WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 1 00:00:01.040 --> 00:00:05.359 housekeeping note um you will be welcome to ask questions at any time throughout 2 00:00:05.359 --> 00:00:08.559 our speakers we'll be keeping an eye on that and the 3 00:00:08.559 --> 00:00:12.880 chat as well and uh we'll go ahead and and ask those 4 00:00:12.880 --> 00:00:17.680 towards the end of this hour so on that note welcome everyone and i'll hand it 5 00:00:17.680 --> 00:00:21.760 over to crosby great thank you elizabeth good afternoon 6 00:00:21.760 --> 00:00:25.279 from fulton missouri the national churchill 7 00:00:25.279 --> 00:00:30.080 museum from the institute of museum and library services in washington dc from 8 00:00:30.080 --> 00:00:33.360 an undisclosed location near london and 9 00:00:33.360 --> 00:00:37.680 from my basement in kansas city for the imls this is the 10 00:00:37.680 --> 00:00:41.280 first in a series of conversations about the importance of the arts and 11 00:00:41.280 --> 00:00:46.239 humanities our shared heritage shared ideals shared 12 00:00:46.239 --> 00:00:50.559 experiences in the life of libraries and museums and the importance 13 00:00:50.559 --> 00:00:53.199 of libraries and museums in the cultural civic 14 00:00:53.199 --> 00:00:58.960 and communal life of our nation uh we welcome to you to this 15 00:00:58.960 --> 00:01:02.719 conversation about winston churchill and a museum and 16 00:01:02.719 --> 00:01:06.159 memorial honoring him and a particular speech he 17 00:01:06.159 --> 00:01:12.320 gave 75 years ago uh exactly 75 years ago on march 18 00:01:12.320 --> 00:01:18.000 5th 1946 the iron curtain speech as it's come to be known or sinews of peace 19 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:21.600 as he entitled it with me are as you've heard 20 00:01:21.600 --> 00:01:25.759 tim riley the director of the national churchill museum and andrew roberts one 21 00:01:25.759 --> 00:01:30.159 of our most eminent historians the author of masters and commanders the 22 00:01:30.159 --> 00:01:34.159 storm of war uh prize-winning biography of lord 23 00:01:34.159 --> 00:01:37.280 salisbury biography of lord halifax who almost 24 00:01:37.280 --> 00:01:42.960 became prime minister instead of churchill and importantly for us 25 00:01:42.960 --> 00:01:45.840 uh churchill 26 00:01:46.320 --> 00:01:50.240 walking with destiny which has been called in fact it was called 27 00:01:50.240 --> 00:01:55.840 earlier today by george will uh the best one volume biography or the best 28 00:01:55.840 --> 00:01:59.280 biography of winston churchill and is indeed one of the best 29 00:01:59.280 --> 00:02:04.479 biographies in uh recent history so welcome gentlemen thank you so much 30 00:02:04.479 --> 00:02:09.679 for being here and i i'd like i'd like to start uh by asking tim a 31 00:02:09.679 --> 00:02:13.520 question about how how did this get to fulton how 32 00:02:13.520 --> 00:02:18.160 did churchill get to fulton with the president of the united states 33 00:02:18.160 --> 00:02:22.319 what's the background of the story you know it's the question we're asked daily 34 00:02:22.319 --> 00:02:25.360 here at america's national church and museum at westminster college and i 35 00:02:25.360 --> 00:02:30.400 guess the simplest way to answer is we asked um you know in the in the wake 36 00:02:30.400 --> 00:02:34.319 of world war ii after ve day there was a general election 37 00:02:34.319 --> 00:02:40.160 um in july of 1945 and winston churchill who famously helped 38 00:02:40.160 --> 00:02:44.160 lead the allies to victory in war his party 39 00:02:44.160 --> 00:02:48.879 lost an election and arguably the most famous figure most 40 00:02:48.879 --> 00:02:52.000 recognizable voice in the world was no longer prime 41 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:56.560 minister uh it was in this environment that churchill received a 42 00:02:56.560 --> 00:02:58.800 typewritten letter from westminster college 43 00:02:58.800 --> 00:03:03.599 here in fulton and inviting churchill to come and give a speech 44 00:03:03.599 --> 00:03:07.680 now i'm convinced that letter would have been given to a secretary politely and 45 00:03:07.680 --> 00:03:11.120 said thank them very much i can't possibly 46 00:03:11.120 --> 00:03:14.239 save for a handwritten note at the bottom of the page 47 00:03:14.239 --> 00:03:18.080 that said this is a wonderful school in my home state uh 48 00:03:18.080 --> 00:03:21.920 if you come i'll introduce you hope you can do it 49 00:03:21.920 --> 00:03:25.440 harry truman and when president truman wrote that note 50 00:03:25.440 --> 00:03:29.760 uh churchill took note and knew that even though he had been defeated in the 51 00:03:29.760 --> 00:03:33.680 general election he had more to say and if he was on 52 00:03:33.680 --> 00:03:36.319 stage with the president of the united states 53 00:03:36.319 --> 00:03:38.720 as as churchill said in his speech here it would 54 00:03:38.720 --> 00:03:41.920 magnify and dignify the occasion and it did 55 00:03:41.920 --> 00:03:48.720 uh so because the the the the college asked uh churchill um 56 00:03:48.720 --> 00:03:52.879 received that note which was endorsed by the president uh a very important 57 00:03:52.879 --> 00:03:56.560 note and uh he accepted the invitation and that launched 58 00:03:56.560 --> 00:04:01.200 a series of scrambling really for two and a half months uh at westminster 59 00:04:01.200 --> 00:04:05.200 college a small small college 212 students at the time 60 00:04:05.200 --> 00:04:09.920 all men's college so many of the students were away at war um and 61 00:04:09.920 --> 00:04:14.239 uh they scrambled to to make this momentous world event happen that's the 62 00:04:14.239 --> 00:04:18.720 short answer to the great question put the fulton and 63 00:04:18.720 --> 00:04:23.440 westminster college on the on the map and and andrew why would why 64 00:04:23.440 --> 00:04:25.680 would churchill i mean obviously the president 65 00:04:25.680 --> 00:04:28.320 of the united states asks him that that's something but he's a private 66 00:04:28.320 --> 00:04:31.199 citizen at this point uh and has lost the 67 00:04:31.199 --> 00:04:33.840 election etc why would he want to come what's the 68 00:04:33.840 --> 00:04:39.040 purpose of this what's the background the world background for this 69 00:04:39.040 --> 00:04:42.240 well he was a bit more than a private citizen in that he was leader of the 70 00:04:42.240 --> 00:04:45.360 opposition of course leader of the conservative party and so 71 00:04:45.360 --> 00:04:49.919 this was a marvelous way of putting the labour government in its place 72 00:04:49.919 --> 00:04:53.919 that the president of the united states invites the leader of the opposition 73 00:04:53.919 --> 00:04:57.120 to come and speak that that doesn't happen um 74 00:04:57.120 --> 00:05:00.880 that's the first thing the second thing really is it all goes back to yalta 75 00:05:00.880 --> 00:05:07.680 at yalta in february 1945 so only a year beforehand 13 months beforehand 76 00:05:07.680 --> 00:05:11.840 stalin had lied to churchill and president roosevelt 77 00:05:11.840 --> 00:05:18.560 and told them that he was going to give freedom independence um integrity 78 00:05:18.560 --> 00:05:25.360 the uh the right to free elections to poland and uh and eastern europe and 79 00:05:25.360 --> 00:05:28.680 it was quite clear at least to churchill by the march of 80 00:05:28.680 --> 00:05:32.080 1946 that stalin had never had any intention 81 00:05:32.080 --> 00:05:35.280 to do any of that at all and that he was going to impose soviet 82 00:05:35.280 --> 00:05:40.639 imperialism on eastern europe and so you have this sense of of anger 83 00:05:40.639 --> 00:05:45.120 that he had been lied to and at the same time nobody else was 84 00:05:45.120 --> 00:05:48.080 saying it and so there's always been for me at 85 00:05:48.080 --> 00:05:52.880 least there's always been a huge emperor's clothes aspect to 86 00:05:52.880 --> 00:05:56.800 the fulton speech in that nobody had the guts 87 00:05:56.800 --> 00:06:02.639 until churchill to point out that um they were living in a fool's paradise 88 00:06:02.639 --> 00:06:05.759 and the west was wrong to continue to think that 89 00:06:05.759 --> 00:06:09.919 uncle joe as uh stalin was nicknamed was overall a 90 00:06:09.919 --> 00:06:15.199 beneficial and positive figure but it was in fact um a 91 00:06:15.199 --> 00:06:22.560 a a conqueror and a leader of an ideology which um threatens 92 00:06:22.560 --> 00:06:26.639 to try to establish world domination 93 00:06:26.880 --> 00:06:30.400 key words in the in the speech of course are are about 94 00:06:30.400 --> 00:06:33.440 he says the speech is about war and tyranny and to and 95 00:06:33.440 --> 00:06:37.600 and stalin is stalin is the tyranny 96 00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:42.880 but it's also a a an important it turns out to be an important moment isn't it 97 00:06:42.880 --> 00:06:45.840 because uh they were ready to hear this truman 98 00:06:45.840 --> 00:06:48.000 was ready to hear this burns the secretary 99 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:52.319 of state was was ready to hear this the canons canons long telegram had come a 100 00:06:52.319 --> 00:06:56.720 few days before two weeks before i wonder whether well 101 00:06:56.720 --> 00:07:01.280 if they were ready to hear it um they weren't publicly ready to hear it 102 00:07:01.280 --> 00:07:05.440 in any way uh the secretary general of the united nations denounced the speech 103 00:07:05.440 --> 00:07:09.599 editor roosevelt announced the speech dean atchison who had already accepted 104 00:07:09.599 --> 00:07:13.360 an invitation to go to a reception for churchill in new 105 00:07:13.360 --> 00:07:19.199 york um in new york uh failed to turn up um 93 labour mps 106 00:07:19.199 --> 00:07:21.599 wrote a early