Bill Moyers Journal; 112; An interview with George F. Kennan

The following program is from WNET 13. I'm Bill Moyers. This is the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. It's a unique place in American intellectual life. Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, Neils Bohr, some of the most exciting minds of this century have labored here, enlarging man's understanding of himself and his universe. Since 1950, it's been the home of George F. Kennen, one of America's distinguished diplomats, scholars, historians, and public commentators. Before enduring World War II, he served in the foreign service in Moscow, Berlin, and Prague. He returned to Washington after the war to become a major architect of American foreign

policy. He served President Truman as ambassador to Moscow and later President Kennedy as ambassador to Yugoslavia. His writings have won numerous awards, including the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. He's still considered by many to be America's foremost expert on Russian affairs, and I've come here to the Institute on this windy winter day to talk to him about America's relations with her old adversary. Mr. Kennen, twenty-five years have passed since you wrote what many people considered to be the seminal document of our post-war policies toward the Soviet Union.

You call for a long-term patient, but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expensive tendencies. How does that article look a quarter of a century later? Well, a great deal of it is overtaken by events. Some of it was material that I came to regret later, not so much for what I wrote, but for what I didn't write. That is, there were things that should have been explained about that article that weren't explained. But actually, the situation has changed very, very materially since then. In the first place, this was written in the immediate aftermath of the war, and a great part of what lay between us in Russia and Russia, both in Europe and in the Far East, was in a deplorable and pathetic state of exhaustion and over excitement and all these conditions that are induced by a great war like that.

For this reason, these countries were very vulnerable, both in Asia and in Europe, to penetration and to being seized by their own communist minorities. This was the danger that existed at that day, and it was to this danger that the article was your response. But all this has changed, very considerably, has changed in the first place through the death of Stalin, the development of a multipolar world of a world in which there are a number of power centers, even in the communist bloc. You see, at that time, we were dealing with a monolithic communist movement in the world, absolutely controlled by Joe Stalin, that began not to exist in 1948 with the Tito defection, but then, of course, it has greatly changed since Stalin's death, and, above all, through the emergence of the Chinese as a separate force. You pointed out that Stalin was able to maintain dictatorial control by manipulation of the

organs of suppression, and by playing upon this implacable fear that Soviets had of external forces, in particular, of capitalism. Do you see moderation of both the organs of suppression and the fear of capitalist societies? Yes, I do. I say that with some hesitation, because people think that if you say that, you don't realize that people like Sousa Nitsyn are having a hard time of it. Well, I realize that very much. But if you take the degree of terror that exists in the Soviet Union, it is nowhere near, as great today, I mean, not even comparable to what it was in Stalin's time. It's true that police repression has increased a bit in the last three or four years, and that's a phenomenon that we all view with certain sadness and concern. Why do you think it happened? I think it's happened because the men who are now in power, who are really a very old

group of men, they're on an average, just about as old as I am, I think. They must be the oldest ruling group anywhere in the world. These men became worried. I think they felt that the situation was getting a bit out of hand, that they didn't have sufficient ideological control over the youth, that it was dangerous to let these people who had new ideas right and talk in Russia, and they felt the necessity of cracking down in order to hold the line as they saw it. This is a characteristic of old and basically conservative regimes, and that's what this is. It may be a communist regime nominally in its ideology, but with relation to Russia, with relation to its own power, it is now a very conservative regime. That is, it's more interested in preserving what it's got than carrying out revolutionary extensions of it.

But conservative though it be, it seems to be somewhat more open to wins from abroad, and particularly to formerly antagonistic, capitalistic powers. Well, it is more open than it was in Stalin's day, but it's probably less, well, certainly less open than it was, let us say, ten years ago, in Ruchtschoff time. The Ruchtschoff time was the most liberal period that Russia has known since 1918. And in my opinion, it might have been the most hopeful if we had responded correctly to it at that time. Where did we fail? We failed by continuing to prosecute the Cold War as an exercise in military competition. The U-2 episode was an absolute disaster for Ruchtschoff. It really embarrassed him in a fatal way. I don't think he ever got over it politically in Russia.

