Word: dobrynins
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...missiles out. He also thought it made sense to accept Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's call to take 15 intermediate-range U.S. Jupiter missiles out of Turkey as part of the deal. After much debate, Robert Kennedy was sent down the street to tell Soviet Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin privately that the Jupiters would soon be out of Turkey...
Working at the highest levels of the Soviet government before his appointment as ambassador, Dobrynin had exposure to many of the Kremlin's murkier minds, like Khrushchev and Brezhev. His clear discussion of their decisions and their ways of handling power yields an insight that could only have come from experience...
Surprisingly, despite being ambassador to the Soviet Union during a volatile period in US-Soviet relations, Dobrynin managed to make many friends in Washington. His sociable character and cooperative attitude show clearly in his writing as well. Like a psychologist, though with less gravity, he describes the personality of a person before he begins to talk about his policies and decisions. He never misses the opportunity to include a few humorous anecdotes that help illustrate his point...
...Dobrynin was successful at conflating a pro-American personal inclination with the policies of the Soviets. When Ronald Reagan was told that Dobrynin had been promoted to the rank of Secretary of the International Relations Department of the Communist Party and would not be returning as an ambassador, he asked, amazed: "Is he really a communist?" The effective blurring of Dobrynin's official position on matters and his own character keeps the reader perpetually guessing at whose side he was really on all that time. In the person of Dobrynin, yet another thread is added to the already complex fabric...
Despite his many noteworthy accomplishments, Dobrynin offers little self-praise in the book but he says nothing in the form of self-criticism either. At times this attitude of reporting his own actions without judging them calls into question his credibility--the reader is left wondering why he refuses to engage. While Dobrynin contributes necessary information to the story of the Cold War, In Confidence is not the book which sets the story straight...