NRR Project: Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech (March 6, 1946)

 

NRR Project: “Sinews of Peace” (aka “Iron Curtain”) speech

Written and delivered by Winston Churchill

Recorded March 6, 1946

46 min.

This speech marks the beginning of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and America and its allies.

World War II was not yet over a year when this speech was made. The United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union had formed a “Grand Alliance” to defeat Hitler’s Germany. Yet almost as soon as peace was declared, the USSR began to expand its sphere of influence, imposing political control on those territories it took over in the final months of fighting. Poland, Germany, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, and Czechoslovakia were all targeted. Russia had fought the Nazis the longest, and had suffered the most grievous losses, in the war. Now they were looking for security and influence.

Among the Allies, former British prime minister Winston Churchill was the first to observe and comment on this perceived danger. He identified the Soviet Union as the primary threat to peace and security. Therefore, he proposed an American/European alliance that would oppose the Russians. As America was presently the only country with an atomic bomb, he felt that the U.S. was the most powerful nation in the world, and the primary caretaker of freedom. He felt it necessary to urge the U.S. to impose a policy of “containment” of the Soviet threat.

Churchill, a strong anti-Communist, was invited to speak at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, which he did on March 5, 1946. A condition of his making the speech was the presence of U.S. President Harry S. Truman, who attended. In front of a crowd of 1,500, Chruchill made a 45-minute speech that outlined the issue and warned of coming trouble with Russia.

Churchill was blunt, avowing that he would “try to make sure with what strength I have that what has gained with so much sacrifice and suffering shall be preserved for the future glory and safety of mankind.” He identified what he saw as the two major dangers remaining to the world: “war and tyranny.”

He proposed the creation of a United Nations fighting force to keep the peace. He also proposed the close cooperation of Aerica and England in military matters. He then addressed tyranny, stating, “We cannot be blind to the fact that the liberties enjoyed by individual citizens throughout the United States and throughout the British Empire are not valid in a considerable number of countries, some of which are very powerful. In these States control is enforced upon the common people by various kinds of all-embracing police governments to a degree which is overwhelming and contrary to every principle of democracy. The power of the State is exercised without restraint, either by dictators or by compact oligarchies operating through a privileged party and a political police force.” He was referring obliquely to the Soviets and their minions.

While professing to admire and respect the Soviets, Churchill nonetheless made this statement:

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in some cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.”

Despite his politic expressions, Churchill clearly named the USSR as the new opponent of the friends of freedom. “Except in the British Commonwealth and in the United States where Communism is in its infancy, the Communist parties or fifth columns constitute a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization.”

Churchill’s proposal was to face the Soviets with military preparedness, admonishing the crowd that the only thing Stalin respected was strength. And so the terms of the future conflict, which lasted 42 years, until the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Robert Shaw leads a performance of Bach’s B-minor Mass.