"I am speaking tonight, not as an Englishman, but as an international servant of the fourteen countries which are linked together by the North Atlantic Treaty. I hope that I am being heard by many men and women in those countries, because I am convinced that, if the Alliance is to prosper, it must have the personal understanding and support of the citizens of the North Atlantic Community. When I am asked: "What is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization?", I am tempted to answer: "It is a great adventure. It is perhaps the most challenging and most constructive experiment in international relations that has ever been attempted. It is undoubtedly our best chance of preventing the measureless catastrophe of a third world war." But obviously I must be more specific than that. The best definition of NATO that I can give you in a few wordsis that it is the organisation that has been set up to ensure that the fourteen partners to the Treaty think together and act together in political, military, economic, social, cultural and other matters: in fact, to ensure that it is a true and thorough partnership. The fourteen partners are (I give them in alphabetical order): Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States."
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Hastings Ismay, BBC Radio Talk, 13 September 1953
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/NATO
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