How the National Security Council Works

Until recently, most people probably never paid much attention to the National Security Council. It's been around a long time though, and the president has quite a bit of leeway as to who sits at the table. Learn all about this important group of individuals in today's episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles W. Cloak and Dagger Dabby Coleman Bryant. You
remember that movie, Yeah, man, that was so good. It

(00:23):
was that was a good movie for boys our age.
I think, yeah, it was so good. It managed to
make the San Antonio Riverwalk look interesting. You've been bagging
on that since you walked it. Well, I had. I
think it was built up in my mind by that movie,
you know what I mean. I don't remember that being
in the movie, but I haven't. I don't think I've
seen that since I was there's a big chase scene

(00:45):
that involved the river walk. Well maybe that was a problem.
And also, um, there's Jerry Leslie Nielsen Rowland from Spy Heart. Uh.
And this is stuff you should know. Yes, this is
a This could be a good one. You could also

(01:05):
be extraordinarily confusing. Uh huh. Maybe a little dry maybe,
um and uh but brother, if you love bureaucracies, you're
gonna love this one. Yeah, boy, that really came through. Huh. Yeah.
If you're into organs and flow charts and directors but
not director. It's you're gonna just love this kind of stuff. Yeah,

(01:28):
and I apologize about my squinting. Uh I lost my glasses.
Oh no, and it takes and it had become you know,
had grown to depend on them. To be honest, you're
like velma, I am. That's terrible. I mean like like
lost him, lost him, or they're just like on your bedside,
you forgot them. You want to know what happened. I
was on in my bed on my laptop, wearing my

(01:51):
glasses last week. I said I gotta go get something
out of the car. I put the laptop down and
the glasses down on the bed and went and got
something out of my car. Came back and they were gone. Wow,
that's bizarre. And I think my new puppy like grabbed
them and did something with them. Oh, that's gonna be
a treat defined later on. I mean, dude, I've looked

(02:12):
everywhere and literally vanished, but the puppy left your laptop. Yeah,
well that's weird. I know. Well anyway, I'm waiting, are
you getting some new ones? Did you go to Eckard
or CVS or Dwayne Read or whatever. I probably should
have just gotten some little cheapy readers, because that's kind
of all I need them for, you know, or did

(02:34):
you use your monocle? Oh? Man, I should have brought
my monocle. That's a great idea. All right, well, I'm
full of them. I did not, so I'm just waiting
for new glasses. And they don't even they don't have
the frames that I've had, so I had to pick
up new ones, which always thinks because I did just
none of them look you know, good? Well, if you

(02:56):
can kind of recreate the last ones, they look good. Well.
I'm trying. Well, I guess one more quick question on this.
How is driving here? Uh reckless dangerous? Oh no, no no, no,
I just need him for reading. I'm okay, okay, good, good, good.
I don't read while I drive anymore. That's smart too,
even though you could with your glasses. That's correct. Uh So, Chuck,

(03:19):
we're talking today about the National Security Council, and uh,
up until I started researching this, I thought that that
was specifically an American thing, But it turns out most
countries have their own National Security Council and they fairly
closely resemble this kind of thing. I would I would
guess that, but I also realized I really had no
idea what the National Security Council did. But it's like

(03:42):
it's a pretty it's a pretty genius idea, UM. And
it was one that was implemented by the US Congress,
I should say. The American one was back in nine seven,
and it was basically like, hey, you've got competing groups
here that are all trying to shape um American foreign policy,

(04:03):
whether it's through diplomacy with the State Department, or through
military with the Department of Defense, or the military itself UM,
or you know by UM yeah, the CIA by snooping
UM or even groups as desparate as like the Department
of Energy or the Department of the Treasury. All of

(04:23):
these groups have their own objectives in shaping policy or
responding to a crisis as far as foreign policy goes, right,
And if you take all these people and put them
in a room together and say fight it out, and
the President gets to watch and laugh and then pick
what he or eventually she thinks is the best the

(04:47):
best option, then you have basically, uh, the best ideal
version of UM hashing something out through a group that
you could POSSI we hoped for. And that's the point
of the National Security Council. Yeah, but one thing, and
we're going to talk about the Situation Room specifically, But
one thing I learned in researching that part of it

(05:11):
was this kind of we'll not chilling quote very sensible quote,
but still a little chilling. Is there's always more intelligence
information available than there is time for senior decision makers
to read. Right, So basically, like you know, there there's
more than they even have, so that you need committees

(05:33):
and staffs of people that can distill the most important
stuff down to its most important core right and and
the way to do this they the way that it
has generally been done through the National Security Council is
by decentralizing UM responsibility for watching over these different things,

(05:54):
whether it be like a specific policy like energy policy,
and the way it relates to foreign foreign kind trees
or UM like territories like say some some groups responsible
for the Middle East. You have all these different groups
that are responsible for keeping an eye on this stuff.
Thinking about American policy, thinking about how state in American

(06:15):
policy is changing or evolving as say a situation or
a new leader UM emerges in a different area UM
and then as crises or needs for decisions arise, then
the need to talk about this policy. It bubbles up
and up and up through the hierarchy until finally it
gets to the point where there's like secretaries, cabinet level