day motion in the house of 107 00:07:21.599 --> 00:07:24.160 commons church was denounced in the congress 108 00:07:24.160 --> 00:07:27.680 and in the press of both parties of both countries 109 00:07:27.680 --> 00:07:31.039 not just the chicago sun but also in the times and so on 110 00:07:31.039 --> 00:07:35.199 and so actually although people might have been um 111 00:07:35.199 --> 00:07:40.639 might have been might have appreciated i suppose in a way that someone was 112 00:07:40.639 --> 00:07:43.919 willing to to uh to break the ice and tell the 113 00:07:43.919 --> 00:07:48.800 truth actually at the time it was a tremendously unpopular speech 114 00:07:48.800 --> 00:07:53.440 and people were very angry it was only over the next two years when 115 00:07:53.440 --> 00:07:59.280 every single thing that churchill had predicted came true uh that people 116 00:07:59.280 --> 00:08:03.759 appreciated that yet again just as he had before the second world war 117 00:08:03.759 --> 00:08:10.000 he had uh used the fulton speech to um uh to be incredibly prescient about the 118 00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:14.639 danger of totalitarianism and i mean to to follow up on what 119 00:08:14.639 --> 00:08:18.319 you've just said of course truman got a look at the speech and they're on 120 00:08:18.319 --> 00:08:22.960 the train from washington to uh to ultimately to 121 00:08:22.960 --> 00:08:26.240 fulton and and any and he read the speech and 122 00:08:26.240 --> 00:08:28.960 he talked to churchill about it even before 123 00:08:28.960 --> 00:08:35.360 before that and and uh burns had seen uh almost everyone had seen it and and then 124 00:08:35.360 --> 00:08:38.560 he denied truman because of the firestorm after the the 125 00:08:38.560 --> 00:08:43.599 speech the editorials and whatnot denied that he'd read it um it's 126 00:08:43.599 --> 00:08:47.600 it's really it's not harry truman's finest allies 127 00:08:47.600 --> 00:08:52.959 really at that point he did deny the put the pressure was enormous as i say the 128 00:08:52.959 --> 00:08:59.279 sort of outcry against these words that churchill had said but the thing the 129 00:08:59.279 --> 00:09:02.640 wonderful thing of course was that churchill had such an extraordinary 130 00:09:02.640 --> 00:09:06.480 moral courage and also by that stage such standing in the world 131 00:09:06.480 --> 00:09:10.480 because of the second world war that he um didn't mind in the slightest it was 132 00:09:10.480 --> 00:09:14.640 all complete water off a duck's back yeah he joked about it almost 133 00:09:14.640 --> 00:09:18.399 immediately afterwards and and but another in another sense it 134 00:09:18.399 --> 00:09:23.279 is the right moment because truman and uh and and burns and of 135 00:09:23.279 --> 00:09:28.160 course ultimately atlee and bevin is as well in england in in great britain 136 00:09:28.160 --> 00:09:30.480 are are are watching the the following 137 00:09:30.480 --> 00:09:34.080 things which you you you've mentioned not not only the police states the art 138 00:09:34.080 --> 00:09:37.760 the iron curtain uh that uh is falling across eastern 139 00:09:37.760 --> 00:09:40.720 europe but specifically in in in turkey and 140 00:09:40.720 --> 00:09:44.959 greece and and in persia they're they're the the soviets are making uh 141 00:09:44.959 --> 00:09:49.120 demands uh uh in in fact just about the moment 142 00:09:49.120 --> 00:09:54.560 of the of the speech uh there are soviet tanks within 20 miles 143 00:09:54.560 --> 00:09:58.720 of tehran and there are agreements that are being being broken and also of 144 00:09:58.720 --> 00:10:03.040 course there's concern about oil and and that sort of thing and burns 145 00:10:03.040 --> 00:10:06.320 is sending telegrams on again roughly the 146 00:10:06.320 --> 00:10:10.160 same day as the uh as the speech about turkey the 147 00:10:10.160 --> 00:10:13.040 borders that that the soviets want to change and the 148 00:10:13.040 --> 00:10:16.399 warm water port that they've always wanted etc etc 149 00:10:16.399 --> 00:10:19.760 so so it's a it's an important it does change 150 00:10:19.760 --> 00:10:22.959 things that moment changes things it's it's key 151 00:10:22.959 --> 00:10:28.000 and and you mentioned only uh bevin the uh the foreign secretary at the time 152 00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:31.040 of all of the people who did not denounce 153 00:10:31.040 --> 00:10:36.160 the fulton speech ernest bevin stands up there a few others but ernest 154 00:10:36.160 --> 00:10:40.720 bevin stands out uh because he knows that what churchill has said is true 155 00:10:40.720 --> 00:10:44.800 and he's one of the other sort of little boys who's willing to point to the 156 00:10:44.800 --> 00:10:48.959 to the emperor and and and say he has no clothes and he's there for 157 00:10:48.959 --> 00:10:52.800 um a key figure and later of course he goes on to be a key figure in the 158 00:10:52.800 --> 00:10:57.440 founding of nato so so the labor um minister the labour 159 00:10:57.440 --> 00:11:01.760 prime secretary ernest bevin actually is one of the few people who comes out 160 00:11:01.760 --> 00:11:06.959 extremely well from this uh from this whole in brodio 161 00:11:06.959 --> 00:11:10.480 and you know i think it's important to also recognize you gallup the gallup 162 00:11:10.480 --> 00:11:14.800 poll recently this week published or republished the results of 163 00:11:14.800 --> 00:11:18.959 their poll from 1946 after the speech and i had not seen it 164 00:11:18.959 --> 00:11:23.040 before but roughly 60 percent of of americans at 165 00:11:23.040 --> 00:11:27.040 least polled um favored churchill's message 166 00:11:27.040 --> 00:11:30.160 of not appeasement not appeasement we must do something 167 00:11:30.160 --> 00:11:34.079 however they did not feel comfortable uh with the rhetoric 168 00:11:34.079 --> 00:11:39.920 of of of of a of a special relationship of military alliance 169 00:11:39.920 --> 00:11:45.360 there was a certain amount of feeling um with the american public according 170 00:11:45.360 --> 00:11:49.120 gallup at least that that that americans wanted didn't 171 00:11:49.120 --> 00:11:53.040 want to go back to war uh and that that that that war mongering 172 00:11:53.040 --> 00:11:55.920 uh uh message that that perhaps some 173 00:11:55.920 --> 00:12:00.480 perceived from the speech not churchill at all but that was that was it so it 174 00:12:00.480 --> 00:12:05.519 was mixed there was certainly an agreement general agreement um that 175 00:12:05.519 --> 00:12:10.000 uh that churchill and communism was was something that should be dealt 176 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:13.519 with but not a comfortability necessarily going 177 00:12:13.519 --> 00:12:17.600 going to a military uh action that's that's that's that's quite quite 178 00:12:17.600 --> 00:12:20.399 fascinating to me and actually it's very interesting in 179 00:12:20.399 --> 00:12:26.560 that speech that it's not just about about russia and stalin 180 00:12:26.560 --> 00:12:29.920 the first part of it is about the united nations 181 00:12:29.920 --> 00:12:35.040 uh how it should be a a proper body not just the tower of babel 182 00:12:35.040 --> 00:12:38.800 as he says but it should be a reality rather than a sham 183 00:12:38.800 --> 00:12:42.079 so that's an important opening side to the speech 184 00:12:42.079 --> 00:12:45.839 then he comes on to the fraternal association of the english speaking 185 00:12:45.839 --> 00:12:49.200 peoples and um and that is something that he 186 00:12:49.200 --> 00:12:52.480 wanted to take on to the next level when tim was talking about the military 187 00:12:52.480 --> 00:12:55.839 alliance he really wanted for britain and america 188 00:12:55.839 --> 00:12:59.120 to be able to use each other's bases around the world for example 189 00:12:59.120 --> 00:13:02.560 so he wanted to really put teeth into the special relationship 190 00:13:02.560 --> 00:13:05.600 a phrase that he had come up with a couple of years earlier in 191 00:13:05.600 --> 00:13:09.040 um three years earlier in the harvard speech 192 00:13:09.040 --> 00:13:14.959 and then and only then did he talk about the iron curtain having fallen across 193 00:13:14.959 --> 00:13:17.279 europe and he pointed out something that he'd 194 00:13:17.279 --> 00:13:21.839 been saying about the soviet union really ever since the 1917 revolution 195 00:13:21.839 --> 00:13:26.959 which is that they respect strength and they despise weakness 196 00:13:26.959 --> 00:13:30.720 especially military weakness and i think that is a i'm sure we're 197 00:13:30.720 --> 00:13:34.880 going to be coming on later to the legacy of the speech but that is 198 00:13:34.880 --> 00:13:38.880 something that i think did get through to the public uh both in 199 00:13:38.880 --> 00:13:45.440 the united states and in britain and he he makes the point and george 200 00:13:45.440 --> 00:13:50.160 will actually talked about this a little earlier today he makes the the 201 00:13:50.160 --> 00:13:52.959 point in the speech that there there are moments when 202 00:13:52.959 --> 00:13:59.360 you you have to act with clarity uh in order to display strength uh and 203 00:13:59.360 --> 00:14:05.279 and and and he alludes to he said he says in in the speech had we had that 204 00:14:05.279 --> 00:14:08.480 clarity and uh before the war the war wouldn't 205 00:14:08.480 --> 00:14:12.079 have happened uh and and so he he make he makes that 206 00:14:12.079 --> 00:14:15.600 analogy it's the east war in the world that uh 207 00:14:15.600 --> 00:14:19.040 to have avoided he says in the speech you know that is 208 00:14:19.040 --> 00:14:23.600 um and that can you imagine what that must have felt like to the parents of 209 00:14:23.600 --> 00:14:28.320 of young lads who've gone over and uh and fought and many of them died in the 