This includes participating in the 1988 Moscow summit meeting between President Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, during the former's first visit to the USSR.
He also served as ambassador to the Republic of Moldova, U.S. Special Negotiator for Eurasian Conflicts in the former Soviet Union (an ambassador-level position), Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Canadian Affairs in the State Department, director of European and Soviet Affairs for the U.S. National Security Council, and was on the policy planning staff of the State Department under Colin Powell before and after the invasion of Iraq.
Following his retirement from the foreign service, Perina served as chargé d’affaires at U.S. embassies, including those in Chișinău, Moldova (2006), Yerevan, Armenia (2007), Reykjavík, Iceland (2010), Prague, Czech Republic (2013), and Bratislava, Slovakia (2015).
His mother's family was subject to Nazi reprisals during World War II, including the execution of his grandfather and great uncle on June 10, 1942.
The family members were executed in a coordinated purge of Czech nationalists and public figures that culminated in the razing of the village of Lidice.
Delighted to find that it paid better than any academic job, he started in November 1974, his first posting at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, Canada, through 1976 during which time both of his daughters were born.
At Ottawa, Perina also had responsibilities in the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) whose Helsinki Final Act was signed by the 35 participating states in the summer of 1975.
Upon witnessing the confrontation with 1st Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Korniyenko, he said later he was "shown for the first time how unashamedly people can lie in diplomacy."
The US response to the invasion was tough, and included suspending exchanges, diplomatic social events, wheat sales, and eventually boycotting the Moscow Olympics, bringing Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and part of Eastern Europe along as well.
As liaison with the Soviets on Russian matters, Perina said that "Nobody seriously thought there was going to be a World War III or an invasion of Berlin by the Warsaw Pact."
Although he personally did not know whether the Strategic Defense Initiative system (SDIs) would even work, he understood that the Soviets were threatened by the possibility: He said, "They realized their strength as a world power came from possession of nuclear weapons, and not from their GDP or anything else."
Perina served as interpreter between ambassadors Arthur Burns and Piotr Abrassimov, then Vyacheslav Kochemasov during their twice yearly social lunches.
There was bureaucratic protocol too that had to be observed whenever the West German president came to Berlin—the US, French, and British embassies had to greet him formally—which Perina described as a "real nuisance".
From 1987 to 1989, Perina was director for European and Soviet Affairs on the National Security Council staff: prior to his arrival there had been a purge from the Iran Contra scandal.
He was brought in by Colin Powell, who had been hired by new National Security Council Advisor Frank Carlucci, who ran the department differently, and better, in Perina's opinion.
Yet even with this, the Czech-American had no suspicion that the empire was on the verge of collapse, saying "it was not even part of any discussion.... We were all watching the top, the Kremlin .... [W]e did not pay enough attention to the internal situation and particularly to the nationality issues."
Perina attended the 1988 Moscow summit meeting between Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev, the third of only four total people; he later described the tension between the two principals being rooted in different negotiating styles: The Soviet's being deductive and the American's inductive.
Perina left the NSC in spring 1989 when President Bush and Brent Scowcroft instituted a complete shift in personnel for political reasons.
Embassy matters were all handled on a cash basis: Perina describes having tens of thousands of dollars driven in from Budapest, Hungary in an unguarded car so as not to arouse suspicion from the gangs who then ruled the streets.
Perina worked with Richard Holbrooke as liaison to Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic during the negotiations to end the Yugoslav conflict.
Perina also participated in the talks held in Dayton, Ohio, to which he credits Milosevic's assent, although mostly for self-serving purposes: The leader thought he would gain respectability in the international community and sanctions would be lifted.
This included the outer wall of sanctions that enraged the Serbs and did not satisfy Kosovar Albanians (They would form the Kosovo Liberation Army.)
It was one of the earliest to privatize land, helped by a major USAID project that completed under Perina: The US gave[6] over $50 million in assistance, the third highest amount given to a former Soviet republic, because of its cooperation and its efforts at reform.
The embassy tried to combat this with educational programs and financing a documentary film with victim testimonies that were shown in schools, on billboards and on national TV.
Ukrainians and Moldovans alike profited off the illegal importation of cigarettes, liquor, and "many other commodities" that hurt the republic in lost tax revenue.
Another problem was the 40,000 tons of aging Soviet ammunition stored at Cosbasna base in Transnistria: The US was a major contributor of several million dollars to a voluntary OSCE fund to aid in arms withdrawal and though there was a limited destruction of tanks and a half trainload of weapons and ammunition, Russian troops and old but still dangerous armaments were kept in the region for political leverage.
The OSCE and its specially created Minsk Group handled the crisis, with many proposals by the latter rejected by both nations, represented by Presidents Kocharyan and Aliyev respectively, over the years.
Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Kozak attempted to head off the involvement of other countries by arranging for their own settlement for Vladmir Voronin to sign, giving Transnistria de facto veto power over big Moldovan policy decisions.
As no one was prepared to do it, and the Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization was created in the State Department which would have a coordinator and a small staff of about a dozen who would come up with action plans and lists of experts including those outside of government to deal with humanitarian assistance, training police, instituting civil authority, and the like.
[11] He was the Scarff Visiting Professor of International Relations at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin in fall 2010[2] and was on the council of advisors of the Wende Museum, a research institute and archive of the Cold War located in Culver City, California.