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Ronald Reagan said that from the Fulton speech of Winston Churchill was born not only the modern West, but also the world on our planet. From it also born the Cold War. The speech was delivered on March 5, 1946.
The Oil Factor
One of the main incentives for writing Fulton speech was the unresolved issue of Iranian oil at that time. From the end of 1943 - early 1944, two American oil companies - Standard Vacuum and Sinclair oil, as well as Dutch-British Royal Dutch Shell, with the support of US and British embassies and the favorable attitude of the Iranian government started negotiations in Tehran on granting them oil concessions in the south of Iran , in Balochistan. Moscow in 1944 also began to insist on granting the USSR an oil concession in Northern Iran under conditions similar to the British concession in South Iran, stressing that the development of Iranian oil fields by Britain or the US near the Soviet border would be viewed as a threat to the state interests of the USSR.
Iron Curtain
In the Fulton speech, Churchill first used the expression "Iron Curtain". It is interesting that this phrase was absent in the official version of the speech. The technique of that time did not immediately allow a high-quality audio recording of the speech, for the restoration of the timbre of Churchill and Truman's voices and the cleaning of the recording from extraneous noise, the Audio-Sicks campaign from New York was brought in. Only then the text of the speech was finally clarified and the "Iron Curtain" entered the political lexicon forever.
"Anglo-Saxon fascism"
The simple lexical analysis of the Fulton speech suggests that it was important for Churchill not to focus on the participation of Britain in the re division of the world. The former British prime minister delivered a speech as a private person, which seriously untied his hands and gave his speech almost academic significance. In his report, Winston Churchill only once used the words "Britain" and "Britain." But the British Commonwealth and the Empire six times, the English-speaking peoples six times, and the related ones-eight.This was the reason for Stalin's criticism.In an interview with the Pravda newspaper, Stalin even accused Churchill of Nazism: "German racial theory has led Hitler and his friends to the conclusion that the Germans as the only fully-fledged nation should dominate other nations. English racial theory leads Mr. Churchill and his friends to the conclusion that nations speaking English, as the only fully-fledged, should dominate the rest of the nations of the world.
"A pair of jacks"
On March 4, 1946, Churchill and Truman boarded a special train, which was supposed to take them to Fulton. Both were in perfect spirits. Truman was carrying the world's most famous orator to his native town, Churchill knew that the intended speech would leave him in history. He already considered Fulton speech his masterpiece. In the train, Churchill and Truman played poker. Turning to Truman, Churchill said: "Well, Harry, I'll risk a shilling for a couple jacks", which caused laughter, because the word "knave" matters both jack and con man. Churchill also admitted his love for America, which was evidently not a simple politeness, but a conscious strategic position. But not only in conversations for whiskey and ca
rd game passed the time of the trip. It was here, on the train, Churchill once again edited the text of his speech and gave him the name - The Sinews of Peace. In Russian this name can be translated as "Tendons of the world", but the word "Sinews" also has the value of physical strength.
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