Eighty years ago, Winston Churchill delivered a speech in Fulton, Missouri, that would define the post-war world. On 5 March 1946, the former British prime minister warned that 'from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.' His words captured the emerging division between the capitalist West and communist East, setting the stage for the Cold War.
Churchill was speaking as a private citizen, having been voted out of office in the 1945 general election. He had grown alarmed at the failure of Soviet armies to withdraw from Eastern European territories occupied during the war, and at the emergence of Soviet-backed regimes. He even considered a secret plan, Operation Unthinkable, to attack the USSR, but it was deemed unrealistic and abandoned.
The invitation to speak came from Westminster College, a small institution in Truman's home state. President Harry Truman endorsed the invitation and introduced Churchill, reading the speech text on the train to Missouri. Churchill titled his address 'Sinews of Peace', urging the United States to abandon isolationism and form a 'special relationship' with the British Commonwealth to guard against 'war and tyranny'.
The speech immediately stirred debate. It helped gauge American public opinion on the Soviet threat and cemented Churchill's role as a prophet of the Cold War. Though he was no longer leader, his warning resonated, and the 'Iron Curtain' became a lasting metaphor for the ideological divide that would persist for decades.
