Comments by Stalin in early 1946, that capitalism and imperialism made future wars inevitable, set off alarm bells in the West. George Kennan, a career U.S. diplomat in Moscow, was asked by the State Department for his view on Soviet motives and intentions. His famous cabled response warned there could be no permanent, peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union.

Days after Kennan's telegram, Winston Churchill, the former British prime minister, arrives in the United States. He later speaks at a college in Fulton, Missouri, the home state of his host, U.S. President Harry Truman. Although the speech was not well-received at the time, it coined the phrase that best described the political and ideological divide between the Soviets and the West as the Cold War began.
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