“Who can say if, in the future (…), The two powers who would have the monopoly of nuclear weapons would not agree to share the world ”?wondered General de Gaulle, in November 1959Referring to the debate between him to the American president Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969) that fall.
It is futile to solicit the general’s thought and declarations with any subject. In this circumstance, however, one can only be struck by the visionary character of the remarks made by Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) nearly seventy years ago, which stick to the news of 2025: the sudden turnaround of the American administration, choosing to end the war in Ukraine to align with the Russian positions over the head of the Ukrainians and Europeans. The unthinkable occurs before our eyes: American disengagement projects a raw light on the strategic solitude of Europe. Was it unimaginable?
In a political-fiction exercise, De Gaulle was tried there in 1959. The context is worth recalled. On the international level, in October 1958, the secretary general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971), triggered one of the crises of the Cold War, threatening the “Western” to put an end to the quadripartite status of Berlin and to force them to recognize the German Democratic Republic (GDR). This crisis will last until 1963, with more or less serious moments, as during the construction of the wall, in August 1961.
Eisenhower assumes his second term in the White House. Charles de Gaulle has been President of the Republic since the beginning of 1959. As soon as he returned to power, in June 1958, he confirmed the decisions taken by the previous governments of the IVe Republic consisting in acquiring the atomic weapon and experimenting with a French atomic bomb in the Sahara.
This perspective is in contradiction with the policy of nuclear powers: United States, Soviet Union and United Kingdom, which agreed, in November 1958, a moratorium concerning nuclear experiences in the atmosphere which would precede a conference at the top intended to conclude an agreement to prohibit testing.
You have 70.18% of this article to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
