ABSTRACT
Strains and tensions have loomed large throughout the entire history of the Western alliance. One major West-West problématique was the role of France in the alliance, and in particular its gradual dissociation from NATO under President Charles de Gaulle between 1958/59 and 1966. The French “challenge” triggered a continuous debate on the importance of the Western alliance and its prospects. An important dimension of the debate – amounting to a bargaining process on the future of NATO – was a “crisis talk” both within NATO and outside the alliance. In many ways, it anticipated the “real” crisis of 1966 that was triggered by the French withdrawal from the integrated NATO command. Since crises are subject to conflicting perceptions, it is essential to consider “by whom, how, and why an event is perceived as a crisis.”1 Communication also played a vital role in NATO’s mid-1960s debate as different interpretations of a situation found their expressions in a continuous negotiation about dominant definitions of a situation.2 NATO as a consultation forum thus provided an arena for comparing and aligning perceptions and policies vis-à-vis the French challenge.
