George F. Kennan : an American life

by John Lewis Gaddis

  Meanwhile, another of Kennan’s recommendations had caused a painful split between Truman and Marshall. On March 19 Warren Austin, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, presented the American plan for an international trusteeship over an undivided Palestine. But on the previous day the president—despite having approved the abandonment of partition—had assured the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann that there had been no change in policy. Embarrassed, Truman blamed the State Department: there were people there, he complained, “who have always wanted to cut my throat.” That was an exaggeration, but Kennan had failed to consider the humanitarian implications of withdrawing American support for a Jewish state only three years after the world had learned of the Holocaust. Nor had he taken into account the impact on Truman’s reelection prospects in the fall, an omission the White House staff quickly remedied. By the end of March the State Department had lost control of U.S. policy in the Middle East. In deciding to recognize the new state of Israel, an uncharacteristically angry Marshall told the president a few weeks later, he had indulged in a “transparent dodge to win a few votes.” Truman replied coolly that he knew what he was doing.60

  “The greatest mystery of my own role in Washington in those years,” Kennan wrote in his memoirs, “was why so much attention was paid in certain instances . . . to what I had to say, and so little in others.” The answer, he concluded, was that

  Washington’s reactions were deeply subjective, influenced more by domestic-political moods and institutional interests than by any theoretical considerations of our international position. It was I who was naïve—naïve in the assumption that the mere statement on a single occasion of a sound analysis or appreciation, even if invited or noted or nominally accepted by one’s immediate superiors, had any appreciable effect on the vast, turgid, self-centered, and highly emotional process by which the views and reactions of official Washington were finally evolved.61

  But surely policy planning in a democracy, if it is to be effective, must allow for domestic politics, institutional interests, vastness, turgidity, self-centeredness, and emotion. These are not mysteries to most people. That they were to Kennan—that he expected theory to trump subjectivity—was in itself a solipsism that led to failure.

  FOURTEEN

  Policy Dissenter: 1948

  ENSCONCED ON THE SIXTEENTH FLOOR OF THE BETHESDA NAVAL Hospital in Washington through the first half of April 1948, Kennan recalled being “very bleak in spirit from the attendant fasting . . . made bleaker still by the whistling of the cold spring wind in the windows of that lofty pinnacle.”1 But the enforced rest provided an opportunity, as the doctors treated his physical ulcer, for him to alleviate the pain of a mental ulcer that still persisted. From his usual horizontal position (there being no choice this time), Kennan summoned Hessman and began dictating a lengthy letter to Walter Lippmann.

  “You have chosen, for some reason, to identify the policy of containment with the ‘Truman doctrine,’ which you deplore,” he admonished the pundit, “and to hold up the Marshall Plan, by way of contrast, as an example of constructive action.” Had Lippmann forgotten their lunches together the previous May, at which Kennan advanced his ideas for the latter initiative? Contrary to what Lippmann claimed, he had never called for resisting the Russians wherever they challenged Western interests. “I do not know what grounds I could have given for such an interpretation.” (Here Kennan ignored—or had repressed—his call in the “X” article for applying “counter-force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and manœuvres of Soviet policy.”) He did point out, accurately, that he had written “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” to counter “puerile defeatism” among American intellectuals who thought that firmness toward the Soviet Union could only bring war.

  In fact, firmness had restored stability. “Has Iran gone? Or Turkey? Or Greece?” Not one would have remained independent had the Americans not acted. “Has Trieste fallen? Or Austria?” Italy was admittedly a weak spot, but that weakness had arisen from not stiffening the Italians soon enough. To be sure, Finland, Czechoslovakia, Manchuria, and North China had wound up on the wrong side of the “iron curtain.” That was to be expected, given the military realities existing at the end of the war. Communism might indeed prevail in the rest of China: “What of it? I never said we would—or should—be able to hold equally everywhere.” The point had been to hang on “in enough places, and in sufficiently strategic places, to accomplish our general purpose.” That, for the most part, had been done.

  Containment would not require the United States to arm itself to the teeth, defending overextended positions indefinitely. The Russians, made also of flesh and blood, had their own vulnerabilities. Afflicted by “internal contradictions,” they would eventually defeat themselves. If capitalism bore within itself the seeds of its own destruction, why were they seeking so desperately to bring about its collapse? What was to be done, then, lay chiefly “within ourselves.”

  Let us find health and vigor and hope, and the diseased portion of the earth will fall behind of its own doing. For that we need no aggressive strategic plans, no provocation of military hostilities, no show-downs, no world government, no strengthened UN, and no pat slogans with a false pretense to international validity.

  The day would come—sooner than one might think—when their own weaknesses would convince Soviet leaders “that they cannot have what they want without talking to us. It has been our endeavor to assist them to that conclusion.”

