8,000-word#OTD February 22, 1946 | The Long Telegram 76 years ago, George Kennan, an American diplomat living in Moscow, sent an 8,000-word telegram to President Truman’s State Department.
How many words was the Long Telegram?
George Kennan, the American charge d’affaires in Moscow, sends an 8,000-word telegram to the Department of State detailing his views on the Soviet Union, and U.S. policy toward the communist state.
How long was a telegram?
Telegram length
The average length of a telegram in the 1900s in the US was 11.93 words; more than half of the messages were 10 words or fewer. According to another study, the mean length of the telegrams sent in the UK before 1950 was 14.6 words or 78.8 characters.
Was the Long Telegram successful?
Kennan’s “Long Telegram” from Moscow helped articulate the U.S. government’s increasingly hard line against the Soviets and became the basis for the U.S. “containment” strategy toward the Soviet Union for the duration of the Cold War.
What was the Long Telegram and what did it do?
The famous “Long Telegram” was a message sent by George F. Kennan, a high-ranking diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, that provided an assessment of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the Cold War.
What was the longest telegram ever sent?
#OTD February 22, 1946 | The Long Telegram
76 years ago, George Kennan, an American diplomat living in Moscow, sent an 8,000-word telegram to President Truman’s State Department.
How fast did telegrams travel?
The speed of the printing telegraph was 16 and a half words per minute, but messages still required translation into English by live copyists. Chemical telegraphy came to an end in the US in 1851, when the Morse group defeated the Bain patent in the US District Court.
Was the Long Telegram leaked?
Though the long telegram was a classified document, it circulated widely enough that a copy leaked out to Soviet intelligence. Stalin was among its readers and called on his American ambassador, Nikolai Novikov, to send a similar telegram from Washington to Moscow.
Why did Telegram shut down?
On Privacy Commissioner Ada Chung told a Legislative Council committee that the government remains concerned about doxxing and other violations of personal data privacy, and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data is looking at blocking Telegram to address the issue.
Who invented the Long Telegram?
Kennan Xplainer: The Long Telegram
What was a telegram in the olden days?
A telegraph message sent by an electrical telegraph operator or telegrapher using Morse code (or a printing telegraph operator using plain text) was known as a telegram. A cablegram was a message sent by a submarine telegraph cable, often shortened to “cable” or “wire”.
How much did a telegram cost in 1940?
Image of telegram from 1930s Page 10 A History of Telegraphy © Tancia Ltd 2014 Whilst there appears to be a variety of prices quoted for early telegrams, several sources suggest that at its inception, a telegram sent locally would cost an American penny per word, 2 cents per word in the 1920s and by the 1940s, 5 cents
What is a telegram in 1930s?
Telegrams, often delivered to homes and businesses by delivery boys, were a popular way of communicating during the 1920s and 1930s, when long-distance calls were more expensive than a telegram. Western Union was famous for messages hand-delivered inside its signature yellow envelopes.
How much did it cost to send a telegram in 1900?
Yearly messages sent over its lines increased from 5.8 million in 1867 to 63.2 million in 1900. Over the same period, transmission rates fell from an average of $1.09 to 30 cents per message. Even with these lower prices, roughly 30 to 40 cents of every dollar of revenue were net profit for the company.
Are telegrams still used today?
Telegrams are used mainly for special occasions such as weddings, funerals, graduations, etc. Local offices offer telegrams printed on special decorated paper and envelopes.
When did people stop sending telegrams?
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s the use of telegrams had dropped significantly, with around 10 million sent annually in the mid-1960s. Consequently, the Post Office took the decision in 1977 to abolish the service.