Word: kennan
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Washington Subconscious. Abruptly, in 1946, Washington began heeding Kennan's alarums. For months, he recalls, "I had done little else but pluck people's sleeves," warning them of Russia's intentions, but it was "like talking to a stone." Then, in an 8,000-word telegram to Washington-"neatly divided, like an 18th century Protestant sermon, into five separate parts"-Kennan reiterated all that he had said before, and everybody began listening. Precisely why is unclear. The subconscious motivations of official Washington, he believes, are as intricate "as those of the most complicated of Sigmund Freud...
...After Kennan returned to Washington in 1946, first as deputy for foreign affairs at the newly established National War College and then to head the State Department's new Policy Planning Staff, he succeeded in influencing the shape of the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and the designs for rebuilding Japan's economy. But then the pendulum began swinging too far the other way. From "the clumsy naïveté" of its wartime cozying-up to Moscow, Washington moved to the opposite extreme and adopted an unbending, monolithic attitude toward the Communist countries. Kennan believes that...
...Vital Areas. As Kennan sees it, there are "only five regions of the world-the United States, the United Kingdom, the Rhine Valley with adjacent industrial areas, the Soviet Union and Japan-where the sinews of modern military strength could be produced in quantity." These, he argues, should be the vital areas of U.S. concern; all the others must be secondary. Since one of the areas is under Communist control, the first task for U.S. policy since World War II has been to see to it that "none of the remaining ones fell under such control." Accordingly, he sees...
...Kennan thinks it was a mistake for the U.S. ever to have become involved there. As he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a precipitate withdrawal would be an even greater mistake. His advice: quit escalating and give diplomacy a chance to settle...
There is, however, a serious problem that Kennan has not yet attempted to resolve. His opposition to the U.S. involvement in Viet Nam grows out of his belief that Peking does not now pose a threat to U.S. interests. Yet he concedes that China, under a firm, unifying hand and armed with nuclear weapons, may one day join the five existing "vital" areas as a formidable sixth. It would thus automatically become of prime concern to the U.S. to contain a Communist-ruled China. How to do it is another question, and Kennan has no ready answer. He simply does...