The Foreign Service Journal, February 2004

urged that both governments begin to negotiate accords leading to the elimination of their nuclear holdings. A Russian Studies Legacy Over the years, his criticism of U.S. national security policy pro- voked unsettling personal attacks on Kennan by conservative acade- micians and high-level govern- ment officials. It caused him par- ticular dismay to find himself at odds with his revered friend and benefactor, Dean Acheson. Acheson occasionally bridled at Kennan’s policy prescriptions from the latter’s academic perch, contending that his former colleague was somewhat of a mystic, unwilling to deal with the real world. For example, he sharply disassociated himself from Kennan when the latter proposed in the mid-1950s that American and Soviet troops be withdrawn from Central Europe to ease tensions. Acheson argued that withdrawal would lead to a new wave of American iso- lationism and a sense of abandonment in Western Europe. Denounced by some during the Cold War years as a misguided national security affairs intellectual, Kennan received this opprobrium with sang froide. Beyond reproach was the intellectual integrity and analytical rigor that the ambassador brought to his study of com- munist rule in Russia and the many issues surrounding U.S. relations with Stalin during the Second World War and the years immediately after. Kennan’s study of communist doctrine and the behavior of Soviet leaders made him the doyen of U.S.- Soviet diplomatic history studies. He received acclaim for works such as: Russia Leaves the War ; Soviet Foreign Policy; and Russia , the Atom and the West . His scholarly efforts were often compared with the ear- lier works of E. H. Carr, Leonard Shapiro and Franco Venturi. Kennan’s eloquence and approach to the sub- ject revealed a level of insight rarely encountered in the field of modern diplomatic history. His analytical talents were at their most insightful when addressing the contradictions and excesses encountered in communist doctrine and practice. Using as his point of departure Stalin’s relations with the U.S. during the war years and shortly thereafter, Kennan traced the origins of Stalin’s strategies to the overthrow of the Czarist gov- ernment in 1917 by a small band of revolutionaries and their strug- gle to survive counterblows by ancien regime Russian leaders and the capitalist world, including the U.S. The retention of power in the face of implacable foes had two major consequences: the sub- ordination of ideological beliefs to the need for political survival and their expression as abiding, paranoiac beliefs of personal threat. That underlay efforts by the Communist Party to overcome its initial weaknesses through tyranny and a burgeoning state security apparatus. Thus, as early as 1924, Stalin personally justified the placing of responsibility for “absolute order and stabil- ity” in the “organs of suppression.” He declared sup- pression to be warranted as long as there is capitalist intervention. Given the nature of the threat, all inter- nal opposition elements in the Soviet Union would be regarded as reactionary forces antagonistic to commu- nist power. What, then, were the aims of Stalin and his cohorts during the Second World War and thereafter? In Measures Short of War , Kennan concluded that their approach was expedient in nature. Whatever accom- modations with the U.S. and other western powers occurred were to be contingent and only to achieve short-term advantage for Moscow. Following the war, Moscow’s objectives would remain as before — to undermine rival power centers in Europe and to enhance the Western perception of Moscow as a pow- erful military and political force. Kennan believed that Stalin intended to achieve these objectives by all means “short of war.” In his review of U.S. wartime policies, Kennan held firmly to the belief that Washington’s collective securi- ty purposes from 1943-44 onward were misguided. The Yalta and Potsdam accords reflected ill-grounded Western hopes that the Soviet Union would perpetuate the “constructive wartime partnership” by helping to establish representative governments in Eastern Europe, resettle displaced populations, and transform 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 39 Kennan saw the Cold War as essentially a political struggle and argued military imperatives should be regarded as subsidiary.