Vyshinsky, Andrey

Vyshinsky, Andrey (Yanuaryevich)

(born Dec. 10, 1883, Odessa, Russia—died Nov. 22, 1954, New York, N.Y., U.S.) Soviet politician and diplomat. A public prosecutor, he taught at Moscow State University. Appointed chief prosecutor of the Soviet Union (1935), he gained worldwide notoriety for his zeal in prosecuting the purge trials. As deputy commissar of foreign affairs, he supervised the annexation of Latvia (1940) and established a communist regime in Romania (1945). He later served as Soviet foreign minister (1949–53) and representative to the UN (1949–54), where he frequently launched bitter attacks on the U.S.