Event Highlights: Works in Progress Meeting “The Thorn in the Side: How Six US Presidents Dealt with the Challenge of Charles de Gaulle.” by Professor William Keylor
Last Wednesday, October 18th, Professor Keylor presented his research on America’s leaders’ perspectives on the often controversial Charles de Gaulle. The research, which spans from the Second World War to the late 1960s, touched on several US presidents and how they dealt with their French counterpart.
Professor Keylor discussed FDR’s chilly attitude towards de Gaulle and France’s shunning from the “Big Three” in post-war negotiations. Despite this, France was able to secure a zone of occupation in Germany and a permanent seat in the UN security council due to Western European concerns that the US would leave Europe alone in the face of the threat of Eastern Communism. His research continues through the Truman era and various shifts in the tone of US-French relations and ends with de Gaulle possibly finding a friend and partner in the Nixon-Kissinger administration, but public discontent with de Gaulle in France saw the end of de Gaulle’s influence in French politics. Professor Keylor ended by summing up US relations with de Gaulle as a “thorn in the side of US foreign policy.”
The talk also bled into current hot topics with Professor Keylor pointing out that “Brexit is the ultimate outcome of what de Gaulle was doing in Europe.” in reference to de Gaulle’s deep seated distrust of Great Britain and his desire to bar them from the conversations on European cooperation and unity.