|
10/02/2003
Advice from Churchill
Back on September 18, 2003, Wall Street Journal contributing
editor, and the world’s top-ranked chess player, Garry Kasparov,
wrote an op-ed piece urging the Bush administration to be
tougher in its dealings with an increasingly autocratic Russia and
its president, Vladimir Putin. The column was timely in light of
Putin’s recent visit to Camp David for talks with President Bush
and Kasparov notes that Condoleezza Rice’s “rush to ‘forgive
Russia’ in fact was received by the Putin regime as a green light
for any drastic actions Mr. Putin might care to take in moving
toward a KGB regime back home.”
Kasparov adds, “Forgotten, it seems, is the creed with which
Ronald Reagan won the Cold War: ‘We must be staunch in our
conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky
few, but the inalienable and universal right of all human
beings.’”
But I want to focus on Kasparov’s thought in the same piece
that the U.S. is failing to offer a new vision of global
development, on the scale of Winston Churchill’s historic 1946
“Iron Curtain” speech, blaming the Bush administration for
reducing foreign policy to “a vehicle of crisis micro-
management.”
So let’s look at Churchill. In fact, once every few months I wish
our leaders would do the same.
What I found interesting, in doing a little research, was that a
year before his “Iron Curtain” speech, Churchill laid out the
same themes to President Harry Truman in a May 12, 1945
telegram.
Concerning the Soviet Union, Churchill wrote:
“I feel deep anxiety, because of their misinterpretation of the
Yalta decisions, their attitude towards Poland, their
overwhelming influence in the Balkans, excepting Greece, the
difficulties they make about Vienna, the combination of Russian
power and the territories under their control or occupied, coupled
with the Communist technique in so many other countries, and
above all their power to maintain very large armies in the field
for a long time
“What will be the position in a year or two, when the British and
American Armies have melted and the French has not yet been
formed on any major scale, when we may have a handful of
divisions, mostly French, and when Russia may choose to keep
two or three hundred on active service
“An iron curtain is drawn down upon their front. We do not
know what is going on behind. There seems little doubt that the
whole of the regions east of the line Lubeck-Trieste-Corfu will
soon be completely in their hands. To this must be added the
further enormous area conquered by the American armies
between Eisenach and the Elbe, which will, I suppose, in a few
weeks be occupied, when the Americans retreat, by the Russian
power.
“All kinds of arrangements will have to be made by General
Eisenhower to prevent another immense flight of the German
population westward as this enormous Muscovite advance into
the center of Europe takes place. And then the curtain will
descend again to a very large extent, if not entirely. Thus a broad
band of many hundreds of miles of Russian-occupied territory
will isolate us from Poland.
“Meanwhile the attention of our peoples will be occupied in
inflicting severities upon Germany, which is ruined and
prostrate, and it would be open to the Russians in a very short
time to advance if they chose to the waters of the North Sea and
Atlantic
“[Concluding] The issue of a settlement with Russia before our
strength has gone seems to me to dwarf all others.”
Truman replied:
“If it is handled firmly, before our strength is dispersed, Europe
may be saved another bloodbath. Otherwise the whole fruits of
our victory may be cast away and none of the purposes of World
Organization to prevent territorial aggression and future wars
will be attained.”
[Source: “A History of the Twentieth Century: Volume Two,”
Martin Gilbert]
May 14 and 15 the final surrenders in Europe took place. Just as
an interesting and gruesome aside, I read that the Germans lost
100,000 troops in Yugoslavia alone fighting those last two
months. [The Yugoslav civilian death toll during the entire war
was put at 1,700,000.]
A year later on February 9, 1946 in Moscow, Josef Stalin warned
that no peaceful international order was possible and he called
for a huge increase in defense expenditures at the cost of
consumer goods. Senior American diplomat George Kennan was
asked by the State Department to comment on Stalin’s words.
On February 22 Kennan cabled:
“Wherever it is considered timely and promising, efforts will be
made to advance official limits of Soviet power. For the
moment, these efforts are restricted to certain neighboring points
conceived of here as being of immediate strategic necessity, such
as Northern Iran, Turkey, possibly Bornholm (island in the
Baltic). However, other points may at any time come into
question, if Soviet political power is extended to new areas .
