Remembering George Kennan

George Kennan celebrates his 100th birthday at the Institute for Advanced Study

On the occasion of George Frost Kennan's 90th birthday, February 16, 1994, Institute Trustee J. Richardson Dilworth paid tribute to Professor Kennan's extraordinary achievements as historian, diplomat and sage:

"George Kennan is an historian who has made history. He is a diplomat who, as Henry Kissinger wrote, has authored much of the diplomatic doctrine of our era. He is a sage whose wisdom has been acknowledged, a prophet who has found honor in his own country... For more than a decade, from 1950-1963, he moved between the diplomatic and academic worlds, serving as Ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1952 and to Yugoslavia in 1960-63, as Stafford Little Lecturer at Princeton, as George Eastman Visiting Professor at Oxford, as University Fellow at Harvard from 1965-69. But home remained the Institute for Advanced Study. It was here, in the School of Historical Studies where he became a professor in 1956, that he found, as he said, "the seclusion and self segregation" and the time for "long periods of patient probing in libraries and dusty archives" necessary for the historian's work. Twenty-one books were to follow, two of which have won Pulitzer Prizes and National Book Awards, as well as countless articles, projects, criticisms, correspondence, and speeches...

His honors abound: the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Testimonial of Loyal and Meritorious Services from the Department of State, Governor's Award Program of the State of New Jersey, the Albert Einstein Peace Prize, and some 30 honorary degrees from universities both home and abroad, to name a few of many. Awards have been named in his honor, including The Kennan Award, annually bestowed by the American Committee on U.S.-Soviet Relations. His honorary affiliations are distinguished, including the Order of the Pour le Merite for Arts and Sciences of the German Federal Republic; the American Philosophical Society; the British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical, and Philological Studies; and the presidency of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

George Kennan himself has modestly and respectfully attributed his accomplishments in part to the Institute for Advanced Study. "I can find no adequate words," he wrote, "in which to acknowledge the debt I owe to this institution."

It is we who seek to express our gratitude to this 'Last Wise Man,' this great citizen of our era."

--J. Richardson Dilworth, Trustee of the Institute for Advanced Study

Remembering Kennan

George Kennan was a towering figure not only in American public life and in the life of his community but in the life of the world. In a climate that consistently devalues words like "patriot" he was always able to distinguish- and to point out to others-the genuine article. To his consternation, this least doctrinaire of men was saddled with the putative paternity of what came to be labeled a doctrine of U.S. foreign policy, "containment." In similar fashion he watched the West re-arm itself in order to confront a threat that was primarily political rather than, as less supple minds would have it, military. The Soviet regime would fail under the weight of its own excesses. So ran much of the accepted wisdom in Washington. Kennan's response might be described as "yes, but." Yes, the Soviet armed forces remained formidable, but no, we would be foolish if we allowed Moscow to set the terms of the domestic American debate.

George Kennan celebrates his 100th birthday at the Institute for Advanced Study

The same was even more true regarding the issue that probably caused Kennan more grief than any other-the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. policy. So far as Kennan was concerned, the questions had a simple answer: There was no role for weapons that were, as he put it in his memoirs, "indiscriminately destructive and suicidal in their implications." The debate over nuclear weapons started for Kennan when he was still in the government. It grew more heated after he had left for the Institute for Advanced Study. At the Institute, moreover, there was the constant presence of its Director, J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the effort to develop the first atomic bombs. The terms of debate regarding what we now call "weapons of mass destruction" reflected the influence of Kennan and Oppenheimer.

At the Institute Kennan flourished, producing books and articles at a prodigious rate. He made important contributions to three scholarly fields. One was history, characterized by his writing on US policy-making and on the maintenance of a balance of power in Europe. In this category were his major books, those on European and American statecraft preceding and during World War I. A second field was issues of contemporary European policy and the maintenance of the Alliance. Third was the set of issues surrounding nuclear weapons. A fourth field encompassed U.S. domestic politics and what was characterized by a book he called Democracy and the Student Left, where he argued, less successfully, for what he termed a greater degree of self-discipline within the movement opposed to the Vietnam War. He was also a contributor to environmental policy. A major article in Foreign Affairs was that journal's first foray into the numerous issues surrounding what we now call "environmentalism."

Those of us who knew George Kennan well will retain many happy reasons for remembering him. Let me suggest three such reasons. One was his sense of humor, which was even more effective because it so often took the form of self-deprecation. He was a serious man who did not take himself too seriously. I can hear his voice now, no matter what the arena. He never used his wit at the expense of others. A second characteristic was the brilliance of his analytical writing, both within the U.S. government and as a scholar. There his output took many forms, from newspaper op-ed articles to the Long Telegram or the famous "X" article, "The Sources of Soviet Conduct." Finally, there is the extraordinarily insightful man that comes through his memoirs, certainly a work unique in that genre. His sketches of others, and in particular his descriptions of places and events, resonate today as freshly as they did the day he wrote them. How lucky we all are that we had him with us for so many years.

-Richard Ullman is the David K.E. Bruce Professor of International Affairs, Emeritus, in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University and was a Visitor in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1982-83.