Anatoly Dobrynin was appointed Soviet ambassador to the United States by Nikita Khrushchev in March 1962. He played a key role during the Cuban Missile Crisis, participating in back-channel negotiations with Attorney General Robert Kennedy -- negotiations widely cited as contributing to the end of the crisis. Dobrynin served as Soviet ambassador to Washington during the administrations of Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan. He retired in 1988.

On Soviet-Cuban relations:

When Castro came to power, he started to establish relations with a number of countries, including the Soviet Union. ... But at first he was equally prepared to contact and develop relations not only with the U.S.S.R. but with the U.S.A. as well.

I can remember him coming to the U.S.A. Since he wasn't a communist, he wanted to establish new sorts of relations, based not on Wall Street support of Batista, but proceeding from democratic principles. But in the U.S. another tendency prevailed, which was also due to mass media efforts. Fidel was criticized; and when he arrived in New York, they were very impolite to him, to put it mildly. At that time he was head of state, and they treated him like a gangster.

We had very good relations with him from the very beginning, because all our mass media and our government contributed to creating a very nice image of a revolutionary who was very nice and very expressive. He was very fond of showing his revolutionary qualities, especially since he didn't have very good relations with the U.S.A. ... So we established diplomatic relations; we were one of the first countries to do so, and it created in the government, especially at the top level, very good relations between Castro and Khrushchev. ...

After the failure of the counterrevolutionary invasion at the Bay of Pigs, which was supported in practical terms by Kennedy's government, we had the impression that there could be repeat attempts to overthrow Castro's government. ... And the American government witnessed that our countries, the U.S.S.R. and Cuba, had started to develop pretty extensive relations: we helped to build up the Cuban economy, hydroelectric power stations, metalworks, etc.; we started to support the Cuban Revolution to help Castro and his government. And then we started to deliver weapons, since Castro asked us for military help, and those weapons were supposed to be used for defense. They even stressed the fact that, "We are not about to invade America, but we have to defend our shores from possible invasion by counterrevolutionaries" -- that was the reason for the Cuban request to deliver weapons. Of course it irritated the U.S.A. The more weapons we delivered, the more irritated the U.S.A. got.

On events leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis:

It wasn't always possible to contact the president, but the president's brother, Robert, would offer to meet with me, and simultaneously [I had talks] with the State Department. He talked to me as if on behalf of the president. Of course, it was a hush-hush, informal way of meeting, but nevertheless I reported my talks with Robert to Moscow. It was double diplomacy in a way, because I officially dealt with the State Department, but at the same time I dealt with Robert -- a two-fold diplomacy, I would call it. ...

We would meet either in his office -- he was the attorney general -- and I would arrive there without much publicity, through a special entrance; or, a bit later, during the crisis, he would come to my embassy late at night, so as not to alert the mass media. Even in September, they raised the question of our delivery of weapons to Cuba. We met with Robert at the beginning of September and he told me that the government of the U.S.A. was worried about the increasing number of weapons, including missiles: "Of course," [he said], "we understand that the missiles you are delivering now are mainly surface-to-air type missiles. But we are worried about this tendency, because today these rockets are under your control, and later on you may give control to the Cubans. The Cubans are very emotional people and it's very difficult for us to check what kind of weapons you are delivering. We are worried that if you don't shoot down our planes, the emotional Cubans could shoot down our reconnaissance planes, and then it may lead to a crisis because we will have to take countermeasures."

And then he said, "Who knows what sort of missiles you will be bringing. Nobody knows what this tendency may lead to. You may start bringing missiles with a great range -- let's say with a range enough to cover the gulf between Cuba and the U.S.A." And I told him, "I don't know of any plans to send big missiles with a huge range. Well, I know about aircraft defense missiles and artillery" -- but I didn't go into details about missiles because I didn't have any information about it. I knew that we were delivering anti-aircraft systems, but I didn't know anything about missiles. But since he was asking on behalf of the president, I reported to Moscow about this meeting with the president's brother and I asked for instructions as to what I should tell the president -- or his brother, which was practically the same thing. And I had a very short reply from Moscow, saying: "[On] all questions which may arise and which the Americans may ask you about, especially concerning the missiles, give them a very clear-cut answer: all weapons delivered to Cuba are strictly defensive, not offensive, so there is no reason for the Americans to worry as long as they don't plan to invade Cuba -- because the weapons we deliver to them are simply defensive."

And I wasn't told anything about any missiles; though by the time of my conversation with Robert Kennedy -- as I found out much later -- there was an agreement between Castro and Khrushchev about delivery of medium-range missiles to Cuba. But our government didn't tell me anything about it. ...

