MOSCOW, November 16. /TASS/. Moscow’s Oktyabr cinema hosted the premiere of TASS First Deputy Director General Mikhail Gusman’s documentary ‘Anatoly Dobrynin. 24 Years and 14 Days in the Life of An Ambassador’ filmed to mark the centenary of the diplomat’s birth, TASS reported from the movie theater.

"I think that the role of prominent diplomats is rather underestimated in our literature and our documentary films. It often happens that we know certain names, but regrettably, we know little about their outstanding and very significant achievements," Gusman, the author of the documentary, told TASS. "What matters in this documentary is the essence, rather than the biography. The main thing is a diplomat’s role during crisis periods."

​​​​​The documentary explores complicated relations between the Soviet Union and the United States amid the Cuban missile crisis. It features archived interviews with Dobrynin and top-secret documents, which were sent to Moscow. It also includes interviews with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, American statesmen Henry Kissinger and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Gusman knew the diplomat personally.

"I happened to meet a few times with Anatoly Fedorovich Dobrynin back in, terrible to say, 1975, when I was a very young man. I did a long interview with him, a year prior to his passing away. What is more, I have been studying in depth the contribution Anatoly Fedorovich made to Russian diplomacy and to the history of our foreign policy. As for his contribution to having the world step back from the brink of war during the Cuban missile crisis, it is a special story. Dobrynin’s role in the history of the Cuban missile crisis is hard to be overestimated," Gusman stressed.

Russian dignitaries and celebrities attended the screening event.

Anatoly Dobrynin was appointed Soviet Ambassador to Washington in 1962 by then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. The diplomat served for nearly 25 years during the administration of six American presidents: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. He played an influential role in handling the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 and in signing the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) in 1972.