George Kennan Reminisces About Moscow in 1933–1937

In 1963, George F. Kennan, diplomat and scholar, wrote a long letter of reminiscences about his experiences connected with the Spaso House mansion in Moscow, beginning with his arrival in Moscow in 1933 after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. The text of the letter, with endnotes, is reproduced below. Ambassador Kennan returned to Spaso House in 1987, at the age of 83, and wrote that a “great abyss” now separated him from the Russia he had known a half-century earlier.