The Iron Curtain: Churchill, America and the Origins of the Cold War (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 221 laissez-faire style and the avalanche ofdefense dollars have meant that the armed services have been free to pursue everything on their wish lists, while contractors grow fat on the rapid and underscrutinized budget increases. Although Weinberger has attacked flagrant contractor abuses, Stubbing charges this was merely to forestall criticism of the defense program. Heavily anecdotal and often glib, The Defense Game is not a detailed blueprint for military reform. It is, however, an excellent introduction to the scale of the problems involved. More than $50 billion in the defense budget could be cut without harming national security, argues Stubbing, but many of the ideas he suggests have been tried and have failed. Powerful interests in the Pentagon and Congress will resist these reforms in practice, if not always openly. Nevertheless, Stubbing believes that an able, knowledgeable secretary of defense with the support of his president and Congress and with good working relations with the service chiefs could force a consensus for substantive reforms. It may be close to impossible, but it must be done. The Iron Curtain: Churchill, America and the Origins of the Cold War. By Fraser J. Harbutt. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. 370 pp. $24.95/cloth. Reviewed by James Lloyd Glucksman, M. A. candidate, SAIS. Winston Churchill once described the Soviet Union as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. The same might be said also for the cold war; scholars agree neither on its exact definition nor its precise date of origin. In his latest work Professor Harbutt tries valiantly to demystify the cold war, but, like most of his colleagues, he fails to find satisfactory answers. Despite this shortcoming , The Iron Curtain is commendable for its original analysis of the role of Winston Churchill in forging a new, anti-Soviet U.S. foreign policy. The Iron Curtains ten chapters cover the period from just before World War I, when Churchill first envisaged a grand Anglo-American entente, to the period just after World War II, when the world seemed once more on the brink of war- this time between the two newly emerged superpowers. The first few chapters focus on the development of Churchill's fascination with the United States and his loathing for bolshevism. His views led him to believe that only a union of the two dominant English-speaking nations could save the world from disaster. This plan initially fell on deaf ears in the United States, where isolationism was in vogue and there was fierce economic competition with Britain. Despite the U.S. alliance with Britain during World War I, isolationism after that war minimized U.S. association with European powers. The next section covers World War II, the bait that finally dragged the United States into a permanent relationship with the Old World. Churchill employed diplomatic skills to try to convince Roosevelt that the alliance with Stalin should be temporary, thus leading to the so-called "war of nerves" between the USSR and Great Britain while the United States enjoyed cordial relations with both countries. President Truman's inaguration after Roosevelt's death 222 SAIS REVIEW provided Churchill with new hope that he could convince the new president of the truth behind his bleak picture of the Soviet Union and its intentions. The third and final section begins with Churchill's famous "Iron Curtain" speech in Fulton, Missouri, which, though at first poorly received, drew more and more adherents to Churchill's philosophy as Stalin made deeper advances into independent Iran. This "Iran crisis," debated on the sparkling new United Nations Security Council floor, ushered in a tough new U.S. policy toward communism and is considered by some, including Professor Harbutt, as the beginning of the cold war. Churchill was at last rewarded for his many years of trying to win the Americans over to his side. None of the information covered in The Iron Curtain is particularly insightful . Professer Harbutt, like most Western cold war scholars, blames it on the Soviets, citing their aggression and disregard for personal liberty. Harbutt's most daring point is his suggestion that Truman might have "commissioned" the Fulton speech as a means of legitimating his...