Lester Pearson, the Commonwealth and Winston Churchill’s Fulton Missouri Speech of 5 March 1946: ‘Red Baiting and Lion Tail Twisting”

（チャーチルのミズーリ演説におけるレスター・ピアソンの貢献とその余波：「赤狩りとイギリスいじめ」）

Martin Thornton*

SUMMARY IN JAPANESE:1946年3月5日、ウィンストン・チャーチル首相が行ったミズーリ州での演説は、その後の冷戦時代の幕開けを決定付けた重要な起点と理解されてきた。にもかかわらず、この演説のいくつかの側面や直接的影響について、歴史家がこれまで取り上げなかったものがある。歴史家が注目したかったテーマであるが、本稿では、当時の駐米カナダ大使、レスター・Ｂ・ピアソンに着目し、同大使がチャーチルのミズーリ演説に与えた影響について検討する。英連邦各地の新聞に見られるミズーリ演説に対する反応や、その反応に対するカナダの見解などは、チャーチルの演説の影響を分析する有益な手がかりとなる。ピアソン自身もチャーチルの演説に対する興味ある見解を展開している。

More than fifty years have now elapsed since Winston S. Churchill, at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, famously took the opportunity to publicly castigate the Soviet Union and suggest his own peculiar solution to combat their policies in the international environment. Within modern historical literature, the role of Winston S. Churchill in the origins of the Cold War is a well-documented and debated area of concern. In March 1946, Churchill was to controversially popularize an important image of the Cold War in referring to an “iron curtain” descending on Europe; an image that was to help illustrate the clear political, economic and military divisions between East and West Europe that were to exist for nearly 45 years. In 1986 American historian, Fraser J. Harbutt, put Churchill’s Fulton speech in a clear Cold War context, and mode the speech the central focus of his book, The Iron Curtain: Churchill, America, and the Origins of the Cold War.[1] Yet Churchill was not suggesting in March 1946 that the “iron curtain” analogy was the important message he had to deliver. The title of Churchill’s lecture was “The Sinews of Peace” an earlier title “World Peace” having been rejected; and the “crux” of what he wished to convey was his advocacy of a “fraternal association of English-speaking people.”[2]

Churchill’s own particular phraseology was to fuel Soviet criticism and prompt Marshal Joseph Stalin to suggest that Churchill was prompting a “race theory,” and it has further provided ammunition for some revisionist historians happy to side with the Soviet view of Churchill.[3] In Pravda on 14 March 1946 Stalin pronounced: “Now Mr. Churchill is starting his own process of unleashing war also with a racial theory, declaring that only those people who speak English are full-blooded nations, whose vocation is to control the fate of the whole world.”[4] Even allies of Great Britain and America were to have problems with Churchill’s suggestion of a “fraternal association of English-speaking peoples.” It can be shown that Commonwealth countries held their own views on the viability of such an association. The Canadian Government held strong views on both Churchill’s Cold War rhetoric and his perceived fraternal association that would work for peace. Canada’s close proximity to the United States, and also their diplomatic support for the Commonwealth and the United Nations, made them particularly interested in Churchill’s diagnosis of world problems. Further, Churchill’s prescription for handling the worrying unilateral policies of the Soviet Union required them to consider their own views to the matter. Canadian Ambassador to the United States, Lester Pearson, made his own contribution to Churchill’s speech and was to provide his own analysis of it. The Canadian Department of External Affairs was to collect Commonwealth views on Churchill’s speech (with the exception of New Zealand) and subsequently draw their own conclusions.

Lester Pearson was appropriately qualified to be a commentator on Churchill’s Fulton address and the mixed reactions to it. He was also one of a few individuals who Churchill was willing to consult and confide in about the detailed contents of his speech. Lester Pearson had been a successful Canadian career diplomat since 1928. With diplomatic positions in London as First Secretary to the High Commission (1935-1941), and then part of the Canadian legation in Washington (from 1942), before becoming Canadian Ambassador to the United States in 1945, Pearson was in a perfect position to understand Canada’s relationships with both the United States and Great Britain and even to evaluate Anglo-American relations.

