A murky legacy

George Kennan, a key figure behind U.S. Cold War policy, has died, age 101.

I have to admit, I didn't know who he was when I was told about his death (thanks, J-Dogg! Youdaman!) so I read The New York Times story on him.

The guy obviously had a long, brilliant and accomplished career. He published 17 books and collected not one, but two Pulitzer Prizes. Wow.

But after reading the whole, six-part article online, I have one question.

What the hell did he stand for?

The second paragraph of the story tells us:

"He conceived the cold-war policy of containment, the idea that the United States should stop the global spread of Communism by diplomacy, politics, and covert action - by any means short of war."

Fair enough. This was in the late '40s and early '50s, and who the heck wanted another big-ass war on their hands?

[H]e conceived a secret "political warfare" unit that aimed to roll back Communism, not merely contain it. His brainchild became the covert-operations directorate of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Sweet! Secret agents! Spies coming in from the cold! The covert operative with a strong emotional attachment to me!

In one of his first books, he wrote:

"Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the Western world is something that can be contained by the adroit and vigorous application of counterforce."

Push us and you'll get pushed back. Equal and opposite reaction.

He helped formulate the Marshall Plan to rescue post-war Europe. He didn't think the U.S. should participate in the Nuremburg trials because it would mean sitting next to the Soviet Union, a country that had killed millions of its own citizens.

Great stuff.

But.

But Mr. Kennan was deeply dismayed when the policy was associated with the immense build-up in conventional arms and nuclear weapons that characterized the cold war from the 1950's onward. His views were always more complex than the interpretation others gave them, as he argued repeatedly in his writings. He came to deplore the growing belligerence toward Moscow that gripped Washington by the early 1950's...

In 1975, he called his political-warfare initiative "the greatest mistake I ever made."

He opposed putting U.S. troops in Japan because he was worried it would annoy the Soviets. Decades later, he opposed Clinton's NATO expansion, arguing that pushing the alliance to the borders of Russia would be "the most fateful error" the U.S. made post-Cold War. He feared it would annoy Moscow, inflame nationalist sentiment and undermine Russian democracy (as if that needed any help).

He hated cars and highways because they created suburban sprawl and meant the death of the railway.

He was against military confrontation.

He had failed to make it clear, he said, that what he was talking about was not the containment by military means or military threat, but the political containment of a political threat.

Whatever that means. Did he not think the Soviets were a military threat? If he did, how was "political" containment supposed to be effective?

He sought unsuccessfully to dissuade Mr. Kennedy from proclaiming Captive Nations Week in 1961 - as required by a Congressional resolution of 1959 - on the ground that the United States had no reason to make the resolution, which in effect called for the overthrow of all the governments of Eastern Europe, a part of public policy.

I found this hilarious. John F. Kennedy, patron saint of the Democratic Party, publicly called for the overthrow of every country in Eastern Europe.

Compared to this, George W. Bush's "axis of evil" phrase was just a fart in the general direction of Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Can you imagine the uproar today if Bush called for the overthrow of all the governments of the Middle East?

In the end, it's clear that Kennan was an intelligent and thoughtful man. What's not so clear is what policies Kennan actually stood for. He thought the USSR should be contained, but not militarily. And we shouldn't do anything that might antagonize the Soviets. He called for covert political operations, an idea that became one of his biggest regrets in life.

The closest hint I get is his support for the Marshall Plan. Perhaps he felt that the U.S. should be giving economic aid and trade support to strengthen countries bordering the Soviet Union so that Communism couldn't take root there. But the article never says so, and so we're left guessing as to what this distinguished man really stood for.