George Kennan, the US Chargé d'Affaires in Moscow, sent a long telegram on February 22, 1946 to the US State Department detailing his views on the Soviet Union in the immediate post-war period and on the policy the country should have practice in relation to the socialist state. Kennan's eight-thousand-word analysis provided one of the most influential indications of the country's containment policy during the Cold War. This document is also the one that best illustrated American anti-communism.
Kennan was among the American diplomats who helped establish Washington's first embassy to the Soviet Union in 1933. Although he expressed respect for the Russian people, his assessment of the Soviet leadership became increasingly negative and harsh.
Throughout World War II, Kennan was convinced that the friendly and cooperative spirit with Joseph Stalin should not exist. Less than a year after Franklin Roosevelt's death, Kennan, then serving as business manager in Moscow, made his views public using what has historically come to be known as "the long telegram".
