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One of the first Executive Secretaries described himself as a channel for data and recommendations but definitely not an advisor. Although they had ready access to the President they were not considered "White House" or "Presidential" aides. As the first Executive Secretary put it, his function was to be "a nonpolitical confidante of the President...willing to subordinate his personal views on policy to his task of coordinating the views of responsible officials."

The Executive Secretary's coordinating role was very limited in scope, however, He was in no way the only or even the principal channel to the President on national security matters. The great majority of such matters were handled directly between the President and his cabinet officers. They could easily see him at any time and he often called and sent them notes. Much of this went on without any reference to the Executive Secretary.

Similarly, the Council did not supplant Truman's cabinet officers as a source of advice. He used the Council for rather specific purposes, particularly to insure that foreign policies were consistent with military capabilities and domestic resources. In this connection the Council produced and Truman approved a series of formal NSC papers which "represented the first attempt...to formalize and set down specific national objectives and methods of achieving them in a series...of policy papers intended to serve as guides to action for all government agencies." An important example of such activity was the Council's review, following the first Soviet nuclear test, of our overall foreign and military posture viz-a-viz the Soviets. Some observers believe this preliminary work facilitated U.S. mobilization for the Korean War.

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President Truman considered the Council to be "the place in the government where military, diplomatic, and resource problems could be studied and continually appraised." His ideas about its limitations were equally precise: "I used the Council only as a place for recommendations to be worked out. Like the Cabinet, the Council does not make decisions. The policy itself has to come down from the President, as all final decisions have to be made by him."

Initially of course President Truman did not attend Council meetings. In his absence the Secretary of State presided. This reflected a decision which Truman made in overruling the drafters of the 1947 Act, who would have had the Secretary of Defense chair Council meetings.

The organizational problems of early NSC staff bodies illustrate some of the recurring difficulties of subsequent interdepartmental staffs. Before 1950 Council members tended to by-pass the staff and to refer problems to _ad hoc_ committees. The original chairman of the working staff was the State Department representative. As the activities of other agencies and departments increased during the Korean War, unhappiness developed with this arrangement. The situation is described with careful understatement in the "organizational History of the NSC": "the dual role of the State Coordinator of "The Staff", as an impartial chairman and as an advocate of a State Department position, became increasingly difficult. Over time the feeling grew that other departments and agencies would cooperate more effectively in the work of the Council in matters directly affecting their own responsibilities if the major interdepartmental staff groups were chaired by someone without departmental ties."

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In order to meet these problems in 1950, President Truman created the Senior Staff, composed of one representative nominated by each Council member and appointed by the President. The Executive Secretary was made its chairman in recognition "...that the work of the inter-departmental staff group which prepared reports for the NSC could be fully effective in serving the Council only if the chairman of the group was personally cognizant, through regular contact with the President, of his desires and requirements regarding the work of the Council."

The "Senior Staff" was the most important element in the planning process. Its members were departmental people, usually the chief policy planners and operational planners from each department. As such they were sometimes used as a channel of communication from the President via the Executive Secretary to the departments.

The raison d'etre for the NSC staff was, in the words of the second Executive Secretary, James S. Lay, to give the President "a firm but flexible structure designed to marshal the resources of all the executive departments and agencies participating in any given problem." Or as Sidney Sovers said, he was a "broker of ideas in crisscrossing proposals among a team of responsible officials." The "resources" and the "ideas" in both instances came from the departments and agencies and not from the staff. There is no evidence that the Executive Secretary or any of his staff subjected proposed reports to independent substantive analysis. This would not have been consistent with the limited concept of their role.

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The NSC staff had no significant role either in following up once policies were adopted by the President. President Truman deals with this point in his *Memoirs*: "Secretary Forrestal and Secretary Johnson, for instance, would at times put pressure on the Executive Secretary. What they wanted him to do was to assume the authority of supervising other agencies of the government and see that the approved decisions of the Council were carried out. The Executive Secretary very properly declined to do this, stating that if it had been the intention of the Congress for him to have that power it would have been specified in the Act." Typically, Truman explains his agreement with this decision (which he probably made himself) on the grounds that the Secretaries' proposal would have constituted an encroachment on the President's powers. (It has been suggested that this is precisely what the authors of the idea had in mind.)

