Winston Churchill coined the phrase ‘Iron Curtain’ in a speech of February 21 1946. On February 22, 1947, the chief American diplomat in Moscow, George F. Kennan sent a telegram in response to requests for information in which he put forward his view that the Soviet Union was inherently expansionist and that its influence had to be ‘contained’ in areas of vital strategic importance.
The Iron Curtain Speech and US Policy of ‘Containment’
RGS History 