Twelve nations signed the treaty creating NATO
On this day · 4 April 1949
On April 4, 1949, foreign ministers from twelve nations gathered in Washington to sign a treaty pledging that an attack on one was an attack on all.
On April 4, 1949, the foreign ministers of twelve nations met in Washington, D.C., to sign the North Atlantic Treaty, founding the alliance known as NATO. For the United States it was a milestone: the first peacetime military alliance the country had ever joined.
The founding members were the United States, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United Kingdom. Secretary of State Dean Acheson signed for the U.S., with President Truman looking on.
The treaty’s heart was Article 5, its pledge of collective defense:
“An armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.”
Designed to deter Soviet expansion into Western Europe, the pact complemented the Marshall Plan’s economic recovery effort and anchored a transatlantic security order that endures.
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