Churchill’s speech was to coincide with significant international developments that gave it appropriate resonance. The Canadian Royal Commission report on the “Gouzenko spy scandal” which exposed a spy ring in Ottawa serving the Soviet Union was released a couple of days before Churchill’s speech and was occupying the headlines in Canadian newspapers. The Soviet Union’s control of Poland and their domination of the Balkan Peninsula, with the exception of Greece, was causing concern in the West. Even in Greece the Soviet Union was being accused of fermenting unrest and political discontent. In northern Iran the domination of a province by Soviet troops had caused international controversy. The Soviet Government had, despite early agreements, only withdrawn part of its troops from northern Iran. A Marxist Leninist speech in Moscow by Stalin on 9 February 1946 shocked many commentators, particularly when Stalin put the blame for the Second World War on modern monopoly capitalism. American Chargé d’Affaires in Moscow, George F. Kennan, made his own response to this speech and also the Soviet Union’s problematic attitudes towards international monetary organizations when he produced his “Long Telegram” on 22 February. It arrived in Washington while Churchill was still preparing his speech for delivery in Fulton. The delivery of Kennan’s and Churchill’s views, although one was for a private audience and the other public, are now perceived to have been timed exactly right. Even part of Churchill’s speech was Kennanesque when he referred to Soviet realism, suggesting: “There is nothing they admire so much as strength and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for military weakness.”[5]

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Churchill’s visit to Westminster College in Fulton was under consideration as far back as August 1945.[6] Introducing Churchill at Fulton on 5 March 1946, President Truman pointed out:

I had a letter from Mr. Churchill--oh six months ago or more--in which he said he was considering a vacation in the United States or North Africa (Laughter) I sent him Dr. McCluer’s invitation and made a long-hand note at the bottom of it telling him that if he would spend his vacation in the United States, at whatever point he chose to pick, and then deliver this lecture, I would make it a point to come to Missouri and personally welcome him and introduce him for that lecture.[7]

Churchill was to choose a period from 14 January to 21 March 1946 to stay in the United States.

The exact content of Churchill’s speech at Fulton, now long forgotten, was that Churchill had been invited to deliver the John Findley Green Lecture and for both Churchill and Truman to receive honourary degrees. The John Findley Green Foundation had been established in 1937 by a Canadian, Mrs. Eleanor Ibbotson Green, as a memorial to her husband. John Findley Green had graduated from Westminster College in 1884, and he was subsequently on the Board of the College. It was a distinguished Canadian who was to give the first lecture in 1937. Oscar D. Skelton, Canadian Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs, spoke on: “Some Gains and Losses of the Present Generation.”[8] The Foundation provided for “… lectures from time to time on political and economic matters of international concern, the lecture to be presented from the standpoint of Christian philosophy.”[9] This mandate may partly explain the embellishments in Churchill’s speech in making reference to Christian values and his rather crusading support for an Anglo-American alliance and “fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples.” Further, as Dr. Franc L. McCluer was to emphasize in his welcoming remarks to Truman and Churchill: “It is a means of stirring up college men’s minds and spirits to impatience at lazy thought and slovenly expression and to the tonic delight of laborious and honest thought in a free field.”[10] Churchill was to live up to the Foundation’s wishes and the introductory remarks.

In anticipation of the event, Bell Telegraph Company worked for three weeks installing direct telephone lines for radio and press coverage. A cable for some six hundred separate circuits had to be set up between the local telephone exchange and the College.[11] Over sixty representatives of newspapers, magazines and press associations had to be accommodated in the gymnasium in which Churchill spoke, and radio networks, independent stations and newsreel camera operators had to be catered for.[12] In fact, Pathe, Paramount, Universal and Fox newsreels all captured the procession of distinguished visitors to Fulton and provided a wide level of publicity.[13] Of Commonwealth newspapers, only two were directly represented and these were British. Other Commonwealth newspapers largely derived their reports from news agencies and syndicated columns.[14]

In February 1946, Winston Churchill was to be the guest of Canadian Army Colonel, Frank Clarke, in Miami Beach. As Churchill’s major biographer, Martin Gilbert, has footnoted, Colonel Frank Clarke was a family friend who had known Churchill on the British Gazette. Churchill went on to stay with Clarke in his lakeside cabin in Canada during the 1943 Quebec Conference.[15] Colonel Clarke not only accommodated Churchill in Miami Beach in 1946, but he was also to accompany Churchill and the Presidential party to Fulton, Missouri on the 4 and 5 March. While in Florida Churchill had hoped to discuss his forthcoming speech with President Truman. However, Truman had to remain in Washington, D.C. because of the pressing problems of industrial relations. Truman was nevertheless informed about Churchill’s intentions with regard to the contents of his speech by an indirect communication on 7 February. Churchill took the opportunity to visit Cuba and dined with R. Henry Norweb, the American Ambassador to Cuba. Norweb’s account of what Churchill intended to say was reported to Truman. It included the comments on Anglo-American relations that: “… the sheer pressure of events will of necessity force our two great commonwealth to come together in some workable manner if the peace and order of the world are to be preserved from chaos.”[16]

