George F. Kennan Quotes
For every effort we make to assist someone beyond our own borders, we take something away from our own
George F. Kennan, 1904-2005, Historian & U.S. Ambassador to Russia and Yugoslavia, Interview with Charlie Rose, PBS The Charlie Rose Show, February 19, 1993
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At the time there were some very isolationist leaders of the Republican Party and the party was split. Willkie, who was then a possible Republican Presidential Candidate, absolutely shocked partygoers of both parties but especially Senator Taft who himself was a strong isolationist and potential candidate himself. Loyal party members then as now are always expected to support the nominee of the party regardless of their positions. However, Hitler and fascism were considered such a serious risk to the United States and the world, by men like Willkie that the usual party politics did not apply.
In one of the most cynical treaties in history, Communist Russia under Stalin entered into a mutual defense treaty with Fascist Nazi Germany under Hitler. Russia and Germany had been bitter enemies, and philosophically Communism and Fascism had been at opposite poles. But both countries were led by ruthless dictators who at this moment in history became useful to each other. One result for example, is that Germany and Russia divided Poland which lost its independence and its integrity. The pact did not last very long, and soon the two nations were again bitter enemies and the battles between them accounted for the majority of both nations’ WWII casualties where the Russians had 22 million of their citizens killed by their former “allies”.
This speech was given before it was discovered that graduates of these programs, particularly, the School of the Americas, were guilty of mass atrocities and dictatorial government such as the Argentinean “Dirty War” in the late 1970s. See also his {631951}
The Ottoman Turks had captured Byzantium (Constantinople) in 1453. The Byzantines had received no help from their fellow Christians. The Christian Roman Empire was split in two—a Western (Latin) Empire led by the Roman Catholic Church in Rome, and the Eastern (Greek) Roman Empire led by the Orthodox Church headquartered in Constantinople (Byzantium). The two churches were not only in a theological conflict but violence broke out and the armies of the two religious empires attacked each other now and then. It was assumed that there would be mutual interest in protecting Europe from the Muslim armies. The comparison to the Sultan of Cairo was facetious of course. As a leading Muslim he would never provide any help to the Christians against other Muslims.
George Frost Kennan was an American diplomat and historian. He was best known as an advocate of a policy of containment of Soviet expansion during the Cold War. He lectured widely and wrote scholarly histories of the relations between the USSR and the United States. He was also one of the group of foreign policy elders known as "The Wise Men".
