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Pageantry and politics: a history of British royal visits to the US
As transatlantic tensions swirled about King Charles III’s visit to Washington DC in 2026, Sam Edwards reveals how past royal tours have steadied the ‘special relationship’ in times of crisis
The April 2026 royal visit to the United States came at a particularly challenging moment for the US-UK ‘special relationship’. In the preceding months, President Donald Trump had repeatedly singled out prime minister Keir Starmer for blunt criticism, even going so far as to declare that Starmer as “no Churchill”. Meanwhile, the royal family similarly found itself caught up in transatlantic controversy: the Epstein scandal. If all that wasn’t challenging enough, King Charles’s visit to America also came at a time when the US-UK relationship was drawing even more scrutiny than usual. 2026 is year is the 80th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s famous ‘Iron Curtain’ speech, which popularised the phrase ‘special relationship’, and it’s also the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. The latter was of course the event that severed the connection between the American colonies and the British Crown and thereby put the transatlantic relationship onto a very different trajectory. In short, the visit came at a time of significant turbulence in the US-UK relationship. King Charles, however, might have been able to take some reassurance from the fact that several of his predecessors had similarly travelled to the United States during moments of challenge, change and upheaval... <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/2GettyImages-1320405043big-566d798-e1777245347971.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A large group of men and women in formal 19th-century dress gather outside a red-brick tomb set within a leafy landscape, their attention focused on a central meeting of figures. Women wear layered gowns with bonnets, while men in dark suits and top hats stand in lines, with trees and a distant sky framing the scene." title="A painting by Thomas Pritchard Rossiter captures the Prince of Wales’s historic visit to George Washington’s tomb in 1860. The young prince, who later ruled as Edward VII, can be seen standing with President James Buchanan to the right of the tomb’s entrance (Image by Getty Images)" /> 1860: The first royal visit The very first visit to the United States by a British royal came in 1860 and involved Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales. Its origins lay in an invitation received by Queen Victoria from Canadian leaders keen that she see for herself “the progress and prosperity of this distant part of your dominions”. Citing duty, the queen declined. But she despatched her eldest son in her place. When President James Buchanan got wind of the situation, he then saw an opportunity and so extended an invitation for the prince to journey south of the border. The royal household happily accepted, and the man destined to become Edward VII thereby became the first British royal to visit the United States. Conscious of diplomatic protocol, his visit to the US was billed as ‘private’, and so he travelled under one of his many other titles, Lord Baron Renfrew. The prince landed in Canada in July 1860 and spent two months touring, during which he was frequently greeted by cheering crowds. No one was quite sure, though, how he would be received when he crossed the border into the United States. After all, it was only just over 40 years prior that British soldiers had marched on Washington and burned down the White House. Still more recently, in the 1840s, the relationship between Britain and its former colonies had again been fraught, this time due to American designs on the Pacific Northwest. Read more | When was the White House built – and why is it white? There was no need to worry, however, as just like in Canada the prince received a rapturous welcome. Travelling unofficially as ‘Renfrew’, he was met in Washington by President Buchanan and spent some time touring the capital. But the most celebrated moment came a few miles away, at Mount Vernon in Virginia. Here, Lord Renfrew laid a wreath at the tomb of George Washington, the man who had of course defeated his great grandfather, George III, all those years ago. It was a powerful gesture, and it has been something of a royal rite of passage ever since. In 1970, for instance, the Prince of Wales – now King Charles III – laid his own wreath at Mount Vernon. Perhaps this month we will see his son, Prince William, do likewise. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/3EU058443-a21ccb9-e1777245457912.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="George VI leans forward to place a wreath against a white stone tomb, his figure slightly bowed in a solemn gesture. Rows of uniformed servicemen stand rigidly at attention on either side, while a small group of onlookers watches from the foreground." title="King George VI lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, 1939. The king’s five-day visit to the US, in which he met with President Franklin D Roosevelt, was the first such trip by a reigning British monarch (Photo by Topfoto)" /> 1939: The storm clouds of war The 1860 visit of ‘Lord Baron Renfrew’ occurred just as internal tensions in the United States were threatening to tear the country asunder. Within a couple of weeks of the prince’s departure, a new president – Abraham Lincoln – had been elected, while just a few months later war had broken out between North and South. The fighting would rage for the next four years, only ending in 1865. Almost 80 years later, in the summer of 1939, another American tour by British royalty likewise unfolded amidst the gathering storm clouds of war, albeit this time in Europe rather than in the United States. The 1939 visit by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth was a real landmark occasion: the first ever by a reigning British monarch. It came, moreover, at a particularly challenging moment for the royal family. Just three years earlier, in December 1936, Edward VIII abdicated the British throne. His decision provoked a constitutional crisis, but it also had ramifications for the US-UK relationship because it was at root a consequence of the king’s desire to marry an American divorcée, Wallis Simpson. The 1939 visit was thus a chance for the British royal family to shift the narrative. Equally important, it also provided an invaluable opportunity to strengthen transatlantic ties just as the Nazi threat in Europe intensified. The visit unfolded in June and was keenly supported by the US president, Franklin D Roosevelt (FDR). Like Lord Baron Renfrew’s visit in 1860, the royal tour took in a number of famous American landmarks, including Mount Vernon, where the British monarch followed the example set by his grandfather and laid a wreath at the tomb of George Washington. Read more | Why was George Washington the pride of Victorian England? Other significant episodes included a visit to the New York World’s Fair, a tour of the Capitol, and another wreath-laying, this time at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. Perhaps most famous of all, however, was the king and queen’s meeting with FDR at his Hyde Park home. To the delight of the American press, the king was seen enjoying typical American picnic fare: hot dogs! By all accounts, the 1939 royal visit was a success. One American observer later wrote that “Their Majesties’ hundred hours in the United States had given rise to an enthusiasm without parallel in American history”. Later, one US newspaper even declared that because of the King’s visit “the old bond between the democracies has taken on higher, warmer, yes friendlier qualities than it ever had before”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/4GettyImages-79655098-fcd4ee0-e1777245704830.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A long line of cars moves down a wide, tree-lined avenue beneath a large triangular banner reading “Welcome Queen Elizabeth II”. Dense crowds line both sides of the road, with flags, uniforms and police escorts creating a sense of ceremony and scale." title="A motorcade marks Elizabeth II’s state visit to the United States in 1957. The young monarch faced the task of mending the so-called ‘special relationship’, which had been strained by the Suez Crisis (Photo by Getty Images)" /> 1957: The new Elizabethan era Despite the success of the 1939 visit, the Americans did not immediately commit themselves to the British cause when war broke out in Europe later that year. But once the United States had entered the war (in December 1941) an alliance of unprecedented closeness was indeed forged. For the British prime minister, Winston Churchill, this was the beginning of what he would call the “special relationship”, a transatlantic partnership built on shared history, culture, values, and sacrifice. Nonetheless, for all its undoubted closeness the special relationship was frequently tested during the Cold War, most famously during the Suez Crisis of late 1956. The crisis was precipitated by the decision of Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser to seize the Suez Canal zone, a vital trade route. In response, the British and French (with Israeli support) launched a military operation to regain control, but they did so without first securing American approval. Their actions quickly met with vigorous criticism from Washington, with President Eisenhower demanding an immediate Anglo-French withdrawal on pain of severe economic sanctions. Chastened, the British withdrew their forces, and with his credibility damaged beyond repair, prime minister Anthony Eden duly resigned, albeit citing ill health. Read more | How significant was the Suez Crisis? Among the first key tasks of the new government of prime minister Harold Macmillan was therefore to restore trust with Washington. Fortunately ‘Super Mac’, as he was known, was very well-placed to do so – he knew President Eisenhower from their service together during the Second World War, while his ties to ‘Ike’s’ successor, President John F Kennedy, were even closer: he was uncle-in-law to JFK’s younger sister Kathleen ‘Kick’ Kennedy (tragically killed in a plane crash in 1948). These close ties would certainly pay dividends, but when it came to rebuilding the special relationship Macmillan also had a trump card to play – royalty. The chance to play it finally came a year after the Suez crisis, in October 1957. Crowned in 1953 in a televised ceremony watched on both sides of the Atlantic, Queen Elizabeth II was eminently suited for the job of mending the special relationship, so recently strained by Suez. After all, she and the president were well-acquainted from the war years, and she was also already familiar with America. She had first visited – while still a princess – in 1951, during which visit she met with Eisenhower’s predecessor, President Harry Truman. The Queen was also very aware of the diplomatic impact of her parents’ visit in 1939. In short, this was one monarch ready and able to meet the challenge of the moment. The extent to which the 1957 state visit represented a clear attempt to restore the special relationship is quickly apparent in the itinerary. This was full of evocative symbolism and included a visit to Jamestown – to mark the 350th anniversary of English settlement – as well as a state dinner at the White House and a ticker-tape parade in New York City. It was a resounding success and was followed during her reign by no less than three more state visits to the United States. The second, in 1976, occurred during another testing moment in the transatlantic relationship. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/5GettyImages-57078933mod-0179412-e1777245939916.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Elizabeth II, wearing a sparkling tiara and sash, raises a glass as she smiles towards a suited President Gerald Ford returning the toast. A long table covered in bright flowers fills the foreground, with other formally dressed guests standing nearby." title="President Gerald Ford toasts Elizabeth II during the monarch’s 1976 state visit to the United States. The trip coincided with celebrations marking 200 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence (Photo by Getty Images)" /> 1976: The bicentennial The Queen’s 1976 state visit to the United States was purposefully timed so as to coincide with a major anniversary celebration – the bicentennial of the American Revolution. But like the visit of 1957 it also unfolded in the aftermath of significant transatlantic tensions, this time connected to the Vietnam War. The conflict in southeast Asia had dominated US foreign policy in the 1960s and early 1970s, and it also caused disagreements with European allies, including Britain. At the crux of the matter was the persistent refusal of the British government to send troops to fight alongside their American ally, a decision which drew pointed criticism from Washington. For both governments, the Queen’s 1976 state visit – which came at the invitation of President Gerald Ford – was thus an opportunity to reset the relationship after the recent disagreements. Read more | Queen Elizabeth II’s relationships with US presidents Like her 1957 visit, the details were worked out with an eye on the symbolism. The itinerary saw the Queen attend various bicentennial-focused ceremonies, and she also hosted her own reception at the British embassy in Washington. One of those in attendance declared that this was “the best diplomatic reception since King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited in 1939”. But the highlight was a speech the Queen gave on her arrival at Philadelphia during which she expressed her “sincere gratitude” to “the Founding Fathers of this great republic for having taught Britain a very valuable lesson”. The Americans were delighted, with all differences – historic and recent – now happily forgotten. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/6GettyImages-117937786-1d6273a-e1777246001564.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Elizabeth II wears a pale green coat and wide-brimmed hat with a pink accent, leaning on a railing and looking ahead. Beside her, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and other spectators in formal attire watch the event, some holding binoculars." title="Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh watch the Kentucky Derby during the monarch’s fourth and final state visit to the United States, May 2007. Although the monarch was able to indulge her passion for horse racing, the trip came amid heightened tensions stemming from the War on Terror (Photo by Getty Images)" /> 2007: A fond farewell The Queen’s fourth and final state visit to the US was in 2007, and like all its predecessors it occurred amidst geopolitical turmoil (it was the same with the third, in 1991, which came amidst the collapse of the Soviet Union and shortly after the Gulf War). This time the turmoil was tied to the ongoing War on Terror, which had seen British forces again fight side by side with the American ally. But although this suggested that the special relationship was back on a sure footing elsewhere the picture was rather more complicated. American unilateralism had in fact strained the transatlantic relationship, producing significant anti-war sentiment in Britain as well as vocal criticism of Washington from other European allies (especially the French). Frustrated by what they felt to be his slavish devotion to the Americans, some in the British press had even characterised the prime minister, Tony Blair, as President Bush’s ‘lapdog’. Just as after both Suez and Vietnam, therefore, the 2007 state visit offered a chance to use pageantry and ceremony to repair some of the damage. This objective was again very apparent in the itinerary, which, in homage to the 1957 visit, included a trip to Jamestown, then marking the 400th anniversary of English settlement. Other stopovers, all of which were well-reported in the US press, included attendance at the Kentucky Derby (the Queen was well-known for her love of horse racing) as well as a formal state banquet at the White House. It was the latter which also produced one of the trip’s most memorable moments: while giving a toast, President George W Bush had thanked the Queen for her role in the bicentennial celebrations, erroneously suggesting while doing so that this had occurred in 1776 (rather than 1976). The Queen raised her eyebrows in response, which in turn led the president to quip that she had given him “a look that only a mother could give a child”.