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The main purpose of Winston Churchill’s visit to Washington, D.C. in February was to discuss with President Truman his forthcoming speech in Missouri. Winston Churchill’s direct meeting with Truman in the White House on the 10 February has been the subject of report and much speculation.[17] It is clear that Truman knew the general substance of what Churchill was going to say at Fulton, but it is far less clear as to whether he had a “hand” in writing or directing the speech. Both Admiral William D. Leahy, Truman’s military chief of staff and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and American Secretary of State, James Byrnes, saw full drafts of the speech and reported it to Truman. According to Harbutt, Truman was given a resume of the speech from James Byrnes “… but decided not to read it.”[18] However, despite the fact that Truman had a general knowledge of its contents, this does not mean that Truman officially approved of its thesis, and Truman in many ways worked hard to be able to avoid the accusation that his personal “hand” had contributed towards it. Despite the fact that Truman read the speech on the train to Missouri and appeared to sanction Churchill’s views by being on the same platform as Churchill, President Truman could still subsequently distance himself from Churchill’s views when American press reports were critical of it. It was only after Churchill completed his engagements in the United States that Truman’s Press Secretary and close personal friend, Charles G. Ross, announced:

Mr. Truman had no advance knowledge and didn’t know what Mr. Churchill was going to say. There is no truth whatsoever in the report that Churchill and Truman spent several hours in the White House going over parts of the drafted speech. The speech was not discussed.[19]

In contrast, there is far clearer evidence that the Canadian Ambassador to the United States, Lester Pearson, at Churchill’s request, commented on and contibuted to the speech. On 11 February 1946 in Washington, D.C., Lord and Lady Halifax, in the company of Winston Churchill, entertained Lester Pearson and his wife, Maryon, to tea at the British Embassy.[20] At the time, it was abundantly clear to Pearson that Churchill intended to make the strongest plea he could for closer Anglo-American cooperation. Churchill made it apparent in his hour long meeting with Pearson that he did not admire present Anglo-American policy towards the Soviet Union. In his usual flamboyant way Churchill was to pronounce that the British and American were making the same mistakes with regard to the Soviet Union that they had made before the Second World War with Nazi Germany. Pearson has recounted how Churchill qualified this view:

He does not think that the Russians are dangerously aggressive in the sense that the Nazis were, but he is convinced that they will exploit the present situation, with its waverings and uncertainties on the part of London and Washington, to the very limit to achieve certain objectives… the Russians know exactly what they want, whereas neither London nor Washington does.[21]

Churchill had first hand dealings with Joseph Stalin and was convinced that he did not resent frankness and opposition to his policies. Churchill wished to stress to Pearson that weakness and uncertainty had to be avoided in Anglo-American dealings with the Soviet Union.

Lester Pearson had long been an advocate of the United Nations Organization and was to go on to work closely with the United Nations, including their peacekeeping activities, during the Korean War and the Suez Crisis of the 1950s. Churchill provided Pearson with a pessimistic prognosis on the prospects for the United Nations. Churchill did not believe that the Soviet Union took the United Nations seriously or had a genuine interest in it. Further, and without expressing what he meant by small powers he suggested: “… too much consideration is being shown to small powers who have no contribution to make either to security or to progress.”[22]

Churchill left the next day for Florida and was to spend the weekend in the company of James Byrnes, who flew down to Florida on the Saturday.[23] On Churchill’s return to Washington, D.C., from Miami, the text of the speech was seen at the British Embassy by Admiral William D. Leahy. Lester Pearson, who requested an audience with Churchill and on the telephone invitation of Colonel Frank Clarke, was to arrive at the British Embassy shortly after Leahy, observed in regard to the speech that Leahy “expressed himself in hearty agreement with it.”[24] James Byrnes saw the draft in the evening after Leahy’s and Pearson’s visits, so Pearson did not know his immediate views. However, as history has recorded and Pearson wisely anticipated on 4 March: “I do not think that the President had seen it, but, of course, as he is travelling with Mr. Churchill and introducing him at Westminster College, it will be difficult to dissociate himself entirely from what Mr. Churchill says.”[25] It would certainly appear that the Truman Administration endorsed Churchill’s views as delivered at Fulton.

Pearson reported to William Lyon Mackenzie King, who was still both Canada’s Prime Minister and Secretary of State for External Affairs, that he was most satisfied with the text of Churchill’s speech.[26] Mackenzie King had been unable to visit with Churchill in Florida, but he had a number of telephone conversations with him.[27] King had been worried about the security arrangements of ordinary long distance telephone calls and had designated Pearson as the person to give his views on those parts of the speech that related to Canada. He also encouraged Norman Robertson, Under-Secretary for State for External Affairs, to press Pearson on this responsibility.[28] Professor John English in his biography of Pearson makes the very brief point that Pearson was to play an editorial role with regard to the speech. Using Lester Pearson’s well-known nickname (Mike), John English points out: “Churchill’s Fulton speech, on which Mike exercised some editorial skills, surprised Mike with its strong language but, fundamentally, he welcomed its message and influence, which he believed would effectively counter the erratic and hesitant foreign policy of Harry Truman.”[29] This editorial role of Pearson’s was acknowledged in a letter from him to King and was to impact on three sections of the speech. Churchill’s references to a Canadian-American relationship were there as a model of a sound partnership that could be achieved. Pearson was quite happy with the emphasis of the Canadian-American relationship as cited by Churchill and suggested what he considered to be only minor amendments to make these references clearer.[30] Mackenzie King was to believe these changes to be important and that it was very fortunate that Churchill did not refer to the Canadian-American relationship as a military alliance as he intended. King wrote to Pearson acknowledging this fact and pointed out in his own particular style:

