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Anatoly Dobrynin Times Books VOLUME XXV, NUMBER 37 nvis 10, 4,444,, fdtIlts (1) .6) ook MOSCOW'S Wasiton post tr Itto Man in 1,(144- The Middle IN CONFIDENCE Moscow's Ambassador to America's or Six Cold War Presidents (1962-1988) By Anatoly Dobrynin Times Books. 692 pp. $30 By Robert G. Kaiser HIS IS an amazing book, first of all simply because it exists. A relative- ly candid memoir by a senior offi- Tcial of the Soviet Union is not the sort of volume American readers ever ex- SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10,4995 pected to see, but here it is. Better yet, it is a good book, a compelling historical ac- count of the Cold War from Kennedy through Reagan filled with historical scooplets, quotations from original Soviet documents, juicy gossip and memorable anecdotes. Anatoly Dobrynin, who served as a Sovi- et diplomat for half a century and as ambas- sador to the United States for half of that ca- Robert G. Kaiser is managing editor of The Washington Post. He was The Post's corre- spondent in Moscow from 1971-74 and is the author of *Why Gorbachev Happened." ILLUSTRATIONS). GARY kIISKUPIC-FOR THE WASHINGTON POST reer, is quite candid about the history he diplomacy in Washington. He even gives fluence and stubborn hard-liners, even as observed and occasionally was able to the Soviet side a significant measure of the he acknowledges that the hard-liners often nudge. He performs a great service for pos- blame for the Vietnam War, commenting had good cause for their skeptical views of terity by filling In Confidence with vivid, repeatedly that his leaders allowed them- Soviet intentions. firsthand accounts of every Cold War con- selves to be used and manipulated by a gov- Individually, many of the Americans Do- frontation from the Cuban Missile Crisis to ernment in Hanoi that showed no real con- brynin worked with seemed to be in a sort the shooting down of KAL Flight 007. He cern for Soviet interests. of competition to see who could be more adds to the historical record of every one of Not that he absolves the Americans with fawning and more indiscreet to the Soviet them. And he blames nearly every one whom he worked, collectively or individual- ambassador. Henry Kissinger may enjoy largely on his own bosses in Moscow, com- ly. In the style of the Soviet man he has al- these memoirs less than most readers; oth- plaining that their isolated and ideological ways been, Dobrynin attributes anti-Soviet ers will be amused by the stories Dobrynin view of the world constantly bedeviled his machinations to Pentagon cabals, Jewish in- —Continued on page 10 )Ci'l.ti UNITED PRESS INTERWIONRL Amatoly Dobryirdn with President Kennedy at the White House in March 1962 Anatoly Dobrynin ia* f Continued from page 1 Brezhnev was "the only foreign leader—including America's own allies—who had been able to find hu- tells of Kissinger's vanities and self-promotions. man words of cheer amidst his [Watergate] difficul- Perhaps the most intriguing revelation in the book ties." is Dobrynin's description of Leonid Brezhnev's deter- Then on Dec. 13, 1973, continuing this private ex- mination to be Richard Nixon's staunchest supporter change, Nixon startled Dobrynin by giving him an un- through the trials of Watergate—"Nixon's last friend," expected analysis of current events based on conclu- as Dobrynin puts it. He describes an extraordinary pen- sions "he had come to ... only recently" about "Israeli pal relationship between the two men that began at the intransigence." Israel wanted a permanent state of end of 1973, after their second summit meeting and the war with the Arabs, Nixon said, adding that "Israel Yom Kippur War. The correspondence was prompted and the American Jewish community were anxious to by the hostilities in the Suez area, following an Ameri- prevent any improvement in Soviet-American rela- can nuclear alert that had alarmed the Soviets. tions." Israel's hard line, "encouraged in every way by Dobrynin writes that he personally was not so the politically influential Jewish lobby in America, alarmed by the alert, since he saw it as a tactical ma- which in turn helped shape American foreign policy," neuver by Kissinger, who, as he said at the time, was had pushed the United States into a situation "where lust playing the game." Kissinger himself told Do- its course ran counter to the whole world: the Arabs, brynin that the alert was prompted mostly by "domes- the Soviet Union, and nearly all its allies in Western tic considerations" and would be lifted in a day, as in- Europe as well as Japan." (These quotations are from deed it was. (At the time Kissinger publicly ridiculed Dobrynin's recollection of what Nixon said; he prides the suggestion that the