George F. Kennan : an American life

GFK: George F. Kennan

GFK Diary: George F. Kennan Diary, Seeley Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University, filed chronologically in Boxes 230–39 and 325–26

GFK, Memoirs, I: George F. Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950 (Boston: Atlantic–Little, Brown, 1967)

GFK, Memoirs, II: George F. Kennan, Memoirs: 1950–1963 (Boston: Atlantic–Little, Brown, 1972)

JKH: Jeanette Kennan Hotchkiss

JEK: Joan Elisabeth Kennan

JLG: John Lewis Gaddis

KKK: Kossuth Kent Kennan

KWK: Kent Wheeler Kennan

NSC: National Security Council

OPC: Office of Policy Coordination

OSP: Office of Special Projects

OSS: Office of Strategic Services

PPS Papers: The State Department Policy Planning Staff Papers, 1947– 1949. New York: Garland, 1983.

PPS Records: U.S. Department of State, Policy Planning Staff Records, Record Group 59, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

NOTES

PREFACE

1 GFK to JLG, April 18, 1995, JLG Papers.

2 GFK Diary, April 15, 1997; GFK to Eugene Hotchkiss, February 14, 2003, copy in JLG Papers.

3 JLG Diary, November 9, 2003, ibid.

4 JLG notes, August 24, 1982, and September 5, 1983, ibid.

ONE • CHILDHOOD: 1904–1921

1 Unless otherwise noted, the author conducted all interviews. Dates are repeated only for multiple interviews with the same individual. A key to abbreviations is on page 701. JKH interview, December 21, 1982, p. 3; CKB, interview by JEK, undated, p. 1. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 4, and JKH, “Memoirs for Two.”

2 GFK, Memoirs, I, 3–4.

3 GFK Diary, March 8, 1931, quoted in GFK, Sketches from a Life, pp. 20–21.

4 GFK to “my dear children,” Bad Nauheim, Germany, February 1942, GFK Papers, 140:9. Here and henceforth, for the Kennan papers, the first number is the box, the second the folder. Where no folder is indicated, files are in alphabetical or chronological order. Locations of all manuscript collections are listed in the Bibliography.

5 GFK Diary, January 14, 1959. The Kennan diaries, hereafter cited by date only, are in the GFK Papers, boxes 230–39 and 325–26.

6 GFK to JKH and CKB, July 21, 1984, JKH Papers.

7 Chekhov, Steppe and Other Stories, pp.1, 47. My wife, Toni, and I witnessed these tears during a visit with GFK in Princeton, N.J., June 26, 1999.

8 GFK, Memoirs, I, 4.

9 GFK interview by JEK, undated, CKB interview, November 13, 1982, p. 2, and FKW interview, June 28, 1984, p. 3; also JKH interview, p. 4, and CKB interview by JEK, p. 14.

10 GFK interview, August 24, 1982, p. 4. See also Sanborn Map Company, Insurance Maps of Milwaukee, I, 61. The house was later renumbered as 309 Cambridge Avenue.

11 GFK interview by JEK, p. 8; CKB interview, p. 1; JKH interview, p. 2.

12 KKK handwritten reminiscences, no date but probably 1933, KKK Papers. I am indebted to Tim Ericson for bringing these materials to my attention.

13 JKH interview, p. 3.

14 CKB interview, p. 2.

15 JKH interview, p. 7; JKH, “Memoirs for Two,” p. 8; CKB interview, p. 2.

16 GFK interview, August 24, 1982, pp. 4, 11–12; JKH interview, p. 4.

17 JKH interview, December 29, 1982, p. 5; JKH, “Memoirs for Two,” pp. 17, 21; KWK interview, December 29, 1982, p. 1.

18 FKW interview, p. 3; KKK reminiscences, emphases in original; JKH interview, p. 3. See also GFK’s own portrait of his father in his Memoirs, I, 7–8.

19 KWK interview, p. 2; GFK, Memoirs, I, 3; JKH interview, p. 23.