George F. Kennan

His father was a descendant of impoverished Scots-Irish settlers from 18th-century Connecticut and Massachusetts, and had been named after the Hungarian patriot Lajos Kossuth (1802–94).

His mother died two months later due to peritonitis from a ruptured appendix, though Kennan long believed that she died after giving birth to him.

The boy always lamented not having a mother.

He was never close to his father or stepmother; however, he was close to his older sisters.

At the age of eight, he went to Germany to stay with his stepmother in order to learn German.

In doing so, he followed in the footsteps of his grandfather's younger cousin, George Kennan (1845–1924), a major 19th century expert on Imperial Russia and author of Siberia and the Exile System, a well-received 1891 account of the Czarist prison system.

During the course of his diplomatic career, Kennan would master a number of other languages, including German, French, Polish, Czech, Portuguese, and Norwegian.

George Frost Kennan (February 16, 1904 – March 17, 2005) was an American diplomat and historian.

He was best known as an advocate of a policy of containment of Soviet expansion during the Cold War.

He lectured widely and wrote scholarly histories of the relations between the USSR and the United States.

He was also one of the group of foreign policy elders known as "The Wise Men".

He attended St. John's Military Academy in Delafield, Wisconsin, and arrived at Princeton University in the second half of 1921.

Unaccustomed to the elite atmosphere of the Ivy League, the shy and introverted Kennan found his undergraduate years difficult and lonely.

After receiving his bachelor's degree in history in 1925, Kennan considered applying to law school, but decided it was too expensive and instead opted to apply to the newly formed United States Foreign Service.

He passed the qualifying examination and after seven months of study at the Foreign Service School in Washington, he obtained his first job as a vice consul in Geneva, Switzerland.

Within a year, he was transferred to a post in Hamburg, Germany.

In 1928, Kennan considered quitting the Foreign Service to return to a university for graduate studies.

Instead, he was selected for a linguist training program that would give him three years of graduate-level study without having to quit the service.

In 1929, Kennan began his program in history, politics, culture, and the Russian language at the Oriental Institute of the University of Berlin.

By the mid-1930s, Kennan was among the professionally trained Russian experts of the staff of the United States Embassy in Moscow, along with Charles E. Bohlen and Loy W. Henderson.

These officials had been influenced by the long-time director of the State Department's division of East European Affairs, Robert F. Kelley.

They believed that there was little basis for cooperation with the Soviet Union, even against potential adversaries.

Meanwhile, Kennan studied Stalin's Great Purge, which would affect his opinion of the internal dynamics of the Soviet regime for the rest of his life.

Kennan found himself in strong disagreement with Joseph E. Davies, Bullitt's successor as ambassador to the Soviet Union, who defended the Great Purge and other aspects of Stalin's rule.

Kennan did not have any influence on Davies' decisions, and Davies himself even suggested that Kennan be transferred out of Moscow for "his health".

Kennan again contemplated resigning from the service, but instead decided to accept the Russian desk at the State Department in Washington.

In 1931 Kennan was stationed at the legation in Riga, Latvia, where, as third secretary, he worked on Soviet economic affairs.

From his job, Kennan "grew to mature interest in Russian affairs".

When the U.S. began formal diplomacy with the Soviet government during 1933 after the election of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Kennan accompanied Ambassador William C. Bullitt to Moscow.

During the late 1940s, his writings inspired the Truman Doctrine and the U.S. foreign policy of containing the USSR.

His "Long Telegram" from Moscow in 1946 and the subsequent 1947 article "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" argued that the Soviet regime was inherently expansionist and that its influence had to be "contained" in areas of vital strategic importance to the United States.

These texts provided justification for the Truman administration's new anti-Soviet policy.

Kennan played a major role in the development of definitive Cold War programs and institutions, notably the Marshall Plan.

Soon after his concepts had become U.S. policy, Kennan began to criticize the foreign policies that he had helped articulate.

By late 1948, Kennan became confident that the US could commence positive dialogue with the Soviet government.

His proposals were dismissed by the Truman administration, and Kennan's influence waned, particularly after Dean Acheson was appointed Secretary of State in 1949.

Soon thereafter, U.S. Cold War strategy assumed a more assertive and militaristic quality, causing Kennan to lament what he believed was an abrogation of his previous assessments.

In 1950, Kennan left the State Department—except for a brief ambassadorial stint in Moscow and a longer one in Yugoslavia—and became a realist critic of U.S. foreign policy.

He continued to analyze international affairs as a faculty member of the Institute for Advanced Study from 1956 until his death in 2005 at age 101.

Kennan was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Kossuth Kent Kennan, a lawyer specializing in tax law, and Florence James Kennan.