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George F. Kennan: An American Life

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What happens when one of the most gifted historians of the Cold War gains unprecedented access to the diaries and personal papers of one of the most influential statesmen of the twentieth century? Answer: A Pulitzer Prize worthy biography that sheds new light on George F. Kennan's life both in and outside of public service. There have been numerous other biographies of Kennan and his role in developing the Cold War policy of containment but no work to date has explored the connections between the public and private dimensions of Kennan's life with anything near the depth or insight of Gaddis's new biography.

Kennan was, in many ways, one of the most puzzling twentieth century statesmen. As an American diplomat stationed in Moscow at the dawn of the Cold War, Kennan wrote his famous "long telegram" that explained in detail the sources of Soviet conduct and laid out a plan for how the United States could counter Russian expansionism. The long telegram and Kennan's anonymously authored "X Article" both helped foreign policy makers to define and articulate a new approach to dealing with the Soviet threat. Yet despite his status as an architect of American containment policy, Kennan would eventually become a critic of many of the policies carried out in the name of the doctrine he had helped to create. Kennan argued strongly against crossing the 38th parallel during the Korean War and even more passionately against U.S. involvement in Vietnam both of which he saw as highly flawed applications of his doctrine.

Much of this has been covered before by other scholars, including John Lewis Gaddis. Indeed Gaddis's earlier work Strategies of Containment helped to illuminate both the depths and limits of Kennan's influence on American Cold War foreign policy. What is new here is the addition of Kennan's personal reflections on the critical events of the Cold War as they developed. Drawing on Kennan's personal correspondence, his diaries, and numerous interviews with Kennan and his family members, Gaddis demonstrates the relevance of Kennan the man to Kennan the statesman. The book shows Kennan to have been an insecure and in many ways deeply flawed human being whose neurotic nature helped to shape his view of international politics and effected his behavior as a statesmen. At times, his impatience led him to make poor judgments in his career. Much of Gaddis's previous work has focused heavily on broad historical trends and structural issues. I was pleasantly surprised by the tenderness with which he writes about his subject's personal life.

Gaddis is sympathetic toward Kennan but balanced. He rightly notes that Kennan played an invaluable role in shaping a policy that ultimately did contain the spread of communism and bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union. In many ways, Kennan understood the limitations of the Soviet Union long before the vast majority of his colleagues in the foreign service or in Washington did. But despite his close relationship with Kennan, Gaddis does not shy away from pointing out his flaws. He describes Kennan's extramarital affairs, his ethnocentrism and even some of the strange, inexplicable episodes in Kennan's life such as his request for suicide pills when he was stationed in Moscow. This in depth coverage allows us to understand Kennan's character in a way that we previously could not.

George F. Kennan: An American Life will without question be the definitive work on the statesman for years if not decades to come. It will reshape our understanding not only of Kennan but also of American foreign policy during the Cold War in significant ways.

During his long life, George Frost Kennan had insights into history, international relations, Soviet psychology and American foreign policy that were unmatched among his peers. He was a multifaceted individual who excelled at many things, among them diplomacy, history, writing and farming. And he had a complex relationship with a country whose national interests he did so much to delineate and channel. John Lewis Gaddis brings us a panoramic and definitive biography of this great American that excels in three ways.

Firstly, it does an excellent job of giving us the bare facts. For more than twenty years Gaddis was intimately connected to the Kennan family as a biographer and friend. This has allowed him to gather a mountain of information from Kennan's copious diaries, interviews with him and his family members, colleagues and friends, and foreign and domestic policy documents from the era that Kennan lived in. Added to this vast repository is Gaddis's own treasure trove of expertise, drawn from his long career as one of America's most important Cold War Historians. Thus he has accurate and well-written accounts of all important episodes in Kennan's life including his intimate familiarity with Russia, his famous long telegram and "Mr. X" article in Foreign Affairs leading to the strategy of containment, his increasing disillusionment with Cold War policy, his second career as a historian and his waning years as a sharp critic of American politics. Wherever possible Gaddis always lets Kennan speak in his own voice. He also gives us a real feel for Kennan's qualities including his vast intellect, his love and knowledge of foreign cultures and languages, his ability to pen magnificent and sensitive prose and most importantly, his marvelous sense of the tragic that allowed him to gain perspicacious insights into people, places and events. Just like his close friend Robert Oppenheimer, Kennan was "a man who was extraordinarily good at doing a lot of things but still maintained a tear-stained countenance". It would be hard if not impossible to top this huge stack of material on Kennan that Gaddis has gathered.

