The State Department Soviet expert who turned Kennan's and Clayton's policy memos into Marshall's Harvard speech
"After Potsdam, there was little that could be done to induce the Soviet Union to become a reasonable and cooperative member of the world community," from his memoir, Witness to History.
An American diplomat and Soviet specialist who was present at nearly every pivotal moment in U.S.-Soviet relations from the opening of the Moscow embassy in 1934 through the Cold War. As Roosevelt's and Truman's interpreter, he sat beside them at Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam; in 1947, at Secretary of State George C. Marshall's request, he drafted the Harvard commencement address that launched the Marshall Plan, synthesizing policy memoranda from George F. Kennan and William Clayton. He survived a brutal McCarthy-era confirmation battle to become ambassador to Moscow in 1953, later serving as ambassador to France and as one of the nonpartisan 'Wise Men' advising presidents from FDR to LBJ.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1929Entered the U.S. Foreign Service
- 1934–1940Third Secretary, U.S. Embassy Moscow; received Nazi-Soviet Pact text
- 1943–1945White House Soviet adviser; interpreter at Tehran, Yalta, Potsdam
- 1947–1949State Department Counselor; drafted Marshall Plan speech
- 1949–1951U.S. Minister to France
- 1953–1957U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union
- 1957–1959U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines
- 1962–1968U.S. Ambassador to France
Related historical events
- 1939.08–1940.08The Nazi-Soviet Pact and the Partition of Eastern EuropeDiplomat who obtained and reported the secret protocolIn August 1939 in Moscow, he obtained the full text of the secret protocol and cabled it to Washington at once.
- 1945.02–08The Yalta and Potsdam ConferencesPresidential interpreter and Soviet policy adviser at YaltaHe served as Roosevelt's interpreter and Soviet policy adviser at the Yalta Conference, and also remains a key source for the conference record.
- 1947–1948The Marshall Plan and the Cold WarDrafter of Marshall's Harvard speechHe drafted Marshall's Harvard speech based on policy memos by Kennan and Clayton.
Moscow, August 1939: The Secret Protocol Reaches Washington
On the morning of August 24, 1939, while serving at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, Bohlen received from Hans von Herwarth of the German embassy the full text of the secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed the day before. The protocol recorded an understanding between Hitler and Stalin to divide Central Europe, the Baltic states, and Finland into German and Soviet spheres. Bohlen cabled the substance to Washington at once, and President Roosevelt was urgently informed, but the United States shared the information with none of the governments concerned. A week later the German and Soviet invasions of Poland began the Second World War. In this episode Bohlen stood at the forward edge of intelligence gathering as a Soviet specialist; at the same time, the failure of that intelligence to translate into policy is equally part of the record. The episode also matters because the existence of the secret protocol was not officially proven until it was made public at the Nuremberg trials.
The accounts describe Bohlen's place in 1939 only loosely: he had joined the staff of the first U.S. embassy to the Soviet Union in 1934 and was still serving in Moscow when the pact was signed, at the point where such information entered American hands. It is sounder to record that function than to fix a single formal title for him at that moment.