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Our final NATO episode! The Pentagon is worried that there isn’t enough military budget to pay for both domestic and European defence. Until someone had the insight that the two might be closely related. So now the Western Union’s defense committee had to pick a commander-in-chief. 

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Everyone is trying to figure out a model for European co-operation. Secret meetings at the Pentagon between the US, UK and Canada in March/April 1948 explored three possible extensions of the Brussels pact. Churchill’s son-in-law, Duncan Sandys then put together a pan-European conference at The Hague (when he wasn’t getting sneaky blowjobs from the wife of a duke). The CIA even had their own secret operation. But the turning point was “The Vandenberg Resolution”.

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During 1947-48, England and France had been working on their own treaty as well as one involving the so-called Benelux countries (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg). That became the basis of discussions about a broader treaty creating a United States of Europe, something many US and European leaders wanted, especially in light of the Marshall Plan. But the path to get there wasn’t clear. Europe was scared of upsetting the Soviets without US guarantees of military support, but the US wasn’t ready to offer that up just yet. 

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After Benes took control of Czechoslovakia again after WWII, with the support of the Allies, he ran a program of ethnic cleansing, mostly targeting people of German ancestry. And the Czech Communist party became the most popular political party of any country in history in proportion to the total national population.

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Let’s talk about the history of Czechoslovakia. The anti-semitic founder of the modern state was well connected in the USA, all the way up to POTUS. His list of important American friends included a Nazi-lovin’ industrialist. But the state he founded was friendly to Jews and pushed through some socialist progressive reforms…. Until it was abandoned by the Western powers and practically handed to Hitler on a silver platter.

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