ABSTRACT
The historical literature dealing with US nuclear strategy, NATO and the challenge of Gaullism from 1958 to 1962, with few exceptions, generally ignores the Algerian War, in full swing during that time. 1 Similarly, the historical treatments of the Algerian War tend to treat that subject in isolation, as if it were a purely internal French affair. This is in one sense not surprising. The French regarded Algeria as part of France proper; it was administered by the Ministry of the Interior, early in the war as three, later as 13 departments of France. Maurice Couve de Murville, in his memoir of his period as Minister of Foreign Affairs for General de Gaulle, declines to consider Algeria altogether in his ‘Une Politique étrangère’. Not his department, says Couve de Murville. 2
