"When Russian tanks went on the bridge over the Moscow River and fired at the Russian White House on October 3rd of 1993, the first thing that popped into my mind was, 'Are we going to have a civil war in Russia? And is it going to be as disastrous for the country as the civil war between the Reds and the Whites was after the end of the First World War and the beginning of the communist state?' I had a worry about that, that I don't think was misplaced. It was something that we all thought of as being a very damaging situation." - Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering

The Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies at the Middlebury Institute introduces The Ambassadorial Series: Deans of U.S. - Russia Diplomacy, Part Two of The Ambassadorial Series. Part Two consists of six plus hours of conversations with Ambassadors Jack F. Matlock, Thomas R. Pickering, and James F. Collins about crucial events and developments in U.S.-Russia relations. Focusing on the 1990s – from the disintegration of the USSR to President Putin's ascent to Russia’s highest office a decade later, Part Two, hosted by Dr. Hanna Notte, continues to offer firsthand accounts and analyses of the cataclysmic changes that transformed Russian politics and society.