The Iran–Contra affair, often referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States that occurred during the second term of the Reagan administration. Between 1981 and 1986, senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo. The administration hoped to use the proceeds of the arms sale to fund the Contras, a right-wing rebel group, in Nicaragua. Under the Boland Amendment, further funding of the Contras by government appropriations had been prohibited by Congress, but the loophole was to use non-appropriated funds.
The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor (NSA), is a senior aide in the Executive Office of the President, based at the West Wing of the White House. The national security advisor serves as the principal advisor to the President of the United States on all national security issues.
The United States National Security council was established following the coordination of the foreign policy system in the United States in 1947 under the National Security Act of 1947. An administrative agency guiding national security issues was found to be needed since world war II. The national Security Act of 1947 provides the council with powers of setting up and adjusting foreign policies and reconcile diplomatic and military establishments. It established a Secretary of Defence, a National Military Establishment which serves as central intelligence agency and a National Security Resources Board. The specific structure of the United States National Security Council can be different depending on the elected party of the time. Different party emphasize on different aspects of policy making and administrating.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent, nonpartisan government agency within the legislative branch that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the supreme audit institution of the federal government of the United States. It identifies its core "mission values" as: accountability, integrity, and reliability. It is also known as the "congressional watchdog". The agency is headed by the Comptroller General of the United States. The comptroller general is appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate. When a vacancy occurs in the office of the comptroller general, Congress establishes a commission to recommend individuals to the president. The commission consists of the following:
The National Security Council is a federal institutional and consultative body chaired by the Prime Minister of Pakistan as its chairman. The NSC is a principal forum that is mandated for considering national security and foreign policy matters with the senior national security advisers and Cabinet ministers. The idea and inception of National Security Council was first conceived in 1969 under the President Yahya Khan, its functions were to advise and assist the president and prime minister on national security and foreign policies.
The National Security Council (NSC) of India is an executive government agency tasked with advising the Prime Minister's Office on matters of national security and strategic interest. It was established by the former Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee on 19 November 1998, with Brajesh Mishra as the first National Security Advisor.
The National Security Council (NSC) is Israel's central body for coordination, integration, analysis and monitoring in the field of national security and is the staff forum on national security for the Israeli Prime Minister and Government. However, national security decisions typically made by national security councils in other countries are handled by the Security Cabinet. The Council draws its authority from the government and operates according to guidelines from the Prime Minister.
The Homeland Security Council (HSC) is an entity within the Executive Office of the President of the United States tasked with advising the president on matters relevant to Homeland Security. The current Homeland Security Advisor is Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall.
Flynt L. Leverett is a former senior fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C., and a professor at the Pennsylvania State University School of International Affairs. From March 2002 to March 2003, he served as the senior director for Middle East affairs on the National Security Council (NSC).
Executive oversight of United States covert operations has been carried out by a series of sub-committees of the National Security Council (NSC).
A presidential memorandum is a type of directive issued by the president of the United States to manage and govern the actions, practices, and policies of the various departments and agencies found under the executive branch of the United States government. It has the force of law and is usually used to delegate tasks, direct specific government agencies to do something, or to start a regulatory process. There are three types of presidential memoranda: presidential determination or presidential finding, memorandum of disapproval, and hortatory memorandum.
The President's Surveillance Program (PSP) is a collection of secret intelligence activities authorized by the President of the United States George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks in 2001 as part of the War on Terrorism. Information collected under this program was protected within a Sensitive Compartmented Information security compartment codenamed STELLARWIND.
Steven Aftergood is a critic of U.S. government secrecy policy. He directs the Federation of American Scientists project on Government Secrecy and is the author of the Federation publication Secrecy News.
The space policy of the United States includes both the making of space policy through the legislative process, and the implementation of that policy in the United States' civilian and military space programs through regulatory agencies. The early history of United States space policy is linked to the US–Soviet Space Race of the 1960s, which gave way to the Space Shuttle program. At the moment, the US space policy is aimed at the exploration of the Moon and the subsequent colonization of Mars.
National Security Decision Directive 77, was a U.S. National Security Directive signed on January 14, 1983, by President Ronald Reagan. The directive established a Special Planning Group (SPG) under the National Security Council (NSC) whose purpose was to strengthen, organize, plan, and coordinate public diplomacy of the United States relative to national security. This NSDD positioned the White House and the National Security Staff at the helm of public diplomacy coordination across government agencies. NSDD-77 lay the groundwork for the Reagan administration's aggressive public diplomacy strategy and included guidance for inter-agency working groups to execute wide-ranging tactics for information dissemination both domestically and internationally.
The United States Presidential Policy Directive 19, signed by President Barack Obama, is designed to ensure that employees who serve in the Intelligence Community or have access to classified information can effectively report waste, fraud, and abuse, while protecting classified information. It is the executive order establishing standards for all Federal agencies with employees covered by the Directive, including those under Defense Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection and the U.S. Department of Defense Whistleblower Program. It also prohibits retaliation against these employees for their reports. PPD-19 accordingly establishes a system of Intelligence community whistleblowing and source protection under the Office, Director of National Intelligence and supervised by the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community.
National Security Action Memorandum Number 263 (NSAM-263) was a national security directive approved on 11 October 1963 by United States President John F. Kennedy. The NSAM approved recommendations by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Maxwell Taylor. McNamara and Taylor's recommendations included an appraisal that "great progress" was being made in the Vietnam War against Viet Cong insurgents, that 1,000 military personnel could be withdrawn from South Vietnam by the end of 1963, and that a "major part of the U.S. military task can be completed by the end of 1965." The U.S. at this time had more than 16,000 military personnel in South Vietnam.
National Security Action Memorandum 273 (NSAM-273) was approved by new United States President Lyndon Johnson on November 26, 1963, one day after former President John F. Kennedy's funeral. NSAM-273 resulted from the need to reassess U.S. policy toward the Vietnam War following the overthrow and assassination of President Ngo Dinh Diem. The first draft of NSAM-273, completed before Kennedy's death, was approved with minor changes by President Johnson.
A presidential directive, or executive action, is a written or oral instruction or declaration issued by the president of the United States, which may draw upon the powers vested in the president by the U.S. Constitution, statutory law, or, in certain cases, congressional and judicial acquiescence. Such directives, which have been issued since the earliest days of the federal government, have become known by various names, and some have prescribed forms and purposes. Presidential directives remain in effect until they are revoked, which the president is free to do. The classification of presidential directives is not easily done, as the distinction between the types can be quite arbitrary, arising from convenience and bureaucratic evolution, and none are defined in the Constitution. Furthermore, the different types may overlap. As one legal scholar put it: "it is a bit misleading to overclassify presidential directives as comprising separate and distinct 'types' just because they have different headings at the top of the first page." In terms of legal applicability, what matters is the substance of the directive, not the form, unless a certain kind of directive is specifically required by relevant statute.
