Order Code RL30840
The National Security Council:
An Organizational Assessment
Updated April 21, 2008
Richard A. Best Jr.
Specialist in National Defense
Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division

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The National Security Council:
An Organizational Assessment
Summary
The National Security Council (NSC) was established by statute in 1947 to
create an inter-departmental body to offer confidential advice to the President on all
aspects of national security policy. Currently, statutory members of the Council are
the President, Vice President, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense;
but, at the President’s request, other senior officials participate in NSC deliberations.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence
are statutory advisers. In 2007, the Secretary of Energy was added to the NSC
membership.
The President clearly holds final decision-making authority in the executive
branch. Over the years, however, the NSC staff has emerged as a major factor in the
formulation (and at times in the implementation) of national security policy.
Similarly, the head of the NSC staff, the National Security Adviser, has played
important, and occasionally highly public, roles in policymaking. This report traces
the evolution of the NSC from its creation to the present.
The organization and influence of the NSC have varied significantly from one
Administration to another, from a highly structured and formal system to loose-knit
teams of experts. It is universally acknowledged that the NSC staff should be
organized to meet the particular goals and work habits of an incumbent President.
The history of the NSC provides ample evidence of the advantages and disadvantages
of different types of policymaking structures.
Congress enacted the statute creating the NSC and has altered the character of
its membership over the years. Congress annually appropriates funds for its
activities, but does not, routinely, receive testimony on substantive matters from the
National Security Adviser or from NSC staff. Proposals to require Senate
confirmation of the Security Adviser have been discussed but not adopted.
The post-Cold War world has posed new challenges to NSC policymaking.
Some argue that the NSC should be broadened to reflect an expanding role of
economic, environmental, and demographic issues in national security policymaking.
The Clinton Administration created a National Economic Council tasked with
cooperating closely with the NSC on international economic matters. In the wake of
the 9/11 attacks, the George W. Bush Administration established a Homeland
Security Council. Both of these entities overlap and coordinate with the NSC, but
some observers have advocated more seamless organizational arrangements.
This report will be updated.

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Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Pre-NSC Coordination Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Need for Interdepartmental Coordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Past Modes of Policy Coordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
The Creation of the NSC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Proposals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Congressional Consideration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
The NSC as Created in 1947 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
The National Security Council, 1947-2001 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
The Truman NSC, 1947-1953 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
The Eisenhower NSC, 1953-1961 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
The Kennedy NSC, 1961-1963 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
The Johnson NSC, 1963-1969 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
The Nixon NSC, 1969-1974 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
The Ford NSC, 1974-1977 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
The Carter NSC, 1977-1981 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
The Reagan NSC, 1981-1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
The George H.W. Bush NSC, 1989-1993 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
The Clinton NSC, 1993-2001 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
The George W. Bush NSC, 2001-Present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Overview of Current NSC Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
NSC Executive and Congressional Liaison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
The NSC and International Economic Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
The Growing Importance of Law Enforcement Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
The Role of the National Security Adviser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Selected Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Appendix. National Security Advisers, 1953-2001 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

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The National Security Council:
An Organizational Assessment
Introduction
The National Security Council (NSC) has been an integral part of U.S. national
security policymaking since 1947. Of the various organizations in the Executive
Office of the President that have been concerned with national security matters, the
NSC is the most important and the only one established by statute. The NSC lies at
the heart of the national security apparatus, being the highest coordinative and
advisory body within the Government in this area aside from the President’s Cabinet.
The Cabinet has no statutory role, but the NSC does.
This study reviews the organizational history of the NSC and other related
components of the Executive Office and their changing role in the national security
policy process. It is intended to provide information on the NSC’s development as
well as subsequent usage. This study is not intended to be a comprehensive
organizational history of all components of the national security policy process nor
of the process itself as a whole. Moreover, the high sensitivity and security
classification of the NSC’s work and organization limit available sources. It is also
important to keep in mind the distinction between the NSC’s statutory membership
(i.e., the President, Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and
Secretary of Energy) and its staff (i.e., the National Security Adviser and his
assistants). These two groups have very different roles and levels of influence.
Pre-NSC Coordination Methods
The Need for Interdepartmental Coordination
Successful national security policymaking is based on careful analysis of the
international situation, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, military, and
morale factors. Based on a comprehensive assessment, effective government leaders
attempt to attain their goals by selecting the most appropriate instrument of policy,
whether it is military, diplomatic, economic, based on the intelligence services, or a
combination of more than one. Although this approach has been an ideal throughout
the history of international relations, prior to World War II, U.S. Presidents, focused
primarily on domestic matters, and lacked organizational support to integrate national
security policies. They relied instead on ad hoc arrangements and informal groups
of advisers. However, in the early 1940s, the complexities of global war and the
need to work together with allies led to more structured processes of national security
decisionmaking to ensure that the efforts of the State, War, and Navy Departments

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were focused on the same objectives. There was an increasingly apparent need for
an organizational entity to support the President in looking at the multiplicity of
factors, military and diplomatic, that had to be faced during wartime and in the early
postwar months when crucial decisions had to be made regarding the future of
Germany and Japan and a large number of other countries.
Given continuing worldwide responsibilities in the postwar years that involved
active diplomacy, sizable military forces, sophisticated intelligence agencies, in
addition to economic assistance in various forms, the United States established
organizational mechanisms to analyze the international environment, identify
priorities, and recommend appropriate policy options. Four decades later, the end of
the Cold War saw the emergence of new international concerns, including
transnational threats such as international terrorism and drug trafficking, that have
continued to require the coordination of various departments and agencies concerned
with national security policies.
Past Modes of Policy Coordination
Coordinative mechanisms to implement policy are largely creations of the
Executive Branch, but they directly influence choices that Congress may be called
upon to support and fund. Congress thus takes interest in the processes by which
policies and the roles of various participants are determined. Poor coordination of
national security policy can result in calls for Congress to take actions that have
major costs, both international and domestic, without the likelihood of a successful
outcome. Effective coordination, on the other hand, can mean the achievement of
policy goals with minimal losses of human lives while providing the opportunity to
devote material resources to other needs.
Throughout most of the history of the United States, until the twentieth century,
policy coordination centered on the President, who was virtually the sole means of
such coordination. The Constitution designates the President as
Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces (Article II, Section 2) and grants him broad
powers in the areas of foreign affairs (Article II, Section 2), powers that have
expanded considerably in the twentieth century through usage. Given limited U.S.
foreign involvements for the first hundred or so years under the Constitution, the
small size of the armed forces, the relative geographic isolation of the Nation, and the
absence of any proximate threat, the President, or his executive agents in the Cabinet,
provided a sufficient coordinative base.
However, the advent of World War I, which represented a modern, complex
military effort involving broad domestic and international coordination, forced new
demands on the system that the President alone could not meet. In 1916, the Council
of National Defense was established by statute (Army Appropriation Act of 1916).
It reflected proposals that went back to 1911 and consisted of the Secretaries of War,
Navy, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce and Labor. The statute also allowed the
President to appoint an advisory commission of outside specialists to aid the

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Council.1 The Council of National Defense was intended as an economic
mobilization coordinating group, as reflected by its membership — which excluded
the Secretary of State. His inclusion would have given the Council a much wider
coordinative scope. Furthermore, the authorizing statute itself limited the role of the
Council basically to economic mobilization issues. The Council of National Defense
was disbanded in 1921, but it set a precedent for coordinative efforts that would be
needed in World War II.
The President remained the sole national security coordinator until 1938, when
the prewar crisis began to build in intensity, presenting numerous and wide-ranging
threats to the inadequately armed United States. The State Department, in reaction
to reports of Axis activities in Latin America, proposed that interdepartmental
conferences be held with War and Navy Department representatives. In April 1938,
Secretary of State Cordell Hull, in a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt, formally
proposed the creation of a standing committee made up of the second ranking
officers of the three departments, for purposes of liaison and coordination. The
President approved this idea, and the Standing Liaison Committee, or Liaison
Committee as it was also called, was established, the members being the Under
Secretary of State, the Chief of Staff of the Army, and the Chief of Naval Operations.
The Standing Liaison Committee was the first significant effort toward
interdepartmental liaison and coordination, although its work in the area was limited
and uneven. The Liaison Committee largely concentrated its efforts on Latin
American problems, and it met irregularly. Although it did foster some worthwhile
studies during the crisis following the fall of France, it was soon superseded by other
coordinative modes. It was more a forum for exchanging information than a new
coordinative and directing body.2
An informal coordinating mechanism, which complemented the Standing
Liaison Committee, evolved during the weekly meetings established by Secretary of
War Henry L. Stimson, who took office in June 1940. Stimson arranged for weekly
luncheons with his Navy counterpart, Frank Knox, and Cordell Hull, but these
meetings also did not fully meet the growing coordinative needs of the wartime
government.
In May 1940 President Roosevelt used the precedent of the 1916 statute and
established the National Defense Advisory Council (NDAC), composed of private
citizens with expertise in specific economic sectors.3 As with the earlier Council of
National Defense, NDAC was organized to handle problems of economic
1 Paul Y. Hammond, “The National Security Council as a Device for Interdepartmental
Coordination: An Interpretation and Appraisal,” American Political Science Review,
December, 1960, p. 899; U.S. Bureau of the Budget, The United States at War (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1946), p. 2.
2 Mark Skinner Watson, Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations (Washington: Office
of the Chief of Military History, 1950), pp. 89-91, 93-94.
3 R. Elberton Smith, The Army and Economic Mobilization (Washington: Office of the Chief
of Military History, 1959), pp. 103-04, 109-10; Bureau of the Budget, The United States at
War, pp. 22-25, 44, 50-51.

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mobilization; and by the end of the year it had given way to another organization in
a succession of such groups.
During the war, there were a number of interdepartmental committees formed
to handle various issues, and, while these did help achieve coordination, they suffered
from two problems. First, their very multiplicity was to some degree
counter-productive to coordination, and they still represented a piecemeal approach
to these issues. Second, and more important, these committees in many cases were
not advising the President directly, but were advising his advisers. Although their
multiplicity and possible overlapping fit Roosevelt’s preferred working methods, they
did not represent coordination at the top. Roosevelt ran the war largely through the
Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), who were then an ad hoc and de facto group, and through
key advisers such as Harry Hopkins and James F. Byrnes, and via his own personal
link with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
The weekly meetings arranged by Stimson evolved, however, into a significant
coordinative body by 1945, with the formal creation of the State, War, Navy
Coordinating Committee (SWNCC). SWNCC had its own secretariat and a number
of regional and topical subcommittees; its members were assistant secretaries in each
pertinent department. The role of SWNCC members was to aid their superiors “on
politico-military matters and [in] coordinating the views of the three departments on
matters in which all have a common interest, particularly those involving foreign
policy and relations with foreign nations....” SWNCC was a significant improvement
in civilian-military liaison, and meshed well with the JCS system; it did not,
however, concern itself with fundamental questions of national policy during the
early months of the Cold War.4 SWNCC operated through the end of the war and
beyond, becoming SANACC (State, Army, Navy, Air Force Coordinating
Committee) after the National Security Act of 1947. It was dissolved in 1949, by
which time it had been superseded by the NSC.
The creation of SWNCC, virtually at the end of the war, and its continued
existence after the surrender of Germany and Japan reflected the growing awareness
within the Federal Government that better means of coordination were necessary.
The World War II system had largely reflected the preferred working methods of
President Roosevelt, who relied on informal consultations with various advisers in
addition to the JCS structure. However, the complex demands of global war and the
post-war world rendered this system inadequate, and it was generally recognized that
a return to the simple and limited prewar system would not be possible if the United
States was to take on the responsibilities thrust upon it by the war and its aftermath.
4 Ray S. Cline, Washington Command Post: The Operations Division (Washington: Office
of the Chief of Military History, 1951), pp. 326-27; John Lewis Gaddis, The United States
and the Origins of the Cold War (New York, Columbia University Press, 1972), p. 126; U.S.
Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1944, v. I: General
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1966), pp. 1466-70.

