Au lendemain de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, l'administration Truman initia plusieurs réformes structurelles d'envergure, parmi lesquelles la réorganisation de ses capacités de renseignement. En créant la CIA en 1947 et la NSA en 1952, le président Harry S. Truman posa les fondations d'une communauté du renseignement qui ne cesserait de se développer à la faveur de la Guerre froide et au-delà. L'institutionnalisation de cette activité protéiforme, impliquant une multitude d'acteurs bureaucratiques, civils et militaires, se heurta à de nombreux obstacles, révélateurs du fonctionnement de l'État américain et de ses traditions démocratiques. À partir d'une vaste quantité d'archives récemment déclassifiées, cette thèse vise à identifier les acteurs et dynamiques intervenus dans la réorganisation du renseignement opérée par l'administration Truman. En corollaire, elle cherche à analyser leur impact sur la constitution d'un appareil de renseignement et sur son fonctionnement entre 1945 et 1953. Tout d'abord, cette étude examine comment la réorganisation du renseignement, qu'il soit stratégique ou électromagnétique, a été influencée par le processus d'unification des forces armées qui a abouti, en 1947, à l'émergence du concept de sécurité nationale. Ensuite, elle démontre comment les principes de coordination et de collégialité, dont est empreint le National Security Act, ont entravé le développement d'un appareil de renseignement intégré et cohérent. Enfin, cette thèse explique en quoi la dégradation de la situation internationale, symbolisée par le déclenchement de la guerre de Corée en 1950, a favorisé une ébauche de rationalisation de la gestion des activités de renseignement. / In the wake of World War II, the Truman Administration initiated several high-scale institutional reforms which included an overhaul of its intelligence capabilities. By establishing the CIA in 1947 and the NSA in 1952, President Harry S. Truman laid the foundations of an intelligence community that would grow throughout the Cold War and beyond. The institutionalization of intelligence, which involved many bureaucratic players, both civilian and military, faced numerous hurddles highlighting the inner workings of the U.S. state apparatus as well as American democratic traditions. Based on a large amount of recently declassified archival material, this dissertation aims to identify the players and dynamics involved in the reorganization carried out by the Truman Administration. It also seeks to assess their impact on the formation of an intelligence apparatus and on how it operated from 1945 to 1953. Firstly, this study illustrates how the intelligence overhaul was influenced by the unification of the armed forces which lead to the emergence of the national security concept in 1947. It then shows how the principles of coordination and collective decision-making implied by the National Security Act hampered the development of an integrated intelligence apparatus. Lastly, it explains how the deteriorating international situation, symbolized by the start of the Korean War in 1950, prompted an uneven streamlining of intelligence activities.

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Master of Arts / Department of History / Charles W. Sanders / On September 13, 1950, in a culmination of three years of efforts by organizations and individuals inside and outside the Harry S. Truman administration, 69 captured battle flags from the Mexican-American War were formally returned to the Mexican government at a ceremony in Mexico City. The events surrounding the return of flags to Mexico occurred in two distinct phases. The first was a small, secretive, and largely symbolic return of three flags conceived and carried out by high-ranking U.S. government officials in June 1947. The second large-scale, public return of the remaining flags in the custody of the War Department was initiated by the American Legion and enacted by the United States Congress. Despite their differences, both returns were heavily influenced by contemporary events, primarily the presidential election of 1948 and the escalation of the Cold War. Also, although the second return was much more extensive than the President originally intended, it was only through his full support that either return was accomplished. In the decades since 1950, historians have either ignored the return of Mexican battle flags or focused instead on Truman’s wreath laying at the monument to the niños héroes in Mexico City in March 1947. This study, for the first time, provides an in-depth description of the efforts to return captured Mexican battle flags and explains why these war trophies were returned while others have remained in the United States. The goal of this investigation is to present the efforts of the Truman administration for what they truly were: an unprecedented act of international friendship. Although the actions of the U.S. government and private organizations were partially influenced by self-interest and Cold War fears, their primary motivation was a sincere desire to erase the painful memories surrounding the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848 in an effort to improve future relations between the two countries. Many historians point to the Truman administration as the end of the Good Neighbor Policy toward Latin America. This study, however, argues that the return of captured Mexican battle flags represents the true pinnacle of the United States’ Good Neighbor Policy toward its southern neighbor.

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The Colored Trainmen of America (CTA) actively challenged Jim Crow policies on the job and in the public sphere between the 1930s and 1950s. In response to lingering questions concerning the relationship between early black labor activism and civil rights protest, this study goes beyond both local lure and cursory research. This study examines the Colored Trainmen's major contributions to the advancement of African Americans. It also provides context for some of the organization's shortcomings in both realms. On the job the African American railroad workers belonging to the CTA fought valiantly to receive the same opportunities for professional growth and development as whites working in the operating trades of the railroad industry. In the public sphere, these men collectively protested second-class services and accommodations both on and off the clock. Neither their agenda, the scope of their activities, nor their influence was limited to the railroad lines the members of the CTA operated within the Gulf Coast region. The CTA belonged to a progressive coalition comprised of four other powerful independent African American labor unions committed to unyielding labor activism and the toppling of Jim Crow. Together, they all worked to effectuate meaningful social change in partnership with national civil rights attorney Charles H. Houston. Houston's experience and direction, coupled with the CTA's dedicated membership and willingness to challenge authority, created considerable momentum in movements aimed at toppling racial inequality in the workplace and elsewhere. Like most of their predecessors, the CTA's struggle for advancement fits within a continuum of successive challenges to economic exploitation and racial inequality. No single person or organization can take full credit for ending segregation or achieving equality. Many who remain nameless and faceless contributed and sacrificed. This study not only chronicles the contribution of a relatively unsung African American labor organization that waged war against Jim Crow on two different fronts, it also pays homage to a few more individuals who made a difference in the lives of an entire race of people during the course of a bitterly contested, never-ending struggle for racial equality in the United States of America during the twentieth century.