Robert F. Kelley (February13, 18941976) was an adamantly
anticommunist official of the
US State Department who influenced a generation of Russian specialists such as
George F. Kennan and
Charles Bohlen. He was born in
Somerville, Massachusetts
Somerville ( ) is a city located directly to the northwest of Boston, and north of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the city had a total population of 81, ...
. He received a BA from Harvard in 1915 and a MA in 1917 and continued with postgraduate work at the
University of Paris
The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...
(Sorbonne). Kelley served in the
US Army during World War I. In 1922 he joined the State Department and, in 1926, became the head of the newly created Division of Eastern European Affairs.
Kelley was responsible for the hard-line anti-Soviet attitude of the State Department before and after the recognition of Russia in 1933. Kelley was concerned about the speed with which nonrecognition ended and urged Secretary of State
Cordell Hull and President Franklin Roosevelt not to trust Soviet promises about resolving outstanding issues. None of his concerns were ever resolved. Kelley came under scrutiny and was eventually removed from his position after proponents of a more conciliatory line towards Russia moved against him and the Eastern European Division. Kelley left the State Department in 1945 to join a private organization that eventually sponsored
Radio Liberty, an anti-
Soviet
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
broadcasting service.
References
Further reading
* DeSantis, Hugh. ''Diplomacy of Silence. The American Foreign Service, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War, 1933-1947'' (1980), pp 11-26.
* Nolan, Cathal J., ed. ''Notable US Ambassadors Since 1775: A Biographical Dictionary'' (Greenwood, 1997). pp 205-210.
* Peterson, Jody L. ‘‘Ideology and Influence: Robert F. Kelley and the State Department.’’ Ph.D. diss., Washington State University, 1996.
* Propas, Frederic L. ‘‘The State Department, Bureaucratic Politics, and Soviet-American Relations, 1918–1938.’’ Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1982.
* Richman, John. ''The United States and the Soviet Union: The Decision to Recognize'' (Camberleigh and Hall, 1980)
*Schulzinger, Robert D. ''The Making of the Diplomatic Mind: The Training, Outlook, and Style of United States Foreign Service Officers, 1908-1931'' (Wesleyan Univ. Press, 1975).
* Weil, Martin. ''A Pretty Good Club: The Founding Fathers of the United States Foreign Service'' (W.W> Norton, 1978), pp 46-63.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kelley, Robert F
1894 births
1976 deaths
Harvard University alumni
University of Paris alumni
People from Somerville, Massachusetts
United States Department of State officials