Secondly, Gaddis provides us with a superb sense of Kennan's remarkable personality and especially drives home the fact that George Kennan was a man of contradictions. Throughout his life Kennan held resolute opinions about the events he observed and orchestrated, yet he could be troubled by self-doubt and uncertainty. He went to great lengths to make sure his government and people understood their relations with the world. Yet he always remained deeply ambivalent about America and especially the young generation which he sometimes saw as superficial and self-centered. He alternated between professing a love for his country and constantly considering himself as an outsider who was more comfortable among foreign peoples. This dichotomy between being intimately familiar with the internal workings of the system and preferring to remain on the outside also carried over into Kennan's role as a diplomat and advisor. Kennan probably knew more about Russian culture and history than any other American of his generation and his insights were incalculably unique. But although he was instrumental in charting the course of American policy during the early Cold War and seemed like the ultimate insider, in some sense he remained the perpetual outsider, never at ease in the corridors of Washington and always convinced of the flaws in his government's policies. Personally too Kennan displayed contradictions. He was a family man devoted to his wife for seventy years, yet had affairs. He suffered from ulcers throughout his life and could be easily stressed, yet he was a remarkably hardy individual who used to work long hours on his farm and traveled to inhospitable places alone. And he could be an intellectual elitist who could still shun the trappings of influence and wealth (as an undergraduate he stayed out of all the elite clubs at Princeton for instance) and who could understand the pain, hopes and suffering of the common man.

Finally, Gaddis leaves us with a prescient set of reasons why George Kennan's life and work is still as relevant to this country's interactions and character as it always was. Gaddis tells us that Kennan's key philosophy of understanding other cultures (and especially "enemy" cultures) as deeply as we can and engaging with them with a gentle but firm hand is key to foreign policy. For most of his life Kennan opposed military engagement and nation-building and while he believed in displays of strength, he always believed they should be in the form of diplomatic policy, strength of character and moral force. This is a lesson that should guide us far into the future.

In 1981, George Kennan agreed to cooperate with the eminent historian of the Cold War, John Lewis Gaddis, in the writing of the biography of his life. Little did Gaddis know then that he would have to wait for many years to see his volume published, since Kennan had one condition for Gaddis: that the biography could be published only after Kennan's death. In fact, Kennan died when he was 101 years old and now we can finally read this magnificent and brilliantly written book, which offers many insights into the mind and deed of one of the most famous Cold Warriors.

The book is extremely long and has 700 pages of text, followed by more than seveny pages of detailed notes. It is not an easy read but it captivates you from its very beginning.

After the first two chapters which describe Kennan's childhood and education, the author starts depicting in great detail the diplomatic life on Kennan. Most of the time Kennan did not live in the United States due to the nature of his work and career, which started in 1926. He married Annelise Sorensen in 1931 and had two prematurely appointments as Ambassador to the Soviet Union and then to Yugoslavia.

However, the best two reference points in Kennan's life would be the famous "Long Telegram" and the "Foreign Affairs" article signed "X". These two things brought him to the limelight of the Col War diplomatic world. The first one, known as the "Long Telegram" was indeed more than five thousands words long(but not eight thousand, as it was presumed hitherto) and came in five parts. This he did by dictating it to his secretary while he was ill and in bed. In it, Kennan explained to the State Department and to the whole world that Russia was always beset by a fear of the outside world. Paranoia, if you would like it. That was the main reason why Marxism came into being: it was an ideological belief whose main purpose was to undermine the West.

Kennan knew Russia very well and Gaddis describes the many travels of Kennan inside this vart country. As a result of this famous telegram, which had a tremendous impact on the Amerian psyche and policy makers, he was recalled to Washington where he was given a new job. This time he was appointed by George Marshall as chief of the Policy Planning Staff. Kennan was responsible writing and contributing to the new American foreign policy after the end of WW2. Kennan correctly predicted, for example, that the Soviet Union would not accept the Marshall plan.

