The author, Russia’s noted expert on interpretation narrates the dramatic story of interpretation and diplomatic interpreters in the 20th century in the USSR from V. Lenin to V. Putin when history was made and often interpreters were the only (and silent) witnesses or even contributed to it. The English voices of Soviet leaders – V.Berezhkov (Stalin), V.Sukhodrev (Khrushchev), P.Palazhchenko (Gorbachev) reverberated across the world in an assertive and skillful way. Many historical vignettes are provided for the first time.