George Kennan, a leading architect of the American Cold War containment policy has died. Born in 1904, he was 101.

His ideas on Soviet containment were first expressed in his famous 5,542-word "Long Telegram", sent from the US Embassy in Moscow in 1946. It explained that while the Soviet leadership was "impervious to the logic of reason," it was "highly sensitive to the logic of force."

The telegram made Mr. Kennan famous in Washington and his ideas were disseminated through a highly-influential article in the journal Foreign Affairs written under the pseudonym "X" published in 1947.

"It is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies," he wrote. He advocated the use of diplomacy and politics to counter the spread of Communism rather than military action.

He wrote 17 books and two of them won Pulitzer Prizes.

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Eudaimonia