But the highlight of his career was the second item mentioned before, namely: the famous article for "Foreign Affairs", which was published in the June/July edition of 1947. It was here whence the famous word "containment" had its origins. The title read: "The Sources of Soviet Conduct". He hid his true identity because he did no0t want it to be knwon that an employed diplomat is the one who was formulating the foreign policy .However, it took only some days to identify the author who, amazingly, concluded and predicted that the Communist regimes would actually collapse. This happened in 1989 and onwards. The policy of containment became the main pillar of the Americcan foreign policy until the days of the Reagan presidency.

In the sixties and seventies, Kennan became a strong critic of the American way of life. To quote from the chapter called:"Prophet of the Apocalypse", Kennan wote that the United States "is destined to succumb to failures which cannot be other than tragic and enormous in their scope. They would arise from the familiar evils of industrialization, urbanization, commercialization,secularization, and environmental degradation".

The only rememdy would be "a much simpler form of life, a much smaller population, a society in which the agrarian component is far greater in relation to the urban component...In this sense I am, I suppose, an 18th-century person". Kennan despised many things about his fellows and the pornography shops in Washington were one of his targets. Juvenile delinquency and nuclear weapons were his adiitional targets.He objected the Vietnam war. He was a great intellectual who authored many books and articles and was one the Wise Men in the seventies. He enjoyed lecturing, despite many health problem which afflicted him and in 1989 was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President George Bush. He was inspired a lot by the writings of Edward Gibbon and many times made references to him.

In the coda of the book, Professor Gaddis asked Kennan to sum up his life in some words. Kennan expressed his wish to be remembered as a teacher:...."on understanding Russia; on shaping a strategy for dealing with that country (whose simple people he loved);on the danger that in pursuing that strategy too aggressively, the United Stated could endanger itself; on what the past sugested about societies that had donbe just this; on how to study history ;on how to write; on how to live".

This excellent volume, which used almost all the possible sources a historian could have at his disposal,including a 20000-page diary, a separate "dream diary" of reflections and the 300-boxex of additional papers at Princeton, is not only a great biography about a versatile man. It is also a superb history of the great ideological conflict which spanned almost half ot the previous century, written by a master historian about a unique American.

Anyone who tried to pay attention to our foreign policy after the Second World War was often blind-sided by some action taken, or not taken by our government. I thought then that our paranoia about Russia and Communism was absurd. That country had suffered a terrible loss of men, resources and vitality, and were likely to suffer more because their 'system' was not capable of the kind of growth that would make them viable. George Kennan, a Foreign Service officer with long experience in the East, saw that clearly, and tried to influence his government to be less obsessed about the East. But war preparation is always easier - for the decision-makers. This is beautifully written by an historian who was given access to diaries, offical documents, letters and lectures given by Kennan over his very long life. It is not hagiography. It is thorough. Parts of it are relevant today and we would be wise to reflect on them.

The sort of biography that restores my faith in the genre. Captivating, precise, almost entirely free of the author's voice. An excellent lens into the political views of a number of eras.

A man who was an exceptionally prolific writer and lived an unusually long life does not so much require a biographer who uncovers hidden inner secrets and reconstructs obscure events from the life of the subject, but rather demands a firm editor who separates the significant from the insignificant and chooses the best and most worthwhile statements from the subject himself. George Kennan (1904-2005) was such a man, and John Lewis Gaddis is such a biographer, who also brings to this book an admiring, gently sympathetic, yet also appropriately critical attitude toward Mr. Kennan. Out of rich source material, Professor Gaddis has created a good old fashioned "The Life and Times of" biography that is revealing and a pleasure to read. Readers will find useful discussions of big events such as Kennan's involvement in the Marshall Plan as well as precious nuggets, such as Kennan's response to scholarly criticism of his through the lens of gender analysis (p. 684). After 700 pages, one still wishes for more.

Indeed, coverage is one of two criticisms I have. Since the politically most significant part of Kennan's life was the period covering 1933 to 1960--the pivotal event of course being Kennan's Long Telegram from Moscow in February 1946--Gaddis lingers here the longest. But given that Kennan would live another 40-plus years after the end of his public service in 1963, it is rather disappointing that Gaddis only devotes 1/7 of the book to this long time period. As a result, the book rushes through the end of the Cold War, the Clinton years, and 9/11 (we never find out what Kennan thought when he heard either that the Berlin Wall or the Twin Towers had come down) and what exactly Kennan criticized about George W. Bush's disastrous, criminal invasion of Iraq. That Kennan did feel compelled--in his late nineties--to voice public criticism of the planned Iraq War Gaddis dutifully notes, but that's it. Readers will not find out just how right Kennan was once again at the end of his life in warning U.S. policy makers not to commit a major blunder. For more information, see here. [...]

