Who wrote the X Article?
George F. Kennan wrote the X Article, published anonymously under the pseudonym X in the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs. His State Department position barred him from publishing it under his own name.
Questions about X Article
Short answers, pulled from the story.
When was the X Article published?
The X Article, titled The Sources of Soviet Conduct, appeared in the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs. It reached a wider audience only after journalist Arthur Krock drew attention to it in the New York Times on the 8th of July 1947.
What term did the X Article introduce?
The X Article widely introduced the term containment, describing a strategy of confronting the Soviet Union with counter-force at shifting points of geographic and political pressure. Henry Kissinger later called it close to the diplomatic doctrine of its era.
How is the X Article related to Kennan's long telegram?
The X Article expanded on ideas Kennan first laid out in a confidential February 1946 telegram, State Department number 511, known informally as the long telegram. That telegram explained Soviet behavior through Russian history and Marxist-Leninist ideology, themes the X Article later developed for a public audience.
How was George Kennan's identity as X revealed?
Kennan's identity leaked after Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal let journalist Arthur Krock see a draft of the article that still carried Kennan's name. The Daily Worker, the Communist Party's newspaper, published the identity on the 9th of July 1947 under the headline "'X' Bared as State Dep't Aid."
How did Walter Lippmann respond to the X Article?
Walter Lippmann critiqued the X Article across fourteen columns in the New York Herald Tribune, the first appearing on the 2nd of September 1947, later collected in his book The Cold War. He called the article a "strategic monstrosity" and mistakenly credited it with inspiring the Truman Doctrine, a policy he opposed.