America Begins to Rearm

37) List the new agencies or organizations that came into existence as a result of the Cold War (one of which we joined):

In 1947, Congress passed the National Security Act, which established the following:

• Department of Defense (this basically consolidated all the previous departments of the navy, war, army, air force, etc., into one department)
• National Security Council (designed to give the president advice on matters of national security, what else?)
• Central Intelligence Agency (designed to give people an excuse to drive around town in fancy-looking sports cars equipped with the latest in high-tech defense weaponry under cool-sounding aliases and of course wearing dark-tinted sunglasses...actually, they mostly do stuff like gather information concerning foreign affairs)

In 1949, the US also joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which was essentially an anti-Soviet, anti-Communist alliance. This marked an important reversal from the traditional isolationism of America.


Bad omen: groundbreaking for the Pentagon took place on September 11, 1941, only about 60 years before a rather ominous date.