Kennan's Long Telegram

Question 1

Who was George Kennan?

Answer 1

He worked in the US embassy in Moscow as a second-ranking officer and sent a dispatch to the US State Department in Washington
The Kennan Telegram was sent 22nd February 1946

Question 2

What were the impacts of the Long Telegram?

Answer 2

Shifted foreign policy and internal view of the Russians to become more suspicious and paranoid - US became more interventionist in Europe and later on, in Asia
—> X article was written for the public, so public opinion began to change
- containment strategy directly based on this
- Truman doctrine was influenced by this

Question 3

What was the Soviet response to the Long Telegram?

Answer 3

The Novikov Telegram
– ambassador for the USSR in the USA argued that the US had emerged from the war economically much stronger and bent on world domination. Therefore, a Soviet buffer zone was needed in Eastern Europe

Question 4

Kennan’s Long Telegram believed what about the Soviets?

Answer 4

• INEVITABILITY: he believed conflict, or at least a failure in relations between the two powers was inevitable
• SOVIET EXPANSIONISM: he believed this inevitability was partially due to the Soviets ideologically wanting to expand which completely contrasted with what the US wanted for them
• SOVIET MINDSET: he believed the Russians reacted best to aggression rather than weakness - changed foreign policy to become more hard-line against the Soviets
• CONTAINMENT: Kennan recommended the strategy of containment against the Russians by using its military and economic power to prevent communism without direct confrontation (e.g. Marshall Aid is based on this concept)

Question 5

what was the importance of Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech?

Answer 5

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of central and eastern Europe.”
Churchill gave this speech at Truman’s old college, which led to fears in Russia of a UK-US conspiracy against the Soviets

Question 6

What was the Truman Doctrine?

Answer 6

• announced by Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947
  POLICIES:
• Support for countries against communist threat (initially focused on Turkey and Greece)
  Turkey was facing pressure from the Soviets for territory and political influence;
  Greece was facing civil war between communists and government forces
• Shift away from isolationism into interventionism - intervened in economies and militaries abroad to try to ‘contain’ communism abroad
• set the beginning of the Cold War

Question 7

What was the Cominform?

Answer 7

September 1947 - Communist Information Bureau
Cominform controlled the political and economic systems of the Soviet satellite states so they acted in line with what Moscow wanted - response to the West as Stalin believed there was beginning to be a global alliance against communism

(BBC BITESIZE NOTE: In January 1949 it also established Comecon – the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance – to administer its own Molotov Plan of financial aid to keep the Eastern Bloc countries on side. Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania all joined the Soviet Union in this group and were joined by Albania and East Germany shortly after. The group was not as successful as it might have been as the USSR dominated in terms of industrial production and total economy size, however all countries were committed to Communist economic theory such as state-ownership and state-planning of the economy. The group became more important after Cominform disbanded in 1956.)