the enigmatic ends of rhetoric: churchill's fulton address as great art and failed persuasion

QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF SPEECH

83 (1997): 416-428

The Enigmatic Ends of Rhetoric:Churchill's Fulton Address as Great Art

and Failed PersuasionMichael J. Hostetler

Winston Churchill's Westminster College, or "Iron Curtain," speech is usually considered to have been anartistic success and persuasive failure. This paper examines the meaning and validity of this judgment through aclose reading of the text that seeks to account for the relationships of all three of the speech's primary metaphorsand its central argument in terms of both "illocutionary act" and "perlocutionary effect." Key words:Churchill, Cold War, Iron Curtain, metaphor, persuasion

MARCH 5,1996, marked the fiftieth anniversary of one of the definitive speeches ofthe twentieth century, Winston Churchill's address at Westminster College in

Fulton, Missouri. Fraser J. Harbutt claims that as a "creative work of art," the speechprovided "true and instant illumination" by giving "first authoritative public utterance tomany of the leading political and ideological themes of the coming Cold War." Inaddition, it was "a brilliant exercise in political prophecy" (183-184). According to LynnB. Hinds and Theodore O. Windt, Jr., the former Prime Minister's address "sowed theseeds for a rhetorical process that was to blossom into a new world order, a new politicalreality" (100). The editor of Churchill's speeches, Robert Rhodes James, claims that thespeech was the most important that Churchill delivered in the postwar period andobserves that its "iron curtain" section, "attracted immediate international attention, andhad incalculable impact upon public opinion in the United States and Western Europe.Russian historians date the beginning of the Cold War from this speech. In its phraseol-ogy, in its intricate drawing together of several themes to an electrifying climax-thisspeech may be regarded as a technical classic" (Churchill VII:7285).

Perhaps the dominant factor that contributes to the renown of the Fulton speech isChurchill's stunningly powerful employment of the theatrical metaphor of the "ironcurtain." Indeed, most historians, and even rhetoricians, are more likely to recognize theaddress as "The Iron Curtain Speech," than by the name Churchill gave it: "The Sinewsof Peace." The given name of the speech, however, alerts us to the fact that "iron curtain"is not its only metaphor. "Sinews of Peace" bespeaks a muscle metaphor that Churchillskillfully develops in the speech. Another prominent metaphor of the Fulton addressinvolves a description of the United Nations Organization as a "temple of peace."Further, both the muscle and temple metaphors relate directly to Churchill's self-professed central argument, namely that the United States and Britain unite to face thepostwar world in a fraternal association of English-speaking peoples. Unlike his famousmetaphor, however, Churchill's idea for a new alliance never got off the ground.1

According to Paul C. Brownlow, the press "reacted to the Fulton speech immediatelyand criticized the idea of 'fraternal association.' The phrase 'iron curtain' became a partof our language" (242). William R. Underhill observes that the title of the speech "neverquite captured the public imagination" (159), but the subsequent popularity of the ironcurtain metaphor began at Fulton (160).

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The instant popularity of the iron curtain metaphor coupled with the apparent failureof Churchill's fraternal association proposal have made the Fulton address somewhat ofan enigma for historians and critics. Should the speech be judged for its failed maincontention and the metaphors that undergirded it or for a particularly memorablemetaphor mentioned only once and that two thirds of the way through the address?Hinds and Windt answer this question with a dubious reading that transforms the speechfrom a persuasive discourse into a case of accidental epideictic. Referring to the speech asthe "Iron Curtain Speech," they do not mention Churchill's title, "The Sinews of Peace,"the muscle metaphor it implies, or the temple metaphor. After discussing the introduc-tion, they jump directly to the iron curtain metaphor as if it occurred early in the speechand was constructed as its central idea (92-95). They argue that since Churchill'sproposal for a fraternal association received a negative response, the real purpose of hisspeech ought to be seen as epideictic rather than argumentative. In other words, since thespeech was unsuccessful in its immediate effect, it is not to be considered argumentativeat all. Hinds and Windt state the rationale for this odd critical appraisal as follows: "Thesuccess of an epideictic speech, however, cannot be determined by judging the efficacy ofits propositions. The key to judging an epideictic speech is the language used by thespeaker" (101). It seems that Hinds and Windt are so impressed by Churchill's imagery,"the language used," that they discount the argument on the excuse that it lacked effect.In the presence of this extraordinarily powerful metaphor, argument is separated frommetaphor and given a distinctly secondary role.

Harbutt answers the question regarding the relationship between the failure ofChurchill's proposal and the success of one of his metaphors by arguing that the fraternalassociation proposal was not the flop it is usually made out to be. He claims that "thesharp initial setback" that greeted. Churchill's proposal was "overcome within a matter ofdays" (207). Harbutt concludes that "Churchill succeeded in his attempt to direct theattention of the American people to the supposed Soviet menace and that he wassubstantially successful in persuading most of them that it could be resisted only in somekind of close association with Britain, so long as it was not a formal alliance . . ." (207).

