Winston Churchill, The Iron Curtain (pp. 452-453)

This is a selection from an speech given by Britain’s former prime minister in the United States in 1946.  Churchill warned his American audience about the spread of totalitarian and more specifically communist dictatorships throughout Eastern Europe and in parts of Germany.  He also spoke against repeating the mistakes of the 1930s when an aggressive Nazi Germany was appeased time and again.  Instead of appeasement, Churchill called for negotiation with the Soviets in combination with unified resolve on the part of the Western democracies against any unilateral or illegal action.  This is now considered to be one of the key speeches of the emerging Cold War.