George F. Kennan: An American Life

PREFACE

1 GFK to JLG, April 18, 1995, JLG Papers.

2 GFK Diary, April 15, 1997; GFK to Eugene Hotchkiss, February 14, 2003, copy in JLG Papers.

3 JLG Diary, November 9, 2003, ibid.

4 JLG notes, August 24, 1982, and September 5, 1983, ibid.

ONE • CHILDHOOD: 1904–1921

1 Unless otherwise noted, the author conducted all interviews. Dates are repeated only for multiple interviews with the same individual. A key to abbreviations is on page 701. JKH interview, December 21, 1982, p. 3; CKB, interview by JEK, undated, p. 1. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 4, and JKH, “Memoirs for Two.”

2 GFK, Memoirs, I, 3–4.

3 GFK Diary, March 8, 1931, quoted in GFK, Sketches from a Life, pp. 20–21.

4 GFK to “my dear children,” Bad Nauheim, Germany, February 1942, GFK Papers, 140:9. Here and henceforth, for the Kennan papers, the first number is the box, the second the folder. Where no folder is indicated, files are in alphabetical or chronological order. Locations of all manuscript collections are listed in the Bibliography.

5 GFK Diary, January 14, 1959. The Kennan diaries, hereafter cited by date only, are in the GFK Papers, boxes 230–39 and 325–26.

6 GFK to JKH and CKB, July 21, 1984, JKH Papers.

7 Chekhov, Steppe and Other Stories, pp.1, 47. My wife, Toni, and I witnessed these tears during a visit with GFK in Princeton, N.J., June 26, 1999.

8 GFK, Memoirs, I, 4.

9 GFK interview by JEK, undated, CKB interview, November 13, 1982, p. 2, and FKW interview, June 28, 1984, p. 3; also JKH interview, p. 4, and CKB interview by JEK, p. 14.

10 GFK interview, August 24, 1982, p. 4. See also Sanborn Map Company, Insurance Maps of Milwaukee, I, 61. The house was later renumbered as 309 Cambridge Avenue.

11 GFK interview by JEK, p. 8; CKB interview, p. 1; JKH interview, p. 2.

12 KKK handwritten reminiscences, no date but probably 1933, KKK Papers. I am indebted to Tim Ericson for bringing these materials to my attention.

13 JKH interview, p. 3.

14 CKB interview, p. 2.

15 JKH interview, p. 7; JKH, “Memoirs for Two,” p. 8; CKB interview, p. 2.

16 GFK interview, August 24, 1982, pp. 4, 11–12; JKH interview, p. 4.

17 JKH interview, December 29, 1982, p. 5; JKH, “Memoirs for Two,” pp. 17, 21; KWK interview, December 29, 1982, p. 1.

18 FKW interview, p. 3; KKK reminiscences, emphases in original; JKH interview, p. 3. See also GFK’s own portrait of his father in his Memoirs, I, 7–8.

19 KWK interview, p. 2; GFK, Memoirs, I, 3; JKH interview, p. 23.

20 GFK interview, August 24, 1982, p. 13; KWK interview, December 29, 1982, pp. 3, 5; JKH interview, pp. 4, 11–12, 25.

21 JKH interview, pp. 1, 9; JKH to JLG, September 24, 1983; FKW interview, p. 13; GFK, Memoirs, I, 1.

22 JKH interview, p. 6; GFK interview, August 24, 1982, pp. 4, 12.

23 JKH interview by JEK, p. 2.

24 CKB interview, p. 3; GFK interview, August 24, 1982, p. 14; KWK interview, p. 5.

25 JKH interview, p. 1; GFK interview, August 24, 1982, p. 3.

26 KKK reminiscences; FKW interview, p. 4; JKH, “Memoirs for Two,” p. 10.

27 GFK to JEK, November 12, 1972, JEK Papers. I have relied here also on the GFK Diary, July 9, 1927, and April 16, 1929, as well as on Seegert, Oakwood Bay Centennial. I am grateful to Jeanette’s son Jim Hotchkiss for giving me a tour of the area in 1996.

28 Anderson and Olson, Milwaukee: At the Gathering of the Waters, especially pp. 46, 57–60; Orum, City-Building in America, pp. 88–90.

29 JKH interview, p. 1; FKW interview, p. 4; GFK interview, August 24, 1982, pp. 8–9; CKB interview, p. 5; KKK reminiscences; Gregory, History of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, p. 142; GFK interview by JEK, pp. 8–9. The book was KKK, Income Taxation—Method and Results in Various Countries.

30 Travis, George Kennan and the Russian-American Relationship, provides the fullest treatment of the first George Kennan’s life; but see also Saul, Concord and Conflict, especially pp. 281–92. Kennan’s most influential book was Siberia and the Exile System, but he also described his earlier experiences in Tent Life in Siberia.

31 GFK, Memoirs, I, 8; GFK interview, August 24, 1982, p. 7.

32 George Kennan to KKK, December 30, 1912, typed copy in JKH Papers.

33 CKB interview, p. 6; GFK interview, August 24, 1982, p. 7. See also JKH interview, pp. 28–29; and Travis, George Kennan, p. 107.

34 JKH interview, p. 28; GFK, Memoirs, I, 9.

35 Unless otherwise noted, the quotations in this section come from GFK’s letter to “my dear children,” Bad Nauheim, Germany, February 1942, GFK Papers, 140:9. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 5–6; and GFK, An American Family: The Kennans.

36 For the James family, see, in addition to GFK’s 1942 letter, Vogel, Sauce for the Gander, pp. 338–52; GFK interview, August 24, 1982, pp. 1–3; CKB interview, pp. 3–4, 7; FKW interview, p. 5; and Seegert, Oakwood Bay Centennial, pp. 42–44.

37 GFK interview by JEK, p. 1.

38 Ibid., pp. 2–3; GFK interview, August 24, 1982, p. 11.

39 JKH, “Memoirs for Two,” pp. 19–20.

40 GFK interview by JEK, pp. 16–17; GFK to KKK, November 5, 1912, JEK Papers.

41 GFK, “My Soldier,” March 1913, GFK Papers, 183:6.

42 GFK, Memoirs, I, 3–5; GFK interview by JEK, pp. 17–18. After George mentioned the Juneau Park fairies in his memoirs, his irreverent cousin Ted Vogel pointed out that the park had been cited in the Milwaukee newspapers for harboring “fairies” of “a different life style.” Vogel, Sauce for the Gander, p. 369.

43 JKH, “Memoirs for Two,” pp. 11–12.

44 GFK interview by JEK, pp. 4–5; GFK to the sons of Charlie James, May 6, 1994, Eugene Hotchkiss Papers. The diary is in the JEK Papers, and the quotations that follow all come from it.

45 GFK interview by JEK, pp. 4–5.

46 GFK, Memoirs, I, 3; GFK 1916 diary, JEK Papers; GFK interview by JEK, p. 5. See also, for these and subsequent details about the school, Mitchell, Quarter Centenary of the Milwaukee State Normal School. The school building survives as Mitchell Hall, on the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee campus.

47 GFK interview, December 13, 1987, pp. 2–3; JKH interview, pp. 24–30; JKH, “Memoirs for Two,” pp. 13–14. Helen Hase Barnes, who played a fairy, sent the Rumpelstiltskin program to George seventy-seven years later, GFK Papers, 90:2. Another teacher at the school in George’s final year was Golda Mabovitz, later to be known as Golda Meir, but George did not recall having taken courses with her.

48 GFK interview by JEK, pp. 18–19, and CKB interview by JEK, pp. 14–15.

49 JKH interview by JEK, p. 16; CKB interview, p. 3; GFK to KKK, November 5, 1912; GFK Diary, April 8, 1916, JEK Papers.

50 GFK interview by JEK, pp. 19, 27–29; GFK interview, August 24, 1982, p. 14; also GFK, “The Value of a St. John’s Education,” commencement address, St. John’s Military Academy, June 4, 1960, p. 3, GFK Papers, 260:10.

51 GFK interview by JEK, p. 29; GFK to JKH, September 24, 1919, GFK Papers, 23:10, and to Louise Wheeler Kennan, undated, JEK Papers; GFK, “Value of a St. John’s Education,” p. 4; GFK interview, August 24, 1982, p. 12.

52 Ibid.

53 Ibid., pp. 12–14; also GFK interview by JEK, p. 26.

54 Ibid., p. 29.

55 GFK to JLG, May 13, 1996, JLG Papers; GFK to JKH, February 20, 1921, GFK Papers, 23:10.

56 GFK interview by JEK, pp. 20–21, 27; JKH interview, p. 14.

57 St. John’s Military Academy Yearbook, 1921, courtesy of Gary Richert, Director of Alumni Affairs, St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy. See also KWK interview, p. 7, and GFK interview, December 13, 1987, p. 5.

TWO • PRINCETON: 1921–1925

1 Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise, p. 36.

2 Ibid., pp. 53–54; GFK, Memoirs, I, 9.

3 Ibid., pp. 10–11, 13, 15.

4 GFK to JKH, September 28, 1921, GFK Papers, 23:10; GFK, Memoirs, I, 9. For the tutoring schools and the honor code, see Axtell, Making of Princeton University, pp. 113, 181–82, 234.

5 GFK to JKH, October 30, 1921, GFK Papers, 23:10; GFK, Memoirs, I, 17.

6 GFK to JKH, November 24, 1921, GFK Papers, 23:10.

7 Ibid.; GFK interview by JEK, p. 20; GFK interview, August 25, 1982, p. 1; JKH interview, pp. 8–9; GFK, Memoirs, I, 10–11.

8 GFK interview, August 25, 1982, p. 1; JKH interview by JEK, p. 5; GFK interview by JEK; JKH interview, p. 13.

9 GFK to JKH, March 4, 8, and May 3, 1922, GFK Papers, 23:10.

10 GFK to JKH, April 1, May 13 and 20, 1922, ibid.

11 GFK interview by JEK, pp. 13–14; FKW interview, pp. 8–9.

12 GFK interview, December 13, 1987, p. 4; Axtell, Making of Princeton University, pp. 6–11, 115–19.

13 Mary Bundy interview, December 6, 1987, p. 4; GFK interview, August 24, 1982, p. 16. See also GFK interview by JEK, p. 21.

14 GFK to JKH, October 4, 1922 [misdated 1921], GFK Papers, 23:10; Axtell, Making of Princeton University, pp. 359–68.

15 GFK to JKH, November 1, 1922, GFK Papers, 23:10.

16 Quoted in Axtell, Making of Princeton University, p. 309. Axtell discusses the history of the clubs at pp. 291–309.

17 GFK, Memoirs, I, 11; GFK interview, December 13, 1987, p. 6; GFK to JKH, undated but probably April 1923, GFK Papers, 23:10. Key and Seal, long since defunct as a club, is now Adlai Stevenson Hall. While teaching at Princeton in 1987, I took Kennan to dinner there, the first time he had set foot in the place since 1924.

18 GFK to JKH, April 11, 1923, GFK Papers, 23:10; GFK interview, December 13, 1987, p. 6; GFK Diary, July 20 and 21, 1924, JEK Papers.

19 GFK to KKK, October 20, 1924, GFK Papers, 53:7; GFK interview, December 13, 1987, p. 6.

20 GFK, Memoirs, I, 11–12; GFK interview, December 13, 1987, p. 4; GFK to JKH, April 11, 1923, GFK Papers, 23:10.

21 Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise, p. 19.

22 GFK to JKH, March 4, 1922, GFK Papers, 23:10; GFK, Memoirs, I, 14; GFK to KKK, May 26, 1922, and JKH, October 4, 1922 [misdated 1921], GFK Papers, 53:5.

23 GFK, Memoirs, I, 15.

24 Ibid., p. 13; GFK interview, August 24, 1982, p. 15; GFK to JKH, October 4, 1922 [misdated 1921], GFK Papers, 23:10; Axtell, Making of Princeton University, p. 223.

25 GFK, Memoirs, I, 16; GFK interview, August 24, 1982, pp. 15–16.

26 GFK Diary, April 30 and May 4, 1924, JEK Papers; GFK, Memoirs, I, 14; GFK interview, September 8, 1983, p. 10.

27 GFK Diary, May 1, 3, 9, 20, 1924, JEK Papers; GFK to KKK, October 8, 1924, GFK Papers, 53:7; GFK to JKH, undated but later marked “1924,” ibid., 23:10; GFK, Memoirs, I, 16. Clio, with Whig, were venerable Princeton debating societies.

28 GFK to JKH, February 28, May 18 and 25, 1923, GFK Papers, 23:10.

29 Ibid.

30 GFK to JKH, November 1, 10, and December 6, 1922, ibid.

31 Ibid.

32 GFK to JKH, May 18, 1923, GFK Papers, 23:10.

33 GFK Diary, May 24, 1924. The passport, dated June 2, 1924, is ibid.

34 GFK, Memoirs, I, 12–13; GFK Diary, May 12, 1924, JEK Papers. The Key and Seal roster for 1925, showing George as an active member and Nick as having left, is in the Princeton Bric-a-Brac for that year, copy courtesy of Tad Bennicoff, Special Collections Assistant, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University.

35 GFK European trip diary, June 19–25, 1924, GFK Papers, 230:16.

36 Ibid., June 26–July 1, 1924.

37 Ibid., July 2–16, 1924.

38 Ibid., July 17–26, 1924.

39 Ibid., July 27–29, 1924.

40 Ibid., July 30–August 23, 1924.

41 Ibid., August 23–15, 1924; CKB interview, p. 8.

42 GFK to JKH, March 8, 1922, GFK Papers, 23:10; JKH interview, p. 23; GFK interview, August 24, 1982, p. 5; KWK interview, p. 4; GFK Diary, May 9, 1924, JEK Papers.

43 GFK to JKH, incorrectly marked “1924,” and May 1, 1923, GFK Papers, 23:10; GFK, Memoirs, I, 17–18; JKH interview, p. 20; KWK interview, p. 7.

44 GFK European trip diary, August 4, 1924, GFK Papers, 230:16.

45 GFK to KKK, October 20, 1924, ibid., 53:7; GFK European trip diary, July 25, 1924, ibid., 230:16. This Harriman was the railroad magnate E. H. Harriman, father of W. Averell Harriman, under whom George served in the U.S. embassy in Moscow during World War II.

46 GFK to KKK, October 20, 1924, GFK Papers, 53:7; GFK European trip diary, July 30, 1924, GFK Papers, 230:16.

47 GFK, Memoirs, I, 17; GFK interview, August 24, 1982, p. 9; GFK to KKK, January 19, 1925 [misdated 1924], GFK Papers, 53:7.

48 GFK, Memoirs, I, 17; Joseph C. Green to GFK, October 25, 1925, Philip A. Brown to GFK, November 27, 1925, both in JEK Papers.

49 GFK commencement address, Dartmouth College, June 11, 1950, GFK Papers, 299:40; GFK, Memoirs, I, 15, 18; Nassau Herald, June 15, 1925, p. 227. I am indebted to Daniel J. Linke, University Archivist and Curator of Public Policy Papers at Princeton, for providing me with a copy of Kennan’s academic transcript.

50 GFK, Memoirs, I, 16. The chameleon image comes from Axtell, Making of Princeton University, p. 111.

THREE ● THE FOREIGN SERVICE: 1925–1931

1 GFK interview by JEK, p. 24, JEK Papers; Heinrichs, American Ambassador, pp. 95–98; Weil, Pretty Good Club, pp. 46–47.

2 GFK interview by JEK, p. 24; GFK to JKH, December 3, 1925, GFK Papers, 23:10. See also, on the Crawford School, Bohlen, Witness to History, p. 5.

3 GFK interview by JEK, pp. 23–24; GFK to JKH, October 28, 1925, GFK Papers, 23:10.

4 GFK interview by JEK, p. 24; GFK, Memoirs, I, 18.

5 Joseph C. Grew to GFK, September 9, 1926, DSR-DF 1910–29, Box 548, 123 K36/orig.; GFK draft speech (unused) to Princeton alumni, February 5, 1953, GFK Papers, 252:11; GFK, Memoirs, I, 19–20; GFK poem copied in diary for January 18, 1930, GFK Papers, 230:20; GFK interview by JEK, p. 25.

6 GFK, Memoirs, I, 20–21.

7 GFK Diary, July 4, 1927.

8 Ibid., May 20, 1927.

9 GFK, Memoirs, I, 13.

10 Ibid., pp. 20–21.

11 GFK Diary, May 16 and 26, 1927.

12 Ibid., May 24, 1927.

13 Ibid., July 14, 1927.

14 Ibid., October 30 and November 3, 1927.

15 Ibid., September 10, October 9, 10, 30, November 5 and 28, 1927.

16 Ibid., November 7, 1927. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 22; and GFK, Sketches from a Life, p. 4, where he prints this passage but edits out the word “Jewish.”

17 GFK Diary, November 1 and 30, 1927.

18 GFK, Memoirs, I, 20; GFK Diary, November 12, 1927; GFK to Department of State, November 22, 1927, DSR-DF 1910–29, Box 548, 123K36/19. See also GFK, Sketches from a Life, pp. 5–6.

19 EJN to the Foreign Service Personnel Board, December 7, 1927, DSR-DF 1910–29, Box 548, 123K36/19; State Department to GFK, December 9, 1927, ibid.; GFK to State Department, January 6 and April 24, 1928, ibid., Box 1476, 123K36/22 and 25; Cassels, “‘Mr. X’ Goes to Moscow,” p. 88; GFK, Memoirs, I, 23.

20 Ibid.

21 GFK interview by JEK, p. 26; GFK to JKH, September 3, 1928, GFK Papers, 23:10; GFK interview, December 13, 1987, p. 7.

22 Eleanor Lake to John Lamberton Harper, July 12, 1990, and June 1991, copies provided by Professor Harper. Eleanor’s son, Anthony Lake, would serve during the Carter administration as director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, the position Kennan was the first to fill when the staff was created in 1947.

23 GFK interview, December 13, 1987, pp. 7–8; JKH interview, p. 16. Eleanor Lake, in her July 12, 1990, letter cited above, says that her mother destroyed all of George’s letters to her.

24 GFK to JKH, September 3, 1928, GFK Papers, 23:10.

25 GFK Diary, March 26, 1928.

26 See, for example, entries for December 4, 1927, and March 17, 1928, ibid. George mentions “Peck”—prob-ably Howard F. Peckworth, who graduated from Princeton a year after he did—as his only other confidant in a letter to Jeanette, October 20, 1928, GFK Papers, 23:10, but adds that they have the “sensible” arrangement of corresponding just once a year.

27 GFK, Memoirs, I, 23; Wilbur J. Carr to GFK, March 29, 1928, DSR-DF 1910–29, Box 548, 123K36/25.

28 Saul, War and Revolution, pp. 318–19, 434, 437–40. The Colby note, dated August 10, 1920, is in FRUS: 1920, III, 463–68.

29 Gaddis, Russia, the Soviet Union, and the United States, pp. 98–104.

30 GFK, Memoirs, I, 23. See also DeSantis, Diplomacy of Silence, pp. 27–29; and Engerman, Modernization from the Other Shore, pp. 246–47.

31 GFK, Memoirs, I, 18–19, 24–25; GFK Diary, April 16, 1928.

32 Ibid., April 16, 18, May 6, 1928.

33 Ibid., April 16, May 6, 1928.

34 GFK to JKH, October 20, 1928, GFK Papers, 23:10.

35 GFK Diary, June 1928; GFK, Memoirs, I, 25–27.

36 GFK interview, August 24, 1982, p. 10; GFK, Memoirs, I, 28. See also, on the Riga legation, DeSantis, Diplomacy of Silence, pp. 30–31; Engerman, Modernization from the Other Shore, pp. 247–50; and, for an argument about the lasting influence of service in Riga for American Soviet specialists, Yergin, Shattered Peace.

37 GFK interview, August 24, 1982, pp. 10–11; GFK Diary, July 28–29, September 22, November 4, 1929.

38 GFK Diary, September 4, 6, 1929; GFK, Memoirs, I, 27.

39 GFK Diary, August 5, 1928; GFK, Memoirs, I, 27.

40 Ibid., pp. 28–30; T. W. Wilson report on the American legation in Riga, Latvia, February 20, 1929, Department of State, Inspection Reports, 1906–39, Box 128, National Archives.

41 GFK Diary, January 20, 1929.

42 Ibid.; GFK interviews, August 24, 1982, pp. 10, 16, and August 25, 1982, p. 3.

43 “Report of Consul Carlson on Mr. George F. Kennan,” enclosed in F. W. B. Coleman to the State Department, May 6, 1929, DSR-DF 1910–29, 123K36/49; Wilbur J. Carr to GFK, July 18, 1929, ibid., 123K36/58.

44 GFK Diary, April 20, 1929.

45 Carr to GFK, July 18, 1929, DSR-DF 1910–29, 123K36/58; Raymond H. Geist to the State Department, August 4, 1930, DSR-DF 1930–39, 123K36/81; GFK, Memoirs, I, 31–33.

46 Richie, Faust’s Metropolis, pp. 325, 331; GFK, Memoirs, I, 34–35.

47 GFK interview, December 13, 1987, p. 8; GFK to JKH, March 8, 1930, GFK Papers, 23:10.

48 GFK Diary, January 26, 1930. See also, for the Femina, Richie, Faust’s Metropolis, pp. 459–60.

49 GFK to JKH, March 8 and 28, 1930, GFK Papers, 23:10.

50 GFK Diary, January 19, 1930.

51 GFK to JKH, January 3 and April 28, 1931, GFK Papers, 23:10; GFK, Memoirs, I, 34.

52 GFK interview, December 13, 1987, pp. 9–10.

53 GFK to Ferris, January 12, 1931, JEK Papers.

54 GFK Diary, May 30, 1931.

55 GFK to JKH, November 16, 1930, January 3, April 18 and 28, 1931, GFK Papers, 23:10.

56 GFK to State Department, July 29, 1931, DSR-DF 1930–39, 123K36/99.

FOUR ● MARRIAGE—AND MOSCOW: 1931–1933

1 ASK telegram to GFK, August 5, 1931, JEK Papers; GFK Diary, included in entry for May 7, 1932; GFK to JKH, no date, GFK Papers, 23:10. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 37.

2 ASK to GFK, three undated letters, JEK Papers.

3 ASK interview, August 26, 1982, p. 1; Alice Green certificate, Cours des Billettes, Paris, June 20, 1928, JEK Papers. The birth date is from a baptismal certificate attached to the American Consular Service Certificate of Marriage, ibid.

4 ASK interview, August 26, 1982, pp. 3–4; ASK Diary and Memorandum Book for 1931, JEK Papers.

5 ASK to GFK, undated, JEK Papers; GFK Diary, May 7, 1932; GFK, Memoirs, I, 38–39; ASK interview, August 26, 1982, p. 4.

6 GFK, Memoirs, I, 39–40; ASK Diary, September 11, 1931, JEK Papers; GFK to JKH, October 18, 1931, GFK Papers, 23:10. See also GFK Diary, October 3, 1932.

7 GFK, Memoirs, I, 40; ASK interview, December 14, 1987, p. 2.

8 Ibid., p. 8; GFK to Jeanette and Gene Hotchkiss, November 1, 1931, GFK Papers, 23:10; GFK, Memoirs, I, 40–41.

9 GFK to JKH, October 18, 1931, GFK Papers, 23:10. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 40.

10 ASK to JKH, January 28, 1932, JEK Papers; GFK, Memoirs, I, 41.

11 ASK to GFK, undated, JEK Papers; CKB interview, p. 9; ASK interview, December 14, 1987, p. 5.

12 KKK to GFK, January 14, 1932, JEK Papers. See also JKH interview, pp. 7–9, and KWK interview, pp. 2–3.

13 Eugene Hotchkiss to GFK, March 20, 1932, JEK Papers; JKH to JLG, July 8, 1983, JLG Papers. For more on the “match king,” see Economist 385 (December 22, 2007), 115–17.

14 JKH interview, p. 10; GFK to JKH, June 24, 1932, and December 25, 1935, GFK Papers, 23:10; ASK interviews, August 26, 1982, p. 5, and December 14, 1987, p. 8; JEK to JLG, April 4, 2008, JLG Papers.

15 GFK Diary, May 29, 1932.

16 Ibid., June 13, 1932.

17 Ibid., March 24, 1932; GFK and ASK interview, December 13, 1987, pp. 13–15.

18 GFK Diary, June 14, 1932.

19 Ibid., January 1933, otherwise undated portion titled “Pocket Notebook.”

20 GFK Diary, April 7, July 13, August 4, 1932.

21 “Memorandum for the Minister,” August 19, 1932, enclosed in dispatch #650 from Robert F. Skinner to the State Department, DSR-DF 1930-39, 861.5017 Living Conditions/510; GFK to JLG, February 12, 2001, JLG Papers. I am indebted to David C. Engerman for bringing this document to my attention. His own evaluation of it is in his book Modernization from the Other Shore, pp. 254–55.

22 GFK, Memoirs, I, 28–30; T. W. Wilson report on the American legation in Riga, Latvia, February 20, 1929, section III, Department of State, Inspection Reports, 1906–39, Box 128.

23 ASK to GFK, November 8, 1932, JEK Papers.

24 For the pressures leading to recognition, see Saul, Friends or Foes?, pp. 254–90; and, for the State Department perspective, Henderson, Question of Trust, pp. 213–29.

25 GFK, Memoirs, I, 41; ASK to JKH, February 8, 1933, JEK Papers.

26 GFK Diary, January 1933, otherwise undated portion titled “Personal Notebook”; GFK to JKH, March 21, 1933, GFK Papers, 23:10.

27 GFK to JKH, May 1 and June 3, 1933, ibid.

28 Skinner to State Department, September 10, 1932, enclosing GFK memorandum on “The Gold and Foreign Currency Accounts of the Russian Government,” and Castle to Skinner, December 6, 1932, DSR-DF 1930–39, 851.51/2539; Skinner to GFK, ibid., 123K36/128. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 49–52, 58.

29 KKK to GFK, January 29, 1933, and ASK to JKH, August 4, 1933, JEK Papers; Cole to State Department, September 23, 1933, DSR-DF 1930–39, 123K36/134.

30 Henderson interview, September 25, 1982, p. 1; J. V. A. MacMurray to State Department, January 9, 1934, DSR-DF, 123K36/151. See also, for similar speculation on Kennan’s motives for returning, Isaacson and Thomas, Wise Men, pp. 155–57.

31 ASK interview, August 26, 1982, p. 5; GFK to JKH, October 26, 1933, GFK Papers, 23:10; JKH to GFK, November 2 and 5, 1933, JEK Papers; “Daughter-in-Law Greeted at Tea,” Milwaukee Journal, November 4, 1933, clipping in JKH Scrapbook.

32 GFK to JKH, December 14, 1933, KKK to GFK, November 24, 1933, JEK Papers.

33 GFK, “Introduction” [to Bullitt, For the President], pp. v–vi. For Bullitt, see Brownell and Billings, So Close to Greatness, and Cassella-Blackburn, The Donkey, the Carrot, and the Club. The Wilson biography did not appear until shortly before Bullitt’s death in 1967.

34 GFK unpublished 1938 memoir, “Fair Day Adieu,” p. 1, GFK Papers, 240:2; GFK to family, December 2, 1933, JEK Papers.

35 ASK interview, December 14, 1987, p. 15; GFK, “Introduction,” p. xv.

36 GFK to JKH, January 6, 1934 [misdated 1933], JEK papers.

37 Ibid., GFK to Charles James, July 29, 1934, GFK Papers, 22:4; GFK to JKH, January 25, 1934, ibid., 23:10. The newspaper photos are in a family album in the JEK Papers. See also GFK, Memoirs, II, 119–20.

38 GFK to JKH, December 14, 1933, GFK Papers, 23:10.

39 GFK to JKH, January 6, 1934 [misdated 1933], ibid.; GFK, Memoirs, I, 59–60.

40 GFK to Bullitt, December 27, 1933, Bullitt Papers, 17:5; Bullitt to Roosevelt, January 1, 1934, in Bullitt, For the President, p. 65.

FIVE ● THE ORIGINS OF SOVIET-AMERICAN RELATIONS, 1933–1936

1 GFK to ASK, December 29, 1933, JEK Papers.

2 Bullitt to State Department, December 16, 1933, DSR-DF 1930–39, 123K36/141; Wilbur J. Carr to William Phillips, December 20, 1933, ibid., 124.61/54; Merrill to Carr, December 24, 1933, ibid., 124.611/53; Bullitt to Roosevelt, Phillips, and R. Walton Moore, December 24, 1933, ibid., 124.611/55; Phillips to Bullitt, December 27, 1933, ibid., 124.611/53.

3 ASK to GFK, January 2, 1934, JEK Papers; GFK Moscow Diary, January 15, 1934, DSR-DF1930–39, 124.616/113.

4 GFK, Memoirs, I, 59; GFK 1938 memoir, “Fair Day Adieu,” pp. 8–9, GFK Papers, 240:2; Bullitt to Roosevelt, January 1, 1934, in Bullitt, For the President, p. 69. The National still exists—in a different era—as Le Royal Meridien National. See also, for the history of Spaso House and the Mokhovaya, http://moscow.usembassygov/embassy/embassy.php?record_id=spaso.

5 Thayer, Bears in the Caviar, p. 75; GFK, Memoirs, I, 59.

6 GFK to Charles James, July 29, 1934, Douglas James Papers; Keith Merrill telephone conversation with GFK, January 9, 1934, DSR-DF 1930–39, 124.611/94 [this copy undated, but date determined from “Mr. Kennan’s Moscow Diary, 1934,” ibid., 124.616/113]; Thayer, Bears in the Caviar, p. 85; GFK to Rebecca Matlock, October 29, 1987, GFK Papers, 27:18; GFK 1938 memoir, “Fair Day Adieu,” p. 11, GFK Papers, 240:2. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 63–64; and Peter Bridges, “George Kennan Reminisces About Moscow in 1933–1937,” Diplomacy and Statecraft 17 (June 2006), 283–93.

7 Bullitt to Roosevelt, April 13, 1934, in Bullitt, For the President, p. 83.

8 Henderson, Question of Trust, pp. 262, 301–5; GFK, Memoirs, I, 61–63.

9 Henderson, Question of Trust, p. 303; ASK interviews, August 26, 1982, p. 7, and December 14, 1987, p. 4; Durbrow interview, September 24, 1982, p. 1. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 63–64; and Thayer, Bears in the Caviar, pp. 85–86.

10 GFK to JKH, April 15 and May 7, 1934, JEK Papers.

11 GFK to JKH, May 19, 1934, ibid.

12 Bullitt to State Department, May 9, 1934, DSR-DF 1930–39, 123K36/164. See also Thayer, Bears in the Caviar, pp. 85–86.

13 Robert F. Kelley memorandum, June 18, 1934, ibid.; GFK to JKH, June 24, 1934, JEK Papers.

14 GFK to Bullitt, July 6, 1934, Bullitt Papers, 19:8; GFK to Charles James, July 29, 1934, GFK Papers, 24:4.

15 JKH interview, p. 24; GFK to JKH, June 7, 1933, JEK Papers; GFK Diary, April 8, 1934.

16 GFK Diary, September 18, 1934, ibid.

17 GFK, “Runo—An Island Relic of Medieval Sweden,” Canadian Geographical Journal 11 (November 1935), 255–64. See also JKH to GFK, December 2, 1932, JEK Papers; and C. Ben Wright, “George F. Kennan, Scholar-Diplomat: 1926–1946,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1972, pp. 36–37.

