Career
Pozner began his career as a "journalist" – unwittingly, by his own account – in a disinformation department of the KGB. In 1961 he was offered the position of senior editor with the English-language Soviet Life magazine. In 1967 he transferred to a sister publication, Sputnik, leaving it in February 1970 to take up a post with the State Television and Radio Committee, where he became a chief commentator and host of the propaganda radio program the Voice of Moscow on the North American service of Radio Moscow.
Beginning in the early 1970s, and until the early 1990s, Pozner was a regular guest on Ray Briem's talk show on KABC in Los Angeles. During the 1980s, he was a favourite guest on Ted Koppel's Nightline. Pozner was the host of Moscow Meridian, an English-language current affairs program focusing on the Soviet Union; the show was produced by Gosteleradio, the Soviet State Committee for Television and Radio and broadcast on the Satellite Program Network. He also often appeared on The Phil Donahue Show.
In his Western media appearances Pozner was a charismatic and articulate apologist for some of the Soviet Union's most controversial foreign and domestic policy decisions. He would frequently draw parallels and point out similarities between Soviet and Western policies as well as candidly admitting the existence of certain problems in the USSR. However, while stopping short of unequivocal endorsement and support, he nevertheless rationalized, among other events, the arrest and exiling of Andrei Sakharov, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the shooting down of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, in his 1990 autobiography Parting with Illusions. Later, he wrote that some of the positions he had taken were wrong and immoral. In a 2005 interview with NPR's On the Media, Pozner spoke openly about his role as a Soviet spokesman, stating bluntly, "What I was doing was propaganda." Comparing his former role to that of Karen Hughes, the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs under George W. Bush, he commented that, "You know, as someone who's gone through this and someone who regrets having done what he's done, and who spent many, many years of his life, and I think probably the best years of my life, doing something that was wrong, I say it just isn't worth it".
Despite his frequent appearances in the North American media and his near-celebrity status there as the principal spokesman for the Soviet Union, Pozner remained virtually unknown at home. This changed in the mid-1980s, when Pozner co-hosted several bilateral, televised discussions (or "spacebridges") between audiences in the Soviet Union and the US, carried via satellite. These were initially produced with Helene Keyssar at the University of California, San Diego. They included "Moscow Calling San Diego: Children and Film" (with Mike Cole), "Remembering War" (May 7, 1985, with Fred Starr). Later programs included "Citizens Summit I - Leningrad/Seattle" (December 29, 1985) and "Citizens Summit II: Women to Women - Leningrad/Boston" (May 20, 1986) - both with Phil Donahue. The programs marked a dramatic turning point in Pozner's career, garnering him instant renown and wide popularity and acclaim from domestic audiences in the USSR. Pozner also introduced Russian rock band Autograph for Live Aid. He was promoted to the position of "political observer of Central Television", the highest journalistic rank at Gosteleradio, and started to work on programs that were broadcast domestically. However, in 1991 Pozner was asked to resign after being quoted voicing his support for Boris Yeltsin over Mikhail Gorbachev.
Later that year, Pozner received an offer to work with Phil Donahue and moved to the United States. From 1991 to 1994 they co-hosted Pozner/Donahue, a weekly, issues-oriented roundtable program, which was aired both on CNBC and in syndication. While living in New York, Pozner regularly commuted to Moscow to tape his programs that aired in Russia.
Pozner returned to Moscow in 1997, continuing his work as an independent television journalist. Later that year, he founded the School for Television Excellence («Школа телевизионного мастерства») in Moscow to educate and promote young journalists.
From its foundation in 1994 until 2008 Pozner was president of the Russian Television Academy, which annually awards the prestigious TEFI trophy. Pozner also worked for the Institute for US and Canadian Studies, a Soviet think tank.
Since 2004, Pozner and his brother Pavel have owned a French brasserie in Moscow, Жеральдин (Chez Géraldine), named after their mother.
