George F. Kennan : an American life

by John Lewis Gaddis

  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.<
br />
  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.