French Kiss: How the Americans and French Fell In and Out of Love During the Cold War

"French Kiss" is a Cold War tale from France of birth, growth and death of a huge U.S. Air Force base as relived through the heretofore dormant memories and voices of both the occupier and the occupied. Tens of thousands of American GIs passed through Dèols-Châteauroux Air Station during the sixteen years that it was the largest U.S. Air Force supply base in Europe. Hundreds of hours of interviews and long forgotten photos provide for the first time a unique blend of voices seldom if ever heard. French citizens describe what it was like to have foreign troops roaming the streets of their city. The Americans recount what it was like to be viewed with initial distrust and suspicion, if not outright hatred, fueled by a local communist anti-American propaganda machine under the direct control of the Kremlin. When the end came and the base was padlocked, it was our reluctant friend and ally Charles de Gaulle who administered the coup de grâce and NATO vanished from France. Although "French Kiss" is uniquely a French and American story, this saga is also a microcosm of what was experienced by the 120 million American men and women who served in the military during the Cold War, 27 million of them overseas. Considering the suspicions, jealousies, bigotry, and crass opportunism inherent whenever one foreign power occupies another, "French Kiss" pieces together an improbable love story.