<P> Much of the Western public still regarded the Soviet Union as a close ally in the context of the recent defeat of Nazi Germany and of Japan . Although not well received at the time, the phrase iron curtain gained popularity as a shorthand reference to the division of Europe as the Cold War strengthened . The Iron Curtain served to keep people in and information out, and people throughout the West eventually came to accept and use the metaphor . </P> <P> Churchill's "Sinews of Peace" address was to strongly criticise the Soviet Union's exclusive and secretive tension policies along with the Eastern Europe's state form, Police State (Polizeistaat). He expressed the Allied Nations' distrust of the Soviet Union after the World War II . In September that year, US - Soviet Union cooperation collapsed due to the US disavowal of the Soviet Union's opinion on the German problem in the Stuttgart Council, and then followed the announcement by US President, Harry S. Truman, of a hard line anti-Soviet, anticommunist policy . After that the phrase became more widely used as anti-Soviet term in the West . </P> <P> In addition, Churchill mentioned in his speech that regions under the Soviet Union's control were expanding their leverage and power without any restriction . He asserted that in order to put a brake on this ongoing phenomenon, the commanding force of and strong unity between the UK and the US was necessary . </P> <P> Stalin took note of Churchill's speech and responded in Pravda soon afterward . He accused Churchill of warmongering, and defended Soviet "friendship" with eastern European states as a necessary safeguard against another invasion . He further accused Churchill of hoping to install right - wing governments in eastern Europe with the goal of agitating those states against the Soviet Union . Andrei Zhdanov, Stalin's chief propagandist, used the term against the West in an August 1946 speech: </P>

How did iron curtain lead to cold war