“it is highly sensitive to the logic of force.”
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George F. Kennan
George Frost Kennan was an American diplomat and historian. He was best known as an advocate of a policy of containment of Soviet expansion during the Cold War. He lectured widely and wrote scholarly histories of the relations between the USSR and the United States. He was also one of the group of foreign policy elders known as "The Wise Men".
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culture · American diplomat, political scientist, and historian (1904–2005) · diplomat · historian · geopolitical analyst · political scientist · writer · university teacher · politician · also George F. Kennan, George Frost Kennan, George Kennan, Kennan
Born 16 February 1904 · Died 17 March 2005 · Q156058
55 published statements · 0 followers
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2026· 6 entries
“primitive level of slogans and jingoistic ideological inspiration”
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“I have a soft spot in my mind for apartheid, not as practiced in South Africa, but as a concept.”
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“s perceived pro-Soviet policy was in fact a ploy to”
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“What is needed is a succession of ... calculated steps, timed in such a way as not only to throw the adversary off balance but to keep him off it, and prepared with sufficient privacy so that the advantage of surprise can be retained.”
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“emotional, moralistic attitudes”
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2022· 1 entry
The Atlantic: Solitary Expert: The Case of George F. Kennan
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2012· 1 entry
c-span: George F. Kennan: An American Life
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2005· 10 entries
The Washington Post: The Paradox of George F. Kennan
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At his home in Princeton, New Jersey, aged 101
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Died 2005-03-17.
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“The best thing we can do if we want the Russians to let us be Americans is to let the Russians be Russian.”
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“For the love of God, for the love of your children and of the civilization to which you belong, cease this madness. You are mortal men. You are capable of error. You have no right to hold in your hands — there is no one wise enough and strong enough to hold in his hands — destructive power sufficient to put an end to civilized life on a great portion of our planet.”
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“A doctrine is something that pins you down to a given mode of conduct and dozens of situations which you cannot foresee, which is a great mistake in principle. When the word ‘containment’ was used in my ‘X’ article, it was used with relation to a certain situation then prevailing, and as a response to it.”
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“Whenever you have a possibility of going in two ways, either for peace or for war, for peaceful methods of for military methods, in the present age there is a strong prejudice for the peaceful ones. War seldom ever leads to good results.”
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“There will be no room, here, for the smug myopia which views American civilization as the final solution to all world problems; which recommends our institutions for universal adoption and turns away with contempt from the serious study of the institutions of peoples whose civilizations may seem to us to be materially less advanced.”
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“Not only the studying and writing of history but also the honoring of it both represent affirmations of a certain defiant faith — a desperate, unreasoning faith, if you will — but faith nevertheless in the endurance of this threatened world — faith in the total essentiality of historical continuity.”
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“The very concept of history implies the scholar and the reader. Without a generation of civilized people to study history, to preserve its records, to absorb its lessons and relate them to its own problems, history, too, would lose its meaning.”
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2003· 1 entry
“unmistakable evidences of a growing differentiation between the cultures, respectively, of large southern and southwestern regions of this country, on the one hand”
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2002· 1 entry
There were "unmistakable evidences of a growing differentiation between the cultures, respectively, of large southern and southwestern regions of this country, on the one hand", and those of "some northern regions"
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2000· 1 entry
Awarded Library of Congress Living Legend (2000).
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1996· 2 entries
Awarded Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 1st Class (1996).
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Kennan again reiterated that he did not regard the Soviets as primarily a military threat, noting that "they were not like Hitler"
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1994· 1 entry
Awarded Toynbee Prize (1994).
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1989· 1 entry
Won Presidential Medal of Freedom presented by George H. W. Bush (1989).
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1987· 1 entry
Awarded Four Freedoms Award – Freedom from Fear in New York City (1987).
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1982· 1 entry
Awarded Peace Prize of the German Publishers' and Booksellers' Association (1982).
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1981· 1 entry
Awarded Albert Einstein Peace Prize (1981).
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1970· 1 entry
Came across a youth festival, which he described with disgust as "swarming with hippies—motorbikes, girl-friends, drugs, pornography, drunkenness, noise
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1968· 3 entries
Awarded Pulitzer Prize for Biography (1968).
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Awarded National Book Award for memoir (1968).
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That a system similar to apartheid was needed for the United States as he doubted the ability of average black American male to operate "in a system he neither understands nor respects," leading him to advocate the Bantu
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1967· 1 entry
Involved something other than the use of military "counterforce"
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1961· 1 entry
Career landmark: United States Ambassador to Yugoslavia (1961–1963).
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1957· 6 entries
Awarded National Book Award presented by National Book Foundation for Russia Leaves the War (1957).
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Awarded Francis Parkman Prize for Russia Leaves the War (1957).
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Awarded Pulitzer Prize for History for Russia Leaves the War (1957).
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Awarded Bancroft Prize for Russia Leaves the War (1957).
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Kennan departed the United States to work as the George Eastman Professor at Balliol College at Oxford
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Kennan was invited by the BBC to give the annual Reith Lectures, a series of six radio lectures which were titled Russia, the Atom and the West
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1954· 1 entry
Kennan appeared as a character witness for J
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1952· 1 entry
Career landmark: United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union (1952–1952).
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1950· 2 entries
It was politically impossible for the Truman administration to recognize the government in Beijing, and giving China's United Nations seat to the People's Republic was the closest the United States could go in building a
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Kennan left the State Department—except for a brief ambassadorial stint in Moscow and a longer one in Yugoslavia—and became a realist critic of U
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1949· 1 entry
Kennan suggested what became known as "Program A" or "Plan A" for the reunification of Germany, stating the partition of Germany was unsustainable in the long run
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1947· 1 entry
Kennan supported Truman's decision to extend economic aid to the Greek government fighting a civil war against Communist guerrillas, though he argued against military aid
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1946· 2 entries
By sending a lengthy 5,363-word telegram (sometimes cited as being more than 8,000 words), commonly called "The Long Telegram", from Moscow to Secretary of State James Byrnes outlining a new strategy for diplomatic relat
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And the subsequent 1947 article "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" argued that the Soviet regime was inherently expansionist and that its influence had to be "contained" in areas of vital strategic importance to the United
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1935· 1 entry
Kennan expressed his disenchantment with American life, writing: "I hate the rough and tumble of our political life
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1931· 2 entries
And his four children, eight grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren
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Kennan was stationed at the legation in Riga, Latvia, where, as third secretary, he worked on Soviet economic affairs
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1929· 1 entry
Kennan began his program in history, politics, culture, and the Russian language at the Oriental Institute of the University of Berlin
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1928· 1 entry
Kennan considered quitting the Foreign Service to return to a university for graduate studies
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1925· 1 entry
Kennan considered applying to law school, but decided it was too expensive and instead opted to apply to the newly formed United States Foreign Service
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1904· 1 entry
Born 1904-02-16.
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