May I offer a toast to the Atlantic Treaty and its success. I think we have really passed a milestone in history today, and I think your children and your grandchildren will tell you that, in the days to come.
Note: The President proposed the toast at a State Dinner held in honor of the Foreign Ministers, Ambassadors, and Ministers of the 12 countries that had signed the North Atlantic Treaty on the same date. The dinner was held at 9:30 p.m. at the Carlton Hotel in Washington.
Prime Minister Paul-Henri Spank of Belgium responded (through an interpreter) as follows:
The President is leaving within a few minutes, and before leaving, I should like to take this opportunity to tell him in the name of everybody present of the gratitude of those who have crossed the ocean in order to sign the Atlantic pact--how much we owe to the people of the United States and to President Truman for his farseeing and generous policy. This policy led to the construction of the Marshall plan, and now to the assurance of security and peace to the European countries within the framework of the Atlantic Pact.
I offer a toast to President Truman, and to the American people for their aid and generosity.
Harry S Truman, Toasts of the President and the Prime Minister of Belgium Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/230104
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