George F. Kennan : an American life

by John Lewis Gaddis

  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.

&
nbsp; 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.