George F. Kennan : an American life

14 GFK to Byrnes, March 13, 1946, GFK to Durbrow, March 15, 1946, ibid.

15 Durbrow interview, p. 5; GFK to Durbrow, April 2, 1946, DSR-DF 1945–49, Box 786, “123 Kennan” folder.

16 Smith to Matthews, April 17, 1946, ibid.; GFK to Bohlen, April 19, 1946, ibid.

17 GFK to State Department, May 22, 1946, ibid.; ASK to Frieda Por, June 24, 1946, JEK Papers; Donald Russell to GFK, June 20, 1946, DSR-DF 1945–49, Box 786, “123 Kennan” folder.

18 GFK to Smith, June 27, 1946, JEK Papers.

19 GFK, Memoirs, I, 307–8; also Earle, Makers of Modern Strategy.

20 GFK interview, September 7, 1983, pp. 11–13; also GFK, Nuclear Delusion, pp. xiv–xv.

21 GFK 1946 National War College notebook, pp. 5, 14–15, GFK Papers, 231:14; also Brodie, Absolute Weapon. The article in question was by Percy E. Corbett.

22 GFK National War College notebook, p. 22.

23 Ibid., pp. 20–21. See also Crane Brinton, Gordon A. Craig, and Felix Gilbert, “Jomini,” in Earle, Makers of Modern Strategy, pp. 77–92, especially p. 88. Significantly, a July 1946 Fortune article on the Foreign Service mentioned a group of its officers who “think in terms of ‘containing’ Russia by a series of firm stands on specific points: Iran, Trieste, and so on.” Kennan was mentioned separately—not in this context—as having written “shrewd and highly literate dispatches from Moscow; Byrnes calls him ‘by far the best reporter’ in the service.” “The U. S. Foreign Service,” Fortune 34 (July 1946), 81–86, 200–207.

24 GFK National War College notebook, pp. 23, 27. Clausewitz makes a cameo appearance in Tolstoy’s account of the Battle of Borodino. See War and Peace, p. 774.

25 GFK National War College notebook, pp. 23–27. For background on Rothfels, see Bassford, Clausewitz in English, pp. 185–86.

26 GFK interview, August 25, 1982, pp. 20–21.

27 Benton to Henderson and GFK, March 7, 1946, DSR-DF 1945–49, 861.00/2-2246, Box 6462; GFK to Smith, June 7, 1946, ibid., Moscow 1946, Box 106, 711 Russia.

28 GFK, Memoirs, I, 298–99; GFK to Smith, June 27, 1946, JEK Papers.

29 GFK interview, September 7, 1983, pp. 17–18. Kennan’s report, dated August 23, 1946, is to Francis H. Russell, chief of the State Department’s Division of Public Liaison, GFK Papers, 298:11. The Soviet summary is in Russian Federation Foreign Policy Archive, Opis 30, Papka 187, Delo 81, List 111-25. The FBI reports are from Kennan’s file, 62-81548, obtained August 11, 2000, under Freedom of Information/Privacy Act request 410933/190 -HQ1312163, copies in GFK Papers, 181:3–6.

30 GFK, Memoirs, I, 299; GFK to Acheson, October 8, 1946, Acheson Papers, Box 27, “State Department Under Secretary Correspondence, 1945–47” folder, Truman Library; Acheson to GFK, October 11, 1946, DSR-DF 1945–49, Box 786, “123 Kennan” folder.

31 Hill, “Opening Address to the First Class,” September 3, 1946, National War College Archives, Washington, D.C. (courtesy of Michael Schmidt); “New War College Enters Atomic Era,” New York Times, September 4, 1946. See also Harlow and Maerz, Measures Short of War, p. xiv.

32 GFK address to Princeton University Bicentennial Conference on University Education and the Public Service, November 13–14, 1946, GFK Papers, 251:6; GFK, Memoirs, I, 306.

33 Transcript, GFK National War College lecture and discussion, September 16, 1946, GFK Papers, 298:12. The lecture, though not the record of the question period, is published in Harlow and Maerz, Measures Short of War, pp. 3–17.

34 GFK to KWK, October 5, 1946, JEK Papers; GFK, Memoirs, I, 307; Hessman interview, pp. 5–6.

35 GFK, Memoirs, I, 307.

36 Transcript, Department of State off-the-record briefing by GFK and Llewellyn Thompson, September 17, 1946, GFK Papers, 298:13. For the Wallace controversy, see Blum, Price of Vision, pp. 612–32, 661–69.

37 GFK lecture, “‘Trust’ as a Factor in International Relations,” Yale University Institute of International Studies, New Haven, Conn., October 1, 1946, GFK Papers, 298:15. See also Chekhov, “The New Villa,” in Ford, Essential Tales of Chekhov, p. 303.

38 GFK lecture, “Russia,” Naval War College, Newport, R.I., GFK Papers, 298:14. Kennan’s thinking on naval strategy may well have been influenced by Margaret Tuttle Sprout’s essay on Mahan in Earle, Makers of Modern Strategy, especially pp. 433–34.

39 I am indebted, on this point, to my Yale colleague Charles Hill, whose Grand Strategies brilliantly illustrates it.

40 Edward A. Dow, Jr., notes, Canadian–United States Defense Conversations, Ottawa, December 16 and 17, 1946, in FRUS: 1946, V, 70.

41 GFK to JKH, December 25, 1946, JEK Papers. President Truman had in fact approved Kennan’s appointment to the rank of career minister on November 25. Byrnes to GFK, January 6, 1947, DSR-DF 1945–49, Box 786, “123 Kennan” folder.

42 GFK to Waldemar J. Gallman, March 14, 1947, GFK Papers, 140:3; GFK, Memoirs, I, 304–5.

43 ASK to Frieda Por, November 10, 1946, and February 10, 1947; GFK to Walter Bedell Smith, June 27, 1946; GFK to KWK, October 5, 1946, all in JEK Papers.