In 1953, Secretary Ezra Taft Benson lobbied for the creation of additional Assistant Secretary positions, which Congress approved that summer. Two of these positions, the Assistant Secretary for the Foreign Agricultural Service and the Assistant Secretary for Commodity Marketing and Adjustment, were merged in September 1953, and in December of that year the vacant position was redesignated Assistant Secretary for Stabilization. Between 1953 and 1962 the responsibilities of today's Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services were thus shared by two Assistant Secretaries, for "Stabilization" and for "Marketing and Foreign Agriculture". The former oversaw the Commodity Stabilization Service and its successors, including the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, while the latter oversaw the Agricultural Marketing Service and the Foreign Agricultural Service. In 1963, the positions were reshuffled, with foreign agriculture (oversight of the Foreign Agricultural Service and the newly created International Agricultural Development Service) assigned to an Assistant Secretary for International Affairs, and marketing and stabilization combined under an Assistant Secretary for Marketing and Consumer Services. In 1969, responsibility for both foreign affairs and farm support (stabilization) programs was consolidated into a single position entitled Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and Commodity Programs, with marketing remaining under its own, separate Assistant Secretary.