The Kennan Diaries

Kennan, whose "Long Telegram" of 1946 and "X" article of 1947 articulated the West's postwar containment strategy against the U.S.S.R. and who then became an architect of the Marshall Plan, was among the most prominent creators of 20th-century U.S. foreign policy. He was also among its most famed critics, speaking out against what he saw as the militarization of American Cold War policy and the senselessness of its nuclear buildup. In addition, for 88 years of his 101-year life (1904–2005), he was a diarist. Editor Costigliola (history, Univ. of Connecticut) here abridges those 20,000 pages of self-examination. As accomplished as he was, Kennan rarely measured up in his own reckoning, agonizing over what he saw as failures in both his public and personal lives. Neither did he feel that the country he served so well for so long measured up, as in private he frequently condemned its commercialization, mechanization, and environmental degradation.