Significance of the 'iron curtain' speech 1946

    Cards (6)

    • In March 1946 Churchill delivered a speech in Fulton, Missouri, during a visit to America. The speech was called 'The Sinews of Peace' but was seen as initiating the Cold War.
    • This speech had a major impact worldwide. Churchill made the phrase 'iron curtain' famous and enabled the West to label Soviet-dominated eastern Europe as 'the iron curtain countries'. It set up the image in the minds of many in the West of a real and permanent division between West and East and helped to create international tension. It was seen as a very hostile speech by Stalin and increased international tension.
    • It has been seen as the beginning of the Cold War, as influencing opinion in the USA towards a policy of containment of communism and of hardening attitudes in both West and East.
    • Though subsequently seen as one of the key speeches that rallied opinion behind opposition to Soviet expansion, it was delivered at a time when there was considerable approval for a return to peace and gratitude for the sacrifices of the USSR. This was to change, but at the time there was criticism of the speech as being irresponsible. The Chicago Sun newspaper called it 'poisonous' and there were some protesters outside Churchill's hotel in New York on his way back home. Truman did not immediately state his agreement.
    • The speech did not in itself bring about the Cold War. Anti-communist pressures in the USA had been building up beforehand, and Truman was unsympathetic to communism, as were influential foreign policy experts like George F. Kennan who saw Stalin following a long tradition of Russian expansionism going back to the 18th century and called for US action to contain the threat.
    • The speech is often only quoted and referred to in part and Churchill also advocated understanding with the USSR.