NATO: Opening Duel

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Last month Charles de Gaulle imperiously decreed that he wants all forces belonging to his 14 NATO partners removed from French soil by next April 1. He meant, of course, chiefly the Americans, whose 26,000 troops dwarf other national contingents, but he also intended to evict the NATO military headquarters in Rocquencourt, near Paris. Last week began the inevitable fencing aimed at delaying or modifying the departures. It was led off by some fancy footwork by the U.S.

Replying to the French eviction notice, the U.S. made it clear that it will need more time to move than De Gaulle wants to give and that, if necessary, it will stall and haggle to get it. Principally drafted by former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, who two weeks ago called De Gaulle's view of the NATO alliance "utter nonsense," the reply's first version was so strong that Lyndon Johnson winced at it, sent it back to be given a milder tone.

Cool Chiding. Even so, the revised note charged that De Gaulle had acted illegally in breaking his military treaty commitments to NATO, and that he was wrong in saying the NATO structure would be impossible to amend. Moreover, said the U.S., if French troops are withdrawn from NATO command on July 1 as planned, they will lose access to the U.S.-owned nuclear warheads in West Germany, which France now shares under the "two-key" system. The U.S. insisted not only that it will need at least two years to remove its troops but that NATO will need an equal time to move its military headquarters. After all, NATO has not yet even begun to decide on a new location. As an irritating bargaining point, the U.S. also asked De Gaulle to pay the $700 million cost of moving NATO and U.S. defense installations—though no one expects that he will.

Backing up the U.S. note, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, in an interview in Paris-Match, coolly tore into De Gaulle's unilateral action, dismissing as silly the French notion that NATO participation could drag France into a war not of its own making. Nonetheless, added Rusk, if France insisted on breaking its contracts, "fourteen nations, comprising 450 million people and possessing massive military power, will not be paralyzed by the attitude of France."

Spring Fears. In the French National Assembly, De Gaulle's political opponents also attacked. They castigated him, however, not so much for his eviction notice to NATO (which is fairly popular with the French) as for not consulting either NATO or them before acting. De Gaulle's lieutenants fought back effectively, but it was left to Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville to sum up le grand Charles's grand aim: "It is inevitable and beneficial for everyone that Europe should recover her independence from America."

The talk of delay angered De Gaulle, who snapped to his ministers at a meeting: "I see no sense in letting indecision over the timetable drag on forever." Of course not, since he wants the evacuation to begin before the parliamentary elections next spring, in which he fears that the Gaullists might have their majority trimmed or even lose it. That, in addition to the stiff-backed attitude of the U.S., could make it considerably tougher for him to carry out his dismantling plans for NATO.