1. Two recent collections of essays which explore the concept of “containment” are Paterson, Thomas G., ed., Containment and the Cold War: American Foreign Policy since 1945 (Reading, Mass., 1973)Google Scholar and Tucker, Robert W. and Watts, William, eds., Beyond Containment: U.S. Foreign Policy in Transition (Washington, D.C., 1973)Google Scholar, which includes most of a symposium, “ ‘X’ Plus 25,” originally published in the Summer 1972 issue of Foreign Policy. See also Charles Gati, “What Containment Meant,” Foreign Policy, Summer 1972, pp. 22-40.

2. Krock, Arthur, “A Guide to Official Thinking About Russia,” The New York Times, July 8, 1947, p. 22 Google Scholar.

3. X, , “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs, 25 (July 1947): 566–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Lippmann, Walter, The Cold War: A Study in U.S. Foreign Policy (New York, 1947)Google Scholar.

5. See especially Kennan, George F., Memoirs, 1925-1950 (Boston and Toronto, 1967)Google Scholar, chapter 15; see also “Interview with George F. Kennan,” in Tucker and Watts, eds., Beyond Containment, pp. 3-16. Hereafter Kennan will be identified as GFK.

6. Edward Mark, for example, finds evidence that GFK intended “military” containment in 1949-50. Edward M. Mark, “What Kind of Containment?,” in Paterson, ed., Containment and the Cold War, pp. 96-109.

7. For discussion of GFK's views of the 1930s, see C. Ben Wright, “George F. Kennan: Scholar-Diplomat, 1926-1946” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1972), chapters 2-4. See also GFK, Memoirs, chapters 2-3.

8. GFK, “Russia and the Post-War Settlement,” unused paper, summer 1942, George F. Kennan Papers (hereafter cited as GFK Papers), Firestone Library, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.

9. Ibid.

10. See GFK, Memoirs, annex, pp. 503-31; for excerpts see U.S., Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1944 (hereafter cited as FR: 1944), 7 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1965-67), 4: 902-14.

11. The “endless, fluid pursuit of power,” according to GFK, also motivated Soviet policy in China and in the Near and Middle East, although the Russians would be tactically flexible, even cautious. See U.S., Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945 (hereafter cited as FR: 1945), 9 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1967-69), 7: 342–44Google Scholar; U.S., Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1946 (hereafter cited as FR: 1946), 11 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1969-71), 9: 116–19Google Scholar; FR: 1945, 5: 901-3. That GFK was not indifferent to the Kremlin's communistic ambitions was revealed in his views about postwar Germany, where he thought Soviet policy was motivated by the desire to establish a “Soviet Socialist state.” See FR: 1946, 5: 516-20, 555-56.

12. See GFK, Memoirs, annex, pp. 532-46; for excerpts see FR: 1945, 5: 853-60.

13. GFK, “The United States and Russia,” unfinished paper, winter 1945-46, GFK Papers; for excerpts see Memoirs, annex, pp. 560-65.

14. See FR: 1946, 6: 696-709; for excerpts see Memoirs, annex, pp. 547-59. For extended discussion of the Long Telegram and its reception in Washington, see Wright, “George F. Kennan,” pp. 393-421, 438-42; see also GFK, Memoirs, pp. 292-95; Gaddis, John Lewis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947 (New York and London, 1972)Google Scholar, chapter 9.

15. The New York Times, February 10, 1946, p. 30; FR: 1946, 6: 694-96. For a “revisionist” view of Stalin's speech, see Harris, Jonathan, “Historicus on Stalin,” Soviet Union, 1, no. 1 (1974): 66 Google Scholar.

16. FR: 1946, 6: 697 n.; Elbridge Durbrow, interview with the author, September 28, 1970. GFK had first noticed signs of a new Soviet line in October 1945. See FR: 1945, 5: 888-91; GFK to the secretary of state, telegram, October 6, 1945, U.S. Department of State Files (hereafter cited as DSF), Record Group 59, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; GFK to secretary of state, October 9, 1945, DSF.

17. Another example of overkill was GFK's analysis of Soviet policy in the Near and Middle East as conveyed in his well-received dispatch of October 23, 1945 (DSF 761.00/ 10-2345; see also FR: 1945, 5: 901-3).

