Winston Churchill: Iron Curtain Speech (1946)
Explanation and Analysis of the Document
The John Findley Green Foundation lecture series at Westminster College was meant to showcase speakers talking about current political and economic events. Churchill was its seventh and most prominent speaker since the series began in 1937. President Harry Truman had persuaded him to come to the United States in lieu of a vacation trip to North Africa with the promise that if Churchill spoke at Westminster in Truman's home state of Missouri, Truman himself would introduce him. The introduction of a private citizen by a president of the United States was a clear sign of Truman's esteem for Churchill, as he made clear at the podium. Postwar enmities between the United States and the Soviet Union had not set in yet in March 1946.
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Churchill opens with a joke, saying that the name “Westminster”—the area of London that is the seat of government—seems familiar to him, and he thanks the president for the honor of his...
