True enough, the "Iron Curtain" speech did not outrightly advocate an offensive military action against the Soviet Union.
Truman, Churchill, and David Brinkley rode together on a train to Fulton. I guess they discussed the speech a little, and Truman got him to tone it down some. Still, Truman admirers have deftly shuffled under the rug their hero's reaction to Winston Churchill's famed "Iron Curtain" speech in Fulton, Missouri, in 1946. Oddly, Truman gave only guarded approval to Churchill's talk and considered sending the battleship USS Missouri to bring Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to the U.S. to give "his side of the story."
It seems to me, Churchill was saying that either we do take action against the Soviets, or we depend on the infant UN to protect democracy. Well, the UN was in it's infancy, and it seems obvious that Churchill did not have complete confidence that it would in fact do what it was supposed to do.
So, while you are correct, he did not say there should be a war, I still find the speech lends credibility to my assertion that we should have taken action.
There was credible evidence that Russia was already butchering millions of people. They did not have atomic weapons, so a victory could have been easily obtained. The world would not have blamed us. And the financial burden of an extra European country added to the Marshall Plan would have not bankrupted us. |
