ABSTRACT
On leave since the beginning of 1950, having, as counselor of the State Department, toured Latin America as a kind of farewell to foreign issues, George Kennan repaired to his farm as a free man contemplating a freer future. On superficial view the roaring, snarling, biting, and back-biting finale to Kennan's five-month interval in the Moscow embassy might seem to have ended his career. The Soviet press continued to be extraordinarily insulting in frequent references to the United States, while the guards accompanying Kennan outside the embassy communicated a sense of infection. This was the time when Soviet propaganda was charging the United States with using bacteriological warfare in Korea. Against all of this angry propaganda he made his desperately friendly move. On his previous tour of duty Kennan had found a few Soviet citizens cleared by party and police to have contact with American diplomats.
