George F. Kennan : an American life

38 Ibid., July 5, 1951; GFK speech on the Oslofjord, July 4, 1951, GFK Papers, 300:8.

39 GFK Diary, July 10, 1951.

40 GFK to ASK, July 24, 1951, JEK Papers; GFK, Memoirs, II, 207. See also, on the Davies investigation, Ybarra, Washington Gone Crazy, pp. 564–65.

41 GFK to George W. Perkins, July 24, 1951, GFK Papers, 139:7; GFK to ASK, July 24, August 6 and 8, 1951, JEK Papers.

42 GFK to Acheson, September 1, 1951, GFK Papers, 139:7. The handwritten copy is in GFK’s State Department personnel file, DSR-DF 1950–54, Box 608, “123 Kennan” folder.

43 Both poems, undated, are in the GFK Diary for the summer of 1951. The summary, dated only September 1951, is in GFK Papers, 164:27.

44 GFK Diary, undated but late summer 1951; GFK, Memoirs, II, 105–6; and Ruddy, Cautious Diplomat, p. 106, where Bohlen’s suggestion is misdated as having been made in 1952.

45 ASK interview, September 8, 1983, pp. 1–2.

46 John and Patricia Davies interview, December 7, 1982, pp. 13–14; GFK to JKH, October 26, 1951, and to KWK, December 17, 1951, JEK Papers; GFK, Memoirs, II, 62.

47 James Reston, “Our Ways in Diplomacy,” New York Times, September 30, 1951; GFK to Alsop, October 3, 1951, Alsop Papers, Part 1, Box 6, “October, 1951” folder; GFK to Oppenheimer, October 4, 1951, Oppenheimer Papers, Box 43, “Kennan” folder. See also GFK, Memoirs, II, 76– 77; and GFK, American Diplomacy, pp. 6–7.

48 Despite the reference to “this room,” the dinosaur did not appear in the text of GFK’s Chicago lectures— although it’s possible that he might have improvised it. The lectures are in the GFK Papers, 251:21–23, 252:1–3. The dinosaur is in American Diplomacy, p. 59.

49 Thompson interview, p. 1; Time, October 8, 1951. See also Lippmann, U.S. Foreign Policy; Niebuhr, Children of Light and Children of Darkness; and Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations.

50 GFK to Toynbee, March 31, 1952, GFK Papers, 139:5.

51 GFK to New York Times, August 16, 1952 (not sent), ibid.; Elim O’Shaughnessy memorandum, August 19, 1952, DSR-DF 1950-54, “123 Kennan, George F.” file; GFK to Bohlen, August 21, 1952, GFK Papers, 139:4; Jessup to George Wadsworth, September 9, 1952, Philip Jessup Papers, 1:9. For Walsh’s attack, see Warren Weaver, “ ‘Dangerous’ Views Charged to Envoy,” New York Times, July 28, 1952.

52 GFK, “How New Are Our Problems?” The announcement of the American Political Science Association award is in The New York Times, August 27, 1952. Rosenthal, Righteous Realists, discusses GFK’s place within the “realist” tradition. GFK acknowledged not having read Thucydides in a letter to Louis J. Halle, September 27, 1993, Louis J. Halle Papers, 4:1. I am indebted for this citation to Michael Schmidt, whose 2008 Yale History Department senior essay, “Present at the Creation: Thucydides in the Cold War,” quotes it.

53 James Reston, “Kennan Is Slated for Post of Ambassador to Moscow,” New York Times, November 20, 1951 ; Salisbury, Journey for Our Times, pp. 407–8; Gromyko to Stalin, December 12, 1951, Russian Federation Foreign Policy Archive, Fond 3, Opis 66, Delo 279, List 134–36. Parker’s book was published as Conspiracy Against Peace in 1949. GFK’s account of this episode is in his Memoirs, I, 243–46.

54 GFK to Cumming, December 31, 1951, GFK Papers, 139:7.

EIGHTEEN ? MR. AMBASSADOR: 1952

1 Louis Cassels, “ ‘Mr. X’ Goes to Moscow,” Collier’s, March 12, 1952, pp. 19–20, 87–90; Link interview, p. 8; GFK to Bishop John of San Francisco, December 17, 1951, GFK Papers, 139:7; GFK to Dr. John Bodo, January 18, 1952, ibid., 5:15; GFK to Nicholas and Patricia Nabokov, January 14, 1952, ibid., 32:13.

2 GFK dinner speech, Pasadena, February 7, 1952, ibid., 300:17.

3 GFK to Acheson, copy in GFK Diary, January 23, 1952.

4 Executive Session testimony, March 12, 1952, U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Historical Series, IV, 190–92; “Kennan Is Confirmed,” New York Times, March 14, 1952.

5 Transcript, GFK State Department press conference, April 1, 1952, pp. 16–17, GFK Papers, 300:18.

6 GFK retrospective diary, April 22–23, 1952. See also GFK’s account of his April 3, 1952, meeting with Panyushkin in FRUS: 1952–54, VIII, 968–70.

7 Richard Rovere, “Letter from Washington,” New Yorker, May 17, 1952, pp. 122– 33.

8 “Off to Europe for Business and Pleasure,” New York Herald Tribune, April 24, 1952. The envelope, dated “probably April, 1952,” is in GFK Papers, 232:3.

9 I owe this analogy to Toni Dorfman, whose November 2009 Yale undergraduate production of The Cherry Orchard caused me to see it.

10 ASK interview, September 8, 1983, p. 3; ASK to JKH, CKB, and Grace Wells, May 13, 1952, JEK Papers; John and Patricia Davies interview, December 7, 1982, p. 14; GFK, Memoirs, II, 112, which gives the date, incorrectly, as May 5.

11 GFK to ASK, May 7, 8, and 11, 1952, JEK Papers. See also GFK’s presentation to the State Department’s Division of Research for Europe, January 22, 1953, GFK Papers, 164:37; ASK interview, September 8, 1983, p. 3; and GFK, Memoirs, II, 112–15.

12 GFK to Acheson, May 14, 1952, DSR-DF 1950–54, Box 608, “123 Kennan” folder; GFK,