The book While Diplomats Speak paints a broad picture of the last fifty years of a great country with today's world in the background. The author grew up in the Soviet backwaters. Without any connections or sponsors and overcoming traps set by secret services, he became a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a specialist on Third World economies. He worked hard in many of those economies, including Chile, Mexico, Kenya, Cameroun, India, Nepal and Thailand. At one time he was a deputy Soviet foreign minister. Obminski wrote much on world economic problems and also three books of satirical verse and prose. The author reminisces about, among others, historical figures he knew personally, including members of the all-powerful Soviet Politbureau and architects of Perestroika, and lays bare the secret springs of well-known events. The chapters 'Foreign Ministry Headquarters', 'United Nations Corridors' and 'Heading for Collapse' reveal the underside of top-level decision-making that shaped the fate of the country. The book While Diplomats Speak is a riveting narrative, with the chapters 'Episodes', 'What No One Knows about Stalin' and 'Interviews' deserving special note.