210 00:14:28.320 --> 00:14:32.399 second world war the idea that they didn't need to have died 211 00:14:32.399 --> 00:14:36.160 was something that would have been incredibly powerful 212 00:14:36.160 --> 00:14:43.279 uh painful as well to have heard and yet so necessary to say that if you fear 213 00:14:43.279 --> 00:14:47.440 that there's another war um around the corner and so instead 214 00:14:47.440 --> 00:14:51.519 of being a warmonger somebody who warns about war and who's 215 00:14:51.519 --> 00:14:55.440 saying that they need strong defenses to avoid one 216 00:14:55.440 --> 00:14:59.920 is the exact opposite of a war monger and yet he was still being attacked as a 217 00:14:59.920 --> 00:15:02.560 war monger and not just by the soviet press which 218 00:15:02.560 --> 00:15:06.880 you take for granted but by the western press as well well and i 219 00:15:06.880 --> 00:15:09.839 think it's important to recognize that you know churchill himself 220 00:15:09.839 --> 00:15:13.199 addressed he didn't call it the iron curtain speech at all you know that's 221 00:15:13.199 --> 00:15:16.480 history knows it is there in good speech but the title that churchill gave it was 222 00:15:16.480 --> 00:15:21.040 sinews of peace um and you know we have in the museum 223 00:15:21.040 --> 00:15:24.399 here the last minute uh edits that churchill 224 00:15:24.399 --> 00:15:26.720 did to the speech before he got on the train 225 00:15:26.720 --> 00:15:30.160 he was in washington in the embassy putting the final rhetorical 226 00:15:30.160 --> 00:15:34.079 flourishes on the speech and you know the section where he says in the speech 227 00:15:34.079 --> 00:15:38.079 i have entitled this the sinews of peace was really the 11th 228 00:15:38.079 --> 00:15:41.120 hour i mean he put that into the notes the night before 229 00:15:41.120 --> 00:15:44.399 um in fact we have in the archives here a great letter 230 00:15:44.399 --> 00:15:48.480 uh the president of westminster college is trying to to pin down churchill about 231 00:15:48.480 --> 00:15:51.680 a month before saying you know what's the title of your speech going to be 232 00:15:51.680 --> 00:15:55.040 uh and churchill said i don't know it's going to be something of great import 233 00:15:55.040 --> 00:15:58.959 perhaps world peace uh in fact the program 234 00:15:58.959 --> 00:16:02.720 from 75 years ago today that was issued for the john finley green 235 00:16:02.720 --> 00:16:06.160 foundation lecture simply says winston churchill 236 00:16:06.160 --> 00:16:09.759 world peace so you know this is you're absolutely right andrew in that 237 00:16:09.759 --> 00:16:13.360 you know it was not a warmongering speech at all but it was um 238 00:16:13.360 --> 00:16:18.240 sending a signal of the strength that is necessary to preserve the peace and 239 00:16:18.240 --> 00:16:22.160 that's a very chilean notice not notion and 240 00:16:22.160 --> 00:16:25.680 the the other thing in the speech and the content of this of the speech that 241 00:16:25.680 --> 00:16:31.120 that gets relatively little notice and seems to be very important and and 242 00:16:31.120 --> 00:16:35.680 there's a series of speeches he gives a speech to the belgium belgian 243 00:16:35.680 --> 00:16:38.880 parliament uh before this uh before the iron 244 00:16:38.880 --> 00:16:41.839 curtain speech in a speech he gives afterwards at harvard 245 00:16:41.839 --> 00:16:45.759 where he talks about the same things and that is he talks about the heritage of 246 00:16:45.759 --> 00:16:48.240 the english-speaking people some of which you could 247 00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:53.279 translate also into the heritage of western europe or european civilization 248 00:16:53.279 --> 00:16:56.800 that has to do with the rule of law a lot of it has to do with the rule of law 249 00:16:56.800 --> 00:16:59.600 so he mentions in the iron curtain speech magna carta 250 00:16:59.600 --> 00:17:04.240 trial by jury uh habeas corpus the the 251 00:17:04.240 --> 00:17:09.199 uh bill of rights um and and ends with the declaration of independence of 252 00:17:09.199 --> 00:17:13.199 course and and and th this list of things of 253 00:17:13.199 --> 00:17:16.839 the the rights and the freedoms uh and and 254 00:17:16.839 --> 00:17:20.559 and aspects of justice and the rule of law 255 00:17:20.559 --> 00:17:25.120 he repeats in virtually all the speeches he gives from about 1938 256 00:17:25.120 --> 00:17:28.799 uh into the into the late 40s the highlight being i think the iron curtain 257 00:17:28.799 --> 00:17:31.440 speech but it's all about defending 258 00:17:31.440 --> 00:17:35.840 civilization because civilization represents these democratic rights 259 00:17:35.840 --> 00:17:42.880 uh and and law and it and it therefore of course automatically sets what the 260 00:17:42.880 --> 00:17:46.799 western nations are trying to do and trying to build on the settlement 261 00:17:46.799 --> 00:17:54.480 of the post-war world um completely at odds with um communism because soviet 262 00:17:54.480 --> 00:18:00.000 can have no magna carta it can have no um inherent bill of rights in the same 263 00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:04.400 way that we have in 1689 and you have uh in the united 264 00:18:04.400 --> 00:18:08.320 states because uh because marxism leninism 265 00:18:08.320 --> 00:18:12.400 can't allow the individual to have those kind of rights freedom of speech 266 00:18:12.400 --> 00:18:17.440 and association and and uh religion and so on and otherwise it goes 267 00:18:17.440 --> 00:18:20.480 to the it destroys the um the power of the 268 00:18:20.480 --> 00:18:23.039 state which marxism leninism is all about 269 00:18:23.039 --> 00:18:28.400 so so by concentrating first as you say this goes back to the 1930s 270 00:18:28.400 --> 00:18:32.960 back to before the second world war um because the nazis 271 00:18:32.960 --> 00:18:35.760 couldn't allow those kind of liberties and freedoms 272 00:18:35.760 --> 00:18:40.320 either um so by uh ideologizing if there's such a 273 00:18:40.320 --> 00:18:44.000 word the struggle between totalitarianism on 274 00:18:44.000 --> 00:18:47.039 one side and freedom and democracy on the other 275 00:18:47.039 --> 00:18:51.360 he made it absolutely clear by the time of fulton 276 00:18:51.360 --> 00:18:56.080 that there was a you know to use a phrase iron curtain 277 00:18:56.080 --> 00:18:59.200 between the two and it wasn't just the physical iron curtain that 278 00:18:59.200 --> 00:19:02.880 went from setting in the baltic to trieste in the adriatic 279 00:19:02.880 --> 00:19:06.160 it was an actual ideological iron curtain about 280 00:19:06.160 --> 00:19:11.280 how human beings behave how the human soul is allowed to 281 00:19:11.280 --> 00:19:14.400 flourish everything really that we believe 282 00:19:14.400 --> 00:19:19.120 civilization to be about absolutely he draws a line essentially 283 00:19:19.120 --> 00:19:22.960 between barbarism and civilization uh that that that's 284 00:19:22.960 --> 00:19:28.240 what the iron curtain is it's a line a line between the two yeah you you end 285 00:19:28.240 --> 00:19:31.679 uh your own continuation of uh churchill's 286 00:19:31.679 --> 00:19:34.880 history of the english speaking uh peoples 287 00:19:34.880 --> 00:19:39.840 this this would be your continuation 288 00:19:41.840 --> 00:19:45.520 some words that that seem to me uh to represent this that 289 00:19:45.520 --> 00:19:48.960 um uh you talk you talk about the human race should 290 00:19:48.960 --> 00:19:53.280 should we lose these values would would mourn the passing of 291 00:19:53.280 --> 00:19:56.840 the most decent honest generous fair-minded and 292 00:19:56.840 --> 00:20:01.200 self-sacrificing imperium so i it particularly the words 293 00:20:01.200 --> 00:20:05.600 decent and fair-minded seemed to me to reflect what what churchill said in the 294 00:20:05.600 --> 00:20:09.440 iron curtain speech there's decency and fair mindedness on this side of the iron 295 00:20:09.440 --> 00:20:12.400 curtain there's barbarism on the other side of 296 00:20:12.400 --> 00:20:15.840 the iron curtain so we we've talked about the reaction 297 00:20:15.840 --> 00:20:18.000 but you know there's one person in particular 298 00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:21.280 uh for whom the reaction uh is really important 299 00:20:21.280 --> 00:20:25.280 historically world historically and that's stalin's reaction 300 00:20:25.280 --> 00:20:29.360 uh to the speech and he's apoplectic uh is he not i mean he 301 00:20:29.360 --> 00:20:34.000 he he organizes an interview with pravda to denounce churchill 302 00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:37.919 and and and and accuses churchill of uh endorsing 303 00:20:37.919 --> 00:20:42.960 racial theories like hitler he accuses accuses churchill of being hitler-like 304 00:20:42.960 --> 00:20:47.919 uh for opposing uh uh the the russian designs on iran 305 00:20:47.919 --> 00:20:52.559 and turkey and greece and all of eastern europe 306 00:20:52.559 --> 00:20:56.720 as you'd expect i mean straight out of the of the soviet playbook and 307 00:20:56.720 --> 00:21:00.799 indeed actually funnily enough straight out of goebbels playbook as well which 308 00:21:00.799 --> 00:21:05.280 was also to go on the offensive um and to 309 00:21:05.280 --> 00:21:09.360 hype up the whole thing as much as possible to 310 00:21:09.360 --> 00:21:15.840 to make sure that you can try to undermine the central message of 311 00:21:15.840 --> 00:21:18.799 your opponent um i'm afraid it's it's 312 00:21:18.799 --> 00:21:21.280 straight out of the playbook of a loss of um 313 00:21:21.280 --> 00:21:27.200 political pr um even nowadays really uh it doesn't need to be taken at uh 314 00:21:27.200 --> 00:21:31.440 face value frankly the revisionist historians who claim that 315 00:21:31.440 --> 00:21:37.600 