Joshua Bolten
Joshua Brewster Bolten is an American lawyer and politician. Bolten served as the White House Chief of Staff to U. S. President George W. Bush, replacing Andrew Card on April 14, 2006. Bolten was born to the son of Analouise and Seymour Bolten, his father worked for the CIA and his mother taught world history at George Washington University. He graduated from St. Albans School, served on the school's board until 2007. Bolten attended Princeton University, where he studied in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and served as class president and president of The Ivy Club, he graduated in 1976. He graduated with a J. D. served as an editor of the law review. The Director of Office of Management and Budget, Bolten was confirmed by the U. S. Senate to that position in 2003. Bolten was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy at the White House from 2001 to 2003, he served as policy director for the 2000 George W. Bush presidential campaign from 1999 to 2000 and as Executive Director for Legal and Government Affairs at Goldman Sachs in London from 1994 to 1999.
He was general counsel to the Office of the United States Trade Representative for three years and Deputy Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs for one year during the administration of George H. W. Bush. Bolten was the second Jew appointed as White House Chief of Staff. Bolten was named as White House Chief of Staff to smooth relations with the United States Congress, to reinvigorate the West Wing staff, he is credited with having assisted the President in recruiting Henry Paulson—then-CEO of Goldman Sachs—to serve as Treasury Secretary, based on his former employment at the firm. In addition, he recruited Tony Snow to work as White House Press Secretary, offered Rob Portman the opportunity to succeed him as OMB Director, brought his OMB deputy Joel Kaplan into the White House as Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. Bolten became the John L. Weinberg/Goldman Co.. Visiting Professor at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School in September 2009, teaching classes on the federal budget and international trade and financial regulation.
In March 2010, Bolten was appointed a member of the board and co-chair of the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, which has raised $36 million to date for immediate earthquake relief and long-term recovery efforts in the Caribbean country. Bolten plays bass guitar in a band called the Compassionates. In 2015, Bolten married Ann Kelly. Joshua Bolten's political donations at newsmeat.com Biography in Stanford Law School magazine Who2 profile of Bolten Friends discuss Bolten's college experience at dailyprincetonian.com. Yale Daily News: Bolten's Former Yale Colleagues Discuss the New Bush Tap by Andrew Mangino and Maggie Reid Federal Court Opinion ordering Joshua Bolten to produce documents Appearances on C-SPAN C-SPAN Q&A interview with Bolten, May 22, 2005
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda against the United States on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. The attacks killed 2,996 people, injured over 6,000 others, caused at least $10 billion in infrastructure and property damage. Additional people died of 9/11-related cancer and respiratory diseases in the months and years following the attacks. Four passenger airliners operated by two major U. S. passenger air carriers —all of which departed from airports in the northeastern United States bound for California—were hijacked by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists. Two of the planes, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, were crashed into the North and South towers of the World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan. Within an hour and 42 minutes, both 110-story towers collapsed. Debris and the resulting fires caused a partial or complete collapse of all other buildings in the World Trade Center complex, including the 47-story 7 World Trade Center tower, as well as significant damage to ten other large surrounding structures.
