Establishing the Secretary’s Role

James Forrestal

Special Study 1

Jeffrey A. Larsen and Erin R. Mahan

Historical Office

Office of the Secretary of Defense

JUNE 2011
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 1

Cover Photo: James Forrestal sworn in as the first Secretary of Defense by Chief 

Justice Fred Vinson on September 17, 1947. Top ranking civilian and military 

officials witnessing the ceremony include: General Dwight D. Eisenhower, John L. 

Sullivan, Admiral Chester Nimitz, Senator Stuart Symington, Major General Alfred 

M. Gruenther, and Thomas J. Hargrave.

Source: U.S. Army photo. Truman Library, used with permission. 

Cover Design: OSD Graphics, Pentagon.
Establishing the Secretary’s Role

Establishing the Secretary’s Role:

James Forrestal
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Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 1
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Establishing the Secretary’s Role

James Forrestal

Published for the Historical Office

Office of the Secretary of Defense

by National Defense University Press

June 2011

Special Study 1

Jeffrey A. Larsen and Erin R. Mahan

Series Editors

Erin R. Mahan, Ph.D.

Chief Historian, Office of the Secretary of Defense

Jeffrey A. Larsen, Ph.D.

President, Larsen Consulting Group
iv

Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 1

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied 

within are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the 

views of the Department of Defense, the Historical Office of the Office of 

the Secretary of Defense, Larsen Consulting Group, or any other agency 

of the Federal Government. 

Cleared for public release; distribution unlimited.

Portions of this work may be quoted or reprinted without permission, 

provided that a standard source credit line is included. The Office of the 

Historian to the Secretary of Defense would appreciate a courtesy copy 

of reprints or reviews.
Establishing the Secretary’s Role

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Contents

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Background: The Limits of the U.S. Military 

in Foreign Policy Formulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

The Impact of World War II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

National Security Act of 1947 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Early Trials and Tribulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Developing a Concept of National Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
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Establishing the Secretary’s Role

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Foreword

Former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown recently quipped in 

an interview with the Historical Office of the Secretary of Defense 

that “in most Secretaries of Defense, there is a Secretary of State 

inside striving to break out.” That foreign policy consumes a 

large portion of the Secretary of Defense’s time is not surprising—

especially from the vantage point of the early 21st century. Without 

some notion of foreign threats and challenges, the Secretary and 

his staff would operate virtually in the dark when considering such 

crucial and contentious matters as the scale and scope of research 

and development for new weapons, the procurement of equipment 

and supplies, the allocation of resources among the Services, and 

the general size and readiness of the Armed Forces. Although the 

foreign affairs aspect of defense policy and management did not 

typically receive much public attention in the early decades of the 

Department of Defense, it has certainly become an omnipresent 

factor that cannot be ignored. Today more than ever, foreign affairs 

goes to the very essence of defense and military policy.

The Cold War inspired and influenced the growth and evolution 

of the Secretary of Defense’s role in foreign affairs. Occupying a 

position created by the National Security Act of 1947 to further 

unification of the military Services, the Secretary of Defense joined 

the President’s Cabinet at a time when the Soviet Union was 

becoming the overarching concern of American foreign policy. Cold 

War national security problems would remain paramount for the 

next four decades, dwarfing and subsuming nearly all international 

issues. For the Department of Defense, the superpower conflict 

had boundless consequences. Not only did it drive the growth of 

military budgets and the expansion of weapons acquisition projects, 

but it also provided the conceptual framework for the development 
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 1

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of military strategy and tactics, the cementing of friendships and 

alliances with other countries, and the extension of American 

military power on a global scale.

Yet to view the Secretary’s job as a product of Cold War politics 

alone is to overlook why Congress and the executive branch 

both pressed for creation of the position in the first place: to 

assume the managerial burdens that a large and unified defense 

establishment with postwar international obligations was expected 

to generate. And at the time, the types of threats that dominated 

U.S. thinking had less to do with the potential danger posed by 

Soviet communism than with avoiding a repetition of the recent 

experiences of the 1930s and World War II. Well before relations 

with the Soviet Union turned sour, it was clear that the United 

States was destined to take a larger and more active part in world 

affairs. It was to help the President cope with similar situations 

in the future that Congress gave him a deputy in the form of a 

Secretary of Defense to exercise unified “direction, authority, and 

control” over the Armed Services. 

While the dangers of Soviet communism have passed, threats 

posed by nuclear proliferation, international terrorism, ethnic and 

religious violence, environmental pollution, illegal drug trafficking, 

long-term low-intensity conflicts in Southwest Asia, and other 

problems over the horizon will continue to focus American 

attention on events abroad. The role of the Secretary of Defense in 

foreign affairs is unlikely to diminish in the years ahead and could 

very well increase in the face of a more varied array of dangers and 

threats from abroad. Historical analysis helps put these problems 

in perspective.

This first series of studies by the Historical Office of the Secretary of 

Defense emphasizes the Secretary’s role in the policy process—the 

interaction of individuals and institutions—and how the position 

evolved between 1947 and the early 1990s with the collapse of the 

Soviet Union. The study presented here is by no means meant to 
Establishing the Secretary’s Role

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be a comprehensive or detailed look at the Secretary’s involvement 

in foreign affairs. But as a member of the President’s cabinet and 

the National Security Council charged with managing the largest 

and most complex department in the government, the Secretary 

of Defense routinely participates in a variety of actions that affect 

the substance and conduct of American affairs abroad. More 

influential at some times than at others, the Secretary of Defense 

has consistently been a key figure among the President’s senior 

advisors. But the role and impact of the Secretary of Defense, 

unlike those of the Secretary of State, are little studied and less well 

understood. 

This series of special studies by the Historical Office begins an 

ongoing effort to highlight various aspects of the Secretary’s mission 

and achievements. We begin with a nine-part series on the role of 

the Secretary of Defense in U.S. foreign policymaking during the 

Cold War. This series began as a book manuscript initially written 

by Dr. Steven Rearden, author of The Formative Years, 1947–1950, 

in our Secretaries of Defense Historical Series. I wish to thank Dr. 

Jeffrey Larsen for his efforts in turning this previously unpublished 

manuscript into the first of a series of special studies on the Secretary 

of Defense. Thanks also to OSD Graphics for designing the cover 

and formatting the special studies series, and to the editorial team 

at National Defense University Press for their support.

We anticipate that future study series will cover issues surrounding 

weapons of mass destruction, the special relationship with the 

North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the economics of defense, 

and other topics. We invite you to peruse our other publications at 

<http://osdhistory.defense.gov>.

Erin R. Mahan

Chief Historian

Office of the Secretary of Defense
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Executive Summary

When James Forrestal became the first Secretary of Defense in 

September 1947, he had no staff, no organization chart, no manual 

of procedures, no funds, and no detailed plans. The only guidance 

he received regarding his role in U.S. foreign policymaking was 

phrased in generalities in the newly passed National Security Act 

of 1947. It would be up to Forrestal to set the precedents that 

successor Secretaries would follow. His interest in foreign policy 

and ensuring that the defense establishment had a say in that policy 

would set the course for decades to come. 

As a former Secretary of the Navy during a world war and a student 

of history, Forrestal realized that the American military’s role in 

foreign affairs had always been ambiguous. Despite a history of 

military separation from policymaking, the emergence of the United 

States as a world power toward the end of the 19th century brought 

pressure on the government to give the military a larger and more 

distinct voice in foreign affairs. By the end of World War II, there 

had emerged a policymaking environment substantially different 

from anything the United States had experienced before. The war 

had thrust the military into the forefront of the policy process, and 

the coming Cold War seemed destined to perpetuate the military’s 

influential role in American politics and foreign policy. 

Not everyone agreed, however, that this was necessarily a good 

development. Generalized fears of militarism inspired efforts to 

ensure civilian control over the U.S. defense establishment. The 

issue was the extent to which military leaders should be included 

and in what form of representation. This matter, as well as the 

question of Service unification, led to the compromises found in 

the National Security Act of 1947, creating the new position of 

Secretary of Defense overseeing the military departments. One of 
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the leading spokesmen for continued Service independence had 

been Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal. President Harry S. 