(06:40):
secretaries who are saying Mr Again or eventually Madam President, Uh,
we need a decision on this. Here are options. It
is incredibly complex, Like you said, it's not just like, um,
you know what what bad leader in the world is
doing something today. It's that plus about a thousand other

(07:00):
things from like you know, like you said, it could
be is is something as simple as uh, or not
as simple but as like non threatening as you know,
an energy policy with a country with a new leader.
Like you said, you know, there's something that needs attention
outside of our borders. And and by making it bubble

(07:24):
up through these levels of hierarchy, you have people who
have increasing levels of responsibility. And as each level of
responsibility starts saying, yeah, this is worth kicking up to
the next higher level because we really do need some
sort of decision on this, it takes on further and
further credence right until it reaches that highest level, the

(07:45):
actual what's actually called the National Security Council UM and
when when it reaches that level, hopefully a decision will
be made. But that's not necessarily the cases we'll see.
Should we talk about history. Let's talk history, man, you know.
Uh so our article and this was okay, um, and
once supple supplemented with other supplemented, I'm gonna I like that.

(08:10):
I like it to gonna keep that, once supplemented with
other things. I had a friend grown up. He said that, um.
And it was one of those things where I would
say say spa getty and he would say spuck getty.
I would say spaghetti, he'd say basketty. You'd just like
pinch the bridge of your nose and shake your hand

(08:32):
basically as a four year old. Uh no, was this
is like early teens. Um, it's not good. Alright. So
throughout history we had not we have not historically had
the National Security Council, um, because I think in the
earlier days, presidents had their sort of inner circle that
kind of acted like what eventually the National Security Council

(08:54):
how how they would counsel and advise, but they were
just known as sort of like you know, the bros
of the president pretty much, you know. Yeah, it was
it was like who do you trust or specifically who
who has the expertise needed to help guide your decision
on this right. And I think one of the reasons
why there wasn't a National Security Council for most of

(09:17):
histories because most presidents kind of bristle at the idea
of having a bureaucracy hoisted or foisted on them, where
they're just like, no, no, no, I got this. I
just I need to ask who I need to ask
at any given point in time. And some presidents were
historically known for even even the people that they asked
advice from, they'd be like, thank you for your advice,

(09:39):
I'm rejecting it outright, like like Lincoln was apparently famous
for that. Yeah, I mean Lincoln was a smart fellow.
He probably had good ideas on his own, well he did.
He also had he was He was famous for having
that team of rivals right where not only were people
in his cabinet rivals with one another, they were rivals
with him as well and really challenged him to keep

(10:01):
people in check. Like his Secretary of State Seward, William Seward,
he was big time against the Civil War from happening.
He did not he didn't want to happen. He was
just like, okay, south Sea, it was nice you guys
being a part of the Union, but we'll figure it out.
We we shouldn't, we shouldn't go to war. And he
was like opening lines of communication with the Confederacy, going

(10:22):
around Lincoln and trying to subvert Lincoln's basically wishes that
that the South not succeed. And Lincoln said, you better
watch your step. Yeah, that was a good Daniel Dave Lewis,
It wasn't at all. Uh no, but you're right. He
famously um kind of you know, would listen to a device,

(10:43):
even if seward and and say no, you know, on
the president, this is my choice. Yeah, he said, quote
if this must be done, I must do it. And
and that was kind of the way that the president's
I mean, it takes a certain kind of person to
be a president, right, and usually if you are elected president,
you're not the kind of person who's like, what do
you guys think? Hey over there, what's your what's your opinion?

(11:06):
What should I do? It's it's like, go do this.
I'm the president the end, do it, right. But as
the United States grew and the world grew a little
more complexities, uh were brought out obviously, especially with in
terms of foreign policy and um, especially after World War Two,
there were you know, Congress was not thrilled with the

(11:29):
way FDR kind of ran things, and they said, you
know what I think we need and the president needs help,
uh in the form of you know, a body, an
official body, sanctioned body surrounding him to help him make decisions. Uh.
And so eventually in nine is when the National Security
Act was passed and this council was created to quote

(11:52):
advise the President with respect to the integration of domestic
foreign military policies relating to national security and other off
and it's it's again, this is a significant act because
it's saying, uh, Mr President, here's the bureaucracy that you
didn't ask for and you don't want, but we're putting
on you on your shoulders because this stuff is just

(12:14):
too big now, Like we're a superpower and we can't
just leave it up to you and your formal informal
management style of ad hoc working groups that you just
pull into the Oval office whenever you need some advice.
We need something far more structured than that. So we're
going to pass a Congressional Act that we're going to
force you to sign into law. And Truman actually signed

(12:35):
it into law in ninety seven, and from that point
on there was a structure that the president was expected
to use when making foreign policy decisions, so that he
would have all of the um, all of the options,
all of the opinions, all of the varying um factors
in any any given situation before him, so that he
can say option D, I like it. Yeah, And like

(12:59):
you said before, you know, different presidents over the years
have had different Uh, there's a lot of leeway within
how you want to run your National Security Council, how
it structured. It's not completely set in stone, as we've
seen recently. And we'll we'll talk a little bit about
what's going on now, but you know, throughout since ninety seven,
basically each president has sort of had their own reasons

