on January 25, 1974 Dobrynin joined the diplomatic service of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1946. His tenure lasted until 1986. Dobrynin developed an especially close relationship with
Henry Kissinger with whom he often met and dined with up to four times a week. They had a direct line to each other's office; they exchanged gifts, shared inside jokes, and even met each other's parents. Following President Ford's defeat in the
1976 presidential election, Dobrynin called Kissinger to say, "I am going to miss you." Kissinger returned the sentiment: "I will miss you too. If it is possible to have a Marxist friend." It was the last transcribed telephone conversation between the two during Kissinger's
White House tenure. In 1971, he was elected to the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). After his long term as ambassador to the United States, he returned to
Moscow in 1986 and joined the party's
Secretariat and led the international department of the
CPSU Central Committee for two years. At the end of 1988, he retired from the Central Committee and served as an advisor to the Soviet presidency. He attended the December 1989
Malta Summit, which formally marked the end of the
Cold War. He was given the honorary rank of Russian ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary in 1992. ==Works and death==