 Under the presidency of Siaka Stevens, Blyden was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary from Sierra Leone to the Soviet Union, and accredited to Romania, Poland, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.During his first visit to the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs to schedule a date for official presentation of his credentials, Blyden met Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and reminded him of their first meeting in 1949 at the signing of the Treaty of San Francisco.What followed was an extended conversation which also broke the protocol of conversations through translators