Kennan, George (1904–2005), diplomat, historian, foreign policy critic.Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Kennan attended Princeton University and joined the United States Foreign Service in 1926. He served as a diplomat at various European postings over the next two decades and earned some reputation for expertise on the Soviet Union, but he had minimal influence on policy. His obscurity ended with the dispatch from Moscow of his “Long Telegram” in February 1946 and especially with the publication of his 1947 article “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” written under the pseudonym “X” and espousing the
containment doctrine, in
Foreign Affairs. The latter secured his standing as a principal architect of America's
Cold War strategy
As director of the State Department Policy Planning Staff from 1947 to 1950, Kennan advocated political and economic measures, such as the
Marshall Plan, to implement containment. He unsuccessfully objected to what he considered containment's overmilitarization as evidenced by the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the hydrogen bomb, and
National Security Council Document #68. Dissenting from the expansive national security strategy favored by Dean
Acheson, Kennan left the State Department in 1950. His direct role in U.S. foreign policy formulation ended then, although he later served as ambassador to the Soviet Union (1952) and to Yugoslavia (1961–1963).
After leaving government, Kennan pursued a distinguished career as a historian at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton. He also emerged as an important realist critic of American foreign policy. In the 1950s he proposed the reunification of Germany and the withdrawal of American troops from Europe. Later, he opposed U.S. involvement in the
Vietnam War, offered constructively critical support to the Richard M.
Nixon– Henry
Kissinger policy of détente, and passionately advocated nuclear arms–control measures. With the end of the Cold War, Kennan continued to emphasize the limits of American power and the need for restraint in its exercise.
See also
Federal Government, Executive Branch: Department of State;
Foreign Relations;
Nuclear Arms Control Treaties;
Nuclear Weapons.
Bibliography
David Mayers , George Kennan and the Dilemmas of U.S. Foreign Policy, 1988.
Wilson D. Miscamble , George F. Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, 1947–1950, 1992.
Wilson D. Miscamble
