When Litvinov arrived in Washington in 1933 after the sixteen years of diplomatic silence between his country and the U.S., he carried with him his commission as official representative to the U.S., dated 1918 and signed by Lenin and Chicherin, as evidence of the long-standing desire of the Soviet Union for recognition. This is an absorbing narrative of the events which led up to this dramatic arrival, heralded with such high hopes and good will, and of the collapse into discord and disillusionment which followed. A full-length account of these negotiations, it presents a new picture of the pressures for and against diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union. Originally published in 1953. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.