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The Creation of the NSC5
Introduction
The NSC was not created independently, but rather as one part of a complete
restructuring of the entire national security apparatus, civilian and military, including
intelligence efforts, as accomplished in the National Security Act of 1947. Thus, it
is difficult to isolate the creation of the NSC from the larger reorganization,
especially as the NSC was much less controversial than the unification of the military
and so attracted less attention.
Proposals
As early as 1943, General George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, had
proposed that the prospect of a unified military establishment be assessed. Congress
first began to consider this idea in 1944, with the Army showing interest while the
Navy was opposed. At the request of the Navy these investigations were put off until
1945, although by then it was clear to Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal that
President Truman, who had come to the White House upon the death of President
Roosevelt in April 1945, favored some sort of reorganization. Forrestal believed that
outright opposition would not be a satisfactory Navy stance. He also realized that the
State Department had to be included in any new national security apparatus.
Therefore, he had Ferdinand Eberstadt, a leading New York attorney and banker who
had served in several high-level Executive Branch positions, investigate the
problem.6
With respect to the formation of the NSC, the most significant of the three
questions posed by Forrestal to Eberstadt, was:
What form of postwar organization should be established and maintained to
enable the military services and other governmental departments and agencies
most effectively to provide for and protect our national security?
Eberstadt’s response to this question covered the military establishment, where
he favored three separate departments and the continuation of the JCS, as well as the
civilian sphere, where he suggested the formation of two new major bodies “to
coordinate all these [civilian and military] elements.” These two bodies he called the
National Security Council (NSC), composed of the President, the Secretaries of State
and of the three military departments, the JCS “in attendance,” and the chairman of
5 One of the best studies on the creation and development of the NSC through the
Eisenhower Administration, including hearings, studies, reports, recommendations and
articles, can be found in U.S. Congress, Senate, 86th and 87th Congress, Committee on
Government Operations, Subcommittee on National Policy Machinery, Organizing for
National Security, 1961, 3 vols.
6 Demetrios Caraley, The Politics of Military Unification (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1966), pp. 23-44; Walter Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries (New York: The Viking
Press, 1951), pp. 62-63.

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the other new body, the National Security Resources Board (NSRB). Eberstadt also
favored the creation of a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) under the NSC.7
Eberstadt’s recommendations clearly presaged the eventual national security
apparatus, with the exception of a unified Department of Defense. Furthermore, it
was a central point in Forrestal’s plans for holding the proposed reorganization to
Navy desires, bringing in the State Department, as he desired, and hopefully
obviating the need for some coalescence of the military services. The NSC was also
a useful negotiating point for Forrestal with the Army, as Eberstadt had described one
of its functions as being the “building up [of] public support for clear-cut, consistent,
and effective foreign and military policies.” This would appeal to all the service
factions as they thought back on the lean and insecure prewar years.8
War-Navy negotiations over the shape of the reorganization continued
throughout 1946 and into 1947. However, some form of central coordination, for a
while called the Council of Common Defense, was not one of the contentious issues.
By the end of May 1946, agreement had been reached on this and several other
points, and by the end of the year the two sides had agreed on the composition of the
new coordinative body.9
Congressional Consideration
The creation of the NSC was one of the least controversial sections of the
National Security Act and so drew little attention in comparison with the basic
concept of a single military department, around which most of the congressional
debate centered.
The concept of a regular and permanent organization for the coordination of
national security policy was as widely accepted in Congress as in the Executive.
When the NSC was considered in debate, the major issues were the mechanics of the
new organization, its membership, assurances that it would be a civilian organization
and would not be dominated by the new Secretary of the National Military
Establishment, and whether future positions on the NSC would be subject to approval
by the Senate.10
7 Caraley, The Politics of Military Unification, pp. 40-41; see also Jeffrey M. Dorwart,
Eberstadt and Forrestal: A National Security Partnership, 1909-1949 (College Station, TX:
Texas A & M University Press, 1991), especially pp. 90-107.
8 Ibid., pp. 86-87, 91; Hammond, “The NSC as a Device for Interdepartmental
Coordination,” pp. 900-01.
9 Caraley, Politics of Military Unification, pp. 136-37; Millis, Forrestal Diaries, p. 222.
10 The congressional debate over the National Security Act is summarized in Caraley,
Politics of Military Unification, pp. 153-82; on the NSC, see p. 161. Examples of
congressional opinion can be found throughout the lengthy debate. Some representative
comments can be found in the Congressional Record, v. 93, July 7, 1947, p. 8299, and July
9, 1947, pp. 8496-97, 8518, 8520.

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The NSC as Created in 1947
The NSC was created by the National Security Act, which was signed by the
President on July 26, 1947. The NSC appears in Section 101 of Title I, Coordination
for National Security, and its purpose is stated as follows:
(a) ... The function of the Council shall be to advise the President with
respect to the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to
the national security so as to enable the military services and the other
departments and agencies of the Government to cooperate more effectively in
matters involving the national security.
(b) In addition to performing such other functions as the President may
direct, for the purpose of more effectively coordinating the policies and functions
of the departments and agencies of the Government relating to the national
security, it shall, subject to the direction of the President, be the duty of the
Council
(1) to assess and appraise the objectives, commitments, and risks of the
United States in relation to our actual and potential military power, in the
interest of national security, for the purpose of making recommendations
to the President in connection there with; and
(2) to consider policies on matters of common interest to the departments
and agencies of the Government concerned with the national security, and
to make recommendations to the President in connection therewith....
(d) The Council shall, from time to time, make such recommendations, and
such other reports to the President as it deems appropriate or as the
President may require.11
The following officers were designated as members of the NSC: the President;
the Secretaries of State, Defense, Army, Navy, and Air Force; and the Chairman of
the National Security Resources Board. The President could also designate the
following officers as members “from time to time:” secretaries of other executive
departments and the Chairmen of the Munitions Board and the Research and
Development Board. Any further expansion required Senate approval. The NSC
was provided with a staff headed by a civilian executive secretary, appointed by the
President.
The National Security Act also established the Central Intelligence Agency
under the NSC, but the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) was not designated as
an NSC member. The act also created a National Military Establishment, with three
executive departments (Army, Navy, and Air Force) under a Secretary of Defense.
Implicit in the provisions of the National Security Act was an assumption that
the NSC would have a role in ensuring that the U.S. industrial base would be capable
of supporting national security strategies. The Chairman of the National Security
Resources Board, set up by the same act to deal directly with industrial base and
11 50 USC 402.

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civilian mobilization issues, was provided a seat on the NSC. Over the years,
however, these arrangements proved unsatisfactory and questions of defense
mobilization and civil defense were transferred to other federal agencies and the
membership of the NSC was limited to the President, Vice President, the Secretary
of State and the Secretary of Defense.12 Thus, the need for a coordinative entity that
had initially been perceived to center on economic mobilization issues during World
War I had evolved to one that engaged the more permanent themes of what had come
to be known as national security policy.
The creation of the NSC was a definite improvement over past coordinative
methods and organization, bringing together as it did the top diplomatic, military, and
resource personnel with the President. The addition of the CIA, subordinate to the
NSC, also provided the necessary intelligence and analyses for the Council so that
it could keep pace with events and trends. The changeable nature of its organization
and its designation as an advisory body to the President also meant that the NSC was
a malleable organization, to be used as each President saw fit. Thus, its use, internal
substructure, and ultimate effect would be directly dependent on the style and wishes
of the President.
The National Security Council, 1947-2001
The Truman NSC, 1947-1953
Early Use. The NSC first met on September 26, 1947. President Truman
attended the first session, but did not attend regularly thereafter, thus emphasizing the
NSC’s advisory role. In his place, the President designated the Secretary of State as
chairman, which also was in accord with the President’s view of the major role that
the State Department should play. Truman viewed the NSC as a forum for studying
and appraising problems and making recommendations, but not one for setting policy
or serving as a centralized office to coordinate implementation.
The NSC met irregularly for the first 10 months. In May 1948, meetings twice
a month were scheduled, although some were canceled, and special sessions were
convened as needed.
The Hoover Commission. The first review of NSC operations came in January
1949 with the report of the Hoover Commission (the Commission on Organization
of the Executive Branch of the Government), which found that the NSC was not fully
meeting coordination needs, especially in the area of comprehensive statements of
current and long-range policies.13
12 More specific information on the history of the transfers of defense mobilization and civil
defense authorities may be found in Sections 402 and 404 of U.S. Code Annotated, Title 50
(St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Co., 1991).
13 The Commission on the Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government.
National Security Organization (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1949), especially
(continued...)

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The Hoover Commission recommended that better working-level liaison
between the NSC and JCS be developed, that the Secretary of Defense become an
NSC member, replacing the service secretaries, and that various other steps be taken
to clarify and tighten roles and liaison.
1949 Amendments. In January 1949, President Truman directed the Secretary
of the Treasury to attend all NSC meetings. In August 1949, amendments to the
National Security Act were passed (P.L. 81-216), changing the membership of the
NSC to consist of the following officers: the President, Vice President, Secretaries
of State and Defense, and Chairman of the National Security Resources Board. This
act also designated the JCS as “the principal military advisers to the President,” thus
opening the way for their attendance, beginning in 1950, even though the Service
Secretaries were excluded. In August 1949, by Reorganization Plan No. 4, the NSC
also became part of the Executive Office of the President, formalizing a de facto
situation.
Subsequent Usage and Evaluation. The outbreak of the Korean War in June
1950 brought greater reliance on the NSC system. The President ordered weekly
meetings and specified that all major national security recommendations be
coordinated through the NSC and its staff. Truman began presiding regularly,
chairing 62 of the 71 meetings between June 1950 and January 1953. The NSC
became to a much larger extent the focus of national security decisionmaking. Still,
the NSC’s role remained limited. Truman continued to use alternate sources of
information and advice.14 As one scholar has concluded:
Throughout his administration Truman’s use of the NSC process remained
entirely consistent with his views of its purpose and value. The president and his
secretary of state remained completely responsible for foreign policy. Once
policy decisions were made, the NSC was there to advise the president on
matters requiring specific diplomatic, military, and intelligence coordination.15
The Eisenhower NSC, 1953-1961
President Dwight Eisenhower, whose experience with a well-ordered staff was
extensive, gave new life to the NSC. Under his Administration, the NSC staff was
institutionalized and expanded, with clear lines of responsibility and authority, and
it came to closely resemble Eberstadt’s original conception as the President’s
principal arm for formulating and coordinating military, international, and internal
security affairs. Meetings were held weekly and, in addition to Eisenhower himself
and the other statutory members, participants often included the Secretary of the
Treasury, the Budget Director, the Chairman of the JCS, and the Director of Central
Intelligence.
13 (...continued)
pp. 15-16, 74-76.
14 Walter Millis, Arms and the State (New York: The Twentieth Century Fund, 1958), pp.
255, 388.
15 Anna Kasten Nelson, “President Truman and the Evolution of the National Security
Council,” Journal of American History, September 1985, p. 377.