40 years on from the world’s worst nuclear disaster, what's Chernobyl really like today?
On 26 April 1986, reactor number four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded. Parts of the site, polluted with radioactive elements that take centuries to decay, will remain lethal for millennia. Journalist Adam Higginbotham, who has visited on multiple occasions, tells Jonathan Wright about what Chernobyl is like today, and its fascinating contradictions
It was as a reporter for The Observer that Adam Higginbotham first visited the exclusion zone that surrounds the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. Working on a piece to mark the 20th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear accident, he wanted to see at first hand where the disaster had occurred. Higginbotham also wanted to interview eyewitnesses, which is how he came to visit the Moscow apartment of Alexander and Natalia Yuvchenko. A 24-year-old mechanical engineer, Alexander was working on the night of the explosion. “He described seeing this pillar of ethereal blue-white light extending up from the ruins of reactor number four and disappearing into infinity in the sky,” says Higginbotham. It was, Yuvchenko remembered, a beautiful sight, a sharp contrast to the ugliness the disaster left in its wake. That devastation is what confronted Higginbotham when he first visited Chernobyl in “the dead of winter”, in 2006. What is Chernobyl like now? During the shortest days of the year, modern-day Chernobyl is “incredibly grim”, says Higginbotham. “Everything is in monochrome tones of grey and black. The clouds seem to descend crushingly towards the horizon. There’s very bleak light. And the landscape around the plant – certainly when I went there 20 years ago – was like a stereotypical vision of a post-apocalyptic landscape.” It’s an image Higginbotham drew on for Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster, a book that takes his first-hand experience of the site and plunges into the story of the disaster. On this first visit, Higginbotham saw the concrete sarcophagus that covered reactor number four, constructed in the wake of the disaster to contain the radiation. He likens the structure to “a medieval conception of a prison designed to imprison the devil himself”, all “sharp angles and rusting steel”. Nearby, massive pylons that long ago shed their power lines stretched out into the distance. “The landscape itself is very frightening before you start even to entertain the idea there are hot spots of radiation here and there, the location of which you won’t know until your dosimeter [a device to measure radiation] goes off.” Happier days before disaster Many who lived in Pripyat, the now-abandoned city founded in 1970 to house workers at the nuclear plant, have fond memories of their former lives there. On another visit to the site, this time on a balmy spring day in 2016, Higginbotham came to understand why. “The location of Pripyat was in this magnificently sylvan environment. It was a town built on the banks of a river with sandy beaches and a pier.” Now, he says, some of that beauty has returned. “It’s a really verdant landscape when you go in the spring and summer, and particularly many years after the nuclear accident when the whole area has been overgrown and reclaimed by nature. All the trees were blossoming. There were birds and butterflies in the air. It was a really beautiful place to be.” At one point during this visit, Higginbotham was exploring a courtyard surrounded by apartment buildings. Stopping to take notes, he got separated from his guide and the rest of his party. “We were the only people in the city, but the three people I was with had completely vanished,” he says. “For that moment, I just had a really terrifying vision of what it would be like to be the last person on Earth in this ghost town in the middle of nowhere that’s been reclaimed by nature.” The myth of the Soviet Homer Simpsons As to what caused Pripyat to be abandoned, the explosion at Chernobyl occurred when, ironically, a safety test went wrong. In the immediate wake of the disaster, the Soviet authorities lionised first responders for their bravery. In contrast, those who worked at the plant were, in Higginbotham’s estimation, portrayed as “butterfinger morons in the control room… who were given a perfectly serviceable piece of brilliantly designed Soviet equipment, and they destroyed it by their incompetence”. As Midnight in Chernobyl makes clear, this was far from true. While the safety test was certainly carried out by “people who were not well informed about the test protocol”, many workers at the plant “knowingly went into incredibly dangerous situations in order to try to mitigate the effects of the accident”. For their troubles, they were scapegoated to divert attention from glaring design faults in the reactors – and from the Soviet nuclear industry’s failings more generally. This approach might have been more effective had Mikhail Gorbachev not ushered in glasnost – a new policy of state transparency. As articles about Chernobyl appeared, “the Soviet people began to get a really worrying notion of exactly how corrupt the state they lived in had been, and how they had been lied to about the state of Soviet technology.” Gorbachev later blamed Chernobyl for the dissolution of the USSR. In Higginbotham’s view, this was a self-serving take. Far more important, he says, was the effect of the disaster on Gorbachev’s thinking. Seeing Chernobyl as evidence of how rotten the Soviet system had become, a man who essentially wanted “to bring about a purer Soviet state” hastily pushed through reforms “that destroyed the Soviet economy and led to the collapse of the Union”. Chernobyl’s role in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war You can catch a glimpse of the old Soviet command-and-control system by focusing on Maria Protsenko, former chief architect of Pripyat. She is someone whose testimony Higginbotham remembers especially vividly. A woman who had previously been planning Pripyat’s expansion, Protsenko was instead made responsible for mapping out the path of an electric fence to encircle the contaminated city. According to Midnight in Chernobyl, she believed assurances she might one day return to her family home there. It never happened – and never was going to happen. Decades later, those holding power in Moscow again made their presence known in Chernobyl when Russian forces occupied the site in February 2022, in the first days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Troops even dug trenches in contaminated land before withdrawing a few weeks later. This came in the wake of a combat drone, likely Russian, hitting the New Safe Confinement, a structure built to cover reactor number four and the failing, hastily constructed sarcophagus. The damage the drone caused will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to repair, necessary if the structure is to contain potential radiation leaks. “The unfortunate truth is that Chernobyl is as central to world events as it was 40 years ago,” says Higginbotham. Nevertheless, Chernobyl will continue to attract visitors, some drawn by the idea that it’s a kind of Eden teeming with wildlife, evidence of how Mother Earth heals herself. This is a romantic view. Prior to the accident, says Higginbotham, the area was popular with hunters and fishermen. It may well be that wildlife, some of it badly affected by radiation, is more plentiful because of the lack of those hunters, than for any other reasons. After all, nature’s recovery hasn’t been total. “If you go into the middle of what’s called the Red Forest, you’ll be able to see for yourself exactly the degree to which nature is able to thrive in a radioactive environment,” he says. “On the outside of the forest, the trees look normal. As you go further and further into the heart of the forest where the radioactive contamination was at its greatest after the accident, the trees grow sparser, more spindly and more peculiarly shaped. And in the end, in the centre of the Red Forest – where it’s most contaminated – there’s nothing except dead pine leaves, pine needles and tree trunks.” Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbotham is published by Corgi.
The Bay of Pigs Invasion: was this CIA fiasco JFK's worst embarrassment?
The botched Bay of Pigs invasion stands as one of several US failings in the 1960s as the Cold War rolled on. Why was it such a disaster?
Unfolding over three chaotic days in April 1961, the Bay of Pigs Invasion would come to symbolise the perils of Cold War brinkmanship and growing American hubris. It was the culmination of flawed assumptions, hasty decision-making, and a deep underestimation of a revolutionary regime’s resolve. But it was also a moment that transformed geopolitics in the western hemisphere. While often remembered as a military failure, the Bay of Pigs was also a diplomatic shock that reshaped US strategy, deepened Soviet ties with Cuba and set the stage for the Cuban Missile Crisis just one year later. What happened with the Bay of Pigs is a story inseparable from its Cold War context, the revolutionary fever of 1950s Cuba, the clandestine corridors of CIA planning rooms, and the charged ideological landscape of early 1960s international politics. What was the Bay of Pigs fiasco? The Bay of Pigs invasion was a failed CIA-backed operation in April 1961, in which Cuban exiles, backed by the US, attempted to overthrow Fidel Castro’s government. But the Cuban people failed to rise up to support invasion. Castro quickly repelled the assault, strengthening his grip on the island and pushing Cuba closer into an alliance with the communist Soviet Union. How powerful was Fidel Castro before the Bay of Pigs invasion? Ahead of Fidel Castro’s ascent to power, Cuba – an island to the south of Florida – in the 1950s was a paradox. Beneath a façade of prosperity in Havana’s casinos and nightclubs were vast inequalities. The island was effectively a neo-colonial economy: heavily reliant on sugar exports and deeply enmeshed in US corporate interests. American companies controlled around 70 per cent of Cuba’s arable land, as well as its electricity and telephone systems. The regime of Cuban politician Fulgencio Batista, a military strongman who had seized power in a 1952 coup, was tolerated (if not outright endorsed) by those in power in Washington, DC. However, his repressive policies and close ties to organised crime alienated many Cubans, paving the way for armed resistance. One such revolutionary was Castro, a young lawyer from eastern Cuba, who launched an audacious, if unsuccessful, attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba in 1953. Read more | Did the Cold War ever really end? After fleeing to Mexico, Castro regrouped and restricted his guerrilla forces with figures such as the Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara. With this force, Castro returned to Cuba in 1956. Over two years, his ragtag force conducted a rural insurgency in the island’s southeastern Sierra Maestra mountains. By January 1959, mounting pressure from Castro’s insurgents and growing discontent in Cuba’s population forced Batista into exile, and Castro entered Havana to a wave of public support. Initially, Castro’s ideology was ambiguous. He denied being a communist, but his policies soon demonstrated a radical economic agenda with the nationalisation of foreign assets and land redistribution. By mid-1960, Cuba had signed trade agreements with the Soviet Union and accepted Soviet oil – a clear signal that it was slipping away from the US and into the orbit of the Eastern Bloc. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/GettyImages-3379132-b467a0b-e1769431787106.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Members of Fidel Castro’s militia stand guard in Cuba’s Escambray Mountains during the Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961. As US-backed exile forces landed on the coast, local militia units were mobilised across the island, helping to crush the invasion and secure a defining victory for Castro’s revolutionary government." title="Castro Militia" /> What was the USA’s reaction to Castro? The formation of Brigade 2506 To American policymakers steeped in Cold War orthodoxy, the leftward drift of Cuba (so close to US soil) under the rule of Castro was intolerable. US President Dwight D Eisenhower, in the last year of his second term, authorised a plan in March 1960 to organise, train and equip Cuban exiles to serve as the spearhead for an anti-Castro rebellion. Read more | How should history remember Fidel Castro? The operation was run by the CIA’s Directorate of Plans, specifically under Richard Bissell, a key architect of US covert operations. The exiles were organised into a paramilitary unit known as Brigade 2506, named after the serial number of a fallen recruit. Training camps were established in Guatemala and later Nicaragua, both ruled by right-wing, US-friendly governments. The exiles received training in guerilla tactics, amphibious landings, and demolition techniques. The success of the US-backed exiles rested on the assumption that the Cuban population would rise against Castro once the invasion began – an underestimation that would prove disastrous. The CIA also believed that an initial seizure of territory would prompt international recognition of a ‘Free Cuba’ government-in-exile, which would then appeal for US military support. Despite being a clandestine operation, the plan was hardly a well-kept secret. Rumours of impending invasion circulated openly in Latin American newspapers and among intelligence communities worldwide. The Cuban Missile Crisis: World on the Brink Member exclusive | In this HistoryExtra podcast series, we explore the roots of the Cold War standoff and meet the key players in the confrontation. We track the pivotal 13 days at its centre, and the Cold War alliances that saw diplomatic tensions escalate to breaking point Listen to all episodes now JKF’s reaction to the Bay of Pigs John F Kennedy was briefed on the invasion plan ahead of his inauguration in 1961. Though doubtful about the operation's viability, records show that Kennedy felt boxed in: to cancel the mission would be politically damaging, particularly during his first 100 days. His administration, still lacking a clear foreign policy doctrine, feared appearing weak on communism – especially as the Soviet Union gained influence in the western hemisphere. Read more | Who was behind JFK’s assassination? The real history that challenges the conspiracy To minimise the risk of open US involvement, Kennedy cancelled a second round of airstrikes that were intended to cripple the Cuban air force. This decision, made just hours before the Bay of Pigs invasion, would prove critical in allowing Castro’s forces to regroup and defend against the landing. The Bay of Pigs Invasion begins In the early hours of 17 April 1961, Brigade 2506 landed at Playa Girón and Playa Larga, on the swampy southern coast of Cuba in the Bay of Pigs. The choice of location was strategic: it was isolated, near a small airstrip, and within reach of the Escambray Mountains, where anti-Castro insurgents were believed to be hiding. But the operation was beset by logistical failures almost immediately. Landing craft ran aground on coral reefs, misidentified on CIA maps as seaweed. Ammunition and communications equipment were lost in the surf. Cuban forces, alerted by earlier airstrikes and prepared for invasion, responded swiftly with tanks, artillery, and air power. Castro himself directed elements of the response from Havana. Contrary to CIA expectations, no local uprising occurred in support of Brigade 2506. Most Cubans, if not ideologically committed to Castro, were deeply nationalist and viewed the exiles as US puppets. By 19 April, after intense fighting and mounting casualties, the exiles surrendered. In total, more than 100 were killed, and more than 1,100 were captured. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/GettyImages-514901336-963c2f8-e1769431914311.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="President John F Kennedy addresses reporters at a press conference following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961. The appearance marked a rare public admission of responsibility, as Kennedy faced the political fallout from one of the most damaging episodes of his presidency." title="President Kennedy at News Conference" /> Why was the Bay of Pigs Invasion a political disaster? The political fallout was swift and severe, denting JFK’s popularity and serving as a propaganda coup for Fidel Castro. Kennedy, forced to admit US involvement, accepted full responsibility, stating in a press conference staged two days after the end of fighting that in regard to the events that had unfolded, “I am the responsible officer of the government.” Meanwhile, voices within Congress began to question the CIA’s unchecked influence. Internationally, Castro was able to cast himself as David defeating an American Goliath. He declared Cuba a socialist state shortly after the invasion and formally aligned the island with the Soviet Union. In December 1961, Castro publicly confirmed his long-denied communist credentials. In the Kremlin, Nikita Khrushchev saw the failed invasion as evidence of rampant US aggression, and a green light to deepen Soviet support for Cuba. This directly influenced the decision to install nuclear missiles on the island in 1962, leading to the Cuban Missile Crisis, a 13-day standoff that arguably brought the world closer to nuclear war than ever before. Read more | "If the Americans had bombed Cuba in 1962, escalation would have been almost inevitable" The Bay of Pigs’ legacy The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a case study in flawed intelligence, political overconfidence and the dangers of proxy warfare. For historians, the Bay of Pigs fiasco remains a defining moment in Cold War history, US-Latin American relations, and the interplay between intelligence and policy. It marked a turning point in US foreign policy, prompting the creation of more formalised National Security Council decision-making processes and a push for better coordination between civilian and military agencies. For Kennedy, many see the lessons learned in the Bay of Pigs as shaping his later cautious but firm approach during the Missile Crisis. For the CIA, the fiasco prompted internal reviews but did not significantly restrain its activities abroad. Covert actions would continue in Vietnam, Chile, Angola, and beyond. In Cuba, the failed invasion justified decades of authoritarian consolidation, repression of dissent and a siege mentality that helped keep Castro in power until he formally stepped down in 2008. More from us HistoryExtra members can explore more Cold War history with exclusive content from our archives What brought a thaw in the Cold War? Cold War summits: how USA & USSR leaders worked to end the conflict Project Azorian: the Cold War CIA mission to snatch Soviet nuclear sub K-129 from the sea floor The Space Race: The Cold War rivalry that put humans on the Moon Not a HistoryExtra member? Explore our latest membership offers
This secret speech gave people heart attacks: when Khrushchev denounced Stalin
Seventy years ago, Nikita Khrushchev stood before a packed hall in central Moscow and delivered a four-hour denunciation of Josef Stalin, one that exposed mass terror and attempted to reclaim the legacy of Leninism. So what drove this extraordinarily radical move? And did the Soviet people buy Khrushchev’s message?
When I was an undergraduate, a perennial exam question was ‘Did Stalin betray the revolution?’. The question gets to the heart of Soviet history, and I still ask my students to address it. What does it mean? It suggests that Stalin’s policies, especially in the 1930s, were either a logical consequence of the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 or they were a deadly departure from its promises. At the end of the 1920s, when Stalin consolidated his personal hold on power, he made a sharp leftward turn. His programme was headlined by a centrally planned economy, the collectivisation of agriculture, and breakneck industrialisation. It sounds like the fruits of a socialist revolution. Mass state violence accompanied this ‘great break’ in Soviet life. Collectivisation led to falls in grain output and the forcible transfer of some of it to industrial centres; famine followed, killing millions, worst of all in Ukraine. The network of Gulag labour camps dramatically expanded. Enemies of the people – innocent men and women – were shot in their hundreds of thousands during the Great Terror of 1936–38. Did these appalling atrocities subvert the liberations of 1917? Or were they the natural follow-up to the terrors of the civil war (1917–22) and a predictable explosion of the implied violence of socialism? <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/HIP2591053-6c687f8-e1776154310242.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A Soviet propaganda poster depicts a large hand gripping a sword marked with the hammer and sickle, slicing through a snake labeled with words such as espionage, sabotage, and provocation. The left side is dark with the snake, while the right shows a bright, orderly cityscape. Russian text urges vigilance." title="A poster from 1953 proclaims “Vigilence is Our Weapon. Be Vigilant!” Millions of people had died as a result of Stalin’s violent policies during his long rule (Image by Topfoto)" /> Generations of students have written essays about whether Stalinism represented the true colours of socialism or whether it had nothing in common with the real ethics of the left. But the question was also crucial in real time, not merely decades after the event. When Nikita Khrushchev posed the question – did Stalin betray the revolution? – he turned the course of Soviet history. A rising Soviet star Nikita Khrushchev’s rise to political power seemed to fulfil the promise of the Bolshevik revolution. He was born in the village of Kalinovka, in Kursk province, in 1894. He worked as a shepherd when he was still a child. It was a tough, poor, hardscrabble life. When he was 14, the family moved to Yuzovka – today’s Donetsk – in the nearby Donbas. He trained as a metalworker and had the gift of getting on in life; when he got married in 1914, he and his wife had their own, quite decent apartment. But he worked crushing shifts during the First World War and then endured the lethal lottery of revolution and civil war, during which his wife died of typhus. Khrushchev was a hard worker, gregarious, ambitious and politically curious. He immersed himself in the diverse socialist landscape of the revolutionary Donbas and became a Bolshevik. Like so many others with proletarian credentials, he was propelled forward and upwards by the revolution. He embarked upon a new career in party and government administration in what was now the Ukrainian republic of the USSR. He rose closer to the centre of republican power. His bosses marked him out as a rising star. In 1929, they facilitated his move to Moscow. By 1935, he was in charge of Moscow city and region, a kind of super-mayor of the socialist capital. In 1938, he went back to Kyiv, but this time as boss of the whole Ukrainian republic. He was an ethnic Russian, but he had lived in Ukraine for half his life. The year after, he was elevated to the Politburo. Khrushchev had made it big, and he owed it all to the revolution. He was a pragmatic careerist and a brilliant machine politician. But he was also a true believer. He saw the revolution as the great engine of social justice and mobility. It had the potential to improve living standards and to distribute these improvements equally. In time, the legacy of the revolution would deliver communism, the Soviet utopia of the future. Read more | Churchill vs Stalin: did this one speech cause the Cold War? These principles formed Khrushchev’s view of Soviet socialism. Unlike Stalin, he was never one for the recondite nuances of the revolution’s classic texts. Instead, he equated his straightforward sense of socialism with Leninism. He revered Lenin, and never departed from an intense commitment to him. But neither did Khrushchev question the economic and industrial strategy that Stalin pushed forward in the five-year plans. Khrushchev agreed that extreme measures had to be used against ‘enemies’. The stakes were so high that no chances could be taken with the success of the Bolshevik project. Khrushchev was complicit in the development of the Gulag and the prosecution of the Great Terror of 1936–38. As the leading figure in the administration of Moscow city and region, and then of Ukraine, he spoke in favour of the need to use extreme violence against enemies and he himself consigned significant numbers of people to execution. He had blood on his hands. Yet even in the 1930s, he could not stop thinking about old colleagues and decent sorts who had ended up in the ‘meat grinder’. Their ‘guilt’ made no sense to him. He feared for himself and his family. But he had to go on; political life was like a moving train from which one could not depart. Stalin’s suffocating embrace During the war, after Kyiv fell to the Nazis, Khrushchev was transferred to the military as a political commissar, serving in Stalingrad and elsewhere. When the Germans retreated, he was sent back to Kyiv. In 1949, he resumed his old job in Moscow. Stalin constantly pulled him back and forth into a suffocating embrace, sometimes humiliating him but also placing him next to Lavrenty Beria and Georgi Malenkov at the top of the Politburo. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-170987691-b52ec57-e1776154250776.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A large portrait of Joseph Stalin is displayed above a stage draped with flags and curtains. Below it, Soviet officials stand and clap during a formal assembly, with military personnel visible behind them. A banner with Russian text praising Stalin hangs across the front." title="Communist dignitaries celebrate Josef Stalin’s 70th birthday at the Bolshoi Theatre, 21 December 1949. They include: Mao Zedong, Nikolai Bulganin, Stalin, Walter Ulbricht, Khrushchev, Georgi Malenkov, Lavrentiy Beria and Vyacheslav Molotov. By now Stalin had promoted Khrushchev to the pinnacle of the Politburo but still subjected him to periodical humiliations (Image by Getty Images)" /> Khrushchev navigated the turbulent politics that followed Stalin’s death in 1953 to become the leading figure in a collective leadership of Bolshevik barons. His power base was not in the central government (like Malenkov) or the security services (like Beria), or the military-industrial complex, or a republic administration. It was in the party, of which he was first secretary. He played his hand well. By 1956, he was increasingly first among equals in the collective leadership. The post-Stalin period was already known as the Thaw. In 1954, Ilya Ehrenberg released a novel with that name. The book seemed to sum up the shift towards a more open culture and addressed questions about private dilemmas as well as public life. At the same time, Stalin’s cult of personality was being dismantled in an ad hoc way in many public institutions. Large numbers of prisoners were released from the camps shortly after Stalin died, while certain social improvements, notably in policy towards the collective farms, were already under way. But all of these processes were tentative, and there was no central vision that directed them. The metaphor of ‘thaw’ – the end of the Eurasian winter – seemed to make sense: heralding a new start but revealing filth beneath the melting snow; promising glorious spring, but subject to periodic re-freezes and bitter spells. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-2158738484-6c0e32f-e1776155335214.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Several people in coats and headscarves stand at a counter while a woman on the other side sorts and distributes neatly stacked folded textiles. The scene appears to take place in a busy indoor store or distribution centre." title="Women buy socks in a state-run store, Moscow, 1954. In the early years of Khrushchev’s rule, changes in social policy improved living conditions across the USSR (Image by Getty Images)" /> A terrible question As party first secretary, Khrushchev looked at Soviet politics through a party lens. Party structures, institutions, appointments and events were under his immediate control and offered a comprehensible set of approaches for him to deal with the enormous challenges and risks of post-Stalin governance. There had not been a consistent approach to post-Stalin politics and society. A guiding message was missing. And the terrible question – what had happened to all those millions of missing people, and could it happen again? – remained unanswered. Khrushchev called a Party Congress for February 1956. Congresses were the most important events in the running of the party, held once every few years. They assembled leading members from across the USSR and formalised the party’s approach for the next political cycle. It would be the 20th Congress in the party’s history; 1,349 delegates with full voting rights set off for Moscow. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-515456560-2bdfd4f-e1776154537582.