Anatoly F. Dobrynin, Longtime Soviet Ambassador to the U.S., Dies at 90
Anatoly F. Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador to Washington from 1962 to 1986, whose behind-the-scenes diplomacy was credited by many historians with helping to resolve the Cuban missile crisis and ease tensions in the cold war era, has died, the Kremlin announced Thursday. He was 90.
News agencies throughout Europe, including Itar-Tass, reported that he died on Tuesday.
To a generation of Washington officials in a perilous nuclear age, Mr. Dobrynin was the pre-eminent channel for Soviet-American relations: a tough, nuanced, charming ambassador who was, as admirers and detractors put it, no more duplicitous than he had to be.
Known to American colleagues as Doby, he served six Soviet leaders: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Alexei N. Kosygin, Leonid I. Brezhnev, Yuri V. Andropov, Konstantin U. Chernenko and Mikhail S. Gorbachev. In his 24 years in Washington — the most by far of any Soviet ambassador — he became dean of the diplomatic corps and worked with six American presidents and seven secretaries of state.
American leaders were under no illusions about him. Behind the affability, they knew, was a hard man dedicated to Soviet interests. Those who pressed him about human rights in the Soviet Union or the repression of satellite states were answered with coldness, if at all.
But successive administrations found it expedient to conduct affairs through him, rather than the American ambassador in Moscow, because of his professionalism and, after 1971, his membership in the Communist Party’s Central Committee, with its access to Kremlin power centers.
With longevity rare for Soviet officials abroad, Mr. Dobrynin became a Washington celebrity, photographed meeting with presidents in the Oval Office or bantering with diplomats and reporters at receptions. But he was also comfortable with back channels, meeting officials secretly at the White House or slipping into the State Department garage in his limousine for delicate talks upstairs....
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News agencies throughout Europe, including Itar-Tass, reported that he died on Tuesday.
To a generation of Washington officials in a perilous nuclear age, Mr. Dobrynin was the pre-eminent channel for Soviet-American relations: a tough, nuanced, charming ambassador who was, as admirers and detractors put it, no more duplicitous than he had to be.
Known to American colleagues as Doby, he served six Soviet leaders: Nikita S. Khrushchev, Alexei N. Kosygin, Leonid I. Brezhnev, Yuri V. Andropov, Konstantin U. Chernenko and Mikhail S. Gorbachev. In his 24 years in Washington — the most by far of any Soviet ambassador — he became dean of the diplomatic corps and worked with six American presidents and seven secretaries of state.
American leaders were under no illusions about him. Behind the affability, they knew, was a hard man dedicated to Soviet interests. Those who pressed him about human rights in the Soviet Union or the repression of satellite states were answered with coldness, if at all.
But successive administrations found it expedient to conduct affairs through him, rather than the American ambassador in Moscow, because of his professionalism and, after 1971, his membership in the Communist Party’s Central Committee, with its access to Kremlin power centers.
With longevity rare for Soviet officials abroad, Mr. Dobrynin became a Washington celebrity, photographed meeting with presidents in the Oval Office or bantering with diplomats and reporters at receptions. But he was also comfortable with back channels, meeting officials secretly at the White House or slipping into the State Department garage in his limousine for delicate talks upstairs....