The Hoover Commission, officially named the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, was a body appointed by President Harry S. Truman in 1947 to recommend administrative changes in the Federal Government of the United States. It took its nickname from former President Herbert Hoover, who was appointed by Truman to chair it.
Truman used the Reorganization Act of 1949 to implement the recommendations of the Hoover Commission. Reorganization plans issued under the act could be nullified by a concurrent resolution enacted by both chambers of Congress within 60 days of the date of the order. While most of the commission's program was ultimately implemented, eleven of the 41 reorganization plans issued by Truman to carry out the reorganization were nullified by Congress.
In early 1949, the Commission forwarded its findings and a total of 273 recommendations to Congress in a series of nineteen separate reports. The commission was officially terminated on June 12, 1949.
The commission issued recommendations for eliminating waste, fraud and inefficiency, consolidating agencies, and strengthening White House control of policy. [1] [2]
With the impetus of the Hoover Commission, the Reorganization Act of 1949, (Public Law 109, 81st Cong., 1st sess.) was approved by Congress on June 20, 1949. [3] President Truman made a special message to Congress upon signing the act, [4] with eight reorganization plans submitted in 1949, 27 in 1950, and one each in 1951 and 1952. [5]
Much implementation continued into the Eisenhower Administration, with ten reorganization plans in 1953, two in 1954, and one each in 1957 and 1958, although not all were related to the 1949 Act. [5] A later study in 1955 concluded that 116 of the recommendations were fully implemented and that another 80 were mostly or partly implemented. In 1953, Eisenhower created the Department of Health, Education and Welfare under the orders of his Reorganization Plan No. 1.
The commission's recommended reforms of veterans affairs were not implemented, due to significant lobbying against it by the American Legion, an influential veterans lobby group. [6]
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 National Press Club Luncheon Speakers, Herbert Hoover, March 10, 1954, 37:23, Hoover speaks starting at 7:25 about the second reorganization commission, Library of Congress [7] |
A Second Hoover Commission was created by Congress in 1953 during the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It also was headed by Hoover (who was then almost 80 years old). The second commission sent its final report to Congress in June 1955. [8]
Dwight David Eisenhower, nicknamed Ike, was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe and achieved the five-star rank as General of the Army. Eisenhower planned and supervised two of the most consequential military campaigns of World War II: Operation Torch in the North Africa campaign in 1942–1943 and the D-Day invasion of Normandy in 1944.
Herbert Clark Hoover was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933. A member of the Republican Party, he held office during the onset of the Great Depression. A self-made man who became wealthy as a mining engineer, before his presidency, Hoover led the war-time Commission for Relief in Belgium, served as the director of the U.S. Food Administration, and served as the U.S. secretary of commerce.
The Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP) comprises the offices and agencies that support the work of the president at the center of the executive branch of the United States federal government. The office consists of several offices and agencies, such as the White House Office, the National Security Council, and the Office of Management and Budget.
The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by the U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S. Truman signed the McMahon/Atomic Energy Act on August 1, 1946, transferring the control of atomic energy from military to civilian hands, effective on January 1, 1947. This shift gave the members of the AEC complete control of the plants, laboratories, equipment, and personnel assembled during the war to produce the atomic bomb.
The Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) is a United States agency within the Executive Office of the President established in 1946, which advises the President of the United States on economic policy. The CEA provides much of the empirical research for the White House and prepares the publicly-available annual Economic Report of the President. The council is made up of its chairperson and generally two to three additional member economists. Its chairperson requires appointment and Senate confirmation, and its other members are appointed by the President.
Executive Order 9981 was issued on July 26, 1948, by President Harry S. Truman. This executive order abolished discrimination "on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin" in the United States Armed Forces. The Order led to the re-integration of the services during the Korean War (1950–1953). It was a crucial event in the post-World War II civil rights movement and a major achievement of Truman's presidency. Executive Order 9981 was passed primarily due to an attack on Isaac Woodard who was an American soldier and African-American World War II veteran. On February 12, 1946, hours after being honorably discharged from the United States Army, he was attacked while still in uniform by South Carolina police as he was taking a bus home. The attack left Woodard completely and permanently blind. President Harry S. Truman ordered a federal investigation.
The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum is the presidential library and burial place of Herbert Clark Hoover, the 31st president of the United States (1929–1933), located on the grounds of the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site in West Branch, Iowa. The library is one of thirteen presidential libraries run by the National Archives and Records Administration.
