Zoya Vasilyevna Zarubina, a former Soviet KGB officer who has met Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill and worked as a teacher, interpreter, history lecturer and children's advocate, will discuss her experiences and the outlook for U.S./Russia relations at a free public lecture Tuesday, April 20, at Wayne State University. She will speak at 4 p.m. in the Bernath Auditorium of the David Adamany Undergraduate Library.

Zarubina, who has a doctorate in linguistics and social sciences from Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages, volunteered as a nurse during World War II and later became an interpreter of English, German and French. As an officer in the KGB, she was assigned as a hostess to U.S. President Roosevelt at the Soviet embassy in Tehran and to British Prime Minister Churchill at Yalta. She also worked at the Nuremberg Trials and helped translate the atomic bomb papers.

For many years, she was head interpreter for all Communist Party Congresses, where proceedings were translated into 16 languages. She also served as lead interpreter for the Soviet delegation to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, and she assisted at the signing of the historic Helsinki Accords in 1976.

As a member of the women's movement after World War II, she founded the USSR/[JSA Society. She also organized the International Educators for Peace and Understanding and serves as vice president. She is active in volunteer work on behalf of children, including orphans in Chechnyna.

Professor Zarubina is deeply committed to fostering understanding between her country and other nations of the world. A widely traveled lecturer, she has worked for the past 30 years for the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Russia.