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Encounters with George Kennanlass of 1963 - By Benjamin TuaBy the time he died in March at the age of 101, George Kennan, one of America’s most distinguished diplomats and the leading “architect” of its Cold War strategy, had influenced not only US foreign policy but also generations of Foreign Service Officers and other Americans. The following autobiographical note outlines how he influenced the life and career of one now-retired FSO. Over the span of more than four decades I encountered George Kennan many times. I first “met” him in the summer of 1962, when, as an undergraduate at Columbia I read his first book, “American Diplomacy: 1900 – 1950,” during summer break. I was concentrating in American history, and I probably picked up the book at a used book store. I was vaguely aware of the press reports concerning Kennan’s selection as Ambassador to Yugoslavia by President Kennedy but knew little else about the man and his career. Yet this slim volume of six lectures delivered at the University of Chicago in the spring of 1951 proved to be a turning point in my life. I was so taken by the sweeping presentation of US diplomacy and the nature of diplomatic work that it led me, via a generally steady but indirect route, to the Foreign Service and a determination to specialize in Soviet affairs. At the time, my knowledge of Russia and US-Soviet relations was limited. I knew some history and was aware of the early concerns about “Bolshevism,” the war-time alliance, the post-war Soviet threat, the thaw in relations which followed Stalin’s death, the anxiety about a potential nuclear confrontation, and Premier Khrushchev’s two visits to the US, including the trip to Iowa (where he met with hybrid-corn farmer Roswell Garst) and the subsequent shoe-thumping incident at the UN. But I had no particular interest in the region. I was, however, starting to think about what I might do after college, and the book presented the prospect of a wonderful career choice. I returned to school in September and stopped thinking about diplomacy and the USSR. With October, however, came the Cuban Missile Crisis. I also met a bright young City College student, from a “progressive” family. She was well-informed and had highly developed political views. We had many arguments about Russia, Cuba, and US policy towards Vietnam, about which I knew almost nothing. As happened with so many Americans of my generation, my ignorance of Southeast Asia quickly dissipated. My father had died while I was in college; my family had no money; and my academic record was undistinguished. So I made no plans to attend graduate school. I got a job in New York, and used my evenings to write several papers for John Hermann Randall, Jr’s bear of a survey of philosophy course to fulfill the final requirements for my Columbia degree. II In the spring of 1964, I was invited to visit my draft board, which informed me that I was about to be drafted into the Army. I explained my situation, adding that, in any case, I really wanted to go into the Marine Corps. I’m not sure how seriously the board took my (sincere) assertion of interest in the Marines. But, after some discussion, its chairman said the board would give me a few months to finish up my course work, which I was scheduled to do by summer, and then I would be drafted. I immediately called on the Marine representative at Columbia and explained my burning desire to join the Corps and not go into the Army. The Master Sergeant listened sympathetically but offered no solution. A few minutes after I left his office, however, he came out of Hamilton Hall looking for me. I was still in the Quadrangle outside Hamilton, so he did not have to go far. He invited me back inside and told me of an opportunity, which involved a six-year commitment in the Ready Reserve. I would do basic training at the Marine Corps Depot on Parris Island, South Carolina, followed by advanced infantry training at Camp Geiger in North Carolina, and then an intensive ten-month Russian course in the language school at the Anacostia Naval Station in Washington. I spoke Spanish and had studied German in high school and college. But my knowledge of Russian was essentially limited to Da, Nyet and Sputnik. It seemed very foreign. So I asked for time to decide. Two days later, I signed on. I passed the written examination – the Marines are selective – and the physical, began attending Reserve meetings in Brooklyn, and departed for Parris Island in November. Upon completion of the language course, I joined a unit of Russian-speaking marines in a reserve company in Brooklyn in 1966. But I settled in Washington, where I found work as a bartender, took the Civil Service exam, and got a job at the Army Management System Support Agency at the Pentagon. A couple years later, I took the Foreign Service exam. I was offered a