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National security directives are
presidential directive A presidential directive, or executive action, is a written or oral instruction or declaration issued by the president of the United States, which may draw upon the powers vested in the president by the U.S. Constitution, statutory law, or, in ce ...
s issued for the National Security Council (NSC). Starting with Harry Truman, every president since the founding of the National Security Council in 1947 has issued national security directives in one form or another, which have involved foreign, military and domestic policies. National security directives are generally highly classified and are available to the public only after "a great many years" have elapsed. Unlike
executive orders ''Executive Orders'' is a techno-thriller novel, written by Tom Clancy and released on July 1, 1996. It picks up immediately where the final events of ''Debt of Honor'' (1994) left off, and features now- U.S. President Jack Ryan as he tries to ...
, national security directives are usually directed only to the National Security Council and the most senior executive branch officials, and embody foreign and military policy-making guidance rather than specific instructions.


Names for national security directives by administration

Presidents have issued such directives under various names.


Truman and Eisenhower administrations

National security directives were quite different in the early period of the Cold War. A 1988
General Accounting Office The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a legislative branch government agency that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the supreme audit institution of the federal gover ...
(GAO) investigation into national security directives left out the directives from the Truman and Eisenhower years because "they were not structured in a way to allow categorization." The study nevertheless made note of two types of directives. The first was "policy papers" which ''could'' contain policy recommendations, in which case the president might decide to approve the policy by writing his signature. A famous example of such a policy paper is
NSC 68 United States Objectives and Programs for National Security, better known as NSC68, was a 66-page top secret National Security Council (NSC) policy paper drafted by the Department of State and Department of Defense and presented to President Har ...
. GAO also noted another type of directive called "NSC Actions", which were "numbered records of decisions that were reached at NSC meetings.


Kennedy and Johnson administrations

The Kennedy administration which took office in 1961 reorganized the NSC and began issuing National Security Action Memoranda (NSAMs). Many NSAMs were signed in Kennedy's name by
National Security Advisor A national security advisor serves as the chief advisor to a national government on matters of security. The advisor is not usually a member of the government's cabinet but is usually a member of various military or security councils. National sec ...
McGeorge Bundy McGeorge "Mac" Bundy (March 30, 1919 – September 16, 1996) was an American academic who served as the U.S. National Security Advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 through 1966. He was president of the Ford Foun ...
, although Kennedy sometimes signed them personally.
Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
continued issuing NSAMs where Kennedy left off, although issuing only 99 directives as compared to Kennedy's 273.


Reagan administration

A 1986 National Security Decision Directive gave the State Department authority and responsibility to coordinate responses to international terrorism across government agencies including the
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
, DoD, and
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...
. This was intended to reduce interagency conflicts which were observed in the response to the hijacking of the ''Achille Lauro'' cruise ship. The State Department's
Bureau of Counterterrorism The Bureau of Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism (CT) is a bureau of the United States Department of State. It coordinates all U.S. Government efforts to improve counter-terrorism cooperation with foreign governments and participates ...
continues this coordinating function.


Homeland Security Presidential Directive

After September 11, 2001, George W. Bush issued Homeland Security Presidential Directives (HSPDs), with the consent of the Homeland Security Council. These directives were sometimes issued concurrently as national security directives.


Secrecy

Regarding the secrecy of presidential directives,
Steven Aftergood Steven Aftergood is a critic of U.S. government secrecy policy. He directs the Federation of American Scientists project on Government Secrecy and is the author of the Federation publication '' Secrecy News''. Life and career Aftergood has a BS ...
of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy stated in February 2008 that:
Of the 54 National Security Presidential Directives issued by the (George W.) Bush Administration to date, the titles of only about half have been publicly identified. There is descriptive material or actual text in the public domain for only about a third. In other words, there are dozens of undisclosed Presidential directives that define U.S. national security policy and task government agencies, but whose substance is unknown either to the public or, as a rule, to Congress.
However, in an unprecedented development, the Trump administration ordered their national security directives to be published in the '' Federal Register''.


See also

*
Presidential directive A presidential directive, or executive action, is a written or oral instruction or declaration issued by the president of the United States, which may draw upon the powers vested in the president by the U.S. Constitution, statutory law, or, in ce ...
*
PDD-62 Presidential Decision Directive 62 (PDD-62), titled Combating Terrorism, was a Presidential Decision Directive (PDD), signed on May 22, 1998 by President Bill Clinton. It identified the fight against terrorism a top national security priority. B ...
*
Continuity of Operations Plan Continuity of Operations (COOP) is a United States federal government initiative, required by U.S. Presidential Policy Directive 40 (PPD-40), to ensure that agencies are able to continue performance of essential functions under a broad range of cir ...
*
National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive (National Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51/Homeland Security Presidential Directive HSPD-20, sometimes called simply "Executive Directive 51" for short), signed by Presiden ...
(NSPD-51)


Notes


References

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External links


Presidential Directives and Executive Orders
a comprehensive listing of national security directives by the Federation of American Scientists ;National security directives at presidential libraries
National Security Action Memoranda
at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library
National Security Action Memorandums
at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library
National Security Study Memoranda
an
National Security Decision Memoranda
at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library
National Security Study Memoranda
an
National Security Decision Memoranda
at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
Presidential Review Memoranda
an
Presidential Directives
at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library
National Security Study Directives
an
National Security Decision Directives
at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
National Security Reviews
an
National Security Directives
at the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library
Presidential Review Directives
an
Presidential Decision Directives
at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library
National Security Presidential Directives
at the George W. Bush Presidential Library {{DEFAULTSORT:Presidential Directive Foreign relations of the United States Presidency of the United States United States federal law United States United States national security directives