(VA) is an independent federal agency administering benefits and programs to veterans;
it achieved cabinet‐level status as the Department of Veterans Affairs in 1988. Established by Congress in 1930, the VA absorbed three separate agencies: the Bureau of Pensions, established in 1833; the National Homes of Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, founded in 1866; and the Veteran's Bureau, created in 1921.
Brig. Gen. Franklin T. Hines served as the first administrator of the VA in 1930–45. Originally called to Washington in 1923, this Utah native reformed the Veterans' Bureau, which had been mired in scandal under Charles R. Forbes, a political crony of President Warren G. Harding. Hines's longevity in office stemmed from his nonpartisanship, hard work, and efficiency, as well as his ability to maintain good relations with Congress and national veterans' organizations, especially the American Legion.
In 1944, Congress vested the agency with responsibility for administering the G.I. Bill for over 16 million eligible veterans. In 1945, President Harry S. Truman named Gen. Omar N. Bradley to head the agency and carry out a series of much needed reforms for its larger roles. Under Bradley's three‐year tenure as administrator, the agency embarked on a massive program of hospital construction and made major improvements in the delivery of medical care to disabled veterans, including the establishment of a Department of Medicine within the agency and the formal affiliation of VA Hospitals with major medical schools.
In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower implemented the recommendation of a private consultant to streamline the VA and created three major departments within the agency: Medicine and Surgery; Insurance; and Benefits. This newly configured VA administrated less generous packages of G.I. Bill benefits for veterans of wars in Korea and later Vietnam. In 1973, the VA also assumed responsibility from the Department of the Army for military cemeteries.
During the late 1960s, the VA, geared to serving an aging population of veterans from two world wars, came under criticism for failing to provide adequate acute care for servicemen and ‐women injured in the Vietnam War and for a general insensitivity to the particular needs of veterans of that war. For example, many veterans and their supporters protested the reluctance of the agency to acknowledge the long‐term effects of the herbicide Agent Orange. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Max Cleland, a double amputee, as the first Vietnam veteran to head the VA.
In 1988, Congress elevated the VA to a cabinet‐level department, and in 1989, Republican congressman Edward J. Derwinski of Illinois became the first secretary of Veterans Affairs. After the Persian Gulf War (1991), the Department of Veterans Affairs, along with the Department of Defense, was criticized for failing to recognize or treat “Gulf War syndrome,” allegedly caused by exposure to biological and chemical weapons.
[See also Toxic Agents; Veterans: Overview.]
Bibliography
- Davis R. B. Ross, Preparing for Ulysses: Politics and Veterans During World War II, 1969.
- Richard Severo and Lewis Milford, The Wages of War: When America's Soldiers Come Home—From Valley Forge to Vietnam, 1989
