by Alan Watson
At this moment – as so often with Churchill – logistics intervened. Suddenly the car in which Sturdee was travelling ‘started smoking out of everywhere and gave out on us’.2 The convoy halted. They had to transfer to the still empty and open presidential car, and she was soon ‘bowling along the roads at 70 mph – hair flying’. It was, she wrote to her parents, ‘the nearest I will ever get to fame’. And it didn‘t last. Churchill and Truman had to seat themselves for the crowds and both of them did so, looking at Sturdee as if to say ‘What do you mean by riding in our car?’3
Fulton itself had taken on the appearance of a country fair and a political rally. The Daily Telegraph’s reporter assured British readers that in Fulton ‘Isolationism is unknown. People speak of Mr. Churchill not as a foreign statesman but as one of their own great heroes.’4 All the streets were decked with flags. People were sporting ‘Churchill–Truman Day’ badges, three bands were blaring away, loudspeakers had been set up throughout the town and would relay the speeches to 40,000 people and radio would broadcast the event to the world. The town’s fourteen policemen had been joined by 500 state troopers. Fulton had never seen anything like it and, although famous political leaders have visited since, no event has matched the impact of Churchill.
Dr McCluer, who had sent the invitation to Churchill, now sat in the open car between him and the president as they drove up to his home. As president of the college he was the host. Members of his board and faculty would join them for a lunch of locally cured ham – the gastronomic pride of Fulton’s farmers.
Fulton was a dry county and Westminster a Presbyterian institution. What they all wanted and doubtless needed was a drink.
Sturdee tells the tale:
Back everyone troops to the President of the College’s house gasping for a drink. No drink as it is a Presbyterian house. Fortunately though Dr. Harris who was looking after Mrs. Churchill in Florida and who had been requested by the Churchills to come along . . . had brought along a little ‘just in case of anything’. So one by one we were tapped on the shoulder and informed that Dr. Harris thought we needed medical attention and would we step in there – a WC. Ah heaven – and each came staggering out feeling the world was a friendlier place after all.5
Meanwhile the meal was enjoyed by the sixty people crowded into the college president’s house and promptly, at 3pm, resplendent in their honoris causa regalia, Truman and Churchill entered the college gymnasium next door.
It was packed to the ceiling with tiers of seats and 2,800 guests. One hundred press and radio reporters and cameramen added to the scene in an atmosphere that crackled with excitement. The college chapel and three churches were used as overflow halls. All was ready for a speech expected by the press to be ‘one of his greatest orations’.6
The Governor of Missouri, Mr Donnelly, began proceedings by welcoming Churchill to the ‘heart of America’. Then Truman made good on his promise to introduce Churchill: ‘One of the greatest pleasures and privileges I have had since I have been President.’7 Finally it was Churchill’s turn. The speech, which had first been billed as ‘World Affairs’ and then ‘World Peace’ and eventually ‘The Sinews of Peace’, boomed across the hall. It was relayed to the thousands outside by loudspeaker and to the millions around the United States and the world by radio including Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet foreign minister, then visiting Canada, who was later to condemn it as ‘a bad speech’.8
However, in the Fulton gymnasium it seemed to go down exceptionally well. There were so many bursts of applause that Churchill had to pause intermittently, theatrically examining his gold pocket watch – they were stealing his minutes, after all.
It took forty-five minutes to deliver and Churchill clearly enjoyed every second. It was a speech of destiny. He was at the very centre of the world’s attention. Beside him the president of the USA was joining, sometimes leading, the applause. He knew he had Attlee’s support. He wanted to create more than a stir. He wanted to change the landscape. He was building his legacy.
The speech itself was complex, multi-faceted and conspicuously Victorian in some of its language and sentiment. It ticked the boxes it had to tick. There is his disclaimer that he does not speak for any government, especially his own or that of the United States. It was Truman’s wish that he give his ‘true and faithful counsel in these anxious and baffling times’.9 Churchill will do so ‘because any private ambitions I [Churchill] may have cherished in my younger days have been satisfied beyond my wildest dreams’.10 He had fulfilled his ambitions and thus could bring objectivity to what he had to say. Of course, as became evident, the speech itself was about to reignite his further ambition to return to Number 10.
Churchill was well aware of the support he needed to give to the priorities of Roosevelt, thus his support for the new United Nations Organisation. Accordingly, he carefully avoided any criticism of Roosevelt, and his painfully obvious preference in his final months for Stalin’s advice rather than that of the prime minister.
When, before the war, he had sought to raise the alarm that tyranny and war threatened the world he had ‘cried aloud to my own fellow countrymen and to the world but no one paid any attention’. Now it had to be different.
