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The Kennan Diaries
On a hot July afternoon in 1953, George F. Kennan descended the steps of the State Department building as a newly retired man. His career had been tumultuous: early postings in eastern Europe followed by Berlin in 1940–41 and Moscow in the last year of World War II. In 1946, the forty-two-year-old Kennan authored the “Long Telegram,” a 5,500-word indictment of the Kremlin that became mandatory reading in Washington. A year later, in an article in Foreign Affairs, he outlined “containment,” America’s guiding strategy in the Cold War. Yet what should have been the pinnacle of his career—an ambassadorship in Moscow in 1952—was sabotaged by Kennan himself, deeply frustrated at his failure to ease the Cold War that he had helped launch.
Yet, if it wasn’t the pinnacle, neither was it the capstone; over the next fifty years, Kennan would become the most respected foreign policy thinker of the twentieth century, giving influential lectures, advising presidents, and authoring twenty books, winning two Pulitzer prizes and two National Book awards in the process.
Through it all, Kennan kept a diary. Spanning a staggering eighty-eight years and totaling over 8,000 pages, his journals brim with keen political and moral insights, philosophical ruminations, poetry, and vivid descriptions. In these pages, we see Kennan rambling through 1920s Europe as a college student, despairing for capitalism in the midst of the Depression, agonizing over the dilemmas of sex and marriage, becoming enchanted and then horrified by Soviet Russia, and developing into America’s foremost Soviet analyst. But it is the second half of this near-century-long record—the blossoming of Kennan the gifted author, wise counselor, and biting critic of the Vietnam and Iraq wars—that showcases this remarkable man at the height of his singular analytic and expressive powers, before giving way, heartbreakingly, to some of his most human moments, as his energy, memory, and finally his ability to write fade away.
Masterfully selected and annotated by historian Frank Costigliola, the result is a landmark work of profound intellectual and emotional power. These diaries tell the complete narrative of Kennan’s life in his own intimate and unflinching words and, through him, the arc of world events in the twentieth century.
Yet, if it wasn’t the pinnacle, neither was it the capstone; over the next fifty years, Kennan would become the most respected foreign policy thinker of the twentieth century, giving influential lectures, advising presidents, and authoring twenty books, winning two Pulitzer prizes and two National Book awards in the process.
Through it all, Kennan kept a diary. Spanning a staggering eighty-eight years and totaling over 8,000 pages, his journals brim with keen political and moral insights, philosophical ruminations, poetry, and vivid descriptions. In these pages, we see Kennan rambling through 1920s Europe as a college student, despairing for capitalism in the midst of the Depression, agonizing over the dilemmas of sex and marriage, becoming enchanted and then horrified by Soviet Russia, and developing into America’s foremost Soviet analyst. But it is the second half of this near-century-long record—the blossoming of Kennan the gifted author, wise counselor, and biting critic of the Vietnam and Iraq wars—that showcases this remarkable man at the height of his singular analytic and expressive powers, before giving way, heartbreakingly, to some of his most human moments, as his energy, memory, and finally his ability to write fade away.
Masterfully selected and annotated by historian Frank Costigliola, the result is a landmark work of profound intellectual and emotional power. These diaries tell the complete narrative of Kennan’s life in his own intimate and unflinching words and, through him, the arc of world events in the twentieth century.
768 pages, Hardcover
First published February 16, 2014
24 people are currently reading
397 people want to read
About the author
George F. Kennan
127 books118 followersFrom Wikipedia:
George Frost Kennan (February 16, 1904 – March 17, 2005) was an American advisor, diplomat, political scientist, and historian, best known as "the father of containment" and as a key figure in the emergence of the Cold War. He later wrote standard histories of the relations between Russia and the Western powers.
In the late 1940s, his writings inspired the Truman Doctrine and the U.S. foreign policy of "containing" the Soviet Union, thrusting him into a lifelong role as a leading authority on the Cold War. His "Long Telegram" from Moscow in 1946, and the subsequent 1947 article "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" argued that the Soviet regime was inherently expansionist and that its influence had to be "contained" in areas of vital strategic importance to the United States. These texts quickly emerged as foundational texts of the Cold War, expressing the Truman administration's new anti-Soviet Union policy. Kennan also played a leading role in the development of definitive Cold War programs and institutions, most notably the Marshall Plan.
