susan glaser editor of foreign policy and talking today with john lewis gaddis about his book, george f. kennan. as you've already heard, kennan was a diplomat, scholar, a prize-winning author, historian john lewis gaddis has spent 30 years writing his biography. it's just out in the last few months. he calls kennan's and american life, a subject we are discussing today. he will talk even more about the 700 page book, one whose grand sweep runs all the way from princeton on the eve of world war to the show trials and the

susan glaser editor of foreign policy and talking today with john lewis gaddis about his book, george f. kennan. as you've already heard, kennan was a diplomat, scholar, a prize-winning author, historian john lewis gaddis has spent 30 years writing his biography. it's just out in the last few months. he calls kennan's and american life, a subject we are discussing today. he will talk even more about the 700 page book, one whose grand sweep runs all the way from princeton on the eve of world war to the show trials and the devastation of the postwar japan, the intrigues of dean acheson state department and the politics of vietnam and the personal life of a respected but i think fair to say somewhat tormented intellectual. kennan today is best remembered as the architect a freeze if you google him will inevitably come up with his name. he expressed that of course in his famous article in a foreign affairs back in 1947. but as his book reminds us, he made many other contributions for practically inventing the serious study of the soviet union in sight of the american government to help him to creat

george f. kennan an american life. [applause] >> and i'll read the citation from marianne gwen who couldn't be with us tonight. george f. kennan an american life by john lewis gattis was an american dip plat who he is per rated and appalled his superiors. he never held high office and never loved the necessaries of the diplomatic trade. he's a distinguished yale historian again worked on this biography in 2002. his task ended 30 years later after kennan's death after 101 years old. a long biography. long life. he built a portrait of kennan as a with a soul of a -- i have temperament ill-suited for the -- he may have been unsuited to the diplomacy but it governed -- prevented world war 3 and both restricted and set the stage for the crumbling of the soviet empire wrote fred kaplan of the "new york times." gattis ably documented kennan's back to the brink of annihilation and gives us is full blood portrait i have a charismatic and complicated man. john lewis gattis. [applause] >> oh, wow! what an honor.

really try not to drag george kennan into every discussion, and actually congratulated by my colleague, charlie hill, last monday; that in fact we had gotten through two hours hours f discussion without my bringing up george kennan. charlie said this was great achievement. but he does show up, of course, because he was one of the great strategists of the 20th 20th century. i think in terms of history, he is comparable to bismarck or the other classical grand strategist, he'll be remembered in that way. he himself regarded the study of the classics, strategy, as extraordinarily important in shaping who he was. so, yes can we talk about these things quite a lot but i would not hold george kennan out as a model grand strategist, i think there were many things that were great and positive about him, but i think his life can also be read as a catalogue of what you should not do as a grand strategist, and i tried to talk about both aspects of that in the book. >> host: his personalizations, of foreign policy and the confluence of the two things, things that would make formulating a grand strategy hard to do. >> guest: absolutely. >> host: because has governments change a