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A large crowd stands closely together as several men in suits smile and speak with a woman facing them. People behind them are also dressed formally, suggesting a social or official event." title="Khrushchev at the 20th Party Congress with top officials including Nikolai Bulganin (second left). Despite the apparent bonhomie, Khrushchev was about to spring an enormous surprise on his colleagues (Image by Getty Images)" /> Even while they were on their way, Khrushchev was wrestling with his own demons. Like so many other people in the Soviet Union, Khrushchev had family members who had disappeared into the maw of Stalinist repression. Not long after the death of his son in military action in 1943, Khrushchev’s daughter-in-law was sent to the camps and endured 13 years of incarceration and exile. The psychological and political legacies of Stalinism left Khrushchev uneasy and on edge, both as a person and as a top politician. The Presidium, as the Politburo was called between 1952 and 1966, commissioned a top-secret investigation into the Great Terror, led by the historian and senior propagandist Pyotr Pospelov. He and his team worked exhaustively through the archives, where the dreadful events were meticulously documented in file after file of denunciations, confessions, death sentences and quasi-judicial proceedings. Pospelov read out the report to the Presidium on 9 February 1956. Khrushchev, Molotov, Malenkov, Kaganovich and the rest of the collective leadership sat round the table in the Kremlin. He told them that 1,920,635 people were arrested between 1935 and 1940 for counter-revolutionary ‘crimes’ like so-called sabotage and espionage. A total of 688,503 were shot. For all his complicity in events, Khrushchev did not have a bird’s-eye view of what had happened in real time. Now he knew the extent of it. Molotov and Kaganovich were old Stalinists who still sat in the Presidium and argued that this bloodshed was necessary collateral damage for building socialism, but Khrushchev and the rest of his colleagues no longer accepted this and recognised that it was time to set a new course. Khrushchev agonised in his memoirs about what he would say at the congress, but one thing seemed certain. “At this congress we had to take leadership of the party and country,” he argued to himself. “For this we had to know exactly what had happened before and what decisions Stalin had made.” The 20th Party Congress began a few days later. Khrushchev waited until the main sessions were over and then gave a speech at an extra, closed session. The Hall of the Supreme Soviet in the Great Kremlin Palace was packed. Delegates included members of the Central Committee, top party officials and representative members from around the USSR, as well as a handful of specially invited Gulag survivors. What was about to happen? The anticipation was overwhelming. Cruel and uncouth Khrushchev came to the rostrum. He coughed, perhaps with nerves. The speech went on for four hours, but he got straight to the point. Stalin was a cruel, uncouth and essentially un-Bolshevik comrade who had created his own anti-revolutionary cult of personality. This was a diversion away from Leninism; in fact, before his death, Lenin had spoken out against Stalin and his personal flaws. Khrushchev described and condemned the Great Terror, and especially its devastating effect on the party, and blamed Stalin personally for its excesses. And he bitterly demolished what he described as Stalin’s incompetence during the Second World War, with the military errors, the terrible and unnecessary losses, and his wilful personal appropriation of the people’s victory. Yet Khrushchev glossed over or missed out many other atrocities, perhaps most egregiously the Holodomor, the Ukrainian famine of 1932–33. He drew not only an explicit contrast between Lenin, the true voice of Bolshevism, and Stalin, its betrayer; he also tried to show that where Lenin had approved of violence, it had been proportionate and in the direct service of the revolution, unlike Stalin’s unlimited, unfocused and amoral atrocities. Read more | Stalin’s famine: a brief history of the Holodomor in Soviet Ukraine The effect on the audience was extraordinary. Imagine: for 27 years, the cult of Stalin had accumulated and left its traces in the minds of the audience, many of whom were conformists who had been handed their careers by Stalin, or activists who were politically inspired by his ubiquitous and faux-humane messages. They all had something to lose. Top provincial officials were often desperately anxious about the risks of a sudden political change. Some of them really did have heart attacks and had to be carried out of the hall. But the more carefully they listened, the more they caught the subtext. For a start, there would be economic continuities from the Stalin era. The basic mechanisms of central planning, industrial management and collectivised agriculture would not change. Khrushchev was airing the crimes of the Stalin period, but he was pinning most of the blame for them on Stalin himself, which sounded like a let-off for the officials who had directly or indirectly condemned so many to death during the purges. And Khrushchev was saying that it wouldn’t happen again. This meant that the secret police would no longer be a threat to their personal safety or their job security. Khrushchev was offering a political deal, an ideological relaunch, a limited quest for redemption, and the possibility – if only that – of coming to terms with the past. For all its flaws, it amounted to a new revolutionary vision and was a turning point in Soviet history. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/BAL3387059-9eaab48-e1776154781443.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A man stands at a podium with the Soviet emblem, speaking to an assembly in a large hall. Behind him, officials sit at a long bench, and above them a tall statue of Lenin is set into a wall niche." title="Khrushchev delivers his Secret Speech in a packed Hall of the Supreme Soviet. His evisceration of Stalinism triggered a number of heart attacks among his audience (Image by Bridgeman Images)" /> This was the Secret Speech, delivered in a closed room, out of reach of radio microphones and western observers. The plan was to give the message to Congress delegates and for them to inform the party membership and then the wider population at ‘town-hall’-style meetings. By allowing news of the condemnation of Stalin to filter out in a controlled way across the USSR and the eastern bloc, the leadership hoped to reduce the chance of unforeseen consequences and even instability. This was only partly successful. There were leaks. Major challenges to Soviet-style socialism arose in Poland and Hungary during 1956, culminating in the Hungarian Revolution and its deadly suppression. In Georgia, inside the USSR, commemorations of Stalin’s death took place in early March as they had done since 1953. Stalin was the nation’s favourite son, and before his death, when the Georgian Lavrenty Beria and others held key positions in Moscow, it had been a republic with particular privileges. As rumours about the Secret Speech swirled around the Tbilisi crowd, opposition voices emerged and protests began; it was eventually ended by force, during which at least 15 civilians were killed. Read more | Nazino was Stalin’s worst labour gulag. Its inmates knew it by another name: Cannibal Island Meanwhile, party representatives and activists took the speech to the membership. Anna Pankratova was a leading historian, a veteran specialist in the revolutionary movement. She spoke about the Secret Speech at nine local party meetings between 20 and 23 March: 5,930 people showed up and asked 825 questions. Among many other worries, they wondered why it had taken Khrushchev so long to make the speech and why it focused so much on Stalin personally. Many of Pankratova’s interlocutors were members of the Leningrad intelligentsia. All kinds of people went to similar meetings across the USSR and had diverse responses. Some wanted more radical change; some wanted more detailed information; some were afraid; some thought it better to forget than to remember. A two-sided record The speech became the fundamental basis of the Thaw. It signalled a new relationship between the population and the government, including a tentative version of Soviet-style rights. For the rest of the Khrushchev era and the few years that followed, culture became noticeably more diverse and open. Releases from the camps continued on a large scale, and the Gulag was very significantly downgraded. There was no repeat of the Great Terror; people no longer really feared arbitrary arrest. Questions about Stalinist violence were sometimes broached in public life, providing at least some answers to victims and their families. Some of those who were innocently convicted were legally ‘rehabilitated’, though this was sadly posthumous. Accompanying this shift to a more person-centred politics and culture was a major change in social policy, which Khrushchev saw as a fulfilment of Leninism and a return to revolutionary norms. Living conditions got better thanks to a mass housing programme; cities across the USSR were transformed by the construction of five-storey blocks of separate family apartments. The pensions and benefits system was considerably expanded in 1956 and it was extended to the countryside for the first time in 1964. The length of schooling was extended. Spending on healthcare went up. Life became less pressured and risky, more stable and promising. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-2238477911-b9b5595-e1776155027766.jpg" width="619" height="412" alt="A crowd stands around a large fallen statue head that is burning from the top. The face is marked with graffiti, including “W.C.” on the forehead and other text along the side. People in coats watch the scene in an urban setting." title="A statue of Stalin lies stricken in Budapest following its destruction during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 – an unforeseen consequence of Khrushchev’s reforms (Image by Getty Images)" /> Yet the Soviet Union remained a dictatorship. People were not free to travel abroad. Political censorship persisted. Central planning reduced normal levels of consumption. The KGB was powerful. The countries of east-central Europe remained socialist ‘satellites’ against their will. And while Stalinism as a complete system was gone for good, most of those who had been responsible for putting it into practice remained in office. Khrushchev was a bifurcated politician, whose record had two sides to it. The Thaw in Soviet life that was his signal achievement was likewise complex and nuanced. But when it came to the question ‘Did Stalin betray the revolution?’, Khrushchev gave an historic response. He made an epoch-defining, big-risk, high-octane speech – one of the hinges of the whole 20th century – and then implemented a transformative sequence of reforms that sought to reposition the Soviet Union on a Leninist footing. The results were mixed, but there was no going back to Stalinism. Dr Mark B Smith teaches history at Cambridge University and is the author of Exit Stalin: The Soviet Union as a Civilization, 1953–91 (Allen Lane, 2026)
8 weird stories from the Space Age: from hungry tortoises to gorilla suits
As the Artemis II mission prepares to send humans around the moon, Jonathan Wright explores the stranger side of space history – from UFO sightings to Cold War curiosities and beyond
Exploring space is a serious business. To use the term employed by Tom Wolfe in his 1979 book about the first US test pilots to enter astronaut training, you need the “right stuff” to sit atop an enormous firework leaving the protection of our atmosphere. But space travel is also a human endeavour. In the heavens as on Earth, that means it throws up stories that can be bizarre, funny or melancholy. As Nasa prepares to send astronauts back to the vicinity of the moon for the first time since 1972, here are eight strange-but-true tales from the ongoing history of the Space Age. 1. Ballistic legacy At the end of the Second World War, the USSR and the US competed to snaffle up as much German rocketry expertise and kit as possible. So it was that, despite his Nazi past, V-2 co-designer Wernher von Braun became chief architect of the Apollo programme’s Saturn V rocket. Less well remembered is the role of the V-2 itself in space exploration. In 1945, US Army Special Mission V-2 recovered parts and equipment needed to make the missiles from an underground factory in eastern Germany. Subsequently, much of the haul was taken to the White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico, where initial work resulted in the assembly of 25 rockets. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/1aGettyImages-544605263-d284276-e1775049918462.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A mid-20th-century photograph of a suited man seated at a desk, holding a pen and looking towards the camera. In front of him are several model rockets and a black rotary telephone. Behind him, a large illustration shows a spacecraft flying past the moon." title="Wernher von Braun - director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center" /> The first flights from the US followed in the spring of 1946. By October, the grandly named Upper Atmosphere Research Panel was expert enough in launching missiles to use one to capture the first photograph of the Earth from space. A terror weapon had found a more noble purpose. 2. The dog who died In the early years of spaceflight, it was far too dangerous to send humans into the great beyond. Instead, scientists sent animals. As early as 1946, the Americans blasted fruit flies into space. Monkeys and mice followed in their wake. But perhaps the most famous creature to leave Earth was Laika (‘Barker’). A stray mongrel, she was taken off the streets of Moscow by biologists working for the city’s Aviation Institute – the idea being to find animals that were friendly yet also tough, streetwise. And female, so they wouldn’t need to cock their legs to pee. On 3 November 1957, Laika became the first animal to orbit the Earth. Listen now | Animals in space: the creatures who paved the way for human travel beyond Earth Sadly, at a time when re-entry technology had yet to be developed, she died of hyperthermia. But her journey aboard Sputnik 2, nicknamed ‘Muttnik’ by the US press, captured the public’s imagination. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/2GettyImages-515031406-bdd929d-e1775048742214.