churchill started the cold war with um fulton the fulton speech are 316 00:21:37.600 --> 00:21:41.039 completely wrong because what he was actually doing was to 317 00:21:41.039 --> 00:21:44.720 draw attention to the fact that a cold war had already started 318 00:21:44.720 --> 00:21:48.960 and that the west was losing it um when one looks at what 319 00:21:48.960 --> 00:21:53.520 stalin did from the moment that the red army entered poland 320 00:21:53.520 --> 00:21:57.600 through to the fulton speech and beyond with the arrest of 321 00:21:57.600 --> 00:22:03.120 bishops and the and the um closing of opposition parties the arrest of 322 00:22:03.120 --> 00:22:06.559 of um editors and journalists and so on you know 323 00:22:06.559 --> 00:22:10.240 as from fulton onwards and certainly by the time of the 324 00:22:10.240 --> 00:22:16.880 iron berlin airlift and so on one recognizes that it was all part of a 325 00:22:16.880 --> 00:22:21.280 parcel of um of what stalin had intended to do 326 00:22:21.280 --> 00:22:24.640 probably years beforehand but certainly by the time of the end of the second 327 00:22:24.640 --> 00:22:29.120 world war yeah it's interesting uh to me that 328 00:22:29.120 --> 00:22:33.039 stalin when a beatle smith became the 329 00:22:33.039 --> 00:22:36.240 ambassador to to russia and he's called it midnight 330 00:22:36.240 --> 00:22:40.799 into stalin's office for for his first interview stalin and and 331 00:22:40.799 --> 00:22:44.400 uh and i think ramiko yeah and uh 332 00:22:44.400 --> 00:22:47.760 uh the first thing that stalin asks him is 333 00:22:47.760 --> 00:22:52.000 uh uh does does truman agree with a churchill speech 334 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:57.280 in fulton and and of course smith you know assumes of course that must be 335 00:22:57.280 --> 00:23:00.960 must be the case and and and it's sort of the last moment 336 00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:05.280 that that stalin uh uh keeps his designs on 337 00:23:05.280 --> 00:23:08.320 on iran they're they're already removing the troops 338 00:23:08.320 --> 00:23:12.240 but your point about the revisionist historians i was reading for the re uh 339 00:23:12.240 --> 00:23:15.840 lead up to this i was reading the cambridge uh history of the cold war the 340 00:23:15.840 --> 00:23:18.000 first volume the cambridge history of the cold war 341 00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:22.720 and the author's name i i forget right now who's writing about that particular 342 00:23:22.720 --> 00:23:27.039 moments talked about the uh attempt of stalin to have a moderate 343 00:23:27.039 --> 00:23:31.520 influence uh on the iranian government this is the iranian government 344 00:23:31.520 --> 00:23:35.200 whom he placed tanks 20 miles uh away from it that's 345 00:23:35.200 --> 00:23:38.880 moderating uh influence it it had to be the cambridge 346 00:23:38.880 --> 00:23:44.320 um i might i went to cambridge myself but i have to say 347 00:23:44.320 --> 00:23:50.080 cambridge at the moment is not covering itself with glory when it comes to 348 00:23:50.080 --> 00:23:54.000 for reasons i'm sure that uh lots of your listeners will remember with the uh 349 00:23:54.000 --> 00:23:57.600 recent attacks at churchill college on uh 350 00:23:57.600 --> 00:24:04.000 uh on church on winston churchill you know cambridge university is uh 351 00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:07.440 let's just say not the historical force that it was when i was an undergraduate 352 00:24:07.440 --> 00:24:10.320 uh academic malpractice i think that attacked the 353 00:24:10.320 --> 00:24:15.919 uh that that attack um and it is interesting that uh i was reading some 354 00:24:15.919 --> 00:24:18.400 speeches and and i was reading his speech in 355 00:24:18.400 --> 00:24:22.799 in the house of commons on italian uh invasion of ethiopia 356 00:24:22.799 --> 00:24:26.080 in which he says the italians have reduced uh 357 00:24:26.080 --> 00:24:30.840 the ethiopian empire to a primordial state the 358 00:24:30.840 --> 00:24:34.080 the he completely reverses the racial what 359 00:24:34.080 --> 00:24:37.279 what he's accused of having uh the racial views of 360 00:24:37.279 --> 00:24:41.520 uh by attacking the italians uh for just destroying a civilization 361 00:24:41.520 --> 00:24:48.159 in uh in ethiopia um so the uh 362 00:24:48.159 --> 00:24:52.080 the speech becomes an important moment in the history of the 363 00:24:52.080 --> 00:24:59.600 the cold war um and so tim it it's been memorialized as such 364 00:24:59.600 --> 00:25:03.679 and it's been memorialized particularly with the churchill memorial in fulton 365 00:25:03.679 --> 00:25:08.000 now the national churchill museum and and the extraordinary moment in in 366 00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:14.000 that history is a decision uh on the part of uh 367 00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:18.159 raised in in london and uh uh and responded to in 368 00:25:18.159 --> 00:25:22.799 in fulton to move the the saint mary alderman very church 369 00:25:22.799 --> 00:25:25.919 uh the christopher wren church i think the picture is up on on 370 00:25:25.919 --> 00:25:33.039 on on the website right now um a 1670s christopher wren church 371 00:25:33.039 --> 00:25:37.360 that had been bombed during the war tell us about how that came about how the 372 00:25:37.360 --> 00:25:41.840 memorial was created well it's a remarkable story but you 373 00:25:41.840 --> 00:25:46.240 know picking up on something andrew said as a preamble to that you know about 374 00:25:46.240 --> 00:25:51.279 revisionist history and and looking back you know the museum 375 00:25:51.279 --> 00:25:57.120 museums and libraries um in this case in particular uh house 376 00:25:57.120 --> 00:26:00.320 objects that are eyewitnesses of history there's nothing like going to the 377 00:26:00.320 --> 00:26:03.840 primary source you know the speech we had up earlier um 378 00:26:03.840 --> 00:26:07.919 let's see what churchill had to say about some of these issues um let's look 379 00:26:07.919 --> 00:26:11.760 directly at the writings let's look at the artifacts let's look at the memos 380 00:26:11.760 --> 00:26:16.559 that were written in the day as as our launching point and i think 381 00:26:16.559 --> 00:26:20.720 that's incredibly important the kind of work that andrew and other historians 382 00:26:20.720 --> 00:26:25.360 do to use those primary sources at the jumping off point uh 383 00:26:25.360 --> 00:26:30.240 are critical and something that we do here uh remarkably you know as you say 384 00:26:30.240 --> 00:26:34.559 crosby you know the the the largest work in the collection is this christopher 385 00:26:34.559 --> 00:26:37.919 wren church that was established in london as early as the 386 00:26:37.919 --> 00:26:40.240 12th century saint mary the virgin alderman barry 387 00:26:40.240 --> 00:26:46.000 was destroyed in the great fire of 1666 uh and rebuilt by christopher wren in 388 00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:52.159 the 1670s it stood proudly in london for 300 years until december 29 1940 389 00:26:52.159 --> 00:26:56.320 when the luftwaffe was doing an air raid over london the 390 00:26:56.320 --> 00:26:58.799 blitz dropped twenty thousand incendiary bombs 391 00:26:58.799 --> 00:27:03.919 and and gutted aldemonbury stood in rooms in london for 20 years 392 00:27:03.919 --> 00:27:07.919 until westminster college very much like they you know the earlier 393 00:27:07.919 --> 00:27:11.200 15 20 years earlier had invited churchill had a bold idea 394 00:27:11.200 --> 00:27:15.360 well let's bring a bombed out church from london uh to mid 395 00:27:15.360 --> 00:27:18.559 missouri and erected as a memorial to the speech 396 00:27:18.559 --> 00:27:22.799 that churchill gave on the westminster college campus and they did so and i 397 00:27:22.799 --> 00:27:27.600 think having physical monuments and items and 398 00:27:27.600 --> 00:27:32.399 artifacts in the museum setting that are eyewitnesses to history the church for 399 00:27:32.399 --> 00:27:34.399 instance is a great history that goes back to 400 00:27:34.399 --> 00:27:36.559 shakespeare shakespeare lived a block away 401 00:27:36.559 --> 00:27:40.480 from this church london john milton was married in this church 402 00:27:40.480 --> 00:27:45.679 uh you know for for current audiences to to go back again to the primary 403 00:27:45.679 --> 00:27:49.840 source uh to experience history uh using those 404 00:27:49.840 --> 00:27:54.399 artifacts in this case architecture uh with great stories is is most 405 00:27:54.399 --> 00:27:58.320 important and something that um we do with with with great aplomb of 406 00:27:58.320 --> 00:28:00.799 course you know you saw in a photograph earlier 407 00:28:00.799 --> 00:28:04.399 not only do we have the christopher wren church but just down the 408 00:28:04.399 --> 00:28:08.159 road within eyesight is the piece of the berlin wall 409 00:28:08.159 --> 00:28:11.919 the concrete manifestation of the iron curtain that churchill warned about had 410 00:28:11.919 --> 00:28:17.600 not been built of course in 1946 um it was as andrew said earlier uh you 411 00:28:17.600 --> 00:28:20.640 know an analogy but but there it is after it 412 00:28:20.640 --> 00:28:24.880 comes down in in 1989 relocated 413 00:28:24.880 --> 00:28:28.960 to fulton uh and reflected as a sculpture by edwina sands churchill's 414 00:28:28.960 --> 00:28:33.200 granddaughter who uh who transformed the wall this 415 00:28:33.200 --> 00:28:38.159 formidable barrier not just a symbol of a barrier between 416 00:28:38.159 --> 00:28:40.480 ideologies is broken through if you look at the 417 00:28:40.480 --> 00:28:45.520 photograph you see these abstract human figures the male and female and today 418 00:28:45.520 --> 00:28:51.120 on