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Title: Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965
Author: Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
Release Date: February 15, 2007 [EBook #20587]
Language: English
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INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES
1940-1965
_DEFENSE STUDIES SERIES_
INTEGRATION
OF THE ARMED FORCES
1940-1965
_by_
_Morris J. MacGregor, Jr._
_Defense Historical Studies Committee_
(as of 6 April 1979)
Alfred Goldberg
Office of the Secretary of Defense
Robert J. Watson
Historical Division, Joint Chiefs of Staff
Brig. Gen. James L. Collins, Jr.
Chief of Military History
Maj. Gen. John W. Huston
Chief of Air Force History
Maurice Matloff
Center of Military History
Stanley L. Falk
Office of Air Force History
Rear Adm. John D. H. Kane, Jr.
Director of Naval History
Brig. Gen. (Ret.) Edwin H. Simmons
Director of Marine Corps History and
Museums
Dean C. Allard
Naval Historical Center
Henry J. Shaw, Jr.
Marine Corps Historical Center
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
MacGregor, Morris J
Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965
(Defense studies series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Supt. of Docs. no.: D 114.2:In 8/940-65
1. Afro-American soldiers. 2. United States--Race
Relations. I. Title. II. Series.
UB418.A47M33 335.3'3 80-607077
_Department of the Army_
_Historical Advisory Committee_
(as of 6 April 1979)
Otis A. Singletary
University of Kentucky
Maj. Gen. Robert C. Hixon
U.S. Army Training and Doctrine
Command
Brig. Gen. Robert Arter
U.S. Army Command and
General Staff College
Sara D. Jackson
National Historical Publications
and Records Commission
Harry L. Coles
Ohio State University
Maj. Gen. Enrique Mendez, Jr.
Deputy Surgeon General, USA
Robert H. Ferrell
Indiana University
James O'Neill
Deputy Archivist of the United States
Cyrus H. Fraker
The Adjutant General Center
Benjamin Quarles
Morgan State College
William H. Goetzmann
University of Texas
Brig. Gen. Alfred L. Sanderson
Army War College
Col. Thomas E. Griess
U.S. Military Academy
Russell F. Weigley
Temple University
Foreword
The integration of the armed forces was a momentous event in our
military and national history; it represented a milestone in the
development of the armed forces and the fulfillment of the democratic
ideal. The existence of integrated rather than segregated armed forces
is an important factor in our military establishment today. The
experiences in World War II and the postwar pressures generated by the
civil rights movement compelled all the services--Army, Navy, Air
Force, and Marine Corps--to reexamine their traditional practices of
segregation. While there were differences in the ways that the
services moved toward integration, all were subject to the same
demands, fears, and prejudices and had the same need to use their
resources in a more rational and economical way. All of them reached
the same conclusion: traditional attitudes toward minorities must give
way to democratic concepts of civil rights.
If the integration of the armed services now seems to have been
inevitable in a democratic society, it nevertheless faced opposition
that had to be overcome and problems that had to be solved through the
combined efforts of political and civil rights leaders and civil and
military officials. In many ways the military services were at the
cutting edge in the struggle for racial equality. This volume sets
forth the successive measures they and the Office of the Secretary of
Defense took to meet the challenges of a new era in a critically
important area of human relationships, during a period of transition
that saw the advance of blacks in the social and economic order as
well as in the military. It is fitting that this story should be told
in the first volume of a new Defense Studies Series.
The Defense Historical Studies Program was authorized by the then
Deputy Secretary of Defense, Cyrus Vance, in April 1965. It is
conducted under the auspices of the Defense Historical Studies Group,
an _ad hoc_ body chaired by the Historian of the Office of the
Secretary of Defense and consisting of the senior officials in the
historical offices of the services and of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Volumes produced under its sponsorship will be interservice histories,
covering matters of mutual interest to the Army, Navy, Air Force,
Marine Corps, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The preparation of each
volume is entrusted to one of the service historical sections, in this
case the Army's Center of Military History. Although the book was
written by an Army historian, he was generously given access to the
pertinent records of the other services and the Office of the
Secretary of Defense, and this initial volume in the Defense Studies
Series covers the experiences of all components of the Department of
Defense in achieving integration.
