kennan." as you have already heard kennan was a diplomat, scholar and a prize-winning author, the emanate yale historian john lewis gaddis has spent 30 years writing his biography just out in the last few months. he calls kennan and american life, subject we will be discussing today. we will talk even more about the 700 page book, one whose grand sweep rents all the way from prison on the eve of world war ii, stalin's show trial, the devastation of post-war japan, the intrigues of dean acheson state department, the bitter politics of vietnam and the personal life of a respected but i think it's fair to say somewhat tormented intellectual. kennan today of course is best remembered as the architect of convenience a phrase that if you google him will inevitably come up linked with his name. he express that of course and his famous mr. x article back in 1947, but he made many other contributions for practically inventing the serious study inside the american government, to helping to create intell

a real cloak and dagger aspect to kennan. he had a relationship with the cia, an early supporter of covert actions and at one point, oddly enough, even the cleaning department he ma neared -- maneuverers -- unthinkable today. >> guest: george was the architect of the covert action capability for the cia. the cia was founded in 1947 as an analytical instrument but not a special operations. not covert actions, and george said, with marshal's approval, we need the capability to do special operations. because the russians are using this constantly, and really it was part of the undercover battle for the marshal plan. so funneling money into the christian democrats in italy. publicity you don't -- not really military operations or dirty tricks at this point. later became that, of course. but the ironical thing is george, having come up with this idea, really did believe it should all be monitored out of the policy planning staff, and the policy planning staff was five or seven in those days, and the idea that they could do all the

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

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. this is david gatt

right now, which is arguably another pivot point in american foreign policy and we won't have george kennan to help guide us through it, but your book comes out with an appropriate time. thank you for your conversation today. >> country and >> guest: thank you, susan. >> hi there, and added c-span's lcd project good we've got three of them for the purpose of these vehicles is to collect programming from outside washington d.c. how do we do it quite restarts each with one person with a small video camera and a laptop editors said they are able to roll, record, produce and edit from the road. that is what we do with the lcds. i want to do this is good outside of washington d.c. and collect her grooming for all of our networks. we do it recall a city sewer. we will descend on each city with all three vehicles. while the two history program in historic site. the other would do but tv programming at bookstores catching up with doctors that there does community relations. regulations are important because they work with our cable partners in each city. the last thing that's important to know assa