campus there's no greater uh history lesson than to look at this side 419 00:28:51.120 --> 00:28:54.240 of the wall which would be the west side graffiti 420 00:28:54.240 --> 00:28:59.279 clad full of freedom and expression and the other side uh which is cold 421 00:28:59.279 --> 00:29:03.360 stark gray concrete you know the the the the the difference 422 00:29:03.360 --> 00:29:06.880 couldn't be clearer and for students uh young people for 423 00:29:06.880 --> 00:29:09.760 whom the cold war it could be the peloponnesian war i mean 424 00:29:09.760 --> 00:29:13.919 it could be a long time ago to see a monument like this firsthand 425 00:29:13.919 --> 00:29:16.320 and see the difference between one side and the 426 00:29:16.320 --> 00:29:20.559 other is a powerful powerful reminder of this chapter in our history 427 00:29:20.559 --> 00:29:26.799 and the museum is is is is is a great rule uh and serves a great 428 00:29:26.799 --> 00:29:30.799 purpose in teaching those lessons and it seems to me the two physical 429 00:29:30.799 --> 00:29:35.279 structures really they they they unite to to very 430 00:29:35.279 --> 00:29:40.240 disparate as you said a lot long distance in time 431 00:29:40.240 --> 00:29:43.279 moments that reflect the importance of the iron curtain speech 432 00:29:43.279 --> 00:29:47.279 in the speech he talks about churchill talks about christian civilization about 433 00:29:47.279 --> 00:29:50.960 the defense of christian civilization and and the ren church is a 434 00:29:50.960 --> 00:29:53.200 representative that you don't i think have to be 435 00:29:53.200 --> 00:29:58.240 a christian or or a believer to understand the civilizing aspects 436 00:29:58.240 --> 00:30:01.919 the church itself is is such a it's a magnificent beautiful 437 00:30:01.919 --> 00:30:05.279 uh object and then the berlin wall i mean 438 00:30:05.279 --> 00:30:09.840 to get back uh andrew to uh the effects of the speech 439 00:30:09.840 --> 00:30:14.000 essentially the coming down of the berlin wall is the end of the cold war 440 00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:20.640 um and uh and and the the the moral uh which he talks which 441 00:30:20.640 --> 00:30:24.159 churchill also talks about the spiritual and moral values 442 00:30:24.159 --> 00:30:27.200 of western civilization are really what sustain 443 00:30:27.200 --> 00:30:30.960 uh uh the the west in its opposition to communism and 444 00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:34.559 are what really triumph it's not the armies the triumph it's really the 445 00:30:34.559 --> 00:30:39.279 values the triumph is that fair more than fair it's 446 00:30:39.279 --> 00:30:42.640 absolutely right and uh and when you look at the berlin wall 447 00:30:42.640 --> 00:30:46.720 which of course went up in 1961 during churchill's lifetime 448 00:30:46.720 --> 00:30:51.919 um churchill said to jock colville his private secretary i'm not going to see 449 00:30:51.919 --> 00:30:54.880 the um victory over european communism but 450 00:30:54.880 --> 00:30:59.200 you will um and actually uh jock um colville died 451 00:30:59.200 --> 00:31:03.120 in 1987 so only two years before the fall of the 452 00:31:03.120 --> 00:31:07.679 berlin wall so he was almost right on on that but um 453 00:31:07.679 --> 00:31:11.440 what i love at fulton amongst many other things that i love at fulton 454 00:31:11.440 --> 00:31:15.760 is the juxtaposition of these two these two 455 00:31:15.760 --> 00:31:19.600 buildings you have the the clean classical 456 00:31:19.600 --> 00:31:23.360 architecture of sir christopher wren the greatest british 457 00:31:23.360 --> 00:31:27.360 architect somebody who although he was building 458 00:31:27.360 --> 00:31:32.000 in the late 17th century nonetheless was an enlightened uh 459 00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:37.200 figure an enlightenment architect um and so he was looking forward to 460 00:31:37.200 --> 00:31:42.159 to really the best that um that civilization had to offer in the west 461 00:31:42.159 --> 00:31:46.000 and uh and then right next to it with complete um 462 00:31:46.000 --> 00:31:51.200 juxtaposition uh you have this this monstrous architecturally 463 00:31:51.200 --> 00:31:58.559 foul piece of concrete that was put up solely in order to split people um apart 464 00:31:58.559 --> 00:32:02.240 and to and to stop families from being together effectively 465 00:32:02.240 --> 00:32:09.039 a terrible terrible um thing to have done the soviet um union to have 466 00:32:09.039 --> 00:32:11.760 stuck it up with the help of course of the warsaw 467 00:32:11.760 --> 00:32:16.559 pact and the east germans um and then uh edwina who has done 468 00:32:16.559 --> 00:32:23.600 such a wonderful job in um in showing the power of the human spirit 469 00:32:23.600 --> 00:32:26.960 in breaking through the um in breaking through the walls so 470 00:32:26.960 --> 00:32:31.039 so next to one another you have um you have the enlightenment you have 471 00:32:31.039 --> 00:32:35.440 civilization you have this appalling um ugly piece of 472 00:32:35.440 --> 00:32:41.039 um of barbarism um and that you also have turning it into a 473 00:32:41.039 --> 00:32:45.600 work of art uh the hope that is um inherent 474 00:32:45.600 --> 00:32:49.039 in the power of the human soul to um to break through 475 00:32:49.039 --> 00:32:53.360 so i mean it really is fulton has got it all there 476 00:32:53.360 --> 00:32:58.799 and there's the wonderful graffiti all over all over the wall you know the 477 00:32:58.799 --> 00:33:02.960 the demonstrations uh uh that were created in 1989 around 478 00:33:02.960 --> 00:33:05.360 around the wall the breaking down of the wall and all the 479 00:33:05.360 --> 00:33:08.799 graffiti that happened i remember tim there was at one point there was a 480 00:33:08.799 --> 00:33:11.840 debate about whether or not after the wall had been up for a while 481 00:33:11.840 --> 00:33:15.360 in fulton about whether or not to restore the graffiti 482 00:33:15.360 --> 00:33:18.880 an important art historical moment about whether or not the graffiti which was 483 00:33:18.880 --> 00:33:21.360 fading and i think aguina came down on the on 484 00:33:21.360 --> 00:33:24.640 the side of restoring the graffiti to keep the color 485 00:33:24.640 --> 00:33:27.919 well yes as an art historian as a museum professional you know we take 486 00:33:27.919 --> 00:33:32.720 conservation very seriously and in fact we did the the sunlight the missouri sun 487 00:33:32.720 --> 00:33:36.559 has not been kind um so we had a series of conservators 488 00:33:36.559 --> 00:33:38.880 it's a great image to see these gentlemen 489 00:33:38.880 --> 00:33:42.559 and lab coats white coats and tiny little brushes touching up 490 00:33:42.559 --> 00:33:46.159 the graffiti as they do uh stark contrast to i'm sure 491 00:33:46.159 --> 00:33:50.840 on how the paint was initially supplied but we do take good care of it 492 00:33:50.840 --> 00:33:53.840 great 493 00:33:55.190 --> 00:33:59.679 [Music] whatsoever for another couple of hundred 494 00:33:59.679 --> 00:34:01.840 years [Laughter] 495 00:34:01.840 --> 00:34:06.320 so of course why churchill was constantly in the south of france 496 00:34:06.320 --> 00:34:09.840 invading you're evading your weather 497 00:34:09.919 --> 00:34:17.440 or morocco or morocco um so andrew uh before we go to to questions and 498 00:34:17.440 --> 00:34:20.560 i do i do want to talk about the influence of the 499 00:34:20.560 --> 00:34:24.960 uh and the lessons really of the the speech for today 500 00:34:24.960 --> 00:34:28.480 i think and i think you've you've written about this and in fact you've 501 00:34:28.480 --> 00:34:30.879 written about this as recently as this morning in the 502 00:34:30.879 --> 00:34:37.119 the express in in london but um the speech in in one part of the speech 503 00:34:37.119 --> 00:34:41.599 we've mentioned uh he he he alludes to what they could have done 504 00:34:41.599 --> 00:34:45.440 in the late 30s to stand up with clarity to churchill 505 00:34:45.440 --> 00:34:48.720 do we have another isis to hitler sorry um 506 00:34:48.720 --> 00:34:52.240 do we have another moment like that the record essence of the 507 00:34:52.240 --> 00:34:59.520 uh of the russian bear uh uh putin uh in in syria and all over the 508 00:34:59.520 --> 00:35:03.520 all over the world the the iranians and the north koreans 509 00:35:03.520 --> 00:35:07.119 causing immense amount of trouble not only in their neighborhoods but 510 00:35:07.119 --> 00:35:10.720 elsewhere and then of course the rise of china uh 511 00:35:10.720 --> 00:35:16.240 itself a communist power um it is is does the iron curtain speech 512 00:35:16.240 --> 00:35:21.680 mean even more today uh it does yes i'm afraid the resonances 513 00:35:21.680 --> 00:35:26.480 and the echoes are so powerful today probably more today than they have been 514 00:35:26.480 --> 00:35:30.960 for some time um the at the time that 515 00:35:30.960 --> 00:35:38.079 we've been talking about um came down we many of us um hoped that uh as 516 00:35:38.079 --> 00:35:41.280 francis fukuyama put it you know it was the end of history 517 00:35:41.280 --> 00:35:45.280 that um we would have a long period where 518 00:35:45.280 --> 00:35:48.400 um where democracy in social democracy um 519 00:35:48.400 --> 00:35:52.079 and various other kinds of democracy was the accepted 520 00:35:52.079 --> 00:35:56.480 understood best form of of government across the world 521 00:35:56.480 --> 00:35:59.839 and of course uh you americans and the rest of the world were 522 00:35:59.839 --> 00:36:06.400 were um uh rudely um awakened from that hope and dream on 9 523 00:36:06.400 --> 00:36:10.720 11. um and now we're being even more shaken 524 00:36:10.720 --> 00:36:15.560 up really by uh by the rise of china and the rise of 525 00:36:15.560 --> 00:36:20.560 totalitarianism