George Kennan: A Critical Voice

This film was made at the height of the US-Soviet arms race. George Kennan declared that we were perched on a “razor’s edge of precariousness”, facing irreparable nuclear war. Kennan’s proposals brought him to the forefront of the movement to avert a nuclear catastrophe. His credentials as a Pulitzer Prize winning diplomatic historian and former Ambassador to the Soviet Union established him as the most respected American scholar of Soviet strategic policies. Kennan’s opinions are based on years of experience in East-West affairs; he witnessed first hand the beginnings of the US-Soviet conflict during World War II, which eventually led to the seemingly permanent division of Europe. In this hour-long profile, filmed in 1982, Kennan expresses grave concern about the urgency of ending the arms race and provides specific disarmament proposals. Kennan died in 2005.