JOHN PRADOS: I think the lesson of Iran-contra is that the National Security Council is a potential time bomb. 

WOMAN-In-The-STREET: I think we need to not throw the baby out with the bathwater and get rid of something that may have done a lot of good for this country. 

HOWARD TEICHER: A circus erupted dealing with the Iran affair in Washington. Many people in the Congress and the executive branch and the media were screaming for heads to roll, and so heads how to be found to roll. I was pushed out of an airplane at 50,000 feet without a parachute into a shark tank. 

NARRATOR: As Washington agencies go, it's a tiny one. Through thick and thin since its creation in 1947, this little known group has advised presidents on nearly every major military and foreign policy development involving the United States. In some cases, its staff members have gone beyond advising to become active participants in critical events. 

["AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR" program introduction.] 
 

Admiral GENE LaROCQUE: Welcome once again to "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR." 

Whenever there's a crisis anywhere in the world, we Americans feel very good about the fact that we're going to hear something about how we're going to respond to that crisis from the Department of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretary of state. It makes us feel very comfortable that we will be in on the decisionmaking process. 

But it may surprise you to learn that there's one organization in our government that conducts most of its opera- tions in secret and has far more impact on what our nation does in foreign affairs than either the Department of Defense or Department of State. That is the National Security Council. 

Our program is about that subject today and I think what you're going to see will surprise you. 

WINSTON CHURCHILL: "An iron curtain has descended across the continent." 

NARRATOR: After World War II the cold war was just beginning. The US Government was preoccupied with the threat of Soviet communism. The National Security Act of 1947 created the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency and the powerful group closest to the president, the National Security Council. The Act officially introduced the catchall abstraction "national security" without defining it. 

This happened because of a sense that the world was becoming both a more threatening and complex place. The United States was a world power and was expanding its activities world- wide. New countries were being formed. Many governmental agencies in the postwar period had a role to play. The president needed a small staff of advisers he could call his own to help him sort through the issues, make the key decisions, and control the growth of the government bureaucracy. 

The function of the National Security Council was "to advise the president on the integration of domestic, foreign and military policies relating to the national security so as to enable the military services and the other departments and agencies of the government to cooperate more effectively in matters involving the national security." Put simply, its job was to help the president coordinate planning and action within the government bureaucracy. The NSC was not intended to be an action agency or a rival power center to other departments. 

The council was to have "a staff to be headed by a civilian executive secretary who shall be appointed by the president." 

In comparison to the State and Defense Departments, the NSC has always been a tiny organization. Its entire staff, including clerks and secretaries, as well as those on loan from other agencies, is fewer than 200 persons. Somewhere between 50 and 75 are on the professional staff. Most of them work in the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House. 

This year its budget is only $6 million, a tiny fraction of one percent of the Pentagon's budget. 

Philip Zeliko, a career Foreign Service officer, served on the NSC staff during the Bush administration as director for European Security Issues. He now teaches at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He explains how the NSC works. 

PHILIP ZELIKO: The NSC staff is really a small operation. There may be no more than, oh, 50 professional staffers who might actually be writing papers on a series of topics covering the whole world. That's a much smaller number of people than one bureau of the State Department that might only be dealing with one region. One particular staffer might be covering several countries. All of the issues involving Europe and the former Soviet Union might be handled by no more than six or seven people on the NSC staff, just to give you a sense of the scale. 

NARRATOR: Robert Komer served with distinction on the NSC staff from 1958 to 1966. During the Johnson administration, he was acting national security adviser. He believes the influence of NSC staffers has often been exaggerated. 

ROBERT KOMER: We're staff officers, advisers to the presi-dent; he does all the committing. In fact, I couldn't commit anybody to anything, even my secretary, usually. 

NARRATOR: Marcus Raskin served as an NSC staffer during the Kennedy administration. He is the innovative co-founder of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington and the author of numerous books and articles on national security issues. 

MARCUS RASKIN: By the end of the Second World War, we had the development of the National Security Council and, specific-ally, the national security state structure, which was predicated on the idea that the United States had farflung interests and that it would be involved in continuous conflict around the world. 

NARRATOR: Starting in 1951, shortly after the NSC was established, Robert Johnson worked as a staffer for eleven years. 

ROBERT JOHNSON: In part, it grew out of the experience in World War II when there was a feeling that there was an inadequate integration of defense and foreign policy. That the military had been in charge, and they'd done a lot of things without real input from the State Department, effective input from the State Department, and that that should not occur in the future. 

NARRATOR: The NSC is a conspicuously two-tiered organiza-tion. At the top are the principals, as they are generally called. The statutory members, required by law, include the president, the vice president, the secretaries of state and defense. The non-statutory members, not required by law, are any others the president may wish to add to the council. The second tier is the NSC staffers. 

