George F. Kennan : an American life

Oppenheimer to GFK, March 13, 1953, Oppenheimer Papers, Box 43.

23 GFK to Harry D. Gideonse, May 5, 1953, GFK Papers, 139:1–3; GFK to Harold Dodds, May 1, 1953, GFK Papers, 11:10; GFK Diary, April 6, 28, and June 1, 1953.

24 GFK to Dodds, May 1, 1953, GFK Papers, 11:10.

25 GFK, “Training for Statesmanship,” Atlantic Monthly 191 (May 1953), 40–43; GFK Notre Dame speech, May 15, 1953, GFK Papers, 252:13. See also GFK, Memoirs, II, 224–26; and, for press coverage, “Kennan Upbraids Anti-Red Zealots,” New York Times, May 16, 1953. For the social scientists’ skepticism about GFK, see Engerman, Know Your Enemy, p. 3.

26 GFK address at the Joint Memorial Celebration of the Emmanuel Evangelical-Reformed and the St. John Lutheran Churches of Hampton, Reading Township, Adams County, May 27, 1953, GFK Papers, 300:24. I have compressed this talk to convey its structure within limited space.

27 GFK Diary, August 18, 1953. GFK’s SAIS seminar outlines are in GFK Papers, 300:27.

28 GFK Diary August 18, 20, 31, 1953. GFK, Memoirs, II, 4–5, 187–89, confuses the dates of these episodes, an error repeated in Sketches from a Life, pp. 158–60.

29 GFK Diary, August 21, 1953. Kennan had obviously read Reinhold Niebuhr by this time, probably Moral Man and Immoral Society.

30 GFK address, “Basic Problems in the American Approach to Foreign Policy,” Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, October 5, 1953, GFK Papers, 300:28.

31 GFK Laymen’s Sunday sermon, First Presbyterian Church, Princeton, N.J., October 18, 1953, ibid., 253:7.

32 GFK Diary, October 28 and November 9, 1953, GFK Papers.

33 GFK address to Student Christian Association conference, Princeton University, December 6, 1953, ibid., 253:11.

34 GFK, Realities of American Foreign Policy, p. vii.

35 Ibid., especially pp. 29–30, 53, 84–85, 93–94, 102, 111–12, 118–19. GFK first used this horticultural metaphor, as noted in Chapter Five, above, in 1935. It’s strikingly similar to one his fellow farmer Acheson frequently employed. See Beisner, Dean Acheson, p. 92.

36 GFK draft letter to Herbert Brownell, September 6, 1953, GFK Papers, 139:1–3; GFK notes on conversation with Robert Murphy, November 25, 1953, ibid., 253:12; Davies interview, December 8, 1982, p. 14. See also GFK’s extended account in his Memoirs, II, 200–214.

37 Ibid., pp. 214–18, 228. The Oppenheimer case and the long series of events that led up to it are discussed thoroughly in Bird and Sherwin, American Prometheus, and in Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb.

38 D. M. Ladd to Hoover, March 28, 1951; Ladd to A. H. Belmont, April 2, 1952; GFK to Hoover, October 20, 1953; Hoover to GFK, October 22, 1953, all in GFK’s FBI file, 62-81548, GFK Papers, 181:3–6. The extensive but heavily sanitized exchanges on disloyalty allegations are also in this file.

39 See GFK’s testimony on April 20, 1954, in U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer , pp. 354–55, 364; also his Woodrow Wilson School address of October 5, 1953, GFK Papers, 300:28.

40 GFK handwritten remarks, February 11, 1954, GFK Papers, 300:33.

41 “Kennan Will Run for House Seat,” New York Times, March 14, 1954. See also GFK, Memoirs, II, 77–78; and GFK interview, September 8, 1983, p. 15.

42 Ibid., pp. 16–17; GFK to Wasson, March 23, 1954, GFK Papers, 51:2; Rusk interview, pp. 6–7; “Kennan Bows Out of Congress Race,” New York Times, March 18, 1954.

43 MacMurray to GFK, March 27, 1954, GFK Papers, 138:6–7; JKH interview, p. 27; GFK interview, September 8, 1983, p. 16; Black interview, p. 11; Dilworth interview, p. 7; Berlin interview, pp. 29–30.

44 U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, pp. 356–57, 368–69.

45 GFK, Memoirs, II, 21. See also Bird and Sherwin, American Prometheus, pp. 538–50.

46 GFK Diary, June 11–July 30, 1954. See also U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer , p. 369.

47 GFK Diary, July 8, 1954, January 3, 16, 1955.

48 GFK to KWK, December 25, 1953, JEK Papers.

49 GFK handwritten notes for National Archives talk, October 27, 1954, GFK Papers, 300:34. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 32–33; and Chapters Five and Six, above.

50 GFK Diary, December 30, 1954, January 8, 1956; GFK American Historical Association lecture, “The Experience of Writing History,” December 29, 1959, GFK Papers, 259:7, later published under the same title in the Virginia Historical Review 36 (Spring, 1960), 205–14.

51 GFK Diary, August 20, 1956, GFK Papers, 233:4.

TWENTY ? A RARE POSSIBILITY OF USEFULNESS: 1955–1958

1 GFK Diary, December 29, 1954; Black interview, p. 3.

2 Dilworth interview, December 6, 1987, p. 10. For a useful analysis of Oppenheimer’s relations with his board and faculty, see Bird and Sherwin, American Prometheus, pp. 382–90; also Mark Wolverton, Life in Twilight.