World War II confirmed that high-level strategic advice and direction of the Armed Forces were indispensable to success in modern warfare. These accomplishments, however, did not assure the Joint Chiefs of Staff a permanent place in the country’s defense establishment. Indeed, as the war ended, the demobilization of the Armed Forces and the country’s return to peacetime pursuits pointed to a shift in priorities that diminished the chiefs’ role and importance. Yet even though the JCS may have been shorn of some of the power and prestige they enjoyed during the conflict, they remained a formidable organization, served by some of the best talent in the Armed Forces, and thus a key element in the immediate postwar development of national security policy.