18 GFK, Memoirs, I, 21, 49; Carr to Skinner, December 27, 1934, enclosing comments from Green, Kelley, and Edward C. Wynne, DSR-DF 1930–39, 123K36/123.

19 Mrs. George Kennan to JKH, June 7 and 27, 1934, JEK Papers; GFK to JKH, July 1, 1934, ibid. For George A. Frost, see Travis, George Kennan and the American-Russian Relationship, pp. 112, 123–24.

20 GFK to JKH, August 1, 1934, JEK Papers.

21 Bullitt to GFK, July 20, 1934, Bullitt Papers, 19:8; Bullitt to R. Walton Moore, September 22, 1934, ibid., T12:13.

22 GFK to JKH, December 2, 1934, GFK Papers, 23:10; GFK 1938 memoir, “Fair Day Adieu,” p. 17, ibid., 240:2.

23 ASK to JKH, November 9, 1934, JEK Papers; ASK interview, August 26, 1982, p. 8.

24 GFK Diary, September 3, 1934. Compare with GFK’s “Memorandum for the Minister,” August 19, 1932, enclosed in dispatch #650 from the Riga Legation to the Department of State, discussed in Chapter Four.

25 ASK to Louise Wheeler, October 12, 1934, and JKH, November 9, 1934, JEK Papers; KWK to JLG, January 9, 1983, JLG Papers; GFK to JKH, November 24, 1934, GFK Papers, 23:10; and KWK interview, pp. 11–13.

26 ASK to JKH, November 9, 1934, JEK Papers; GFK to JKH, December 2, 1934, GFK Papers, 23:10.

27 GFK 1938 memoir, “Fair Day Adieu,” pp. 22–23, GFK Papers, 240:2; ASK to JKH, December 21, 1934, JEK Papers; ASK interview, December 14, 1987, p. 5. See also Thayer, Bears in the Caviar, pp. 106–14.

28 Wiley to Bullitt, December 27, 1934, DSR-DF 1930–39, 123K36/174; Wiley to Bullitt, January 2, 1935, Bullitt Papers, 21:5; Bullitt to Wiley, January 7, 1934, ibid., T14:2; Bullitt to GFK, January 7, 1934, ibid., 21:1; GFK to JKH, December 31, 1934, GFK Papers, 23:10.

29 GFK to JKH, December 31, 1934, January 20, 1935, and January 6, 1937 [misdated 1936], ibid.; GFK to Bullitt, February 12, 1935, Bullitt Papers, 21:1; GFK 1938 memoir, “Fair Day Adieu,” pp. 25–27, GFK Papers, 240:2.

30 GFK to JKH, December 31, 1934, and February 10, 1935, ibid., 23:10.

31 GFK interviews, August 25, 1982, p. 1, and December 13, 1987, pp. 12–13; GFK Diary, February 12 and April 11, 1935; GFK to Bullitt, February 12, 1935, Bullitt Papers, 21:1; Henderson interview, September 25, 1982, p. 4. I have slightly edited the diary passage.

32 GFK Diary, February 4, 6, 14, 15, 1935; GFK to JKH, February 10, 1935, ibid., 23:10. The letter to Follmer is quoted in the diary entry for February 6.

33 GFK to JKH, March 6 and April 29, 1935, GFK Papers, 23:10; GFK Diary, April 8, 1935; GFK to ASK, April 20, 1935, JEK Papers.

34 GFK Diary, February 15, 1935; GFK to Bullitt, February 12, 1935, Bullitt Papers, 21:1.

35 Bullitt to R. Walton Moore, May 11, 1935, ibid., T12:13; GFK to Bullitt, April 15, 1935, ibid., 21:1; Bullitt to Thomas D. White, June 6, 1935, ibid., 21:5; ASK to JKH, May 31, 1935, JEK Papers.

36 GFK Diary, April 20, 1935; GFK to JKH, June 28, July 30, September 11 and 30, 1935, ibid., 23:10; GFK to Bullitt, November 4, 1935, Bullitt Papers, 21:1.

37 GFK, Memoirs, I, 64; GFK 1938 memoir, “Fair Day Adieu,” pp. 14–15, GFK Papers, 240:2.

38 GFK to JKH, November 17, 1935, ibid., 23:10. For a recent but still inconclusive account of the Kirov murder, see Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: At the Court of the Red Tsar (New York: Knopf, 2004), pp. 143–52.

39 GFK to JKH, December 25, 1935, GFK Papers, 23:10; GFK to Charles James, December 16, 1935, ibid., 24:4; GFK 1938 memoir, “Fair Day Adieu,” pp. 36–38, ibid., 240:2.

40 Ibid., pp. 41–44; Bullitt fitness report on GFK, August 1, 1936, Bullitt Papers, T12:21. See also, for a detailed account of this trip, GFK, Sketches from a Life, pp. 27–33.

41 Bullitt to State Department, April 20, 1936, in FRUS: The Soviet Union, 1933–1939, p. 292. See also Bullitt, For the President, pp. 134–35, and Henderson, Question of Trust, pp. 319–85, 407–8.

42 GFK 1938 memoir, “Fair Day Adieu,” pp. 13–14, 23–24, 38–40, GFK Papers, 240:2; GFK, Memoirs, I, 68–70. The Neill Brown observations were included in Bullitt to State Department, March 4, 1936, in FRUS: The Soviet Union, 1933–1939, pp. 289–91. GFK described their discovery in a lecture to the Canadian National Defence College on May 31, 1948, GFK Papers, 299:9.

43 Bullitt to State Department, April 20, 1936, in FRUS: The Soviet Union, 1933–1939, p. 296.

44 See “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs 25 (July 1947), especially pp. 580–82.

45 Bullitt fitness report on GFK, August 1, 1936, Bullitt Papers, T12:21.

46 GFK to Bullitt, June 9, 1936, ibid., and September 4, 1936, ibid., 20:17.

SIX ● REDISCOVERING AMERICA: 1936–1938

1 GFK to State Department, January 9, 1936, DSR-DF 1930–39, 123K36/213.

2 ASK to JKH, November 2, 1935, JEK Papers; GFK 1938 memoir “Fair Day Adieu,” p. 41, GFK Papers, 240:2; GFK to JKH, December 25, 1935, ibid., 23:10.

3 GFK to Bullitt, June 9, 1936, Bullitt Papers, T12:21.

4 GFK to JKH, May 13, 1935, GFK Papers, 23:10.

5 GFK, Memoirs, I, 77.

6 Ibid.; GFK 1938 memoir, “Fair Day Adieu,” pp. 47–50, GFK Papers, 240:2; also GFK to JKH, September 8, 1936, ibid., 23:10.

7 Ibid.; J. Klahr Huddle to State Department, April 17, 1937, Department of State, Inspection Reports on Foreign Service Posts, 1906–39, Box 102.

8 GFK 1938 memoir, “Fair Day Adieu,” p. 66, GFK Papers, 240:2; R. Walton Moore to Bullitt, March 19, 1936, Bullitt Papers, T12:15. The information on embassy productivity is in the Huddle inspection report, April 17, 1937.

9 GFK to JKH, December 6, 1936, GFK Papers, 23:10; ASK to JKH, January 2, 1937, JEK Papers; Thayer, Bears in the Caviar, pp. 132, 135.

10 ASK interview, December 14, 1987, p. 6; GFK to JKH, September 8, 1936, GFK Papers, 23:10; GFK Diary, May 30, 1937.

11 GFK to JKH, December 6, 1936, GFK Papers, 23:10; also ASK interview, December 14, 1987, p. 19.

12 Henderson, Question of Trust, p. 414; Davies, Mission to Moscow, p. xviii; GFK, Memoirs, I, 82. See also, on Davies’s background, MacLean, Joseph E. Davies, pp. 7–22.

13 Henderson interview, p. 3; Huddle inspection report, April 17, 1937.

14 GFK 1938 memoir, “Fair Day Adieu,” p. 67, GFK Papers, 240:2; GFK to JKH, February 17, 1937, ibid., 23:10; ASK to JKH, March 3, 1937, JEK Papers; GFK undated memoir, “Washington 1937–1938,” GFK Papers, 240:3; GFK to Eugene Hotchkiss, undated but March 1937, ibid., 23:10.

15 ASK interview, September 8, 1983, p. 4; Davies to GFK, February 2, 1937, Davies Papers, Box 3; GFK, Memoirs, I, 82–83; Davies to State Department, February 17 and 18, 1937, DSR-DF 1930–39, 861.00/ 11675–76; Kelley to Hull, March 13, 1937, ibid., 861.00/11676. Davies’s February 18 dispatch forwarded Kennan’s report, “The Trial of Radek and Others,” dated February 13, 1937, subsequently published in FRUS: The Soviet Union, 1933–1939, pp. 362–69. See also MacLean, Joseph E. Davies, pp. 28–30.

16 GFK to Peter S. Bridges, September 20, 1963, GFK Papers, 57. See also GFK 1938 memoir, “Fair Day Adieu,” pp. 71–72, ibid., 240:2; Thayer, Bears in the Caviar, pp. 95–96; MacLean, Joseph E. Davies, p. 40; and, for official reports, Henderson to State Department, May 14 and August 10, 1937, in FRUS: The Soviet Union, 1933–1939, pp. 441–42, 445–46.

17 Davies to Kelley, February 10, 1937, Davies Papers, Box 3.

18 GFK to JKH, December 6, 1936, and March 31, 1937, GFK Papers, 23:10.

19 GFK 1938 memoir “Fair Day Adieu,” pp. 68–70, ibid., 240:2; GFK, Memoirs, I, 85; Bullitt to R. Walton Moore, June 15, 1937, Bullitt Papers, T12:16. For another version of the library story, see Bohlen, Witness to History, p. 41.

20 Moore to Bullitt, June 26, 1937, Bullitt Papers, T12:16; GFK, Memoirs, I, 84–85; also MacLean, Joseph E. Davies, pp. 37–38.

21 GFK, Memoirs, I, 82–83; GFK to Rebecca Matlock, October 29, 1987, GFK Papers, 27:18; GFK 1938 memoir “Fair Day Adieu,” p. 70, ibid., 240:2.

22 ASK to JKH, June 24 and July 28, 1937, JEK Papers; Hull to GFK, August 13, 1937, DSR-DF 1930–39, 123K36/246.

23 Bullitt to Moore, June 15, 1937, Bullitt Papers, T12:16; Henderson to Bullitt, September 3, 1937, ibid., 22: 10; GFK to JKH, September 14, 1937, GFK Papers, 22:10; GFK to Hull, August 16, 1937, DSR-DF 1930–39, 123K36/248. See also Henderson, Question of Trust, p. 397.

24 GFK, Memoirs, I, 85; GFK Diary, October 17, 24, 25, 1937, and February 11, 1938; GFK undated memoir, “Washington 1937–1938,” GFK Papers, 240:3.

25 GFK to JKH, November 3, 1937, ibid., 23:10; ASK to JKH, October 19 and December 20, 1937, JEK Papers; GFK to JKH, December 26, 1937, and February 8, 1938, GFK Papers, 23:10.

26 GFK undated memoir, “Washington 1937–1938,” pp. 4, 15, GFK Papers, 240:3; GFK memorandum, “The Position of an American Ambassador in Moscow,” November 24, 1937, in FRUS: The Soviet Union, 1933–1939, p. 446; GFK, Memoirs, I, 85–86; GFK and Edward Page, Jr., memorandum, “Comments on the Memorandum of Oral Conversation Left by the Soviet Ambassador,” July 19, 1938, in FRUS: The Soviet Union, 1933–1939, p. 658; GFK memorandum, December 23, 1937, DSR-DF 1930–39, 711.61/628.

27 GFK lecture, “Russia,” delivered at the Foreign Service School, May 20, 1938, GFK Papers, 298:1.

28 Troyanovsky to Stalin (from Washington), June 20, 1938, and a second undated report (from Moscow), Presidential Archive of the Russian Federation, Fond 3, Opis 66, Delo 362, ll. 140–211, translation by Jeffrey Mankoff. The Davies dispatch is in FRUS: The Soviet Union, 1933–39, pp. 542–51.

29 “Memoires of Dr. Frieda Por,” enclosed in a letter to GFK and ASK, June 12, 1977, GFK Papers, 39:5; ASK to Frieda Por (in German), July 25, 1938, JEK Papers. See also, on the Frieda Por emigration, GFK interview, December 13, 1987, pp. 11–12; and ASK to GFK, undated but summer 1938, JEK Papers.

30 GFK undated memoir, “Washington 1937–1938,” pp. 17–19, GFK Papers, 240:3. GFK, Memoirs, I, 75–76, misdates this trip as 1936.

31 GFK, Sketches from a Life, pp. 36–44; also GFK undated memoir, “Washington 1937–1938,” GFK Papers, 240:3.

32 GFK, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs 25 (July 1947), 582.

33 GFK, “The Prerequisites: Notes on the Problems of the United States in 1938,” and “II. Government,” GFK Papers, 240:4.

34 Mayers, George Kennan and the Dilemmas of U.S. Foreign Policy, p. 338n; GFK interview, January 30, 1991, p. 13. Wright, “George F. Kennan, Scholar-Diplomat,” pp. 133–34, catalogs the political incorrectness with succinct precision.

35 Isaacson and Thomas, Wise Men, p. 172.

36 See, for example, GFK, Around the Cragged Hill, pp. 232–49.

37 GFK 1938 memoir, “Fair Day Adieu,” pp. 29–31, GFK Papers, 240:2. See also, on the global significance of the New Deal, Hamby, For the Survival of Democracy.

38 GFK undated memoir, “Washington 1937–1938,” p. 9, ibid., 240:3.

39 Ibid., pp. 1–2.

40 Bohlen interview by Wright, September 29, 1970. I have edited this passage for clarity.

41 GFK undated memoir, “Washington 1937–1938,” pp. 31–33, GFK Papers, Box 19R.

SEVEN ● CZECHOSLOVAKIA AND GERMANY: 1938–1941

1 GFK to Bullitt, August 15, 1938, Bullitt Papers, 4:12. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 86.

2 GFK undated memoir, “Prague—Munich to Occupation, 1938–1939,” pp. 1–3, GFK Papers, 240:3. The Washington Post clippings, dated September 15, 1938, are in the JEK Papers.

3 GFK undated memoir, “Prague—Munich to Occupation, 1938–1939,” pp. 3–4, GFK Papers, 240:3; State Department radiogram, September 24, 1938, DSR-DF 1930–39, 123K36/272, National Archives.

4 GFK undated memoir, “Prague—Munich to Occupation, 1938–1939,” pp. 4–6, GFK Papers, 240:3.

5 Ibid., pp. 7–9.

6 GFK to Frieda Por (in German), October 15, 1938, JEK Papers; GFK personal notes, October 1938, in GFK, From Prague After Munich, pp. 3–4; GFK Diary, October 2, 1938.

7 GFK, Memoirs, I, 90–92; GFK Diary, October 13, 1938. Gellhorn drew on her experiences in her first novel, A Stricken Field. There is an encounter with an apparently insensitive diplomat—although she makes him British—on pp. 162–65.

8 GFK to Grace Wells, October 17, 1938, GFK Papers, 23:10; GFK Diary, October 23, 1938; GFK personal notes, October 1938, in GFK, From Prague After Munich, p. 4.

9 GFK undated memoir, “Prague—Munich to Occupation, 1938–1939,” pp. 12–13, GFK Papers, 240:3; GFK to JKH, November 14, 1938, ibid., 23:10.

10 GFK to JKH, November 14, 1938, ibid.; GFK undated memoir, “Prague—Munich to Occupation, 1938–1939,” pp. 12–16, ibid., 240:3.

11 Ibid., pp. 16–19.

12 ASK to JKH, December 10, 1938, and February 6, 1939, JEK Papers; GFK to JKH, December 28, 1938, GFK Papers, 23:10.

13 GFK personal notes, October 1938, in GFK, From Prague After Munich, pp. 4–5.

14 GFK personal letters of December 8, 1938, and January 6, 1939, in ibid., pp. 9, 11. See also Raymond E. Cox to State Department, January 12, 1939, and Wilbur J. Carr to State Department, February 1, 1939, both drafted by GFK, in ibid., pp. 29–31, 38–39.

15 GFK to State Department, February 17, 1939, in ibid., pp. 46–50, 56.

16 GFK personal notes, March 21, 1939, in ibid., pp. 80–87; GFK interview, September 7, 1983, p. 6; ASK to JKH, March 18, 1938, JEK Papers; GFK to JKH, March 24, 1939, GFK Papers, 23:10; GFK undated memoir, “Prague—Munich to Occupation, 1938–1939,” p. 45, ibid., 240:3; ASK interview, December 14, 1987, p. 14.

17 GFK to State Department, March 29 and 30, 1939, in GFK, From Prague After Munich, p. 94; GFK, “The Prerequisites,” pp. 4–5, GFK Papers, 240:4.

18 Irving N. Linnell to chargé d’affaires in Berlin (drafted by GFK), April 14, 1939, and to Department of State (drafted by GFK), May 23, 1939, in GFK, From Prague After Munich, pp. 117–18, 178.

19 GFK to State Department, March 29, 1939, Linnell to State Department (drafted by GFK), May 23, 1939, ibid., pp. 98, 173–74.

20 GFK to State Department, May 1, 1939, in ibid., pp. 135–38.

21 GFK to Robert Coe, March 30, 1939, GFK to State Department, April 26–27, 1939, Linnell to State Department (drafted by GFK), May 10, 1939, all in ibid., pp. 103–4, 133, 150.

22 GFK to State Department, May 15, 1939, in ibid., pp. 169–71.

23 Messersmith to GFK, June 27, 1939, GFK Papers, 140:10; GFK, Memoirs, I, 128.

24 GFK, “The War Problem of the Soviet Union,” March 1935, GFK Papers, 250:1; Linnell to American chargé d’affaires in Berlin (drafted by GFK), in GFK, From Prague After Munich, pp. 88–91; Linnell to State Department (drafted by GFK), May 23 and June 6, 1939, ibid., pp. 177, 183. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 100–101. For the Herwarth affair, see Bohlen, Witness to History, pp. 67–87, and Herwarth and Starr, Against Two Evils, pp. 153–62.

25 GFK to Messersmith, April 7, 1939, GFK Papers, 250:4; GFK to Jay Pierrepont Moffatt, May 10, 1939, ibid., 140:10.

26 GFK Diary, June 8–14, 1939. See also GFK, Sketches from a Life, pp. 57–58.

27 Linnell to State Department (drafted by GFK), August 19, 1939, in GFK, From Prague After Munich, p. 217; ASK to JKH, July 10, 1939 and to CKB, September 5, 1939, JEK Papers; GFK to JKH, September 16, 1939, GFK Papers, 23:10.

28 GFK, Memoirs, I, 105.

29 ASK to JKH, October 24, 1939, JEK Papers; GFK, Memoirs, I, 107–8; GFK to JKH, November 14, 1939, GFK Papers, 23:10.

30 Ibid.; ASK to JKH, February 18, 1940, JEK Papers.

31 GFK to JKH, November 14 and December 9, 1939, GFK Papers, 23:10.

32 GFK to JKH, December 31, 1939, ibid.

33 GFK, Memoirs, I, 115–16; GFK Diary, February 24, and March 4, 1940; GFK to JKH, April 15, 1940, ibid., 23:10. For the Welles mission, see Gellman, Secret Affairs, pp. 166–202.

34 GFK untitled paper, February, 1940, GFK Papers, 240:5, GFK Diary, February 24 and 26, 1940. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 116–19.

35 GFK to JKH, February 13 and March 7, 1940, GFK Papers, 23:10.

36 GFK to JKH, April 15, 1940, ibid.; ASK interviews, August 26, 1982, p. 9, and December 14, 1987, p. 22.

37 Ibid.; GFK Diary, May 4, 1940. GFK dates the departure incorrectly in his Memoirs, I, 123–24.

38 GFK Diary, May 6, 8, 10, 14, 17, 1940.

39 Ibid., June 10, 1940.

40 Ibid., June 14, 15, 16, 1940. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 124–27; and GFK, Sketches from a Life, pp. 66–68.

41 GFK Diary, July 2, 3, 1940; also GFK, Sketches from a Life, pp. 70–74.

42 GFK Diary, August 26–September 6, 1940; GFK to JKH, November 5, 1940, GFK Papers, 23:10; Masarik, Le dernier témoin de Munich, pp. 417–18. I am indebted to my Yale student Rene Bystron for this reference.

43 GFK report, “A Year and a Half of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia,” October 1940, in GFK, From Prague After Munich, pp. 226–40.

44 GFK, Memoirs, I, 119–23; GFK to G. van Roon, March 14, 1962, GFK Papers, 56; GFK interview, August 25, 1982, p. 8; Herwarth and Starr, Against Two Evils, pp. 177–78.

45 GFK to Jacob D. Beam, October 17 and November 8, 1940, GFK Papers, 140:9. See also Miner, “His Master’s Voice,” in Craig and Loewenheim, Diplomats, p. 78.

46 GFK to JKH, October 21, 1940, GFK Papers, 23:10.

47 ASK interview, August 26, 1982, pp. 9–10; “Kennan Kept Busy in Berlin,” Milwaukee Journal, February 6, 1941.

48 ASK to JKH, March 23, April 13, and June 5, 1941, JEK Papers; JKH interview, p. 19. The travel dates are from GFK’s personnel file, DSR-DF 1940–44, 123K36/338, 342, and 345, but see also GFK to JKH, May 4, 1941, GFK Papers, 23:10.

49 ASK to JKH, April 13 and June 5, 1941, JEK Papers. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 124.

50 ASK interview, December 14, 1987, p. 23; GFK interview, August 25, 1982, p. 6; JLG diary, December 14, 1987.

51 JKH to JLG, August 12, 1983; GFK to JKH, August 6 and September 5, 1941, GFK Papers, 23:10.

52 GFK to JKH, August 17, September 5, and October 29, 1941, ibid., 23:10. For the island, see ASK to JKH, May 31, 1935, JEK Papers; ASK interview, December 14, 1987, p. 26.

53 Vassiltchikov, Berlin Diaries, p. 53; GFK, Memoirs, I, 130–34. For American warnings to the Soviet Union, see Heinrichs, Threshold of War, pp. 21–23, 56.

54 MacLean, Joseph E. Davies, pp. 71–79. See also Davies, Mission to Moscow. Davies had stepped down as ambassador in June 1938.

55 GFK interview, September 7, 1983, p. 9; GFK to ASK, October 21, 1941, in GFK, Sketches from a Life, p. 75.

56 GFK interview, September 7, 1983, p. 9.

57 GFK, Memoirs, I, 134.

58 GFK to James W. Riddleberger, November 20, 1941, GFK Papers, 140:8.

59 GFK interviews, August 25, 1982, p. 16, and December 13, 1987, p. 17; GFK to Bullitt, June 9, 1936, Bullitt Papers, T12:21.

60 See GFK, Memoirs, I, 109–12; GFK, Sketches from a Life, pp. 59–63.

61 GFK interview, September 7, 1983, p. 3.

62 ASK to JKH, March 18, 1938, JEK Papers.

63 Kershaw, Hitler: Nemesis, pp. 479–81.

EIGHT ● THE UNITED STATES AT WAR: 1941–1944

1 GFK to JKH, October 29, 1941, GFK Papers, 23:10.

2 GFK, Memoirs, I, 134–36; Burdick, American Island in Hitler’s Reich, pp. 8–11, 34–43; and GFK, “Report, the Internment and Repatriation of the American Official Group in Germany, 1941–1942,” pp. 422–26, 456–59.

3 GFK interview, December 13, 1987, p. 1. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, p. xi.

4 Burdick, American Island in Hitler’s Reich, p. 43. The information on luggage and pets comes from the internees’ newspaper, Bad Nauheim Pudding, February 14, 1942, copy in GFK Papers, 231:9.

5 Burdick, American Island in Hitler’s Reich, pp. 35–36, 39–40, 70–72.

6 List of activities, January 25–29, 1942, GFK Papers, 231:9; Stephen Turnham, “WWII Slugger Earns a Footnote in Baseball History,” Washington Post, April 11, 1991.

7 “To Whom It May Concern” letter signed by P. W. Whitcomb, Louis P. Lochner, J. P. Dickson, and S. W. Herman, Jr., February 26, 1942, GFK Papers, 231:9. The lecture notes are in ibid., 298:3–8.

8 Untitled, undated lecture notes, ibid.

9 GFK to “my dear children,” February 1942, ibid., 140:7. For more on this letter, see Chapter One.

10 GFK interview, December 13, 1987, p. 15; typescript marked “Unfinished Story,” no date but probably late March or early April 1942.

11 GFK Diary, April 19–22, 1942.

12 Ibid., May 5, 1942.

13 GFK, Memoirs, I, 139; GFK interview, December 13, 1987, pp. 16, 19.

14 GFK, Memoirs, I, 138; Burdick, American Island in Hitler’s Reich, pp. 106–8.

15 ASK to Frieda Por, undated but December 1941, JEK Papers; ASK interview, August 26, 1982, p. 11. GFK’s query, conveyed through the Swiss, is in the DSR-DF 1940–44, 123K36/368.

16 Frieda Por to State Department, ibid., “123Kennan George F.” folder; G. Howland Shaw to GFK, June 12, 1942, ibid., 123K36/371.

17 Bad Nauheim Lecture 2, undated, GFK Papers, 298:5; GFK Diary, April 20, 1942.

18 ASK interviews, August 26, 1982, p. 11, and December 14, 1987, p. 27; GFK to JKH, June 12 and 21, 1942, JEK Papers. The book was M. G. Gains, Five Acres and Independence: A Practical Guide to the Selection and Management of the Small Farm (New York: Greenberg, 1940).

19 ASK to JKH, two undated letters, JEK Papers; ASK interview, December 14, 1987, p. 29.

20 Ibid., pp, 29–30; GFK to JKH, July 21 and 22, 1942, JEK Papers.

21 “A Diplomat Moves Into the Joe Miller Place,” York [Pennsylvania] Dispatch, June 13, 1964. Jeanette Hotchkiss and Kent Kennan both brought this story to my attention.

22 GFK Diary, September 8, 1942, ASK to JKH, September 30, 1942, JEK Papers.

23 GFK Diary, August 28, 1942.

24 GFK to JKH, December 1 and 2 [misdated], 1942, and January 31, 1943, GFK Papers, 23:10; ASK to JKH, November 14 and December 10, 1942, February 12, 1943, JEK Papers.

25 Blair Butterworth, “Fond Family Memories of an Extraordinary Man,” Seattle Times, March 22, 2005. I am indebted to Blair Butterworth for sharing this story with me. See also “Clipper Crashes at Lisbon,” New York Times, February 23, 1943.

26 GFK, Memoirs, I, 143; Robert Meiklejohn Diary, December 23, 1945, Harriman Papers, Box 11; Roberts interview, March 15, 1993, p. 2.

27 GFK, Memoirs, I, 143–45. See also GFK’s National War College lecture, “Problems of Diplomatic-Military Collaboration,” March 7, 1947, p. 7, GFK Papers, 298:29.

28 Ibid., pp. 4–6.

29 GFK to JKH, April 30, July 2, and 20, 1943, GFK Papers, 23:10.

30 GFK to JKH, undated letter composed “at sea,” ibid., 23:10. The Gibbon quote is from Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, I, 30. For the Davies film, see MacLean, Joseph E. Davies, pp. 91–93, 106–7.

31 GFK to JKH, August 14, 1942, GFK Papers, 23:10.

32 Ibid.; GFK to Dunn, September 9, 1943, Dunn to GFK, October 1, 1943, DSR-DF 1940–44, 711.53/31.

33 GFK, Memoirs, I, 147–50; GFK National War College lecture, March 7, 1947, pp. 9–13. See also the partial documentation in FRUS: 1943, II, 547–50.

34 State Department to GFK, October 16, 1943, GFK to State Department, October 18, 1943, ibid., pp. 554–57. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 150–53.

35 Ibid., pp. 153–55, 163; also FRUS: 1943, II, 557–62.

36 GFK, Memoirs, I, 156–59.

37 Roosevelt to Salazar, November 4, 1943, in FRUS: 1943, II, 564–65. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 159–62. For Leahy’s presence on the Drottningholm, see Burdick, American Island in Hitler’s Reich, p. 107.

38 GFK National War College lecture, March 7, 1947, Harlow and Maerz, eds., Measures Short of War, p. 151; GFK, Memoirs, I, 162–63.

39 Hull to Norweb and GFK, December 4, 1943, in FRUS: 1943, II, 576; GFK, Memoirs, I, 166; Roberts interview, p. 4. See also Bohlen interview by Wright, p. 4.

40 GFK, Memoirs, I, 164–66. See also, for background on the EAC, Gaddis, United States and the Origins of the Cold War, pp. 105–9.

41 GFK, Memoirs, I, 167–69.

42 Ibid., pp. 168–70.

43 GFK to Bullitt, April 4, 1944, Bullitt Papers, 30:15; GFK, Memoirs, I, 171–74. See also the documentation in FRUS: 1944, I, 207–9. The map containing the JCS proposal is in ibid., facing p. 196.

44 Quoted in GFK handwritten memorandum, no date but probably March 1944, GFK Papers, Box 1R, “1944” folder. The Gibbon reference is from Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, II, 373. Kennan’s airplane reading is confirmed in GFK to JLG, October 18, 1995, JLG Papers.

45 GFK handwritten memorandum, probably March 1944, GFK Papers, 231:12.

46 Ibid.; GFK paper on “The Treatment of Germany,” enclosed in GFK to Bullitt, April 4, 1944, Bullitt Papers, 30:15; GFK to James W. Riddleberger, June 13, 1944, GFK Papers, 140:6. This memorandum is cited incorrectly in GFK, Memoirs, I, 175–78, as dating from 1943.

47 GFK interview, August 25, 1982, pp. 11–12; Bohlen interview by Wright.

48 JEK unpublished memoir, JLG Papers; ASK to GFK, December 24, 1943, DSR-DF 1940–44, 123K/463.

49 Winant to State Department, January 17, 1944, ibid., 123K36/471; S. C. Jalecki memorandum, March 30, 1944, ibid., “123Kennan, George F.” folder; GFK, Memoirs, I, 171.

50 GFK to Bullitt, April 23, 1944, Bullitt Papers, 30:12; GFK to Eugene Hotchkiss, April 18, 1944, GFK Papers, 140:6; GFK to ASK, April 4 and 24, 1944, DSR-DF 1940–44, 123K36/489 and 495. For the speculation about GFK’s ulcer, see Cumming interview, p. 2.

51 GFK to Follmer, May 14, 1944, GFK Papers, 140:6.

NINE ● BACK IN THE U.S.S.R.: 1944–1945

1 GFK to Eugene Hotchkiss, April 18, 1944, GFK Papers, 140:6; G. Howland Shaw to GFK, May 22, 1944, DSR-DF 1940–44, Box 474, 123K36/507.