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Organizational Changes. In his role as chairman of the NSC, Eisenhower
created the position of Special Assistant for National Security Affairs,16 who became
the supervisory officer of the NSC, including the Executive Secretary. The Special
Assistant — initially Robert Cutler, a banker who had served under Stimson during
World War II — was intended to be the President’s agent on the NSC, not an
independent policymaker in his own right, and to be source of advice.17
Eisenhower established two important subordinate bodies: the NSC Planning
Board, which prepared studies, policy recommendations, and basic drafts for NSC
coordination, and the Operations Coordinating Board, which was the coordinating
and integrating arm of the NSC for all aspects of the implementation of national
security policy.
By the end of the Eisenhower Administration, the NSC membership had
changed slightly. The National Security Resources Board had been abolished by
Reorganization Plan No. 3 in June 1953, and this vacancy was then filled by the
Director of the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization.
In 1956, President Eisenhower, partly in response to recommendations of the
second Hoover Commission on the Organization of the Executive Branch of
Government, also established the Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence
Activities in the Executive Office. This board was established by Executive Order
10656 and was tasked to provide the President with independent evaluations of the
U.S. foreign intelligence effort. The Board of Consultants lapsed at the end of the
Eisenhower Administration, but a similar body, the President’s Foreign Intelligence
Advisory Board (PFIAB), was created by President Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs
failure. PFIAB was itself abolished in 1977, but was resurrected during the Reagan
Administration in 1981. Members are selected by the President and serve at his
discretion.
16 This position has been a continuing one, although its title has varied over the years
(Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, Assistant to the President for National
Security Affairs, National Security Adviser). An adviser or an assistant to the President
arguably has a position of greater independence from congressional oversight than the
incumbent of a position established by statute; see Richard Ehlke, “Congressional Creation
of an Office of National Security Adviser to the President,” reprinted in U.S. Congress, 96th
Congress, 2d session, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, The National Security
Adviser: Role and Accountability, Hearing, April 17, 1980, pp. 133-135. The position of
National Security Adviser is to be distinguished from the position of Executive Secretary
of the NSC, which was created by statute but has, since the beginning of the Eisenhower
Administration, been essentially an administrative and logistical one. National Security
Adviser positions are funded not as part of the NSC but as part of the White House Office,
reflecting the incumbent’s status as that of an adviser to the President.
17 Frederick C. Thayer, “Presidential Policy Processes and ‘New Administration’: A Search
for Revised Paradigms,” Public Administration Review, September/October 1971: 554.
Robert H. Johnson, “The National Security Council: The Relevance of its Past to Its
Future,” Orbis, v. 13, Fall 1969: 715; Robert Cutler, No Time for Rest (Boston: Little,
Brown, 1966).

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Evaluation. The formal structure of the NSC under Eisenhower allowed it to
handle an increasing volume of matters. Its work included comprehensive
assessments of the country’s basic national security strategy, which were designed
to serve as the basis for military planning and foreign policymaking. The complexity
of NSC procedures under Eisenhower and its lengthy papers led to charges that
quantity was achieved at the expense of quality and that the NSC was too large and
inflexible in its operations. Critics alleged that it was unable to focus sufficiently on
major issue areas.18 Some observers also held that NSC recommendations were often
compromises based on the broadest mutually acceptable grounds from all the
agencies involved, leading to a noticeable lack of innovative national security ideas.
The Eisenhower NSC did, nonetheless, establish national security policies that were
accepted and implemented throughout the Government and that laid the basis for
sustained competition with the Soviet Union for several decades.
It may be that the NSC process became overly bureaucratic towards the end of
the Eisenhower Administration, perhaps affected by the President’s declining health.
Hearings by the Senate Government Operations Committee in 1960-61, led by
Senator Henry Jackson, produced proposals for a substantial reorientation of this
“over-institutionalized” structure, and its replacement by a smaller, less formal NSC
that would offer the President a clear choice of alternatives on a limited number of
major problems.19
Some scholars have noted that Eisenhower himself found the lengthy NSC
procedures burdensome and argue that many key decisions were made in the Oval
Office in the presence of only a few advisers. Nonetheless, Eisenhower saw the NSC
process as one which produced a consensus within the Administration which would
lead to effective policy implementation. According to this view, the process was
largely one of education and clarification.20 A recent analysis has concluded, that
NSC meetings
brought Eisenhower’s thinking into sharper focus by forcing him to weigh it
against a range of alternatives that were presented and defended by individuals
whose opinions the president took seriously and whose exposure to requisite
18 Some Eisenhower-era NSC documents are reprinted in the State Department’s Foreign
Relations of the United States series, especially in volumes dealing with National Security
Affairs; microfilm copies of declassified NSC documents have been made available by a
commercial publisher, University Publications of America, Inc. NSC documents are usually
highly classified; while some are subsequently declassified and released to the public
(although not necessarily in the Federal Register or other official publications series), others
have been withheld. Some observers have criticized this situation; see Harold C. Relyea,
“The Coming of Secret Law,” Government Information Quarterly, May 1988, pp. 106-112;
U.S. General Accounting Office, “The Use of Presidential Directives to Make and
Implement U.S. Policy,” Report No. GAO/NSIAD-92-72, January 1992.
19 The hearings and reports of this study are cited in note 5.
20 See Anna Kasten Nelson, “The ‘Top of Policy Hill’: President Eisenhower and the
National Security Council,” Diplomatic History, Fall 1983, p. 324; also, Stephen E.
Ambrose, The President (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), pp. 345, 509.

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information and expertise he assured. These individuals, in turn, were educated
about the problems in the same way as Eisenhower.21
The Kennedy NSC, 1961-1963
President John Kennedy, who did not share Eisenhower’s preference for formal
staff procedures, accepted many of the recommendations of the Jackson Committee
and proceeded to dismantle much of the NSC structure, reducing it to its statutory
base. Staff work was carried out mainly by the various departments and agencies,
and personal contacts and ad hoc task forces became the main vehicles for policy
discussion and formulation. The NSC was now one among many sources of advice.
Kennedy’s National Security Adviser, McGeorge Bundy, played an important
policy role directly under the President. The nature of this position was no longer
that of a “neutral keeper of the machinery”; for the first time, the Adviser emerged
in an active policymaking role, in part because of the absence of any definite NSC
process that might preoccupy him.22
Kennedy met regularly with the statutory NSC members and the DCI, but not
in formal NSC sessions. Studies and coordination were assigned to specific Cabinet
officers or subordinates in a system that placed great emphasis on individual
responsibility, initiative and action. The Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was initially
seen as the second most important national security official in the President’s plans,
and Kennedy indicated that he did not want any other organizations interposed
between him and Rusk. However, Kennedy came to be disappointed by the State
Department’s inability or unwillingness to fill this role as the leading agency in
national security policy.23
At the beginning of the Kennedy Administration, the NSC was reportedly cut
from seventy-one to forty-eight and “in place of weighty policy papers, produced at
regular intervals, Bundy’s staff would produce crisp and timely National Security
Action Memoranda (NSAMs). The new name signified the premium that would be
placed on ‘action’ over ‘planning.’”24 With an emphasis on current operations and
crisis management, special ad hoc bodies came into use. The outstanding example
of this was the Executive Committee (ExCom), formed in October 1962 during the
21 Robert R. Bowie and Richard H. Immerman, Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an
Enduring Cold War Strategy New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 258. Recent
support for the Eisenhower system is given in Fred I. Greenstein and Richard H. Immerman,
“Effective National Security Advising: Recovering the Eisenhower Legacy,” Political
Science Quarterly, Fall 2000; criticism is renewed in Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., “Effective
National Security Advising: A Most Dangerous Precedent,” Political Science Quarterly,
Fall 2000.
22 Thayer, “Presidential Policy Processes and ‘New Administration,’” p. 555.
23 Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), pp. 406-47; see especially pp. 412-13, 426, 430-32.
24 Kai Bird, The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy: Brothers in Arms
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), p. 186.

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Cuban Missile Crisis, which orchestrated the U.S. response to Soviet moves to
introduce missiles in Cuba.
Organizational Changes. Kennedy added the Director of the Office of
Emergency Planning to the NSC, replacing the Director of the Office of Civil and
Defense Mobilization. It was planned that the new appointee would fill the role
originally envisioned for the National Security Resources Board in coordinating
emergency management of resources.
The Planning Board and the Operations Control Board were both abolished (by
Executive Order 10920) in order to avoid the Eisenhower Administration’s
distinction between planning and operations. The NSC staff was reduced, and
outside policy experts were brought in. Bundy noted that they were all staff officers:
Their job is to help the President, not to supersede or supplement any of the high
officials who hold line responsibilities in the executive departments and
agencies. Their task is that of all staff officers: to extend the range and enlarge
the direct effectiveness of the man they serve. Heavy responsibilities for
operation, for coordination, and for diplomatic relations can be and are delegated
to the Department of State. Full use of all the powers of leadership can be and
is expected in other departments and agencies. There remains a crushing burden
of responsibility, and of sheer work, on the President himself; there remains also
the steady flow of questions, of ideas, of executive energy which a strong
President will give off like sparks. If his Cabinet officers are to be free to do
their own work, the President’s work must be done — to the extent that he
cannot do its himself — by staff officers under his direct oversight. But this is,
I repeat, something entirely different from the interposition of such a staff
between the President and his Cabinet officers.25
Evaluation. Some critics attacked the informality of the system under
Kennedy, arguing that it lacked form and direction, as well as coordination and
control, and that it emphasized current developments at the expense of planning. As
noted, Kennedy himself was disappointed by the State Department, on which he had
hoped to rely. In retrospect, Kennedy’s system was designed to serve his approach
to the presidency and depended upon the President’s active interest and continuous
involvement. Some critics, both at the time and subsequently, have suggested that
the informal methods that the Kennedy Administration adopted contributed to the
Bay of Pigs debacle and the confusion that surrounded U.S. policy in the coup against
President Diem of South Vietnam in 1963.
25 McGeorge Bundy to Henry M. Jackson, September 4, 1961, reprinted in Organizing for
National Security, I, 1338.

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The Johnson NSC, 1963-1969
President Lyndon Johnson’s sudden accession to power, the need for a show of
continuity, and pressures from the upcoming Presidential election all forced Johnson,
at least until 1965, to rely heavily on Kennedy’s system and personnel, especially as
Johnson was less familiar with national security than domestic affairs.
Organizational Changes. Johnson, like Truman, sought out advice from a
number of sources other than the NSC and its member departments, although he
relied heavily on the Secretaries of State and Defense, Dean Rusk and Robert
McNamara.
The institutional system that evolved under Johnson depended heavily on the
ability of the State Department to handle the planning and coordination process. This
system came about from a study headed by General Maxwell Taylor in 1966 that led
to National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 341 which concluded that it was
necessary to enhance the State Department’s role in the policy process and to
improve “country team expertise” in Washington, which was felt to be far below that
in the various embassies. NSAM 341 led to a new system of interagency committees.
The most important of these was the Senior Interdepartmental Group (SIG), whose
members were: the Under Secretary of State, Deputy Secretary of Defense,
Administrator of the Agency for International Development, DCI, JCS Chairman,
Director of the U.S. Information Agency, and the National Security Adviser. In
support of the SIG were a number of Interdepartmental Regional Groups (IRGs),
each headed by the appropriate Assistant Secretary of State.
Within the NSC itself, structure and membership remained what they had been
under Kennedy (with the Office of Emergency Planning changing title to the Office
of Emergency Preparedness in 1968), although the title Special Assistant to the
President for National Security Affairs was shortened to Special Assistant when Walt
W. Rostow replaced Bundy in 1966. This reflected the frequent diversion of the
occupant of this position away from NSC affairs to more general concerns.
Evaluation. Johnson’s NSC system barely existed as such. The role of the
NSC staff was more restricted, and budget and personnel both declined. Key
decisions, those especially regarding the war in Vietnam, were made during Tuesday
lunches attended by the President, the Secretaries of State and Defense, and a few
other invited officials.
Johnson’s informal system was not a wholly successful replacement for the
highly structured system developed in the Eisenhower Administration. The SIG/IRG
system fulfilled neither old functions nor the objectives set forth in NSAM 341.
Although this new structure was dominated by the State Department, there was little
enthusiasm for the system as a whole on the part of the department’s leadership. The
State Department did not provide decisive leadership and settled for a system of
consensus opinions. Vagueness as to authority in the SIG/IRG system reduced its
effect on the bureaucracies. Moreover, there was an insufficient allocation of
resources for staff support for the new organization. By 1969, the NSC existed
largely in name. Johnson conferred constantly with a wide number of advisers within

