Europe: The Grandest Tour

(8 of 8)

Six months ago, that response would have been unthinkable. If the shifting movement among the allies and Eastern Europe had any merit at all, it was in this new affirmation of change—cautious as it might be—which threw a harsh spotlight on the old frozen ground of East-West intransigence. In that context, De Gaulle is more than a mere spoiler; with his feints and forensics, his antique nationalism and farsighted vision of a Europe that will endure long after Communism has faded into historical obscurity, he is speeding the process of change. All through his Russian trip, he has remained consistently a man of the West: prideful and unyielding when he told Brezhnev that he will not accept Russian hegemony in Eastern Europe, plastic and malleable when he endorsed the U.S. presence in Western Europe as the only alternative to Russian aggression.

Shifting Climate. Thus, for all the pique Charles de Gaulle has caused in Washington with his NATO policies, he has also been doing Washington's work by forcing a reappraisal of what the cold war and the alliance are all about. Washington has been reacting to the initiatives of others for too long a time, and should have taken the lead in NATO reform months, if not years, ago. Concern with Southeast Asia has made that imaginative approach to Europe well-nigh impossible, but the U.S. is still deeply, enduringly involved in Europe. If De Gaulle can find opportunities within the current shifting climate of Europe to enhance the West's position vis a vis Russia, then surely the West's leaders should be able to transmute those opportunities into policy.