The Foreign Service Journal, February 2004

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 35 n his journals and diaries, George Kennan portrayed himself as a man in search of the “inner meaning” of the events and forces that shaped American and Soviet policies in the wake of the Second World War. He did so in his multiple roles as senior State Department policy planner for a beleaguered American president prior to and immediately after the outbreak of the Korean War, as an academic historian seeking to investigate Russian national character and Soviet political ambitions in Europe, and as a critic of American strategies adopted to confront the Soviet challenge to Western values and institutions. Throughout the six decades of his distinguished career, Kennan repeatedly emphasized the importance of “touch and feel” for understanding historic forces, as well as intellectual rigor for purposes of analysis. He unfailingly met these standards, occasionally to the dis- may of colleagues whose policy initiatives he criticized. Ambassador Kennan departed government service in August 1950. (He would return briefly to head the U.S. embassies in Moscow and Belgrade.) He left with a sense of foreboding about the menace of McCarthyism and “the utter confusion that existed in the public mind with respect to U.S. foreign policy.” Kennan captured this sentiment in a melancholy diary passage ( Memoirs, 1925-1950 ) in which he worried: “(Never before) has there been such utter confusion in the public mind with respect to the U.S. foreign policy. The president doesn’t understand it; Congress doesn’t understand it; nor does the public, nor does the press. They all wander about in a labyrinth of ignorance and error and conjecture.” Academic Immersion Beset by these dispirited thoughts, Kennan depart- ed Washington to take up an offer by an old friend and confidante, Robert Oppenheimer, to join Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, the university’s set-aside research center. He hoped to be well received by the academic community, which he viewed as a hospitable brotherhood, one characterized by an “integrity of mind” and “modesty of person,” as he described it in American Diplomacy. Kennan’s enthusiasm was reflected in his prolific writings, which included 18 books, innumerable articles, and an array of commen- taries on strategy and policy. His commentaries on American diplomacy were adopted as required texts by many U.S. universities offering courses on “interna- tional relations.” The ambassador’s relocation to the academic com- munity was not an easy passage, however. He was not viewed as a properly credentialed academic by tenured I N THE HALF - CENTURY SINCE HE LEFT THE F OREIGN S ERVICE , G EORGE K ENNAN HAS CONTINUED TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF DIPLOMACY IN NUMEROUS WAYS . B Y W ILLIAM H. L EWIS F O C U S O N G E O R G E K E N N A N I G EORGE K ENNAN : A W ITNESS TO H ISTORY