Maybe--and that is my second criticism--Gaddis could not help but downplay as much as permissible Kennan's acerbic attitude toward policies that Gaddis himself publicly supported, going so far as publishing a book that justified preemptive war as something deep in the American tradition. Gaddis wants us to believe that Kennan's famous penchant for relentless self-criticism explains why he harshly condemned the Vietnam War, the Reagan administration, or the extension of NATO in the 1990s. That is too much psychology and too little policy analysis. Gaddis is also puzzled why Kennan failed to see that Ronald Reagan's saber rattling and adventurous anti-communism were in the tradition of containment as envisioned by Kennan. To many readers this is not so mysterious. Archival findings of recent years do show that Reagan was sincere in his desire to abolish all nuclear weapons, as was Kennan. They also document the shocking degree of bureaucratic hostility in the U.S. policy-making establishment against Reagan's summit diplomacy with Mikhail Gorbachev. These findings will improve Reagan's standing among diplomatic historians (see Michael Mann's book "The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan"). But they don't contradict the fact that the Reagan administration--with emphasis on administration--did not have a coherent policy of containment as Gaddis wishes to see it, and that in the end it was not Washington--and certainly not grand-standing speeches by the president--that brought down the Iron Curtain, but the self-implosion of the communist system, which Kennan had foreseen, and the actions of Gorbachev, about whom we also don't learn much in this biography, other than the fact that he had two brief encounters with Kennan and apparently knew who Kennan was.

Still, as a biography this book is a success. In the Epilogue, we find out that both Kennan's friends, Kennan himself, and professor Gaddis recognized the appropriate paradigm for Kennan's life: that he was a teacher, first and foremost: a teacher of grand strategy, history, writing, and philosophy. As such, George Kennan's life can teach us a lot. This biography makes for a wonderful lesson.

The biographer is an historian of the Cold War. The biographical task began in 1981. Kennan was seventy-eight. George Kennan spoke of his unnatural longevity. He lived to be one hundred one years old. He lost his mother very early. He was closest to his sister Jeannette. He grew up in Milwaukee, a Presbyterian, the son of a tax attorney who sought to stifle the softer side of himself. He was imperfectly noticed at Princeton, 1921-1925. Fitting into Princeton was difficult. Academics came more easily than social life, (he actually resigned from his eating club!). After graduation Kennan entered the Foreign Service. In 1927 he was installed as a vice-consul in Geneva. Next he was assigned to the Consulate in Hamburg. After serving in Riga, a probationary period passed successfully, Kennan moved to Berlin to study Russian. In 1933 George Kennan received an appointment to work under the ambassador to the USSR, William Bullitt. After an assassination in 1934, the political atmosphere in Russia shifted alarmingly. Kennan challenged his own stamina in 1936 with a journey to the Caucasus. In 1937 a new ambassador imperilled the morale of the American staff in Moscow. Kennan was transferred to the American Consulate in Jerusalem. In a matter of months Kennan's assignment was changed. He was sent to Washington D.C. to oversee Soviet affairs from there as an analyst. In 1938 Kennan was sent to Czechoslovakia. Legation duties in Prague were light. The Kennans stayed in an apartment in a seventeenth century palace. When war started, George Kennan was sent to Berlin. In 1940 the United States was neutral but Kennan's private views were optimistic. He perceived the Prussian aristocrats did not support the Nazis, that Germany did not dominate the Czech souls, that the Nazi war machine had lost momentum and was not operating smoothly. By 1941 the disaster confronting the Jews was becoming oibvious.

