What do get a man for his 99th birthday? You could erect a statue in the town of his birth in an effort to pay homage to an individual who's had a global and historical impact. That's exactly what a group of people are planning to do for Milwaukee native George Frost Kennan, a man so revered and respected, he's been awarded 35 honorary doctorates. That's not bad for a man who hails from Milwaukee's Brady Street area.
"The city decided they'd build a traffic calming device at the intersection of Cambridge and Kane Place," explains Barbara Nestingen, one of the folks responsible for the effort to commission a statue of Kennan. "A group of neighbors decided we needed something beautiful and that a statue of a person of some note would be suitable to go on the triangle."
Someone who has worked for the city for quite some time came up with an idea.
"It was Mayor John Norquist who suggested George Frost Kennan," Nestingen says. "We thought that would be lovely. He's famous, academic and a diplomat. It isn't often that statues are erected to commemorate the lives of intellectuals."
Mayor Norquist understands the inherent value to the city a man like Kennan represents.
"George Kennan lived across the street from this site of the proposed statue as a child," says Norquist . "He is one of the most successful diplomats in the 20th century. A statue seemed like a natural way to help Milwaukeeans remember with pride that he is one of us."
Kennan is indeed in possession of a generous portion of gray matter. He received his B.A. at Princeton in 1925. He served as a U.S. foreign service officer in Geneva, Hamburg, Berlin, Moscow and London; He also served as U.S. ambassador to the former Soviet Union.
Kennan was perhaps best known for his efforts at "containment" of Soviet communism after World War II.
"He changed the course of history," Nestingen says. "There are achievements of the mind and there are triumphs of the intellect. Everything starts with thoughts. Before there can be a behavior or an action, there has to be a thought, idea, thought, leadership."
Kennan opposed the division of Germany after World War II, as well as the development of the atomic bomb. He denounced American participation in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and our reliance on nuclear weapons for national defense. In 1956 he became a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.
Funding for the statue will be one of the project's more formidable tasks. Nestingen says she hopes tax deductible donations can be obtained from corporate donors.
The triangle where the likeness of Kennan will hopefully stand, made of granite blocks extracted from the Marquette campus, was installed last fall.
"The statue will be a bronze on a pedestal," Nestingen explains. "(It) will have a plaque which will describe why we're honoring him. I was just charmed by the selection of Kennan. Not only is he a native of the city he has a resume like I've never seen before."
How will Kennan be depicted in the statue? "I'd like him to be holding a book. He's won the Pulitzer Prize, twice," says Nestingen.
