A farewell to George Kennan, my old prof

If United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice – who majored in Notre Dame, then in Denver on the subject of Russia, the old Soviet Union, Eastern and Central Europe (and speaks, reads, and writes fluent Russian) – is the "authority" on Vladimir Putin’s puzzling "new" Russia, which is beginning to look too much like the old, I got my training on those subjects from somebody far older.

Of course, I’m no expert, and never claimed to be, but my entire outlook on Russia, and secondarily the USSR itself, was influenced by one of my favorite professors who died on March 17, about two weeks ago. Would you believe, Ambassador George Kennan, once known as "Mister X" lived, for all his frustrations to the age of 101.

It was George Kennan who, as The New York Times and International Herald Tribune declared, did "more than any envoy of his generation to shape US policy during the cold war."

The Financial Times (of London), in its own obituary, summed up Kennan’s record (1904-2005) in a seven-column headline as the "Diplomat whose ‘X article’ Guided US Cold War Policy."

The obit called Kennan the "architect of the containment strategy" and said he was best known for his authorship of a single article "that is credited with setting the direction of US policy for a generation."

In a piece in the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs, cryptically signed "X", he warned that the US’s former wartime ally would pose a grave threat to US security.

"The main element of any US policy towards the Soviet Union," he wrote, "must be that of long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies."

Only a few diplomats and academics, FT writers Malcolm Rutherford and Edward Alden recalled, might have noticed this Foreign Policy article by the mysterious "X" had not Arthur Krock, a columnist of the New York Times discovered, and revealed, that X was actually Mr. Kennan, then head of the policy planning staff of the US State Department.

The Times has credited Kennan as being the "intellectual architect of the Marshall Plan, which sent billions of dollars of American aid to nations devastated by World War II."

The Times (March 19 issue) added that "at the same time, he conceived a secret ‘political warfare’ unit intended to roll back Communism, not merely to contain it. His brainchild became the covert-operations directorate of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)."

* * *

When this writer, completing a Master’s in Fordham University in New York, received a scholarship to the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University – the Washington DC campus, not Baltimore – we were fortunate to get George Kennan as one of our major professors. He was on loan from the Hoover Institute, his main academic undertaking at that time, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he was recently declared ‘professor emeritus’, was his main ‘headquarters’.

Unlike Rice, Kennan actually lived and worked in Moscow, as it were "in the belly of the beast", culminating his career there as Ambassador, briefly, in 1952.

In his famous "long telegram", a dispatch from his Embassy in Moscow which has become "legend", he expressed to US President Harry S. Truman that Josef Stalin and his Soviet power group were "impervious to the logic of reason" but "highly sensitive to the logic of force."

I was, sad to admit, not one of Professor Kennan’s favorite students. In the callow pugnacity of the young, I was always raising my hand in class to question this or that statement on Russia’s relations with Asia and the Far East. Kennan kept on urging our class to read this fellow David Dallin’s books on Asia – and Dallin proved to be such a bore on the subject that nobody quotes him, or, in truth, remembers him today.

Finally, two months into the semester, Kennan exclaimed in some exasperation, in the polite but indignant tone of a Wisconsin boy (born in Milwaukee, Feb. 16, 1904) who had never been accepted by snobbish Eastern Establishment: "Once and for all, let me say I don’t know enough about Asia to keep on arguing about it. Let’s confine ourselves to the Soviet Union, eastern and central Europe, and the trans-atlantic relationship."

My argument had, nauseatingly enough, been that Europe and the Asian mainland are one and the same continent, divided only by a relatively low range of mountains.

Kennan’s gift to us, his grateful students, was his almost complete and sympathetic understanding of the Slavic soul. He loved Russia, its language, its history and fairy-tales and music, and most of all its people. However, he abhorred Communism and the evil regime it had imposed in the form of a Revolution Betrayed.

He taught us to understand Russian "reactions" in relation to what he called "the Tatar yoke." The Russians, as a result of more than two centuries under the Tatars, had developed an Oriental, Tatar mentality – among whose traits was to be paranoid about defending themselves from the encirclement of enemies.

Thus, he concluded, the Soviet Union had to encircle itself with a cordon of friendly, subservient, satellite states, to "protect" it from hostile attack – thus, the Warsaw Pact nations constituting this "Tatar belt". This mentality also spawned, he had noted, the "scorched earth" policy in World War II which dictated that for many hundreds of miles around Moscow and Leningrad, everything which could feed, shelter, or nourish the advancing Nazi enemy had to be destroyed, so the invaders would starve. (This starved, of course, hundreds of thousands of Russians, too).

The same tactic had been employed against Napoleon Bonaparte, as well. The great French Emperor had "captured" a deserted Moscow, then Russian saboteurs – in a pre-set plan – had burned down their own capital. Deprived of food and shelter, Napoleon – who made the mistake of tarrying in Moscow too long – had to retreat towards Europe through freezing and blinding winter snow and storm – losing most of his Grand Armeé, his artillery, his horses, and, inevitably his Crown.

Adolf Hitler forgot the lesson of Napoleon when, in his arrogance, he launched Operation Barbarrossa.

Thanks to Kennan for the memory! What we learned from him will forever be useful – and will never be forgotten.

Professor, Adieu!

* * *

Now that Holy week is over, let me make the simple comment that it’s sad to see Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist Amando Doronila sound like the spokesman and, indeed, the mouthpiece of Roberto R. Romulo, alias Triple R. Sus, Doronila uses such high-falutin’ phrases as "the issue of abuse of press freedom" and giving citizens "who are subjected to scurrilous newspaper attacks, the right to reply in their pages."

