President John F Kennedy and wife Jacqueline Kennedy in Inauguration Parade cheered by crowd in Washington DC. Parade includes floats presented by various states and military. Float representing President's home state Massachusetts and its Governor John A Volpe and Vice President Lyndon Johnson's home state Texas. President Kennedy and Vice President Johnson with their wives at the Inaugural Ball introduce members of the Cabinet, Secretary of State Dean Rusk with his wife, Secretary of Treasury C Douglas Dillon with his wife, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and wife, Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Mrs. Kennedy, and Ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson and his Daughter-in-Law.The following day all the cabinet members and John F Kennedy taking charge. 20 January 1961.
Representatives of the 15 nations comprising NATO are seen in a lobby setting. One woman makes an inquiry at a Security desk. Another distributes a publication into boxes, where each receives it in a different translation. Glimpse of a representatives seated on a couch being interviewed and televised. Scene inside a photo lab where new prints are hung to dry. A man reviewing film footage of the NATO Secretary General Dirk Stikker. Next, he is seen at his desk, reviewing documents. (Narrator notes his dual roles as Head of the International staff and Chairman of the North Atlantic Council.) He hands a document to a woman and leaves his office. Change of scene shows two farmers with machinery in a wheat field having their lunch with a young boy. A formation of six British de Havilland Sea Vixen twin boom jet fighter planes passes overhead.
Opening scene shows a large round table where a NATO staff meeting was interrupted for a lunch break. Next, staff members are seen obtaining food in a cafeteria line and sitting at tables in the dining facility. Camera pans the room, focusing on one table where two staff are discussing shipping (according to the Narrator). Scene shifts fo a busy seaport with boats and ships. Back in the dining hall, the camera focuses on two staff who are discussing the Italian G-91 fighter plane, built to NATO specifications by several nations, cooperatively.Next, one is seen being towed along an airfield ramp. A prototype vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (Hawker P.1127 Kestrel) is seen being demonstrated. Back to the men at the table in the dining hall where they are ostensibly now discussing the problems of transporting large defense items. A truck is seen transporting a large object covered in canvas to hide it. Staff are seen at the end of the day enjoying drinks and casual conversations at a bar. Two French aviators in uniform are conversing. Narrator speculates on their conversation, noting the need for care not to divulge possible military secrets, such as the rigors of their last training course. Glimpse of a helicopter above snow-covered mountain. Another view of a helicopter at the top of Mont Blanc. Another view in the dining facility where Narrator suggests a man pouring coffee might be thinking about such esoteric matters as bugs in computers. View of numerous items in an array of electronic devices. (Narrator notes the man keeps his thoughts to himself)
NATO staff taking advantage of nice weather to relax a few minutes after lunch. Several women staff members are seen seated on park benches. Two women on a park bench. One turns to lie down near her companion. Scene shifts to French fliers ralaxing in grass. Two in flying gear, including personal flotation vests, are playing chess. Several French Dassault MD.452 Mystere jet fighter planes are parked on a flight line in the background. Elsewhere, two NATO staff men play ping pong. Two others engage in a fencing match. On a sandy shore, two soldiers engage in hand-to-hand combat, while their comrades stand in a line watching. In a park-like setting, several men are playing bocce (bocci). Two men stroll together engaged in somewhat serious conversation. In a casual lounge area of the headquarters, several staff converse with foreign counterparts in the NATO staff. Scene shifts to view from above of open freight train moving along a track, next to an open air depot, where another train of supplies is parked and wheeled cargo handling equipment is stored on the train platform. Renault automobiles moving on an assembly line in a factory. Aircraft landing gears being lowered during testing at a factory. View from above of shadow on the ground cast by a French Caravelle jet transport plane in flight. Two specialists in serious conversation at a technical laboratory. Views of the laboratory and some experimental (seemingly atomic in nature) equipment. A technician engaged in ancillary activities in a laboratory. (Narrator comments about switching the Mark XYZ rocket from defense to space probes.) Next, Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr., in his silver pressure suit with the helmet visor closed, steps from a trailer marked "NASA TV No 1." Scene shifts to the rocket launch control room, where NASA controllers at their respective stations monitor video images of Shepard boarding the Mercury capsule. They monitor data pertaining to the status of the rocket and capsule. The Mercury Redstone 3 rocket, carrying Shepard's Freedom 7 Mercury capsule, is next seen in a fiery launch on May 5, 1961.at 9:34 a.m. from P:ad 5 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. (It carried Shepard on a suborbital trajectory lasting 15 minutes and 22 seconds, making him the first American to fly into space.)
Cars drive up to NATO headquarters at the Palais de Chaillot (Palais de Chaillot 1 place du Trocadéro et du 11 novembre - 75116 Paris) Paris. Inside some delegates to the NATO military committee are seen seated around a large round conference table. Closeup of some delegates as they deliberate about a trouble spot at a location in France, described in a newspaper that one holds up for all to see. The delegates are seated with National identities shown on place markers. German General Adolf Heusinger is the Chairman of the NATO military committee. Camera pans about to different delegates as the chairman asks for their comments and thoughts. It focuses briefly on delegate from Germany, then quickly to other delegates, not identified. Later it pauses on Norway, Turkey, and the U.S.A. NATO members are polled by the Chairman and vote unanimously to support the consensus position. Scene shifts to a steam whistle blowing at end of shift at a heavy industrial complex. Some workers depart on bicycles. Others leave by private cars. Steam and smoke rise from multiple smokestacks and other sources at the plant. Scene shifts to airbase where two jet fighters with single bubble canopies and twin intakes, taxi on a ramp. In the background several Dassault Mirage III aircraft are seen parked in a line. The taxiing aircraft are headed toward two more like them that have just arrived and parked on the ramp. The pilots move those two forward as French pilots approach them. Closeup of pilot climbing out of the cockpit. View of the NATO conference table being abandoned for the day. In the headquarters, A man walks about, where machines are seen that have transmitted the results of the day's meeting and decision, to all the NATO member nations. NATO staff chefs in a planning session. View of the empty NATO conference room.
Film opens showing silhouettes of NATO tanks (appear to be M-47 Patton tanks) moving backwards across a hilltop. Soldiers move about in foreground. A submarine partially submerged moving through water. A NATO jet fighter aircraft taking off at night. An aircraft carrier at sea. A radar scope showing line of rotating antenna. A huge fixed ground radar antenna rotating at sunrise (or sunset). An armed sentry walking his post in late sunset. Scene shifts to a large NATO assembly room, empty except for a person cleaning with a vacuum. Closeup of NATO symbol and Council for Defense written below it. A man checks the audio systems for the room. A man in a control booth above the room manipulates switches related to the audio.
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