Founding of NATO (1949): The North Atlantic Treaty Signed

The founding of NATO came on 4 April 1949, when the foreign ministers of twelve countries signed the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington, D.C. The treaty bound the United States and Canada to the defence of Western Europe in peacetime for the first time, and its Article 5 declared that an attack on one member would be treated as an attack on all. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization that grew from it became the central Western alliance of the Cold War and is still in existence today.

Background: Europe after the war

By 1947 the wartime alliance between the Western powers and the Soviet Union had broken down. Soviet-backed communist governments were taking control across Eastern Europe, and Western Europe was economically exhausted. The United States responded first with economic and political measures: the Truman Doctrine of March 1947 and the Marshall Plan, which began delivering aid in 1948.

Economic help alone did not end Western Europe’s sense of insecurity. In February 1948 the Communist Party seized full power in Czechoslovakia, and in March the Norwegian government feared Soviet pressure for a pact. Britain’s foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, had already argued for some form of Western union backed by the United States.

On 17 March 1948 Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg signed the Brussels Treaty, a fifty-year pact of mutual defence and cooperation. Its signatories knew, however, that without American power it could not deter the Soviet Union. That same month secret talks began in Washington between American, British and Canadian officials about a wider Atlantic security system.

Negotiating the treaty

The United States had a long tradition of avoiding permanent “entangling alliances” in peacetime. To make a treaty possible politically, the Truman administration worked closely with Senator Arthur Vandenberg, the leading Republican on foreign policy. On 11 June 1948 the Senate passed the Vandenberg Resolution by 64 votes to 4, endorsing American association with regional collective defence arrangements under the United Nations Charter.

The Berlin Blockade, imposed by the Soviet Union on 24 June 1948, added urgency. As the Berlin Airlift supplied the western sectors of the city, formal talks opened in Washington in July 1948 between the United States, Canada and the Brussels Treaty powers. Diplomats produced a draft treaty in the autumn, and further negotiations through the winter settled which countries would be invited and how strong the commitment should be.

Two issues were particularly hard. The first was wording: European governments wanted an automatic promise of military help, while American negotiators had to respect Congress’s constitutional power to declare war. The second was membership. Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Portugal and Italy were invited to join, extending the alliance from the Arctic to the Mediterranean, while Ireland declined because of the partition of the island. Canada pressed for the treaty to include economic and political cooperation, which became Article 2.

The signing on 4 April 1949

The treaty was signed on the afternoon of 4 April 1949 in the Departmental Auditorium in Washington, a building now known as the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium. President Harry S. Truman addressed the ceremony, and the foreign ministers signed in turn. Dean Acheson signed for the United States, Ernest Bevin for the United Kingdom, Robert Schuman for France, Lester B. Pearson for Canada and Paul-Henri Spaak for Belgium.

The text was short: a preamble and fourteen articles. The signatories pledged to settle disputes peacefully, to strengthen free institutions and to develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack. The US Senate approved the treaty on 21 July 1949 by 82 votes to 13, and it entered into force on 24 August 1949 once the required ratifications had been deposited.

What Article 5 meant

The heart of the treaty is Article 5. It states that an armed attack against one or more of the parties in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all. Each member agreed that, in such a case, it would assist the party attacked by taking “such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force”, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

The wording was a compromise. It did not automatically commit any government to war, which satisfied the US Senate, but it created a strong political and moral obligation that Europeans could rely on. In practice, the stationing of American troops in Europe made the guarantee credible: any Soviet attack would almost certainly involve American forces from the first day.

Other articles also mattered. Article 4 allows any member to call for consultations when it feels threatened. Article 9 created the North Atlantic Council, the alliance’s political body. Article 10 allows other European states to be invited to join, a clause later used repeatedly to enlarge the alliance.

Reactions and ratification

The treaty was debated intensely before it came into force. In the United States, critics led by Senator Robert Taft argued that it committed the country to defend Europe indefinitely and would provoke an arms race. Supporters answered that a clear guarantee would make war less likely by convincing Moscow that aggression would not pay. Hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee lasted several weeks before the final vote in July.

In Western Europe communist parties, which were strong in France and Italy, organised protests and condemned the alliance as a step toward war. Some neutralist voices worried that the treaty would harden the division of the continent. Most governments and parliaments, however, approved ratification by large majorities, seeing the American commitment as the best protection available while their own armies were still weak.

The Soviet Union issued a formal memorandum to the signatories before the signing, describing the planned alliance as aggressive and contrary to the United Nations Charter. Western governments rejected the charge, pointing to Article 51 of the Charter, which recognises the right of collective self-defence. Shortly after the treaty was signed, in May 1949, the Soviet Union lifted the Berlin Blockade.

Ratification was followed by practical steps. In October 1949 the US Congress passed the Mutual Defense Assistance Act, which provided military equipment and funds to the European allies, and the alliance began to draw up common defence plans for the first time.

Key people

• Harry S. Truman, US president, who backed a peacetime alliance despite American traditions of non-entanglement.
• Dean Acheson, US Secretary of State from January 1949, who completed the negotiations and signed for the United States.
• Ernest Bevin, British Foreign Secretary, among the earliest advocates of a Western defence system tied to America.
• Arthur Vandenberg, Republican senator whose resolution made bipartisan support possible.
• Lester B. Pearson and Escott Reid, Canadian diplomats who promoted the treaty and its non-military side.

From treaty to organization

At first NATO was little more than a treaty with a council. The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 changed that, because it seemed to show that communist states were willing to use force. The allies created an integrated military command, and in December 1950 General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed the first Supreme Allied Commander Europe. Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) opened near Paris in 1951, and Lord Ismay of Britain became the first Secretary General in 1952.

Greece and Turkey joined in February 1952. West Germany’s entry in May 1955 was the most controversial step, and the Soviet Union answered within days by forming the Warsaw Pact. Europe was now divided into two armed alliances that faced each other until the end of the Cold War.

Myths and facts

A remark often quoted about NATO’s purpose, that it was meant to keep the Soviets out, the Americans in and the Germans down, is commonly attributed to Lord Ismay. It is a useful summary of how some contemporaries saw the alliance, but it does not appear in the treaty and the exact origin of the phrase is uncertain.

It is also sometimes said that Article 5 obliges members to go to war. In fact each member decides for itself what action is “necessary”. The only time Article 5 has been invoked was on 12 September 2001, after the attacks on the United States, not during the Cold War itself.

Timeline

• 1948, 17 March: Britain, France and the Benelux countries sign the Brussels Treaty.
• 1948, 11 June: The US Senate passes the Vandenberg Resolution.
• 1948, 24 June: The Soviet Union begins the Berlin Blockade.
• 1948, 6 July: Formal talks on an Atlantic pact open in Washington.
• 1949, 4 April: Twelve countries sign the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington.
• 1949, 21 July: The US Senate approves the treaty by 82 votes to 13.
• 1949, 24 August: The treaty enters into force.
• 1950, December: Eisenhower is named the first Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
• 1952, February: Greece and Turkey join NATO.
• 1955, May: West Germany joins; the Warsaw Pact is formed in response.

Why it matters

The North Atlantic Treaty ended the United States’ long avoidance of peacetime alliances and tied the security of North America to that of Western Europe. NATO shaped Cold War strategy for four decades, survived the collapse of the Soviet Union and grew from twelve members in 1949 to thirty-two by 2024.