North Atlantic Treaty Organization

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a military alliance, originally explained as a defence alliance against the Soviet Union, and, in the opinion of some, has been looking for a reason to exist since 1991.

List of Secretaries General

 * General Lord Ismay
 * Paul-Henri Spaak
 * Dirk Stikker
 * Manlio Brosio
 * Joseph Luns
 * Lord Carrington
 * Manfred Wörner
 * Sergio Balanzino
 * Willy Claes
 * Sergio Balanzino
 * Javier Solana
 * Lord Robertson
 * Alessandro Minuto-Rizzo
 * Jaap de Hoop Scheffer
 * Anders Fogh Rasmussen - 2009–present

Operation Gladio
Operating in all NATO countries, Operation Gladio was first coordinated by the Clandestine Committee of the Western Union (CCWU), founded in 1948. After the creation of NATO in 1949, the CCWU was integrated into the "Clandestine Planning Committee" (CPC), founded in 1951 and overseen by the SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe), transferred to Belgium after France’s official retreat from NATO – which wasn’t followed by the dissolvement of the French stay-behind paramilitary movements. 

Members as of January 2008

 * Belgium
 * Bulgaria
 * Canada
 * Czech Republic
 * Denmark
 * Estonia
 * France
 * Germany
 * Greece
 * Hungary
 * Iceland
 * Italy
 * Latvia
 * Lithuania
 * Luxembourg
 * Netherlands
 * Norway
 * Poland
 * Portugal
 * Romania
 * Slovakia
 * Slovenia
 * Spain
 * Turkey
 * United Kingdom
 * United States

See also: Partnership for Peace, Atlantic Council

Contact details
NATO Headquarters Blvd Leopold III 1110 Brussels, Belgium Email: natodoc AT hq.nato.int Web: http://www.nato.int

Related SourceWatch Resources

 * Post-war Iraq
 * Post-war Iraq/NATO
 * United Nations
 * U.S. Central Command
 * U.S. Committee on NATO
 * Robert F. Ellsworth - former US Ambassador to NATO
 * Nicholas Burns - former US Ambassador to NATO
 * Alexander Meigs Haig, Jr.
 * Admiral Lord West
 * Murad Wilfried Hofmann
 * Richard Strozzi-Heckler

External Articles & Commentary

 * "US pushes Nato role for Mid-East," BBC/UK, March 6, 2004: "Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman said Nato could offer security, disaster relief and help in combating the flow of illegal drugs and weapons. ... Mr Grossman stressed that the Bush administration's reform initiative for the 'greater Middle East' - which has been defined as stretching from Morocco to Pakistan - was not meant to replace the Israeli-Palestinian peace process."
 * Thomas E. Ricks, "7 Former Communist Countries Join NATO," Washington Post, March 30, 2004: "The relatively young democracies that joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization yesterday included three former Soviet republics -- the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania -- and three members of the former Warsaw Pact: Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia. The seventh, Slovenia, was part of the former Yugoslavia. The invitation to join the alliance was extended at the NATO summit in Prague in November 2002 and was approved unanimously by the U.S. Senate last May. ... The expansion of NATO from 19 to 26 countries tips the balance of the Atlantic alliance further eastward -- and tends to make the group as a whole more sympathetic to U.S. foreign policy. The seven, for example, backed Bush's move toward war in Iraq early last year, even as original NATO members France and Germany opposed him."
 * "Terrorism in Western Europe: An Approach to NATO’s Secret Stay-Behind Armies" Acrobat file ETH Zurich research project on Gladio directed by Dr. Daniele Ganser
 * Michel Chossudovsky, "Debating "War and Peace" behind Closed Doors: NATO'S Riga Security Conference" www.GlobalResearch.ca, November 26, 2006.