(13:23):
for leaning on it a lot or not leaning on
it that much. Initially, Truman, after kind of right after
it was passed through, was kind of uh, you know,
he didn't go to meetings a lot until after the
Korean War, and then he was like, oh, wait a minute,
I think there's a lot of value here. Um, Eisenhower,
being former military, was sort of used to that, uh

(13:46):
that system of committees and bureaucracy, and uh he he
kind of took to it right away and was like, no,
this is great. I'm gonna even kind of expand the
NFC and create you know, these uh these special or boards,
and I'm actually going to create someone called the National
Security Advisor. Yeah, which is a huge thing, huge contribution

(14:07):
to the National Security Council that Eisenhower made. And yeah,
since he was used to the military, he's like, yeah,
let's make this even more regimented than Congress wanted. And
he put it to good work. But since then it's been,
um typically more pared down than what Eisenhower had. I
think he had like probably the most hierarchical and decentralized

(14:27):
and spread out National Security Council of any president ethan
more than Obama even Yeah, Obama had I think a
huge bloated one, but I think it didn't have as
many say like departments or committees or um. That kind
of thing is Eisenhower's. Because Obama received a lot of
criticism for that, and from what I read right rightly

(14:49):
so that that it was basically a it was a
huge stalling mechanism that Obama used to to put off
form policy decisions or to make them outside of his
own cabinet. Well, and even if it wasn't purposeful, it's just,
you know how it is with bureaucracy. The more bloated

(15:12):
an organization gets, just the slower everything is gonna move,
and the harder it's gonna be to get anything done.
Uh that's just kind of how it works. Um So,
Kennedy comes along and uh had a had a kind
of a disaster on his hands with the Bay of Pigs,
kind of which we should do a show on at
some point. And uh so he he looked to his

(15:33):
um national Security adviser, MC George Bundy, the man with
two last names, and said, uh, we need a chill
room to hang out and make decisions. And how about
that bowling alley? Yeah it was FDRs bowling alley, and

(15:53):
FDR side up from his grave and said, not my
bowling alley, right, And that's when the situation Room was created, which, um,
I thought this was really neat. I didn't know much
about the situation Room. I thought it was the room.
Um I didn't know that it was five thousand square
feet of different rooms on the ground floor of the

(16:14):
west wing. Yeah. The wood shed. Yeah, that's the nickname
for which I didn't get why they call it that,
because you know here in the States the woodsheds typically
used and take them out behind the wood shed. Usually
that means getting a spanking. Well maybe that's you know
what happens in the woods In the situation room, they

(16:38):
watched they watched people get spanked. I guess on closed
circuit TV. I guarantee they do. Uh. Should we take
a break and then talk about the situation room a
little more? Yeah? Yeahs So Chuck, we're talking about situation room.

(17:15):
Uh and not with Wolf Flitzer, No, never, And um,
it was started with Kennedy, right, And uh, did you
see the picture in that one of the articles you
sent me of the situation where I think it was
the wood shed One one of them had like dozens
and dozens of pictures, which kind of surprised me that one,
that one, But there was a picture in there, and

(17:37):
I think it was the original situation room that they
that Kennedy had set up. And basically it was a
bunch of chairs and like a huge map of the
world on the wall. There was some situation room like
the war room from Strange Love. They call in like
a nine year old civil servant to come in and
move attack from you know, Ecuador to Guatemala, and then

(17:59):
he just show full back out. Uh. This thing apparently
used to be I mean, it went under a big
renovation in two thousand six, and apparently before that was
a UM. I don't get the idea that it was
necessarily um antiquated, but it wasn't certainly up to the
kind of modern technological uh level that it needed to be.

(18:23):
Let's just say that. Yeah. I also have the impression
that it was um a lot more luxurious originally, but
that things like the mahogany paneling actually made it hard
to hear people on speaker phone, right. Um, So they
kind of just updated it to probably much more in
line of what people thought it looked like all along. Yeah.

(18:46):
That that main room, where you know you've probably seen
the most photos of, has six flat screens. UM. Very
secure obviously for video conferencing with whoever you want around
the world. Uh. Links directly to Air Force one, which
is kind a neat. Uh. They have you know, private
meeting rooms, private phone booth rooms. Uh. Secure video rooms.

(19:09):
It's like, you know, it's kind of like what you
would expect. Um, you can't text from there, you can't
like you know, they don't want things leaking out of there.
So it's just and it is not a bunker like
a lot of people might think. But yeah, there's some
windows to the exterior of the White House. Yeah, but
it feels like a bunker and that all these you know,
kind of very private and secure areas, but it's not

(19:31):
like deep underground or anything like that, right right. Yeah.
I think the room where there's that famous photo of
everybody in the Obama National Security Council watching the ben
Laden raid ben Laden spanking. Yeah, yeah, behind the wood shed,
um and they that that, I think that that is
a it's an enclosed, windowless room that's that is cut off,

(19:53):
has kind of bunker like qualities, but it's the the
whole the whole interior itself is not a bunker. It's
not underground like you said. Correct. Uh. They have a staff,
the situation room staff. It's about thirty people in general,
and there are they're organized into what's called watch teams.
And these watch teams do uh well, they don't take

