Posted on 08/31/2021 6:56:16 AM PDT by texas booster
On March 7, 1966, General Charles De Gaulle, the French President, informed the United States government the all foreign troops must leave France.
That was the end result of a number of agendas which began with the French desire to develop a self-determinate nuclear arsenal, remove France from what it considered an unequal partnership with the United Kingdom and the United States in NATO, and free it from being drawn into a conflict between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization members and members of the Warsaw Pact, should the Russian forces encroach on West Germany territory.
France wished to be free to seek its own treaty with the Warsaw Pact countries. If the country remained in the NATO membership, it would be obligated to respond against any Russian aggression in Germany according to the NATO mandates. This allowed RAF Mildenhall to become home to the 513th Troop Carrier Wing on July 1, 1966.
In a series of acts from 1958 forward, De Gaulle grew more and more hostile to the United States playing a dominant role in NATO. He wrote President Eisenhower and Prime Minister McMillan that there must be a tripartite directorate with France having an equal role in NATO to the United Kingdom and the United States.
However, his real intent was to draw NATO forces into France's colonial affairs regarding their conflict with insurgents in Algeria.
When Eisenhower and McMillan refused, De Gaulle began building up the defenses of France and pulled the French Mediterranean Fleet out of NATO command on March 11, 1959.
In June 1959, De Gaulle prohibited NATO nuclear weapons from being stationed in France. His ultimate goal was two-fold. De Gaulle sought to make France independent of the United States and the United Kingdom's influence and to possess the ability to conduct autonomous negotiations with the USSR should the East Germans move into West Germany.
In coming years he removed the rest of France's Navy from the NATO command.
On Feb, 13, 1960, France became a nuclear power when it exploded a nuclear device in the Sahara desert. What concerned the western nations in the NATO alliance was the statement of the French Chief of the General Staff. He pointed out that their nuclear weapons could fire in any direction.
The obvious threat was that America could just as easily become a target. The remark was in response to the American Secretary of State Dean Rusk, when he warned France that American nuclear weapons would be pointed at France if they performed a nuclear strike beyond the agreed plans.
In March 1966, De Gaulle removed all French armed forces from NATO control and told the United States (and other NATO military members) to leave France. France remained an ally to NATO forces, but only agreed to station French troops in Germany during the Cold War.
It was because of this moment in history, on March 7, 1966, that Mildenhall became destined to play a new role in the Cold War. On April 15, 1966 RAF Mildenhall began to make preparations for the arrival of the 513th Troop Carrier Wing.
On July 1, 1966, the 513 TCW became the parent organization for RAF Mildenhall when it began its transition from Evreux-Fauville Air Base, France with two rotational C-130 squadrons.
The closest that I have come is France's withdrawal from NATO in 1967. But instead of a fiasco, the US military (and other NATO allies) pulled everything that they could from our military bases in France.
I watched my Father go from repairing radar units to driving a truck moving things out of France - in his case, from Metz to any base in Germany that had space.
I remember my Father discussing how he started driving trucks full of equipment, and within a few weeks was driving a flatbed with curbs from the base. Yes, apparently the military decided that since they paid for the concrete curbs they would take them also, out of France!
A functional army is more about logistics than anything else. Can't shoot bullets without the guns and bullets in the right place, at the right time.
Has the US military fallen so far from grace that logistics is no longer taught or implemented? Do the US Army need to fire its logistics coordinators and hire some from the US Navy?
—and when DeGaulle announced that , some famous American asked him if it included “the American soldiers in graveyards”—
JFK’S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the 60’s when DeGaule decided to pull out of NATO. DeGaule said he wanted all US Military out of France as soon as possible.
Rusk responded, “Does that include those who are buried here?”
DeGaule did not respond.
I have become of the mindset we need to bring all of our troops home- close all foreign bases and bring our sons and daughters home. Let the other countries take care of their own defense. Besides, after what obama and Burden have done to our country we need all the troops here we can get to defend ourselves from the jihadis, etc.
Dean Rusk quipped that phrase.
Which is an interesting question to ask Bid*n:
Did you even bother to recover the American dead in Afghanistan?
“Ask him about the cemetaries, Dean!”
I think that the original idea was to fight wars on their soil, and leave the US cities unscathed.
I suspect that the next war will not notice whether or not our children are on our own soil, or some other tyrants soil.
I remember what a fella who serve in a construction outfit said. On their way out they poured bags of cement down the toilets and flushed out of spite. Our troops were angry. I would have loved to serve there back then. Food’s great.
While I will admit that the challenges of removing ~15 military bases from Afghanistan are much more formidable than removing them from France in the 60’s, it is not like we have known that this day would be coming.
After all, the massive build up of arms and munitions in Afghanistan ramped up tremendously once Bid*n got in office.
Almost like the military-industrial complex decided to sell off old stocks of munitions.
The US government paid for all that stuff. It’s not like a single afghani came from the Afghani’s ...
There are French soldiers who died in the Revolutionary War and are buried here. Do you want the French to have military bases in the US?
DeGaulle was nothing but a self-serving blowhard. During the was Ike couldn’t tell him about pending operations as he would demand to take it over.
I remember watching “Zorro” in French, and using phrases that I learned to talk to the local girls. It was a pleasant time.
There was certainly a lot of anger with DeGaulle’s decision. That he was manipulating us, to help them fight in Algeria only made it worse.
I remember that ... was it Adlai Stevenson?
bump
—I’m thinking it may have been the NATO commander—???
There was a famous political cartoon that was emblematic of this DeGaulle decision. I have been looking for it on the internet, but have not found it so far. But I remember seeing it on the day this was announced in 1967.
The first panel shows DeGaulle pointing away, back to the US, and demanding the exit of American forces from France. The next panel shows the ghosts of American soldiers killed fighting for France in WWI and WWII asking,”Do you want us to go too?”
Would like to see this cartoon again, if anyone can find it.
I remember a BRUTAL political cartoon from that time. It showed De Gaulle standing in front of an American Military Cemetery saying...
“Why do you Americans always stay where you are not wanted?”
They forgot the part in 1961 where Dulles and his CIA encouraged the Algerian Generals Putsch which De Gaulle was able to put down.
Honestly, if I was De Gaulle I wouldn’t have answered that childish quip either. Does WWII mean France should have accepted being filled with foreign troops, and that the French army should be under their control forever?
Breaking out of NATO was a courageous act that put their well being and sovereignty in it’s proper place.
It squares perfectly with George Washington’s thinking as to how a nation should act.
And the withdrawal and an independent nuclear force has worked out well in the long run. God only hope they didn’t fight hard to escape NATO only to succumb to the EU and it’s 4th Reich islamofascism.
He was actually a France serving blowhard. And he was right not to let a British and American centered organization make decisions about the Fate of France.
Britain has been a long term adversary and an unreliable ally.
If you were French, would you let Brits rule over you? Or would you prefer a home grown nuclear deterrent that YOU controlled?
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