France's History

[Alboy]

I never cared for Johnson but this (If true) makes at least one thing I admire about him.




Traces of Texas
.

The Texas Quote of the Day:

"In 1966 upon being told that French President Charles DeGaulle had taken France out of NATO and that all U.S. troops must be evacuated off of French soil, President Lyndon Johnson mentioned to Secretary of State Dean Rusk that he should ask DeGaulle about the Americans buried in France. Rusk implied in his answer that DeGaulle should not really be asked that in the meeting, at which point President Johnson then said to Rusk:

"Ask him about the cemeteries Dean!"

That made it into a Presidential Order, so Rusk had to ask President DeGaulle.

So at end of the meeting Dean did ask DeGaulle if his order to remove all U.S. troops from French soil also included the 60,000+ soldiers buried in France from World War I and World War II.

DeGaulle, embarrassed, got up and left and never answered."

------ from Good Quotes.com

[gitano]

I can think of only one president - of those I know and those I have read about - that wasn't an "American". Even slick Willie was 'pretty good'. Barrack Hussein Obama is the ONLY US president that I know of that is NOT an "American". Both figuratively, and literally.

Lyndon Baines Johnson was not a "good" president by my standards, but, like Nixon, (another NOT good president), he was an EFFECTIVE president. Like all world leaders throughout history, these sons of bachelors are real sons of bachelors. None of them are our - The Common Man's - 'friend', regardless of what their propaganda machines spew. They act in our behalf ONLY when it serves THEM first.

I like the above attribution to LBJ, but I'm a little skeptical. I don't RECALL France EVER wanting out of NATO. But I've been wrong before.

Paul

Here's what Snopes had to say about it: http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/garbage.asp

so I am prepared to believe it. Good for Johnson.

By the way... I'm not "prepared to believe it" BECAUSE Snopes said it. Snopes is NOT a "good" place. However, reading past Snopes's left-wing editorializing, one can check references AND Snopes will ALWAYS get 'called' on a FACT they falsify. It's their editorializing that is a waste of time to read. However, it is that editorializing that keeps them "in business". They have their loyal sycophants that eagerly lap up the drivel that Snopes spews. JUST LIKE FOX AND NBC AND RUSH LIMBAUGH, ETC., ETC., ETC.

Paul

[j0e_bl0ggs (deceased)]

Have to agree with Paul re. presidents or any 'leader' for that matter -

None of them are our - The Common Man's - 'friend', regardless of what  their propaganda machines spew. They act in our behalf ONLY when it  serves THEM first.

Here is the flip side to "DeGaulle, embarrassed, got up and left and never answered.”

 
 March 10, 1966: After 31 assassination attempts against his  life, Charles De Gaulle ordered France’s withdrawal from NATO’s military  integrated command. This decision was formally reversed almost half a  century later under Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency.  De Gaulle adopted a foreign policy independent of the Anglo-american axis.
 His March 10 1966, not only pertained France’s decision to  withdraw from NATO’s integrated military command, but also to remove  NATO’s headquarters from French territory, thereby leading the  establishment of the Alliance’s headquarters in Brussels.
 In today’s World, the leaders of the EU and the Western military  alliance, above all the elites of France, Germany, Italy are scared,  terrorized of a potential US backlash, a reaction like the “reaction”  that produced 31 assassinations attempts against the French leader.
 This reaction would no doubt be forthcoming if they decided to defend  the national interest of their countries, e.g by opposing the the  destabilization of Ukraine and the financial looting of the EU by Wall  Street and the city of London.
 But this is the historical moment, in which these countries are  gambling their future existence as sovereign states, and US political  intimidation can be fought back. But these European leaders are corrupt  and co-opted by Washington.
 De Gaulle gave an example and because he challenged openly the forces  that tried to kill him — and, above all, kill France as and independent  and sovereign country – he won. He was able to send the occupation  forces of NATO packing. He won a second Resistance after that against  Nazism.


Attrib: Umberto Pascali, Global research.

[j0e_bl0ggs (deceased)]

France, NATO withdrawal



NATO's unity was breached early in its history with a crisis occurring during Charles de Gaulle's presidency of France. De Gaulle protested against America's strong role in the organization and what he perceived as a special relationship between it and the United Kingdom. In a memorandum sent to President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan on 17 September 1958, he argued for the creation of a tripartite directorate that would put France on an equal footing with the US and the UK.

Considering the response to be unsatisfactory, de Gaulle began constructing an independent defence force for his country. He wanted to give France, in the event of an East German incursion into West Germany, the option of coming to a separate peace with the Eastern bloc instead of being drawn into a larger NATO-Warsaw Pact war. In February 1959, France withdrew its Mediterranean Fleet from NATO command and later banned the stationing of foreign nuclear weapons on French soil. This caused the United States to transfer two hundred military aircraft out of France and return control of the air force bases that had operated in France since 1950 to the French by 1967.

Though France showed solidarity with the rest of NATO during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, de Gaulle continued his pursuit of an independent defence by removing France's Atlantic and Channel fleets from NATO command. In 1966, all French armed forces were removed from NATO's integrated military command, and all non-French NATO troops were asked to leave France. US Secretary of State Dean Rusk was later quoted as asking de Gaulle whether his order included "the bodies of American soldiers in France's cemeteries?" This withdrawal forced the relocation of SHAPE from Rocquencourt, near Paris, to Casteau, north of Mons, Belgium, by 16 October 1967. France remained a member of the alliance, and committed to the defence of Europe from possible Warsaw Pact attack with its own forces stationed in the Federal Republic of Germany throughout the Cold War. A series of secret accords between US and French officials, the Lemnitzer-Ailleret Agreements, detailed how French forces would dovetail back into NATO's command structure should East-West hostilities break out.



Attrib Wikipedia

[j0e_bl0ggs (deceased)]

As to the embarrassed bit, de Gaulle should have answered that the American bodies could have been exchanged with  the bodies of dead Frenchmen who fought in American revolutionary war.

[farmboy]

I never quite got the idea that France got to administrate part of Berlin instead of Canada. When de Gaulle shot him mouth off in Quebec Lester Pierson needed to remind him who came across the Atlantic twice from the beginning to save them. The only thing that he ever did in my opinion that was worth anything was when he crossed the floor to sit with the British when they said the would stand alone against Germany if France was going to capitulate. It does not take a lot of imagination to realize why American air power was not granted to them in Vietnam when on the other side of the world they were pushing away American military.

[gitano]

Canadians and Australians seem to be too "nice" culturally to get world-wide recognition for their military actions. I've never heard a bad word about them from fellow combat veterans.

Paul