Our final speaker of the day is mr. Michael bishop, michael is a consultant of the office of the chairman of the National Endowment of the humanities. Prior to that he served as director of the National Churchill library and center at George Washington university in d. C. He also served as the executive director, of the interNational Churchill society. Some of you, many of you know that the museum is a long standing relationship with the local branch of the Churchill Society. The Churchill Society of new orleans. Im with him being half american, we feel that we can keep covering winston as much as we want. But we certainly enjoyed watching michael, and his affiliates to great work around the country, michael was in charge of putting their 34th and 35th churchill conference together, and we are not quite caught up to that with our International Conferences but being involved in the conferences i know how much of a beast that is. Who here has seen the finest hour . Im sorry the darkest hour. Finest hour is a book, i mean the darkest hour. You can thank michael for providing deep insight to the cast the producers the crew, the historic consulting for that, and i think you are solely responsible for the Academy Awards right . Good michael is making his first trip to new orleans, and he has made two trips to the French Quarter already, he has a fair night left, so he might hit frenchman street tonight. Michaels affinity towards wednesday, keep that in mind when we hear him give the top on the Lasting Legacy of yalta, might come with a churchill perspective, but lets give michael in his first appearance here at the world war ii museum, a warm welcome to new orleans. Michael bishop everyone. Jeremy thank you very much and thanks to the leadership of National World war ii museum, and the organizers of this symposium for extending my wife and me such a warm welcome to new orleans. I would like to thank my senior director of programs and a prolific historian, who made the move here a few months ago we miss you in washington ed but our losses new orleans gain. Its a great pleasure to be here with you today i am the last speed bump before we have our own yell to conference here at the table, and we have dinner. I will try not to detain you for too long i greatly enjoyed because i know you have profited from the excellent presentations thus far my focus will be a little different. Their lectures were focused primarily on what happened in crimea 75 years ago and soon before and soon after, and mine is about how those events were remembered, and how they shaped the future. This business of historical commemoration is one with which i have been professionally engaged for a good portion of my career. An extremely interesting and enlightening symposium, as a trust to its conclusion, i will share with you my thoughts echoed down through the generations, particularly through the perspective of the one member of the big three who lived on for decades. Less than 60 days after leaving yalta, president roosevelt was dead. Josephs donald brutalizes people for eight more years until his death in 1953 but would write no memoir that day decades of bloody rule. Once told the house of commons that history would be kind to him for he intended to write it. Would indeed do just that. Again, as Prime Minister, and in the six second world war, he would ship the memory and much else for decades to come. Churchills impressions were far from positive. He commented, as you heard earlier, we could not have found a worse place for a meeting if we spent 10 years looking for it. He also deemed it the riviera of hades. [laughter] his experiences would be hellish, despite his cheerful and not altogether honest report to his wife, clementina, that open vote, that, i am very pleased with the decisions we have gained. In crimea, church hill saw further proof that the mantle of western leadership had been decisively passed on from britain to america. Roosevelt, though physically much diminished, was the fourtime elected leader of what was clearly now the most powerful nation on earth. It was fdr, not church hill, who wielded decisive influence. The Prime Minister could only look on with despair as the president would also side with stalin. If things seemed bleak, churchill was aware others had it much worse. At one point, he said to his daughter, sarah, who accompanied him to the conference, i do not suppose that at any moment in history has the agony of the world been so great and so widespread. Tonight, the sun goes down on more suffering than ever before in the world. But churchill had little choice but to accept the realities. To launch hostilities against a recent powerful ally would be unthinkable. He did think of it for time and order the joint planning staff to explore the possibility in order to to impose upon russia the will of the United States and the british empire. Appropriately enough, this secret plan produced in may of 1945, was called operation unthinkable. As, indeed, it was. But unthinkable or not, a conflict would come. I was quite taken with robs examination of the impact of yalta on the battlefields of a war that was months from ending. The conference put his stamp not only on the remainder of that conflict, but also on the outlines of the next one, the battle lines of the cold war were set, or at least ratified, on the coast of crimea. Speaking of cold war, the phrase itself may have been coined by george orwell, who died 70 years ago last month. In an essay titled, you and the atom bomb, published two months after the destruction of hiroshima and neck a seki. He wrote with his and nagasaki. He wrote with his foresight that hd hg well and others have been warning us humanity would destroy itself with its own weapons, leaving the ants, or some other species, to take over. Anyone who will see the ruined will find this at least thinkable. The drift for many decades has been not toward anarchy, but toward the reimposition of slavery. We may be heading not for a general breakdown, but for in a pocket as a permanent state of cold war. I cannot refrain from mentioning that the cold war might never have happened if churchill had had his way. In the wake of the first world war, church hill who was then secretary of state for war, tried to strangle the system in its cradle. Winston against ocean is him church hill described it as foul taboo moralism. One hesitates to deal in hypothetical, although Andrew Roberts it is remarkable to think how difficult the 20 century might have been had the allied in soviet union been successful. We heard in his masterful account of the conference that what we might call an additional view of yalta, and abandonment by a week and incapacitated franklin roosevelt, is inaccurate. The grim reality of life in the soviet sphere of influence ensures that for many, yalta remains a word for betrayal, even if one accepts, as they must, that the options of the allies were limited given soviet strength and sacrifice, it is hard to disagree with the conclusion of sir max hastings, who wrote in his brilliant book, armageddon, churchill was a much less sentimental and more ruthless man and churchill. Roosevelt possessed a more this perceptive and less romantic view of the world than churchill. Pasting hastings continues, this is justified insofar as roosevelt recognized that the days while churchills heart refused to accept the signals of his brain that it was so. Any claim that roosevelts superior wisdom becomes hard to sustain convincingly in the light of the president s to conceive, as churchill perceived, the depth of evil, which Joseph Stalin and the soviet union represent. It may be true the western allies lacked the