![]() domestic system, to make it more attractive to other peoples. However, Kennan agrees with Yakovlev that there are parts of the telegram that still ring true-in the last section of the document where Kennan proposes to strengthen the U.S. Yakovlev and Kennan start the discussion both referring to the Long Telegram, and both admit that times have changed so much that Kennan would not have written it this way today. Kennan, we in our country believe that a man may be a friend of another country and remain, at the same time, a loyal and devoted citizen of his own and that is the way we view you.” 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. 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Yakovlev discussed with George Kennan his "X Article" that grew out of the famous Long Telegram in a previously unpublished October 1990 meeting in Moscow and Kennan actually dictated the Long Telegram while laid up in bed with the flu, a sinus condition, and a foul mood, according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.
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