John Lewis Gaddis.
JOHN LEWIS GADDIS: GEORGE KENNAN BIOGRAPHY
GEORGE F. KENNAN: AN AMERICAN LIFE (2012)
Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Biography.
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George Kennan (born 1904) was one of the most influential American diplomats of the twentieth century. After obtaining a degree in History at Princeon University he joined the United States Foreign Service. His first postings were to Genva and Hamburg. He was then selected for a graduate linguistic programme, which he undertook at the Univesity of Berlin. He would go on to develop a command of several languages including German, French, Polish, Czech, Portuguese and Norwegian. After a posting in Latvia he was transferred to Moscow, then to Prague and then in 1942 to Lisbon. In 1944 he was transferred to Moscow, at the request of US ambassador Averell Harriman. It was from Moscow that he wrote his famous ‘long telegram’ of 5,363 words, followed up by an anonymous article (under the pseudonym X) in Foreign Affairs journal. These argued that Soviet pressure for expansion had to ‘be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of ounterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points’. His arguments for containment shaped the Cold War.
Reviewing Gaddis’ official biography of Kennan in Reviews in History, Charles Coutinho wrote:’ Where Gaddis’ biography shines, I think, is in delineating some of the remaining dark corners of Kennan’s personal odyssey … showing the alienated outsider who by force of nothing more than a combination of a brilliant intellect, a great prose style and (equally important according to Gaddis) a change of perspective by his superiors, became for a short time, a celebrated insider.’
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John Lewis Gaddis (born 1941) is Professor of Military and Naval History at Yale University. He obtained his BA, MA and PhD in history at the University of Texas. He has also held posts at the Naval War College, Princeton University and Oxford University. Gaddis was a friend and advisor to US President George. W. Bush; he is credited with advising Bush to take up painting after his retirement.