A third plane, American Airlines Flight 77, was crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington County, which led to a partial collapse of the building's west side. The fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, was flown toward Washington, D. C. but crashed into a field in Stonycreek Township near Shanksville, after its passengers thwarted the hijackers. 9/11 is the single deadliest terrorist attack in human history and the single deadliest incident for firefighters and law enforcement officers in the history of the United States, with 343 and 72 killed, respectively. Suspicion fell on al-Qaeda; the United States responded by launching the War on Terror and invaded Afghanistan to depose the Taliban, which had failed to comply with U. S. demands to extradite Osama bin expel al-Qaeda from Afghanistan. Many countries strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation and expanded the powers of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to prevent terrorist attacks. Although Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda's leader denied any involvement, in 2004 he claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Al-Qaeda and bin Laden cited U. S. support of Israel, the presence of U. S. troops in Saudi Arabia, sanctions against Iraq as motives. After evading capture for a decade, bin Laden was located in Pakistan and killed by SEAL Team Six of the U. S. Navy in May 2011; the destruction of the World Trade Center and nearby infrastructure harmed the economy of Lower Manhattan and had a significant effect on global markets, which resulted in the closing of Wall Street until September 17 and the civilian airspace in the U. S. and Canada until September 13. Many closings and cancellations followed, out of respect or fear of further attacks. Cleanup of the World Trade Center site was completed in May 2002, the Pentagon was repaired within a year. On November 18, 2006, construction of One World Trade Center began at the World Trade Center site; the building was opened on November 3, 2014. Numerous memorials have been constructed, including the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City, the Pentagon Memorial in Arlington County and the Flight 93 National Memorial in a field in Stonycreek Township near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Although not confirmed, there is evidence of alleged Saudi Arabian involvement in the attacks. Given as main evidence in these charges are the contents of the 28 redacted pages of the December 2002 Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 conducted by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; these 28 pages contain information regarding the material and financial assistance given to the hijackers and their affiliates leading up to the attacks by the Saudi Arabian government. The origins of al-Qaeda can be traced to 1979. Osama bin Laden helped organize Arab mujahideen to resist the Soviets. Under the guidance of Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden became more radical. In 1996, bin Laden issued his first fatwā. In a second fatwā in 1998, bin Laden outlined his objections to American foreign policy with respect to Israel, as well as the continued presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War.
Bin Laden used Islamic texts to exhort Muslims to attack Americans until the stated grievances are reversed. Muslim legal scholars "have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries", according to bin Laden. Bin Laden orchestrated the attacks and denied involvement but recanted his false statements. Al Jazeera broadcast a statement by bin Laden on September 16, 2001, stating, "I stress that I have not carried out this act, which appears to have been carried out by individuals with their own motivation." In November 2001, U. S. forces recovered a videotape from a destroyed house in Afghanistan. In the video, bin Laden admits foreknowledge of the attacks. On December 27, 2001, a second bin Laden video was released. In the video, he said: It has become clear that the West in general and America in particular have an unspeakable hatred for Islam.... It is the hatred of crusaders. Terrorism against America deserves to be praised because it was a response to injustice, aimed at forcing America to stop its support for Israel, which kills our people....
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Director of National Intelligence
The Director of National Intelligence is the United States government Cabinet-level official—subject to the authority and control of the President of the United States—required by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 to: serve as head of the sixteen-member United States Intelligence Community and oversee the National Intelligence Program. The Director produces the President's Daily Brief, a top-secret document including intelligence from all the various agencies, given each morning to the President of the United States; the PDB is seen by the President and those approved by the President. On July 30, 2008, President George W. Bush issued Executive Order 13470, amending Executive Order 12333 to strengthen the DNI's role. Further, by Presidential Policy Directive 19 signed by Barack Obama in October 2012, the DNI was given overall responsibility for Intelligence Community whistleblowing and source protection. Under 50 U. S. C. § 403-3a, "under ordinary circumstances, it is desirable" that either the Director or the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence be an active-duty commissioned officer in the armed forces or have training or experience in military intelligence activities and requirements.
Only one of the two positions can be held by a military officer at any given time. The statute does not specify what rank the commissioned officer will hold during his or her tenure in either position; the DNI is appointed by the President and is subject to confirmation by the Senate, serves at the pleasure of the President. The current DNI is Dan Coats, nominated for the office on January 5, 2017, by then-President-elect Donald Trump; the DNI and Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence both resigned with effect on January 20, Trump's Inauguration day. Pending Coats' confirmation, Mike Dempsey was acting DNI from January 20, became a member of President Trump's Cabinet on February 8, the first time that the DNI was a Cabinet-level position; the United States Senate Intelligence Committee held Coats' confirmation hearing on February 28, which approved Coats on March 9, by a 13–2 vote. The Senate confirmed his nomination with an 85–12 vote on March 15, he was sworn into office the next day.
Before the DNI was formally established, the head of the Intelligence Community was the Director of Central Intelligence, who concurrently served as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The 9/11 Commission recommended establishing the DNI position in its 9/11 Commission Report, not released until July 22, 2004, as it had identified major intelligence failures that called into question how well the intelligence community was able to protect U. S. interests against foreign terrorist attacks. Senators Dianne Feinstein, Jay Rockefeller and Bob Graham introduced S. 2645 on June 19, 2002, to create the Director of National Intelligence position. Other similar legislation soon followed. After considerable debate on the scope of the DNI's powers and authorities, the United States Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 by votes of 336–75 in the House of Representatives, 89–2 in the Senate. President George W. Bush signed the bill into law on December 17, 2004.
