Word: kennans
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...friend and colleague George Kennan, he was "a man of exceptional native brilliance who never ceased to throw off thoughts and ideas like sparks from a sparkler." He even won the grudging respect of Charles de Gaulle...
...quarterly has never exceeded 73,000, it has long been a prestigious forum reflecting the viewpoints of statesmen and political commentators around the world. Foreign Affairs published articles by heads of governments as well as their critics, and in its 1947 article by "X" (State Department Planner George F. Kennan) presented the first outline of U.S. policy in the coming cold...
...loss of his ability to influence policy outcomes became apparent, he left, removed himself from any complicity in politics he despaired of and mourned over his lack of influence. Memoirs are never a sound basis for an assessment of character, but this is far from The Vantage Point. Kennan is not only more balanced then President Johnson, he is more morose. He lacks the some of historical justification and approval that Dean Acheson filled his own account of this period with, and replaces is with reflective melancholy. That makes it an easier book to read. But, of course...
That position qualifies as moral arrogance and contempt for democracy. When combined with a vigorous interpretation of the American role on the world scene, it has produced a bitter domestic political atmosphere and a depraved Asian policy that the country cannot abandon. But Kennan combined it with a limited role for America. His comments on popular American culture imply no particular enthusiasm for it. And his discussion of Midwestern provincialism show little respect for the natives' capacity to manage their foreign affairs. He calls the region "a great slatternly mother, sterile when left to herself, yet immensely fruitful and creative...
...EVERY bit as committed to rule by an elite as Kennan devised the very policies that drove him from the foreign service. Acheson and others, credited by the revisionist historians of the sixties with creating the Cold War, were very sophisticated (whatever else they may have been, they were sophisticated) men. Their policy led to the solidification of a divided Europe and a bipolar world. It led to internationalization and intensification of Third World domestic crises. In retrospect, Kennan's options were preferable, and, in view of his superior expertise (specific expertise preferable to sophistication) that isn't surprising...