Andrei Gromyko

Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko was a Soviet politician and diplomat during the Cold War. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. Gromyko was responsible for many top decisions on Soviet foreign policy until he retired in 1988. In the 1940s, Western pundits called him Mr. Nyet, or Grim Grom, because of his frequent use of the Soviet veto in the United Nations Security Council.

Gromyko's political career started in 1939 in the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. He became the Soviet ambassador to the United States in 1943, leaving that position in 1946 to become the Soviet Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York. Upon his return to Moscow he became a Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and later First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. He went on to become the Soviet ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1952.