Home > Cold War > Andrey Gromyko Biography

Born July 18, 1909
Starye Gromyki, Belorussia (now Belarus)
Died July 2, 1989
Moscow, Russia

Soviet foreign minister and president

For over forty years, Andrey Gromyko was a skilled representative and spokesman for the Soviet Union while serving in a number of positions under various Soviet leaders. He maintained a persistent loyalty to official Soviet perspectives in its prolonged Cold War rivalry with the United States. To many in the West, his was the most familiar face of the communist-ruled superpower.

Making use of the new communist system

Andrey Andreyevich Gromyko was born to Russian peasant farmers in the Belorussian village of Old Gromyki. Residents of that region would traditionally adopt the name of their village, so most inhabitants had the same last name: Gromyko. The Bolshevik Revolution occurred in 1917, when Gromyko was only eight years...