An Imperial View

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Long before Russell Crowe helped reignite filmgoers' enthusiasm for Roman epics, Sir Peter Ustinov, now 81, was king of the genre. He fiddled as Nero while Rome burned in Quo Vadis? (1951) and won the first of his two Academy Awards in 1960 for a supporting role in Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus. "When I was in Rome for the 50th anniversary of Quo Vadis?, the mayor asked me to say a few words in Italian," Ustinov recalls. "I reminded him I was Nero, who only spoke Latin." The story captures the wit and erudition for which Ustinov — who was knighted in 1990 for his accomplishments as an actor, director, playwright, opera-producer, historian, philosopher and raconteur-at-large — has long been celebrated.

The empires are very similar. That's why Americans make the best Roman films. Q&A What do you think of President Bush? If the American people are really happy with George Bush, Clinton was a man of unnecessary brilliance. What about Putin? The Russians have never known democracy, so transformation will take a long time. Putin cannot escape decentralization. Take Chechnya. The only solution is autonomy for the regions. A unitary state with Moscow or St. Petersburg as its capital is utter nonsense. Your latest project is the study of prejudice. Why such an abstract idea? It's not abstract at all. Prejudice is the destructive root of most human conflicts. Conflicts can be sorted out at the conference table or tackled on the battlefield, but you cannot solve them as long as there's prejudice. The humiliation of the Palestinians is a case in point. What do you think of the Israeli leadership? Sharon is a terrible bully. There's no glory in subduing the Palestinian people and in that respect Washington is not exactly even-handed. I hope that Labor leader Amram Mitzna will be elected. What is the role of humanitarian organizations in international affairs? I put more faith in nongovernmental organizations than in state governments, rogue or otherwise. The Red Cross, Amnesty, Oxfam, Human Rights Watch — no national politician would ever get a mandate to create such an institution, because they're all external. There are hundreds of NGOs and there are some very good ones among them. They're our best hope for the future.

These days Nero can't help but reflect on the similarities between ancient Rome and modern America. "We had Pax Romana, now there's Pax Americana," Ustinov says. "The empires are very close to each other — the eagle, the legions, the respect for the flag. That's why Americans make the best Roman films." American hegemony is just one of a multitude of topics on which Ustinov is happy to expound. The British-born son of a French mother and a half-German, half-Russian father (who had an Ethiopian grandmother to boot), his cosmopolitan origins and a lifetime of hobnobbing with the high and mighty have turned him into a consummate, and well-connected, pundit. His work as a U.N. goodwill ambassador — he's still going strong after 35 years on the job — keeps him in the international mix. Fluent in English, French and German, but not Russian — "I speak very bad Russian, but without an accent, and the Russians consider that a provocation" — he maintains a close relationship with the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. "He saw the collapse of East Germany as a tidal wave that could only be stopped by war, which he did not want," Ustinov says. "He believed democratic reform was possible within the framework of the Soviet system, which of course it wasn't."

Of the current Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, Ustinov opines that "he is still young enough to learn," despite having made an "unholy mess" of Chechnya. Ustinov isn't particularly worried about Putin's KGB origins. "The Bush dynasty has a CIA background. KGB or CIA, it's all the same dirty tricks, but the KGB is a better school. At least Putin speaks German, which helps in his dealings with Schröder. And he was smart enough to align himself with Washington in the fight against terrorism."

Slowed by age and arthritic legs, Ustinov appears onscreen less often than the several roles a year he once averaged. But, when not at his home of 30 years in the Swiss wine-growing village of Bursins, he remains in perpetual motion. In addition to his U.N. work he chairs and partially funds the Geneva-based Global Harmony Foundation, whose projects have included a hospital in Niger for victims of Noma, a flesh-wasting disease, and three girls' schools in Afghanistan's Tora Bora region. "For Nepalese landmine victims we turn out wheelchairs in Kathmandu," says Ustinov. "Come to think of it, I could use one myself," he jokes, after a laborious landing in an armchair in his book-crammed living room.

Ustinov seems to take comfort in the homey clutter of the room, with its well-read volumes and countless trophies of a long and varied career. He's less sanguine about the current state of global housekeeping. "It's a messy world today," he says. "It's like being thrown back in an age when people didn't understand what was happening and just left their fate to the gods. There are no great leaders these days."

Like most Europeans, Ustinov considers Saddam Hussein a scoundrel, but not worth a war that "could set the whole Middle East ablaze. If that happens, I'd suggest Ms. Rice change her name to Condolenza." But Ustinov isn't about to give into pessimism now. "I'm a strong believer in humanity and human rights — moral courage prevailing over military might. In that sense I have faith in the common sense of the American people. Let's hope we can keep the Middle East on a even keel."