Our Supreme Task

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.”

With these words, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill officially ushered in the Cold War era. In Our Supreme Task, historian Philip White tells the dramatic story of Churchill’s 1946 trip to Fulton, Missouri, where he delivered his landmark Iron Curtain Speech, which defined the dangers of Soviet Communism and crystallized the postwar alliance between Britain and America.

Voted out of power after World War II, Churchill watched from the sidelines as Communism engulfed Eastern Europe. Soon, the people of Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia and Poland all found themselves in the grip of the Soviets. The Red Army occupied a large German territory. And the Kremlin was manipulating post-war food shortages, labor disputes and social unrest in Greece, France and Italy.

White begins his narrative with the Potsdam Conference of 1945. Although at the Yalta Conference five months earlier Stalin had pledged to hold free elections in Eastern Europe, at Potsdam it became clear that he had no intention of honoring his words. Churchill returned home from Potsdam only to lose the general election of July 1945. Without the affairs of state to occupy his business, Churchill began examining the Soviet conundrum from various angles. It was then he realized that he didn’t need the pulpit of 10 Downing Street to make an impact on the world stage. So, when Churchill received an invitation from Westminster College President Franc Lewis McCluer to deliver a lecture in Fulton (with a postscript from Harry S. Truman noting that “This is a wonderful school in my home state. Hope you can do it.”), he saw the opportunity to share his views with the world.

Once the date was set—March 5—preparations began in earnest. The Secret Service arrived to survey the scene. Radio networks began running wires across the campus to broadcast the event. Seating, eating and guest list arrangements were finalized. It was to be the biggest day in Fulton’s history since Jefferson Davis’ visit to the town in 1875. When the day finally arrived, pomp was in no short supply—but it was Churchill’s words that had the greatest impact. While the speech initially met with outright hostility from a war-weary American public, it ultimately helped solidify the positions of the Atlee and Truman governments on Russia and inspired such future leaders as Thatcher, Reagan and Gorbachev to settle their nations’ differences through diplomacy instead of armed conflict.

Our Supreme Task offers an indelible portrait of a legendary figure at an important crossroads, of the small town that gave itself as his stage, and the lasting legacy of the words spoken there.