2 The fullest biography of Harriman is Abramson, Spanning the Century; but see also Harriman and Abel, Special Envoy. The first Kennan’s biography is E. H. Harriman: A Biography.

3 Harriman interview, September 24, 1982, p. 1. See also Harriman and Abel, Special Envoy, p. 229n; and Bohlen, Witness to History, pp. 132–33, as well as the extensive correspondence regarding Kennan’s Moscow assignment in his State Department personnel file, DSR-DF 1940–44, 123K36/470–81.

4 GFK, Memoirs, I, 180–81, 233–34, GFK to Thomas A. Julian, March 31, 1965, GFK Papers, 58:4–8; Harriman interview, pp. 1–3; GFK interview, August 25, 1982, p. 10.

5 GFK remarks to the officer staff of the American legation in Lisbon, June 1944 [specific date not given], GFK Papers, 298:9.

6 GFK Diary, June 15, 1944; ASK to GFK, June 25, 1944, JEK Papers. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 181.

7 Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, III, 49. The Belisarius account is in ibid., II, 559–61.

8 GFK Diary, June 15–18, 1944; GFK to ASK, June 21, 1944, GFK Papers, 23:10.

9 GFK, Memoirs, I, 181–85.

10 GFK Diary, June 23–25, 1944; Henderson interview, pp. 4–6.

11 GFK Diary, July 1, 1944.

12 Ibid., July 31, 1944; GFK memorandum, “Russia—Seven Years After,” September 1944, in GFK, Memoirs, I, 504, 522.

13 “Post Report, American Embassy, Moscow, U.S.S.R.,” July 11, 1944, Department of State, Record Group 84, Moscow 1944, Box 30, “124—Post Report.” See also Abramson, Spanning the Century, pp. 351–52.

14 GFK to JKH, October 8 and November 18, 1944, GFK Papers, 23:10; ASK interview, September 8, 1983, p. 3; GFK and ASK interview, December 13, 1995, pp. 8–9; JEK to JLG, April 7, 2008, JLG Papers.

15 ASK to JKH, October 6, 12, and November 24, 1944, JEK Papers; John and Patricia Davies interview, December 7, 1982, p. 3.

16 Hessman interview, September 24, 1982, p. 2; Mautner interview, September 24, 1983, p. 1; and John and Patricia Davies interview, December 7, 1982, pp. 4–5. See also Roberts interview, pp. 5–6, and Roberts, Dealing with Dictators, p. 94.

17 ASK to JKH, November 24, 1944, JEK Papers. See also Newman, Cold War Romance of Lillian Hellman and John Melby, especially pp. 21, 33–34. Hellman’s own account is in her Unfinished Woman, pp. 125–65.

18 John Hersey to Frances Ann Hersey, December 25, 1944, Hersey Papers, Box 7. I am indebted to my Yale student Kimberly Chow for finding this letter.

19 GFK to JKH, October 8, 1944, GFK Papers, 23:10.

20 Kathleen Harriman to Mary Harriman, July 3, 1944, Harriman Papers, Box 173; GFK Diary, July 2, 1944; S. K. Tsarapkin to Molotov, July 7, 1944, Russian Federation Foreign Policy Archive, Molotov Fond, Opis 6, Papka 46, Delo 610, L 46; Meiklejohn Diary, July 3, 1944, Harriman Papers, Box 11.

21 GFK memorandum, “Comments on the Polish-Russian Question,” July 3, 1944, Department of State, Record Group 84, Moscow 1944, Box 39, “711–Poland” folder.

22 Harriman handwritten notes, July 3, 1944, Harriman Papers, Box 173. Roberts, Stalin’s Wars, pp. 31–117, provides a recent—if charitable—assessment of Stalin’s intentions. For the importance of the Atlantic Charter, see Gaddis, United States and the Origins of the Cold War, pp. 1–31.

23 Abramson, Spanning the Century, pp. 361–63; GFK, Memoirs, I, 207–8. The Soviet government finally admitted its responsibility for the Katyn murders in 1990.

24 Harriman handwritten notes, July 3, 1944. Harriman Papers, Box 173; Edward Page memorandum, Harriman-Molotov conversation, June 3, 1944, Department of State, Record Group 84, Moscow 1944, Box 39, “711—Poland” folder.

25 GFK to Harriman, undated but late July 1944, Harriman Papers, Box 173, “July 26–31, 1944” folder; GFK Diary, July 27 and August 1, 1944.

26 GFK diary, August 6, 1944; Harriman to Roosevelt, two cables, August 15, 1944, in FRUS: 1944, III, 1374–77; GFK, Memoirs, I, 210–11. Kennan erroneously recalls Harriman and Clark Kerr as having been received on this occasion by Stalin himself.

27 Ibid., p. 211; GFK interview, September 7, 1983, p. 18.

28 GFK to Harriman, September 18, 1944, GFK Papers, 140:6. GFK misdates this memorandum as December 16, 1944, in his Memoirs, I, 222.

29 GFK to Harriman, October 3, 1944, with Harriman annotation, Harriman Papers, Box 174; GFK interview, August 25, 1982, p. 19; Berlin interview, November 29, 1992, p. 1; Harriman to JLG, September 23, 1982, JLG Papers; Harriman interview, p. 5.

30 The full text, dated “September, 1944,” is in DSR-DF 1940–44, 861.00/2–1445, although the date stamp shows that it was not received in the department until February 1945. It also appears in GFK, Memoirs, I, 503–31; and excerpts were published in FRUS: 1944, IV, 902–14. GFK’s comments on the background of the paper are in a letter to R. Gordon Wasson, December 7, 1949, GFK Papers, 140:1; and in a note to Harriman’s aide, Robert Meiklejohn, attached to the copy in the Harry Hopkins Papers, Box 217, “1st Russia” folder. I am indebted to Vladimir Pechatnov for this last reference.

31 The actual figure, it is now clear, was closer to 27 million.

32 GFK, Memoirs, I, 230–31; GFK to Wasson, December 7, 1949, GFK Papers, 140:1. See also note 30.

33 GFK to JKH, January 25, 1945, GFK Papers, 28:10; Betty MacDonald, Egg and I (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1945).

34 GFK to Bohlen, January 26, 1945, Bohlen Papers, Box 1, “Personal Correspondence, 1944–46,” National Archives; Hessman interview, September 24, 1982, pp. 2–3.

35 Bohlen’s undated reply, together with his comments on the Kennan letter, are in Witness to History, pp. 174–77. See also ibid., pp. 208–9; Bohlen interview by Wright; and GFK interview, August 25, 1982, p. 8.

36 John and Patricia Davies interview, December 7, 1982, pp. 1–2, 12.

37 Sulzberger Diary, March 23, 1945, in Sulzberger, Long Row of Candles, p. 250; Mautner interview, p. 2; Roberts interview, p. 5; John Paton Davies interview, December 8, 1982, p. 1; Davies, Dragon by the Tail, p. 390.

38 Harriman to Hopkins, September 10, 1944, in FRUS: 1944, IV, 988; Harriman interview, p. 2. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 221.

39 GFK to Louis Fischer, October 4, 1954, GFK Papers, 13:8. Harriman’s memorandum, drafted on April 10, 1945, is quoted in Miscamble, From Roosevelt to Truman, p. 83.

40 JEK to JLG, April 7, 2008, JLG Papers.

41 Bohlen notes, Truman-Harriman conversation, April 20, 1945, in FRUS: 1945, V, 232–33.

42 Bohlen notes, Truman-Molotov conversation, April 23, 1945, ibid., pp. 256–58. See also Harriman and Abel, Special Envoy, pp. 453–54; and Miscamble, From Roosevelt to Truman, pp. 113–23.

43 Gaddis, United States and the Origins of the Cold War, pp. 205–15, 224–30; also MacLean, Joseph E. Davies, pp. 133–49.

44 GFK to State Department, April 20, 1945, Department of State, Record Group 84, Moscow Harriman Telegrams, Box 4, #111, OWI; GFK to State Department, April 23, 1945, ibid., Box 1, #23 China; GFK to State Department, April 27 and 28, 1945, ibid., Box 6, #155, Reparations Commission; GFK to State Department, April 30, 1945, ibid., Box 1, #8 Austria; GFK to Elbridge Durbrow, May 4, 1945, ibid., Box 5, #118 Poles; GFK to State Department, May 8, 1945, ibid., Box 6, #161A Rumania. See also Roberts, Dealing with Dictators, pp. 85–86.

45 GFK, Memoirs, I, 240–41. See also C. L. Sulzberger, “Moscow Goes Wild over Joyful News,” New York Times, May 10, 1945.

46 Bullitt to Roosevelt, January 29, 1943, in Bullitt, For the President, pp. 576–90; Forrestal to Homer Ferguson, May 14, 1945, in Millis, Forrestal Diaries, p. 57; Churchill to Truman, May 12, 1945, quoted in Gilbert, “Never Despair,” p. 7.

47 “Russia’s International Position at the Close of the War with Germany,” May 1945, in GFK, Memoirs, I, 532–46.

48 Ibid., pp. 247, 251, 293; GFK interview, January 30, 1991, p. 5.

49 GFK, Memoirs, I, 271. GFK’s first request probably came in a meeting with Foreign Ministry official Semyon K. Tsarapkin on July 6, 1944, at which he mentioned the elder Kennan’s Siberian connection, as well as his popularity with the Russian revolutionaries of that era. See Tsarapkin to Molotov, July 7, 1944, Russian Federation Foreign Policy Archive, Molotov Fond, Opis 6, Papka 46, Delo 610, L 46.

50 “Trip to Novosibirsk and Stalinsk, June, 1945,” GFK Papers, 231:13. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 271–75; GFK, Sketches from a Life, pp. 91–110. GFK’s postcard to JKH, dated June 18, 1945, is in the JEK Papers.

TEN ● A VERY LONG TELEGRAM: 1945–1946

1 GFK to JKH, June 6, 1945, GFK Papers, 23:10. The Finnish legation rental agreement is summarized in GFK to State Department, April 26, 1945, Department of State, Record Group 84, Moscow Harriman Telegrams Box 3, #74 Housing. Kennan’s promotion is confirmed in Julius C. Holmes to GFK, June 1, 1945, DSR-DF 1945–49, Box 786, “123 Kennan” folder.

2 GFK interview, August 25, 1982, p. 9; Harriman interview, p. 1. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 293.

3 Kennan’s name appeared in The New York Times only twelve times from the beginning of 1940 through the end of 1945, in each case in connection with stories on other subjects.

4 GFK, Memoirs, I, 256.

5 Ibid., pp. 212–13. Robert Meiklejohn’s diary for June 5, 1945, Harriman Papers, Box 11, contains a succinct summary of Kennan’s thinking at the time of the Hopkins visit.

6 Miscamble, From Roosevelt to Truman, pp. 125–71, provides a comprehensive account of Truman’s views and those of his key advisers during this period.

7 GFK to Byrnes, August 20, 1945, DSR-DF 1945–49, Box 786, “123 Kennan” folder; GFK to Matthews, August 21, 1945, GFK Papers, 140:5. For Kennan’s objections to the Potsdam agreements, see GFK, Memoirs, I, 258–66.

8 Roberts interview, pp. 13–14; GFK to JKH, January 25, 1945, GFK Papers, 23:10; GFK to Charles E. Bohlen, January 26, 1945, Bohlen Papers, Box 1, “Personal Correspondence,” National Archives.

9 ASK to GFK, July 29 and September 4, 1945, JEK Papers.

10 GFK Diary, “Journey to Leningrad and Helsinki, September, 1945,” in GFK, Sketches from a Life, pp. 113–16. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 275–78, 281–83.

11 An American diplomat with long service in Moscow admitted to me in the mid-1980s that he dreamed regularly of Helsinki, especially Stockmann’s Department Store.

12 GFK to Harriman, July 25, 1945, Harriman Papers, Box 181.

13 GFK to State Department, July 11, 1945, Department of State, Record Group 84, Moscow Harriman Telegrams, Box 2, #35 Czechoslovakia; GFK to State Department, July 21, 1945, ibid., Box 5, #119 Poles; GFK to State Department, July 21, 1945, ibid., Box 5, #137 Press; GFK to Harriman, July 25, 1945, ibid., Box 6, #167 Russia; GFK to State Department, August 2, 1945, in FRUS: 1945, VIII, 624.

14 GFK to State Department, July 15, 1945, Department of State, Record Group 84, Moscow Harriman Telegrams, Box 6, #167 Russia; GFK to Harriman, July 26, 1945, Harriman Papers, Box 181.

15 GFK, Memoirs, I, 279; GFK notes, Stalin-Harriman conversation, August 8, 1945, Harriman Papers, Box 181.

16 GFK interview, September 7, 1983, p. 12; GFK to Harriman, September 30, 1945, in FRUS: 1945, V, 884n; GFK to Byrnes, September 30, 1945, ibid., pp. 885–86.

17 GFK, Memoirs, I, 275–78; Senator Claude Pepper notes on interview with Stalin, September 14, 1945, Harriman Papers, Box 182. Kennan’s report on the meeting with the congressmen, sent to the State Department on September 15, 1945, is in FRUS: 1945, V, 881–84. For the origins of the “Russian loan” question, see Herring, Aid to Russia, pp. 144–78.

18 Transcript, Moscow embassy staff conference, October 10, 1945, Harriman Papers, Box 183; GFK to Byrnes, October 4, 1945, in FRUS: 1945, V, 888–91; Byrnes to GFK, October 8, 1945, ibid., p. 888n.

19 Wilgress to the Ministry of External Affairs, Ottawa, November 14, 1945, Pearson to Norman Robertson, December 6, 1945, both in Record Group 25, Volume 5696, External Affairs Records, National Archives of Canada.

20 Unsigned memorandum, October 25, 1945, DSR-DF 1945–49, Box 786, “123 Kennan” folder. See also Bohlen to Harriman, October 5, 1945, ibid.

21 Roberts interview, pp. 3, 6. See also Roberts, Dealing with Dictators, pp. 92–93.

22 GFK to Harriman, October 12, 1945, Harriman Papers, Box 183; Transcript, Moscow embassy staff conference, October 10, 1945, ibid.

23 Messer, End of an Alliance, pp. 135–48, provides a good account of Byrnes’s thinking. For the failure to consult Bevin, see Bullock, Ernest Bevin, pp. 198–99.

24 GFK Diary, December 10, 1945.

25 Ibid., December 14, 1945.

26 Ibid., December 19, 1945. Underlining in the original.

27 GFK Diary, December 17, 1945.

28 GFK draft, “The United States and Russia,” winter 1946, in GFK, Memoirs, I, 560–65.

29 Wilgress to Norman Robertson, January 15, 1946, Record Group 25, Volume 5696, Ministry of External Affairs Records, National Archives of Canada. Emphasis added.

30 GFK to Durbrow, January 21, 1946, GFK Papers, 140:4.

31 Berlin interview, p. 1; Patricia Davies interview, December 7, 1982, p. 5; Davies, Dragon by the Tail, pp. 389–90.

32 Durbrow interview, p. 2; Henderson interview, pp. 3–4; Mautner interview, p. 1; Crawford interview by Wright, pp. 4, 22.

33 Hessman interview, p. 3; Mautner interview, pp. 1–2.

34 Roberts interview, p. 5; Berlin interview, pp. 26, 29.

35 Crawford interview by Wright, September 29, 1970, pp. 2, 23; Berlin interview, pp. 1, 3.

36 John and Patricia Davies interview, December 7, 1982, pp. 5–6; Berlin interview, p. 8.

37 John and Patricia Davies interview, December 7, 1982, pp. 9–10.

38 Ibid., pp. 7–8.

39 GFK to Bullitt, January 22, 1946, Bullitt Papers, 32:3.

40 GFK to State Department, January 2, 1946, Harriman Papers, Box 185. Kennan’s explanation of the circumstances surrounding the “long telegram” is in his Memoirs, I, 293. I myself have perpetuated these errors in several books and in far too many classroom lectures. I am grateful to Nicholas Thompson for actually counting the number of words in the “long telegram.”

41 GFK to State Department, February 8, 1946, in FRUS: 1946, VI, 693. The text of Stalin’s speech was printed in Vital Speeches of the Day 12 (March 1, 1946), 300–304.

42 GFK to State Department, February 12, 1946, in FRUS: 1946, VI, 694–96; GFK, Memoirs, I, 292–93.

43 Durbrow interview, p. 3. I have discussed the shifting Washington mood in United States and the Origins of the Cold War, pp. 282–302.

44 Durbrow interview, pp. 3–4; Byrnes to GFK, February 13, 1946, DSR-DF 1945–49, 861.00/2–1245.

45 GFK, Memoirs, I, 293; Harriman interview, pp. 5–6; Harriman to JLG, September 23, 1982, JLG Papers; Hessman interview, p. 4; Mautner interview, p. 2.

46 Durbrow interview, pp. 4–5; Matthews to GFK, February 25, 1946, DSR-DF 1945–49, 861.00/2-2246; Byrnes to GFK, February 27, 1946, ibid.

47 Harriman interview, pp. 5–6; GFK, Memoirs, I, 294–95. See also Harriman to Forrestal, February 26, 1946, Harriman Papers, Box 186; Millis, Forrestal Diaries, pp. 135–36; and Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, pp. 270–73.

48 GFK to State Department, February 22, 1946, DSR-DF 1945–49, 861.00/2-2246. The “long telegram” also appears in FRUS: 1946, VI, 696–709.

49 GFK, Memoirs, I, 294–95.

ELEVEN ● A GRAND STRATEGIC EDUCATION: 1946

1 Lilienthal Diary, March 6, 1946, in Lilienthal, Journals of Lilienthal, II, 26.

2 Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, p. 27.

3 J. C. Donnelly minute, March 5, 1946, AN 587/1/45; British Foreign Office Records, FO 371/51606, National Archives, London.

4 Byrnes speech to the Overseas Press Club, February 28, 1946, Department of State Bulletin 14 (March 10, 1946), 355–58. See also, for the American policy shift as well as the background to Churchill’s speech, Harbutt, Iron Curtain, pp. 151–82.

5 H. Freeman Matthews to Robert Murphy, March 12, 1946, Murphy to Matthews, April 3, 1946, Robert Murphy Papers, Box 58 (courtesy of Christian Ostermann).

6 Donnelly minute, March 5, 1946.

7 “Looking Outward,” Time 47 (February 18, 1946), 29–30. The best account of the Bohlen-Robinson report is in Messer, “Paths Not Taken.” The first section of the report, completed in December 1945, is Diplomatic History 1 (Fall 1977), pp. 389–99, and the final draft version is in DSR-DF 1945–49, 711.61/21446, Box 3428. See also Ruddy, Cautious Diplomat, pp. 57–59.

8 Bohlen memorandum, March 13, 1946, Bohlen Papers, Box 4, “Memos (CEB) 1946” folder, National Archives.

9 Matthews to Murphy, March 12, 1946, Murphy Papers, Box 58; Norweb to GFK, March 25, 1946, GFK Papers, 140:4.

10 Roberts interview, March 15, 1993, pp. 4, 10–12. See also Roberts, Dealing with Dictators, pp. 107–9. The Roberts dispatches are published in Jensen, Origins of the Cold War, pp. 33–67.

11 GFK, “Commentary [on the Novikov Dispatch],” 540–41; GFK interview, December 13, 1995, p. 12; Kondrashov interview by Pechatnov, May 29, 1999. The Novikov dispatch is in Jensen, Origins of the Cold War, pp. 3–16. For a confirmation of Kennan’s guess about Soviet intelligence, see Pechatnov and Edmondson, “Russian Perspective,” in Levering et al., Debating the Origins of the Cold War, p. 116.

12 GFK to Bruce Hopper, April 17, 1946, GFK Papers, 140:4.

13 Ibid., GFK to Durbrow, March 7, 1946, Byrnes to GFK, March 11, 1946, Smith to GFK, March 12, 1946, DSR-DF 1945–49, Box 786, “123 Kennan” folder.

14 GFK to Byrnes, March 13, 1946, GFK to Durbrow, March 15, 1946, ibid.

15 Durbrow interview, p. 5; GFK to Durbrow, April 2, 1946, DSR-DF 1945–49, Box 786, “123 Kennan” folder.

16 Smith to Matthews, April 17, 1946, ibid.; GFK to Bohlen, April 19, 1946, ibid.

17 GFK to State Department, May 22, 1946, ibid.; ASK to Frieda Por, June 24, 1946, JEK Papers; Donald Russell to GFK, June 20, 1946, DSR-DF 1945–49, Box 786, “123 Kennan” folder.

18 GFK to Smith, June 27, 1946, JEK Papers.

19 GFK, Memoirs, I, 307–8; also Earle, Makers of Modern Strategy.

20 GFK interview, September 7, 1983, pp. 11–13; also GFK, Nuclear Delusion, pp. xiv–xv.

21 GFK 1946 National War College notebook, pp. 5, 14–15, GFK Papers, 231:14; also Brodie, Absolute Weapon. The article in question was by Percy E. Corbett.

22 GFK National War College notebook, p. 22.

23 Ibid., pp. 20–21. See also Crane Brinton, Gordon A. Craig, and Felix Gilbert, “Jomini,” in Earle, Makers of Modern Strategy, pp. 77–92, especially p. 88. Significantly, a July 1946 Fortune article on the Foreign Service mentioned a group of its officers who “think in terms of ‘containing’ Russia by a series of firm stands on specific points: Iran, Trieste, and so on.” Kennan was mentioned separately—not in this context—as having written “shrewd and highly literate dispatches from Moscow; Byrnes calls him ‘by far the best reporter’ in the service.” “The U. S. Foreign Service,” Fortune 34 (July 1946), 81–86, 200–207.

24 GFK National War College notebook, pp. 23, 27. Clausewitz makes a cameo appearance in Tolstoy’s account of the Battle of Borodino. See War and Peace, p. 774.

25 GFK National War College notebook, pp. 23–27. For background on Rothfels, see Bassford, Clausewitz in English, pp. 185–86.

26 GFK interview, August 25, 1982, pp. 20–21.

27 Benton to Henderson and GFK, March 7, 1946, DSR-DF 1945–49, 861.00/2-2246, Box 6462; GFK to Smith, June 7, 1946, ibid., Moscow 1946, Box 106, 711 Russia.

28 GFK, Memoirs, I, 298–99; GFK to Smith, June 27, 1946, JEK Papers.

29 GFK interview, September 7, 1983, pp. 17–18. Kennan’s report, dated August 23, 1946, is to Francis H. Russell, chief of the State Department’s Division of Public Liaison, GFK Papers, 298:11. The Soviet summary is in Russian Federation Foreign Policy Archive, Opis 30, Papka 187, Delo 81, List 111-25. The FBI reports are from Kennan’s file, 62-81548, obtained August 11, 2000, under Freedom of Information/Privacy Act request 410933/190-HQ1312163, copies in GFK Papers, 181:3–6.

30 GFK, Memoirs, I, 299; GFK to Acheson, October 8, 1946, Acheson Papers, Box 27, “State Department Under Secretary Correspondence, 1945–47” folder, Truman Library; Acheson to GFK, October 11, 1946, DSR-DF 1945–49, Box 786, “123 Kennan” folder.

31 Hill, “Opening Address to the First Class,” September 3, 1946, National War College Archives, Washington, D.C. (courtesy of Michael Schmidt); “New War College Enters Atomic Era,” New York Times, September 4, 1946. See also Harlow and Maerz, Measures Short of War, p. xiv.

32 GFK address to Princeton University Bicentennial Conference on University Education and the Public Service, November 13–14, 1946, GFK Papers, 251:6; GFK, Memoirs, I, 306.

33 Transcript, GFK National War College lecture and discussion, September 16, 1946, GFK Papers, 298:12. The lecture, though not the record of the question period, is published in Harlow and Maerz, Measures Short of War, pp. 3–17.

34 GFK to KWK, October 5, 1946, JEK Papers; GFK, Memoirs, I, 307; Hessman interview, pp. 5–6.

35 GFK, Memoirs, I, 307.

36 Transcript, Department of State off-the-record briefing by GFK and Llewellyn Thompson, September 17, 1946, GFK Papers, 298:13. For the Wallace controversy, see Blum, Price of Vision, pp. 612–32, 661–69.

37 GFK lecture, “‘Trust’ as a Factor in International Relations,” Yale University Institute of International Studies, New Haven, Conn., October 1, 1946, GFK Papers, 298:15. See also Chekhov, “The New Villa,” in Ford, Essential Tales of Chekhov, p. 303.

38 GFK lecture, “Russia,” Naval War College, Newport, R.I., GFK Papers, 298:14. Kennan’s thinking on naval strategy may well have been influenced by Margaret Tuttle Sprout’s essay on Mahan in Earle, Makers of Modern Strategy, especially pp. 433–34.

39 I am indebted, on this point, to my Yale colleague Charles Hill, whose Grand Strategies brilliantly illustrates it.

40 Edward A. Dow, Jr., notes, Canadian–United States Defense Conversations, Ottawa, December 16 and 17, 1946, in FRUS: 1946, V, 70.

41 GFK to JKH, December 25, 1946, JEK Papers. President Truman had in fact approved Kennan’s appointment to the rank of career minister on November 25. Byrnes to GFK, January 6, 1947, DSR-DF 1945–49, Box 786, “123 Kennan” folder.

42 GFK to Waldemar J. Gallman, March 14, 1947, GFK Papers, 140:3; GFK, Memoirs, I, 304–5.

43 ASK to Frieda Por, November 10, 1946, and February 10, 1947; GFK to Walter Bedell Smith, June 27, 1946; GFK to KWK, October 5, 1946, all in JEK Papers.

44 GFK to KWK, December 31, 1946 [misdated January 31], ibid.; ASK interview, August 26, 1982, p. 13. The fall lectures are listed in Lecture Program, 1946–1956, National War College Archives (courtesy of Michael Schmidt).

TWELVE ● MR. X: 1947

1 GFK interview, December 13, 1987. Kennan probably had in mind Butterfield’s The Whig Interpretation of History.

2 Kissinger, White House Years, p. 135.

3 GFK, Memoirs, I, 367; GFK, “Failure in Our Success,” New York Times, March 14, 1994; JLG Diary, February 15, 1994, JLG Papers.

4 Council on Foreign Relations Discussion Meeting Report, “The Soviet Way of Thought and Its Effect on Soviet Foreign Policy,” January 7, 1947, GFK Papers, 298:21. For background on the Council during this period, see Wala, Council on Foreign Relations.

5 Wasson to GFK, January 8, 1947, Armstrong to GFK, January 10, 1947, GFK to Armstrong, February 4, 1947, Armstrong to GFK, March 7, 1947, all in GFK Papers, 140:3.

6 Byrnes to GFK, January 6, 1947, GFK to Byrnes, January 8, 1947, DSR-DF 1945–49, Box 786, “123 Kennan” folder. See also Messer, End of an Alliance, pp. 195–216.

7 Pogue, George C. Marshall, p. 150; GFK, Memoirs, I, 354; Smith to Marshall, January 15, 1947, quoted in Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, p. 10; Bohlen interview by Wright. See also GFK interview by Pogue, February 17, 1959, p. 2.

8 Ibid., pp. 2–4; Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 214; GFK, Memoirs, I, 313.

9 Henderson interview, p. 7; Balfour to Nevile Butler, January 31, 1947, British Foreign Office Records, FO 371/61045/AN633, National Archives, London.

10 Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 151. For Acheson’s shift on policy toward the Soviet Union, see Beisner, Dean Acheson, pp. 28–47.

11 Acheson, Present at the Creation, pp. 217–18; GFK, Memoirs, I, 313. See also F. B. A. Rundall minute, March 10, 1947, British Foreign Office Records, FO 371/61053/AN906.

12 GFK, Memoirs, I, 314. See also Acheson, Present at the Creation, pp. 217–18, and, for the minutes of the February 24, 1947, meeting, in FRUS: 1947, V, 45–47.

13 Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 219. See also Beisner, Dean Acheson, pp. 56–57; and Jones, Fifteen Weeks, p. 141.

14 SWNCC-FPI 30, “Informational Objectives and Main Themes,” undated but approved by SWNCC on March 3, 1947, in FRUS: 1947, V, 76; GFK, Memoirs, I, 315; Jones, Fifteen Weeks, pp. 154–55; Francis H. Russell, “Memorandum on Genesis of President Truman’s March 12 Speech,” March 17, 1947, in FRUS: 1947, V, 123; Henderson interview by McKinzie, June 14, 1973, p. 88.

15 Lilienthal Diary, March 9, 1947, in Lilienthal, Journals of Lilienthal, II, 158–59.

16 Public Papers of the Presidents: Harry S. Truman, 1947, pp. 178–79; GFK, Memoirs, I, 315.

17 GFK National War College lecture, “National Security Problem,” March 14, 1947, GFK Papers, 298:30.

18 Acheson executive session testimony, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, March 13, 1947, U.S. Congress, Senate, Legislative Origins of the Truman Doctrine, p. 22; GFK, Memoirs, I, 322–23.

19 Rusk interview, December 9, 1982, p. 3; Machiavelli, Prince, p. 22.

20 Acheson to Hill, March 7, 1947, DSR-DF 1945–49, Box 786, “123 Kennan” folder; GFK National War College lecture, “Problems of Diplomatic-Military Collaboration,” March 7, 1947, GFK Papers, 298:29.

21 GFK to John Osborne, July 31, 1962, GFK Papers, 56:5–7.

22 GFK, Memoirs, I, 354–55; Forrestal to GFK, February 17, 1947, GFK Papers, 251:7. Kennan did send Admiral Hill a detailed analysis of the Willett paper on October 7, 1946, GFK Papers, 140:4. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, p. 31n, and Millis, Forrestal Diaries, pp. 127–28; and Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, pp. 273–76.

23 GFK to John T. Connor, March 10, 1947, GFK Papers, 140:3; Marx Leva to GFK, March 12, 1947, ibid.; E. Eilder Spaulding to GFK, April 8, 1947, ibid.; GFK to Byron Dexter, April 11, 1947, ibid. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 354–55.

24 GFK paper, “Psychological Background of Soviet Foreign Policy,” January 31, 1947, GFK Papers, 251:5.

25 Armstrong to GFK, May 15, 1947, ibid., 140:3.

26 GFK, Memoirs, I, 355.

27 David Mayers suggests this in George Kennan and the Dilemmas of U.S. Foreign Policy, p. 113.

28 GFK to Waldemar J. Gallman, March 14, 1947, and Norris B. Chipman, March 18, 1947, GFK Papers, 140:3.

29 GFK National War College lecture, “Comments on the National Security Problem,” March 28, 1947, GFK Papers, 298:31.

30 Bohlen, Witness to History, pp. 262–63; Pogue, George C. Marshall, pp. 189–90; GFK interview by Pogue, p. 6; GFK interview by Price, p. 1; GFK, Memoirs, I, 325–26.

31 For background on the Marshall Plan, see Cohrs, Unfinished Peace After World War I; Hogan, Marshall Plan; and Behrman, Most Noble Adventure.

32 Pogue, George C. Marshall, pp. 194–96; Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 46–48; Behrman, Most Noble Adventure, pp. 53–62. See also Charles P. Kindleberger’s memorandum, “Origins of the Marshall Plan,” July 22, 1948, in FRUS: 1947, III, 242.

