NATO: Difficult Partner

France is not really herself unless in the front rank.

—Charles de Gaulle, Memoirs

"Blackmail," cried Washington's U.S. Senator Henry Jackson. "Nuclear blackmail," said London's News Chronicle. Across the Atlantic world, statesmen sighed and prepared to man their battle stations. France's Charles de Gaulle was demanding a place in the front rank again.

The latest scuffle was touched off by youthful-looking U.S. General Lauris Norstad, 52, NATO commander in Europe, whom Old Soldier de Gaulle treats as a subaltern. De Gaulle has vastly complicated Norstad's—and NATO's—existence by 1) refusing to accept launching...