Washington, April 4 -- Foreign ministers of 12 Western nations, at a historic ceremony in Washington on April 4, formally signed the North Atlantic Treaty - which would become the legal basis for the organisation known as NATO - that bound their governments to recognise "attack on one as an attack on all." Television and news cameras whirred and clicked in the State Department's ornate auditorium while the Ministers stepped up in alphabetical order of countries to put the seal to nine months' negotiations for common defence. The agreement pledged the 12 Powers will consult when their territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened in any part of the world, will do everything to strengthen their free institutions and ...