Truman may have tapped him to be the first Secretary of Defense 

to co-opt him into the compromise solution adopted into law. 

Forrestal was able to push his concept of a National Security 

Council (NSC) with the President, but the two of them did not 

agree on its need or purpose. 

Implementing the National Security Act would have been a 

challenge under any circumstances, but doing so at a time of a 

vast postwar demobilization, conversion to a peacetime economy, 

and increasing international tensions that accompanied the rise of 

a new Soviet threat made it even more difficult. Forrestal became 

more and more involved in foreign policy decisions during this 

period, despite a small staff. To provide a united position on U.S. 

political-military policy, he found it important to maintain close 

relations with the Secretary of State. A seemingly endless series 

of crises abroad, rising international tensions, and concern over a 

domino effect from Soviet expansionist tendencies all had one thing 

in common: the potential to involve the U.S. military at a time 

when its capabilities were stretched to the limit. This led Forrestal 

to focus on correcting two major problems: military readiness 

and the need for a comprehensive and systematic plan of national 

security that would bring foreign policy and military planning into 

closer harmony. Determined to establish a rational basis for the 

distribution of funds to the military services, he regarded the NSC 

as the proper place to make that determination. 

Forrestal viewed himself not merely as another executive department 

head, but rather as a coordinator with government-wide interests 

and responsibilities. He took seriously the charge he received from 

the President to serve as his principal national security advisor. As 

the first Secretary of Defense, he established procedures still in 

use today, and he championed the establishment of an integrated 

national security strategy reflecting both foreign and defense 

policy. The President, however, did not agree with Forrestal’s view 
Establishing the Secretary’s Role

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of the NSC as a “super-cabinet.” Truman wanted a Secretary who 

would enforce discipline among the Services, operate the Pentagon 

as efficiently as possible, and not wander too far into other arenas, 

including foreign policy, which he considered a secondary function 

of the job. Although he respected Forrestal’s ability, Truman was 

openly at odds with him over key issues such as the running of the 

NSC, military spending, custody and control of atomic weapons, 

and policy toward Palestine and China. The more they disagreed, 

the more apparent it became that Forrestal’s departure was only a 

matter of time. Forrestal resigned in March 1949. 
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Establishing the Secretary’s Role

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hortly after being named the country’s first Secretary of 

Defense on September 17, 1947, James Forrestal confided 

his doubts and misgivings to his friend Robert Sherwood. “This 

office,” Forrestal said, “will probably be the greatest cemetery for 

dead cats in history.”1

 He was referring mainly to the enormous 

administrative chores he was likely to face, ones larger and 

more complex than those confronting any other member of the 

President’s cabinet. But he also had in mind the burden of global 

responsibilities that would inevitably accompany the position. 

Chief among these would be advising the President on providing 

the necessary military support for the nation’s foreign policy. With 

troubles threatening in Italy, the Middle East, Korea, and Central 

Europe, and with relations between Washington and Moscow 

deteriorating, the job confronting Forrestal took on an added sense 

of urgency. Foreign affairs, though perhaps not a specific part of his 

duties, would indeed loom large during Forrestal’s tenure and for 

every Secretary of Defense thereafter.

When Forrestal became the first Secretary of Defense, he had no 

staff, no organization chart, no manual of procedures, no funds, 

and no detailed plans. Though he expected—indeed, intended—to 

take an active part in foreign policy, the only guidance on what 

his role might be was his own intuition and the recently passed 

National Security Act, which stated nothing, general or specific, 

about the role of the Secretary of Defense in foreign policy. It 

would take time and experience to clarify his responsibilities in this 

as in other areas of his new job. Although Forrestal would see some 

of his expectations fulfilled, he would experience no small number 

of surprises as well.2

S
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Background: The Limits of the U.S. Military 

in Foreign Policy Formulation 

One of the main problems Forrestal faced—a problem he knew 

well from his service as Secretary of the Navy—was that throughout 

American history, the military’s role in foreign affairs had always been 

somewhat ambiguous. For the first century or so of the country’s 

existence, because of the Founding Fathers’ concern to exercise 

close civilian control, the military rarely involved itself in matters 

of foreign policy except in wartime or when directed to do so by 

the President. The emergence of the United States as a world power 

toward the end of the 19th century brought with it pressures to give 

the military a larger and more distinct voice in foreign affairs. Much 

of the impetus for doing so came from imperialists who considered 

military power the key to America’s future in a world increasingly 

dominated by competing empires. Serving as Assistant Secretary 

of the Navy in 1897, Theodore Roosevelt declared, “Diplomacy 

is utterly useless where there is no force behind it; the diplomat is 

the servant, not the master of the soldier.”3

 During the war against 

Spain a year later, imperialism triumphed and left the United States 

in possession of a far-flung empire, stretching from Puerto Rico in 

the Caribbean to the Philippines in the Western Pacific. America’s 

emerging status as an industrial power at the turn of the century 

meant that the United States was a force to be reckoned with in 

international politics. With proliferating interests overseas and 

colonies to defend, something had to be done to bring policymaking 

and military planning into closer harmony. The initial step in this 

direction was the creation in 1903 of the Joint Army and Navy 

Board, the first interservice strategic planning body in U.S. history. 

Its chairman and dominant influence until his death in 1917 was 

Admiral of the Navy George Dewey, hero of the battle of Manila 

Bay during the Spanish-American War. Under Dewey’s oversight, 

the board generated a series of color-coded contingency war plans.4
Establishing the Secretary’s Role

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The Joint Army and Navy Board never lived up to the expectations of 

some of its more ardent supporters that it would provide integrated 

strategy and policy. During Woodrow Wilson’s presidency, 

sentiment in the White House and Department of State was often 

antimilitary to the point of disregarding the Joint Board almost 

entirely. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, a near-pacifist, 

roundly condemned any military involvement whatsoever in 

foreign policy, declaring at one point during a flare-up of tensions 

with Japan that “army and navy officers could not be trusted to 

say what we should or should not do till we actually get into 

war.”5

 Although President Wilson never went quite so far, he was 

uncomfortable dealing with the military and kept foreign policy 

under exceedingly close personal control, sometimes even typing 

crucial correspondence himself so as to preserve confidentiality. 

U.S. intervention in World War I required that the Armed Forces 

take on added responsibilities, especially in coordinating the war 

effort with the British and French allies. But with the return of 

peace and the swift demobilization, the military reverted to its 

accustomed role.6

 

The interwar years saw little change in this situation until external 

events again applied the necessary stimulus. By the 1930s, it was 

clear that with the world political situation deteriorating, the 

United States might soon find its relative isolationism untenable 

and have to become more directly involved in world affairs. The 

passage by Congress of the Neutrality Acts notwithstanding, 

President Franklin D. Roosevelt gradually distanced himself from 

America’s traditional policy of noninvolvement and moved steadily 

closer to a stance of collective security aimed at containing German 

and Japanese aggression. This in turn revived interest in the need 

for closer coordination of strategy and policy and led in 1938 to the 

creation of the Standing Liaison Committee, composed of the Under 

Secretary of State, the Chief of Staff of the Army, and the Chief of 

Naval Operations. However, the committee met irregularly, had no 

support staff, and confined its activities mostly to the exchange of 

information, not the development of recommendations. Although 
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useful to a point, the Standing Liaison Committee fell well short of 

being able to provide the coordination of policy and strategy that 

would soon be required. But it offered a portent of the type of 

institutional mechanism that would provide for military insertion 

into foreign policy decisionmaking.7

The Impact of World War II

Pearl Harbor dramatically underscored the lack of American 

preparedness. Not only did it point up America’s vulnerability to 

surprise attack, it also exposed serious flaws in the military command 

and control network and in intelligence-gathering and analysis. 

