The National Security
Act of 1947 mandated a major reorganization of the foreign policy and
military establishments of the U.S. Government. The act created many of
the institutions that Presidents found useful when formulating and
implementing foreign policy, including the National Security Council
(NSC). The Council itself included the President, Vice President,
Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and other members (such as
the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency), who met at the White
House to discuss both long-term problems and more immediate national
security crises. A small NSC staff was hired to coordinate foreign
policy materials from other agencies for the President. Beginning in
1953 the President's Assistant for National Security Affairs directed
this staff.
Each President has accorded the NSC with different degrees of
importance and has given the NSC staff varying levels of autonomy and
influence over other agencies such as the Departments of State and
Defense. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, for example, used the NSC
meetings to make key foreign policy decisions, while John F. Kennedy
and Lyndon B. Johnson preferred to work more informally through trusted
associates. Under President Richard M. Nixon, the NSC staff, then
headed by Henry A. Kissinger, was transformed from a coordinating body
into an organization that actively engaged in negotiations with foreign
leaders and implementing the President's decisions. The NSC meetings
themselves, however, were infrequent and merely confirmed decisions
already agreed upon by Nixon and Kissinger.
The act also established the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which
grew out of World War II era Office of Strategic Services and small
post-war intelligence organizations. The CIA served as the primary
civilian intelligence-gathering organization in the government. Later,
the Defense Intelligence Agency became the main military intelligence
body. The 1947 law also caused far-reaching changes in the military
establishment. The War Department and Navy Department merged into a
single Department of Defense under the Secretary of Defense, who also
directed the newly created Department of the Air Force. However, each
of the three branches maintained their own service secretaries. In 1949
the act was amended to give the Secretary of Defense more power over
the individual services and their secretaries.
ADDITIONAL READING:
* Michael H. Hogan, /A Cross of Iron: Harry S Truman and the
Origins of the National Security State, 1945-1954/ (Cambridge, 1998).
* Melvyn A. Leffler/, A Preponderance of Power; National
Security, The Truman Administration, and the Cold War /(Stanford,
Connecticut, 1992).
* U.S. Department of State, /Foreign Relations of the United
States, 1945-1950, Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment
[1](Washington, 1996)
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/cwr/17603.htm[2]
