George F. Kennan: “Long Telegram”

Audience

The obvious intended audience for the “Long Telegram” was George Kennan's contacts and superiors in the U.S. Treasury and State Departments. The telegram's expansive nature also makes it obvious that this missive was not intended merely to answer specific questions those contacts and superiors asked of him. Kennan had published a number of essays and articles over the previous twenty years of his service as a diplomat. Having served in Riga, Prague, Berlin, and Lisbon as well as Moscow and in varying capacities as a permanent civil servant, his expertise in international affairs was considerable. His own opinion of his expertise was considerable too. Throughout his life Kennan harbored a general dismay at his perceived lack of influence in Washington, for all his academic prowess and diplomatic experience. He admitted that his response to the question put to him by the Treasury Department was out of all proportion to the answer they asked for—he was hoping his telegram would circulate throughout the Truman administration and Congress. Within a week of its arrival at the State Department, the telegram had made its way through the executive and legislative branches, exactly as Kennan had hoped. By summer 1946, the “Long Telegram” became the basis of a classified presidential report detailing a history of Soviet violations of wartime agreements with the United States. The Clifford-Elsey Report, entitled “American Relations with the Soviet Union,” used the words “restrain and confine” as a focus of policy recommendations for the Truman administration in dealing with the Soviets.