WASHINGTON (AFP) - George Kennan, the key architect of the US policy of containment of the former Soviet Union during the Cold War, has died at the age of 101.
The veteran diplomat and Pulitzer prize-winning author died late Thursday in Princeton, New Jersey, according to US media reports.
"There is no figure in the history of 20th century foreign policy who contributed so much over so many decades, in so many ways," said Gideon Rose, managing editor of Foreign Affairs magazine.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites), who became a Russia expert at the height of the Cold War, lauded Kennan as "one of the great architects of American foreign policy."
"I was personally inspired by him and his work. He was one of the great architects of American foreign policy at the end of World War II," Rice said Saturday at Sophia University in Tokyo, where she is visiting.
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