George F. Kennan: An American Life (138 page)

6
GFK to JEK, October 31, 1968, JEK Papers.

7
GFK Diary, May 6, 1966, November 7 and December 4, 1968.

8
“Kennan Analysis Coolly Received,”
New York Times,
December 4, 1968; “A Hit and Myth Gathering of Intellectuals,”
ibid.,
December 8, 1968; Walter Goodman, “Liberal Establishment Faces: The Blacks, The Young, The New Left,”
New York Times Magazine,
December 29, 1968. Excerpts from Kennan’s speech ran in the December 4, 1968, issue of
The New York Times.

9
GFK to JEK, September 21/22, 1968, JEK Papers; GFK interview by Labalme, August 30, 1989, pp. 13–14; George Urban, “From Containment to. . . Self-Containment: A Conversation with George F. Kennan
,” Encounter
47 (September 1976), 43.

10
GFK Diary, March 6 and 29, 1969.

11
GFK to JEK, January 31, 1969, JEK Papers; Crossman Diary, January 31, 1969, in Crossman,
Diaries of a Cabinet Minister
, pp. 353–54. I owe this reference to Wilson D. Miscamble, C.S.C.

12
GFK,
Marquis de Custine
, p. 124.

13
GFK, “Interview with George F. Kennan,” conducted by Charles Gati and Richard Ullman,
Foreign Policy
7 (Summer 1972), 5–21; GFK Diary, October 12, 1969. See also Bernard Gwertzman, “Kennan Now Advocates Closer Ties with Soviet,”
New York Times,
May 28, 1972.

14
GFK to Kissinger, September 19, 1973, GFK Papers, 26:11. See also the transcript of a GFK-Kissinger telephone conversation, September 14, 1973, Kissinger Telephone Conversations KA 10845, Digital National Security Archive.

15
“Kennan Decries Talk of Détente,”
New York Times,
September 22, 1968; GFK, “Between Earth and Hell,”
New York Review of Books
, March 21, 1974; Robert and Evgenia Tucker interview, September 4, 1984, pp. 11–16.

16
GFK interview, October 31, 1974, pp. 6–7. See also GFK Diary, March 9, 1973. I have discussed the analogies between the Nixon-Kissinger strategy and Kennan’s concept of five vital power centers in
Strategies of Containment,
pp. 278–79.

17
“Kennan Says ABM Could Peril Talks,”
New York Times,
February 7, 1970. See also GFK,
Nuclear Delusion
, pp. xxiii–xxiv.

18
For background on the Helsinki Conference, see Gaddis,
Cold War: A New History
, pp. 184–88; also, much more thoroughly, Thomas,
Helsinki Effect
, and Morgan, “Origins of the Helsinki Final Act,” Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 2010.

19
GFK to Patricia Davies, August 9, 1975, GFK Papers, 10:12.

20
GFK, “United States and the Soviet Union, 1917–1976,”
Foreign Affairs
54 (July 1976), 686–88; GFK Diary, August 30, 1976; Urban, “Conversation with George F. Kennan,” p. 39; Alliluyeva to GFK, September 21, 1976, GFK Papers, 38:5.

21
Galbraith’s review appeared in
The New York Times Book Review,
October 8, 1972.

22
GFK interview by Labalme, February 27, 1990, pp. 2–19; Dilworth interview, p. 13; GFK to Edwin O. Reischauer, March 12, 1973, and David Riesman, March 27, 1973, GFK Papers, 149:1. See also, Israel Shenker, “Dispute Splits Advanced Study Institute,” and “Foes at Institute Dig In For a Fight,”
New York Times,
March 2 and 4, 1973, and, for general background, John H. Elliott interview December 7, 1992. Kaysen’s tenure as Institute director is briefly covered in Regis,
Who Got Einstein’s Office?
, pp. 202–7.

23
GFK Diary, March 13, 1978; GFK interview, September 5, 1984, pp. 4–7; GFK to Harriman, October 8 and 28, 1972, Harriman Papers, Box 1012.

24
Ullman interview, pp. 19–20.

25
Undated Harriman note; Harriman to GFK, November 3, 1972; GFK to Harriman, November 18, 1972, all in Harriman Papers, Box 1012.

26
GFK to Harriman, December 4, 1975,
ibid.
On the elder Kennan’s biography of the elder Harriman, see Chapter Nine, above.

27
GFK to Harriman, May 10, 1978, Harriman to GFK, May 22, 1978,
ibid.
; “Columbia Gets Harriman Gift of $11 Million,”
New York Times,
October 22, 1982.

28
GFK interview, September 5, 1984, pp. 4, 6; Black interview, p. 28. See also Taplin interview, pp. 28–32. Of course if Kennan, half a century earlier, had followed through on his idea of starting an airborne express company—“I’ll be the Harriman of commercial aeronautics”—the roles might have reversed. Chapter Two provides the context.