18. GFK, unused paper, September 18, 1944, GFK Papers. See also “Russia and the Post-War Settlement,” summer 1942.

19. GFK to Charles E. Bohlen, letter, January 26, 1945, GFK Papers; Bohlen, Charles E., Witness to History, 1929-1969 (New York, 1973), pp. 174–77 Google Scholar; GFK to W. Averell Harriman, memoranda, September 18, December 5, December 22, December 23, 1944, April 12, 1945, summer 1945, October 11, 1945, GFK Papers; GFK to secretary of state, October 31, 1944, DSF 860 C. 48/10-3144, May 16, 1945, DSF; FR: 1945. 4: 453-54; FR: 1946, 6: 713-14. See also FR: 1944, 1: 467-68; FR: 1945, 3: 83, 110; GFK to secretary of state, October 3, 1945, DSF; GFK, “Comments on the Results of the Crimea Conference as Set Forth in the Published Communique,” February 14, 1945, GFK Papers; FR: 1946, 5: 555-56.

20. GFK to Bohlen, January 26, 1945; GFK, “Comments on PWC-141a (April 21, 1944),” written about February 1945, GFK Papers; GFK to John G. Winant, letter, March 1944, GFK Papers; GFK to Harriman, summer 1945.

21. GFK to Harriman, memorandum, December 3, 1944, GFK Papers; GFK to Harriman, summer 1945; Thomas G. Paterson, “The Abortive American Loan to Russia and the Origins of the Cold War, 1943-1946,” Journal of American History, 56 (June 1969): 86. See also GFK to Winant, March 1944; FR: 1944, 2: 881; FR: 1946. 6: 745-48, 728-31.

22. GFK, Memoirs, p. 564. See also GFK to secretary of state, April 28, 1945, DSF.

23. FR: 1944, 4: 927-28, 267-68, 272-73, 1: 467-68; FR: 1945, 3: 83, 4: 453-54, 820, 5: 868-70; GFK to secretary of state, April 28, May 16, May 25, 1945, DSF; GFK to Harriman, April 12, October 11, 1945; FR: 1946. 6: 1-4, 711, 718-19, 728-31; Council on Foreign Relations, “The Soviet Way of Thought and Its Effect on Soviet Foreign Policy,” Discussion Meeting Report, January 7, 1947, p. 6, GFK Papers.

24. GFK, Memoirs, p. 562; GFK to secretary of state, April 21, 1945, DSF; FR: 1945, 4: 532-33, 5: 295-96; GFK to Harriman, October 11, 1945. On one occasion, the International Trade Policy Office became so irritated with GFK's negativism that it proposed, sarcastically, that the United States close its Moscow embassy and return him to Washington, where his “sublime insight” would be more readily available (International Trade Policy memorandum, February 14, 1946, DSF 861.24/2-1446).

25. GFK to Elbridge Durbrow, letter, January 21, 1946, GFK Papers; see also GFK to Bohlen, January 26, 1945; GFK to H. Freeman Matthews, letter, August 21, 1945, GFK Papers.

26. William A. Crawford, interview with the author, September 29, 1970. Crawford was third secretary of the Moscow embassy in 1945-46.

27. GFK to Dr. Bruce Hopper, letter, April 17, 1946, GFK Papers.

28. Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, chapter 9.

29. Ibid., pp. 302-4; Halle, Louis J., The Cold War as History (New York, 1967), pp. 104–8 Google Scholar.

30. GFK, Memoirs, p. 294.

31. Durbrow, interview; Crawford, interview; Benjamin V. Cohen, interview with the author, September 29, 1970; “The Reminiscences of Walter Lippmann,” April 8, 1950, pp. 257-59, courtesy of Oral History Research Office, Columbia University, New York, N.Y. Prior to 1947, the “get tough” policy was, of course, not referred to as “containment.”

32. Jones, Joseph, The Fifteen Weeks: February 21-Junc 5, 1947 (New York, 1964), p. 1964 Google Scholar; see also Acheson, Dean, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York, 1969), p. 1969 Google Scholar; Dean Acheson to the author, letter, March 5, 1971; Millis, Walter, ed., The Forrestal Diaries (New York, 1951), pp. 135–40 Google Scholar.