  And what of European allies? Lippmann had argued that the United States, having provided them moral and material assistance, now also owed them military protection. This was “preposterous.” The Russians much preferred conquest “by concealed methods, with a minimum of responsibility on their own part.” The Marshall Plan was countering that strategy. Should it not satisfy the Europeans, “I can only shrug my shoulders.” For the United States could not, by itself, sustain hope. But Kennan saw little faint-heartedness among recipients of Marshall Plan aid: they “have shown themselves ready enough to take risks as long as there is a reasonable indication that we are behind them and will do our best for them.”

  So what was Lippmann worried about? A year ago fear had hung over everything. Since then, however, “no fruits have dropped.” Moscow had been forced to isolate the East from the West, where recovery was progressing rapidly: “Admittedly, the issue hangs on Italy; but it hangs—in reality—on Italy alone. A year ago it hung on all of Europe—and on us.” Lippmann should, then, “leave us some pride in our own legerdemain.” The saddest part of the past year’s experience was not the realization of how hard it was for a democracy to conduct a successful foreign policy. It was rather that if it did, “so few people would recognize it for what it was.”2

  Kennan’s letter to Lippmann was roughly the length of a war college lecture. On reading it over, it seemed “plaintive and overdramatic,” so he never sent it. He did corner Lippmann on a train a few months later and subject him to some of its arguments; no portion of the letter itself reached its intended recipient, however, until 1967, when excerpts appeared in Kennan’s memoir. He blamed himself, after Lippmann’s death, for having been “too arrogant” during his first months on the Policy Planning Staff to have accepted criticism as patiently as he might have. But something else was going on then as well: for once in his life—despite his ulcer—Kennan was optimistic about the future.3

  Hardly anyone else was, however. Kennan’s long Asian trip and the illness that followed prevented his seeing how pessimistic the mood in Washington and in allied capitals had become. As a result, the job to which he returned in mid-April was not the one he had left in late February. A year into his Policy Planning Staff directorship, Kennan found himself becoming a policy dissenter once again. He had, he discovered, lost his footing. He never quite regained it.

  I.

  The problems began with a recommendation that went awry. However much Kennan may have doubted h
imself over the years, he had never lacked confidence in his ability to explain—and even predict—the behavior of the Soviet Union. These skills had made his reputation in the Foreign Service, brought him to the National War College and the Policy Planning Staff, and inadvertently earned him, as “Mr. X,” celebrity status. Whatever else he might have been wrong about, he had a habit of being right about the U.S.S.R.

  Kennan’s colleagues took him seriously, therefore, when he suggested in PPS/23, completed on February 24, 1948, that the Marshall Plan’s success might soon compel Soviet leaders to negotiate. Once this had happened—probably after the November presidential election in the United States—the talks should be entrusted to someone who

  (a) has absolutely no personal axe to grind in the discussions, even along the lines of getting public credit for their success, and is prepared to observe the strictest silence about the whole proceeding; and

  (b) is thoroughly acquainted not only with the background of our policies but with Soviet philosophy and strategy and with the dialectics used by Soviet statesmen in such discussions.

  Lest there be any doubt as to whom he had in mind, Kennan also insisted that the negotiator be fluent in Russian. Containment, in his mind, was meant to end the Cold War, not to freeze it into place. He meant to play as large a role in completing that effort as he had in initiating it. In the meantime, it might be worth seeking “some sort of a background understanding” with the Stalin regime.4

  The Czech coup, which Kennan had predicted, took place on the next day, so he departed for Japan on the twenty-sixth with his prestige as high as it would ever be. Shortly after arriving in Tokyo, he told an off-the-record press briefing that “within six months [a] spectacular retreat of Soviet and Communist influence in Europe may be expected.” The head of the Canadian mission in Japan reported Kennan’s comments to Ottawa, where they set off expressions of incredulity. From London, the Foreign Office assured the Canadians—who had passed on the account—that there must have been a mistake. “I can hardly believe that Mr. Kennan can have been accurately reported,” R. M. A. Hankey, head of the Northern Department, commented. It all seemed “so very much too optimistic.” Kennan’s former Moscow colleague Frank Roberts ventured another explanation: concerned by Lippmann’s criticisms “that containment is a fruitless policy,” he now “must prove that it can lead to positive results.”5

  But Kennan was not freelancing. Worried that Stalin might overreact to Truman’s tough speech on March 17, the Policy Planning Staff had supported Kennan’s call for a quiet approach. “We have no way of knowing what appraisal Stalin is receiving of American intentions,” Davies pointed out. It was important to ensure that if war broke out, it would not have been through a misunderstanding. Bohlen seconded the suggestion, and on April 23 Lovett secured Truman’s permission to go ahead. Marshall asked Ambassador Smith, in Moscow, to convey the message. The British and the Canadians were not informed: indeed the British embassy in Washington reported that the Truman administration feared conciliatory signs from Moscow, lest these strengthen Soviet “apologists,” among them Wallace, now running for president on a third-party peace platform.6