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CRS-15
and outside government; while he respected institutional responsibilities, his own
decisionmaking was an intensely personal process.
The Nixon NSC, 1969-1974
Experience in the Eisenhower Administration clearly had a formative effect on
President Richard Nixon’s approach to national security organization. Wanting to
switch White House priorities from current operations and crisis management to
long-range planning, Nixon revived the NSC. Nixon’s NSC staff structure resembled
Eisenhower’s, with an emphasis on examining policy choices and alternatives,
aiming for a number of clear options reaching the highest level, where they would be
treated systematically and then effectively implemented. Nixon made it clear that he
wanted distinct options presented to him from which he could choose, rather than
consensus opinions requiring only acceptance or rejection. Nixon used an NSC
framework similar to that set in place by Eisenhower but intended, as much as
Kennedy, to give the NSC staff a powerful policy role.
Organizational Changes. While adopting the basic form of the Eisenhower
NSC, Nixon streamlined its procedures.26 The position of Assistant for National
Security Affairs was revived, and Henry Kissinger, a Harvard professor and
occasional government adviser, was named to fill it. NSC meetings were limited to
the statutory members, with Kissinger and the JCS Chairman also sitting in and the
DCI attending for intelligence matters. In January 1973, the Office of Emergency
Preparedness was abolished along with the NSC seat that originally had belonged to
the Chairman of the National Security Resources Board.
Six interdepartmental groups, similar to Johnson’s IRGs, formed the NSC’s
support network, preparing basic studies and developing policy options. However,
the influence of the State Department was reduced, and Kissinger’s influence soon
predominated. Four major new bodies were created:
! Washington Special Action Group (WASAG): headed by Kissinger
and designed to handle contingency planning and crises.
! NSC Intelligence Committee: chaired by Kissinger and responsible
for providing guidance for national intelligence needs and
continuing evaluations of intelligence products.
! Defense Program Review Committee: chaired by Kissinger and
designed to achieve greater integration of defense and domestic
considerations in the allocation of natural resources. This committee
was intended to allow the President, through the NSC, to gain
greater control over the defense budget and its implications and
26 Much of the documentary basis of the Nixon NSC effort is provided in U.S., Department
of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Vol. II, Organization and
Management of U.S. Foreign Policy, 1969-1972 (Washington, DC: Government Printing
Office, 2006).

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policy requirements. As a result of opposition by Defense Secretary
Melvin Laird, its role was, however, significantly circumscribed.
! Senior Policy Review Group: chaired by Kissinger, this group
directed and reviewed policy studies and also served as a top level
deliberative body.
This system had two principal objectives: the retention of control at the top, and
the development of clear alternative choices for decisionmakers.
Evaluation. Most of the criticism of the Nixon NSC centered on the role
played by Kissinger. His position in a number of the key committees gave him
control over virtually the entire NSC apparatus, leading to charges that the system,
for all its efficiency, now suffered from overcentralization, and later from domination
by one man.
During Nixon’s first term, Kissinger competed with the State Department for
control of foreign policy, and soon overshadowed Secretary of State William Rogers.
Critics felt that Kissinger stifled dissent within the NSC and the rest of the national
security apparatus. Kissinger’s venture into “shuttle diplomacy” and the unique
circumstances of the Watergate scandal further emphasized his key role. Kissinger’s
accession to Rogers’ position in September 1973, while retaining his National
Security Council post, brought renewed criticism of his role. The direct involvement
of the NSC Adviser in diplomatic negotiations set a precedent that some observers
have criticized as undercutting the established responsibilities of the State
Department and as an attempt to orchestrate national security policy beyond the reach
of congressional oversight.
Kissinger’s predominance derived from his unique intellectual abilities, skill at
bureaucratic maneuvering, and the support of a President determined to act boldly in
international affairs without being restrained by bureaucratic or congressional
inhibitions. It was achieved at a time of profound political differences over foreign
policy in which Administration and congressional goals were, on occasion,
diametrically opposed. However, under President Nixon, the NSC was restored to
a central role in the policy process, acting as the major vehicle and conduit for the
formation of national security policy.
The Ford NSC, 1974-1977
President Gerald Ford, who inherited his predecessor’s NSC, took no major
steps to change the system per se, although Kissinger was replaced as National
Security Adviser by Air Force Lt. General Brent Scowcroft in November 1975. The
national security policy process continued to be dominated by Kissinger, who
retained his position as Secretary of State, an indication of the preeminence he had
achieved, as well as a reflection of Ford’s limited experience in the conduct of
foreign policy prior to his sudden accession.
In June 1975, the Commission on the Organization of the Government for the
Conduct of Foreign Policy, also known as the Murphy Commission, issued a report
on ways to more effectively formulate and implement foreign policy. Its

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recommendations dealt in part with the Executive Office of the President and the
NSC structure.27
Implicitly criticizing the expansive role of the NSC staff under Kissinger, the
Commission recommended that only the President should have line responsibility in
the White House; that staff officials should not themselves issue directives to
departmental officials; that, in the future, the National Security Adviser have no
other official responsibilities; that the Secretary of the Treasury be made a statutory
member of the NSC and that the NSC’s scope be expanded to include major
international economic policy issues; and that senior officials concerned with
domestic policy be invited to NSC meetings when issues with domestic implications
were discussed.
The Commission also considered general alternative structures and pointed out
their basic advantages and disadvantages. It also noted that,
Policymaking is not a branch of mechanics; however wisely designed or carefully
utilized, no machinery is adequate to assure its results. The selective use of
various mechanisms and forums in ways which fit the particular issues, positions,
and personalities involved is as much a part of the President’s responsibility as
is the necessity, finally, to decide the substantive issues.28
There were no immediate steps taken to implement the Report’s
recommendations.
Organizational Changes. In February 1976, President Ford issued Executive
Order 11905 reorganizing the intelligence community, in response to ongoing
investigations in that area. This order, among other things, reaffirmed the NSC’s
overall policy control over the foreign intelligence community. Some changes were
made in the NSC sub-structure, including the abolition of the NSC Intelligence
Committee. The so-called 40 Committee of the NSC, which was responsible for
covert operations and certain sensitive foreign intelligence operations, was replaced
by the Operations Advisory Group. This Executive Order also created the
Intelligence Oversight Board in the Executive Office (subsequently disbanded in
1993). It was composed of three civilians and was tasked with reviewing the
propriety and legality of the intelligence agencies’ operations. In December 1975,
Ford vetoed a bill that would have made the Secretary of the Treasury a statutory
member of the NSC, saying that the Treasury Secretary is invited to participate in
NSC affairs having significant economic and monetary implications, but that there
is no need to involve him in all NSC activities.29
27 Commission on the Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy,
Report (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1975).
28 Ibid., p. 37.
29 Veto of a Bill to Amend the National Security Act of 1947, January 1, 1976, Public
Papers of the Presidents: Gerald R. Ford 1976-1977 Vol. I (Washington: Government
Printing Office, 1979), p. 1-2.

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Evaluation. These changes did not detract from the central role that the NSC
had achieved under President Nixon. Kissinger’s loss of his dual position did not
seem to lessen his influence over the policy process, leading critics to charge that this
change was largely cosmetic. The new National Security Adviser, Brent Scowcroft,
had previously served as Kissinger’s deputy on the NSC staff, and was unlikely to
challenge Kissinger’s pre-eminence. The Ford NSC reflected the close relationship
between the President and the Secretary of State, a relationship that itself became a
source of controversy both in the Republican primaries of 1976 as well as the ensuing
general election. Critics continued to maintain that the Ford Administration
decisionmaking was secretive, impervious to congressional input, and out of touch
with public opinion.
The Carter NSC, 1977-198130
Under President Jimmy Carter, steps were taken to end the dominant role of the
NSC staff and make it a more coequal and cooperating partner with the Departments
of State and Defense. The NSC underwent a major reorganization in the new
Administration.
Organizational Changes. Upon taking office in January 1977, President Carter
issued a directive (PD-2) reorganizing the NSC staff. The avowed purpose of the
reorganization was “to place more responsibility in the departments and agencies
while insuring that the NSC, with my Assistant for National Security Affairs,
continues to integrate and facilitate foreign and defense policy decisions.”31
The number of NSC staff committees was reduced from seven to two, the Policy
Review Committee (PRC) and the Special Coordination Committee (SCC). The
functions of these two committees were as follows:
! Policy Review Committee: the PRC had responsibility for subjects
which “fall primarily within a given department but where the
subject also has important implications for other departments and
agencies.” Examples were “foreign policy issues that contain
significant military or other interagency aspects; defense policy
issues having international implications and the coordination of the
annual Defense budget with foreign policy objectives; the
preparation of a consolidated national intelligence budget and
resource allocation for the Intelligence Community...; and those
international economic issues pertinent to the U.S. foreign policy
30 For the Carter NSC, see Presidential Directive/NSC-1 and NSC-2, January 20, 1977;
Executive Order 12036, January 24, 1978; Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle:
Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977-1981 (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux,
1983).
31 Presidential Directive/NSC-2, January 20, 1977; see also Statement by White House Press
Secretary, January 22, 1977, Public Papers of the Presidents, Jimmy Carter, 1977, Vol. I
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1977), p. 8..

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and security....”32 Executive Order 12036 of January 24, 1978,
added responsibility for the establishment of national foreign
intelligence requirements and priorities, and periodic reviews and
evaluations of national foreign intelligence products.33 The Vice
President, the Secretaries of State and Defense, and the Assistant for
National Security Affairs were members of the PRC; the DCI and
the Chairman of the JCS also attended. The Secretary of the
Treasury, the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, and
other officials attended when pertinent topics were being considered.
Appropriate Cabinet officers chaired the PRC in accordance with
matters being considered; the DCI was chairman when the PRC
considered intelligence matters as specified in E.O. 12036. NSC
Interdepartmental Groups, which dealt with specific issues at the
direction of the President, were under the PRC.
! Special Coordination Committee: the SCC dealt with “specific,
cross-cutting issues requiring coordination in the development of
options and the implementation of Presidential decisions.” These
included “oversight of sensitive intelligence activities ... arms
control evaluation; ... and crisis management.”34 E.O. 12036 gave
the SCC responsibility for sensitive foreign intelligence collection
operations and counterintelligence.35 The SCC thus replaced
WASAG and the Operations Advisory Group. Unlike the PRC, the
SCC was chaired by the Assistant for National Security Affairs;
other members were the Vice President, the Secretaries of State and
Defense, and the DCI — or their deputies — and other officials
attended when appropriate. When intelligence “special activities”
were being considered, the members had to attend, as had the
Attorney General, the Chairman of the JCS, and the Director of the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB); for counterintelligence
activities, the Director of the FBI attended.36
The initial emphasis of the NSC’s role as a policy coordinator and “think tank”
represented a clear reversal of the trend that had developed under Presidents Nixon
and Ford. The staff of the NSC was reduced under the Carter Administration, and
National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski established a number of regional and
topical offices on the NSC staff that aimed at a more “collegial” approach to staff
procedures.
Although the PRC had a wider charter than the SCC, as a result of the growing
importance of crisis management functions and the increasing influence of the
32 Presidential Directive/NSC-2.
33 Executive Order 12036, January 24, 1978, Section 1-2.
34 Presidential Directive/NSC-2. January 20, 1977.
35 Executive Order 12036, January 24, 1978, Section 1-3.
36 Executive Order 12036, January 24, 1978, Sections 1-302 to 1-304 inclusive.

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National Security Adviser,37 initiative passed to the SCC and there were fewer PRC
meetings.
Evaluation. A rumored rivalry between Brzezinski and Secretary of State
Cyrus Vance was not publicly evident during the first year of the Carter
Administration, but reports of differences between the two men later increased
dramatically as senior Administration officials advised different responses to such
questions as Soviet and Cuban activities in Africa and the Iranian hostage question.
Towards the end of the Administration, differences between Vance and Brzezinski
became pronounced and were widely perceived as contributing to weak and
vacillating policies. Carter’s Director of Central Intelligence Stansfield Turner later
wrote:
National Security Advisers and Secretaries of State and Defense had clashed
before, notably under President Nixon when Henry Kissinger was the Adviser.
But because Nixon tended to follow Kissinger’s advice more often than not,
there was no stalemate, and foreign policy moved ahead in innovative ways.
However, Jimmy Carter vacillated between Brzezinski and Vance, and they often
canceled each other out.38
Vance, who had strongly opposed the ill-fated effort to rescue the U.S. hostages
in Iran, finally resigned and was succeeded by Senator Edmund Muskie in April
1980. Brzezinski’s outspokenness and his public role in policymaking became an
issue, and led to calls for Senate confirmation of NSC advisers and closer
congressional oversight of the NSC staff.39 There were also reports of infighting
between Carter loyalists on the NSC staff and those who had worked for Vice
President Walter Mondale, who had been given a major policy role.40
The Reagan NSC, 1981-1989
Campaigning for the presidency in 1980, Ronald Reagan criticized the divisions
of the Carter Administration and promised to restore Cabinet leadership (as, in the
1976 campaign, he had criticized Henry Kissinger’s predominant influence in the
Ford Administration). Substituting Cabinet leadership for an active NSC proved,
however, to be a significant challenge.
Organizational Changes. After extensive delays and bureaucratic infighting,
President Reagan signed a Presidential directive (NSDD-2),41 which enhanced the
role of the State Department in national security policymaking and downgraded that
37 See Christopher C. Shoemaker, The NSC Staff: Counseling the Council (Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 1991), pp. 51-57.
38 Stansfield Turner, Terrorism and Democracy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991), p. 58.
39 See National Security Adviser: Role and Accountability.
40 Brzezinski acknowledges but discounts the reports that Mondale had imposed certain staff
members on him; see Power and Principle, pp. 74-78.
41 Reprinted in Public Papers of the Presidents, Ronald Reagan, 1982, Vol. I (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1983), pp. 18-22.

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of the National Security Adviser. The various NSC sub-committees were to be
chaired by State, Defense, and CIA officials, not NSC staff. The Reagan NSC
included three Senior Interagency Groups (SIGs) — one for foreign policy, chaired
by the Deputy Secretary of State; one for defense, chaired by the Deputy Secretary
of Defense; and one for intelligence, chaired by the Director of Central Intelligence.
There were also regional and functional interagency groups, chaired by
representatives of various Cabinet departments. Crisis management formally became
the direct responsibility of the Vice President.42
This structure, however, had major limitations. Observers and participants
portray an absence of orderly decisionmaking and uncertain lines of responsibility.
As the Special Review Board (known as the Tower Board) appointed by the
President to assess the proper role of the NSC system in the wake of the Iran-Contra
revelations, pointedly noted:
A President must at the outset provide guidelines to the members of the National
Security Council, his National Security Adviser, and the National Security
Council staff. These guidelines, to be effective, must include how they will
relate to one another, what procedures will be followed, what the President
expects of them. If his advisors are not performing as he likes, only the President
can intervene.43
The Reagan Administration had a total of six National Security Advisers. Their
history is poignant. The first, Richard Allen, did not have direct access to the
President, but reported to him through Presidential Counselor Edwin Meese. Allen’s
tenure was brief; after accusations of influence peddling, he was replaced in January
1982 by Judge William Clark, a longtime Reagan associate who had served since the
beginning of the Administration as Deputy Secretary of State. Clark, in turn,
resigned in October 1983 to become Secretary of the Interior and his deputy, Robert
McFarlane, became National Security Adviser. McFarlane was replaced in January
1986 by his deputy, Vice Admiral John Poindexter, and subsequently pleaded guilty
to withholding information from Congress. Poindexter himself was relieved in the
context of the Iran-Contra scandal in November 1986, and eventually went on trial
for obstructing justice. An effort was made to restore NSC effectiveness under
former Ambassador Frank Carlucci, who succeeded Poindexter in December 1986.
When Carlucci was appointed Secretary of Defense, he was replaced by Army
General Colin Powell in November 1987.
Evaluation. Until the arrival of Carlucci, the Reagan NSC structure lacked a
strong, politically attuned National Security Adviser that had characterized
Administrations since 1961. It also lacked the administrative structure that existed
under Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, and Carter. The absence of either influential NSC
42 Public Papers of the Presidents, Ronald Reagan, 1981 (Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1982), p. 285.
43 U.S., President’s Special Review Board, Report of the President’s Special Review Board
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1987), pp. V-1-V-2. The Board consisted of
former Senator John Tower, former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie and former (and
future) National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft. It is often referred to as the Tower
Board.

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Advisers or effective administrative machinery has been seen by many critics as a
major factor contributing to the Iran-Contra misadventures. Allowing NSC
committees to be chaired by Cabinet officials tended to reduce the possibility that all
sides of a given issue would be laid before the full NSC or the President. The Tower
Board noted:
Most presidents have set up interagency committees at both a staff and policy
level to surface issues, develop options, and clarify choices. There has typically
been a struggle for the chairmanship of these groups between the National
Security Adviser and the NSC staff on the one hand, and the cabinet secretaries
and department officials on the other.
Our review of the operation of the present system and that of other
administrations where committee chairmen came from the Departments has led
us to the conclusion that the system generally operates better when the
committees are chaired by the individual with the greatest stake in making the
NSC system work.
We recommend that the National Security Adviser chair the senior-level
committees of the NSC system.44
The Reagan Administration, in its efforts to avoid the dominant influence
wielded by previous NSC Advisers, fell victim to perpetual bureaucratic intrigues.
The efforts of politically weak NSC Advisers, especially McFarlane and Poindexter,
to undertake White House initiatives covertly over the strong opposition of senior
Cabinet officials and congressional leaders called into question the basic competence
of the Administration.
Another aspect of the Reagan NSC that came under heavy criticism was the
involvement of NSC staff in covert actions. Although NSC staff efforts to manage
certain crises, such as the capture of the Achille Lauro hijackers, were successful, the
participation of NSC personnel, especially Lt. Col. Oliver North, in operations run
apart from the traditional intelligence apparatus, including efforts to gain the release
of American hostages and to supply Nicaraguan insurgents, has been widely
censured. Such efforts have been criticized as undercutting the agencies with
responsibilities for such operations and which are accountable to congressional
oversight committees; secondly, failing to take full advantage of the professional
expertise available to the Intelligence Community, and potentially involving the
country in misguided ventures. The Iran-Contra Committee recommended that “the
members and staff of the NSC not engage in covert actions.”45
44 Ibid., p. V-5.
45 U.S. Congress. Senate. Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the
Nicaraguan Opposition. House of Representatives. Select Committee to Investigate Covert
Arms Transactions with Iran. 100th Congress, 1st session. Report of the Congressional
Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair with Supplemental, Minority, and
Additional Views, S.Rept. 100-216/H.Rept. 100-433, November 1987, p. 425. The
Committee added that, “By statute the NSC was created to provide advice to the President
on national security matters. But there is no express statutory prohibition on the NSC
(continued...)

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Reagan’s final two NSC Advisers, Carlucci and Powell, brought a period of
greater stability to NSC operations and both eschewed participation in covert actions.
After Poindexter’s departure, Carlucci created a Senior Review Group that he himself
chaired and that was composed of statutory NSC members (besides the President and
Vice President). He also established a Policy Review Group that was chaired by his
deputy and composed of second-ranking officials of NSC agencies.
President Reagan’s own role in the details of national security policymaking
remains unclear. His policies on U.S.-Soviet relations, support for an aggressive
struggle against international communism, and the need for strong military forces,
including strategic defenses were well-known; such positions provided the overall
goals for Administration officials. It is generally acknowledged, however, that unlike
some of his predecessors, President Reagan did not himself engage in detailed
monitoring of policy implementation. Some maintain that his NSC structure and the
absence of strong NSC Advisers led directly to bureaucratic gridlock and ill-advised
involvement of the NSC staff in covert actions. Others have concluded that the
experience of the Reagan Administration demonstrates that a strong and efficient
National Security Adviser and staff has become essential to national security
policymaking, especially if the President himself does not provide detailed direction.
The absence of such an Adviser, it is argued, will undermine the development and
implementation of effective national security policies. Some subsequent historians,
however, give Reagan higher marks for overall national security policy even if his
NSC staff was often in flux.
The George H.W. Bush NSC, 1989-1993
The Bush Administration saw the return of Brent Scowcroft as National Security
Adviser. His tenure was marked by the absence of public confrontations with
Cabinet officers and a close working relationship with the President. National
Security Directive 1 (NSD-1) established three NSC sub-groups. The NSC
Principals Committee, was composed of the Secretaries of State and Defense, the
DCI, the Chairman of the JCS, the Chief of Staff to the President, and the National
Security Adviser, who was the chairman. The NSC Deputies Committee, chaired by
the Deputy National Security Adviser, was composed of second-ranking officials.
There were also a number of NSC Policy Coordinating Committees, chaired by
senior officials of the departments most directly concerned with NSC staff members
serving as executive secretaries.
The Bush NSC structure most closely resembled that of the Nixon and Ford
Administrations in providing for a National Security Adviser chairing most of the key
committees. The key differences lay in the personalities involved and the fact that
political divisions over foreign policy, while important, lacked some of the emotional
heat caused by controversies over Vietnam and Nicaragua. Secretary of State James
Baker was a powerful figure in the Administration and a longtime political associate
of the President; similarly, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney himself had White
House experience as chief of staff in the Ford Administration and served in a
45 (...continued)
engaging in operational intelligence activities.” Ibid.

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CRS-24
leadership post in the House of Representatives. On occasion, however, Bush did
formulate policy within a narrow circle of White House aides.46
Evaluation. Whether because of the personalities of NSC principals, the
structure of NSC committees or the determination among political opponents to
concentrate on the domestic economy, the Bush NSC did not come in for the heavy
criticisms that were levied against most of its predecessors. Most observers would
probably judge that the Bush Administration created a reasonably effective
policymaking machinery and avoided the mistakes of some of its predecessors.
Arguably, a standard NSC organization had been created. The Administration
successfully addressed most issues that resulted from the breakup of the Soviet Union
and the unification of Germany along with the conduct of Desert Storm.
The Clinton NSC, 1993-2001
President Clinton came into office with a determination to focus on domestic
issues. His Administration sought to emphasize connections between international
concerns and the domestic economy in such areas as trade, banking, and
environmental standards. Anthony Lake, who had resigned in protest from the NSC
Staff in the Nixon Administration and later served in the State Department in the
Carter Administration, was appointed National Security Adviser, and continued in
office until he resigned in March 1997. Lake’s deputy, Samuel R. Berger, succeeded
him, remaining until the end of the Clinton Administration.
With the end of the Cold War, it was widely acknowledged that there was a
need for closer integration of national security policy and international economic
policy. A major Clinton Administration initiative was the establishment of a
National Economic Council (NEC) to coordinate international economic policy
which, many observers believed, had usually received short shrift from NSC staffs
focused narrowly on diplomatic and security issues. The NEC, initially headed by
Robert Rubin who would subsequently become Treasury Secretary in 1995, was
charged with coordinating closely with the NSC. To facilitate coordination some
NEC staff were “double-hatted” as NSC officials. The close relationship has been
credited with enhancing policy coordination at senior White House levels, although,
according to some observers, the original promise was not realized as many aspects
of international economic and trade policies became parts of major political disputes
such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and most-favored-nation status
for China.47
Some observers would have preferred to include a stronger international
economic component within the NSC itself, but others have raised strong objections
46 See Robert G. Sutter, “American Policy Toward Beijing, 1989-1990: the Role of President
Bush and the White House Staff,” Journal of Northeast Asian Studies, Winter 1990.
47 The NEC was established by Executive Order 12835 on January 25, 1993; on the NEC
see Kenneth I. Jester and Simon Lazarus, Making Economic Policy: An Assessment of the
National Economic Council (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 1997) and I.M.
Destler, The National Economic Council: A Work in Progress (Washington: Institute for
International Economics, 1996).