The President's Committee on Administrative Management, commonly known as the Brownlow Committee or Brownlow Commission, was a presidentially-commissioned panel of political science and public administration experts that in 1937 recommended sweeping changes to the executive branch of the United States government. The committee had three members: Louis Brownlow, Charles Merriam, and Luther Gulick. The staff work was managed by Joseph P. Harris, director of research for the committee.
The Federal Security Agency (FSA) was an independent agency of the United States government established in 1939 pursuant to the Reorganization Act of 1939. For a time, the agency oversaw food and drug safety, education funding, administration of public health programs, and the Social Security old-age pension plan.
The Office of Defense Mobilization (ODM) was an independent agency of the United States government whose function was to plan, coordinate, direct and control all wartime mobilization activities of the federal government, including manpower, economic stabilization, and transport operations. It was established in 1950, and for three years was one of the most powerful agencies in the federal government. It merged with other agencies in 1958 to become the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization (1958–1961).
Harry S. Truman's tenure as the 33rd president of the United States began on April 12, 1945, upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and ended on January 20, 1953. He had been vice president for only 82 days. A Democrat from Missouri, he ran for and won a full four–year term in the 1948 election. Although exempted from the newly ratified Twenty-second Amendment, Truman did not run again in the 1952 election because of his low popularity. He was succeeded by Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953.
The Dulles–Jackson–Correa Report was one of the most influential evaluations of the functioning of the United States Intelligence Community, and in particular, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The report focused primarily on the coordination and organization of the CIA and offered suggestions that refined the US intelligence effort in the early stages of the Cold War.
The U.S. President’s Advisory Committee on Government Organization was established by Executive Order 10432 on January 24, 1953. Members of the committee were appointed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and served without compensation. Nelson A. Rockefeller served as Chairman until 1958; upon his resignation, Arthur S. Flemming served as Chairman. Other permanent members were Dr. Milton S. Eisenhower and Don K. Price, Jr. In addition to the permanent members, the committee had the services of experts from government, universities and business who acted as consultants. A few of the consultants were: Dr. Ernest Williams, Professor Emmette S. Redford, Herman Pollack, Fordyce Luikart, Willard Bascom, Jerold Kieffer, Joseph Dodge, and William Barclay Harding.
John Stewart Bragdon, was a major general in the United States Army.
The Federal Works Agency (FWA) was an independent agency of the federal government of the United States which administered a number of public construction, building maintenance, and public works relief functions and laws from 1939 to 1949. Along with the Federal Security Agency and Federal Loan Agency, it was one of three catch-all agencies of the federal government pursuant to reorganization plans authorized by the Reorganization Act of 1939, the first major, planned reorganization of the executive branch of the government of the United States since 1787.
Frederick Joseph Lawton was an American bureaucrat who served as the ninth Director of the Bureau of the Budget. Lawton was born in Washington, D.C., and became a lawyer and an accountant. He spent most of his professional career working with the government bureaucracy. He helped President Franklin D. Roosevelt wager with members of Congress to support the Fair Labor Standards Act. He first joined the Office of Management and Budget as an executive assistant in 1935. He also served as an adviser to Congress. In 1947, he became an administrative assistant to President Harry S. Truman. He was appointed to the post of Director of the Bureau of the Budget in 1950, and held the position until 1953. President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Lawton to a term on the United States Civil Service Commission after he left the Bureau; he served from 1953 to 1963.
The Commission on Economy and Efficiency was a presidential commission appointed by President William Howard Taft between 1910 and 1913 to look at and propose reforms for the United States federal government, particularly the presidential budget. It is also known in government reorganization and reform scholarship as the Taft Commission, however, this is a bit of a misnomer as the Taft Commission originally referred to the Philippine Commission of which Taft was the chairman. The Commission on Economy and Efficiency is most notable for proposing the first budget for the federal government but also is notable for creating the procedure for the President to establish a commission to study administrative reform.
The presidency of Harry S. Truman began on April 12, 1945, when Harry S. Truman became the 33rd president upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and ended on January 20, 1953.
Presidential reorganization authority is a term used to refer to a major statutory power that has sometimes been temporarily extended by the United States Congress to the President of the United States. It permits the president to divide, consolidate, abolish, or create agencies of the U.S. federal government by presidential directive, subject to limited legislative oversight. First granted in 1932, presidential reorganization authority has been extended to nine presidents on 16 separate occasions. As of 2017, it was most recently granted to Ronald Reagan.
The presidential transition of Dwight D. Eisenhower began when he won the United States 1952 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect, and ended when Eisenhower was inaugurated at noon EST on January 20, 1953.