33 Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 38–39; Nitze, Smith, and Rearden, From Hiroshima to Glasnost, pp. 50–51; James Reston, “New Role for the State Department,” New York Times Magazine, May 25, 1947.

34 GFK to Charles James, May 8, 1947, Douglas James Papers.

35 Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 37–39, 48–49, 70; GFK, Memoirs, I, 307, 326.

36 PPS/1, “Policy With Respect to American Aid to Western Europe,” May 23, 1947, in FRUS: 1947, III, 223–30. Charles P. Kindleberger confirms Kennan’s insistence on the Europeans taking the initiative in a retrospective memorandum, “Origins of the Marshall Plan,” ibid., p. 244. For Kennan’s May 6 National War College lecture, see Harlow and Maerz, Measures Short of War, p. 186. Marshall’s reservations about the Truman Doctrine are mentioned in Bohlen, Witness to History, p. 261.

37 Acheson, Present at the Creation, pp. 231–34; Pogue, George C. Marshall, pp. 208–10; GFK interview by Pogue, pp. 8–9; GFK interview by Price, February 19, 1953, p. 2. Kennan misdates the meeting as May 24 in his Memoirs, I, 342.

38 Pogue, George C. Marshall, p. 214; Behrman, Most Noble Adventure, pp. 71–90.

39 GFK notes for conversation with Marshall, July 21, 1947, in FRUS: 1947, III, 335.

40 Marshall interview by Price, February 18, 1953, quoted in Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, p. 51; GFK, Memoirs, I, 344–45.

41 Balfour to Foreign Office, May 15, 1947, British Foreign Office Records, FO371/61047/AN1795.

42 Joseph Alsop and Stewart Alsop, “Kennan Dispatch,” Washington Post, May 23, 1947;GFK to Acheson, May 23, 1947, GFK Papers, 140:3.

43 Neal Stanford, “Planning Staff for Foreign Policy” Christian Science Monitor, May 26, 1947; “Foreign Policy Planner,” United States News, May 23, 1947, pp. 61–62; Paul W. Ward, “Diplomats, Historians in New ‘Brain Trust,” Baltimore Sun, June 8, 1947; Ferdinand Kuhn, Jr., “Five Thinkers Chart Foreign Policy Reefs for Marshall,” Washington Post, June 15, 1947.

44 GFK, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs 25 (July 1947), 566–82. For the unfortunate Varga, see Wohlforth, Elusive Balance, pp. 68–69, 77–87. The Foreign Affairs circulation figures come from the July 21, 1947, issue of Newsweek, p. 15.

45 Arthur Krock, “A Guide to Official Thinking About Russia,” New York Times, July 8, 1947.

46 GFK, Memoirs, I, 356; United Press account quoted in Daily Worker, July 9, 1947; Hessman interview by Wright, October 1, 1970, p. 12; Ernest Lindley, “Article by ‘X’,” Washington Post, July 11, 1947; Grace Kennan Scrapbook, JEK Papers.

47 “The Story Behind Our Russia Policy,” Newsweek 30 (July 21, 1947), 15–17.

48 GFK, Memoirs, I, 356–57.

49 “Lippmann’s ‘Cold War,’” Time, September 22, 1947; Lippmann, Cold War, pp. 4, 6–7, 11, 14. See also Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century, pp. 443–45.

50 Lippmann interview by Allan Nevins and Dean Albertson, April 8, 1950, pp. 258–59, Walter Lippmann Papers, 123:2419. The British embassy was fully aware of Kennan’s position. See Balfour to Bevin, May 15, 1947, British Foreign Office Records, FO 371/61047/AN1795.

51 GFK, Memoirs, I, 360; Steel, Walter Lippmann, pp. 342–66; GFK interview, February 2, 1977.

52 Armstrong to GFK, November 5, 1947, GFK to Armstrong, November 7, 1947, GFK Papers, 140:3.

53 GFK to Byron Dexter, April 11, 1947, ibid.; GFK, Memoirs, I, 360.

54 Butterfield, Whig Interpretation of History, p. 21; GFK, Memoirs, I, 364.

THIRTEEN ● POLICY PLANNER: 1947–1948

1 GFK National War College lecture, “Planning of Foreign Policy,” June 18, 1947, in Harlow and Maerz, Measures Short of War, pp. 207–8.

2 GFK, Memoirs, I, 345.

3 GFK’s May 5 and June 18, 1947, National War College lectures are in Harlow and Maerz, Measures Short of War, pp. 175–216. For the Kennan-Davies relationship, see Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 212–18.

4 GFK notes for Marshall, July 21, 1947, in FRUS: 1947, III, 335; PPS/4, “Certain Aspects of the European Recovery Problem from the United States Standpoint (Preliminary Report),” July 23, 1947, PPS, 1947, pp. 31–32, 50.

5 Clayton to Robert Lovett, August 25, 1947, in FRUS: 1947, III, 377–79. For background on the Paris Conference, see Hogan, Marshall Plan, pp. 60–73.

6 Franks interview, August 1, 1987, pp. 1–5.

7 GFK report, “Situation With Respect to European Recovery Program,” September 4, 1947, in FRUS: 1947, III, 397–405.

8 “Homeward bound—at dawn over mid-Atlantic,” GFK Diary, 1947, GFK Papers, 231:15; Pflanze, Bismarck and the Development of Germany, p. 80.

9 GFK to Cecil B. Lyons, October 13, 1947, PPS Records, Box 33, “Chronological—1947.”

10 GFK talk to the Business Advisory Committee, Department of Commerce, September 24, 1947, GFK Papers, Box 17, “1947, June—December.” See also GFK’s notes for a conversation with Marshall, July 21, 1947, in FRUS: 1947, III, 335.

11 For the organization of the Cominform, see Mastny, Cold War and Soviet Insecurity, pp. 30–33.

12 GFK to Lovett, October 6, 1947, PPS Records, Box 33, “Chronological—1947.”

13 GFK National War College lectures, “Formulation of Policy in the U.S.S.R.,” September 18, 1947, “Soviet Diplomacy,” October 6, 1947, and “The Internal Political System [of the Soviet Union],” October 27, 1947, in Harlow and Maerz, Measures Short of War, pp. 217–92.

14 PPS/13, “Résumé of World Situation,” in FRUS: 1947, I, 770–77. For Marshall’s summary, see pp. 770n–71n.

15 PPS/15, “Report on Activities of the Policy Planning Staff (May to November 1947),” November 13, 1947, in PPS Papers, I, 139–46.

16 For more on the PPS-NSC relationship, see Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 76–78; and Nelson, “Introduction,” in PPS Papers, I, xix.

17 Philip Harkins, “Mysterious Mr. X.,” New York Herald Tribune magazine, January 4, 1948.

18 JKH interview, December 21, 1982, p. 26, and ASK interview, August 26, 1982, pp. 14–16.

19 Adams interview by Wright, September 30, 1970, pp. 5, 17; Tufts interview, February 5, 1987, p. 6; and John Paton Davies interview, December 8, 1982, p. 4.

20 Fosdick interview, October 29, 1987, pp. 1–2.

21 Henderson interview, pp. 7–8, and Davies interview, December 8, 1982, p. 5.

22 GFK interview, August 25, 1982, pp. 22–23; Tufts interview, pp. 1–2; and Hessman interview, p. 4; Green interview by Kennedy, March 2, 1995.

23 GFK, “Foreword” in PPS Papers, I, vii. I have discussed these papers at length in Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, especially pp. 24–86.

24 PPS/8, “United States Policy in the Event of the Establishment of Communist Power in Greece,” September 18, 1947, in PPS Papers, I, 91–101; PPS/9, “Possible Action by the U.S. to Assist the Italian Government in the Event of Communist Seizure of North Italy and the Establishment of an Italian Communist ‘Government’ in that Area,” ibid., pp. 1027. For “counter-pressures,” see GFK’s October 6, 1947, National War College lecture, in Harlow and Maerz, Measures Short of War, p. 258.

25 GFK to Lovett, August 19, 1947, and Forrestal, September 29, 1947, PPS Records, Box 33, “Chronological—1947.”

26 Truman statement, December 13, 1947, Public Papers of the Presidents: Truman 1947, document 234. NSC 1/1 is in FRUS: 1948, III, 724–27. For more on this episode, see Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 84–87.

27 State Department memorandum, “Coordination of Foreign Information Measures (NSC 4) Psychological Operations (NSC 4-A),” and NSC 4-A, “Psychological Operations,” both dated December 17, 1947, in FRUS: Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment, pp. 646–51. Truman’s approval is noted on p. 650n. For more on the background of these documents, see the editorial introduction on pp. 615–17; see also the CIA’s internal history, completed in 1953 but not declassified until 1989: Darling, Central Intelligence Agency, pp. 256–62.

28 Henderson memorandum, “Willingness of United States Government in Certain Circumstances to Dispatch United States Forces to Greece,” December 22, 1947, in FRUS: 1947, V, 458–61; Memorandum of State Department meeting, December 26, 1947, ibid., pp. 468–69; GFK memorandum, NSC meeting, January 13, 1948, in FRUS: 1948, IV, 27. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 87–93.

29 PPS/19, “Position of the United States with Respect to Palestine,” January 20, 1948, in PPS Papers, II, 39–41; GFK Diary, January 28, 1948.

30 PPS/21, “The Problem of Palestine,” February 11, 1948, in PPS Papers, II, 80–87. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 93–99.

31 GFK, Memoirs, I, 368.

32 See, on these anxieties, Mackinder, “Geographical Pivot of History”; Spykman, America’s Strategy in World Politics, pp. 194–99; and Earle, Makers of Modern Strategy, pp. 148, 390–91, 404–5, 444–45, 452, 515, which GFK was reading in the summer of 1946.

33 Joint Chiefs of Staff to the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee, June 9, 1947, in FRUS: 1947, VII, 838–48; GFK to Walton Butterworth, October 29, 1947, PPS Records, Box 33, “Chronological—1947” folder. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 218–20. GFK’s National War College comments, delivered on May 6, 1947, are in Harlow and Maerz, Measures Short of War, pp. 198–99.

34 “The Situation in China and U.S. Policy,” November 3, 1947, PPS Records, Box 13, “China 1947–8” folder.

35 Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 220–23.

36 Notes, Secretary of the Navy’s Council Meeting, January 14, 1948, GFK Papers, 299:3.

37 PPS/23, “Review of Current Trends: U.S. Foreign Policy,” February 24, 1948, in FRUS: 1948, I, 523–29.

38 Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations. Joel D. Rosenthal tracks the parallels between GFK and Morgenthau in Righteous Realists.

39 PPS/15, “Report on Activities of the Policy Planning Staff (May to November 1947),” November 13, 1947, in PPS Papers, I, 146.

40 Travis, Kennan and the Russian-American Relationship, pp. 292–93; GFK interview, September 4, 1984, p. 18; Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, p. 251; GFK Diary, January 30, 1948; GFK to MacMurray, September 19, 1950, ibid., 139:8. GFK discussed MacMurray’s warning in his first book, American Diplomacy, p. 48.

41 The best treatment of MacArthur’s policies in Japan and of his political aspirations is James, Years of MacArthur, III, 1–217. The reference to Caesar is in GFK’s report on his first conversation with MacArthur on March 1, 1948, in PPS/28/2, “Memoranda of Conversations with General of the Army Douglas MacArthur,” in PPS Papers: 1948, II, 184.

42 GFK, Memoirs, I, 376.

43 GFK interview by Pogue; Green interview by Kennedy; GFK memorandum of conversation with MacArthur, March 5, 1948, in PPS/28/2, in PPS Papers, II, 186. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 382–84; and Hessman interview by Wright, p. 20.

44 GFK, Memoirs, I, 384–85; Green interview by Kennedy.

45 James, Years of MacArthur, I, 63–66. Kennan family legend has it that one of MacArthur’s teachers was Miss Emily Strong, who also taught Jeanette and George, but I have not been able to confirm this independently. JKH interview by JEK, November 2, 1972, p. 35; GFK interview, December 13, 1987, p. 2.

46 GFK memorandum of conversation with MacArthur, March 5, 1948, in PPS/28/2, in PPS Papers, II, 187–96; Green interview by Kennedy. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 370, 386; and Schaller, MacArthur, pp. 150–51.

47 GFK, Memoirs, I, 386; Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 264–68.

48 James, Years of MacArthur, III, 233. See also Schaller, MacArthur, pp. 150–51.

49 GFK, Memoirs, I, 393; GFK interview, September 4, 1984, p. 18.

50 GFK presentation to the Senate Armed Services Committee, “Preparedness as Part of Foreign Relations,” January 8, 1948, GFK Papers, 299:1. Soviet sources confirm GFK’s argument about the defensive objectives of the Czech coup. See Pechatnov and Edmondson, “The Russian Perspective,” in Levering et al., Debating the Origins of the Cold War, pp. 134–35.

51 GFK to Marshall, January 6 and February 3, 1948, PPS Records, Box 33, “Chronological January–May 1948” folder. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 116–20.

52 PPS/27, “Western Union and Related Problems,” March 23, 1948, in PPS Papers, II, 162; GFK to Louis Halle, April 20, 1966, GFK Papers, 59:1–4. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 113–23.

53 Ibid., pp. 103–4. For Clay’s message, see Smith, Lucius D. Clay, pp. 466–67.

54 GFK to Marshall and Lovett, March 15, 1948, in FRUS: 1948, III, 848–49.

55 Hickerson annotation, ibid., p. 849n; Hickerson interview, November 15, 1983, p. 8.

56 GFK, Memoirs, I, 403. For GFK’s moderate use of alcohol, see Black interview, November 24, 1987, p. 10.

57 James, Years of MacArthur, III, 221–26, discusses the other pressures converging on MacArthur at the time.

58 ASK to Frieda Por, March 8, 1948, JEK Papers. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, p. 264; Hessman interview by Wright, p. 21; and GFK, Memoirs, I, 404.

59 Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 124–27. For Truman speech, see Public Papers of the Presidents: Truman 1948, Document 52.

60 Truman Diary, March 20, 1948, in Ferrell, Off the Record, p. 127; Marshall memorandum of conversation with Truman, May 12, 1948, in FRUS: 1948, V, 975. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 99–102; and Clifford and Holbrooke, Counsel to the President, pp. 3–25.

61 GFK, Memoirs, I, 403–4.

FOURTEEN ● POLICY DISSENTER: 1948

1 GFK, Memoirs, I, 360–61.

2 GFK to Lippmann, April 6, 1948, GFK Papers, 299:7.

3 GFK, Memoirs, I, 361–63; GFK interview, September 7, 1983, p. 19.

4 PPS/23, “Review of Current Trends: U.S. Foreign Policy,” February 24, 1948, in FRUS: 1948, I, 522–23.

5 E. Herbert Norman to Department of External Affairs, March 6, 1948, Pearson to Norman, March 11, 1948, Norman Robertson to Escott Reid, April 1, 1948, and May 11, 1948, all in Ministry of External Affairs, Record Group 25, Volume 5697, File 2AE(S), Pt. 2.1, National Archives of Canada. Hankey’s minute, dated April 30, 1948, is in the British Foreign Office Records, FO 371/71671, National Archives, London.

6 Davies to George Butler, March 19, 1948, PPS Records, Box 23, “USSR 1946–1950” folder; Bohlen to Lovett, April 22, 1948, Bohlen Papers, Box 1, “Correspondence 1946–49: H” folder, National Archives; Lovett memorandum on April 23, 1948, cabinet meeting, dated April 26, in FRUS: 1948, IV, 834n; Marshall to Smith, April 29, 1948, ibid., pp. 840–41; Inverchapel to Foreign Office, May 5, 1948, British Foreign Office Records, FO 371/68014/AN1914. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy pp. 186–88.

7 Bevin to Inverchapel, May 11, 1948, conveyed to Marshall on the same date, in FRUS: 1948, IV, 860–61n. See also Bullock, Ernest Bevin, p. 558.

8 GFK, Memoirs, I, 347; GFK to Marshall, May 12, 1948, PPS Records, Box 23, “USSR 1946–1950” folder.

9 Pechatnov and Edmondson, “The Russian Perspective,” in Levering et al., Debating the Origins of the Cold War, p. 140; Durbrow to State Department, May 18, 1948, in FRUS: 1948, IV, 871. For more on the Wallace initiative, see White and Maze, Henry A. Wallace, pp. 262–64.

10 GFK to Smith, June 18, 1948, GFK Papers, 140:2. See also GFK to Lovett, June 9, 1948, PPS Records, Box 23, “USSR 1946–1950” folder; and, for the evidence on Wallace’s collusion with Moscow, Pechatnov, Stalin, Ruzvel’t, Trumen, pp. 527–57; and Zubok, Failed Empire, pp. 47, 76. Smith’s own account of this episode is in his memoir, My Three Years in Moscow, pp. 157–66.

11 GFK lecture, “Russia and the Community of Nations,” Canadian National Defence College, Kingston, Ont., May 31, 1948, GFK Papers, 299:9.

12 Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 106–8; Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, pp. 26–29. Miller, United States and Italy, pp. 243–49, provides a good overall account of the election campaign.

13 PPS Memorandum, “The Inauguration of Organized Political Warfare,” May 4, 1948, in FRUS: 1945–1950: Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment, pp. 668–72. The FRUS version of this document indicates that other proposed secret activities have been excised from it. The reference to the Italian elections has also been removed, but it appears in the Policy Planning Staff files and is quoted in Lucas and Mistry, “Illusions of Coherence,” p. 52.

14 GFK interview, September 7, 1983, p. 21; Davies interview, December 8, 1982, p. 11. For the Marshall Plan connection, see Pisani, CIA and the Marshall Plan.

15 Hillenkoetter to James S. Lay, Jr., June 9, 1948, in FRUS: 1945–1950, p. 703. See also the CIA’s internal history of these events, Darling, Central Intelligence Agency, p. 272.

16 GFK to Lovett and Marshall, June 16, 1948, in FRUS: 1945–1950, p. 709. NSC 10/2, “National Security Council Directive on Office of Special Projects,” approved by the NSC on June 17, is ibid., pp. 713–15.

17 GFK to Lovett, June 30, 1948, ibid., p. 716; Wisner memorandum, meeting with Hillenkoetter and GFK, August 6, 1948, ibid., p. 720; GFK to Lovett, PPS Records, Box 33, “Chronological July–December” folder. Hersch, Old Boys, and Thomas, Very Best Men, provide the best accounts of Wisner’s life and career. For the dinners, see Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, pp. 20–21. Project Umpire is described in Corke, U.S. Covert Operations and Cold War Strategy, p. 51.

18 Lovett to Forrestal (drafted by GFK), October 1, 1948, in FRUS: 1945–1950, pp. 724–25; GFK to Lovett, October 29, 1948, ibid., pp. 728–29; GFK to Wisner, January 6, 1949, ibid., p. 734. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 109–10.

19 GFK National War College lecture, “Measures Short of War (Diplomatic),” September 16, 1946, in Harlow and Maerz, Measures Short of War, p. 17; D. M. Ladd to J. Edgar Hoover, April 18, 1947, FBI Records, 62-81548-4x1, GFK Papers, 181:3–6; GFK to Forrestal, September 29, 1947, PPS Records, Box 33, “Chronological 1947”; GFK Canadian National Defence College lecture, May 31, 1948, GFK Papers, 299:9. See also Chapters Seven, Eight, and Eleven, above.

20 GFK interviews, September 7, 1983, pp. 20–23, 27, and December 13, 1987, p. 21; Davies interview, December 8, 1982, p. 11; GFK to JLG, November 13, 1987, JLG Papers. See also Karalekas, “History of the Central Intelligence Agency,” pp. 31–32.

21 A point missed by several secondary studies of Kennan’s CIA connections, especially Corke, U.S. Covert Operations and Cold War Strategy, and Simpson, Blowback. Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 199–205, provides the most balanced assessment.

22 Rusk interview, p. 5; ASK interview, August 26, 1982, p. 15. See also, on Kennan’s failure to control OPC, Aldrich, The Hidden Hand, pp. 172–73.

23 GFK, Memoirs, I, 405–6; GFK to Marshall and Lovett, April 29, 1948, in FRUS: 1948, III, 108–9. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 128–29.

24 Reid to Hume Wrong, June 3, 1948, Ministry of External Affairs, Record Group 25, Volume 5800, File 283(S), Pt. 2.2, National Archives of Canada.

25 Franks interview, pp. 16–17; GFK interview by Pogue, pp. 23–25. See also Pogue, George C. Marshall, pp. 323–28.

26 GFK interview by Pogue, p. 25 (I have edited this passage slightly for clarity); GFK, Memoirs, I, 405–8. See also GFK to Louis Halle, April 20, 1966, GFK Papers, 57:1–4.

27 Hickerson interview, p. 11. The “Washington Exploratory Talks on Security,” which ran from July 6 through September 10, 1948, are extensively documented in FRUS: 1948, III, 148–250. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 129–33; and Pogue, George C. Marshall, pp. 328–35.

28 R. Borden Reams to Marshall, June 30, 1948, in FRUS: 1948, IV, 1078. For background on the Yugoslav situation, see Lees, Keeping Tito Afloat, pp. 1–79. GFK’s prediction of trouble elsewhere is in E. Herbert Norman’s report to the Canadian Department of External Affairs on Kennan’s Tokyo press briefing, March 6, 1948, Ministry of External Affairs, Record Group 25, Volume 5697, File 2AE(S), Pt. 2.1, National Archives of Canada.

29 PPS/35, “The Attitude of This Government Toward Events in Yugoslavia,” June 30, 1948, in FRUS: 1948, IV, 1079–81. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 189–93.

30 FRUS: 1948, IV, 1079n, tracks the bureaucratic history of PPS/35. For the “wedge” strategy, see Gaddis, Long Peace, pp. 147–94; Mayers, Cracking the Monolith; and Selverstone, Constructing the Monolith.

31 PPS/39, “United States Policy Toward China,” September 7, 1948, in FRUS: 1948, VIII, 146–55. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 223–26.

32 PPS/39/1, “U.S. Policy Toward China,” November 23, 1948, in FRUS: 1948, VIII, 208–11; GFK comment, question and answer period, lecture to the Pentagon Joint Orientation Conference, November 8, 1948, p. 23, GFK Papers, 299:17. See also GFK to Marshall and Lovett, November 24, 1948, in FRUS: 1948, VIII, 211–12.

33 GFK draft presidential statement, in PPS/45, “U.S. Policy Toward China in the Light of the Current Situation,” November 26, 1948, ibid., pp. 219–20; Marshall to Lovett, November 26, 1948, ibid. p. 220.

34 PPS39/1, November 23, 1948, ibid., pp. 210–11.

35 GFK to Lovett, June 23, 1948, in PPS/33, “Factors Affecting the Nature of the U.S. Defense Arrangements in the Light of Soviet Policies,” in PPS Papers II, 281; Forrestal to the NSC, July 10, 1948, in FRUS: 1948, I, 591. For the budget battles of this period, see Leffler, Preponderance of Power, pp. 220–65; and Hogan, Cross of Iron, pp. 159–208.

36 GFK to Marshall and Lovett, August 5, 1948, in FRUS: 1948, I, 599–600; GFK to Marshall, August 25, 1948, PPS Records, Box 33, “Chronological July–December 1948” folder.

37 PPS/38, “United States Objectives With Respect to Russia,” August 18, 1948, in PPS Papers, II, 372–411. See also Schilling, “Politics of National Defense,” pp. 185–87.

38 NSC 20/4, “U.S. Objectives With Respect to the USSR to Counter Soviet Threats to U.S. Security,” November 23, 1948, in FRUS: 1948, I, 662–69. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 197–99; and, for Forrestal’s frustration, Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, pp. 405–19.

39 GFK to Frank Altschul, July 20, 1948, GFK Papers, 140:2; GFK to Lovett, August 2, 1948, PPS Records, Box 15, “Germany 1947–8” folder; GFK to Lovett, August 3, 1948, in FRUS: 1948, II, 994n; GFK to Smith, August 20, 1948, GFK Papers, 140:2.

40 PPS/37, “Policy Questions Concerning a Possible German Settlement,” August 12, 1948, in FRUS: 1948, II, 1287–97.

41 Clausewitz, On War, pp. 102, 109. For a more recent treatment of the phenomenon, see Gladwell, Blink. See also, for the analogy to painting, Churchill, Painting as a Pastime.

42 Hickerson to GFK, August 31, 1948, in FRUS: 1948, II, 1287n; GFK interview, September 8, 1983, p. 4; Rusk interview, p. 2; GFK to Marshall and Lovett, September 8, 1948, PPS Records, Box 33, “Chronological July–December 1948” folder.

43 GFK to Marshall, September 17, 1948, ibid. See also, for the consultants’ meeting, Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 148–49.

44 GFK National War College lecture, “Contemporary Problems of Foreign Policy,” September 17, 1948, GFK Papers, 299:12. The Shakespeare reference is from Hamlet, Act I, Scene III, lines 62–63: “The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, / Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.”

45 PPS/37/1, “Position to Be Taken by the U.S. at a CFM Meeting,” November 15, 1948, in FRUS: 1948, II, 1320–38. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 425–26.

46 Ibid., 409–10; PPS/43, “Considerations Affecting the Conclusion of a North Atlantic Security Pact,” November 24, 1948, in FRUS: 1948, III, 283–89.

47 GFK lecture to Pentagon Joint Orientation Conference, “Estimate of the International Situation,” November 8, 1948, pp. 11–12, GFK Papers, 299:17.

48 I have made this argument at greater length in Strategies of Containment, pp. 82–83, 86.

49 ASK to Frieda Por, no date, JEK Papers; GFK Diary, September 25–26, 1948. The transcripts of GFK’s lectures and speeches are in GFK Papers, 299:8–19. For his lecture schedule, see the list dated March 17, 1949, in PPS Records, Box 33, “Chronological—1949” folder. GFK’s NSC staff resignation is in a letter to Sidney Souers, December 3, 1948, ibid., “Chronological July–December 1948” folder.

50 GFK National War College lecture, “Where Are We Today?” December 21, 1948, GFK Papers, 299:19.

51 Fosdick interview, p. 2; Rusk interview, p. 2; GFK interview, September 7, 1983, p. 2.

52 GFK, “Foreword,” in PPS Papers I, vii.

FIFTEEN ● REPRIEVE: 1949

1 GFK lecture to Pentagon Joint Orientation Conference, “Estimate of the International Situation,” November 8, 1948, pp. 11–12, GFK Papers, 299:17. For Acheson’s appointment, see Acheson, Present at the Creation, pp. 249–50; and Beisner, Dean Acheson, pp. 82–83.

2 GFK to Acheson, January 3, 1949, Acheson Papers, Box 64, “Memos—conversations January–February 1949” folder, Truman Library. The references to defunct leaders were to Aleksandr Kerensky, prime minister of the Russian Provisional Government until its overthrow by the Bolsheviks in November 1917, Heinrich Brüning, chancellor of Germany from 1930 to 1932, Konstantin Dumba, the last Austro-Hungarian ambassador to the United States, expelled for espionage in 1915, and King Peter II of Yugoslavia, deposed in 1945.

3 Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 141; Franks interview, p. 20; Beisner, Dean Acheson, pp. 88–89, 596.

4 GFK interview, October 31, 1974, p. 3; Franks interview, pp. 20–21.

5 GFK, Memoirs, I, 426; GFK interview, September 8, 1983, p. 5; Davies interview, December 8, 1982, p. 5. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 157–58, and Beisner, Dean Acheson, p. 119.

6 GFK Diary, March 9–10, 1949, GFK Papers, 231:17.

7 GFK to Acheson, January 3, 1949, Acheson Papers, Box 64, Truman Library.

8 Lippmann to GFK, February 1, 1949, Lippmann Papers, 81:1281. Lippmann’s column, “The Dark Prospect in Germany,” appeared in The Washington Post on December 30, 1948. See also Acheson’s National War College lecture of September 16, 1948, Acheson Papers, Box 69, “Classified Off the Record Speeches, 1947–52” folder, Truman Library; also Steel, Walter Lippmann, pp. 458–59; and Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, p. 159.

9 For the extent to which Lippmann’s criticisms influenced Program A, see Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 146–47.

10 The Stalin interview is in FRUS: 1949, V, 562–63. For Acheson’s careful analysis of it and the clarifications that followed, see his Present at the Creation, pp. 267–70.

11 Murphy, “Memorandum for the Files,” February 19, 1949, Murphy Papers, Box 77 (courtesy of Christian Ostermann). For a representative summary of arguments against Program A, see DRE SP-2, a State Department Office of Intelligence Research paper, “Effects of Postponement of the Western German State,” in FRUS: 1949, III, 194–95.

12 GFK to Acheson and James Webb, February 8, 1949, PPS Records, Box 15, “Germany 1949” folder; Franks to Foreign Office, March 4, 1949, British Foreign Office Records, FO 371/74160; Murphy minutes, Acheson-GFK conversation, March 9, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, III, 102–3; Murphy to Clay, March 10, 1949, Murphy Papers, Box 57 (courtesy of Christian Ostermann). See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 161–63; and Beisner, Dean Acheson, pp. 134–35.

13 GFK Diary, March 10–12, 1949.

14 GFK Diary, “Visit to Germany,” March 10–21, 1949, partially published also in GFK, Memoirs, I, 429–42. GFK’s account of his conversation with François-Poncet also appears in FRUS: 1949, III, 113–14.

15 GFK to Acheson (unsent), March 29, 1949, GFK Papers, 163:58.

16 Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, p. 162.

17 Jessup to Acheson, April 19, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, III, 859–62; GFK memorandum, “Position of the United States at Any Meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers on Germany That May Occur,” April 15, 1949, ibid., pp. 858–59. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 166–69; and GFK, Memoirs, I, 443.

18 Acheson to Lewis Douglas, May 11, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, III, 872–73; James Reston, “U.S. Plan Weighed,” New York Times, May 12, 1949.

19 GFK, Memoirs, I, 444–45; Bohlen, Witness to History, pp. 285–86; Jessup to Acheson and Murphy, May 14, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, III, 878; Acheson to Truman, May 22, 1949, ibid., p. 893; Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost, pp. 71–72.

20 Reston, Deadline, p. 323; GFK, Memoirs, I, 444.

21 Acheson, Present at the Creation, pp. 291–92. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 169–70.

22 GFK to Acheson, May 20, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, III, 888–90.

23 The cat metaphor comes from Beisner, Acheson, p. 141.

24 GFK, Memoirs, I, 447. See also, on the larger context, Schwartz, America’s Germany, pp. 35–40, 306–7.

25 Quoted in Beisner, Dean Acheson, p. 544.

26 PPS/49, “Economic Relations Between the United States and Yugoslavia,” February 10, 1949, in PPS Papers: III, 14–24.

27 PPS/39/2, “United States Policy Toward China,” February 25, 1949, ibid., pp. 25–28.

28 GFK National War College lecture, “Where Are We Today?” December 21, 1948, p. 8, GFK Papers, 299:19; Minutes, Policy Planning Staff meeting, March 1, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, V, 10.

29 Draft Working Paper, “United States Policy Toward Communism,” March 8, 1949, PPS Records, Box 8, “Communism 1947–51” folder. One of the few scholarly evaluations of the Davies-Adams paper is Selverstone, Constructing the Monolith, pp. 122–25.

