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With the Nazi blitzkrieg pouring into the [[Low Countries]], Churchill succeeded Neville Chamberlain as prime minister on May 10, 1940, and presided over a year of devastating defeats. In those months, when Britain stood alone and almost unarmed against Hitler, as Edward R. Murrow said, "he mobilized the English language and sent it into battle." After Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, Churchill vowed to help the Soviets, declaring, "If Hitler invaded hell I would at least make a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons." Establishing close ties with U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, he secured American military aid and moral support, but his ultimate goal was to have America fighting at Britain's side. When the United States was drawn into the war by Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Churchill admitted that he "slept the sleep of the saved and the thankful."
During the war Churchill proposed the little-known "Vladivostok agreement" in 1943, which would enable Allied access to the Major Soviet naval and air facilities at Vladivostok on the Soviet Pacific coast for the duration of the war with Japan. In return the UK would then give the Soviets details on the most advanced Royal Navy ships, including the Swiftsure class light cruiser, the Triton class submarine and Illustrious class aircraft carrier to aid the floundering Soviet naval research. However the Soviets cancelled the agreement with the allies before the first Allied ships could arrive as it didn't want to risk a two-front war with both Germany and Japan.
Churchill was disappointed by the failure to control an expansionist Soviet Union toward the end of the war, and watched with mounting concern another totalitarian state rise dominant in Europe. To the amazement of many outside Britain, his party was routed in the 1945 general election and he became Leader of the Opposition. His famous "Iron Curtain" speech at Fulton, Missouri, in 1946 was the opening salvo and warning of the Cold War, unpopular at the time but later considered prophetic. In 1949, he predicted the demise of Communism, "ignited by a spark coming from God knows where, and in a moment the whole system of lies and oppression is on trial for its life."