29
GFK Diary, January 28, October 12, 1982. See also McGeorge Bundy interview, December 17, 1986, p. 9.

30
GFK to Mimi Bull, September 21, 1971, Bull Papers; GFK to Avis Bohlen, January 20, 1974, GFK Papers, 5:16.

31
“Verses by G. F. Kennan on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday,” February 16, 1974,
ibid.,
325:5; GFK Diary, January 1, 1975.

32
GFK Diary, January 8, 1975.

33
Ibid.,
April 24, May 4, 6, 7, 1975.

34
Ibid.,
May 12, 1975.

35
“Trip to Helsinki,” July 1975, GFK Papers, 24:6.

36
Urban, “Conversation with George F. Kennan,” pp. 10–43; GFK Diary, August 23, 1976. Acheson’s comment, relating to GFK’s 1952 expulsion from the Soviet Union, is in
Present at the Creation,
p. 697.

37
Thompson,
Hawk and the Dove
, pp. 1, 247; GFK, “United States and the Soviet Union, 1917–1976,” p. 682; GFK interview, August 26, 1982, p. 3; Nitze,
Tension Between Opposites,
p. 131. 1.

38
Nitze,
From Hiroshima to Glasnost,
pp. 353–54; Thompson,
Hawk and the Dove,
pp. 262–63.

39
GFK Diary, February 3, 1977; GFK,
Cloud of Danger,
p. vii.

40
Goodman interview, p. 16; GFK to Mimi Bull, September 29, 1977, Bull Papers; Philip Geyelin, “A Grand Design for Peace,”
Washington Post,
June 26, 1977; GFK,
Cloud of Danger
, p. 204, also pp. 3–26, 228–234; James Reston, “Kennan on Carter’s Diplomacy,”
New York Times,
April 3, 1977; GFK Diary, June 30, 1977.

41
The text of Kennan’s November 22 speech appeared in
The Washington Post
on December 11, 1977.

42
GFK interview, August 26, 1982, p. 3; Nitze interview, p. 15.

43
Marilyn Berger, “An Appeal for Thought” [interview with GFK],
New York Times Magazine,
May 7, 1978; Paul H. Nitze, “A Plea for Action,”
ibid.
; GFK to S. Frederick Starr, May 15, 1978, GFK Papers, 155:1. 1.

44
Lee Lescaze, “Solzhenitsyn Says West Is Failing as Model for World,”
Washington Post,
June 9, 1978; “Diary Notes, Summer, 1978,” p. 13, GFK Papers, 239:4. An abridged text of Solzhenitsyn’s address appeared in
The Washington Post
two days later.

45
Eugene V. Rostow, “Searching for Kennan’s Grand Design,”
Yale Law Review
87 (June 1978), 1527–48.

46
GFK Diary, August 19, 1978; GFK to Reston, November 28, 1978, GFK Papers, 41:9.

47
Thompson,
Hawk and the Dove
, p. 313. For evaluations of the archival evidence, see Zubok,
Failed Empire
, pp. 227–64; Ouimet,
Rise and Fall of the Brezhnev Doctrine in Soviet Foreign Policy
; and Westad,
Global Cold War,
especially pp. 218–41, 250–88, 299–330.

48
Ullman interview, pp. 13–14.

49
Goodman interview, pp. 17–19; Bull to JLG, May 30, 2002, JLG Papers; Bull diary note, October 1–15, 1972, Bull Papers.

50
GFK interview, September 4, 1984, pp. 3–4; Gennadi Gerasimov, “From Positions of Realism,”
Pravda,
July 12, 1977.

51
Dilworth interview, p. 13; Goodman interview, pp. 21–24.

52
Black interview, p. 16; Goodman interview, p. 18; GFK Diary, March 28, 1978.

53
Paul M. Kennedy, “Bismarck Bowing Out,”
Washington Post Book World,
January 6, 1980; Kissinger to GFK, January 10, 1980, GFK Papers, 26:11.

54
GFK to Kissinger, February 2, 1980,
ibid.
; GFK,
Decline of Bismarck’s European Order
, pp. 3–7.

55
Black interview, p. 16. For an earlier example of GFK’s detective work, see his “The Sisson Documents,”
Journal of Modern History
28 (June 1956), 130–54.

56
Bull diary note, October 1–15, 1972, Bull Papers.

57
Schlesinger Diary, September 28, 1979, in Schlesinger,
Journals,
p. 474; GFK Diary, September 17, 1979; Thompson,
Hawk and the Dove,
pp. 273–74. For a detailed account that doesn’t mention Nitze’s role, see Garthoff,
Détente and Confrontation,
pp. 913–34.

