A NATO Without France?

In preparing his major pronouncements, Charles de Gaulle relies on two basic ingredients:history and mystery. Both were evident in his choice last week of Thursday, Nov. 4, as the moment to make his presidential intentions known to a presumably breathless world. The mystery part was a bit thin (few observers doubt that De Gaulle will run for a second term), but the history was laid on thick. Nov. 4 is the feast day of St. Charles Borromeo (1538-84), an Italian cardinal and church reformer possessed of a Gaullist profile, an imperious manner, and a bent for catechizing. Moreover, St. Charles, like his namesake, was once the target for an assassination attempt --by a disgruntled monk whose order he had attempted to control. The parallels were obvious; so were the concomitant moves De Gaulle was making in Europe last week.

"Reversal of Alliances"? Into Moscow's Vnukovo Airport flew French Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville for a six-day visit--the first French mission to Moscow at that level since 1956. If De Gaulle's envoy was there to lend the Russians nothing more than an ear, this itself was interesting, since the Russians seemed to have something that they would like to whisper into it--talk of a new move against West Germany. In recent months the Russians have been hinting at an interest in renewing the moribund Franco-Soviet treaty of December 1944, under which De Gaulle and Stalin agreed to "eliminate any new menace from Germany." Although no one thought that De Gaulle was ready--just yet--for a "reversal of alliances" that would align France and Russia against West Germany, De Gaulle's aggressive antipathy toward Bonn is becoming ever clearer.

Virtually discarded is the Franco-German Treaty of Friendship signed with great hope by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in January 1963. "C,a sera fini [it will be ended]," sniffed De Gaulle contemptuously some months ago. This hardly bothers the West Germans, who have seen the treaty's value dwindle. The Germans realize that they are the only nation in the Western alliance with unresolved border problems, hence the only nation likely to use "nukes" in passion. What does bother them are the recent blunt remarks attributed to De Gaulle that he is now dead set against Bonn's having control of any strategic nuclear weaponry, or even engaging in nuclear planning. "We are alarmed," said a Bonn official. "The noise itself is not new. What is new is De Gaulle's saying to outsiders that while France must not be integrated in NATO in any way, the Germans must be integrated."

Visit by Erhard. That dropped the "nuclear sharing" ball back into Washington's hands, where divergent approaches to the future shape of the Western alliance have yet to be resolved. With West Germany's Chancellor Ludwig Erhard due to arrive in the U.S. around the end of November and anxious to learn how, when and if the U.S. plans to allow a German voice in NATO nuclear strategy, Washington was still talking about the all-but-abandoned Multilateral Force concept (rejected by De Gaulle from the start). Britain's variant Atlantic Nuclear Force, and a "select committee" concept, favored by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, under which NATO allies would take nuclear decisions collectively. With the NATO treaty due to expire in 1969 and De Gaulle clearly threatening to pull out of the alliance, Washington planners were quietly looking ahead to the possibilities of a NATO without France.

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