  Smith sent Molotov a carefully worded note on May 4, stating that while the United States would defend its interests, “the door is always wide open for full discussion and the composing of our differences.” The two men then met on the tenth, with each professing his country’s peaceful intentions. But on the eleventh, the Soviet news agency TASS released an edited version of this supposedly secret conversation: its apparent purpose was to imply that the United States had proposed a European settlement without consulting its allies. That unexpected development raised “very grave doubts in the minds of His Majesty’s Government as to what may have been intended,” Bevin cabled Marshall, in words more restrained than the anger he felt. Queries from other alarmed Europeans followed, as did a cacophony of excited press commentary.7

  “I was appalled at what I had done,” Kennan later recalled. “For two evenings, I walked the streets of Foxhall Village, trying ... to discover where the error had lain.” Finally he asked to see Marshall, for what he expected to be a reprimand. “I think we were right,” he said, “and that the critics are wrong. But where there is so much criticism, there must be some fault somewhere.”

  General Marshall put down his papers, turned ponderously in his chair, and fixed me penetratingly over the rims of his glasses. I trembled inwardly for what was coming.

  “Kennan,” he said, “when we went into North Africa, in 1942, and the landings were initially successful, for three days we were geniuses in the eyes of the press. Then . . . for another three weeks we were nothing but the greatest dopes.

  “The decision you are talking about had my approval; it was discussed in the Cabinet; it was approved by the President.

  “The only trouble with you is that you don’t have the wisdom and perspicacity of a columnist. Now get out of here!”

  The implications of what had happened, however, were not as reassuring. The Soviets had in the past respected confidentiality, Kennan reminded Marshall, but that could no longer be assumed: “The diplomatic channel to Moscow is really eliminated.” As long as Molotov remained foreign minister, there could be no communication “without making it to the world.”8

  That was underestimating the problem, for Stalin himself had read Smith’s note, scribbling a sardonic “Ha, Ha!” next to the passage about an open door for diplomacy. He then ordered the release of the edited exchange and compounded the mischief by inserting himself into the American presidential campaign. On May 12 Wallace published an open letter to Stalin closely paralleling the TASS version of the Smith-Molotov conversation. Stalin responded on the seventeenth, welcoming Wallace’s letter as a possible basis for the peaceful resolution of differences. It was a transparent attempt, Durbrow reported disgustedly from Moscow, to “lend the appearance of substance to the vacuity of Wallace’s declarations . . . and thus to emasculate American policy.”9

  The timing did seem more than coincidental. The State Department had evidence, Kennan explained to Smith, that Wallace had known what Stalin was going to do: “We unwittingly ran head on into a neat little arrangement between the Kremlin and some of the people in the Wallace headquarters.” Wallace was indeed coordinating his actions with Moscow, but Kennan chose not to pursue the possibility that a former vice president of the United States had become a Soviet agent. What chiefly concerned him was that something had been “seriously wrong with my own analysis of events.”

  It was clear now that Stalin and his subordinates had no intention of dealing with Marshall and the other architects of containment. This was, in one sense, flattering: “They know very well that to us they would have to make real concessions, that we would not be put off with phony ones.” But the situation was also dangerous, for they would use every opportunity to confuse public opinion and to build up Wallace. Kennan had been “horrified,” he admitted to Smith, “by the ease with which the press and other groups interested in foreign affairs were taken in by this Russian maneuver.”10

  He was still seething when he traveled to Canada late in May. The invitation had come about because the Canadians, for whom Kennan had become a kind of Delphic oracle, were still trying to figure out what he had meant weeks earlier when he had expressed optimism about relations with Moscow in his Tokyo press conference. What they got now, however, were grim warnings about the naïveté of such a view. Speaking at the National Defence College in Kingston, Kennan summoned a long list of witnesses to Muscovite perfidy, extending all the way back to the emissaries of Queen Elizabeth I: “One can search in vain through the annals of Russian diplomacy for a single example of an enduring, decent and pleasant relationship between Russia and a foreign state.”

  Like early Christians in the late Roman Empire (Gibbon echoed loudly here), the international communist movement was hollowing out Western civilization from within, taking advantage of its “self-flagellating conscience.�
�� Such penitence ignored Russian history and Soviet ideology, encouraging the illusion that Stalin’s behavior depended solely upon whether he was “pleased or irritated or impressed” with Western actions. The Smith-Molotov exchange had made it “terrifyingly clear” that “the Russians are able to raise or lower at will the temperature of American political life.”

  The United States and its allies could no longer expect, therefore, any reconciliation with the Soviet leaders, after which “we would all go away and play golf.” The Cold War would continue, “probably through our lifetimes.” The task now must be to manage it, and that would require an approach as “profoundly dialectic” as its Soviet counterpart. It would have to contain “conflicting elements of persuasion and compulsion.” It would be “partly one and partly the other.” It would require allowing what might appear to be “complete and arbitrary inconsistency.” This capacity to “blow hot” one day and “blow cold” the next would be vital, for if “one or the other of these possibilities is denied to us, I assure you with the deepest conviction that we are lost.”11