George F. Kennan

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George F. Kennan

“Russia has been my life for sixty years,” declared diplomat and scholar George F. Kennan in 1989. Out of his lifelong study of that nation, Kennan developed the policy of containment, a cornerstone of American foreign policy.

As you read the passage below,think about how GeorgeF Kennan s lifeprepared him for his important role in American foreign affairs.

GeorgeKennan came by his lasting interest neutral Portugal, but moved back to Moscow in in Russia quite naturally. Born in Milwaukee, 1944.Here he began his thoughtful analyses of Wisconsin, in 1904,he was named for his uncle, Soviet aims and tactics that would eventually result who was a leading expert on Siberia and Russia in the July 1947article in ForeignAffairsby “Mr. X.” under the czars. Young George enjoyed listening In this article, Kennan first set forth the policy of to his uncle’s tales of Russian customs and containment. The State Department insisted that society. After graduating from military school, Kennan’s name not be used in connection with George attended Princeton University, where he the article, and for years Kennan neither confirmed majored in history. nor denied that he had written it. After his graduation in 1925,Kennan entered By 1947,Kennan was, in the words of one the American Foreign Service, serving first in observer, “America’s global planner,” charged with Switzerland and then in Germany. By 1928,how spotting trends in world affairs and suggesting ever, he was dissatisfied with foreign service life ways to deal with them. Henry Kissinger, former and returned to Washington, D.C., intending to U.S. Secretary of State, once observed that “Kennan resign. The State Department had other plans for came as close to authoring the diplomatic doctrine him, however. “I was offered.. . an appointment of this era as any diplomat in history.” as the first officer to receive special training for After leaving the State Department, Kennan service in Russia,” he later reported. “This assign continued his career as a scholar and a writer. His ment I happily accepted.” (The United States did book RussiaLeavestheWar,published in 1956,won not maintain official relations with the Soviet Union the Pulitzer Prize. In later years, he sometimes at that time.) For the next several years, he studied disagreed publicly with American policy in world the Russian language as well as Russian history affairs. For example, in 1981,he recommended and literature at the University of Berlin. In 1933, that both the United States and the Soviet Union the United States reopened its embassy in IVoscow, drastically reduce their nuclear arsenals. He was and Kennan began his first term of service there. also an early opponent of American involvement When the United States entered World War II, in Vietnam. Throughout his distinguished career, Kennan was serving in the Berlin Embassy. For however, George Kennan remained an undisputed the next five months, he was interned by the Nazis authority on the topic that has intrigued him since as an enemy alien. After his release, he served in childhood—Russia.

Questions to Think About

1. What first stirred Kennan’s interest in Russia? How did he build up his knowledge of that nation?

C.) C 2. Drawing Conclusions Why was Kennan uniquely qualified to become Ca “America’s global planner” in the years following World War II? I C.) C a)

76 • Biography Chapter 26 Survey Edition Chapter 16 Modern American History Edition NAME CLASS DATE

AMERICANPROFILES (continued)

Marguerite Higgins “This is just not the type of war where women ought to be running around H the front lines.” So said General Walton H. Walker when he tried to ban the A only female war correspondent covering the Korean War. To correspondent p Marguerite Higgins those were fighting words. T E As you read the passage below, think R about the traits war correspondents must have to do theirjobs well. 26

MargueriteHiggins was not someone who was more than just a story,” she said. “It was a backed down easily. Born in 1920in Hong Kong, personal crusade. I felt that my position as a

but raised mainly in California, she decided early correspondent was at stake. . . I could not let the in life to pursue a career in the male-dominated fact that I was a woman jeopardize my news profession ofjournalism. The women’s page and paper’s coverage of the war.” fashion news were not her idea ofjournalism— General Walker saw things differently. He she wanted to be where the action was. In the ordered her out of Korea and personally escorted early 1940s,the action was where the war was. her to the plane that would take her away. Higgins As a journalism student in 1942,she became made a personal appeal to General Douglas the campus correspondent for the New York MacArthur, who overruled General Walker and Herald Tribuneand joined the newspaper’s staff allowed her to return. Vindicated, Higgins threw after her graduation. Higgins immediately began herself into her work. Clad in fatigues and tennis requesting overseas assignments and became shoes, her face often caked with mud, she would frustrated as her repeated requests were routinely turn up anywhere to conduct an interview or to turned down. Finally, she went over her editor’s cover a battle. Said one reviewer of her stories, head and pleaded her case to the paper’s publisher, “She is at her best when writing of what war is, a woman. She was soon off to London, and then how it is to her, to generals, to privates. She has to Paris on assignment. A few months before been there, she has seen it, she has put it down.” the war ended, she became Berlin bureau chief, In May 1951,Marguerite Higgins was awarded reporting from the heart of wartime Germany. the Pulitzer Prize for excellence in international There she “covered the news with a single- reporting. She was also presented with an army

mindedness and determination. . . that brooked campaign ribbon “for outstanding and conspicuous no interference,” said her publisher. service with the armed forces under difficult and As Far East bureau chief in Tokyo, Higgins hazardous conditions.” She spent the rest of her was in the right place at the right time when the life pursuing stories far from home. On her last Korean War broke out in 1950.One of the first assignment, in Vietnam, she was stricken by a reporters to reach Korea, she was soon filing tropical infection. She returned home and died stories from the front. “For me, getting to Korea two months later in early 1966.

1. What difficulties did Marguerite Higgins have to overcome to become war correspondent? Why did she believe that she had to overcome them

2 Predicting Consequences What effect might her performance in Korea have had on other women’s chances to become war correspondents?