Locals lounging about the Grand-Place of the Belgian town of Chièvreshardly grand and barely a placestared sullenly as the cavalcade of black limousines and a police escort swirled up. "Things like that don't happen much around here," allowed one, "so we figured that it must be that Chape [Walloon dialect for SHAPE] thing again." It was. NATO's General Lyman Lemnitzer, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, was hunting new quarters.
Under Charles de Gaulle's eviction order, SHAPE must vacate its lodgings outside Paris by April 1. When NATO decided to move its command to Belgium,...