It gave the Army a power over him after that, which they had not had before, and it was the beginning of the end for him. Now this view to episode was a product of our single-minded preoccupation with the military aspects of the Cold War. I mean, it would have been wise at all together not to send these planes over the Soviet Union. But had I said that, or had anyone else in the civilian side said that, the answer in Washington would have been, aha, you're trying to deprive us of military intelligence on which the security of the United States depends, you see it would have been regarded as almost treasonable. But we pursued this to a point where we were no longer able to take advantage of what minimal favorable opportunities there were in the Ruchtschoff regime. What did the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 do to Ruchtschoff's position within the Union?

Because I've never really known to what extent Ruchtschoff personally was responsible for this whole Cuban Missile business, to what extent it came from their military industrial complex. He maybe have been in the same situation with regard to the placing of those missiles in Cuba that I might have been with regard to the YouTube episode. Do you see what I mean? It might have been said by other people, well, we have to do this because the security of the Soviet Union depends on it. I don't think they ever meant to use those missiles against us, but I think they meant to use them as a bargaining counter in the Cold War. What are likely to be the sources of tension with the Soviet Union within the next 10 years? I don't think there are going to be very great sources of tension unless we create them. I'm a little worried about the insistence from our standpoint on free exchanges with the Soviet Union because to the extent we push that, we're going to create tensions.

This is one of the things they're afraid of. The other thing, the thing which I think is most important, of course, is the rivalry and the development of nuclear weapons, but even more perhaps the naval rivalry. And this is something to watch, the rivalry on the high seas. I think the Russians are very foolish to try to challenge us this way, they don't need to. Where are they challenging? In the Mediterranean, above all. This is not what some people have said, a purely defensive outpost that they're trying to maintain. I'm sure that in their eyes it is, but as we all know, if you ask the military, what do you need for defense? What they need is so much that it becomes offense and these two concepts become confused. Well, this is a question that troubles and concerns a lot of people mystically. And how do you cross this cultural barrier, this mindset by which the Soviets see what we do as offensive while we are seeing it as defensive and we see what they're doing

as offensive while they consider it defensive? How do you ever cross those bridges? Well, I think you keep, in the first place you keep talking to them quietly, not in public negotiations, but behind the scenes all the time and explaining to them as well as you can precisely why we do what we do, not just once, but constantly over the years. I think practically every month someone ought to be talking to the Russians and trying to explain to them what our military dispositions really reflect in the way of thoughts on our side and talking to them about their military dispositions. You wrote in American diplomacy of the evolution of the current Soviet profile character out of its ideology. Do you see evidence that that ideology is changing considerably today or is it simply a shifting of tactics? It isn't changing in substance, but it's losing its emotional appeal.

It's losing its real emotional value for people in Russia too, and especially all through Eastern Europe. In other words, they are saying the same things that they said, perhaps 40 or 50 years ago, but they don't understand very well the things they're saying and nobody is much interested in you. Let's go back for a moment to that article with which we began this discussion and which you call for long-term, patient, firm, but vigorous containment of Russian expansion tendencies. How would you apply that to China today? Well, I don't think that it is very, has any great relevance to China. I don't see China as a highly expansive power except with the relation to those areas which were once included within the Chinese empire, like Taiwan, above all. Beyond that, I think the Chinese, of course, like everybody else would enjoy having influence.

They'd like to know how to make friends and influence people, but I don't think that they want to bring these countries under direct Chinese domination. You once wrote that you had doubts about the necessity of the United States ever forming a close relationship with China. Well, this is true, and I don't think that we will do that. I don't think we need to do it. I have real fears about attempts on the American side to form a relationship of intimacy with the Chinese because I think these are usually mistaken after that because they are so different from ourselves, and with people who are very different in personal life as in international life, it's often best to keep your distance and be polite. What should be our aim towards China? I think to have outwardly polite and respectful relations with the Chinese to pursue such

minimal facilities for cultural exchange and intellectual exchange as they show an interest in, but otherwise, I think, to leave them quite alone. They have a very, very highly developed sense of prestige of their country and their regime, and I think that it's all right to be polite about that and to observe the amenities with them. But I don't think that there is any great future in American intimacy with China. In the first place, we have so much to do with ourselves here at home before we are really fit to be cultivating into intimacy with anybody else. Well, let's turn to the agenda at home. America seems very uncertain of itself right now in the world. How do you explain that?

