What do you think?
Daughter of the Cold War
Grace Kennan Warnecke's memoir is about a life lived on the edge of history. Daughter of one of the most influential diplomats of the twentieth century, wife of the scion of a newspaper dynasty and mother of the youngest owner of a major league baseball team, Grace eventually found her way out from under the shadows of others to forge a dynamic career of her own.
Born in Latvia, Grace lived in seven countries and spoke five languages before the age of eleven. As a child, she witnessed Hitler’s march into Prague, attended a Soviet school during World War II, and sailed the seas with her father. In a multi-faceted career, she worked as a professional photographer, television producer, and book editor and critic. Eventually, like her father, she became a Russian specialist, but of a very different kind. She accompanied Ted Kennedy and his family to Russia, escorted Joan Baez to Moscow to meet with dissident Andrei Sakharov, and hosted Josef Stalin’s daughter on the family farm after Svetlana defected to the United States. While running her own consulting company in Russia, she witnessed the breakup of the Soviet Union, and later became director of a women’s economic empowerment project in a newly independent Ukraine.
Daughter of the Cold War is a tale of all these adventures and so much more. This compelling and evocative memoir allows readers to follow Grace's amazing path through life – a whirlwind journey of survival, risk, and self-discovery through a kaleidoscope of many countries, historic events, and fascinating people.
Born in Latvia, Grace lived in seven countries and spoke five languages before the age of eleven. As a child, she witnessed Hitler’s march into Prague, attended a Soviet school during World War II, and sailed the seas with her father. In a multi-faceted career, she worked as a professional photographer, television producer, and book editor and critic. Eventually, like her father, she became a Russian specialist, but of a very different kind. She accompanied Ted Kennedy and his family to Russia, escorted Joan Baez to Moscow to meet with dissident Andrei Sakharov, and hosted Josef Stalin’s daughter on the family farm after Svetlana defected to the United States. While running her own consulting company in Russia, she witnessed the breakup of the Soviet Union, and later became director of a women’s economic empowerment project in a newly independent Ukraine.
Daughter of the Cold War is a tale of all these adventures and so much more. This compelling and evocative memoir allows readers to follow Grace's amazing path through life – a whirlwind journey of survival, risk, and self-discovery through a kaleidoscope of many countries, historic events, and fascinating people.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2018
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
November 3, 2019
Непідробно щира автобіографія! Розповідь Грейс про своє життя захоплює, змушує переживати все разом з авторкою: сміятися з кумедних та незручних моментів (а їх за життя Грейс було ой як багато), перейматися за її негаразди, які зрештою вирішувались, і на краще. Ця книга надихає не спинятись у пошуках власного шляху.
March 27, 2019
Several names spring immediately to mind when the words “cold war” appear, but one of them most surely is George Kennan, even if you’re only minimally familiar with his Cold War Containment Policy, for which he became famous. Grace Kennan Warnecke is his daughter and it is clear when reading her memoir that she lived under her father’s shadow her entire life. Now in her late eighties, she may have finally emerged from that shadow. I was never sure. I don’t think she is entirely sure either.
She’s a daughter of privilege but not of money. (Her father lost all of the family’s money during the Great Depression.) Privilege because of the people she got to meet and the varied experiences and countries she got to experience but not privileged with warm and loving parents. She adored her father when she was a young child (and couldn’t escape his shadow when she was an adult), but he was seldom around. He was always traveling and often took his wife with him, leaving the children in the care of others or at boarding school. But when he was present, his presence was vivid.
Her mother seemed cold and undemonstrative. Grace always worried that her mother didn’t love her. Only when Grace was getting old herself and her mother was in the beginnings of dementia, did Grace understand her mother better and become reconciled with her and have empathy for her. Her mother, too, Grace understood lived in the shadow of her brilliant and famous husband. She was a shy, young, and under educated girl from a small town in Norway when she married George Kennan and was not prepared for the life she was thrust into. Neither father nor mother knew how to compliment and encourage their children.
Grace’s life begins more or less in Russia – Riga, Latvia to be exact – and she circles back to Russia with her parents and later as an adult working as a tour guide, an entrepreneur helping the women of Russia learn how to set up and run a small business and to empower themselves. A lesson Grace had to learn, too. She traveled with Ted Kennedy and his family as their translator when they visited Russia and did the same for Joan Baez. Both interesting adventures. She also got to meet Putin when he was Moscow’s deputy mayor. Coldest eyes she’d ever seen and entirely without gallantry was her verdict.
