Politico: My secret summer with Stalin’s daughter

My father, the diplomat George F. Kennan, disliked the telephone. So when he called me in March 1967, I knew it was something important. At the time, I was 36 years old and living in California—recently divorced, newly employed as a book critic for San Francisco magazine, looking after my three children and dating architect Jack Warnecke, who would later become my second husband. But soon, I’d find myself in the middle of one of the buzziest stories of that year—now a mostly forgotten footnote of Cold War history. It started with that call: My father wanted to tell me that the State Department had asked him to go to Switzerland on a secret mission to establish the bona fides of a woman who had defected from the Soviet Union and claimed to be the daughter of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Although long retired at this point, my father had been chosen for this mission because he knew the Stalin family history and the right questions to ask. I could tell that he was pleased and liked being back in the fray. The next day he flew off to Geneva on a special plane. When he returned, he told me about his trip. It was clear that Svetlana Stalin had unexpectedly touched him. Forty-one years old, she was Stalin’s only daughter. My father, although not a churchgoer at the time, had been impressed both by her energy and her claim to newfound spirituality. Always gallant to those in need, he also succumbed to Svetlana’s helpless-and-alone-in-the world facade.

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