Gromyko between Trueman and James Byrne (4th from the right)
He headed the USSR Foreign Ministry for 28 years - a record term in Russian history.
Gromyko himself claimed that he always acted on the basis of three main rules in his work.
Firstly, he said, it was necessary to demand the maximum from the other side, not to be shy in making enquiries. Secondly, Gromyko urged not to neglect such a crude but often effective mechanism as an ultimatum in the right situations.
According to him, one should not neglect light threats to the interlocutor and then politely offer negotiations as a way out of a tense situation. "There will always be people in the West who will fall for this," said the Soviet foreign policy chief.
And, thirdly, he taught young Soviet diplomatic workers, having started negotiations, one should not retreat a single step. "They themselves will offer you part of what you asked for. But even then, don't agree, but squeeze out more.
They will go for it," he said.
The success or failure of the negotiation process, however, he defined as follows: "When you get half or two-thirds of what you didn't have, then you can consider yourself a diplomat.
During a party conference in July 1988, Vladimir Melnikov called for Gromyko's resignation. Melnikov blamed Brezhnev for the economic and political stagnation that had hit the Soviet Union, seeing that Gromyko, as a prominent member of the Brezhnev leadership, was one of the men who had led the USSR into the crisis.[60] Gromyko was promptly defended as "a man respected by the people" in a note by an anonymous delegate.[61] After discussing it with his wife Gromyko decided to leave Soviet politics for good. Gromyko recounts in his Memoirs that before he made it official he told Gorbachev that he wished to resign. The following day, 1 October 1988, Gromyko sat beside Gorbachev, Yegor Ligachev and Nikolai Ryzhkov in the Supreme Soviet to make his resignation official:[62]
Such moments in life are just as memorable as when one is appointed to prominent positions. When my comrades took farewell to me, I was equally moved as I had ever been when I was given an important office. What I thought most about was that I had finished my duties towards the people, the Party and the state. This memory is very precious to me.
Gorbachev succeeded Gromyko in office as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.[63] After his resignation Gorbachev praised Gromyko for his half-century of service to USSR. Critics, such as Alexander Belonogov, the Permanent Representative of the Soviet Union to the United Nations, claimed Gromyko's foreign policy was permeated with "a spirit of intolerance and confrontation".[64]
After retiring from active politics in 1989 Gromyko started working on his memoirs.[65] Gromyko died on 2 July 1989, just 16 days before what would have been his 80th birthday, after being hospitalised for a vascular problem that was not further identified. His death was followed by a minute of silence at the Congress of People's Deputies to commemorate him. The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS), the central news organ in the USSR, called him one of the country's most "prominent leaders". President of the United States George H. W. Bush sent his condolences to Gromyko's son, Anatoly.[66] Gromyko was offered a grave in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, but at the request of his family he was not buried near the Moscow Kremlin Wall but instead at the Novodevichy Cemetery.[65][67]
His memoris can be read here
https://archive.org/details/memories0000grom
I've asked my more technologically advanced friend to rip from archive as they have stupid borrow limit on it