Harbutt's conclusion is plausible to a point. The United States and Britain did uniteagainst the Soviets, but hardly in the terms Churchill suggested at Fulton, a fact impliedin the several qualifications Harbutt incorporates into his conclusion. Furthermore, evenif Churchill's proposal fared better than is commonly thought, the fact remains that ametaphor subsidiary to his main proposal far surpassed the proposal itself in subsequentinfluence.

The value of Harbutt's analysis does not lie so much in his dissenting evaluation of thesuccess of the fraternal association proposal as it does in his detailed explication of thepolitical context of the Fulton speech and the reactions to it by various politicalconstituencies.2 Harbutt refers to the address as the "iron curtain" speech (183), withoutreference to the title or its associated imagery. Instead, focusing on what he sees as thetwo audiences of the address, the American public and the Soviet government, heanalyzes in detail the political and historical issues. Such an analysis is criticallyimportant to an overall understanding of any rhetorical artifact. In this case, the politicalcontext helps us understand, among other things, how the iron curtain metaphor can beheard as giving voice not only to Churchill's longstanding hatred of Communism, butalso to America's latent fears regarding Soviet expansionism.

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In spite of all the attention Churchill's Fulton address has received, the enigmamentioned above still remains regarding the tension between the failure of Churchill'sproposal and the success of one of his metaphors. How can a rhetorical artifact be judgedto be both an artistic success and a persuasive failure? This is an ancient and recurringquestion that Eugene Garver traces to Aristotle's Rhetoric. Garver states, "Rhetoric beginswith the given end of persuasion, but the art of rhetoric has its own internal, guiding orconstitutive end, finding in each case the available means of persuasion" (28, Garver'sitalics). Garver goes on to claim that the ends of rhetoric may be described in thelanguage of speech act theory: " . . . all persuasion aims at a perlocutionary effect, whileAristotle makes rhetorical argument into an illocutionary act. Perlocutionary effects arethe given end of rhetoric; illocutionary acts are its guiding and constitutive end" (35,Garver's italics).

At times it is helpful to separate rhetoric's given end and effect from its guiding end orart, but when it comes to the analysis of particular artifacts, such a separation can hinder afully nuanced understanding of the whole of the rhetorical transaction. Churchill'sFulton address is a case in point. In fact, two disjunctions have strongly influenced criticalunderstandings of the speech. Not only have the speech's perlocutionary effect andillocutionary act (art) been separately judged, but also argument and imagery within theact itself have been unnaturally separated. Furthermore, both of these disjunctions areattributable to the extraordinary influence of the iron curtain metaphor. In the first place,the speech itself, with its central claim regarding a fraternal association of Anglophonesmeticulously supported by the muscle and temple metaphors, has been consistentlyignored in favor of focusing on the iron curtain metaphor. This metaphor, in turn, hasbeen interesting not for its relationship to an argument or to other images situated withinthe speech, but strictly as a stunning effect. Second, the overwhelming imagery of theiron curtain has blinded critics to the argument in which the image is constructed. Totheir credit, Hinds and Windt pay attention to the speech, but they are so unable toreconcile its argument and dominant image that they discard serious consideration of theargument altogether and make the speech out to be epideictic.

One of the reasons Churchill's Fulton address is an enigma is that critical appraisals ofit have been unbalanced. Effect and imagery have dominated critical readings of thespeech at the expense of the equally important factors of art and argument. One way toredress this imbalance, and at least to get closer to solving the enigma of the speech, isthrough a close reading of the text. In cases where persuasive failure with artistic successis the issue, close textual analysis may serve two general purposes. The first is to recoverthe "illocutionary act" in cases where it has been neglected or overshadowed by otherfactors. The goal of such recovery is not merely to judge the speech aesthetically,divorced from its sources and effects. On the contrary, especially with historicaldiscourses, the speech's text can be studied alongside its context for more completeunderstanding of the entire rhetorical transaction. The second general purpose of a closereading of the text is to uncover previously overlooked or misunderstood relationshipsbetween various important factors within a text such as argument and imagery ormetaphor. Again, the idea is to discover how these relationships contribute to the overallrhetorical transaction.

In order to achieve these general purposes of a close reading of the text, more specificgoals must also be formulated and relevant critical constructs identified which bear onthe case in question. In the present case, the aim of a close reading of Churchill's speech

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is to redress the imbalance, evident in other studies, between effect and imagery on theone hand and art and argument on the other. As a result, the power (memorability andinfluence), of the iron curtain metaphor may be more fully understood. For themetaphor, in addition to being a vivid image eminently suited to the geopoliticalsituation of 1946, is also a persuasive device, an available means of persuasion, whichChurchill discovered and artfully situated in a sophisticated argument. A close reading,therefore, provides a more complete understanding and appreciation of the whole of therhetorical transaction Churchill called "The Sinews of Peace." Furthermore, insightsgained from this particular case may shed light on other apparent cases of artistic"success" and persuasive "failure."