I think it is, for many reasons, of course, because there's a highly complex thing, but it is very largely because we failed, and when I say we failed, I'm looking back over the last hundred years, to take into account the effects of rapid and revolutionary technological change on our own lives and on our national life. We let ourselves be whipsawed and carried by any technological inventions that were susceptible to commercial exploitation. And this has caused such revolutionary changes in our lives that we've not been able to adjust to them. In fact, we haven't recognized them as revolutionary changes, and we haven't tried to change our views of the organization of society to deal with these things. I really believe that we must come to a day when we say that anybody who professes to invent anything.

It's first going to have to prove to us, not only that he invented it, but how it's going to be usefully introduced in our society is not going to cause further instability, you see? Do you see any evidence that in foreign policy we're approaching a new maturity and a new ability to deal with a complicated world? To the extent that we've been sobered by Vietnam, yes, but to the extent that we still have ideas about the American century or world leadership across the globe, no. I think that actually the views of most Americans have, indeed, changed and changed and favorably with regard to this subject. But the semantics of our national life have not changed. What do you mean? What I mean by that is that the American politician still finds it necessary to talk as though he believed in the great role of the United States, if you see, in the world. We have a certain sort of semantic ritual that we all go through in public life, as you

know. There are certain things that you can be for, certain words that you can be for, certain words that are bad and you must be against them. People very seldom ask what the meaning is of these terms, and this, of course, world leadership was one of them. And I think actually that most Americans today would be quite content to get down to the problem of improving our own society and making it more hopeful. But it'll be a long time before the political establishment can bring itself to proclaiming a modest view of America's role in the world. I am, you see, I won't say an isolationist because that doesn't have any meaning anymore. But I really believe that our fundamental duty over the next 20 or 30 years is going to be necessarily to ourselves, and that during this period until we straighten this country out, until we are on a more hopeful line of development, we have no business trying

to act as a model for other people. It doesn't talk like that. Do you care that Dickens out of the Europeans? Well, it does, but it does them good because it's high time that they learned to handle their own affairs, too. We have held them up long enough since the Second World War, and they really don't need to have us to get along. We are a form of escapism for them. Here we are sitting in these lovely surroundings in Princeton a long way from the Elbe, and they're sitting there knowing that there are many Soviet divisions within two or three hours of them. Is it escapism? Well, I think in a way it is because Western Europe altogether, or even just the Western European members of NATO, really have the resources, the people, the industry, everything that

it needs to put up military strength sufficient to contain the Soviet Union. Where's the will? That's their business. That's their business, and if they haven't got it, no outside force can permanently protect them, but actually I don't think the Soviet Union intends to invade them, and I think that if they continue to make progress along the lines of the reduction of tensions, such as been done, has has been done now by Ville Brandt and may spread also between the French and the Russians. They don't really have so much to fear, and should take at any rate a much higher, much greater part in their own defense than they've taken to date. Well, you say you're not an isolationist. Where then does the balance rest between concentrating and doing something, concentrating on it, doing something about our problems, and maintaining enough of a presence in the

world to prevent a sharp and radical departure from the balance that exists? I don't think that we can really hope to do that. The balance in Europe seems to me today to be quite stable, and there isn't a great deal that we need to do, except to do nothing abrupt. I mean, even when I say that we should leave the Europeans to their own devices, I don't mean bring all the troops home tomorrow or anything like that. A buck things are always bad in foreign policy, but the place where the balance is really interesting, and if you will, potentially precarious, is in the far east. But there, I don't think there's much more that we can do. The day that Mr. Nixon went to Peking on a voyage, which whatever it was really meant for, must have appeared to most Asians as a sort of a voyage to Canosa.