I am sure that Mr. Churchill must have been deeply appreciative of your good offices. In more than one particular you were certainly most helpful. How very fortunate that the arrangement between the United States and ourselves is not in fact a military alliance and was not so referred to in Mr. Churchill’s address![31]

King was very happy for Churchill to emphasize an Anglo-American relationship along similar lines to that of the Permanent Joint Board of Defense between Canada and the United States; this was particularly so because King had set up the Ogdensburg Agreement of 1940 with President Franklin D. Roosevelt.[32]

A more alarming aspect of the speech in Pearson’s view, was Churchill’s reference to the Second World War as “the Unnecessary War.”[33] To Churchill this meant that stronger policies than those practiced by the appeasers of the 1930s had been required, and had tougher policies been adopted, the war might not have happened. However, Pearson felt, “… the phrase would certainly be lifted from its context by unfriendly isolationist elements in this country.”[34]

Pearson was also later to acknowledge that he pressed upon Lord Halifax that it was unadvisable for Churchill to make specific references to continuing the Combined Chiefs of Staff: “Lord Halifax agreed and the sentence in question was later amended.”[35] Although the implications of Churchill’s comments have been interpreted as a continuance of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, Churchill actually stated support for:

… the continuance of the intimate relations between our military advisors, leading to common study of potential dangers, the similarity of weapons and manuals of instruction… the continuance of the present facilities for mutual security by the joint use of all naval and air force bases in the possession of either country all over the world.[36]

It was not the prolonging of the arrangement to which Pearson objected, he in fact thought it stood more chance of continuing if no attention was paid to it at all. Churchill’s actual comments are an accommodation to Pearson’s views.

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Lester Pearson and other members of the Canadian Department of External Affairs found it interesting to comparatively analyze the reactions of various countries to Churchill’s speech, and they collected a number of Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth press reactions. As early as 9 March, T. A. Stone from the Canadian Embassy in Washington provided the Canadian Department of External Affairs with an analysis of American press reaction. Lester Pearson was to follow this up on 11 March with a number of his own observations on public reaction in America. Of Commonwealth views, E. J. Garland for the High Commissioner for Canada in Ireland supplied an account of an Irish newspaper reactions to the speech. T. C. Davis, High Commissioner for Canada in Australia, wrote directly to the Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs on the 11 March with views collected in Canberra. A. J. Pick for Acting High Commissioner in South Africa reported on both English and Afrikaans language press. A number of reports were received from the Canadian High Commission in London. No report is evident from New Zealand, although Canada was fully represented there and the Canadian High Commissioner was W. A. Riddell. The Prime Minister of New Zealand, Peter Fraser, had been at a United Nations Conference in London in February and arrived back in New Zealand on 4 March.

Lester Pearson was to describe the American press reaction as “Redbaiting” [sic] and “Lion tail twisting.”[37] The Red baiting is evident from the headlines in the Washington Evening Star: “Churchill Blasts Red Grasps for Power.” In a similar vein the Baltimore Sun pronounced: “Churchill Denounced Appeasing of Russia,” and in a more alarming way the Cincinnati Enquirer adopted the headline “Churchill Urges Alliance to Avert War” and the Chicago Sun declared “Churchill’s Call for World Domination.” Of a far less belligerent tone were the New York Herald Tribune’s “Churchill Urges Anglo-US Pact…” and the Christian Science Monitor’s “Churchill Urges Military Federation of Anglo-US Nations to Guard Peace.” For factual inaccuracy the Boston Daily Globe was rather successful in suggesting “Churchill Urges Immediate Understanding with Russia.”[38]

The most sympathetic responses appear to have come from the southern newspapers, including the Atlanta Journal, Charlotte Observer and the Memphis Commercial Appeal.[39] All were of a very similar conservative nature, praising Churchill’s proposal for an Anglo-American military alliance to combat the Soviet Union. Yet this acceptance was out of line with the majority of press coverage, a form of “lion tail twisting” which had no enthusiasm for an alliance with the British Empire, even as Churchill eloquently put it, as part of a “fraternal association.”[40] As T. A. Stone pointed out: “This proposal appears to have touched the quick of American Nationalism. The deeply ingrained conviction that ‘empire is at best a necessary evil, to be liquidated as soon as possible” prompted even such a confirmed pro-Britisher as Walter Lippmann to reject it.”[41] Walter Lippmann’s views were echoed in papers such as the Buffalo Evening News where British imperial interests were not seen as the same as America’s vital interests.[42] An American and British alliance with Canada emphasized a different type of relationship and was not seen as imperialism, subsequently the Chicago Daily News trumpeted the “kinship” that existed between Canada and the United States.[43] Canada was also seen as a special case because of Canada’s good relationships with the Commonwealth.