Washington, D.C. JAMES L. COLLINS, Jr.
14 March 1980 Brigadier General, USA
Chief of Military History
The Author
Morris J. MacGregor, Jr., received the A.B. and M.A. degrees in
history from the Catholic University of America. He continued his
graduate studies at the Johns Hopkins University and the University of
Paris on a Fulbright grant. Before joining the staff of the U.S. Army
Center of Military History in 1968 he served for ten years in the
Historical Division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He has written
several studies for military publications including "Armed Forces
Integration--Forced or Free?" in _The Military and Society:
Proceedings of the Fifth Military Symposium of the U.S. Air Force
Academy_. He is the coeditor with Bernard C. Nalty of the
thirteen-volume _Blacks in the United States Armed Forces: Basic
Documents_ and with Ronald Spector of _Voices of History:
Interpretations in American Military History_. He is currently working
on a sequel to _Integration of the Armed Forces_ which will also
appear in the Defense Studies Series.
Preface (p. ix)
This book describes the fall of the legal, administrative, and social
barriers to the black American's full participation in the military
service of his country. It follows the changing status of the black
serviceman from the eve of World War II, when he was excluded from
many military activities and rigidly segregated in the rest, to that
period a quarter of a century later when the Department of Defense
extended its protection of his rights and privileges even to the
civilian community. To round out the story of open housing for members
of the military, I briefly overstep the closing date given in the
title.
The work is essentially an administrative history that attempts to
measure the influence of several forces, most notably the civil rights
movement, the tradition of segregated service, and the changing
concept of military efficiency, on the development of racial policies
in the armed forces. It is not a history of all minorities in the
services. Nor is it an account of how the black American responded to
discrimination. A study of racial attitudes, both black and white, in
the military services would be a valuable addition to human knowledge,
but practically impossible of accomplishment in the absence of
sufficient autobiographical accounts, oral history interviews, and
detailed sociological measurements. How did the serviceman view his
condition, how did he convey his desire for redress, and what was his
reaction to social change? Even now the answers to these questions are
blurred by time and distorted by emotions engendered by the civil
rights revolution. Few citizens, black or white, who witnessed it can
claim immunity to the influence of that paramount social phenomenon of
our times.
At times I do generalize on the attitudes of both black and white
servicemen and the black and white communities at large as well. But I
have permitted myself to do so only when these attitudes were clearly
pertinent to changes in the services' racial policies and only when
the written record supported, or at least did not contradict, the
memory of those participants who had been interviewed. In any case
this study is largely history written from the top down and is based
primarily on the written records left by the administrations of five
presidents and by civil rights leaders, service officials, and the
press.
Many of the attitudes and expressions voiced by the participants in
the story are now out of fashion. The reader must be constantly on
guard against viewing the beliefs and statements of many civilian and
military officials out of context of the times in which they were
expressed. Neither bigotry nor stupidity was the monopoly of some of
the people quoted; their statements are important for what they tell
us about certain attitudes of our society rather than for what they
reveal about any individual. If the methods or attitudes of some (p. x)
of the black spokesmen appear excessively tame to those who have
lived through the 1960's, they too should be gauged in the context of
the times. If their statements and actions shunned what now seems the
more desirable, albeit radical, course, it should be given them that
the style they adopted appeared in those days to be the most promising
for racial progress.
The words _black_ and _Negro_ have been used interchangeably in the
book, with Negro generally as a noun and black as an adjective. Aware
of differing preferences in the black community for usage of these
words, the author was interested in comments from early readers of the
manuscript. Some of the participants in the story strongly objected to
one word or the other. "Do me one favor in return for my help," Lt.
Comdr. Dennis D. Nelson said, "never call me a black." Rear Adm.
