Word: dobrynins
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...ambassador of the Soviet Union to the United States from 1962 to 1986, Anatoly Dobrynin was the key link between Washington and Moscow under six American presidents. With power and sincerity, Dobrynin tells the story of the Cold War from this unique perspective in his autobiographical book In Confidence...
Reading his book is like listening to an old Russian folk tale. There is humor, there is misunderstanding, and the Russians are never wrong. In truth, Dobrynin neither over-simplifies the story nor bogs the narrative down with too much information. Instead, he produces an in-depth analysis of the unpredictable and often uncertain times he lived...
...striking characteristic of the book is the confidence with which Dobrynin writes it. He offers a first-hand account of the pitfalls and the triumphs of U.S.-Soviet relations in the course of three decades. As Russian ambassador, he had the opportunity to work with and probe the minds of both Soviet and American leaders...
...does not disappoint. His memoir, In Confidence, is a no-pulled-punches page turner of a diplomatic history, spiced with anecdotes and insights. He recounts how Stalin once told his Ambassador to the U.S., Andrei Gromyko, to learn English by listening to sermons in American churches. How Dobrynin, during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, communicated with Moscow via Western Union, which sent a bicycle messenger to pick up coded cables. How Moscow secretly offered financial aid to Vice President Hubert Humphrey for his 1968 presidential campaign against Richard Nixon (Humphrey declined the offer). How Soviet Party Secretary Leonid Brezhnev...
...always was one, Dobrynin insists, though some days it must have been difficult. During the Cuban missile crisis, Moscow told him "absolutely nothing at all" of plans to place the missiles, then made him "an involuntary tool of deceit" by maintaining that they were defensive only. Khrushchev's lack of a fallback plan once the missiles were discovered was a lesson, Dobrynin notes, that was forgotten by his successors when they invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Ignoring warnings from his generals and ambassador, Brezhnev told Dobrynin not to worry: "It'll be over in three to four weeks...