(20:15):
the night off seven monitoring of everything basically. Um. And
it says there's usually three duty officers, a communications assistant,
and an intelligence analyst on each watch team. And um,
you know, presidents throughout the years have used the situation
room sparingly sometimes. Uh. I think in the case of Kennedy,

(20:36):
he liked to be in the Oval office a little more. Um.
And they say Lyndon Johnson was in the situation room
so much that he even moved his Oval office chair
down there. Yeah. Nixon and Ford apparently never used the room.
Uh h w Bush and Clinton use it a lot. Uh.
And in that two thousand six expansion they included UM

(20:59):
offices for Homeland Security Council now in the White House
Chief of Staffs offices down there now, which is pretty interesting.
But um, apparently you get nominated to be part of
the personnel. Oh yeah, I'm quite sure. It is a
highly prestigious tour, their two year tours, and I'm sure
it's just absolutely grueling because basically, they make you watch

(21:23):
cable news from around the world all day long. There's
also tons of cables coming in from the from various
embassies around the country. All of the intelligence, raw intelligence
gets coming through um this room. Right. So apparently after
the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy was like, I think he

(21:43):
felt cut off from actual raw intelligence and he hadn't
been presented with the correct actual intelligence. So he created
this Situation Room to basically circumvent the the intelligence community
and to have his ends on raw intelligence. Right. So

(22:04):
you've got intelligence coming from around the world going to
the various intelligence agencies, but each intelligence agency is also
commanded to send their raw intelligence to the Situation Room,
and then it's up to this Situation Room staff to say, uh,
this seems important, This isn't the important, this is pretty important,
and they compile it all into different briefings that the

(22:26):
president gets daily, usually in the morning and in the
evening as well. Yeah, and if you're part of this staff,
you're you're like, we said, handpicked for that to year thing,
and you're they said, you know, it's it's a very
big deal. You have to have an even temperament um.
You have to be cool under pressure. You have to
be able to have these spur of the moment coherent

(22:47):
intelligent conversations like with the President on a moment's notice.
You can't be like President I can believe it's you. Uh.
And apparently, um, this article said you know, I think
this from the CIA had said, you know, you need
to check your ego at the door at this job.
One director situation room director said to an incoming duty officer,

(23:07):
just remember there are many important people who work in
the White House, and you're not one of them. I
love that quote. Uh. So you know, the it varies
with the presidents. But basically every day the watch team
puts together something called the morning Book, uh for the President,
the Vice president and you know whoever on the White

(23:27):
House staff is I guess authorized to get this. Uh.
And in this morning book is the well, it's a
daily affirmation. That's the first thing. The National Intelligence Daily
is in there. The State Department's Morning Summary is in there,
any kind of intelligence reports, um. And then I think

(23:50):
a family circus cartoon, right, just to keep things light
right and in it in it pgs, says PASQUETI. Uh.
And then the morning book is this is in the
car the National Security Advisor when they're picked up. And
they also had the President's Daily brief that's the CIA's
daily prepared briefing basically, and like this is every day.

(24:12):
These are these briefs and reports that these senior people
and staff get every single morning of every single day
of every year, right and and just to give you
kind of in an an idea of how how much
information is coming into these poor SAPs twenty four hours
a day. If something does happen, right, if there's like

(24:35):
a crisis somewhere around the world, there's like a revolution
breaking out, um, you would have all of the people
who are involved in that crisis, say that area or
it's related to again energy, or say it's like an
a bola outbreak that's suddenly like sweeping. So you'd have
all the people involved in that coming into the situation room,

(24:57):
right and just being like, we give us all the information.
You gotta keep us updated, tell us what's going on,
like every five seconds. But if you're the situation room staff,
you're like, that's great, I understand you're having a crisis
right now, but we're still trying to pay attention to
the rest of the world to like a crisis is
it's obviously it's not meaningless to these people, but it's

(25:18):
all it's all relative because they can't just stop paying
attention to China because there's an Ambola outbreak in Africa, correct,
you know, yeah, so that they I my hats off
to them for being able to keep up with all
of this stuff. Yeah, and and you know, obviously certain
times are a little more calm relatively speaking than others.

(25:42):
But yeah, I don't think I'd be very good at that.
But there's never a day where there's not something going
on in the world that at least whoever in that
region is going to feel is super important to catch
the President's eye. You know, you gotta put something in
those into telligence briefings, like you know, there's a Russian

(26:03):
plane in this airspace and we don't know why, right.
You know. If there's one thing I've learned from researching
this episode, Chuck, it's that the United States is very nosy. Yeah. Yeah,
so that's the situation room, Chucking. It's almost kind of
like its own thing, right. It's like one of those

(26:24):
old timey tenement clotheslines directly between and the president if
the President so chooses, or at least the National Security
Council staff, which makes the National Security Council kind of
its own thing, you know what I mean, Like it's
its own It definitely is its own agency. But if
you look back at the original congressional mandate, the the

(26:45):
the point of it was it was supposed to be
a forum, a place where the different um heads of
departments and cabinet members came together and said, this is
what we need to do. No, this is what we
need to do. Mr President choose right. But with this, this,
the addition of the Situation Room and some other, um,
some other moves that presidents have made, like creating the