He turned over half of the U.S. influence, at least, in the far east to the Chinese kindness. Was that necessarily bad? No, I don't think that it was. I think that we've played a leading role there long enough, too, and one that is really a little unnatural for us. The only place where we're as far as I can see where we really continue to be held in the far east and is Korea terribly important and crucial place. Well simply because the Korean territory occupies an incredibly delicate strategic position with relation to all three of the great powers that surround it, the Russians and the Japanese and the Chinese, and we are still in there as a military force to a certain extent, so that this is a really delicate one and has to be handled with greatest of prudence. I think one of the greatest dividends of the ending of the Vietnam War, if it really

is ending now, and we all hope it is, is that we can turn our attention, perhaps more systematically and more carefully, to the creation of greater stability in northern Asia, to the extent that we can influence it. Of course the three powers that are there are all really much more powerful than we are on the spot. You see what I mean? We can't compete over there. What should our role be there in trying to maintain security in the northern region? I think our role should be to try to guess ourselves out of the picture without pulling some sort of a kingpin out of it, which sets up great instability among the others. In other words, to extract ourselves in such a way that we leave some sort of a balance of power there, do you see what I mean? We have written occasionally of a term that I'd like to ask you to define. The achieving of spiritual distinction has important to a nation's life. What do you mean by that?

I suppose I mean the qualities in its public life, which in general the presidents of the Federalist period had. I think of someone like John Quincy Adams, a mixture of intelligence and integrity and sense of the dignity of the nation, which is not incompatible with modesty either. I think it was a bad term. I've regretted since that I used it. But what I meant was this, I had lived for many years in Russia. You know, in the Soviet Union, when you knew Russian and you read the Russian newspapers and you talked with Russians, in Stalin's time you were confronted every single day with the sharpest and most provocative challenges to the whole value of American civilization. I mean what the Russians were saying to us all the time is you are not worth it.

You are a damn for all your high-flduding ideas of yourself and you are boasting you. Our country is built up on commercial selfishness. You can't really control your own affairs, your whole public life and your whole business life runs on the basis of what people do for themselves, not what they do for the nation. And this made us of course a bit defensive about our own country and we would have liked to see it, a country that would look credible in the eyes of the world. And it didn't really. And this is what I meant when I said spiritual distinction. I wish that we could appear to the outside world which of course meant being in addition to appearing, that we could appear as a country which still had the courage to look the modern age in the face to ask itself how does a technologically highly developed society live in a way that's hopeful in a way that gives people a sense of the meaning of life.

And a wise foreign policy has to grow doesn't it out of the inner character of a country? I think it does, yes. And I think since we are inevitably so preoccupied with our own affairs now and ought to be because we are in trouble that our foreign policy should be geared to that. One final question Mr. Kenan, you've written before that it's terribly hard to try to define national greatness. Would you venture now after all these years a definition? No, I couldn't define it. I think that there is greatness in our country today and my children I'm sure would be surprised to hear me say this because I've been so gloomy about many things. I think the greatness is there but that our national, the organization of our society and our habits don't permit it to come to the fore in the way that we would like today.

But I have the feeling that there are immense resources of competence but also of idealism and willingness to sacrifice which exist in this country if they could only be tapped. And one of the most terrible things about our political system is it doesn't tap them. One of the saddest things that I experience these days is to go into New York and to witness and all one has to do is to ride in a cab to do it. The prevailing bitterness and cynicism that flows through the society of that city. And I often think to myself if the right touch were applied and the right confidence gained, this might turn into its exact opposite and I can see that these people in New York could be mobilized for collective efforts which would be immensely inspiring.

I mean this city has underneath huge vitality and really it has a huge face in human nature. On that note Mr. Kenan we'll close this conversation. Thank you very much for sharing your time and your thoughts with us. This has been a conversation with George Kenan. I'm Bill Moyers, good night. Good night.

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