Before we go to the full text of the Fulton speech, there is one other aspect to underline. It is the Victorian imagery and the perception of reality as Churchill saw it. The world was stalked by ‘two giant marauders – war and tyranny’.11 War could ‘dissolve the frame of civilised society . . . confronting humble folk with difficulties with which they could not cope. For them all is distorted, all is broken, even ground to pulp.’12 In Churchill’s mind’s eye did he see not only the battlefields in Russia and in Germany but the pulverised cities of Germany and Japan? Churchill had wept upon viewing the film footage of the destruction of Dresden. ‘Has it come to this?’ he had asked, to the dismay of Air Marshal Harris, head of Bomber Command. Later he circulated a memorandum stating, ‘It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed’.
As to tyranny, Churchill, in a remarkable passage, describes what he seeks to protect: ‘the myriad cottage or apartment homes’ where liberty should be protected ‘where the title deeds of freedom should lie’ – Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, the English common law and ‘their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence’. Clearly he does not intend this to be taken literally but for him these are the priceless assets the Anglo-American inheritance needed now more than ever. It is a coincidence but a compelling one that the Queen Elizabeth, which had brought him to America in January, returned to Southampton carrying a Magna Carta which, during the war, had been in the safe keeping of the US government and now returned to Britain stowed under the bed of Commodore Biset.
Embedded in Churchill’s speech, itself a grand canvas of his concerns and beliefs, there is one paragraph that presages the speech he was subsequently to give at Zurich. It also echoes earlier expressions of his anxiety that the Soviet advance to the heart of Europe could result in Nazi dictatorship being replaced by Russian tyranny. In 1942 he had sent a memo to Anthony Eden arguing that a new form of democratic European union would be needed to counter this threat.
Now, in 1946, months before his call at Zurich for a European partnership, he told his Fulton audience that ‘the safety of the world requires a new unity in Europe, from which no nation should be permanently outcast’. What he was referring to was Germany.
The significance of this passage in the Fulton speech was missed by the press, the public and the politicians at the time but the signal was clear: Churchill was embarking on a grand new design. His ambition was nothing less than the construction of the ever-elusive alliance between Britain and the USA as well as a reconstructed Western Europe – the only unions that could, and in the event, would, hamper Stalin’s own ambition.
Here,
then, is the text of Churchill’s speech:
Fulton, Missouri, 5 March 1946, by Winston Churchill
I am glad to come to Westminster College this afternoon, and am complimented that you should give me a degree. The name ‘Westminster’ is somehow familiar to me. I seem to have heard of it before. Indeed, it was at Westminster that I received a very large part of my education in politics, dialectic, rhetoric, and one or two other things. In fact we have both been educated at the same time, or similar, or, at any rate, kindred establishments.
It is also an honour, 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 travelled 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 to 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 society of mankind.
The United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power. It is a solemn moment for the American Democracy. For with primacy in power is also joined an awe-inspiring accountability to the future. If you look around, 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 after-time. It is necessary that constancy of mind, persistency of purpose and the grand simplicity of decision shall guide and rule 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.
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 a 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 up on ethical conceptions which often play their potent part.
To give security to these countless homes, they must be shielded from the two giant marauders, war and tyranny. We all know the frightful disturbances in which the ordinary family is plunged when the curse of war swoops down upon the bread-winner and those for whom he works and contrives. The awful ruin of Europe, with all its vanished glories, and 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 areas the frame of civilised society, humble folk are confronted with difficulties with which they cannot cope. For them all is distorted, all is broken, even ground to pulp.
When I stand here this quiet afternoon I shudder to visualise 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 underestimated 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 having proclaimed the ‘overall strategic concept’ and computed available resources, always proceed to the next step – namely, the method. Here again there is widespread agreement. A world organisation has already been erected for the prime purpose of preventing war. UNO the successor of 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 a sham, that it is a force for action, 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 national armaments for self-preservation we must be certain that our temple is built, not upon shifting 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 – though 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 purpose to make for action. Courts and magistrates may be set up but they cannot function without sheriffs and constables. The United Nations Organisation 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 delegate a certain number of air squadrons to the service of the world organisation. 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 countries but with different badges. They would not be required to act against their own nation, but in other respects they would be directed by the world organisation. This might be started on a modest scale and would grow as confidence grew. I wished to see this done after the First World War, and I devoutly trust it may be done forthwith.
It would nevertheless 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 organisation, while it is still in 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 we should all have slept so soundly had the positions been reversed and if some Communist or neo-Fascist State monopolised for the time being these dread agencies. 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 a 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 should 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 a world organisation with all the necessary practical safeguards to make it effective, these powers would naturally be confided to that world organisation.
Now I come to the second danger of these two marauders, which threatens the cottage, the home, and the ordinary people – namely tyranny. We cannot be blind to the fact that the liberties enjoyed by individual citizens 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. 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 any 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 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 titled 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 practise – let us practise what we preach.
I have now 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 co-operation can bring in the next few years to the world, certainly in the next few decades newly 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 of sub-human 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 Cockran. ‘There is enough for all. The earth is a generous mother; she will provide in plentiful abundance food for 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.