In this November 1979 conversation, Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin confronted former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger over his increasingly anti-Soviet rhetoric and alignment with Republican hardliners, which Dobrynin criticized as opportunistic and damaging to détente. Kissinger defended his shift as a tactical response to domestic political pressures and his ambitions to return to government, while still insisting he valued stable Soviet-American relations. The discussion also touched on US fears of instability in Saudi Arabia, the strategic implications of Soviet and Cuban involvement in Africa, and Kissinger's belief in the need for a tacit division of global influence between the superpowers.