military power to prevent the soviet rape of eastern europe, but posterity is entitled to wish that roosevelt had allowed himself to appear less in different to it. After five years in power, the british Wartime Coalition came to an end upon withdrawal of the labour party in the spring of 1945. Winston churchill was no longer the leader of a national government, but instead, a touring Prime Minister in a country eager for change. The general election was set for july, first in 10 years, with berlin a smoking ruin and the war in the pacific still waging. In order to allow serviceman around the world to participate, the voting was held over three weeks. Before the results were declared, churchill joined stalin and the new american president harry truman in germany for a conference to decide the immediate state of the postwar world. Churchills deputy also attended, in case the ongoing account should elevate him in churchills place. Few people, least of all churchill, thought that would happen. It was with some trepidation that he returned to london in midconference for the declaration of the vote. Some in his entourage, confidence that confident that they would be returning, even left their luggage behind. That decision. It was not to be. The british people, exhausted by war, determined to punish the party of free word appeasement, and eager to build an news a new kind of country, voted for labor in overwhelming numbers. The Prime Minister who had led them to victory was now shown the door. Churchill was deeply hurt by the rejection, but with character is this characteristic resilience, he made good on his promise that history would be kind to him and, in the process, earning himself a fortune and securing his familys future. He was far less on the details of his post as leader of the opposition, and necessary burden for the achievement of his fondest wish, a triumphant return. He may have in out of power, shaping the course of events. In escalating tensions between the soviet union and the west, a conflict he had foreseen, he found a new cause and focused. The Wartime Alliance for the United States must be revised, this time against the threat of soviet tyranny. A cold war with an expansionist communist blog that disdained freedom and crushed the human spirit. Such an evil had to be resisted. After the expenditure of so much blood and treasure during the war, how could the world be sentenced to another dark knight of tierney . The leader of the opposition, the one trying the british system of government, was not normally a platform for world statesmanship. British world policy was established by the government led by the Prime Minister. While he was a good and honorable man and disliked the soviets and brutal ways, he was not the man to lead a crusade. Another general election was far in the future. There seemed no time to lose. How could churchill regain his voice and reinvigorate the old alliance with the americans . The answer came in the unlikely form of a letter from the president of Westminster College in missouri, and up institution with a few hundred students, inviting him to accept an Honorary Degree and deliver his speech. Churchill would have declined this under normal circumstances, and then, he was it was a remote place. Handwritten at the bottom was a postscript that must have made the old statesmans heart race. This is a Wonderful School in my home state. Hope you can do it. If you come, i will. I will introduce you. Signed harry s truman. The american heartland would command attention based on churchills own celebrity. It was also a chance to take a long train journey from washington missouri and back with the president of the United States. He would have many hours to cement a relationship with a leader he only briefly met, and gained his support for churchills postwar vision. Having the president by his side would at least a plot imply americas support for his message. He quickly agreed and the date was set, five march, 1946. The unlikely setting in the home state. His speech in the gymnasium would loom large among them. Before journalists and news cameras, he uttered the first public declaration of the cold war. From staten in the baltic, and iron curtain has descended across the continent. Behind the line lie all of the capitals of the ancient states of central and eastern europe. Warsaw, berlin, product, vienna, budapest, belgrade, and sophia. All of these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what i call the soviet sphere. 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 moscow. Truman was publicly noncommittal. He denied, however implausibly, any knowledge of what churchill was going to say. He was president of the United States. On that day, he was a supporting player to the most amos statesman honor. Did he feel, as the british journalist suspected at the time, wistful envy in the immense shadow of churchill . Cook thought later that the truman doctrine was conceived of the president listened to churchills call for action. One can only wonder, but there is a pleasing symmetry to the fact that precisely one year later, the president would announce his own vision for confronting the new scourge of communist tyranny. Churchill would return to downing street has Prime Minister in 1951. He would focus almost all of his remaining energies on brokering a piece with the russians. He in his country would play only a supporting role in the drama to come. Without either of them being fully aware of it, the baton of world leadership was being passed from churchill to truman on the dusty plains of missouri. The United States would take up the burden formally born by britain, as peace. Packs per 10 he become americana. The british empire, which had grown in the wake of the first world war, even after the human and economic losses the british had suffered, rapidly began to disintegrate after the second. The hero like an lonely stand against taylor, taken by the british under winston churchill, had reaped that nation in everlasting glory, but exhausted its resources. Britain had gone broke in the defense of freedom and would no longer rule the waves. Its sprawling possessions, on which the sun had famously never set, were now unaffordable indulgences. Even the countries not formally a part of the empire, but still under british protection, would soon be left to their own devices. Greece was a prime example of the latter. An ancient land dotted with the jewels of classic civilization and the waters of miniaturization mediterranean. Greek was important to the great power struggles of the 19th century, a part of the ottoman empire, it won its independence in 1832. Its proximity made control of the key to the russian access to the mediterranean. The british maintained a military presence and provided economic support. Later, it remained a battleground in the contest between the west and the communist world. The germans invaded during the war and even before ve day in 1945, the country was ravaged by a civil war the between Government Forces and communist insurgents. Nearly bankrupt and in the crypt the grip of a cold winter, it could no longer maintain its commitment to greek and turkish security. The British Ambassador delivered a formal note to the american secretary of state. It announced Financial Support of the two countries. The british coast were countries would have created a dangerous acumen a part of the world that the soviets belonged to an established presence. The United States had a difficult choice to make, whether to follow precedent and with trawl yet again from foreign entanglements after a war, or take up a new and
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