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    "localId": "213875650",
    "label": "Correspondence Between President Harry S. Truman and George Kennan, with Note",
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    "title": "Correspondence Between President Harry S. Truman and George Kennan, with Note",
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            "logicalDate": "1952-01-01",
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    "seq": 4,
    "pageIndex": 0,
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    "ocrText": "-2-\non was not any idea of launching a great military onslaught\nagainst the west and defeating everybody in a single mili-\ntary encounter, but rather a long process of development\nin international life, in the course of which they figured\nthe western side would be weakened by various factors, such\nas economic difficulties and break-up of colonial relation-\nships. They thought there were good chances that eventually,\nwith the use of their enormous propaganda machine and the\nsharp tactics of their disciplined parties abroad, they\nwould be able to SOW bewilderment and anxiety throughout\nthe western countries, to seize power in some countries,\nin others to cause people to lose faith in themselves and\nin us, and eventually reduce us all to a state of relative\nhelplessness. I do not think that they hoped for any\nearly rise of communist strength in the United States; but\nthey did think they could separate our allies from us,\nleave us an isolated nation with our international position\nand foreign trade seriously undermined, and thus cause our\npeople to lose faith in their own leadership and their own\npolitical institutions and to begin to waste their strength\nin domestic quarrels and disorders. This, they figured,\nwould mean the end of American influence and power in the\nworld, and would provide some muddy waters in which the\nAmerican communists might find good fishing.\nToday, I think some people here are beginning to have\nserious doubts as to whether this has been a good policy\nfor the Kremlin to follow and whether it would not have\nbeen better to have tried to maintain some sort of polite\nand decent relations with ourselves and other western gov-\nernments. But these feelings are still only in the stage\nof uneasy doubts, and as far as I can see they have not\nyet caused the regime to alter its attitude. I do not\nlook for any change before our elections, and even then\neverything will depend on what happens in the international\nsituation. If, for example, communist elements should come\nout on top in Iran or in Egypt and succeed in disrupting\nthe Middle East and shaking the position of the Atlantic\nRECORDE\nPact group there--or if things should go badly for us in\nSERVICE\nWestern Europe and the Germans and the French fight too\nbitterly about the Saar,--or if the Soviet and East German\nauthorities should succeed in weakening the position of\nthe western powers in Berlin and in causing the West Ber-\nliners to wonder whether they hadn't been wrong in resisting\ncommunist pressures so bravely all this time--if things like\nthis should occur in the next few months, then people here\nmay well conclude that the attitude they have adopted in\nrecent years has been right all along, and they only have\nto hold on tight and carry on and all will be well for them."
}