National Security Council

After World War II, the United States emerged as the leading Western power with an expanded foreign policy agenda. The National Security Act of 1947 (Pub. L. 235-61 Stat. 496; U.S.C. 402) established the National Security Council (NSC) as an advisory body to the president to oversee all branches of the government involved in domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to national security. The critical task of the NSC is to coordinate the policy process so that all agencies get a full and fair hearing, enabling the president to make clear foreign policy decisions in a timely manner.

Every president has used the NSC to install a system of national security policy making and coordination that reflects his personal management style as well as political pressures, congressional demands, or bureaucratic rivalry between departments. Statutory members of the NSC include the president, the vice president, the secretary of state, and the secretary of defense. The heads of other executive departments and agencies, as well as other senior officials, are invited to attend meetings of the NSC when appropriate. The NSC professional staff includes other members of military and research institutions and has vacillated between three dozen and 200 members.

The NSC does not include the national security adviser. The position of the assistant to the president for national security affairs (also known as the national security adviser) was created under President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953 and has changed from being a clearance coordinator across departments to being the president's personal confidant and spokesperson. By definition, the NSC lies beyond the reach of congressional oversight. It was only after the Iran-Contra affair became public that a national security adviser was compelled to testify before the Congress. Most national security advisers have been either academics or military officers. Two the most prominent advisers—Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski—were foreign born. President George W. Bush's current adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is the first woman to be appointed to this post.

Until the mid-1980s, U.S. antiterrorism policy was focused on the prevention of domestic terrorist acts, and the Department of State played the “lead agency” role in responding to such incidents. With the spread of terrorist attacks on American diplomats, tourists, and airliners, and especially after the massacre of Jewish athletes at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972, the White House started to build an institutional foundation for its antiterrorism policy. Subsequently, the Working Group on Terrorism (WGT), a subcommittee of the NSC, was created to provide the United States with a more efficient governmental structure for coordinating and implementing anti-and counterterrorism policies among more than 30 federal agencies, departments, and offices.

The WGT agency members were guided by three major goals: containment of terrorism while minimizing open conflict with foreign states, avoiding the loss of American lives, and defeat of terrorism. The use of military force as the means of active defense against terrorism was promulgated in National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 138, signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1984. NSDD 138 also redirected the focus of American foreign policy into a more systematic and stronger effort to combat international terrorism.

Since the 1980s, the strategic aim of all U.S. counterterrorism programs has been to disrupt covert terrorist groups and interdict plots and strategies. Other aims include increasing diplomatic efforts to foster international cooperation, putting economic pressure on regimes aiding terrorism, increasing legislative efforts to tighten punishment for involvement in a [Page 259]terrorist act, and military retaliation against those responsible for attacks on Americans.

In the last quarter of the 20th century, the NSC antiterrorism committees became the ultimate decision makers of U.S. national security policy, superseding the Department of State. At various times, these committees have had the following names: the WGT, the Interdepartmental Group on Terrorism (IGT), the Executive Committee on Terrorism (ECT), the Special Coordination Committee (SCC), the Special Situation Group (SSG), and so forth.

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