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President Truman signs the National
Security Act Amendment of 1949 in the
Oval Office.
The National Security Act of 1947 (Pub. L. No.
235, 80 Cong., 61 Stat. 496, 50 U.S.C. ch.15) was signed by United States President Harry S. Truman
on July 26, 1947, and realigned and reorganized the U.S. Armed
Forces, foreign policy, and
Intelligence
Community apparatus in the aftermath of World War II. The majority of the
provisions of the Act took effect on September 18, 1947, the day
after the Senate confirmed James Forrestal
as the first Secretary of
Defense.
President Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 onboard
this
VC-54C
Presidential transport, the first aircraft used for the role of
Air Force One. (At
the time it was not painted with "U.S. Air Force" because it
belonged to the
USAAF.)
The Act merged the Department of War and
the Department of the
Navy into the National Military Establishment, headed by the
Secretary of Defense. It was also responsible for the creation of a
separate Department of the Air Force
from the existing Army Air Forces.
Initially, each of the three service secretaries maintained
quasi-cabinet status, but the act was amended on August 10, 1949,
to assure their subordination to the Secretary of Defense. At the
same time, the NME was renamed as the Department of
Defense.
Aside from the military reorganization, the act established the
National Security
Council, a central place of coordination for national
security policy in the executive branch, and the Central Intelligence
Agency, the States' first peacetime intelligence agency.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff was
officially established under Title II, Section 211 of the original
National Security Act of 1947 before Sections 209-214 of Title II
were repealed by the law enacting Title 10 and Title 32, United States
Code (Act of August 10, 1956, 70A Stat. 676) to replace them.
The act and its changes, along with the Truman Doctrine
and the Marshall
Plan, were major components of the Truman administration's Cold War strategy.
The bill signing took place aboard Truman's VC-54C presidential
aircraft Sacred Cow, the first aircraft used for the role
of Air Force One.[1] So the
legislation that created the U.S. Air Force was
enacted onboard an Air Force aircraft.
See also
- Dulles-Jackson-Corre Report
References
External
links
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