Posted on 03/19/2005 9:09:29 AM PST by Conservative_since_63
George Kennan, R.I.P. (1904-2005)
George Kennan, the first director of policy planning for the State Department, is dead at the age of 101. The New York Times obit by Tim Weiner and Barbara Crossette has more detail and background, but the Washington Post obit by J.Y. Smith has a paragraph that best captures Kennan's love-hate relationship with the U.S. foreign policy establishment:
Despite his influence, Mr. Kennan was never really comfortable in government or with the give-and-take process by which policy is made. He always regarded himself as an outsider. It grated on him when his advice was not heeded, more so because it often turned out that he had been more right than wrong. He had little patience with critics.
Kennan will forever be known as the author of the Long Telegram in 1946, the most famous State Department cable in history. Kennan later converted the telegram into a 1947 Foreign Affairs essay entitled, "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," from which the doctrine of containment.
(Excerpt) Read more at danieldrezner.com ...
I read about him in The Wise Men by Halberstam. The book seemed to subtley denigrate them, I felt that they were the fellows saving our government.
Re 'his policy recommendations..', McCullough's "Truman" includes much of Kennans opinions, including that the "Palestine situations was insoluble" - oil, Arabs and UN all a part of the history of 1947. Fascinating book.
It was before the Gipper had arrived on the scene with his clarity of thought. Kennan's encirclement policy worked as long as we needed it.
Yes, Kennan seems to also be an enigma wrapped in a riddle, as Churchill described the Soviet Union. On one hand, Kennan wanted to contain the USSR with "unalterable counterforce at every point where they [USSR] show signs of encroaching", but to accomplish this "politically rather than militarily". At the same time warning that; "Soviet power was impervious to the logic of reason, and highly sensitive to the logic of force.
In many ways, Kennan was a classic "Intellectual". He knows a lot about what he knows. He does not know however, exactly what to do with what he knows. In the end he presents as much confusion as clarity.
He was correct when he stated that "If, consequently, anything were....to disrupt the Communist Party....Russia might be changed overnight from one of the strongest to one of the weakest and most pitiable of national societies". Prophetic indeed, but not a conclusion that any conservative with more than rudimentary knowledge of the Soviet system did not think already.
Yes. Perhaps this concept should be paraphrased onto Kennan's headstone.
Yes. Perhaps this concept should be paraphrased onto Kennan's headstone.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.