Robert A.D. Ford had a distinguished diplomatic career that included an unprecedented sixteen years as Canadian ambassador to the Soviet Union during some of the most turbulent and important years of the Cold War (1964-80). Relying heavily on first-person testimony, including several interviews with Ford himself, Charles Ruud takes the reader behind the official announcements, revealing Ford's thoughts and actions as he dealt with what was then seen as the great arch-enemy of Western democratic nations.
During his tenure as ambassador Ford was in frequent contact with Moscow's rulers and aware of their struggles, hopes, plans, and fears. Although they appeared powerful, Ford insisted that they sat uneasily on their Kremlin thrones. He showed their shortcomings and the flaws of their system at moments of apparent triumph and warned against miscalculating their strength. Shaped by centuries of Russian tsarism and by Communist ideology, Soviet leaders distrusted the world outside their borders and often failed to understand it, making mistakes and then compounding them, always without acknowledgment.
The Constant Diplomat uncovers the experiences that informed Ford's capacity to understand the Russians and provides a clear picture of the evolving Soviet domestic, political, social, and cultural scene from the late Stalin era through to the end of the Brezhnev regime.
Review quotes
"The Constant Diplomat, not only a powerful and compelling testimony of a rare life, of someone who truly elevated diplomacy to an art form, is a masterful exposition of Ford's deeply informed views on the Soviet Union and Russian traditions and an important contribution to our understanding of the cold war in general and Canada’s role in relation to the Soviet Union and the United States." Daniel Orlovsky, author of Russia's Democratic Revolution
"Based on extensive and thorough research, including the innumerable diplomatic dispatches and reports penned by Ford, The Constant Diplomat offers a sound sense of the views of one of the most important Canadian diplomats of the twentieth century." Paul Marantz, University of British Columbia
Charles A. Ruud is a professor of history at the University of Western Ontario and the author of several books on Russia, including Fontanka 16: The Tsars' Secret Police.