Just as specific goals of criticism are determined on a case by case basis, so alsorelevant theoretical constructs must be brought to bear on interpretation. In the case ofChurchill's Fulton Address, the competitiveness of metaphors, the characteristics ofmetaphor "qualifiers," and arrangement are critical concepts that raise specific questionswhich inform the close reading of the text. First, critics seem to be agreed that metaphorsare in some sense competitive. Paul Cantor observes that "Meanings jockey for power,as it were, each trying to supply the larger context for the other, to become the masterconcept . . . " (76). Ivie makes the same point, claiming that "terms compete with oneanother to dominate the hierarchy of meaning . . . " (73). Seen in this light, Churchill'siron curtain metaphor "won out" over the other metaphors in his speech. A questionremains, however, as to how this occurred in relation to the development of the speech'svarious elements.

Another related theoretical insight comes from Michael M. Osborn and DouglasEhninger who touch on the phenomenon of metaphor competition in their descriptionof "qualifiers," the factors which condition the relationship between tenor and vehicleand help determine how a metaphor will be received and interpreted (228-230). Theyobserve: "Metaphoric stimuli whose primary purpose is to demonstrate rather than tomove, and which depend primarily upon contextual and communal qualifiers forresolution, are often relatively weaker. On the other hand, figures that stimulatearchetypal or private qualifiers often provoke profound emotional and intellectualexperiences" (232). Churchill's theater metaphor is obviously archetypal, but there ismore to it than that. How does an archetypal qualifier work alongside or over againstother qualifiers to gain the "upper hand?" A close reading of "The Sinews of Peace"shows how qualifiers interact to create various degrees of metaphorical "power."

One final insight from rhetorical theory that is useful in understanding the Fultonaddress comes from Osborn's discussion of arrangement where he suggests that arche-typal metaphors tend "to occupy important positions within speeches.... One canexpect to find such images developed at the most critical junctures in a speech . . . "(116-7). It does indeed appear that Churchill introduces the theater metaphor at acarefully chosen location in his speech, but can the arrangement of any one element of aspeech be fully appreciated without reference to the arrangement of all the speech'selements? Only by looking at the whole of Churchill's composition can the arrangementof any one of its components be understood and appreciated.

In spite of the scholarly attention paid to "The Sinews of Peace," significant interpre-tive questions remain. Given the postwar geopolitical situation Churchill faced, what isthere about his speech itself that helps us account for the memorability and influence ofthe iron curtain metaphor? In addition, can the internal relationships of the speech's

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imagery and argument help us understand the enigma of a discourse that is both artistictriumph and persuasive misfire? These questions require a close reading of the textwhich takes the speech seriously on its own account, incorporates insights from meta-phor theory and pays attention to the historical context.

The following analysis of Churchill's Fulton address shows that all the metaphors ofthe speech, not just one, are important to the art of the whole. Churchill carefullydevelops the muscle metaphor of the speech's title by dissecting multiple layers of sinewsor tendons that unite the United States and Britain. Having established this strong unionwithin the speech, he goes on to use it in two ways. First, it empowers the two countries tolabor together to build the Temple of Peace, the second important metaphor of thespeech, and to pursue mutual political objectives. Second, it creates a psychologicalaffinity, a familial feeling of brotherhood, in which Churchill can interpret Soviet policy.Therefore, when the iron curtain dramatically falls, two thirds of the way through thespeech, Churchill is in a position to employ the metaphor on the basis of both private andarchetypal qualifiers—archetypal in its theatre imagery, "private" in the intimate familialconnections that have been so meticulously evoked in the speech.3 Therefore, from thestandpoint of rhetorical art, the iron curtain is a doubly powerful metaphor because itcombines archetypal and private qualifiers.

In regard to argument, the following analysis suggests that Churchill's persuasivefailure at Westminster College deserves a second look, but not on the grounds suggestedby Harbutt or Hinds and Windt. It is not as though Churchill's fraternal associationproposal was somehow embraced and implemented-it wasn't. Nor is it the case thatChurchill stumbled upon a brilliant metaphor that distracted his audience from hisprimary proposal. Churchill constructed the muscle and temple metaphors in such a wayas to draw attention to the iron curtain image which, in turn, was not only a dramatic actof political judgment, but also a premise for the fraternal association proposal. Theproposal was rejected while its premise was accepted. To the extent that the rejection ofthe proposal was mitigated by acceptance of the premise, Churchill achieved a secondlevel success. Moreover, a persuasive strategy comes into view: Churchill aimed high fora bold new alliance, but failing that, he was positioned to gain something else: acceptanceof his judgment of the Soviets expressed in terms of an iron curtain.

