The National Security Council of the United States, 1947-1960

The National Security Act of 1947 and the Reorganization Plan of 1949 defined the composition and function of the National Security Council (NSC). Chaired by the President of the United States, the NSC consisted of statutory members (the Vice President and the secretaries of State and Defense), statutory advisers (the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency), the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, and professional staff members on temporary assignment from the armed forces, the Central Intelligence Agency, elsewhere in the government, or who had been recruited from universities and think tanks. The statutory function of the NSC was, and is, to advise the President with respect to the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to national security. Since 1947 the NSC has evolved as a key foreign policy making arm of the president under such advisers as McGeorge Bundy, Dr Henry Alfred Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. During the administrations of Harry S Truman and Dwight David Eisenhower, 1945-1953 and 1953 to 1961 respectively, the NSC met to analyse current and potential national security issues, and to formulate for the President Special Advisory reports. Special Advisory Reports were prepared by NSC staff to study specific national security issues or perceived threats to the security of the United States or to assess the domestic and political situation of individual nations. When completed, these reports were distributed to the entire National Security Council for study and comment, and were then were delivered to the President of the United States for action.