Mr. X and the Pacific : George F. Kennan and American policy in East Asia /

Kennan's and Harry Truman's creation of the long-lasting US containment policy was fortuitous and prescient. Despite differences over containment applications in Korea and Southeast Asia, their focus on containing the Soviets provided a largely successful foreign policy that ultimately led to the collapse of Soviet Union. Heer (George Washington) reviews Kennan's role on the policy planning staff of the State Department until Kennan resigned in 1950 over his frustration with Truman's decision to support France in its battle with communists in Indochina. Though Kennan supported US intervention in South Korea after the North Korean attack in 1950, he did not support the US advance across the 38th parallel nor the US's militarizing containment in Southeast Asia. Heer spends most of his 235-page book on Kennan's bureaucratic in-fighting in 1948-50. There are insightful references to Kennan's hopes for reconciliation with Japan and China and much detail on Kennan's frustrations with US strategy changes in the Pacific and with Dean Acheson's replacing George Marshall as secretary of state. Heer tries to square the circle: he proclaims Kennan's influence in the US Pacific strategy and concludes that Kennan should have been listened to more. Although Kennan's role in Asia is understudied, 200 pages devoted to 1950 is too narrow a devotion. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --Louisa Sue Hulett, Knox College