Good book but fiction! Ironically, one of the most difficult stints in Moscow was during WWII when the Japanese Ambassador to the USSR was trying to preserve the Neutrality Pact and keep the Soviets out of the war: Greg Gubler Gentleman Samurai and Internationalist (Roman, paperback, e-book, see Chapter 13 for the dramatic ending). I translated his memoirs from Japanese and went through all the WWII intercepted diplomatic cables on microfilm! Yes, Stalin and Molotov were an opportunistic pair!