30 PPS minutes, April 1, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, V, 12.

31 For a recent overview of American anticommunism, see Morgan, Reds. Truman’s campaign attacks on Wallace are discussed in Hamby, Man of the People, pp. 453–54.

32 Acheson to U.S. embassy in Belgrade, February 25, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, V, 873; Willard Thorp memorandum of Acheson conversation with Paul Hoffman, February 19, 1949, ibid., p. 872; Johnson-Acheson meeting memorandum, July 21, 1949, ibid., p. 909; Minutes, Under Secretary of State Staff Meeting, August 31, 1949, Department of State Records, Executive Secretariat Files, Box 13; Eban Ayers Diary, September 15, 1949, Ayers Papers, Box 27, “Diary, 1949” folder.

33 GFK to Acheson, April 19, 1949 (drafted by Robert Joyce), PPS Records, Box 33, “Chronological 1949” folder; PPS/54, “Policy Relating to Defection and Defectors from Soviet Power,” June 29, 1949, in PPS Papers, III, 80; Minutes, Under Secretary of State Staff Meeting, August 31, 1949, Department of State, Executive Secretariat Files, Box 13.

34 GFK to John Paton Davies, December 6, 1984, GFK Papers, 10:12 (emphases in the original). Kennan wrote Davies after receiving a query from the historian Bruce Cumings, who seemed “very anxious to stage an academic-journalistic coup” by showing that the CIA had planned assassinations “under the influence of the diabolic State Department. Since you and I appear to be almost the only survivors of that period who had anything to do with OPC, I would like to nip this firmly in the bud.” The fullest account of Pash’s activities is in Simpson, Blowback, pp. 152–55, which sees them as providing a justification for subsequent confirmed CIA assassination plots, but does not contradict what Kennan claimed in his letter to Davies.

35 Robert Joyce to Carlton Savage, April 1, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, V, 12–13; Minutes, Under Secretary of State Staff Meeting, August 31, 1949, Department of State, Executive Secretariat Files, Box 13; Acheson memorandum, conversation with Bevin, September 14, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, V, 316: GFK interview, September 7, 1983, p. 23. Corke, U.S. Covert Operations and Cold War Strategy, especially pp. 55, 75, 84, makes the case for GFK’s culpability in the Albanian fiasco; for a less accusatory view, see Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 207–9.

36 PPS/59, “United States Policy Toward the Soviet Satellite States in Eastern Europe,” August 25, 1949, in PPS Papers, III, 130, 134. See also GFK Diary, October 4, 1949.

37 PPS/59, August 25, 1949, in PPS Papers, III, 133. For Stalin’s purges in Eastern Europe, see Mastny, Cold War and Soviet Insecurity, pp. 72–74; Aldrich, Hidden Hand, pp. 172–79; and, for post-Stalin developments, Gaddis, Cold War: A New History, pp. 104–15.

38 NSC 34/2 (based on PPS/39/2), February 28, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, IX, 494–95; Acheson executive session testimony, March 18, 1949, U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Historical Series, p. 30; Jacob Beam memorandum, Acheson-Bevin conversation, April 4, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, VII, 1140–41.

39 Goncharov, Lewis, and Xue, Uncertain Partners, pp. 33–34; Sheng, Battling Western Imperialism, pp. 167–68.

40 Acheson to Truman, July 30, 1949, as published in The New York Times, August 6, 1949; Beisner, Dean Acheson, pp. 187–88. For GFK’s suggestions on what Acheson should have said—not greatly different from what he did say—see GFK to Jessup, July 29, 1949, PPS Records, Box 33, “Chronological 1949” folder.

41 PPS/53, “United States Policy Toward Formosa and the Pescadores,” July 6, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, IX, 356–64; GFK interview, September 8, 1983, p. 6; Davies interview, December 8, 1982, p. 8. Theodore Roosevelt, of course, never did anything like this.

42 Davies to GFK, December 12, 1984, GFK Papers, 10:12; Rusk interview, p. 4. I have discussed the “defensive perimeter” strategy and the Taiwan independence movement in Long Peace, pp. 73–81; but see also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 233–34.

43 GFK lecture, Fourth Joint Orientation Conference, September 19, 1949, GFK Papers, 299:30.

44 Minutes, PPS meeting, May 18, 1949, PPS Records, Box 32.

45 Minutes, PPS meeting, June 8, 1949, ibid.

46 Minutes, PPS meeting, June 13, 1949, ibid.

47 Jebb to GFK, April 7, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, IV, 290–91.

48 Minutes, PPS meeting, June 13, 1949, PPS Records, Box 32; Thompson interview, pp. 6–7. Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 281–84, discusses the thoroughness with which GFK approached this problem.

49 Tufts interview, p. 6. For more on the use of consultants, see Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 283–84.

50 PPS/55, “Outline: Study of U.S. Stance Toward Question of European Union,” July 7, 1949, in PPS Papers, III, 82–100.

51 GFK Diary, July 18, 1949; GFK, Memoirs, I, 456–57.

52 Nitze interview by Wright, October 2, 1970; Nitze interview, December 13, 1989, p. 7; Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost, pp. 85–86. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 286–87; and the biographical information in Thompson, Hawk and the Dove.

53 GFK interview, September 8, 1983, p. 2; GFK Diary, August 23 and September 7, 1949. See also Hogan, Marshall Plan, pp. 261–62, and, on the policy of supporting the noncommunist left in Europe, Gaddis, Long Peace, pp. 149–52.

54 GFK interviews, August 25, 1982, p. 13, and September 8, 1983, p. 2. See also Hogan, Marshall Plan, pp. 262–64, and Beisner, Dean Acheson, p. 81.

55 GFK Diary, September 26 and 28, 1949.

56 GFK to Messersmith, July 7, 1949, ibid., 140:1. See also Bohlen, Witness to History, p. 288.

57 James E. Webb to C. Ben Wright, October 16, 1975, Wright Papers, Box 1; GFK Diary, September 16 and 19, 1949. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 465–66.

58 Hickerson to GFK, October 15, 1949, PPS Records, Box 27, “Europe 1949” folder; Bohlen to GFK, October 6, 1949, Bohlen Papers, Box 1, “Correspondence 1946–49: K” folder, National Archives; David Bruce to Acheson, October 22, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, IV, 343. I have purloined portions of this paragraph and the next two from Gaddis, Long Peace, pp. 69–70.

59 GFK to Bohlen, November 7, 1949, GFK Papers, 140:1.

60 Bohlen to GFK, undated but November 1949, ibid.; GFK to Bohlen, November 17, 1949, ibid.

61 GFK Diary, November 19 and 22, 1949.

62 GFK Diary, August 30, September 1–2, 1949; Acheson handwritten comment on GFK to Acheson and Webb, September 2, 1949, PPS Records, Box 33, “Chronological 1949” folder.

63 GFK Diary, October 4, 13, 24, November 7, 1949.

64 Ibid., November 12, 1949.

65 Ibid., November 16 [misdated 15], 1949; GFK to Dodds, December 29, 1949, ibid., 140:1.

66 GFK to Charles James, December 10, 1949, Douglas James Papers.

67 Lovett to Bohlen, October 21, 1949, and Bohlen to Lovett, December 19, 1949, Bohlen Papers, Box 2, “Correspondence 1949–July 1951: L” folder, National Archives; Hoyer Millar to Makins, December 10, 1949, Makins to Hoyer-Millar, December 15, 1949, British Foreign Office Records, FO 371/74160/AN3813; Hoyer-Millar to Makins, December 23, 1949, ibid., FO 371/81614/AU1017/4. See also “Kennan Maps Rest from U.S. Duties,” New York Times, December 11, 1949.

68 Acheson National War College remarks, December 21, 1949, Webb Papers, Box 20 (courtesy of Michael Devine and Sam Rushay); GFK to Acheson, December 21, 1949, Acheson Papers, Box 64, “Memos—conversations December 1949” folder, Truman Library; GFK National War College lecture, “Where Do We Stand?” December 21, 1949, pp. 32–33, GFK Papers, 299:32.

69 Mary Bundy interview, December 6, 1987, p. 10; Acheson National War College remarks, December 21, 1949, Webb Papers, Box 20; Alsop to GFK, December 31, 1949, Joseph and Stewart Alsop Papers, Part 1, General Correspondence, Box 5, “November–December 1949” folder. These paragraphs draw on Beisner, Dean Acheson, especially p. 654, as well as my review of it in New Republic 235 (October 16, 2005), 32.

SIXTEEN ● DISENGAGEMENT: 1950

1 GFK National War College lecture, “Where Do We Stand?” December 21, 1949, GFK Papers, 299:32. The Adams brothers’ prophecies were in Brooks Adams, America’s Economic Supremacy, and in The Education of Henry Adams (completed in 1905), especially p. 494. The Thoreau quotation is from Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, p. 440.

2 GFK to Acheson, July 18, 1946, in FRUS: 1946, I, 864; GFK lecture to the National Defense Committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, January 23, 1947, p. 4, GFK Papers, 298:23; question and answer transcript to GFK’s lecture, “Russia’s National Objectives,” at the Air War College, April 10, 1947, pp. 13–14, ibid., 298:32. Kennan’s own account of his early thinking on atomic weapons is in Memoirs, I, 310–12, and in GFK, Nuclear Delusion, pp. xiv–xvi.

3 GFK to McGeorge Bundy, March 14, 1980, GFK Papers, 7:10; GFK untitled lecture to “Selected Leaders of Industry,” January 14, 1948, p. 27, ibid., 299:2; GFK Diary, March 18, 1949.

4 R. Gordon Arneson memorandum, “Tripartite Negotiations Chronology,” undated, in FRUS: 1949, I, 506–7. The Joint Chiefs of Staff report, “Evaluation of Effect on Soviet War Effort Resulting from the Strategic Air Offensive,” May 11, 1949, is excerpted in Etzold and Gaddis, Containment, pp. 360–64. Nuclear stockpile figures are from Norris and Kristensen, “Nuclear Notebook,” p. 66. For GFK’s lack of access to this information, see Bundy, Danger and Survival, p. 201.

5 PPS/58, “Political Implications of Detonation of an Atomic Bomb by the U.S.S.R.,” August 16, 1949, in PPS Papers: 1949, pp. 122–23; GFK to JLG, October 1, 1993, JLG Papers.

6 GFK Diary, September 13, 19, 20, 23, 24, 1949.

7 Ibid., September 27, 1949; Rhodes, Dark Sun, pp. 374–77. Botti, Long Wait, pp. 1–64, covers the history of these negotiations. For the significance of Fuchs’s espionage for the Soviet bomb project, see Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, pp. 220–23.

8 Rhodes, Dark Sun, pp. 252–54, 374–75, 381. In fact, the Soviet Union had been working on its own “super” since 1946. See Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, p. 295.

9 PPS minutes, November 3, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, I, 573–76; Beisner, Dean Acheson, p. 230. See also GFK Diary, October 12, 1949, GFK Papers, 231:18. GFK’s meeting that day was with “Eisenhower’s colonels,” a group of officers recruited by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, now the president of Columbia University but still a consultant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for the purpose of thinking about national security issues on a five- to ten-year time scale.

10 Oppenheimer to GFK, November 17, 1949, in FRUS: 1950, I, 222–23; GFK draft statement, November 18, 1949, Oppenheimer Papers, Box 43, “Kennan” folder. See also Bird and Sherwin, American Prometheus, p. 425.

11 Nitze to Acheson, December 19, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, I, 610–11. See also Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost, pp. 87–91; and Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 303–4.

12 GFK memorandum, “The International Control of Atomic Energy,” January 20, 1950, extracts published in FRUS: 1950, I, 22–44. The Shakespeare is from Troilus and Cressida, Act I, Scene 3. See also the Lilienthal Diary, December 18, 1949, in Lilienthal, Journals of Lilienthal, II, 610; and GFK, Memoirs, I, 472. I have borrowed portions of the above paragraphs from Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, pp. 77–78.

13 GFK to Lucius Battle, January 24, 1950, in FRUS: 1950, I, 22; GFK, Memoirs, I, 474. Acheson’s comment is from an April 9, 1963, interview by David McLellan, quoted in his Acheson, p. 176. GFK confirmed that Acheson never said this to him, in a letter to George Krol, February 9, 1981, GFK Papers, 1:2.

14 Report by the Special Committee of the National Security Council, “Development of Thermonuclear Weapons,” January 31, 1950, in FRUS: 1950, I, 513–17. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 306–7.

15 Nitze interview, p. 3.

16 Rusk interview, p. 5; Acheson National War College remarks, December 21, 1949, Webb Papers, Box 20.

17 GFK National War College lecture, December 21, 1949, GFK Papers, 299:32, pp. 27–28. For the riots in Bogotá, see Pogue, George C. Marshall, pp. 385–93. GFK’s 1948 National War College lecture is discussed in Chapter Fourteen, above.

18 GFK Diary, February–March 1950. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 476–484, and Memoirs, II, 65–70. Ilya Repin’s painting, Easter Procession in the Region of Kursk, is in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

19 GFK to Acheson, March 29, 1950, in FRUS: 1950, II, 598–624. I have also drawn, with reference to GFK’s views on Guatemala, on an April 3, 1950, memorandum from Edward W. Clark, of the Office of Middle American Affairs, to Edward G. Miller, assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, describing GFK’s views, DSR-DF 1950–54, Box 608, “123 Kennan” folder.

20 For the first interpretation, see Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 316–17 ; Mayers, Kennan and the Dilemmas of U.S. Foreign Policy, pp. 261–66; Beisner, Dean Acheson, p. 571; Stephanson, Kennan and the Art of Foreign Policy, pp. 162–65; and Trask, “George F. Kennan’s Report on Latin America.” For the second, see Hixson, George F. Kennan, pp. 70–71; LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions, pp. 107–8; and Smith, Last Years of the Monroe Doctrine, pp. 65–73.

21 I owe this phrase to the physicist Murray Gell-Mann.

22 GFK speech, “Current Problems in the Conduct of Foreign Policy,” Milwaukee, May 5, 1950, GFK Papers, 251:13. Most of the speech was published in the Department of State Bulletin 22 (May 15, 1950), 747–61.

23 See, for example, GFK’s off-the-record address to the Pentagon Joint Civilian Orientation Conference, April 17, 1950, pp. 12–14, GFK Papers, 299:39. Acheson’s National Press Club speech of January 12, 1950, “Crisis in Asia—an Examination of U.S. Policy,” is in Department of State Bulletin 22 (January 23, 1950), 111–18. It followed NSC 48/2, “The Position of the United States with Respect to Asia,” approved by Truman on December 30, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, VII, 1215–20, which in turn grew out of the PPS/39 series, dating from September 1948.

24 Beisner, Dean Acheson, pp. 281–306, provides a vivid account of these events. For McCarthy’s speech, see Oshinsky, Conspiracy So Immense, pp. 108–12.

25 Davies interview, December 8, 1982, pp. 12–13. See also GFK, Memoirs, II, 196–97, 200–203; Corke, U.S. Covert Operations and Cold War Strategy, pp. 78–80; and Kahn, China Hands, pp. 244–46.

26 GFK to Webb, March 30, 1950, in FRUS: The Intelligence Community, 1950–1955, pp. 5–8.

27 The lecture, delivered on May 5, 1950, is in GFK Papers, Box 2, “May 5, 1950” folder, along with the handbill. For GFK’s complaint, see the Summary of Daily Meeting with the Acting Secretary, May 8, 1950, Department of State, Summaries of the Secretary’s Daily Meetings, 1949–52, E 393, Box 1 (courtesy of Thomas Schöttli).

28 ASK to GFK, February 23, 1950, JEK Papers.

29 PPS minutes, October 11, 1949, PPS Records, Box 32. For GFK’s earlier thinking on conventional deterrence, see PPS/33, “Factors Affecting the Nature of the U.S. Defense Arrangements in the Light of Soviet Policies,” June 23, 1948, in PPS Papers, II, 281–92; and GFK, Memoirs, I, 311–12.

30 GFK draft memorandum to Acheson (substance conveyed orally), February 17, 1950, in FRUS: 1950, I, 165; Hammond, “NSC-68,” pp. 291–92.

31 Nitze to Acheson, December 19, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, I, 610–11; GFK to Acheson, February 17, 1950, in FRUS: 1950, I, 165; Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 753; GFK to Ellis O. Briggs, November 2, 1948, GFK Papers, 140:2. See also Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost, pp. 96–97, and Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, pp. 91–92.

32 GFK interview, August 26, 1982, pp. 1–2; Nitze interview, p. 6.

33 See May, American Cold War Strategy. For Davies’s contribution, see Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost, p. 94.

34 Hammond, “NSC-68,” pp. 310–15; Bohlen, Witness to History, p. 291.

35 Acheson, Present at the Creation, pp. 374–75; GFK interview, October 31, 1974, p. 5.

36 Hammond, “NSC-68,” pp. 317–18; Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 347; Davies interview, pp. 9–10. This paragraph parallels closely one in my Strategies of Containment, p. 85. See also Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost, p. 99.

37 ASK to KWK, January 3, 1950, JEK Papers; GFK to Ralph Jarvis, January 9, 1950, GFK Papers, 139:8.

38 JEK unpublished memoir.

39 GFK to Oppenheimer, February 13, 1950, Oppenheimer Papers, Box 42, “GFK” folder; GFK to Joseph H. Willits, February 16, 1950, GFK Papers, 139:8; GFK, Memoirs, I, 485; GFK Diary, November 22, 1949.

40 Ibid., September 22, 1949; Acheson to GFK, October 17, 1949, GFK to Palmer, November 1, 1949, both in GFK Papers, 251:12; GFK, “Is War with Russia Inevitable? Five Solid Arguments for Peace,” Reader’s Digest (March 1950), 1-9. See also, on publicity, GFK Diary, November 12, 1949.

41 GFK to Oppenheimer, June 5, 1950, Oppenheimer Papers, Box 43, “GFK” folder; GFK Diary, June 10 and 15, 1950; JKH interview, p. 25; GFK, Memoirs, I, 469–70; Alsop with Platt, “I’ve Seen the Best of It,” pp. 306–7.

42 The best account of the origins of the Korean War is now Stueck, Rethinking the Korean War, pp. 11–83.

43 GFK, Memoirs, I, 484–85; Alsop, “I’ve Seen the Best of It,” pp. 306–7; Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 402; Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost, pp. 101–2. See also GFK interview by Paige, August 1, 1955, p. 1.

44 Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost, p. 86; GFK, Memoirs, I, 486–87.

45 GFK Diary, June 25, 1950; GFK interview by Paige, p. 3. See also Gaddis, Long Peace, pp. 86–87.

46 GFK Diary, June 27, 1950.

47 Alsop, “I’ve Seen the Best of It”, pp. 308–9; GFK Diary, June 27 and 29, 1950.

48 Ibid., June 26, 30, July 1, 10, 12, 17, 25, 1950; GFK background press conference, August 22, 1950, GFK Papers, 299:41. See also Bohlen, Witness to History, p. 291.

49 GFK Diary, June 29, July 11, 25, 1950.

50 Ibid., July 17, 31, 1950.

51 Ibid., June 28, July 21, 31, 1950. See also the PPS draft memorandum of July 22, 1950, in FRUS: 1950, VII, 449–54; Bohlen, Witness to History, pp. 292–93; and Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost, p. 107.

52 Allison to Nitze, July 24, 1950, in FRUS: 1950, VII, 460–61; GFK Diary, June 29 and August 14, 1950; GFK to Acheson, August 23, 1950, Acheson Papers, Box 65, Memoranda of Conversations, “August, 1950” folder, Truman Library. See also, on the 38th parallel debate, Gaddis, Long Peace, pp. 97–99.

53 GFK to Acheson, August 21, 1950, in FRUS: 1950, VII, 623–28; Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 446.

54 Nitze interview, p. 8; Berlin interview, pp. 12–13.

SEVENTEEN ● PUBLIC FIGURE, PRIVATE DOUBTS: 1950–1951

1 Quoted in Adam Begley, “Lonely Genius Club,” New York Magazine, January 30, 1995, 61-67. See also GFK, Memoirs, II, 17–18. Regis, Who Got Einstein’s Office?, provides an informal history of the Institute but never mentions Kennan. The Institute prepared its own shorter unpublished history on its seventy-fifth anniversary in 2005, entitled simply Institute for Advanced Study.

2 Dodds to GFK, January 3 and February 14, 1950, GFK to Dodds, February 16, 1950, GFK Papers, 11:1. See also Bird and Sherwin, American Prometheus, pp. 371–72, 431–32.

3 GFK, Memoirs, II, 20; Bird and Sherwin, American Prometheus, pp. 371–72, 427, 432. See also Chapter Sixteen, above, and Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb, p. 206.

4 GFK, Memoirs, II, 4, 9–10, 18–19; GFK Diary, September 11, 1950 [misdated September 10].

5 GFK to Acheson, September 12, 1950, Acheson Papers, Box 32, “Secretary of State Alphabetical: Kelley-King” folder, Truman Library; GFK, Memoirs, II, 4–7; GFK lecture to Miss Fine’s School, May 23, 1951, GFK Papers, 300:6. The decline list is in the GFK Diary for 1950.

6 GFK, Memoirs, II, 8–9; GFK to Arthur Nevins, November 14, 1950, GFK Papers, 139:8; GFK to Gleason, October 6, 1950, ibid. For the reunion, see Chapter Sixteen, above.

7 GFK to Dodds, November 13, 1950, GFK Papers, 11:1; GFK to Earle, October 6, 1950, enclosing draft letter to James Russell, ibid., 139:8.

8 GFK, Memoirs, II, 19. For Oppenheimer’s assessment of von Neumann’s computer, see Institute for Advanced Study, Report of the Director, pp. 9–13; also Poundstone, Prisoner’s Dilemma, pp. 76–78.

9 GFK to Alsop, October 20, 1950, Alsop Papers, Part 1, General Correspondence, Box 5, October 1950.

10 Marshall to MacArthur, September 29, 1950, in FRUS: 1950, VII, 826. Chen, China’s Road to the Korean War, provides the best account of Chinese decision making during the early months of the Korean War; but see also Stueck, Rethinking the Korean War, pp. 102–11.

11 GFK Diary, December 1950. For the events of that week, see Stueck, Korean War, pp. 130–32.

12 GFK Diary, December 1950; GFK, Memoirs, II, 28–31; GFK to Acheson, December 4, 1950, Acheson Papers, Box 65, “Memoranda of Conversations, December, 1950” folder, Truman Library; Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 476.

13 Minutes, Truman-Attlee meeting, December 4, 1950, in FRUS: 1950, VII, 1367.

14 Lucius D. Battle memorandum, Acheson meeting with GFK, Rusk, Nitze, and others, December 4, 1950, in FRUS: 1950, VII, 1345–46; W. J. McWilliams memorandum, Acheson meeting with GFK, Rusk, Nitze, and others, December 5, 1950, ibid., p. 1385; GFK to Alsop, December 17, 1950, Alsop Papers, Part 1, General Correspondence, Box 6, “December, 1950” folder.

15 GFK to KWK, January 2, 1951 [misdated 1950], JEK Papers.

16 GFK, “How New Are Our Problems?” and “The National Interest of the United States,” delivered on January 29–30, 1951, at Northwestern University, later published in Illlinois Law Review 45 (1951), 718–42. See also GFK’s Roosevelt Day Dinner address to the Americans for Democratic Action, New York, January 27, 1951, GFK Papers, 251:17, reprinted as GFK, “Let Peace Not Die of Neglect,” New York Times Magazine, February 25, 1951, pp. 10ff; and his report for the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, “American Participation in Multilateral Authority,” March 15, 1951, ibid., 300:3. GFK discussed his growing environmental interests in a September 8, 1983, interview, pp. 18–20. Berlin’s article, entitled “Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century,” appeared in Foreign Affairs 28 (April 1950), 351–85.

17 “Kennan Joins Ford Foundation,” New York Times, February 20, 1951; Hoffman to GFK, March 12, 1951, GFK Papers, 13:18. The salary figures are from a memorandum GFK prepared for the State Department, January 23, 1951, ibid., and from Bird and Sherwin, American Prometheus, p. 432. See also “Ford Fund Grants Emphasize ‘Deeds,’” New York Times, June 3, 1951; and GFK to KWK, December 17, 1951, JEK Papers.

18 GFK to Hoffman, February 8 and March 8, 1951, GFK Papers, 13:18; Schlesinger undated diary entry, in Schlesinger to JLG, March 31, 1994, JLG Papers; Schlesinger interview, p. 1; Oppenheimer to Robert M. Hutchins, February 16, 1951, Lewis Strauss Papers, IAS Files, Box 108 (courtesy of Craig Wright); GFK to KWK, March 1, 1951, JEK Papers.

19 GFK to Hoffman, March 8, 1951, GFK Papers, 13:18; “Ford Found to Aid Soviet Refugees,” New York Times, May 18, 1951. For the first Kennan’s work with Russian exiles, see Travis, George Kennan, pp. 195–248.

20 Chester, Covert Network, pp. 43–53, provides a good account of the Ford Foundation’s relationship with the CIA. See also Pisani, CIA and the Marshall Plan, pp. 46–52.

21 GFK interview, September 7, 1983, pp. 23–26; GFK to Nicholas Nabokov, October 18, 1951, GFK Papers, 32:13. See also Chester, Covert Network, pp. 49–51, 124–27; and GFK, Memoirs, II, 8–9.

22 Ibid., pp. 72–73; GFK to Hoffman, March 8, 1951, GFK Papers, 13:18. For Morgenthau’s role, see Thompson interview, p. 7.

23 Link interview, p. 1; GFK interview, September 8, 1983, p. 8; and Rusk interview, p. 6. See also Earle to Leopold, February 2, 1951, Richard W. Leopold Papers, 45:6.

24 GFK Diary, April 2–4, 1951.

25 Ibid., April 9, 16, 1951. GFK’s opening lecture, entitled “Introduction,” is in the GFK Papers, 251:21.

26 GFK, Memoirs, II, 75–76; Thompson interview, December 6, 1982, pp. 1–2.

27 GFK Diary, April 16–17, 1951, GFK Papers, 232:2.

28 Ibid., August–September 1951.

29 Corrigan and Cory memorandum, May 3, 1951, in FRUS: 1951, VII, 401–10.

30 Davies to Nitze, May 8, 1951, ibid., pp. 421–22.

31 G. Frederick Reinhardt summary of GFK’s views, sent to Acheson on March 17, 1951, ibid., pp. 241–43.

32 GFK memorandum, undated, GFK to Tsarapkin, May 26, 1951, both ibid., pp. 460–62.

33 GFK to Matthews, May 31, 1951, ibid., pp. 483–86. See also Acheson, Present at the Creation, pp. 532–33.

34 GFK to Matthews, June 5, 1951, in FRUS: 1951, VII, 507–11.

35 GFK to Acheson, June 20, 1951, ibid., pp. 536–38.

36 GFK, Memoirs, II, 37–38. Stueck, Korean War, pp. 204–347, covers the lengthy armistice negotiations in detail.

37 GFK to ASK, July 24, 1951, JEK Papers; GFK to Hoffman, March 8, 1951, GFK Papers, 13:18; GFK Diary, June 30, 1951.

38 Ibid., July 5, 1951; GFK speech on the Oslofjord, July 4, 1951, GFK Papers, 300:8.

39 GFK Diary, July 10, 1951.

40 GFK to ASK, July 24, 1951, JEK Papers; GFK, Memoirs, II, 207. See also, on the Davies investigation, Ybarra, Washington Gone Crazy, pp. 564–65.

41 GFK to George W. Perkins, July 24, 1951, GFK Papers, 139:7; GFK to ASK, July 24, August 6 and 8, 1951, JEK Papers.

42 GFK to Acheson, September 1, 1951, GFK Papers, 139:7. The handwritten copy is in GFK’s State Department personnel file, DSR-DF 1950–54, Box 608, “123 Kennan” folder.

43 Both poems, undated, are in the GFK Diary for the summer of 1951. The summary, dated only September 1951, is in GFK Papers, 164:27.

44 GFK Diary, undated but late summer 1951; GFK, Memoirs, II, 105–6; and Ruddy, Cautious Diplomat, p. 106, where Bohlen’s suggestion is misdated as having been made in 1952.

45 ASK interview, September 8, 1983, pp. 1–2.

46 John and Patricia Davies interview, December 7, 1982, pp. 13–14; GFK to JKH, October 26, 1951, and to KWK, December 17, 1951, JEK Papers; GFK, Memoirs, II, 62.

47 James Reston, “Our Ways in Diplomacy,” New York Times, September 30, 1951; GFK to Alsop, October 3, 1951, Alsop Papers, Part 1, Box 6, “October, 1951” folder; GFK to Oppenheimer, October 4, 1951, Oppenheimer Papers, Box 43, “Kennan” folder. See also GFK, Memoirs, II, 76–77; and GFK, American Diplomacy, pp. 6–7.

48 Despite the reference to “this room,” the dinosaur did not appear in the text of GFK’s Chicago lectures—although it’s possible that he might have improvised it. The lectures are in the GFK Papers, 251:21–23, 252:1–3. The dinosaur is in American Diplomacy, p. 59.

49 Thompson interview, p. 1; Time, October 8, 1951. See also Lippmann, U.S. Foreign Policy; Niebuhr, Children of Light and Children of Darkness; and Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations.

50 GFK to Toynbee, March 31, 1952, GFK Papers, 139:5.

51 GFK to New York Times, August 16, 1952 (not sent), ibid.; Elim O’Shaughnessy memorandum, August 19, 1952, DSR-DF 1950-54, “123 Kennan, George F.” file; GFK to Bohlen, August 21, 1952, GFK Papers, 139:4; Jessup to George Wadsworth, September 9, 1952, Philip Jessup Papers, 1:9. For Walsh’s attack, see Warren Weaver, “‘Dangerous’ Views Charged to Envoy,” New York Times, July 28, 1952.

52 GFK, “How New Are Our Problems?” The announcement of the American Political Science Association award is in The New York Times, August 27, 1952. Rosenthal, Righteous Realists, discusses GFK’s place within the “realist” tradition. GFK acknowledged not having read Thucydides in a letter to Louis J. Halle, September 27, 1993, Louis J. Halle Papers, 4:1. I am indebted for this citation to Michael Schmidt, whose 2008 Yale History Department senior essay, “Present at the Creation: Thucydides in the Cold War,” quotes it.

53 James Reston, “Kennan Is Slated for Post of Ambassador to Moscow,” New York Times, November 20, 1951 ; Salisbury, Journey for Our Times, pp. 407–8; Gromyko to Stalin, December 12, 1951, Russian Federation Foreign Policy Archive, Fond 3, Opis 66, Delo 279, List 134–36. Parker’s book was published as Conspiracy Against Peace in 1949. GFK’s account of this episode is in his Memoirs, I, 243–46.

54 GFK to Cumming, December 31, 1951, GFK Papers, 139:7.

EIGHTEEN ● MR. AMBASSADOR: 1952

1 Louis Cassels, “‘Mr. X’ Goes to Moscow,” Collier’s, March 12, 1952, pp. 19–20, 87–90; Link interview, p. 8; GFK to Bishop John of San Francisco, December 17, 1951, GFK Papers, 139:7; GFK to Dr. John Bodo, January 18, 1952, ibid., 5:15; GFK to Nicholas and Patricia Nabokov, January 14, 1952, ibid., 32:13.

