Life
When Kennan first wrote the X-Article, he was working at the National War College teaching international relations.[1] While teaching there, he also worked on the committee that was studying and recommending strategies for the Truman Doctrine.[2] His biggest concern with the matter between Greece and Turkey was the US involvement in the region could evoke a response from the USSR.[3] His worries went largely unaddressed in the final document and Kennan continued to voice his hesitance after the doctrine had been implemented.[4] By the time the X-Article was published and gaining an audience, Kennan was working as the Director of the new Policy Planning Staff under Secretary of State George Marshall.[5] While working under Marshall, Kennan and his staff helped research and recommend for the Marshall Plan for European economic recovery.[6] Kennan sent one of the most important papers created by the Policy Planning Staff to Marshall, titled “Policy with Respect to American Aid to Western Europe.”[7] Much of this paper became the writing for the eventual Marshall Plan. Kennan was the person to propose aid to the USSR which exposed Soviet weakness at a time where projected strength was a pillar of their power.[8] Kennan returned to Moscow as ambassador in 1952, however he was only there a few months before his comments made Stalin require him to leave.[9] He then served a final foreign position as ambassador to Yugoslavia for two years.[10] Kennan spent the rest of his life teaching and writing about international affairs up until his death in 2005.[11] His long-standing legacy remained concentrated on the work he did in 1946 and 1947 establishing the policy of containment.
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George Kennan. Image Courtesy of NBC News.
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Feeling like one who has inadvertently loosened a large boulder from the top of a cliff and now helplessly witnesses its path of destruction in the valley below, shuddering and wincing at each successive glimpse of disaster...[12]
Legacy
George Kennan. Image Courtesy of the New Yorker.
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Though George Kennan was ultimately unhappy with the interpretations of the containment policy he expressed in the X-Article, the credit must still be given to him for the initial idea and the actions based upon it that followed. Kennan’s biggest challenge with others’ interpretations of his containment policy was the focus on a military response, instead of a political one.[13] This interpretation can be used to explain the fighting in Korea and Vietnam to contain communism in Asia. Though he acknowledged and understood the dangers of communism in Southeast Asia, he questioned the success of a containment policy in this area when he had specifically designed it to be used in the context of the USSR following World War II.[14] By 1969, Kennan officially called for the United States to withdraw from Vietnam and viewed containment there as a failure.[15] Kennan was one of the harshest critics of containment throughout the Cold War because he did not believe that the strategy he created was designed to be used in the places and policies where it was being used.[16] Despite his personal criticisms and regardless of critics’ opinions on the implementation of containment policy, George Kennan was one of the most significant Americans during the Cold War because of the immense impact he had on shaping relations and strategies between the two states through the start of the 1990s, nearly 50 years after he wrote his famous Long Telegram and X-Article.
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Further Resources:
"The Lasting Legacy of George F. Kennan," Youtube video, 58:04, posted by "Council on Foreign Relations," June 5, 2012.
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"Charlie Rose and George Kennan 1993," Youtube video, 31:15, posted by "George Kennan," May 14, 2022.
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Footnotes:
[1] David Mayers, George Kennan and the Dilemmas of US Foreign Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 100.
[2]George F. Kennan, Memoirs, 1925-1950 (Boston: Atlantic-Little, Brown, and Company, 1967), 313-314.
[3] John Lewis Gaddis, George F. Kennan: An American Life (New York: Penguin, 2012), 255
[4] Gaddis, 256-257
[5] Mayers, 113
[6] Kennan, Memoirs, 343
[7] Gaddis, 267
[8] Gaddis, 269
[9]David Milne, “Kennan, George F. (16 February 1904–17 March 2005),” American National Biography, April 2016, https://www.anb.org/display/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-0700871.
[10]Milne
[11] John Lukacs, George Kennan: A Study of Character (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 188
[12] Kennan, Memoirs, 356
[13] Walter L. Hixson, “Containment on the Perimeter: George F. Kennan and Vietnam,” Diplomatic History 12, no. 2 (Spring 1988): 149–64, 150. [JSTOR]
[14] Hixson, 153
[15] Hixson, 150
[16] Kennan, Memoirs, 366-367
[1] David Mayers, George Kennan and the Dilemmas of US Foreign Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 100.
[2]George F. Kennan, Memoirs, 1925-1950 (Boston: Atlantic-Little, Brown, and Company, 1967), 313-314.
[3] John Lewis Gaddis, George F. Kennan: An American Life (New York: Penguin, 2012), 255
[4] Gaddis, 256-257
[5] Mayers, 113
[6] Kennan, Memoirs, 343
[7] Gaddis, 267
[8] Gaddis, 269
[9]David Milne, “Kennan, George F. (16 February 1904–17 March 2005),” American National Biography, April 2016, https://www.anb.org/display/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-0700871.
[10]Milne
[11] John Lukacs, George Kennan: A Study of Character (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 188
[12] Kennan, Memoirs, 356
[13] Walter L. Hixson, “Containment on the Perimeter: George F. Kennan and Vietnam,” Diplomatic History 12, no. 2 (Spring 1988): 149–64, 150. [JSTOR]
[14] Hixson, 153
[15] Hixson, 150
[16] Kennan, Memoirs, 366-367