Hoover and the Two George Kennans: Part 2

By Thomas F. Schwartz

After relying on the detailed Siberian travelogue of George Kennan to determine the region’s mining potential, Hoover’s second Kennan encounter with was with George F. Kennan regarding Hoover’s work with President Woodrow Wilson during World War I. In 1957 Kennan was writing the second volume of his history of Soviet-American Relations, 1917-1920.  Having read that Hoover was working on a biography of Woodrow Wilson, Kennan was interested if Hoover had more intimate knowledge of an incident that remained rather murky in the historical record. In June 1918, Wilson and his advisors were debating whether to send troops into Siberia as part of British/French initiative to counter the Bolsheviks. Wilson was also thinking about creating a commission for food relief in Russia and Hoover’s name was frequently mentioned to head it.

Kennan specifically raised two questions for Hoover:” (1) the President’s reasons for not acceding to the many recommendations that you be designated to head the mission, and (2) the reason why this whole idea, which once seems to have appealed to him strongly, was so completely neglected after the month of June.”  Kennan suggests a possible answer to the second question by asking if a Progressive-Republican group led by California Senator William Borah and former President Theodore Roosevelt supporting such a commission may have prompted Wilson to drop the idea.

Hoover’s response was formal and provided copies of correspondence that was already public record. He did not elaborate further. In his memoirs, Hoover explained the event:

“Out of these discussions, however, there came up to the President from Colonel House a plan (June, 1918) that I should head some sort of food mission to Bolshevist Russia to tell them how to relieve their famine, to restore their agriculture and to reorganize their food distribution. I informed the President that I would serve anywhere, anytime, but that to send an army to attack the Bolshevists’ Eastern Front while extending kindness on their Western Front was not quite logical. In any event, our ideas of industrial organization would scarcely fit into the philosophy of Messrs. Lenin and Trotsky, even if they did not reject the plan utterly as an Allied Trojan horse. I heard nothing more of the matter.”

President Wilson is on record indicating on July 15, 1918, to Bernard Baruch, head of the War Industries Board, “I agree with you in your estimate of Hoover, but I cannot without dislocating some of the most important things we are handling spare him from his present functions.” George H. Nash, Hoover’s biographer, also suggests that his past economic interests in Russian mines might also cast distrust on Hoover’s true motives for reengaging in Russia. Ultimately, historians, including Kennan, continue to puzzle over Wilson’s decision making process during the months leading up to American troops being sent to Russia.  Kennan, however, would go on to write a favorable article in the New York Times Magazine (July 19, 1959), reminding America of Hoover’s efforts to feed Russia during the famine of 1921-1923.