IRON CURTAIN

• After losing the election in 1945, attention directed at the immediate post-war actions of the Soviet Union. Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, invited WSC to accept an honorary degree and to speak on 5th March 1946. He spent three months in the US travelling from New York to Florida where he would paint and work on his speeches. He chose to make his speech as an opportunity to draw attention to the new global realities and described a metaphorical iron curtain falling on Europe between the USSR and Western Europe.
• Truman & many US political and gov. elites were present to his talk, & it was received by Americans warmly. WSC was the first person to stop pretending to be friends with Russia leading to Stalin to call it racist & a call to war comparing WSC to Hitler. Within 3 weeks the Soviets had taken several steps: withdrew from the International Monetary Fund, stepped up the tone & intensity of anti-Western propaganda & initiated a new 5-year plan of self-strengthening. The speech led to a hardening on both sides and SC had defined publicly the new front line in what was now being seen as a new war.