Mr. JOHNSON: In addition, there are non-statutory partici-pants in NSC processes. Typically, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of Central Intelligence, often also the director of OMB and the secretary of the treasury. 

NARRATOR: Although the NSC was created to present the president with broadbased advice on all foreign policy and mili- tary issues, some think America's preoccupation with communism warped the NSC's point of view. 

Mr. PRADOS: It's true that there's a whole cold war overlay in the creation of the National Security Council, and naturally that became its major focus. 

NARRATOR: John Prados is a historian of US national security affairs and author of the widely acclaimed book, Keeper of the Keys: A History of the National Security Council from Truman to Bush. 

Mr. PRADOS: In the 1960s, we had Vietnam, which was seen as a surrogate for Soviet aggression. In the 1970s and 1980s, Afghanistan was seen as a front for Soviet aggression. If you go down through the years, you can see almost every foreign policy problem the United States has faced has had this cold war dimension injected into it. 

NARRATOR: Although Congress created the NSC to advise the president, he is not obligated, and frequently not inclined, to use it. 

Mr. KOMER: It became politically important to look as though you're going through the NSC process, as though the presi-dent is consulting his chief advisers. But some of the biggest issues were never handled through the NSC. 

NARRATOR: Duncan Clarke is a professor of international relations at The American University's School of International Service. He is the author of numerous influential articles and books on foreign policy decisionmaking. 

DUNCAN CLARKE: A common pattern though for most presidents is to meet with the full National Security Council very early in the administration, maybe the first six, eight, ten months, and then to meet very infrequently. 

NARRATOR: The responsibilities of the NSC, especially at the staff level, have changed over time. 

Mr. JOHNSON: Initially, when I went to work at the NSC, it was essentially a secretariat staff. It organized the work of this council, of this cabinet-level body. It saw that the papers were prepared, that meetings were called, that records were kept and that sort of thing. 

NARRATOR: During the Eisenhower administration, the charac-ter of the staff changed only slightly. Eisenhower gave the new title of "special assistant to the president for national security affairs" to the official who briefed the president on national security business. 

Mr. JOHNSON: Of course, the title, national security adviser, which has come into common usage now, has no status at all in legislation or, as far as I know, in bureaucratic practice. 

NARRATOR: Despite the important title, the creation of this post caused no alarm within the government bureaucracy because the adviser did not attempt to compete with the secretaries of state or defense. 

The Kennedy administration ushered in a major evolution in the NSC staff. The staffers gained greatly expanded powers. McGeorge Bundy, Kennedy's national security adviser, transformed the NSC staff into a personal staff of the president. Staffers often spoke directly with the president. 

Mr. KOMER: The staff is worth talking more about because the staff was more important than the Security Council, I think. In my day, the staff advised the president directly. 

Mr. JOHNSON: Under Kennedy, the role of the NSC staff changed again. And I think this is the major turning point really in the evolution of the NSC staff. Because instead of serving the council -- that is, this cabinet-level body and its various committees -- the NSC staff, in effect, became a staff for the president in national security affairs, serving the president through the assistant to the president for national security affairs. 

NARRATOR: During this time, the national security adviser took on an open operational role, undertaking specific missions rather than just advising. 

Mr. JOHNSON: The first instance I know of, but there are probably earlier ones, was the use of the assistant to the president for national security affairs to perform a diplomatic function, as when Mac Bundy was sent to the Dominican Republic in 1965 to try to straighten out the politics of the situation there after the US had intervened militarily in the Dominican Republic. 

NARRATOR: McGeorge Bundy is generally credited with having had a constructive role on that mission. But John Prados notes that allowing the NSC adviser to act as a diplomatic emissary set the dangerous precedent of bypassing the responsible departments; in this case, the State Department. 

Mr. PRADOS: The national security adviser only serves at the pleasure of the president. And because he only serves at the pleasure of the president, if the president tells him to do some-thing, then he'll go out and do it, come hell or high water. 

NARRATOR: In fact, this operational role, never codified in the original NSC act, continued in the following administrations. Another instance of this practice was the involvement of Robert Komer in the effort to win the allegiance of the South Vietnamese away from the Viet Cong. 

Mr. PRADOS: In Johnson's administration again, the ability to carry out these kinds of operational activities was extended below the top level of the NSC staff. In other words, a subordi-nate in the NSC staff -- in this case, Robert Komer -- was deputized separately as a special assistant in his own right to go out and energize the war in Vietnam and conduct the pacifica-tion war. 

NARRATOR: Philip Zeliko cites the Vietnam War as a tragic and costly example of the fact that the NSC does not always provide good advice. 

