44 GFK European trip diary, August 4, 1924, GFK Papers, 230:16.
45 GFK to KKK, October 20, 1924, ibid., 53:7; GFK European trip diary, July 25, 1924, ibid., 230:16. This Harriman was the railroad magnate E. H. Harriman, father of W. Averell Harriman, under whom George served in the U.S. embassy in Moscow during World War II.
46 GFK to KKK, October 20, 1924, GFK Papers, 53:7; GFK European trip diary, July 30, 1924, GFK Papers, 230:16.
47 GFK, Memoirs, I, 17; GFK interview, August 24, 1982, p. 9; GFK to KKK, January 19, 1925 [misdated 1924], GFK Papers, 53:7.
48 GFK, Memoirs, I, 17; Joseph C. Green to GFK, October 25, 1925, Philip A. Brown to GFK, November 27, 1925, both in JEK Papers.
49 GFK commencement address, Dartmouth College, June 11, 1950, GFK Papers, 299:40; GFK, Memoirs, I, 15, 18; Nassau Herald, June 15, 1925, p. 227. I am indebted to Daniel J. Linke, University Archivist and Curator of Public Policy Papers at Princeton, for providing me with a copy of Kennan’s academic transcript.
50 GFK, Memoirs, I, 16. The chameleon image comes from Axtell, Making of Princeton University, p. 111.
THREE ● THE FOREIGN SERVICE: 1925–1931
1 GFK interview by JEK, p. 24, JEK Papers; Heinrichs, American Ambassador, pp. 95–98; Weil, Pretty Good Club, pp. 46–47.
2 GFK interview by JEK, p. 24; GFK to JKH, December 3, 1925, GFK Papers, 23:10. See also, on the Crawford School, Bohlen, Witness to History, p. 5.
3 GFK interview by JEK, pp. 23–24; GFK to JKH, October 28, 1925, GFK Papers, 23:10.
4 GFK interview by JEK, p. 24; GFK, Memoirs, I, 18.
5 Joseph C. Grew to GFK, September 9, 1926, DSR-DF 1910–29, Box 548, 123 K36/orig.; GFK draft speech (unused) to Princeton alumni, February 5, 1953, GFK Papers, 252:11; GFK, Memoirs, I, 19–20; GFK poem copied in diary for January 18, 1930, GFK Papers, 230:20; GFK interview by JEK, p. 25.
6 GFK, Memoirs, I, 20–21.
7 GFK Diary, July 4, 1927.
8 Ibid., May 20, 1927.
9 GFK, Memoirs, I, 13.
10 Ibid., pp. 20–21.
11 GFK Diary, May 16 and 26, 1927.
12 Ibid., May 24, 1927.
13 Ibid., July 14, 1927.
14 Ibid., October 30 and November 3, 1927.
15 Ibid., September 10, October 9, 10, 30, November 5 and 28, 1927.
16 Ibid., November 7, 1927. See also GFK, Memoirs, I, 22; and GFK, Sketches from a Life, p. 4, where he prints this passage but edits out the word “Jewish.”
17 GFK Diary, November 1 and 30, 1927.
18 GFK, Memoirs, I, 20; GFK Diary, November 12, 1927; GFK to Department of State, November 22, 1927, DSR-DF 1910–29, Box 548, 123K36/19. See also GFK, Sketches from a Life, pp. 5–6.
19 EJN to the Foreign Service Personnel Board, December 7, 1927, DSR-DF 1910–29, Box 548, 123K36/19; State Department to GFK, December 9, 1927, ibid.; GFK to State Department, January 6 and April 24, 1928, ibid., Box 1476, 123K36/22 and 25; Cassels, “‘Mr. X’ Goes to Moscow,” p. 88; GFK, Memoirs, I, 23.
20 Ibid.
21 GFK interview by JEK, p. 26; GFK to JKH, September 3, 1928, GFK Papers, 23:10; GFK interview, December 13, 1987, p. 7.
