Andrei Gromyko

Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko (O.S. 5 July 1909 – 2 July 1989) was a Soviet Belarusian communist politician and diplomat during the Cold War. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs (1957–1985) and as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (1985–1988).

Andrei Gromyko in 1967

Quotes

• Greece is a sort of American vassal; the Netherlands is the country of American bases that grow like tulip bulbs; Cuba is the main sugar plantation of the American monopolies; Turkey is prepared to kowtow before any United States proconsul and Canada is the boring second fiddle in the American symphony.
  • New York Herald Tribune (30 June 1953)

• [The world may end up] under a Sword of Damocles … on a tightrope over the abyss.
  • Criticising the US Strategic Defense Initiative
  • Time (11 Mar 1985)

Quotes about

• Andrey Gromyko, a key senior member of the Politburo, who had been Foreign Minister since 1957, maintained continuity in foreign policy. An expert on relations with the USA, where he served at Washington from 1939, before becoming Delegate to the United Nations from 1946 to 1949, Gromyko saw the world almost exclusively through the prism of Soviet-American relations. He did not seek a breakthrough with the USA. Instead, under Gromyko, Soviet foreign policy was nearly as rigid as he was unsmiling. Certainly, there was no bold initiative comparable to Nixon’s approach to China, nor, subsequently, any Soviet ability to retrieve the situation in China. At the same time, there were changes and openings before the rise of Gorbachev. In September 1984, Gromyko travelled to Washington to meet Reagan, and in January 1985 the Politburo decided to engage again in arms negotiations with the USA.
  • Jeremy Black, The Cold War: A New History (2015)