In Confidence: Moscow's Ambassador to Six Cold War Presidents / Edition 1

by Anatoly Dobrynin

Overview

Anatoly Dobrynin arrived in Washington, D.C., in 1962 — at 43 the youngest man ever to serve as Soviet Ambassador to the United States — and remained through the presidencies of Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan. Dobrynin became the main channel for the White House and the Kremlin to exchange ideas, negotiate in secret, and arrange summit meetings. Dobrynin writes vividly of Moscow from inside the Politburo, but In Confidence is mainly a story of Washington at the highest levels.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780295980812
Publisher:	University of Washington Press
Publication date:	02/01/2001
Pages:	688
Sales rank:	606,415
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	xv
	Introduction	3
	Before Washington
I.	My Diplomatic Career Begins	13
	From Engineering to Diplomacy	13
	Diplomacy from Litvinov: Table Manners from Princess Volkonsky	16
	My Apprenticeship at the Ministry	19
II.	My First Look at the United States	25
	Learning the Diplomatic Ropes	25
	Across the Country with Molotov	28
	Back to Moscow as Molotov's Assistant	31
	A Tour at the United Nations	33
III.	Summits: The View from the Other Side of the Peak	36
	The Geneva Summit: Eisenhower and Khrushchev	36
	The Collapse of the Paris Summit	39
	Khrushchev and Kennedy at Vienna	42
	Surprise: I Am Appointed Ambassador to the United States	46
	Washington	49
	The Kennedy Presidency, 1961-1963	51
I.	Finding My Way Around Washington	51
	Instructions from Moscow	51
	The Confidential Channel	52
	An Ambassador's Life	55
	Meeting President Kennedy and the Washington Establishment	58
	The Diplomatic Stalemate over Germany and Berlin	63
	Cuba Looms	68
II.	The Cuban Crisis	71
	Khrushchev Offers Nuclear Missiles to Cuba: Castro Accepts	71
	Soviet Embassies Are Left Out of the Loop	74
	The Crisis Erupts: In the Center of the Settlement	78
	A Timely Question and Answer Break the Deadlock	86
	After the Crisis: Lessons and Footnotes	91
III.	Learning to Live Together	96
	Setting Up the "Hot Line"	96
	The Old Problems Reappear	98
	Negotiations on the Nuclear Test Ban	99
	My Last Meeting with John F. Kennedy	105
	President Kennedy's Assassination	107
	The Kennedy Era Reconsidered	110
	The Johnson Presidency, 1963-1969	115
I.	Getting to Know the New President	115
	Johnson's Foreign Policy	115
	My First Meeting Alone with Johnson	119
	Life as a Soviet Diplomat	122
II.	Moscow and Vietnam	128
	A Palace Coup in Moscow	128
	Johnson's Triumphant Election	133
	Brezhnev versus Kosygin. Vietnam Escalates	133
	The War Party in Washington	136
	Our Own Vietnam Syndrome	139
III.	Trying to Juggle Peace and War	141
	Johnson Stakes His Presidency on Ending the War	141
	Moscow's Concern about Vietnam	143
	Mixed Results in Disarmament	146
	McNamara, Nuclear Strategy, and the ABM	151
IV.	Soviet Policy Seeks a Steady Course	155
	Kosygin Tries to Mediate in Vietnam	155
	The Politburo Outlines the Basis of Soviet Foreign Policy	156
	The Six-Day War	158
	The Glassboro Summit	162
V.	The Fall of Lyndon Johnson	168
	Vietnam Becomes "Johnson's War"	168
	The Resignation Gambit Fails	170
	Humphrey Declines Moscow's Secret Offer to Help His Election	174
	Johnson Seeks a Summit to the Bitter End: It Dies in Prague	177
	The Invasion in Czechoslovakia	178
	Johnson Presses for a Summit to the Bitter End	184
	The Nixon Presidency, 1969-1974	191
I.	Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger	191
	Soviet-American Relations in the 1970s	191
	Enter Nixon and Kissinger	196
	Negotiating with the Nixon Administration	201
	Washington and Moscow in 1970: A Year of Drift and Doubt	206
II.	Summit Foothills	209
	Gromyko and Andropov Want to Drive a Hard Bargain	209
	SALT, ABM, and the Summit	211
	Maneuvering Toward the Summit: China in the Wings	216
III.	A Geopolitical Triangle	226
	Enter China	226
	Nixon Opens a Dialogue with Brezhnev	228
	Pre-Summit Maneuvers	233
	War Between India and Pakistan	235
IV.	To the Summit	239
	Kissinger and I Start Work on the Summit	239
	Tripartite Diplomacy	240
	Vietnam and the Summit	243
	The Summit in Moscow	251
	Basking in Detente	257
	Moscow, Washington, and the End of the Vietnam War	260
V.	To the Summit Again, in America	265
	Detente and Its Problems	265
	Jewish Emigration and the Coalition Against Detente	266
	Nixon Reshapes His Government	270
	Brezhnev Makes Kissinger "Sign for It"	273
	Brezhnev in America	276
	Aftermath of the Summit	284
VI.	The October War	287
	Moscow, Washington, and the Middle East	287
	The War Begins	289
	Kissinger's Maneuvers	292
	A New Crisis	294
	The Superpower Stakes Rise: A U.S. Combat Alert Is Declared	297
