On December 8, 1987, Gorbachev himself told Kennan during a reception at the Soviet Embassy in Washington: “Mr.
In fact, Kennan was seen by the Soviet reformers as a good friend of Russia because of his anti-war and anti-nuclear positions, and because of his long experience studying Russia. The tone of the conversation is warm and trusting, as if these are two old friends speaking. He asks to switch to English sometimes because his “language got a little rusty.” He has not spoken Russian for forty years. Most of the conversation takes place in Russian, which Kennan still speaks very well. The dean of American Sovietologists was closely following Soviet perestroika, trying to use all his knowledge and experience from decades of studying Russian history to comprehend the enormity of the task Mikhail Gorbachev and his supporters were trying to accomplish. Kennan was in Moscow on his way from Berlin where he had attended the celebrations for German reunification. The Yakovlev-Kennan meeting took place in Moscow on October 5, 1990.
#Long telegram archive#
Today the Archive publishes for the first time in English the memorandum of conversation between perestroika architect Alexander Yakovlev and George Kennan where they discuss the conclusions of the Long Telegram, its relevance to the Soviet situation in 1990, and the problems faced by the Soviet reformers.Īdding historical context to the anniversary, the Archive accompanies the Yakovlev-Kennan memcon with an excerpt about the Long Telegram from the lengthy interview of Kennan done by Jeremy Isaacs Productions in June 1996 for the award-winning CNN Cold War series, for which the Archive produced documentary briefing books. Washington, D.C., Febru- Leading Soviet reformer Alexander Yakovlev discussed with George Kennan his "X Article" that grew out of the famous Long Telegram in a previously unpublished October 1990 meeting in Moscow and Kennan actually dictated the Long Telegram while laid up in bed with the flu, a sinus condition, and a foul mood, according to documents and transcripts posted today by the National Security Archive to mark the 75th anniversary of Kennan’s telegram from Moscow, which shaped the Cold War and U.S. FOIA Advisory Committee Oversight Reports.Capitalism was a menace to the ideals of socialism, and capitalists could not be trusted or allowed to influence the Soviet people. It was their ever-present aim to advance the socialist cause.According to Kennan, due to the vast ideological differences, the Soviet Union did not see the possibility for long-term peaceful coexistence with the capitalist world. The Long Telegram gave the US government a clear understanding of how the Soviet government saw itself in the international community.The Soviet government’s structure prohibited objective or accurate pictures of internal and external reality. Soviet aggression was fundamentally not aligned with the views of the Russian people or with economic reality, but in historic Russian xenophobia and paranoia. The USSR would use controllable Marxists in the capitalist world as allies, therefore they would create a sphere of influence by creating Buffer Zones. Socialism and social democracy are enemies, not allies. The 1 st and 2 nd parts of the telegram outlined these concepts, which were The USSR perceived itself at perpetual war with capitalism.
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