When George Kennan wrote the Long Telegram, later to be named the X Article, it was intended to be broad analysis of the Soviet Conflict and propose a vague, not ultimate, solution to the issue. Kennan would be supportive of his ideas of containment being the basis for The Marshall Plan but he was against the Truman Doctrine authorizing the use of military forces in containing the communist threat. Later in his life Kennan would try to popularize a new "wider concept" of containment to replace the original interpretation of the idea. Kennan's reflections and new viewpoint on his original policy of containment along with original articles criticizing the Long Telegram are included in this article focused on how the article has stood up after 40 years since it was originally printed.
http://faculty.nwacc.edu/smoyers/Containment%2040%20years%20later.pdf
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I think that this article does a nice job of capturing Kennan's argument for containment. Certainly, the USSR was a dominant force at the time after WWII and needed to stopped somehow. The Truman Doctrine, which contained some good points, was just not going to be the answer for the long haul, so containment was needed on the part of the Americans.
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