As part of his response to the emergency, President Roosevelt in 

January 1942 replaced the Joint Board with a stronger body of 

senior Service officers, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), to oversee 

the planning of strategy on a unified basis, to provide liaison with 

the British, and to act as his principal wartime military advisory 

council. In addition, as a “supporting agency” for the Joint Chiefs, 

Roosevelt authorized creation of the Office of Strategic Services 

(OSS), a broad-based intelligence organization that would go on 

to prove remarkably successful at combining political research and 

analysis with propaganda, subversion, and commando operations.8

Throughout the conflict, Roosevelt’s priority of defeating the Axis 

meant that for the most part, wartime strategy and foreign policy 

were nearly one and the same. While the Department of State marked 

time until the end of the war, when presumably its authority and 

influence would return, Roosevelt and the JCS huddled together, 

mapping out strategy that would affect not only the course of 

the war but also the peace to follow. War aims were confined to a 

generalized statement of principles in the 1941 Atlantic Charter and 

the avowed objective, agreed to at the 1943 Casablanca Conference, 

of settling for nothing less than “unconditional surrender.” Hoping 

to avoid a repetition of President Wilson’s unfortunate experience 

with the Fourteen Points, Roosevelt refused to make promises of a 

peace settlement that he later might not be able to keep.9
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The prosecution of war and necessary coordination with allies also 

exposed the armed Services to an intensive education in the realities 

of international politics. In contrast to their British counterparts, 

whose involvement in administering the empire had honed their 

political instincts, U.S. military officers had scant experience in 

foreign policy. With little or no formal training in international 

affairs, career professionals learned much of what they knew from 

earlier tours of duty overseas. Intent on prosecuting the war, they 

found it frustrating and counterproductive when U.S. allies did 

not seem to have the same goals, or when they appeared more 

interested in what the Americans considered diversions—hence, the 

rude awakening that General Dwight D. Eisenhower had in North 

Africa in having to negotiate with rival French factions, and the 

continuous sense of futility that dogged General Joseph Stilwell’s 

efforts in China in trying to persuade Chiang Kai-shek and the 

Nationalists to become more active in the war against Japan.10

Larger problems lay over the horizon. The most significant were 

those connected with the development of a coalition strategy that 

needed Soviet as well as British agreement, and the formulation, 

however tentative, of postwar occupation plans for the defeated 

Axis. In preparation for the latter, the Allies late in 1943 authorized 

the creation of a European Advisory Commission (EAC), 

headquartered in London. The U.S. delegate, Ambassador John 

Winant, naturally looked to Washington for instructions, although 

it was not until November 1944 that his superiors established 

an organization, the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee 

(SWNCC), to provide the guidance he needed. With a permanent 

support staff and working subcommittees, SWNCC was the closest 

entity yet to a truly interdepartmental policy planning body. 

Considered a major step forward by all involved, SWNCC served a 

dual purpose—not only did it recognize the military’s involvement 

in foreign affairs, but it also gave the Department of State access to 

military planners, especially the Joint Chiefs.11
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SWNCC’s early activities, however, produced mixed results. The 

committee’s most important initial task, which was to draft a 

directive for the occupation of Germany, was promptly taken over 

by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., who used his 

friendship with the President to lobby for harsher postwar treatment 

of the Germans than either the State or War Departments seemed 

inclined to mete out. But as the war neared an end, Roosevelt began 

looking again to State for advice and recommendations. By the 

time of the Yalta Conference in February 1945, State had recouped 

much of the influence it had lost to Treasury on German policy. But 

on April 12, 1945, Roosevelt died, taking with him whatever ideas 

he may have had for a peace settlement and throwing policymaking 

once more into question.12

It was left to Roosevelt’s successor, Harry S. Truman, to bring the 

war to a successful military conclusion. And since Germany and 

Japan were both slated for military occupation, it followed that the 

authorities in the Pentagon would be involved in foreign affairs to 

one degree or another for some time to come. Yet as World War 

II drew to a close, not everyone agreed that this was a proper or 

desirable course for the country to follow. Many, including President 

Truman, looked askance at what they saw as a looming threat of 

militarism and went to considerable lengths in the immediate 

postwar period to assure and safeguard civilian control in two 

important areas: unification of the armed Services and control 

of atomic energy. But as a practical matter, there was no longer 

any question of excluding military spokesmen from policymaking 

and foreign affairs. The issue was instead how far they should be 

included, and in what form of representation. A more than vague 

notion that the Armed Forces were influential in foreign affairs was 

evident. But which institutions, policies, and practices would be 

needed to support that involvement was far from self-evident.13
Establishing the Secretary’s Role

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National Security Act of 1947

After World War II, the ongoing debate over the military’s role in 

foreign policy became inextricably entangled with the question of 

Service unification. Although the war had repeatedly demonstrated 

the need for and value of unified direction and civilian control 

of the armed Services, it left them divided over how these lessons 

ought to be applied. Indicative of the prevailing uncertainty was 

the ensuing postwar controversy over Service unification, which, 

by and large, revolved around the relative merits of two competing 

plans. The first, developed by the War Department, advocated 

a single Secretary of Defense presiding over a closely centralized 

defense establishment modeled on the Army’s general staff 

structure. The other, a Navy plan, stressed increased coordination 

in policy and planning, while leaving the military departments 

largely autonomous. The resulting compromise, enshrined in 

the National Security Act of 1947, incorporated distinct features 

from both plans but essentially established a confederation of the 

services, known as the National Military Establishment (NME), 

which drew more inspiration from the Navy’s model than from 

the Army’s.14

The leading spokesman for the Navy view was its civilian Secretary, 

James Forrestal. A successful Wall Street investment banker in 

private life, Forrestal came to Washington in 1940 to help President 

Roosevelt in the prewar mobilization effort. From that point on, he 

dedicated his life and career to public service, with a passion for 

national security affairs. His main objection to the War Department 

plan was that it made insufficient allowance for preserving the Navy 

Department’s unique assets and proven contributions to national 

security. In particular, he thought it would threaten the continued 

independent operation of both naval aviation and the Marine Corps. 

He was also deeply distressed that it did not fully address what 

he saw as other urgent problems arising from the often haphazard 

management of resources in World War II and the absence of 

any top-level mechanism for politico-military coordination and 
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policymaking. With the United States increasingly involved in 

international affairs, Forrestal deemed it imperative that there be 

“a mechanism within the Government which will guarantee that 

this Nation shall be able to act as a unit in terms of its diplomacy, 

its military policy, its uses of scientific knowledge, and, finally, of 

course, in its moral and political leadership in the world.”15

In October 1945, with the Army’s proposals already on the table, 

Forrestal gave Congress an alternative plan for reorganizing 

the Armed Forces. Broader in scope than anything the War 

Department had put forth, the plan Forrestal endorsed drew heavily 

on the findings of a special Navy-sponsored study group headed 

by Ferdinand Eberstadt, a former business partner, Princeton 

classmate, and friend of Forrestal’s. Under the concept Forrestal 

recommended, unification took second place to the need for a 

general tightening of government-wide coordination for national 

security on a more permanent and far-reaching basis than anything 

yet tried. The military departments would remain separately 

administered entities, but they would concert their efforts through 

an array of interservice and interagency boards and committees. 

Sitting atop this structure would be the National Security Council 

(NSC), composed of the President as ex officio chairman along 

with the government’s most senior executive officials, acting as 

a kind of board of directors to provide overall policy guidance. 

By way of comparison, Forrestal frequently likened the NSC’s 

role to that of the British Government’s Committee on Imperial 

Defence. As Forrestal described it, the NSC would provide “formal 

organizational ties between the Department of State and the military 

departments,” and, at the same time, become the mechanism 

for “new and appropriate organizational forms fostering other 

relationships . . . vital to the preservation of our national security.”16

Critics, including members of Truman’s White House staff and 

analysts in the Bureau of the Budget, saw numerous flaws in this 

arrangement. Two complaints they voiced were that it would 

give the military an inordinately strong voice in policy, and that 
Establishing the Secretary’s Role

9

it could lead to a usurpation of presidential power and authority. 

What Forrestal wanted, they contended, was a British-style cabinet 

government, in which policymaking would be the responsibility of 

a handful of senior officials making up the NSC. Reactions from 

the Department of State were similar. Indeed, as Secretary of State 

George C. Marshall saw it, the proposed NSC would “dissipate 

the constitutional responsibility of the president for the conduct 

of foreign affairs” and “inaugurate a critical departure from the 

traditional method of formulating and conducting foreign policy.” 

Unlike the Navy’s proposals, the War Department’s unification 

scheme made no mention of institutionalizing a military presence 

in foreign affairs and was therefore generally preferred by the 

Department of State.18

Despite reservations, Truman eventually accepted the need for 

an NSC, perhaps to make Service unification more palatable to 

the Navy. Going a step further to win that Service’s support, he 

also named Forrestal Secretary of Defense when Congress in July 

1947 completed work on the National Security Act. Even so, 

Truman chose Forrestal only because his first choice—Secretary 

of War Robert Patterson, who strongly supported unification—

turned down the job, electing instead to return to private life. 

While Truman endorsed the general idea of the NSC, he withheld 

judgment on how much he would actually use the council or 

participate in its deliberations.19

Thus, despite a genuinely sincere effort by both men to reconcile 

their differences, Truman and Forrestal remained basically at odds 

over the NSC. Given the President’s attitude, Forrestal assumed 

that if the NSC were to function at all, it would have to function 

as part of the National Military Establishment and be physically 

located in the Pentagon. Truman, however, sided with his White 

House counsel Clark Clifford and others on his staff who thought 

the NSC should be entirely separate from the defense establishment 

and under the White House.20
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For executive secretary of the NSC, Forrestal persuaded Truman to 

appoint Sidney W. Souers, a St. Louis businessman who held the 

rank of admiral in the Naval Reserve. Souers had been on Forrestal’s 

intelligence staff in World War II; after, he served briefly as director 

of the Central Intelligence Group, the immediate forerunner of the 

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Forrestal likened the executive 

secretary’s role to that of a “buckle,” forming a link between the 

military and civilian policymakers, probably with the expectation 

that Souers, because of his previous associations, would gravitate 

toward the military point of view. It did not turn out that way. 

Instead, Souers, who was Truman’s confidant, made it clear from 

the beginning that he would act as liaison between the NSC and 

the President. Souers viewed his responsibilities as briefing the 

President on a daily basis, reviewing intelligence, and presenting 

policy options of the executive departments. While subsequent 

special assistants for NSC affairs would not be nearly so reticent 

about offering advice, all would agree that their primary role was as 

intermediary for the President.21

Although Forrestal had to accede to the President’s wishes on the 

operation of the NSC, he did so reluctantly and with a premonition 

of future friction. “It is apparent,” he recorded in his diary as the 

National Security Act was about to take effect, 

that there is going to be a difference between the [Bureau of 

the] Budget, some of the White House staff and ourselves on 

the National Security Council—its functions, its relationship 

to the President and myself. I regard it as an integral part of 

the national defense setup and believe it was so intended by 

the Congress.22 

Debate over the NSC to some extent clouded a larger and more 

fundamental issue: the role of the Secretary of Defense in national 

security matters and foreign policy. Although Congress in framing 

the National Security Act devoted considerable time and attention 

to discussing and defining the Secretary’s duties, its main concern 
Establishing the Secretary’s Role

11

throughout the debate was the Secretary’s power and authority over 

the military in such areas as budgeting and eliminating waste and 

unnecessary duplication of effort in research and development, 

procurement, logistics, and other functions. Everything else 

Congress captured under a catch-all provision, Section 202(a), 

that made the Secretary of Defense “the principal assistant to the 

President in all matters relating to the national security.”23 Exactly 

where this language came from is unclear, but it obviously reflected 

Forrestal’s belief—an outgrowth of his opposition to unification—

that executive-level coordination, rather than management and 

direction of the military, should be the Secretary’s first concern and 

the new law’s central purpose. 

Extending this line of thinking a step further, Forrestal hoped 

that his main duties as Secretary of Defense would revolve around 

running the NSC and its associated bodies and coordinating 

the development of high-level policy, leaving day-to-day defense 

administrative matters to the Service secretaries. Yet as Forrestal’s 

chief biographers note in this regard, it was not long after the act 

took effect before he began to realize that he had made “a central 

and costly misjudgment.”24 Not only did it prove impossible for 

Forrestal to divorce himself from the details of running the defense 

establishment, but he also found Truman resolutely opposed to any 

bureaucratic changes that might impinge on the chief executive’s 

constitutionally mandated responsibilities for policymaking.

Early Trials and Tribulations

Implementing the National Security Act would have been an 

imposing task even in the best of circumstances. That it fell to 

Forrestal at a time of exceedingly unsettled conditions, both at 

home and abroad, made his job that much more difficult. The 

great demobilization of the Armed Forces that had fought and won 

World War II was officially over by 1947, but the problems the 

military faced of readjusting to peacetime were just beginning. In 

addressing the needs of reconversion, President Truman set three 
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 1

12

priority tasks: to stem inflation, to balance the federal budget, and 

to reduce the public debt, which had been swollen by wartime 

expenditures and borrowing.25 Although defense expenditures 

remained relatively high by prewar standards, it was clear that the 

almost free access to and control over resources that the military had 

enjoyed during the war were things of the past. With money again 

becoming tight, Forrestal faced the difficult problem of having 

to decide how and where to allocate limited funds for maximum 

effectiveness. Moreover, with less money available, Forrestal also 

had to contend with growing friction and competition among 

the Services as they endeavored to stake out claims to roles and 

missions that would legitimize their importance and thereby help 

to protect their budget shares. Adjudicating these rival claims 

would be, as it turned out, one of the new Secretary’s most trying 

and least rewarding tasks.26

Coinciding with the readjustment to peacetime was an almost 

steady increase, from 1945 on, in diplomatic tensions between 

Washington and Moscow. As reaching agreements and settling 

problems with the Soviet Union became ever more difficult, Truman 

and most of his senior advisors grew skeptical of Soviet intentions. 

With memories of the interwar years still fresh, they feared that 

they might be seeing a repetition of the expansionism recently 

practiced by Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and imperial Japan. In 

these circumstances, it was becoming apparent that a toughening 

of policy aimed at demonstrating that the United States had no 

intention of resorting to the ill-fated appeasement of the 1930s was 

only a matter of time.27

That demonstration came amid the crisis precipitated in February 

1947 by Britain’s announcement that it could no longer afford to 

support Greece or Turkey against Soviet-directed politico-military 

pressures. The ensuing 4 months witnessed a veritable revolution 

in U.S. foreign policy, starting with Truman’s plea to Congress in 

March for the Greek-Turkish aid program, and culminating in 

June with Secretary of State George Marshall’s offer, in his Harvard 
Establishing the Secretary’s Role

13

commencement speech, of large-scale assistance to help Europe 

out of its economic ruin and political turmoil. Taken together, 

these initiatives—the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan—

established the cornerstones for the doctrine of containment, the 

basic strategy behind American policy and attitudes toward the 

Soviet Union for the next four decades.28

Among the President’s advisors, Forrestal had the reputation 

of being one of the most strident critics of Soviet behavior and 

one of the most persistent in urging Truman to adopt a tougher 

stance toward Moscow.29 But as Secretary of Defense, he soon had 

his hands full with matters other than foreign policy. The freshly 

minted National Security Act had established a welter of agencies 

whose functions and organization still needed much sorting. Lest 

bureaucratic anarchy reign, Forrestal, as a principal sponsor of 

the new system, felt personally obliged to intervene and provide 

leadership, at least through the difficult start-up stage. Although 

Truman had, in effect, declared the internal workings of the NSC 

off limits to Forrestal, the Secretary of Defense found he had 

enough to do in organizing and shaping the new National Military 

Establishment. As he told the Finletter Commission in November 

1947, he wanted to staff the NME and its associated bodies with 

“intelligent, efficient people who will all know the major plans 

and policies.”30 Finding such individuals, of course, took time 

and patience, draining his energy and attention from other, more 

substantive concerns.

