Doyen of the international diplomatic corps

Anatoly Dobrynin helped to negotiate peaceful coexistence between the world's two superpowers during some of the darkest days of the Cold War, and became the doyen of the international diplomatic corps in Washington. Mr. Dobrynin, who died Tuesday at age 90, was the U.S.S.R.'s chief diplomat to the U.S. for a quarter century. His posting almost literally started with a bang when, just months after his appointment in 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis flared.

When the Soviets were discovered constructing nuclear launchpads in Cuba, President Kennedy imposed a blockade and it seemed that war threatened. Hostilities were averted after Mr. Dobrynin agreed to a deal by which NATO missiles based in Turkey were removed as a quid pro quo for the Cuban missiles. By then, Mr. Dobrynin had set up the "back channel" communications with the White House that included entering the State Department through the garage and using the secretary of state's private elevator. Starting in the détente-minded Nixon administration, he enjoyed a dedicated hotline to Henry Kissinger.

Associated Press - Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, left, listened to Anatoly F. Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador, on the South Lawn of the White House in December 1974.

Mr. Dobrynin's extraordinary diplomatic privileges were suspended under President Reagan, but Mr. Dobrynin eventually won over even the architect of the 1980s military buildup. When the urbane Mr. Dobrynin was recalled to Moscow to become a high Communist Party official in 1986, an astonished Reagan is said to have asked, "Is he a Communist?"

The first U.S.S.R. ambassador to the U.S. born after the Bolshevik Revolution, Anatoly Fyodorovich Dobrynin was the son of a plumber and a theater usher. Trained as an aviation engineer, he was working in a fighter-plane factory in 1944 when he was recruited for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on orders from Stalin, who wanted technicians and not intellectuals as diplomats. During the 1950s, Mr. Dobrynin served in the Soviet Embassy in Washington and then at the United Nations. He accompanied Soviet leader Khrushchev on a 1959 visit to the U.S.

After helping to defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis, Mr. Dobrynin was part of all the superpower diplomatic milestones, including summits, the development of détente, as well as treaties that limited nuclear weapons. Part of his skill was communicating the ways of America to his masters in Moscow. In his 1995 memoir "In Confidence," Mr. Dobrynin wrote that during a 1972 meeting at Camp David, Soviet leader Brezhnev thought President Nixon had presented him an inexpensive gift, a Steuben glass eagle. Brezhnev gave it to Mr. Dobrynin, saying "I don't need it. You take it." Mr. Dobrynin informed the premier that it was valued at $30,000 or more. "Really?" Brezhnev said. "Give it back."

Anatoly Dobrynin 1919-2010: Cold-War Envoy

By STEPHEN MILLER
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A15