By mid-October, during the U.N. Assembly meeting, the minister of foreign affairs, [Andrei] Gromyko, arrived [in the United States]. ... We went to the White House in a limousine, and Gromyko was received as he should be received, and we sat in the Oval Room. ... A great deal of the conversation was about the Berlin crisis. Simultaneously, the president raised the question of the increasing tension between our two countries in connection with Soviet deliveries of weapons [to Cuba]. The president said, "We are worried about it because it's connected with our own safety and security." And Gromyko told him -- just as I was told to say -- that, "All our deliveries, Mr. President, are of a defensive character. If you don't intend to invade Cuba, you shouldn't worry, because all the weapons are defensive." ...

After Gromyko left, a representative of the State Department came up to me and said, "Secretary of State [Dean] Rusk wants to meet you at the State Department in [Washington] at 6 p.m." I had some business in New York on that day, so I thought that it would be better to meet with him the next day. I was on very good terms with Rusk, and if I was busy at this or that hour, we could easily agree to reschedule a meeting. But this time he said that "Mr. Rusk insistently asks you to be there by 6 p.m." It was rather unusual. ... I didn't know what sort of questions could be asked, [but] I could make a guess: It would be either the Berlin crisis or new developments on Cuba. ...

At 6 p.m. I was in his office. And Rusk said, "You are delivering missiles to Cuba. We have aerial reconnaissance photographs. This is a threat to our security, and we cannot possibly allow it. In one hour's time, at 7 p.m., the president will make a radio and television appeal to the American people, where he will describe the situation, and he wants you simultaneously to pass the message to Khrushchev about this situation." So the essence of it was that it was a great threat to America. And on the same day, President Kennedy made his appeal, in which, apart from anything else, he said that they were introducing a quarantine preventing delivery of all offensive weapons to Cuba. And by the way, I asked Rusk a question: I said, "Mr. Secretary, why didn't you ask Gromyko about the missiles? He was here just two days ago. Why are you making so much fuss about it now?" And he said, "Mr. Dobrynin, I am not authorized to make any comments. This is an official [communication] and I'm not supposed to go into details." Usually when we met with the secretary of state, we would have a chat, but not this time. He was just carrying out the instructions he was given, and that was it. And as I said, President Kennedy made his famous television appearance on 22nd October, and that day was the beginning of the Cuban crisis.

On a meeting with Robert Kennedy on October 23:

We met one-to-one, of course, without any interpreters. I'm telling you what he was telling me: He said that, "Without the president's instructions..." -- maybe he was deceiving me, but anyway, he said that -- "...it's my own initiative, and I'm telling you that we've been deceived for the last few weeks. Mr. Gromyko, Mr. Khrushchev, and you, Mr. Ambassador, have been trying to deceive us, saying there were no missiles in Cuba. [This has meant deceiving] President Kennedy, and it's an action which has spoiled the relations of trust which have been formed so far, which can affect our relations badly."

And it was difficult to object, because it was true. You can make various evaluations, but the fact of the matter is that we were telling lies, and I told him that I would not say that there couldn't possibly be trust between the two presidents, because this statement is dangerous. [If] neither president trusted each other, it could lead us too far. "What I know," I told him, "is that Prime Minister Khrushchev still trusts President Kennedy's words to a certain extent, and this is something I'm authorized to say. If you don't believe me, I can report it to Khrushchev." He said, "No, no, no, I want you to tell me what has happened already. We also think that it's very important to preserve a minimum trust, especially during these very tense days." And we agreed, and he left. ...

Another curious detail was that he was using very, very rude words when he was talking about Khrushchev: he was calling him a liar, etc., so after he left me, I was thinking for about 10 minutes about how I should report it to Moscow. I could do it two ways: I could report the meeting with Robert Kennedy and say that he was angry and used strong words while criticizing our actions, including actions by Khrushchev. Or I could literally report what he said: that is, that Khrushchev was a liar, etc., etc. I thought if I used the first variant, they might underestimate it; so I decided to use the second, and I wrote that I was visited by the president's brother, Robert Kennedy, and he told me the following -- and then I quoted literally the part concerning the matter of trust. As I was told several weeks later by Khrushchev's assistant, when I visited Moscow, Gromyko was taken aback when he read this telegram, and he said, "It shouldn't be shown to anybody," and he said he would report this telegram to Khrushchev personally. So he took this telegram, and what happened next, nobody knows...

On another, critical meeting with Robert Kennedy on October 27:

The tension was building up. And the Americans eventually [in the end] didn't start to stop our ships on October 24th. For me it was a most dramatic day.

