GEORGE F. KENNAN

The very concept of history implies the scholar and the reader. Without a generation of civilized people to study history, to preserve its records, to absorb its lessons and relate them to its own problems, history, too, would lose its meaning.

Heroism is endurance for one moment more.

The best an American can look forward to is the lonely pleasure of one who stands at long last on a chilly and inhospitable mountaintop where few have been before, where few can follow and where few will consent to believe he has been.

The best thing we can do if we want the Russians to let us be Americans is to let the Russians be Russian.

One sometimes feels a guest of one's time and not a member of its household.

All nations are not ready for this.

Foreigners see in our society virtues that we have not seen and problems that we have not seen.

The best thing we can do for other people is by example and not by preaching

For every effort we make to assist someone beyond our own borders, we take something away from our own

We have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population…. we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment …

It is urgently necessary that we recognize our own limitations as a moral and ideological force among the Asiatic peoples. Our political philosophy and our patterns for living have very little applicability to masses of people in Asia. They may be all right for us, with our highly developed political traditions running back into the centuries and with our peculiarly favorable geographic position; but they are simply not practical or helpful, today, for most of the people in Asia.

Our public dealings with the Russians can hardly lead to any clear and satisfactory results unless they are preceded by preparatory discussions of the most secret and delicate nature.

We must reduce as far as possible our establishment in Germany; for the residence of large numbers of representatives of a victor nation in a devastated conquered area is never a helpful factor, particularly when their living standards are as conspicuously different as are those of Americans in Germany.

European history has shown only too clearly the weakness of multilateral defensive alliances between complete sovereign nations as a means of opposing desperate and determined bids for domination of the European scene

We cannot operate with one foreign policy objective in one area, and with a conflicting one next door.

It cannot be too often reiterated that this Government does not possess the weapons which would be needed to enable it to meet head-on the threat to national independence presented by the communist elements in foreign countries. This poses an extremely difficult problem as to the measures which our Government can take to prevent the communists from achieving success in the countries where resistance is lowest.

If there is no real European federation and if Germany is restored as a strong and independent country, we must expect another attempt at German domination…. The only reasonably hopeful possibility for avoiding … this is some form of federation in Western and Central Europe.

Our experience with ad hoc wartime and post-hostilities agencies operating in the foreign field has demonstrated that not only are new agencies of little value in executing policies which go beyond the vision and the educational horizon of their own personnel, but that they actually develop a momentum of their own which, in the final analysis, tends to shape—rather than to serve—the national policy.

The only way in which a European union, embracing Britain but excluding eastern Europe, could become economically healthy would be develop the closest sort of trading relationships either with this hemisphere or with Africa.

The Middle East is undoubtedly in for a rocky time. In Palestine we have a situation which is badly fouled up by the past mistakes of many people, including ourselves. These probably cannot be settled without great unpleasantness, including violence.

It is clearly unwise for us to continue the attempt to carry alone, or largely single-handed, the opposition to Soviet expansion. It is urgently necessary for us to restore something of the balance of power in Europe and Asia by strengthening local forces of independence and by getting them to assume part of our burden.

Our use of the United Nations as an instrument for opposing Soviet expansion. prior to the conclusion of peace, has strained that institution severely. It has an increasing tendency to alarm smaller nations and to paralyze, rather than stimulate, their will to play an active part in the organization

One of the most dangerous moments to world stability will come when some day Russian rule begins to crumble in the eastern European area. The Kremlin may then feel itself seriously threatened internally and may resort to desperate measures

Outcome of these elections is not in doubt due to simple fact that there is only one candidate for each position…. You may be wondering why party propaganda machine attaches such importance to electoral campaign and surrounds it with such unparalleled pomp and circumstance.

There is a little bit of the totalitarian buried somewhere, way down deep, in each and everyone of us.