The American Communist Party were to have their views published in the Daily Worker and they did not stint on their criticism claiming that Churchill was proposing “an American-British war machine to dominate the world.” They went on to cynically suggest “… the American people are supposed to guarantee the continuation of colonial slavery for India, Indonesia, etc…. restore by force of arms the obsolete feudal-fascist quislings and monarchs in Eastern Europe.” With more surprise a similar opinion was put forward in the Chicago Tribune with the proposition that “we cannot become partners in slave-holding.”[44]

Pearson’s observations on Churchill’s speech and American press responses are now a matter of public record and were sent from Washington, D.C. on 11 March to the Secretary of State for External Affairs.[45] His view summarized the qualified criticism from elements in the United States:

Therefore, the vehement disapproval such elements would normally show towards Mr. Churchill’s proposal for an Anglo-Saxon alliance has been modified in this case by their approval of the strong line he adopted against Russia. In their reaction to Mr. Churchill’s speech, these elements find it difficult to combine their favorite pastimes, of “Redbaiting” [sic] and “Lion tail twisting.”[46]

The first major body of criticism was labeled as the “Lippmann school” by Pearson. Here he detected some support for the United Kingdom and the Dominions, but not any alliance with the British Empire. The Americans had a long standing fear of being linked with imperialism. On hearing Churchill’s proposals on 5 March, Senator Owen Brewster (Republican Party) was reported as immediately responding that “… we cannot assure the heritage of British colonial policy.”[47] A similar response was evident from Senator Claude Pepper (Democratic Party) in commenting that Churchill had articulated “… in his best Marlborough manner for glorious imperialism--but it is always British imperialism.”[48] As a historian and diplomat Pearson could draw upon his knowledge of appeasement in the 1930s and support American criticism of the problems as analyzed by Churchill as being “… Britain’s desperation; that it is just another case of Great Britain looking for someone else to pull her chestnuts out of the fire.”[49]

Secondly, Pearson believed a group of critics could be perceived as strongly in favor of the United Nations Organization. Pearson felt Churchill would have fared better had he spoken in favor of an association of peace-loving states strengthening their relationship within the United Nations Organization. Churchill had clearly rejected this for his tighter and more controversial military associations of English-speaking people. American Senators Claude Pepper, Harley M. Kilgore and Glen H. Taylor, all of the Democratic Party, were to pronounce in a joint statement reported by the Associated Press that: “Mr. Churchill’s proposal for ‘an old-fashioned, power politics, military alliance between Great Britain and the United States “would” cut the throat of the UNO’….”[50]

Lester Pearson’s final pronouncements on the speech to Mackenzie King on 11 March were that Churchill’s proposal was not a very effective one. Pearson wanted a greater investment in the United Nations Organization even if this meant revising it radically. His Memoirs place Churchill’s speech and his own observations in the context of an “Atlantic vision” and his own early thoughts on western security.[51] Also in his report to King, he stated that he felt a Big Three Conference needed to be called to resolve the difficulties existing with the Soviet Union. This faith in diplomacy and the internationalization of problems was to stay with Pearson for all his life.

It was another historian by training, Hume Wrong, who was to read Pearson’s comments to King, and as a Canadian Associate Under-Secretary of State, to take up Pearson’s last point and put it in a historical context. Wrong felt that a “Big Three” conference had little chance for success, and Pearson’s idea of everyone putting their “cards on the table” as limited. He tried to correct Pearson:

The trouble is in the sort of game that is now being played. Each of the great powers can, if it wishes, manufacture new cards, add new suits and decide for itself what are trumps…. Such a conference would, I think, at the best end merely in the application to the world as a whole of the Hapsburg motto of “divide et impere.” It would create a balance of power which would have less stability than the balance achieved during the 19th century.[52]

Ireland was still within the Commonwealth in 1946 and on 18 March, E. J. Garland, for the High Commissioner for Canada in Ireland, informed the Secretary of State for External Affairs of some Irish reaction to Churchill’s speech.[53] His comments were circulated to N. A. Robertson (Under-Secretary), H. Wrong (Associate Under-Secretary), E. Reid (Second Political Division), T. W. L. MacDermott (Information Division) and appropriately A. M. Ireland (Second Political Division). Garland was to cull together the views of The Irish Times, The Irish Independent and the Irish Press. All three newspapers were to acknowledge the problems of the Soviet Union’s external policies and showed some support for an Anglo-United States alliance.[54]

The editor of The Irish Times showed a high degree of realism with regard to the fractured relationships between the previous wartime Allies. The newspaper pointed out that Churchill “has put into words… what millions of men and women are thinking everywhere,” and it also saw Churchill’s speech as somewhat prophetic.[55] A very similar approach was adopted by The Irish Independent.

