|
The
Sinews of Peace
Winston
Churchill's
"Iron Curtain" Speech
Westminster College,
Fulton, Missouri,
March
5, 1946
I
am very glad, indeed, to come to Westminster College
this afternoon, and I am complimented that you
should give me a degree from an institution whose
reputation has been so solidly accepted. It is the
name Westminster, somehow or other, which seems
familiar to me. I feel as if I'd heard of it before.
Indeed, now that I come to think of it, it was at
Westminster that I received a very large part of my
education in politics, dialectics, rhetoric, and one
or two other things. In fact, we have both been
educated at the same, or similar, or at an rate
kindred, establishments.
It
is also an honor, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps
almost unique, for a private visitor to be
introduced to an academic audience by the president
of the United States. Amid his heavy burdens,
duties, and responsibilities--unsought but not
recoiled from--the president has traveled a thousand
miles to dignify and magnify our meeting here today,
and to give me an opportunity of addressing this
kindred nation, as well as my own countrymen across
the ocean, and perhaps some other countries too.
The
president has told you that it is his wish, as I am
sure it is yours, that I should have full liberty to
give my true and faithful counsel in these anxious
and baffling times. I shall certainly avail myself
of this freedom and feel the more right to do so
because any private ambitions I may have cherished
in my younger days have been satisfied beyond my
wildest dreams.
Let
me, however, make it clear that I have no official
mission or status of any kind, and that I speak only
for myself. There is nothing here but what you see.
I can, therefore, allow my mind, with the experience
of a lifetime, to play over the problems which beset
us on the morrow of our absolute victory in arms,
and try to make sure, with what strength I have,
that what has been gained with so much sacrifice and
suffering shall be preserved for the future glory
and safety of mankind.
Ladies
and gentlemen, the United States stands at this time
at the pinnacle of world power. It is a solemn
moment for the American democracy, for with this
primacy in power is also joined an awe-inspiring
accountability to the future. As you look around
you, you must feel not only the sense of duty done,
but also you must feel anxiety lest you fall below
the level of achievement. Opportunity is here now,
clear and shining, for both our countries. To reject
it or ignore it or fritter it away will bring upon
us all the long reproaches of the aftertime.
It
is necessary that constancy of mind, persistency of
purpose, and the grand simplicity of decision shall
rule and guide the conduct of the English-speaking
peoples in peace as they did in war. We must--and I
believe we shall--prove ourselves equal to this
severe requirement.
President
McCluer, when American military men approach some
serious situation, they are wont to write at the
head of their directive the words "Overall
Strategic Concept." There is wisdom in this, as
it leads to clarity of thought. What, then, is the
overall strategic concept which we should inscribe
today? It is nothing less than the safety and
welfare, the freedom and progress, of all the homes
and families of all the men and women in all the
lands. And here I speak particularly of the myriad
cottage or apartment homes where the wage earner
strives, amid the accidents and difficulties of
life, to guard his wife and children from privation
and bring the family up in the fear of the Lord, or
upon ethical conceptions which often play their
potent part.
To
give security to these countless homes they must be
shielded from the two gaunt marauders--war and
tyranny. We all know the frightful disturbance in
which the ordinary family is plunged when the cure
of war swoops down upon the breadwinner, and those
for whom he works and contrives.
The
awful ruin of Europe, with all its vanished glories,
and of large parts of Asia, glares us in the eyes.
When
the designs of wicked men or the aggressive urge of
mighty states dissolve, over large ares, the frame
of civilized society, humble folk are confronted
with difficulties with which they cannot cope. For
them all is distorted, all is broken or is even
ground to pulp.
When
I stand here this quiet afternoon, I shudder to
visualize what is actually happening to millions now
and what is going to happen in this period when
famine stalks the earth. None can compute what has
been called "the unestimated sum of human
pain." Our supreme task and duty is to guard
the homes of the common people from the horrors and
miseries of another war. We are all agreed on that.
Our
American military colleagues, after having
proclaimed their "overall strategic
concept" and computed available resources,
always proceed to the next step--namely, the method.