I was watching television and I was waiting to see how the Americans would stop our ships which approached the imaginary line. Our ship was steaming, above were American helicopters with correspondents who counted down: five, four... finally zero -- and nothing happened, because at the very last moment the White House [decided] not to shoot our ships. But Khrushchev issued an order to return those ships which could be returned. But the first ships arrived in Cuba anyway, so they started panicking in America: they started to dig shelters, they started to buy all the foodstuffs they possibly could, they put all the armed forces on alert and they started to get ready for military actions. So the atmosphere was getting more and more heated. We had information that the Americans may shortly start bombing our launching sites in Cuba, and maybe even use their Airborne troops, so it was a very dangerous situation.

And on 27th October, [Robert] Kennedy asked for a meeting, so we met one-on-one. It was 3 o'clock in the morning. And he told me, "You know, today we sent one of our reconnaissance planes, and your aircraft defense battery shot it down. We don't know whether it was your crew who operated this air defense system, but we asked the president to fight back. And it's a dilemma for us," he said, "the president is facing a dilemma. If we start bombing your launching sites, we can't do anything else, because we have to make surveillance. So we are determined to make you withdraw your missiles. So that's the situation. Our military are asking the president for permission to start bombing your positions. But at the same time, our president understands that your soldiers are there, several thousand troops, defending these areas." So he put it this way -- he said, "So if we start bombing, your Russian soldiers may be killed; so then your generals may ask Khrushchev to fight back. You cannot possibly fight here, but you can fight in Berlin: you have your troops there, so you can fight in West Berlin, and it may start a large-scale conflict which may eventually bring heavy losses to both sides. And the president is against it. So he suggested that we should come to mutually acceptable terms."

Previous messages on October 26 and 27 showed that Khrushchev had started to give up in a way, by saying that we could possibly withdraw the missiles, provided we had certain guarantees from the U.S.A. that they wouldn't invade Cuba, [nor would] any Latin American proxies of the U.S.A. It didn't say directly in his letter of October 26th that we would withdraw, but he hinted at the possibility of withdrawal. But on the morning of October 27th, Khrushchev, without having had a reply to his previous message, said more clearly that, "OK, we will withdraw our missiles" -- because he was a bit afraid that Kennedy might have misunderstood his previous message and start bombing our positions. So he said directly that, "Yes, we are prepared to withdraw, but let's swap: you have a base in Turkey, we have missiles in Cuba, so we withdraw from Cuba, you withdraw from Turkey." ...

The American administration had a heated discussion, and Kennedy decided to answer a part of the previous message and a part of the subsequent message. He said: "We accept your withdrawal of missiles against our promise not to invade Cuba," but he didn't mention Turkey -- deliberately, of course. They decided to keep it on a confidential level. Later on they started to exchange radio appeals. I repeated in my conversation with Robert Kennedy that we were prepared to withdraw, and he said, "Yes, we agree that if you withdraw, I give a promise on behalf of the president that we won't invade Cuba, and we shall take measures that no other Latin American countries will support counterrevolutionaries." And since I didn't have instructions concerning this turn of events, I said, "What about the bases, your missiles in Turkey?" He thought for a while and said, "You know, if that's the only condition which prevents us from striking a deal, then I'm authorized by the president to say that we agree to it." So that was how we made the exchange. ...

We accepted his assurances that there would be no invasion of Cuba, and we understood also that, at the same time, we presumed that the American military bases in Turkey would also be withdrawn. That was actually how it happened. Meanwhile, the work continued; but of course it was a relief for us, and Robert said, "Thank God, at last I can meet my family -- I haven't seen them for a long time." ...

On how close the Missile Crisis came to nuclear war:

Of course everybody was afraid and concerned about their families. It was easier for me because my wife was with me, and we didn't have anyone left behind in Russia. But of course I didn't exclude the possibility of a war, and I understood that the Americans didn't exclude it either. Maybe they couldn't evaluate it. The American population knew much more about the danger, because all that was in the media. Our media were run by the government and obviously did not cover these topics. I think that Russians weren't that worried -- not because they were more brave than Americans, but simply [because] they knew less. You know that the mass media in the U.S.A., like ours today, is always exaggerating and are capable of terrifying anybody. ...

The most dramatic moment was when President Kennedy announced the quarantine and when McNamara confirmed the introduction of the quarantine. At 2 o'clock on October 24th they would start stopping our ships, using all U.S. Navy forces. ... And I sat for half an hour watching national television, watching our tankers and helicopters cruising around, and then I did a countdown, just like in the Westerns; it was very much like a Western: "Twelve minutes left, 11 minutes left, 10 minutes left, eight minutes... five minutes left... zero" -- and Navy ships surrounded our tankers, so I was waiting to see whether they would start shooting. No, they didn't, and I felt relieved.