Sinews of Peace: Textual Analysis

"Sinews of Peace" divides naturally into three main sections.4 The first (fi5-13)develops a military analogy to describe three threats to peace and in the process arguesthat the British and Americans have much in common. The second section (1] 14—17),focuses on the "fraternal association of English-speaking peoples," what Churchill insistsis the "crux" of his speech (7289). Finally, in the last third of the address (fl 18-27), hedevelops the iron curtain metaphor as a way of interpreting Soviet actions and theemerging postwar world order. Before examining these diree sections, I believe the titleand introduction of the speech deserve scrutiny because they form the basis for the maindivisions.

Sinews and Strategies

Although frequently ignored in references to Churchill's Fulton speech, the metaphorcontained in the speech's title creates an image which is critically important for the

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interpretation of the whole address. This image grows out of the meaning and usage ofthe term "sinew." According to The Oxford English Dictionary, the primary definition of"sinew" is "tendon," referring, of course, to the anatomical structures that connect boneand muscle (Simpson and Weiner XV 511). In the plural, the term may denote strength,energy, or force or the main strength or chief supporting force of something. In the lattersense, "sinews of war" refers specifically to money used to finance war. This usage istraced to Cicero5 and James C. Humes may be right in claiming that Churchill's "titlewas a play on Cicero's phrase" (222). In any event, the term "sinew," even whendenoting force or main strength, never wanders far from its synonym, tendon, and theiranatomical imagery. The terms evoke a mental image of a picture in an anatomytextbook which depicts red muscles strapped and bound to bone by overlapping layersof strong tissues, namely the sinews or tendons. Sinews connect and strengthen. It is inprecisely these terms that Churchill refers to his title near the end of the speech where heclaims the UNO must be "supported by the whole strength of the English-speakingworld and all its connections. There is the solution which I respectfully offer to you in thisAddress to which I have given the title 'The Sinews of Peace' " (7293).

Churchill begins immediately in the introduction (fi 1-4), to uncover connectionsbetween Britain and America, specifically their wartime alliance and the Englishlanguage. His predictable reference to Westminster appears to be almost a schoolboyexercise in establishing "common ground." This disarming transparency, however,quickly gives way to a very sophisticated development of "common ground," which is,in fact, the goal of a good part of this speech. Churchill says he will apply his lifeexperience to address current problems so that what the Allies have gained through thewar "with so much sacrifice and suffering shall be preserved for the future glory andsafety of mankind" (7286). Since the United States has emerged from the war as thedominant military power, it has an "awe-inspiring accountability to the future" (7286).Churchill quickly comes to include Britain in this responsibility: "Opportunity is herenow.. . for both our countries" (7286). The warrant for joining the two nations comes atthe end of paragraph four where he says that enlightened leadership must "guide andrule the conduct of the English-speaking peoples in peace as they did in war" (7286). Notonly were the Americans and British allies in war, they also speak a common languageand by implication share a common culture. It is these linguistic and cultural connectionsthat Churchill will explore in the first major division of the speech. The fact that theseconnections are explored early in the speech and in such detail shows that Churchill tookseriously the "traditional American suspicion of British manipulation" (Harbutt 188). Tocounter this suspicion, the former prime minister elaborated the unprecedented wartimecooperation of Britain and America, the memory of which was still fresh in the minds ofthe audience.

Dissecting the Ties that Bind

In the first main section of the speech Churchill layers two characteristics of a militaryplanning analogy with three specific threats to peace in order to imply several connec-tions, in addition to language and previous alliance, that unite Britain and America. "TheEnglish-speaking world and all its connections" (7293), are dissected as it were, showingthat they overlap one on another like the layers of tendons or sinews that bind muscle to

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bone. The layered structure of the first section may be outlined as follows:

Military Planning Part 1: Strategic Concept (fl5)The First Threat: War (fl 6-7)

Military Planning Part 2: The Method (1J8-10)The Second Threat: Tyranny (fl11-12)The Third Threat: Poverty (H13)

The first connecting sinew between Britain and America is aversion to war whichChurchill approaches in terms of an "overall strategic concept" that will guide thedecisions and actions necessary to secure the future (7286). He draws an analogy tomilitary planning, complimenting "American military men" from whom he claims toborrow the idea of "strategic" planning (7286). According to Churchill, the overallstrategic concept 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" (7286). He goeson to identify the two primary threats to ordinary folks: war and tyranny. He describesthe ravages of the former in paragraphs six and seven, concluding that "we are allagreed" (7287), that another war must be avoided. A common aversion to war, therefore,serves to connect the English-speaking allies.

Picking up the analogy to military planning (fl 8), Churchill identifies further connect-ing tendons between Britain and America in terms of religion and the possession of acommon secret. After the strategic concept has been clarified, Churchill argues, the nextstep is "the method" for carrying it out (7287). By common agreement, that method is thenew United Nations, which Churchill refers to as a temple: "We must make sure that . . .it is a true temple of peace in which the shields of many nations can some day be hungup, and not merely a cockpit in a Tower of Babel" (7287). Obviously, those who share acommon language will have no problem like Babel. Churchill continues: "Before we castaway the solid assurances of national armaments for self-preservation we must be certainthat our temple is built, not upon shifting sands or quagmires, but upon the rock" (7287).

The biblical allusions of the metaphor (Genesis 11 and Matthew 7), establish anotherconnection between Britain and America: a common religious heritage. Furthermore,Churchill goes on to discuss giving the new UNO an "international armed force" (7287).He quickly qualifies this recommendation, however, by asserting that any internationalforce not be given access to atomic weapons. He points out that the atomic secret is heldby Canada, Britain, and the United States. This sharing of the common secret of theatomic bomb is another sinew connecting these predominantly Christian and Englishspeaking countries.

Paragraph eleven marks a transition to the second threat to ordinary people, tyranny,and more connecting sinews between the British and Americans: their common law andlove of liberty. Churchill points out that the liberties enjoyed throughout the BritishEmpire are not enjoyed by many other people. He joins political freedom with "theEnglish-speaking world," and the British Empire with its former American colonies inthe concluding sentence of the paragraph: "But we must never cease to proclaim infearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the jointinheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill ofRights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their mostfamous expression in the American Declaration of Independence" (7288). Americanand Britain are thus connected again, this time by a common tradition of law and liberty.Churchill adds that this tradition should be extended to all nations (7288).

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At the end of the first section of the speech, Churchill adds a third threat to globalsecurity, not mentioned before, namely, poverty. On the basis of this threat, he finds acommon confidence in economic and technological growth as yet another tendonuniting his own country with the U.S. Churchill argues that if the dangers of war andtyranny are removed, then scientific and technological advances could be marshalled tobring prosperity and eliminate economic privation. This point seems almost parentheti-cal, perhaps because Churchill does not want to be sidetracked into a discussion ofeconomic policy. However, he asserts that an optimistic appraisal of the potential ofscience to alleviate poverty is a shared understanding. After quoting Bourke Cockran tothe effect that if justice and peace are secured, then poverty can be eliminated, Churchillconcludes by saying, "So far I feel that we are in full agreement" (7288). A commonconfidence in economic growth and technological advancement, assurance that eventu-ally an "age of plenty" will dawn, becomes for Churchill yet another tendon bindingtogether the English-speaking peoples.

The Crux of the Matter

The connections Churchill dissects in the first section of the speech-common historyof alliance, common language and culture, common aversion to war, common religion,common secret, common tradition of law and liberty, and common faith in technologicalprogress-serve as the basis for the "crux" of his message which he explicates in thesecond main division of the address. As he continues the military planning analogy,Churchill comes "to the crux of what I have travelled here to say," which is nothing lessthan advocacy of a "fraternal association of English-speaking peoples" (7289). Somespecific aspects of this proposal include joint military operations (fi 14), new treatiesmodeled on the United States' Permanent Defense Agreement with Canada, and evenperhaps "common citizenship" (7289). All the while, Churchill argues that such anassociation would strengthen rather than undermine the UNO (fl 16).

It should be kept in mind that Churchill was out of power and spoke as a privatecitizen in 1946. This was both an advantage and disadvantage. He was free to advocate abold proposal like the fraternal association, unfettered by the decorous equivocationscharacteristic of the discourse of diplomats and elected officials. On the other hand, hiswords carried less weight than they would have if he was still in power. Perhaps his closeassociation with President Truman on the trip to Fulton, in Truman's home state, was away Churchill hoped to borrow some of the President's ethos (Harbutt 185). Further,even though Churchill was popular in America (Hinds and Windt 92), and free to speakas a citizen, he had to be careful when it came to the UNO, which "was still prized byAmericans as a real hope for solving international disputes" {99).

Churchill creatively combines the muscle and temple metaphors in order to build hiscase for the fraternal association. The image of strong muscles employed in a construc-tion project convey the practical usefulness of the proposed British-American allianceand the alliance's connection to the founding of the UNO: "Workmen from all countriesmust build that temple. If two of the workmen know each other particularly well and areold friends, if their families are intermingled, and if they have 'faith in each other'spurpose, hope in each other's future and charity towards each other's shortcomings'...why cannot they work together at the common task as friends and partners? Why cannotthey share their tools and thus increase each other's working powers?" (7289-90).

