While watching the Iron Curtain documentary, I thought I remembered one of the interviewees, an American diplomat called George Kennan, from somewhere else. Turns out, George Kennan was mentioned in the chapter of the textbook that I read the night before. I was intrigued to learn that one of the interviewees played a large enough role in American history that he appeared in our textbook, so I decided to do more research about him.
Born in 1904 in Wisconsin, Kennan came from modest roots as his father was a lawyer and his mother died when he was just two months old. He attended St. John’s Military Academy in his home state and then Princeton University. After graduating in 1925, Kennan decided to join the Foreign Service, which in the following years took him around Europe to many different posts, many near or in Russia. He spent two years in Berlin studying Russian language and culture. During his time abroad, Kennan would learn to speak Russian, Polish, Portuguese, French, Norwegian, and Czech.
Something interesting to note is that during his time abroad (approximately 20 years starting in 1925), Kennan developed a sort of ironic dislike for Americans. He thought they were too superficial and self-centered and not fit to aid in governmental decision making. Despite his future policies being implemented in the democratic state, he firmly believed in an American political elite (even going as far as to in the 1930s writing in a draft that he thought only white males should be able to vote). At the outbreak of World War II, Kennan and other American ambassadors were interned in Nazi Germany. After their release from five months of internment, Kennan had much more to say about his fellow American internees (whom he described as “spoiled children”) than the actual Nazis.
Kennan went to a few other posts in Europe before becoming the Minister Counsellor at the American diplomatic base in Moscow. It was from Moscow that Kennan sent out his famous Long Telegram that outlined the policy of containment. In the 8,000 word message, Kennan articulated the need for “vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies” on the American’s part and the logic that Soviet aggression should be met with force. His policy of containing Soviet power circulated throughout Washington, convincing many members of its merit. When he returning to the US in 1947, he was appointed chief of the Policy Planning Staff, a position that gave him immense control over US foreign policy for the next two years.
Later, he resigned from his position before attempting to go back to Moscow was an ambassador, only to be denied re-entry by Stalin after comparing the Russian Embassy with his experience being interned in Nazi Germany. Kennan went back to Princeton as a professor and spent many years teaching and writing.
His views on containment came into question during the Vietnam War, an event that Kennan vehemently opposed. When called upon as one of Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Wise Men” (old men from the Cold War Era who were asked to advise the government about Vietnam) Kennan stated that he meant containment to be “a policy of selective confrontation, and its means to be diplomatic and economic, not military.”
Kennan died in 2005 at his home in Princeton.
Across many articles, Kennan was referred to as an outsider, a gloomy and overly serious man who had much to say but often felt like people interpreted his ideas in the wrong way. I could go on about the many interesting events in his interesting life—from requesting suicide pills during his time in Moscow to writing a satirical poem about his fellow officers—but then this blog post would become longer than it already is. Regardless of his strange (and many) quirks, Kennan was a hugely influential force in the US government during the Cold War, as well as a prolific writer and a colorful man. I greatly enjoyed learning about his life and hearing him speak in the documentary many years after his service.
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Wow Ella, this is one of the most thorough blog posts I've read! One of my favorite parts is how you distinguish his views of containment from other politicians and how he specifically believed containment should only be through economic and diplomatic means and not via the military. Upon further research regarding his rejection from becoming the ambassador for the Soviet Union, I found that the Soviets denied him access because Stalin felt like Kennan made an analogy between the Soviets and the despised Nazis. In hindsight, Kennan said it was "foolish thing for me to have said."
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_F._Kennan#Realism
This post was super informative and intresting! I really liked how you went into depth on a political figure that we otherwise might have not learned enough about. I really enjoyed how you oultined not just his actions and views but his motivaitons behind them. For example when you gave the backgound information as to why he viewd Americans in a negative light and held onto that even after being imprisoned with them by Nazis. This was super intresting and gave a differnt perosective on America that we do not always get the opuutinuty to learn about in class.
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