795.00/5–2551
George F. Kennan to the Secretary of State 1
Dear Dean: I am taking this informal means to say to you something which is much on my mind, these days. I will ask you to forgive [Page 537] the penmanship, which is not improved by a dislocated collar-bone (the penalty of my old-fashionedness in riding a bicycle, and my new-fashionedness in riding it too fast).
It has long been my conviction that ever since our entry into the Korean hostilities the dominant elements in the Kremlin’s attitude toward the Korean situation have been (a) a reluctance to see this situation develop into an outright U.S.-Soviet conflict (meaning a world war), but (b) a mortal apprehension of the appearance of U.S. ground forces either in Manchuria or on the Soviet-Korean border, and of any U.S. air action against Soviet strategic positions or facilities in Manchuria,—coupled with a readiness to go to great lengths to deter us from any such actions and to resist them if they occur.
Nothing that has happened since the beginning of July last year seems to me to have thrown any doubt on this hypothesis; on the contrary, Soviet behavior has confirmed it at every turn. Of course, the Soviet leaders would like to see us tossed out of Korea; that would solve all their problems as far as we are concerned. But having once made their initial mistake of starting this business on the chance that we would not come in, and having realized the extent of their miscalculation, they are now concerned primarily to liquidate the business on terms not too damaging to their prestige or too disruptive of their relations with the Chinese communists.
On the other hand, they are congenitally suspicious of our motives and inclined to regard us as unfathomable and unreliable opponents (in the sense that “God knows what they will do”). Our talk about principles and the U.N. and aggression is to them only a sign of wily hypocrisy and devious motives on our part. And to this must be added the fact that they are pathologically sensitive about their borders and the areas adjacent to them, and for this reason the presence of our forces in that vicinity for nearly a year has been for them a nerve-wracking and excruciating experience, straining to the limit their self-control and patience.
Now when we went north of the parallel the first time, I believe it was with reluctance that the Kremlin encouraged the Chinese communists to intervene—that this was, in fact, a rather desperate measure on their part, taken because the only alternative seemed to be their own involvement, which they did not want.
Now that card has been played, and it hasn’t worked. Today, if we continue to advance into North Korea without making vigorous efforts to achieve a cease-fire, I fear they will see no alternative but to intervene themselves. And my reason for writing you is simply to give you my impression—which I admit to be instinctive and not supportable by “intelligence”—that the silence and scrupulous non-interference in the Korean fighting on the part of the Soviet Union [Page 538] may conceal the most extreme turmoil of decision in the Kremlin, and that the hour of Soviet action, in the absence of a cessation of hostilities in Korea, may be much closer than we think. This action would not necessarily take the form of immediate intervention in Korea; it could be diversionary in nature—in which case a renewal of trouble in Berlin or some special effort to capitalize on the Iranian situation would seem the most likely possibilities. But my antennae tell me that if the Korean fighting does not stop soon, we should watch out for trouble.
For this reason, I hope the fighting will stop soon. For a war with the Soviet Union would probably prove a catastrophe for everyone concerned, including ourselves, when all was said and done. And the Korean operation has brought us much greater blessings then we seem to realize, even if it stops now at—or near—the parallel. Whether they show it or not, the Chinese communists have been taught a terrific lesson; and our action in Korea, so often denounced as futile, may prove to have been the thing that saved southeast Asia and laid the foundation for the renewal of some sort of stability in the Far East.
If you think fit, I would hope that these observations might be made available to Bedell Smith.2
With all best regards,
Sincerely,