The construction image evoked by Churchill is not that of architects laboring over

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blueprints or equipment operators toiling in the cabs of cranes and bulldozers, but that ofmanual laborers, friends working side by side, craftsmen sharing their tools, exertingtheir "working powers" (7290). This particular image of a construction project recalls thebuilding of great European cathedrals and implies that strong muscles are not simply thesource of brute strength, a quality Churchill would likely attribute to Fascists andBolsheviks, but of long-term, cooperative endeavor. Therefore, Churchill is able tomarshall the sinews of peace, the many connections of the English-speaking peoples, fortheir logical and proper end: strength to build the UNO, the Temple of Peace. Thus, bythis point in the speech, Churchill has developed and applied his muscle metaphor andconnected it with the related metaphor of the temple. The rest of the speech, as everyoneknows, invokes a different metaphor.

Iron Curtain

In the last main division of the speech Churchill introduces a third powerful metaphor,the renowned "iron curtain," in order to clinch his argument for a fraternal association ofEnglish-speaking people. For if Churchill's interpretation of the postwar world order,based on his theatre metaphor, is accurate, then the British and Americans have a moreurgent need to unite than merely to build the UNO. Their very survival against Sovietexpansionism is at stake. Churchill begins with a memorable line made melodious byalliteration: "A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory"(7290). Not only has the shadow darkened Europe, it also falls across this speech andmarks a turning from both the muscle and temple metaphors. The new metaphor istheatrical, taking the form: the geopolitical division of Europe is an iron curtain, and, byextension, global politics is a play.6 After expressing goodwill toward Russia as a formerally, Churchill invokes the theatre metaphor in the oft-quoted line at the beginning ofparagraph nineteen: "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtainhas descended across the Continent" (7290).

The iron curtain image is more than a stylistic flourish. Situated between the twoexplicit references to his fraternal association proposal (paragraphs 14 and 28), it servesChurchill's argument as the premise on which the proposal is made. Harbutt notes that itis "remarkable" that the premise and conclusion "are never brought together with anopen acknowledgment of cause and effect, though the relationship was manifest, but aredeveloped along strictly parallel lines of thought and with the use of abstractions to makethe desired connections" (185). These "abstractions" are the other dominant metaphorsof the speech. The iron curtain's intimate connection with them as well as its central rolein the argument of the speech shows how intricately image and argument are woven inthe fabric of the text.

Churchill develops the iron curtain metaphor spatially and geographically, firstdetailing the situation "behind" the curtain and then the scene in "front" of it. First,behind the curtain, Churchill sees increasing Soviet influence and control in EasternEurope, Turkey and Persia, and Germany. He argues that the resulting divisionof Europe is inimical to the goal of "permanent peace" and is surely not the "LiberatedEurope we fought to build up" (7291). In paragraph twenty-two he draws the analogy ofhistory, warning his American audience that twice in recent memory the United Stateshas been drawn into "frightful slaughter and devastation" (7291). A divided Europecreates the risk for yet another war like the previous two. Next, Churchill turns hisattention to events in front of the iron curtain. The Western countries, Italy and France,

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and to a lesser extent, Britain and the United States, are threatened by "Communist fifthcolumns" which "work in complete unity and absolute obedience to the directions theyreceive from the Communist centre" (7291). Finally, Churchill describes a similar threatin the Far East, particularly Manchuria.

Churchill concludes this section of the speech by drawing an analogy to the geopoliti-cal situation before World War II. Sensing that his analysis of the Soviets makes him abearer of bad news, he claims to be merely doing his duty "to portray the shadow which,alike in the west and the east, falls upon the world" (7292). Noting that at the end of theFirst World War there was a greater sense of optimism than in 1946, Churchill describesthe world as "haggard" (7292).7 Nevertheless, he does not believe another war isinevitable or imminent. The Soviets do not want war, only "the fruits of war and theindefinite expansion of their power and doctrines" (7292). The United States and Britain,recognizing that the Russians admire strength more than anything, must act decisivelyand quickly for a "settlement" of differences and not adopt a "policy of appeasement"(7292).8

In the peroration of "The Sinews of Peace" (fi 28-29), Churchill invokes memory ofthe past, urges action in the present, and envisions a future with "an overwhelmingassurance of security" (7293). Within this temporal arrangement, particularly in the partdealing with the present, Churchill reconfigures the relationship of the muscle andtemple metaphors into a final appeal. First, in relation to the past, his personalrecollection of the disastrous appeasement policy of the thirties leads to the obviouslesson: "We surely must not let that happen again" (7293). Next, in terms of presentaction, the prevention of more war and thus the securing of peace, must be pursuedimmediately and "can only be achieved by reaching now, in 1946, a good understandingon all points with Russia under the general authority of the United Nations" (7293). Thestrength of the UNO to broker such an understanding is derived from the English-speaking peoples. Here Churchill refers to the title of the speech, explicitly recalling themuscle metaphor. He does not, however, refer again to the UNO as a temple, but ratheras a "world instrument," which must be "supported by the whole strength of theEnglish-speaking world and all its connections. There is the solution which I respectfullyoffer to you in this Address to which I have given the title 'The Sinews of Peace' " (7293).Churchill thus returns to the muscle metaphor while shifting its emphasis. Whereasearlier in the speech the UNO was a temple under construction, here it is an instrumentof policy. Previously, the sinews of connection among the English-speaking peoplesprovided the muscular strength to build the temple. Beginning now and continuing intothe future, the English-speaking peoples will be the force empowering the instrument inthe same way as a muscle empowers a bone. The progression of thought is natural. Theconstruction of the UNO comes to an end. When the institution is finally built, it mustthen be made useful. The English-speaking peoples, according to Churchill, are criticalto both functions.

