Some historians , including Gabriel Kolko and Geoffrey Roberts believe that the importance of the agreement is overrated . Kolko writes : Henry Butterfield Ryan writes , that " Eden and Molotov haggled over these quantities as though they were bargaining over a rug in a bazaar , with Molotov trying , eventually successfully , to trim Britain 's figures . " Most historians consider the agreement to be deeply significant , however . In '' The Cambridge History of the Cold War '' , Norman Naimark writes that together with the Yalta and Potsdam agreements , " the notorious percentages agreement between Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill ... confirmed that Eastern Europe , initially at least , would lie within the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union . " In his acclaimed biography of Churchill , Roy Jenkins writes that the agreement " proposed Realpolitik spheres of influence in the Balkans . The Foreign Office record reported Churchill as saying that ' the Americans would be shocked if they saw how crudely he had put it . ' " Historian David Carlton similarly notes that " With the October contract a clear if informal deal had been done on the point that mattered most to Churchill : he had Stalin 's consent to handle Greece as he saw fit . " Anthony Eden wrote that months before the meeting , he and Churchill had discussed the issue and " we felt entitled to ask for Soviet support for our policy with regard to Greece in return for the support we were giving to Soviet policy with regard to Romania . " Carlton recounts that At the Yalta Conference ( February 1945 ) , Roosevelt suggested that the issues raised in the percentages agreement should be decided by the new United Nations . Stalin was dismayed because he wanted a Soviet sphere of influence in East Europe
Yalta Conference
Yalta Conference
Percentages agreement