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to such an approach on the grounds that national security policymaking, in significant
measure the province of diplomats and military officers, is not as closely related to
domestic political concerns as international economic policy. Proponents of the latter
view argue that economic issues inevitably involve concerns of various domestic
groups and the NSC is ill-suited to integrate them into its policymaking processes.
Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 2, Organization of the National Security
Council, issued on January 20, 1993, expanded the NSC to include, in addition to
statutory members and advisers, the Secretary of the Treasury, the U.S.
Representative to the United Nations, the Assistant to the President for Economic
Policy, and the Chief of Staff to the President. The Attorney General attended
relevant meetings including those that discuss covert actions. The National Security
Adviser determined the agenda of NSC meetings and ensured the preparation of
necessary papers.
The Clinton NSC continued the practice of designating the National Security
Adviser as chairman of the Principals Committee of Cabinet-level officers. At a
lower level, a Deputies Committee was chaired by the Deputy Assistant to the
President for National Security Affairs and included representatives of the key
Cabinet departments (as well as the Assistant to the Vice President for National
Security Affairs). The Deputies Committee was also responsible for day-to-day crisis
management.
In addition, provision was made for a system of Interagency Working Groups,
(IWG) some permanent, some ad hoc, to be established by the direction of the
Deputies Committee and chaired by representatives of the relevant departments, the
NEC or the NSC staff. The IWGs convened on a regular basis to review and
coordinate the implementation of Presidential decisions in their policy areas.
Evaluation. In general, the Clinton NSC did not see the internecine
bureaucratic warfare that had surfaced in earlier administrations. PDD 2 provided for
a strong NSC staff. Lake, in his writings on national security policymaking prior to
becoming National Security Adviser, reflected a keen appreciation of the
disadvantages of bureaucratic infighting. He subsequently recalled that when he
came into office, “My model for a national security adviser was that of the behind-
the-scenes consensus builder who helped present the communal views of senior
advisers to the President.” After some months, nonetheless, Lake
decided to change my approach. I would stay behind the scenes.... And I would
do my best always to try to achieve consensus and to make sure that my
colleagues’ views always had a fair hearing with the President. But I would be
less hesitant in voicing my own views when they differed from those of my
colleagues, even if it prevented consensus or put me more at odds with them —
whether on NATO enlargement, Bosnia, Haiti, or other issues.48
In 1999, the Clinton NSC staff played an important and influential role in
shaping policy regarding Kosovo. Carefully attuned to shifts in U.S. public opinion,
48 6 Nightmares (Boston: Little, Brown, 2000), pp. 131,131-132.

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Berger, who succeeded Lake as National Security Adviser in March 1997, reportedly
focused on the political dimension of policymaking and sought to avoid options that
might lead to paralyzing debate in this country or other NATO states. He is reported
to have helped the Administration steer a middle course between those who
recommended a ground campaign against Serbia and those more ready to
compromise with the Yugoslav leadership and, as a result, the Administration
maintained a strong sense of unity throughout the Kosovo campaign. One press
account suggested that “What may be Berger’s distinctive accomplishment is to have
put himself so preeminently at the center of decision-making while minimizing the
historic antagonisms between national security advisers and secretaries of state and
defense.”49
The George W. Bush NSC, 2001-Present
In February 2001, President George W. Bush issued National Security
Presidential Directive-1, “Organization of the National Security Council System.”
The NSPD indicated that the NSC system was to advise and assist the President and
“coordinate executive departments and agencies in the effective development and
implementation” of national security policies. Among the statutory and other officials
to be invited to attend NSC meetings, the Attorney General will be asked to attend
meeting pertaining to his responsibilities, both matters within the Justice
Department’s jurisdiction and those matters arising under the Attorney General’s
responsibilities in accordance with 28 USC 511 to give advice and opinion on
questions of law. The National Security Adviser was charged with determining the
agenda, ensuring necessary papers are prepared, and recording NSC actions and
presidential decisions.
As has been the custom, the Principals Committee of the NSC consists of
relevant department heads and relevant advisory officials, and is chaired by the
National Security Adviser. When economic issues are on the agenda, the National
Security Adviser and the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy are to work
in concert. The NSC Deputies Committees will be composed of deputy department
heads and advisory officials, and is chaired by the Deputy National Security Adviser.
Lower-level coordination is effected by Policy Coordinating Committees, which are
to be chaired by appointees of the Secretary of State, another Cabinet level official,
or the National Security Adviser.
Subsequent to 9/11, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (P.L.
108-458) abolished the position of Director of Central Intelligence and established
a new position of Director of National Intelligence (DNI) with enhanced authorities
over the entire Intelligence Community. The DNI replaced the DCI in NSC-level
deliberations.
Evaluation. Although there is little official documentation of the work of NSC
staff in the George W. Bush Administration, the roles of both National Security
Advisers, Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley, have not on the whole been high-
49 John F. Harris, “Berger’s Caution Has Shaped Role of U.S. In War,” Washington Post,
May 16, 1999, p. A24.

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profile ones. Media accounts reflect strong disagreements between Secretary of State
Colin Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, but few have suggested
that the National Security Adviser was dominating the decisionmaking process.
Overview of Current NSC Functions
Largely because of the major influence in policymaking exerted by Kissinger
and Brzezinski, the position of National Security Adviser has emerged as a central
one. Brzezinski was even accorded Cabinet status — the only National Security
Adviser to be thus designated.50 Some observers over the years have argued that the
position should be subject to Senate confirmation and that the National Security
Adviser should be available to testify before congressional committees as are
officials from other Government departments and agencies.51 Others argue that a
President is entitled to confidential advice from his immediate staff. They further
suggest that making the position subject to confirmation would create confusion in
the eyes of foreign observers as to which U.S. officials speak authoritatively on
national security policy. This latter argument is arguably undercut, however, by the
practice of recent National Security Advisers of appearing on television news
programs.
National Security Advisers have come from various professions; not all have
had extensive experience in foreign and defense policy. The report of the
Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair recommended that the National
Security Adviser not be an active military officer,52 although no rationale was given
for this recommendation.
A substantial number of NSC staff members over the years have been career
military or civil servants with backgrounds in foreign policy and defense issues. A
considerable number have been detailed to the NSC staff from various federal
agencies, which continue to pay their salaries. This practice has been occasionally
criticized as allowing the expansion of the White House staff beyond congressional
authorization; nonetheless, the practice has continued with annual reports of the
number of personnel involved being made to Appropriations Committees.
Beginning with the Kennedy Administration, a concerted effort was made to
bring outside experts into the NSC staff in order to inject fresh perspectives and new
ideas into the policymaking process. This effort has been continued to varying
50 “Cabinet status” is not recognized in law, but is a distinction conferred by the President.
See Ronald C. Moe, The President’s Cabinet, CRS Report No. 86-982GOV, November 6,
1986, p. 2.
51 There are differing views regarding linkage between Senatorial confirmation and an
obligation to testify before congressional committees; see, for instance, Zbigniew
Brzezinski, “NSC’s Midlife Crisis,” Foreign Policy, Winter 1987-1988, p. 95; also, the
Prepared Statement of Thomas M. Franck printed in The National Security Adviser: Role
and Accountability, pp. 40-41.
52 Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, p. 426.

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extents by successive Administrations. Henry Kissinger made a particular effort to
hire academic experts, although some would eventually resign and become bitter
critics. The Reagan NSC was occasionally criticized for filling NSC staff positions
with political activists. Most of the NSC staff positions in the George H.W. Bush
Administration were filled with Government officials. Anthony Lake, President
Clinton’s first National Security Adviser, argues that the NSC staff
should be made up of as many career officials as possible, with as much
carryover between administrations as can be managed. Its experts should be
good (but not necessarily gray) bureaucrats who know how to get things done
and how to fight for their views, and who are serving the national interest more
than the political interests of their President.
He cautioned that:
a political appointee whose main credential is work on national security issues
in political campaigns will have learned to think about national security issues
in a partisan context. The effect of his or her advice is likely to be to lengthen
the period of time during which a President, at the outset of a term, tries to make
policy on the basis of campaign rhetoric rather than international reality.53
NSC Executive and Congressional Liaison
The very composition of the NSC, its statutory members, and those who attend
meetings on occasion serve to identify those agencies and departments with which
the NSC has a regular working relationship. These are the Departments of State and
Defense (both the civilian and military staffs), the CIA, the Treasury Department, the
Council of Economic Advisers, and a number of other departments as needed. The
Director of National Intelligence, who is under the NSC, is responsible for
coordinating the nation’s foreign intelligence effort. His regular contacts include the
CIA, as well as the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the National Security Agency
(NSA), the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), and other
elements of the intelligence community. However, these groups are not represented
individually in the current NSC structure.
As part of the Executive Office of the President, the NSC does not have the
same regular relationship with Congress and its committees that the member
departments and agencies have. Most briefings on intelligence matters are
undertaken by the CIA and DIA or by the Director of National Intelligence; informa-
tion on diplomatic and military matters comes primarily from the Departments of
State and Defense. As noted above, the President’s Assistant for National Security
Affairs is not subject to confirmation by the Senate.
Over the years there have been a considerable number of congressional hearings
and reports relating to the NSC. However, many have had to do with topics peculiar
to a given period: wiretaps against NSC staff members allegedly ordered by Dr.
Kissinger, the unauthorized transfer of NSC documents to officials in the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, and Watergate. Annual hearings are held concerning the NSC budget, and
53 6 Nightmares, pp. 261-262.

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there have been occasional hearings concerning NSC organization and procedures.
Very few of these hearings and reports have served as briefings for Congress on
current issues which the NSC might have been considering. NSC appropriations are
handled by the Subcommittees on Financial Services and General Government of the
House and Senate Appropriations Committees.
As has been noted, Congress’s role in NSC matters and its relationship with the
NSC are limited. The Senate does not approve the appointment of the National
Security Adviser, although it does confirm statutory NSC members Congress does
have authority over the designation of those positions that are to have statutory NSC
membership, as well as budgetary authority over the NSC. In 2007, as part of the
Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (P.L. 110-140, section 932),
Congress added the Secretary of Energy to the NSC. However, Congress has little
direct say in matters of NSC organization, procedure, role, or influence, although a
number of hearings on these topics have been held.
The NSC is not a primary and regular source of national security information
for Congress. National security information is for the most part provided by those
departments and agencies that are represented on the NSC. The NSC, as a corporate
entity, rarely testifies before or briefs Congress on substantive questions, although
in some Administrations informal briefings have been provided.
The NSC is an organ devoted to the workings of the executive branch in the
broad area of national security. Its role is basically that of policy analysis and
coordination and, as such, it has been subject to limited oversight and legislative
control by Congress. Both in its staff organization and functioning, the NSC is
extremely responsive to the preferences and working methods of each President and
Administration. It would be difficult to design a uniform NSC structure that would
meet the requirements of chief executives who represent a wide range of
backgrounds, work styles, and policy agendas, although some observers believe that
the general pattern established in the final years of the Reagan Administration and
followed by successive Presidents is likely to endure. There is unlikely to be a desire
to drastically reduce the role of the NSC staff, and most observers suggest that
elevating the policymaking role of the National Security Adviser at the expense of
the Secretary of State leaves Presidents subject to strong criticism.
The NSC and International Economic Issues
The NSC has traditionally focused on foreign and defense policy issues. In the
aftermath of the end of the Cold War, many observers argue that the major national
security concerns of the United States may no longer be centered on traditional
diplomatic and military issues. They suggest, further, that international economic,
banking, environmental, and health issues, among others, will be increasingly
important to the country’s national security. These types of concerns, however, have
not been regularly part of the NSC’s primary areas of responsibility. The heads of

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federal agencies most directly concerned with such issues have not been members of
the NSC.54
In the 1970’s, Maxwell Taylor, who President Kennedy had appointed Chairman
of the JCS, argued that a National Policy Council should replace the NSC and
concern itself with broad areas of international and domestic policy.55 William
Hyland, an NSC official in the Reagan Administration, argued in 1980 that:
... a bad defect in the [NSC] system is that it does not have any way of addressing
international economic problems. The big economic agencies are Treasury, to
some extent OMB, the Council of Economic Advisers, Commerce, Labor, and
Agriculture. They are not in the NSC system, but obviously energy problems,
trade, and arms sales are foreign policy issues. Every Administration tries to
drag them in, usually by means of some kind of a subcommittee or a separate
committee. The committee eventually runs up against some other committee.
There is friction, and policies are made on a very ad hoc basis by the principal
cabinet officers.56
In early 1992, Professor Ernest May of Harvard University testified to the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence:
In the early 1980s, the greatest foreign threat was default by Mexico and Brazil.
That could have brought down the American banking system. Despite good CIA
analysis and energetic efforts by some NSC staffers, the question did not get on
the NSC agenda for more than two years. And then, the policy issues did not get
discussed. The agencies concerned with money and banking had no natural
connection with either the NSC or the intelligence community. We have no
reason to suppose that agencies concerned with the new [post Cold War] policy
issues will be any more receptive.57
In the George H.W. Bush Administration, there remained a strong conviction
that defense and foreign policy issues would remain vital and somewhat separate
from other interests and that the NSC was the proper forum for them to be addressed.
Before he became President Bush’s National Security Adviser, Brent Scowcroft
stated at a forum on national security policy organization:
First of all, if there is a consensus ... that the NSC net ought to be spread ever
wider, I am not a part of it. There are many things that the NSC system can do
54 There are other White House-level coordinative bodies, such as the Office of Management
and Budget, the Council of Economic Advisers, the Office of the United States Trade
Representative, and the Council on Environmental Quality, that do deal with such issues.
55 Maxwell D. Taylor, Precarious Security (New York: W.W. Norton, 1976), pp. 113-116.
56 Quoted in Lawrence J. Korb and Keith D. Hahn, eds., National Security Policy
Organization in Perspective (Washington: American Enterprise Institute, 1980), p. 11.
57 Ernest R. May, Statement for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, March 4, 1992;
see also May’s article, “Intelligence: Backing into the Future,” Foreign Affairs, Summer
1992, especially pp. 64-66.

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better, and it has enough on its plate now. I would not look toward its spreading
its net wider.58
As noted above, the Clinton Administration implemented its determination to
coordinate foreign and domestic economic policies more closely. The National
Economic Council, established by Executive Order 12835 on January 25, 1993, was
designed to “coordinate the economic policy-making process with respect to
domestic and international economic issues.” Close linkage with the NSC were to
be achieved by having the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy also sit on
the NSC, supplemented by assigning staff to support both councils. The goal was to
ensure that the economic dimensions of national security policy would be properly
weighed in the White House decision-making process. Observers consider that
cooperation between the NSC and the NEC was productive and contributed to the
enhancement of both national security and economic policymaking although one
senior NSC official has noted that efforts to deal with the 1997 Asian financial crisis
were initially coordinated by U.S. international economic policymakers with little
input from national security and foreign policy agencies.59
The Growing Importance of Law Enforcement Issues
The post-Cold War era has seen a much closer relationship between traditional
national security concerns with international issues that have a significant law
enforcement component such as terrorism and narcotics smuggling.60 The increasing
intermingling of national security and law enforcement issues could cause major
difficulties for the NSC staff and the National Security Adviser, who is not a law
enforcement official. The Justice Department will inevitably view with concern any
incursion into what is regarded as the Attorney General’s constitutional
responsibilities. The NSC also coordinates with the Office of Drug Control Policy,
whose responsibilities also encompass both law enforcement and foreign policy
considerations.
In dealing with international terrorism or narcotics production and transport
from foreign countries, however, diplomatic and national security issues are often
involved. Apprehending a terrorist group may require cooperation from a foreign
government that has its own interests and concerns. Narcotics production may be
entwined in the social and economic fabric of a foreign country to an extent that
precludes the country from providing the sort of cooperation that would be expected
from a major ally. During the Clinton Administration, the Attorney General’s
representatives have been included in NSC staff deliberations when law enforcement
concerns were involved. Nonetheless, observers note public disagreements between
Justice Department and State Department, for instance, regarding cooperation (or the
lack thereof) from Saudi Arabia or Yemen. Clearly, the President has constitutional
58 Quoted in Korb and Hahn, eds., National Security Policy Organization in Perspective, p.
34.
59 James Steinberg, “Foreign Policy: Time to Regroup,” Washington Post, January 2, 2001,
p. A15.
60 See CRS Report RL30252, Intelligence and Law Enforcement: Countering Transnational
Threats to the U.S., by Richard A. Best, Jr., December 3, 2001.

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responsibilities for both national security and law enforcement, but the status of any
other official to make necessary trade-offs is unclear. Observers suggest that in some
future cases, the need to establish a single U.S. position may require different ways
of integrating national security and law enforcement concerns.
Today’s international terrorist threat can encompass not only physical attacks
on U.S. physical structures such as the World Trade Center, but also cyber-attacks
on critical infrastructures, the computerized communications and data storage
systems on which U.S. society has become reliant. Because such systems are in most
cases owned and operated by corporations and other commercial entities, the role of
the NSC is necessarily constrained. Much depends on law enforcement, as well as
voluntary cooperation by the private sector. The Clinton Administration created the
position of National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and
Counterterrorism, who reported to the President through the National Security
Adviser.61 The Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, however, established the National
Counterterrorism Center outside the NSC structure.
In dealing with policies related to the protection of critical infrastructures, the
National Security Adviser will have an important role, but one inherently different
from the traditional responsibilities of the office.62 The position could involve in
coordination of responses to threats both in the United States and from abroad and
among the federal government, the states, and the private sector. It is clear to all
observers that such coordination involves much uncharted territory, including a
special concern that the National Security Adviser might become overly and
inappropriately involved in law enforcement matters.
The Role of the National Security Adviser
The NSC was created by statute, and its membership has been designated and
can be changed by statute. The NSC has also been subject to statutorily approved
reorganization processes within the executive branch, as when it was placed in the
Executive Office by a Reorganization Plan in August 1949. Nonetheless, the NSC
has been consistently regarded as a presidential entity with which Congress is rarely
involved. The internal organization and roles of the NSC have been changed by
Presidents and by National Security Advisers in response to their preferences and
these changes have not usually been subject to congressional scrutiny.
61 See CRS Report RL30153, Critical Infrastructures: Background and Early
Implementation of PDD-63, by Jack D. Moteff, updated September 12, 2000.
62 It has been noted that the original membership of the National Security Council included
officials responsible for mobilization planning, but those offices were subsequently merged
into others and are no longer represented on the NSC. The need for national mobilization
to sustain a global war effort is not considered a high priority in the post-Cold War world.
(See Carnes Lord, “NSC Reform in the Post-Cold War Era,” Orbis, Summer 2000, pp. 449-
500.) The inclusion of such officials did, nonetheless, reflect the determination of the
drafters of the National Security Act that the NSC have a wide mandate in protecting the
nation’s security interests and one that could extend into the private sector.

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The role of the National Security Adviser has, however, become so well
established in recent years that Congress has been increasingly prepared to grant the
incumbent significant statutory responsibilities. The Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act and other legislation provides for statutory roles for the National
Security Adviser.63 Executive Orders provide other formal responsibilities. The
position has become institutionalized and the exercise of its functions has remained
an integral part of the conduct of national security policy in all recent
administrations.
Some observers believe that these established duties which extend beyond the
offering of advice and counsel to the President will inevitably lead to a determination
to include the appointment of a National Security Adviser among those requiring the
advice and consent of the Senate. Advice and consent by the Senate is seen as
providing a role for the legislative branch in the appointment of one of the most
important officials in the federal government. Another cited advantage of this
proposal would be the increased order, regularity, and formalization that are involved
in making appointments that are sent to the Senate. Proponents argue that this would
ultimately provide greater accountability for NSC influence and decisions.
Opponents on the other hand, might point to the danger of unnecessary rigidity and
stratification of organization and the potential that appointments might be excessively
influenced by political considerations. There is also a potential that the NSC staff
might become irrelevant if it loses the trust of a future President or if its procedures
become so formalized as to stultify policymaking. Should the Adviser be subject to
Senate confirmation, it is argued that an important prerogative of the President to
choose his immediate staff would be compromised. In addition, the incumbent could
be required or expected to make routine appearances before congressional oversight
committees, arguably undermining the primary purpose of the National Security
Adviser which is to provide the President with candid advice on a wide range of
issues, often on an informal and confidential basis.
One historian has summed up the role of the National Security Adviser:
63 The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, as amended, requires that applications
for orders for electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes include a certification
regarding the need for such surveillance by the Assistant to the President for National
Security Affairs (or someone else designated by the President)(50 USC 1804 (a)(7)); a
similar requirement exists for applications for physical searches (50 USC 1823(a)(7)). The
Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs is also assigned as chairman of two
NSC committees — the Committee on Foreign Intelligence (50 USC 402(h)(2)(D)) and the
Committee on Transnational Threats (50 USC 402(i)(2)(E)). These assignments were made
as part of the FY1997 Intelligence Authorization Act (P.L. 104-293); in signing it, President
Clinton stated his concerns about the provisions relating to the establishment of the two
NSC committees: “Such efforts to dictate the President’s policy procedures unduly intrude
upon Executive prerogatives and responsibilities. (“Statement on Signing the Intelligence
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997,” October 11, 1996, Weekly Compilation of
Presidential Documents, October 14, 1996, p. 2039). Other legislation placed the National
Security Adviser on the President’s Council on Counter-Narcotics (21 USC 1708(b)(1)(O))
and the Director of National Drug Control policy is required to work in conjunction with the
Adviser “in any matter affecting national security interests.” (21 USC 1703(b)(10))

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The entire national security system must have confidence that the
[National Security Adviser] will present alternate views fairly and
will not take advantage of propinquity in the coordination of papers
and positions. He must be able to present bad news to the president
and to sniff out and squelch misbehavior before it becomes a problem.
He must be scrupulously honest in presenting presidential decisions
and in monitoring the implementation process. Perhaps most
important, he must impart the same sense of ethical behavior to the
Staff he leads.64
The increasing difficulties in separating national security issues from some law
enforcement and international economic concerns has led some observers to urge that the
lines separating various international staffs at the White House be erased and that a more
comprehensive policymaking entity be created. It is argued that such reforms could most
effectively be accomplished without legislation.65 Such proposals, however, raise complex
questions, including the role of congressional oversight. Whereas Congress has traditionally
deferred to White House leadership in national security matters, to a far greater extent than
in international economic affairs, there might be serious questions about taking formal steps
to place resolution of a wide range of international policies, including economic and law
enforcement issues, in the hands of officials who receive little congressional oversight.
Congress had little, if any, role in the evolution of the NSC staff and the emergence
of the National Security Adviser as a key figure in national security policymaking.
However, in recent years, Congress has given increasing recognition to the Adviser in
statutes. Thus far, however, Congress has not perceived the need for an effort to subject the
NSC staff to routine oversight or to require that the National Security Adviser be appointed
by and with the consent of the Senate. This approach might, however, change if the
responsibilities of the NSC staff change significantly. In the past, congressional observers
became most interested in requiring confirmation of National Security Advisers when
holders of the position were identified as principal policymakers of an Administration. It
is likely, in any event, that Congress will continue to monitor the functioning of the staff and
the Adviser in the context of U.S. policymaking in a changing international environment.
Selected Bibliography
The most comprehensive source concerning the genesis and development of the
NSC through 1960 is contained in a collection of hearings, studies, reports and
recommendations complied by Senator Henry M. Jackson and published as U.S.
Congress. Senate. Committee on Government Operations. Subcommittee on
National Policy Machinery. Organizing for National Security, 3 Vols. 86th and 87th
Congress. Washington, Government Printing Office. [1961]. Presidential memoirs
are also valuable.
Other useful sources are:
Anderson, Dillon. “The President and National Security.” Atlantic Monthly, January
1966.
64 Shoemaker, NSC Staff: Counseling the Council, p. 115.
65 See Steinberg, “Foreign Policy: Time to Regroup.”

