the classic realists, like george kennan in the 1950's, adams thought the united states had to choose between having a far more outgoing and aggressive policy and preserving its republicanism, which was the core of its own morality. and he tended to see the two as being antithetical to each other. if you go back to that july 4 speech, he says that if the nation involved itself, as he was claiming henry clay would, and it was not only a matter of the spanish republic -- if the united states did that, he said, the fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. she might become the dictator of the world. she would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit. that is to say that in order for the united states to maintain its republicanism, it would have to engage in a special kind of restraint abroad. this is what george kennan said in the famous speech he gave about the spanish-american war, which he saw as the great example of the united states having lost sight of its traditional sense of realism. the other is that adams was profoundly skeptical about the

and the multiplicity of which we communicate with each other now not only with long cables À la george kennanbut short e-mails, social media. all of that is going to be part of the body politic. understanding how to classify it and have been adjudicated and how to know when something needs to be secret and know when to share it is something i think is very much in debate. hillary clinton's e-mails ignited a lot of that debate and the volume at which we communicate with each other now is just crushing. the way in which we pacify and the rest by things cannot continue. we have to find a new method to classify things. >> the wikileaks cable as the officers who decide what the gimpy which means that you are assuming that a person would know whether or not something would be highly damaging or just damaging or possibly not damaging at all. that office -- officer may not have sufficient information to make a judgment on that and a higher level classification the more likely you will have a readership that will be intrigued in interested. ..

this is what george kennan said in the famous speech he gave about the spanish-american war, which he saw as the great example of the united states having lost sight of its traditional sense of realism. is that adams was profoundly skeptical about the beacity of other states to changed by the united states, and themselves to change. a deep,a kind of learned skepticism, i would say from his years in diplomacy. -- before he gave that speech in 1821, he was reacting in part to a conversation he had with clay. clay had come to him in the spring of that year and given his ideas about why the united states needs to champion democracy abroad. this is what adams said to clay. he said, so far as they were contending for independence, i wished well to their cause, but i have seen and see no prospect that they would establish free or liberal institutions of government. they are not likely to promote the spirit of freedom or order by their example. arbitrary power, military and ecclesiastical, was stamped upon their education. anyone who has read the famous as a by jean kirkpatrick called dictato

the brilliant george kennan, who is the man to bollin's right there, later he would develop into his famous long telegram in which argued that the soviet union was based on internal contradictions. it was doomed to fail. the best thing you could do was to give it time to fail. if you pushed it, if you made it more paranoid, if you made it more defensive, they would push back against you even harder. if however you contained them, if however you prevented them from expanding, sooner or later the thing would break up from its own internal contradictions. the key difference in what these three men argued to stalin -- to truman, was what to do about the borders of eastern europe and what to do specifically about the country of poland. all right. let's get to potsdam. this is where the conference was held. the palace in potsdam. you will note what the americans and british saw when they pulled up, a gigantic red star of geraniums. the russians wanted to make absolutely sure that everybody knew whose conference this was and who conquered this particular piece of ground. the russians emptie

perspective already in the process of adoption by americans most formidable diplomats, dean -- ons in, george f kennan most importantly, it spoke to and reinforced truman's own instincts. and, in britain, it provided backing for the viewpoint and labor foreign secretary -- of the labour foreign secretary. the cold war would have come about without this, of course, but it gave it clarity and immediately and set the stage for truman's decision a year later to throw a lifeline to greece and turkey as both of those nations raised soviet pressure. soviet pressure. for the rest it became the emblematic phrase of the cold war. truman's final meeting as president with churchill was in 1951 when the prime minister led a diplomatic delegation to washington. dean atkinson did most of the work and they enjoyed each other's company. truman later described the occasion as a welcome reunion with an old friend. off -- afterfth, dinner on the presidential yacht in williamsburg, churchill recalled to truman the initial sdaming in pots down -- pott and admitted an initial dismay at seeing fdr's successor. "i must confes

kennan. i would like to welcome you to the woodrow wilson center. i would like to begin by thanking the cosponsor for the institute at george washington university.e were very pleased that they were able to cosponsor today's event. this is the part of the distinguished speaker series, and today we will be talking about the question of polling in russia. despite the standard of living, mass support for president vladimir putin remains high. his popularity rating is referred to as the 86% in russia. we are pleased today to have dr. lev gudkov, to come and talk about the nature of vladimir putin's popularity. i want to begin to emphasize by saying that dr. lev gudkov is speaking in a private capacity. amongst his other titles, he is editor-in-chief of the magazine "russian public opinion harold" and has won numerous awards and published quite widely. and he is quite obviously the director of one of the major sources of independent public opinion research in russia. so it is my great pleasure to introduce dr. lev gudkov today. he will be speaking in russian so i ask those who need translation to use your headsets. [russian translation] >> it is a gre