Where the News Ends

...I have two further criticisms in closing: After his ringing affirmation that America owes no foreign country a living, Kennan suggests that we should make foreign aid available through some international agency, as if the UNRRA experience were not enough...

...This same consideration applies to United States bases in West Germany, notably to the great buildup at Kaiserlautern in the Rhenish Palatinate...

...And I cannot resist quoting his comments on the cheap blackmail of the "Give us aid or we will go Communist" line: "I must say that, wherever the element of threat or pressure enters into any question of foreign aid, I would consider the possibilities of the given relationship to be, for the moment, exhausted...

...WHERE the NEWS ENDS By William Henry Chamberlin George Kennan: A Balance Sheet Because he possesses a lively, questioning mind that generates fresh ideas, and an unusual felicity of expression, George F. Kennan, Russian specialist and retired diplomat, is a distinctly "controversial" personality...

...it is hard to see how anyone could read his statement on American foreign policy at the Pittsburgh Foreign Policy Association (most of which appeared in The New Leader of June 18) without feeling a strong impulse to express agreement and/or dissent...

...To those who respond that in this case they will go Communist I would like to see us respond with a single word: 'Go.'" But, unfortunately, there is a heavy negative element in Kennan's blueprint for American foreign policy...

...And after very properly stating that the rulers of Red China have placed themselves outside the pale, so far as American diplomatic recognition is concerned, he would not object to admitting Peking to the United Nations--in other words, assist in a great diplomatic victory for a hostile power...

...Kennan also shows ripe wisdom when he says that the objective of American foreign aid should not be to win an international popularity contest, to make ourselves loved from Paris to Tokyo, but rather to advance our national interests, to make ourselves respected for firmness and consistency of purpose...

...Where would American forces in Europe go if a disarmed, neutralized Germany came into existence...

...He hints strongly that American forces should be withdrawn from Okinawa and other Japanese bases...

...Advocates of neutralism raise more questions than they can answer...

...A grave flaw in his approach, I think, is a certain defensive passivity of attitude which makes him shrink from bold, decisive action and holds little promise of victory in a long-range struggle with so ruthless and relentless an adversary as Soviet Communism...

...Whatever local irritations the presence of American forces in Germany and Japan may cause, surely the danger of leaving these countries naked in the face of Soviet military power is far greater...

...If it is argued, as Kennan seems to do, that Germany cannot be reunited without giving up its ties with the West, one is entitled to pose a counter-argument: What would German reunification be worth if (1) the puppet tyrants of the Soviet Zone were left in power and (2) Germany had no specific treaty obligations with the United States, Great Britain and France assuring her of Western support in the event of Soviet aggression...

...Kennan again shows himself a neutralist in his recommendations on the Far East...

...He wants to see Germany "a neutral factor" in Europe...

...For instance, he is quick to designate as "unrealistic and a little silly" American dreams of close, cordial association with the Russians and Chinese--two peoples whose entire historical experience and background have been profoundly different from our own...

...Wherever people come to us and say: 'Give us this--or that--or else we will take it from the Communists or we will go Communist ourselves--I think there is only one possible answer, and that answer should be given unhesitatingly and categorically, with a readiness to accept whatever the consequences may be...

...What appeals to me most in Kennan is a sharp, almost harsh sense of realism, which saves him from the high-sounding but woolly illusions that pass with some publicists for high moral statesmanship...

...Kennan describes himself as "a protagonist of neutralism in general" who has always "doubted the wisdom of the decision to rearm Western Germany and to bring her into the Atlantic Pact...

...Yet, without these bases how would it be possible to protect Korea, or Japan itself, against some new military adventure by the Soviet Union or Red China...

...I would like to see us first look the rest of the world in the face and say to it that we will accept from no one the assertion of any a priori moral claim on America's energies and resources...

...He has his wholehearted admirers and detractors...

...Without Germany firmly enlisted on the Western side, Europe is militarily at the mercy of the Soviet Empire...

...To me, this is almost breathtaking defeatism...

...Would it be a fair exchange strategically if Soviet troops withdrew into Poland or even into the USSR, while American forces withdrew across the Atlantic...