The Foreign Service Journal, February 2004

policy adviser, albeit an important one. Kennan decided to resign but Acheson persuaded him not to leave government service entirely, offer- ing him the alternative of a “leave of absence without pay” after which he would return to the department. Kennan accepted the offer and it was arranged that he would resign as Planning Staff director on Dec. 31, 1949, and stay on as counselor in the department until June 1950, where- upon he would take a one-year leave. Both Acheson and Kennan accepted that his leave would be temporary and began to refer to it as a sabbatical. Kennan’s departure was delayed by the outbreak of the Korean War. He stayed to assist as best he could and worked to establish as formal American policy the goal of simply repelling the North Koreans from the South and restoring the status quo ante. But the weight of military realities and mounting domestic political pressures led to the rejection of this position and to the decision to cross the 38th paral- lel once Gen. Douglas MacArthur routed the North Koreans after his Inchon invasion. A Painful Reality By the time MacArthur’s forces crossed into North Korea, Kennan had made his way to Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study. During his leave year he accepted the University of Chicago’s invitation to deliv- er the Walgreen Lectures. His incisive lectures quick- ly established him as a major spokesman for the realist school in American foreign relations. Published as F O C U S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 31 Kennan became more convinced that he, more so than those formally charged with the responsibility, knew the correct course for American diplomacy. T HE R EMINGTON