Gastón de Prat Gay

Gastón de Prat Gay was born in Tucumán in 1934 and worked as a journalist in the Americas and Europe before entering Argentina’s foreign service in 1959. He studied law in Buenos Aires, earned a journalism degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and completed graduate degrees in international relations at American University in Washington. He subsequently served as a foreign ministerial press adviser, policy planning counsellor, deputy director of the diplomatic training institute, and head of the North American department. ¹

His United Nations work combined representation with expertise in administration and finance. He served on Argentina’s delegation from 1960 and later became deputy permanent representative. During the Fifth Committee debate in November 1972, he opposed the American proposal to reduce the United States’ assessed share of the UN budget, arguing that industrialized states’ improved financial position increased their capacity to pay. ^{1, 2}

De Prat Gay also served as minister-counsellor in Washington and briefly as acting chief in late 1976. In 1980 the General Assembly appointed him vice-chairman of the International Civil Service Commission. His teaching at the Universidad del Salvador and his books on Latin American diplomacy and the Non-Aligned Movement accompanied this institutional career. He became Argentina’s permanent representative to the Organization of American States in 1984. ^{1, 3}

His later ambassadorial work followed the breakup of the Soviet Union. Posted to Moscow in 1989, he remained through the transition to the Russian Federation and also received accreditation to Mongolia in 1990. In Riga on 26 September 1991, he signed the declaration establishing diplomatic relations between Argentina and Latvia with Latvian foreign minister Jānis Jurkāns. He remained in the Moscow post until 1992. ^{3, 4, 5}