33. Quoted in George Curry and Walker, Richard L., E. R. Stettinius, Jr., 1944-1945, and James F. Byrnes, 1945-1947 (New York, 1965), p. 1965 Google Scholar.

34. FR: 1946, 7: 340-42. The text of the U.S. protest was released to the press on March 7 (The New York Times, March 8, 1946, p. 2). On March 5 the United States also protested the removal of war booty from Soviet-occupied Manchuria (FR: 1946, 10: 1113-14).

35. Office of European Affairs, Supplement to Weekly Review, March 5, 1946, GFK Papers. See also Lilienthal, David E., The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, 5 vols. (New York, 1964-71), 2: 26 Google Scholar.

36. The New York Times, March 6, 1946, p. 4. The headline for March 6 read: “U.S. Sends 2 Protests to Russia on Manchuria and Iran Actions; Churchill Assails Soviet Policy.”

37. FR: 1946, 7: 340, 342-43, 344-45.

38. Quoted in ibid., pp. 346-48.

39. The New York Times, March 7, 1946, p. 18. In its announcement the State Department denied that the voyage, whose ostensible purpose was to return the body of the late Turkish ambassador, had “political implications.” See also Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries, pp. 141, 144-46, 171.

40. FR: 1946, 7: 348.

41. Quoted in Feis, Herbert, From Trust to Terror: The Onset of the Cold War, 1945-1950 (New York, 1970), pp. 82–83.Google Scholar

42. FR: 1946, 7: 37&-79; see also pp. 405-7.

43. Ibid., pp. 362-64.

44. Council on Foreign Relations, “The Soviet Way of Thought,” January 7, 1947, p. 7. See also “Question and Answer Session” with GFK and Llewellyn Thompson, following lecture by GFK to Foreign Service and State Department personnel, Washington, D.C., September 17, 1946, GFK Papers.

45. GFK, Memoirs, p. 358.

46. At one time or another during his service in Moscow GFK commented on the decline of Soviet production of the following: copper, aluminum, oil, railroad cars, construction machinery, coal, iron ore. (GFK to secretary of state, November 16, 1944, DSF 861. 6352/11-1644; January 27, February 7, July 19 [#2625, #2627], July 20, July 28, July 31, 1945, DSF.)

47. FR: 1945, 5: 884-86.

48. Feis, From Trust to Terror, p. 223.

49. GFK, Memoirs, p. 360.

50. See, for example, GFK, “ ‘Trust’ as a Factor in International Relations,” lecture, October 1, 1946, Yale Institute of International Affairs, Yale University, New Haven, Conn., GFK Papers; see also FR: 1946, 6: 721-23.

51. Minutes of Organization Meeting on Russia, Washington, D.C., June 12, 1946, GFK Papers.

52. GFK, lecture to Foreign Service and State Department personnel, Washington, D.C., September 17, 1946, GFK Papers; see also Memoirs, pp. 301-4.

53. Minutes, June 12, 1946; lecture, September 17, 1946; “'Trust’ as a Factor in International Relations,” October 1, 1946; GFK, “Russia,” lecture, October 1, 1946, Naval War College, Newport, R.I., GFK Papers; GFK, “American-Soviet Relations,” discussion, December 29, 1946, American Political Science Association, Cleveland, Ohio, GFK Papers; GFK to Bohlen, January 26, 1945.

54. GFK, “Measures Short of War (Diplomatic),” lecture and discussion, September 16, 1946, National War College, Washington, D.C., GFK Papers; “American-Soviet Relations,” December 29, 1946. See also GFK, “Structure of Internal Power in U.S.S.R.,” lecture and discussion, October 10, 1946, National War College, GFK Papers; GFK, “Russian-American Relations,” lecture, February 20, 1947, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va., GFK Papers; GFK, “The Background of Current Russian Diplomatic Moves,” lecture, December 10, 1946, National War College, GFK Papers.

55. “Measures Short of War,” September 16, 1946.