(27:06):
position of the National Security Advisor, it has become its
own party, its own thing to where yes, it's responsible
for coordinating policy and calling meetings and getting everybody to
the table, but it also it's bringing its own views
and policies on policies now, whereas before it was just
supposed to be a place where the existing cabinet members

(27:29):
came and talked about policy. So that was a big change.
And um, I think that that took place beginning with
Eisenhower and the the creation of the National Security Advisor,
but definitely also the creation of the Situation Room and
this direct pipeline to the president for raw intelligence as well. Yeah,
and like we said earlier, like each president can kind

(27:50):
of organize things how they like, you know, how they
prefer to have things organized and um, you know, Johnson,
he would have Lyndon john and apparently had regular Tuesday
working lunches where he brought together the CIA director, Chairman
of Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of State in Defense
and they all had you know, uh, salad wraps every

(28:13):
Tuesday and chatted about what was going on. Tid Basil
was Johnson's favorite under Nixon. Apparently he you know, he
obviously worked so closely with Kissinger that I get the
feeling that he didn't he didn't like meetings with a
large amount of people. I don't think he trusted very

(28:33):
many people. That NIXT is probably a good way to
say it. And then of course Ford did exactly what
Nixon did. Surprise. Uh. And then I don't I think
you said Carter didn't use it very much. Uh, Well,
this art, I mean, our article at least says um
that Carter. It said that he kind of had his
own ideas and the um the NFC was not as

(28:55):
much of behind the scenes managers what they called it
is maybe with other administrations. Yeah, he used the National
Security Advisors kind of uh policy mouthpiece to the country
and said there this is the way the president feels.
It was like a spokesperson, um. And that that that
kind of made the National Security Advisor a lot more prominent,

(29:18):
which is actually something that had been started under the
Nixon administration when he appointed Henry Kissinger or when he
had Henry Kissinger's his National Security advisor. UM. Because Kissener
Kissinger buck the trend and that the National Security Advisor
went from somebody who's in charge of coordinating policy, getting
everybody at the table figuring out, you know, what the

(29:41):
president needed to know to actually formulating foreign policy, UM,
which I think is another thing that some presidents have
tasked or if not tasked successive national security advisors with.
But that was a big change because that you know,
Kissinger was saying, this is this is how the US
needs to um respond to this kind of thing, or

(30:03):
this this is the way our energy policy should be.
I keep going back to that. Well, but it's a
it's a great well. Yeah, um, you know Reagan comes
along and uh after Carter and really changes things with
the n s c uh to the point where we
decided just to do an entirely new podcast and not
talk about this much on Iran Contra. Yeah, but to

(30:25):
say that there was overreach going on under his n
sc IS is probably a bit of an understatement. Yeah,
he turned it into like a clandestine covert operations agency.
It's nuts what he did with it. It is um.
H W. Bish came along and kind of restored order
a bit and apparently set up a really good system,
like a good a working system, um with his his

(30:48):
flow chart and all these committees that were going on,
and apparently he was so successful and sort of just
kind of making it a um, a truly functioning body.
That uh, that Bill Clinton, his his little uh, his
little buddy, almost said, a little buddy, George W. Bush.

(31:08):
I guess his son. I guess there were buddies. They're
buddies at Davos and stuff like that. Uh. And then
together and then Obama they all kind of followed suit
following H. W. Bush's um uh sort of organization organizational
flow yeah, because it works so well. Yeah, and it's basically, um, well,

(31:28):
I guess we should talk about it. Huh. You want
to take a break first, yeah, and talk about these
committees yeah or charts coming up right after this, So chuck, um,

(32:02):
let's break down the National Security Council. All right, let's
break it down for him, fella. They're committees now, um,
within the NFC. Are we going from bottom to top? Sure? Okay,
go ahead, start at the bottom. Okay, Fine, So you've
got policy coordinating Committees the PCC. So the policy coordinating committees, right,

(32:25):
They basically are they have a focus of specific focus,
whether it's on a region or a a a particular
interest maybe energy and Um. These these committees are made
up of people from different agencies, whether it's you know,

(32:46):
the Intelligence community or the Department of Energy or who
whoever has a stake in that region or that particular policy.
And they're made up of experts on them. But you know,
they're I don't want to say the low level well
there within their actual agency, they're they're probably pretty high up, um.
And they come together and they're keeping an eye on

(33:07):
stuff right there, monitoring changes. There may be saying we're bored,
we need to come up with a brand new policy
for America to undertake in this regard or in this region. Right.
And UM, let's say a crisis comes along, and let's
say that this is the Middle East Policy Coordinating Committee
something happens. Oh, I don't know, there's a gas attack

(33:29):
in Syria right this this Policy Committee is obviously there's
so there will be some other parallel thing from the
raw intelligence going through the Situation Room. But this committee
would also spring into action and it would start bubbling up. Um,
it would start writing policy papers. They would um dust

(33:50):
off old theories and hypotheses, and they would go to
the people directly above them, the Deputies Committee, and they
would say, we need to get the President moving on
this whatever this is. Yeah, And the Deputies Committee is
headed by the Deputy National Security Advisor, and um, things
are getting kind of serious at this point. Um. All