In the execution of policy decisions, as in preceding stages of the process, Truman relied primarily upon his cabinet officers. Even so, the institution of formal NSC reports gave rise to some formalism in the delegation of responsibility as well as a limited review procedure. In approving NSC reports, Truman designated one department head, usually the Secretary of State, as the coordinator of implementation. In addition, the Council made provision for periodic reporting to itself on implementation, primarily to assess the need for review of policy in the light of operating experience. In 1951 a reporting unit was added to assist "in keeping the President currently informed on the status of all national security programs.

A final aspect of the early NSC operation, and one which is particularly significant because it was the only exception to the strictly

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advisory concept of the Council, was its exercise of corporate direction
over the CIA. Authority for this was provided in the 1947 Act, which
created, not only the Council itself, but the CIA as its intelligence
arm. Under Truman the Council issued directives governing the Agency's
activities, usually on the recommendation of the CIA Director and an NSC
Intelligence Advisory Committee. Some of these "NSCI" directives are
still outstanding today but there is little evidence that the Council
now exercises any formal role in CIA supervision. (This point is dealt
with further in another portion of this chapter).

3. <u>Summary</u> (Truman)

Truman's National Security staff was, by current standards, bare
bones. Information and paper handling activities were accomplished
with no interjection of staff opinion or advice. In current parlance,
the Executive Secretary helped identify issues of potential Presidential
concern but he took no independent outside initiatives on them. Simi-
larly there was little reaching out for information. This was consistent
with Truman's reliance on his cabinet to understand and protect his
interests.

Policy guidance was achieved through a mix of formal Council
activity (concentrated in the political-military sphere with mobiliza-
tion overtones during the Korean war) and the support of strong cabinet
officers. In retrospect, Truman's use of the Council appears to have
been the best balanced and most in keeping with the early theorists.

The Senior Staff was the most considerable part of the NSC organiza-
tion during this period. Removing the direction of the staff from
departmental hands in order to assure impartiality was a sound decision.

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However, one does have the feeling that President Truman would have derived some additional benefit from staff analyses which sought at least to separate institutional positions from policy alternatives.

His was not an activist administration, yet it was one of great challenge abroad. Even so the world of the 40's and early 50's was not as complex as today's. Nor were our overseas interests, commitments and activities as extensive. Coordination was therefore not yet the problem it was later to become.

## 4. President Eisenhower

President Eisenhower took office having expressed a deep belief in the need for a "national strategy for the cold war". In a campaign speech in San Francisco on October 8, 1956, he said this would require:

> "The selection of broad national purposes and the designation within purposes of principal targets...We must bring the dozens of agencies and bureaus into concerted action under an over-all scheme of strategy."

To achieve these objectives, Eisenhower, on advice from Robert Cutler, took the previous Council and NSC staff elements and elaborated them into an NSC system which sought to encompass the entire range of national security activities.

Whereas the Council had been an important but by no means dominant advisory body to President Truman, under his successor it became the "apex" of a system. President Eisenhower indicated at the outset of his administration that he would:

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"(1) not assign an area of national security policy formulation permanently as the responsibility of a department, agency, or individual outside the NSC mechanism; (2) make decisions on national security policy--except in cases of special urgency--within the framework of the Council."

Despite this statement of intention, it is now generally concluded that what went on outside the NSC system was often far more important than the operation of the "mechanism"--as the Jackson sub-committee was later to tag it. To a certain extent this was the result of Eisenhower's apparent faith that once he had decided on a policy the permanent institution would carry it out. In part this was the result of his faith in, and his close relations with, his cabinet officers.

There are remarkable parallels in early Eisenhower and Kennedy era affirmations that nothing should be allowed to intrude upon the direct relationship of the President and the heads of the executive departments and agencies. As we shall see Eisenhower later concluded that in order for things to get done, greater application of Presidential power was required.

