The Joint Chiefs of Staff took charge of all military action, and the Secretary of Defense became the chief presidential adviser on military matter. In 1952, Truman secretly consolidated and empowered the cryptologic elements of the United States by creating the National Security Agency (NSA). Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy used a speech in West Virginia to accuse the State Department of harboring communists, and rode the controversy to political fame. Truman responded by arguing that McCarthy's efforts would undermine the bipartisan foreign policy that had prevailed since the end of World War II and thereby give a political gift to the Soviet Union, but few Republicans spoke out against McCarthy during Truman's tenure in office. Democratic Senator William Benton sponsored a motion to expel McCarthy from Congress, but the motion was defeated and Benton lost his 1952 re-election campaign; McCarthy, meanwhile, was re-elected.