Bush Extends Sympathy to Soviets

President Bush said Monday that the death of Andrei A. Gromyko “marks the passing” of an era, extending his sympathy to Gromyko’s family and the Soviet people.

“Andrei Gromyko’s career paralleled the course of U.S.-Soviet relations for nearly 50 years,” a vacationing Bush said in a statement released by the White House.

“As ambassador to the U.S., as one of the architects of the U.N., as foreign minister for nearly three decades and finally as chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, Mr. Gromyko knew every U.S. President” since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Bush said: “Andrei Gromyko’s death marks the passing of a generation that witnessed many of the most historic events of this century.”

He said that he and wife Barbara extend their sympathies to Gromyko’s family and that the U.S. government “extends its condolences to the government and people of the Soviet Union.”