Washington — President Trump signed an executive order Friday to start the process of renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War, restoring a name the agency last held in the late 1940s.

The executive order will allow the DOD to start using the term Department of War as a "secondary title," and will let Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth use the title Secretary of War, according to a fact sheet obtained by CBS News. Other government agencies will be directed to "recognize and accommodate" those secondary titles.

The order also instructs Hegseth to recommend "legislative and executive actions" to make the renaming effort permanent. The Pentagon is currently officially referred to as the Department of Defense in federal law.

In remarks at the White House Friday

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