Raymond J. de Souza: Churchill’s warning about the Russian threat still resonates, 80 years later

Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill Photo by OFF/AFP/Getty Images

Article content

DEVÍN, Slovakia — The name lasted much longer than the reality. Which is perhaps not surprising given who did the naming.

Article content

It was 80 years ago that Winston Churchill gave his Iron Curtain speech in Fulton, Mo. — formally titled, “The Sinews of Peace.” The Iron Curtain itself would be torn down 43 years later. While the Berlin Wall was its archetypal symbol, there were other points of maximum opportunity — and mortal danger.

Article content

Article content

Article content

Devín, in western Slovakia, draws visitors today due to the impressive ruins of Devín Castle, which tower above the town. (Napoleon’s retreating armies tore it down in 1809.) During the Cold War, some came here for other reasons — to make a break for freedom, or to break those who desired to be free.

Article content

Article content

Some of the more important folds of the Iron Curtain fell here, at the confluence of the Morava River and the Danube. Cross either river from what was then Czechoslovakia and there was freedom in Austria. The border was thus heavily fortified, complete with communist police and their barbed wire and their dogs.

Article content

The Morava is perhaps 15 metres wide here, a short but perilous crossing. There is a monument now to the 400 people shot dead who tried to cross. It records that Queen Elizabeth II visited in 2008, honouring their memory.

Article content

Churchill was not yet Her Late Majesty’s first prime minister when he travelled to Missouri to speak in 1946. Indeed, he was not even Sir Winston. U.S. President Harry Truman made the trip from Washington, D.C., to his home state to fete Churchill, less than a year after Churchill lost the July 1945 election. Still leader of the Opposition, Churchill was nevertheless in valedictory mode, albeit prematurely.

Article content

Article content

“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,” Churchill began. “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.”

Article content

Article content

The old man still had dreams, in fact. He returned to the premiership in 1951, and the knighthood would follow in 1953. But he spoke in 1946 with remarkable clarity about threats to peace, permitting himself to observe that had those in power paid heed to his warnings about Nazi Germany in the 1930s, war might have been avoided altogether.

Article content

Less than a year before the Iron Curtain speech, Britain, Canada and the United States were allies of the Soviet Union in war.

Article content

“I have a strong admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my wartime comrade, Marshal Stalin,” Churchill allowed, speaking of the need to “welcome Russia to her rightful place among the leading nations of the world.”