Gromyko and the death of a promise

Andrei Gromyko was a regular target of cruel humour, all the way from Joseph Stalin to Nikita Khrushchev to Leonid Brezhnev. And yet all these men knew of the invaluable expertise which Gromyko, beginning with the onset of his diplomatic career at the height of the Second World War, brought into Soviet dealings with the rest of the world, especially the United States. He was there at Dumbarton Oaks when the United Nations was given shape. As Soviet permanent representative to the world body, he stamped his nation's signature on the formative stages of the UN. He served as deputy foreign minister. As ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1952 --- he presented his credentials to a very young Queen Elizabeth II even before she could go through her coronation --- he cemented a relationship forged between London and Moscow in the crucible of the struggle against Hitler. As ambassador to Washington, it was his job not merely to present Soviet diplomacy in as bright a light as possible but also take a measure of the way American policy makers shaped attitudes to his country.
Gromyko's place in history has been assured through his long innings as Soviet foreign minister from 1957, when Khrushchev appointed him to the job, to 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev eased him out of it and kicked him upstairs as President of the Supreme Soviet, a largely ceremonial post he abandoned two years later. Gromyko certainly had not reckoned with Gorbachev's insensitivity, for he had been the individual, after Konstantin Chernenko's death in 1985, who nominated Gorbachev as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. Clearly bent on inaugurating a new era, one that we now know led to disaster for the Soviet Union, the new man in the Kremlin had little need for a holdover from the past. The foreign ministry went to Eduard Schevardnadze, the no nonsense politician from Georgia who was, post-Soviet Union, to become president of a free Georgia only to be run out of office by a mass movement led by the young Mikhail Saakashvili. Ironically, it is Saakashvili who today is an authoritarian ruler bent on suppressing dissent through an employment of disproportionate force in Georgia.
But, of course, when Gromyko came up with his memoirs in 1989 (that was also the year in which he died), all of this was in the future. Memories, a copy of which yours truly stumbled upon at a Charing Cross Road bookstore in London a couple of weeks ago, is considerably a lot more than the story of the man the West often condescendingly called Mr. Nyet. When you read the book, it is a different Gromyko you run into. Gone, suddenly as it were, is the image of the dour Soviet politician to whom humour and the common human touch are strangers. What you have, through the work, is as much a history of Soviet foreign policy between the Stalin years and the beginning of the Gorbachev era as it is the story of a man endowed with huge intelligence and a substantive grasp on the ways of the world. His perception of men and matters, owing specifically to his long hold on Soviet diplomacy, is a good deal more percipient than what we have so far had from his counterparts in the West. There is depth in the man, despite the joke, made in bad taste, that if Khrushchev asked Gromyko to sit on a block of ice without flinching he would do so. Andrei Gromyko was no laughing matter.
Gromyko's observant nature shines through pretty early on in Memories. Note his assessment of Franklin Delano Roosevelt:
'I still firmly believe that (Roosevelt) was one of the most outstanding US statesmen. He was a clever politician, a man of broad vision and special personal qualities.'
Gromyko notes that Roosevelt 'always referred respectfully to Stalin.' Unfortunately, FDR's successor in the White House, Harry Truman, does not inspire in the Soviet diplomat the kind of respect Roosevelt did. Gromyko makes it obvious that where FDR sincerely sought to build bridges between Washington and Moscow, Truman systematically went about creating conditions that could not but lead to the Cold War. The voracious reader that he was, Gromyko always sought a cultural dimension in his dealings with people in the West. He once asked Charlie Chaplin why he did not produce movies based on the works of Byron, Goethe and Balzac. Chaplin's response was without ambiguity. Americans, he told Gromyko, 'want to see stories that give them a feeling of optimism about everyday life, stories that create a happy mood.' Gromyko interacted with Paul Robeson, Edward G. Robinson and even Marilyn Monroe. He speaks of George Gershwin with fondness, though the composer died two years before Gromyko made it to America.
