Home > Biographical details  > Descendants of Zohrab's Son, Simon > Zohrab Branch > Descendants of Peter Paul John Zohrab > Southern Hemisphere > Constantine Edward Zohrab > Edward Goodwin Fortescue Zohrab > Balfour Douglas Zohrab > Retirement

(Text from: New Zealand Foreign Affairs Review (1974): "Mr. B. D. Zohrab: Retirement," Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wellington, New Zealand: New Zealand Foreign Affairs Review, Vol. 24, No. 7, July 1974, pp. 9-10.)

Mr B. D. (Douglas) Zohrab retired from the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs in July. Mr Zohrab, an accomplished linguist, was among the first officers to join the New Zealand diplomatic service in which he has had a long and distinguished career.

Douglas Zohrab as a Youth

On the eve of Mr Zohrab’s retirement from his last post which was as New Zealand Ambassador in Bonn, the Prime Minister, Mr Kirk, sent Mr Zohrab and his wife a message conveying the Government’s thanks for their service over the years. Diplomacy, said Mr Kirk, is a demanding profession requiring not only loyalty and enthusiasm but detachment and objectivity as well. Mr Zohrab’s own career had reflected these qualities in high degree. The ministry would be losing one of its most experienced and accomplished officers.

After graduating M.A. in history from Victoria University Mr Zohrab began his Government service in the General Assembly Library. Following war service in the Middle East Mr Zohrab served for some time as private secretary to the Minister of Rehabilitation before being transferred to the Prime Minister’s Department. The first of the many international conferences he attended was the Paris Peace Conference in 1946 as private secretary to the Hon. H. G. R. Mason. In the same year Mr Zohrab was posted as information officer to the New Zealand High Commission in London. From London he went to Moscow as Second Secretary in 1948. He returned to London in 1950 and from 1951—56 was Second, later First, Secretary at the New Zealand Legation in Paris. After a period in Wellington as head of the Information and later European and Middle Eastern Affairs Divisions, Mr Zohrab went to Tokyo as Counsellor.

In 1961 he was appointed permanent representative to the European Office of the United Nations in Geneva. After a 2-year term as Assistant Secretary in Wellington he served from 1967 to 1969 as New Zealand High Commissioner in Malaysia, transferring to Bonn as New Zealand Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany with concurrent accreditation to Austria. Following the establishment of a resident New Zealand Embassy in Vienna, Mr Zohrab was accredited concurrently as Ambassador to Switzerland and to Poland.