Gerald E. Thomas, on the other hand, suggested that the use of the
term Negro might repel readers with much to learn about their recent
past. Still others thought that the historian should respect the usage
of the various periods covered in the story, a solution that would
have left the volume with the term _colored_ for most of the earlier
chapters and Negro for much of the rest. With rare exception, the term
black does not appear in twentieth century military records before the
late 1960's. Fashions in words change, and it is only for the time
being perhaps that black and Negro symbolize different attitudes. The
author has used the words as synonyms and trusts that the reader will
accept them as such. Professor John Hope Franklin, Mrs. Sara Jackson
of the National Archives, and the historians and officials that
constituted the review panel went along with this approach.
The second question of usage concerns the words _integration_ and
_desegregation_. In recent years many historians have come to
distinguish between these like-sounding words. Desegregation they see
as a direct action against segregation; that is, it signifies the act
of removing legal barriers to the equal treatment of black citizens as
guaranteed by the Constitution. The movement toward desegregation,
breaking down the nation's Jim Crow system, became increasingly
popular in the decade after World War II. Integration, on the other
hand, Professor Oscar Handlin maintains, implies several things not
yet necessarily accepted in all areas of American society. In one
sense it refers to the "leveling of all barriers to association other
than those based on ability, taste, and personal preference";[1] in
other words, providing equal opportunity. But in another sense
integration calls for the random distribution of a minority throughout
society. Here, according to Handlin, the emphasis is on racial balance
in areas of occupation, education, residency, and the like.
[Footnote 1: Oscar Handlin, "The Goals of Integration,"
_Daedalus 95_ (Winter 1966): 270.]
From the beginning the military establishment rightly understood that
the breakup of the all-black unit would in a closed society
necessarily mean more than mere desegregation. It constantly used the
terms integration and equal treatment and opportunity to describe its
racial goals. Rarely, if ever, does one find the word desegregation in
military files that include much correspondence from the various (p. xi)
civil rights organizations. That the military made the right choice,
this study seems to demonstrate, for the racial goals of the Defense
Department, as they slowly took form over a quarter of a century,
fulfilled both of Professor Handlin's definitions of integration.
The mid-1960's saw the end of a long and important era in the racial
history of the armed forces. Although the services continued to
encounter racial problems, these problems differed radically in
several essentials from those of the integration period considered in
this volume. Yet there is a continuity to the story of race relations,
and one can hope that the story of how an earlier generation struggled
so that black men and women might serve their country in freedom
inspires those in the services who continue to fight discrimination.
This study benefited greatly from the assistance of a large number of
persons during its long years of preparation. Stetson Conn, chief
historian of the Army, proposed the book as an interservice project.
His successor, Maurice Matloff, forced to deal with the complexities
of an interservice project, successfully guided the manuscript through
to publication. The work was carried out under the general supervision
of Robert R. Smith, chief of the General History Branch. He and Robert
W. Coakley, deputy chief historian of the Army, were the primary
reviewers of the manuscript, and its final form owes much to their
advice and attention. The author also profited greatly from the advice
of the official review panel, which, under the chairmanship of Alfred
Goldberg, historian, Office of the Secretary of Defense, included
Martin Blumenson; General J. Lawton Collins (USA Ret.); Lt. Gen.
Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. (USAF Ret.); Roy K. Davenport, former Deputy
Assistant Secretary of the Army; Stanley L. Falk, chief historian of
the Air Force; Vice Adm. E. B. Hooper, Chief of Naval History;
Professor Benjamin Quarles; Paul J. Scheips, historian, Center of
Military History; Henry I. Shaw, chief historian of the U.S. Marine
Corps; Loretto C. Stevens, senior editor of the Center of Military
History; Robert J. Watson, chief historian of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff; and Adam Yarmolinsky, former assistant to the Secretary of
Defense.
