Word: nato
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...criticism of the Democratic Administration for inadequate enforcement of civil rights laws to charges of military impotence in South Viet Nam. But all this was overshadowed by another small squabble. House Republicans announced that they were sending a four-man delegation to Europe to investigate the disrepair into which NATO has fallen because of the Johnson Administration's neglect. House Minority Leader Ford called the mission "one of the major undertakings" of this year's congressional session...
...Senate Republican Leader Dirksen, upon first hearing the news, was derisive. "Are you kidding?" he asked. When told that Illinois' Representative Paul Findley, leader of the delegation, had surmised that NATO's problems might be the result of some sort of misunderstanding, Dirksen chortled: "That's cute." Next day Dirksen had a second thought, issued a statement saying: "It is regrettable that this jovial exchange with the press was reported." By that time, the Coordinating Committee's meeting was over, and Politician Emeritus Eisenhower had already had dinner at the White House and exchanged glowing toasts...
Apologists for NATO are wont to find proof of the Alliance's vitality in the quantity of discord it can contain without actually flying apart. By that negative measure, NATO was positively brimming with health as its defense ministers met in Paris last week. They came armed with bulging portfolios of grievances-and never opened them...
...example, would dearly like to withdraw one-fifth of Britain's 53,000-man Army of the Rhine. Nearly everyone was mad at France for its recent announcement that it will not participate in next year's "Fallex" exercise to test the Alliance's communications. NATO's burning issue remains the quest for some form of nuclear sharing, whether Britain's ANF proposal, the U.S.-German MLF scheme or De Gaulle's NON! Above all, NATO is exercised over De Gaulle's threat to pull France out of the Alliance entirely...
West Germany's 400,000-man army is the most important single factor that gives NATO a remaining degree of reality. Yet much of the West still expects the uniforms of its German allies to be made of sackcloth. Erhard may be an honored guest in the U.S., as he is this week; the British may graciously send their Queen to visit, or the French artfully try to woo Bonn away from the American alliance-but the Germans still feel unloved. "Joyous bonfires burn in the night sky all around Germany as her former enemies celebrate their victory...