58
Don Oberdorfer, “George Kennan Urges Tougher Stance on Iran,”
Washington Post,
February 28, 1980; Charles Mohr, “George Kennan Says U.S. Magnifies Soviet Threat,”
New York Times,
February 28, 1980; James Reston, “Some Hope for the Hostages,”
ibid.,
March 14, 1980; GFK to Harrison Salisbury, December 23, 1968, GFK Papers, 43:2. See also Chapter Twenty-Two, above.

59
GFK undelivered draft speech, December 1979, GFK Papers, 325:7.

60
Durbrow to GFK, October 6, 1980,
ibid.,
12:10; Durbrow interview, p. 13.

61
GFK to Durbrow, November 10, 1980, GFK Papers, 12:10.

62
GFK Diary, October 2, 1980. The text of the speech is in GFK,
Nuclear Delusion
, pp. 134–47. The actual figure for the combined American and Soviet nuclear arsenals in 1980 is approximately 54,000. “Global Nuclear Stockpiles, 1945–2006,” p. 66.

1
GFK Diary, March 11, 1981 [misdated, in perhaps a Freudian slip, 1891].

2
Ibid.
April 17, 1981. 1.

3
The full text of the speech, partially published in
Washington Post
on May 24, 1981, is in GFK,
Nuclear Delusion
, pp. 175–82. For the occasion, see Don Oberdorfer, “Kennan Urges Halving of Nuclear Arsenals,”
Washington Post,
May 20, 1981. 1.

4
Don Oberdorfer, “George Kennan’s 30-Year Nightmare of Our ‘Final Folly,’”
ibid.,
May 24, 1981; Talbott,
Master of the Game
, p. 165; Barbara Slavin and Milt Freudenheim, “Kennan: Are We Nuclear Lemmings?”
New York Times,
May 24, 1981. The Rostow testimony, delivered on June 22, 1981, was excerpted in
ibid.,
June 23,1981.

5
Nitze,
From Hiroshima to Glasnost,
pp. 302, 307–8, 363; Talbott,
Master of the Game,
pp. 157–59.

6
GFK interview, October 31, 1974, p. 6; GFK Diary, March 22, 1981. 1.

7
Gaddis,
Strategies of Containment,
p. 352; Cannon,
President Reagan,
pp. 287–89; Lettow,
Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
, pp. 3–41, 132–34.

8
Bernard Gwertzman, “U.S. Says It Is Not Bound by 2 Arms Pacts With Soviets,”
New York Times,
May 20, 1981; GFK, “Denuclearization,”
ibid.,
October 11, 1981; Talbott,
Master of the Game,
pp. 168–70.

9
Reagan National Press Club Speech, November 18, 1981,
Public Papers of the Presidents: Reagan, 1981
; “George Kennan Calls on U.S. to View Soviet More Soberly,”
New York Times,
November 18, 1981; “Adding Up the ‘Zero Option’ Will Take Time,”
ibid.,
November 22, 1981. See also Tom Wicker, “A Voice of Rationality,”
ibid.,
December 1, 1981. GFK’s Dartmouth speech is in
Nuclear Delusion
, pp. 192–207.

10
GFK to Charles James, November 27, 1980, Douglas James Papers; GFK, “A Risky Equation,”
New York Times,
February 18, 1981; GFK Diary, February 20, 1981. Reagan’s January 29 press conference is in
Public Papers of the Presidents: Reagan, 1981
. See also Hayward,
Conservative Counterrevolution
, p. 97.

11
GFK Diary, March 19, 22, April 16, 1981.

12
Reagan Notre Dame speech, May 17, 1981, in
Public Papers of the Presidents: Reagan, 1981
.

13
GFK Diary, May 27, 1981.

14
Reagan to John O. Koehler, July 9, 1981, in Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson,
Reagan,
p. 375. See also Gaddis,
Strategies of Containment,
pp. 349–53, and Matlock,
Reagan and Gorbachev,
pp. 3–26.

15
Pipes,
Vixi
, p. 193; GFK to Reston, November 28, 1978, GFK Papers, 41:9. For Reagan’s jokes, as well as a summary of what more sophisticated indicators were showing about the Soviet economy, see Hayward,
Conservative Counterrevolution
, pp. 102–16.

16
GFK,“As the Kremlin Sees It,”
New York Times,
January 6, 1982; “The Kennan Doctrine,”
New York Times,
January 10, 1982. See also “George Kennan Says Sanctions Were Hasty,”
ibid.,
January 4, 1982.

17
GFK to Durbrow, January 6, 1982, GFK Papers, 12:10.

18
GFK to Charles James, January 1, 1982, Douglas James Papers; GFK Diary, January 10, 1982.

19
GFK Diary, March 11, July 30, 1982; “139 in Congress Urge Nuclear Arms Freeze by U.S. and Moscow,”
New York Times,
March 11,1982; GFK interview, September 4,1984, pp. 26–27. Schell’s
New Yorker
articles became a best-selling book,
The Fate of the Earth
. For the “freeze,” see Wittner,
Toward Nuclear Abolition,
pp. 313–15.