Truman Administrations - Changes in the U.S. Government
Changes in the U.S. Government
The rapid escalation of the Cold War led to the expansion of the Department of Defense and the creation of a National Security Council in 1947 to coordinate all defense-related activities and agencies. By the same legislation the World War II Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was reorganized and became the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), charged with maintaining U.S. interests throughout the world, covertly if necessary. In its first years the CIA tried to boost anticommunist political factions in Italian elections, where Truman feared the possibility of a Communist victory, and it funded U.S. anticommunist organizations such as the Congress for Cultural Freedom.
The National Defense Act of 1949 tried to bring order to intense rivalries among the military services by creating a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the preceding years, for example, the U.S. Air Force had argued that it...
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