![]() His path forward was concrete and seemed to promise the peace he put in the title.Īs was his penchant, Churchill’s timing was impeccable. ![]() Using terms of surety and power, Churchill seized the rhetorical moment and offered a vision of certainty in a time of extreme anxiety. He argued that the US had no choice but to side with Imperial England against an expansionist Communist Russia. In effect, Churchill rhetorically took the middle ground away in Europe. Churchill’s speech swept aside the ambiguity and complexity of the postwar political situation in Europe, drawing clear lines around friends (the US) and enemies (Soviet Russia and Communism). His focus was on rebuilding Russia and ensuring a buffer of friendly states to ensure national security in the future. More importantly, Stalin had no stomach for confrontation with the West. Relatively free elections in Hungary and Czechoslovakia had or would take place not even in Poland was Soviet rule unquestioned or uncontested. When Churchill uttered the phrase “Iron Curtain,” it was hardly a fitting description of the Soviet occupied Eastern Europe. Striding confidently to the podium, Churchill delivered a forceful address highlighted by dramatic hand gestures and punctuated phrases. He was in such good spirits that he jokingly complemented Westminster’s cooking staff by insisting that “the pig has reached its highest point of evolution” in the ham served for lunch. He had struggled since losing his Prime Ministership the previous June and felt this address, with Truman and other dignitaries present, the perfect opportunity for his political comeback. Going into his address, Churchill was in a good mood. Fearing a break with America over Britain’s attempts to hang onto its Empire, Churchill saw the invitation to speak at Westminster College, with a promised introduction from President Harry Truman, as the perfect venue for laying out his postwar vision. While conflict between US, UK and Soviet interests became more and more prevalent, many people still hoped that the wartime alliance would last into the postwar period. Of the Big Three who guided the allies during WW II, only Joseph Stalin remained in power in the Soviet Union. Franklin Roosevelt had died in April 1945, Winston Churchill was voted out as Prime Minister in July 1945. In this context of extreme suffering and uncertainty, the political alliance that had defeated Hitler’s Germany was beginning to unravel. Economies lay in tatters, millions of displaced persons or refugees sought desperately to locate friends and families and deal with the destruction all around. The devastation wrought by the war led to the starvation of millions, and the threatened starvation of millions more. It was actually Hitler’s chief propagandist, Joseph Goebbels who first referred to the Eastern European Soviet sphere of influence as an “Iron Curtain.” Both Goebbels and Churchill used the phrase with the same intent: to conceptualize anti-communist alliances while simultaneously isolating Soviet Russia.īy early 1946, Europe was still reeling from the aftermath of World War II. ![]() Few phrases in history have had the enduring cultural resonance of “Iron Curtain.” While inextricably linked to Churchill in the public mind, he did not coin the phrase. Churchill believed that together the US and the UK had the military, cultural and political power to direct and govern the postwar world at the expense of Stalin’s Russia. While popularly remembered as the “Iron Curtain” speech, Churchill actually titled it “Sinews of Peace.” This title underscores what he saw as the primary aim of his speech: the cementing of a “special relationship” between the United Kingdom and the United States. Winston Churchill Delivers Iron Curtain Speech | 5 March 1946Ĭonsidered by some prophetically prescient, and by others scandalously self-serving, Churchill’s speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri on Macame to define an era. ![]()
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