delivered 5 March 1946, Westminster College, Fulton Missouri 

President McCluer, ladies and gentlemen, and last but certainly not least, President  of the United States of America: 

I am very glad indeed to come to Westminster College this afternoon, and I am  complimented that you should give me a degree from an institution whose reputation  has been so solidly established. The name "Westminster" somehow or other seems  familiar to me. I -- I feel as if I've heard of it before. Indeed now that I come to  think of it, it was at Westminster that I received a very large part of my education in  politics, dialectic, rhetoric -- and one or two other things. So, in fact we have both  been educated at the same, or similar, or, at any rate, kindred establishments. 

It is also an honor, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps almost unique, for a private visitor  to be introduced to an academic audience by the President of the United States.  Amid his heavy burdens, duties, and responsibilities -- unsought but not recoiled  from -- the President has traveled a thousand miles to dignify and magnify our  meeting here today and to give me an opportunity of addressing this kindred nation,  as well as my own countrymen across the ocean, and -- and perhaps some other  countries too. The -- The President has told you that it is his wish, as I am sure it is  yours, that I should have full liberty to give my true and faithful counsel in these  anxious and baffling times. Now, I shall certainly avail myself of this freedom, and  feel the more right to do so because any private ambitions I may have cherished in  my younger days have been satisfied beyond my wildest dreams. Let me, however,  make it clear that I have no official mission or status of any kind, and that I speak  only for myself. There is nothing here but what you see. 

I can therefore allow my mind, with the experience of a lifetime, to play over the  problems which beset us on the morrow of our absolute victory in arms, and to try to  make sure with what strength I have that what has been gained with so much  sacrifice and suffering shall be preserved for the future glory and safety of mankind. 

Ladies and gentlemen, the United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world  power. It is a solemn moment for the American democracy. For with primacy in  power is also joined an awe-inspiring accountability to the future. If, as you look  around you -- If you look around you, you must feel not only the sense of duty done  but also you must feel anxiety lest you fall below the level of achievement.  Opportunity is here now, clear and shining for both our countries. To reject it or  ignore it or fritter it away will bring upon us all the long reproaches of the after-time.  It is necessary that constancy of mind, persistency of purpose, and the grand  simplicity of decision shall rule and guide the conduct of the English-speaking  peoples in peace as they did in war. And we must, and I believe we shall, prove  ourselves equal to this severe requirement. 

President McCluer, when American military men approach some serious situation  they are wont to write at the head of their directive the words "over-all strategic concept." There is wisdom in this, as it leads to clarity of thought. What then is the  overall strategic concept which we should inscribe today? It is nothing less than the  safety and welfare, the freedom and progress, of all the homes and families of all the  men and women in all the lands. And here I speak particularly of the myriad cottage  or apartment homes where the wage-earner strives amid the accidents and  difficulties of life to guard his wife and children from privation and bring the family up  in the fear of the Lord, or upon ethical conceptions which often play their potent  part. 

To give security to these countless homes, they must be shielded from the two gaunt  marauders, war and tyranny. We all know the frightful disturbance in which the  ordinary family is plunged when the curse of war swoops down upon the bread winner and those for whom he works and contrives. The awful ruin of Europe, with  all its vanished glories, and of large parts of Asia glares us in the eyes. When the  designs of wicked men or the aggressive urge of mighty States dissolve over large  areas the frame of civilized society, humble folk are confronted with difficulties with  which they cannot cope. For them is all distorted, all is broken, all is even ground to  pulp. 

When I stand here this quiet afternoon I shudder to visualize what is actually  happening to millions now and what is going to happen in this period when famine  stalks the earth. None can compute what has been called "the unestimated sum of  human pain." Our supreme task and duty is to guard the homes of the common  people from the horrors and miseries of another war.  

We are all agreed on that. 

