The Size of a Banana

Mr. Kennan has labored industriously and has made his book a museum of detail (Russia Leaves the War: Soviet-American Relations, 1917-1920, by George F. Kennan, Princeton University Press, $7.50). In consequence, he has produced a work of reference which will be useful to specialists—provided they preserve some skepticism with regard to Mr. Kennan’s judgment of men and their statements and writings.

For example: On various points Mr. Kennan accepts the testimony of Edgar Sisson, chief propagandist of the United States in Russia. But to Sisson a fact was merely something he thought it was in the interest of Sisson to have people believe at the moment. He was a skinny little man with permanent acid indigestion. His thin nose, pinched by eyeglasses that left deep red marks, and his eyes which almost met in the bridge of his nose, and his bitter and predatory glance, gave him the aspect of a hungry white rat. His appearance accurately revealed his character.

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William C. Bullitt

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Mr. Kennan has labored industriously and has made his book a museum of detail (Russia Leaves the War: Soviet-American Relations, 1917-1920, by George F. Kennan, Princeton University Press, $7.50). In consequence, he has produced a work of reference which will be useful to specialists—provided they preserve some skepticism with regard to Mr. Kennan’s judgment of men and their statements and writings.

For example: On various points Mr. Kennan accepts the testimony of Edgar Sisson, chief propagandist of the United States in Russia. But to Sisson a fact was merely something he thought it was in the interest of Sisson to have people believe at the moment. He was a skinny little man with permanent acid indigestion. His thin nose, pinched by eyeglasses that left deep red marks, and his eyes which almost met in the bridge of his nose, and his bitter and predatory glance, gave him the aspect of a hungry white rat. His appearance accurately revealed his character.