George F. Kennan Quotes
Not all countries are ready for it [democracy].
George F. Kennan, 1904-2005, Historian & U.S. Ambassador to Russia and Yugoslavia, Quoted on PBS The Charlie Rose Show, January 11, 2012
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
When ambassador to Great Britain, he was very supportive of the British Fascists, and was an admirer of Adolf Hitler. Once war with Germany was commenced, Kennedy predicted that England would lose the war and became a fascist puppet state controlled by Germany. He opposed Lend Lease and the other efforts of the Roosevelt administration to assist England to fight off the Germans. Ironically his oldest son died in a dangerous volunteermission fighting Germany in the War. Kennedy's earlier pro-German views ended his political career and was an embarassment to his sons when they entered politics.
The irony of this quotation is that he is the architect and controller of the Russian system that he is criticizing.
This was the man for whom the US, through the CIA, destabilized Iranian Society by engineering, a coup against the man who was elected in a free election. Then the US propped up and supported the Shah who, as this quotation illustrates, was opposed to democracy in Iran.
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".