By age twelve, she had lived in seven different countries and could speak five languages. The Russian language is the one she retained (as well as English, of course) and the one that was the most useful in her career. She spent her 5th grade in a Russian elementary school in Moscow during the last year of WW II. As the only American girl in the class she had few friends and was often taunted. Her stint at the National Cathedral’s boarding school for girls, while her parents were away, was also traumatic. All of these experiences and more she chronicles about her growing up years. Not tales of misery, but not exactly a childhood of fun and warmth. If you're getting the impression that her book is a litany of complaints, it's not. These are just some of the interesting aspects of her life.
One of the interesting experiences she writes about was when Svetlana (Stalin’s daughter) came to live at the family farm in Pennsylvania for a summer. In short, Svetlana was very demanding and unappreciative - kind of the house guest from hell. Another interesting encounter was her first meeting with John Kennedy, then a senator. She met him very briefly at a social-political function and then not again until five years later when he was President. By then she was married with a different last name than when they had first met. Nevertheless he looked at her and said, “oh I remember you” and then recalled when they had met. Evidently his memory and people skills were remarkable. She later got to know most of the Kennedy family quite well through her second husband who was the architect for Kennedy family projects, including the eternal flame memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.
She writes that she had never planned to write her memoirs but once she got started she was more candid than she had intended to be. More candid than she would have been had her parents still been living and, perhaps, her two former husbands as well. Still, it is far from a tell-all book. She’s fairly matter-of-fact in the telling. And seems very honest. But I would have liked more self-examination. More “whys” not just the “whats.”
Her first husband was heir to the McClatchy newspaper chain. She describes him as a very nice man; she had three children with him; but after eight years of marriage a friend took her aside and said to her, “don’t you know your husband is gay.” She didn’t. But it explained a lot. It was a time when you didn’t talk about such things, she writes. It was also a time when women had to stay in their place. She was a Radcliffe graduate and wanted a career in the foreign service, but women were not accepted in the foreign service in those days unless they were in clerical roles, a role her father thought was fine for her even after she had successfully completed some difficult projects in Moscow.
Her second husband was Jack Warnecke, internationally famous architect. Definitely not gay. A womanizer, a jerk, and very jealous and demanding. Why did she hook-up with him? Evidently he was charming and moved in exciting social circles, although she didn’t seem to be hankering after that kind of life, but I perhaps it was irresistible. As I mentioned early, her memoir is not big on self-examination.
She does say of herself that she always had the tendency to jump headlong into projects for which she was not prepared. So she became a professional photographer, a translator and travel guide, an organizer of conferences to empower women in countries just emerging from communism, and finally a writer. A very good one at that.
She’s a daughter of privilege but not of money. (Her father lost all of the family’s money during the Great Depression.) Privilege because of the people she got to meet and the varied experiences and countries she got to experience but not privileged with warm and loving parents. She adored her father when she was a young child (and couldn’t escape his shadow when she was an adult), but he was seldom around. He was always traveling and often took his wife with him, leaving the children in the care of others or at boarding school. But when he was present, his presence was vivid.
Her mother seemed cold and undemonstrative. Grace always worried that her mother didn’t love her. Only when Grace was getting old herself and her mother was in the beginnings of dementia, did Grace understand her mother better and become reconciled with her and have empathy for her. Her mother, too, Grace understood lived in the shadow of her brilliant and famous husband. She was a shy, young, and under educated girl from a small town in Norway when she married George Kennan and was not prepared for the life she was thrust into. Neither father nor mother knew how to compliment and encourage their children.
Grace’s life begins more or less in Russia – Riga, Latvia to be exact – and she circles back to Russia with her parents and later as an adult working as a tour guide, an entrepreneur helping the women of Russia learn how to set up and run a small business and to empower themselves. A lesson Grace had to learn, too. She traveled with Ted Kennedy and his family as their translator when they visited Russia and did the same for Joan Baez. Both interesting adventures. She also got to meet Putin when he was Moscow’s deputy mayor. Coldest eyes she’d ever seen and entirely without gallantry was her verdict.
By age twelve, she had lived in seven different countries and could speak five languages. The Russian language is the one she retained (as well as English, of course) and the one that was the most useful in her career. She spent her 5th grade in a Russian elementary school in Moscow during the last year of WW II. As the only American girl in the class she had few friends and was often taunted. Her stint at the National Cathedral’s boarding school for girls, while her parents were away, was also traumatic. All of these experiences and more she chronicles about her growing up years. Not tales of misery, but not exactly a childhood of fun and warmth. If you're getting the impression that her book is a litany of complaints, it's not. These are just some of the interesting aspects of her life.
