Read something astonishing in Kissinger's book Diplomacy from 1994. Kissinger apparently had gotten the question from de Gaulle in 1969: "Why don't you get out of Vietnam?"
Taken somewhat aback over the blunt question Kissinger answered: "a unilateral retreat would undermine American credibility" which did not impress de Gaulle.
de Gaulle then asked "where such a loss of credibility might occur?" Kissinger indicated the Middle East.
de Gaulle then looked melancolic and commented "How very odd, I thought it was precisely in the Middle East that your enemies where having the credibility problem".
History does not repeat itself but it often rhymes, as someone said?
The next day Kissinger and de Gaulle met again and Nixon asked Kissinger to comment on de Gaulle's vision of Europe: "Europe des patries", or a Europe built on nations.
Perhaps because of the pertinent comments by de Gaulle the day before Kissinger asked de Gaulle "how France proposed to keep Germany from dominating the Europe he had just described?"
de Gaulle answered: "Par la guerre" or through war. I really think EU is a good thing.
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