56. Ibid.

57. GFK, “Russia's National Objectives,” lecture, April 10, 1947, Air War College, Maxwell Field, Alabama, GFK Papers. On December 10, 1946, GFK speculated that the peak of Soviet power may have passed ( “The Background of Current Russian Diplomatic Moves,” December 10, 1946).

58. “Russia's National Objectives,” April 10, 1947; see also Council on Foreign Relations, “National Power and Foreign Policy,” Study Group Report, Digest of Discussion, October 30, 1946, GFK Papers.

59. GFK, address to National Defense Committee, Chamber of Commerce of the United States, January 23, 1947, Washington, D.C., GFK Papers; see also Memoirs, pp. 311-12.

60. Council on Foreign Relations, “National Power and Foreign Policy,” Study Group Report, Digest of Discussion, February 6, 1947, GFK Papers; see also FR: 1945, 5: 884- 86; Council on Foreign Relations, “The Soviet Way of Thought,” January 7, 1947, pp. 7-9.

61. See, for example, FR: 1946, 5: 70.

62. “Russia,” October 1, 1946.

63. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Harry S. Truman: 1947 (Washington, D.C., 1963), pp. 178-79.

64. GFK, “Comments on the National Security Problem,” Strategy, Policy and Planning Course, National War College, March 28, 1947, GFK Papers; see also Memoirs, pp. 315-21.

65. GFK to Admiral Harry W. Hill, memorandum, October 7, 1946, GFK Papers.

66. Lecture, September 17, 1946.

67. GFK, “Contemporary Soviet Diplomacy,” lecture and discussion, October 22, 1946, National War College, Washington, D.C., GFK Papers.

68. Ibid.; “Russia,” October 1, 1946.

69. GFK, “Current Problems of Soviet-American Relations,” lecture. May 9, 1947, United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md., GFK Papers; GFK, “Soviet-American Relations Today,” address, May 12, 1947, Army Information School, Class #5, Carlisle, Pa., GFK Papers.

70. U.S., Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1947 (hereafter cited as FR: 1947), 8 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1971-73), 3: 220 n.

71. Ibid., pp. 223-30. See also Jones, , The Fifteen Weeks, pp. 249–52Google Scholar; GFK, Memoirs, pp. 335-42; Price, Harry B., The Marshall Plan and Its Meaning (Ithaca, N.Y., 1955), pp. 22–25 Google Scholar.

72. Jones, , The Fifteen Weeks, pp. 252–54Google Scholar. See also GFK, Memoirs, pp. 342-43; Goldman, Eric, The Crucial Decade—and After: America, 1945-1960 (New York, 1960), pp. 71–75 Google Scholar.

73. U.S., Department of State, The Department of State Bulletin, 16 (June 15, 1947): 1159-60; see also FR: 1947, 3: 237-39.

74. GFK, draft address, February 17, 1948, to be delivered at Baltimore Historical Society, GFK Papers. That GFK neither wanted nor expected the Russians to participate in the Marshall Plan is attested to by former colleagues Benjamin Cohen and Ware Adams (Cohen, interview; Ware Adams, interview with the author, September 30, 1970).

75. Jones, , The Fifteen Weeks, pp. 154–55Google Scholar; GFK, Memoirs, pp. 314-15, 317; Loy W. Henderson, interview with the author, October 3, 1970; FR: 1947, 5: 98 n. On March 8, during a dinner with Dean Acheson and David Lilienthal, GFK expressed the hope that the president would not inflate the Greek issue (Lilienthal, Journals, 2: 158-60).

76. GFK, “National Security Problem,” Orientation on Strategy, Policy and Planning Course, National War College, March 14, 1947, GFK Papers; “Comments on the National Security Problem,” March 28, 1947.

77. GFK, “Problems of U.S. Foreign Policy After Moscow,” lecture, May 6, 1947, National War College, GFK Papers; see also Memoirs, pp. 329-35, 339-41.

78. FR: 1947, 3: 229-30. On August IS GFK told Clark Clifford and Robert Lovett that the United States should try to forget Truman's promise to aid free people everywhere; such a commitment was beyond our capacity to meet (George M. Elsey, memorandum of conversation, August IS, 1947, George M. Elsey Papers, courtesy of Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Mo.).