One of the interesting experiences she writes about was when Svetlana (Stalin’s daughter) came to live at the family farm in Pennsylvania for a summer. In short, Svetlana was very demanding and unappreciative - kind of the house guest from hell. Another interesting encounter was her first meeting with John Kennedy, then a senator. She met him very briefly at a social-political function and then not again until five years later when he was President. By then she was married with a different last name than when they had first met. Nevertheless he looked at her and said, “oh I remember you” and then recalled when they had met. Evidently his memory and people skills were remarkable. She later got to know most of the Kennedy family quite well through her second husband who was the architect for Kennedy family projects, including the eternal flame memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.
She writes that she had never planned to write her memoirs but once she got started she was more candid than she had intended to be. More candid than she would have been had her parents still been living and, perhaps, her two former husbands as well. Still, it is far from a tell-all book. She’s fairly matter-of-fact in the telling. And seems very honest. But I would have liked more self-examination. More “whys” not just the “whats.”
Her first husband was heir to the McClatchy newspaper chain. She describes him as a very nice man; she had three children with him; but after eight years of marriage a friend took her aside and said to her, “don’t you know your husband is gay.” She didn’t. But it explained a lot. It was a time when you didn’t talk about such things, she writes. It was also a time when women had to stay in their place. She was a Radcliffe graduate and wanted a career in the foreign service, but women were not accepted in the foreign service in those days unless they were in clerical roles, a role her father thought was fine for her even after she had successfully completed some difficult projects in Moscow.
Her second husband was Jack Warnecke, internationally famous architect. Definitely not gay. A womanizer, a jerk, and very jealous and demanding. Why did she hook-up with him? Evidently he was charming and moved in exciting social circles, although she didn’t seem to be hankering after that kind of life, but I perhaps it was irresistible. As I mentioned early, her memoir is not big on self-examination.
She does say of herself that she always had the tendency to jump headlong into projects for which she was not prepared. So she became a professional photographer, a translator and travel guide, an organizer of conferences to empower women in countries just emerging from communism, and finally a writer. A very good one at that.
September 19, 2021
Full disclosure: the author is my father's cousin. Grace has led (continues to lead!) a fascinating life and I loved this glimpse into it.
April 15, 2018
Please do not mistake this book for just another "daughter of" memoir. Grace's story is her own. While her father, the well known Ambassador George Kennan, plays an important role in this story, this is the life of an amazing woman who has refused to be limited by the glass ceiling and who has lived, and continues to live, an extraordinary life. The book is beautifully written, funny, poignant and captivating.
July 31, 2018
I wonderfully candid story of a exceptional person in a exceptional families in an exceptional period of history
Some men just can't realize just how lucky they are to be with a wonderfully delightful woman,
A cautionary tale for women who compromise their potential caring for men who need help more than love,
Some men just can't realize just how lucky they are to be with a wonderfully delightful woman,
A cautionary tale for women who compromise their potential caring for men who need help more than love,
February 13, 2019
Very interesting candid story of a strong woman unafraid of taking chances.
February 23, 2019
The title of this book is just right. I remember George Kennan and hid diplomatic work .Now I know about the interesting life of his daughter
January 26, 2020
Я не надто фанатка біографій, однак було цікаво
March 20, 2022
This book is very well written and an honest look at the author's life. As the daughter of a famous diplomat from the Cold War era, she had a unique look at this time of history. She learned to speak Russian which opened up many opportunities for her and eventually led to a successful career. I was initially disappointed in her decisions when she seemed to still be looking for her father's approval and her mother's love. I realized that at nearly 90 years old, she grew up in a completely different era when women weren't supposed to do anything significant with their lives. Ms. Warnecke started her own company and became a successful Russia expert in her later years.
April 24, 2023
Amazing woman who finally believes in herself
Having recently read Figes' The Story of Russia, I was intrigued to learn about Grace Warnecke's lifelong experiences. I immediately downloaded it and read it with an intensity I don't find usual when reading memoirs. Grace's ability to convey the emotions and feelings of the age that she was as she is retelling her story is genius.
Her writing is impeccable. There are sentences that are so metaphorically perfect that they are beathtaking.
I highly recommend reading what this courageous, delightful woman has to say.
Having recently read Figes' The Story of Russia, I was intrigued to learn about Grace Warnecke's lifelong experiences. I immediately downloaded it and read it with an intensity I don't find usual when reading memoirs. Grace's ability to convey the emotions and feelings of the age that she was as she is retelling her story is genius.
Her writing is impeccable. There are sentences that are so metaphorically perfect that they are beathtaking.
I highly recommend reading what this courageous, delightful woman has to say.
November 2, 2023
Amazing front row seat at many 20thc and early 21st c events. Also, in its a way, a story of 20th c feminism. Showing not telling. I hope she is working on another book about Ukraine!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews