The National Security Act of July 26, 2007
“60th
Anniversary of The National Security Act of 1947” –
see http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/cwr/17603.htm
The National Security
Council
http://www.life-union.com/5/1/The-National-Security-Council.html
Index | The National Security Council | History | Spaceport Visions
News Releases and Speeches
NSC History National Security Advisor
Deputy National Security
Advisor
History of the National Security Council, 1947-1997
Contents
Summary
Truman
Administration, 1947-1953
Eisenhower
Administration, 1953-1961
Kennedy
Administration, 1961-1963
Johnson
Administration, 1963-1969
Nixon
Administration, 1969-1974
Ford
Administration, 1974-1977
Carter
Administration, 1977-1981
Reagan
Administration, 1981-1989
Bush
Administration, 1989-1992
Clinton
Administration, 1993-1997
Appendix:
Assistants to the President for National Security Affairs 1953-Present
Since the
end of World War II, each administration has sought to develop and perfect a
reliable set of executive institutions to manage national security policy. Each
President has tried to avoid the problems and deficiencies of his predecessors'
efforts and install a policy-making and coordination system that reflected his
personal management style. The National Security Council (NSC) has been at the
center of this foreign policy coordination system, but it has changed many
times to conform with the needs and inclinations of
each succeeding chief executive.
The
National Security Act of July 26, 1947, created the National Security Council
under the chairmanship of the President, with the Secretaries of State and
Defense as its key members, to coordinate foreign policy and defense policy,
and to reconcile diplomatic and military commitments and requirements. This
major legislation also provided for a Secretary of Defense, a National Military
Establishment, Central Intelligence Agency, and National Security Resources
Board. The view that the NSC had been created to coordinate
political and military questions quickly gave way to the understanding that the
NSC existed to serve the President alone. The view that the Council's
role was to foster collegiality among departments also gave way to the need by
successive Presidents to use the Council as a means of controlling and managing
competing departments.
The
structure and functioning of the NSC depended in no small degree upon the
interpersonal chemistry between the President and his principal advisers and
department heads. But despite the relationships between individuals, a
satisfactory organizational structure had to be developed, for without it the
necessary flow of information and implementation of decisions could not occur.
Although a permanent staff gradually began to take shape, the main substantive
work occurred in the departments.
President
Truman's NSC was dominated by the Department of State. President Eisenhower's
predilection for the military staff system, however, led to development of the
NSC along those lines. The NSC staff coordinated an elaborate structure for
monitoring the implementation of policies. The NSC's
Executive Secretary became an assistant to the President, but was sufficiently
self-effacing not to conflict with a powerful Secretary of State, John Foster
Dulles.
President
Kennedy may have initially looked to a strong Secretary of State to take charge
of foreign policy-making, but turned to other strategies when it became
apparent that the Department of State did not have sufficient authority over
other departments. Kennedy, who preferred policy-making with ad hoc groups,
dismantled Eisenhower's elaborate NSC machinery and allowed the Special
Assistant for National Security Affairs and his staff to assume the primary
coordination role. Kennedy's freewheeling style tended to erase the distinction
between policy-making and operations that President Eisenhower's regimented
staff system so carefully observed.
Sharing
Kennedy's affinity for informal advisory arrangements, President Johnson let
the NSC structure atrophy still further and, like his predecessor, relied
instead on the National Security Adviser and his staff and various ad hoc
groups and trusted friends. But he also consulted regularly with his Tuesday
Lunch Group and in 1966 officially turned over responsibility for the
supervision and coordination of interdepartmental activities overseas to the
Secretary of State, with mixed results.
Under
Presidents Nixon and Ford, Henry Kissinger's expanded NSC staff concentrated on
acquiring analytical information from the various departments that would allow
the National Security Adviser to put before the President the best possible
range of options for decision. This system was in perfect accord with President
Nixon's preference for detailed written expositions rather than interpersonal
groupings. Kissinger concentrated on a handful of major issues and allowed some
foreign matters to devolve by default on the Department of State, while weapons
and international financial questions were dealt with by the Departments of
Defense and the Treasury. Kissinger at first attempted to restore the
separation between policy-making and implementation, but eventually found himself personally performing both roles.
Under
President Carter, the National Security Adviser became a principal source of
foreign affairs ideas and the NSC staff was recruited and managed with that in
view. The Department of State provided institutional memory and served as
operations coordinator. Some saw this as an activism-conservatism duality, and
the press eventually picked up on the tensions that were present. The National
Security Adviser's role as public advocate rather than as custodian exacerbated
the difficult relationships with State and other departments.
A collegial
approach to government decision-making was emphasized in the Reagan
administration. The National Security Adviser was downgraded, and the Chief of
Staff to the President exercised a coordinating role in the White House. The
collegiality among powerful department heads was not successfully maintained
and conflicts became public. The NSC staff tended to emerge as a separate,
contending party.
President
Bush brought his own considerable foreign policy experience to his leadership
of the National Security Council, and restored collegial relations among
department heads. He reorganized the NSC organization to include a Principals
Committee, Deputies Committee, and eight Policy Coordinating Committees. The
NSC played an effective role during such major developments as the collapse of
the Soviet Union, the unification of
For 50
years, 10 Presidents have sought to use the National Security Council system to
integrate foreign and defense policies in order to preserve the nation's
security and advance its interests abroad. Recurrent structural modifications
over the years have reflected Presidential management style, changing
requirements, and personal relationships.
Truman Administration, 1947-1953
The
National Security Council was created by Public Law 80(253, approved July 26,
1947, as part of a general reorganization of the
The
National Security Act of 1947 created the National Security Council under the
chairmanship of the President, with only the following seven officials as
permanent members: the President, the Secretaries of State, Defense, Army,
Navy, Air Force, and the Chairman of the National Security Resources Board. The
President could designate "from time to time" the Secretaries of
other executive departments and the Chairmen of the Munitions Board and the
Research and Development Board to attend meetings. While the new Central
Intelligence Agency was to report to the NSC, the Director of Central Intelligence
was not a member, although he attended meetings as an observer and resident
adviser.
The
function of the NSC as outlined in the 1947 act was to advise the President on
integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to national
security and to facilitate interagency cooperation. At the President's
direction, the NSC could also assess and appraise risks to
The NSC
did, however, serve other purposes beyond its stated goal of advising on policy
formulation. For Forrestal and the Navy, who were opposed to a strongly-unified
Department of Defense, it provided top-level coordination of the three armed
services without integration or unification. For Defense officials, it ensured
a continuing military voice in formulation of related foreign and domestic
policies during peacetime. For those, especially in Congress, who doubted
Truman had adequate experience in foreign affairs or even doubted his abilities
in general, the NSC offered the hope of evolving into a collegial policy-making
body to reinforce the President.
Truman was
clearly sensitive to this implied criticism and jealous of his prerogatives as
Chief Executive. He did not like the idea of Congress legislating who could
advise him on national security. Truman, therefore, kept the NSC at arm's
length during its first 3 years. He attended the first session of the NSC on
September 26, 1947, and then stayed away from all but 10 of the next 55
meetings. Truman continued to rely on a succession of personal White House
advisers (George M. Elsey, Rear Admiral Robert Dennison,
and W. Averell Harriman(to
coordinate for him major foreign policy matters.
Initially,
Truman named the Secretary of State as the ranking member of the Council in his
absence and expected the Department of State to play the major role in
formulating policy recommendations. This decision disappointed Defense
officials who hoped that the Secretary of Defense would be allowed to preside
in the President's absence and had offered to locate the NSC staff in the
Pentagon. Clifford managed to resist Secretary of Defense Forrestal's efforts
to gain control of the NSC. Procedures established during the Truman
administration set the basic bureaucratic pattern which lasted through the
Eisenhower administration: draft NSC papers written primarily by State's Policy
Planning Staff, discussion at the NSC meeting, approval by the President
resulting in an NSC Action, and dissemination to relevant parts of the
bureaucracy. During its initial years, the NSC suffered from haphazard staffing
and irregular meetings and was sometimes bypassed entirely. The executive
secretaries of the Council had no real authority or influence beyond managing
the staff process.
In 1949,
the NSC was reorganized. Truman directed the Secretary of the Treasury to
attend all meetings and Congress amended the National Security Act of 1947 to
eliminate the three service secretaries from Council membership and add the
Vice President(who assumed second rank from the Secretary of State(and the
Joint Chiefs of Staff who became permanent advisers to the Council. NSC
standing committees were created to deal with sensitive issues such as internal
security. The NSC staff consisted of three groups: the Executive Secretary and
his staff who managed the paper flow; a staff, made up of personnel on detail, whose
role was to develop studies and policy recommendations (headed by the
Coordinator from the Department of State); and the Consultants to the Executive
Secretary who acted as chief policy and operational planners for each
department or agency represented on the NSC.
Even
Truman's overhaul of the machinery in 1949 did not create a National Security
Council that fulfilled the role originally envisioned. Truman was partly to
blame. He insisted on going outside NSC channels for national security advice,
relying directly on his Secretaries of State and Defense, and increasingly on
the Bureau of the Budget. Attendance at NSC meetings gradually increased to a
point where the Council became too large for free discussion and degenerated
into a bureaucratic battleground of departmental rivalries. NSC lines of
authority, never clear, became increasingly blurred. By not attending most NSC
meetings, Truman ensured that Council members would seek him out to press their
own viewpoints privately.
In 1949,
events reinforced the need for better coordination of national security policy:
NATO was formed, military assistance for Europe was begun, the Soviet Union
detonated an atomic bomb, and the Communists gained control in
The war in
The
Secretariat was retained, but the Staff and the Consultants were eliminated in
favor of a Senior Staff--Assistant Secretary level or higher(supported
by Staff Assistants. Truman reiterated that the NSC was to be the channel for
all important national security recommendations. During the first year of the
Korean war, the NSC came as close as it ever did under
Truman to fulfilling that role. Nonetheless, Truman still looked outside the
formal NSC mechanism for advice and recommendations, relying on the NSC as much
for staffing and coordination of interdepartmental views as for primary
recommendations.
Truman made
additional structural changes in the NSC in late 1950 and in 1951. He directed
the head of the newly-created Office of Defense Mobilization to attend NSC meetings
and then made him a member of the Senior Staff. With the Mutual Security Act of
1951, the newly-created Director for Mutual Security (Harriman) became a
statutory member with the right to appoint a Senior Staff member. The Bureau of
the Budget sent a representative to some Senior Staff meetings. In 1951, the
Psychological Strategy Board (PSB), made up of the deputies at State and
Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence, was created to coordinate the
response to Soviet unconventional Cold War tactics. The PSB worked closely with
the NSC in managing
During
Truman's last year, the Council and the Senior Staff met less frequently and
NSC activity abated. Much interdepartmental planning on the NSC books was never
completed by the end of the Truman administration. During this period, the NSC
reflected Truman's sense of frustration as a lame-duck President caught in a
stalemated war.
Eisenhower Administration,
1953-1961
Under
President Eisenhower, the National Security Council system evolved into the
principal arm of the President in formulating and executing policy on military,
international, and internal security affairs. Where Truman was uncomfortable
with the NSC system and only made regular use of it under the pressure of the
Korean war, Eisenhower embraced the NSC concept and
created a structured system of integrated policy review. With his military
background, Eisenhower had a penchant for careful staff work, and believed that
effective planning involved a creative process of discussion and debate among
advisers compelled to work toward agreed recommendations.
The genesis
of the new NSC system was a report prepared for the President in March 1953 by
Robert Cutler, who became the President's Special Assistant for National
Security Affairs. Cutler proposed a systematic flow of recommendation,
decision, and implementation that he later described as the "policy
hill" process. At the bottom of the hill, concerned agencies such as State
and Defense produced draft policy recommendations on specific topics and worked
for consensus at the agency level. These draft NSC papers went up the hill
through the Planning Board, created to review and refine the recommendations
before passing them on for full NSC consideration. The NSC Planning Board met
on Tuesday and Friday afternoons and was composed of officials at the Assistant
Secretary level from the agencies with permanent or standing representation on
the Council, as well as advisers from the JCS and CIA. Hundreds of hours were
spent by the Board reviewing and reconstructing proposed papers for the NSC.
Cutler resigned in 1958 in exhaustion. The top of the foreign policy-making
hill was the NSC itself, chaired by the President, which met regularly on
Thursday mornings.
The Council
consisted of the five statutory members: the President, Vice President,
Secretaries of State and Defense, and Director of the Office of Defense
Mobilization. Depending on the subject under discussion, as many as a score of
other senior Cabinet members and advisers, including the Secretary of the Treasury,
the Chairman of the JCS, and the Director of Central Intelligence, attended and
participated. The agenda included regular briefings by the Director of Central
Intelligence on worldwide developments affecting
President
Eisenhower created the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) to follow up on all
NSC decisions. The OCB met regularly on Wednesday afternoons at the Department
of State, and was composed of the Under Secretary of State for Political
Affairs, Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Directors of CIA, USIA, and
The
President's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, a post held under
Eisenhower by Cutler, Dillon Anderson, William H. Jackson, and Gordon Gray,
oversaw the flow of recommendations and decisions up and down the policy hill,
and functioned in Council meetings to brief the Council and summarize the sense
of discussion. The Special Assistant was an essential facilitator of the
decision-making system, but, unlike the National Security Adviser created under
Kennedy, had no substantive role in the process. The NSC staff managed by the
Special Assistant grew during the Eisenhower years, but again had no
independent role in the policy process.
President
Eisenhower had great confidence in the efficacy of covert operations as a
viable supplement or alternative to normal foreign policy activities. The
seeming clear success of the operations to overthrow Iranian populist leader Mossadegeh in 1953 and the left-leaning President Arbenz in
President
Eisenhower also created the position of staff secretary with the responsibility
to screen all foreign policy and military documents coming to the President.
While Colonel Andrew Goodpaster held this position,
he tended to eclipse the Special Assistant for National Security.
The
strength of the NSC system under Eisenhower was that it provided for regular,
fully-staffed, interagency review of major foreign and national security
issues, culminating in discussion and decision at the highest level of
government. The resulting Presidentially-approved NSC
papers provided policy guidance at every level of implementation. Eisenhower
felt that the regular policy discussions kept his principal advisers fully
informed, in step with one another, and prepared to react knowledgeably in the
event of crisis. His commitment to the system was such that he chaired every
Council meeting he could attend (329 of a total of 366). The NSC meetings,
including prior briefings and subsequent review of NSC Actions, constituted the
largest single item on his weekly agenda.
Secretary
of State Dulles, on the other hand, had reservations about the NSC system. He
was the strongest personality in the Eisenhower Cabinet and jealously guarded
his role as principal adviser to the President on foreign policy. He had
constant, direct access to the President and did not feel that some of the most
sensitive issues should be discussed in groups as large as were involved in
most NSC meetings. He drew a sharp line between the NSC policy review process
and the day-to-day operations of foreign policy, which he maintained were the
province of the Department of State. Dulles and his deputies were not
comfortable with the scope the NSC review system gave to Secretary of the
Treasury George Humphrey, another strong figure in the Cabinet, to intrude
budgetary limitations into policy considerations. And Dulles successfully
resisted a proposal to substitute the Vice President for the Under Secretary of
State as chairman of the OCB, arguing that such a change would impinge on his
role as principal adviser to the President on foreign policy.
Critics of
the Eisenhower NSC system have argued that it was inflexible, overstaffed,
unable to anticipate and react to immediate crises, and weighed down by
committees reporting in great detail on long checklists of minor policy
concerns. The most thorough critique of the system emerged from the hearings
conducted in 1960(1961 by the Senate Subcommittee on National Policy Machinery,
known as the Jackson Subcommittee for its chairman, Senator Henry Jackson.
Cutler and NSC Executive Secretary James Lay testified in support of the
effectiveness of the system, but their testimony was offset by that of former
Truman administration officials such as George Kennan, Paul Nitze,
and Robert Lovett. They argued that foreign policy was being made by a passive
President influenced by a National Security Council rendered virtually useless
by ponderous, bureaucratic machinery. Basically, they argued, the NSC was a
huge committee, and suffered from all the weaknesses of committees. Composed of
representatives of many agencies, its members were not free to adopt the broad,
statesmanlike attitude desired by the President, but, rather, were ambassadors
of their own departments, clinging to departmental rather than national views.
To make matters worse, critics added, the NSC system by its very nature was
restricted to continuing and developing already established policies and was
incapable of originating new ideas or major innovations. The critics suggested
replacement of the formal, "over-institutionalized" NSC structure
with a smaller, less formal NSC which would offer the President a clear choice
of alternatives on a limited number of major problems.
Eisenhower
was certainly not a passive President, dominated on foreign policy and national
security issues by his Secretary of State. In fact, Eisenhower was actively in
command of his administration, and the NSC system met his instincts and
requirements. There is substance in the criticism that the Eisenhower NSC
became to some extent the prisoner of a rigidly bureaucratic process, but the
criticism misses the point that Eisenhower and Dulles did not attempt to manage
fast-breaking crises or day-to-day foreign policy through the NSC apparatus. An
examination of several of the major foreign policy problems that confronted the
Eisenhower administration reveals that the NSC system was used to manage some
and was virtually bypassed in others. When the question involved a policy
debate between departments with strongly-held, contending positions, as it did
in the case of the debate between the Departments of State and Defense in
1956(1957 over whether to introduce a more modern generation of weapons into
Korea, the NSC process focused debate and produced an agreed decision after discussion
of three draft policy papers.
Crisis
situations, however, such as the
When
Eisenhower briefed President-elect Kennedy on the NSC system, and when Gray
briefed his successor McGeorge Bundy, they emphasized
the importance of the NSC machinery in the management of foreign policy and
national security affairs. They might have been more persuasive had they
pointed to the fact that the NSC system was essentially limited to policy
review and was not used to manage crises or day-to-day foreign policy.
Kennedy Administration, 1961-1963
President
Kennedy, who was strongly influenced by the report of the Jackson Subcommittee
and its severe critique of the Eisenhower NSC system, moved quickly at the
beginning of his administration to deconstruct the NSC process and simplify the
foreign policy-making process and make it more intimate. In a very short period
after taking office, the new President moved to reduce the NSC staff from 74 to
49, limit the substantive officers to 12, and hold NSC meetings much less frequently
while sharply curtailing the number of officers attending. The Operation
Coordination Board was abolished, and the NSC was, at the President's
insistence, pulled back from monitoring the implementation of policies. The
coordination of foreign policy decisions was ostensibly left to the State
Department (and other agencies as necessary).
McGeorge
Bundy's appointment as the President's National Security Adviser inaugurated
this position as it has essentially continued down to the present. The definition
of Bundy's responsibilities and authority unfolded and grew during the Kennedy
presidency. Bundy's considerable intellectual and bureaucratic abilities as
well as close personal relationship with the new President contributed much to
evolution of the National Security Adviser position and the new role of the
NSC. In a letter to Senator Jackson in September 1961 Bundy sought to define
the early relationship sought with the State Department.
". . .
the President has made it very clear that he does not
want a large, separate organization between him and his Secretary of State.
Neither does he wish any question to arise as to the clear authority and
responsibility of the Secretary of State, not only in his own Department, and
not only in such large-scale related areas as foreign aid and information
policy, but also as the agent of coordination in all our major policies toward
other nations."
The
Department of State's apparent failure effectively to coordinate the
administration's response to the
As National
Security Adviser, Bundy divided his work with his Deputy, Walt Rostow (and later Carl Kaysen).
While Bundy dealt with the immediate day-to-day crises and the range of
European affairs, Rostow focused upon long-term
planning with a particular concentration on Latin American affairs. Kaysen focused upon foreign trade and economic affairs
matters that became increasingly important in the latter part of the Kennedy
Presidency.
In addition
to Bundy and the NSC staff, President Kennedy reached out still further for
foreign affairs advice. Early in 1961 the President appointed General Maxwell
Taylor to serve as his military representative and provide liaison with the
government agencies and defense and intelligence establishments on
military-political issues confronting the administration.
The NSC
continued to meet during the Kennedy Presidency, but far less frequently than
had been the case under his predecessor. It met 15 times during the first 6
months of 1961, then averaged one meeting a month for
the rest of his Presidency, reaching a total of 49 meetings. "Much that
used to flow routinely to the weekly meetings of the Council is now settled in
other ways, Bundy reported in September 1961. Some of the NSC activities were
taken up by a smaller, more select body called the Standing Group. This small
NSC coordinating panel was chaired by the Under Secretary of State for
Political Affairs and included the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Director of
Central Intelligence, and Bundy. It considered a wide range of foreign affairs
issues at 14 meetings the last of which was in August 1962. The Standing Group resumed
in April 1963 with Bundy as its chairman and with the added membership of the
Attorney General, the Chairman of the JCS, the Under Secretary of the Treasury,
the Director of USIA, and Administrator of AID. It also met 14 times during the
remainder of the Kennedy Presidency.
The Kennedy
administration abandoned the Eisenhower-era efforts at long-range planning in
favor of a heavy reliance upon ad hoc inter-agency working groups functioning
in a "crisis management" atmosphere. The leadership in these special
groups did not automatically fall to the State Department. Trusted officials
from other agencies or outside the foreign affairs community often took the
lead. There were special groups on counter-insurgency (chaired by General
Taylor), on
In effect,
Bundy had the first and last words on policy. He worked in close proximity to
the President who valued highly his competence and opinions; he served on most
major ad hoc committees and the Executive Committee, and he attended the
occasional formal meetings of the National Security Council. It is possible to
overemphasize Bundy's substantive skewing of Presidential policy formulation.
Most observers credited him with being scrupulously fair in presenting opinions
of the agencies to the President, even when they conflicted with his own. He
offered his views to Kennedy only when specifically asked. Bundy's influence
was oblique rather than direct. Essentially, he served an administrative
function and did not seek to advance a personal overview of American security
and foreign policy. The most significant aspect of Bundy's tenure as Kennedy's
Special Assistant for National Security Affairs was that he headed an
aggressive Presidential staff that believed its job was to protect the
President's interests, provide him with independent advice, and lead a
recalcitrant bureaucracy toward his policies. In addition, Bundy was an
effective channel to the President for his activist staff.
Johnson Administration, 1963-1969
The abrupt
transition of power to the Johnson administration brought no dramatic change in
the formal role of the National Security Council. Like Kennedy, Johnson much
preferred small, informal advisory meetings to large Council meetings supported
by an elaborately organized staff. According to one of his aides, Johnson felt
the NSC was "not a live institution, not suited to precise debate for the
sake of decision." Moreover, Johnson thought NSC meetings were prone to
leaks--they were "like sieves," he once remarked--and he inherited
advisers who shared his views. Secretary of State Dean Rusk later observed that
during the Kennedy Presidency neither he nor Secretary of Defense Robert
McNamara liked to "get into much discussion" in the NSC with "so
many people sitting around the room" and the possibility of leaks so
great.
Despite his
misgivings about the Council, Johnson started out convening it fairly
regularly, about every 2 weeks on average during his first 11 months in office.
The sessions dealt with a broad range of issues but were relatively brief in
duration and, after May 1964, consisted largely of briefings. With the approach
of the Presidential election in November, Johnson suspended NSC meetings, but
then in early 1965 he shifted gears. From February 1965 through mid-1966 he
convened the NSC almost exclusively to discuss
As the
Council's formal advisory role diminished, so too did its institutional
support. Johnson treated the NSC staff as a personal staff, and dropped
meetings of the NSC Standing Group, which convened intermittently under Kennedy
to deal with planning and operations problems. Official records of Council
actions were discontinued, and National Security Action Memorandums, which
Kennedy had instituted to inform government agencies of Presidential decisions
requiring follow-up action, were issued with decreasing frequency. Whereas
Kennedy had issued 272 NSAMs in less than three
years, Johnson issued 46 in 1964, 35 during 1965 and 1966, and a mere 14 during
his final 2 years in office.
Disinclined
to use the Council meetings for advice, Johnson, like Kennedy, relied heavily
on his National Security Advisers: McGeorge Bundy,
who remained in office through February 1966, and Bundy's successor, Walt Rostow, who served to the end of the administration.
Indeed, scholars looking at the evolution of the NSC from its inception to the
1970s contend that the National Security Adviser and his White House centered
staff increasingly assumed a more prominent role than the official National
Security Council and that Johnson, like Kennedy before him, played a key role
in this development. Focusing on Johnson's Presidency alone, however, some of
his advisers, including Secretary of State Rusk and Walt Rostow,
insisted that the Council's advisory role was actually performed principally by
another institution, the Tuesday Lunch Group, and that those lunch meetings
were in effect regular NSC meetings.
The small,
informal, Tuesday luncheon meetings were much more to Johnson's liking than
formal NSC meetings and quickly gained a prominent place in the decision-making
process. Embracing the Secretaries of State and Defense and the National
Security Adviser, the Tuesday Lunch Group met 27 times between February and
September 1964. In all Johnson convened some 160 Tuesday luncheons during his
Presidency, and the group was gradually expanded to include his press
secretary, the Director of Central Intelligence, and the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. The participants uniformly praised the "strong collegial
sense" at the meetings and the opportunity for "extraordinary
candor," but subordinates often complained that the secrecy and
informality that encouraged candor also made it hard for them to prepare their
superiors properly for the meetings and implement the decisions that were
reached.
Upon
succeeding Bundy as National Security Adviser in 1966, Rostow
came to grips with the issue of how to make effective use of the formal
Council, which by then was virtually moribund. He advised Johnson neither to
pretend to use the Council meetings for making major decisions nor to focus on
day-to-day operations. Instead he proposed regular,
"anticipatory-type" sessions devoted, as Johnson explained at the
first of the new series, to "discussion of complex problems requiring
careful exploration before they were to come to him for decision." Clearly
intended to complement rather than challenge the primary advisory roles of the
Tuesday luncheons and the National Security Adviser and his staff, NSC meetings
for the balance of the administration considered a broad range of anticipated
rather than pressing issues and gave little attention to
When not
relying for advice and support on the Tuesday Lunch Group and the National
Security Adviser and his small staff, Johnson turned to a variety of ad hoc
groups and trusted friends inside and outside the government. Following the
outbreak of the Six Day War, for example, he established an NSC Special
Committee, modeled on the NSC Executive Committee that met during the Cuban
Missile Crisis, to coordinate
In March
1966 the Johnson White House sought to remedy this situation through issuance
of NSAM 341, the brainchild of General Maxwell Taylor. NSAM 341 assigned the
Secretary of State official responsibility for the overall direction,
coordination, and supervision of interdepartmental activities overseas and
created a mechanism to carry out the responsibility consisting of the Senior
Interdepartmental Group (SIG), chaired by the Under Secretary of State, and
several Interdepartmental Regional Groups (IRGs)
beneath it, each chaired by an Assistant Secretary of State. But following a
fast-paced start, the SIG entered a period of quiescence that saw it meet only
three times from late July 1966 to mid-July 1967, reflecting in part Under
Secretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach's initial
hesitancy to exploit its possibilities upon taking office in October 1966. The
SIG gained new vitality in mid-1967, however, and together with the more active
IRGs played a complementary and supporting role to
the Secretary of State and the NSC, especially in easing the burdens of the
national security adviser and his staff with respect to interagency
coordination and follow-up.
The
innovations of a Presidential administration often do not survive its close,
reflecting as they do the distinctive views and management style of the
President and his immediate advisers. The close of the Johnson administration
brought an end to several of the adaptations it had made to manage foreign
policy: Tuesday luncheons, anticipatory-type NSC meetings, and the SIG/IRG
structure.
Nixon Administration, 1969-1974
President
Nixon and his National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger, dominated the making
of
The
Kissinger NSC system sought to combine features of the Johnson and Eisenhower
systems. The Senior Interdepartment Group (SIG) of
the Johnson White House was replaced by an NSC Review Group (somewhat similar
to the Eisenhower-era NSC Planning Group) together with an NSC Under Secretary's Committee. The Kissinger NSC relied upon
interdepartmental working groups (IGs) to prepare for
NSC directives. Critics observed that 10 IG meetings prepared the way for each
SIG-level meeting, and 5 SIG meetings were needed to prepare for each NSC
meeting.
White House
direction of foreign policy meant the eclipse of the Department of State and
Secretary William Rogers. Nixon did not trust the Department bureaucracy.
According to Kissinger, Nixon picked Rogers, who was inexperienced in foreign
affairs, to indicate that the President would dominate the relationship between
the NSC and the Department of State. Throughout Nixon's first term, only
Kissinger participated in the President's important discussions with foreign
state visitors. Nixon excluded
The NSC(Department of State power relationship was reflected in
institutional arrangements. During the transition period before Nixon assumed
power, Kissinger recommended that the NSC be buttressed by a structure of
subcommittees to draft analyses of policy that would present clear decision
options to the President. The National Security Adviser was to be chairman of a
Review Group to screen interagency papers before their presentation to the full
NSC chaired by the President. Nixon insisted on the abolition of the SIG
chaired by the Department of State. These recommendations were incorporated in
National Security Decision Memorandum (NSDM) 2, issued shortly after Nixon's
inauguration on January 20, 1969. NSDM 2 was rightly perceived as a victory for
Kissinger and helped to establish his foreign policy authority at the outset of
the administration.
Kissinger
moved quickly to establish the policy dominance of the NSC. He expanded its
staff from 12 to 34; not only was it the cadre for his centralized
policy-making, but it was also his antennae throughout the bureaucratic
structure. In the President's name, Kissinger set the NSC agendas and issued the numerous National Security Study Memoranda (NSSM) that set
forth the precise needs for interagency policy papers. An NSC Under Secretaries Committee, chaired by the Deputy Secretary
of State, gradually withered away. By the time the increasingly complicated
committee structure was settled, Kissinger chaired six NSC-related committees:
the Senior Review Group (non-crisis, non-arms control matters), the Washington
Special Actions Group (serious crises), the Verification Panel (arms control
negotiations), the 40 Committee (clandestine operations), the Intelligence
Committee (policy for the intelligence community), and the Defense Program
Review Committee (relation of the defense budget to foreign policy aims).
Nixon also
increasingly bypassed the Department of State to supervise personally sensitive
negotiations in order to avoid what he and President Nixon agreed were likely
bureaucratic disputes and inertia. The President made clear that he wanted the
National Security Adviser to conduct important matters directly out of his
office. Nearly every foreign ambassador called upon Kissinger at least once.
With Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin, Kissinger maintained
a special relationship that completely bypassed the Department of State and
Secretary Rogers. Dobrynin was told by Kissinger to
deal with the Secretary of State only on a limited range of less vital matters.
Kissinger also maintained similar relationships with Chinese leader Chou En-lai and Israeli Ambassador Rabin.
In carrying
on his activist, operational undertakings, Kissinger relied upon special
controlled communications. CIA communications were used for his "back
channel" messages so that the Department of State was kept in the dark. He
also used the White House Communication Agency including the use of special
aircraft as communication centers. With his negotiations in
The waning
of Nixon's power during the Watergate affair further increased Kissinger's
influence. On September 22, 1973, Kissinger became Secretary of State,
replacing
Under these
unique circumstances, Kissinger strengthened his institutional base as the
administration's principal foreign policy adviser. Kissinger later admitted, however,
that the union of the two positions did not work. Department of State
representatives were his subordinates while he wore his Secretary of State hat.
When he chaired a meeting, they had to represent his point of view or else all
interdepartmental matters would be outside his control. Kissinger indicated he
was in an inherently absurd position of either pushing his Department's views
as chairman or dissociating himself from his subordinates.
Ford Administration, 1974-1977
President
Ford, who assumed office in August 1974, was relatively inexperienced in
foreign affairs. He therefore relied almost exclusively on Kissinger's
expertise and advice. During 1975, however, there developed strong public and
congressional disapproval of the accretion of so much power over foreign policy
in the hands of one man. As part of a Cabinet shakeup on November 3, 1975, Ford
named Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft, Kissinger's deputy at the NSC, as
National Security Adviser.
Kissinger
was at first resentful of the loss of his unique, dual position. He soon
discovered, however, as he wrote in his memoirs, that Scowcroft's appointment
in no way diminished his real power within the administration because he kept
Ford's confidence and unlimited access, and Scowcroft in no way sought to
advocate policies in competition with the Secretary of State. Kissinger
continued to have a cordial relationship with Scowcroft, and both men exchanged
ideas constantly. In turn, Scowcroft was content to operate in a quiet,
unobtrusive way. He took seriously the NSC obligation to present the President
with clear analyses and options for decision. He managed a toned-down version
of the Kissinger NSC system that was compatible with the Secretary of State's
role as the President's chief foreign policy adviser. Many of the most
aggressive members of Kissinger's NSC team also made the move to State,
allowing Scowcroft to fashion a staff that reflected the new relationships.
Carter Administration, 1977-1981
Carter
began his term determined to eliminate the abuses he ascribed to the Kissinger
NSC under Nixon and Ford. He believed that Kissinger had amassed too much power
during his tenure as NSC Adviser and Secretary of State, and effectively
shielded his Presidents from competing viewpoints within the foreign policy
establishment. Carter resolved to maintain his access to a broad spectrum of
information by more fully engaging his Cabinet officers in the decision-making
process. He envisaged the role of the National Security Council to be one of
policy coordination and research, and reorganized the NSC structure to ensure
that the NSC Adviser would be only one of many players in the foreign policy
process. Carter chose Zbigniew Brzezinski for the
position of National Security Adviser because he wanted an assertive
intellectual at his side to provide him with day-to-day advice and guidance on
foreign policy decisions.
Initially,
Carter reduced the NSC staff by one-half and decreased the number of standing
NSC committees from eight to two. All issues referred to the NSC were reviewed
by one of the two new committees, either the Policy Review Committee (PRC) or
the Special Coordinating Committee (SCC). The PRC focused on specific issues
that fell largely within the jurisdiction of one department. Its chairmanship
rotated to whichever department head had primary responsibility for the issue,
most often the Department of State, and committee membership was frequently
expanded as circumstances warranted.
Unlike the
Policy Review Committee, the Special Coordinating Committee was always chaired
by the NSC Adviser. Carter believed that by making the NSC Adviser chairman of
only one of the two committees, he would prevent the NSC from being the
overwhelming influence on foreign policy decisions. The SCC was charged with
considering issues that cut across several departments, including oversight of
intelligence activities, arms control evaluation, and crisis management. Much
of the SCC's time during the Carter years was spent
on SALT issues.
President
Carter changed the name of the documents in the decision-making process,
although the mechanics of NSC review differed little from that of previous
administrations. The Presidential Review Memorandum (PRM) replaced the National
Security Study Memorandum (NSSM), and the Presidential Directive (PD)
supplanted the National Security Decision Memorandum (NSDM). PRMs identified topics to be researched by the NSC, defined
the problem to be analyzed, set a deadline for the completion of the study, and
assigned responsibility for it to one of the two NSC committees. If the
selected committee were the Policy Review Committee, a member was designated to
serve as study chairman. The study chairman assigned an ad hoc working group to
complete the study, which was ultimately reviewed by the responsible committee
(either the PRC or SCC). When the committee was satisfied that the study had
incorporated meaningful options and supporting arguments, the study's
conclusions went to the President in a 2- or 3-page memorandum, which in turn
formed the basis for a Presidential Directive.
The actual
operation of the NSC under Carter was less structured than under previous
Presidents. The Council held few formal meetings, convening only 10 times,
compared with 125 meetings during the 8 years of the Nixon and Ford
administrations. Instead, Carter used frequent, informal meetings as a
decision-making device, typically his Friday breakfasts, usually attended by
the Vice President, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the NSC Adviser, and
the chief domestic adviser. The President counted on the free flow of ideas,
unencumbered by a formal setting, to increase the chances of an informed
decision.
Critics
have contended that the Carter NSC staff was deficient in certain respects. The
NSC's emphasis on providing advice was effected at
the expense of some of its other functions, particularly its responsibility to
monitor implementation of the President's policies. Also, the President's and
some of his principals' commitment to arms control skewed the formation and
execution of a broad range of foreign policy options on national security
questions. Without any clearly-developed foreign policy principles beyond a
commitment to arms control, he often changed his mind, depending on the advice
he was receiving at the time.
Carter's
preference for informality and openness increased the diversity of views he
received and complicated the decision-making process. Every Friday, for
example, the President breakfasted with Vice President Mondale, Secretary of
State Vance, Secretary of Defense Brown, Brzezinski, and several White House
advisers. No agendas were prepared and no formal records were kept of these
meetings, sometimes resulting in differing interpretations of the decisions actually
agreed upon. This problem led to one of the most embarrassing episodes of the
Carter administration in which the
At the
outset of the administration, Brzezinski successfully persuaded Carter to make
the National Security Adviser chairman of the SCC. This meant that Brzezinski
was given oversight responsibility for the SALT negotiations, which became an
important focus of the Carter administration's foreign policy. Brzezinski's
coordination of the arms control process also gave him major input into the
administration's policy toward the
Vance
voiced his displeasure with this arrangement, which threatened to diminish the
role of the Department of State on arms control. The SCC, however, functioned
fairly smoothly on arms control. Following Vance's visit to
Brzezinski's
power gradually expanded into the operational area during the Carter
Presidency. He increasingly assumed the role of a Presidential emissary. In
1978, for example, Brzezinski traveled to
In other
areas the NSC system did not work effectively. The reasons stemmed less from
inherent institutional defects than from strong policy differences within the
administration and President Carter's inability to discipline his advisers and
forge a more coherent response to the crises of the last few years of his
Presidency. The Soviet military invasion of
The Iranian
revolution provided the coup de grace to the disintegrating Vance(Brzezinski
relationship. As the upheaval developed, the two advanced fundamentally
different positions. Brzezinski wanted to control the revolution and
increasingly suggested military action to prevent Khomeini from coming to
power, while Vance wanted to come to terms with the new Khomeini regime. As a
consequence Carter failed to develop a coherent approach to the Iranian
situation. Brzezinski continued, however, to promote his views, which the
President eventually accepted. Vance's resignation following the unsuccessful
mission undertaken over his objections to rescue the American hostages in March
1980 was the final result of the deep disagreement between Brzezinki
and Vance.
Reagan Administration, 1981-1989
The Reagan
administration, like its predecessors, faced the recurring dilemma of
determining which official or agency would have primary responsibility for the
direction, control, and supervision of
Haig's
initiative, which he repeated on several occasions, was never responded to.
Senior members of the White House staff, Counselor Meese,
Chief of Staff James A. Baker III, and Michael Deaver
were concerned that the proposed reorganization took too much power out of the
President's hands and that an activist Secretary of State operating with wide
powers could eclipse the President in his public role as the chief enunciator
of U.S. foreign policy. Although the Haig initiative failed, the Secretary of
State appeared to achieve for a time broad authority over the formulation of
foreign policy. The President placed National Security Adviser Richard Allen's
office under the supervision of Meese, and for the
first time in the history of the NSC, the National Security Adviser lost direct
access to the President. In subsequent public statements, the President
underlined his belief that his Secretary of State was his "primary adviser
on foreign affairs, and in that capacity, he is the chief formulator and spokesman
for foreign policy for this administration." Allen, who had less personal
authority, undertook a role as National Security Adviser that emphasized the
"integration" of the proposed policies and views of the foreign
affairs agencies. Nor did he take on any of the articulation of administration
foreign policy(a responsibility left to Secretary Haig
who at first thought of himself as the "Vicar" of foreign affairs.
Changes
were made in the NSC from the outset of the Reagan presidency. At a February
25, 1981, meeting chaired by Meese, Cabinet-level
heads of the major foreign affairs agencies agreed on a plan to establish three
Senior Interdepartmental Groups (SIGs) on foreign, defense, and intelligence
problems, chaired respectively by the Secretaries of State and Defense and the
Director of Central Intelligence. Under the SIGs, a series of Assistant
Secretary-level Interdepartmental Groups (IGs), each
chaired by the agency with particular responsibility, dealt with specific
issues. The NSC staff was responsible for the assignment of issues to the
groups.
One example
of a failed effort to create a new NSC organ in the hopes of improving
interagency coordination and reducing friction among the Departments of State
and Defense, the CIA, and the NSC, was President Reagan's order on March 24,
1981, naming Vice President George Bush as chair of a proposed administration
crisis management team. The NSC was charged with providing staff support for this
effort. The crisis group, referred to as the Special Situation Group (SSG)
received a formal charter on December 14, 1981, but in fact only met once.
Secretary Haig immediately and forcefully complained that the SSG would remove
coordinating responsibility from him.
In another
effort to improve policy coordination during the summer of 1981, the President
authorized the creation of a National Security Planning Group (NSPG) composed
of the Vice President, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Director of
Central Intelligence, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the
National Security Adviser. This group met weekly with the President and shaped
policy prior to formal meetings of the NSC.
In January
1982, following the resignation of National Security Adviser Allen, the
President appointed a close personal friend, Deputy Secretary of State William
Clark, as his new adviser. The brief episode of the weakened National Security
Adviser was over.
To assist
the SIG(FP, the Secretary of State set up Interagency Groups (IGs) for each geographic region, politico-military affairs,
and international economic affairs. The IGs, in turn,
created full-time working groups. The two other SIGs followed a similar
structure under the leadership of the Secretary of Defense and the Director of
Central Intelligence. Over the next 5 years, the Reagan administration
established an additional 22 SIGs and 55 IGs within
the NSC system. Some committees met only once. Observers pointed out the
overuse of SIGs and the increasing snarl of responsibilities that led to
enterprising NSC officials like Colonel Oliver North developing their own
sub-domains within the policy-making system. Zbigniew
Brzezinski described the NSC as entering its "Mid Life Crisis" during
the Reagan years.
The NSC
system under
The
apparent resolution of the dimensions of the Secretary of State's authority
ironically coincided with ever-increasing activities in the foreign affairs
field. The NSC frequently disagreed with the Department of State over the
management of daily
In October
1983, McFarlane replaced
During 1985
and 1986, the National Security Adviser and certain staff members took a
particularly activist role in the formulation and execution of policy in the
Caribbean, Central America, and the
The Tower Board, headed by
In the
autumn of 1988, Carlucci was called to the Defense Department to succeed Caspar
Weinberger, and for the third time among his six appointments to the position
of National Security Adviser during his presidency, Reagan promoted the Deputy.
General Powell directed an NSC that strived to provide balanced coordination of
major foreign policy presentations for the President. Managing the Policy
Review Group and the National Security Planning Group that Poindexter had so
favored in preparing the NSC for discussions, Powell conducted an NSC process
that was efficient but low key. There were no longer free-lancers operating out
of the NSC staff. Under Powell's direction, the President and his chief
advisers weathered the
Bush Administration, 1989-1992
After
serving 8 years as Vice President and participating in the momentous foreign
affairs events of the Reagan administration, President George Bush made many
changes in the NSC machinery reformed by Carlucci and Powell. On the date of
his inauguration, January 20, 1989, President Bush issued NSD(1
providing the charter for NSC administration. A Policy Review Group was
enlarged to a Committee, the Deputy National Security Adviser managed the
Deputies Committee, and a Principals Committee screened matters for the NSC to
consider. Eight Policy Coordinating Committees assumed regional and functional
responsibilities in place of the multiple interagency groups from the Reagan
era. NSC policy papers were named National Security Review papers (NSRs) and National Security Directives (NSDs)
to distinguish them from the Reagan era documentation.
President
Bush brought deep experience to the NSC leadership with his appointment of
General Brent Scowcroft as National Security Adviser. Scowcroft had served in
the Kissinger NSC, had been National Security Adviser in the last years of the
Ford administration, and had chaired the President's Board examining the
Iran-Contra scandal. Robert Gates served as Deputy National Security Adviser
under Scowcroft until his appointment as Director of Central Intelligence in
1991. Scowcroft's direction of the NSC was distinguished by the informality but
intensity of the relationship with the President. The NSC also maintained good
relationships with the other agencies, and Secretary of State Baker and
Scowcroft appear to have maintained the most comradely
working terms. Through the collapse of the
President
William J. Clinton on January 20, 1993, the day of his inauguration, issued
Presidential Decision Directive l to departments and agencies concerned with
national security affairs. PDD l revised and renamed the framework governing
the work of the National Security Council. A Presidential Review Directive
(PRD) series would be the mechanism used by the new administration to direct
that specific reviews and analyses be undertaken by the departments and
agencies. A Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) series would now be used to
promulgate Presidential decisions on national security matters. The Bush
administration's National Security Review (NSR) series and National Security
Directive (NSD) series were abolished.
On January
21, 1993, in PDD 2, President Clinton approved an NSC decision-making system
that enlarged the membership of the National Security Council and included a
much greater emphasis on economic issues in the formulation of national
security policy. The President, Vice President, Secretary of State, and
Secretary of Defense were members of the NSC as prescribed by statute. The
Director of Central Intelligence and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as
statutory advisers to the NSC, attended its meetings. The new membership of the
National Security Council included the following officials: the Secretary of
the Treasury, the U.S. Representative to the United Nations, the Assistant to
the President for National Security Affairs, the Assistant to the President for
Economic Policy, and the Chief of Staff to the President. Although not a
member, the Attorney General would be invited to attend meetings pertaining to
his jurisdiction. The heads of other Executive departments and agencies, the
special statutory advisers to the NSC, and other senior officials would be
invited to attend meetings of the NSC where appropriate.
The new
position of Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, which had been
promised by
In January
1993,
The
National Security Council framework in the
Samuel R.
"Sandy" Berger, a longtime foreign policy adviser to
Office of
the Historian
August 1997
Appendix
Assistants to the President for National Security Affairs
1953-1997
Established March 23, 1953, by President Eisenhower, in response to a
report on NSC organization by Robert Cutler.
Stephen
Hadley: January 26, 2005 - PRESENT
Dr.
Condoleezza Rice: January 22, 2001 - January 25, 2005
Samuel R.
Berger: March 14, 1997 - January 20, 2001
W.
Brent Scrowcroft: January 20, 1989 - January 20, 1993
Colin L.
Powell: November 23, 1987 - January 20, 1989
Frank C.
Carlucci: December 2, 1986 - November. 23, 1987
John M.
Poindexter: December 4, 1985 - November 25, 1986
Robert C.
McFarlane: October 17, 1983 - December 4, 1985
William P.
Clark: January 4, 1982 - October 17, 1983
Richard V.
Allen: January 21, 1981 - January 4, 1982
Zbigniew
Brzezinski: January 20, 1977 - January 21, 1981
Brent
Scowcroft: November 3, 1975 - January 20, 1977
Henry A.
Kissinger: December 2, 1968 - November 3, 1975 (served concurrently as
Secretary of State from September 21, 1973)
Walt W. Rostow: April 1, 1966 - December 2, 1968
McGeorge
Bundy: January 20, 1961 - February 28, 1966
Gordon
Gray: June 24, 1958 - January 13, 1961
Robert
Cutler: January 7, 1957 - June 24, 1958
Dillon
Anderson: April 2, 1955 - September 1, 1956
Robert Cutler: March 23, 1953 -
April 2, 1955
Source: www.whitehouse.gov
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