79. “Russian-American Relations,” February 20, 1947; “Problems of U.S. Foreign Policy After Moscow,” May 6, 1947; GFK, Robert Linn, and Sherman Kent, “Current Political Affairs,” discussion, January 10, 1947, National War College, GFK Papers. In his memoirs GFK gives the impression, unsupported by any direct evidence I have been able to discover, that at the time of the “X” article he was already thinking in terms of five crucial industrial areas of the world: the United States, the United Kingdom, the Rhine Valley region, Russia, and Japan (see Memoirs, p. 359).

80. GFK to Frank Altschul, letter, October 24, 1947, GFK Papers. See also Frederick L. Schuman, letter to the editor, The New York Times, October 5, 1947Google Scholar, sec. 4, p. 8; Altschul, letter to the editor, The Neiv York Times, October 12, 1947, sec. 4, p. 8.

81. GFK to Hamilton Fish Armstrong, letter, November 7, 1947, GFK Papers.

82. GFK to Walter Lippmann, draft letter, April 6, 1948, GFK Papers; see also Memoirs, pp. 359-63.

83. According to Lippmann's own recollection, he and GFK had “a very good understanding” in May 1947 ( “The Reminiscences of Walter Lippmann,” pp. 258-59).

84. Mark, “What Kind of Containment?,” pp. 98-100.

85. FR: 1947, 5: 466-69. GFK wondered whether it would be “feasible to throw a cordon of foreign troops right across Northern Greece.” Very recently, GFK wrote: “If … the French or Italian communists, acting as minority factions and sweeping aside all democratic practises, had successfully seized power, or threatened seriously to seize it, in 1948, I can conceive that this might well have engaged our military reaction …” (GFK to the author, letter, May 30, 1975).

86. General Alfred M. Gruenther, interview with the author, August 11, 1975; Paul H. Nitze, interview with the author, October 2, 1970; Llewellyn E. Thompson, interview with the author, October 2, 1970; Henderson, interview; Cohen, interview; U.S., Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Hearings, Nomination of Charles E. Bohlen, 83rd Cong., 1st Sess., March 2 and 18, 1953 (Washington, D.C., 1953), pp. 5, 11, 71.

87. Nitze, interview; Charles E. Bohlen, interview with the author, September 29, 1970. See also Sulzberger, Cyrus L., A Long Row of Candles: Memoirs and Diaries, 1934-1954 (New York, 1969), p. 1969 Google Scholar.

88. Carleton Savage, interview with the author, September 30, 1970.

89. “The Reminiscences of Nicolas Chatelain,” 1962, pp. 21-22, courtesy of Oral History Research Office, Columbia University, New York, N.Y.

90. See, for example, “Structure of Internal Power in U.S.S.R.,” October 10, 1946, where GFK suggested that the differences between Stalin and Trotsky were merely ones of “emphasis.”

91. GFK to Hill, October 7, 1946. “What historian,” GFK recently asked, “faced with the contradictory quality of most historical evidence (and Russia, one should remember, is the classic country of contradictions), has not had to face the temptation to improve the coherence and persuasiveness of his account by ignoring or softening the contradictory nature of the material he has before him?” GFK, The Marquis de Custine and His “Russia in 1839” (Princeton, 1971), p. 112.

92. GFK, Memoirs, pp. 528-29. The image of Russia as a land of extremes and opposites was not original to GFK. See, for comparison, Crankshaw, Edward, Russia and the Russians (New York, 1948), pp. 22–23, 31, 49, 67Google Scholar.

93. FR: 1944, 1: 826-28; Feis, Herbert, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin: The War They Waged and the Peace They Sought (Princeton, 1957), pp. 433–36 Google Scholar.

94. GFK to Hill, October 7, 1946; FR: 1945, 5: 901-3.

95. Michael B. Petrovich, interview with the author, February 20, 1970.

96. Tucker, Robert W., The Radical Left and American Foreign Policy (Baltimore and London, 1971), p. London Google Scholar. See also Paterson, Thomas G., Soviet-American Confrontation: Postwar Reconstruction and the Origins of the Cold War (Baltimore and London, 1973)Google Scholar, chapter 9.