Contents and Arrangement
Online

Series 2: Organizations, 1913-2004

31 boxes
SOME ONLINE CONTENT

Collection Overview

Collection Description & Creator Information

Scope and Contents

The Organizations series includes materials related to Kennan's involvement in academic organizations, notably the Institute for Advanced Study and the Kennan Institute, as well as groups related to relations between the West and the East. Much of the material is concerned with the administration of these groups, including membership and appointment decisions, correspondence with members, meeting minutes, and fundraising materials, in addition to papers related to the projects and mission of the organizations. Also included are materials which document his work for the State Department, predominantly memoranda, correspondence, and reports he was involved in creating as head of the Policy Planning Staff and as a member of a taskforce on U.S. - U.S.S.R. relations, as well as a small amount of material related to his appointment as Ambassador to Yugoslavia (1961-1963).

Arrangement

Arranged alphabetically by organization and then alphabetically by document type or subject, with oversized at the end.

Collection History

Custodial History

The Kennan Papers were originally on deposit at the Firestone Library of Princeton University.

Appraisal

Duplicate writings and correspondence and routine medical records have been separated from this collection. Widely available published materials were separated from Series 5.

Sponsorship:

These papers were processed with the generous support of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).

Processing Information

This collection was processed by Adriane Hanson, with assistance from Clelia Douyon, Grace Haaland, and Jamie LaMontagne in 2008. Finding aid written by Adriane Hanson in January 2009. Series 5 added by Rachel Van Unen in 2014.

Access & Use

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research use.

Conditions Governing Use

Single copies may be made for research purposes. To cite or publish quotations that fall within Fair Use, as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission is required. For instances beyond Fair Use, any copyright vested in the donor has passed to The Trustees of Princeton University and researchers do not need to obtain permission, complete any forms, or receive a letter to move forward with use of donor-created materials within the collection. For materials in the collection not created by the donor, or where the material is not an original, the copyright is likely not held by the University. In these instances, it is the responsibility of the researcher to determine whether any permissions related to copyright, privacy, publicity, or any other rights are necessary for their intended use of the Library's materials, and to obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders, if they have not already done so. Princeton University Library's Special Collections does not charge any permission or use fees for the publication of images of materials from our collections. The department does request that its collections be properly cited and images credited. More detailed information can be found on the Copyright, Credit and Citations Guidelines page on our website. If you have a question about who owns the copyright for an item, you may request clarification by contacting us through the Ask Us! form.

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

For preservation reasons, original analog and digital media may not be read or played back in the reading room. Users may visually inspect physical media but may not remove it from its enclosure. All analog audiovisual media must be digitized to preservation-quality standards prior to use. Audiovisual digitization requests are processed by an approved third-party vendor. Please note, the transfer time required can be as little as several weeks to as long as several months and there may be financial costs associated with the process. Requests should be directed through the Ask Us Form.

VHS tapes and audio cassette tapes of Kennan interviews, conference presentations, and television programs about Kennan are located in Series 3: Personal Files (Box 170-172 and Box 317). Series 5 of this collection contains images in TIFF and JPEG formats acquired from a CD. Researchers are responsible for meeting the technical requirements needed to access these materials, including any and all hardware and software.

Credit this material:

Series 2: Organizations; George F. Kennan Papers, MC076, Public Policy Papers, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library

Location:
Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library
65 Olden Street
Princeton, NJ 08540, USA
(609) 258-6345
Storage Note:
  • Mudd Manuscript Library (mudd): Boxes 141-169; 150A; 150B

Find More

Existence and Location of Copies

FOR DIGITIZED CONTENT: Subseries 1A, Permanent Correspondence and Subseries 4G, Unpublished Works, have been digitized. Correspondence may be viewed or downloaded through this finding aid. To view materials, navigate to a specific person's name, rather than an entire series or subseries.

Related Materials

The Mudd Manuscript Library has numerous collections related to the Cold War and to United States diplomacy which can be located by selecting the subject "Cold War" or "Diplomacy" on the Princeton University Finding Aids Website. Collections of particular relevance to the George F. Kennan Papers are the papers of Hamilton Fish Armstrong, John Foster Dulles and James V. Forrestal, and the records of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Collections at other institutions of relevance to the George F. Kennan Papers are the records of the Department of State Policy Planning Staff at the National Archives and papers of George Kennan (1845-1924) at the New York Public Library and the Library of Congress.

Bibliography

Kennan's diaries were published as Sketches from a Life. New York: Pantheon Books, 1989. Correspondence between Kennan and John Lukacs were published as George F. Kennan and the Origins of Containment, 1944-1946. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997.

The following sources were consulted during the preparation of the biographical note: "George F. Kennan Dies at 101; Leading Strategist of Cold War" by Tim Weiner and Barbara Crossette. The New York Times, March 18, 2005. Obituary from Current Biography. H.W. Wilson Company, 2005. Obituary of George Kennan by Harold Jackson. The Guardian, March 19, 2005. "Outsider Forged Cold War Strategy" by J.Y. Smith. The Washington Post, March 19, 2005. Profile of George Frost Kennan. Marquis Who's Who on the Web. http://search.marquiswhoswho.com Accessed January 2009.

Names:
Council on foreign relations
United States. Foreign Service
Kennan Institute
Institute for advanced study Princeton, N.J.
Kennan, George F. (George Frost) (1904-2005)