Word: nato
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...time of both opportunity and danger, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles called it last week. The opportunity presented by Poland and Hungary, Dulles told the NATO council in Paris, was to encourage what he called the prospective "disintegration" of the Soviet system. The danger was that, harassed by such rebellions, the Russians might launch into rash and desperate foreign adventures. And the difficulty, in such a situation, was how best to help Hungary...
West Germany's borders. Von Brentano's grim recommendation: the peoples of Eastern Europe must be discouraged from "taking dramatic action which might have disastrous consequences for themselves." In other words, sadly but realistically, Von Brentano considered that the Hungarians were too brave for their own good. NATO's new Secretary-General Paul-Henri Spaak glumly called the Hungarian revolt "the collective suicide of a whole people...
Last week the NATO powers accepted this logic. "The peoples of Eastern Europe should have the right to choose their own governments freely, unaffected by external pressure," said the final communique. In effect, this was an acceptance of the fact that, in the West's best judgment, Gomulkaism is the best the satellite peoples could hope for now-since it is perhaps the most the Russians presently dare accept...
...anxious to get back in everybody's good graces. With Russia putting on a show of brutal power in Hungary, the smaller nations had had a terrifying glimpse into a future in which the three senior partners might be split. There was sudden new interest in NATO's defenses, and an urgent search for ways to make sure such a split would not happen again...
Keeping in Step. After that, the NATO nations fell over each other in proposing new devices to keep future policies in step. Italy's Gaetano Martino proposed a permanent consultative body to develop a "common Western policy" for areas both inside and outside the NATO areas. West Germany's Heinrich von Brentano suggested an amendment to the treaty itself which would require each NATO nation to consult others on problems affecting the alliance. France's Christian Pineau wanted obligatory consultation on all foreign policies. Even more grandiosely, Britain's Selwyn Lloyd suggested a "grand design...