Question

what phrase does churchill use to describe soviet power in eastern europe? why might this scare an american audience in 1946?

Answer 1

Churchill use the phrase “Iron Curtain” to describe soviet power in Eastern Europe. He meant that the Soviet Union had separated the Eastern European countries from the West so that no one knew what was going on. He used the word “iron” to signify that it was indestructible.

Churchill’s speech asserting that an Iron curtain had come across Europe might scare the American audience because it was perceived as a declaration of war.

Answer 2

Because of its post-war policy of domination over Eastern Europe by the USSR and Stalin, Churchill coined the term Iron Curtain to describe the barrier in any exchange of ideologies, politics, between the two newly emerging ideological blocs. As Churchill described it, Iron Curtain stretched from the Baltic on the north, to Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. This barrier contributed to the accumulation of weapons on both sides, so with the contribution of the press and other media, the impression and tension of the possible danger of a new war, this time between the ideologically different  world powers, was created. So this danger might scare an American audience.