It is my duty ... to place before you certain facts about the
present position in Europe. 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.2
Why were the ideas expressed in this passage significant during the Cold
War?