Constant Diplomat

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.