Helmut Schmidt Quotes
The Alliance and NATO is two different things. France is a member of the Alliance. NATO is an organization not mentioned in the North Atlantic Treaty, has been built up in the course of history, in the course of history France has left that organization. Normally the Alliance has been lead by consent, building up consensus on important issues of questions, in many instances over the last 30 years that I have followed events closely. In many, many cases was being done under the spiritual guidance of the American President, that is true, but sometimes also at the guidance of others.
Schmidt, Helmut. Interview. War and Peace in the Nuclear Age, WGBH Educational Foundation, 1987.
In a NATO military operation, there is one NATO Supreme Commander but each nation has a minister for NATO. All significant decisions must be consented to be this group. But each of those is a representative of a different political government. Clark was masterful at this diplomatic side of the war just as Dwight Eisenhower was in WWII. Eisenhower had bigger egos to content with—Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, De Gaulle, but Clark had many more counties who could each veto actions.
One major problem at the time was that the Soviet Union was supporting and instigating revolutions in many parts of the world. When most nations of the UN wanted to provide peace keeping troops to quell the conflict, the Russians would veto and block the effort, Vandenberg wanted the UN to change the rules regarding the veto. The original right of veto for the major nations was originally included at the insistence of the United States and many Americans did not want to give it up or have any exceptions lest there be more. The Russians at that time also did not want to give up any of their veto powers. Another method that Vandenberg wanted to solve the Russian peacekeeping blockage problem was for America to engage in more collective security pacts so that action could be taken without UN Security Council unanimity by going around the UN.
The reality of course was that NATO was created primarily to prevent Russia from dominating Europe. Baker could not officially state that. There are many experts who believe that if Russia had been allowed to join NATO after the breakup of the Soviet Union, relations with Russia may have been better. However, the NATO charter gives each member nation a veto over activities and there was little trust in Russia by most of the NATO members.
Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt was a German politician and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), who served as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) from 1974 to 1982.
