Vladimir Pavlov

June 19, 1915 — 1993

Though never trained as an interpreter, Vladimir Pavlov, who worked in the office of Soviet foreign secretary Vyacheslav Molotov, spoke English so well he quickly found himself translating not only for Molotov, but for Stalin, as well. The young Pavlov was impressed with Stalin, not only with his dedication to the Soviet Union, which he placed above all, but also with the Soviet generalissimo’s sharp sense of humor. Pavlov traveled with Molotov to Washington, D.C. in 1942, where he met Roosevelt for the first time. In 1943, he served as interpreter at the Tehran Conference. He was struck by Roosevelt’s changed appearance when the President arrived at the Yalta Conference over a year later. After World War II, he used his English language skills as the head of the British desk at the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but he fell out of favor in the after Stalin’s death and lived the rest of his life quietly in the Soviet Union.

Photograph: Wikimedia commons, public domain