| Acknowledgments | xv |
| Introduction | 3 |
| Before Washington | |
I. | My Diplomatic Career Begins | 13 |
| From Engineering to Diplomacy | 13 |
| Diplomacy from Litvinov: Table Manners from Princess Volkonsky | 16 |
| My Apprenticeship at the Ministry | 19 |
II. | My First Look at the United States | 25 |
| Learning the Diplomatic Ropes | 25 |
| Across the Country with Molotov | 28 |
| Back to Moscow as Molotov's Assistant | 31 |
| A Tour at the United Nations | 33 |
III. | Summits: The View from the Other Side of the Peak | 36 |
| The Geneva Summit: Eisenhower and Khrushchev | 36 |
| The Collapse of the Paris Summit | 39 |
| Khrushchev and Kennedy at Vienna | 42 |
| Surprise: I Am Appointed Ambassador to the United States | 46 |
| Washington | 49 |
| The Kennedy Presidency, 1961-1963 | 51 |
I. | Finding My Way Around Washington | 51 |
| Instructions from Moscow | 51 |
| The Confidential Channel | 52 |
| An Ambassador's Life | 55 |
| Meeting President Kennedy and the Washington Establishment | 58 |
| The Diplomatic Stalemate over Germany and Berlin | 63 |
| Cuba Looms | 68 |
II. | The Cuban Crisis | 71 |
| Khrushchev Offers Nuclear Missiles to Cuba: Castro Accepts | 71 |
| Soviet Embassies Are Left Out of the Loop | 74 |
| The Crisis Erupts: In the Center of the Settlement | 78 |
| A Timely Question and Answer Break the Deadlock | 86 |
| After the Crisis: Lessons and Footnotes | 91 |
III. | Learning to Live Together | 96 |
| Setting Up the "Hot Line" | 96 |
| The Old Problems Reappear | 98 |
| Negotiations on the Nuclear Test Ban | 99 |
| My Last Meeting with John F. Kennedy | 105 |
| President Kennedy's Assassination | 107 |
| The Kennedy Era Reconsidered | 110 |
| The Johnson Presidency, 1963-1969 | 115 |
I. | Getting to Know the New President | 115 |
| Johnson's Foreign Policy | 115 |
| My First Meeting Alone with Johnson | 119 |
| Life as a Soviet Diplomat | 122 |
II. | Moscow and Vietnam | 128 |
| A Palace Coup in Moscow | 128 |
| Johnson's Triumphant Election | 133 |
| Brezhnev versus Kosygin. Vietnam Escalates | 133 |
| The War Party in Washington | 136 |
| Our Own Vietnam Syndrome | 139 |
III. | Trying to Juggle Peace and War | 141 |
| Johnson Stakes His Presidency on Ending the War | 141 |
| Moscow's Concern about Vietnam | 143 |
| Mixed Results in Disarmament | 146 |
| McNamara, Nuclear Strategy, and the ABM | 151 |
IV. | Soviet Policy Seeks a Steady Course | 155 |
| Kosygin Tries to Mediate in Vietnam | 155 |
| The Politburo Outlines the Basis of Soviet Foreign Policy | 156 |
| The Six-Day War | 158 |
| The Glassboro Summit | 162 |
V. | The Fall of Lyndon Johnson | 168 |
| Vietnam Becomes "Johnson's War" | 168 |
| The Resignation Gambit Fails | 170 |
| Humphrey Declines Moscow's Secret Offer to Help His Election | 174 |
| Johnson Seeks a Summit to the Bitter End: It Dies in Prague | 177 |
| The Invasion in Czechoslovakia | 178 |
| Johnson Presses for a Summit to the Bitter End | 184 |
| The Nixon Presidency, 1969-1974 | 191 |
I. | Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger | 191 |
| Soviet-American Relations in the 1970s | 191 |
| Enter Nixon and Kissinger | 196 |
| Negotiating with the Nixon Administration | 201 |
| Washington and Moscow in 1970: A Year of Drift and Doubt | 206 |
II. | Summit Foothills | 209 |
| Gromyko and Andropov Want to Drive a Hard Bargain | 209 |
| SALT, ABM, and the Summit | 211 |
| Maneuvering Toward the Summit: China in the Wings | 216 |
III. | A Geopolitical Triangle | 226 |
| Enter China | 226 |
| Nixon Opens a Dialogue with Brezhnev | 228 |
| Pre-Summit Maneuvers | 233 |
| War Between India and Pakistan | 235 |
IV. | To the Summit | 239 |
| Kissinger and I Start Work on the Summit | 239 |
| Tripartite Diplomacy | 240 |
| Vietnam and the Summit | 243 |
| The Summit in Moscow | 251 |
| Basking in Detente | 257 |
| Moscow, Washington, and the End of the Vietnam War | 260 |
V. | To the Summit Again, in America | 265 |
| Detente and Its Problems | 265 |
| Jewish Emigration and the Coalition Against Detente | 266 |
| Nixon Reshapes His Government | 270 |
| Brezhnev Makes Kissinger "Sign for It" | 273 |
| Brezhnev in America | 276 |
| Aftermath of the Summit | 284 |
VI. | The October War | 287 |
| Moscow, Washington, and the Middle East | 287 |
| The War Begins | 289 |
| Kissinger's Maneuvers | 292 |
| A New Crisis | 294 |