Among other things, the law established the DNI position as the designated leader of the United States Intelligence Community and prohibited the DNI from serving as the CIA Director or the head of any other Intelligence Community element at the same time. In addition, the law required the CIA Director to "report" his agency's activities to the DNI. Critics say compromises during the bill's crafting led to the establishment of a DNI whose powers are too weak to adequately lead and improve the performance of the US Intelligence Community. In particular, the law left the United States Department of Defense in charge of the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency; the first Director of National Intelligence was US Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte, appointed on February 17, 2005, by President George W. Bush, subject to confirmation by the Senate, it was reported that President Bush's first choice for DNI was former Director of Central Intelligence Robert M. Gates, serving as president of Texas A&M University, but who declined the offer.
Negroponte was confirmed by a Senate vote of 98 to 2 in favor of his appointment on April 21, 2005, he was sworn in by President Bush on that day. On February 13, 2007, John Michael McConnell became the second Director of National Intelligence, after Negroponte was appointed Deputy Secretary of State. Donald M. Kerr was confirmed by the U. S. Senate to be Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence on October 4, 2007, sworn in on October 9, 2007. Kerr, from Virginia, was most the Director of the National Reconnaissance Office, the Duty Director for Science and Technology at the US CIA and earlier in his career the Assistant Director of the Justice Department's FBI. Declan McCullagh at News.com wrote on August 24, 2007, that the DNI site was configured to repel all search engines to index any page at DNI.gov. This made the DNI website invisible to all search engines and in turn, any search queries. Ross Feinstein, Spokesman for the DNI, said that the cloaking was removed as of September 3, 2007.
"We're not sure how got there" – but it was again somehow hidden the next day. Anot
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy referred to by his initials JFK, was an American politician and journalist who served as the 35th president of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. He served at the height of the Cold War, the majority of his presidency dealt with managing relations with the Soviet Union. A member of the Democratic Party, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in the U. S. House of Representatives and Senate prior to becoming president. Kennedy was born in Brookline, the second child of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Kennedy. He graduated from Harvard University in 1940 and joined the U. S. Naval Reserve the following year. During World War II, he commanded a series of PT boats in the Pacific theater and earned the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his service. After the war, Kennedy represented the 11th congressional district of Massachusetts in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953, he was subsequently elected to the U. S. Senate and served as the junior Senator from Massachusetts from 1953 to 1960.
While in the Senate, he published his book Profiles in Courage, which won a Pulitzer Prize for Biography. In the 1960 presidential election, Kennedy narrowly defeated Republican opponent Richard Nixon, the incumbent vice president. At age 43, he became the second-youngest man to serve as president, the youngest man to be elected as U. S. president, as well as the only Roman Catholic to occupy that office. He was the first president to have served in the U. S. Navy. Kennedy's time in office was marked by high tensions with communist states in the Cold War, he increased the number of American military advisers in South Vietnam by a factor of 18 over President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In April 1961, he authorized a failed joint-CIA attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro in the Bay of Pigs Invasion, he subsequently rejected Operation Northwoods plans by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to orchestrate false flag attacks on American soil in order to gain public approval for a war against Cuba.
However his administration continued to plan for an invasion of Cuba in the summer of 1962. In October 1962, U. S. spy planes discovered. Domestically, Kennedy presided over the establishment of the Peace Corps and supported the civil rights movement, but was only somewhat successful in passing his New Frontier domestic policies. On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was assassinated in Texas. Pursuant to the Constitution, Vice President Lyndon Johnson automatically became president upon Kennedy's death. Marxist Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the state crime, but he was killed by Jack Ruby two days and so was never prosecuted. Ruby was sentenced to death and died while the conviction was on appeal in 1967. Both the FBI and the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald had acted alone in the assassination, but various groups challenged the findings of the Warren Report and believed that Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy. After Kennedy's death, Congress enacted many of his proposals, including the Civil Rights Act and the Revenue Act of 1964.
