President Trump signed the $738 billion National Defense Authorization Act on December 20, 2019, which established the United States Space Force as the sixth branch of the U.S. military. The new military service, first created since the Air Force in 1947, will initially comprise 16,000 active-duty …
The Senate Armed Services Committee confirms Charles Erwin “Engine Charlie” Wilson as Secretary of Defense by a vote of 77 to 6, despite controversy over his massive General Motors stockholdings valued at more than $2.5 million (approximately $24 million in 2018 dollars). Wilson had …
President Harry S. Truman received National Security Council directive NSC-68, a 66-page top-secret policy paper that would fundamentally transform American defense policy by calling for “full mobilization of the U.S. economy during peacetime”—an unprecedented measure that created the …
James Vincent Forrestal, a successful Wall Street financier who ran the investment bank Dillon, Read & Co., becomes the first United States Secretary of Defense when the National Military Establishment is formally established. Forrestal’s appointment represents the archetypal revolving …