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black-and-white photograph of a small dog seated inside a cramped, capsule-like apparatus. The dog is strapped into a harness, with its head and front paws visible through an open front panel. The surrounding structure appears metallic and enclosed, with wires, bolts and curved casing." title="Laika, Russian Astro Dog" /> 3. Space pup détente Unlike the ill-fated Laika, Belka (‘Squirrel’) and Strelka (‘Little Arrow’) survived spaceflight. In August 1960, aboard Korabl-Sputnik 2, the two dogs circled the Earth for 27 hours in the company of 40 mice, a couple of rats, a grey rabbit and some flies. The serious point of the exercise was to understand how time in zero gravity would affect the creatures. Strelka had six puppies. In 1961, Nikita Khrushchev sent one of the puppies, Pushinka, ‘Fluffy’, to President John F Kennedy. Once the FBI had checked out Pushinka for surveillance bugs, she joined the First Family. Less suspicious was the Kennedys’ pet dog Charlie, who fathered four ‘pupniks’ in June 1963. Although JFK wrote to Khrushchev to thank him for the gift, he was allergic to Pushinka, who made him sneeze and brought him out in a rash. 4. Aliens ahoy? Considering the rigorous psychological evaluations required to become an astronaut, it’s unsurprising that few spacefarers have reported seeing UFOs – when they have sighted odd objects, they have offered rational explanations for what they saw. The template for this approach was set by astronaut Jim McDivitt. Read now | How UFOs conquered the world – without firing a shot Aboard Gemini IV in 1965, he reported spotting an object that was “like a beer can or a pop can, and with a little thing like maybe like a pencil or something sticking out of it”. He never saw this as an example of an alien visitation. Rather, he thought he was probably looking at a piece of ice or insulation that had broken off his craft. That hasn’t stopped more lurid stories of UFO sightings spreading, including one involving Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11 and fake “secret moon transcripts”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/62HJCPDX-9d175f4-e1775049594902.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A colour photograph showing two astronauts seated side by side inside a spacecraft cockpit. Both wear white space suits and large, clear-visor helmets, with one astronaut in the foreground looking down and the other slightly behind, facing forward. The interior is tightly packed with metal panels, wiring and controls, conveying the confined, technical environment of an early space mission." title="Astronauts Edward H. White II (left) and James A. McDivitt inside the Gemini IV spacecraft wait for liftoff. The objective of the Gemini IV mission was to evaluate and test the effects of four days in space on the crew, equipment and control systems. Pilo" /> 5. The tortoises who survived The Nasa astronauts heading for the moon in April will be following not just their predecessors aboard Apollo missions, but those who journeyed on the Soviet Union’s Zond 5 spacecraft. This left the Baikonur Cosmodrome on 15 September 1968. Its payload included fruit fly eggs, plants and two tortoises, the first creatures to fly beyond Earth orbit and circle the moon. They returned on 21 September 1968. Despite splashing down in the Indian Ocean rather than landing back in Kazakhstan as planned, the tortoises lived through the experience, albeit they had lost 10 per cent of their bodyweight and were subsequently dissected. The mission was also notable in providing high-quality photographs of the Earth from 90,000km out in space. 6. Posthumous Explorer The death of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry in 1991 robbed the world of the Space Age’s greatest optimist, a man whose work suggested humanity’s future would be spent zipping around the cosmos. And, in the case of James T Kirk, fighting aliens, bickering with his crewmates and kissing any willing women in his vicinity. Boldly going where few have gone before, Roddenberry requested his remains be sent into space. In 1992, his wish was partially honoured when astronaut James Weatherbee carried a portion of Roddenberry’s ashes with him aboard Space Shuttle Columbia. Although the remains were brought back to Earth, this is widely thought to have been the first space ‘burial’. Founded in 1994, Houston-based “memorial spaceflight” specialists Celestis have turned off-Earth undertaking into a business by buying ‘secondary payload’ slots on launch vehicles. They have twice taken small portions of Roddenberry’s ashes aloft, most recently in January 2024 when Roddenberry and his wife, actor Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, were among those fired into deep space as part of the maiden mission of the Vulcan Centaur heavy-lift launch vehicle – marketed as the Enterprise Flight. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/102WD95N4-c2109b7-e1775049710517.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A night-time photograph of a rocket launching from a pad, brightly illuminated as flames and exhaust billow beneath it. Tall gantry structures and towers frame the rocket, while thick clouds of smoke spread across the ground. The surrounding area is dark, with the launch creating a dramatic contrast against the night sky." title="A portion of Gene Roddenberry's cremated remains were fired into space as part of the inaugural Vulcan Centaur launch in January 2024 (Photo by Alamy)" /> 7. Sitting in a tin can, far above the sky At midnight on 31 December 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to be a sovereign state. This put cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev in a tricky situation. The country that had put him aboard the Mir space station no longer existed and nobody seemed in any massive hurry to bring him home. Another issue was Russia’s dire financial situation. While other countries paid for places on missions to and from the station, Krikalev stayed in situ. Plus, had he left, the station would likely have had to be abandoned because it would have been without a flight engineer. Read now | The Space Race: The Cold War rivalry that put humans on the moon Ten months after he had departed terra firma, a man dubbed “The Last Soviet Citizen” at last went home. His mission had lasted twice as long as planned. But he doesn’t hold the record for the longest single stay in space. This belongs to Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 days aboard Mir in 1994–95. Returning to Earth, he said he wanted to prove humans could cope with travelling to Mars. 8. Silly ape In 2016, future senator and former astronaut Mark Kelly sent a gorilla suit to his identical twin brother, Scott. An unusual gift, especially as Scott was at this point resident on the International Space Station and the suit was smuggled aboard via a SpaceX cargo mission. The result of this tomfoolery was a viral video showing Scott, dressed as an ape, chasing around British astronaut Tim Peake. The Kellys built on a rich tradition of taking contraband into space that dated back to March 1965, when Gemini III astronaut John Young carried a corned beef sandwich into orbit. According to Young, it seemed like “a fun idea at the time”. Nasa bigwigs, worried about crumbs damaging delicate equipment, were not amused. Lead image by Nasa/Ben Smegelsky
Nato is in crisis. Can history predict what happens next?
As tensions build between the US and its long-term allies, historian Sam Edwards examines how the international military organisation has withstood moments of turbulence in the past – and whether we can glean any lessons for the future
“If there's no response – or if it's a negative response – I think it will be very bad for the future of Nato.” So said US President Donald Trump in March 2026, after asking European allies for their help in securing the Strait of Hormuz. This primary export route for most of the world's largest oil and gas fields had lately been declared closed by Iran as a response to US-Israeli military operations. However, the response to the president’s call to aid to his European allies has, so far, been distinctly muted. No doubt this is in part because much of Europe is still reeling from the events at the start of the year. Back in January, the American-led alliance was thrown into disarray by the president’s desire to assert control over Greenland – a semi-autonomous territory of Nato member Denmark. At the height of the crisis, with Trump adamant that the US “needed” Greenland “very badly”, the Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen went so far as to say that "if the United States chooses to attack another Nato country militarily, then everything stops. That includes Nato, and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War." Now, amid renewed transatlantic tensions stemming from the US–Israeli war with Iran, those key questions provoked by the recent Greenland debacle have resurfaced again: is Nato in crisis, and can it endure? Read more | Winston Churchill created the special relationship. Could Donald Trump kill it? On the latter, history does at least provide some reassurance. In fact, surviving crises is something of a Nato speciality. Nato’s troubled origins The alliance initially coalesced in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, a period characterised by growing concern in the west about the expanding influence and power of the Soviet Union. In March 1946, Winston Churchill warned that an “Iron Curtain” had descended “from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic”. A year later, in an effort to “contain” the threat of Soviet expansion, President Harry Truman proclaimed the ‘Truman Doctrine’ asserting that the US would provide aid to democratic nations under threat from communist forces. East-West tensions ramped up still further during the Berlin Blockade of 1948–49, after which 12 nations decided to establish a formal military alliance. The result was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which commits its signatories to the principle of collective defence. It wasn’t long, though, before internal tensions began to emerge. Nato from Suez to Iraq Among the first major challenges to internal Nato cohesion arose during the Suez Crisis in 1956. Built by the French, the Suez Canal – linking the Red Sea with the Mediterranean through Egypt – was a key strategic pipeline for trade, not unlike the Strait of Hormuz today. It was of particular importance to both the French and British empires because it drastically shortened the shipping route from Europe to Asia. Aware of its strategic significance and keen to remove European influence and control, the nationalist Egyptian government of Gamal Abdel Nasser ordered that the canal zone be nationalised. In response, the British and French (with Israeli support) launched a military operation to seize the canal – an action that caused consternation in Washington. Angered by the lack of prior consultation, President Dwight D Eisenhower ultimately forced an Anglo-French withdrawal by threatening dire economic consequences. Humiliated, the British prime minister Anthony Eden later resigned, while the French concluded that the Americans could not really be trusted. This was an “out of area” crisis because it occurred well away from the North Atlantic, but it still placed a significant strain on the Nato alliance. Further internal Nato strains appeared in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a nuclear standoff which pitted the US against the Soviet Union, with the former attempting to strongarm the latter into withdrawing its nuclear weapons from the communist Caribbean state. Read more | Have nuclear weapons helped to maintain global peace? This time, the roles were reversed and it was the Europeans who were angered by an apparent lack of consultation – an issue of real concern given how dangerously close the world came to potential Armageddon. The Cuban Missile Crisis: World on the Brink Member exclusive | In this HistoryExtra podcast series, we explore the roots of the Cold War standoff and meet the key players in the confrontation. We track the pivotal 13 days at its centre, and the Cold War alliances that saw diplomatic tensions escalate to breaking point Listen to all episodes now Similar European frustrations with US leadership later led to the alliance’s most significant crisis of the Cold War era. In 1966, unhappy with what he perceived as American influence in French foreign policy and the risk of being dragging into US-led conflict, President Charles de Gaulle removed the French military from Nato’s integrated military command. Rubbing salt in the wound, he also demanded that all US troops leave French soil. Read more | Who owns Greenland? Why the island's history is more complicated than you think Elsewhere, even the often-proclaimed US–UK ‘special relationship’, for so long a cornerstone of Nato, came under strain during the 1960s, largely because of the war in Vietnam. Harold Wilson’s government refused repeated American requests to send troops to south-east Asia in support of the US, which jaundiced President Johnson’s view of the British as an ally. However, despite their undoubted impact, none of these various Cold War crises led to Nato’s demise. The alliance survived and, indeed, played a key role during the heightened east–west rivalry of the 1980s. Internal tensions re-emerged following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. With the principal enemy now gone, the alliance found itself in uncharted waters. One consequence of this was transatlantic differences of opinion regarding Nato’s role and purpose. This later came to a head during the Global War on Terrorism, as it was labelled by the US. Following a significant show of unity after 9/11 – which saw Nato invoke Article 5 (the mutual defence clause) for the first and only time in its history– a key point of divergence subsequently emerged around the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The UK and Poland lent Washington support, including troops, but the French and Germans vocally opposed the action. As a result, one commentator declared that the debate on Iraq had “provoked one of the worst transatlantic crises – and one of the worst intra-European crises – of the entire post-Second World War period”. How Nato has endured Over its lifetime, Nato – which now comprises 32 members – has seen plenty of internal disagreement and, on occasion, full-blown crisis. But no dispute has so far fatally compromised the alliance. This is because, fundamentally, Nato members do seem aligned on two key ideas. First, the peace and prosperity of Europe and of the north Atlantic region is of the utmost importance. And second, Nato remains the best mechanism through which to defend the interests and security of all of its members – including its most powerful, the US. This is why the Trump administration stepped back from the brink after staking verbal claims Greenland. Read more | Nato, Russia, and the history of the post-WW2 tensions As in earlier instances of internal tension, transatlantic trust has certainly been damaged. Real ideological distance remains between the current US administration and many European allies. But the alliance endures because, beyond the disagreements, common interests remain strong. And as the history of Nato suggests, it’s often in those very moments of crisis that this inescapable fact returns to the fore. As Churchill famously observed in the 1940s, “there is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.”
Churchill vs Stalin: did this one speech cause the Cold War?
It’s 80 years since the war victor delivered his ‘Iron Curtain’ speech, sounding the alarm for a perilous new age. The speech, given as tensions with Stalin soared, is among the most famous in modern history. Yet, asks Richard Toye, has it been misunderstood?
“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” It was the soundbite of the century – or at least of the Cold War. Uttered by a former prime minister in a speech on 5 March 1946 at a small college in Missouri, its intended audience was far larger than the scholars and public figures assembled in the institution’s gymnasium. The fact that the ex-PM in question was war victor Winston Churchill – and that sitting on stage alongside him was US president Harry S Truman – helped turn this lecture into a world-shaking historical event. Churchill made a lot of speeches in his long political career. Few of them, however, had the same resounding impact as this warning about the Soviet threat. A set of unique circumstances lent his oration its unusual power – and endowed it with the capacity to shape the language of east-west conflict for decades to come. The Iron Curtain speech was delivered at a time of acute – and escalating – tensions between the Soviet Union and western powers. It’s often been described as the moment that the starting gun was fired on the Cold War. It’s indisputably among the most momentous pieces of oratory of the postwar period. And yet, for all that, it’s clouded in misunderstanding. Much of that misapprehension stems from the fact that the speech had surprisingly long roots – roots stretching all the way back to Anglo-Russian imperial conflicts in the late 19th century. When Churchill rose to his feet and addressed his audience at Fulton, he was 71 years old. He was, as he declared himself, a child of the Victorian age. The legacy of the so-called ‘Great Game’ – strategic competition between Britain and Russia in central Asia – was a factor throughout his political career. Even as a schoolboy, he wrote an essay in which he fantasised about a British invasion of Russia and gloated of “the superiority of John Bull over the Russian bear”. Strangling Bolshevism Yet Churchill’s attitude to Russia – and even to the USSR – was by no means one of unremitting hostility. And that was reflected in the Fulton speech, too. He was no admirer of tsarist autocracy, and even less so of Soviet communism. But during the First World War he eulogised Britain’s Russian allies, and was distressed when they dropped out of the conflict. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/GettyImages-2148990418webready-1ebb782-e1773837016975.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A Soviet propaganda poster shows a person in a white shirt lifting a red flag with gold tassels against a red background." title="A poster declares the Soviet Union’s commitment to “stable peace”. By the time Churchill delivered his Iron Curtain speech, such peace appeared fragile" /> Churchill became the strongest advocate of intervention in the civil war that followed the October Revolution of 1917, and always regretted the failure “to strangle Bolshevism at its birth”. Following Hitler’s rise to power, he began to see the Soviet Union as a counterweight to Nazi Germany, and even as a possible ally. In a March 1939 interview, he asserted that the USSR had “hitherto shown no trace of the aggressive intentions” behind the recent actions of the Germans, the Italians and the Japanese. Even after the Soviets and Germans signed a non-aggression pact that August, he appeared to foresee that the USSR’s national interests would eventually force Stalin into an anti-German posture. His prediction came true with Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The functional but troubled Anglo-Soviet alliance that followed provides the crucial backdrop to the breakdown in relations that the Iron Curtain speech signalled. Churchill continued to view diplomacy through a traditional ‘Great Power’ lens. That is to say, history was made via hard bargains between the paramount countries, recognising each other’s spheres of influence and legitimate interests, and often involving the ruthless sacrifice of weaker peoples and nations. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/GettyImages-544235714webready-7c819e2-e1773923825162.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A dynamic propaganda illustration depicts revolutionaries on a massive red machine marked “1917,” waving red flags and carrying rifles as they charge ahead, while caricatured figures of the old regime are shown below, fleeing or being crushed." title="Withdrawing money: A Soviet propaganda poster shows bankers fleeing the Russian Revolution. Churchill viewed the events of 1917 as an enormous tragedy. (Image by GettyImages)" /> Churchill’s wartime meetings and correspondence with Stalin were based on this principle – and also on the belief that personal relations were crucial, and that his own individual charm could make a difference. He said in 1942 that he “liked Mr Stalin, liked his jokes and his humour, but could have gotten on with him a lot better if he could have talked with him directly instead of through an interpreter”. Combining tough talk with schmoozing and flattery, he believed that mutual recognition of British and Soviet spheres of interest represented the path to a safer future. The Iron Curtain speech of 1946 reflected the continuation of this approach, rather than a radical shift in outlook. Read more | Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt: the big three's war of words Falling for Stalin’s charms Churchill, however, oscillated between optimistic and pessimistic interpretations of Soviet behaviour. After the February 1945 Yalta conference – at which the British, Soviet and American leaders discussed the postwar reorganisation of Europe – the prime minister told colleagues: “Poor Neville Chamberlain believed he could trust Hitler. He was wrong. But I don’t think I’m wrong about Stalin.” Yet as the Red Army’s advance progressed, he became increasingly concerned about the prospect of Soviet dominance of Europe. On 12 May, just a few days after VE Day, Churchill wrote to President Truman of the need to reach a concordat with the USSR before the British and American armies ‘melted’ with the onset of peace. “An iron curtain is drawn down between their front,” he added. This was his first rehearsal of a phrase he would later make famous. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/GettyImages-690507912webready-b966227-e1773837530368.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A military parade of uniformed soldiers marches in front of the heavily damaged Reichstag building, its dome partially destroyed." title="On the march Red Army troops in Berlin, 1945. Western leaders were, by now, growing ever more alarmed at the prospect of a Soviet-dominated Europe" /> Six days later, Churchill lectured the Soviet ambassador, accusing his Kremlin masters of “dropping an iron screen across Europe from Lubeck to Trieste, behind which we had no knowledge of what was happening”. Churchill’s diatribe did not have the desired effect. The ambassador told Moscow that “we need to bear in mind that we are dealing with an adventurer, for whom war is his natural element”. Indeed, Churchill was already pondering ‘Operation Unthinkable’, a military plan – quickly dropped – for a potential military conflict with the Soviets. But at the Potsdam conference of July 1945 (at which the ‘Big Three’ Allied leaders convened once more), he was, in the words of foreign secretary Anthony Eden, “under Stalin’s spell again”. Eden reported that Churchill "kept repeating: 'I like that man.'" <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/GettyImages-1354478830webready-bf749bf.jpg" width="4630" height="3087" alt="A black‑and‑white photograph shows several men in formal suits and military uniforms gathered closely, speaking with one another indoors." title="Admiring gaze Stalin (second left), Truman (centre) and Churchill (right) at the Potsdam conference of summer 1945. It was here that the British PM repeatedly remarked of his Soviet counterpart: “I like that man”" /> Churchill’s participation in the negotiations was about to be brought to a sudden and unexpected end – for, before the Potsdam conference was concluded, news came through that he had been voted out of power in that summer’s general election. Churchill’s shock electoral defeat was a bitter political and personal blow, but it didn’t have a material impact on Anglo-Soviet relations: the new Labour government carried on foreign policy on familiar lines. When parliament reassembled, Churchill made his first public reference to “the iron curtain which at the moment divides Europe in twain”. His words were reported in the press but did not make headlines, and attracted little comment. It should be noted that Churchill was now speaking in a new context, following the successful test of the atomic bomb and the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Though he could not say so openly, he hoped that the American monopoly of the new weapon would be the lever that would keep Soviet ambitions in check. He was thoroughly conscious of Britain’s weakening global strength, and believed that a strong relationship with the US was key to escaping its precarious position. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/GettyImages-513666223webready-da7f49c-e1773838887773.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black‑and‑white photograph shows a towering mushroom cloud billowing upward over a city landscape" title="Bargaining power An atomic bomb explodes over Hiroshima, 6 August 1945. This display of might persuaded Churchill that the west could negotiate with Stalin from a position of strength. (Image by GettyImages)" /> For this reason, the message he received from Truman that autumn was a godsend. The president passed on an invitation from the head of Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri to deliver the annual John Findley Green Foundation Lecture on problems of international concern. “This is a wonderful school in my home state,” scribbled Truman on the letter. “Hope you can do it. I’ll introduce you.” Churchill, still harbouring designs of returning to Downing Street, now had an opportunity to relaunch himself on the world stage, as well as to take a holiday in the sun. During his lengthy absence from home at the start of 1946, Churchill sojourned in Florida and Cuba before travelling to Washington, DC. Truman accompanied him to Fulton by train. As the train approached Missouri, a crisis was unfolding in Persia (now Iran) on the back of a speech by Stalin that seemed to anticipate conflict with the capitalist powers. The Soviets had failed to withdraw all of their troops from the north of Persia by the deadline that had previously been agreed. But though the president was increasingly incensed by their stonewalling stance, he was not yet ready to lay his fears and frustrations in front of his war-weary populace. With no official responsibilities, however, Churchill could speak frankly in a way that those in government could not. Read more | How the Cold War made the modern world The bombshell moment On 5 March, Churchill delivered his remarks before 2,700 people, all of them white. As one black American newspaper noted, the college was “located in a state where Jim Crow is a legal instrument of government and Negro boys and girls are barred from its portals by law”. The mainstream media made little of this shocking fact, but the message contained within the speech itself was regarded as a bombshell. Churchill’s oration was 46 minutes and 5,000 words long. The ‘iron curtain’ phrase came at the two-thirds mark. It was part of a broader warning about the Soviet Union’s “expansive and proselytising tendencies”, which Churchill backed up with claims about Moscow’s search for “totalitarian control” in the countries of central and eastern Europe. Yet despite the muscular rhetoric, scholars now tend to emphasise that the Iron Curtain speech was not a Cold War clarion call intended to stoke tensions. This is another way in which the speech has been misunderstood. Churchill undoubtedly wanted to reset relations through plain speaking, but he also wanted to show the Soviets that he understood their perspective. Hence he stressed his “strong admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my wartime comrade, Marshal Stalin”. He stated that he understood “the Russian need to be secure on her western frontiers by the removal of all possibility of German aggression”. It was necessary, he said, to reach “a good understanding on all points with Russia” under the auspices of the recently formed United Nations. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/GettyImages-514080312webready-522ed2b.jpg" width="3115" height="2076" alt="An older man in a light smock and hat sits in a wicker chair, painting a coastal landscape at an easel." title="Brush with destiny Churchill at his easel in Miami Beach, February 1946. President Truman’s invitation to speak at Fulton gave the former PM an opportunity to soak up some sun and" /> Over the following days and weeks, few observers paid much heed to the more emollient sentiments in Churchill’s speech. The nuances of the former PM’s words were easily lost in the media tumult. In fact, the forcefulness of his overall message risked exacerbating the problem he was trying to solve. “Churchill’s speech is sure some blockbuster, as one American paper describes it,” noted one ordinary observer, a female librarian back in Britain. “I read it first in full, and later heard extracts; and I must say that his delivery was so calm and flowing that the parts which had horrified me in print seemed perfectly innocuous as he spoke them.” Churchill offered not only a diagnosis of the perils of deteriorating east-west relations but also a remedy – and in the US it was the latter that proved especially divisive. He urged that a robust response to the Soviets should be built upon “a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and empire and the United States”. This seemingly innocuous phrase was widely (and correctly) perceived as a concealed call for a military alliance between the UK and the US. Read more | Winston Churchill created the special relationship. Could Donald Trump kill it? This lit a fire, because former isolationists still distrusted the British empire, and progressive idealists believed that a bilateral pact would be a threat to the integrity of the UN. Leo Amery, Churchill’s former secretary of state for India and Burma, thought it was an error to link the admonitions about the Soviets and the alliance concept together in one speech. “The Americans are intensely suspicious of any attempt to inveigle them into being mere instruments of British policy in the Old World,” observe Amery. Meanwhile, Adam Clayton Powell, the first African American to represent New York in Congress, claimed that Churchill wanted “an English-speaking dictatorship” and “a form of super-nationalism based on race” that would plunge the world once again into war. Truman had known of the speech’s contents in advance but, when the political kitchen heated up, denied having done so. Britain’s Labour prime minister, Clement Attlee, took refuge in the claim that his government was “not called upon to express any opinion of a speech delivered in another country by a private individual”. However, in private he was less dismissive: “It will certainly have done good if it encourages the Americans to think and to recognise the need for the United States and the British Commonwealth to work together,” he said. The destiny of the world It is not clear if Churchill really expected the speech to cause the Soviets to change their attitude – but if so, he failed. “Hitler began his work of unleashing war by proclaiming a race theory, declaring that only German-speaking people constituted a superior nation,” Stalin told the Soviet state-mouthpiece, Pravda. “Mr Churchill sets out to unleash war with a race theory, asserting that only English-speaking nations are superior nations, who are called upon to decide the destinies of the entire world.” With fear spreading, Moscow housewives started panic-buying. The Soviet authorities then tried to calm the public, spreading the message that “Stalin’s interview did not mean that war was in sight”. The Fulton speech may have elicited a frosty reception in Moscow but, within a year, despite the initial misgivings, its once-controversial message had found widespread acceptance in the west. As tensions between America and the Soviet Union ratcheted up further, the 1947 Truman Doctrine committed the US to “support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures”. The doctrine is now seen by some historians as marking the true start of the Cold War. To this day, politicians on both sides of the Atlantic pay lip service to the Anglo-American ‘special relationship’. And Churchill was not quite done with the Soviet Union. Prime minister again from 1951–55, he ploughed his remaining strength into a vain quest for a rapprochement with the post-Stalin Kremlin. This was not because he had changed his mind; rather, his quest for détente was of a piece with his longstanding approach to great power relations and his belief in the importance of negotiating from a position of strength. He was convinced that the greatest chance of peace lay in convincing the Soviet government that they were confronted by superior force that would be used ruthlessly against them unless they mended their ways. “Then the communists will make a bargain,” he judged. East-west relations would have continued declining with or without the Iron Curtain speech. Yet although Churchill did not start the Cold War at Fulton, he selected its defining image – and with carefully crafted vocabulary he created an indelible mental picture that influenced all subsequent debate. Metal coinage Was Churchill really the first to use the phrase 'Iron Curtain'? “Iron curtain: a state of rigid censorship and secrecy (coined by Winston Churchill in 1946 to describe the line of demarcation between western Europe and the Soviet zone of influence)”. This was the definition included in the American College Dictionary. But the editors remained uncertain – had Churchill genuinely originated the term? In 1951, a member of that publication’s team wrote to him to find out. There were good reasons for wondering. The metaphor is based not on conventional domestic drapes but on the fire safety curtains used in theatres. In a 1904 novel, Churchill’s friend HG Wells (pictured) described how, when a character is deprived of his freedom, “an iron curtain… dropped between him and the outer world”. The historian Patrick Wright credits the writer Vernon Lee (a pseudonym for Violet Paget) as being the first to deploy the term in an international relations context. She wrote of “war’s monstrous iron curtain” dividing the two sides after the outbreak of hostilities in 1914. After the October 1917 revolution, the phrase was used in a new sense. In her 1920 book Through Bolshevik Russia, Ethel Snowden described her arrival in Petrograd as part of a Labour delegation: “We were behind the ‘iron curtain’ at last!” It is more than possible that Churchill was acquainted with these examples. But, if so, the influence was unconscious. In response to the query about the origins of his words, he replied: “No. I didn’t hear of the phrase before – though everyone has heard of the ‘iron curtain’ which descends in a theatre.” The dictionary definition stood. The fact that Churchill saw ‘iron curtain’ as a standard expression may explain why he did not do more to attract attention to it. The official title of his speech was ‘The Sinews of Peace’. This, in turn, offers a clue as to why the famous phrase didn’t dominate newspaper headlines. The Daily Express, for example, ran with “CHURCHILL URGES EMPIRE ‘ALLIANCE’ WITH U.S”. The first BBC reporting, on the 11pm radio news, omitted the ‘iron curtain’ passage altogether. Churchill was a genius with words. But even he did not know which of his own would be best remembered. Was ChurcWas Churchill really the first to use the phrase ‘Iron Curtain’?hill really the first to use the ph Richard Toye is professor of modern history at the University of Exeter. He is co-host of the podcast Churchill: The Finest Half Hour This article was first published in the March 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
Winston Churchill created the special relationship. Could Donald Trump kill it?
