40 Committee

Although there had been some covert U.S. operations in Indochina during Truman's administration, as set forth in NSC directives 10/2 and 10/5, which had been continued by Eisenhower, the approval of NSC 5412 on March 15, 1954, marked the official recognition and sanctioning of a much larger program of anti-Communist activities in Indochina and throughout the world.

NSC 5412, "National Security Council Directive on Covert Operations," continued to be the U.S. Government's basic directive on covert activities until the Nixon administration's NSC 40 in 1970.

NSC 5412 defined "covert operations" as "...all activities conducted pursuant to this directive which are so planned and executed that any U.S. Government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons and that if uncovered the U.S. Government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them. Specifically, such operations shall include any covert activities related to: propaganda, political action; economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition; escape and evasion and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states or groups including assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation groups; support of indigenous and anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world; deceptive plans and operations; and all activities compatible with this directive necessary to accomplish the foregoing. Such operations shall not include: armed conflict by recognized military forces, espionage and counterespionage, nor cover and deception for military operations."

NSC 5412 was declassifed in 1977, and is located at the National Archives, RG 273.

Since 1954, oversight of United States covert operations has been carried out by a series of sub-committees of the United States National Security Council.

The NSC 5412/2 Special Group, often referred simply as the Special Group, was an initially secret, but later public, subcommittee of the United States National Security Council responsible for coordinating government covert operations. Presidential Directive NSC 5412/2, issued December 28, 1954, assigned responsibility for co-ordination of covert actions to representatives of the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the President respectively.

The Federation of American Scientists list of national security documents for the Eisenhower administration does not show a directive 5412/2. It does however show a 5412/1 with a classified title (one of only three such documents for the entire administration).

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