From TASS correspondent to youngest ambassador in Washington. The sharp, combative face of Stalin's wartime diplomacy
Roosevelt told his Cabinet: 'When the unpalatable Soviet ambassador, Konstantin Oumansky, proved stubborn, unaccommodating and unwilling to acknowledge that gold reserves could be used to cover payments, an angry and frustrated Roosevelt described him as "a dirty little liar."'
Konstantin Umansky was the Soviet ambassador to the United States from 1939 to 1941 and the youngest ambassador in Washington at the time. A former TASS correspondent who rose to head the Press and Information Department of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, he controlled censorship of all foreign dispatches from Moscow while multiple sources suggest his journalistic career also served as cover for NKVD intelligence work. His abrasive negotiating style over war materiel so infuriated Franklin Roosevelt that the president called him 'a dirty little liar' in a Cabinet meeting. Posted to Mexico in 1943, he mastered Spanish in three months and became the country's most popular diplomat, but died in an air crash en route to Costa Rica in 1945.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1919Joined RCP(b); journalist for ROSTA in Berlin and Vienna
- 1922Staff member, People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, RSFSR
- 1922–1931TASS correspondent — bureau chief in Rome, Paris, and Geneva
- 1931–1936Deputy Head → Head, Press and Information Dept., NKID USSR
- 1936–1939Adviser → Chargé d'Affaires, Soviet Embassy, Washington
- 1939–1941Plenipotentiary → Ambassador Extraordinary to the United States
- 1941–1943Collegium member, NKID USSR
- 1943–1945Ambassador to Mexico; concurrently envoy to Costa Rica from 1944
Cultural diplomacy in Mexico
After the Soviet Union and Mexico restored diplomatic relations in November 1942 following a twelve-year break, Umansky arrived in Mexico City in 1943 to rebuild diplomatic ties. On June 22 he presented his credentials and a personal message from Stalin to President Manuel Ávila Camacho, and established contacts with the foreign, military, and education ministers and the president. Artists and writers, including muralist Diego Rivera and writer José Mancisidor, frequently visited the Soviet Embassy. Umansky published an embassy bulletin he had begun in the 1920s and contributed to organizing the photography exhibition Russia at War in Mexico City and a performance of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, promoting Soviet culture and reporting on the wartime situation.
In 1943 he proposed an art-exchange project to introduce Mexican art to Soviet audiences. When Mexican cultural and artistic figures founded the Institute of Mexican-Russian Cultural Exchange in March 1944, Umansky negotiated directly with the organization to advance the plan. The project sought donations of works by Mexican artists, including Frida Kahlo, to a Soviet museum, but was not completed during his lifetime. On January 25, 1945, while traveling to present his credentials to the Costa Rican president, Umansky and his wife died when their plane crashed during take-off in Mexico City. The cultural institute continued the donation project afterward.