S/SNSC Files: Lot 63D351: NSC 7 Series1

Report to the National Security Council2 by the Executive Secretary (Souers)

top secret

NSC 7

Note by the Executive Secretary to the National Security Council on the Position of the United States With Respect to Soviet-Directed World Communism

The enclosed report on the above subject has been prepared by the National Security Council Staff on its own initiative, with the advice and assistance of representatives of the Departments of State, the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, and of the National Security Resources Board and the Central Intelligence Agency.

The enclosed report is submitted for consideration by the National Security Council and, as adopted, for submission to the President with the recommendation that he approve the conclusions contained therein and direct that they be implemented by all appropriate Executive Departments and Agencies of the US Government under the coordination of the Secretary of State.3

Sidney W. Souers
  1. Serial master file of National Security Council documentation and related Department of State material for the years 1947–1961, retired by the Executive Secretariat of the Department of State.
  2. The National Security Council (NSC) was established by the National Security Act of July 26, 1947 (PL 253, 80th Congress; 61 Stat (pt. 1) 495). Its membership included the President, the Secretaries of State, Defense, the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, and the Chairman of the National Security Resources Board. The duties of the NSC as specified by the National Security Act were:
    (1)
    to assess and appraise the objectives, commitments, and risks of the United States in relation to our actual and potential military power, in the interest of national security, for the purpose of making recommendations to the President in connection therewith; and
    (2)
    to consider policies on matters of common interest to the departments and agencies of the Government concerned with the national security, and to make recommendations to the President in connection therewith.

    For extensive additional information on the functions and administrative structure of the Council, see Organizing for National Security: an Inquiry of the Subcommittee on National Policy Machinery, Senator Henry M. Jackson, Chairman, for the Committee on Government Operations, United States Senate, 3 vols. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1961), particularly volume ii, Studies and Background Materials.

  3. This report was cancelled at the 27th Meeting of the National Security Council, November 23, 1948, in view of NSC action on the NSC 20 series. For the text of NSC 20/4, approved at that meeting, see p. 662.