Our American military colleagues, after having proclaimed their "over-all strategic  concept" and computed available resources, always proceed to the next step -- namely, the method. Here again there is widespread agreement. A world  organization has already been erected for the prime purpose of preventing war. UNO  -- "U-N-O" -- the successor of the League of Nations, with the decisive addition of  the United States and all that that means, is already at work. We must make sure  that its work is fruitful, that it is a reality and not a sham, that it is a force for action,  and not merely a frothing of words, that it is a true temple of peace in which the  shields of many nations can some day be hung up, and not merely a cockpit in a  Tower of Babel. Before we cast away the solid assurances of national armaments for  self-preservation we must be certain that our temple is built, not upon shifting sands  or quagmires, but upon the rock. Anyone can see with his -- with his eyes open that  our path will be difficult and also long, but if we persevere together as we did in the  two world wars -- though not, alas, in the interval between them -- I cannot doubt  that we shall achieve our common purpose in the end. 

I have, however, a definite and practical proposal to make for action. 

Courts and magistrates may be set up but they cannot function without sheriffs and  constables. The United Nations Organization must immediately begin to be equipped  with an international armed force. In such a matter we can only go step by step, but  we must begin now. I propose that each of the Powers and States should be invited to dedicate a certain number of air squadrons to the service of the world  organization. These squadrons would be trained and prepared in their own countries,  but would move around in rotation from one country to another. They would wear the uniforms of their own countries but with different badges. They would not be  required to act against their own nation, but in other respects they would be directed  by the world organization. This might be started on a modest scale and it would grow  as confidence grew. I wished to see this done after the first world war, and I  devoutly trust that it may be done forthwith. 

It would nevertheless, ladies and gentlemen, be wrong and imprudent to entrust the  secret knowledge or experience of the atomic bomb, which the United States, great  Britain, and Canada now share, to the world organization, while it is still in its  infancy. It would be criminal madness to cast it adrift in this still agitated and un united world. No one in any country -- No one in any country has slept less well in  their beds because this knowledge and the method and the raw materials to apply it,  are at present largely retained in American hands. I do not believe we should all  have slept so soundly had the positions been reversed and some Communist or neo Fascist State monopolized for the time being these dread agencies. The fear of them  alone might easily have been used to enforce totalitarian systems upon the free  democratic world, with consequences appalling to human imagination. God has willed  that this shall not be and we have at least a breathing space to set our house in  order before this peril has to be encountered. And even then, if no effort is spared,  we should still possess so formidable a superiority as to impose effective deterrents  upon its employment, or threat of employment, by others. Ultimately, when the  essential brotherhood of man is truly embodied and expressed in a world  organization with all the necessary practical safeguards to make it effective, these  powers would naturally be confided to that world organization. 

Now I come to the second of the two marauders, to the second danger which  threatens the cottage homes, and ordinary people -- namely, tyranny. 

We cannot be blind to the fact that the liberties enjoyed by individual citizens  throughout the United States and throughout the British Empire are not valid in a  considerable number of countries, some of which are very powerful. With these  States control is enforced upon the common people by various kinds of all-embracing  police governments to a degree which is overwhelming and contrary to every  principle of democracy. The power of the State is exercised without restraint, either  by dictators or by compact oligarchies operating through a privileged party and a  political police. It is not our duty at this time when difficulties are so numerous to  interfere forcibly in the internal affairs of countries which we have not conquered in  war. But we must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of  freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas  Corpus, trial by jury, the English common law find their most famous expression in  the American Declaration of Independence. 

All this means that the people of any country have the right, and should have the  power by constitutional action, by free unfettered elections, with secret ballot, to  choose or change the character or form of government under which they dwell; that  freedom of speech and thought should reign; that courts of justice, independent of  the executive, unbiased by any party, should administer laws which have received  the broad assent of large majorities or are consecrated by time and custom. Here are  the title deeds of freedom which should lie in every cottage home. Here is the  message of the British and American peoples to mankind. Let us preach what we  practice -- let us practice what we preach.

Though I have now stated the two great dangers which menace the homes of the  people, war and tyranny, I have not yet spoken of poverty and privation which are in  many cases the prevailing anxiety. But if the dangers of war and tyranny are  removed, there is no doubt that science and cooperation can bring in the next few  years, certainly in the next few decades, to the world, newly taught in the  sharpening school of war, an expansion of material well-being beyond anything that  has yet occurred in human experience. 

Now, at this sad and breathless moment, we are plunged in the hunger and distress  which are the aftermath of our stupendous struggle; but this will pass and may pass  quickly, and there is no reason except human folly or sub-human crime which should  

deny to all the nations the inauguration and enjoyment of an age of plenty. I have  often used words which I learned 50 years ago from a great Irish-American orator, a  friend of mine, Mr. Bourke Cockran, "There is enough for all. The earth is a generous  mother; she will provide in plentiful abundance food for all her children if they will  but cultivate her soil in justice and in peace."  

And so -- So far I -- I -- I feel that we are in -- in full agreement. 

Now, while still pursuing the method -- the method of realizing our overall strategic  concept, I come to the crux of what I have traveled here to say. Neither the sure  prevention of war, nor the continuous rise of world organization will be gained  without what I have called the fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples.  This means a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire  and the United States of America. Ladies and gentlemen, this is no time for  generalities, and I will venture to be precise. Fraternal association requires not only  the growing friendship and mutual understanding between our two vast but kindred  systems of society, but the continuance of the intimate relations between our  military advisers, leading to common study of potential dangers, the similarity of  weapons and manuals of instruction, and to the interchange of officers and cadets at  technical colleges. It should carry with it 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. And this -- this would perhaps double the mobility  of the American Navy and Air Force. It would greatly expand that of the British  Empire forces and it might well lead, if and as the world calms down, to important  financial savings. Already we use together a large number of islands; more may well  be entrusted to our joint care in the near future. 

The United States has already a Permanent Defense Agreement with the Dominion of  Canada, which is so devotedly attached to the British Commonwealth and Empire.  This Agreement is more effective than many of those which have often been made  under formal alliances. This principle should be extended to all the British  Commonwealths with full reciprocity. Thus, whatever happens, and thus only, shall  we be secure ourselves and able to work together for the high and simple causes  that are dear to us and bode no ill to any. Eventually -- Eventually there may come - - I feel eventually there will come -- the principle of common citizenship, but that we  may be content to leave to destiny, whose outstretched arm many of us can already  clearly see. 

There is however an important question we must ask ourselves. Would a -- a special  relationship between the United States and the British Commonwealth be  inconsistent with our overriding loyalties to the world organization? I reply that, on the contrary, it is probably the only means by which that organization will achieve its  full stature and strength. There are already the special United States relations with  Canada which I've just mentioned, and there are the relations between the United  States and the South American Republics. We have also -- We British have also our  twenty years Treaty of Collaboration and Mutual Assistance with Soviet Russia. I  agree with Mr. Bevin, the Foreign Secretary of Great Britain, that it might well be a  fifty years treaty so far as we are concerned. We aim at nothing but mutual  assistance and collaboration with Russia. We have an alliance -- The British have an  alliance with Portugal unbroken since the year 1384, and which produced fruitful  results at a critical moment in the -- in the recent war. None of these clash with the  general interest of a world agreement, or a world organization; on the contrary, they  help it. "In my father's house are many mansions."³ Special associations between  members of the United Nations which have no aggressive point against any other  country, which harbor no design incompatible with the Charter of the United Nations,  far from being harmful, are beneficial and, as I believe, indispensable. 

I spoke earlier, ladies and gentlemen, of -- of the Temple of Peace. Workmen from  all countries must build that temple. If two of the workmen know each other  particularly well and are old friends, if their families are intermingled, if they have  "faith in each other's purpose, hope in each other's future and charity towards each  other's shortcomings" -- to quote some good words I read here the other day -- why  cannot they work together at the common task as friends and partners? Why can  they not share their tools and thus increase each other's working powers? Indeed  they must do so or else the temple may not be built, or, being built, it may collapse,  and we should all be proved again unteachable and have to go and try to learn again  for a third time in a school of war incomparably more rigorous than that from which  we have just been released. The dark ages may return, the Stone Age may return on  the gleaming wings of science, and what might now shower immeasurable material  blessings upon mankind, may even bring about its total destruction. Beware, I say;  time may be short. Do not let us take the course of allowing events to drift along  until it is too late. If there is to be a fraternal association of the kind of I have  described, with all the express strength and security which both our countries can  derive from it, let us make sure that that great fact is known to the world, and that it  plays its part in steadying and stabilizing the foundations of peace. There is the path  of wisdom. Prevention is better than the cure. 

*A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately light by the Allied victory.* Nobody  knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organization intends to do  in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and  proselytizing tendencies. I have a strong admiration and regard for the valiant  Russian people and for my wartime comrade, Marshall Stalin. There -- There is deep  sympathy and goodwill in Britain -- and I doubt not here also -- towards the peoples  of all the Russias and a resolve to persevere through many differences and rebuffs in  establishing lasting friendships. We understand the Russian need to be secure on her  western frontiers by the removal of all possibility of German aggression. We welcome  Russia to her rightful place among the leading nations of the world. We welcome her  flag upon the seas. Above all, we welcome, or should welcome, constant, frequent,  and growing contacts between the Russian people and our own peoples on both sides  of the Atlantic. It is my duty however, for I am sure you would not wish me to not  misstate the...facts as I see them to you. It is my duty to place before you certain  facts about the present position in Europe.

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended  across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of  Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade,  Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in  what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not  only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in some cases, increasing measure of  control from -- from Moscow. Athens alone -- Greece with its immortal glories -- is  free to decide its future at an election under British, American, and French  observation. The Russian-dominated Polish government has been encouraged to  make enormous and wrongful inroads upon Germany, and mass expulsions of  millions of Germans on a scale grievous and undreamed-of are now taking place. The  Communist parties, which were very small in all these Eastern States of Europe,  have been raised to preeminence and power far beyond their numbers and are  seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control. Police governments are prevailing  in nearly every case, and so far, except in Czechoslovakia, there is no true  democracy. 

Turkey and Persia are both profoundly alarmed and disturbed at the claims which are  being made upon them and at the pressure being exerted by the Moscow  government. An attempt is being made by the Russians in Berlin to build up a quasi Communist party in their zone of occupied Germany by showing special favors to  groups of left-wing German leaders. At the end of the fighting last June, the  American and British armies withdrew westward, in accordance with an earlier  agreement, to a depth at some points of 150 miles upon a front of nearly four  hundred miles, in order to allow our Russian allies to occupy this vast expanse of  territory which the Western democracies had conquered.  

If now the Soviet government tries, by separate action, to build up a pro-Communist  Germany in their areas, this will cause new serious difficulties in the American and  British zones, and will give the defeated Germans the power of putting themselves  up to auction between the Soviets and the Western democracies. Whatever  conclusions may be drawn from these facts -- and facts they are -- this is certainly  not the liberated Europe we fought to build up. Nor is it one which contains the  essentials of permanent peace. 

The safety of the world, ladies and gentlemen, requires a new unity in Europe, from  which no nation should be permanently outcast. It is from the quarrels of the strong  parent races in Europe that the world wars we have witnessed, or which occurred in  former times, have sprung. Twice in our own lifetime we have seen the United  

States, against their wishes and their traditions, against arguments, the force of  which it is impossible -- the force of which it is impossible not to comprehend. Twice  we have seen them drawn by irresistible forces into these wars in time to secure the  victory of the good cause, but only after frightful slaughter and devastation have  occurred. Twice the United States has had to send several millions of its young men  across the Atlantic to find the war; but now war can find any nation, wherever it may  dwell between dusk and dawn. Surely we should work with conscious purpose for a  grand pacification of Europe, within the structure of the United Nations and in  accordance with our Charter. That, I feel, is -- opens a course of policy of very great  importance. 

In front of the iron curtain which lies across Europe are other causes for anxiety. In  Italy the Communist Party is seriously hampered by having to support the Communist-trained Marshal Tito's claims to former Italian territory at the head of the  Adriatic. Nevertheless, the future of Italy hangs in the balance. Again one cannot  imagine a regenerated Europe without a strong France. All my public life I worked for  a strong France, and I never lost faith in her destiny, even in the darkest hours. I will  not lose faith now. However, in a great number of countries, far from the Russian  frontiers and throughout the world, Communist fifth columns are established and  work in complete unity and absolute obedience to the directions they receive from  the Communist center. Except in the British Commonwealth and in the United States  where Communism is in its infancy, the Communist parties or fifth columns  constitute a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization. These are somber  facts for anyone to have recite on the morrow a victory gained by so much splendid  comradeship in arms and in the cause of freedom and democracy; but we should be  most unwise not to face them squarely while time remains. 

The outlook is also anxious in the Far East and especially in Manchuria. The  Agreement which was made at Yalta, to which I was a party, was extremely  favorable to Soviet Russia, but it was made at a time when no one could say that the  German war might not extend all through the summer and autumn of 1945 and  when the Japanese war was expected by the best judges to last for a further 18  months from the end of the German war. In this country you all so well-informed  about the Far East, and such devoted friends of China, that I do not need to  expatiate on the situation there. 

I have, however, felt bound to portray the shadow which, alike in the west and in the  east, falls upon the world. I was a minister at the time of the Versailles Treaty and a  close friend of Mr. Lloyd-George, who was the head of the British delegation at  Versailles. I did not myself agree with many things that were done, but I have a very  strong impression in my mind of that situation, and I find it painful to contrast it with  that which prevails now. In those days there were high hopes and unbounded  confidence that the wars were over and that the League of Nations would become  all-powerful. I do not see or feel that same confidence or even the same hopes in the  haggard world at the present time. 

On the other hand, ladies and gentlemen, I repulse the idea that a new war is  inevitable -- still more that it is imminent. It is because I am sure that our fortunes  are still in our own hands and that we hold the power to save the future, that I feel  the duty to speak out now that I have the occasion and the opportunity to do so. I  do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war  and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines. But what we have to  consider here today while time remains, is the permanent prevention of war and the  establishment of conditions of freedom and democracy as rapidly as possible in all  countries. Our difficulties and dangers will not be removed by closing our eyes to  them. They will not be removed by mere waiting to see what happens; nor will they  be removed by a policy of appeasement. What is needed is a settlement, and the  longer this is delayed, the more difficult it will be and the greater our dangers will  become. 

From what -- what I have seen of our Russian friends and Allies during the war, I am  convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as strength. And there is  nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military  weakness. For that -- For that reason the old doctrine of a balance of power is  unsound. We cannot afford, if we can help it, to work on narrow margins, offering temptations to a trial of strength. If the Western democracies stand together in strict  adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter there influence for  furthering those principles will be immense and no one is likely to molest them. If,  however, they become divided or falter in their duty, and if these all-important years  are allowed to slip away, then indeed catastrophe may overwhelm us all. 

Last time I saw it all coming and I cried aloud to my own fellow countrymen and to  the world, but -- but no one paid any attention. Up till the year 1933 or even 1935,  Germany might have been saved from the awful fate which has overtaken her, and  we might all have been spared the miseries Hitler let loose upon mankind. There  

never was a war in history easier to prevent by timely action than the one which has  just desolated such great areas of the globe. It could have been prevented in my  belief without the firing of a single shot, and Germany might be powerful,  prosperous, and honored today; but no one would listen and one by one we were all  sucked into the awful whirlpool. We surely, ladies and gentlemen, I put it to you,  surely, we must not let that happen again. This can only be achieved by reaching  now, in 1946 -- this year, 1946 -- by reaching a good understanding on all points  with Russia under the general authority of the United Nations Organization and by  the maintenance of that good understanding through many peaceful years, by the  World Instrument, supported by the whole strength of the English-speaking world  and all its connections. There is the solution which I respectfully offer to you in this  address to which I have given the title, "The Sinews of Peace." 

Let -- Let no man underrate the abiding power of the British Empire and -- and  Commonwealth. Because you see -- Because you see the 46 millions in our island  harassed about their food supply, of which they only grow one half, even in war time, or because we have difficulty in restarting our industries and export trade after  six years of passionate war effort, do not suppose we shall not come through these  dark years of privation as we have come through the glorious years of agony. Do not  suppose that half a century from now you will not see 70 or 80 millions of Britons  spread about the world united in defense of our traditions, and our way of life, and of  the world causes which you and we espouse. If -- If the population of the English speaking Commonwealths be added to that of the United States with all that such  cooperation implies in the air, on the sea, all over the globe, and in science, and in  industry, and in moral force, there will be no quivering, precarious balance of power  to offer its temptation to ambition or adventure. On the contrary, there will be an  overwhelming assurance of security. If we adhere faithfully to the Charter of the  United Nations and walk forward in sedate and sober strength seeking no one's land  or treasure, seeking to lay no arbitrary control upon the thoughts of men; if all  British moral and material forces and convictions are joined with your own in  fraternal association, the highroads of the future will be clear, not only for us, but for  all; not only for our times, but for a century to come.