The interview was recorded at the New York city ,on April 11 ,2000. The Interviewer was James Sutterlin .Born in Göteborg, Sweden, in 1940, Jan Eliasson was an exchange student in the United States from 1957 to 1958. He graduated from the Swedish Naval Academy in 1962 and earned a master’s degree in Economics and Business Administration in 1965. Eliasson served as Diplomatic Adviser to the Swedish Prime Minister from 1982 to 1983, and as Director General for Political Affairs in the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs from 1983 to 1987. From 1988 to 1992, he was Sweden’s Ambassador to the United Nations in New York where he was part of the UN mediation missions in the war between Iran and Iraq, headed by former Prime Minister Olof Palme. In 1992, he was appointed the first UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and was involved in operations in Somalia, Sudan, Mozambique and the Balkans – taking initiatives on landmines, conflict prevention and humanitarian action.