Former NATO leaders call for new HQ to be named after McCain

Late US senator is a symbol for the transatlantic alliance and value of American global leadership, three former NATO secretaries-general say.

The North Atlantic Council room at the new NATO headquarters in Brussels | Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images

Three former NATO secretary-generals have called on the military alliance to name its Brussels headquarters after late U.S. Senator John McCain, who died of brain cancer last week.

“Few things symbolise this alliance, and the enduring benefits of American global leadership, more vividly than the life and work of John McCain,” the three former officials — Anders Fogh Rasmussen, George Robertson and Javier Solana — wrote in a letter to the Times.

“Whether advancing the cause of freedom across the former Soviet states of eastern Europe or defending the multilateral international order at a time of scepticism, his work was a beacon for all of us who believe that transatlantic unity is the only means of ensuring peace,” they wrote.

NATO should “repay this lifetime of service to its mission by naming its new Brussels headquarters after Senator McCain,” the authors added, saying Europeans feel McCain was “one of our own.”

British Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat, who is also chair of the British foreign affairs committee, wrote to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg earlier this week with a proposal to name the NATO building after the U.S. senator.

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