George F. Kennan : an American life

Kennan became even more worried about provocations when Joseph and Stewart Alsop published a series of alarming columns, in mid-June, reporting in rapid succession on American reconnaissance flights into Soviet airspace, on similar Soviet flights over Alaska, on progress in developing the hydrogen bomb, on rumors of a new Berlin blockade, and—most disturbing—on his own confidential reports to the State Department about the anti- American campaign in the U.S.S.R., which had caused Kennan to reconsider earlier assurances that its leaders would not risk war. Their reports in turn alerted Henry Luce, whose correspondents hounded Kennan while he was in Bonn and London, trying to confirm the story. Could Bohlen not plead with the Time- Life editors to spare the American embassy in Moscow “the spotlight of further press curiosity”? ²⁷

All of this, then, puts the suicide pills episode in a broader context than that of “some dame.” Kennan’s loneliness had led to affairs in Berlin in 1940–41, probably at Bad Nauheim in 1942, and surely somewhere in 1951. He had even admonished himself, in his most recent agony over infidelity, that were it not for his youngest (at that time Christopher), he should go into the military and get himself killed in a war.²⁸ What concerned Kennan now, though, if war broke out, was the risk of internment, torture, and the compromise of state secrets: taking a pill under these circumstances would be an act of patriotism, not just an escape from embarrassment. There are, then, multiple explanations for his behavior in late June 1952: it need not have been the fear of blackmail. And the letter to the pope, if de Silva’s account is to be believed? Kennan was indeed egocentric, and he was becoming deeply religious. Not so much so, though, that he would have sought absolution, from the supreme pontiff, for a dalliance with a dame. He had worse things than that on his mind .²⁹

IV.

The severely functional office of the U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, Salisbury reported to the readers of The New York Times Magazine shortly after Kennan arrived, was less impressive than what a deputy price administrator in Washington might occupy. There was a desk in one corner, a table for books and out-of-date American magazines in a second, and a couch, some armchairs, and a coffee table in a third. The fourth corner was empty. The only decorations were photographs of Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, the latter slightly larger. The view, though, was spectacular: swiveling in his chair, Kennan could look out across Manege Square to the walls of the Kremlin, only a two-minute walk away. Thanks to the acquisition of the Mokhovaya in 1934, no foreign embassy was closer. And should Stalin seek to see Kennan, few men were better qualified to explain American policy “in terms and language which have real meaning to Soviet minds.”

Apart from ceremonial occasions like the presentation of credentials, however, visits to the Kremlin had become rare for American ambassadors in recent years. Kirk had met Stalin only once, shortly after arriving in 1949. It was not at all clear when, or even whether, Kennan would be received. The Mokhovaya’s proximity therefore could be frustrating: as if to illustrate this, Salisbury’s article carried a photograph of Kennan staring expectantly from his window at the Kremlin’s dark towers, as if waiting for the invitation.³⁰

In one sense life was easier: “The world’s most efficient police system protects me from my old enemies—the telephone and the visitors.” Knowing that he would not soon return to the United States, Kennan could see his own country “with detachment, with charity, with serenity—as I imagine the dead look back on life.” There was consolation also in the “comfortable consciousness, underlying all government work, that it was someone else besides yourself who decided that . . . you should be where you are and doing what you are doing.” Duty relieved guilt, “and in its soothing influence lies, I am sure, something of the appeal of totalitarianism.”³¹

Still, he could not help looking for signs and portents. The Moscow theater offered Kennan proximity to the Soviet artistic community: its members, he felt, must have been aware of his presence, if for no other reason than that his angels bumped anyone seated around him. Attending a performance of Tolstoy’s Resurrection one night with Robert C. Tucker, a young Foreign Service officer who would become a distinguished professor of Soviet studies at Princeton, Kennan was startled to see the leading man advance to the footlights, appear to address him directly, and say: “There is an American by the name of George, and with him we are all in agreement.” Kennan and Tucker rushed back to the embassy to check the text, only to find that the line referred to Henry George, the late nineteenth-century proponent of the single tax. “But was the actor aware of the play on words? And did he enjoy it as much as we did?” Like astronomers listening for life on other planets, “we were forced to try to gain our feeling for the Russian cultural world” by such indirect means, despite its “presence and vitality . . . all around us.”³²

Exasperated by the silence, Kennan called in Cumming one day in mid-June to ask if the embassy staff had run across anyone who might have known him earlier in Moscow. Cumming suggested Boris Fedorovich Podserob, a former secretary to Molotov, now secretary general of the Foreign Ministry, with whom Kennan had had reasonably good relations during the 1930s. “If you find yourself talking with Podserob,” Kennan replied, “I wish you’d tell him that I regret that there is no person here in the entire apparat with whom I could occasionally come together and have a cup of tea and talk.” Cumming had no Russian and Podserob little English, but they did both have French, so at the next opportunity—a diplomatic reception at the Moskva Hotel—Cumming conveyed the message, bringing O’Shaughnessy along as a linguistic backup: Kennan was picking up his family in West Germany at the time. Podserob appeared interested, remained with the Americans long enough to make sure that he understood, and then departed.

Kennan returned to Moscow on July 1, and an invitation to talk soon followed, although not in the form he had expected. A young Russian appeared inside the Mokhovaya, having somehow got past the Soviet militia who controlled access to the building. “I was startled,” Cumming recalled. “Is this a joke or something?” “No, it’s not a joke.” So he went out and talked to the man. “He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite identify him. His clothes looked good, but disheveled. He wanted to see the ambassador.” “Don’t you recognize me?” he said. “I have interpreted for you a number of times on your calls to the Foreign Office. I have asked to see you so you can identify me.” Cumming then remembered him, asked a colleague to keep an eye on the visitor, and went in to inform Kennan.

“Do you think I should see him?” “I don’t know, George. It’s entirely up to you. He has either broken through the militiamen outside, or they ’ve allowed him to enter.” But the American Marines guarding the embassy reported no scuffle. “So it was obvious to me that the militia had let him come in.” Part of Kennan’s office was exposed to the microwave beam, but the corner with the sofa and the armchairs was not. Kennan asked his visitor to sit there and to speak in English, so that Cumming could follow the conversation. He then identified himself as the son of Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov, the minister for state security, who he said had been arrested. “That was the first knowledge that any of us had that Abakumov had disappeared.” Kennan recalled what came next: “Like the sons of other high figures here, I think what’s going on is very dangerous. We know the comings and goings of the leaders here, and we would be in a position to mount an action to remove them.”

“Look here,” Kennan replied. “I did not come here to violate the laws of the Soviet Union, or to encourage anyone else to do it. I think you’d better leave this room and this building immediately.” The young man protested that he would be arrested as soon as he stepped outside: “They saw me come in here.” Could the Americans not smuggle him out in a car, or allow him to leave through one of the steam tunnels that connected the Mokhovaya to the central heating plant? “No,” Kennan insisted, “you’ll have to go out the way you came in.” He was escorted to the front entrance. Cumming, with Kennan, watched from the window as the militiamen seized him. “One crooked his arm up behind his back, they put him in a car with the curtains down, and they drove off. The interesting thing was that there were crowds moving back and forth on the street. Nobody even turned a head to look at this. You don’t do that in the Soviet Union.”