. 78-82 ( online ).
• Gloria Duffy: Safety in Lower Numbers . In: The New York Times , January 28, 1990

Web links

• List of publications by Jonathan Deans on foreignaffairs.com
• Diplomat, Veteran, Peace Advocate Jonathan Dean Dead at 89 . noodls.com, Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), accessed April 10, 2014

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Diplomat, Veteran, Peace Advocate Jonathan Dean Dead at 89. Obituary on ucsusa.org of January 24, 2014 (accessed April 11, 2014).
2. ↑ ^{a b} Jonathan Dean short biography ( memento from March 28, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) on livableworld.org
3. ↑ Interview with Jonathan Dean ( memento of the original from October 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on "United Nations Oral History" 
4. ↑ Julius Epstein : bombs on Katanga by Plan C . In: Der Spiegel . No. 43 , 1962, pp. 82-84 ( online ).
5. ↑ Carl-Christian Kaiser: The Experts of the Excellencies . In: Die Zeit , No. 34/1971