2 GFK dinner speech, Pasadena, February 7, 1952, ibid., 300:17.

3 GFK to Acheson, copy in GFK Diary, January 23, 1952.

4 Executive Session testimony, March 12, 1952, U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Historical Series, IV, 190–92; “Kennan Is Confirmed,” New York Times, March 14, 1952.

5 Transcript, GFK State Department press conference, April 1, 1952, pp. 16–17, GFK Papers, 300:18.

6 GFK retrospective diary, April 22–23, 1952. See also GFK’s account of his April 3, 1952, meeting with Panyushkin in FRUS: 1952–54, VIII, 968–70.

7 Richard Rovere, “Letter from Washington,” New Yorker, May 17, 1952, pp. 122–33.

8 “Off to Europe for Business and Pleasure,” New York Herald Tribune, April 24, 1952. The envelope, dated “probably April, 1952,” is in GFK Papers, 232:3.

9 I owe this analogy to Toni Dorfman, whose November 2009 Yale undergraduate production of The Cherry Orchard caused me to see it.

10 ASK interview, September 8, 1983, p. 3; ASK to JKH, CKB, and Grace Wells, May 13, 1952, JEK Papers; John and Patricia Davies interview, December 7, 1982, p. 14; GFK, Memoirs, II, 112, which gives the date, incorrectly, as May 5.

11 GFK to ASK, May 7, 8, and 11, 1952, JEK Papers. See also GFK’s presentation to the State Department’s Division of Research for Europe, January 22, 1953, GFK Papers, 164:37; ASK interview, September 8, 1983, p. 3; and GFK, Memoirs, II, 112–15.

12 GFK to Acheson, May 14, 1952, DSR-DF 1950–54, Box 608, “123 Kennan” folder; GFK, Memoirs, II, 119–20; GFK to ASK, May 15, 1952, JEK Papers.

13 GFK to ASK, May 16, 1952, ibid.; GFK to State Department, in FRUS: 1952–54, VIII, 972–73, 976.

14 GFK to ASK, May 16, 22, 25, and June 3, 1952, JEK Papers; GFK, Memoirs, II, 116.

15 GFK to ASK, June 3 and 11, 1952, JEK Papers.

16 Reber to Robert Joyce, June 25, 1952, DSR-DF 1950–54, Box 608, “123 Kennan” folder.

17 De Silva, Sub Rosa, pp. 71–74. De Silva misdates the meeting as having occurred in June 1953.

18 GFK interview, December 13, 1987, pp. 27–28. See also Cumming interview, April 17, 1984, p. 17.

19 Durbrow interview, p. 13; Nancy Jenkins to Nitze, May 27, 1980, Paul H. Nitze Papers, 29:5. See also Thompson, Hawk and the Dove, p. 138.

20 GFK to ASK, May 11 and 31, 1952, JEK Papers; GFK, Memoirs, II, 125–26; Salisbury, Journey for Our Times, pp. 403–4, 413–14.

21 GFK to Matthews, July 15, 1952, in FRUS: 1952–54, VIII, 1024.

22 GFK to ASK, June 8, 1952, JEK Papers. See also Hoffmann, Cold War Casualty; and Kirk, Postmarked Moscow. GFK’s dispatch to Matthews referred to the “Grew” diary, leading the editors of Foreign Relations of the United States to confuse it with the recently published diaries of his old Foreign Service examiner Joseph C. Grew. See FRUS: 1952–54, VIII, 973, 1007, 1011–12; and the comment on this in Hoffmann, Cold War Casualty, pp. 19–20.

23 Gascoigne to Sir William Strang, June 16, 1952, British Foreign Office Records, FO 371/100836/NS 10345/ 15; Cumming interview, pp. 4–5; Hessman interview, p. 14.

24 GFK to Matthews, June 6, 1952, in FRUS: 1952–54, VIII, 987–1000. Jacob Liberman’s portrayal of Lopakhin in the November 2009 Yale production of The Cherry Orchard conveyed clearly to me what Kennan meant.

25 Durbrow interview, p. 13; Cumming interview, pp. 5–6.

26 GFK to Matthews, June 18, 1952, in FRUS: 1952–54, VIII, 1004–10; GFK, Memoirs, II, 153–54; ASK interview, September 8, 1983, p. 11; Cumming interview, pp. 9, 13. Microwave beams became a long-standing problem for the American embassy in Moscow. See Steneck, Microwave Debate, pp. 92–118, who correctly dates the beginning of the surveillance in 1952 but inaccurately claims that it was first deployed not at the Mokhovaya but at the new embassy facilities on Tchaikovsky Street. The embassy moved to that location only in 1953.

27 GFK to Bohlen, June 29, 1952, in FRUS: 1952–54, VIII, 1017–20. The Alsop columns appeared in The Washington Post on June 9, 11, 13, 18, and 20, 1952, and were widely syndicated elsewhere. Time’s story on GFK’s concerns, entitled “Russia: Report from Moscow,” appeared in the June 30, 1952, issue.

28 See Chapter Seventeen, above.

29 Or so I surmise, after much wrestling with this puzzling episode. There are always a few things biographers neglect to ask their subjects about while they have the chance. This, unfortunately, is one of them.

30 Harrison Salisbury, “View from Mokhovaya Street,” New York Times Magazine, June 1, 1952, pp. 7, 30-33.

31 GFK to Robert Strunsky, June 9, 1952, GFK Papers, 46:12.

32 GFK, Memoirs, II, 130–31.

33 My account of this episode comes from GFK interview, August 26, 1982, pp. 6–10, and Cumming interview, pp. 7–11, as well as a brief retrospective diary entry, dated September 29, 1952, GFK Papers, 232:3, and GFK, Memoirs, II, 146–50.

34 Yakovlev interview by Pechatnov, November 13, 1994. See also Arbatov, System, p. 44n. For a mild sample of Yakovlev’s writing, see Sivachev and Yakovlev, Russia and the United States. Shortly after becoming Kennan’s biographer—but without knowing Yakovlev’s connection to the 1952 episode—I was treated to an opulent but bizarre dinner in his Moscow apartment at which he spent a very long evening alternately praising and bitterly denouncing “Georgi Frostovich.”

35 GFK to Acheson, July 25, 1952, in FRUS: 1952–54, VI, 1584–87. I have edited this passage slightly to fill in telegraphic abbreviations.

36 Salisbury, Journey for Our Times, pp. 411, 416. For the Alsops’ column, see “Stalin Speaks Again,” Washington Post, August 8, 1952.

37 GFK to Acheson, August 16, 1952, DSR-DF 1950-54, 661.00/8-1652; R. L. Thurston to GFK, August 16, 1952, ibid.

38 GFK to Acheson, August 23, 1952, ibid., 661.51/8-2352; GFK to Matthews, August 25, 1952, in FRUS: 1952–54, VIII, 1042–45. Dixon’s minute of August 29, 1952, is in the British Foreign Office Records, FO 371/100830/NS1026/17.

39 I have discussed the 1952 Stalin “note” more fully in We Now Know, pp. 125–29; see also Zubok, Failed Empire, pp. 82–84.

40 GFK to State Department, May 25, 1952, in FRUS: 1952–54, VII, 252–53. See also Beisner, Dean Acheson, pp. 606–15.

41 Parker, Conspiracy Against Peace, p. 199; V. Bazykin to Andrey Vyshinsky, May 9, 1952, Russian Federation Foreign Ministry Archive, Fond 0129, Opis 36, Papka 247, Delo 23, L. 3.

42 GFK to Matthews, August 25, 1952, in FRUS: 1952–54, VIII, 1044; H. A. F. Hohler to P. F. Grey, December 15, 1952, British Foreign Office Records, FO 371/100826/NS 1023/34G. See also Brent and Naumov, Stalin’s Last Crime.

43 ASK to Grace Wells and Frieda Por, July 18, 1952, JEK Papers; ASK interview, September 8, 1983, p. 4.

44 GFK, Memoirs, II, 118–19, 129–30. For GFK’s previous visit, see Chapter Five.

45 GFK to Bernard Gufler, August 12, 1952, GFK Papers, 139:4; “U.S. Is Told to Move Offices in Moscow,” New York Times, July 8, 1952; GFK to Bohlen, August 21, 1952, GFK Papers, 139:4; Cumming interview, p. 12.

46 Richard Davies interview by Jessup, November 9, 1979; Toon interview by Mattox, June 9, 1989; John Foster Dulles, “Policy of Boldness,” Life 32 (May 19, 1952), 146-60. See also Bowie and Immerman, Waging Peace, pp. 75–77.

47 GFK to Matthews, August 8, 1952, GFK Papers, 139:4. See also GFK, Memoirs, II, 124–25.

48 Ibid., pp. 136–37; GFK interview, December 13, 1987, p. 26. See also NSC 73/4, “The Position and Actions of the United States With Respect to Possible Further Soviet Moves in the Light of the Korean Situation,” August 25, 1950, in FRUS: 1950, I, 380.

49 GFK to Barklie Henry, September 9, 1952, copy in Oppenheimer Papers, Box 43, “Kennan” correspondence ; GFK, Memoirs, II, 137–38.

50 GFK to State Department, September 8, 1952, ibid., pp. 327–51. The original is in DSR-DF 1950–54, 661. 00/9-852.

51 L. W. Fuller to Nitze, September 23, 1952, ibid., Box 608, “123 Kennan” folder; C. L. Sulzberger Diary, April 1, 1954, in Sulzberger, Long Row of Candles, p. 987. See also, for the origins of the chiefs of mission meeting, FRUS: 1952–54, VI, 636–43, and “U.S. Envoys to Confer,” New York Times, September 19, 1952.

52 GFK, Memoirs, II, 153–57; GFK to Rebecca Matlock, October 29, 1987, GFK Papers, 27:18; Bullitt to State Department, March 4, 1936, in FRUS: The Soviet Union, 1933–1939, pp. 289–91. See also, for the technology of the bug, Wallace and Melton, Spycraft, pp. 162–65. For more on the Brown dispatches, see Chapter Five, above.

53 GFK, Memoirs, II, 157–58.

54 Salisbury, Journey for Our Times, p. 414. Salisbury’s cautious account of this conversation, passed through Soviet censors, appeared the next day as “GFK Sees View on Soviet Correct,” New York Times, September 19, 1952.

55 GFK, Memoirs, II, 156–59; GFK notebook, GFK Papers, 232:3; Jack Raymond, “GFK Describes Isolation in Soviet,” New York Times, September 20, 1952.

56 Cumming interview, pp. 17–19.

57 GFK Diary, September 29, 1952. See also GFK, Memoirs, II, 161–62, and, for the minutes of the chiefs of mission meeting, FRUS: 1952–54, VI, 643–65.

58 The Pravda statement appeared in the September 27 issue of The New York Times. Molotov, in prepublication editing, dropped a reference to the “X” article, “a vileful pasquinade against the Soviet Union” that Kennan had published “hiding under [an] alias.” The draft is in the Russian Federation Foreign Policy Archive, Fond 3, Opis 66, Delo 279, List 46.

59 GFK to Acheson, September 26, 1952, in FRUS: 1952–54, 1048–51.

60 GFK to ASK, September 27, 1952, Department of State, Record Group 84, Moscow 1950–54, Box 167, “123 Kennan—personal” folder; Acheson press conference, September 26, 1952, in FRUS: 1952–54, VIII, 1048n; “Kennan to Return to Post,” New York Times, September 30, 1952.

61 GFK Diary, September 29, 1952. For the communication to McSweeney, see FRUS: 1952–54, VIII, 1053.

62 JKH to GFK and ASK, September 28, 1952, JEK Papers; Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 697.

63 GFK, Memoirs, II, 164; GFK notebook, GFK Papers, 232:3. The passage is from Henry VIII, Act III, Scene 2.

64 ASK interview, September 8, 1983, pp. 6–8; ASK to JKH, September 19, 1952, JEK Papers.

65 ASK interview, September 8, 1983, pp. 8–9.

66 O’Shaughnessy to State Department, in FRUS: 1952–54, VIII, 1052–53n; GFK, Memoirs, II, 165.

67 GFK to Gufler, October 27, 1952, GFK Papers, 139:4; Cloyce K. Huston to State Department, October 27, 1952, DSR-DF 1950–54, Box 608, “123 Kennan” folder.

68 H. T. Morgan minute, October 9, 1952, British Foreign Office Records, FO 371/100836/NS 10345/28; Sulzberger Diary, October 24, 1952, in Sulzberger, Long Row of Candles, p. 784. See also Bohlen, Witness to History, p. 312.

69 Davies interview by Jessup.

70 Marshall’s account is in “Memorandum for the File,” July 9, 1981, Nitze Papers, 29:5.

71 GFK to Nitze, July 26, 1952, GFK Papers, 139:4; GFK to Bohlen, October 7, 1952, Bohlen to GFK, October 8, 1952, DSR-DF 1950–54, Box 608, “123 Kennan” folder; GFK, Memoirs, II, 168.

72 J. H. A. Watson report, October 9, 1952, enclosed in Christopher Steel to Paul Mason, same date, British Foreign Office Records, FO 371/100836/NS 10345/33.

73 Bohlen interview by Wright, p. 12; Bohlen to Livingston Merchant, August 23, 1955, Bohlen Papers, Box 36, “Correspondence—Special, George Kennan, 1951–70,” Library of Congress. See also Bohlen, Witness to History, p. 312.

74 GFK, Memoirs, II, 165–67.

75 Ibid., p. 168; “GFK Returns, Silent on Moscow Ban,” New York Herald Tribune, November 12, 1952; “GFK Returns to See Acheson,” New York Times, November 12, 1952.

76 GFK, Memoirs, II, 170; JKH to KWK, December 2, 1952, JEK Papers.

77 GFK Diary, March 13, 1953; GFK, Memoirs, II, 170; GFK National War College lecture, “Tasks Ahead in U.S. Foreign Policy,” December 18, 1952, GFK Papers, 300:21.

78 ASK to Frieda Por, December 28, 1952, JEK Papers; GFK to KWK, December 25, 1952, ibid.; ASK interview, September 8, 1983, p. 11.

NINETEEN • FINDING A NICHE: 1953–1955

1 GFK to KWK, December 25, 1952, JEK Papers.

2 GFK, Memoirs, II, 170–71; GFK Diary, July 17, 31, 1950; “Dulles Says U.N. Being Slighted,” New York Times, September 27, 1952; Dulles to Lewis W. Douglas, September 29, 1952, Box 59, “Douglas” folder, Dulles Papers. See also Dulles, “Policy of Boldness”; Dulles to the editors of Commonweal, September 5, 1952, Dulles Papers, Box 59, “Containment” folder; and, for GFK’s differences with Dulles during the Korean War, Chapter Sixteen, above.

3 Dulles to GFK, October 2, 1952, GFK to Dulles, October 22, 1952, Dulles to GFK, October 29, 1952, Dulles Papers, Box 61, “Kennan” folder.

4 See, on this issue, GFK, Memoirs, II, 97–102.

5 Ibid., pp. 170–71; GFK Diary, March 13, 1953. For Marshall’s recollection, see Chapter Eighteen, above.

6 GFK to David Bruce, December 11, 1952, GFK Papers, 139:4; GFK Diary, March 13, 1953; GFK, Memoirs, II, 171; Bohlen, Witness to History, p. 310.

7 Kuhn, “Dulles Policy ‘Dangerous,’ Kennan Says,” Washington Post, January 17, 1953; GFK, Memoirs, II, 174–75; GFK to Matthews, January 18, 1953, copy in GFK Diary, March 13, 1953. The Scranton speech is in GFK Papers, 252:10.

8 GFK, Memoirs, II, 175–76; State Department press conference transcript, January 23, 1953, GFK Papers, Box 252:10; GFK to Jacob Beam, January 25, 1953, ibid., 4:11 GFK to John McSweeney, February 11, 1953, ibid., 139:1–3.

9 ASK to JKH, January 19, 1953, JKH to GFK and ASK, January 19, 1953; GFK to ASK, February 3, 1953, all in JEK Papers.

10 GFK Diary, March 13, 1953; William H. Lawrence, “Dulles Expected to Retire Kennan, Considered Top Expert on Soviet,” New York Times, March 13, 1953.

11 GFK to Oppenheimer, March 15, 1953, Oppenheimer Papers, Box 43; GFK interview, August 26, 1982, pp. 12–13; GFK, Memoirs, II, 176–77, 180. The latter page misdates the meeting as March 14. See also GFK’s retrospective diary account, dated April 6, 1953.

12 Robert J. Ryan memorandum on GFK’s retirement, June 17, 1953, DSR-DF 1950–54, Box 608, “123 Kennan” folder; GFK to Acheson, April 28, 1953, Acheson Papers, 17:222, Yale University; GFK Diary, July 29, 1953; GFK, Memoirs, II, 178, 181, 187–89. GFK mistakenly gives the month here as June.

13 Joseph Alsop and Stewart Alsop, “Kennan’s Insight Will Be Missed,” Washington Post, April 12, 1953; “Who’s On Second?” Chicago Sun-Times, April 15, 1953. For the Bohlen controversy, see his Witness to History, pp. 309–36; and Ruddy, Cautious Diplomat, pp. 109–24. Ferguson’s comment is in GFK, Memoirs, II, 180–81; see also the GFK Diary, April 6, 1953.

14 Eisenhower to Walter Mallory, March 4, 1950, and to GFK, November 3 and December 12, 1950, in Chandler et al., Eisenhower Papers, XI, 1000, 1403–4, 1474; also the transcript of GFK’s Air War College lecture, April 10, 1947, GFK Papers, 298:32; GFK to George S. Franklin, February 2, 1949, ibid.; and GFK to Acheson, November 24, 1950, Acheson Papers, Box 32, Truman Library.

15 GFK interview, August 26, 1982, pp. 12–13.

16 Bowie interview, December 10, 1987, pp. 1–4, 8–9, 15; Berlin interview, pp. 11, 17; William P. Bundy interview, December 6, 1987, p. 7.

17 Hughes to Adams, July 2, 1953, Eisenhower to GFK, July 8, 1953, GFK to Eisenhower, July 24, 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower Papers, White House Central File: Subject Series, Confidential File, Box 67, Department of State Folder 9 (courtesy of Melvyn P. Leffler). See also Hughes, Ordeal of Power, p. 120n. For the origins of Project Solarium, see Bowie and Immerman, Waging Peace, pp. 123–27.

18 GFK comments at the Princeton University John Foster Dulles Centennial Conference, February 27, 1988, in Pickett, Kennan and the Origins of Eisenhower’s New Look, pp. 17–19. See also GFK Diary, June 1, 1953.

19 “A Report to the National Security Council by Task Force ‘A’ of Project Solarium,” July 16, 1953, pp. 13–14, 18, 22, 24, 57, Eisenhower Papers, NSC Series, Subject Subseries, Records of the White House Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs.

20 GFK, Memoirs, II, 182; GFK comments at Dulles conference, February 27, 1988, in Pickett, Kennan and the Origins of Eisenhower’s New Look, pp. 19–20.

21 For an extended comparison of GFK’s thinking with that of Eisenhower and Dulles, see Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, pp. 125–96; also Immerman, Dulles and Diplomacy of the Cold War, p. 263.

22 Oppenheimer to GFK, October 6, 1952, GFK to Oppenheimer (telegram and letter), October 14, 1952, Oppenheimer to GFK, March 13, 1953, Oppenheimer Papers, Box 43.

23 GFK to Harry D. Gideonse, May 5, 1953, GFK Papers, 139:1–3; GFK to Harold Dodds, May 1, 1953, GFK Papers, 11:10; GFK Diary, April 6, 28, and June 1, 1953.

24 GFK to Dodds, May 1, 1953, GFK Papers, 11:10.

25 GFK, “Training for Statesmanship,” Atlantic Monthly 191 (May 1953), 40–43; GFK Notre Dame speech, May 15, 1953, GFK Papers, 252:13. See also GFK, Memoirs, II, 224–26; and, for press coverage, “Kennan Upbraids Anti-Red Zealots,” New York Times, May 16, 1953. For the social scientists’ skepticism about GFK, see Engerman, Know Your Enemy, p. 3.

26 GFK address at the Joint Memorial Celebration of the Emmanuel Evangelical-Reformed and the St. John Lutheran Churches of Hampton, Reading Township, Adams County, May 27, 1953, GFK Papers, 300:24. I have compressed this talk to convey its structure within limited space.

27 GFK Diary, August 18, 1953. GFK’s SAIS seminar outlines are in GFK Papers, 300:27.

28 GFK Diary August 18, 20, 31, 1953. GFK, Memoirs, II, 4–5, 187–89, confuses the dates of these episodes, an error repeated in Sketches from a Life, pp. 158–60.

29 GFK Diary, August 21, 1953. Kennan had obviously read Reinhold Niebuhr by this time, probably Moral Man and Immoral Society.

30 GFK address, “Basic Problems in the American Approach to Foreign Policy,” Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, October 5, 1953, GFK Papers, 300:28.

31 GFK Laymen’s Sunday sermon, First Presbyterian Church, Princeton, N.J., October 18, 1953, ibid., 253:7.

32 GFK Diary, October 28 and November 9, 1953, GFK Papers.

33 GFK address to Student Christian Association conference, Princeton University, December 6, 1953, ibid., 253:11.

34 GFK, Realities of American Foreign Policy, p. vii.

35 Ibid., especially pp. 29–30, 53, 84–85, 93–94, 102, 111–12, 118–19. GFK first used this horticultural metaphor, as noted in Chapter Five, above, in 1935. It’s strikingly similar to one his fellow farmer Acheson frequently employed. See Beisner, Dean Acheson, p. 92.

36 GFK draft letter to Herbert Brownell, September 6, 1953, GFK Papers, 139:1–3; GFK notes on conversation with Robert Murphy, November 25, 1953, ibid., 253:12; Davies interview, December 8, 1982, p. 14. See also GFK’s extended account in his Memoirs, II, 200–214.

37 Ibid., pp. 214–18, 228. The Oppenheimer case and the long series of events that led up to it are discussed thoroughly in Bird and Sherwin, American Prometheus, and in Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb.

38 D. M. Ladd to Hoover, March 28, 1951; Ladd to A. H. Belmont, April 2, 1952; GFK to Hoover, October 20, 1953; Hoover to GFK, October 22, 1953, all in GFK’s FBI file, 62-81548, GFK Papers, 181:3–6. The extensive but heavily sanitized exchanges on disloyalty allegations are also in this file.

39 See GFK’s testimony on April 20, 1954, in U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, pp. 354–55, 364; also his Woodrow Wilson School address of October 5, 1953, GFK Papers, 300:28.

40 GFK handwritten remarks, February 11, 1954, GFK Papers, 300:33.

41 “Kennan Will Run for House Seat,” New York Times, March 14, 1954. See also GFK, Memoirs, II, 77–78; and GFK interview, September 8, 1983, p. 15.

42 Ibid., pp. 16–17; GFK to Wasson, March 23, 1954, GFK Papers, 51:2; Rusk interview, pp. 6–7; “Kennan Bows Out of Congress Race,” New York Times, March 18, 1954.

43 MacMurray to GFK, March 27, 1954, GFK Papers, 138:6–7; JKH interview, p. 27; GFK interview, September 8, 1983, p. 16; Black interview, p. 11; Dilworth interview, p. 7; Berlin interview, pp. 29–30.

44 U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, pp. 356–57, 368–69.

45 GFK, Memoirs, II, 21. See also Bird and Sherwin, American Prometheus, pp. 538–50.

46 GFK Diary, June 11–July 30, 1954. See also U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 369.

47 GFK Diary, July 8, 1954, January 3, 16, 1955.

48 GFK to KWK, December 25, 1953, JEK Papers.

49 GFK handwritten notes for National Archives talk, October 27, 1954, GFK Papers, 300:34. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 32–33; and Chapters Five and Six, above.

50 GFK Diary, December 30, 1954, January 8, 1956; GFK American Historical Association lecture, “The Experience of Writing History,” December 29, 1959, GFK Papers, 259:7, later published under the same title in the Virginia Historical Review 36 (Spring, 1960), 205–14.

51 GFK Diary, August 20, 1956, GFK Papers, 233:4.

TWENTY ● A RARE POSSIBILITY OF USEFULNESS: 1955–1958

1 GFK Diary, December 29, 1954; Black interview, p. 3.

2 Dilworth interview, December 6, 1987, p. 10. For a useful analysis of Oppenheimer’s relations with his board and faculty, see Bird and Sherwin, American Prometheus, pp. 382–90; also Mark Wolverton, Life in Twilight.

3 This paragraph relies on Oppenheimer’s summary of the two schools’ position for the Institute Board of Trustees meeting, November 15, 1955, Strauss Papers, IAS Files, Box 109. (This and the following citations from the Strauss Papers are courtesy of Craig Wright.)

4 The letters, written between March and October 1955, are in Von Neumann to Strauss, November 14, 1955, Strauss Papers, IAS Files, Box 109.

5 Minutes, Board of Trustees meeting, November 15, 1955, ibid.; Sidney A. Mitchell to Oppenheimer, June 6, 1956, ibid.; Erica Mosner, Institute for Advanced Study Archives, to JLG, November 9, 2010.

6 GFK Diary, January 30 and February 1, 1955; GFK interview by Labalme, August 30, 1989, p. 15; GFK, Memoirs, II, 15.

7 Link interview, p. 2; Hessman interview, pp. 12–13; GFK interview, September 8, 1983, p. 9.

8 Link interview, p. 2; GFK, Memoirs, II, 16–17. See also GFK to Kantorowicz, January 31, 1957, GFK Papers, 138:2.

9 GFK Diary, March 6 and 10, 1955; Harrison Salisbury, “When Russia’s Revolution Was Young,” New York Times Book Review, August 26, 1956, pp. 1, 18; GFK to Acheson, September 5, 1956, Acheson Papers, 17:222, Yale University.

10 Barghoorn in Political Science Quarterly 72 (June 1957), 306–8; Perkins in American Historical Review 62 (January 1957), 367–68; GFK to Butterfield, December 17, 1956, GFK Papers, 53; GFK, Russia Leaves the War, pp. 3, 29, 64.

11 Williams in Wisconsin Magazine of History 40 (Winter 1956–57), 133. See also his Tragedy of American Diplomacy.

12 GFK remarks at National Book Award ceremony, March 12, 1957, GFK Papers, 301:9. The actual line, from Henry V, Act IV, Scene 1, is “That we should dress us fairly for our end.” See Chapter Eleven for another use of it.

13 GFK Diary, May 6 and 23, 1957; Link interview, September 8, 1983, p. 5.

14 GFK Diary, December 26, 1955, January 21, 1956.

15 Dilworth interview, pp. 1–2; GFK Diary, September 21, 23, 1956.

16 Ibid., January 3, 30, February 1, March 19, 23, 1955; Dilworth interview, p. 8.

17 GFK Diary, March 15, 20, 25, 1955.

18 Ibid., February 29, August 5, 1956.

19 Ibid., January 27, 1956; GFK to Stevenson, March 28, 1956, GFK Papers, 53; GFK address to the Princeton Stevenson for President Committee, April 30, 1956, ibid., 301:2. See also New York Times, January 31, 1956.

20 GFK speech to the Pittsburgh Foreign Policy Association, May 3, 1956, GFK Papers, 255:10; James Reston, “‘Style’ in Foreign Policy,” and Richard J. H. Johnson, “Old Pros Heading Stevenson Staff,” both in New York Times, May 7, 1956; Machrowicz to Stevenson, May 10, 1956, Stevenson to Machrowicz, May 26, 1956, both in “Stevenson Says Kennan Doesn’t Speak for Him,” U.S. News & World Report, June 29, 1956, p. 78. See also New York Times, June 9, 1956.

21 Sulzberger Diary, August 1, 1956, in Sulzberger, Last of the Giants, p. 309; GFK Diary, August 20, 23, 26, 1956.

22 William P. Bundy interview, pp. 15–16; GFK to Maury, April 12, 1954, GFK Papers, 138. GFK later described his post–State Department CIA connections in a letter to KWK, November 11, 1996, ibid., 24:8.

23 Grose, Gentleman Spy, pp. 424–26; Frank Wisner to Allen Dulles, May 8, 1956, and to Robert Murphy, July 4, 1956, in FRUS: 1955–57, XXIV, 96–98, 125–27; GFK handwritten “Comment,” undated, GFK Papers, 301:4.

24 Sulzberger Diary, August 1, 1956, in Sulzberger, The Last of the Giants, p. 315; GFK lecture at Johns Hopkins University, October 17, 1956, GFK Papers, 301:6.

25 GFK October 11, 1956, testimony, U. S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy and Mutual Security, pp. 170–71; GFK Diary, October 22, 1956; William C. Bullitt, “What Should We Do About Russia?” U.S. News & World Report, June 29, 1956, p. 71. The Gibbon quotation is in Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, III, 49.

26 GFK to Brainard Cheney, October 29, 1956, GFK Papers, 138; Kennan-Maury telephone transcript, November 1, 1956, GFK Diary. For recent accounts of the Polish, Hungarian, and Suez crises, see the essays by Csaba Békés and Douglas Little in Leffler and Westad, Cambridge History of the Cold War.

27 GFK Diary, November 7 and 11, 1956.

28 GFK to Henderson, June 1, 1955, Henderson to GFK, June 18, 1955, Henderson Papers, Box 2, Folder “K”; GFK to Frank Aydelotte, February 24, 1955, Aydelotte to GFK, February 27, 1955, GFK Papers, 138:5. A brief history of the professorship and a list of its occupants appear in American Oxonian 87 (Summer 2000), 88–89.

29 GFK to Kallin, June 29, 1957, GFK Papers, 54:3; GFK, Memoirs, II, 230–31; GFK to KWK, July 20, 1957, JEK Papers.

30 GFK Diary, July 28 and August 28, 1957; GFK, Russia, the Atom and the West, p. vii.

31 GFK Diary, August 28, and September 7, 1957; GFK, Memoirs, II, 232–33, 262–63; ASK to JKH, September 24, 1957, JEK Papers.

32 Berlin interview, p. 20; GFK interview by Labalme, February 27, 1990; GFK to Oppenheimer, October 24, 1957, Oppenheimer Papers, Box 43. See also, on Michaelmas influenza, Gaddis, We Now Know, p. vii.

33 Ullman interview, September 30, 1987, pp. 3–5, 8; GFK, Memoirs, II, 231–32; GFK interview, August 25, 1982, p. 2; Von Oppen interview, August 27, 1982, p. 1.

34 GFK, Memoirs, II, 232–34; GFK interview, August 25, 1982, p. 2.

35 New York Times, November 11, 18, 25, December 2, 16, 1957; Washington Post, December 2, 16, 1957.

36 GFK Reith Lecture on “The Military Problem,” December 2, 1957, in GFK, Russia, the Atom and the West, pp. 64–65.

37 Von Oppen interview, p. 2.

38 Dulles news conference, December 10, 1957, in New York Times, December 11, 1957.

39 C. Burke Elbrick memorandum, Eisenhower-Adenauer conversation, December 17, 1957, in FRUS: 1955–57, XXVI, 346–7.

40 Transcript, BBC symposium, December 20, 1957, GFK Papers, 257:7; GFK Diary, December 22, 1957. For Kennan’s earlier pronouncements on “trust,” see Chapter Eleven, above.