Shortly after the diploma had been enshrined as official U.S. policy, Kennan began to criticize the policies that he had seemingly helped launch. By mid-1948, he was convinced that the situation in Western Europe had improved to the point where negotiations could be initiated with Moscow. The suggestion did not resonate within the Truman administration, and Kennan's influence was increasingly marginalized—particularly after Dean Acheson was appointed Secretary of State in 1949. As U.S. Cold War strategy assumed a more aggressive and militaristic tone, Kennan bemoaned what he called a misinterpretation of his thinking.
In 1950, Kennan left the Department of State, except for two brief ambassadorial stints in Moscow and Yugoslavia, and became a leading realist critic of U.S. foreign policy. He continued to be a leading thinker in international affairs as a faculty member of the Institute for Advanced Study from 1956 until his death at age 101 in March 2005.
George Frost Kennan (February 16, 1904 – March 17, 2005) was an American advisor, diplomat, political scientist, and historian, best known as "the father of containment" and as a key figure in the emergence of the Cold War. He later wrote standard histories of the relations between Russia and the Western powers.
In the late 1940s, his writings inspired the Truman Doctrine and the U.S. foreign policy of "containing" the Soviet Union, thrusting him into a lifelong role as a leading authority on the Cold War. His "Long Telegram" from Moscow in 1946, and the subsequent 1947 article "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" argued that the Soviet regime was inherently expansionist and that its influence had to be "contained" in areas of vital strategic importance to the United States. These texts quickly emerged as foundational texts of the Cold War, expressing the Truman administration's new anti-Soviet Union policy. Kennan also played a leading role in the development of definitive Cold War programs and institutions, most notably the Marshall Plan.
Shortly after the diploma had been enshrined as official U.S. policy, Kennan began to criticize the policies that he had seemingly helped launch. By mid-1948, he was convinced that the situation in Western Europe had improved to the point where negotiations could be initiated with Moscow. The suggestion did not resonate within the Truman administration, and Kennan's influence was increasingly marginalized—particularly after Dean Acheson was appointed Secretary of State in 1949. As U.S. Cold War strategy assumed a more aggressive and militaristic tone, Kennan bemoaned what he called a misinterpretation of his thinking.
In 1950, Kennan left the Department of State, except for two brief ambassadorial stints in Moscow and Yugoslavia, and became a leading realist critic of U.S. foreign policy. He continued to be a leading thinker in international affairs as a faculty member of the Institute for Advanced Study from 1956 until his death at age 101 in March 2005.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
March 18, 2014
George F. Kennan was the most celebrated diplomat-intellectual of the 20th century. He was the author of the strategy of containment that the United States adopted for the cold war. He was thought of as a strategist and as these diaries make clear, he spent much of his life thinking about political philosophy. The diaries cover 88 years so Frank Costigliola did a lot of editing to make into a readable format without changing the content. Kennan did not like automobiles, planes or fax machines; I wonder what he would say about all the electronic gadgets we have today. I was most interested in what he wrote in the section of the diaries covering the late 1990’s about not allowing the former USSR countries such as Poland, Hungry, and Ukraine to join NATO. He said these countries must be allowed as a buffer zone between Europe and Russia otherwise Russia would feel threaten and a new cold war would start or possibly a shooting war. Considering what is happening today in the Ukraine no one paid attention to his warning. Toward the end of his life he wrote a book called “Around the Cragged Hill” which he thought was his best work but the world has ignored. In the diary he was most upset about how the book was ignored. He wrote 20 books won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award twice plus many more awards. After he finished his career as a diplomat he was at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study for over 25 years. The diary reveals him to be a brilliant man but also one with problems of loneliness, self-doubt, and suffering from period bouts of depression. He was a gifted writer and his prose shine through even in the diary. I learned a great deal about what happened during the cold war from reading this book, I almost felt overwhelmed by the amount of information provided. I think I will read some of his books now that I know more about the man, the books will mean more to me. If you are interested in history this book will interest you. I read this as an audio book downloaded from Audible. William Dufris did a good job narrating the book.