um and the slow withdrawal of democracy 526 00:36:20.560 --> 00:36:23.359 in in country after country and it strikes me that 527 00:36:23.359 --> 00:36:27.200 um what churchill said about how the russians didn't want 528 00:36:27.200 --> 00:36:33.760 war but they did want the fruits of war and um the only way to prevent that he 529 00:36:33.760 --> 00:36:37.280 thought was for the west and primarily the english-speaking peoples 530 00:36:37.280 --> 00:36:41.200 uh to um be together to to be allied and close 531 00:36:41.200 --> 00:36:46.560 and prevent the fruits of war from being given to totalitarian powers 532 00:36:46.560 --> 00:36:52.880 and it strikes me that today um that's still the case that if your country and 533 00:36:52.880 --> 00:36:55.680 mine are able to stay together if we're able 534 00:36:55.680 --> 00:36:59.680 to create a um a global alliance of countries and 535 00:36:59.680 --> 00:37:03.920 there are many around the world who don't um 536 00:37:03.920 --> 00:37:09.280 who are worried about the rise of totalitarianism and of course they are 537 00:37:09.280 --> 00:37:13.200 um but what it does require is leadership and as we mentioned earlier 538 00:37:13.200 --> 00:37:15.280 you know churchill wasn't prime minister at the 539 00:37:15.280 --> 00:37:19.280 time that he made the iron curtain speech um but he did make 540 00:37:19.280 --> 00:37:22.240 speech and it required people to stand up and 541 00:37:22.240 --> 00:37:26.160 to be counted and if i truly believe that if enough 542 00:37:26.160 --> 00:37:30.000 people uh do that and do that today um 543 00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:35.920 then uh then we will be able to create the sinews of peace all over again 544 00:37:35.920 --> 00:37:38.640 because it's not it's not that china wants war of course 545 00:37:38.640 --> 00:37:42.880 it doesn't but it does want the fruits of war 546 00:37:45.920 --> 00:37:49.359 the world situation today with britain leaving the 547 00:37:49.359 --> 00:37:54.160 the european union uh with certain parts of the european union 548 00:37:54.160 --> 00:37:58.000 uh they're not exactly at war but they're certainly in 549 00:37:58.000 --> 00:38:04.400 uh dark discussions um amongst themselves about the hungarians 550 00:38:04.400 --> 00:38:08.160 for instance uh and and the polls who who don't like 551 00:38:08.160 --> 00:38:11.520 everything the the the the eu is doing and the eu the rest the 552 00:38:11.520 --> 00:38:16.160 other members of the eu don't like some of the the eliminations of uh of of 553 00:38:16.160 --> 00:38:19.599 traditional freedoms uh in in those countries in particular in 554 00:38:19.599 --> 00:38:24.880 hungary today um are we are we in danger of uh 555 00:38:24.880 --> 00:38:29.280 fragmentation of the uh uh anglo-american 556 00:38:29.280 --> 00:38:33.839 and the uh and the western alliances generally of nato 557 00:38:33.839 --> 00:38:38.880 uh et cetera just the wrong moment um no i think it's the exact opposite 558 00:38:38.880 --> 00:38:44.400 crosby i really do um uh i think that um brexit has gone 559 00:38:44.400 --> 00:38:47.760 has given america a fantastic opportunity 560 00:38:47.760 --> 00:38:52.480 uh whereby britain is not going to be sucked into the more of this great 561 00:38:52.480 --> 00:38:55.520 european super state which as we've seen with 562 00:38:55.520 --> 00:39:00.079 um the uh eu deals brussels deals with china 563 00:39:00.079 --> 00:39:04.400 and actually has got not got the west's best interests at heart certainly hasn't 564 00:39:04.400 --> 00:39:08.640 got america's best interests at heart what they've been doing with huawei what 565 00:39:08.640 --> 00:39:15.200 they've been doing with the nordstream 2 gas pipeline from russia frankly is 566 00:39:15.200 --> 00:39:19.599 is directly in the um opposed to american best interests 567 00:39:19.599 --> 00:39:23.119 and uh and britain hasn't gone along with those and won't 568 00:39:23.119 --> 00:39:26.880 and so this is actually a good opportunity for doing exactly what 569 00:39:26.880 --> 00:39:29.839 churchill called for for for recreating the 570 00:39:29.839 --> 00:39:35.119 fraternal association between britain and america so i think it's a moment to 571 00:39:35.119 --> 00:39:38.079 be uh grasped by the american 572 00:39:38.079 --> 00:39:42.400 administration at the moment um the biden administration thinks of 573 00:39:42.400 --> 00:39:46.640 brexit as being a bad thing uh for the united states i hope soon 574 00:39:46.640 --> 00:39:49.599 they'll appreciate that actually a free sovereign and 575 00:39:49.599 --> 00:39:53.680 independent britain is a good thing for america 576 00:39:53.680 --> 00:39:58.960 well on on that note uh perhaps uh we can we can check and see if there are 577 00:39:58.960 --> 00:40:03.119 some questions uh from uh from the audience 578 00:40:03.119 --> 00:40:07.040 um elizabeth do we have do we have some questions is there anything in the chat 579 00:40:07.040 --> 00:40:11.599 that you can give us yes thanks crosby um there 580 00:40:11.599 --> 00:40:16.400 was one question um a bit earlier in time asking about 581 00:40:16.400 --> 00:40:20.720 uh churchill's heroes and mentors in the early years of his life 582 00:40:20.720 --> 00:40:27.760 the context of this um much much earlier great question uh well could i could i 583 00:40:27.760 --> 00:40:32.880 answer that one tim and maybe we'll have a go afterwards uh the fact 584 00:40:32.880 --> 00:40:37.280 is he was replete with heroes because he read history so 585 00:40:37.280 --> 00:40:41.440 much uh he had any number of heroes he 586 00:40:41.440 --> 00:40:47.359 admired napoleon who he used to quote an awful lot and whose books he had bound 587 00:40:47.359 --> 00:40:50.400 and you can see them at churchill college cambridge 588 00:40:50.400 --> 00:40:56.319 he loved um pitt the younger many of his wartime speeches you can hear that the 589 00:40:56.319 --> 00:40:59.200 younger uh speaking through he attended clem 590 00:40:59.200 --> 00:41:04.319 also georges club also's speeches in 1917 and uh and 591 00:41:04.319 --> 00:41:08.319 a lot of churchill's second world war leadership can be seen 592 00:41:08.319 --> 00:41:14.480 um as uh using klim also as a prism really um he had 593 00:41:14.480 --> 00:41:18.640 a uh of course admired wolf of quebec and so on 594 00:41:18.640 --> 00:41:25.040 um but you also have a uh so he he was he was quite eclectic in his historical 595 00:41:25.040 --> 00:41:30.000 sense of being able to take heroes from from lots of different uh parts of 596 00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:33.599 history if you look at the um history of the english-speaking 597 00:41:33.599 --> 00:41:35.599 peoples that he wrote in the first volume 598 00:41:35.599 --> 00:41:38.880 alfred the great when he writes about alfred the great he's essentially 599 00:41:38.880 --> 00:41:44.079 writing about himself i think and and he's and he's projecting 600 00:41:44.079 --> 00:41:48.480 on to alfred the great various uh capacities and talents that 601 00:41:48.480 --> 00:41:53.520 that he knew he had um and so uh so yes there are there are 602 00:41:53.520 --> 00:41:56.880 there are many his own father was a hero to him his own father wasn't 603 00:41:56.880 --> 00:42:00.480 very nice to him frankly and and often treated him with contempt 604 00:42:00.480 --> 00:42:06.640 but nonetheless he still saw his father uh as being a hero he took the views and 605 00:42:06.640 --> 00:42:10.240 the um the political stance of um benjamin 606 00:42:10.240 --> 00:42:13.760 disraeli um the basis of tory democracy really 607 00:42:13.760 --> 00:42:18.319 comes from the israelian social conservatism and um uh and 608 00:42:18.319 --> 00:42:24.400 uh his views from that so i think you'll you'll um uh be inundated 609 00:42:24.400 --> 00:42:30.560 really when you're looking for um he had a lot of family pride and so that 610 00:42:30.560 --> 00:42:35.520 you know the biography of his father he he wrote and also also marlborough 611 00:42:35.520 --> 00:42:38.480 the first talk of me absolutely the first duke of morbid i should have 612 00:42:38.480 --> 00:42:42.480 probably mentioned him first in fact he wrote a wonderful full volume 613 00:42:42.480 --> 00:42:46.240 biography of his great ancestor the first yokomorba as well and 614 00:42:46.240 --> 00:42:50.960 having been born in uh blenheim palace uh of course the uh 615 00:42:50.960 --> 00:42:54.960 the um influence of the first duke was something that was always going to be 616 00:42:54.960 --> 00:42:59.839 very important to him 617 00:43:01.119 --> 00:43:04.960 one american to the list as far as a hero that you know churchill of course 618 00:43:04.960 --> 00:43:08.160 his mother was from brooklyn and and relished in his 619 00:43:08.160 --> 00:43:11.920 american side of the family and he mentions that hero uh at least a 620 00:43:11.920 --> 00:43:16.560 rhetorical hero in the speech and that's bert cochrane you know the great 621 00:43:16.560 --> 00:43:22.160 new york congressman uh who had a a wonderful way with words and 622 00:43:22.160 --> 00:43:25.280 churchill as a young man knew cochran and studied 623 00:43:25.280 --> 00:43:28.160 his speeches as he studies his own father's speeches 624 00:43:28.160 --> 00:43:34.000 uh in fact in the iron curtain speech credits burke cochrane incites him um 625 00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:38.319 as as a great rhetorical hero and i think you know that's also something not 626 00:43:38.319 --> 00:43:41.119 only were these great you know world leaders and military 627 00:43:41.119 --> 00:43:45.760 strategists um and and heroes of politics but there 628 00:43:45.760 --> 00:43:49.359 were heroes of the written word too which influenced churchill greatly and 629 00:43:49.359 --> 00:43:52.560 you can see it made manifest in the iron curtain speech in