41 GFK Diary, December 28, 1957–January 5, 1958.

42 Acheson statement in The New York Times, January 12, 1958.

43 Schlesinger interview, December 17, 1983, p. 2; Christopher Emmet to Acheson, December 24, 1957, Acheson to Emmet, December 30, 1957, Acheson Papers, 9:123, Yale University. See also Thompson, Hawk and the Dove, p. 168, and, on the Council’s role, Brinkley, Dean Acheson, pp. 79–80.

44 “Kennan in the Cold,” Washington Post, January 14, 1958; Dulles to Acheson, January 13, 1958, Acheson Papers, 9:111, Yale University. See also Washington Post, January 13, 1958; New York Times, January 22, 1958; and Brinkley, Dean Acheson, pp. 83–84.

45 William Hard to Acheson, January 14, 1958, Anne Hard to Acheson, February 20, 1958, Acheson to Anne Hard, March 4, 1958, Acheson Papers, 15:192, Yale University.

46 GFK to Dorothy Hessman, copy to Oppenheimer, January 16, 1958, Oppenheimer Papers, Box 43; GFK Diary, January 12 and 21, 1958.

47 GFK, Memoirs, II, 250–51; ASK to JKH, January 13, 1958, JEK Papers; GFK Diary, January 21, 1958. The transcript of the Congress for Cultural Freedom discussion, which took place on January 18, 1958, is ibid., 257:10. Paul Nitze later claimed, in a memorandum dictated in July 1982 (Nitze Papers, 29:5), in an interview with me on December 13, 1989, and in a subsequent book, Tension Between Opposites, p. 131, to have been asked by Acheson to meet Kennan in Geneva and seek a recantation. Kennan adamantly denied that any such meeting had taken place (GFK to JLG, October 1, 1993, JLG Papers), and his diary for this period, which is comprehensive, contains no mention of it.

48 GFK Diary, January 21–February 2, 1958; ASK to JKH, February 3, 1958, JEK Papers.

49 Ullman interview, pp. 6–7; Harsch to Acheson, January 28, 1958, Acheson to Harsch, February 4, 1958, Harsch to Acheson, February 12, 1958, Acheson Papers, 15:194, Yale University; Acheson to William Tyler, February 25, 1958, ibid., 31:404.

50 Tyler to Acheson, March 4, 1958, ibid.; Acheson to Jessup, March 25, 1958, ibid., 15:12.

51 Kennedy to GFK, February 13, 1958, GFK to Kennedy, February 19, 1958, John F. Kennedy Papers, PPP: Senate Files, Legislation Files 1958, Foreign Policy: General, Box 691.

52 Jacqueline Kennedy to Acheson, undated, Acheson to Jacqueline Kennedy, March 8, 1958, Acheson Papers, 18:223, Yale University; Acheson to Louis Halle, March 10, 1958, ibid., 15:189; Acheson to GFK, March 13, 1958, ibid., 17:222. See also McLellan and Acheson, Among Friends, p. 137n.

53 GFK to Acheson, March 20, 1958, Acheson Papers, 15:212, Yale University.

54 Acheson to Burlingham, March 25, 1958, ibid., 4:53.

55 Mary Bundy interview, pp. 5, 12; GFK interview, September 8, 1983, pp. 5–6; GFK, Russia, the Atom and the West, p. 86.

56 GFK, Memoirs, II, 253–54; GFK interview, September 4, 1984, p. 19.

57 Franks interview, p. 24.

58 ASK to JKH, February 3, 1958, JEK Papers; Von Oppen interview, p. 1; GFK Diary, February 2, 3, 1958; GFK to Kantorowicz, March 13, 1958, GFK Papers, 138:1.

59 GFK Diary, March 28, April 9, 10, 11, 1958.

60 Ibid., May 15, 1958; Holmes to R. A. D. Ford, May 30, 1958, Holmes Papers, D/II/3/a. I am indebted to Jack Cunningham for this reference.

61 GFK Diary, May 15, 1958. Kennan’s notes for this talk are in GFK Papers, 301:22.

62 GFK Diary, May 27, 1958. Kennan garbled Goethe somewhat. The original quotation, from Act II of Faust, is “Bedenkt; der Teufel der ist alt, / So werdet alt ihn zu verstehen!” And I have of course dramatized this diary entry slightly.

TWENTY-ONE ● KENNEDY AND YUGOSLAVIA: 1958–1963

1 GFK Diary, June 21, 1958; GFK to KWK, July 19, 1958, JEK Papers.

2 GFK Diary, June 27–July 3, 1958.

3 Dulles to Andrew Goodpaster, August 3, 1958, Eisenhower Papers, Whitman DDE Diary, Box 22, “August 1958—Staff Notes (3)” folder. The memorandum is in FRUS: 1958–60, X, 129–33.

4 GFK Diary, July 25–August 2, 1958.

5 Ibid., August 5–September 10, 1958. The interview appeared in the Harrisburg Patriot-News on September 7, 1958.

6 “Minority Diplomat,” New York Times, November 18, 1957; “Newsman Fiance of Grace Kennan,” ibid., January 5, 1958; ASK to JKH, January 13, 1958, JEK Papers; GFK Diary, May 27, 1958; ASK to Frieda Por, November 27, 1958, JEK Papers.

7 “Krisha” to JEK, undated, JEK Papers. Joan’s engagement announcement appeared in The New York Times, September 7, 1958.

8 “George F. Kennan Assays Quemoy: Sees ‘Excessive Commitment’ to Chiang’s ‘Fortunes,’” New York Herald Tribune, September 21, 1958; GFK “Points for New Leader Meeting,” September 25, 1958, GFK Papers, 301:23; GFK Diary, December 25, 1958, and March 29, 1959. GFK’s reading notes on Kissinger and Niebuhr are appended to his 1958 Diary.

9 Ibid., May 17, 1959.

10 Chalmers M. Roberts, “German Policy Change Denied,” Washington Post, January 23, 1959; GFK Diary, February 6, April 13, and July [misdated June] 17, 1959.

11 John F. Kennedy to GFK, January 21, 1959, copy in GFK Oral History, John F. Kennedy Library; Schlesinger interview, p. 3; GFK to ASK, July 4, 1959, JEK Papers. See also GFK, “Disengagement Revisited,” Foreign Affairs 37 (January 1959), 187–210.

12 GFK Diary, July [misdated June] 17–18, 1959.

13 GFK to Berlin, March 5, 1959, GFK Papers, 5:5.

14 GFK Diary, March 29, 1959.

15 Ibid., April 17, 1959. Who was she? I don’t know.

16 GFK Diary, June 30, 1958.

17 Ibid., September 10, 1959.

18 GFK to ASK, September 22 and 26, 1959, GFK Papers, 24:5.

19 GFK interview by Fischer, March 23, 1965, Oral History Collection, John F. Kennedy Library; Kennedy to GFK, undated, GFK to Kennedy, January 4, 1960, copies ibid. GFK misdates this last exchange, in his Memoirs, II, 268, as having taken place in 1961.

20 GFK Diary, December 13, 1959; GFK Desk Calendar, January 10 and February 25–26, 1960.

21 Ullman interview, p. 5; Pipes, Vixi, p. 102; Yale Daily News, February 15, 1960; GFK to KWK, May 17 and December 30, 1960, JEK Papers. See also GFK, Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin.

22 GFK Diary, July 6–8, 1960; GFK to O’ Shaughnessy, July 30, 1960, ibid. GFK described these summer travels at length in Sketches from a Life, pp. 190–202. His memorandum on his talk with Tito is in FRUS: 1958–60, X, 432–36.

23 GFK to Kennedy, August 17, 1960, copy in GFK Oral History Collection, Kennedy Library.

24 Sorensen to GFK, August 30, 1960, Pre-Presidential Correspondence, Box 469, ibid.; Sulzberger Diary, October 11, 1960, in Sulzberger, Last of the Giants, p. 698; GFK to New York Times, October 12, 1960, and to James Reston, October 19, 1960, GFK Papers, 55.

25 GFK Diary, August 10, 1960, and two undated diary fragments.

26 GFK Desk Calendar, October 27, 1960; Kennedy to GFK, October 30, 1960, copy in GFK Oral History Collection, Kennedy Library; GFK interview by Fischer, p. 135; Alsop, “I’ve Seen the Best of It,” pp. 432–33; ASK to Por, December 26, 1960, JEK Papers; GFK to KWK, December 30, 1960, ibid.

27 GFK Diary, January 2, 1961. GFK expressed himself similarly in a letter to Walter Lippmann, December 28, 1960, Lippmann Papers, Box 81, Folder 1202 (courtesy of Wilson D. Miscamble, C.S.C.).

28 GFK Diary, January 10, 1961; GFK interview by Fischer, pp. 34–35; GFK Desk Calendar, January 10, 1961.

29 Ibid., January 23, 1961; GFK, Memoirs, II, 267; GFK to KWK, February 2, 1961, JEK Papers.

30 GFK interview by Fischer, pp. 55–56; Carlton Savage notes, GFK meeting with the Policy Planning Staff, February 8, 1961, in FRUS: 1961–63, V, 62–63. See also, on the “captive nations” resolution, GFK to McGhee, April 20, 1961, ibid., 56. For the Yugoslavs’ enthusiasm over Kennan’s appointment, see “Yugoslavs Delighted,” New York Times, January 26, 1961, and Foy Kohler to GFK, February 7, 1961, GFK Papers, 26:15.

31 McGeorge Bundy notes, White House discussion, February 11, 1961, in FRUS: 1961–63, V, 63–67; GFK interview by Fischer, p. 42.

32 “Kennan is Backed as Envoy to Tito,” New York Times, March 7, 1961; Rusk to GFK, March 7, 1961, DSR-DF 1960–63, Box 321, “123 Kennan” folder; GFK memorandum, conversation with Kennedy, March 22, 1961, NSF Country Files: Yugoslavia, Box 209A, Kennedy Library.

33 McGeorge Bundy interview, December 17, 1986, p. 3; GFK Desk Calendar, March 22, 1961.

34 Ibid., March 24, 1961. Strunsky’s poem is in GFK Papers, 46:12.

35 GFK Desk Calendar, April 19, 1961; GFK interview by Fischer, p. 55.

36 GFK undated diary fragment, 1961; GFK, Memoirs, II, 269. The Kennans had indeed sailed on the same day, April 24, 1952, but George had arrived in Moscow on May 6.

37 GFK to Grace and Joan Kennan, May 17, 1961, GFK Papers, 325:1.

38 GFK, Memoirs, II, 274–75; Hessman interview, pp. 16, 19.

39 GFK memorandum of conversation with Tito, July 17, 1961, in FRUS 1961–63, XVI, 191–96. See also GFK’s dispatches of June 8, 1961, and July 31, 1961, ibid., pp. 189–90, 196–99.

40 GFK to McGhee, April 20, 1961, GFK Papers, 56.

41 “Kennedy Appeals on Captive Lands,” New York Times, July 15, 1961; GFK to Bundy, July 19, 1961, NSF Country Files: Yugoslavia, Box 209A, Kennedy Library; Bundy to GFK, July 27, 1961, ibid.; GFK, Memoirs, II, 292–93.

42 GFK to Bundy, July 19, 1961, NSF Country Files: Yugoslavia, Box 209A, Kennedy Library; Bundy to GFK, July 27, 1961, ibid.

43 GFK to ASK, July 20 and August 12, 1961, GFK Papers, 24:5; Rusk to GFK, July 28, 1961, DSR-DF 1960–63, Box 321, “123 Kennan” folder.

44 Schlesinger Diary, August 12, 1961, in Schlesinger, Journals, p. 128; Bundy to Kennedy, August 14, 1961, in FRUS: 1961–63, XIV, 331; White House Diary, August 15, 1961, Kennedy Library; Kennedy to Rusk, August 14, 1961, in FRUS: 1961–63, XIV, 332. See also Schlesinger, Thousand Days, p. 397; and Beschloss, Crisis Years, p. 275.

45 McGeorge Bundy interview, p. 2. See also Brinkley, Dean Acheson, pp. 148–53; and Trachtenberg, Constructed Peace, pp. 325–27.

46 GFK to Bundy, August 15, 1961, NSF Country Files: Yugoslavia, Box 209A, Kennedy Library; GFK to Oppenheimer, September 21, 1961, Oppenheimer Papers, Box 43.

47 Rusk to GFK, August 14, 1961, DSR-DF 1960–63, 762.00/8-1461; GFK interview by Fischer, p. 120.

48 GFK to Rusk, August 31, 1961, NSF Country Files: Yugoslavia, Box 211A, Kennedy Library.

49 GFK to Rusk, September 2, 4, 1961, ibid. Kennan’s translation of Yepishev’s memorandum, completed on September 5, reached the State Department on September 16 and was immediately forwarded to the White House.

50 GFK to Rusk, September 4, 1961, NSF Country Files: Yugoslavia, Box 211A, Kennedy Library; Rusk to GFK, September 5, 1961, in FRUS: 1961–63, XXIV, 402.

51 GFK interview by Fischer, pp. 122–23; GFK to Chester Bowles, September 22, 1961, in FRUS: 1961–63, XIV, 436–37.

52 Khrushchev to Kennedy, September 29, 1961, ibid., VI, 33–34.

53 GFK interview by Fischer, pp. 122–23; memorandum, Harriman-Khrushchev conversation, June 23, 1959, in FRUS: 1958–60, X, 276; Schlesinger interview, p. 3. See also Bird, Color of Truth, pp. 211–12.

54 Schlesinger to Kennedy, August 3, 1961, NSF Country Files, Yugoslavia, Box 209A, Kennedy Library.

55 GFK to State Department, September 3, 1961, in FRUS: 1961–63, XVI, 202; William P. Bundy interview, p. 6; GFK interview by Fischer, p. 66. For Tito’s assurances, see GFK’s dispatch of July 17, 1961, ibid.,192. Excerpts from Tito’s speech appeared in The New York Times, September 4, 1961.

56 GFK interview by Fischer, pp. 53, 63, 71–72; GFK to State Department, September 15, 1961, in FRUS: 1961–63, XVI, 206; Ball interview, October 12, 1987, p. 2; William P. Bundy interview, p. 7; Raymond E. Lisle to State Department, in FRUS: 1961–63, XVI, 209; Kennedy to GFK, October 11, 1961, ibid., p. 211.

57 GFK to David Riesman, October 3, 1961, and to Hamilton Fish Armstrong, November 2, 1961, GFK Papers, 56; Paul Underwood, “Belgrade Impressed by Kennan, But Finds Him a Tough Envoy,” New York Times, January 5, 1962.

58 GFK to Oppenheimer, December 8, 1961, Oppenheimer Papers, Box 43, “Kennan” folder.

59 Lucius D. Battle to McGeorge Bundy, January 5, 1962, NSF Country Files: Yugoslavia, Box 210, Kennedy Library; National Security Action Memorandum 123, “Policy Toward Yugoslavia,” January 15, 1961, in FRUS: 1961–63, XVI, 255–56; GFK to ASK, January 12, 1962, GFK Papers, 24:5.

60 Schlesinger Diary, March 31, 1962, in Schlesinger, Journals, pp. 149–50. For GFK’s brief, completed on January 15, 1962, see NSF Country Files: Yugoslavia, Box 210, Kennedy Library. Rusk’s February 5 statement is in Department of State Bulletin 46 (February 26, 1962), 346–48. GFK’s report on the Yugoslav reaction, sent on February 14, is in FRUS: 1961–63, XVI, 257–58.

61 Komer to Bundy, May 25, 1962, NSF: Meetings and Memoranda: Staff Memoranda: Robert W. Komer, Box 322, Kennedy Library; Bundy to GFK, May 8, 1962, NSF Country Files: Yugoslavia, Box 210, ibid.

62 Memorandum, Kennedy-Popović conversation, May 29, 1962, in FRUS: 1961–63, XVI, 266–70.

63 GFK interview by Fischer, pp. 46–50; GFK to Kennedy and Rusk, May 31, 1962, NSF Country Files: Yugoslavia, Box 210, Kennedy Library.

64 GFK to Bundy, May 15, 1962, and Bundy to GFK, May 16, 1962, NSF Country Files: Yugoslavia, Box 210, Kennedy Library; GFK to ASK, May 31, 1962, GFK Papers, 24:5; GFK Desk Calendar, June 1, 1962.

65 “Senate Bans Aid to Red Nations; Rebuffs Kennedy,” New York Times, June 7, 1962; “Aid Bill Voted by Senate: Red-Bloc Ban is Modified,” ibid., June 8, 1962; James Reston, “Greatest Deliberative Body in the World,” ibid., June 8, 1962; GFK to State Department, June 11, 1962, NSF Country Files: Yugoslavia, Box 210, Kennedy Library.

66 Max Frankel, “U.S. Envoys Warn on Cuts in Red Aid,” New York Times, June 15, 1962; GFK to State Department, June 11, 1962, NSF Country Files: Yugoslavia, Box 210; “Kennan Leaves Belgrade,” New York Times, June 24, 1962. See also GFK, Memoirs, II, 300.

67 GFK to ASK, July 3, 5, 8 and 10, 1962, GFK Papers, 24:5. See also GFK Desk Diary, July 2–10, 1962; also GFK, “U.S. Shouldn’t Slam Door on Yugoslavia,” Washington Post, July 8, 1962.

68 GFK interview by Fischer, pp. 71–72, 76–77.

69 “Conferees Grant Kennedy Leeway to Aid Red Lands,” New York Times, July 19, 1962; GFK interview by Fischer, pp. 86–89; GFK, Memoirs, II, 303–5; GFK Desk Diary, September 27, 1962.

70 GFK to Kennedy and Rusk, October 5, 1962, Bundy to GFK, October 5, 1962, Kennedy to GFK, October 9, 1962, all in NSF Country Files: Yugoslavia, Box 210, Kennedy Library; GFK interview by Fischer, pp. 92–93.

71 “Trade Act Signed, Also Postal Bill,” New York Times, October 12, 1962; Bundy to GFK, October 11, 1962, NSF Country Files: Yugoslavia, Box 210, Kennedy Library; GFK Desk Diary, October 14, 1962.

72 GFK to State Department and American Embassy, Moscow, September 13, 1962, NSF Country Files: Cuba, Box 39, Kennedy Library; GFK and ASK to JEK, October 23, 1962, JEK Papers.

73 GFK interview by Fischer, pp. 110, 124.

74 GFK to State Department, November 28, 1962, in FRUS: 1961–63, XVI, 292–309.

75 Bundy to Kennedy, December 13, 1962, ibid., pp. 309–10; GFK to State Department, December 13, 1962, and January 3, 1963, ibid., pp. 310–13, 315–19.

76 Klein to Bundy, January 4, 1963, NSF Country Files: Yugoslavia, Box 210A, Kennedy Library.

77 GFK to ASK, January 10, 1963, GFK Papers, 24:5; GFK memorandum, conversation with Kennedy, January 16, 1963, in FRUS: 1961–63, XVI, 326–27; Kennedy press conference, January 24, 1963, Public Papers of the Presidents: John F. Kennedy, 1963, Document 35.

78 GFK to State Department, January 30, 1963, in FRUS: 1961–61, XVI, 332–34.

79 GFK Desk Diary, February 5–11, 1963; GFK to Lippmann, February 8, 1963, ibid., 56; GFK to Davies, February 19, 1963, ibid., 10:12.

80 White House press release, May 17, 1963, ibid., 57; Schlesinger interview, p. 5; GFK interview by Fischer, pp. 83–84, 94–95, 111–16.

81 Ibid., pp. 67–70; GFK, Memoirs, II, 278–80.

82 Jones Diary, undated but pp. 62–63, Owen T. Jones Papers, Box 6, “August 18—December 31, 1962” folder (courtesy of Sam Rushay).

83 GFK Diary, May 31, 1963.

84 GFK Desk Diary, June 2, 6, 1963.

85 GFK Diary, June 1, 8, 1963.

86 GFK Desk Diary, June 9–22, 1963.

87 GFK, Memoirs, II, 311–12.

88 Ibid., pp. 313–14; GFK notes on Tito visit, October 16, 1963, GFK Papers, 235:4.

89 “Tito’s Whirlwind White House Visit Marked by Meetings and Protests,” New York Times, October 18, 1963; memorandum, Kennedy-Tito conversation, October 17, 1963, in FRUS: 1961–63, XVI, 355–59.

90 GFK, Memoirs, II, 314–15; GFK to Kennedy, October 22, 1963, GFK Papers, 57. The New York Times covered the anti-Tito protests in a series of stories on October 21, 22, and 23, 1963.

91 GFK to Kennedy, handwritten, October 22, 1963, PDF Special Correspondence, “Kennan” folder, Kennedy Library; Kennedy to GFK, October 28, 1963, GFK Papers, 26:5; GFK interview by Fischer, p. 106.

TWENTY-TWO ● COUNTER-CULTURAL CRITIC: 1963–1968

1 J. Robert Moskin, “Our Foreign Policy Is Paralyzed,” Look 27 (November 19, 1963), 25–27.

2 GFK, Memoirs, II, 21; GFK untitled, undated typescript, published as “Sein Tod ist nicht allein Amerikas Tragödie,” in the Zürich Tages Anzeiger, November 30, 1963.

3 GFK interview by Fischer, pp. 115–16. I am indebted to my research assistant Andrew Scott for compiling the number of meetings, based on Kennedy Library records.

4 GFK to Oppenheimer, November 16, 1962, GFK Papers, 56.

5 Oppenheimer to GFK, December 4, 1962, Oppenheimer Papers, Box 43.

6 GFK to KWK, February 8, 1963, JEK Papers; GFK interview by Labalme, August 30, 1989, p. 14; White House Press Release, May 17, 1963, GFK Papers, 57.

7 Hessman interview, pp. 1, 17; Goodman interview, December 10, 1987, pp. 1–4, 7, 15, 30. See also “Kennan Leaves Belgrade and Retires,” New York Times, July 29, 1963.

8 GFK to KWK, February 8, 1963, JEK Papers; Princeton University press release, November 13, 1963 (courtesy of Cyril E. Black); Ullman interview, p. 11; Goodman interview, pp. 29–32; GFK interview by Labalme, February 27, 1990, pp. 19–22; GFK to Richard Challener, handwritten response to letter of May 25, 1970, GFK Papers, 4:12.

9 GFK, On Dealing with the Communist World, pp. viii–ix, 15, 45, 51. See also Constance Moench to Cass Canfield, July 2, 1964, conveying GFK’s intentions regarding the book, GFK Papers, 57.

10 GFK lecture to the International House of Japan, June 19, 1964, published as “The Passing of the Cold War” in its Bulletin 14 (October 1964), 71–72.

11 GFK, “Fresh Look at Our China Policy,” New York Times Magazine, November 22, 1964, pp. 27, 140–47; Moskin, “Our Foreign Policy is Paralyzed,” p. 27.

12 GFK to David Mark, March 12, 1964, GFK Papers, 57.

13 Carlton Savage notes, GFK meeting with the Policy Planning Staff, February 8, 1961, in FRUS: 1961–63, V, 62–63. See also Chapters Thirteen and Sixteen, above.

14 GFK, “Japanese Security and American Policy,” Foreign Affairs 43 (October 1964), 14–28. For evidence that MacArthur did at one time think this, see Gaddis, Long Peace, pp. 79–80.

15 William P. Bundy interview, pp. 21–23; GFK to Chihiro Hosoya, December 15, 1964, GFK Papers, 21:3. Bundy’s address, delivered in Tokyo on September 29, 1964, is in Department of State Bulletin 51 (October 19, 1964), 534–42.

16 GFK interview, August 26, 1982, p. 10. Millay’s sonnet is “I Being Born a Woman and Distressed.”

17 GFK to Dobrynin, January 28, 1964, Dobrynin to GFK, March 3, 1964, GFK to David Klein, January 13, 1965, GFK Papers, 11:9.

18 GFK Desk Diary, July 6–7, 1964.

19 “Account of Trip from Bergen to Kristiansand,” July 1964, GFK Papers, 236:2.

20 Taplin interview, December 5, 1987, pp. 3, 15; Dilworth interview, p. 2; GFK Diary, July 4, 1976.

21 David Klein to GFK, January 7, 1965, GFK to Klein, January 13, 1965, GFK to Klein, February 1, 1965, GFK Papers, 11:9; GFK interviews, August 26, 1982, p. 10, and September 4, 1984, pp. 1–2.

22 GFK Desk Diary, June 21–29, 1965; GFK interview, September 4, 1984, p. 2; “Kennan, Once Barred in Soviet, Feted There,” New York Times, June 26, 1965; GFK, Memoirs, I, 281–83; GFK, Decision to Intervene, p. 469; GFK, “History as Literature,” pp. 13–14.

23 GFK Desk Diary, January 20, 1965; GFK interview, September 4, 1984, pp. 12–13.

24 Ibid., p. 12; GFK Desk Diary, May 19, 21, 1965; GFK to Mumford, June 5, 1965, GFK Papers, 149:5.

25 GFK Diary, June 14, 1965. See also Leroy F. Aarons, “Culture is King at Arts Festival; Lowell Controversy Mars Event,” Washington Post, June 15, 1965; President’s Daily Diary, June 14, 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson Library; and, for his own lengthy account, Goldman, Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, pp. 495–563.

26 GFK to Joze Smole, February 15, 1962, GFK Papers, 56; Moskin, “Our Foreign Policy is Paralyzed,” p. 27; GFK, “Passing of the Cold War,” pp. 62, 69–70; GFK to Woodward, March 4, 1965, GFK Papers, 58; GFK to ASK, May 9,1965, ibid., 24:5.

27 Bundy to Johnson, June 26, 1965, in FRUS: 1964–68, III, 52; GFK to Coffin, August 27, 1965, GFK Papers, 58.

28 GFK, “An Authority on Communism Says We’re Letting This One Area Disbalance Whole Policy,” Washington Post, December 12, 1965, pp. E1, E4.

29 GFK to KWK, December 19, 1965, JEK Papers; GFK Desk Diary, February 7–9, 1966.

30 GFK’s testimony is in U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Supplemental Foreign Assistance Fiscal Year 1966—Vietnam, quoted portions at pp. 333, 335–56, 380. See also “Scholarly Diplomat,” New York Times, February 11, 1966; Murrey Marder, “Kennan’s Testimony: A Profound Challenge,” Washington Post, February 11, 1966; Flora Lewis, “CBS News Executive Morale Upset By Issues That Made Friendly Quit,” ibid.; and for the origins of the Fulbright hearings, Woods, Fulbright, pp. 402–5.

31 Fischer to GFK, February 13, 1966, GFK Papers, 13:8; Johnson press conference, February 11, 1966, Public Papers of the Presidents: Johnson, 1966, Document 65; Johnson telephone conversation with U.Alexis Johnson, February 11, 1966, in FRUS: 1964–68, IV, 220–22; notes on White House meeting, February 26, 1966, ibid., p. 261; Reedy to Johnson, February 17, 1966, ibid., pp. 235–37.

32 GFK to Llewellyn Thompson, April 5, 1966, GFK Papers, 59; GFK interview, September 4, 1984, p. 10; Art Buchwald, “Audience Is Live, if TV Isn’t,” Washington Post, February 17, 1966; Woods, Fulbright, pp. 405, 409–10.

33 GFK sermon, “Why Do I Hope?” February 13, 1966, GFK Papers, 264:5.

34 GFK to ASK, May 5, 1965, GFK Papers, 24:5.

35 Mary Bundy interview, p. 35; GFK, “Why Do I Hope?” p. 3; GFK to JKH, January 3, 1931, GFK Papers, 23:10, further quoted in Chapter Three, above; JKH interview, pp. 18, 27; CKB interview, p. 10.

36 Dilworth interview, p. 3; William and Mary Bundy interview, pp. 34–35.

37 ASK interview, August 26, 1982, pp. 8, 16–17.

38 Fosdick interview, p. 2; ASK interview, December 14,1987, p.10; GFK Diary, April 19,1981. See also, for some perceptive psychological speculation on these matters, Harper, American Visions of Europe, pp. 148–54.

39 GFK interview, August 25, 1982, pp. 4–6.

40 GFK Diary, February 13–May 12, 1965, translation by Igor Biryukov.

41 The letter, unfinished, is in the GFK Diary for November 1987 with a note: “evidently written (clearly by myself) at some time in the 1960’s.” GFK showed it to his editor, Ted Weeks, who thought it “searching and excellent,” but it was never published.

42 GFK diary fragment, July 5, 1964 [misdated 1960]; GFK Desk Diary, June 10, 1965 [begun on blank pages running from May 17]. The letters to ASK are in the GFK Papers, 24:5.

43 GFK Desk Diary, January 14, 1965; Gellhorn to Nikki Dobrski, June 14, 1964, in Moorehead, Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn, p. 310; GFK, Memoirs, I, 90–91; GFK to Gellhorn, May 21, 1965, GFK Papers, 16:6. Gellhorn’s many letters are in this file.

44 GFK Diary, September 27, 1959. For Hatzfeldt, see GFK’s dictated 1998 memorandum on their relationship, GFK Papers, 19:10; and GFK to Hatzfeldt, January 10, 1997, ibid.

45 Goodman interview, pp. 8–10; GFK interview, December 13, 1987, pp. 35–37; Alliluyeva, Only One Year, pp. 218–21. I have also relied, here, on the State Department documentation in FRUS: 1964–68, XIV, 462–63, 467–73; and the extensive coverage in The New York Times, especially “Short Cab Ride in India Began Her Odyssey,” April 22, 1967.

46 GFK and ASK interview, December 13, 1987, p. 38; Alliluyeva, Only One Year, pp. 312–13, 327–29; GFK to Louis Fischer, April 24, 1967, GFK Papers, 13:8; JEK to GFK, July 23, 1967, JEK Papers.

47 “Pravda Denounces the U.S. Over Mrs. Alliluyeva,” New York Times, May 27, 1967; also Foy Kohler’s report of a conversation with Yuri N. Tcherniakov, the Soviet chargé d’affaires in Washington, May 31, 1967, in FRUS: 1964–68, XIV, 488–90.

48 Alliluyeva, Only One Year, pp. 435–36; William P. Bundy interview, pp. 17–18.

49 Alliluyeva to GFK, April 28, 1976, GFK Papers, 38:5. Nicholas Thompson first alerted me to this letter in Hawk and the Dove, pp. 257–58.

50 GFK and ASK interview, December 13, 1987, pp. 37, 39; JEK unpublished memoir; Taplin interview, pp. 21–22.

51 Lewis Nichols, “Visit with George Kennan,” New York Times, October 29, 1967. What follows is from GFK’s “Account of Trip to Africa, May–June, 1967,” GFK Papers, 237:1. For Hochschild, see Hochschild, Half the Way Home.

52 GFK to JEK, June 28, 1967, JEK Papers. See also GFK to Dönhoff, March 15, 1965, GFK Papers, 58.

53 GFK “Account of Second African Journey,” ibid., 237:2.

54 GFK to Waldemar Nielsen, October 19, 1967, ibid., 60. See also, for a fuller version of this argument, GFK, “Hazardous Courses in Southern Africa.” Foreign Affairs 49 (January 1971), 218–36

55 GFK interview, September 5, 1984, p. 1; Goodman interview, pp. 20–21; GFK to JEK, June 26, 1967, JEK Papers; GFK to KWK, December 21, 1966, and October 16, 1967, ibid. See also, for an early comment on Cold War revisionist history, GFK to Gar Alperovitz, January 11, 1965, GFK Papers, 58.

