This Day in History | July 26, 2022
The National Security Act of 1947 at 75 Years
By William Inboden, executive director of the Clements Center for National Security and associate professor of Public Policy and History at the LBJ School of Public Affairs
Seventy-five years ago, on July 26, 1947, President Harry S. Truman signed into law the National Security Act of 1947. The scholar Douglas Stuart has rightly called it “the law that transformed America.” Some of the most important institutions of America’s national defense and international leadership, including the National Security Council, Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, and Air Force, all trace their birth to this one law.[1]