A further limitation on Forrestal’s ability to influence foreign policy 

at this time was the bare minimum of staff assistance available to 

him. As Secretary of the Navy during and immediately after the war, 

he had had ready access to a huge bureaucracy that included some 

of the most talented minds the country had to offer. But during 

the unification debate he had told Congress that, in the interests 

of preserving Service autonomy, it would be counterproductive for 

the new Secretary of Defense to surround himself with too many 

aides and assistants who might pry too deeply into the military 
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 1

14

departments’ affairs; a small staff, he contended, would suffice. 

Accepting this advice, Congress gave the Secretary of Defense 

none of the organizational support or perquisites common to other 

executive departments, but chose instead to limit him to three 

special assistants with vaguely defined powers and authority. The 

men Forrestal named to these positions—Marx Leva, to advise on 

legal and legislative matters; Wilfred McNeil, who oversaw the 

budget; and John H. Ohly, who took care of “all the rest”—were 

indeed gifted and dedicated public servants. But the tasks at hand 

quickly proved more than they could handle by themselves.31

Of the three, Ohly’s job was at once both the most encompassing 

and the most directly involved in foreign affairs. If a problem was 

neither legal nor budgetary in nature, it probably wound up on 

Ohly’s desk. Much of the work was routine, relating to staff and 

clerical help for the NME’s numerous interservice committees and 

boards. But it also involved the supervision of special studies, military 

assistance policy, and liaison with the NSC, CIA, Department of 

State, and other agencies. Ohly’s organization quickly expanded 

from a small coordinating office into a defense-wide clearinghouse 

for politico-military affairs, the forerunner of the important and 

influential Office of International Security Affairs of later years.32

Forrestal’s own activities at this time were no less hectic and varied. 

In addition to overseeing unification, he set about purposefully 

to establish new relationships with old friends outside the 

defense establishment, especially at the Department of State. 

One aim, growing out of his activities as Secretary of the Navy, 

was to increase the military’s knowledge and awareness of everchanging conditions abroad. As an example, Forrestal made an 

effort to include one or the other of State’s two most respected 

Soviet specialists, George F. Kennan and Charles “Chip” Bohlen, 

in meetings of the War Council (forerunner of the Armed Forces 

Policy Council) whenever defense matters with foreign policy 

implications were on the agenda.33 Kennan was also director of 

State’s main think tank, the Policy Planning Staff, and, as such, 
Establishing the Secretary’s Role

15

often devoted himself to problems of long-range policy, an area 

of special interest to military planners. Having ready access to 

Kennan’s and Bohlen’s expertise was, of course, a demonstration 

of Forrestal’s continuing preoccupation with the problems of 

communism and the Soviet Union. It also indicated, in a broader 

sense, the importance he attached to establishing and maintaining 

close State-Defense consultation wherever possible, a concern that 

not all of his successors would share.

Forrestal also recognized that it was no less important to shore up 

his relationship with Secretary of State Marshall, with whom he 

was on friendly, but not overly close, terms. Not only had they 

been on opposite sides during the unification debate, but also they 

had disagreed on policy toward China. In particular, Forrestal had 

questioned the wisdom of Marshall’s decision, while serving as 

Truman’s special emissary to China in 1946, to cut off military aid 

to Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government in an effort to pressure 

it into a coalition with the Chinese Communists. Although the aid 

had since resumed, Forrestal worried that it would be a case of 

too little, too late. He thought that the United States, as Chiang’s 

wartime ally, had an obligation to “continue to supply support 

and ammunition to the Central government,” and said “that no 

matter how difficult the situation became we should not withdraw 

entirely from China.”34 Resisting the spread of communism in Asia, 

he believed, was no less important to U.S. security interests than 

resisting it in Europe. Broadly speaking, his views in this regard 

reflected sentiment throughout the defense establishment, a sign of 

deeper divisions yet to come between State and Defense over U.S. 

policy in Asia.

Despite their differences, however, Forrestal knew that he would 

need Secretary of State Marshall’s help to fashion effective and 

workable policies under the new national security system. Not only 

did Marshall have Truman’s total trust and highest admiration, but 

he also had numerous friends and contacts in foreign capitals and 

generated confidence abroad in the United States. Although having 
Cold War Foreign Policy Series • Special Study 1

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Marshall’s backing may not have been essential in every instance, 

Forrestal realized that without that support, his position and 

influence would be considerably weaker, especially in his dealings 

with Truman. It was therefore no surprise that in his most intense 

confrontation with the President—the showdown in the fall of 

1948 over the fiscal year (FY) 1950 defense budget—Forrestal 

turned to Marshall when he found he needed help persuading 

Truman that the Pentagon should have more money.35

Developing a Concept of National Security

Despite efforts by the Truman administration to anticipate future 

dangers, no one could have possibly foreseen the scale and scope of 

Cold War problems that would envelop the United States for the 

next four and a half decades. Yet even as early as 1947, it was clear 

that the United States faced an extraordinary situation demanding 

unprecedented responses. The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall 

Plan, while bold and innovative, were only the beginning. Although 

Forrestal’s most immediate concern was to see to it, so far as he 

could, that the machinery of the National Security Act functioned 

smoothly, his thoughts were never far from what must have seemed 

an endless profusion of crises abroad. During his first 6 months 

as Secretary of Defense, he encountered a steady escalation of 

international tensions, highlighted by emergencies in Italy, Greece, 

Palestine, Central Europe, and elsewhere, all potential inroads for 

Soviet expansionism. Like many others in Washington, Forrestal 

accepted the domino theory—he worried that if one country fell 

to communism, others would follow. As he became increasingly 

absorbed with finding ways to counter this danger, Forrestal was 

more convinced than ever that foreign and defense policy were one 

and the same and should be addressed and handled accordingly.

While no two foreign problems were alike, all had one thing in 

common—a capacity for involving the United States militarily 

at a time when its capabilities were stretched to the limit. The 

potential for the deepest and most serious trouble seemed to be in 
Establishing the Secretary’s Role

17

Palestine. In the fall of 1947, Truman—against the advice of both 

Forrestal and the Department of State—encouraged and endorsed 

the creation of a Jewish state, thus precipitating the ensuing ArabIsraeli conflict of 1948–1949. To Forrestal, it seemed that Truman 

had taken an unnecessary risk for purely political purposes—

to curry favor with Jewish voters in the United States—though 

Truman’s decision was far more complicated than his Secretary 

of Defense perceived.36 At the same time, Forrestal worried that 

the President’s action would alienate the Arab oil producers, open 

the door for Soviet penetration of the Middle East, and ultimately 

compel American military intervention in the interest of restoring 

peace and stability. The Joint Chiefs estimated that if the United 

States became involved in any Middle East peacekeeping mission, 

the cost and diversion of resources could be enormous—upward 

of 100,000 troops, plus air and sea support, raising the distinct 

possibility that the United States might have to resort to partial 

mobilization.37

Even if the United States avoided involvement in Palestine, 

there still remained the danger of crises and entanglements 

elsewhere. According to intelligence reports, unchecked economic 

deterioration, internecine strife, or communist-led guerrilla 

movements continued to threaten on a variety of fronts, with Italy, 

France, and Greece among the most troubled and vulnerable.38 

What to do, should conditions in these countries worsen, became 

a recurring topic on the NSC agenda from the fall of 1947 well 

into the next spring. Then, amid these deliberations in February 

1948 came the Soviet-engineered coup that toppled the neutralist 

government in Prague, followed shortly thereafter by rumors of 

impending Soviet military action in Germany, the disruption of 

land traffic into Berlin, and finally, in June, the Soviet blockade 

that left Berlin dependent for its existence on an Allied airlift.

