[Marxism] George F. Kennan

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

From Policy Planning Study 23, written by George Kennan for the State
Department planning staff in 1948:

"we have about 50% of the world's wealth, but only 6.3% of its
population....In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy
and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern
of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of
disparity....To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and
day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on
our immediate national objectives....We should cease to talk about vague
and...unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living
standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to
have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by
idealistic slogans, the better."

===
NY Times, March 18, 2005
George F. Kennan Dies at 101; Leading Strategist of Cold War
By TIM WEINER and BARBARA CROSSETTE

George F. Kennan, the American diplomat who did more than any other envoy
of his generation to shape United States policy during the cold war, died
on Thursday night in Princeton, N.J. He was 101.

Mr. Kennan was the man to whom the White House and the Pentagon turned when
they sought to understand the Soviet Union after World War II. He conceived
the cold-war policy of containment, the idea that the United States should
stop the global spread of Communism by diplomacy, politics, and covert
action - by any means short of war.

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As the State Department's first policy planning chief in the late 1940's,
serving Secretary of State George C. Marshall, Mr. Kennan was an
intellectual architect of the Marshall Plan, which sent billions of dollars
of American aid to nations devastated by World War II. At the same time, he
conceived a secret "political warfare" unit that aimed to roll back
Communism, not merely contain it. His brainchild became the
covert-operations directorate of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Though Mr. Kennan left the foreign service more than half a century ago, he
continued to be a leading thinker in international affairs until his death.
Since the 1950's he had been associated with the Institute for Advanced
Study in Princeton, where he was most recently a professor emeritus.

By the end of his long, productive life, Mr. Kennan had become a phenomenon
in international affairs, with seminars held and books written to debate
and analyze his extraordinary influence on American policy during the cold
war. He was the author of 17 books, two of them Pulitzer Prize-winners, and
countless articles in leading journals.

His writing, from classified cables to memoirs, was the force that made him
"the nearest thing to a legend that this country's diplomatic service has
ever produced," in the words of the historian Ronald Steel.

"He'll be remembered as a diplomatist and a grand strategist," said John
Lewis Gaddis, a leading historian of the cold war, who is preparing a
biography of Mr. Kennan. "But he saw himself as a literary figure. He would
have loved to have been a poet, a novelist."

Morton H. Halperin, who was chief of policy planning during the Clinton
administration, said Mr. Kennan "set a standard that all his successors
have sought to follow."

Mr. Halperin said Mr. Kennan understood the need to talk truth to power no
matter how unpopular, and made clear his belief that containment was
primarily a political and diplomatic policy rather than a military one.
"His career since is clear proof that no matter how important the role of
the policy planning director, a private citizen can have an even greater
impact with the strength of his ideas."


full: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/18/politics/18kennan.html


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