(34:12):
the deputy heads of the departments, um are included on
this committee. And I get the feeling that I get
the feeling that this is just the next level of
of weeding out things. And um, eventually if it makes
it way to the Principles Committee that's just below the
actual NSC and that is headed by the National or

(34:34):
I guess convened is what they say, by the National
Security Advisor him or herself. And the National Security Council
is actually made up of the President, the Vice President,
the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Energy,
I believe, uh, and the National Security Advisor. And then

(34:54):
there's other what are called observers or advisors, specifically the
Director of National Intelligence, who is the person who's in
charge of the entire intelligence community, from the n s
A and the c i A to Coast Guard intelligence,
everybody who's snooping on behalf of the United States. This

(35:15):
person is the top of that whole community. And the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is the
um representative of the all armed forces of the military,
so it's the military's voice in the National Security Council.
And once these these people are talking about an issue

(35:35):
or a policy, it's a that's about as high level
as it gets. And and the point of it reaching
this committee is that these people are all saying, this
is the best option. No, no, this is the best option.
We need to talk some more. No, we need to
shoot some missiles off, and then the president has to decide. Yeah.
And um, you know, like we said that it can

(35:57):
be organized within certain bounds of the law as the
presidency's fit. And um, you know, anyone who follows the
news in the United States um or abroad about the
United States. Um, there was quite a shakeup. And you
know earlier this year when our current president excluded the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director

(36:18):
of National Intelligence from UM. They weren't like banned from
the NSC, but they weren't on the list of like, hey,
you you need to be at all these meetings all
the time. It was more like you uh, I think
the direct quote was you shell attend where issues pertaining
to your responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed. And UM.
There was a big uproar in the press, and the

(36:39):
White House down played it and said, you know, this
is not a real change Like in past administrations, the Chairman,
the Joint chiefs of Staff and Director of National Intelligence
aren't at all the meetings either. They're usually at the
ones that pertained to them. So, UM, what's what gives?
What's the deal? Yeah, like, quit making a big deal
about this. And also this, UM, this guy Steve Bannon,

(37:02):
my my political strategist, is a is a full fledged member.
That was a big deal for a little while because
just this week, as we're recording in real time, Mr
Bannon has been excused and of course he UM, the
White House, and Bannon tried to play it up like,
you know what, he was never going to be on
there permanently. He was in there too undo the work

(37:24):
of Susan Rice, who was Obama's National security advisor. Um,
is what Bannon said, And then officials said no, he
was actually there to monitor Michael Flynn, the first national
security advisor, who is already gone. And now that he's gone,
we don't really need Bannon. His work has done. That's
really all we kind of wanted him in there for
to begin with. Just crazy to watch this. Yeah, and um,

(37:49):
I don't think anyone bought that. I don't even think
Republicans bought that's been Um, there was clearly a and
is currently clearly there's an internal struggle going on with
with apparently Steve Bannon and the President's son in law,
Jared Kushner, and um, to the point where the President

(38:09):
was like, you know, you guys worked this stuff out,
or I'm gonna solve it and family matters to Donald Trump,
and I think Bannon understands that. Yeah, it definitely looks
like the knives are out for Bannon. He doesn't have
a lot of friends elsewhere in the White House. So
if the president is turning on him, then it's that's

(38:31):
not good news for Steve Bannon. Yeah. I mean, we'll
see how this plays out. But just today where you know, um,
Donald Trump was quoted as kind of the quotes were
very cool on his support for Bannon today. Cool cool
as in um, he was kind of like, Hey, I
think the quote was something like, you know, he's a
good guy, but you know he didn't hook up with
me until kind of recently. Yeah, I saw that that

(38:54):
that's that's not a ringing endorsement, you know. So so
when he put Bannon on, like he gave him a
permanent seat on the National Security Council, that was a
big deal because presidents have had political advisors on their
National Security Council. That's been done before, but never like
a permanent reserve seat at all the meetings, and it

(39:16):
sent like a really big message, And the message was
the political ramifications of a decision or a policy outcome
are just as important as say, like the military or
diplomatic ramifications of they're gonna be it's gonna be taken
into account just as much. And I think that's why
a lot of people were chilled by that because you

(39:37):
you don't want it to be political. You don't want
your decisions to be you know, well, what how will
this affect my vote or something like that down the road.
And that's how a lot of people took Bannon's appointment
to the National Security Council. This new guy who came
in after Flynn, hr McMaster has apparently alleviated a lot

(39:58):
of worry by a lot of people. He's he's a
three star general. He's only one of three active duty
military to serve as National Security Advisor. Um. So he's
an active duty military guy. And he um, he's apparently
well respected inside and outside of the military. Didn't he

(40:19):
I think he didn't restore the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff and uh Director of National Intelligence. Yes
he did, and and the reason why that was a
bizarre move, um, And apparently it's it's that's George W.
Bush did the same thing. But the since two thousand one,
there's not any American foreign policy issue or crisis that

(40:43):
doesn't involve the intelligence community and the military. It's just
the direction America's gone. So, I mean that kind of
falls in line with trump stated policy of isolationism. Just
kind of saying, no, we're gonna rein that back in.
I think that's probably what he was doing, but I
don't know that a lot of elites in Washington have

(41:05):
um faith that he has an actual plan rather than
was just sending a message, you know what I mean. Yeah,
So this McMaster guy though he um, he actually made
his name by writing a dissertation criticizing Lyndon Johnson's UM
military advisors on the National Security Council during Vietnam. He uh.

