An expert on the Russian language, Katzner worked as an analyst on Soviet affairs for the Central Intelligence Agency and the United States Department of Defense during the Cold War, and was an author of several notable works on the Russian language.
[2] In the 1960s, Katzner was a writer and editor in New York City, contributing to Encyclopædia Britannica and The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.
[2] An authority on the Russian language, Katzner worked as a Soviet expert in the Central Intelligence Agency during the 1970s, and for the United States Department of Defense in the 1980s and 1990s.
[2] Katzner was the author of several works on linguistics and Russian affairs, and his books were used as reference guides by journalists.
His English-Russian, Russian-English Dictionary, which Katzner had worked on for 18 years, sold in the hundreds of thousands and was pirated in the former Soviet Union.