George F. Kennan : an American life

folder.

50 GFK National War College lecture, “Where Are We Today?” December 21, 1948, GFK Papers, 299:19.

51 Fosdick interview, p. 2; Rusk interview, p. 2; GFK interview, September 7, 1983, p. 2.

52 GFK, “Foreword,” in PPS Papers I, vii.

FIFTEEN ? REPRIEVE: 1949

1 GFK lecture to Pentagon Joint Orientation Conference, “Estimate of the International Situation,” November 8, 1948, pp. 11–12, GFK Papers, 299:17. For Acheson’s appointment, see Acheson, Present at the Creation, pp. 249–50; and Beisner, Dean Acheson, pp. 82–83.

2 GFK to Acheson, January 3, 1949, Acheson Papers, Box 64, “Memos—conversations January–February 1949” folder, Truman Library. The references to defunct leaders were to Aleksandr Kerensky, prime minister of the Russian Provisional Government until its overthrow by the Bolsheviks in November 1917, Heinrich Bruning, chancellor of Germany from 1930 to 1932, Konstantin Dumba, the last Austro-Hungarian ambassador to the United States, expelled for espionage in 1915, and King Peter II of Yugoslavia, deposed in 1945.

3 Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 141; Franks interview, p. 20; Beisner, Dean Acheson, pp. 88–89, 596.

4 GFK interview, October 31, 1974, p. 3; Franks interview, pp. 20–21.

5 GFK, Memoirs, I, 426; GFK interview, September 8, 1983, p. 5; Davies interview, December 8, 1982, p. 5. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 157–58, and Beisner, Dean Acheson, p. 119.

6 GFK Diary, March 9–10, 1949, GFK Papers, 231:17.

7 GFK to Acheson, January 3, 1949, Acheson Papers, Box 64, Truman Library.

8 Lippmann to GFK, February 1, 1949, Lippmann Papers, 81:1281. Lippmann’s column, “The Dark Prospect in Germany,” appeared in The Washington Post on December 30, 1948. See also Acheson’s National War College lecture of September 16, 1948, Acheson Papers, Box 69, “Classified Off the Record Speeches, 1947–52” folder, Truman Library; also Steel, Walter Lippmann, pp. 458–59; and Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, p. 159.

9 For the extent to which Lippmann’s criticisms influenced Program A, see Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 146–47.

10 The Stalin interview is in FRUS: 1949, V, 562–63. For Acheson’s careful analysis of it and the clarifications that followed, see his Present at the Creation, pp. 267–70.

11 Murphy, “Memorandum for the Files,” February 19, 1949, Murphy Papers, Box 77 (courtesy of Christian Ostermann). For a representative summary of arguments against Program A, see DRE SP-2, a State Department Office of Intelligence Research paper, “Effects of Postponement of the Western German State,” in FRUS: 1949, III, 194–95.

12 GFK to Acheson and James Webb, February 8, 1949, PPS Records, Box 15, “Germany 1949” folder; Franks to Foreign Office, March 4, 1949, British Foreign Office Records, FO 371/74160; Murphy minutes, Acheson-GFK conversation, March 9, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, III, 102–3; Murphy to Clay, March 10, 1949, Murphy Papers, Box 57 (courtesy of Christian Ostermann). See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 161–63; and Beisner, Dean Acheson, pp. 134–35.

13 GFK Diary, March 10–12, 1949.

14 GFK Diary, “Visit to Germany,” March 10–21, 1949, partially published also in GFK, Memoirs, I, 429–42. GFK’s account of his conversation with Francois-Poncet also appears in FRUS: 1949, III, 113–14.

15 GFK to Acheson (unsent), March 29, 1949, GFK Papers, 163:58.

16 Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, p. 162.

17 Jessup to Acheson, April 19, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, III, 859–62; GFK memorandum, “Position of the United States at Any Meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers on Germany That May Occur,” April 15, 1949, ibid., pp. 858–59. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 166–69; and GFK, Memoirs, I, 443.

18 Acheson to Lewis Douglas, May 11, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, III, 872–73; James Reston, “U.S. Plan Weighed,” New York Times, May 12, 1949.

19 GFK, Memoirs, I, 444–45; Bohlen, Witness to History, pp. 285–86; Jessup to Acheson and Murphy, May 14, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, III, 878; Acheson to Truman, May 22, 1949, ibid., p. 893; Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost, pp. 71–72.

20 Reston, Deadline, p. 323; GFK, Memoirs, I, 444.

21 Acheson, Present at the Creation, pp. 291–92. See also Miscamble, Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, pp. 169–70.

22 GFK to Acheson, May 20, 1949, in FRUS: 1949, III, 888–90.

23 The cat metaphor comes from Beisner, Acheson, p. 141.

24 GFK, Memoirs, I, 447. See also, on the larger context, Schwartz, America’s Germany, pp. 35–40, 306–7.

25 Quoted in Beisner, Dean Acheson, p. 544.

26 PPS/49, “Economic Relations Between the United States and Yugoslavia,” February 10, 1949, in PPS Papers: III, 14–24.

27 PPS/39/2, “United States Policy Toward China,” February 25, 1949, ibid., pp. 25–28.