(41:29):
He wrote his thesis and it got turned into a
bestselling book called Dereliction of Duty, and a lot of
people are like, um, man, this guy is great. He's
all about being open and upfront and honest with the president.
And then other people read the book and said, oh,
this guy is a is a military guy who's who's
saying that you shouldn't listen to the president's wishes and

(41:50):
the military should just act on its own. So I
think most people subscribe to the former reading of it
that that he actually is a pretty pretty um smart
guy and is not is not calling for the military
to act independently of the president's which is more that
he was indicting UM the president's advisors for not being

(42:14):
forthright and upfront and clear. Uh, and was just kind
of going along with Johnson and telling him what he
wanted to hear as far as Vietnam went. And it's
interesting stuff. That guy's an interesting dude. McMaster is, Yeah,
it really is. UM. The the NFC themselves, like you know,
obviously we've kind of talked to nausea about the meetings
in the bureaucracy. But aside from this, UM, one of

(42:39):
the one of the other things that they do is,
you know, if the president has a call with a
foreign leader, Um, there's gonna be a senior staff member
from the NFC there with them. They're gonna brief him
beforehand and say, hey, you're gonna you're about to get
on a call with let's say the leader of North Korea,
and yeah, that's called happened all the time. And they, uh,

(43:02):
they will probably talk want to talk about this and
this is sort of the important things that we need
to cover. And they may mention this and you may
want to respond this way. Don't talk about how much
you like that Seth Rogan movie the interview. Avoid that
at all, call avoid that. Did you see that? Yeah?
Was it any good. Oh you didn't see it. Nah,

(43:23):
that's pretty good. That's pretty funny. Yeah, yeah, I was. Um,
I mean it's a Seth Rogan James Franco taking on
really pronounced opinion on a specific policy matter. But it
was pretty funny. I liked it. I was about to say,
maybe I'll see it, but I know I won't. Uh.
I I would recommend if you're sitting around watch it

(43:46):
all right, you know. So, um, you know this phone
call take place in the and that NFC staffer is
generally there through the call and taking notes, and then
that then is super useful information to take back down
to their minie or subcommittee. Um. So that's just like
another one of their duties basically is what making sure
the president as all the information on basically any meeting

(44:09):
or call that they're going to take with any foreign leader.
And so what I I think you can sum up
the National Security Council like this, right, somebody has an idea.
Let's say that they decided that, um, it would be
great for America's position in the world if we dedicated
UM June one as National Flower Power Day. And it

(44:34):
comes up from a committee and keeps bubbling up and
bubbling up and bubbling up, and each time that passes
from one committee another, somebody saying, yes, I think this
is a good idea, and we're gonna put my reputation
on the line by saying it should be taken to
the president. And finally goes all the way of the
National security advisor, who is the gatekeeper to the president
on all matters of foreign policy and national security, and

(44:56):
he or she decides what's worth taking to the PRESI
in it, and specifically what's worth waking the president up
at three am? Have you ever heard that story about
Um Carter, Jimmy Carter's national security advisor? Are you ready
to hear me? Drone on? Okay? So, back in November

(45:18):
of nine, at three am around then, Um Big New Brasinski,
who was the national security advisor to Carter, um got
a call from NORAD that showed that the Soviet Union
had launched nuclear missiles at the United States and they

(45:39):
were on their way. And it was up to Prasinski
to decide whether this was a fluke and a glitch
in Norah's system or first just a teenager in the
Pacific Northwest exactly trying to change his grades right. So
this guy in the middle of the night had the
terrible job of do I kick this up to the

(46:00):
president and let the person who could launch a nuclear
counter attack on the Soviet Union make that decision? Or
do I sit on this and say this is not real,
this is a fluke, this is a Norag glitch. And uh,
he had to decide it, and he decided, no, it's
a glitch. And he was right, it was a glitch.

(46:21):
And apparently that happened a number of times. Uh, we
came very close to launching a counter attack against a
phantom strike that hadn't actually been launched during the Cold War,
and Brazilski apparently had nerves of steel when it came
to stuff like that. But that's a pretty good example
of what a national security advisors meant to do. Like
you're the person, the last person to decide whether to

(46:43):
take it to the president and escalate it or not. Wow.
I say wow as well. Well, And uh, because I
know people the of Keen I of pop culture history
will point this out, We'll beat you to the punch.
And note that that is the second Dabney Coleman reference
in the show. Oh yeah, nice was not expecting that

(47:04):
I forgot. He was great in both movies. So if
we can just work in a nine to five reference
before it's all out, I think he's just man. He
was great, really loved love Dabney Coleman. Uh is he
still around? I think he's still alive and doesn't act much? Oh? Well,
good for him. He's enjoying life unless he's uh, unless