April 3, 2017
A fascinating look at the amazing life of George K. Kennan as seen through the diaries that he kept for over 80 years. In his diaries he recorded not only the events of his life working in American diplomacy but also his reactions to the events in which he was involved.
February 13, 2015
George Kennan was a great man and perhaps the most distinguished American diplomat in the Cold War era. I first read some of his seminal contributions to writing on foreign policy and history while I was in college. He always seemed to me the ideal of the intellectual who was also a man of action -- someone who could combine abstract thought, a deep knowledge of history, and a skill at analyzing immediate situations and providing policy guidance. While there are several biographies of Kennan, along with his memoirs, I found the biography by John Gaddis to be a great book and one of the finest biographies I have ever read.
The Kennan Diaries proviide an extended range of entries from the diary that Kennan dept literally from childhood until the year before his death in 2005. The entries are witty and informative and show a great mind at work as it matures and faces situations of huge significance - for example Kennan was the senior American diplomat on duty in Moscow at the end of WW2, as well as the Ambassador to Moscow who expelled in the 1950s. It is engaging to follow his recollections through nearly the entire 20th century and into the current one. The diaries show Kennan to be a real person, filled with likes, dislikes, biases, and blindspots. He is witty and a fascinating mixture of erudition, common sense, self criticism, and ego. The entries provide a glimpse "backstage" with this person that does not come across in his own books, although it does come across somewhat in the Gaddis bio.
Kennan's diaries also provide a fascinating picture into his mind as he grows old (he lived to be over 100 years). He mixes self-doubt with frustration at his supposed lack of influence and recognition, with often very sharp critiques of American society after 1950. He was an elitist and a WASP and as he gets older it is clear that he "does not go gently into that good night". He is a conservative as well, and he seems to become more conservative the older he gets. He sometimes says sharply un-PC statements about various individuals and groups but for the most part, all is held together well by this brilliant man.
I think I appreciated the book more after having read the Gaddis bio and a good bit of Kennan's historical work. It is a good complement and helps one see a rounded picture of this special person.
The Kennan Diaries proviide an extended range of entries from the diary that Kennan dept literally from childhood until the year before his death in 2005. The entries are witty and informative and show a great mind at work as it matures and faces situations of huge significance - for example Kennan was the senior American diplomat on duty in Moscow at the end of WW2, as well as the Ambassador to Moscow who expelled in the 1950s. It is engaging to follow his recollections through nearly the entire 20th century and into the current one. The diaries show Kennan to be a real person, filled with likes, dislikes, biases, and blindspots. He is witty and a fascinating mixture of erudition, common sense, self criticism, and ego. The entries provide a glimpse "backstage" with this person that does not come across in his own books, although it does come across somewhat in the Gaddis bio.
Kennan's diaries also provide a fascinating picture into his mind as he grows old (he lived to be over 100 years). He mixes self-doubt with frustration at his supposed lack of influence and recognition, with often very sharp critiques of American society after 1950. He was an elitist and a WASP and as he gets older it is clear that he "does not go gently into that good night". He is a conservative as well, and he seems to become more conservative the older he gets. He sometimes says sharply un-PC statements about various individuals and groups but for the most part, all is held together well by this brilliant man.
I think I appreciated the book more after having read the Gaddis bio and a good bit of Kennan's historical work. It is a good complement and helps one see a rounded picture of this special person.
March 8, 2015
Not for everyone, but for those wanting to know the inner musings leading to the "containment" policy it is an excellent look into a great man's mind and into the US Foreign Service.
March 27, 2022
There are very few Foreign Service Officers that anyone could name. George Kennan is one of the few. A celebrated two-time Ambassador, Pulitzer Prize winner, famed author of the "X Telegram" that established the policy of containment in the post-war era, Kennan is sometimes held up as the prototype for what a diplomat could and should be: one whose words and keen insights shaped the world for the better.
Kennan's own diaries tell a very different story however.
You cannot really argue with original material. The author is writing what he really thinks and feels. Historians can sculpt images of those in the past using their published material or their record, but a journal is something different. It is unvarnished, raw, and honest. And at that level of honesty, Kennan is a miserable, narcissistic, arrogant misogynist. Even grading on a historical curve, I was somewhat dumbfounded by how chauvinistic and self-serving Kennan comes across from his own account. So in one respect, I am glad to have read this book if only as a terrible warning of the opposite life I want to live.
