2005 Assembly Joint Resolution 25
ENROLLED JOINT RESOLUTION
Relating to: the life and public service of George F. Kennan.
Whereas, George Frost Kennan was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on February 16, 1904, and grew up on the east side and died on March 17, 2005, at his home in Princeton, New Jersey, at the age of 101; and
Whereas, Mr. Kennan attended St. John's Military Academy in Delafield and Princeton University, where he received a degree in history in 1925; and
Whereas, he joined the foreign service in 1926 at age 22 and after State Department study in Washington, became U.S. consul in Berlin in 1931; and
Whereas, Mr. Kennan was picked in 1947 by Secretary of State John Marshall to direct the State Department's new policy planning staff; and
Whereas, he achieved fame that same year when an article appeared in the quarterly Foreign Affairs magazine outlining the State Department's policy to keep the Soviet Union from spreading its influence; and
Whereas, not long after that, Mr. Kennan became America's chief global planner when Secretary Marshall gave him 2 weeks to draft the $17 billion U.S. aid program, which became known as the Marshall Plan, that rebuilt Europe after World War II; and
Whereas, as the author of the Containment Policy on United States-Soviet relations, he fashioned the American response to Soviet expansion that avoided war and safely saw the nation through 4 decades of competition with the Soviet Union fraught with nuclear danger; and
Whereas, in 1951, Mr. Kennan was picked by President Harry Truman as ambassador to Moscow; and
Whereas, although he left the United States Foreign Service more than 50 years ago, he continued to be a leading thinker in international affairs until his death; and
Whereas, he spent most of the 2nd half of the century at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he wrote many of his 22 books on diplomacy and history; and
Whereas, he left his academic pursuits at the request of President John Kennedy to serve as ambassador to Yugoslavia from 1961 to 1963; and
Whereas, in 1989, President George H.W. Bush awarded him the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor; and
Whereas, he spoke at the Pabst Theater at the first Kennan Forum on International Affairs established in his honor in 1990 and received a doctorate of humane letters from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee the same year; and
Whereas, he committed his whole adult life to the advancement of reason and human decency and saw many of his ideas prevail as the foreign policy of the United States; and
Whereas, Mr. Kennan was well known as a diplomat, philosopher, and historian with 2 Pulitzer Prizes to his credit; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the assembly, the senate concurring, That the members of the Wisconsin legislature commend the life of George F. Kennan, and his highly acclaimed body of work that earned him the title as the seer who made Milwaukee famous; and, be it further
Resolved, That the assembly chief clerk shall provide a copy of this joint resolution to Mr. Kennan's wife, Annelise, and their 4 children, Grace Kennan Warnecke, of New York City, Christopher Kennan, of Pine Plains, New York, Joan Kennan, of Washington, D.C., and Wendy Kennan, of Cornwall, England.