(47:28):
he's unless he's recently passed on. Yeah, I don't know.
I could be thinking of that movie Short Time where
he was dying and tried to get himself killed so
his family could get his pension. That was a good
movie too, which one Short Time. I don't think i've
seen that one either. Oh, check it out. You need

(47:48):
to do a double feature short Time in the interview,
Hey he's still alive. Confirmed. Hey Dabney Coleman. Are you
got anything else? Um? I don't think so. Um. I
have one more movie recommendation. It's a documentary called The
Fog of War. That was a good one. Oh, and

(48:11):
I have a reading recommendation to fortune to anyone, of course,
But have you ever read have you seen Zero Dark thirty? Okay,
so apparently as far as um Seymour Hirsch, the great
investigative journalists, says that is all bs it's government propaganda
and that whole official Mark Bowden zero Dark thirty account

(48:34):
of how bin Laden was found not necessarily the rate itself,
but how he was found in everything leading up to
the raids is just spin, and that it actually was
much simpler and less glamorous than that. Um and he
wrote a series of essays for the London Review of
Books and specifically the killing of Osama bin Laden. That
one um kind of lays out the whole thing behind it.

(48:57):
It's pretty interesting to how it really went down. Was
they were like, we need to find where Osama bin
ladnez And someone called in and said he's right over there.
I see him. He's in a McDonald's. It went almost
like that, except the first part where they said we
need to find out where he is didn't happen. Somebody
just walked in and then said, hey, he's a McDonald's
and they said we should spank him. Yeah. Remember the

(49:19):
time I saw John Cryer at McDonald's and Los Angeles.
You remember that the day after this Charlie Sheen freak
out was going on. Man, that was what a day
to see John Cryer. Yeah, is he elated or was
he he was stress stress eating McDonald's breakfast because his
hundred thousand dollar Mercedes. Yeah, his um, his cash cow

(49:41):
of a TV show, was being threatened by his cookie
co star. Didn't he pay money to go see Charlie Sheen?
Did I? Yeah? No, no, no, Mike Tyson Okay, no,
I've never seen remember when he went on tour for
some reason, I thought you went to that. No, but
I have more respect for you than to think that
you actually would have paid money for that. Right, I've

(50:02):
gotten in free maybe right. Uh, if you want to
know more about the National Security Council, just go to
the White House and knock on the front door and
ask him to give you a tour, right, yep. Uh.
In the meantime, actually probably shouldn't do that. Uh, it's
just type national Security Counsel in the search bar how
stuff works, and it'll bring up this article. And since

(50:23):
I said that, it's time for listening. Mate. Uh, my
friend Tracy called Steeve Ann and she said he looks
like a beach bar drunk. Yeah, yeah, I can see that. Actually, Yeah,
like he looks like he should be wearing flip flops
in every photo. Well, he used to. And then somebody said,

(50:44):
you need to start wearing suits, right, Um, all right,
I'm gonna call this um empathy response. Hey, guys, listened
to empathy today. I had a good laugh at Chuck's
impression of a doctor falling to pieces because something similar
happened to me when I was routine. I was junior
in high school. Summer between junior and senior year, my
parents sent me to scout camp. A few days in

(51:06):
the trip, when the other kids cast a fishing line
without any bait, and uh, I walked right behind him,
and the hook lodged right into my eyeball, not the
skin around my eye, the eyeball. A few hours later,
I was at Valley Children's near Fresno and for emergency surgery,
waiting for them to prepare an operating room, and the
antistisiologists came in and looked at my eye and shouted, Oh,

(51:28):
my god, his eye is going to collapse. I'm transgender,
so calling me he made sense at the time, by
the way, hearing a doctor say something like that about
my eyeball would probably have freaked me out in any
other circumstance, But they had me drugged up pretty good
at the time. Um Still, I remember thinking that the
reaction was probably not how a doctor should react the

(51:50):
things that they want to keep their patients calm. Unfortunately,
I had a happy ending. The talented surgeon who took
care of me, got the hook out without any damage
to my sight, and well married every The only evidence
that ever happened is a very faint scar on the
white of my eye. And people that this doesn't close
quite as much as the one in the other eye,

(52:12):
aren't your mirror neurons is going preserve right now in
the worst way. Well it's funny, um because she said
I didn't read that part, but she said get ready
for your mirror neurons to fire at the beginning. Anyhow,
thanks for all the laughs and knowledge you guys drop
on me during my commute. Started my job new job
as a science writer for cal Tech last week, and

(52:33):
I've been recommending stuff you should know to my very
smart new coworkers. And that is from Emily Blasco. Thanks
a lot, Emily, great one. That was terrible and horrible,
but great. Yes, I'm glad it all worked out for you,
and good luck is a science writer send us all
of your interesting articles please. If you have some interesting
articles you want us to read, maybe we'll turn it

(52:54):
into a Stuff you Should Know episode Who Knows Uh.
You can tweet them to us at s y s
K podcast. You can also hang out with me on
Twitter at Josh Underscore um Underscore Clark. You can hang
out with Chuck on Facebook at Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
or you can hang out with us at Stuff you
Should Know on Facebook two. You can send us both
and Jerry an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff

(53:16):
Works dot com, and as always, you can come hang
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