DOGE and the books
An exclusive interview with historian Michael Kimmage after DOGE canceled the Kennan Institute
Thank you for reading this special Sunday edition of the History As It Happens newsletter.
When Elon Musk, tail between his legs, departed Washington on May 28, raging about his messy divorce with President Trump, his government-dismantling team had destroyed entire agencies and thousands of jobs in a few months’ time.
For instance, by effectively eliminating the U.S. Agency for International Development, Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” deprived some of the world’s poorest people of the food and medicine necessary for survival.
You have undoubtedly read news reports detailing all the errors and exaggerations in DOGE’s list of savings on federal contracts, along with stories about federal employees who were illegally fired and then rehired, or workers on “administrative leave” being paid not to work. It didn’t take long to see that Musk and his team didn’t know what they were doing. Rather than use a scalpel to rid government waste, they rode a wrecking ball. Mindless.
Maybe it would be wise to leave it to future historians to discern if Musk’s Washington legacy contains anything positive. For now, DOGE appears to be a massive fraud.
Little noticed in the maelstrom of DOGE-related headlines was the demise of the Wilson Center for International Scholars, which housed the Kennan Institute and a library of some 30,000 books.
On April Fool’s Day, Musk’s enforcers reportedly showed up at the Wilson Center’s downtown Washington offices to share the grave news. It wasn’t a prank: the center would be shut down and everyone fired. This didn’t go entirely unnoticed, though. The New York Times published this concise article.
Loyal listeners of my podcast are familiar with historian Michael Kimmage. Since 2022, he has appeared in fourteen episodes, delivering essential insights into U.S.-Russia relations and the unsettled legacies of the Cold War. Professor Kimmage is more than a teacher to me; I now consider him a friend who possesses a generous spirit and refreshing civility in our hurly-burly age.
In January, Michael Kimmage started his new job as director of the Kennan Institute — a career move that made so much sense given his experience as an academic historian and public servant. From 2014 to 2016, he served on the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff (created by George Kennan in 1947) at the U.S. State Department. He held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio.
In a bonus episode published this morning, Kimmage tells us about the Wilson Center’s sudden end; DOGE’s mysterious motives; the necessity of knowledge production in a complex world; and the importance of saving the books!
Listen here (25 minutes):
https://historyasithappens.libsyn.com/doge-and-the-books-bonus-episode
Before you listen to the podcast, read Kimmage’s magnanimous essay in the journal Liberties, We Must Save the Books.
https://libertiesjournal.com/online-articles/we-must-save-the-books/
Talk to you next week!
Fellow Kennan Institute staffer Dan White here, glad to see Michael is helping to share our story.
It will take many years to understand the true magnitude, not only of the cuts themselves, but results of the irresponsible way in which those cuts were carried out. I suspect more money will have been wasted than was saved when all is said and done and things of incalculable value will have been permanently lost.