Read more at https://znovels.blogspot.com/2022/03/...
Kennan's own diaries tell a very different story however.
You cannot really argue with original material. The author is writing what he really thinks and feels. Historians can sculpt images of those in the past using their published material or their record, but a journal is something different. It is unvarnished, raw, and honest. And at that level of honesty, Kennan is a miserable, narcissistic, arrogant misogynist. Even grading on a historical curve, I was somewhat dumbfounded by how chauvinistic and self-serving Kennan comes across from his own account. So in one respect, I am glad to have read this book if only as a terrible warning of the opposite life I want to live.
Read more at https://znovels.blogspot.com/2022/03/...
July 6, 2014
What Kennan demonstrates here is a deep understanding of European character combined with surprisingly radical ideas about how America should progress as a free society. At one point, for instance, he advocated a benevolent dictatorship. Still, he was the author of the policy of containment the west adopted as the most realistic policy against Soviet expansion following World War II. And the success of that policy proved his ideas, first expressed in the 1940s, farsighted and wise. Still, one might agree with Dean Acheson, Secretary of State under Harry S. Truman, that Kennan took a rather mystical attitude toward the relationship of the great powers during the Cold War. He became a kind of seer, often decrying and expecting doom. He saw the ills of our time and the foolishness and danger of our politics. Always respected and always sought out by governments for advice, he also remained a kind of curmudgeonly, critical wingnut. All this comes out in these voluminous diaries.
May 18, 2023
George Kennan's mother died when he was only one month old. That's a tragedy, but it also meant that he missed something she could well have said to him: GEORGE - STOP WHINING!
For all of his fame and good fortune, Kennan is never far from lamentation. He gets the Pulitzer Prize but it just doesn't touch him. He wants those in power to credit him with being ahead of events in his predictions and advice on what the U.S. should do in foreign affairs, but they ignore him. His last book is a best seller and his talks are always heavily attended, but it just doesn't satisfy. He's not particularly fond of himself either, a refreshing contrast to this reader after hearing so much baloney from a "very stable genius" on current display.
Like all of us, Kennan is a mixture of the good and the bad. He promotes eugenics long before Hitler gives it a try, but stays with it long after National Socialism earned it a place in the trash bin. The masses, in whatever country of the world, are not good for much. Not only are they far too numerous and ignorant, they have no business selecting leaders in a democracy, the US included. His greatest competitor, Walter Lippman, agreed and expanded the thought into a book.
In foreign policy Kennen was a visionary, fluent in both German and Russian, famously the author of the containment policy that drove the US to wall off the USSR, though Kennan denied that his idea included going into proxy wars all over the world to stop Communism. Unsurprisingly, he opposed US intervention in VietNam. Yet he lamented that we allowed the Saudis to claim their oil when we should have grabbed it. This is strangely contradictory to his disapproval of the 1991 Gulf War where we kicked Saddam out of Kuwait. He lived long enough to see and disapprove of NATO expansion to the border of Russia.
Modern society? He wants none of it. The automobile symbolizes the malaise of materialism for him. He doesn't like air travel. He resents the family taking too much of his time. He'd take off to solitude on the farm if he only could and he does purchase a farm as a retreat. He desires women and mentally writhes under the social restraint that stops him from acting on it.
In what I found the most bizarre idea in the book, he says that he has become an image to the public that is not at all what he is in reality. Of course that's a given for any public figure, and to a degree something we all have to deal with, but Kennan's conclusion is that he should strive to be more like his image, which, I believe, is what too often drives celebrities to disaster, even suicide.
Kennan must be given credit for giving us his thoughts, expecting that his diary would be read by the public. He did not go through it cleaning things up for presentation. Undeniably intelligent and able as he was, this reader can only feel sadness that for such an exceptional life as he had, he could never find peace of mind in 100 years. Simple joy eludes him.
Never boring, this book is illuminating and drives home both that we can never know other people as they know themselves, and that knowing oneself is a challenge.
