On March 5, 1946, in a speech before Westminster College in
Fulton, Missouri, the great English statesman and World War II (1939-1945)
leader Winston Churchill intoned his famous warning: “From Stettin in the Baltic
to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.”
He coined the phrase iron curtain, still used today, to refer to the
tightly controlled border in Europe that separated Western democracies from the
Eastern and Central states under the influence of the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics (USSR). To prevent future wars, Churchill called for the establishment
of both a strong alliance between Western nations and a “good understanding”
with the USSR.
'The Sinews Of Peace'
I am glad to come to Westminster College this afternoon,
and am complimented that you should give me a degree. The name 'Westminster' is
somehow familiar to me. I seem to have heard of it before. Indeed, it was at
Westminster that I received a very large part of my education in politics,
dialectic, rhetoric, and one or two other things. In fact we have both been
educated at the same, or similar, or, at any rate, kindred establishments.
It is also an honour, perhaps almost unique, for a
private visitor to be introduced to an academic audience by the President of the
United States. Amid his heavy burdens, duties, and responsibilities—unsought but
not recoiled from—the President has travelled a thousand miles to dignify and
magnify our meeting here to-day and to give me an opportunity of addressing this
kindred nation, as well as my own countrymen across the ocean, and perhaps some
other countries too. The President has told you that it is his wish, as I am
sure it is yours, that I should have full liberty to give my true and faithful
counsel in these anxious and baffling times. I shall certainly avail myself of
this freedom, and feel the more right to do so because any private ambitions I
may have cherished in my younger days have been satisfied beyond my wildest
dreams. Let me, however, make it clear that I have no official mission or status
of any kind, and that I speak only for myself. There is nothing here but what
you see.
I can therefore allow my mind, with the experience of a
lifetime, to play over the problems which beset us on the morrow of our absolute
victory in arms, and to try to make sure with what strength I have that what has
been gained with so much sacrifice and suffering shall be preserved for the
future glory and safety of mankind.
The United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of
world power. It is a solemn moment for the American Democracy. For with primacy
in power is also joined an awe-inspiring accountability to the future. If you
look around you, you must feel not only the sense of duty done but also you must
feel anxiety lest you fall below the level of achievement. Opportunity is here
now, clear and shining for both our countries. To reject it or ignore it or
fritter it away will bring upon us all the long reproaches of the after-time. It
is necessary that constancy of mind, persistency of purpose, and the grand
simplicity of decision shall guide and rule the conduct of the English-speaking
peoples in peace as they did in war. We must, and I believe we shall, prove
ourselves equal to this severe requirement.
When American military men approach some serious
situation they are wont to write at the head of their directive the words
'over-all strategic concept'. There is wisdom in this, as it leads to clarity of
thought. What then is the over-all strategic concept which we should inscribe to
day? It is nothing less than the safety and welfare, the freedom and progress,
of all the homes and families of all the men and women in all the lands. And
here I speak particularly of the myriad cottage or apartment homes where the
wage-earner strives amid the accidents and difficulties of life to guard his
wife and children from privation and bring the family up in the fear of the
Lord, or upon ethical conceptions which often play their potent part.
To give security to these countless homes, they must be
shielded from the two giant marauders, war and tyranny. We all know the
frightful disturbances in which the ordinary family is plunged when the curse of
war swoops down upon the bread-winner and those for whom he works and contrives.
The awful ruin of Europe, with all its vanished glories, and of large parts of
Asia glares us in the eyes. When the designs of wicked men or the aggressive
urge of mighty States dissolve over large areas the frame of civilised society,
humble folk are confronted with difficulties with which they cannot cope. For
them all is distorted, all is broken, even ground to pulp.
When I stand here this quiet afternoon I shudder to
visualise what is actually happening to millions now and what is going to happen
in this period when famine stalks the earth. None can compute what has been
called 'the unestimated sum of human pain'. Our supreme task and duty is to
guard the homes of the common people from the horrors and miseries of another
war. We are all agreed on that.