After Pearl Harbor, there were German orders for embassy personnel to leave Berlin. Kennan and the others were interned at Bad Nauheim, a spa north of Frankfort. Kennan lived under one roof with one hundred thirty-five people for five months until the internees were transported to Lisbon where they entered a ship headed for America. Foreign Service Officers were advised they would not be paid for their period of internment. George Kennan was sent back to Lisbon and in 1944 he was sent to the Soviet Union. When the war was over Kennan went to Siberia. He did not find the Foreign Service rewarding. He was never satisfied. He sought to resign, but was persuaded to have his resignation held in abeyance. Kennan sent his famous long telegram on February 22, 1946. Forrestal had the telegram reproduced and it was circulated all over Washington. The long telegram became the conceptual foundation for the strategy of the United States and Great Britain. Kennan received an appointm,ent to teach at the National War College. The State Department authorized his transfer. Subsequently Kennan became a policy planner under Marshall at State. In March 1947 Kennan published anonymously in FOREIGN AFFAIRS. The article predicted the Russians would be difficult to deal with for a long time. Kennan became conspicuous through a column of the Alsop brothers and a piece by Arthur Krock. Walter Lippmann argued against a strategy of containment, contending it would exhaust the United States. Kennan ran the Policy Planning Staff for two and half years. More than seventy formal papers were produced. Kennan made constructive contributions, first in promoting the Marshall Plan, and then in tethering General MacArthur.

In Kennan's mind, containment was supposed to end the Cold War, not freeze it in place. The Office of Policy Coordination was set up for covert projects but Kennan scarcely paid any attention to it. As policy planning, Kennan's papers showed defects of prolixity and a lack of knowledge of economics. A problem was that Kennan was self-absorbed. He did not advocate for a divided Germany or NATO,(1948). He had difficulty isolating his job from his moods. Dean Acheson, Secretary of State during Truman's second term, lacked Marshall's modesty, self-discipline, and procedural restraint. Kennan felt he was basically a Washington lawyer, not a diplomat. Ultimately Acheson came to conclude that Kennan had not been a very useful policy advisor. In 1950 Kennan departed Washington for the Institute of Advance Study, Princeton. Oppenheimer was the director. He, George Kennan, remained there, of and on, for the next half century. Kennan became Ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1952. He lacked specific instructions from the American government and he faced an anti-American climate in Moscow. Kennan was declared persona non grata when his isolation was publicized. His immediate recall was demanded. Kennan's undiplomatic remarks were made in circumstances he had reason to believe were off the record. Kennan left the State Departmenty in 1953 with hardly anyone noticing. Under the Kennedy administration he served for two years as the Ambassador to Yugoslavia. In the end he believed that he wasn't accomplishing much. He was close to collapse, he had never achieved diplomatic, (clinical), detachment.

There is an exceptional amount of information, paraphernalia, at the back of this volume. This book constitutes an excellent account of George F. Kennan's life.

I have recently commented (in a review of a book on World War I) on whether books aimed at the general reader are inclined to go into far too much detail. This biography of George F. Kennan (1904-2005) runs some 749 pages, including end notes. However, when one is dealing with the biography of a major historical figure, even what might otherwise be seen as excessive detail is helpful in trying to grasp the character of the subject, especially someone as elusive as Kennan. This is a magisterial study, but be forewarned that it recounts almost everything that can be known about Kennan. The author spent some 30 years working with Kennan and reviewing his papers, although this is not an "authorized" biography.

The book is more than just a great biography. Because of Kennan's involvement in foreign policy, and the key role he played in shaping American dealings with the then Soviet Union, it also serves as an excellent history of American foreign policy between the 1930's and the first decade of the 21st century. While best known for the famous "X" authored article laying out the containment strategy, Kennan was involved in other key areas of American foreign policy. As the book recounts, he spent time in Germany and had strong views on resolving the postwar division of Germany; he was an Ambassador to Yugoslavia during the Tito regime; he developed and led the Policy Planning Staff in the cold war State Department; and from his perch at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton beginning in the 1950's, he produced a steady stream of books, articles, and speeches regarding his views of American foreign policy.

The book proceeds entirely in a chronological manner. Each of Kennan's books and important articles is briefly discussed in due course; just enough to give the flavor and demonstrate how Kennan was developing his ideas. At times, Kennan was a firm critic of American policy (e.g., detente and SALT), and he crossed swords with some of its major architects, including Dean Acheson, John Foster Dulles, and Chip Bohlen. He was not afraid to take aggressive positions, such as his opposition to Vietnam in testimony before the Fulbright committee, and his views on controlling nuclear weapons internationally. He was also a tough customer, surviving being declared "persona non grata" while serving as Ambassador to the Soviet Union, and feuding with Dean Acheson. He simply would not back off of his view that morality had an important role to play in the conduct of foreign relations, despite what the military establishment might argue.