Mr. ZELIKO: I think most historians would agree that the quality of advice and the depth of analysis that President Johnson received from his national security team, led by Walt Rostow, in the mid-1960s did not illuminate as well as people think in retrospect might have been possible the dangers and pitfalls of the policy President Johnson was leading the nation towards in his conduct of the Vietnam War. 

NARRATOR: President Johnson actually made many of his national security decisions outside the NSC in a private forum known as the "Tuesday Lunch." 

The expanding role of both the NSC adviser and the NSC staff was accompanied by an increase in their power. With Henry Kissinger's insistence, President Nixon gave him the title of "deputy to the president for national security." During Presi-dent Nixon's second term, which saw the winding down of the Vietnam War, Kissinger served simultaneously as the national security adviser and secretary of state. 

Under Henry Kissinger, the NSC restricted the flow of information so severely that the Joint Chiefs of Staff felt com-pelled to spy on the National Security Council. A note-taker assigned by the Joint Chiefs of Staff was instructed to pass copies of NSC documents back to the top military officials. 

Prof. CLARKE: By January of 1970 or so, Henry in fact had centralized that system, a very, very centralized system and Kissinger, of course, was a dominant policy adviser. And that began to change only with President Nixon's resignation. 

NARRATOR: Professor Clarke notes there is a predictable tendency for new administrations to switch back and forth between tight and loose control over their NSC structures. 

Prof. CLARKE: And every incoming administration, of course, looks at the preceding administration and says, boy, they did it all wrong. 

NARRATOR: Under the Reagan administration, the NSC system was characterized by turmoil and scandal. Six national security advisers served during President Reagan's eight years in office. The Reagan administration also produced the Iran-contra scandal. NSC staffer Ollie North and national security adviser John Poin-dexter were indicted for their activities. 

Mr. TEICHER: In my opinion, most if not all of the National Security Council knew everything that was going on and when the scandal erupted, they all suffered from premature Alzheimer's. 

NARRATOR: Howard Teicher was on the NSC staff from 1982 to 1987. He served as director for Near East and South Asian Affairs and as senior director for Political-Military Affairs. He is now head of a consulting firm. 

He says the NSC ignored its own staff input on the decision in 1982 to return the Marines to Lebanon after their earlier withdrawal from Beirut. 

Mr. TEICHER: I was the Middle East staff officer on duty. My associate at the time, Jeffrey Kemp, was on well-earned vacation in the Caribbean. I can absolutely, categorically state that there was no analysis, no pros and cons, no memos written. A decision was made by the National Security Council on the fly without any staff input. 

NARRATOR: It was with the Iran-contra scandal, however, that the NSC suffered its biggest blow. Under the supervision of some NSC staffers, the United States sold weapons to Iran in an attempt to swap arms for American hostages. Some of the profits from those deals were diverted to the contras fighting to over-throw the Nicaraguan government. This action violated laws forbidding US aid to such factions. 

The NSC's actions were unauthorized and illegal, since the US Congress had previously suspended to the contras. And they violated the fundamental mission of the NSC, which is to provide advice to the president. Instead, NSC officials such as John Poindexter and Ollie North took it upon themselves to assist a foreign military force in the field outside the United States. They acted against a country which was officially at peace with the United States. In so doing, they substituted their judgment for the judgment of US Government officials who had primary responsibility for these matters and who are accountable to the public. 

With Iraq, the NSC also failed to see trouble coming. In October 1989, nine months before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the NSC issued National Security Directive 26. This directive established American policy toward Iraq. It called for proposing economic and political incentives to help achieve normal rela-tions between Iraq and the United States. 

Some argue that the Iran-contra scandal was an aberration, a case where the problem was that of a few renegade individuals, not of the system. Others see it differently. 

According to John Prados, a president's NSC system is only effective if the president is actively involved. 

Mr. PRADOS: We can surround a president with rules and regulations. We can try and employ the best individuals. But if the president himself is not willing to do the work, then he can't be saved. 

NARRATOR: It is generally acknowledged that Ronald Reagan was not a hands-on president during his time in office. 

Mr. ZELIKO: I think there were clearly some serious problems in the organization and operation of the NSC during the Reagan administration. The NSC wasn't clear on what its role was. It lacked the kind of central direction it needed. And the conse-quences of that lack of central direction or effective central direction and the uncertainty about just what its role should be has been played out in our federal courts. 

Prof. CLARKE: Indeed, it was hard to keep the president's attention for more than a half an hour. He would literally doze off at NSC meetings. In fact, I'm aware of one. And another one where he didn't doze off, he was -- The fellow who sat right next to him told me this. He was drawing a picture of a horse at a critically important NSC meeting dealing with our strategic arms reduction. 

