Note: This article is about the two commissions, 1947-1949 and 1953-1955, headed by former President Herbert Hoover to recommend administrative changes to promote efficiency in the United States Government. A "Little Hoover Commission" was created by the U.S. state of California in 1962 to perform a similar role for that state's government.

The Hoover Commission, officially named the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, was a body appointed by President Harry S. Truman in 1947 to recommend administrative changes in the Federal Government of the United States. It took its nickname from former President Herbert Hoover, who was appointed by Truman to chair it.

History and Membership

Authorized by Congress in the Lodge-Brown Act of 1947 (named for Representative Clarence J. Brown, Sr. of Ohio and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. of Massachusetts), the commission first met September 29, 1947. Besides Hoover, its members were former Postmaster General and F.D.R's campaign manager James Farley, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Senator George Aiken of Vermont, Representative Brown, Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal, Civil Service Commissioner Arthur S. Flemming, former Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, political scientist James Kerr Pollock, attorney James H. Rowe, Representative Carter Manasco of Alabama, industrialist George Mead and Senator John L. McClellan of Arkansas. Aiken, Brown, Flemming, Hoover, Mead and Pollock were Republicans. Acheson, Forrestal, Kennedy, Manasco, McClellan and Rowe were Democrats. The commission was supported by a large staff and numerous expert task forces.

In early 1949, the Commission forwarded its findings and a total of 273 recommendations to Congress in a series of nineteen separate reports. A 1955 study concluded that 116 of the recommendations were fully implemented and that another 80 were mostly or partly implemented.

The commission was officially terminated on June 12, 1949. However, a Second Hoover Commission was created by Congress in 1953 during the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Also headed by Hoover (who was then almost 80 years old), the second commission sent its final report to Congress in June 1955.

Reference links

• National Archives: Records of the Commissions on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government (Hoover Commissions)
• Pemberton, William E., "Truman and the Hoover Commission," ''Whistle Stop, the Newsletter of the Harry S. Truman Library Institute'', v. 19, no. 3, 1991.
• Truman Presidential Library and Museum: Hoover Commission Special Subject Guide
• Hoover Presidential Library and Museum: Commissions on the Organization of the Executive Branch (Herbert Hoover Papers)

Other similar commissions

Brownlow Committee 1937 The Grace Commission 1982-1984 National Partnership for Reinventing Government 1993-1998

See also

• Executive (government)
• Public administration
• Public administration theory

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