Wilson Center Remembers Former Diplomat, Scholar Anatoly Dobrynin

The Woodrow Wilson Center joins the international community in mourning the passing of Anatoly Dobrynin, who served as the Soviet ambassador to the United States for more than 20 years, from 1962 to 1986. Ambassador Dobrynin, who died on April 6 at the age of 90, was known as an effective Cold War diplomat who served here during the terms of six U.S. presidents, from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan. One of his greatest feats as ambassador came in his first months on the job, when he became renowned for his role to help defuse the Cuban missile crisis.

Dobrynin spent 10 months as a guest scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in the early 1990s, when he researched and wrote much of his memoir, In Confidence: Moscow's Ambassador to America's Six Cold War Presidents, published in 1995.

Over the years, Ambassador Dobrynin developed a close relationship with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who is the co-chair of the Wilson Center's Kissinger Institute on China and the United States. "Subtle and disciplined, warm in his demeanor while wary in his conduct," Kissinger once wrote, "Dobrynin moved through the upper echelons of Washington with consummate skill."

In addition to having been a skilled negotiator, Dobrynin is warmly remembered by Wilson Center staff for his seemingly endless collection of stories and Russian proverbs.