### a. The Special Assistant and the Executive Secretary

Soon after taking office President Eisenhower designated Robert Cutler as Special Assistant for National Security Affairs with the understanding that Cutler was to preside over what he later described as "Policy Hill." Eisenhower wanted to take a hard look at all existing policies and he wanted his "man" in charge. It was assumed that while the incumbent of the Special Assistant's position would change with

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administrations, the NSC staff, headed by the Executive Secretary, would provide career continuity for Council operations.

b. "The Invisible Man"

Typical of the over emphasis which has been placed on the NSC system of the Eisenhower era is the infrequent attention given to the activities of General Andrew Goodpaster. It has been quite accurately stated that when McGeorge Bundy came to the White House, in functional terms he replaced Goodpaster, not the previous Special Assistant. Goodpaster's job was to handle the day-to-day short-term operational chain and to effect continuing liaison with State, Defense, CIA, USIA, the foreign assistance agencies and the AEC on matters involving the President.

Goodpaster briefed Eisenhower daily on intelligence, diplomatic and military matters. These sessions were the primary source of indications of Presidential interest and a great deal of important national security activity arose out of them. Goodpaster followed up on these indications, with Cutler if they involved policy, or with the department and agencies, either to their heads or through contacts he had developed in each agency such as the Executive Secretary of the State Department.

Another function he performed at Eisenhower's request was to be present at all meetings of the President with cabinet officers and other high officials. Goodpaster took notes at these sessions, paying particular attention to action items and subsequently following up on them.

Two principles guided Goodpaster's activities. The first was never to get between the President and his principal advisors, either

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in interpretation of views or in the handling of memoranda (although
he was rather successful in preventing "end-runs"). The second was
to distinguish operations from policy. In this latter connection he
worked closely with Cutler and his successors. At times it must have
been difficult to draw such distinctions but apparently the person-
alities of those involved made it possible.

### c. The Council

The Truman "Senior Staff" was renamed the Planning Board and
was chaired by the Special Assistant rather than the Executive Secretary.
The procedure for the preparation of papers for Council consideration
remained roughly the same.

A major portion of the Eisenhower Council's initial work consisted of the comprehensive review of existing national security policies. In addition, specific critical problems such as Korea and Indochina were examined. A major undertaking of the early months was "operation Solarium", the original Basic National Security Policy (BNSP). Review of the BNSP was an annual affair as was the Net Evaluation Study, an assessment of the "objectives, commitments, and risks of the United States in relation to our potential military."

The foregoing indicates the nature and scope of the Council's
activities. The policy guidance aspects of its activity will be
examined in somewhat more detail in another chapter.

Expert testimony on the Eisenhower Council's activities varies
widely. Much of it is colored by the witness' views on the larger
issues such as "formality vs. informality," and the basic value and
feasibility of planning. It is impossible to reconcile or to separate

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the conflicting opinions about the Board and Council. Despite these
conflicts, there is a degree of consensus on at least three aspects
of its operation:

**Utility to New Administration:** The initial systematic review of previous policies and the forced immersion of senior advisors in current problems was beneficial to all. It educated and oriented the new administration, helped them sort out working and personal relationships, and developed a common approach to problems. Obviously these values were primarily applicable to the early years of the administration.

**Systematic Review:** The comprehensive nature of the policy review process was a safeguard against neglect of important issues. The system provided a type of risk insurance, a predictable channel of communication and an opportunity for all to be heard. While the issues may not always have been squarely met or resolved to the satisfaction of all, such shortcomings cannot be blamed altogether on the formal mechanism.

**Preparation for Council Sessions:** The manner in which matters are chosen and presented had a direct bearing on the Council's effectiveness. Among other things, the critics disapproved of what they called a "vote seeking" process in the Planning Board and they charged it with papering-over the difficult choices, but they seem to take for granted some type of preparatory process. They just didn't approve of the way the PB did its job. Those who believe the Council papers served a useful purpose stress the benefits derived from the preparatory process. One interviewer said, for example, that the process of preparing the papers was more important than the papers themselves. After Eisenhower there was no regular preparatory process for Council sessions.