Many historians would mark Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech as the first public admittance that the Cold War had begun.
It was just four months after Churchill’s speech that a B-29 Superfortress of the 509th Bombardment Group roared over a sapphire lagoon full of empty US Navy ships near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. Aboard the decks of the ships were animals tied in place—pigs, goats, and thousands of rats, among others—so that scientists could study the effects of an atomic airburst on their bodies. Bombardiers let loose a bomb of the type used on Nagasaki; it had GILDA painted on it in slim black letters, and also a photograph of Rita Hayworth—star of the new film Gilda—from an Esquire magazine, pasted to its iron body. The Gilda shot was no secret; it made the covers of newspapers worldwide, and its fallout was politically radioactive, exacerbating tensions with Moscow.
This was the bomb that had provided the footage for Truman’s lunch viewing in the White House.
Two weeks after the viewing, on July 23, Henry Wallace came to see Truman, wanting to talk about the bomb and the Russia situation. The timing was no coincidence; the following day, another atomic test was scheduled to take place. Wallace arrived at the White House just after noon and was shown in for a 12:30 p.m. meeting.
Ever since the 1944 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, when Wallace had been pushed off the ticket to make room for Truman as the VP candidate, the two men were terribly uncomfortable in each other’s presence. Truman was embarrassed. Wallace was bitter. In the White House on the night of April 12, 1945, when Harry Truman spoke the thirty-five-word oath to assume the power of the presidency, Wallace was standing roughly ten feet away, his eyes like lasers pointed at Truman’s hand as it rested on the Bible. From Wallace’s point of view, it should have been him and not Truman sworn in that night. In the aftermath, Truman and Wallace did their best to contain their mistrust of each other.
That was about to change.
Wallace hand-delivered Truman a letter he had written to the president. “I have been increasingly disturbed about the trend of international affairs since the end of the war,” the letter read, “and I am even more troubled by the apparently growing feeling among the American people that another war is coming and the only way that we can head it off is to arm ourselves to the teeth.”
Wallace made cogent points: “Atomic warfare is cheap and easy compared with old-fashioned war. Within a very few years several countries can have atomic bombs and other atomic weapons.”
“Having more bombs—even many more bombs—than the other fellow is no longer a decisive advantage.”
“The very fact that several nations have atomic bombs will inevitably result in a neurotic, fear-ridden itching-trigger psychology in all the peoples of the world.”
Wallace pleaded with Truman to change US policy toward Russia, “to find some way of living together.” This would “reassert the forward-looking position of the Democratic Party in international affairs, and finally, would arrest the new trend toward isolationism and a disastrous atomic world war.”
Truman was immediately suspicious. The next morning, he brought this letter to his staff meeting. “It looks as though Henry [Wallace] is going to pull an Ickes,” Truman said, referring to former Interior secretary Harold Ickes, who had quit his post and publicly attacked the administration a few months earlier. Truman had every reason to be concerned.
At 11 a.m. on September 10, Wallace again visited the Oval Office, to talk over a speech he intended to give two days later at Madison Square Garden. Truman appeared distracted; he was weathering the fifth day of a nationwide maritime strike, as well as a truck drivers’ strike in New York City. The Wallace meeting lasted only fifteen minutes, but its impact would imperil Truman’s standing for years to come. According to Wallace’s account, he pulled out his Madison Square Garden speech and began reading it, page by page. Truman nodded as Wallace read, uttering “That’s right” and “Yes, that is what I believe.”
Wallace wrote in his diary, “The President apparently saw no inconsistency between my speech and what [Secretary of State James] Byrnes was doing,” referring to negotiations the secretary of state was holding with the Soviets and others, in Paris. According to Truman’s version of the Wallace meeting, Truman had “no time to read the speech,” but was pleased Wallace was “going to help the Democrats in New York by his appearance.”
On the morning of September 12 Wallace released his speech to the press, before it was to be delivered that night. Truman held his weekly press conference at 4 p.m., unaware that the reporters present had already obtained the text of Wallace’s address.
“Mr. President,” one called out, “in a speech for delivery tonight, Secretary of State—I mean Commerce—Wallace—[laughter]—has this to say about the middle of it, ‘When President’—”
Truman interrupted. “Well now, you say the speech is to be delivered?”
“It is, sir.”
“Well, I . . . I can’t answer questions on a speech that is to be delivered.”
“It mentions you, which is the reason I ask, sir,” the reporter continued. “In the middle of the speech are these words. ‘When President Truman read these words [Wallace’s speech], he said that they represented the policy of this administration.”
“That is correct,” Truman said. He went on to say that he “approved the whole speech.”
Wallace delivered the speech that night. Just before he took the stage, one of his
