National Security Act of 1947

The National Security Act of 1947 (Public Law 80-253, chapter 343) was passed by the Eightieth Congress as S. 758 and approved by President Harry S. Truman on July 26, 1947. The enrolled bill carries the signatures of Joseph W. Martin Jr., Speaker of the House of Representatives, and A.H. Vandenberg, President of the Senate pro tempore. Its long title describes "An Act To promote the national security by providing for a Secretary of Defense; for a National Military Establishment; for a Department of the Army, a Department of the Navy, and a Department of the Air Force; and for the coordination of the activities of the National Military Establishment with other departments and agencies of the Government concerned with the national security."¹

Drafting

On December 2, 1946, Director of Central Intelligence Hoyt Vandenberg sent the President's Special Counsel, Clark Clifford, a "proposed draft of enabling legislation for the Central Intelligence Agency." The Deputy Director, R.H. Wright, wrote to Clifford again on January 28, 1947, on the fourth draft. The editorial note accompanying these papers in the State Department's documentary history records a drafting committee of Clifford, Charles Murphy of the White House staff, Vice Admiral Forrest P. Sherman, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, and Major General Lauris Norstad of the War Department's Plans and Operations division, which presented a "final version" to Clifford on the afternoon of January 29, 1947.²

The Council and the Agency

Section 101 established the National Security Council, composed of the President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretaries of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, and the Chairman of the National Security Resources Board.¹

Section 102(a) established "under the National Security Council a Central Intelligence Agency with a Director of Central Intelligence, who shall be the head thereof." The Director was to be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate "from among the commissioned officers of the armed services or from among individuals in civilian life," at 14,000 dollars a year.¹

Section 102(d) listed five duties: to advise the Council on the intelligence activities of the departments, to recommend their coordination, to "correlate and evaluate intelligence relating to the national security, and provide for the appropriate dissemination of such intelligence within the Government," to perform services of common concern, and to "perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the National Security Council may from time to time direct." The text contains no other grant of operational authority. The first proviso reads: "Provided, That the Agency shall have no police, subpena, law-enforcement powers, or internal-security functions." A second proviso left the departments collecting their own departmental intelligence, and a third made the Director "responsible for protecting intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure."¹

Section 102(f) provided that when the first Director took office, "the National Intelligence Authority (11 Fed. Reg. 1337, 1339, February 5, 1946) shall cease to exist," and that the personnel, property and records of the Central Intelligence Group would pass to the new agency, the Group itself ceasing to exist.¹

On May 16, 1973, the agency's Director of Security, Howard Osborn, sent the CIA management committee "summaries of activities conducted either by or under the sponsorship of the Office of Security in the past which in my opinion conflict with the provisions of the National Security Act of 1947." His memorandum became the opening pages of the Family Jewels.³

The Military Establishment

Title II created the National Military Establishment under a Secretary of Defense. Its table of contents lists, among others, section 208, "United States Air Force," and section 211, "Joint Chiefs of Staff," the latter giving the Joint Chiefs of Staff a statutory footing.¹

Section 310 set the effective date of most of the Act, Title I included, as "whichever of the following days is the earlier: The day after the day upon which the Secretary of Defense first appointed takes office, or the sixtieth day after the date of the enactment of this Act."¹

As Amended

The official compilation of the Act as amended through Public Law 119-60 of December 18, 2025, gives its original citation as 61 Stat. 496. In that text section 102 no longer concerns the CIA. It establishes a Director of National Intelligence, whose responsibilities and authorities follow in section 102A; the Central Intelligence Agency is now established by section 104, with its Director and Deputy Director in sections 104A and 104B. A Title V, "Accountability for Intelligence Activities," absent from the 1947 text, contains section 501 on general congressional oversight, section 502 on the reporting of intelligence activities other than covert action, section 503 on presidential approval and reporting of covert actions, and section 504 on funding.⁴