22 Eleanor Lake to John Lamberton Harper, July 12, 1990, and June 1991, copies provided by Professor Harper. Eleanor’s son, Anthony Lake, would serve during the Carter administration as director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, the position Kennan was the first to fill when the staff was created in 1947.
23 GFK interview, December 13, 1987, pp. 7–8; JKH interview, p. 16. Eleanor Lake, in her July 12, 1990, letter cited above, says that her mother destroyed all of George’s letters to her.
24 GFK to JKH, September 3, 1928, GFK Papers, 23:10.
25 GFK Diary, March 26, 1928.
26 See, for example, entries for December 4, 1927, and March 17, 1928, ibid. George mentions “Peck”—prob-ably Howard F. Peckworth, who graduated from Princeton a year after he did—as his only other confidant in a letter to Jeanette, October 20, 1928, GFK Papers, 23:10, but adds that they have the “sensible” arrangement of corresponding just once a year.
27 GFK, Memoirs, I, 23; Wilbur J. Carr to GFK, March 29, 1928, DSR-DF 1910–29, Box 548, 123K36/25.
28 Saul, War and Revolution, pp. 318–19, 434, 437–40. The Colby note, dated August 10, 1920, is in FRUS: 1920, III, 463–68.
29 Gaddis, Russia, the Soviet Union, and the United States, pp. 98–104.
30 GFK, Memoirs, I, 23. See also DeSantis, Diplomacy of Silence, pp. 27–29; and Engerman, Modernization from the Other Shore, pp. 246–47.
31 GFK, Memoirs, I, 18–19, 24–25; GFK Diary, April 16, 1928.
32 Ibid., April 16, 18, May 6, 1928.
33 Ibid., April 16, May 6, 1928.
34 GFK to JKH, October 20, 1928, GFK Papers, 23:10.
35 GFK Diary, June 1928; GFK, Memoirs, I, 25–27.
36 GFK interview, August 24, 1982, p. 10; GFK, Memoirs, I, 28. See also, on the Riga legation, DeSantis, Diplomacy of Silence, pp. 30–31; Engerman, Modernization from the Other Shore, pp. 247–50; and, for an argument about the lasting influence of service in Riga for American Soviet specialists, Yergin, Shattered Peace.
37 GFK interview, August 24, 1982, pp. 10–11; GFK Diary, July 28–29, September 22, November 4, 1929.
38 GFK Diary, September 4, 6, 1929; GFK, Memoirs, I, 27.
39 GFK Diary, August 5, 1928; GFK, Memoirs, I, 27.
40 Ibid., pp. 28–30; T. W. Wilson report on the American legation in Riga, Latvia, February 20, 1929, Department of State, Inspection Reports, 1906–39, Box 128, National Archives.
41 GFK Diary, January 20, 1929.
42 Ibid.; GFK interviews, August 24, 1982, pp. 10, 16, and August 25, 1982, p. 3.
43 “Report of Consul Carlson on Mr. George F. Kennan,” enclosed in F. W. B. Coleman to the State Department, May 6, 1929, DSR-DF 1910–29, 123K36/49; Wilbur J. Carr to GFK, July 18, 1929, ibid., 123K36/58.
44 GFK Diary, April 20, 1929.
45 Carr to GFK, July 18, 1929, DSR-DF 1910–29, 123K36/58; Raymond H. Geist to the State Department, August 4, 1930, DSR-DF 1930–39, 123K36/81; GFK, Memoirs, I, 31–33.
46 Richie, Faust’s Metropolis, pp. 325, 331; GFK, Memoirs, I, 34–35.
47 GFK interview, December 13, 1987, p. 8; GFK to JKH, March 8, 1930, GFK Papers, 23:10.
48 GFK Diary, January 26, 1930. See also, for the Femina, Richie, Faust’s Metropolis, pp. 459–60.
49 GFK to JKH, March 8 and 28, 1930, GFK Papers, 23:10.
50 GFK Diary, January 19, 1930.
51 GFK to JKH, January 3 and April 28, 1931, GFK Papers, 23:10; GFK, Memoirs, I, 34.