Here again there is widespread agreement.
A
world organization has already been erected for the
prime purpose of preventing war. UNO, the successor
to the League of Nations, with the decisive addition
of the United States and all that that means, is
already at work.
We
must make sure that its work is fruitful, that it is
a reality and not merely a frothing of words, that
it is a true temple of peace, in which the shields
of many nations can someday be hung up, and not
merely a cockpit in a tower of Babel.
Before
we cast away the solid assurances of our national
armaments for self-preservation, we must be certain
that our temple is built not upon shiftin sands or
quagmires but upon the rock. Anyone can see, with
his eyes open, that our path will be difficult and
also long, but if we persevere together as we did in
the two world wars--but not, alas, in the interval
between them--I cannot doubt that we shall achieve
our common purpose in the end.
I
have, however, a definite and practical proposal to
make for action. Courts and magistrates may be set
up, but they cannot function without sheriffs and
constables. The United Nations Organization must
immediately begin to be equipped with an
international armed force. In such a matter we can
only go step by step; but we must begin now.
I
propose that each of the powers and states should be
invited to dedicate a certain number of air
squadrons to the service of the world organization.
These squadrons would be trained and prepared in
their own countries but would move around in
rotation from one country to another. They would
wear the uniform of their own nation but in other
respects they would be directed by the world
organization.
This
might be started on a modest scale, and it would
grow as confidence grew.
I
wished to see this done after the First World War,
and I devoutly trust that it may be done forthwith.
It
would, nevertheless, ladies and gentlemen, be wrong
and imprudent to entrust the secret knowledge or
experience of the atomic bomb, which the United
States, Great Britain, and Canada now share, to the
world organization while it is still in its infancy.
It would be criminal madness to cast it adrift in
this still agitated and un-united world.
No
one in any country has slept less well in their beds
because this knowledge and the method and the raw
materials to apply it are at present largely
retained in American hands.
I
do not believe that we should have all slept so
soundly had the positions been reversed and some
Communist or neo-Fascist state monopolized, for the
time being, these dread agents. The fear of them
alone might easily have been used to enforce
totalitarian systems upon the free democratic world,
with consequences appalling to human imagination.
God
has willed that this shall not be, and we have at
least a breathing space to set our house in order,
before this peril has to be encountered, and even
then, if no effort is spared, we shall still possess
so formidable a superiority as to impose effective
deterrents upon its employment or threat of
employment by others.
Ultimately,
when the essential brotherhood of man is truly
embodied and expressed in the world organization,
with all the necessary practical safeguards to make
it effective, these powers would naturally be
confided to that organization.
Now
I come to the second of the two marauders, to the
second danger which threatens the cottage home and
ordinary people--namely tyranny. We cannot be blind
to the fact that the liberties enjoyed by individual
citizens throughout the United States and throughout
the British Empire are not valid in a considerable
number of countries, some of which are very
powerful.
In
these states, control is enforced upon the common
people by various kinds of all-embracing police
governments, to a degree which is overwhelming and
contrary to every principle of democracy. The power
of the state is exercised without restraint, either
by dictators or by compact oligarchies operating
through a privileged party and a political police.
It
is not our duty at this time, when difficulties are
so numerous, to interfere forcibly in the internal
affairs of countries which we have not conquered in
war, but we must never cease to proclaim in fearless
tones the great principles of freedom and the rights
of man, which are the joint inheritance of the
English-speaking world and which, through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the habeas corpus, trial
by jury, and the English common law, find their most
famous expression in the American Declaration of
Independence.
All
this means that the people of every country have the
right and should have the power by constitutional
action, by free, unfettered elections, with secret
ballot, to choose or change the character of or form
of government under which they dwell, that freedom
of speech and thought should reign, that courts of
justice independent of the executive, unbiased by
any party, should administer laws which have
received the broad assent of large majorities or are
consecrated by time and custom. Here are the title
deeds of freedom, which should lie in every cottage
home. Here is the message of the British and
American peoples to mankind. Let us preach what we
practice; let us practice what we preach.
