Seasoned by Stress

Faced with Soviet expansion that culminated in the Berlin blockade and the allied airlift, the U.S., Canada and ten Western European nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty of mutual defense on April 4, 1949. Greece and Turkey joined in 1952, West Germany in 1955. During its 31 years, NATO has survived a number of crises and events that, like the current one, have shaded and changed Europe's views of the U.S., and vice versa.

195O: The U.S. intervenes militarily in Korea after the Soviet-sponsored North invades the American-backed South. Other NATO countries under United Nations auspices provide support and troops.

1956: The French and British are alienated when President Dwight Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles denounce, and thus doom, their attack on Egypt after President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal.

1957: The Soviets test-launch their first intercontinental ballistic missile more than a year ahead of the American program. Then comes Sputnik, galvanizing the alliance into trying to meet the growing Soviet nuclear threat.

1961: The East Germans build the Berlin Wall to stop the flood of refugees to the West. The U.S. takes no action, reinforcing European doubts about the American will to act.

1962: The NATO allies offer the U.S. unwavering support during the Cuban missile crisis, strengthening ties across the Atlantic. Kennedy offends the British by canceling production of the Skybolt missile that would give them an independent nuclear deterrent.

1966: Charles de Gaulle withdraws France's defense forces from NATO command to maintain national sovereignty but stays in the alliance.

1968: The Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia, and once again NATO is unwilling to react.

1971: President Richard Nixon abandons dollar convertibility, persuading Europeans that the U.S. will no longer act as guardian of the major international currency. NATO members show rising support for West German Chancellor Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik, a rapprochement with the Communist bloc.

1973: Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's much heralded "Year of Europe" goes awry when the allies fear the U.S. may be ignoring them and dealing directly with Moscow. During the Middle East war, some NATO members strain the alliance by refusing to allow U.S. supply planes to refuel at their bases en route to Israel.

1978: President Carter postpones production of the neutron bomb after urging NATO members to accept it, another U.S. foreign policy flip-flop that leaves Europeans more confused and less certain of American leadership.

198O: The Soviets invade Afghanistan, demonstrating that detente is dead and the need for NATO greater than ever.

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