Usually, a military change of command is accompanied by the most poignant pomp and circumstance. Boot heels click and swords flash in the sun; hands sweep neatly to helmet brims and pennants slowly change place on flagstaffs. Last week, as France withdrew from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the change of command was far from melodramatic. French General Glean Crepin, commander of the Allied Forces in Central Europe, demanded a private ceremony in the inner courtyard of the Château de Fontainebleau. There, with the quietest of diplomatic drumrolls, he relinquished control of...
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