ABSTRACT
George Frost Kennan's excellent professional relations made most of a chance encounter in Washington. He had suddenly assembled all the finest ingredients of sheer living: profoundly satisfying professional activity, personal enjoyment, and warm friendships. Despite his discouragements with ulcers, Joseph E. Davies, and America, Kennan the professional was getting more and more recognition. He remained professionally too circumspect to say more in his Memoirs than that he believed he was "eventually able to accomplish to general satisfaction". In Riga, Kennan's bride, attractive and socially adept, made herself an active member of the consular and diplomatic community. Returning to Riga after his Berlin studies, Kennan once again peered beyond the bounds of the Foreign Service in a letter to Jeanette. Also in Riga Kennan showed his competence in economic reporting. His well-established professionalism and the promise of more earned him his next post. Kennan's professionalism had reached the heights of history.
