Report: Georgy Arbatov, adviser to Soviet presidents from Brezhnev to Gorbachev, dies at 84

Report: Arbatov, Soviet foreign policy guru, dies

MOSCOW — Russian state television says Georgy Arbatov, a foreign policy adviser to Soviet presidents from Leonid Brezhnev to Mikhail Gorbachev, has died. He was 87.

The TV report said Arbatov died Friday but did not give the cause of death.

Arbatov, the Soviet Union’s top America-watcher, was especially close to Yuri Andropov, the former KGB chief and Soviet leader between 1982 and 1984.

From 1967 to 1995 Arbatov founded, then ran the U.S. and Canada Institute, an advisory body to Soviet authorities.

He remained its honorary director thereafter.

Arbatov was awarded the highest Soviet scientific distinction in 1974, named Academician of the Acamedy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R.