The Foreign Service Journal, June 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JUNE 2015 15 On Russian Nature A mong the major peoples of the earth, the Russians have always been insufficiently understood by the rulers and publics of other countries. Yet if we are to live in peace with him, we must learn to understand his nature, which is both virtuous and unchaste, is rich in imagination and vision but short on the organizational talents so essential to 20th-century life. It is not accidental that those who try to probe the Russian soul have per- sistently noted one of its ingredients to be an inbred suspicion toward other persons’ principles and motivations. Mistrust comes easily to a community which has so often been forced to defend itself against its neighbors and even more distant powers. … Centuries of contact with all kinds of enemies have made the Russians a people able to detect hidden meanings and inten- tions with great skill. To the Russian, any opportunity to procure authentic information is as valuable as money in other societies. Questions asked of foreigners are searching and penetrating. They reveal both a genuine desire to be informed and a process of serious thinking. —From “The Russian Nature,” by James A. Ramsey, FSJ , June 1965. 50 Years Ago USAID Responds to Nepal Earthquake Crisis T he United States Agency for Inter- national Development deployed a Disaster Assistance Response Team to Nepal, India and Bangladesh fol- lowing the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that devastated the region on April 25. The team comprised more than 130 of USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disas- ter Assistance humanitarian specialists and urban search and rescue personnel from the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department and the Los Angeles County Fire Department. As of press time, the death toll from the quake stood at more than 8,000. The DART arrived in Nepal on April 29 and began addressing immediate concerns including the critical need for The U.S. Disaster Assistance Response Team works with canine rescue units to locate survivors in Nepal. COURTESYOFUSAID