Our Supreme Task: How Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech Defined the Cold War Alliance

The year 1945 was a chaotic one, both for the world, of course, and for Winston Churchill. Communism was on the march and the people of Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Poland all found themselves in the grip of the Soviets. The Red Army occupied a large German territory, and the Kremlin was manipulating post-war food shortages, labor disputes, and social unrest in Greece, France, and Italy.

Having spent his "wilderness years" in the late 1930s warning of the dangers of diplomatic and mil...