The origins of the Global Atmospheric Research Program's (GARP) Atlantic Tropical Experiment (GATE) are traced back to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Wyman-Woodcock Expedition and Trade Wind Experiments, the advent of meteorological
satellites, the International Geophysical Year (1958) and to the International Indian Ocean
Experiment (1960). Differences in conception of the experiment are highlighted and the scientific
goals of the experiment are laid out. The structure of the experimental design and the
mechanisms that ensured broad national and international participation are discussed. A central
concept to GATE: the parameterization of cumulus and smaller scale processes in terms of the
larger scale circulations is evaluated in the context of GATE and in terms of present day
modeling. Understanding the feedback loops between deep convection, the air-sea fluxes and the
structure of the atmospheric mixed layer emerging from GATE did not provide simple solutions
to the questions posed then and those still faced today.