Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko was a Soviet diplomat and statesman who held prominent positions in the Soviet government and international relations for nearly three decades. Born in 1909, Gromyko earned a Doctor of Economics degree in 1956 and began his diplomatic career in the 1940s.
Gromyko's early diplomatic career was marked by his involvement in the creation of the United Nations. He led the Soviet delegation at the International Conference at Dumbarton Oaks in 1944 and participated in the preparation and conduct of the Tehran and Yalta conferences in 1945. He also led a delegation that signed the UN Charter on behalf of the USSR at the San Francisco conference in 1945.
Gromyko went on to serve as the USSR's Ambassador to the United States from 1944 to 1946 and then as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR from 1957 to 1985. During his tenure as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gromyko used the veto right in the UN Security Council more than 20 times, earning him the nickname "Mister No" in the diplomatic community.
Despite his reputation for being cautious and opposed to change, Gromyko was a strong supporter of peaceful relations between the USSR and the United States and their NATO partners. He proposed numerous initiatives for disarmament and played a key role in negotiating several major treaties, including the Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in Three Environments, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties.
Gromyko's diplomatic career was marked by several notable events, including his role in preventing a war between India and Pakistan in 1966 and his involvement in the negotiations that led to the signing of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in 1975.
Gromyko was also known for his close relationship with Soviet communist leader Leonid Brezhnev and was one of the top leaders who decided to send Soviet troops into Afghanistan in 1979. He held the post of head of Soviet diplomacy for 28 years, a record that still stands today.
Gromyko's final years in politics were marked by his support for Mikhail Gorbachev's candidacy for the post of head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985. He completed his political career in 1988 as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the formal head of the Soviet state.
Throughout his diplomatic career, Gromyko's motto was "Better 10 years of negotiations than one day of war." He is remembered as a great diplomat of the Soviet era by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and is widely regarded as one of the most important figures in Soviet international relations during the Cold War.