From this ominous sequence of events, Forrestal became convinced 

of two important points. One was the need for increased military 

readiness, which was at a postwar low around the beginning of 1948. 
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Although the Intelligence Community dismissed a Soviet attack on 

the West as unlikely, it could not rule out “some miscalculation 

or incident” that might accidentally trigger an East-West conflict.39

Up to this time, Forrestal had been willing to risk what he termed 

(in his testimony before the Finletter Commission) “a somewhat 

understaffed military establishment” in the interests of a healthy 

economy at home and assistance for recovery abroad.40 But in the 

aftermath of the Czech coup, with tensions escalating in Europe, 

he saw the need for accepting greater risks and came out in favor 

of a general strengthening of the Armed Forces. In March 1948, 

he and the Joint Chiefs put before Truman a list of recommended 

measures to bolster the nation’s sagging defense posture, including 

a supplement to the FY49 defense appropriation, reenactment of 

Selective Service, and the transfer of custody and control of nuclear 

weapons from the Atomic Energy Commission to the Armed 

Forces. Truman, while opposing any change in atomic custody and 

control procedures, did accept most of the rest of this package. But 

for fiscal reasons, he insisted on keeping the supplemental as small 

as possible, preferably around $1.5 billion, as opposed to the $9 

billion the JCS sought. The resulting compromise of $3.1 billion 

thus gave Forrestal and the chiefs some, but not all, of what they 

wanted, and was in many respects merely a rehearsal for the larger 

and more painful contest yet to come later in the year over the FY50 

Defense budget. But as the whole episode indicated, America’s Cold 

War strategy was becoming increasingly dependent—to a degree 

probably never anticipated—on readily available military power.41

The other conclusion Forrestal drew from these experiences was 

that time was running out for the United States to develop a 

comprehensive and systematic plan of national security that would 

draw foreign policy and military planning into closer harmony. 

Although Forrestal had been championing such a plan almost from 

the moment he took office, his difficulties as Secretary of Defense 

in trying to forge agreement among the Services and between them 

and the President on the FY49 supplemental provided a strong 

added incentive. Something, Forrestal realized, had to be done to 
Establishing the Secretary’s Role

19

curb the Services’ free-for-all competition for funds and to establish 

a rational basis for the allocation of resources. He envisioned a 

policy blueprint setting forth foreign policy objectives, general and 

specific alike, in a way that would help him to determine military 

needs and allocate resources. “It seems to me,” he argued, in urging 

the NSC to expedite action on such a paper:

that our policy with respect to particular countries must take 

into account our interests throughout the world and our 

ability, as a practical matter, both from an economic and 

a military standpoint, to protect these various interests. In 

my opinion it is abundantly clear that priorities must be 

established, and this cannot be done rationally in the absence 

of a definitive world policy.42

The NSC’s first cut at this problem, a general report (NSC 7) 

on “Soviet-directed World Communism,” was issued in late 

March 1948. Drafted by the council’s staff with practically no 

guidance from senior officials, NSC 7 was a disappointment to all 

concerned. It was almost lost amid the turmoil over the war scare 

in Europe and the defense supplemental. Couched in generalities, 

the paper called for “a world-wide counter-offensive against Sovietdirected communism” backed by unspecified, but presumably 

large, increases in American defense spending, nuclear weapons 

production, foreign aid, and anti-communist propaganda.43

Although Forrestal and the Joint Chiefs judged the paper a 

promising start, they considered its analysis and recommendations 

too vague and ambiguous to be of concrete use. State Department 

reactions were essentially the same.44

Dissatisfied by this initial effort, Forrestal turned to George 

Kennan and asked him and his Policy Planning Staff colleagues 

in the Department of State to try their hand at identifying “the 

basic premises” of U.S. foreign policy. “The difficulty about the 

matter,” Forrestal told Kennan, “came from the fact that within the 

National Military Establishment—at all levels of authority—there 
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was still an element of confusion concerning our basic policy—

with a considerable amount of pressure directed towards preparing 

a military organization with which to fight a war.”45 Kennan had 

tackled similar problems for Forrestal before, most notably in early 

1947, when, at Forrestal’s request, he had drafted a policy analysis 

of Soviet behavior that ended up being published as his celebrated 

“Mr. X” article on containment strategy in Foreign Affairs.

46 Even 

so, Kennan was invariably dubious of trying to reduce issues of 

the complexity Forrestal had in mind to writing. Personally and 

professionally, he put little credence in prescriptive policy papers 

and found their value exaggerated. But in apparent deference to 

his friendship with Forrestal, he agreed to look into the matter.47

The one in need of the most persuading was Truman, determined 

to hold the line on a defense budget not exceeding $15 billion, 

worsening relations with the Soviet Union notwithstanding. 

Privately, at a meeting with Forrestal, Marshall, and other key 

advisors on May 21, 1948, the President readily acknowledged 

that insofar as Congress and the American public were concerned, 

it might be helpful to explain and clarify U.S. foreign policy 

objectives. His thinking at the time was that “four or five speeches” 

by Marshall and other senior officials—following the pattern of the 

year before, when the administration had introduced the Truman 

Doctrine and the European Recovery Program—would meet the 

problem.48 A few weeks later, however, when Forrestal suggested 

that the NSC be charged with developing a statement of objectives, 

and that the resulting study be used in determining the military’s 

“size, character, and composition” in the soon-to-be-prepared FY50 

budget, Truman grew wary.49 In his response (written by James 

Webb, director of the Bureau of the Budget and one of Forrestal’s 

most persistent critics), Truman approved the project Forrestal 

proposed but cautioned that final decisions on any use of the 

study would be his alone, depending on unforeseen changes in the 

international situation and the economic outlook. “I do not feel,” 

Truman further advised, “that the preparation of the initial 1950 

budget estimates can be delayed or based wholly on this effort.”50
Establishing the Secretary’s Role

21

Truman’s caution was understandable. Although the value of a 

general policy statement may have been obvious to Forrestal, 

especially for budgetary planning purposes, it was much less 

attractive from Truman’s perspective. What worried Truman and 

those close to him, like Webb, was the extraordinary power and 

control over the allocation of resources that the military might 

acquire through such a paper. Taken to its logical conclusion, 

Forrestal’s approach would, in effect, let foreign policy drive 

military requirements and relegate fiscal and economic concerns 

to secondary importance. It could, conceivably, open the way 

for the Services to make huge budget demands and hand them 

a powerful instrument to justify almost any force posture they 

deemed appropriate. Such apprehensions did not mean that 

Truman would deny Forrestal the guidance he said he needed, or 

ignore whatever suggestions the NSC might have to offer. But they 

did reinforce Truman’s conviction that the NSC should function 

only in an advisory capacity. Despite the unsettled and potentially 

volatile international situation, Truman decided to accept the risk 

of holding the line on military spending.

The upshot, after much hard bargaining all around, was a 

FY50 defense budget tailored to Truman’s—not Forrestal’s—

preferences.51 In an eleventh-hour attempt to persuade Truman to 

change his mind and lift the $15 billion ceiling, Forrestal appealed 

to Secretary of State Marshall for support. Although reluctant to 

become involved in Forrestal’s growing conflicts with Truman, 

Marshall eventually relented and agreed that a somewhat larger 

defense budget was “better calculated” to instill confidence among 

America’s allies.52 But neither Marshall’s change of heart nor the 

NSC’s adoption in late November 1948 of a basic national security 

policy paper (NSC 20/4), thus fulfilling Forrestal’s request for 

guidance, did anything to alter Truman’s thinking.

