1 - Winston Churchill

FULTON +50new world war was preventable if the West banded togetherto deter aggression.Perhaps most important, Churchill reminded his listenersthat "last time I saw [war] coming and criedaloud in the wilderness, but no one paid any attention."The meaning was unmistakable: Though he hadwarned the West about Hitler in the 1930s, the Westhad ignored him. The tragic result was World War II.Now, in 1946, he was warning us again. If we wished toavoid another cataclysm, we would do well to pay heedthis time.Fortunately, the West did heed what was said thatday in Fulton. Through the Marshall Plan and NATO,America as leaders of the free world halted communism'swestward spread from Eastern Europe and vigorouslyopposed it elsewhere. During President Reagan'ssecond term, Soviet communism began to falterand during President Bush's tenure it seemingly collapsedpermanently. Thus was Churchill vindicated.Churchill died well before the Soviet downfall he hadso ardently desired. Throughout his adult life, he contestednot only Soviet tyranny, but tyranny everywhere.Were he alive today, and concluding that the world's remainingdespotisms are at our mercy, would he beshocked to discover that we are coddling them? Wouldhe be astonished by our failure since the TiananmenSquare massacre to censure China or to press it to institutegenuine democratic reforms?The placating of despotism shows how we have forgottenthe heart and meaning of Churchill's utteranceson 5 March 1946. During this, an election year, weshould remember them. $3The Iron Curtain Speech and Churchill'sPhilosophy of International PoliticsWhat seems like a simple interpretation of the obvioustoday was viewed as anything but that in 1946 — by bothsides of the political spectrum. But Churchill was basinghis thoughts on the mature reflections of a lifetime'sexperience, derived from a considered political philosophyBY SPENCER WARRENCHURCHILL'S "Sinews of Peace" speech, deliveredin the gymnasium of Westminster College,Fulton, Missouri, on 5 March 1946, is renownedas one of the greatest and most significant speeches ofthe twentieth century. It was made at a pregnant momentin history, as America's wartime alliance withStalin's Soviet Russia was beginning to turn in the directionof Cold War. Behind its carefully wrought wordslay a half century of Churchill's study and observationof international politics, and a philosophy whose rootscan be traced to some of the great thinkers of the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries.Churchill journeyed to Missouri to instruct the newMr Warr^islr^nTof The Insider's Washington Experiencea public policy seminar program^ This article is excerptedfrom a pa'per delivered to the 50th Anmversary of theSinews of Peace Churchill Conference, cosponsored by ICS«nHThP Churchill Memorial, at Jefferson City, Missouri onMarcl!?£ hU M r Sof this article was published as "ChurchillsReaHsm: Reflections on the Fulton Speech," m the Winter1995/96 issue of The National Interest.American colossus — still learning its novel role in theworld — in some of the brutal realities of power: theneed for an Anglo-American alliance to maintain thebalance of power against the increasingly evident Sovietthreat, and, toward that end, the importance ofcontinued Western monopoly of the atomic bomb.(Many, including the former Secretary of War, HenryStimson, and Under Secretary of State Dean Acheson,were at the time so awed by the destructive power ofthe new weapon that they were sympathetic to sharingthe nuclear secret with Russia as part of a system of internationalcontrol.)Knowing well his American audience and its morallegalistic— and decidedly un-British — tradition in foreignaffairs, Churchill elaborately dressed up his messagein the promising new garb of the United Nations(in which he personally placed little faith) and in theconcept of the "special relationship" (in which he believeddevoutly). Nevertheless, his message camethrough loud and clear, and set off a storm of controversy.Churchill's speech came as a shock to manyFINEST HOUR 89/29