Churchill's final vision of the future, "half a century from now" (7293), encompasses70 or 80 million Britons, united with the population of the Commonwealth and theUnited States, forming an irresistible military, scientific, industrial and moral force forenduring peace. He ends the address by asserting: " . . . if all British moral and materialforces and convictions are joined with your own in fraternal association, the high-roadsof the future will be clear, not only for us but for all, not only for our time, but for acentury to come" (7293).

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Conclusion

In light of the internal dynamics of "The Sinews of Peace," revealed through a closereading of the text, the contours of the iron curtain's metaphorical power begin to comeinto view. Churchill's iron curtain is indeed an archetypal metaphor in that its imagery ofthe theatre extends "beyond the limits of a given time or culture" and depends on"experiences common to men of many races and ages . . ." (Osborn and Ehninger 229).Falling dramatically at the outset of the third section, it is arranged, as Osborn suggests, ata critical juncture in the speech. However, it is not just a metaphor's location that makesfor a critical juncture. To explore the iron curtain metaphor is to uncover the interconnec-tions of all of the main elements of the speech.

Churchill uses the muscle metaphor to frame and lead to the iron curtain. Drawing onthe imagery of the former, he dissects the sinuous connections that bind Great Britain tothe United States. On the strength of these connections, the fraternal association isproposed. This association, the crux of the speech, functions both physically andpsychologically: physically in the construction by like-minded workers of the UNO, theTemple of Peace, and, psychologically in creating familial affinity between the Britishand Americans. This affinity becomes a sort of private qualifier of the iron curtainmetaphor for the American audience. This finally works itself out as Churchill joins theaudience in facing a stage with the curtain drawn. In the moment of expectancy, beforethe performance, Churchill offers an interpretation of what is about to unfold. Again,according to Osborn and Ehninger, private qualifiers are "supplied by the reader-listener, purely upon the basis of personal or subjective associations..." (230). Churchillhas created within the speech the personal and subjective associations, the fraternalassociation itself and the sinews that bind it together, which are intrinsic to a privatequalifier. He has therefore preceded and then joined the compelling archetypal figure ofthe theatre with powerful personal associations that create identification with theaudience. Osborn and Ehninger argue that figures which feature either archetypal orprivate qualifiers "often provoke profound emotional and intellectual experiences"(232). In "The Sinews of Peace," the constructed private qualifier which creates familialcloseness combines with the iron curtain's inherent archetypal quality to create a doublypowerful metaphor. This interpretation helps account for the force of the iron curtainmetaphor within the speech and helps explain why the other two main metaphors seemweaker in comparison.

Churchill's iron curtain metaphor is not only an artfully constructed rhetorical image,it also works as the premise for a bold political proposal. In terms of this particularargument, the proposal failed while the premise on which it rested succeeded. Inconsidering a more overall persuasive strategy, the lesson of Fulton is to aim high. Theaudience's rejection of a bold proposal might create the likelihood that a related premiseor less bold suggestion would be accepted. It is impossible to know if Churchill intendedthis to happen, but it did.

Finally, what does "The Sinews of Peace" suggest in regard to speeches that areperceived to be artistically successful and yet persuasive failures? The goal of criticism insuch cases should be both to embrace and to resist this dichotomy. Embracing thedivision between rhetoric's guiding and given ends enables a critic to notice elements ofthe rhetorical situation that have been overlooked. In most cases it is the guiding orconstitutive ends that have been poorly understood. Garver rightly observes, "Theidentification of art with argument is not obvious by inspection. External ends and