	The End of the War: Nixon Becomes Apologetic	298
VII.	The Fall of Richard Nixon	302
	Nixon's Last Friend	302
	Rumblings in the White House	305
	Summit Preparations Again	308
	Watergate, the White House, and the Kremlin	310
	The Last Summit	312
	Nixon's Last Days	315
	The Ford Presidency, 1974-1977	319
I.	Searching for the Real Gerald Ford	319
	Starting Out with the New President	319
	My Dinner with Nelson Rockefeller: The Middle East	323
	My Granddaughter and Ford Divide the Globe	325
	On to Vladivostok with Ford	327
	Jewish Emigration and Detente	334
	Ford versus Nixon	339
II.	The Erosion of Detente	342
	Thunder on the Right	342
	The Fall of Saigon	343
	The Helsinki Conference and Its Aftermath	345
	The Difficult Road to the Summit	347
	Intelligence Wars	352
III.	How Appeasing the Right Helped Ford Lose the Presidency	360
	Angola	360
	Turmoil in the White House over Detente	365
	Henry Kissinger's Swan Song	367
	Ford versus Carter, as Moscow Saw Them	370
	Ford Loses the Election	372
	The Carter Presidency, 1977-1981	374
I.	The Contradictions of Jimmy Carter	374
	Jimmy Who?	374
	Friendly First Soundings	376
	Carter's New Team	380
	Face to Face with Carter	383
	The Carter Crusade	386
	SALT and Human Rights	388
	Moscow Stands Firm	390
	The Price for Trying Too Much	392
	Trying to Pick Up the Pieces	394
	Sounding Out a Summit	397
II.	Carter's Muddled Priorities	402
	Hung Up on the Horn of Africa	402
	Confusion Grows about Detente: Cooperation or Confrontation?	408
	Downhill into Deadlock	412
III.	The Summit with Carter	415
	Reviving the Arms Race	415
	Carter Pushes for a Summit	417
	The Ascent to Vienna	419
	The Summit in Vienna	422
	Down from the Summit into the SALT Marshes	427
	The Cuban Mini-Crisis	428
	Europe as an Arena of Confrontation	429
IV.	Afghanistan	434
	The Background of Intervention	434
	The Die Is Cast	437
	Afghanistan and Soviet-American Relations	443
	Diplomacy and Presidential Emotion	448
V.	Carter's Defeat: An Epitaph for Detente	455
	Deadlock on the Eve of the Elections	455
	Courting Moscow Before the Election	457
	Carter's Defeat	465
VI.	The Dismantling of Detente	467
	The Reagan Presidency, 1981-1989	477
I.	The Paradox of Ronald Reagan	477
	The Cold War Returns	477
	A Break with the Past	480
	Brezhnev Tries a Breakthrough and Fails	488
	Reagan Writes to Brezhnev from the Hospital	491
	Moscow's Annoyance Mounts	495
II.	The Reagan Crusade	499
	Impervious to Diplomacy	499
	At the White House	503
	Haig Is Replaced by the Sphinx	506
	Brezhnev and Andropov	511
III.	"More Deeds, Less Words"	517
	A Personal Discussion, with Reagan, at Last	517
	Did the Soviet Union Fear an American Nuclear Attack?	522
	The Evil Empire and Star Wars, the Elections, and the Summit	526
	Diplomatic Oxymoron	532
	The KAL007 Incident: Bitter Memories	535
	Andropov: Illusions Dispelled	540
IV.	The Thaw	544
	How Reagan's Belligerence Backfired	544
	Reagan as Peacemonger?	546
	Transition: Andropov Dies; Chernenko Succeeds Him	550
	Gromyko Returns to the White House	555
	A New Atmosphere in Outer (and Inner) Space	558
V.	The Beginning of the End of the Cold War	564
	What the Geneva Summit Meant	564
	Washington Decides to Do Business with Gorbachev	565
	Gorbachev Addresses Soviet Foreign Policy	570
	The Turn Begins	574
	A Frustrating Climb Toward the Summit	577
	The Geneva Summit	586
VI.	Goodbye to Washington	594
	Goodwill and Diplomacy	594
	My Life Changes	600
	A Round of Farewells	602
	Ronald Reagan and Soviet-American Relations	605
	After Washington	613
I.	Gorbachev: The First and Last President of the Soviet Union	615
	Life as a Secretary	615
	The Summit at Reykjavik	619
	Gorbachev in a Hurry	622
	Gorbachev, Bush, and Germany	627
	Gorbachev's Political Bankruptcy	632
	Instead of an Epilogue	638
	Appendix	640
	Index	645

Editorial Reviews

"A fascinating read . . . an essential source for historians trying to come to terms with the late Soviet period". -- Foreign Affairs

From the Publisher

The life and work of a celebrated diplomat in a period of enormous political change. Dobrynin (whose memoir was first published in 1995) served as Soviet ambassador in Washington from 1962 to 1986, and he participated in preparations for every US-Soviet summit from the first, in 1955, to the historic meeting of George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990. Though he writes about Moscow from inside the Politburo, his book is mainly a story about Washington at the highest levels. To tell the story, he writes that he relies both on his memory and on diplomatic archives and his own diaries. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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