alert could be attributed to do- himself on the accuracy of his accounts of such con- mestic considerations. He denied this in his memoirs versations, which he wrote down as soon as he could.) as well.) Soon afterward, "for his own private reasons," But, Nixon continued, he owed nothing to the Jew- Dobrynin writes, Kissinger privately expressed regret ish vote since "most Jews had always voted against over the alert, which he called a "rash move" for which him," so he was determined to pursue a balanced the White House was to blame. (Watergate was taking peace settlement in the Middle East. "He was also a heavy toll on the Nixon presidency at the time.) clearly vexed," Dobrynin continues, "by the hostile Nixon evidently realized the alert was a mistake campaign against him over Watergate by the mass and summoned Dobrynin to Camp David. He media. The president said that the American media promised to resume active cooperation, to restrain the were run 'essentially by the same Jewish circles.' Israelis in the wake of their victory over Egypt, and to With deep feeling he said their campaign knew no avoid future episodes of the same kind. "Please in- limits, and they had no idea of decency let alone form the general secretary [Brezhnev]," Dobrynin gratitude. In fact he used even stronger language quotes Nixon as saying, "that as long as I live and hold than that." the office of president I will never allow a real con- Nixon went on to make "a curious remark about frontation with the Soviet Union." He added to these Kissinger." After pointing out that "his Jewish origin pleasing words a confession that Watergate was part made him less vulnerable to the attacks of the Ameri- of the reason for what had happened. His enemies can Jewish community," Nixon noted that Kissinger were using Watergate to try to undermine his authori- "had at times strongly indulged Israel's nationalist sen- ty, which may have prompted him to lose his "cool" timents, for which he had to be corrected, but on the during the crisis, Nixon said. whole, the president was convinced that Kissinger was Dobrynin forwarded this unusual confession to working along the right lines." Brezhnev, who was apparently moved by it and re- Alas, Dobrynin took Nixon's anti-Semitic diatribe sponded with the first of a series of supportive person- at face value and passed it on to Moscow. Brezhnev al messages to Nixon. should like from the depths responded, not surprisingly, by saying that the presi- of my heart to wish you energy and success in over- dent's comments on Israel and the Middle East "coin- , coming. all kinds of difficulties, the causes of which cided with the view of the Soviet leadership." Do- are not easily seen at h'dislanCe," he wrote. Nixon was brynin ends his account of this hitherto-undisclosed • delighted with this message and told Dobrynin that Nixon-Brezhnev correspondence by observing: "The irony of the situation was that during this period acteristic passage. Dobrynin wants his readers to be- Nixon seemed to be as frank, direct, and even cynical lieve that he maintained a personal moral code while in conversations with his old communist enemies as representing men in Moscow who did not. This read- he was with friends, if not more so." er concluded that Dobrynin sincerely believed this, and that he generally had a right to do so. (later, he OBRYNIN'S account teaches an important says, he was kept in the dark about Soviet plans to in- lesson. As the official documents begin to vade Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Afghanistan in pour out of Soviet and American archives, 1979.) scholars will be tempted to overstate the im- The Nixon administration gave Dobrynin his great- D est opportunities to pursue his own diplomatic agen- portance of one or another documentary revelation, when the real story of the Cold War is largely a hu- da. The Soviet leadership was initially so alarmed at man drama. Dobrynin was on hand for much of it—he the prospect of a Nixon presidency that Dobrynin was took part in every Soviet-American summit from 1955 instructed to offer Hubert H. Humphrey, Nixon's 1968 to 1990—and he watched the spectacle with a de- opponent, any form of aid he might want, including tached, sometimes bemused eye. money. (Dobrynin was enormously relievgd when Detente was Dobrynin's cause. He believed Humphrey cut off the conversation by saying it was throughout that the Soviet Union and the United "more than enough for him to have Moscow's good States could manage to coexist peacefully and avoid wishes.") But three and a half years later Dobrynin nuclear confrontation if only their leaders would pur- was busily preparing for Nixon's first presidential vis- sue sensible diplomacy.
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