Word: nato
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...indifference, Gruenther understands that no alliance is stronger than the will to support it. "We can stand criticism, but we cannot stand indifference," he says. His method is to expound to anyone who will listen-to groups of manufacturers, parliamentarians, schoolgirl choirs-the necessity, importance, and stature of NATO...
...nerve center from which Al Gruenther commands NATO's 4,000-mile front is a low, many-winged building, 40 minutes from the Ritz bar, in the President of France's official hunting preserves. Through its halls hustle 800 professional military men of 15 nations, comprising the unique multilingual command staff called SHAPE (Supreme Allied Headquarters Europe...
...like to know more about that Machine Tool Association whom we are briefing on Friday. What are some of their problems?") By the time he has to speak, he knows that the group comprises 29 manufacturers from eight countries, is highly interested in developing and adapting standardized equipment for NATO needs, and that he can warmly commend them on their interest. With such a preface, he swings into his discussion of the structure and importance of NATO, reeling off statistics without recourse to notes as usual, ends by moving out to the front steps for a group picture...
Such talent for detail, priceless in a staff officer, can be disastrous in a commander, and some senior NATO officers were worried that Gruenther would let details distract him from broader thinking. "But we found that he is able to clear his mind and his desk with lightning speed," says one SHAPE officer. "He never abandoned the detail; he simply operates brilliantly on two levels instead...
...captive audiences and in public Al Gruenther sturdily ex-tolls the long, hard distance NATO has come from the days when Ike and Al first set up headquarters in the Astoria Hotel near the Arc de Triomphe, and ex-Prizefighter Georges Carpentier ran the bar downstairs. Then there were fewer than 15 NATO divisions, only one of them combat ready; the rest were largely split up into occupation units. Then there was no plan, and no communications to set it in motion. A phone call to Oslo took twelve hours, and passed through the Soviet zone of Germany. All that...