Gromyko's respect for Joseph Stalin, for all the ugliness of the purges the Soviet leader was overseeing, was abiding. Stalin was never sloppy; he 'ate rather slowly and sparingly. He did not drink spirits, but he liked dry wine and always opened the bottle himself, first studying the label carefully, as if judging its artistic quality.' The bookworm in Gromyko was quick to spot Stalin's aesthetic leanings: 'As for his taste in literature, I can state that he read a great deal . . .he had a good knowledge of the Russian classics, especially Gogol and Saltykov-Shchedrin. Also, to my knowledge, he read Shakespeare, Heine, Balzac, Hugo, Guy de Maupassant . . .'
These memoirs are a passage into the past in order to arrive at an understanding of the present. Gromyko emphasises the early post-war years, a historical phase he believes was twisted out of shape by the suspicious nature of the Western powers. Recalling the Soviet Union's opposition to Western policies, the long-serving Soviet diplomat points out that at a summit, in 1955, as the West continued to harp on the idea of cooperation, the Soviet Union offered to be part of NATO. It was news received with stunned silence. This is what Gromyko remembers: 'They were so stunned that for several minutes none of them said a word. Eisenhower's usual vote-winning smile had vanished from his face. He leaned over for a private conversation with Dulles; but we were not given a reply to our proposal.'
Henry Kissinger once summed up the Gromyko personality: 'If you can face Gromyko for one hour and survive, then you can begin to call yourself a diplomat.' Which says a whole lot about the Soviet Union's spokesperson in diplomacy. One paramount quality in Gromyko was his meticulous probing of the issues his country needed to deal with. He was an informed diplomat, suave and charming who was often embarrassed by his own people. He felt ill at ease when, right after the U2 affair, Khrushchev stared coldly at Eisenhower and was in no mood to shake his hand even as Charles de Gaulle and Harold Macmillan were busy exchanging pleasantries nearby. Likewise, when in 1960 Khrushchev began to bang away with his shoe at the Soviet desk at the United Nations as Macmillan spoke before the General Assembly, Gromyko could not have felt comfortable.
The proper Communist that he was, Gromyko defends Soviet policies, even if they are questionable, with a straight face. He does not regret Warsaw Pact action in Hungary in 1956 or in Czechoslovakia in 1968. In October 1962, at a point when Washington was already in the know about Soviet missiles in Cuba, Gromyko sat talking to President Kennedy and Secretary of State Dean Rusk in straight-faced manner about Moscow-Washington ties. In Memories, he offers an unapologetic explanation as to why he did not discuss the missiles: no one at that meeting in the White House raised the issue and so he did not feel any need to talk about it.
This work is a pretty fascinating journey into a lost era. Andrei Gromyko speaks of his dealings with various French presidents, from De Gaulle to Mitterrand. De Gaulle is 'an outstanding Frenchman' and Valery Giscard d'Estaing was 'always well prepared for talks, armed with factual arguments.' He has only praise for the scholar Andre Malraux, the 'very embodiment of high intelligence.' Gromyko's opinion of Germany's Konrad Adenauer is poor and of Helmut Schmidt slightly better. He admires Sukarno and Nehru and is charmed by the graces in Indira Gandhi. Egypt's Nasser remains an object of admiration for him. That is not the same one can say about his opinion of Anwar Sadat, who 'all his life had suffered from megalomania.' Speaking of his first meeting with Henry Kissinger, Gromyko recalls telling him in jest that he looked like Kissinger. The American responds: 'And you look like Richard Nixon.' Of Mao Zedong, here is what Gromyko has to say: 'Mao liked people he could have a good argument with, but when a difficult political question arose his expression glazed over and he became a different person, utterly remote.'
You close the book. As you do, you ask yourself if the Soviet Union should not have survived. Its demise was the death of a promise. Andrei Gromyko was part of the promise.

Syed Badrul Ahsan is Editor, Current Affairs and Book Reviews, The Daily Star.