Advance team of the USA consulate general in Kyiv: objectives and activities

Iryna Matiash, Doctor of History, Professor, Institute of History of Ukraine, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine.

Abstract

The article shows the work of the US Consulate General advance team in Kyiv. It was the first mission of capitalist countries to the Ukrainian SSR. The legal basis for its creating was provided by the Consular Convention between the USSR and the USA, which was signed in June 1964 and entered into force in July 1968. The negotiations regarding the establishment of the USA Consulate General in Kyiv started in March 1976. The institution officially began operations on 8 October 1976.

Its first head became Ralph S. Porter, an employee of the State Department. The issues of providing accommodation in Kyiv to the advance team were assigned to the Directorate for Rendering Services to Consular Corps of the Kyiv City Executive Committee. The Deputy Minister Hennadii Udovenko was responsible for these issues on the part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR. The task of the group was to deal with organizational issues in establishing the US Consulate General in Kyiv. The advance team employees discharged representative functions, participated in ceremonial events. However, they had no consular functions to issue visas, passports, to execute country-entering requests, to validate documents etc. David H. Swartz became the next head of the advance team. At that time, the advance team started work that in prospective could be developed into multifaceted activities in the field of culture, science, economy and trade. The article shows the interest of the advance team in the US Consulate activities in Kyiv in 1918. The information on the visit of the US Consul to Kyiv James Douglas Jenkins in 1918 is based on materials of the diplomatic archive of Yevhen Slabchenko.

Key words: Ukraine, the USA, advance team of the USA Consulate General

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DOI http://doi.org/10.17721/2521-1706.2016.01.79-86