Zamyatin Named Envoy to Britain

MOSCOW — Leonid M. Zamyatin, the Kremlin’s long-serving chief spokesman on foreign affairs, was named Friday as ambassador to Britain, the official news agency Tass reported.

Tass said a meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the country’s highest state body, had appointed Zamyatin, 64, to replace Viktor I. Popov, 67, who was retiring.

Zamyatin, a central figure in the Soviet information sector since 1962, was promoted by former leader Leonid I. Brezhnev in 1978 to run the newly created Department of International Information of the Communist Party Central Committee.

He retained influence under Brezhnev’s successors Yuri V. Andropov and Konstantin U. Chernenko and traveled with present leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to Geneva for his summit with President Reagan.