NATO Formed 68 Years Ago Today

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...stern-nations/

68 years of keeping the peace in Europe. 68 years of keeping the threat from the east at bay. 68 years of defeating enemies of the West worldwide.

Hope it doesn't collapse thanks to Donald Trump.

Let us praise the efforts of the UK's greatest post war foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, and the hugely patriotic Labour prime minister, Clement Richard Attlee, for their dogged determination to, firstly, sign the Brussels' agreement in 1948 setting up the Western European Union as the precursor to NATO, and thereafter pursuing with President Truman the creation of NATO on 04 April 1949.
Attlee's formidable minister of defence was Albert Victor (A V) Alexander for five years.
A member of the Cabinet following Labour's victory, Alexander strongly supported the Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, sharing his goals of maintaining Britain's influence and opposing the Soviet Union.
Britain's wartime ally was admired at the time, and his outspoken criticisms of Russia lessened Alexander's popularity. In 1946 he deputised for Bevin at the Paris Peace Conference, and was part of the Cabinet delegation to India, under Stafford Cripps, exploring possibilities for independence. At the end of 1946 he became Minister of Defence, a role previously held only by Churchill and Attlee when they were serving as Prime Minister. Responsible for all three armed services, he often clashed with the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Lord Montgomery.
Alexander was responsible for formulating the system of National Service and faced a protracted fight against Labour backbenchers who opposed the continuation of conscription in peacetime. In January 1947 he was one of six ministers on the Gen 75 Committee that secretly authorised Britain's nuclear programme; in March he was in the negotiations for the Treaty of Dunkirk, laying the foundations for NATO. As the Cold War began, Alexander's criticisms of the USSR gained wider acceptance.
Corbyn: Are you reading this history lesson?

I was aged 1. Sigh!