VERA

A behind-the-scenes look at diplomacy and international relations in post-communist Eastern Europe.

Vera Blinken was born in Budapest and came to the United States in 1950. She graduated from Vassar College with a degree in art history and practiced interior design, first at the architectural firm of Edward Durell Stone, and later as the founder of Vera Evans Interiors. In 1996, while living in Hungary as the wife of the ambassador, she founded PRIMAVERA, the first mobile breast cancer screening program in Central and Eastern Europe. In 2002, for services to the Hungarian people, she was awarded the Middle Cross of the Republic of Hungary. Donald Blinken, U.S. Ambassador to Hungary from 1994 to 1998, is a native New Yorker. He graduated magna cum laude in economics at Harvard University and cofounded the investment banking/venture capital firm of E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Co. He is currently co-Chair of Columbia University’s European Institute and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. The Blinkens live in New York City.