Word: kennan
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...main trouble with U.S. foreign policy in the last half century is that it has too seldom been guided by self-interest, too often by "impractical idealism." So concludes the State Department's George F. ("Mr. X") Kennan, who left his job as State's top policy-planner last year for a sabbatical at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Ever since the U.S. blundered into global responsibilities in the Spanish-American War, says Kennan, its tendency has been to live in a dreamy haze, preaching moral principles but neglecting to keep the military strength to make...
...series of lectures delivered at the University of Chicago last spring, and to be published in a book this month (American Diplomacy 1900-1950; University of Chicago, $2.75), Kennan suggests a more practical rule of thumb for U.S. foreign policy...
Balance of Power. What the U.S. needs, says Kennan, is "the courage to recognize that if our own purposes and undertakings here at home are decent ones, unsullied by arrogance or hostility . . . or delusions of superiority, then the pursuit of our national interest can never fail to be conducive to a better world...
...enemies that N.E.A. had in mind were no ordinary critics of the public schools. They were a handful of right-wing groups that have made their influence felt from Port Washington, N.Y., to Pasadena, Calif. "They have one characteristic in common: bigotry," said Richard B. Kennan of the N.E.A.'s Defense Commission. Their chief obsession: that U.S. education is headed straight for Communism...
...Destructive? As far as the N.E.A. could tell from observing them, such organizations capitalize on any local school dispute, move in to push their doctrines during the ruckus, and try to spread the impression that the whole school system is riddled with Reds. "Up to last year," said Richard Kennan to the N.E.A. last week, "we felt it best to ignore their attacks. Now, we have clear evidence of coalition in their efforts . . . We had to come out slugging." The N.E.A.'s recommendation to the public: learn the difference between healthy criticism and destructive criticism, then come out slugging...