Editing George F. Kennan

'''George Frost Kennan''' (February 16, 1904 - March 17, 2005) was a [[United States of America|U.S.]] diplomat and scholar, who worked in the U.S. foreign service starting in 1926, and later served as Ambassador to the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991)|Soviet Union]] in 1952 and to [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1945–1992)|Yugoslavia]] in 1960-63.<ref>[https://www.ias.edu/scholars/kennan "George Frost Kennan."] Institute for Advanced Study. [https://web.archive.org/web/20240720170518/https://www.ias.edu/scholars/kennan Archived] 2024-07-20.</ref> His legacy is closely associated with the initial development of the U.S. "[[containment]]" policy toward the Soviet Union.<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=United States Department of State: Office of the Historian|title=Kennan and Containment, 1947|url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/kennan|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007104628/https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/kennan|archive-date=2024-10-07}}</ref> He was also involved in designing the [[Marshall Plan]],<ref name=":0">{{Web citation|newspaper=Wilson Center|title=Remembering George F. Kennan|date=2007-03-01|url=https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/remembering-george-f-kennan|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240709195324/https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/remembering-george-f-kennan|archive-date=2024-07-09}}</ref>  which he regarded as integral to his conception of containment.<ref>{{Citation|author=George F. Kennan|year=1996|title=At a Century's Ending: Reflections, 1982-1995|chapter=Flashbacks (1985)|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/atcenturysending0000kenn/page/30/mode/1up|page=38|city=New York|publisher=W.W. Norton & Company}}</ref>

Among Kennan's influential writings are "[[The Long Telegram]]" (1946), presenting his analysis of the Soviet Union's policies at the time<ref name=":0" /> and his proposals for how to approach U.S.-Soviet relations, which reportedly became "required reading for hundreds of senior military officers"<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Institute for Advanced Study|title=The Long Telegram|url=https://www.ias.edu/long-telegram|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240806063307/https://www.ias.edu/long-telegram|archive-date=2024-08-06}}</ref> as well as an influential article in ''[[Foreign Affairs]]'', titled "[[The Sources of Soviet Conduct]]" (1947), written under the pseudonym "X".<ref>{{Citation|author="X" (George F. Kennan)|title=The Sources of Soviet Conduct|title-url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20043098|publisher=Foreign Affairs|doi=10.2307/20043098|volume=Vol. 65, No. 4 (Spring, 1987), pp. 852-868}}</ref> Kennan is also known for his decades-long association with the [[Institute for Advanced Study]], which he was invited to join by [[Manhattan Project]] [[Nuclear weapon|nuclear]] physicist [[J. Robert Oppenheimer]].<ref>{{Web citation|author=Frank Costigliola|newspaper=Institute for Advanced Study|title=George F. Kennan and the Institute|date=2010|url=https://www.ias.edu/ideas/2010/costigliola-kennan|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240720160235/https://www.ias.edu/ideas/2010/costigliola-kennan|archive-date=2024-07-20}}</ref>

Kennan has emphasized that the concept of containment as he meant it originally was in regard to political matters rather than to military. As he states in a 1984 lecture, neither he nor others "who knew the Soviet Union well" imagined that the Soviet Union would launch a military attack on any major [[Imperial core|Western]] power or [[Japan]].<ref name=":1">{{Citation|author=George F. Kennan|year=1996|title=At a Century's Ending: Reflections, 1982-1995|title-url=https://archive.org/details/atcenturysending0000kenn|chapter=America's Far-Eastern Policy at the Height of the Cold War (1984)|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/atcenturysending0000kenn/page/94/mode/1up|page=93-4|quote=The concept which I had been so bold as to put forward in 1947, had been addressed to what I and others had believed was a danger of the political expansion of Stalinist Communism—and especially the danger that local Communists, inspired and controlled by Moscow, might acquire dominant positions in the great defeated industrial countries of Germany and Japan. I did not believe, nor did others who knew the Soviet Union well, that there was the slightest danger of a Soviet military attack against the major Western powers or Japan. This was, in other words, a political danger, not a military one. And the historical record bears out that conclusion. Yet for reasons I have never fully understood, by 1949 a great many people in Washington—in the Pentagon, the White House, and even the Department of State—seemed to have come to the conclusion that there was a real danger of the Soviets unleashing, in the fairly near future, what would have been World War III.|city=New York|publisher=W.W. Norton & Company}}</ref> Kennan claimed to be unable to understand why Washington emphasized a military threat from the Soviet Union. He states that though he opposed such interpretations of the situation, the military interpretation prevailed.<ref name=":1" />

== References ==
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