Our American military colleagues, after having
proclaimed their 'over-all strategic concept' and computed available resources,
always proceed to the next step—namely, the method. Here again there is
widespread agreement. A world organisation has already been erected for the
prime purpose of preventing war. UNO, the successor of the League of Nations,
with the decisive addition of the United States and all that that means, is
already at work. We must make sure that its work is fruitful, that it is a
reality and not a sham, that it is a force for action, and not merely a frothing
of words, that it is a true temple of peace in which the shields of many nations
can some day be hung up, and not merely a cockpit in a Tower of Babel. Before we
cast away the solid assurances of national armaments for self-preservation we
must be certain that our temple is built, not upon shifting sands or quagmires,
but upon the rock. Anyone can see with his eyes open that our path will be
difficult and also long, but if we persevere together as we did in the two world
wars—though not, alas, in the interval between them—I cannot doubt that we shall
achieve our common purpose in the end.
I have, however, a definite and practical proposal to
make for action. Courts and magistrates may be set up but they cannot function
without sheriffs and constables. The United Nations Organisation must
immediately begin to be equipped with an international armed force. In such a
matter we can only go step by step, but we must begin now. I propose that each
of the Powers and States should be invited to delegate a certain number of air
squadrons to the service of the world organisation. These squadrons would be
trained and prepared in their own countries, but would move around in rotation
from one country to another. They would wear the uniform of their own countries
but with different badges. They would not be required to act against their own
nation, but in other respects they would be directed by the world organisation.
This might be started on a modest scale and would grow as confidence grew. I
wished to see this done after the first world war, and I devoutly trust it may
be done forthwith.
It would nevertheless be wrong and imprudent to entrust
the secret knowledge or experience of the atomic bomb, which the United States,
Great Britain, and Canada now share, to the world organisation, while it is
still in its infancy. It would be criminal madness to cast it adrift in this
still agitated and un-united world. No one in any country has slept less well in
their beds because this knowledge and the method and the raw materials to apply
it, are at present largely retained in American hands. I do not believe we
should all have slept so soundly had the positions been reversed and if some
Communist or neo-Fascist State monopolised for the time being these dread
agencies. The fear of them alone might easily have been used to enforce
totalitarian systems upon the free democratic world, with consequences appalling
to human imagination. God has willed that this shall not be and we have at least
a breathing space to set our house in order before this peril has to be
encountered: and even then, if no effort is spared, we should still possess so
formidable a superiority as to impose effective deterrents upon its employment,
or threat of employment, by others. Ultimately, when the essential brotherhood
of man is truly embodied and expressed in a world organisation with all the
necessary practical safeguards to make it effective, these powers would
naturally be confided to that world organisation.
Now I come to the second danger of these two marauders
which threatens the cottage, the home, and the ordinary people—namely, tyranny.
We cannot be blind to the fact that the liberties enjoyed by individual citizens
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. 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.
It is not our duty at this time when difficulties are so numerous to interfere
forcibly in the internal affairs of countries which we have not conquered in
war. But we must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles
of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the
English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the
Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous
expression in the American Declaration of Independence.
All this means that the people of any country have the
right, and should have the power by constitutional action, by free unfettered
elections, with secret ballot, to choose or change the character or form of
government under which they dwell; that freedom of speech and thought should
reign; that courts of justice, independent of the executive, unbiased by any
party, should administer laws which have received the broad assent of large
majorities or are consecrated by time and custom. Here are the title deeds of
freedom which should lie in every cottage home. Here is the message of the
British and American peoples to mankind. Let us preach what we practise—let us
practise what we preach.
I have now stated the two great dangers which menace the
homes of the people: War and Tyranny. I have not yet spoken of poverty and
privation which are in many cases the prevailing anxiety. But if the dangers of
war and tyranny are removed, there is no doubt that science and co-operation can
bring in the next few years to the world, certainly in the next few decades
newly taught in the sharpening school of war, an expansion of material
well-being beyond anything that has yet occurred in human experience. Now, at
this sad and breathless moment, we are plunged in the hunger and distress which
are the aftermath of our stupendous struggle; but this will pass and may pass
quickly, and there is no reason except human folly or sub-human crime which
should deny to all the nations the inauguration and enjoyment of an age of
plenty. I have often used words which I learned fifty years ago from a great
Irish-American orator, a friend of mine, Mr. Bourke Cockran, 'There is enough
for all. The earth is a generous mother; she will provide in plentiful abundance
food for all her children if they will but cultivate her soil in justice and in
peace.' So far I feel that we are in full agreement.