For all of his fame and good fortune, Kennan is never far from lamentation. He gets the Pulitzer Prize but it just doesn't touch him. He wants those in power to credit him with being ahead of events in his predictions and advice on what the U.S. should do in foreign affairs, but they ignore him. His last book is a best seller and his talks are always heavily attended, but it just doesn't satisfy. He's not particularly fond of himself either, a refreshing contrast to this reader after hearing so much baloney from a "very stable genius" on current display.
Like all of us, Kennan is a mixture of the good and the bad. He promotes eugenics long before Hitler gives it a try, but stays with it long after National Socialism earned it a place in the trash bin. The masses, in whatever country of the world, are not good for much. Not only are they far too numerous and ignorant, they have no business selecting leaders in a democracy, the US included. His greatest competitor, Walter Lippman, agreed and expanded the thought into a book.
In foreign policy Kennen was a visionary, fluent in both German and Russian, famously the author of the containment policy that drove the US to wall off the USSR, though Kennan denied that his idea included going into proxy wars all over the world to stop Communism. Unsurprisingly, he opposed US intervention in VietNam. Yet he lamented that we allowed the Saudis to claim their oil when we should have grabbed it. This is strangely contradictory to his disapproval of the 1991 Gulf War where we kicked Saddam out of Kuwait. He lived long enough to see and disapprove of NATO expansion to the border of Russia.
Modern society? He wants none of it. The automobile symbolizes the malaise of materialism for him. He doesn't like air travel. He resents the family taking too much of his time. He'd take off to solitude on the farm if he only could and he does purchase a farm as a retreat. He desires women and mentally writhes under the social restraint that stops him from acting on it.
In what I found the most bizarre idea in the book, he says that he has become an image to the public that is not at all what he is in reality. Of course that's a given for any public figure, and to a degree something we all have to deal with, but Kennan's conclusion is that he should strive to be more like his image, which, I believe, is what too often drives celebrities to disaster, even suicide.
Kennan must be given credit for giving us his thoughts, expecting that his diary would be read by the public. He did not go through it cleaning things up for presentation. Undeniably intelligent and able as he was, this reader can only feel sadness that for such an exceptional life as he had, he could never find peace of mind in 100 years. Simple joy eludes him.
Never boring, this book is illuminating and drives home both that we can never know other people as they know themselves, and that knowing oneself is a challenge.
August 10, 2022
This was a … fascinating book to read (or at least listen to, highly recommend doing the audiobook, no way I would have been able to finish this without gnawing my own arm off if I couldn’t zone out/listen to this in the background). I think the best way to review this is to rank the various takeaways by level of weirdness
OUTSTANDING:
0) Kennan’s anti-car stance (not urbanist based, more of just a Luddite-y vibe based opinion, still good)
GOOD, NOT WEIRD:
1) Kennan’s personal descriptions of (what I’ll call) strategic empathy)
2) His general Russia analysis
GETTING LESS ACTUALLY USEFUL:
3) His personal/relationship issues/sexually deviant thoughts
STRANGE?? BUT NOT REALLY HARMFUL:
4) His weird, trad leanings and constant longing to go work on a farm while simultaneously whining that everyone loves him but no one listens to him
SEEMS LIKELY TO SERIOUSLY CLOUDED HIS THINKING:
5) His utter contempt for Americans
UHH, BIG YIKES, NOT SURPRISING HE WENT TO PRINCETON:
6) When he starts talking about WASPs
7) Whenever he talks about race in general (turns out it’s not just Americans in general, but specifically that non WASPs are destroying WASP culture, black people are destroying American cities, racial mixing is horrible, etc)
Overall, worth a read to get a sense of how distorted this guys view (and likely thus his analysis) of the world was. No doubt he was very smart and had important things to say, but I’m def taking any of his policy prescriptions and analysis with a much larger handful of salt having read this.