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CRS-35
Bock, Joseph G. “The National Security Assistant and the White House Staff:
National Security Policy Decisionmaking and Domestic Political
Considerations, 1947-1984.” Presidential Studies Quarterly, Spring 1986. Pp.
258-279.
Bowie, Robert R. and Richard H. Immerman. Waging Peace: How Eisenhower
Shaped an Enduring Cold War Strategy. New York: Oxford University Press.
1998.
Brzezinski, Zbigniew. Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security
Adviser, 1977-1981. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux. 1983.
—— “The NSC’s Midlife Crisis”. Foreign Policy, Winter 1987-1988. Pp. 80-99.
Bock, Joseph G., and Clarke, Duncan L. “The National Security Assistant and the
White House Staff: National Security Policy Decisionmaking and Domestic
Political Considerations, 1947-1984.” Political Science Quarterly, Spring 1986.
Pp. 258-279.
Caraley, Demetrios. The Politics of Military Unification. New York: Columbia
University Press. [1966].
Clark, Keith C., and Laurence S. Legere, eds. “The President and the Management
of National Security”. Report for the Institute for Defense Analyses. New York:
Praeger. [1966]. See especially pp. 55-114.
Commission on the Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government.
National Security Organization. Washington: Government Printing Office.
[1949].
Commission on the Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign
Policy. Report. Washington: Government Printing Office. [1975].
Cutler, Robert. No Time for Rest. Boston: Little, Brown. 1966.

—— “The Development of the National Security Council”. Foreign Affairs, April
1956. Pp. 441-58.
Destler, I.M. “Can One Man Do?” Foreign Policy, Winter 1971-72. Pp. 28-40.
—— “National Security Advice to U.S. Presidents: Some Lessons from Thirty
Years.” World Politics, January 1977. Pp. 143-76.
—— Presidents, Bureaucrats and Foreign Policy: The Politics of Organization.
Princeton: Princeton University Press. [1972].
—— Lake, Anthony; and Gelb, Leslie H. Our Own Worst Enemy: The Unmaking
of American Foreign Policy. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1984.

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CRS-36
Falk, Stanley L., and Theodore W. Bauer. “The National Security Structure.”
Washington: Industrial College of the Armed Forces. [1972].
Greenstein, Fred I. and Richard H. Immerman. “Effective National Security
Advising: Recovering the Eisenhower Legacy.” Political Science Quarterly,
Fall 2000. Pp. 335-345.
Haig, Alexander M., Jr. Caveat: Realism, Reagan, and Foreign Policy. New York:
Macmillan. 1984.
Hammond, Paul Y. “The National Security Council as a Device for Interdepartmental
Coordination: An Interpretation and Appraisal”. American Political Science
Review, December 1960. Pp. 899-910.
Humphrey, David C. “NSC Meetings during the Johnson Presidency”. Diplomatic
History, Winter 1994. Pp. 29-45.
Hunter, Robert E. Organizing for National Security. Washington: Center for
Strategic and International Studies. 1988.
Inderfurth, Karl F. and Johnson, Loch K., eds. Decisions of the Highest Order:
Perspectives of the National Security Council. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole
Publishing Co. 1988.
Johnson, Robert H. “The National Security Council: The Relevance of its Past to its
Future”. Orbis, Fall 1969. Pp. 709-35.
Kissinger, Henry A. White House Years. Boston: Little, Brown. 1979.
—— Years of Renewal. New York: Simon & Schuster. 1999.
—— Years of Upheaval. Boston: Little, Brown. 1982.
Kolodziej, Edward A. “The National Security Council: Innovations and
Implications”. Public Administration Review. November/December 1969. Pp.
573-85.
Korb, Lawrence J. and Hahn, Keith D., eds. National Security Policy Organization
in Perspective. Washington: American Enterprise Institute. 1981.
Laird, Melvin R. Beyond the Tower Commission. Washington: American Enterprise
Institute. 1987.
Lake, Anthony. 6 Nightmares. Boston: Little, Brown. 2000.
—— Somoza Failing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1989.
Lay, James S., Jr. “National Security Council’s Role in the U.S. Security and Peace
Program”. World Affairs, Summer 1952. Pp. 33-63.

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Leacacos, John P. “Kissinger’s Apparat”. Foreign Policy, Winter 1971-72. Pp. 3-27.
Lord, Carnes. “NSC Reform for the Post-Cold War Era,” Orbis, Summer 2000. Pp.
433-450.
McFarlane, Robert C. “Effective Strategic Policy.” Foreign Affairs, Fall 1988. Pp.
33-48.
—— with Richard Saunders and Thomas C. Shull. “The National Security Council:
Organization for Policy Making.” Proceedings of the Center for the Study of
the Presidency. Vol. 5. 1984. Pp. 261-273.
—— Head, Richard G., and Frisco W. Short. Crisis Resolution, Presidential
Decision Making in the Mayaguez and Korean Confrontations. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press. 1978.
Menges, Constantine C. Inside the National Security Council: The True Story of the
Making and Unmaking of Reagan’s Foreign Policy. New York: Simon and
Schuster. 1988.
Mulcahy, Kevin V. and Crabb, Cecil V. “Presidential Management of National
Security Policy Making, 1947-1987”. In The Managerial Presidency, ed. by
James P. Pfiffner. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole. 1991. Pp. 250-264.
Nelson, Anna Kasten. “President Truman and the Evolution of the National Security
Council.” Journal of American History, September 1985. Pp. 360-378.
—— “The ‘Top of the Policy Hill’: President Eisenhower and the National Security
Council.” Diplomatic History, Fall 1983. Pp. 307-326.
Nixon, Richard M. U.S. Foreign Policy for the 1970’s: A New Strategy for Peace.
Washington: Government Printing Office. [1970].
—— U.S. Foreign Policy for the 1970’s: The Emerging Structure of Peace.
Washington: Government Printing Office. [1971].
—— U.S. Foreign Policy for the 1970’s: Building for Peace. Washington:
Government Printing Office. [1972].
Powell, Colin L. “The NSC System in the Last Two Years of the Reagan
Administration”. The Presidency in Transition. Ed. by James P. Pfiffner and
R. Gordon Hoxie. New York: Center for the Study of the Presidency, 1989. Pp.
204-218.
Prados, John. Keepers of the Keys: A History of the National Security Council from
Truman to Bush. New York: William Morrow. 1991.
Rothkopf, David. Running the World: the Inside Story of the National Security
Council and the Architects of American Power. New York: Public Affairs.
2004.

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CRS-38
Rostow, Walt Whitman. The Diffusion of Power: An Essay in Recent History. New
York: Macmillan. 1972.
Sander, Alfred D. “Truman and the National Security Council, 1945-1947”. Journal
of American History, September 1972. Pp. 369-388.
Schlesinger, Arthur, Jr. “Effective National Security Advising: A Most Dubious
Precedent.” Political Science Quarterly, Fall 2000. Pp. 347-351.
Shoemaker, Christopher C. The NSC Staff: Counseling the Council. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press. 1991.
Souers, Sidney W. “Policy Formulation for National Security”. American Political
Science Review, June 1949. Pp. 534-43.
Steiner, Barry H. “Policy Organization in American Security Affairs: An
Assessment”. Public Administration Review, July/August 1977. Pp. 357-67.
Thayer, Frederick C. “Presidential Policy Process and ‘New Administration’: A
Search for Revised Paradigms”. Public Administration Review,
September/October 1971. Pp. 552-61.
U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Government Operations. Subcommittee on
National Security and International Operations. The National Security Council:
New role and structure. 91st Congress, 1st session. Washington: Government
Printing Office. 1969.
—— Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan
Opposition. House of Representatives. Select Committee to Investigate Covert
Arms Transactions with Iran. 100th Congress, 1st session. Report of the
Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair with
Supplemental, Minority, and Additional Views, S.Rept. 100-216/H.Rept. 100-
433. Washington: Government Printing Office. 1987.
—— Committee on Government Operations. Subcommittee on National Security
and International Operations. The National Security Council: Comment by
Henry Kissinger. March 3, 1970. 91st Congress, 2d Session. Washington:
Government Printing Office. 1970.
U.S. Department of State. “The National Security System: Responsibilities of the
Department of State.” Department of State Bulletin, February 24, 1969. Pp.
163-66.
U.S. President’s Special Review Board. Report of the President’s Special Review
Board. Washington: Government Printing Office. 1987.
Yost, Charles W. “The Instruments of American Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs,
October 1971. Pp. 59-68.

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CRS-39
Zegart, Amy B. Flawed by Design: the Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999.
Note: Many of the above entries contain numerous footnotes that identify a wealth
of primary and secondary sources too numerous to include here. Of special interest
are the oral interviews of former NSC staff personnel conducted from 1998 to 2000
as part of the National Security Council Project undertaken by the Center for
International and Security Studies at Maryland and the Brookings Institution;
transcripts are available at [http://www.cissm.umd.edu/projects/nsc.php]. Also
useful is the transcript of “A Forum on the Role of the National Security Adviser,”
cosponsored by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the James
A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy of Rice University, available at
[http://wwics.si.edu/news/docs/nsa.pdf].

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Appendix. National Security Advisers, 1953-2001
Robert Cutler
March 23, 1953
April 2, 1955
Dillon Anderson
April 2, 1955
September 1, 1956
Robert Cutler
January 7, 1957
June 24, 1958
Gordon Gray
June 24, 1958
January 13, 1961
McGeorge Bundy
January 20, 1961
February 28, 1966
Walt W. Rostow
April 1, 1966
January 20, 1969
Henry A. Kissinger
January 20, 1969
November 3, 1975
Brent Scowcroft
November 3, 1975
January 20, 1977
Zbigniew Brzezinski
January 20, 1977
January 21, 1981
Richard V. Allen
January 21, 1981
January 4, 1982
William P. Clark
January 4, 1982
October 17, 1983
Robert C. McFarlane
October 17, 1983
December 4, 1985
John M. Poindexter
December 4, 1985
November 25, 1986
Frank C. Carlucci
December 2, 1986
November 23, 1987
Colin L. Powell
November 23, 1987
January 20, 1989
Brent Scowcroft
January 20, 1989
January 20, 1993
W. Anthony Lake
January 20, 1993
March 14, 1997
Samuel R. Berger
March 14, 1997
January 20, 2001
Condoleezza Rice
January 22, 2001
January 25, 2005
Stephen Hadley
January 26, 2005
Present

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