Now, while still pursuing the method of realising our
overall strategic concept, I come to the crux of what I have travelled here to
say. Neither the sure prevention of war, nor the continuous rise of world
organisation will be gained without what I have called the fraternal association
of the English-speaking peoples. This means a special relationship between the
British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States. This is no time for
generalities, and I will venture to be precise. Fraternal association requires
not only the growing friendship and mutual understanding between our two vast
but kindred systems of society, but the continuance of the intimate relationship
between our military advisers, leading to common study of potential dangers, the
similarity of weapons and manuals of instructions, and to the interchange of
officers and cadets at technical colleges. It should carry with it the
continuance of the present facilities for mutual security by the joint use of
all Naval and Air Force bases in the possession of either country all over the
world. This would perhaps double the mobility of the American Navy and Air
Force. It would greatly expand that of the British Empire Forces and it might
well lead, if and as the world calms down, to important financial savings.
Already we use together a large number of islands; more may well be entrusted to
our joint care in the near future.
The United States has already a Permanent Defence
Agreement with the Dominion of Canada, which is so devotedly attached to the
British Commonwealth and Empire. This Agreement is more effective than many of
those which have often been made under formal alliances. This principle should
be extended to all British Commonwealths with full reciprocity. Thus, whatever
happens, and thus only, shall we be secure ourselves and able to work together
for the high and simple causes that are dear to us and bode no ill to any.
Eventually there may come—I feel eventually there will come—the principle of
common citizenship, but that we may be content to leave to destiny, whose
outstretched arm many of us can already clearly see.
There is however an important question we must ask
ourselves. Would a special relationship between the United States and the
British Commonwealth be inconsistent with our over-riding loyalties to the World
Organisation? I reply that, on the contrary, it is probably the only means by
which that organisation will achieve its full stature and strength. There are
already the special United States relations with Canada which I have just
mentioned, and there are the special relations between the United States and the
South American Republics. We British have our twenty years Treaty of
Collaboration and Mutual Assistance with Soviet Russia. I agree with Mr. Bevin,
the Foreign Secretary of Great Britain, that it might well be a fifty years
Treaty so far as we are concerned. We aim at nothing but mutual assistance and
collaboration. The British have an alliance with Portugal unbroken since 1384,
and which produced fruitful results at critical moments in the late war. None of
these clash with the general interest of a world agreement, or a world
organisation; on the contrary they help it. 'In my father's house are many
mansions.' Special associations between members of the United Nations which have
no aggressive point against any other country, which harbour no design
incompatible with the Charter of the United Nations, far from being harmful, are
beneficial and, as I believe, indispensable.
I spoke earlier of the Temple of Peace. Workmen from all
countries must build that temple. If two of the workmen know each other
particularly well and are old friends, if their families are inter-mingled, and
if they have 'faith in each other's purpose, hope in each other's future and
charity towards each other's shortcomings'—to quote some good words I read here
the other day—why cannot they work together at the common task as friends and
partners? Why cannot they share their tools and thus increase each other's
working powers? Indeed they must do so or else the temple may not be built, or,
being built, it may collapse, and we shall all be proved again unteachable and
have to go and try to learn again for a third time in a school of war,
incomparably more rigorous than that from which we have just been released. The
dark ages may return, the Stone Age may return on the gleaming wings of science,
and what might now shower immeasurable material blessings upon mankind, may even
bring about its total destruction. Beware, I say; time may be short. Do not let
us take the course of allowing events to drift along until it is too late. If
there is to be a fraternal association of the kind I have described, with all
the extra strength and security which both our countries can derive from it, let
us make sure that that great fact is known to the world, and that it plays its
part in steadying and stabilising the foundations of peace. There is the path of
wisdom. Prevention is better than cure.
