Foreign policy expert was revered but misunderstood

GEORGE KENNAN: A STUDY OF CHARACTER

By John Lukacs

Yale University Press, $26, 224 pages

REVIEWED BY WILLIAM ANTHONY HAY

George Kennan (1904-2004) stands out among 20th century American specialists on international politics. As author of the famous Long Telegram in 1946, Kennan became an architect of U.S. foreign policy during the early stages of the Cold War. His article “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” which appeared in Foreign Affairs in 1946 under the pseudonym “Mr. X,” popularized the concept of containment.

Kennan later bridged the gap between practitioner and analyst over a long second career at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, where he produced thoughtful scholarship on European diplomacy and America’s engagement with the world.

Ironically, Kennan’s renown makes him a figure more often discussed than understood. Realists claim him as a visionary, while their critics seize upon Kennan’s skepticism toward democracy to dismiss him as un-American. Kennan often thought himself misunderstood, and thus felt compelled to explain his opinions, with mixed success. Viewing him more clearly brings into focus important wider themes in the American study of international relations.

John Lukacs’ illuminating “George Kennan: A Study of Character” makes a valuable contribution that focuses on Kennan as writer and thinker. Even as a diplomat and presidential adviser, his intellectual bent shone through. Mr. Lukacs writes both as Kennan’s longtime friend and a leading historian of the 20th century, and he gracefully sketches a portrait worthy of its subject.

Though favorable, Mr. Lukacs reveals more than he may have intended. Kennan possessed great discernment and even wisdom in his appreciation of European culture, but he never quite understood other people or the informal dynamics of Washington politics. Loneliness and being misunderstood mark recurring themes.

Averell Harriman called Kennan “a man who understood Russia but not the United States,” and he brings to mind Samuel Johnson’s dismissal of Lord Bute as a “book statesman.” The fact that Kennan was an intellectual, albeit of the highest caliber, rather than a man of affairs with a shrewd appreciation of human interaction was the tragic flaw that terminated his diplomatic career and distorted his perspectives.

Born in Wisconsin to a solidly middle-class Presbyterian family with New England roots, Kennan grew up in cultured surroundings where his mother’s death and father’s remarriage left little warmth. An outsider at Princeton University (the social life of which F. Scott Fitzgerald immortalized), Kennan had little connecting him to the American Midwest either.

Kennan determined on a diplomatic career in the newly professionalized Foreign Service and, following a rocky start, found that diplomatic life suited him exceptionally well. Kennan found his metier reporting on affairs in Germany and Russia. His namesake and cousin to his grandfather had been a noted American expert on Russia, and Kennan eagerly followed in his steps. Marriage to Annelise Sorenson in 1929 gave him a vital emotional and logistical support.

Postings in Riga, Prague and Berlin gave him a close view of a European world shattered by the upheavals of the 1930s and ‘40s. Deeply knowledgeable and reflective, he approached Europe with an imaginative sympathy few Americans match: Mr. Lukacs calls him the best writer on Europe of his generation. Reaching beyond his own New England and Scots antecedents, Kennan sought to understand Continental European cultures.

Mr. Lukacs points out that Kennan’s appreciation for Russia and Germany made him skeptical about the viability of smaller nations in Eastern Europe. Kennan also criticized democracy, often harshly. Democratic politics often placed momentary advantages in domestic politics above concrete national interests, and he questioned whether a great power could act within institutions created for a small republic. Ignoring problems for the sake of keeping public opinion unruffled bothered Kennan, as did political or military interference with prerogatives of the diplomatic service.

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