56 Nichols, “Visit with George Kennan.”

57 GFK to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., February 17, 1993, handwritten, copy provided by GFK. John Lamberton Harper has emphasized the Adams-Kennan connection in his American Visions of Europe, especially chap. 4. See also, for the suggestion that Kennan was the better writer, Lukacs, Kennan: Study of Character, p. 6.

58 The passages referred to here are in GFK, Memoirs, I, 98–88, 109–12. See also Chapter Seven, above; Thompson, Hawk and the Dove, pp. 237–38; and, for the Ramparts article, Saunders, Cultural Cold War, pp. 381–90.

59 Lukacs, Kennan: Study of Character, p. 44.

60 See D. W. Brogan’s introduction to Adams, Education of Henry Adams, 1946 reprint edition, pp. xi–xii.

61 GFK address, “The Library and the Student Radical,” Swarthmore College, December 9, 1967, GFK Papers, 265:3.

62 GFK interview, September 4, 1984, pp. 13–14; GFK, Democracy and the Student Left. See also “Head of Swarthmore Dies During Protest,” New York Times, January 17, 1969.

63 GFK, Democracy and the Student Left, pp. 121, 124–26, 132–33, 136–37, 140–41, 153–54, 160–63, 190–93, 199, 208.

64 Dilworth interview, p. 1; GFK to William C. Sullivan, October 22, 1968, and December 11, 1970, GFK Papers, 46:17; GFK to J. P. Trinkaus, November 9, 1970, ibid., 52:19.

65 GFK to JEK, November 25, 1967, JEK Papers.

66 GFK Diary, August 19, 1968; ibid., August 5, 1956.

67 GFK “Account of Cruise to Denmark, July 31–August 5, 1968,” quoted in GFK, Sketches from a Life, p. 225; GFK to JEK, August 18, 1968, JEK Papers.

TWENTY-THREE ● PROPHET OF THE APOCALYPSE: 1968–1980

1 GFK memorial service address, February 25, 1967, GFK Papers, 264:10; GFK interview by Labalme, August 30, 1989, p. 3: GFK, Russia, the Atom and the West, p. 50. See also Bird and Sherwin, American Prometheus, pp. 3–5; and “600 at a Service for Oppenheimer,” New York Times, February 26, 1967.

2 GFK interview, September 4, 1984, pp. 21–22; “Global Nuclear Stockpiles, 1945–2006,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 62 (July–August 2006), 66. GFK’s early views on containment are discussed in Chapters Twelve and Thirteen, above.

3 Schlesinger interview, p. 6. Kennan’s elections are reported in The New York Times, January 28, 1965, and December 9, 1967. For the history of the Academy, see its website, at www.artsandletters.org/about_history.php, accessed November 2010.

4 GFK Diary, December 21, 1967; GFK opening address, American Academy of Arts and Letters and National Institute of Arts and Letters, May 28, 1968, GFK Papers, 265:8.

5 GFK Diary, undated but August 1968, also October 4, 1968; Henry Raymont, “Kennan Book Recalls 1938–1939 Crisis,” New York Times, August 25, 1968; “Kennan Decries Talk of Détente,” ibid., September 22, 1968.

6 GFK to JEK, October 31, 1968, JEK Papers.

7 GFK Diary, May 6, 1966, November 7 and December 4, 1968.

8 “Kennan Analysis Coolly Received,” New York Times, December 4, 1968; “A Hit and Myth Gathering of Intellectuals,” ibid., December 8, 1968; Walter Goodman, “Liberal Establishment Faces: The Blacks, The Young, The New Left,” New York Times Magazine, December 29, 1968. Excerpts from Kennan’s speech ran in the December 4, 1968, issue of The New York Times.

9 GFK to JEK, September 21/22, 1968, JEK Papers; GFK interview by Labalme, August 30, 1989, pp. 13–14; George Urban, “From Containment to… Self-Containment: A Conversation with George F. Kennan,” Encounter 47 (September 1976), 43.

10 GFK Diary, March 6 and 29, 1969.

11 GFK to JEK, January 31, 1969, JEK Papers; Crossman Diary, January 31, 1969, in Crossman, Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, pp. 353–54. I owe this reference to Wilson D. Miscamble, C.S.C.

12 GFK, Marquis de Custine, p. 124.

13 GFK, “Interview with George F. Kennan,” conducted by Charles Gati and Richard Ullman, Foreign Policy 7 (Summer 1972), 5–21; GFK Diary, October 12, 1969. See also Bernard Gwertzman, “Kennan Now Advocates Closer Ties with Soviet,” New York Times, May 28, 1972.

14 GFK to Kissinger, September 19, 1973, GFK Papers, 26:11. See also the transcript of a GFK-Kissinger telephone conversation, September 14, 1973, Kissinger Telephone Conversations KA 10845, Digital National Security Archive.

15 “Kennan Decries Talk of Détente,” New York Times, September 22, 1968; GFK, “Between Earth and Hell,” New York Review of Books, March 21, 1974; Robert and Evgenia Tucker interview, September 4, 1984, pp. 11–16.

16 GFK interview, October 31, 1974, pp. 6–7. See also GFK Diary, March 9, 1973. I have discussed the analogies between the Nixon-Kissinger strategy and Kennan’s concept of five vital power centers in Strategies of Containment, pp. 278–79.

17 “Kennan Says ABM Could Peril Talks,” New York Times, February 7, 1970. See also GFK, Nuclear Delusion, pp. xxiii–xxiv.

18 For background on the Helsinki Conference, see Gaddis, Cold War: A New History, pp. 184–88; also, much more thoroughly, Thomas, Helsinki Effect, and Morgan, “Origins of the Helsinki Final Act,” Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 2010.

19 GFK to Patricia Davies, August 9, 1975, GFK Papers, 10:12.

20 GFK, “United States and the Soviet Union, 1917–1976,” Foreign Affairs 54 (July 1976), 686–88; GFK Diary, August 30, 1976; Urban, “Conversation with George F. Kennan,” p. 39; Alliluyeva to GFK, September 21, 1976, GFK Papers, 38:5.

21 Galbraith’s review appeared in The New York Times Book Review, October 8, 1972.

22 GFK interview by Labalme, February 27, 1990, pp. 2–19; Dilworth interview, p. 13; GFK to Edwin O. Reischauer, March 12, 1973, and David Riesman, March 27, 1973, GFK Papers, 149:1. See also, Israel Shenker, “Dispute Splits Advanced Study Institute,” and “Foes at Institute Dig In For a Fight,” New York Times, March 2 and 4, 1973, and, for general background, John H. Elliott interview December 7, 1992. Kaysen’s tenure as Institute director is briefly covered in Regis, Who Got Einstein’s Office?, pp. 202–7.

23 GFK Diary, March 13, 1978; GFK interview, September 5, 1984, pp. 4–7; GFK to Harriman, October 8 and 28, 1972, Harriman Papers, Box 1012.

24 Ullman interview, pp. 19–20.

25 Undated Harriman note; Harriman to GFK, November 3, 1972; GFK to Harriman, November 18, 1972, all in Harriman Papers, Box 1012.

26 GFK to Harriman, December 4, 1975, ibid. On the elder Kennan’s biography of the elder Harriman, see Chapter Nine, above.

27 GFK to Harriman, May 10, 1978, Harriman to GFK, May 22, 1978, ibid.; “Columbia Gets Harriman Gift of $11 Million,” New York Times, October 22, 1982.

28 GFK interview, September 5, 1984, pp. 4, 6; Black interview, p. 28. See also Taplin interview, pp. 28–32. Of course if Kennan, half a century earlier, had followed through on his idea of starting an airborne express company—“I’ll be the Harriman of commercial aeronautics”—the roles might have reversed. Chapter Two provides the context.

29 GFK Diary, January 28, October 12, 1982. See also McGeorge Bundy interview, December 17, 1986, p. 9.

30 GFK to Mimi Bull, September 21, 1971, Bull Papers; GFK to Avis Bohlen, January 20, 1974, GFK Papers, 5:16.

31 “Verses by G. F. Kennan on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday,” February 16, 1974, ibid., 325:5; GFK Diary, January 1, 1975.

32 GFK Diary, January 8, 1975.

33 Ibid., April 24, May 4, 6, 7, 1975.

34 Ibid., May 12, 1975.

35 “Trip to Helsinki,” July 1975, GFK Papers, 24:6.

36 Urban, “Conversation with George F. Kennan,” pp. 10–43; GFK Diary, August 23, 1976. Acheson’s comment, relating to GFK’s 1952 expulsion from the Soviet Union, is in Present at the Creation, p. 697.

37 Thompson, Hawk and the Dove, pp. 1, 247; GFK, “United States and the Soviet Union, 1917–1976,” p. 682; GFK interview, August 26, 1982, p. 3; Nitze, Tension Between Opposites, p. 131. 1.

38 Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost, pp. 353–54; Thompson, Hawk and the Dove, pp. 262–63.

39 GFK Diary, February 3, 1977; GFK, Cloud of Danger, p. vii.

40 Goodman interview, p. 16; GFK to Mimi Bull, September 29, 1977, Bull Papers; Philip Geyelin, “A Grand Design for Peace,” Washington Post, June 26, 1977; GFK, Cloud of Danger, p. 204, also pp. 3–26, 228–234; James Reston, “Kennan on Carter’s Diplomacy,” New York Times, April 3, 1977; GFK Diary, June 30, 1977.

41 The text of Kennan’s November 22 speech appeared in The Washington Post on December 11, 1977.

42 GFK interview, August 26, 1982, p. 3; Nitze interview, p. 15.

43 Marilyn Berger, “An Appeal for Thought” [interview with GFK], New York Times Magazine, May 7, 1978; Paul H. Nitze, “A Plea for Action,” ibid.; GFK to S. Frederick Starr, May 15, 1978, GFK Papers, 155:1. 1.

44 Lee Lescaze, “Solzhenitsyn Says West Is Failing as Model for World,” Washington Post, June 9, 1978; “Diary Notes, Summer, 1978,” p. 13, GFK Papers, 239:4. An abridged text of Solzhenitsyn’s address appeared in The Washington Post two days later.

45 Eugene V. Rostow, “Searching for Kennan’s Grand Design,” Yale Law Review 87 (June 1978), 1527–48.

46 GFK Diary, August 19, 1978; GFK to Reston, November 28, 1978, GFK Papers, 41:9.

47 Thompson, Hawk and the Dove, p. 313. For evaluations of the archival evidence, see Zubok, Failed Empire, pp. 227–64; Ouimet, Rise and Fall of the Brezhnev Doctrine in Soviet Foreign Policy; and Westad, Global Cold War, especially pp. 218–41, 250–88, 299–330.

48 Ullman interview, pp. 13–14.

49 Goodman interview, pp. 17–19; Bull to JLG, May 30, 2002, JLG Papers; Bull diary note, October 1–15, 1972, Bull Papers.

50 GFK interview, September 4, 1984, pp. 3–4; Gennadi Gerasimov, “From Positions of Realism,” Pravda, July 12, 1977.

51 Dilworth interview, p. 13; Goodman interview, pp. 21–24.

52 Black interview, p. 16; Goodman interview, p. 18; GFK Diary, March 28, 1978.

53 Paul M. Kennedy, “Bismarck Bowing Out,” Washington Post Book World, January 6, 1980; Kissinger to GFK, January 10, 1980, GFK Papers, 26:11.

54 GFK to Kissinger, February 2, 1980, ibid.; GFK, Decline of Bismarck’s European Order, pp. 3–7.

55 Black interview, p. 16. For an earlier example of GFK’s detective work, see his “The Sisson Documents,” Journal of Modern History 28 (June 1956), 130–54.

56 Bull diary note, October 1–15, 1972, Bull Papers.

57 Schlesinger Diary, September 28, 1979, in Schlesinger, Journals, p. 474; GFK Diary, September 17, 1979; Thompson, Hawk and the Dove, pp. 273–74. For a detailed account that doesn’t mention Nitze’s role, see Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation, pp. 913–34.

58 Don Oberdorfer, “George Kennan Urges Tougher Stance on Iran,” Washington Post, February 28, 1980; Charles Mohr, “George Kennan Says U.S. Magnifies Soviet Threat,” New York Times, February 28, 1980; James Reston, “Some Hope for the Hostages,” ibid., March 14, 1980; GFK to Harrison Salisbury, December 23, 1968, GFK Papers, 43:2. See also Chapter Twenty-Two, above.

59 GFK undelivered draft speech, December 1979, GFK Papers, 325:7.

60 Durbrow to GFK, October 6, 1980, ibid., 12:10; Durbrow interview, p. 13.

61 GFK to Durbrow, November 10, 1980, GFK Papers, 12:10.

62 GFK Diary, October 2, 1980. The text of the speech is in GFK, Nuclear Delusion, pp. 134–47. The actual figure for the combined American and Soviet nuclear arsenals in 1980 is approximately 54,000. “Global Nuclear Stockpiles, 1945–2006,” p. 66.

TWENTY-FOUR ● A PRECARIOUS VINDICATION: 1980–1990

1 GFK Diary, March 11, 1981 [misdated, in perhaps a Freudian slip, 1891].

2 Ibid. April 17, 1981. 1.

3 The full text of the speech, partially published in Washington Post on May 24, 1981, is in GFK, Nuclear Delusion, pp. 175–82. For the occasion, see Don Oberdorfer, “Kennan Urges Halving of Nuclear Arsenals,” Washington Post, May 20, 1981. 1.

4 Don Oberdorfer, “George Kennan’s 30-Year Nightmare of Our ‘Final Folly,’” ibid., May 24, 1981; Talbott, Master of the Game, p. 165; Barbara Slavin and Milt Freudenheim, “Kennan: Are We Nuclear Lemmings?” New York Times, May 24, 1981. The Rostow testimony, delivered on June 22, 1981, was excerpted in ibid., June 23,1981.

5 Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost, pp. 302, 307–8, 363; Talbott, Master of the Game, pp. 157–59.

6 GFK interview, October 31, 1974, p. 6; GFK Diary, March 22, 1981. 1.

7 Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, p. 352; Cannon, President Reagan, pp. 287–89; Lettow, Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, pp. 3–41, 132–34.

8 Bernard Gwertzman, “U.S. Says It Is Not Bound by 2 Arms Pacts With Soviets,” New York Times, May 20, 1981; GFK, “Denuclearization,” ibid., October 11, 1981; Talbott, Master of the Game, pp. 168–70.

9 Reagan National Press Club Speech, November 18, 1981, Public Papers of the Presidents: Reagan, 1981; “George Kennan Calls on U.S. to View Soviet More Soberly,” New York Times, November 18, 1981; “Adding Up the ‘Zero Option’ Will Take Time,” ibid., November 22, 1981. See also Tom Wicker, “A Voice of Rationality,” ibid., December 1, 1981. GFK’s Dartmouth speech is in Nuclear Delusion, pp. 192–207.

10 GFK to Charles James, November 27, 1980, Douglas James Papers; GFK, “A Risky Equation,” New York Times, February 18, 1981; GFK Diary, February 20, 1981. Reagan’s January 29 press conference is in Public Papers of the Presidents: Reagan, 1981. See also Hayward, Conservative Counterrevolution, p. 97.

11 GFK Diary, March 19, 22, April 16, 1981.

12 Reagan Notre Dame speech, May 17, 1981, in Public Papers of the Presidents: Reagan, 1981.

13 GFK Diary, May 27, 1981.

14 Reagan to John O. Koehler, July 9, 1981, in Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Reagan, p. 375. See also Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, pp. 349–53, and Matlock, Reagan and Gorbachev, pp. 3–26.

15 Pipes, Vixi, p. 193; GFK to Reston, November 28, 1978, GFK Papers, 41:9. For Reagan’s jokes, as well as a summary of what more sophisticated indicators were showing about the Soviet economy, see Hayward, Conservative Counterrevolution, pp. 102–16.

16 GFK,“As the Kremlin Sees It,” New York Times, January 6, 1982; “The Kennan Doctrine,” New York Times, January 10, 1982. See also “George Kennan Says Sanctions Were Hasty,” ibid., January 4, 1982.

17 GFK to Durbrow, January 6, 1982, GFK Papers, 12:10.

18 GFK to Charles James, January 1, 1982, Douglas James Papers; GFK Diary, January 10, 1982.

19 GFK Diary, March 11, July 30, 1982; “139 in Congress Urge Nuclear Arms Freeze by U.S. and Moscow,” New York Times, March 11,1982; GFK interview, September 4,1984, pp. 26–27. Schell’s New Yorker articles became a best-selling book, The Fate of the Earth. For the “freeze,” see Wittner, Toward Nuclear Abolition, pp. 313–15.

20 GFK to Louis Halle, March 7, 1983, GFK Papers, 18:4.

21 Bundy interview, pp. 12–13; Hayward, Conservative Counterrevolution, pp. 240–42.

22 GFK interview, September 4, 1984, pp. 24–25; Bundy interview, p. 13; J. Bryan Hehir to JLG, January 15, 2011, JLG Papers; McGeorge Bundy, George F. Kennan, Robert S. McNamara, and Gerard Smith,“Nuclear Weapons and the Atlantic Alliance,” Foreign Affairs 60 (Spring 1982), 753–68.

23 GFK Diary, April 7, 1982; “U.S. Refuses to Bar Possible First Use of Nuclear Arms,” New York Times, April 7, 1982; “2 Bonn Parties Cool to Ban on First Use of Atom Arms,” ibid., April 10, 1982. Haig’s April 6, 1982, speech is in Department of State Bulletin 82 (May 1982), 31–34.

24 GFK Diary, March 28, May 7, 1982.

25 Reagan’s May 9, 1982, speech is in Public Papers of the Presidents: Reagan, 1982.

26 “Nuclear Weapons and Christian Faith,” in GFK, At a Century’s Ending, pp. 69–71.

27 GFK Diary, February 28, 1980.

28 Ibid., October 1, 1982; Halle memorandum, October 4, 1982, Halle Papers, Box 4, “Correspondence 1964–84—K” folder (courtesy of Wilson D. Miscamble, C.S.C.). See also Halle, Cold War as History.

29 Halle to GFK, February 9, 1983, GFK to Halle, March 7, 1983, GFK Papers, 18:4.

30 NSDD-75, “U.S. Relations with the USSR,” January 17, 1983, at www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/nsdd-075.html. See also, on the drafting of NSDD-75, Pipes, Vixi, pp. 188–202; and on Reagan’s understanding of containment, Matlock, “George F. Kennan,” especially pp. 240–42. Reagan’s broadcasts on NSC-68 are in Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Reagan, In His Own Hand, pp. 109–11.

31 Reagan Diary, February 15, 1983, in Brinkley, ed., Reagan Diaries, p. 198; Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, pp. 163–65.

32 GFK Diary, March 2, 1983.

33 Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, pp. 246–67; Hayward, Conservative Counterrevolution, pp. 288–99. The speeches are in Public Papers of the Presidents: Reagan, 1983.

34 Committee on East-West Accord address, May 17, 1983, in GFK, At a Century’s End, p. 86; Stephen S. Rosenfeld, “Prickly Prophet,” New York Times, May 20, 1983; GFK Diary, May 17, 1983.

35 GFK, “Breaking the Spell,” New Yorker 49 (October 3, 1983); GFK, “Inching Away from the Danger Zone,” Washington Post, October 11, 1983; GFK Diary, September 30, 1983.

36 Lois Romano, “Regrets & Premises: U.S.-Soviet Relations At the Wilson Center,” Washington Post, November 16, 1983.

37 Harriman to GFK, December 1, 1983; GFK to Harriman, December 6, 1983, GFK Papers, 19:3.

38 GFK Diary, January 15, 1984; Matlock to JLG, January 21, 2011, JLG Papers. Matlock did have authorization, but the calls went to all former ambassadors to the Soviet Union, as well as to certain senior academic experts.

39 Reagan Diary, January 6, 1984, in Brinkley, ed., Reagan Diaries, p. 305. The January 16 speech is in Public Papers of the Presidents: Reagan, 1984. Mrs. Reagan’s astrologer also appears to have influenced the timing. See on this, and on the composition of the speech, Matlock, Reagan and Gorbachev, pp. 80–85.

40 GFK Diary, January 29, 1984.

41 Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, pp. 581–98.

42 Reagan Diary, October 10, November 18, December 9, 1983, January 6, 1984, in Brinkley, ed., Reagan Diaries, pp. 273, 290, 297. See also Hayward, Conservative Counterrevolution, pp. 325–32; and Fischer, Reagan Reversal, pp. 120–38.

43 Reagan Diary, January 6, 1984, in Brinkley, ed., Reagan Diaries, p. 305.

44 Matlock, “George F. Kennan,” p. 240; Matlock to JLG, January 21, 2011, JLG Papers.

45 GFK Diary, February 20, March 23, 1984.

46 Dobrynin, In Confidence, pp. 547–48; GFK Diary, August 26, 1984.

47 Ibid., January 26, February 21, 1985.

48 Reagan Diary, March 11 and 16, 1984, in Brinkley, ed., Reagan Diaries, pp. 411, 434, 436; “Succession in Moscow: What the Specialists are Saying; Experts Differ on How Much of an Impact Gorbachev Will Have,” New York Times, March 12, 1985. For Reagan’s attempts to meet Chernenko, see Hayward, Conservative Counterrevolution, pp. 348–50.

49 GFK Diary, April 4, 21, 1985.

50 Ibid., August 24, October 27, 1985; GFK, “First Things First at the Summit,” New York Times, November 3, 1985 (emphasis added). The Norwegian ambassador was Dagfinn Stenseth, and the Houdini reference was from a James Reston column.

51 David Remnick, “The Day of the Soviet Watchers,” Washington Post, November 8, 1985; Walter Pincus, “U.S., Soviets Near Positions for ‘Real Negotiations’ at Summit,” ibid., October 29, 1985; Minutes, Reagan-Gorbachev Second Private Meeting, Geneva, November 19, 1985, at www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB172/Doc19.pdf.

52 GFK Diary, November 27, 1985; GFK to JLG, December 23, 1985, JLG Papers.

53 GFK to Dobrynin, March 9, 1986, GFK Papers, 11:9; GFK Diary, March 12, 1986. See also GFK Diary, October 27, and November 16, 1985, and February 5, 1986.

54 “Summit Aftermath: The View from Moscow,” New York Times, October 15, 1986.

55 GFK Diary, October 15, 1986.

56 GFK to State Department, March 20, 1946, in FRUS: 1946, VI, 773. See also GFK Diary, December 23, 1986.

57 GFK Diary, December 9, 1987, quoted in GFK, Sketches from a Life, pp. 351–52; GFK interview, December 13, 1987, pp. 42–44. See also stories on the reception by Philip Taubman and David Remnick in The New York Times and The Washington Post, respectively, on December 9.

58 GFK to Eugene Hotchkiss, January 18, 1987, courtesy of Eugene Hotchkiss; GFK address, “The Marshall Plan and the Future of Europe,” Berlin, June 25, 1987, GFK Papers, 289:5; GFK Diary, November 26, 1987.

59 GFK Diary, November 30, 1987.

60 Nitze to Halle, November 10, 1983, Nitze Papers, Box 29, Folder 5.

61 I have developed this argument more fully in Strategies of Containment, pp. 349–77.

62 GFK interview, June 10, 1996; also GFK to JLG, September 4, 1996, JLG Papers.

63 GFK Diary, April 3, 1989. See also GFK,“After the Cold War,” New York Times Magazine, February 5, 1989; GFK, “The Last Wise Man,” Atlantic Monthly 263 (April 1989). For the Bush policy review, see David Ignatius, “Life After ‘Containment’—Muddling Through,” Washington Post, April 9, 1989.

64 Mary McGrory, “Kennan—A Prophet Honored,” ibid.; Peter Jenkins, “Vindication of a Western Prophet,” Independent, April 13, 1989. See also Don Oberdorfer, “Revolutionary Epoch Ending in Russia, Kennan Declares,” Washington Post, April 5, 1989.

65 Don Oberdorfer, “Bush Finds Theme of Foreign Policy,” Washington Post, May 28, 1989; William Safire, “On Language: The Man With the Pictures,” New York Times, June 18, 1989. Bush’s May 13 speech is in Public Papers of the Presidents: George Bush, 1989. The conference was held at Ohio University in October 1988.

66 GFK Diary, June 29 and July 4, 1989.

67 Ibid., July 8, 1989; GFK to Eugene Hotchkiss, August 20, 1989, GFK Papers, 23:8.

68 GFK Diary, April 16, May 11, June 2, July 29, and August 7, 1989. See also GFK, Fateful Alliance.

69 GFK Diary, November 14, 15, 1989; GFK, “This Is No Time for Talk of German Reunification,” Washington Post, November 12, 1989.

70 GFK Diary, July 8, November 18, December 3, 1989.

71 Ibid., June 1, 1990.

72 The best recent account is Sarotte, 1989: The Struggle to Create a Post–Cold War Europe.

73 GFK Diary, October 8, 1990.

TWENTY-FIVE ● LAST THINGS: 1991–2005

1 GFK Diary, December 12, 1979.

2 Ibid., June 30, 1980, August 2, 1982, July 25,1982, May 9, 1983. The first George Kennan in fact died on May 10, 1924.

3 GFK Diary, January 10, 13, 1983.

4 Ibid., September 13, 1983.

5 Ullman interview, p. 15. Nitze’s tribute is in his papers, Box 5, Folder 29. See also Thompson, Hawk and the Dove, pp. 1–2.

6 GFK Diary, February 20, 1984.

7 Ibid., March 9, 1984; Christopher Kennan conversation with JLG, April 30, 2010.

8 GFK Diary, June 9, 10, 1983.

9 Ibid., September 24, December 28, 1982, January 13, September 3, 1983; also GFK to Eugene Hotchkiss, December 11, 1984, and September 7, 1987, Eugene Hotchkiss Papers.

10 GFK Diary, July 16, 1983.

11 Ibid., April 29, 1993, March 24, 1994.

12 JLG Diary, June 28–29, 1985, JLG Papers; Goodman interview, p. 16; Dilworth interview, p. 2; GFK Diary, February 5, 1977, July 20, 1979, November 27, 1982, August 7, 1992. The actual passage, from the “Witches’ Kitchen” scene in Faust, has Mephistopheles saying, in Lewis Filmore’s 1847 translation: “If you the means would hold / Without physician, sorcery, or gold, / Betake yourself forthwith into the field, / And hack and dig—the spade and mattock wield.”

13 GFK Diary, October 11, 1982, April 5, 9, 1989.

14 Clinton, My Life, p. 151; Talbott, Russia Hand, pp. 132–34; GFK Diary, October 14, 1994.

15 Ibid., April 4, 8, May 6, 1995.

16 Ibid., October 31, November 5, 1996; Talbott, Russia Hand, pp. 220, 232; George F. Kennan, “A Fateful Error,” New York Times, February 5, 1997.

17 GFK Diary, August 5, 1997. The passage is from Richard II, Act II, Scene 1.

18 GFK Diary, April 7, 1993.

19 Constance Goodman memorandum to GFK, February 11, 1985, GFK to Nancy Bressler, December 20, 1983, copies in JLG Papers.

20 C. Ben Wright, “Mr. ‘X’ and Containment,” Slavic Review 35 (March, 1976), 1–31; “George F. Kennan Replies,” ibid., 32–36; C. Ben Wright to JLG, March 24, 2011, JLG Papers. For a fuller account, see Thompson, The Hawk and the Dove, pp. 254–57. Wright’s dissertation was “George F. Kennan, Scholar-Diplomat: 1926–1946,” University of Wisconsin, 1972.

21 See, for example, GFK Diary, November 27, 1983. The voluminous correspondence relating to the biography is in the GFK Papers, Boxes 14–16.

22 GFK Diary, November 18, 1982, September 17 and November 23, 1986, April 24, 1992; GFK to JLG, December 16, 1986, and April 23, 1992, JLG Papers.

23 GFK to JLG, November 13, 1987, October 1, 1993, May 28, 1997, ibid.; GFK Diary, December 12, 1987, and February 12, 1989.

24 Barton Gellman, Contending with Kennan: Toward a Philosophy of American Power (New York: Praeger, 1984), p. 18.

25 GFK Diary, January 21, February 16, 1981. See also GFK, Around the Cragged Hill, p. 11.

26 GFK to Gellman, March 28, 1983, courtesy of Barton Gellman; GFK to JLG, February 20, 1985, JLG Papers.

27 I am indebted to Richard Ullman for suggesting the Platonic comparison, in a conversation prior to the publication of Around the Cragged Hill.

28 GFK, Around the Cragged Hill, pp. 17–52; GFK Diary, April 28, 1985, July 4, 1995, and May 3, 1998.

29 GFK Diary, January 4, 1995 [misdated 1994].

30 GFK, Around the Cragged Hill, p. 36; FKW interview, p. 11.

31 GFK Diary, July 24, 1983, May 13, 1985, January 2, June 15, 1988, April 26, 1994, April 28, 1996.

32 Ibid., July 7, 1994, July 4, 1995, July 21 and December 26, 1996, May 13, 1997; GFK, At a Century’s Ending.

33 GFK Diary, February 15, 25, March 3, 7, 1994; JLG Diary, February 15, 1994, JLG Papers. See also Chapter Twelve, above.

34 GFK Diary, January 31,1995; GFK, American Family; Gordon S. Wood, “All in the Family,” New York Review of Books, February 22, 2001. Copies of the bird poems are at the beginning of the GFK Diary for 1990.

35 GFK Diary, May 12, 14, 1998, November 29, 2000; JLG Diary, December 30, 2001, JLG Papers.

36 Ibid., July 14, 27, 2001; JEK to JLG, March 19, 2011, JLG Papers.

37 JLG Diary, December 30, 2001, JLG Papers.

38 JEK to JLG, March 19, 2011, JLG Papers; GFK to JLG, November 18, 2002, ibid. For the interviews, see Albert Eisele, “George F. Kennan: At 98, Veteran Diplomat Declares Congress Must Take Lead on War with Iraq,” The Hill, September 25, 2002; and Jane Mayer, “The Big Idea: A Doctrine Passes,” New Yorker, October 14 and 21, 2002, p. 70.

39 JLG Diary, August 18, November 9, 2003, February 19, 20, 2004, JLG Papers.

40 Lukacs, Kennan: A Study of Character, p. 188; JLG Diary, March 6, 2005.

41 GFK interview, December 13, 1995, pp. 23–24. I have edited the passage slightly to avoid repetition, but have in no way changed the substance.

EPILOGUE ● GREATNESS

1 Portions of this epilogue draw on my comments at the Princeton University George F. Kennan Centennial Conference, delivered on February 20, 2004, as well as, more briefly, on the 2005 edition of Strategies of Containment, p. 390.

2 Ziegler, Mountbatten, p. 701. 1.

3 Kissinger, White House Years, p. 135.

4 Kennan, “Experience of Writing History,” p. 214.

5 The Seeley Mudd Library at Princeton University, where Kennan’s papers are housed, is currently arranging a published edition of his diaries under the editorship of Frank Costigliola.