From the Suez Crisis and Vietnam, to 21st-century political tensions, the alliance between Britain and the United States has been declared dead – or dying – many times
Few diplomatic partnerships have been declared to be on life support quite as often as the so-called ‘special relationship’ between the United Kingdom and the United States. The phrase refers to the theoretically unique presumption of shared understanding and cooperation that has existed between the two countries in the decades since the Second World War. But did the special relationship ever actually exist? And if it does, what exactly does it mean in the cold light of day? “This is a perennial subject of discussion,” says historian Sam Edwards, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast. “You could probably go back to the 1960s to find the first obituary of the special relationship – the first moment where commentators were asking the question: is the special relationship done and dusted, or can it survive?” Those debates have resurfaced repeatedly whenever London and Washington DC have had public differences over foreign policy or military strategy. It’s a question that has arisen once again in March 2026, as President Trump has instigated a new wave of military operations in the Middle East, albeit without Downing Street’s unconditional support. Winston Churchill coins the phrase The term ‘special relationship’ has been in the political vocabulary for 80 years, making an entrance in the early days of the Cold War. In March 1946, Winston Churchill travelled to Fulton, Missouri to deliver a speech formally titled Sinews of Peace. Churchill was no longer the UK’s prime minister at the time – he had lost the 1945 British general election – but he remained one of the most influential political figures of the era. The Second World War had ended less than a year earlier, but tensions between the Soviet Union and western powers were already hardening along ideological faultlines. Churchill used the speech to warn about Soviet expansion across eastern Europe, and what he saw as the impending threat of communism. As Sam Edwards explains, the speech is “famous for two evocative phrases: one is ‘iron curtain’, the other is ‘special relationship’.” The phrase “iron curtain” described the emerging division of Europe between communist east and democratic west. The “special relationship,” meanwhile, referred to the close partnership that Churchill believed should bind Great Britain and the United States together in the postwar world. Read more | Before the Nuremberg Trials, this was Winston Churchill’s shocking plan for Nazi war criminals Churchill imagined this alliance resting on shared language, political traditions and deep military cooperation. The two countries had fought closely together during the Second World War, sharing intelligence, coordinating military planning and collaborating on technological projects such as nuclear weapons research. In reality, however, the concept was always more complicated than the rhetoric suggested. What does the “special relationship” mean? “Ever since Churchill articulated it in 1946, there have been questions about what it looks like, what it involves, what examples there are of it in action,” Edwards says. At certain moments, the alliance has appeared exceptionally close, especially during joint military operations or intelligence cooperation, as with the 2003 invasion of Iraq. At other times, it’s seemed less certain. Indeed, the first major test arrived surprisingly quickly. In 1956, Gamal Abdel Nasser, president of Egypt, nationalised the Suez Canal, which had long been controlled by British and French interests. The canal was one of the most important shipping routes in the world, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea and providing a crucial link between Europe and Asia. Britain and France responded by secretly coordinating a military intervention with Israel in an attempt to regain control of the waterway. The Cuban Missile Crisis: World on the Brink Member exclusive | In this HistoryExtra podcast series, we explore the roots of the Cold War standoff and meet the key players in the confrontation. We track the pivotal 13 days at its centre, and the Cold War alliances that saw diplomatic tensions escalate to breaking point Listen to all episodes now The United States strongly opposed the invasion. “In 1956, the Suez Crisis was a first big crisis in the US–UK relationship,” Edwards explains. Washington applied intense financial and diplomatic pressure on Britain to withdraw its forces. The administration of US president Dwight D Eisenhower feared that the invasion would destabilise the Middle East and push newly independent states toward the Soviet Union. “The Americans were quite forceful in demanding that the British army withdraw from the Suez Canal after the nationalisation of the canal zone,” he says. The crisis is often interpreted by historians as a symbol of Britain’s declining global power in the postwar era. “In the aftermath there were discussions: what does the special relationship look like now?” Edwards says. “Is it going to survive any longer?” It did. But the crisis made one thing clear. In this relationship, the United States had become the dominant partner. How Vietnam became another test Questions about the alliance resurfaced again in the 1960s during the Vietnam War. The United States, then led by President Lyndon B Johnson, sought international support for its expanding military intervention in southeast Asia. Britain’s Labour government, headed by Harold Wilson, came under pressure to demonstrate solidarity with military backing. “However, Harold Wilson persistently refused to send British troops to Southeast Asia,” says Edwards, “despite the fact that Lyndon B Johnson asked on various occasions.” The decision created yet further diplomatic tension between London and Washington. But, Edwards argues, part of the reason the relationship has survived repeated crises is that it operates on along two distinct axes. “One is a description of a functional relationship, especially between US and UK intelligence agencies and their militaries.” For example, the two countries are central members of the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance, which also includes Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In this sense, the phrase refers to concrete cooperation: shared intelligence networks, joint military planning and close defence collaboration. The two countries coordinate on nuclear strategy, share classified information and frequently operate together in military coalitions. But there’s also a second dimension. “The other part is that it’s an idea, an image, a discursive construct,” Edwards says. Politicians often invoke the phrase symbolically to signal shared democratic values and cultural ties. This rhetorical layer can survive, even when foreign and military policy disagreements spill over into the public sphere. “The interesting thing about what we’re witnessing right now is the erosion of both of those [dimensions of the special relationship],” Edwards says. Recent debates about the use of British military assets by the American military have raised questions about the functional side of the alliance. At the same time, political rhetoric has begun to harden. President Trump appeared to criticise UK prime minister Keir Starmer in March 2026, saying: “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.” “The irony within all of this is that the person driving what looks like the erosion of the special relationship is himself a contemporary of that relationship,” Edwards says of Trump. Churchill delivered his Fulton speech in March 1946. “Trump goes back to June 1946.” In other words, both the concept and one of its most recent critics were born in the same year. That’s not the only irony. Edwards also notes that the current US president is the first since Woodrow Wilson to have a British mother. Still, after eight decades, the special relationship has survived multiple crises – all of which seemed like they might bring it to an end. As to whether the current tensions will prove more serious, Edwards is uncertain. “Can it outlast this? We shall see. I think it will, in some form or shape, but I think it is going to look different in the years to come.” Matt Elton was speaking to Sam Edwards on the HistoryExtra podcast series History Behind the Headlines. Listen to the full conversation.
What inspired the darkness of Lord of the Flies? The disturbing history behind the novel
The first TV adaptation of William Golding’s haunting 1954 novel Lord of the Flies arrives on Netflix in May 2026. This disturbing and mesmeric four-part series of the modern classic challenges viewers to ponder human nature. Here, we look at the history of Golding’s dystopian masterpiece, and the real-life events that inspired him to write it
William Golding wrote Lord of the Flies in the shadow of the 1930s’ ideological polarisation, the Second World War and the Holocaust. These had convinced him that evil was not an aberration but was deeply ingrained in the human condition. He recognised that the Nazis had not simply imposed their murderous regime through sheer force alone, but that millions of everyday people had acquiesced or enthusiastically gone along with it. And though many in the postwar years assured themselves that they’d never have participated in its savagery, Golding was less sanguine. Read more | The myth of the innocent bystander: conformity and complicity in Nazi Germany “My book was to say: you think that the war is over and an evil thing destroyed. You are safe because you are naturally kind and decent,” he wrote while reflecting on the success of Lord of the Flies. “But I know why the thing rose in Germany. I know it could happen in any country.” As the most destructive conflict in history gave way to the Cold War and the mounting threat of nuclear annihilation, Golding’s bleak verdict seemed apposite. In later years, he maintained that “man produces evil as a bee produces honey.” Who was William Golding? Golding was born in 1911 in Newquay, Cornwall and raised in Marlborough, Wiltshire. He trained as a teacher, gaining first-hand insights into boys’ hierarchies and social rituals – knowledge that would later inform the tribalism in Lord of the Flies. Serving in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, he took part in the D-Day landings at Gold Beach in June 1944. The experience was formative, as he witnessed the machinery and the immense destructive capacity of modern warfare. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/WilliamGolding1983-2a64892-e1772205569790.jpg" width="1500" height="1500" alt="Black-and-white portrait of author William Golding in 1983, showing the Nobel laureate with a full white beard and wispy hair, wearing a collared jacket and patterned cravat, looking directly at the camera with a thoughtful expression." title="Lord of the Flies author William Golding pictured in 1983 – the same year that he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature" /> This sense that civilisation had become eclipsed was widespread, and palpable in the titles of wartime novels such as Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon (1940). Everywhere, totalitarian dictators seemed to be ascendant and liberal democratic optimism in terminal decline. For Golding, the war had proved that ‘enlightened’ societies could descend into barbarism with terrifying speed. After 1945, he returned to teaching at Bishop Wordsworth’s School in Salisbury, but dreamed of becoming a published novelist. At home, he and his wife Ann would read island adventure stories to their young children. One notable example was RM Ballantyne’s imperialist romance The Coral Island (1857), in which shipwrecked boys triumph through Christian virtue and British nous. How was Lord of the Flies written and published? One evening, Golding jested that it would be a good idea to write a story about how a group of children would really behave under such circumstances. Encouraged by Ann, he set about exploring this idea, writing obsessively in school exercise books and borrowing the names of Ballantyne’s characters Ralph and Jack. Gradually, one of modern literature’s most unsettling novels took shape. The novel became a deliberate inversion of the colonialist hubris that underpinned Victorian adventure stories such as The Coral Island. Where Ballantyne’s shipwrecked boys export British ‘values’ to a ‘savage’ island and emerge morally triumphant, Golding’s revert to an inherent primal savagery. Without adult supervision, the uninhabited island is a crucible in which supposedly ‘civilised’ British children succumb to superstition, destruction and terror. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/552262-fdc53fa-e1772208213343.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A scene from the 2026 BBC One adaptation of Lord of the Flies shows a group of boys, their faces smeared with dark paint, shout and raise sharpened wooden spears as rain pours down in a tropical setting with palm trees and tall grass." title="A scene from the new BBC adaptation of Lord of the Flies shows the island's older boys – or 'big'uns' – wielding makeshift spears. As with Golding's original novel, the series shows the children resorting to increasing acts of violence. (Image by BBC/Eleven/J Redza)" /> Golding’s manuscript, originally titled Strangers from Within, was repeatedly turned down by London’s major publishers. By the time it had reached Faber & Faber it was already dog-eared and seemed set for yet another rejection, with one of the publisher’s readers scribbling on the accompanying cover letter: “Absurd & uninteresting fantasy about the explosion of an atom bomb on the colonies. A group of children who land in jungle country near New Guinea. Rubbish & dull. Pointless. Reject.” Fortunately, up-and-coming junior editor Charles Monteith recognised its power. However, he suggested drastic changes, cutting the original opening that detailed the boys’ evacuation amid a nuclear war. The result is the eerie beginning we know today: a ‘scar’ in the jungle, a crashed plane, and only hints of a global conflict. Read more | How have nuclear weapons shaped global politics? Unimpressed with the novel’s working title, another Faber editor, Alan Pringle, proposed Lord of the Flies. In a letter dated 25 February 1954, Monteith shared this suggestion with Golding, writing: “It comes, of course, from one of the most important and memorable episodes in the book and we all think it’s the sort of title which would make an impression and would help the book’s sales”. Taking its name from the demonic Philistine deity Beelzebub – whose name translates from Biblical Hebrew as ‘Lord of the Flies’ – the episode in the book to which Monteith refers sees a festering sow’s head impaled on a spike by the boys as an offering to the ‘beast’ they believe is stalking them on the island. Lord of the Flies was finally published by Faber & Faber in September 1954, to good reviews and modest sales. Has it been adapted before? There have been several film versions of Lord of the Flies, each reflecting the particular anxieties of its time, though the core themes in Golding’s original work have remained consistent. The first adaptation, directed by Peter Brook, was released in 1963 – the year after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Its stark black-and-white realism resonated in a world living under the shadow of the mushroom cloud, when the future of civilisation seemed terrifyingly precarious. In 1975, a Filipino adaptation, Alkitrang Dugo (‘Asphalt Blood’), was released – tellingly, during the authoritarian rule of Ferdinand Marcos. That president, elected in 1965, declared martial law in 1972, alleging communist insurgency. The long-term dictatorship that followed was marred by censorship, the imprisonment of political opponents and widespread human rights abuses – a suitably dark context for the genesis of this adaptation. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/GettyImages-1692666755-08352a2-e1772207150208.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Black-and-white photograph of a vast protest in 1970s Manila, with thousands of demonstrators crowding a city street near the Philippine Savings Bank building. Protesters hold banners and placards calling for democracy and opposing President Marcos, while a statue in the foreground overlooks the densely packed scene." title="Protesting Governmental Activities In Manila" /> In 1990, the story was reimagined with teenage American military cadets; this version was released just as the bipolar world order of the Cold War was coming to an end. Now, in 2026, the first adaptation for television brings the novel to a new generation in an age marked by renewed polarisation, populism and geopolitical tensions, and when questions about social media’s impact on young people are seldom out of the news. What is the novel’s legacy? Golding went on to a distinguished literary career, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983 and a knighthood in 1988. He died in 1993, by which point Lord of the Flies had become a staple of classrooms worldwide. It remains a bestseller, and has been translated into numerous languages and adapted repeatedly for stage and screen. The novel contends that civilisation is not a permanent achievement but a fragile arrangement, always vulnerable to fear and ambition. Read more | Why the modern age was born of bloodshed Perhaps its most poignant moment comes when, Jack’s tribe having set most of the island ablaze in their delirious hunt for Ralph, their bloodlust evaporates the second they come face-to-face with an adult in the shape of a Royal Naval officer. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/552289Ralph-d5f6732-e1772207350653.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Ralph, played by Winston Sawyers in the BBC adaptation of Lord of the Flies, stands shirtless among trees, his face and torso smeared with dirt and marked with scratches, looking off to one side with a tense, uncertain expression." title="Ralph (played by Winston Sawyers) in the new BBC adaptation of Lord of the Flies. The character, who is elected 'chief' at the start of Golding's novel, finds himself being hunted by the other boys as the story reaches its climax" /> Yet even at this moment of deliverance, Golding ends his novel on an ambiguous note. The officer, a man of war, gazes back towards his anchored cruiser – a moment that speaks to the ongoing conflict being waged away from the island by the ‘grown-ups’ whom the boys had so earnestly sought to emulate in their initial bid to maintain social harmony. In 1965, six boys from Tonga who stole a fishing boat were shipwrecked on the uninhabited island of ‘Ata, where they survived for 15 months through cooperation, prayer and shared labour until being rescued. Their solidarity is often seen as a real-life rebuttal to the pessimism of Lord of the Flies.
In the aftermath of WW2, why did FDR’s Latin American experiment end in abject failure?
Before the Cold War hardened into coups and counterinsurgency, the United States backed reformist governments across Latin America. The abrupt reversal of policy after 1945 wasn’t inevitable, but it reshaped the politics of the northern and southern American continents for generations
The Cold War in Latin America is sometimes seen as an inevitable extension of rivalry between two emergent superpowers – the United States and the Soviet Union – in the new geopolitical context created in the aftermath of the Second World War. But the Cold War antagonism between the US and its southern neighbours wasn’t a foregone conclusion amid the wider ideological conflict. In the decades before the Cold War took hold, the US pursued a markedly different relationship with Latin America that had embraced national sovereignty, tolerated economic nationalism and actively supported the leadership of left-leaning reformers. As historian Greg Grandin, Professor of History at Yale University, explains on the HistoryExtra podcast, this earlier period shows that more cordial relations were possible, and demonstrates how quickly they were abandoned. Why Latin America mattered before the Cold War “You can’t really understand the Cold War unless you understand Latin America’s role in the 1930s and 1940s,” Grandin explains. During those years, Latin American governments were active participants in an anti-fascist coalition that spanned the Atlantic world. Several countries broke relations with the Axis powers early; they restricted German and Italian influence and aligned diplomatically and economically with the Allies well before the Second World War formally reached the hemisphere. WW2 | The Big Questions Member exclusive | Historian and broadcaster Laurence Rees explains major moments of the global conflict in this five-part series. Listen to all episodes now This partnership between the US and Latin American governments emerged against a long history of tension. Since the late 19th century, Latin American states had protested a right claimed by the United States to intervene militarily and politically across the hemisphere via the Monroe Doctrine, a claim first articulated in 1823 that purportedly justified intervention in order to protect US economic and military interests. From occupations in Haiti and Nicaragua, to repeated interventions in Central America and the Caribbean, US power over Latin and Central America had often been wielded as a blunt tool. Until the early 1930s, the powers residing in Washington were keen to hold to that prerogative. Read more | Venezuela: a hundred years of turmoil It was the Great Depression of the 1920s and 30s that changed the calculus. US power on the world stage was weakened, and domestic reform took increasing priority. The shift in policy that followed under 32nd US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt represented a deliberate attempt to rebuild hemispheric relations on new foundations. FDR viewed Latin America as central to the global struggle against fascism. His policymakers understood fascism not as a uniquely European threat, but rather a system that could take root wherever economic crisis and political instability converged. So, US support for Latin America, both ideologically and territorially – with the latter’s strategically important resources and stretches of Atlantic coastlines – was seen as pivotal. FDR’s hemispheric experiment “Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president in 1932 and inaugurated in 1933, and he presided over an enormous sea change in US policy towards Latin America,” Grandin explains. “For a long time, Latin American states had demanded that the United States give up its claimed right of intervention, recognise the absolute sovereignty of individual nations, and accept that the doctrine of conquest was no longer valid. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/GettyImages-517474988-2bc02f5-e1770740210619.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="President Franklin D Roosevelt talks with Prime Minister Winston Churchill on the lawn during the Casablanca Conference of January 1943." title="President Franklin D Roosevelt talks with Prime Minister Winston Churchill on the lawn during the Casablanca Conference of January 1943." /> “And Roosevelt, because of this recession of US power caused by the Great Depression, concedes. And in doing so, the whole game changes. The whole United States' relationship with Latin America changes completely. There's a sense in which the United States has accepted that conquest is no longer a valid justification for intervention.” Read more | Who was the greatest President of the United States in history? Just as important to this relationship was how Roosevelt understood reform. “There is also a sense that the New Deal [a series of sweeping US federal programs and public work projects implemented by FDR in the 1930s] is not just a domestic political experiment, but a continental one.” Across Latin America, governments were attempting to regulate capital, redistribute land, and build developmental states to address extreme inequality. Amid its own substantial change of ideology, Washington didn’t reflexively oppose these efforts. When Washington backed economic nationalism When Bolivia nationalised Standard Oil assets in 1937, the US didn’t intervene. When Mexico expropriated foreign oil companies a year later, FDR went further, providing funding for a national steel factory. Brazil received similar backing for industrial development. Such actions were extraordinary given the long-standing US practice of using diplomatic or military pressure to protect American corporate interests overseas. During the second half of FDR’s presidential reign, as Europe slid toward war, US strategists looked south with growing anxiety. “Their greatest fear was that Latin America could become ‘Spain writ large’,” Grandin explains. The reference was to the Spanish Civil War and the rise of authoritarian leader Francisco Franco. Many of the social conditions that fuelled fascism in Spain – concentrated land ownership, stark inequality, militant labour movements, and conservative Catholic nationalism – were present across Latin America. US officials feared that repression of reform movements would radicalise politics, opening the door to authoritarian or fascist outcomes. Read more | Francisco Franco: is it accurate to call the Spanish dictator a fascist? Washington feared fascist Europe to the east, fascist Asia to the west, and a potentially fascist Latin America to the south. Preventing that outcome required a deliberate choice. In response, says Grandin, “Roosevelt tilted towards the left in Latin America and supported reformers who were trying to build national developmental states.” The strategy largely worked. With the major exception of Argentina, “almost every Latin American country eagerly joined the Allied forces.” But following FDR’s death in 1945, it all changed. From 33rd US President Harry Truman onwards, and as the Iron Curtain descended across Europe, nationalisation and state-led development in Latin America would come to be treated as existential threats to the US. This was in sharp contrast to the 1930s and early 1940s, when they had been accepted as safeguards against fascism. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/GettyImages-515218942-8cb0cac-e1770739907376.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="President Harry S Truman speaks during a televised address from the Oval Office. As president from 1945 to 1953, Truman used radio and television to communicate directly with the public during a period of profound global change." title="President Harry S Truman speaks during a televised address from the Oval Office. As president from 1945 to 1953, Truman used radio and television to communicate directly with the public during a period of profound global change." /> From allies to enemies “The reason why you have to understand that period to understand the Cold War is that it shows how brutal and violent the turnaround was.” Up until the later 1940s, the US had supported many Latin American countries militarily. “It had sent guns, weapons, tanks, warships, and aircraft,” says Grandin. “It had trained and professionalised Latin American militaries in the name of fighting fascism.” Read more | What was the Truman doctrine? By 1947–8, the United States had transformed Latin America’s military capacity. Much of this assistance was delivered through wartime programmes such as Lend-Lease, which dramatically expanded US influence over regional armed forces. Then, almost overnight, the enemy changed. “All of a sudden, in 1947, Washington sent a clear signal that the fight is no longer against fascism. It's against the communists.” The Cuban Missile Crisis: World on the Brink Member exclusive | In this HistoryExtra podcast series, we explore the roots of the Cold War standoff and meet the key players in the confrontation. We track the pivotal 13 days at its centre, and the Cold War alliances that saw diplomatic tensions escalate to breaking point Listen to all episodes now Now, governments and movements that had been wartime partners were reclassified as dangers to hemispheric security. It was a seismic shift. Before the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) existed, US intelligence in Latin America was handled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In 1947, “[the FBI’s] focus shifted from monitoring right-wing movements to surveilling and repressing left-wing forces. And you see this in one country after another,” says Grandin. “The violence and abruptness of the shift triggered cycles of polarisation that unfolded through the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.” Those cycles produced insurgencies on the left, authoritarian regimes on the right, and decades of repression that were later justified as Cold War necessity. For Washington, it was a reversion to the norm, ending FDR’s experimental approach to Latin American relations. Greg Grandin was speaking to Danny Bird on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.