The Iron Curtain Speech and the
start of the Cold War
Kurt W. Jefferson
Assistant Dean for Global Initiatives/Director/Professor
Churchill Institute for Global Engagement
Westminster 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 “Fulton Speech”
Source: www.westminster-mo.edu
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!)
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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.”
History
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Source: abcnews.go.com.
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 farreaching importance (will affect Churchill in 51-55 government
• End of British Empire and declining influence of Britain geopolitically
Source: i.huffpost.com
56 of 59 Scottish seats at Westminster
(May 2015)
www.img.rt.com
www.globecartoon.com
Source: www.stealthinflation.org
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
“Imponderables” Exercise
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Churchill’s view
Truman’s view
Churchill’s suggested outcomes
Truman’s suggested outcomes
Does the issue fit in a “Cold War” paradigm?
If so, why?
If not, why?