In March 1946, the UK's former wartime leader, Winston Churchill, gave a historic speech which would come to symbolise the beginnings of the Cold War. Churchill had lost power following a crushing election defeat in Britain in 1945. Encouraged by the US President Harry Truman, Churchill agreed to give a speech on world affairs at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. But why did the speech have such an impact. Alex Last hears from the historian Prof David Reynolds of Cambridge University, author of The Kremlin Letters: Stalin's wartime correspondence with Churchill and Roosevelt.

Photo: Winston Churchill at the podium delivering his "Iron Curtain" speech, at Westminster College in Fulton Missouri, 5th March 1946 (PA)