Viktor M. Sukhodrev, Soviet Leaders’ Trusted Interpreter

Photo

In 1979, Viktor M. Sukhodrev, center, with Jimmy Carter, left, and Leonid I. Brezhnev, right. Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images 

 

Mr. Sukhodrev was often trusted as the sole interpreter between leaders at summit meetings at the height of the Cold War. As Khrushchev harangued foreign diplomats at a reception at the Polish Embassy in Moscow in 1956, it was Mr. Sukhodrev who indelibly rendered Khrushchev’s words into English as “We will bury you.”