The Irish Press took a far gloomier and critical editorial approach to Churchill’s views. It saw Churchill being the chief mourner at the funeral of the United Nations Organization and also clearly guilty of a miscalculation in emphasizing the British Empire. As the paper was to record:

British imperialism, which at this moment is providing grim news in India and Egypt, is a bigger liability than Mr. Churchill is, perhaps, aware…. No doubt… if America felt obliged to choose between the two brands of imperialism which are in conflict she would not choose the Russian brand. But the average American seems to reagard it as a choice between two evils, and this fact Mr. Churchill overlooked.[56]

This final remark is very similar to Pearson’s point that American newspapers found it rather difficult to manage their favorite hobbies of “Red baiting” and “Lion tail twisting” at the same time.[57] However, the scathing conclusion was that imperialist powers like Britain and the United States could hardly be the architects of a long-term peace. Perhaps the moderation of The Irish Times and The Irish Independent is superficially surprising given Ireland’s history of bitter and difficult relations with Britain, but explainable in the historical context of more sympathetic editorial policies towards Britain. For example, The Irish Independent was founded by W. M. Murphy in 1904, who despite being a Home Rule Member of Parliament had, during the First World War, been active in Irish recruitment for British Empire Forces.[58]

On the British coverage of Churchill’s speech, the politically partisan views of British newspapers was evident, but not entirely predictable. Alan J. Foster, in an article on the Foreign Office, the British Press and Eastern Europe, has briefly looked at the views of the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Times, Daily Express, Daily Herald and News Chronicle.[59] Of these, the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail “congratulated Churchill on his ability to set the international agenda even from Opposition and warmly endorsed his views on Russia.”[60] With some irony, the conservative Daily Express was happy to honor Churchill, but wanted more conciliation in British-Soviet relations than the confrontation Churchill was now prompting.

The Canadian High Commissioner in London, Vincent Massey, was quick to add his perceptive views of British reaction to Churchill’s speech. He pointed out on 9 March: “… the Labour press is coming out so strongly in opposition to it that it seems doubtful if the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary, presuming they wished to do so, could give it public support.”[61] Further, a stronger Anti-Americanism was evident from Labour M. P.’s that was not found in other Commonwealth commentaries. It went to the extreme of suggesting that Britain was becoming the 49th state of the United States.[62] These views were supported and represented in Tribune and by Member of Parliament Michael Foot writing in The Daily Herald who saw Britain selling out to “reactionary Americans.”[63] It is also clear from Canadian reports that the British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, found the speech a source of great embarrassment and that given Stalin’s response it had increased Britain’s difficulties with the Soviet Union.[64]

The Manchester Guardian was happy to report on Churchill’s suggestion of a path to peace and security, but it was also to use the more cryptic sub-heading: “Shadow of World Catastrophe.”[65] In contrast The Times emphasized the special relationship between Britain and America. Their correspondent in Washington, D.C. was somewhat premature in suggesting:

Whatever may have been earlier hesitations, there does not seem to be any doubt to-day that the Administration is ready to accept a “special relationship” between the United States and the British Commonwealth as compatible with their mutual obligations to the United Nations. The financial and commercial implementation of this relationship rests for the time being with Congress. Its translation into terms of maritime and air collaboration is a matter for further study.[66]

In broad terms, The Times had not accepted at this point that the American Congress was committed to world leadership. The conclusion being that Britain might be left on its own to combat the Soviet Union, if it was not very careful.

Reactions in Australia were reported by T. C. Davis, High Commissioner for Canada in Canberra, on 11 March. Churchill’s speech was carried by the Australian press and broadcast via the Australian Broadcast Commission. Davis managed to capture the response of Parliamentary leaders in Australia and also press editorials. These press reports included comments from Sydney newspapers: the Daily Telegraph and the Sydney Morning Herald. Three Melbourne newspapers were also scrutinized: the Sun Pictorial, Argus, and Age.

