Short answers, pulled from the story.
The National Security Council was created in 1947 by the National Security Act. Its immediate predecessor, the National Intelligence Authority, had been established earlier by Harry Truman's executive letter of the 22nd of January 1946.
The president chairs the National Security Council. Statutory members include the vice president and the secretaries of state, the treasury, defense, and energy, alongside several non-statutory members such as the attorney general and the secretary of homeland security.
The National Security Council identifies people, including United States citizens, judged to be threats to national security and places them on an informal kill list with no public record of the decision. Reuters reported that Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, was on such a list before he was killed.
The directorate was disbanded in May 2018 after John Bolton restructured the National Security Council under President Trump, prompting Sr. Director Tim Ziemer's resignation. President Joe Biden reinstated it in January 2021 and appointed Elizabeth Cameron as Senior Director for Global Health Security and Biodefense.
According to Reuters, the U.S. military ran a disinformation campaign beginning in 2020 using fake social media accounts that falsely claimed the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine was haram under Islamic law. The National Security Council ordered the campaign stopped in spring 2021, though it continued until summer 2021.
The Office of Shipbuilding was proposed by Donald Trump in a speech to a joint session of Congress on the 4th of March 2025. It was designed to be developed within the National Security Council as part of an executive order to revive the American shipbuilding industry against China's dominant position in global maritime trade.