Born in Milwaukee, WI in 1904, George Kennan was an
American expert on Soviet affairs. He received a B.A. from
Princeton University in 1925 and a
diploma from
Berlin Seminary for Oriental Languages in 1930.
George Kennan was named embassador to the USSR in 1952, but was recalled by the Soviet government due to remarks he made criticizing Soviet propaganda and their treatment of diplomats. From 1926 until 1953 he served as a foreign service officer in Berlin, Estonia, Geneva, Hamburg, Moscow, Latvia, Vienna, Prague, London and Lisbon. From 1953 until 1974, he worked as a professor at Princeton University and served as embassador to Yugoslavia from 1961 to 1963. His famous piece, "The Long Telegram" (1946) was instrumental on alerting the world to Soviet expansionism:
"... as Russia came into contact with economically advanced West, fear of more competent, more powerful, more highly organized societies in that area. But this ... type of insecurity was one which afflicted rather Russian rulers than Russian people; for Russian rulers have invariably sensed that their rule was relatively archaic in form, fragile and artificial in its psychological foundation, unable to stand comparison for contact with political systems of Western countries."
He was against the division of Germany after World War II, the development of the atomic bomb, American participation in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and on the continuing dependence on nuclear weapons for defense. These positions made him well known in the antinuclear movement.
His works include: