Cold War: The Statesman Who First Used the Term in 1947

The statesman who first used the term cold war was Bernard Baruch, an American financier and presidential adviser. On 16 April 1947, in a speech to the South Carolina House of Representatives, Baruch said: “Let us not be deceived: we are today in the midst of a cold war.” The writer George Orwell had used the expression before him. Winston Churchill, by contrast, used not this expression but the metaphor of the “iron curtain”.

Quick Summary

The first statesman to use the term in a political speech was Bernard Baruch.
The speech was delivered on 16 April 1947 in the South Carolina state legislature.
The text was written by Baruch’s journalist friend Herbert Bayard Swope.
George Orwell had used the expression in a magazine article on 19 October 1945.
The expression in Churchill’s Fulton speech of 5 March 1946 was “iron curtain”.
Walter Lippmann popularized the term with his 1947 book “The Cold War”.

Bernard Baruch and the 1947 speech
Earlier uses of the term
Churchill and the “iron curtain” confusion
The man who popularized it: Walter Lippmann
Who used which expression, and when?
The bipolar world and the blocs
Turkey and the Western Bloc
Frequently asked questions

The Statesman Who First Used the Term Cold War: Bernard Baruch

Bernard Baruch was an American financier who had made his fortune on the New York stock exchange. During the First World War he was put at the head of the War Industries Board. He then advised many US presidents, from Woodrow Wilson to Harry Truman. The nuclear control plan presented to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission in 1946 also bears his name.

The speech that brought the term into political language was given on 16 April 1947 in Columbia, the capital of South Carolina. That day a portrait of Baruch, who was born in the state, was being unveiled with ceremony in the House of Representatives. Most of the speech was in fact about the economy and working life. Baruch proposed a 44-hour working week throughout 1948, with no strikes and no layoffs.

Illustration of the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union for the article on the statesman who first used the term cold war

This proposal, however, was quickly forgotten, and only one sentence of the speech survived. Baruch’s words were: “Let us not be deceived: we are today in the midst of a cold war.” In his memoirs Baruch attributes the expression to his journalist friend Herbert Bayard Swope, who prepared the text. The South Carolina Department of Archives and History also states that Swope wrote the speech, but that Baruch was the first to use the expression in public.

Earlier Uses of the Term

The expression goes back further than 1947. On 19 October 1945, the English writer George Orwell published an article titled “You and the Atom Bomb” in the Tribune. In it Orwell discussed how the atomic bomb would change the world. In his view, states possessing this weapon would become unconquerable and would live in a permanent “cold war” with their neighbors.

Orwell’s use was not entirely the first either. The blog of Oxford University Press notes that the expression had also been used in 1938 to describe some of Hitler’s policies. Orwell’s contribution, therefore, is that he was the first to apply the term to the postwar world. According to American Heritage magazine, the British newspaper The Observer also used the expression in March 1946 to describe Soviet policy toward Britain.

These early uses explain why the question is specifically about a “statesman”. Orwell was a writer and The Observer a newspaper. The first person to carry the term cold war to the center of politics in an official speech was Baruch.

Churchill and the “Iron Curtain” Confusion

The most common mistake on this subject is to attribute the term to Winston Churchill. On 5 March 1946 Churchill gave a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. President Truman was in the audience that day. In this speech Churchill said that an “iron curtain” had descended across the continent from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic.

At the time Churchill was not prime minister; he had lost the 1945 election and become leader of the opposition. Even so, his speech is regarded as an important turning point in the hardening of the West’s attitude toward Soviet policy. The TDV Encyclopedia of Islam also uses the phrase “iron curtain”, which Churchill employed in 1946, when describing the Eastern European countries that came under Soviet influence. In short, the speech that symbolizes the era is Churchill’s, and the speech that named the cold war is Baruch’s.

The Man Who Popularized the Term: Walter Lippmann

The person who made Baruch’s sentence stick was Walter Lippmann, one of the most influential columnists of the day. In 1947 Lippmann wrote a series of articles responding to the famous essay published by the diplomat George F. Kennan under the signature “X”. Kennan argued that Soviet expansion had to be patiently “contained”. Lippmann, however, believed that this strategy would drag the United States into a costly struggle all over the world.

The same year the articles were published as a book titled “The Cold War: A Study in U.S. Foreign Policy”. The book’s title sped up the term’s passage from the newspapers into everyday language. Thus “cold war” soon became the general name for the tension between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Who Used Which Expression, and When?

The table below brings together four important names in the history of the term.

Person	Date	Expression used	Role
George Orwell	19 October 1945	“cold war”	Writer
Winston Churchill	5 March 1946	“iron curtain”	Statesman
Bernard Baruch	16 April 1947	“cold war”	Statesman, presidential adviser
Walter Lippmann	1947	“The Cold War” (book title)	Journalist

Among the names in the table, Orwell was the first to use the expression, but he was not a statesman. Churchill was a statesman, but he did not say “cold war”. The name that meets both conditions is Baruch.

The Bipolar World and the Blocs

The TDV Encyclopedia of Islam treats the cold war as a concept defining the period up to the collapse of the Soviet system. The era covers the political, economic and ideological rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union after the Second World War. The two superpowers never fought a major war directly against each other. Their rivalry was conducted through the arms race, propaganda and conflicts in third countries.

According to the encyclopedia, in September 1947 representatives of Europe’s communist parties met on Stalin’s instructions. The meeting decided to set up a joint information bureau in Belgrade, and the division of the world into two was voiced for the first time. The West supported Europe economically with the Marshall Plan in 1947 and militarily with NATO in 1949. The Eastern Bloc responded with COMECON in 1949 and the Warsaw Pact in 1955.

The Korean War (1950–1953) and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 were among the tensest moments of the era. The process ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The general consensus places the cold war between 1947 and 1991.

Turkey and the Western Bloc

In this new world order, Turkey soon took its place alongside the Western Bloc. According to the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, US President Harry S. Truman announced an aid project for the countries of the Western bloc known as the Truman Doctrine. With the aid agreement signed with the United States on 12 July 1947, Turkey formally took its place in the Western bloc. Sending troops to the Korean War opened the way to NATO membership in 1952.

The encyclopedia also notes that keeping this place within the Western alliance depended on a full transition to democracy. For the earlier stages of this process, see our article on the attempts to move to multi-party politics. Turkey also took on a role in the Western defense system in the Middle East. The agreement signed with Iraq in Baghdad on 24 February 1955 formed the core of the Baghdad Pact.

Britain, Pakistan and Iran joined the pact the same year. According to the encyclopedia, together with NATO and SEATO in Southeast Asia, the pact formed a security belt stretching from the North Atlantic to Indonesia. After the coup of 14 July 1958, Iraq announced on 24 March 1959 that it was leaving the alliance. The remaining members renamed the organization the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) and moved its secretariat to Ankara.

Despite all this tension, the encyclopedia stresses that relations between Turkey and the Soviet Union developed peacefully until 1991. For the older history of relations between the two countries, see our article on the Ottoman-Russian wars.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was the statesman who first used the term cold war?

It was Bernard Baruch, an American financier and presidential adviser. He used the term in his speech to the South Carolina state legislature on 16 April 1947.

Did Churchill use the expression “cold war”?

No. In his Fulton speech of 5 March 1946, Churchill used the metaphor of the “iron curtain”. Although both expressions describe the same era, they are different concepts.

Why is Orwell not considered the statesman who first used the term cold war?

Orwell had used the expression in 1945, before Baruch. But he was a writer, not a statesman. That is why, when the question asks about a “statesman”, the answer is Baruch.

Between which years did the Cold War take place?

The generally accepted range is 1947–1991. The start is taken as 1947, when the Truman Doctrine was announced, and the end as 1991, when the Soviet Union dissolved.

Conclusion

The statesman who first used the term cold war was Bernard Baruch, who used it on 16 April 1947. The roots of the expression go back to George Orwell’s 1945 article and to earlier uses. Churchill’s 1946 “iron curtain” speech symbolizes the era but does not name it. The person who made the term permanent was Walter Lippmann.