The Iron Curtain Speech and the start of the Cold War Kurt W. Jefferson Assistant Dean for Global...
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Transcript of The Iron Curtain Speech and the start of the Cold War Kurt W. Jefferson Assistant Dean for Global...
The Iron Curtain Speech and the start of the Cold War
Kurt W. JeffersonAssistant Dean for Global Initiatives/Director/Professor
Churchill Institute for Global EngagementWestminster College
Fulton, Missouri (USA)
Winnie’s Wit
• Lady Astor: Prepositions• “Some neck, some chicken!”• Trip to Fulton (whiskey, whiskey, whiskey!)
Churchill: The Good, the bad, the ugly
• Virtuous hero or war-monger?• “Un-modern man in a modern world”• Outlook: shaped by military background (not unlike Eisenhower &
De Gaulle)• Aristocratic background (Dukes of Marlborough); noblesse oblige• Distinct careers:• Young man: military (South Africa, Sudan)• 1910-1922: Liberal ministerial portfolio• 1922-40: Backbench MP/Wilderness/writer• 1940-45: Prime Minister• 1945-51: MP, out of office• 1951-55: Prime Minister
Why Fulton?
• Kansas City Times: December 22, 1945• Major General Harry H. Vaughan ’13 (Truman military aide)• 15,000 requests for tickets (gym capacity: 2800, chapel
overflow: 900)• Budget: $5000 (today: $64,508.79)• Churchill-Truman entourage: 100 people• Crowd: 25,000• Tuesday, March 5, 1946: 71 F and sunny• Senator (now Secretary of State) John Kerry (2004): “You
don’t come to Fulton to give a speech, you come to honor a legacy.”
The speech (“Sinews of Peace”)• First used term “Iron Curtain” in May 1945 in a telegram to Truman
tied to concern about Soviet movements• “Iron Curtain” had descended across Europe• Changing geopolitical map (Stettin, today “Szczecin” in northwest
Poland): Sweden, Prussia, Germany, Poland to Trieste in the Adriatic (Yugoslavia to Italy)—ancient capitals of Europe (Prague, Berlin, Budapest, Vienna, Belgrade, Warsaw, etc.)
• Prelude to the speech: Intentions of the Soviets under Marshal Stalin: Feb 1946: Stalin speech—another war inevitable due to the nature of the western capitalist system
• 10 months after the Speech: (January 1947 George Kennan’s “X article” (“Sources of Soviet Conduct”) vigilance and containment of “Russian expansive tendencies”
“Danger, Will Robinson!”(Sorry, post-1945 to pre-1969 Cold War American TV reference!)
• Soviet expansion is coming and unchecked• Way to combat: Anglo-American alliance• Future: UNO as a “Temple of Peace”• Analysis • Postscript: Proud of the United States (I’m half-
American – Jenny Jerome Churchill, American nouveau riche, married Randolph Churchill) “Profound is my love for this great Empire.”
Take-aways• “Iron Curtain” into the historical lexicon (first used, in context, by
Viscountess Ethel Snowden in her 1920 book Through Bolshevik Russia)—but Churchill made it stick
• Start of Cold (Yes, No, Maybe so?)• Churchill relevant again after crushing (July 1945—while at Potsdam)
defeat at polls• Churchill reverting to “default” (war-mongering?)• The end of the 1914-45 Long War (Niall Ferguson and others)• Beginning of the Cold War era that lasts until 1991• Beginning of new systems in government for defense, military,
intelligence, and altered geo-politics of President Harry Truman (DOD, NSA 1947, NSC, etc.)—don’t underestimate Truman’s far-reaching importance (will affect Churchill in 51-55 government
• End of British Empire and declining influence of Britain geo-politically
Churchill’s “Fulton Speech” Today
• Shia/Sunni war in Syria and Iraq (Islamic State, Sunni insurgencies, Shia counterinsurgencies, etc.)
• Scotland, Wales, Ireland devolution/separatism
• Greek debt crisis