Ukraine's first ambassador to the United States recalls the difficult early days (02/10/02)

Ukraine's first ambassador to the United States recalls the difficult early days

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - When Dr. Oleh Bilorus arrived in Washington on April 28, 1992, to present his credentials as the first ambassador to the United States from the fledgling state of Ukraine, which had been independent of Moscow for a mere eight months, the academic did not know fully what to expect. He only realized that he had taken on a large responsibility and had to hit the ground running because the following week his boss, President Leonid Kravchuk, was due in Washington for a working meeting with U.S. President George Bush.

Dr. Bilorus, 62, today a Verkhovna Rada national deputy and a leading member of the Batkivschyna Party, had never served in a diplomatic capacity and was still not fully cognizant of what that would entail, but he realized that being the first ambassador to the U.S. would be as difficult as it would be important.

"Try to imagine that within a week I am presenting my credentials to the U.S. president. This is a tremendous symbol of recognition, friendship and respect," explained Dr. Bilorus, who before this most important diplomatic assignment was affiliated with the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences Institute of Economics and the International Management Institute in Kyiv.

Hours before the arrival of President Kravchuk to Washington, Dr. Bilorus was accredited as the first Ukrainian ambassador to the United States after meeting with President Bush. Later that day, he and the Ukrainian president, along with U.S. Secretary of State James Baker III, presided over the opening of the temporary home of the Embassy of Ukraine, then located in an office complex in the U.S. capital. The rented office space was a gift of George Chopivsky, a Ukrainian American activist.

While it is true that the new Ukrainian ambassador was greeted warmly by U.S. government officials, and that they and the Ukrainian American community expended much energy in the coming months to make life for the Embassy and its staff comfortable, the fact remains that Dr. Bilorus arrived to begin his work with very little in the way of staff, office equipment or transportation, and no permanent office or any substantive amounts of money to purchase what was needed. More importantly, the Ukrainian diplomatic corps in Washington had few legitimate contacts and relations.

Ten years later, the Embassy of Ukraine has come a long way. It has a full diplomatic team and many accomplishments. It also has a complement of cars and equipment, and its compound is considered one of the most splendid and significant historical sites in the Georgetown district of Washington. Much of the effort behind that success can be placed at the feet of Dr. Bilorus.

"The first days were tough," recalled Dr. Bilorus on January 30, as he was interviewed in his office in the city center of Kyiv.

While he could smile now, back then it was a different matter.

"My responsibility as the first ambassador was to raise the Ukrainian flag and to have a legitimate office, not some sort of apartment, to be able to host people and meetings for visitors and representatives of the sovereign, independent state of Ukraine," he recalled.

Immediately upon his arrival, Ambassador Bilorus set himself two assignments: to nurture close relations with the U.S. leadership and to construct a proper Embassy. He succeeded on both counts.

From the very first meeting between the Ukrainian and U.S. leadership it was evident that Washington wanted to help Ukraine. Dr. Bilorus said in his first meeting with President Bush the two sides reached an agreement in principle on the extension of the first foreign aid program by Washington - in the amount of $250 million for the development of small and medium-sized businesses - which later was approved by the U.S. Congress.

As Ambassador Bilorus worked to further strengthen U.S.-Ukraine relations in the days and weeks that followed, he became a common site at the Pentagon, the Secretary of State's offices and the White House.

"At the White House it got so that the car of the Ukrainian Embassy was simply allowed to drive up to the White House building, whereas usually diplomatic vehicles were left at a lot at the edge of the property," explained Dr. Bilorus, another grin appearing as he recalled those first months.

The first Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S. said that among the notable accomplishments of his three-year tenure in Washington were negotiating a cooperation arrangement with the International Monetary Fund and the development of joint military exercises between Ukrainian and U.S. troops. Dr. Bilorus also mentioned a personal highlight: pushing the button that destroyed a U.S. nuclear missile silo as part of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program.

Dr. Bilorus said he is proud of the fact that the composition of the first Embassy staff included 12 individuals with doctoral degrees. He said he believes that it was the high professionalism of his staff and the closeness that developed between White House and State Department officials and the Ukrainian Embassy that helped spur the two countries to declare a strategic relationship by 1994.

Dr. Bilorus' second task, and another of his accomplishments as the first head of the Ukrainian diplomatic mission in Washington, was to organize and stimulate a fund-raising campaign to acquire and properly furnish a home for the Embassy. Just before his arrival in the United States the Coordinating Committee to Aid Ukraine had created the Foundation in Support of Diplomatic Missions of Ukraine. The foundation was established to raise funds for the purchase of buildings to house Ukraine's Embassy in the U.S. and its Mission to the United Nations, in addition to diplomatic residences, furnishings, automobiles and libraries - a matter that Ukraine could not properly attend to at the time due to the precarious state of its finances.

In support of the fund-raising effort, Ambassador Bilorus was on the road often in the first months after his arrival in Washington, visiting Ukrainian American communities dotted across the U.S. landscape. He traveled to nearly every state in the union, visiting churches of all confessions and Ukrainian community centers and clubs of all the various social organizations and political groupings in the U.S. diaspora. He underscored that in his travels - much of the time in the company of the late Dr. Stepan Woroch - he refrained from asking for money.

"I merely explained the situation in Ukraine; where the country wanted to go and what it wanted to become," said Dr. Bilorus.

By the end of the year $550,000 had been raised and the Ukrainian government had purchased the historic 18th century Forrest-Marbury House on the banks of the Potomac River.

"Today the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington remains the best Ukrainian embassy in the world," said Dr. Bilorus proudly. He added that the way the two governments and the Ukrainian American community cooperated in finding, purchasing and developing the site in a matter of months "is an example of how a united effort always produces results."

Ambassador Bilorus said that while he agrees that relations between the U.S. and Ukraine have progressed further since he left Washington, they are not what they should be and have not realized their full potential.

While he blames the political crisis caused by the disappearance of Heorhii Gongadze and the associated tape scandal, which paralyzed Ukraine for the first half of 2001 and eroded international confidence in the country, as one source for the setback in relations, he also identified the recent warming between Moscow and Washington as another problem. He believes U.S. authorities need to stop putting so much emphasis on developing friendly relations with Moscow and spread their diplomatic efforts more equally among surrounding countries.

"A new understanding is needed by the U.S. on Ukraine's role in the world as a strong European country and not a zone of foreign interest for its northeastern neighbor," explained Dr. Bilorus.

Dr. Bilorus also said that to get its economy moving in a European direction Ukraine must shed itself of the vestiges of the old economy and move from an accent on heavy industry to emphasizing high technology in its economic development.

Furthermore, he called on Europe to begin to accept Ukraine into its economic and political structures immediately, piecemeal if need be.

"I believe the geometry of the new Europe without Ukraine is nonsense," explained Dr. Bilorus. "Sooner or later the leaders of Europe will have to return to Ukraine as one of its natural partners."

The former first ambassador to the U.S. said, while relations with the United States would continue to ebb and flow, they would remain strong. He said the events that had transpired in diplomatic relations between Washington and Kyiv over the last 10 years make it highly unlikely that Ukraine would fail to eventually become a key fixture in the West. He also expressed a belief that the strength of the relationship was a result of those first uncertain days when representatives of the two countries initially got to know one another at close range and set the foundation that exists today.

"I can proudly say that the first impressions of the Ukrainian phenomenon were set during the formation and development of the Ukrainian diplomatic mission in Washington at that time," stated Ambassador Bilorus.

| Home Page |