could have turned the Cold War into a hot con-
flict. That it did not do so was due not to luck but
to careful calculation and restraint on both sides.
Berlin was the first example of an East–West con-
frontation taken to the new limits of post-war
diplomacy, dangerously close to an armed clash
but stopping just short of it. The defence of
Quemoi and Matsu off the coast of China and the
Cuban missile crisis were others. The Soviets may
have miscalculated in 1948, the West may have
misinterpreted, but in Moscow, London and
Washington care was taken from the first that a sit-
uation should not be created that was bound to
lead to war. The American administration and the
British Cabinet regarded the airlift as a way out,
avoiding humiliation with minimum risk. It
allowed the West to maintain its position in Berlin
without use of force. The Russians also refrained
from using force and let the airlift function with-
out interruption. In January 1949, Stalin talked to
an American journalist, and so gave the first hint
that he was ready to negotiate and to lift the
blockade. He tried hard to salvage something and
to gain concessions from the US and Britain on
the German question, but without success. After
secret negotiations in May 1949, the Russians
lifted their blockade and the Western nations
raised their counter-blockade of the Soviet Union
and the Eastern German zone, which had stopped
valuable goods from going east.
The Cold War crisis of 1947 and 1948 has-
tened a fundamental reappraisal of American poli-
cies. The US commitment to assist in the defence
of Western Europe dramatically increased, but it
still fell short of stationing large armed forces in
Europe. American demobilisation after the war
meant that there were still none to send anyway.
Not until the outbreak of the Korean War in the
summer of 1950 did the US actually start to
rearm on the scale necessary to back militarily its
promise of global assistance. A year earlier, on 4
April 1949, the US had taken a decisive step
forward in forging an Atlantic–West European
military partnership. The North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation (NATO), although strictly speaking
not an alliance like the Brussels Treaty, with pro-
vision for automatic military assistance, in prac-
tice, despite its careful wording, bound the US to
join with the West European allies in defence
against the threat of Soviet aggression.
The conclusion of NATO and its ratification
by the US Senate marked a revolution in Ameri-
can attitudes to world problems. The defence of
the US was no longer seen in American hemi-
spheric terms; the American defence frontier
was now clearly delineated in Europe. It ran along
the Elbe and through the Balkans. American
security became global in scope; already deeply
involved in eastern Asia, it would eventually
spread to every part of the world. The US Policy
Planning Staff, renamed the National Security
Council, created in 1947, was given the brief
of formulating ‘the long-term programs for
the achievement of US foreign policy objec-
tives’. It sought to advise on priorities and the
means to achieve them. George Kennan became
its first chief. The National Security Council laid
down the doctrine that the biggest threat was
a Soviet advance and that priority should be
given to the defence of Western Europe. Succes-
sive presidents accepted this advice. For Western
Europe, the nightmare of abandonment by the
US was lifted. Bevin and Bidault, with Dean
Acheson, Truman’s secretary of state after the
retirement of the ailing Marshall in January
1949, were the principal architects of the
North Atlantic Treaty. The Brussels Treaty had
been the first essential step; now the new link
was formed between the Brussels Treaty powers- Britain, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the
Netherlands – and the US and Canada. On
French insistence, Italy also became a founding
member of NATO, and Iceland, Norway,
Denmark and Portugal soon joined. ‘North
Atlantic’ was thus something of a misnomer. The
territory covered by NATO included French
Algeria and, more importantly, provided for the
alliance to be activated if ‘the occupation forces
of any party in Europe’ were attacked. In this way
West Germany and the Western sectors of Berlin,
the Western zones of Austria and Vienna were
also included.
The heart of the alliance commitment was
contained in Article 5, which stated that an attack
on one member country would be regarded as
an attack on all. Each member of the alliance