OUTSTANDING:
0) Kennan’s anti-car stance (not urbanist based, more of just a Luddite-y vibe based opinion, still good)
GOOD, NOT WEIRD:
1) Kennan’s personal descriptions of (what I’ll call) strategic empathy)
2) His general Russia analysis
GETTING LESS ACTUALLY USEFUL:
3) His personal/relationship issues/sexually deviant thoughts
STRANGE?? BUT NOT REALLY HARMFUL:
4) His weird, trad leanings and constant longing to go work on a farm while simultaneously whining that everyone loves him but no one listens to him
SEEMS LIKELY TO SERIOUSLY CLOUDED HIS THINKING:
5) His utter contempt for Americans
UHH, BIG YIKES, NOT SURPRISING HE WENT TO PRINCETON:
6) When he starts talking about WASPs
7) Whenever he talks about race in general (turns out it’s not just Americans in general, but specifically that non WASPs are destroying WASP culture, black people are destroying American cities, racial mixing is horrible, etc)
Overall, worth a read to get a sense of how distorted this guys view (and likely thus his analysis) of the world was. No doubt he was very smart and had important things to say, but I’m def taking any of his policy prescriptions and analysis with a much larger handful of salt having read this.
August 2, 2019
A view at the world from within the insecure and fragile mind of George Kennan -- a man whose ideas on everything from people to world history are most succinctly described as elitist. In this book you'll be treated to the formation of a temperamental aristocrat through his sneering at the lower orders in European cities, his inspection of the to his "arrival" in Washington DC. The zenith of his career (and thus his life) comes just as the US acknowledges its leading role in terms of both world power and economic predominance. The fact that his outright racist mind (to say nothing of Dean Acheson) was "present at the creation" goes some way to explain the next few decades of world warfare, as well as the gall to call it a "cold" war.
This aristocratic racist began to lose his influence after the terms of world dominance were set around 1950, and the remainder of the book is a private and resentful pissing at the tent -- melancholy commentary on a politics which drifts towards a future Kennan doesn't belong in.
This aristocratic racist began to lose his influence after the terms of world dominance were set around 1950, and the remainder of the book is a private and resentful pissing at the tent -- melancholy commentary on a politics which drifts towards a future Kennan doesn't belong in.
March 8, 2020
Provides much insights into the life of this extraordinary thinker. Keenan's racist views really undercut his legacy. He is very critical of California which he describes as a sort of Garibaldian democracy. Still Keenan's diary offers first hand reflections on U.S.-Russian relations during the Gold War.
August 27, 2022
Despite a tendency to catastrophize and some decided prejudices, Kennan is a lively writer and was for many years a valuable contrarian thinker about American foreign policy. The entries are well-chosen, and the editor's hand is light.
June 26, 2020
好像是写日记的人都希望疏解自己的苦闷而发。
但真的不是很喜欢看知识分子在日记里抱怨自己没有受到更大的重视。。又、不是丘吉尔。
但真的不是很喜欢看知识分子在日记里抱怨自己没有受到更大的重视。。又、不是丘吉尔。
August 13, 2018
An excellent account of a brilliant analytic's mind. Very insightful especially for someone interested in international relations or history. Personally I expected to find more concerning important developments with relation to the Cold war issues (occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968, USSR's war in Afghanistan, Cuban missile crisis etc.). Despite that, an amazing book.
March 6, 2017
My grandfather was a Kennan and when the Kennan brothers came to America, one brother went North, George's side, and one went South, my grandfather's side. It has been fascinating to read the things he went through by reading both his biography and then his diaries. I am thankful for the diaries as it is an incredible insight to who he was as a man, and as a diplomat.
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July 11, 2014"The diaries, while presenting a more balanced portrait of Kennan than the one found in John Lewis Gaddis’s 2011 biography, tend also to go over a rather lot of familiar ground. Kennan’s two volumes of memoirs, the aforementioned Lukacs and Gaddis biographies, another by Lee Congdon, an excellent book of correspondence between Kennan and Lukacs, Kennan’s reminisces in Sketches of a Life, and his best-selling book of personal philosophy, Around the Cragged Hill, make much of the diaries redundant. Thus I fear that this volume—while at times entertaining, illuminating, and obviously put together with great care—will ultimately be of limited value to the specialist and too dense for the general reader."
Read the full review here: http://www.theamericanconservative.co...
Read the full review here: http://www.theamericanconservative.co...
July 18, 2014
A dark personality was he....
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July 20, 2018Can be read with the 'Americal Diplomacy' as supplement.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews