Churchill remembered

It was a sunny, brisk March morning when Winston Churchill and Harry S. Truman, the two military leaders who fought to bring Hitler to his knees, rode in slow-moving cars through the streets of Fulton. A marching band led the small parade to the Westminster College gymnasium, where Churchill ambled onto the stage and gave one of the most important speeches of the 20th century.

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent,” he said. “Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe.”

At these words, Ruth Markus, then a radio reporter for an ABC affiliate, perceived a sudden anxiety spread through the audience.

“It was a very happy mood until he said ‘From Stettin,’” said Markus, now 89 and living in Lebanon, Ill. “We all had an ominous sense of what was to come.”

What came was the Cold War — the decades-long economic and military standoff among rival world powers, including the United States, the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, that threatened to bring about a nuclear holocaust.

Sam Goodfellow, a professor of European history at Westminster, said Churchill’s speech was predictive of the conflict that would come to affect the entire globe. Churchill, who had been voted out of office by the British electorate in 1945, came to Fulton unencumbered by diplomatic relationships with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. His visit was arranged through a Westminster graduate named Harry Vaughn, who was Truman’s military aide.

“Putting the speech in Fulton was something which was very attractive to Truman and Churchill,” Goodfellow said. “Symbolically, it showed that what matters in a small town like Fulton matters to the entire world.”

The Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. This weekend, on the 60th anniversary of Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech, Westminster will commemorate the historic moment with a slate of ceremonies and celebrations.

Most notably, Lady Mary Soames, Churchill’s last surviving daughter, will officiate at a ceremony marking the official opening of the newly renovated Winston Churchill Memorial Museum and Library. The memorial, housed in a 12th century London church painstakingly moved to Fulton stone by stone, has received a $4 million makeover that includes state-of-the-art audio and video technology to create an engaging experience.

The memorial also features a section of trench carved out of a World War I battlefield along the Western Front. Churchill was the First Lord of the Admiralty between 1911 and 1915, in charge of the Royal Navy.

“The overall approach is to make the memorial far more interactive and engaging,” said Rob Havers, executive director of the memorial. “Churchill is the focus, but it has also given us a chance to look at the history of the 20th century in an exciting way.”

Carolyn Laswell, former director of the memorial, said the renovations will appeal to children as well as adults.

“Children will be a lot more interested because it’s alive,” Laswell said. “It’s no longer just a picture on a wall or statue on a pedestal.”

This weekend the memorial is open to the public free of charge.

The Green Foundation, a group at Westminster that for the past 60 years has brought in world leaders to speak on global issues, tried to arrange a visit this weekend by President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. However, neither could make it because of scheduling conflicts, said Rob Crouse, Westminster’s director of college relations.

But this weekend’s celebration commences a year-long emphasis on current affairs at Westminster, and many scholars and political figures are expected to visit the campus over the next 12 months.