Indeed, if Forrestal ever had any hopes that NSC 20/4 would 

be the catalyst for an integrated foreign and defense policy, he 

must have been sorely disappointed. Engineered by Kennan 
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and the Policy Planning Staff, with inputs from the Intelligence 

Community, NSC 20/4 readily acknowledged that the Soviet 

Union posed a serious threat to U.S. security and that Moscow’s 

ultimate aim was “domination of the world.” Militarily, there was 

no question that the Soviet Union possessed superior numbers in 

men and equipment. Based on available intelligence, the report 

speculated that Soviet forces could, in a matter of months, overrun 

and dominate much of the Eurasian land mass, subject Britain to 

air and missile bombardment, and even launch a limited number 

of one-way air sorties against the United States. Yet as dangerous 

and threatening as Soviet military capabilities appeared, no signs 

existed that the Soviet Union was actively preparing to wage such 

a campaign.53 

In fact, the more serious and immediate danger cited in NSC 

20/4 came from the possibility of Soviet espionage, sabotage, and 

political subversion. Given the nature of these threats, the report 

saw no pressing need for increased military preparedness and urged 

“a level of military readiness which can be maintained as long as 

necessary.” As part of this overall effort, NSC 20/4 cautioned 

against “excessive” armaments and recommended instead measures 

to strengthen the domestic economy and to promote economic and 

political stability abroad. In other words, lacking evidence of an 

imminent or even likely military confrontation, NSC 20/4 found 

no reason to question the adequacy of current defense policies for 

coping with Soviet expansionism. Nor did the paper explore what 

specific function military power should play in American foreign 

policy, other than to say that it should act “as a deterrent to Soviet 

aggression.”54 For this purpose, an integrated program of action 

may have had some advantages, but it was hardly necessary.

Not surprisingly, then, NSC 20/4 contributed little to producing 

a more comprehensive, systematic approach to national security. 

Nor did it result in any appreciable increase in the military’s 

influence on policy, as some critics of the NSC system feared might 

happen. On the contrary, by minimizing the likelihood of an 
Establishing the Secretary’s Role

23

East-West armed confrontation, it probably lessened the military’s 

credibility in Truman’s eyes and almost certainly led him to believe 

that, despite continually growing security obligations overseas, the 

United States could reasonably risk leveling off and even cutting 

investment in its defense establishment—a perspective not shared 

by Forrestal. Not until the appearance of NSC 68 nearly a year 

and a half later would the Truman administration again address the 

problems of trying to bring foreign and defense policy into closer 

harmony. But the impetus then would come not from Defense but 

from the Department of State, and would be tied to a different and 

potentially more dangerous international environment.

While the immediate consequences may have been negligible, 

one lasting effect of NSC 20/4 and the events surrounding its 

development was a much clearer picture of the Secretary’s future 

role in the overall policy process and in foreign affairs particularly. 

Conclusion

Forrestal took seriously his designation under the National Security 

Act as the President’s principal national security assistant and tried 

to operate accordingly. He viewed himself not merely as another 

executive department head, but as a coordinator with governmentwide interests and responsibilities. He assumed office in 1947 fully 

expecting foreign affairs to be a significant part of his agenda, in 

line with what he considered his statutory responsibilities under 

the National Security Act. As historian Melvyn Leffler cogently 

summarizes, “Forrestal never ceased insisting on the importance 

of integrating defense and foreign policy, of matching military 

capabilities with diplomatic commitments, and of reconciling the 

costs of defense with the needs of the domestic economy.”55

As the first Secretary of Defense, Forrestal established procedures 

that are still relevant to this day. One of the most lasting 

requirements, one that reflected his belief in the need for a joint 

strategy, was the necessity of establishing an integrated national 
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24

security policy that reflected both foreign and defense policy. 

Associated with this view, he recognized the need for allies within 

the government, in particular the Secretary of State, to push the 

views of the Department of Defense. And he came to recognize 

that he had not made the Secretary’s staff large enough to conduct 

the business of the department. Forrestal also realized that his 

perspective of his role as senior national security assistant to the 

President in the National Security Council might at times be at 

odds with the role of the Secretary of Defense as envisioned by 

the President. This divergence had the potential to create friction 

and possible disconnects in foreign and defense policy formation—

something Forrestal himself discovered right away. 

By the time the preparation of NSC 20/4 was over, it was apparent 

that Truman had become exasperated with a Secretary of Defense 

who aspired to turn the NSC into “an operating super-cabinet 

on the British model.”56 Henceforth, although the Secretary’s 

participation in NSC affairs would remain an important part of his 

job, it would never be the focal point that Forrestal had envisioned. 

Above all, it was the President who determined and continues to 

determine the Secretary of Defense’s role and degree of involvement 

in foreign affairs. Forrestal served under a President who viewed the 

Secretary’s job from a considerably narrower perspective. Rating 

efficient management as his number-one priority, Truman wanted 

the Secretary of Defense to take charge of the military budget, 

eliminate waste and unnecessary duplication, and give the taxpayer 

a better return on investment. Although not averse to the Secretary’s 

participation in foreign policy, Truman considered this a secondary 

function of the job.

Yet in the face of worsening relations with the Soviet Union and 

the increased possibility of U.S. military intervention in a number 

of foreign trouble spots, Truman acknowledged that as a practical 

matter, Cold War problems overshadowed all others in initially 

framing the Secretary of Defense’s foreign affairs agenda. The 

development of effective working relations between the Pentagon 
Establishing the Secretary’s Role

25

and the White House for managing these new situations did not 

come easily. Although he respected Forrestal’s ability, Truman 

was openly at odds with him over such key issues as the running 

of the NSC, military spending, custody and control of atomic 

energy, and policy toward Palestine and China. The more they 

disagreed, the more apparent it became that Forrestal’s departure 

was probably only a matter of time. That point came in March 

1949 with Forrestal’s resignation. His successor, Louis Johnson, 

was of an entirely different temperament and readily adapted to 

the more circumscribed description of his duties under the 1949 

amendments as “principal assistant to the President in all matters 

relating to the Department of Defense.”57
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Establishing the Secretary’s Role

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Notes

1 Quoted in Walter Millis with E.S. Duffield, eds., The Forrestal 

Diaries (New York: Viking, 1951), 299.

2 The most recent monograph on the Secretaries of Defense, albeit 

one that devotes only a few pages to Forrestal, is Charles A. Stevenson, 

SecDef: The Nearly Impossible Job of Secretary of Defense (Washington, DC: 

Potomac Books, 2006), 9–10; for a more comprehensive account, see 

Steven L. Rearden, History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, vol. I, 

The Formative Years, 1947–1950 (Washington, DC: Government Printing 

Office [GPO], 1984), 29–43.

3 Quoted in Henry F. Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography (New 

York: Harcourt Brace, 1931), 172.

4 Edward S. Miller, War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat 

Japan (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1991). Also see J.A.S. Grenville, 

“Diplomacy and War Plans in the United States, 1890–1917,” in Lawrence 

E. Gelfand, Essays on the History of American Foreign Relations (New York: 

Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972).

5 Quoted in Ernest R. May, “The Development of Political-Military 

Consultation in the United States,” Political Science Quarterly 70 (June 

1955), 166.

6 See Thomas J. Knock, To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the 

Quest for a New World Order (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). 

7 William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason, The Challenge of 

Isolation: The World Crisis of 1937–1940 and American Foreign Policy

(Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1970), 40–41; Mark Skinner Watson, 

Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations (Washington, DC: Historical 

Division, Department of the Army, 1950), 93–94.

8 James F. Schnabel, History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: The Joint 

Chiefs of Staff and National Policy, 1945–1947 (Washington, DC: Office 

of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1996), 1–2.

9 See Thomas Patterson and Dennis Merrill, eds., Major Problems in 

American Foreign Relations, vol. 2 (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Co., 

1995), 185–233.
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10 See, for example, Herbert Feis, The China Tangle: The American 

Effort in China from Pearl Harbor to the Marshall Mission (Princeton: 

Princeton University Press, 1953).

11 Ray Cline, Washington Command Post: The Operations Division

(Washington, DC: Chief of Military History, 1951), 322–327.

12 Paul Y. Hammond, “Directives for the Occupation of Germany: 

The Washington Controversy,” in American Civil-Military Decisions, ed. 

Harold Stein (Birmingham: University of Alabama Press, 1963), 311–

464; Steven L. Rearden, “American Policy Toward Germany, 1944–1946,” 

Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1975, chaps. 1–2.

13 Rearden, Formative Years, 11–16; also see Kenneth W. Condit, The 

Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Policy, 1947–1949 (Washington, DC: 

Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1996), 1–9. 

14 Roger Trask and Albert Goldberg, The Department of Defense: 

Organization and Leaders (Washington, DC: Historical Office, Office of 

the Secretary of Defense, 1997), 1–14.

