Foreign Statesmen and Their Statecraft: Charles De Gaulle.

摘要

Charles de Gaulle was born in Lille, France, in 1890 and died at his home in Colombev, France, in 1970. He was a French soldier, scholar, and statesman who served with distinction in World War I; studied, taught, and wrote about military history and strategy; led the French resistance during World War II, first from exile in London and then from North Africa; served as Premier of France from 1945 to 1946; and was recalled in 1958 to lead France out of its postwar political chaos, serving as President of France under the new constitution of the Fifth Republic from 1959 until his resignation in 1969. During his tenure as President of France, de Gaulle sought to secure French independence from Anglo-Saxon domination, taking France out of NATO's integrated military command and ensuring that France was successful in developing an independent nuclear capability. He retained, however, France's political consultative status within NATO and made clear his intention to remain a party to the NATO Treaty, thus maintaining a strong link between two parts of a tripartite (Anglo-Saxon, French-European, and Soviet) balance of power. In addition, to preclude eventual British (and therefore also U.S.) domination of European economic affairs, de Gaulle blocked Britain's effort to join the European Economic Community (Common Market). Elsewhere, de Gaulle was instrumental in convincing the French to give Algeria its independence and succeeded within a few years of his return to power in 1958 in securing the independence of other French colonies. Finally, he pursued French interests in the Third World as another means of countering Anglo-Saxon domination. This paper focuses on de Gaulle's strategy and statecraft as he undertook to disengage France from NATO and to block British participation in the European Common Market.