 He was a great grandnephew of the composer Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.After studying at the Sorbonne in Paris and the university of Liège, Volkoff taught English at Amiens from 1955-57.He served as an intelligence officer in the French army during the Algerian War, where he learnt how war is fought as much in the shadows and the embassies as in the open air of the battlefield.