Nevertheless, they sincerely expected that the mutual benefits to be had from an increase in international commerce and financial stability would eventually overcome national traditions and political mistrust. So when the Soviet Union abruptly announced, at the beginning of 1946, that it would not be joining the Bretton Woods institutions, the United States Treasury Department was genuinely bewildered; and it was to explain the thinking that lay behind Stalin’s move that George Kennan sent from Moscow, on the night of February 22nd 1946, his famous Long Telegram, the first significant move in
...more
