#Cold War Quotes

“An iron curtain has descended over Europe.”

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.”

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Atlantic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind the line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe... 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.”

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

“Here's my strategy on the Cold War: we win, they lose.”

“I have seen the rise and fall of Nazi tyranny, the subsequent cold war and the nuclear nightmare that for fifty years haunted the dreams of children everywhere. During that time my generation defeated totalitarianism. As a result, your world is poised for better tomorrows. What will you do on your journey?”

“My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes.”

“What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies?”

“If I thought there was some reason to be concerned about them, I wouldn't be sleeping in this house tonight. (When asked about continued presence of Soviet nuclear submarines along US coastlines)”

“Our first duty to liberty is to keep our own. But it is also our duty - as Europeans - to keep alive in the Eastern as well as the Western half of our continent those ideas of human dignity which Europe gave to the world. Let us therefore resolve to keep the lamps of freedom burning bright so that all who look to the West from the shadows of the East need not doubt that we remain true to those human and spiritual values that lie at the heart of European civilization.”

“If... many influential people have failed to understand, or have just forgotten, what we were up against in the Cold War and how we overcame it, they are not going to be capable of securing, let alone enlarging, the gains that liberty has made.”

“The Russians are bent on world dominance, and they are rapidly acquiring the means to become the most powerful imperial nation the world has seen. The men in the Soviet Politburo do not have to worry about the ebb and flow of public opinion. They put guns before butter, while we put just about everything before guns.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, I stand before you tonight in my … chiffon evening gown, my face softly made up, my fair hair gently waved, the Iron Lady of the Western world. Me? A Cold War warrior? … Well, yes — if that is how they wish to interpret my defense of values of freedoms fundamental to our way of life.”

“During bomb drills, we students were told to crouch under our desks. Apparently the desks used in classrooms in the fifties were made of an exceptionally missile-resistant variety of wood. During the Cold War years I often wondered why it never occurred to our defense planners to protect the entire nation from nuclear attack by simply covering it, from sea to shining sea, with a huge Strategic Classroom Desk.”

“President Kennedy didn't negotiate out of the Cuban missile crisis simply because he and Khrushchev got along well. Khrushchev didn't have the cards.”

“The long bitter years of the Cold War are over. America and her allies have won; totally, decisively, and overwhelmingly....So thank you SAC. Job well done. Enjoy your retirement.”

“Here in Europe, I think that there are a lot of young people who forget the issues that were at stake during the Cold War.”

“The Cold War has been over for a long time. I'm not interested in having battles that, frankly, started before I was born.”