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Under the President’s proposal, one Department would be responsible for distributing Potassium Iodide to citizens exposed – no matter where they live. There would no longer be an artificial ten-mile barrier to treatment. This same single Department would also be responsible for coordination with state and local officials on immediate evacuation from the emergency zone. BRIEF HISTORY OF GOVERNMENT REORGANIZATION History teaches us that critical security challenges require clear lines of responsibility and the unified effort of the U.S. government. History also teaches us that new challenges require new organizational structures.
For example, prior to 1945, America’s armed forces were inefficiently structured with separate War and Navy Departments and disconnected intelligence units. There were no formal mechanisms for cooperation. After World War II, the onset of the Cold War required consolidation and reorganization of America’s national security apparatus to accomplish the new missions at hand. America needed a national security establishment designed to prevent another attack like Pearl Harbor, to mobilize national resources for an enduring conflict, and to do so in a way that protected America’s values and ideals. In December 1945, only months after America’s decisive victory in World War II, President Harry Truman asked Congress to combine the War and Navy Departments into a single Department of Defense. President Truman declared, "it is now time to take stock to discard obsolete organizational forms and to provide for the future the soundest, most effective and most economical kind of structure for our armed forces of which this most powerful Nation is capable. I urge this as the best means of keeping the peace." President Truman’s goals were achieved with the National Security Act of 1947 and subsequent amendments in 1949 and 1958. The legislation consolidated the separate military Departments into the Department of Defense with a civilian secretary solely in charge, established a Central Intelligence Agency to coordinate all foreign intelligence collection and analysis, and created the National Security Council in the White House to coordinate all foreign and defense policy efforts. This reorganization of America’s national security establishment was crucial to overcoming the enormous threat we faced in the Cold War and holds important lessons for our approach to the terrorist threat we face today.
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