Presidents authorize black budgets and covert ops through secret directives

By Desmond Okafor · August 9, 2026

Covert paramilitary operations and support for juntas are driven by a private pipeline of authority that shields the president's actual instructions from public debate.

The FAS Intelligence Resource Program maintains a catalogue entry that serves as a map for the secret history of the American executive. It is not a single record, but a mirror—a directory of the various codes and shorthand used by the presidency to move the world. From Harry Truman to Joe Biden, the page lists the shifting nomenclature of command: NSAM, NSSM, NSDM, NSSD, NSDD, PDD, NSPD, and the current NSPM.

For anyone who has spent time in the field, these acronyms are more than clerical shorthand. They are the trigger points for operations. A change in the letterhead often signaled a change in how the White House viewed the world, or more importantly, how it intended to manipulate it. The catalogue records a lineage of authority that began with Truman’s NSC and evolved through the decades, reflecting a need to codify the President's will in a way that could be disseminated through the chain of command without the noise of public debate.

"Principal Forum"

According to the FAS catalogue, the National Security Council (NSC) functions as the "principal forum for Presidential consideration of foreign policy issues and national security matters." This description aligns with the public record, which establishes the NSC as an executive branch body designed to coordinate policy and advise the chief executive via a staff of senior military, diplomatic, and intelligence officials.

But the catalogue describes a specific operational pipeline that is often obscured in history books. The process is linear and disciplined: pursuant to policy review directives, the NSC "gathers facts and views of appropriate Government agencies, conducts analyses, determines alternatives, and presents to the President policy choices for decision."

This is the tradecraft of governance. The value of the NSC is not in its ability to create policy from a vacuum, but in its role as a filter. It strips away the hopeful projections of the State Department and the worst-case scenarios of the Pentagon, presenting the President with a curated menu of options. In my experience, the most critical part of this process is the "alternatives" phase. If the NSC failed to provide a viable alternative to a failing strategy, the resulting directive was usually a disaster. When the process worked, it provided the President with a clear-eyed view of the costs associated with each choice.

From NSAM to NSPM

The catalogue’s list of directives reads like a timeline of the Cold War and its aftermath. Kennedy used NSAMs (National Security Action Memoranda). Nixon and Ford shifted to NSSMs (National Security Study Memoranda) and NSDMs (National Security Decision Memoranda). Reagan utilized NSSD and NSDD.

Each shift in terminology often coincided with a shift in how the executive branch managed its secrets. The Reagan-era NSDDs, for instance, were often more prescriptive, reflecting a desire for a more assertive and centralized command structure. The transition to PDDs (Presidential Decision Directives) under Clinton and NSPDs under George W. Bush tracked the changing nature of threats, moving from the static borders of the Eastern Bloc to the fluid, asymmetric challenges of the twenty-first century.

These documents are the only places where the theoretical goals of a presidency meet the actual instructions given to the clandestine services. While a public speech might discuss "stability" in a region, the corresponding NSDD or PDD would specify the exact level of support for a particular junta or the acceptable parameters for a covert paramilitary operation. The catalogue reminds us that while the names of the directives change, the necessity of a written order remains constant. No professional operator moves without a paper trail, however deeply buried that trail may be.

Decision Directives

The final step in the NSC pipeline is the most consequential. The FAS catalogue notes that "the President's decisions are announced by decision directives."\ These are the documents that turn analysis into action. They are the orders that authorize the movement of assets, the allocation of black budgets, and the establishment of operational red lines.

Beyond the list of acronyms, the catalogue points toward a wider body of research and legal scrutiny. It references a January 29, 2000, memo from the Office of Legal Counsel regarding the "Legal Effectiveness of A Presidential Directive, as Compared to an Executive Order." This distinction is vital. An Executive Order is a public instrument of law; a Presidential Directive is often a private instruction of statecraft. One is for the record; the other is for the mission.

Other related files exist in the National Archives, including the broader "National Security Council Files" (NAID 594911) and "National Security Council (NSC) Letters" (NAID 5711750), as well as various notes on START I treaty meetings held between 1981 and 1988 found in the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) volumes. These records provide the granular detail that a directory cannot, showing the friction and the failure that often accompany the "decision directives."

The FAS list concludes with the current era, noting the use of NSPMs (National Security Presidential Memoranda) under the 45th, 46th, and 47th presidents. The catalogue identifies the forms, but the content of the most recent directives remains largely shielded from view. Whether the current system of "decision directives" still follows the disciplined pipeline of facts, analysis, and alternatives described in the FAS summary is a question the record does not yet answer.