Word: gromykoisms
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...order to report to his office inevitably strikes dread in the recipient, even a Deputy Foreign Minister. Impatience rather than vindictiveness is Gromyko's hallmark in dealing with those who rank beneath him. That is typical of top Soviet bureaucrats. They are rude to their underlings to demonstrate their own importance. Gromyko will often call a meeting of his three or four ranking assistants and, if he is in a bad mood, vilify them as "dolts" or "schoolboys" who are "not fit to work in the Foreign Ministry." A report with a few minor errors or a document submitted late...
...Gromyko has little interest in the Third World. He would rarely see Foreign Ministry officials concerned with developing countries and, despite countless invitations, has never visited any black African nation. Except for Cuba, he has never been to a Latin American country. China interests him primarily through the prism of Moscow-Washington-Peking politics. I once had an argument about all this with Vadim Zagladin, deputy to Boris Ponomarev, chief of the Central Committee's International Department. Speaking of Africa, I remarked on the futility of "playing with some pissant little 'liberation' committees that come into being overnight and disappear...
...Gromyko sent me abroad several times as his representative. My diplomatic mission to Africa in 1971 was depressingly instructive. Because of economic deficiencies and bureaucratic inertia at home we would be hard put to meet the expectations our expansionist diplomacy aroused. Instead of gaining friends, we would, in many instances, lose credibility. In their own policies toward the Third World, it seemed difficult for Americans to realize that a number of these initially Moscow-oriented countries did not want to emulate the Soviet model. The West's great advantage is that, except in a state of war, in the long...
Because of my U.N. work, Gromyko regarded me as something of a Middle East expert. He ordered me to follow events in the area. Analysts in the Middle East Department were worried. "Things are bad," one of them told me early in 1971, referring to the fact that the Egyptians were stalling Moscow on concluding a long-sought treaty of friendship designed to bind Cairo firmly into an alliance. A friend told me, "Opinions are beginning to solidify in the leadership that we have to be rid of (Egyptian President Anwar) Sadat. Sadat is a scoundrel. The only problem...
...extensively involved in preparing for Richard Nixon's visit to Moscow in May 1972. In a pre-summit meeting in Gromyko's office, as we were trying to think of a suitable gift for Nixon, Gromyko remarked, "Almost all Americans have some kind of hobby. Does anyone know what Nixon's is?" After a moment of head shaking around the table, Gromyko said dryly, "I think what he'd really like is a guarantee to stay in the White House forever." Soviet leaders did find in Nixon's behavior definite similarities to their own, and concluded that it might...