NARRATOR: One question frequently asked in the aftermath of the Iran-contra scandal is whether sufficient safeguards exist to prevent a recurrence. 

Mr. ZELIKO: One of the real reforms that the Tower Commis-sion recommended in the operation of the NSC, and that President Bush put in place when he took charge of the NSC process, was to make lines of authority, the authorization and the role of the NSC crystal clear so that there could never be this uncertainty or potential abuses of power again. 

NARRATOR: John Prados does not think the right lessons have been learned. 

Mr. PRADOS: What astonishes me is that after the Iran-contra affair, many of these same people see no -- it has made no difference in their attitudes towards the National Security Council. They still do not perceive that, in fact, there is any difficulty or problem with the National Security Council staff and the fact that it has no means of regulation, no checks and balances applied to it. 

NARRATOR: Currently, the national security adviser is retired Air Force General Brent Scowcroft. General Scowcroft served as the adviser under President Ford, as well. Many observers believe he has created a smooth-running NSC system. 

Mr. ZELIKO: I think under President Bush, the National Security Council system has functioned very effectively. There hasn't been open in-fighting between the State Department, the Defense Department and the White House over national security issues, as there has been really in every other president's administration for the last 30 years. 

NARRATOR: Now that the cold war is over, some wonder whether the NSC is capable of escaping the cold war assumptions that long guided national security decisionmaking. 

Mr. RASKIN: It is taken for granted now that the United States is and should be number one. It is taken for granted that military force should be used when it is thought necessary to use military force. It is taken for granted that the corporations of the society should be at the beck and call of this particular administrative structure. It is taken for granted that particular opinions are beyond the pale and should not be taken seriously and that real power is framed in questions very different than, say, would be framed generally in the society as a whole. 

NARRATOR: Most people agree the need for the National Security Council remains, but that it needs to take on new issues. 

Mr. JOHNSON: It's the conventional wisdom, and it's none-theless true, that foreign policy and national security policy, more generally, is going to be much more involved in domestic kinds of issues. The distinction between domestic and national security is going to be greatly blurred. That means I think that we ought to take another look at how the NSC staff and the NSC mechanism, more generally, is organized. 

NARRATOR: Some call for the NSC to greatly expand its involvement in such domestic issues as economic policy. Others think that ill-advised. 

Mr. PRADOS: In the context of the excesses that occurred during the Iran-contra affair, to do that, I submit, would be a major mistake. Because what we are doing is injecting tradition-ally open issues into this grey, even black, milieu of the National Security Council staff, of national security. I rue the day that we will hear that we cannot learn some economic data pertaining to the American economy because it's considered to be a national security issue under the purview of the National Security Council. 

NARRATOR: John Prados believes the time has come to make changes in the law regulating the National Security Council. He wants to subject the appointment of the national security adviser to Senate confirmation. 

Mr. PRADOS: There should be regular approval by Congress given to the national security adviser, that his role be put into the law. The national security adviser should exist in the law and there should be regulations for what he can and cannot do, as well as what his staff can and cannot do. 

NARRATOR: All the people we interviewed for this program agree that the need for a National Security Council exists. The process of governing is going to be even more complex. Issues such as the economy, education, health care, international com-petitiveness and the environment are of ever-greater importance. 

The experts we talked with say that if the NSC is to live up to its mandate of offering advice to the president, it must reemphasize its mission of coordinating policy planning and not taking on operational roles. It was the assumption of that role which led, over time, to the Iran-contra scandal. 

Unquestionably, the nation does need to better balance its foreign and domestic needs. With the end of the cold war, the president can take steps to ensure that the National Security Council does a much better job of ensuring that the country's pressing non-military requirements are given their long overdue priority. 
 

Admiral LaROCQUE: Well, we started out this program by reminding you that the National Security Council was a very important, powerful organization which operated largely in secret. But, you know, the National Security Council is just one of the many organizations which were set-up by the National Security Act of 1947, which is the premier document setting forth our institutions in the United States to deal with the cold war. 

Now that the cold war is over, I think it's time for a public dialogue, and a discussion, and a review of the entire 1947 National Security Act to determine what we ought to do as a nation in the future now that the cold war is over. 

Until next time, for "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR," I'm Gene LaRocque. 
 

WOMAN-in-the-STREET: As a US citizen, I, as the public, feel that I deserve to know everything that's going on. Nothing should be covered up. I mean, if it's the president, or the vice president or his counsel, I deserve to know and I want to know. 

MAN-in-the-STREET: Yes, I agree. I don't think things should be completely publicized as to what's going on, but I don't think we should be getting it from some of the people who are closer to the people in office and electing them and using our taxpayers' money.