Raymond Garthoff

Raymond Leonard Garthoff, 95, passed away on December 7, 2024, at his retirement community in Mitchellville, MD. A diplomat and scholar, he was a prolific author who wrote definitive studies of Soviet military power and US-Soviet relations during the Cold War.

Ray was born in 1929 in Cairo, Egypt, where his father was bursar of the American University of Cairo. He grew up in Alexandria, VA, graduated from Princeton University, and received his PhD from Yale University. In 1950, he married Vera Alexandrovna Vasilieva.

Ray worked from 1950 to 1957 at the RAND Corporation, publishing a pathfinding study of Soviet military doctrine and writing additional books and articles on Soviet military power. As an analyst of Soviet affairs at the Central Intelligence Agency from 1957 to 1961, he wrote national intelligence estimates on Soviet foreign policy and in 1959 served as an adviser on Vice President Richard Nixon's delegation to the USSR.

In 1961 he became Soviet affairs adviser in the State Department's Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs, supporting U.S. diplomacy during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and helping develop arms control policy that led to the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 and the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. He served on the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks from 1969 to 1972, negotiating U.S.-Soviet agreements signed in 1972. He was U.S. Ambassador to Bulgaria from 1977 to 1979 before retiring from the Foreign Service.

In 1980, Dr. Garthoff became a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, where for the next 15 years and in retirement he chronicled the final phase of the Cold War. His two volumes on American-Soviet relations from 1969 to 1991 garnered praise for their comprehensiveness. His personal memoir, Journey through the Cold War: A Memoir of Containment and Coexistence, presents perspectives he developed throughout his career.

Dr. Garthoff was predeceased by his brother, Stanley David. He is survived by his wife, Vera; his son, Alexander; three grandsons; and his brother, Douglas.

No funeral service is currently planned. The family suggests that memorial contributions be made to organizations of the donor's choice.