Andrei Gromyko

Gromyko entered Soviet diplomacy in 1939 and became ambassador to the United States by 1943, then the USSR's permanent UN representative in 1946. After a stint as ambassador to Britain in 1952, he rose to Foreign Minister in 1957 and held the post for twenty-eight years. He sat across from Americans during the Cuban Missile Crisis, brokered the end of the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War, and negotiated the détente treaties - the ABM, the Partial Nuclear Test Ban, SALT I and II. As Brezhnev weakened in the mid-1970s, Gromyko assumed real control of Soviet policy alongside Ustinov and Andropov. He remained after Brezhnev's death in 1982, his rigid distrust of the West unchanged. When Gorbachev took power in March 1985, Gromyko was moved to the ceremonial chairmanship of the Presidium, retired in 1988, and died in Moscow the next year.