What Doronila spouts is complete puffery and nonsense, for Triple R’s reply was duly published in The STAR when he wrote it (while I was away in Europe). The last few paragraphs were not published since they contained libelous, slanderous and untruthful statements about the STAR and myself, but I’ll comment no further since one last case is still pending – while Ambassador and Presidential Adviser Roberto R. Romulo has already lost two of his libel cases against me, others, and The STAR. So there.

In contrast, Triple R has – even with the cases "subjudice" – been conducting a non-stop campaign of slander, bad-mouthing, vilification etc. against me and The STAR, in newspaper and magazine interviews, on the inter-net, and so forth. This campaign of vituperation is making us sick, only because we’re laughing ourselves sick.

What is weird is that Doronila claims that graft charges filed with the office of the Ombudsman against Romulo by former Solicitor General Frank Chavez was a "retaliatory attack" which has something to do with us! Sanamagan. Where did the super-wise Doronila get this? From Triple R, by his own admission!

He wrote: "How and why Chavez got into the fray is a matter of conjecture. Romulo thinks the graft charges were ‘designed to harass me into dropping the civil and criminal cases against Soliven and the STAR’."

Dead wrong. Nobody, least of all this writer, wants this guy Triple R to drop any libel case – he’s losing those cases anyway, one by one. Because there is no libel. Of course, Triple R has the capability of trying to file innumerable libel cases. Between himself and his brother, Dick, they have the Romulo, Mabanta, Buenaventura, Sayoc & De Los Angeles law office (among others, the lawyers of PIATCO) and can go on "filing", if they have the energy and the paper, libel cases forever. Let them do their worst. We will do our best.

As for Doronila, he categorically dismisses the Chavez graft charges against Romulo, even in the headline of his Analysis column, as "A Frivolous Legal Exercise." I didn’t know that Doro was now a legal authority, for he didn’t study Law, even in Australia’s Monash University. I think the Ombudsman should decide, not Mr. Doronila.

As for Frank Chavez, I don’t think it frivolous for me to say that I haven’t spoken to him, personally or over the phone, for more than two years. The only time I saw him was several months ago, when I spotted him coming out of a Makati restaurant with two friends and we waved at each other. Waving at somebody from a distance does not, unless I’m sadly mistaken, constitute a conspiracy. So, come off it, Mr. Doronila.

Is it true that Doronila is trying to get appointed Ambassador to Paris? Who’s his backer? Not Triple R, surely. Gee whiz, isn’t Doro getting a bit old for that job? He’s headed for his mid-70s, has absolutely no diplomatic experience, and, if he studied here in the Alliance Francaise, may not have shrugged off his Ilonggo accent.

Let him aspire, if he insists, for an Ambassadorship somewhere else. I won’t suggest Nigeria, Kenya or Togoland. Perhaps Budapest, if he likes violin music, wine, and Czardas. But France is a vital post which requires much more than cutting a fine figure, looking handsome when one smiles, or appreciating champagne and caviar.

STAR Columnist and Board Member Teddyman Benigno, who speaks and writes fluent French, graduated from the Sciences Politique in France, was a Cabinet member, and was awarded both the Legion d’Honneur and the Du Mérite from the French Republic, has not aspired to be Ambassador to France, although such a post could have been his for the asking.

This writer too, was honored, by the late President Francois Mitterrand, with the same L’Ordre National du Mérite of the French Republic, but don’t consider myself qualified to become an Ambassador to France.

It’s a serious posting, not icing on anybody’s cake.

* * *

The President has already extended the term of our present, very effective envoy to France, Hector K. Villaroel. I hope this extension keeps Villaroel at his post until at least the end of December since he is needed in too many essential conferences and meetings.

Villaroel is a true Francophone and Francophile, who not merely handles French like his native language, but got his Master’s degree in Paris, and is both experienced and learned in diplomacy and history. It was he who won for the Philippines, during the 29th General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1997, a seat in UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Council of the International Programme for the Development of Communications (IPDC). He also won for our country a seat in 1997 in UNESCO’s Headquarters Committee. In January 1998, as a permanent delegate to UNESCO, he was elected 2nd Vice-Chairman of the Headquarters Committee for a term of two years (1998-1999).

He is so close to UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura that he convinced Matsuura and the UNESCO Executive Board to celebrate the first "World Press Freedom Day" in Manila on May 3, 2002. This was the launch of the annual Press Freedom Day around the world which is designed to uphold the importance of press freedom and honor media people who dedicate their lives to the practice of their profession. It was a signal honor for the Philippines.

Thanks to Director-General Matsuura and Ambassador Villaroel’s initiative, President Macapagal-Arroyo was officially invited to UNESCO on April 29, 2003, to be one of the two keynote speakers to address the opening session of the 32nd General Conference of UNESCO. (The only other speaker was the President of Italy).

In March 1998, Villaroel won for former President Fidel V. Ramos and Nur Misuari the prestigious Felix Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize which conferred on the Mindanao peace process international recognition.

He also – upon authorization by the UNACOM – got in December 2001 the Banawe Rice Terraces inscribed in the World Heritage Endangered List and obtained US $75,000 from the World Heritage Committee for the Rice Terraces’ Conservation and Rehabilitation.

In January 2004, Villaroel was elected President for an indefinite term of the Cercle des Delegues, the Association of Ambassadors and Permanent Delegates assigned to UNESCO.

These are just a few of his accomplishments – and qualifications. Now, that’s what an Ambassador to France has to do – among many other things.