Word: nato
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...that "there cannot be unity in defense and disunity in foreign policy," its recommendations were hedged carefully with a sense of reality. Its chief recommendation: "Member governments should not adopt firm policies or make major political pronouncements on matters which significantly affect the alliance" without advance consultation with the NATO council...
...NATO ministers chorused approval, and Dulles called the report a "careful, scholarly, wise work." But then Dulles offered some reservations. The U.S. has pacts with 44 countries, he pointed out, and only 14 are included in NATO. If, for instance, the Chinese Communists attacked Formosa, the U.S. would be obligated to react without consulting NATO. This seemed to be exactly the argument Britain and France had used after their attack on Suez, but the difference, said Dulles, was that the U.S. had explained its stand on Formosa to NATO well in advance...
French papers at once angrily charged the U.S. with an "apparent desire to impose on her allies a code of international rules, all the while reserving the right not to respect them herself." NATO's new Secretary-General Paul-Henri Spaak (see box) was more understanding. "After all, you couldn't expect a country the size of the U.S. to promise to consult a little country like Belgium before taking action on every problem posed to it anywhere in the world." The council approved the three wise men's recommendation that...
...NATO members should try to settle disputes among themselves (e.g., Cyprus) within the NATO organization itself, empowered the Secretary-General to offer his good offices in the mediation, thereby making the job more than the mere functionary role it had been under Lord Ismay...
Comedown. When it came time to examine NATO's defenses, there was little argument, but not much cause for cheer. Faced with the economic crisis brought on by Suez, Britain told the council frankly that it could no longer maintain its defense expenditures, which are currently running at $4.2 billion a year or 9% of the total national product. France admitted that there was no prospect of bringing back the four divisions it pulled out of NATO's shield for service in North Africa...