Kennan lived long enough to see the Berlin Wall come down and the Soviet Union disassembled. But this is what he had predicted for decades: the Soviet leadership would crumble from the inside and be incapable of controlling the satellites indefinitely. While Kennan was a prickly individual, he certainly was an interesting one at the same time. This long book captures his many dimensions and richly rewards the reader patient enough to make his way through its extended analysis. Kennan's life demonstrated why we need always to pay attention to "voices in the wilderness" who challenge our central assumptions--because sometimes they are right!

Before I read this book I only had a passing knowledge of who George F. Kennan was in my historical readings of post WWII and the subsequent Cold War. After reading this 800 page plus book I never realized how instrumental this man was in the forming of Cold War policy. Mr. Kennan was an intellectual extraordinaire who ironically did not possess an advanced degree. He was conversant in several European languages with his main staple language being Russian. He was not only a student of history; he was indeed an historian who was published in books of the genre of Russian history. With his talents of linguistics and as a student of history he was able to use his superior analytical talents to be head of think tanks which wrote policy to be considered by many US Presidents and Secretaries of State.

Kennan was trained in the US diplomatic corps that went to Russia in 1933 to open up the diplomatic channels with the Communistic USSR. From that point on Kennan became not only a student of the Russian way of life but he totally immersed himself in the Russian culture. In doing this he learned of the mindset of the Russians and he learned of the political culture that was Stalin's Communistic government. He took this mission seriously and developed a thesis and the real fears and trepidations that concerned Stalin's government.

However expert Kennan became in the governance of the Communists in Russia he found himself a prisoner of the diplomatic corps which was stationed in Berlin. This was at the onset of America's entrance into the European War in 1941 and remained in Berlin as a diplomatic prisoner of the Nazis onto 1942. Back to Moscow after the War, Kennan was asked to assess the mindset and attitudes of the USSR. Not only did Kennan answer his superiors in Washington, he in fact laid the policy groundwork to handle the next 44 years of the Cold War. This instrument was referred to as the Long Telegram in which Kennan not only assessed the mindset of the Russian people he analyzed the Communists and advised Washington how to proceed with the USSR. Several issues were brought up such as terms which are now very familiar in Cold War jargon such lingo as spheres of influence and the utilization of containment to avoid military conflict. Within a period of several months much of the US foreign policy was adapted from the Long Telegram. After the Long Telegram Kennan headed up a Policy Planning staff who was instrumental in advising the Secretary of States that being Marshall and Acheson. Such policies such as the Marshall Plan and much of the Truman Doctrine emanate from the Policy Planning staff headed up by Kennan.

Gaddis shows Kennan disagreeing with the Truman administration in wanting to withdraw its troops in occupied Germany, while Truman was adamant in keeping the troops in Europe. However with the Berlin blockade and the subsequent Berlin Airlift brought Cold War tensions to a high level. Kennan also disagreed with the formation of NATO. It was Kennan's thesis that the USSR only wanted an Eastern buffer zone and did not want to advance further west because as Kennan saw it the Communist plan was inefficient and was doomed in the near future. In hindsight he was right, but in reality the Berlin Blockade, the formation of the Berlin Wall and the formation of the Warsaw Pact only made containment and later détente very difficult.

Gaddis shows us an extremely intelligent man who many times doubted himself but always told his mind. He was definitely not a politician. He was intelligent, analytical, a true historian and a man of many contradictions. He was the steady hand of reason on the US side of the Cold War. He opposed going into North Korea after the Inchon landings, he was against the Vietnam War and he thought the Bay of Pigs was a travesty.

Kennan lived a long life and Gaddis needed many pages just to review this great life. Gaddis shows a great life complete with his successes and foibles. To really learn of the processes and policies of the Cold War and go into a truly great mind who helped to steer the ship, this is the book to read.

I am a devoted Kindle user, for all the obvious and often stated reasons. However, everyone buying this wonderful book about an actually important man, well written, informative, and insightful, should realize that for some obscure, petty, really sleazy reason, the Kindle version has NONE of the illustrations, mostly photographs, that grace the "real" edition. No images of the young Kennan just out of his crib, just out of Princeton, of his Norwegian relatives, of the embassy in Moscow: NOTHING. And, of course, no mention that you are paying for a bowdlerized version. This is truly shameful.

Holbrook Robinson

Cambridge, Ma.