a remarkable way and 630 00:43:52.560 --> 00:43:55.440 bert cochran would add should be an american should 631 00:43:55.440 --> 00:43:59.119 be on the list um as should abraham lincoln in fact um 632 00:43:59.119 --> 00:44:02.240 because of course he he also when you see i think it's the 633 00:44:02.240 --> 00:44:04.560 volume three of the history of the english-speaking 634 00:44:04.560 --> 00:44:08.480 peoples he admires abraham lincoln enormously as well both as a 635 00:44:08.480 --> 00:44:12.560 speech maker but also obviously as a moral figure 636 00:44:12.560 --> 00:44:16.400 so i want you because you are a biographer of napoleon which i did not 637 00:44:16.400 --> 00:44:19.599 mention i believe at the top uh you've written one of the 638 00:44:19.599 --> 00:44:24.160 great biographies of of napoleon andrew i i have never fully 639 00:44:24.160 --> 00:44:26.960 understood i think i understand churchill pretty 640 00:44:26.960 --> 00:44:31.280 well and i've read a lot and i've read most of his writing i don't 641 00:44:31.280 --> 00:44:34.880 understand napoleon the love for napoleon because i 642 00:44:34.880 --> 00:44:38.240 i've always felt that napoleon in some ways 643 00:44:38.240 --> 00:44:42.880 represented the tyrannical aspects of european history 644 00:44:42.880 --> 00:44:46.319 now okay well fire away 645 00:44:46.319 --> 00:44:51.119 no what churchill recognized quite rightly was that what napoleon did was 646 00:44:51.119 --> 00:44:54.160 to save the best bits of the french 647 00:44:54.160 --> 00:44:58.240 revolution um equality before the law meritocracy 648 00:44:58.240 --> 00:45:01.599 uh freedom of religion and so on and get rid of the 649 00:45:01.599 --> 00:45:05.520 mad bits and the evil bits like the gill and mass guillotinings and 650 00:45:05.520 --> 00:45:10.720 of the terror um but also the 10-day weak and the cult of the supreme being 651 00:45:10.720 --> 00:45:15.119 and various other sort of nutty parts of the revolution uh 652 00:45:15.119 --> 00:45:21.520 he also was an extraordinary law giver who created tool intents and purposes 653 00:45:21.520 --> 00:45:25.680 the the framework of of the french state 654 00:45:25.680 --> 00:45:31.760 he had a reputation as a war monger as churchill did with certain people as 655 00:45:31.760 --> 00:45:35.680 we've discussed earlier but he wasn't one of the seven wars of 656 00:45:35.680 --> 00:45:40.560 the coalitions that were declared against france between 1792 and 1815 657 00:45:40.560 --> 00:45:43.599 napoleon was only responsible for two of them 658 00:45:43.599 --> 00:45:48.079 the peninsula war and the um and the 1812 war against russia 659 00:45:48.079 --> 00:45:51.520 both of whom of course disastrous for uh for france 660 00:45:51.520 --> 00:45:55.200 but it was reacting to the empires of the um 661 00:45:55.200 --> 00:45:58.480 of uh austria and russia and to an extent britain 662 00:45:58.480 --> 00:46:01.599 and uh prussia that uh brought him down and they 663 00:46:01.599 --> 00:46:05.119 they were going to bring him down because he represented 664 00:46:05.119 --> 00:46:12.160 this revolutionary fervor okay um so elizabeth more 665 00:46:12.160 --> 00:46:18.079 more questions we do we have um four more questions so far so there's 666 00:46:18.079 --> 00:46:22.400 plenty to keep you occupied i wanted to circle back um to what you 667 00:46:22.400 --> 00:46:27.040 were saying before about on his american side of things 668 00:46:27.040 --> 00:46:31.280 the question is um what do you believe churchill's assessment 669 00:46:31.280 --> 00:46:35.280 of the state of american institutions at the time 670 00:46:35.280 --> 00:46:39.040 uh would be today given recent events and and how 671 00:46:39.040 --> 00:46:42.160 would this affect the anglo-american relationship 672 00:46:42.160 --> 00:46:50.079 today um is that one for me i have my i i always hate to tiptoe into 673 00:46:50.079 --> 00:46:53.760 domestic american politics as of course churchill also 674 00:46:53.760 --> 00:46:58.800 tried to keep out of it as uh as much as possible um and 675 00:46:58.800 --> 00:47:02.160 also mary soames winston churchill's daughter um 676 00:47:02.160 --> 00:47:06.560 told me never to assume that i know what uh papa would have said 677 00:47:06.560 --> 00:47:12.960 under any circumstances um let alone the uh the extraordinary circumstances that 678 00:47:12.960 --> 00:47:17.040 you have in your uh country at the moment uh domestically politically 679 00:47:17.040 --> 00:47:21.119 um but i do know that one of the things that churchill did 680 00:47:21.119 --> 00:47:24.880 uh in british politics at least was to try to 681 00:47:24.880 --> 00:47:31.760 uh get beyond the partisanship of uh of day-to-day politics he uh 682 00:47:31.760 --> 00:47:35.119 he set up the other club for example where he ensured that 683 00:47:35.119 --> 00:47:38.960 members of the liberal party and members of the conservative party uh sat 684 00:47:38.960 --> 00:47:44.960 um next to one another at a dinner and although they were allowed to um in 685 00:47:44.960 --> 00:47:47.280 fact in his phrase nothing was to interfere 686 00:47:47.280 --> 00:47:52.079 with the asperity of party politics actually the very getting together 687 00:47:52.079 --> 00:47:54.880 around a table and being able to discuss everything 688 00:47:54.880 --> 00:47:58.559 uh in a friendly and uh and give-and-take 689 00:47:58.559 --> 00:48:02.720 charming intellectual manner was in and of itself 690 00:48:02.720 --> 00:48:07.920 an attempt to get beyond the asperity and ranker of party politics and uh 691 00:48:07.920 --> 00:48:13.760 i suspect that were um churchill alive today he would want to try to 692 00:48:13.760 --> 00:48:16.640 recreate that in the american domestic political 693 00:48:16.640 --> 00:48:20.240 environment it's always seemed to me andrew really 694 00:48:20.240 --> 00:48:22.800 remarkable i mean the iron curtain speech is a good 695 00:48:22.800 --> 00:48:28.000 good moment to to look at this that churchill could accuse during the 1945 696 00:48:28.000 --> 00:48:32.480 election accused the labor party of essentially becoming the gestapo i mean 697 00:48:32.480 --> 00:48:37.040 he uses that word gestapo and and then 698 00:48:37.040 --> 00:48:41.760 he and atlee are getting along i mean of course atlee was part of his government 699 00:48:41.760 --> 00:48:45.440 too as he's saying this um and and then 700 00:48:45.440 --> 00:48:48.720 after after the election he licks his wounds 701 00:48:48.720 --> 00:48:53.760 and he and atley sit down and and concoct this foreign policy essentially 702 00:48:53.760 --> 00:48:57.359 together yes the um he always admired actually 703 00:48:57.359 --> 00:49:02.319 enormously in fact when he was asked who was the best labor uh minister and 704 00:49:02.319 --> 00:49:06.079 everybody was expecting him to say ernest bevin in fact he said clement 705 00:49:06.079 --> 00:49:12.319 atlee and of course it was clementi in may 1940 who uh who went into the 706 00:49:12.319 --> 00:49:16.800 war cabinets who entered the national government who allowed churchill to 707 00:49:16.800 --> 00:49:20.240 to to knock together his own government effectively you know 708 00:49:20.240 --> 00:49:25.119 even though atlee could have insisted on various places and and positions being 709 00:49:25.119 --> 00:49:29.520 given to various labour people um it was uh 710 00:49:29.520 --> 00:49:35.280 it was a really uh i suppose in many ways the best example 711 00:49:35.280 --> 00:49:39.119 of bipartisanship in uh politics that we've ever had in 712 00:49:39.119 --> 00:49:42.720 the united kingdom and so he saw the advantage of it this 713 00:49:42.720 --> 00:49:47.920 did not stop him as you mentioned from uh from going hammer and tongs it 714 00:49:47.920 --> 00:49:51.920 actually across the dispatch box and in the public speeches and so on 715 00:49:51.920 --> 00:49:56.960 uh that was that was all fair game but when it came to actually trying to 716 00:49:56.960 --> 00:50:00.720 come together to make decisions that were going to make the 717 00:50:00.720 --> 00:50:07.280 country stronger he always found that he and athlete could could talk eye to 718 00:50:07.280 --> 00:50:09.520 eye 719 00:50:09.839 --> 00:50:14.559 elizabeth moore yes um so this is a question for tim 720 00:50:14.559 --> 00:50:18.720 and uh wanted to bring up the lovely room he's sitting in we have another 721 00:50:18.720 --> 00:50:25.200 um photo of that we want to share here um so question for tim is 722 00:50:25.200 --> 00:50:30.800 on is there a relationship between this museum and the truman presidential 723 00:50:30.800 --> 00:50:33.760 library given this special relationship between 724 00:50:33.760 --> 00:50:37.920 truman and uh and churchill is there churchill materials there is there some 725 00:50:37.920 --> 00:50:41.680 kind of relationship that you have yes in fact 726 00:50:41.680 --> 00:50:45.760 this morning we launched our 75th anniversary commemoration broadcast 727 00:50:45.760 --> 00:50:51.200 with a joint session with edwina sands who is churchill's granddaughter we 728 00:50:51.200 --> 00:50:56.160 mentioned her earlier and also clifton truman daniel truman's grandson from 729 00:50:56.160 --> 00:50:59.839 here and the truman library so as early as this morning 730 00:50:59.839 --> 00:51:03.839 we we reaffirmed that special relationship between institutions 731 00:51:03.839 --> 00:51:07.200 um and we continue to work together i know that 732 00:51:07.200 --> 00:51:11.520 next week maybe a plug for them uh they're doing a a wonderful webcast i 733 00:51:11.520 --> 00:51:16.160 think crosby you're participating i'm a analyst with uh candace millard 734 00:51:16.160 --> 00:51:19.520 and david vondrele the washington post columnist and also himself a good 735 00:51:19.520 --> 00:51:23.760 historian uh we'll be moderating it uh uh so you know for those of you who 