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