George Kennen

Arthur Herman remembers the real George Kennen. An analysis of Kennen's views might be helpful to those of us who perceive dramatic differences between the Democrats of yesterday and those of today.

Although Kennan despised the Soviet system and its makers, and rightly warned Americans of their menace, he shared their bleak outlook more than anyone dares to admit.

"The trouble with this country," he once told columnist Joseph Alsop, "is that it is a democracy and should be ruled by an aristocracy." Kennan believed all his life that America's elected leaders were ignorant boobs at best or dangerous demagogues at worst, like his fellow Wisconsinite Joe McCarthy (McCarthy from Appleton, Kennan from Milwaukee) and, later, Ronald Reagan. In neither case were they capable of understanding America's true interests on the global chessboard, where in Kennan's view, sovereign states blindly obeyed the dictates of history and geography, not ideas or ideology.

So we should be clear in our remembrance of George Kennen. He was not a pro-democracy idealist anymore than Henry Kissinger was. It seems that if one wants to look for a Democrat who supported American values in foreign policy, the late Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson is the role model, with Joe Lieberman a close second.