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Dividing Germany, Accepting An Invitation To Empire: The Life, Death, And Historical Significance Of George Kennan's "Program A", John Gleb

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

This paper will attempt to reinterpret the early Cold War moment in Euro-American relations that gave rise to and ultimately destroyed George Kennan’s plan to reunify and neutralize Germany—the so-called “Program A” of 1948–49. Kennan envisioned his Program as the first and decisive step towards creating a “free European community” capable of acting as a non-aligned “third force,” thus ending the Cold War on the Continent. But before it could be presented to the United States’ European allies, Britain and France, some of the plan’s principal features were leaked to the New York Times. These features, as described in …