15 For quote, see James Forrestal, testimony before the Senate 

Committee on Military Affairs, October 22, 1945, in Hearings:Department 

of Armed Forces, Department of Military Security, 79:1 (Washington, DC: 

GPO, 1945), 97. The most balanced biography of Forrestal remains 

Townsend Hoopes and Douglas Brinkley, Driven Patriot: The Life and 

Times of James Forrestal (New York: Knopf, 1992); far less reliable but 

interesting nonetheless for its psycho-historical methodology is Arnold 

A. Rogow, James Forrestal: A Study of Personality, Politics, and Policy (New 

York: Macmillan, 1963).

16 For the origins of the report see Jeffrey M. Dorwart, Eberstadt and 

Forrestal: A National Security Partnership, 1909–1949 (College Station: 

Texas A&M University Press, 1991), 98.

17 Alfred D. Sander, “Truman and the National Security Council: 

1945–1947,” Journal of American History 59 (September 1972), 369–388.

18 See memo, Marshall to Truman, February 7, 1947, “Comments . 

. . on Draft Bill to Promote National Security,” in Foreign Relations of the 

United States (FRUS) 1947, I (Washington, DC: GPO, 1967), 712–715. 

It should be noted that, as Army Chief of Staff in 1944–1945, Marshall 

had been the principal architect of the War Department’s unification 

proposal, and therefore had a personal interest in promoting its adoption 

over the Navy’s plan. For perhaps the most definitive account of national 
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security policy formulation in the Truman years, see Melvyn Leffler, A 

Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and 

the Cold War (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992).

19 For a nuanced account of the machinations behind the National 

Security Act and the National Military Establishment, see Cecilia Stiles 

Cornell, “James V. Forrestal and American National Security Policy, 

1940–1949,” Ph.D. dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1987, 228–308.

20 Clark Clifford with Richard Holbrooke, Counsel to the President

(New York: Random House, 1991), 162–163.

21 Anna Kasten Nelson, “President Truman and the Evolution of the 

National Security Council,” Journal of American History 72 (September 

1985), 360–378; Sander, 385–387; Rearden, Formative Years, 118–123. 

For Souers’s personal perspective on the role of the NSC, see Sidney 

Souers, “The National Security Council under President Truman,” in The 

National Security Council: Jackson Subcommittee on Policy-Making at the 

Presidential Level, ed. Henry Jackson (New York: Praeger, 1965), 99–110.

22 Millis, 316.

23 Trask and Goldberg, 136.

24 Hoopes and Brinkley, 355.

25 See, generally, Leffler, 141–181.

26 Cornell, 252–260.

27 For a more detailed discussion of this point, see Ernest R. May, 

“Lessons” of the Past: The Uses and Misuses of History (New York: Oxford 

University Press, 1973). See also Leffler, 1–24.

28 Randall B. Woods and Howard Jones, Dawning of the Cold War: 

The United States’ Quest for Order (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 

1991), 133–173.

29 See, for example, Lloyd C. Gardner, Architects of Illusion: Men 

and Ideas in American Foreign Policy, 1941–1949 (Chicago: Quadrangle 

Books, 1970), 270–300.

30 “Secretary’s Executive Session with the President’s Air Policy 

Commission,” November 3, 1947, Office of the Secretary of Defense 

Historical Office files.

31 Rearden, Formative Years, 58–67.
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32 Ibid., 65.

33 The National Security Act of 1947 created a War Council to 

advise the Secretary of Defense on “matters of broad policy relating to the 

armed forces.” The Council consisted of the Service secretaries and the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff, with powers of decision reserved to the Secretary of 

Defense. In 1949, when Public Law 216 amended the 1947 Act, it was 

renamed the Armed Forces Policy Council, with the Deputy Secretary 

of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff added; the 

Commandant of the Marine Corps joined it in 1983.

34 Millis, 286.

35 Doris Condit, History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense: The 

Test of War, 1950–1953 (Washington, DC: Historical Office, Office of the 

Secretary of Defense, 1988), 34.

36 Hoopes and Brinkley, 387–404.

37 Memo, Joint Chiefs of Staff for Truman, April 4, 1948, “Provision 

of U.S. Armed Forces in Palestine,” in FRUS 1948, V, 798–800.

38 See, for example, Central Intelligence Agency, “Review of the 

World Situation,” September 26, 1947, and “Review of the World 

Situation,” November 14, 1947, box 203, PSF, Intelligence File, Truman 

Papers, Harry S. Truman Library.

39 Memo, Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter for the President, March 16, 

1948, RG 330, CD 12–1–26.

40 For more on the Finletter Commission, see Robert Frank Futrell, 

Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force, 

1907–1960, vol. 1 (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, December 

1989), 224–231.

41 Trask and Goldberg, 58.

42 Memo, Forrestal for Executive Secretary, National Security 

Council (NSC), March 12, 1948, “International Situation,” RG 330, CD 

9–2–18.

43 NSC 7, “Soviet-directed World Communism,” March 30, 1948, 

FRUS 1948, I, 545–550.

44 Ibid., 557–564.

45 Memo, Marx Leva for John H. Ohly, May 26, 1948, “Committee 

of Four Meeting, May 26, 1948,” RG 330, CD 9–2–30.
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46 See “X” (George F. Kennan), “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” 

Foreign Affairs 25 (July 1947), 566 –582. This article was based on Kennan’s 

famous “long telegram” on Soviet behavior that he sent while serving as 

chargé in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, February 22, 1946; available at 

<www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/documents/episode-1/kennan.htm>. 

For Forrestal’s influence, see, Rearden, 7–8.

47 Memo, Kennan for Lovett, August 5, 1948, “Basic Policy 

Estimate,” FRUS 1948, I, 599–601.

48 Memo summarizing discussion at a conference called by the 

President, May 21, 1948, Truman Papers, President’s Secretary’s File, 

National Security Council Collection.

49 Memo, Forrestal for Executive Secretary, NSC, July 10, 1948, 

“Appraisal of the Degree and Character of Military Preparedness Required 

by the World Situation,” RG 330, CD 5–1–50.

50 Letter, Truman to Forrestal, July 15, 1948, RG 330, CD 5–1–50.

51 For the wrangling over the fiscal year 1950 defense budget, see 

Warner R. Schilling, “The Politics of National Defense: Fiscal 1950,” in 

Warner R. Schilling, Paul Y. Hammond, and Glenn H. Snyder, Strategy, 

Politics, and Defense Budgets (New York: Columbia University Press, 

1962), 1–266

52 Letter, Forrestal to Truman, December 1, 1948, FRUS 1948, I, 

669–672.

53 NSC 20/4, “U.S. Objectives with Respect to Counter Soviet 

Threats to U.S. Security,” November 23, 1948, in FRUS 1948, I, 663–

669. 

54 NSC 20/4, November 23, 1948, “U.S. Objectives with Respect 

to the USSR to Counter Soviet Threats to U.S. Security,” FRUS 1948, I, 

662–669.

55 Leffler, 176.

56 Harry S. Truman, Memoirs: Years of Trial and Hope (Garden City, 

NY: Doubleday, 1956), 60.

57 For a brief description and analysis of the 1949 amendments, see 

Trask and Goldberg, 14–21.
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About the Authors

Jeffrey A. Larsen is president of Larsen Consulting Group LLC in Colorado 

Springs and a senior scientist with a major U.S. defense contractor. He 

also serves as an adjunct professor at Denver, Northwestern, and Texas 

A&M universities. A retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, Dr. Larsen is 

widely published. He holds a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University.

Erin R. Mahan has been Chief Historian for the Secretary of Defense since 

2010. Previously, she worked in the Center for the Study of Weapons of 

Mass Destruction at National Defense University and in the Historian’s 

Office at the U.S. Department of State, where she was an editor of the 

Foreign Relations of the United States series. Dr. Mahan holds a Ph.D. in 

history from the University of Virginia.
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Historical Office

Office of the Secretary of Defense

Washington, DC

Published by National Defense University Press