Kennedy continues to rank in polls of U. S. presidents with historians and the general public. His personal life has been the focus of considerable public fascination following revelations regarding his lifelong health ailments and alleged extra-marital affairs, his average approval rating of 70% is the highest of any president in Gallup's history of systematically measuring job approval. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917, at 83 Beals Street in suburban Brookline, Massachusetts, to businessman/politician Joseph Patrick "Joe" Kennedy and philanthropist/socialite Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald Kennedy, his paternal grandfather P. J. Kennedy was a member of the Massachusetts state legislature, his maternal grandfather and namesake John F. Fitzgerald served as a U. S. Congressman and was elected to two terms as Mayor of Boston. All four of his grandparents were children of Irish immigrants. Kennedy had an elder brother, Joseph Jr. and seven younger siblings: Rosemary, Eunice, Robert and Edward.
As of 2019, he has been the only Catholic U. S. President. Kennedy lived in Brookline for the first ten years of his life and attended the local St. Aidan's Church, where he was baptized on June 19, 1917, he was educated at the Edward Devotion School in Brookline, the Noble and Greenough Lower School in nearby Dedham and the Dexter School through the 4th grade. His father's business had kept him away from the family for long stretches of time, his ventures were concentrated on Wall Street and Hollywood. In September 1927, the family moved from Brookline to the Riverdale neighborhood of New York City. Young John attended the lower campus of Riverdale Country School, a private school for boys, from 5th to 7th grade. Two years the family moved to suburban Bronxville, New York, where Kennedy was a member of Boy Scout Troop 2 and attended St. Joseph's Church; the Kennedy family spent summers and early autumns at their home in Hyannis Port and Christmas and Easter holidays at their winter retreat in Palm Beach, Florida purchased in 1933.
In September 1930, Kennedy—then 13 years old—attended the Canterbury School in New Milford, for 8th grade. In April 1931, he had an appendectomy, after which he withdrew from Canterbury and recuperated at home. In September 1931, Kennedy started attending Choate, a prestigious board
Intelligence assessment
Intelligence assessment is the development of behavior forecasts or recommended courses of action to the leadership of an organisation, based on wide ranges of available overt and covert information. Assessments develop in response to leadership declaration requirements to inform decision making. Assessment may be executed on behalf of a state, military or commercial organisation with ranges of information sources available to each. An intelligence assessment reviews available information and previous assessments for relevance and currency. Where there requires additional information, the analyst may direct some collection. Intelligence studies is the academic field concerning intelligence assessment relating to international relations and military science. Intelligence assessment is based on a customer requirement or need, which may be a standing requirement or tailored to a specific circumstance or a Request for Information; the "requirement" is passed to the assessing agency and worked through the intelligence cycle, a structured method for responding to the RFI.
The RFI may indicate. The RFI is reviewed by a Requirements Manager, who will direct appropriate tasks to respond to the request; this will involve a review of existing material, the tasking of new analytical product or the collection of new information to inform an analysis. New information may be collected through one or more of the various collection disciplines; the nature of the RFI and the urgency placed on it may indicate that some collection types are unsuitable due to the time taken to collect or validate the information gathered. Intelligence gathering disciplines and the sources and methods used are highly classified and compartmentalised, with analysts requiring an appropriate high level of security clearance; the process of taking known information about situations and entities of importance to the RFI, characterizing what is known and attempting to forecast future events is termed "all source" assessment, analysis or processing. The analyst uses multiple sources to mutually corroborate, or exclude, the information collected, reaching a conclusion along with a measure of confidence around that conclusion.
Where sufficient current information exists, the analysis may be tasked directly without reference to further collection. The analysis is communicated back to the requester in the format directed, although subject to the constraints on both the RFI and the methods used in the analysis, the format may be made available for other uses as well and disseminated accordingly; the analysis will be written to a defined classification level with alternative versions available at a number of classification levels for further dissemination. This approach, known as Find-Fix-Finish-Exploit-Assess, is complementary to the intelligence cycle and focused on the intervention itself, where the subject of the assessment is identifiable and provisions exist to make some form of intervention against that subject, the target-centric assessment approach may be used; the subject for action, or target, is identified and efforts are made to find the target for further development. This activity will identify where intervention against the target will have the most beneficial effects.
