After retiring from active politics in 1989 Gromyko started working on his memoirs. Gromyko died on 2 July 1989, days before what would have been his 80th birthday, after being hospitalised for a vascular problem that was not further identified. His death was followed by a minute of silence at the Congress of People's Deputies to commemorate him. The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS), the central news organ in the USSR, called him one of the country's most "prominent leaders". President of the United States George H. W. Bush sent his condolences to Gromyko's son, Anatoly. Gromyko was offered a grave in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, but at the request of his family he was not buried near the Kremlin wall but instead at the Novodevichy cemetery.