| The Superpower Stakes Rise: A U.S. Combat Alert Is Declared | 297 |
| The End of the War: Nixon Becomes Apologetic | 298 |
VII. | The Fall of Richard Nixon | 302 |
| Nixon's Last Friend | 302 |
| Rumblings in the White House | 305 |
| Summit Preparations Again | 308 |
| Watergate, the White House, and the Kremlin | 310 |
| The Last Summit | 312 |
| Nixon's Last Days | 315 |
| The Ford Presidency, 1974-1977 | 319 |
I. | Searching for the Real Gerald Ford | 319 |
| Starting Out with the New President | 319 |
| My Dinner with Nelson Rockefeller: The Middle East | 323 |
| My Granddaughter and Ford Divide the Globe | 325 |
| On to Vladivostok with Ford | 327 |
| Jewish Emigration and Detente | 334 |
| Ford versus Nixon | 339 |
II. | The Erosion of Detente | 342 |
| Thunder on the Right | 342 |
| The Fall of Saigon | 343 |
| The Helsinki Conference and Its Aftermath | 345 |
| The Difficult Road to the Summit | 347 |
| Intelligence Wars | 352 |
III. | How Appeasing the Right Helped Ford Lose the Presidency | 360 |
| Angola | 360 |
| Turmoil in the White House over Detente | 365 |
| Henry Kissinger's Swan Song | 367 |
| Ford versus Carter, as Moscow Saw Them | 370 |
| Ford Loses the Election | 372 |
| The Carter Presidency, 1977-1981 | 374 |
I. | The Contradictions of Jimmy Carter | 374 |
| Jimmy Who? | 374 |
| Friendly First Soundings | 376 |
| Carter's New Team | 380 |
| Face to Face with Carter | 383 |
| The Carter Crusade | 386 |
| SALT and Human Rights | 388 |
| Moscow Stands Firm | 390 |
| The Price for Trying Too Much | 392 |
| Trying to Pick Up the Pieces | 394 |
| Sounding Out a Summit | 397 |
II. | Carter's Muddled Priorities | 402 |
| Hung Up on the Horn of Africa | 402 |
| Confusion Grows about Detente: Cooperation or Confrontation? | 408 |
| Downhill into Deadlock | 412 |
III. | The Summit with Carter | 415 |
| Reviving the Arms Race | 415 |
| Carter Pushes for a Summit | 417 |
| The Ascent to Vienna | 419 |
| The Summit in Vienna | 422 |
| Down from the Summit into the SALT Marshes | 427 |
| The Cuban Mini-Crisis | 428 |
| Europe as an Arena of Confrontation | 429 |
IV. | Afghanistan | 434 |
| The Background of Intervention | 434 |
| The Die Is Cast | 437 |
| Afghanistan and Soviet-American Relations | 443 |
| Diplomacy and Presidential Emotion | 448 |
V. | Carter's Defeat: An Epitaph for Detente | 455 |
| Deadlock on the Eve of the Elections | 455 |
| Courting Moscow Before the Election | 457 |
| Carter's Defeat | 465 |
VI. | The Dismantling of Detente | 467 |
| The Reagan Presidency, 1981-1989 | 477 |
I. | The Paradox of Ronald Reagan | 477 |
| The Cold War Returns | 477 |
| A Break with the Past | 480 |
| Brezhnev Tries a Breakthrough and Fails | 488 |
| Reagan Writes to Brezhnev from the Hospital | 491 |
| Moscow's Annoyance Mounts | 495 |
II. | The Reagan Crusade | 499 |
| Impervious to Diplomacy | 499 |
| At the White House | 503 |
| Haig Is Replaced by the Sphinx | 506 |
| Brezhnev and Andropov | 511 |
III. | "More Deeds, Less Words" | 517 |
| A Personal Discussion, with Reagan, at Last | 517 |
| Did the Soviet Union Fear an American Nuclear Attack? | 522 |
| The Evil Empire and Star Wars, the Elections, and the Summit | 526 |
| Diplomatic Oxymoron | 532 |
| The KAL007 Incident: Bitter Memories | 535 |
| Andropov: Illusions Dispelled | 540 |
IV. | The Thaw | 544 |
| How Reagan's Belligerence Backfired | 544 |
| Reagan as Peacemonger? | 546 |
| Transition: Andropov Dies; Chernenko Succeeds Him | 550 |
| Gromyko Returns to the White House | 555 |
| A New Atmosphere in Outer (and Inner) Space | 558 |
V. | The Beginning of the End of the Cold War | 564 |
| What the Geneva Summit Meant | 564 |
| Washington Decides to Do Business with Gorbachev | 565 |
| Gorbachev Addresses Soviet Foreign Policy | 570 |
| The Turn Begins | 574 |
| A Frustrating Climb Toward the Summit | 577 |
| The Geneva Summit | 586 |
VI. | Goodbye to Washington | 594 |
| Goodwill and Diplomacy | 594 |
| My Life Changes | 600 |
| A Round of Farewells | 602 |
| Ronald Reagan and Soviet-American Relations | 605 |
| After Washington | 613 |
I. | Gorbachev: The First and Last President of the Soviet Union | 615 |
| Life as a Secretary | 615 |
| The Summit at Reykjavik | 619 |
| Gorbachev in a Hurry | 622 |
| Gorbachev, Bush, and Germany | 627 |
| Gorbachev's Political Bankruptcy | 632 |
| Instead of an Epilogue | 638 |
| Appendix | 640 |
| Index | 645 |