When the decision is made to intervene, action is taken to fix the target, confirming that the intervention will have a high probability of success and restricting the ability of the target to take independent action. During the finish stage, the intervention is executed an arrest or detention or the placement of other collection methods. Following the intervention, exploitation of the target is carried out, which may lead to further refinement of the process for related targets; the output from the exploit stage will be passed into other intelligence assessment activities. Intelligence cycle List of intelligence gathering disciplines Military intelligence Surveillance Threat assessment Futures studies SurveysAndrew, Christopher. For the President's Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush Black and Morris, Benny Israel's Secret Wars: A History of Israel's Intelligence Services Bungert, Heike et al. eds. Secret Intelligence in the Twentieth Century essays by scholars Dulles, Allen W.
The Craft of Intelligence: America's Legendary Spy Master on the Fundamentals of Intelligence Gathering for a Free World Kahn, David The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet, 1200 pages Lerner, K. Lee and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, eds. Encyclopedia of Espionage and Security, 1100 pages. 850 articles, strongest on technology Odom, Gen. William E. Fixing Intelligence: For a More Secure America, Second Edition O'Toole, George. Honorable Treachery: A History of U. S. Intelligence, Covert Action from the American Revolution to the CIA Owen, David. Hidden Secrets: A Complete History of Espionage and the Technology Used to Support It, popular Richelson, Jeffery T. A Century of Spies: Intelligence in the Twentieth Century Richelson, Jeffery T; the U. S. Intelligence Community Shulsky, Abram N. and Schmitt, Gary J. "Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of Intelligence", 285 pages West, Nigel. MI6: British Secret Intelligence Service Operations 1909–1945 West, Nigel.
Secret War: The Story of SOE, Britain's Wartime Sabotage Organization Wohlstetter, Roberta. Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision World War IBeesly, Patrick. Room 40.. Covers the breaking of German codes by RN intelligence
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D. C. formally the District of Columbia and referred to as Washington or D. C. is the capital of the United States. Founded after the American Revolution as the seat of government of the newly independent country, Washington was named after George Washington, first President of the United States and Founding Father; as the seat of the United States federal government and several international organizations, Washington is an important world political capital. The city is one of the most visited cities in the world, with more than 20 million tourists annually; the signing of the Residence Act on July 16, 1790, approved the creation of a capital district located along the Potomac River on the country's East Coast. The U. S. Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the U. S. Congress, the District is therefore not a part of any state; the states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, which included the pre-existing settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria.
The City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land ceded by Virginia. Washington had an estimated population of 702,455 as of July 2018, making it the 20th most populous city in the United States. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the city's daytime population to more than one million during the workweek. Washington's metropolitan area, the country's sixth largest, had a 2017 estimated population of 6.2 million residents. All three branches of the U. S. federal government are centered in the District: Congress and the U. S. Supreme Court. Washington is home to many national monuments, museums situated on or around the National Mall; the city hosts 177 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of many international organizations, trade unions, non-profit, lobbying groups, professional associations, including the World Bank Group, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization of American States, AARP, the National Geographic Society, the Human Rights Campaign, the International Finance Corporation, the American Red Cross.
A locally elected mayor and a 13‑member council have governed the District since 1973. However, Congress may overturn local laws. D. C. residents elect a non-voting, at-large congressional delegate to the House of Representatives, but the District has no representation in the Senate. The District receives three electoral votes in presidential elections as permitted by the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961. Various tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway people inhabited the lands around the Potomac River when Europeans first visited the area in the early 17th century. One group known as the Nacotchtank maintained settlements around the Anacostia River within the present-day District of Columbia. Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes forced the relocation of the Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland. In his Federalist No. 43, published January 23, 1788, James Madison argued that the new federal government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance and safety.
Five years earlier, a band of unpaid soldiers besieged Congress while its members were meeting in Philadelphia. Known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, the event emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security. Article One, Section Eight, of the Constitution permits the establishment of a "District as may, by cession of particular states, the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States". However, the Constitution does not specify a location for the capital. In what is now known as the Compromise of 1790, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson came to an agreement that the federal government would pay each state's remaining Revolutionary War debts in exchange for establishing the new national capital in the southern United States. On July 9, 1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River; the exact location was to be selected by President George Washington, who signed the bill into law on July 16.
