Into the 1960s: NATO’s role in East–West relations, 1958–63

For US policy planner Leon Fuller, NATO’s tenth anniversary in April 1959 marked the alliance’s transformation from a “post-war experiment in crisis management” to a “long-term and apparently permanent aspect of US foreign policy.”1 Besides the transformation of NATO into a highly integrated military organization after the outbreak of the Korean War, NATO’s political importance had increased considerably in the mid-1950s. In December 1956, NATO governments deliberately strengthened the political role of NATO by approving the report of the Committee of Three on non-military cooperation within the alliance and by electing Paul-Henri Spaak, one of Europe’s leading statesmen, as NATO’s second secretary-general.2