commission and was sworn in at the beginning of 1969, just as the Nixon administration was beginning. I told everyone I was interested in going to the USSR, but new officers were not assigned there. When I was asked whether I would go to Vietnam, I said yes – so I was assigned to the Consulate General in Palermo, Sicily. My next posting was to Lesotho, where we had recently opened an Embassy. I continued to ask for assignment to the USSR or to a Soviet affairs job in Washington. The closest I got was the office for people and cultural exchanges with Western Europe, which was down the hall from the office for exchanges with Eastern Europe and the USSR. There may have been some suggestion that I might be able to “move over” at some point, but in the meantime I landed a job in the bilateral affairs office of the Soviet Desk. Finally, I was on my way! After a year and a half, I got an assignment to Moscow, where I arrived with my family in the summer of 1977, after an additional intensive Russian language course complemented by Soviet area studies. III I met George Kennan in person for the first time in Moscow. I delivered a welcome packet to Kennan from Ambassador Malcolm (Mac) Toon, another distinguished Soviet expert with whom, I understood, Kennan had had some differences years before. (I could see why the two might have clashed given Kennan’s polished, cool style and Toon’s reputation as a blunt operator.) Ambassador Kennan invited me to his suite in one of Moscow’s grand old hotels – the Metropol, I believe. He offered me a seat, examined the packet briefly, and engaged me in conversation while Mrs. Kennan sewed a button on a garment. I do not recall the content of our conversation – I don’t think I had much to offer. But I was impressed by Kennan’s courtly and gracious manner. I was invited to stay a third year in Moscow, but we left after two years because my wife found it too oppressive. We then were assigned to the Kennedy School at Harvard, where I concerned myself for a year with topics such as Soviet foreign policy, US-Soviet relations and nuclear deterrence. I was angling for a conventional arms negotiation job in Vienna, which did not materialize when the position I sought was abolished as fallout from the cooling of our relations with Moscow after the USSR invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. Instead, in the summer of 1980, we headed for Tokyo, where my responsibilities included resident “Soviet watcher.” In Japan, I met Kennan a second time. He came to Tokyo to deliver a traditional New Year’s address on Japan’s national radio station, and I was invited to his meeting with Ambassador Mansfield. I did not think Kennan remembered me, and I was a bit surprised when he called me at home Saturday morning, the day before he was to deliver his talk. He asked about the Northern Territories, part of the Kurile chain of islands which Japan held before World War II. (The USSR occupied these four small islands shortly after the end of the war and Russia holds them to this day. Japan still claims them, and the absence of a mutually acceptable resolution of their status has precluded the conclusion of a formal peace treaty between Russia and Japan.) As we talked, I realized that I was briefing Kennan and that I actually knew more about the issue than he did. From Japan, I went on to assignments in Israel, arms control work in Washington, Brazil, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, the Pentagon’s International Security Policy office, and Ukraine, as Deputy Chief of the conflict prevention team of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. A few months after I retired from the Foreign Service, in the fall of 1996, the State Department invited me to join another OSCE team, and I spent the first half of 1997 in Chechnya. Subsequently, I served as a linguist and arms control inspector at a Defense Department facility outside a missile plant in the pre-Urals area of Russia. I did not see Kennan again after the meeting and phone conversation in Tokyo. But since my first encounter with him in 1962, he has been a guiding light for me. Like many other Foreign Service Officers, I have read a good deal of his work: such as the “Memoirs,” “Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin,” his commentary on the Vietnam War and the protests it evoked, and some of his essays (including the “Letter on Germany,” published in the New York Review of Books in December 1998, when he was 94). He wrote beautifully. He also was wonderfully insightful, impressive in his understanding of currents in our society and our engagement with the world, and wise in his judgments and advice. He was a force of clarity within and beyond the Foreign Service. He remains with us through his intellect and as a radiant model of a servant of his country. _____________________________________________________________________ |