George F. Kennan : an American life

by John Lewis Gaddis

  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 Cri
me.

  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.