A great contrast existed in the responses of the Prime Minister of Australia, Mr. J. B. Chiefley (1945-49), and the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. R. G. Menzies (Prime Minister 1939-41 and 1949-66). Controversially, Mr. Menzies states that the Soviet Union should be aware that Churchill “spoke for Australia as well as himself.”[67] In a brusque response to the press, the Prime Minister countered with the statement that: “… neither Mr. Churchill nor Mr. Menzies was qualified to speak for Australia. The Federal Government alone did any talking for the Commonwealth.”[68] However, Chifley’s sympathies lay with Britain and he was often to support close imperial links in economic and defence policies. This may of course have been due to a sympathy for Labour governments in the Commonwealth rather than for Churchill.[69] In the tone of a “witchhunt,” Mr. W. M. Hughes, the former Prime Minister (1915-1923), attacked not only Communists in Australia, but also the Australian Labour party. He appeared to think that the Soviet Union was trying to disrupt and destabilize the British Empire.

Both the Sydney Morning Herald and the Daily Telegraph took Churchill’s comments as an intended warning for the world. An avoidance of the problems of the late 1930s and the development of power politics by the Soviet Union since 1945 were seen as very positive by the Melbourne Argus. It saw the traditions of Britain and the United States as far from war-like and supported strategic bases and weapons of war being safely put in their hands to preserve the peace.[70] They saw these potential developments as complementary rather than hostile to the Soviet Union’s security needs. Unlike the response in the United States, Australian newspapers showed support and welcomed an alliance of the English-speaking peoples.[71]

The Cape Times of South Africa on 7 March felt the problem of power politics lay with the British and the Soviet Union.[72] It reported that Churchill was intent on destroying the United Nations Organization. The Acting High Commissioner for Canada, A. J. Pick, picked up on this critical view in reporting back to Ottawa.[73] His suggestion was that The Cape Times editorial did not have public support, and believed subsequent letters to the paper supported his own condemnation of the editorial.

Contrasting opinions were also presented in The Cape Argus and the Natal Mercury. The latter was in favor of strong and healthy links between Britain and America; the former neither liked the timing nor the emphasis on a military alliance.[74]

Of the Afrikaans language newspapers a strong nationalistic stand was made against the Soviet Union. Die Transvaler and Die Burger took very strong anti-communist views; defending not only civilization but in the case of Die Burger, “the maintenance of a white civilization in South Africa.”[75]

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Commonwealth criticism ranged through the expected party political opposition clearly evident in Britain, to strong “nationalist” views in South Africa. Supporting newspaper views could be found in Ireland and Australia and these largely contrasted with the considerable body of American criticism that balked at the imperialist content and tone of Churchill’s speech. However, as Lester Pearson commented, American newspapers found it difficult to square this with a desire to denigrate the Soviet Union.

Lester Pearson’s editorial contributions to Winston Churchill’s landmark speech of March 1946 are clearly evident in three areas outlined. Churchill was receptive to good advice and duly changed his delivery on this good advice. Since there is very little evidence of President Truman having a direct influence on Churchill’s speech, Pearson’s contributions would appear to be greater than that of Truman.

Despite Churchill’s claim to private citizenship and having no direct say in the government of British, Pearson clearly saw the origins of a North Atlantic alliance and vision in Churchill’s ideas. By late 1946 the promotions of Louis St. Laurent to be Secretary of State for External Affairs and Lester Pearson to be Under-Secretary gave a new impetus to the Department of External Affairs. With the support of Canadian diplomat Escott Reid, they were to champion the creation of a new Western security organization. As has been seen in his Memoirs, Pearson was happy to acknowledge the influence of Churchill’s Fulton address on his own thinking in this area. Canadian views expressed by Mackenzie King and Lester Pearson interpreted Churchill’s comments as less untimely and premature than the prevailing views of the United States and other Commonwealth commentators; although Pearson was clearly worried about the fate of the United Nations given Churchill’s analysis of the international situation. Pearson was also aware of the deeply rooted anti-imperialism that encouraged “lion tail twisting” by some American press.

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* Director, Center for Canadian Studies, School of History, University of Leeds, Leeds, England

[1] Fraser J. Harbutt, The Iron Curtain: Churchill, America, and the Origins of the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).

[2] “Westminster College Bulletin,” Series 46, No. 1 (1946). In President Harry S. Truman’s Office Files, 1945-1953, Part 2: Correspondence File, microfilm (Bethesda, 1989). Martin Gilbert recounts how “Churchill had earlier intended to call the speech ‘World Peace.’” Letter of 14 February 1946 to Dr. F. L. McCluer, Westminster College Papers, a footnote in Never Despair (London: Heinemann, 1988), p. 203.

[3] Revisionist views of Churchill include: John Charmley, “Churchill: the End of Glory: A Political Biography (Toronto: Macfarlane Walter & Ross, 1993); Clive Ponting, Winston Churchill (London: Sinclair-Steventon, 1994). See also Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson, “Review Article: Reassessments of Winston Churchill,” The International History Review, Vol. XVIII, No. 1 (1996), pp. 113-26.

[4] Gilbert, Never Despair, p. 221.

[5] Harbutt, The Iron Curtain, p. 184.

[6] Ibid., p. 159.

