Balfour Douglas "Doug" Zohrab was a New Zealand diplomat and public servant. He was a newspaper copyholder and junior reporter on the Evening Post from 1934, then graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with a masters degree in 1937 and became an assistant librarian at Parliament’s General Assembly Library. Apart from his native English, he knew French, Italian, German, some Japanese, some Malay, and taught himself Russian.

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  • Balfour Douglas "Doug" Zohrab was a New Zealand diplomat and public servant. He was a newspaper copyholder and junior reporter on the Evening Post from 1934, then graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with a masters degree in 1937 and became an assistant librarian at Parliament’s General Assembly Library. Apart from his native English, he knew French, Italian, German, some Japanese, some Malay, and taught himself Russian. In World War II, he was a cipher clerk on General Freyberg’s staff, then was invalided home from the Middle East. In 1944, he was appointed to the Minister of Rehabilitation then to the Prime Minister’s Department, in the section that became the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He served overseas at London, Moscow, Paris, then Wellington and Tokyo. He was Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva 1961-65, Wellington, then High Commissioner to Malaysia 1967-69, then Ambassador to Germany 1969-74 accredited also to Austria, Switzerland and Poland. He retired in 1974, after 26 years of service overseas. He was born in Wellington of an Armenian family that was moved to Persia in the 17th century, escaped at the end of the 18th century to Malta, and then to England, South Africa and Australia. He married Rosemary Miller in 1947; and died in Waikanae, leaving two sons.
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  • Balfour Douglas "Doug" Zohrab was a New Zealand diplomat and public servant. He was a newspaper copyholder and junior reporter on the Evening Post from 1934, then graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with a masters degree in 1937 and became an assistant librarian at Parliament’s General Assembly Library. Apart from his native English, he knew French, Italian, German, some Japanese, some Malay, and taught himself Russian.
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  • Doug Zohrab
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