On April 4, 1949, the representatives of twelve European and American nations, assembled in Washington, D. C., affixed their signatures to an instrument called the North Atlantic Treaty. This was the crucial step in the formation of one of the most impressive alliances ever entered into by sovereign states. The pact bore testimony to the rise of a new menace in the world, a menace spearheaded by a specious form of communism and powered by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, whose postwar activities left to the free nations no practicable alternative other than to seek safety in a regional collective security pact.