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success are knowable by experience without theory" (38). Accordingly, the task ofcriticism is often to draw attention to the illocutionary act as the site of art and argument.On the other hand, critics should resist the division of rhetoric's ends in order to facilitatea judgment of the whole of the rhetorical transaction. Garver says, "A civic art of rhetoricwill explicate persuasion as something that happens in a speech, not simply by means ofthe speech" (35, Garver's italics). In the case of "The Sinews of Peace," the politicalfactors in play in the early part of 1946 certainly constituted a favorable climate forreception of Churchill's dramatic description of the division of Europe. The continuingpresence of Soviet forces in Iran, Truman's waning confidence in the accommodationistapproach of Yalta, and Secretary of State Byrne's stern memorandum to the Soviets senteven as Churchill spoke in Fulton, along with many other factors, were all favorable tothe ex-Prime Minister's iron curtain metaphor. At the same time, as mentioned above,several contextual factors worked against the fraternal association proposal. All of this istrue, but what about what happened in the speech? What if Churchill had not deftlyconstructed the iron curtain metaphor with both archetypal and private qualifiers? Whatif he had deployed the metaphor clumsily in the speech? Would the contextual factorsalone have guaranteed its extraordinary effect? There can be no definitive answers tosuch questions. However, the least we can do in accounting for a speech's success orfailure is to strive for a judgment of the whole, not just of the parts. The relationshipsbetween art and effect and image and argument are a puzzle more likely to be solved ifwe keep all the pieces on the table—if we reject theories that insist on the fragmentation ofthe artifact and recapture a vision of the whole of rhetoric's complex art.

Notes

Michael J. Hostetler is Assistant Professor of Speech at St. John's University, New York. An earlier version of thispaper was presented at the SCA Convention in San Diego, November, 1996.

1 Hinds and Windt attribute the public failure of the fraternal association proposal to the perceptions of Americansthat it would destroy the wartime alliance, ratify a "spheres of influence" foreign policy, undermine the UNO, andacquiesce to the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe (99-100).

2 One notable factor of the speech's political context is the cultural homogeneity in which Churchill makes his overtproposal for Anglophone global hegemony. The underlying cultural/racial presumptions of his plan raise our hacklestoday, and rightly so, but they failed to raise an eyebrow in 1946.

3 In this sense, "private" qualifier does not refer to private as opposed to public communication, but is a factor thatmay create psychological affinity in public discourse. Familial closeness is the form of affinity that Churchill developsin this speech.

4 Paragraphs have been numbered following the text in Complete Speeches, VII:7285-7293.5 "That would simply be presenting the enemy with all the weapons required for civil war. First, the sinews of war, a

limitless supply of money, of which he now stands in need" (Cicero, 151).6 Churchill was not the first to employ the iron curtain metaphor. For a thorough summary of previous uses of the

term, see Underhill.7 Harbutt points out the "nervous" and even "apocalyptic" atmosphere prevalent in America at the time (188).8 Harbutt notes several factors that could have led Churchill to see the postwar situation as a "highly compressed

repetition" of the 1930's: "a menace to peace by a wound-up European totalitarian power, an escapist Britishgovernment..., and reigning neo-isolationist tendencies in the United States associated with the accommodationistVision' of Yalta" (184).

Works CitedBrownlow, Paul C. "Winston Churchill and Fraternal Association: The History of a Phrase." The Central States Speech

Joumal 21 (Winter 1970): 242-247.Cantor, Paul. "Friedrich Nietzsche: The Use and Abuse of Metaphor." Metaphor: Problems and Perspectives. Ed. David S.

Miall. Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1982. 71-88.

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Churchill, Winston S. Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897-1963. Vol 7. Ed. Robert Rhodes James. NewYork: Chelsea House Publishers, 1974. 10 vols.

Cicero, Marcus Tullius. Philippics. Ed. and Trans. D.R. Shackleton Bailey. Chapel Hill: University of North CarolinaPress, 1986.

Garver, Eugene. Aristotle's Rhetoric: An Art of Character. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.Harbutt, Fraser J. The Iron Curtain. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.Hinds, Lynn Boyd, and Theodore Otto Windtjr. The Cold War as Rhetoric. New York: Praeger, 1991.Humes, James C. Churchill: Speaker of the Century. New York: Stein and Day, 1980.Ivie, Robert L. "Cold War Motives and the Rhetorical Metaphor: A Framework of Criticism." Cold War Rhetoric:

Strategy, Metaphor, and Ideology. Eds. Martin J. Medhurst, Robert L. Ivie, Philip Wander, and Robert L. Scott. NewYork: Greenwood Press, 1990. 71-79.

Osborn, Michael. "Archetypal Metaphor in Rhetoric: The Light-Dark Family." Quarterly Journal of Speech 53 (April1967): 115-126.

Osborn, Michael M. and Douglas Ehninger. "The Metaphor in Public Address." Speech Monographs 29 (August 1962):223-234.

Simpson, J.A., and E.S.C. Weiner, eds. The Oxford English Dictionary. 20 vols. New York: Oxford University Press,1989.

Underhill, W.R. "Fulton's Finest Hour." Quarterly Journal of Speech 52 (April 1966): 155-163.

the enigmatic ends of rhetoric: churchill's fulton address as great art and failed persuasion

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