George Kennan Reminisces About Moscow in 1933–1937

In 1963, George F. Kennan, diplomat and scholar, wrote a long letter of reminiscences about his experiences connected with the Spaso House mansion in Moscow, beginning with his arrival in Moscow in 1933 after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. The text of the letter, with endnotes, is reproduced below. Ambassador Kennan returned to Spaso House in 1987, at the age of 83, and wrote that a “great abyss” now separated him from the Russia he had known a half-century earlier.     

EUGENE SCHUYLER,THE ONLY DIPLOMATIST

Eugene Schuyler (1840–1890), little known today, was America’s best-qualified diplomat, one of its first PhDs, and a friend of Tolstoy, translator of Turgenev, and biographer of Peter the Great. Schuyler spent a decade in Russia; his first book describes a nine-month trip through Central Asia which Russia was then subjugating. Schuyler’s subsequent reports from Bulgaria on Turkish atrocities helped to make Bulgaria the modern world’s first “fashionable cause.” Schuyler was American minister to Greece, Romania, and Serbia, but was refused confirmation as the State Department’s number two because of his frank criticism of a former secretary of state. He died after some months as diplomatic agent in Egypt.     

Japan: Still searching for a role

Japan's Rise to International Responsibilities: The Case of Arms Control, by Reinhard Drifte. Athlone Press, London, 1990. xi + 112 pp. £25. ISBN 0–485–11385–6.

Japanese Defence: The Search for Political Power, by S. Javed Maswood. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 1990. ix + 113 pp. US$12.00. ISBN 981–3035–39–0.

The Emergence of Japan's Foreign Aid Policy, by Robert M. Orr Jnr. Columbia University Press, New York, 1990. x + 178 pp. $32.00. ISBN 0–231–07046–2.

Same Bed, Different Dreams: America and Japan—Societies in Transition, edited by Alan D. Romberg and Tadashi Yamamoto. Council on Foreign Relations Press, New York, 1990. xi + 138 pp. $14.95 paperback. ISBN 0–87609–082‐X.     

George Kennan Reminisces About Moscow in 1933-1937

In 1963, George F. Kennan, diplomat and scholar, wrote a long letter of reminiscences about his experiences connected with the Spaso House mansion in Moscow, beginning with his arrival in Moscow in 1933 after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. The text of the letter, with endnotes, is reproduced below. Ambassador Kennan returned to Spaso House in 1987, at the age of 83, and wrote that a “great abyss” now separated him from the Russia he had known a half-century earlier.     

Health care financing reforms in Germany: the case for rethinking the evolutionary approach to reforms

Health care reform has been a perpetual issue in German politics since reunification. Reform initially focused on restructuring the health care system of the former East Germany. It has subsequently focused on questioning whether the financing of the German social health insurance (SHI) system is sustainable, in light of economic malaise that characterized the 1990s and heightened global competition. In this article, we document twelve significant attempts to reform health care financing in Germany and critically appraise them according to the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity on which SHI systems were built. While the reforms in the aggregate offered the prospect of addressing the challenges faced by the system, the modest results of the reforms and remaining deficiencies of the system underscore the limitations of the evolutionary approach to reforms. This suggests that reformers should consider a more revolutionary approach.