736 00:51:23.760 --> 00:51:26.800 cannot get enough of the 75th anniversary of the 737 00:51:26.800 --> 00:51:30.160 uh iron curtain speech there's more there is 738 00:51:30.160 --> 00:51:33.839 and and and to this room that uh the photograph was and i'm sitting is the 739 00:51:33.839 --> 00:51:37.680 clementine spencer reading room named in honor of winston 740 00:51:37.680 --> 00:51:41.839 churchill's longtime and beloved wife clementine we have here 741 00:51:41.839 --> 00:51:45.119 all of andrew roberts books 742 00:51:46.640 --> 00:51:54.079 and a few by churchill um uh uh compendium of materials 743 00:51:54.079 --> 00:51:57.200 uh that clementine herself endorsed uh and 744 00:51:57.200 --> 00:52:01.280 and knew about when when she was alive and so it's a great reading room 745 00:52:01.280 --> 00:52:04.079 research people who visit the museum researchers 746 00:52:04.079 --> 00:52:06.400 who who use our papers to study the speech 747 00:52:06.400 --> 00:52:11.839 um come to this room and and use it as a reading room 748 00:52:13.599 --> 00:52:17.680 another question got about five more minutes i think 749 00:52:17.680 --> 00:52:22.079 yeah we do have one that might not fit into just a few minutes but i'll go 750 00:52:22.079 --> 00:52:25.760 ahead and pose it anyway there's a question from some westminster 751 00:52:25.760 --> 00:52:28.720 students and they're asking what churchill's 752 00:52:28.720 --> 00:52:33.200 greatest failing was over his long career and uh and or 753 00:52:33.200 --> 00:52:39.200 his greatest triumph gosh well there are i think there are an awful lot of um 754 00:52:39.200 --> 00:52:43.280 failures frankly they they he made blunder after blunder he 755 00:52:43.280 --> 00:52:46.079 got the gold standard wrong he got the 756 00:52:46.079 --> 00:52:51.839 abdication crisis wrong uh he got the um 757 00:52:53.119 --> 00:52:56.319 there's just so many um the blackened hands in ireland 758 00:52:56.319 --> 00:52:59.680 i think the most serious one he got to women's suffrage 759 00:52:59.680 --> 00:53:03.520 badly wrong i think the most serious one though was the gallipoli 760 00:53:03.520 --> 00:53:08.240 campaign of 1915 which uh was a brilliant idea as a brilliant 761 00:53:08.240 --> 00:53:12.640 concept to try to get the royal navy through the straits of 762 00:53:12.640 --> 00:53:19.520 the dardanelles into the um sea of marmara and thereby to have 763 00:53:19.520 --> 00:53:23.200 knocked the turks out of the first world war had it come off 764 00:53:23.200 --> 00:53:26.240 it would have been one of the great strategic coups of the 765 00:53:26.240 --> 00:53:29.280 um of world history frankly military history 766 00:53:29.280 --> 00:53:34.079 but it didn't and ultimately it led to the killing or wounding of 147 767 00:53:34.079 --> 00:53:40.240 000 allied troops so i think that has got to go down as as his biggest failure 768 00:53:40.240 --> 00:53:42.400 as far as his biggest success is concerned 769 00:53:42.400 --> 00:53:46.800 i think it would um either be keeping i'd be interested to see what uh what 770 00:53:46.800 --> 00:53:50.640 tim and crosby think about this will be either uh keeping britain in the 771 00:53:50.640 --> 00:53:54.960 war um between may 1940 and june 1941 772 00:53:54.960 --> 00:53:59.359 where allowing the rest of the world especially america to rearm 773 00:53:59.359 --> 00:54:05.440 in that key uh year uh not making peace with hitler after dunkirk 774 00:54:05.440 --> 00:54:10.000 or possibly um his contribution to the creation of 775 00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:14.559 an allied ground strategy from 1941 to 1945 776 00:54:14.559 --> 00:54:19.359 onwards and to have created or helped create along with george 777 00:54:19.359 --> 00:54:23.839 marshall and the pentagon the um the mediterranean strategy and 778 00:54:23.839 --> 00:54:27.760 then the cross-channel uh attack that took place in on d-day in 779 00:54:27.760 --> 00:54:33.040 1944. yeah i i would agree with you uh 780 00:54:33.040 --> 00:54:38.960 the war itself obviously um uh but i would say i would drill down to a 781 00:54:38.960 --> 00:54:43.680 specific moment john lucas uh did did this and and uh and others 782 00:54:43.680 --> 00:54:46.640 have have followed as well but the five days 783 00:54:46.640 --> 00:54:49.839 in london the the the five days in in may that 784 00:54:49.839 --> 00:54:55.280 uh uh uh halifax and others in in the cabinet were willing to treat 785 00:54:55.280 --> 00:55:00.480 through mussolini uh with uh uh with um uh hitler 786 00:55:00.480 --> 00:55:06.400 um and and uh create a uh a compromise end of the war which of 787 00:55:06.400 --> 00:55:08.559 course wouldn't have ended the war which churchill 788 00:55:08.559 --> 00:55:13.200 realized and and uh and he may briefly have realized it alone 789 00:55:13.200 --> 00:55:17.440 chamberlain came in if i remember correctly to to support him ultimately 790 00:55:17.440 --> 00:55:20.880 in that and he convinced the cabinet um uh to 791 00:55:20.880 --> 00:55:25.040 to back him but that that there's a moment that hangs in the balance i think 792 00:55:25.040 --> 00:55:28.960 i mean i'd be interested in your view of that yes yes i agree what about 793 00:55:28.960 --> 00:55:33.359 you tim what do you think well i guess one of my i don't know 794 00:55:33.359 --> 00:55:39.359 about churchill's greatest um trial but perhaps one of the 795 00:55:39.359 --> 00:55:43.119 one of the one of the um the least finest hours is that we don't 796 00:55:43.119 --> 00:55:46.319 have more time uh to have this discussion i think we're 797 00:55:46.319 --> 00:55:50.799 almost out of time here to answer that question and more but you 798 00:55:50.799 --> 00:55:53.920 know i think that the iron curtain speech itself was one of his finest 799 00:55:53.920 --> 00:55:57.119 hours and we can't lose sight of that 75 years on 800 00:55:57.119 --> 00:56:01.520 in that he uses his position uh and says it we mentioned earlier 801 00:56:01.520 --> 00:56:05.440 it's the last time he saw it coming and no one would listen 802 00:56:05.440 --> 00:56:09.040 uh and here he is 75 years ago on this day saying 803 00:56:09.040 --> 00:56:13.200 surely ladies and gentlemen we must not let this happen again and 804 00:56:13.200 --> 00:56:20.240 whatever we think of the cold war um it it was not a hot war um a flagrant war a 805 00:56:20.240 --> 00:56:24.400 global conflict uh and to agree that churchill 806 00:56:24.400 --> 00:56:28.480 and his words and observation using his prescience and vision 807 00:56:28.480 --> 00:56:33.839 here 75 years ago uh to to to through his rhetoric and his words just 808 00:56:33.839 --> 00:56:39.440 as he had done uh in 1940 uh mobilize the english language 809 00:56:39.440 --> 00:56:45.599 uh and send it into cold war battle uh is is one of his finest hours 810 00:56:45.599 --> 00:56:52.799 absolutely absolutely um so as uh as tim points out we are 811 00:56:52.799 --> 00:56:56.240 about two minutes um there's two minutes remaining 812 00:56:56.240 --> 00:57:00.799 so we'll do a maybe a quick wrap-up um from crosby and andrew as well 813 00:57:00.799 --> 00:57:05.440 and uh before we do that just a quick plug there are 814 00:57:05.440 --> 00:57:10.480 um some other events going on uh today and tomorrow is to mention so i 815 00:57:10.480 --> 00:57:13.839 encourage you to to check those out we also have another 816 00:57:13.839 --> 00:57:16.480 conversation with crosby uh coming up on march 817 00:57:16.480 --> 00:57:20.240 24th uh with david thompson british film critic 818 00:57:20.240 --> 00:57:23.640 and you can find more information about that at our website 819 00:57:23.640 --> 00:57:27.440 imos.gov so back over to crosby and andrew 820 00:57:27.440 --> 00:57:33.599 so andrew is some last words about about the speech in churchill's legacy 821 00:57:33.760 --> 00:57:40.160 i'd like to repeat those words that he used to a young american who was 822 00:57:40.160 --> 00:57:43.599 crossing the westminster hall on the day of the 823 00:57:43.599 --> 00:57:48.000 coronation luncheon in 1953 when he said study history 824 00:57:48.000 --> 00:57:52.319 study history for therein lies all the secrets of statecraft 825 00:57:52.319 --> 00:57:56.720 and it strikes me that what you're doing at fulton and what you've been doing for 826 00:57:56.720 --> 00:58:00.960 years and with this beautiful gorgeous ren church 827 00:58:00.960 --> 00:58:05.119 and uh and keeping up the gymnasium of course where the speech was given 828 00:58:05.119 --> 00:58:08.160 and the archives you have in the museum you have 829 00:58:08.160 --> 00:58:13.920 all of those things uh directly go to what churchill wanted to have 830 00:58:13.920 --> 00:58:16.319 happen which was that people were going to be 831 00:58:16.319 --> 00:58:19.760 able to study history and learn from it all the secrets of 832 00:58:19.760 --> 00:58:22.799 statecraft congratulations on what you do 833 00:58:22.799 --> 00:58:28.000 well thank you you're here thank you uh andrew roberts for a great 834 00:58:28.000 --> 00:58:30.960 conversation and tim riley for participating in the 835 00:58:30.960 --> 00:58:35.599 conversation too and for uh to echo what andrew just said 836 00:58:35.599 --> 00:58:38.319 for for for running what is really a 837 00:58:38.319 --> 00:58:42.000 treasure of western civilization uh the the 838 00:58:42.000 --> 00:58:46.079 national churchill museum in uh fulton missouri so thank you all and 839 00:58:46.079 --> 00:58:51.280 thank thanks everyone for for uh listening to us watching us 840 00:58:51.280 --> 00:58:54.799 thanks for joining we're going to go ahead and stop the recording now um 841 00:58:54.799 --> 00:58:58.319 we again will make this available on the website thanks everyone 842 00:58:58.319 --> 00:59:01.119 and have a great weekend 843 00:59:02.559 --> 00:59:11.119 so andrew did we are did we do okay