Kissinger’s man from Moscow

When Anatoly Dobrynin died earlier this month, aged 90, the British press paid little notice. Yet it is increasingly clear that he was one of the most remarkable players in the Cold War — someone who did much to stop the conflict turning hot.

Over 24 years he served as Soviet ambassador to six US Presidents — Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan. Perhaps his most telling contribution was his role in the period of détente during the stewardship of Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s all-powerful national security adviser, and later secretary of state.

Dobrynin arrived in Washington just in time to be thrown into the Cuban Missile Crisis. At 42, he was the first Soviet envoy to the US born after the Russian revolution. Son of a plumber, he was the first member of his family to get to university. Trained as an engineer, in 1944 he entered the aircraft industry, working for the celebrated designer Yakovlev.

Although he had not wanted to be transferred to the Foreign Service, once there he discovered that his technical expertise gave him a considerable advantage, not least in his dealings with Kissinger, whose knowledge of missiles was patchy.

From his earliest days in office, in the interests of détente, Kissinger pursued an unusual friendship with the Soviet ambassador. Of all the thousands of original documents, ‘TELCONS’ and ‘MEMCONS’ that I had to study while writing my book, Kissinger’s Year: 1973, nothing surprised me more than the tone of their conversations.

When dealing with the lofty Lord Cromer, the British ambassador to Washington at the time of Edward Heath’s premiership, Kissinger would be formal, cool, and sometimes frosty, notwithstanding the fact that Britain had long been the most reliable ally of the US.