Prince­ton University’s See­ley G. Mudd Man­u­script Library has com­pleted a one-year project to process the papers of George Ken­nan and James For­re­stal, two Prince­ton alumni who were impor­tant fig­ures in shap­ing U.S. pol­icy at the incep­tion of the Cold War.

George F. Ken­nan, U.S. Ambas­sador to Yugoslavia, is greeted by Mar­shal Josip Broz Tito. U.S. Ambas­sador to the United Nations, Adlai Steven­son, looks on. Circa 1962–1963. Source: George F. Ken­nan Papers, Box 184, Folder 14.

Ken­nan, a diplo­mat and his­to­rian, is best known for writ­ing the “Long Telegram” and the sub­se­quent “X” arti­cle in For­eign Affairs in which he advo­cated for a new course in U.S.-Soviet rela­tions that became known as “con­tain­ment.” Ken­nan, a 1925 Prince­ton grad­u­ate, was involved in diplo­matic rela­tions with the Soviet Union through­out most of his dis­tin­guished career in the U.S. For­eign Ser­vice. As a his­to­rian at the Insti­tute for Advanced Study, he stud­ied mod­ern Russ­ian and Euro­pean his­tory and became an impor­tant critic of Amer­i­can for­eign pol­icy. His papers doc­u­ment his entire career.

For­re­stal, a 1915 Prince­ton alum­nus and a Wall Street busi­ness­man, was the first U.S. sec­re­tary of defense, over­see­ing the uni­fi­ca­tion of the U.S. mil­i­tary depart­ments in 1947. He pre­vi­ously served as assis­tant to Pres­i­dent Franklin Roo­sevelt as well as under­sec­re­tary and sec­re­tary of the Navy. His papers date from his ser­vice in the U.S. gov­ern­ment dur­ing and imme­di­ately after World War II.

James For­re­stal, Sec­re­tary of the Navy, at the U.S. Naval Hos­pi­tal in Oahu on his return trip from the Iwo Jima com­bat area. For­re­stal speaks with Lam­oine C. Weber, hos­pi­tal appren­tice first class, USNR, who was wounded dur­ing the inva­sion. Circa March-April 1945. Source: James V. For­re­stal Papers, Box 183.

The find­ing aid for the George F. Ken­nan Papers is avail­able online at http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/n009w2294 and the find­ing aid for the James V. For­re­stal Papers is avail­able at http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/8w32r561t. The pro­cess­ing of these papers was com­pleted in June and man­aged by project archivist Adri­ane Han­son. It was made pos­si­ble through the sup­port of the National His­tor­i­cal Pub­li­ca­tions and Records Commission.

As part of this project, the Arnold A. Rogow Papers on James V. For­re­stal also were processed. The Rogow papers are com­posed of mate­ri­als he col­lected for his book “James For­re­stal: A Study of Per­son­al­ity, Pol­i­tics and Pol­icy” (1963) and include cor­re­spon­dence with indi­vid­u­als who knew For­re­stal, Rogow’s notes and other research mate­ri­als. The find­ing aid is avail­able at http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/2v23vt455

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion about these col­lec­tions or about con­duct­ing research at the See­ley G. Mudd Man­u­script Library, visit the library web­site at http://www.princeton.edu/~mudd/.