Charles de Gaulle on the failure of the Four Powers meeting in Paris in May 1960

Abstract

The article is devoted to the failure of the Four Powers Conference in Paris in May 1960 as reflected by French President Charles de Gaulle, who left extensive memoirs about the events of the late 1950s - early 1960s. The incident involving the espionage activities of the American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft led to a sharp confrontation between the two main participants in the summit - the USA and the USSR, which ultimately led to the failure of the international event, dubbed by journalists as the “miscarriage summit”. The attitude of the leader of the Fifth Republic to what happened is especially important in the context of the country’s new foreign policy line, pursued by its president in the late 1950s and early 1960s.