A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by
the Allied victory. Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist
international organisation intends to do in the immediate future, or what are
the limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytising tendencies. I have a
strong admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my wartime
comrade, Marshal Stalin. There is deep sympathy and goodwill in Britain—and I
doubt not here also—towards the peoples of all the Russias and a resolve to
persevere through many differences and rebuffs in establishing lasting
friendships. We understand the Russian need to be secure on her western
frontiers by the removal of all possibility of German aggression. We welcome
Russia to her rightful place among the leading nations of the world. We welcome
her flag upon the seas. Above all, we welcome constant, frequent and growing
contacts between the Russian people and our own people on both sides of the
Atlantic. It is my duty however, for I am sure you would wish me to state the
facts as I see them to you, to place before you certain facts about the present
position in Europe.
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 many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow. Athens
alone—Greece with its immortal glories—is free to decide its future at an
election under British, American and French observation. The Russian-dominated
Polish Government has been encouraged to make enormous and wrongful inroads upon
Germany, and mass expulsions of millions of Germans on a scale grievous and
undreamed-of are now taking place. The Communist parties, which were very small
in all these Eastern States of Europe, have been raised to pre-eminence and
power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian
control. Police governments are prevailing in nearly every case, and so far,
except in Czechoslovakia, there is no true democracy.
Turkey and Persia are both profoundly alarmed and
disturbed at the claims which are being made upon them and at the pressure being
exerted by the Moscow Government. An attempt is being made by the Russians in
Berlin to build up a quasi-Communist party in their zone of Occupied Germany by
showing special favours to groups of left-wing German leaders. At the end of the
fighting last June, the American and British Armies withdrew westwards, in
accordance with an earlier agreement, to a depth at some points of 150 miles
upon a front of nearly four hundred miles, in order to allow our Russian allies
to occupy this vast expanse of territory which the Western Democracies had
conquered.
If now the Soviet Government tries, by separate action,
to build up a pro-Communist Germany in their areas, this will cause new serious
difficulties in the British and American zones, and will give the defeated
Germans the power of putting themselves up to auction between the Soviets and
the Western Democracies. Whatever conclusions may be drawn from these facts—and
facts they are—this is certainly not the Liberated Europe we fought to build up.
Nor is it one which contains the essentials of permanent peace.
The safety of the world requires a new unity in Europe,
from which no nation should be permanently outcast. It is from the quarrels of
the strong parent races in Europe that the world wars we have witnessed, or
which occurred in former times, have sprung. Twice in our own lifetime we have
seen the United States, against their wishes and their traditions, against
arguments, the force of which it is impossible not to comprehend, drawn by
irresistible forces, into these wars in time to secure the victory of the good
cause, but only after frightful slaughter and devastation had occurred. Twice
the United States has had to send several millions of its young men across the
Atlantic to find the war; but now war can find any nation, wherever it may dwell
between dusk and dawn. Surely we should work with conscious purpose for a grand
pacification of Europe, within the structure of the United Nations and in
accordance with its Charter. That I feel is an open cause of policy of very
great importance.
In front of the iron curtain which lies across Europe
are other causes for anxiety. In Italy the Communist Party is seriously hampered
by having to support the Communist-trained Marshal Tito's claims to former
Italian territory at the head of the Adriatic. Nevertheless the future of Italy
hangs in the balance. Again one cannot imagine a regenerated Europe without a
strong France. All my public life I have worked for a strong France and I never
lost faith in her destiny, even in the darkest hours. I will not lose faith now.
However, in a great number of countries, far from the Russian frontiers and
throughout the world, Communist fifth columns are established and work in
complete unity and absolute obedience to the directions they receive from the
Communist centre. 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 civilisation. These are
sombre facts for anyone to have to recite on the morrow of a victory gained by
so much splendid comradeship in arms and in the cause of freedom and democracy;
but we should be most unwise not to face them squarely while time remains.
