ABSTRACT
The first formal treaty break with the American isolationist tradition came in 1949 when the North Atlantic Treaty proposed formally enrolling the United States in the defense of Western Europe. Even then, most Americans could not bring themselves to the reality of world political responsibility. When NATO was presented to the Senate, most administration witnesses drew from a State Department document which undertook to assure wary senators that, unlike alliances in the past, NATO was different "both in letter and in spirit". The magic and inspiration of America was also recognized by those who were neither born nor raised in the country. Jacques Barzun, a naturalized American born in France, traveled through the country and published what he saw in 1954. As the realities of power politics grew during World War II and afterward, the country would find that simplistic worldviews had to be discarded by realities.
