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gress on U.S. relations with the rest of the world.The National Security Coun-
cil was created in 1947 largely as a result of lobbying from the Pentagon for a
forum where the military could object if they thought the State Department
was setting national objectives that the United States did not have the where-
withal to pursue.
The State Department retained primacy until the 1960s, when the
Kennedy and Johnson administrations turned instead to Robert McNamara's
Defense Department, where a mini­state department was created to analyze
foreign policy issues. President Richard Nixon then concentrated policy plan-
ning and policy coordination in a powerful National Security Council staff,
overseen by Henry Kissinger.
In later years, individual secretaries of state were important figures, but the
department's role continued to erode. State came into the 1990s overmatched
by the resources of other departments and with little support for its budget
either in the Congress or in the president's Office of Management and Bud-
get.
Like the FBI and the CIA's Directorate of Operations, the State Department
had a tradition of emphasizing service in the field over service in Washington.
Even ambassadors, however, often found host governments not only making
connections with the U.S. government through their own missions in Wash-
ington, but working through the CIA station or a Defense attaché. Increasingly,
the embassies themselves were overshadowed by powerful regional command-
ers in chief reporting to the Pentagon.
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Counterterrorism
In the 1960s and 1970s, the State Department managed counterterrorism pol-
icy. It was the official channel for communication with the governments pre-
sumed to be behind the terrorists. Moreover, since terrorist incidents of this
period usually ended in negotiations, an ambassador or other embassy official
was the logical person to represent U.S. interests.
Keeping U.S. diplomatic efforts against terrorism coherent was a recurring
challenge. In 1976, at the direction of Congress, the department elevated its
coordinator for combating terrorism to the rank equivalent to an assistant sec-
retary of state. As an "ambassador at large," this official sought to increase the
visibility of counterterrorism matters within the department and to help inte-
grate U.S. policy implementation among government agencies.The prolonged
crisis of 1979­1981, when 53 Americans were held hostage at the U.S. embassy
in Tehran, ended the State Department leadership in counterterrorism. Presi-
dent Carter's assertive national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, took
charge, and the coordination function remained thereafter in the White House.
President Reagan's second secretary of state, George Shultz, advocated active
U.S. efforts to combat terrorism, often recommending the use of military force.
Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger opposed Shultz, who made little head-
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