The outlook is also anxious in the Far East and
especially in Manchuria. The Agreement which was made at Yalta, to which I was a
party, was extremely favourable to Soviet Russia, but it was made at a time when
no one could say that the German war might not extend all through the summer and
autumn of 1945 and when the Japanese war was expected to last for a further 18
months from the end of the German war. In this country you are all so
well-informed about the Far East, and such devoted friends of China, that I do
not need to expatiate on the situation there.
I have felt bound to portray the shadow which, alike in
the west and in the east, falls upon the world. I was a high minister at the
time of the Versailles Treaty and a close friend of Mr. Lloyd-George, who was
the head of the British delegation at Versailles. I did not myself agree with
many things that were done, but I have a very strong impression in my mind of
that situation, and I find it painful to contrast it with that which prevails
now. In those days there were high hopes and unbounded confidence that the wars
were over, and that the League of Nations would become all-powerful. I do not
see or feel that same confidence or even the same hopes in the haggard world at
the present time.
On the other hand I repulse the idea that a new war is
inevitable; still more that it is imminent. It is because I am sure that our
fortunes are still in our own hands and that we hold the power to save the
future, that I feel the duty to speak out now that I have the occasion and the
opportunity to do so. I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they
desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and
doctrines. But what we have to consider here today while time remains, is the
permanent prevention of war and the establishment of conditions of freedom and
democracy as rapidly as possible in all countries. Our difficulties and dangers
will not be removed by closing our eyes to them. They will not be removed by
mere waiting to see what happens; nor will they be removed by a policy of
appeasement. What is needed is a settlement, and the longer this is delayed, the
more difficult it will be and the greater our dangers will become.
From what I have seen of our Russian friends and Allies
during the war, I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as
strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for
weakness, especially military weakness. For that reason the old doctrine of a
balance of power is unsound. We cannot afford, if we can help it, to work on
narrow margins, offering temptations to a trial of strength. If the Western
Democracies stand together in strict adherence to the principles of the United
Nations Charter, their influence for furthering those principles will be immense
and no one is likely to molest them. If however they become divided or falter in
their duty and if these all-important years are allowed to slip away then indeed
catastrophe may overwhelm us all.
Last time I saw it all coming and cried aloud to my own
fellow-countrymen and to the world, but no one paid any attention. Up till the
year 1933 or even 1935, Germany might have been saved from the awful fate which
has overtaken her and we might all have been spared the miseries Hitler let
loose upon mankind. There never was a war in all history easier to prevent by
timely action than the one which has just desolated such great areas of the
globe. It could have been prevented in my belief without the firing of a single
shot, and Germany might be powerful, prosperous and honoured to-day; but no one
would listen and one by one we were all sucked into the awful whirlpool. We
surely must not let that happen again. This can only be achieved by reaching
now, in 1946, a good understanding on all points with Russia under the general
authority of the United Nations Organisation and by the maintenance of that good
understanding through many peaceful years, by the world instrument, supported by
the whole strength of the English-speaking world and all its connections. There
is the solution which I respectfully offer to you in this Address to which I
have given the title 'The Sinews of Peace.'
Let no man underrate the abiding power of the British
Empire and Commonwealth. Because you see the 46 millions in our island harassed
about their food supply, of which they only grow one half, even in war-time, or
because we have difficulty in restarting our industries and export trade after
six years of passionate war effort, do not suppose that we shall not come
through these dark years of privation as we have come through the glorious years
of agony, or that half a century from now, you will not see 70 or 80 millions of
Britons spread about the world and united in defence of our traditions, our way
of life, and of the world causes which you and we espouse. If the population of
the English-speaking Commonwealths be added to that of the United States with
all that such co-operation implies in the air, on the sea, all over the globe
and in science and in industry, and in moral force, there will be no quivering,
precarious balance of power to offer its temptation to ambition or adventure. On
the contrary, there will be an overwhelming assurance of security. If we adhere
faithfully to the Charter of the United Nations and walk forward in sedate and
sober strength seeking no one's land or treasure, seeking to lay no arbitrary
control upon the thoughts of men; if all British moral and material forces and
convictions are joined with your own in fraternal association, the highroads of
the future will be clear, not only for us but for all, not only for our time,
but for a century to come.
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