[7] “Westminster College Bulletin,” op. cit.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

[14] The speech at Fulton was covered by the following newspapers and magazines: New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, New York News, New York Post, Chicago Sun, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Times, Baltimore Sun, Christian Science Monitor, Philadelphia Inquire, Time, Newsweek, Life, London Daily Herald, London News Chronicle, St. Louis Star Times, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Dayton Ohio Herald, Columbus Ohio Dispatch, the Baltimore and Ohio Magazine. The following agencies were also present: North American Newspaper Alliance, Gannett Newspapers, Reuter’s, Swiss News Agency, French News Agency, and the Central News Agency of China. Ibid.

[15] Gilbert, Never Despair, p. 182.

[16] R. Henry Norweb to President Truman, 7 February 1946. President Harry S. Truman’s Office Files, op. cit.

[17] Harbutt, The Iron Curtain, p. 161.

[18] Ibid., p. 180.

[19] Press report included in President Harry S. Truman’s Office Files, op. cit.

[20] Letter to W. L. Mackenzie King from L. B. Pearson, 12 February 1946, MG. 26, Vol. VII, File “King W. L. Mackenzie, 1942-1950,” National Archives of Canada (NAC).

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Letter to W. L. Mackenzie King from L. B. Pearson, 4 March 1946, Ibid.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Denis Smith, Diplomacy of Fear (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), p. 125.

[28] Letter to W. L. Mackenzie King from L. B. Pearson, 4 March 1946, MG. 26, op. cit. Also cited in “Jack” W. Pickersgill and D. F. Forster, The Mackenzie King Record, Volume III, 1945-1946 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970), 182; Mackenzie King Diaries, Transcript 227, microfiche (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980).

[29] John English, Shadow of Heaven. The Life of Lester Pearson, Vol. I, 1897-1948 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980).

[30] Letter to W. L. Mackenzie King from L. B. Pearson, 4 March 1946, MG 26, op. cit.

[31] Letter to L. B. Pearson from W. L. Mackenzie King, 13 March 1946, Ibid.

[32] Smith, Diplomacy of Fear, p. 125.

[33] Letter to W. L. Mackenzie King from L. B. Pearson, 4 March 1946, MG 26, op. cit.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Documents on Canadian External Relations, Vol. XII, 1946 (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1977), p. 2044.

[36] Ibid.

[37] “Winston Churchill,” RG 25 B-3, Vol. 2155, File 196, NAC. Comments were also reprinted in Documents on Canadian External Relations, op. cit., p. 2043.

[38] Press Analysis Report sent to W. L. Mackenzie King by T. A. Stone, RG 25 B-3, Ibid.

[39] Ibid.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Ibid.

[42] Ibid.

[43] Ibid.

[44] Ibid.

[45] Letter to W. L. Mackenzie King from L. B. Pearson, 11 March 1946, Ibid., also reprinted in Documents on Canadian External Relations, op. cit., p. 2043.

[46] Ibid.

[47] The Globe and Mail (Toronto), 6 March 1946.

[48] Ibid.

[49] RG 25 B-3, op. cit.

[50] Reported in The Globe and Mail (Toronto), 6 March 1946.

[51] L. B. Pearson, Memoirs 1897-1948: Through Diplomacy to Politics (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1973).

[52] Letter to L. B. Pearson from H. H. Wrong, 23 March 1946, RG 25 B-3, op. cit.

[53] Letter to W. L. Mackenzie King from E. J. Garland, 8 March 1946, Ibid.

[54] Ibid.

[55] Ibid.

[56] Ibid.

[57] Letter to W. L. Mackenzie King from L. B. Pearson, 11 March 1946, RG 25 B-3, op. cit.

[58] Robert F. Foster, Modern Ireland 1600-1972 (London: Allen Lane, 1988), p. 443.

[59] Alan J. Foster, “The Foreign Office, the British Press and Eastern Europe, 1919-1948: The Cases of Czechoslovakia and Poland,” in J. Morison, Eastern Europe and the West (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992).

[60] Ibid., p. 230.

[61] Telegram to W. L. Mackenzie King from V. Massey, 9 March 1946, copy sent to Pearson, RG 25 B-3, op. cit.

[62] Ibid.

[63] Ibid.

[64] Ibid.

[65] Manchester Guardian, 6 March 1946.

[66] The Times (London), 6 March 1946.

[67] Letter to W. L. Mackenzie King from T. C. Davis, 11 March 1946, RG 25 B-3, op. cit.

[68] Ibid.

[69] Peter G. Edwards, Prime Ministers and Diplomats (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 174.

[70] Ibid.

[71] Ibid.

[72] Letter to W. L. Mackenzie King from A. J. Pick, 12 March 1946, RG 25 B-3, op. cit.

[73] Ibid.

[74] Ibid.

[75] Ibid.