“(Soviet power), unlike that of Hitlerite Germany, is neither
schematic nor adventuristic. It does not work by fixed plans. It
does not take unnecessary risks. Impervious to logic or reason, it
will withdraw – and usually does – when strong resistance is
encountered at any point. Thus, if the adversary has sufficient
force and makes clear his readiness to use it, he rarely has to do
so.” [Martin Gilbert]
The above is preamble to Churchill’s speech at Westminster
College in Fulton, Missouri on March 5, 1946. President
Truman introduced the recently deposed prime minister, yet still
opposition leader in the House of Commons.
“An Iron Curtain Has Descended”
[Excerpts]
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 .
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
safety 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 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 the long reproaches of the after-time.
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.
A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lightened, lighted
by the Allied victory. Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its
Communist international organization intends to do in the
immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their
expansive and proselytizing tendencies.
I have a strong admiration and regard for the valiant Russian
people and for my wartime comrade, Marshal Stalin. There is
deep sympathy and good-will in Britain – and I doubt not here
also – toward the peoples of all the Russias and a resolve to
persevere through many differences and rebuffs in establishing
lasting friendships.
It is my duty, however, and I am sure you would not wish me not
to state the facts as I see them to you, it is my duty to place
before you certain facts about the present position in Europe.
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron
curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie
all the capitals of the ancient states and central and eastern
Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade,
Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations
around them lie in what I might call the Soviet sphere, and all are
subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but
to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control
from Moscow.
Police governments are pervading from Moscow. But Athens
alone, with its immortal glories, is free to decide its future at an
election under British, American and French observation.
The safety of the world, ladies and gentlemen, requires a unity in
Europe from which no nation should be permanently outcast. It
is from the strong parent races in Europe that the world wars we
have witnessed, or which occurred in former times, have sprung.
Twice in our own lifetime we have – the United States against
her wishes and her traditions, against arguments the force of
which it is impossible not to comprehend – twice we have seen
them drawn by irresistible forces into these wars in time to
secure the victory of the good cause, but only after frightful
slaughter and devastation have occurred.
Twice the United States has had to send several millions of its
young men across the Atlantic to fight the wars. But now we, all
can find any nation, wherever it may dwell, between dusk and
dawn. Surely we should work with conscious purpose for a
grand pacification of Europe within the structure of the United
Nations and in accordance with our charter.
However, in a great number of countries, far from the Russian
frontiers and throughout the world, Communist fifth columns are
established and work in complete unity and absolute obedience
to directions they receive from the Communist center.
The outlook is also anxious in the Far East and especially in
Manchuria .
I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire
is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power
and doctrines.
But what we have to consider here today while time remains, is
the permanent prevention of war and the establishment of
conditions of freedom and democracy as rapidly as possible in all
countries. Our difficulties and dangers will not be removed by
closing our eyes to them. They will not be removed by mere
waiting to see what happens; nor will they be removed by a
policy of appeasement.
What is needed is a settlement, and the longer that is delayed, the
more difficult it will be and the greater our dangers will become.
If the population of the English-speaking Commonwealth be
added to that of the United States, with all such cooperation
implies in the air, on the sea, all over the globe, and in science
and in industry, and in moral force, there will be no quivering,
precarious balance of power to offer its temptation to ambition or
adventure. On the contrary, there will be an overwhelming
assurance of security.
If we adhere faithfully to the charter of the United Nations and
walk forward in sedate and sober strength, seeking no one’s land
or treasure, seeking to lay no arbitrary control upon the thoughts
of men, if all British moral and material forces and convictions
are joined with your own fraternal association, the high roads of
the future will be clear, not only for us but for all.
---
Engage Moscow, but with eyes wide open. The potential for
good is strong, so is the opposite. And you can also see within
Churchill’s statements lessons for the rebuilding of Iraq and the
War on Terror.
Brian Trumbore
Hott Spotts will return Oct. 9.
|