Formed from land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring 10 miles on each side, totaling 100 square miles. Two pre-existing settlements were included in the territory: the port of Georgetown, founded in 1751, the city of Alexandria, founded in 1749. During 1791–92, Andrew Ellicott and several assistants, including a free African American astronomer named Benjamin Banneker, surveyed the borders of the federal district and placed boundary stones at every mile point. Many of the stones are still standing. A new federal city was constructed on the north bank of the Potomac, to the east of Georgetown. On September 9, 1791, the three commissioners overseeing the capital's construction named the city in honor of President Washington; the federal district was named Columbia, a poetic name for the United States in use at that time. Congress held its first session in Washington on November 17, 1800. Congress passed the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801 that organized the District and placed the entire territory under the exclusive control of the federal
United States National Security Council
The White House National Security Council is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for consideration of national security, military matters, foreign policy matters with senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials and is part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States. Since its inception under Harry S. Truman, the function of the Council has been to advise and assist the President on national security and foreign policies; the Council serves as the President's principal arm for coordinating these policies among various government agencies. The Council has counterparts in the national security councils of many other nations; the predecessor to the National Security Council was the National Intelligence Authority, established by President Harry S. Truman's Executive Letter of 22 January 1946 to oversee the Central Intelligence Group, the CIA's predecessor; the NIA was composed of the Secretary of State, Secretary of War, Secretary of the Navy, the Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief.
The National Security Council was created in 1947 by the National Security Act. It was created because policymakers felt that the diplomacy of the State Department was no longer adequate to contain the USSR in light of the tension between the Soviet Union and the United States; the intent was to ensure coordination and concurrence among the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force and other instruments of national security policy such as the Central Intelligence Agency created in the National Security Act. In 2004, the position of Director of National Intelligence was created, taking over the responsibilities held by the head of CIA, the Director of Central Intelligence, as a cabinet-level position to oversee and coordinate activities of the Intelligence Community. On May 26, 2009, President Barack Obama merged the White House staff supporting the Homeland Security Council and the National Security Council into one National Security Staff; the HSC and NSC each continue to exist by statute as bodies supporting the President.
The name of the staff organization was changed back to National Security Council Staff in 2014. On January 29, 2017, President Donald Trump restructured the Principals Committee, while at the same time altering the attendance of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Director of National Intelligence. On April 5, 2017, President Trump removed Steve Bannon from the Security Council. According to National Security Presidential Memorandum 2, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Director of National Intelligence were to sit on the Principals Committee as and when matters pertaining to them arise, but will remain part of the full National Security Council. However, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus clarified the next day that they still are invited to attend meetings. With National Security Presidential Memorandum 4 in April 2017, the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff "shall" attend Principals Committee meetings and included the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency as a regular attendee.
The reorganization placed the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development as a permanent member of the Deputies Committee, winning moderate praise. On 6 April 2017, the White House Chief Strategist was removed from the National Security Council and the roles of the director of national intelligence, CIA director and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were restored to the Principal's Committee. For a detailed history of the United States National Security Council by year see: The National Security Council was established by the National Security Act of 1947, amended by the National Security Act Amendments of 1949. In 1949, as part of the Reorganization Plan, the Council was placed in the Executive Office of the President; the High Value Detainee Interrogation Group reports to the NSC. A secret National Security Council panel pursues the killing of an individual, including American citizens, called a suspected terrorist. In this case, no public record of this decision or any operation to kill the suspect will be made available.
The panel's actions are justified by "two principal legal theories": They "were permitted by Congress when it authorized the use of military forces against militants in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001. Reuters has reported that Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, was on such a kill list and was killed accordingly. On February 4, 2013, NBC published a leaked Department of Justice memo providing a summary of the rationale used to justify targeted killing of US citizens who are senior operational leaders of Al-Qa'ida or associated forces; the Trump Administration's National Security Council, as per the statute and National Security Presidential Memorandum–4, is chaired by the President. Its members are the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Energy, the National Security Advisor, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Representative of the
