Kennan, George F.
Kennan, George F. (1904–2005), diplomat, historian, foreign policy critic.Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1904, Kennan attended Princeton University and joined the foreign service in 1926. Over the next two decades he labored as a diplomat in relative obscurity at postings in Riga, Moscow, Vienna, Prague, and Berlin, and earned some reputation for expertise on the Soviet Union. His obscurity ended with the dispatch from Moscow of his Long Telegram in February 1946 and especially with the publication of his 1947 article, The Source of Soviet Conduct, in Foreign Affairs. He was accorded authorship of “containment” doctrine and deemed a principal architect of America's Cold War strategy.
As director of Policy Planning Staff in the State Department from 1947 to 1950 Kennan principally advocated political and economic measures, such as the Marshall Plan, to implement containment. He objected...
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