I
have stated the two great dangers which menace the
homes of the people: war and tyranny. I have not yet
spoken of poverty and privation, which are in many
cases the prevailing anxiety. But if the dangers of
war and tyranny are removed, there is no doubt that
science and cooperation can bring in the next few
years, certainly in the next few decades, to the
world, new-taught in the sharpening school of war,
an expansion of material well-being beyond anything
that has yet occurred in human experience.
Now,
at this sad and breathless moment, we are plunged in
the hunger and distress which are the aftermath of
our stupendous struggle; but this will pass and may
pass quickly, and there is no reason except human
folly or subhuman crime which should deny to all the
nations the inauguration and enjoyment of an age of
plenty.
I
have often used words which I learned fifty years
ago from a great Irish-American orator, a friend of
mine, Mr. Bourke Cochran, "There is enough for
all. The earth is a generous mother; she will
provide in plentiful abundance food or all her
children if they will but cultivate her soil in
justice and in peace." So far I feel that we
are in full agreement.
Now,
while still pursuing the method of realizing our
overall strategic concept, I come to the crux of
what I have traveled here to say.
Neither
the sure prevention of war nor the continuous rise
of world organization will be gained without what I
have called the fraternal association of the
English-speaking peoples. This means a special
relationship between the British Commonwealth and
Empire and the United States of America.
Ladies
and gentlemen, this is no time for generalities, and
I will venture to be precise.
Fraternal
association requires not only the growing friendship
and mutual understanding between our two vast but
kindred systems of society, but the continuance of
the intimate relationships between our military
advisers, leading to common study of potential
dangers, the similarity of weapons and manuals of
instruction, and the interchange of officers and
cadets at technical colleges.
It
should carry with it the continuance of the present
facilities for mutual security by the joint use of
all naval and air force bses in the possession of
either country all over the world.
This
would perhaps double the mobility of the American
navy and air force. It would greatly expand that of
the British Empire forces, and it might well lead,
if and as the world calms down, to important
financial savings.
Already
we use together a large number of islands, more may
well be entrusted to our joint care in the near
future. The United States has already a permanent
defense agreement with the Dominion of Canada, which
is so devotedly attached to the British commonwealth
and Empire. This agreement is more effective than
many of those which have often been made under
formal alliances. This principle should be extended
to all the British Commonwealths with full
reciprocity.
Thus,
whatever happens, and thus only, shall we be secure
ourselves and able to work together for the high and
simple causes that are dear to us and bode no ill to
any. Eventually there may come, I feel eventually
there will come, the principle of common
citizenship, but that we may be content to leave to
destiny, whose outstretched arm so many of us can
already clearly see.
There
is, however, an important question we must ask
ourselves. Would a special relationship between the
United States and the British Commonwealth be
inconsistent with our overriding loyalties to the
world organization? I reply that, on the contrary,
it is probably the only means by which that
organization will achieve its full stature and
strength. There are already the special United
States relations with Canada, which I just
mentioned, and there are the relations between the
United States and the South American republics.
We
British have also our twenty years' treaty of
collaboration and mutual assistance with Soviet
Russia. I agree with Mr. Bevin, the foreign
secretary of GReat Britain, that it might well be a
fifty years' treaty so far as we are concerned. We
aim at nothing but mutual assistance and
collaboration with Russia. We have an alliance, the
British, with Portugal, unbroken since the year 1384
and which produced fruitful results at a critical
moment in the recent war. None of these clash with
the general interest of a world organization. On the
contrary, they help it.
"In
my father's house there are many mansions."
Special associations between members of the United
Nations which have no aggressive point against any
other country, which harbor no design against the
Charter of the United Nations, far from being
harmful, are beneficial, and, as I believe,
indispensable.
I
spoke earlier, ladies and gentlemen, of the temple
of peace. Workmen from all countries must build that
temple. If two of the workmen know each other
particularly well and are old friends, if their
families are intermingled and if they have faith in
each other's purpose, hope in each other's future,
and charity toward each other's shortcomings, to
quote some good words I read here the other day, why
I cannot.
|
