Interesting. How does a president not meet his ambassador to Russia until 10 months after inauguration? Was he not the actual ambassador to Russia, even though he was running the embassy?
I don't know, but it does not seem that strange, unless it is the normal for all that the ambassadors to leave their posts and meet the President in person soon after they are elected.
Evidently that is the case. In 1974 he was "serving in the number two position in the embassy for four years" and "returned to Moscow in 1981 as acting Ambassador, or Chargé d’Affaires," which seems to mean he was in charge of the embassy in Moscow, and "was assigned to Moscow again in 1981 as acting ambassador during the first part of Ronald Reagan's presidency..."
He served as U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia[5] (1981–83) and as Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and Senior Director for European and Soviet Affairs[6] on the National Security Council Staff (1983–86). His languages are Czech, French, German, Russian, and Swahili.[5]
Also of interest:
during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Matlock, along with Richard Davies and Herbert Okun, translated communications between President John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev
The August 26, 1977 ABC Evening News covered the story of a major fire at the embassy.[27] Despite the severity of the fire, all personnel were evacuated safely, and the efforts of the embassy staff elicited a commendation from President Jimmy Carter.[28] Former KGB agent Victor Sheymov testified before Congress in 1998 that the fire was deliberately induced by the Soviets in an effort to gain access to sensitive areas by agents posing as firemen.[29]
Also in 1980, the new embassy under construction in Moscow was found to be so riddled with listening devices that it would be unusable for secure work.[30]
In April 1987 Reagan appointed Matlock as Ambassador to the Soviet Union. Conditions at the Embassy were tense, as Marine Sergeant Clayton Lonetree had been found to have compromised Embassy security. Within a few months of the Lonetree scandal, all U.S. intelligence assets in the Soviet Union had been exposed. The Americans suspected that the security breach had meant that the Embassy code room was no longer secure and worked frantically to determine how.[47] It was not until 1994 that Aldrich Ames, a mole within the CIA, was caught.[48] Another mole, Robert Hanssen, this time within the FBI, was caught only in 2001.[49] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_F._Matlock_Jr.
Nothing new.