In Winston Churchill’s memoirs, he records a meeting with Stalin in October 1944: “The moment was apt for business, so I said ‘Let us settle our affairs in the Balkans... So far as Britain and Russia are concerned, how would it do for you to have 90 per cent predominance in Romania, for us to have 90 per cent of the say in Greece and go 50-50 about Yugoslavia?’ While this was being translated, I wrote out the percentages on a half-sheet of paper. I pushed this across to Stalin... There was a slight pause. Then he took his blue pencil and made a large tick upon it, and passed it back to us. It was all settled in no more time than it takes to set down.”