The then Radio Moscow provided an extensive coverage of every important
event both at home and abroad. And frequently enough radio journalists
became witnesses or participants in the events. Professor Valentin Zorin
was one of them.
One of the first graduates from the Moscow Institute of International Relations
Valentin Zorin came to work for the radio in 1948 and his first commentaries
were about the international situation. That was the time of the birth
of the United Nations Organization, which was formed in 1945 to maintain
security in post-war world. And  that
was the time of growing confrontation between the Soviet Union and the
United States. Valentin Zorin hosted programs beamed to the United States
and Britain in those days.
“It was hard time,” Valentin Zorin recalls. “Nowadays the official media
tend to speak of the past in gloomy tones accusing the radio of too much
propaganda and toughness. True, there was a lot of propaganda and we were
tough enough, but let me remind you of the conditions we worked in, which
were known as the Cold War. A war is when the fire comes from both sides.
So I would advise those panning old-time programs of Radio Moscow to browse
through the archives to look through radio reports broadcast to the Soviet
Union by VOA and other Western radio stations, and they’ll see for themselves
the extent of their correctness towards us.”
Valentin Zorin was one of the first radio reporters to travel abroad. This
became possible after the death of Stalin in 1953, which marked a political
thaw and improvement in the international situation.
“My first trip was in 1956,” Valentin Zorin says, “when the Soviet leaders
Bulganin and Khrushchev went on a sensational visit to Britain on board
the “Ordzhonikidze” cruiser. Khrushchev was not ruling alone then, there
was a so-called collective leadership. And I was covering the trip.”
Since then Valentin Zorin’s trips to foreign countries became regular.
He mainly went to the United States and in the course of such trips prepared
materials for the domestic national radio and television and for the foreign
broadcasting service.
Reports on international developments by Valentin Zorin received high acclaim
from Radio Moscow listeners and TV viewers. He covered sessions of the
UN General Assembly and gave accounts of official visits by Soviet leaders
to the United States, including in the changing atmosphere of the 1980s.
“It seems that those were trips to different times,” Valentin Zorin says.
“A different setting, a different attitude, a different environment. As
a journalist I can say that I am happy to be working at a time when for
the first time in many years I don’t have to report to censors and can
openly speak my mind. It’s a pleasure to be coming to the United States
and Britain to friendly welcome of your colleagues, with whom you can be
open and sincere.”
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