Source A: The American Ambassador to the Soviet Union reports to his government on Soviet

attitudes to the United States

In summary, we have here a political force committed fanatically to the belief that with US
there can be no permanent modus vivendi [peace], that it is desirable and necessary that the
internal harmony of our society be disrupted, our traditional way of life be destroyed, the
international authority of our state be broken, if Soviet power is to be secure.
George F. Kennan, The Long Telegram, February 1946
Source B: Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the
Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern
Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these
famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all
are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many
cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow… Police governments are prevailing in
nearly every case, and so far, except in Czechoslovakia, there is no true democracy.
Churchill’s address to Westminster College, Missouri, March 1946
Source C: Stalin responds to the Iron Curtain Speech in an interview published in Pravda, the
main Soviet newspaper
Mr. Churchill and his friends bear a striking resemblance to Hitler and his friends. Hitler began
his work of unleashing war by proclaiming a race theory, declaring that only German-speaking
people constituted a superior nation. 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. The German race theory led Hitler and his friends to the
conclusion that the Germans, as the only superior nation, should rule over other nations. The
English race theory leads Mr. Churchill and his friends to the conclusion that the English-
speaking nations, as the only superior nations, should rule over the rest of the nations of the
world.
Joseph Stalin, Interview to Pravda, March 1946
Source D: The Soviet Ambassador to the United States reports to his government on
American plans for the future
The foreign policy of the United States, which reflects the imperialist tendencies of American
monopolistic capital, is characterized in the postwar period by a striving for world supremacy…
For this purpose broad plans for expansion have been developed and are being implemented
through diplomacy and the establishment of a system of naval and air bases stretching far
beyond the boundaries of the United States, through the arms race, and through the creation
of ever newer types of weapons.
Nikolai Novikov, The Novikov Telegram, September 1946