Many of the participants in this story generously shared their
knowledge with me and kindly reviewed my efforts. My footnotes
acknowledge my debt to them. Nevertheless, two are singled out here
for special mention. James C. Evans, former counselor to the Secretary
of Defense for racial affairs, has been an endless source of
information on race relations in the military. If I sometimes
disagreed with his interpretations and assessments, I never doubted
his total dedication to the cause of the black serviceman. I owe a
similar debt to Lt. Comdr. Dennis D. Nelson (USN Ret.) for sharing his
intimate understanding of race relations in the Navy. A resourceful
man with a sure social touch, he must have been one hell of a sailor.
I want to note the special contribution of several historians. Martin
Blumenson was first assigned to this project, and before leaving the
Center of Military History he assembled research material that proved
most helpful. My former colleague John Bernard Corr prepared a study
on the National Guard upon which my account of the guard is based.
In addition, he patiently reviewed many pages of the draft (p. xii)
manuscript. His keen insights and sensitive understanding were
invaluable to me. Professors Jack D. Foner and Marie Carolyn
Klinkhammer provided particularly helpful suggestions in conjunction
with their reviews of the manuscript. Samuel B. Warner, who before his
untimely death was a historian in the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as
a colleague of Lee Nichols on some of that reporter's civil rights
investigations, also contributed generously of his talents and lent
his support in the early days of my work. Finally, I am grateful for
the advice of my colleague Ronald H. Spector at several key points in
the preparation of this history.
I have received much help from archivists and librarians, especially
the resourceful William H. Cunliffe and Lois Aldridge (now retired) of
the National Archives and Dean C. Allard of the Naval Historical
Center. Although the fruits of their scholarship appear often in my
footnotes, three fellow researchers in the field deserve special
mention: Maj. Alan M. Osur and Lt. Col. Alan L. Gropman of the U.S.
Air Force and Ralph W. Donnelly, former member of the U.S. Marine
Corps Historical Center. I have benefited from our exchange of ideas
and have had the advantage of their reviews of the manuscript.
I am especially grateful for the generous assistance of my editors,
Loretto C. Stevens and Barbara H. Gilbert. They have been both friends
and teachers. In the same vein, I wish to thank John Elsberg for his
editorial counsel. I also appreciate the help given by William G. Bell
in the selection of the illustrations, including the loan of two rare
items from his personal collection, and Arthur S. Hardyman for
preparing the pictures for publication. I would like to thank Mary Lee
Treadway and Wyvetra B. Yeldell for preparing the manuscript for panel
review and Terrence J. Gough for his helpful pre-publication review.
Finally, while no friend or relative was spared in the long years I
worked on this book, three colleagues especially bore with me through
days of doubts and frustrations and shared my small triumphs: Alfred
M. Beck, Ernest F. Fisher, Jr., and Paul J. Scheips. I also want
particularly to thank Col. James W. Dunn. I only hope that some of
their good sense and sunny optimism show through these pages.
Washington, D.C. MORRIS J. MACGREGOR, Jr.
14 March 1980
Contents (p. xiii)
_Chapter_ _Page_
1. INTRODUCTION............................................. 3
_The Armed forces Before 1940_............................ 3
_Civil Rights and the Law in 1940_........................ 8
_To Segregate Is To Discriminate_........................ 13
2. WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY.................................. 17
_A War Policy: Reaffirming Segregation_.................. 17
_Segregation and Efficiency_............................. 23
_The Need for Change_.................................... 34
_Internal Reform: Amending Racial Practices_............. 39
_Two Exceptions_......................................... 46
3. WORLD WAR II: THE NAVY.................................. 58
_Development of a Wartime Policy_........................ 59
_A Segregated Navy_...................................... 67
_Progressive Experiments_................................ 75
_Forrestal Takes the Helm_............................... 84
4. WORLD WAR II: THE MARINE CORPS AND THE COAST GUARD...... 99
_The First Black Marines_............................... 100
_New Roles for Black Coast Guardsmen_................... 112
5. A POSTWAR SEARCH....................................... 123
_Black Demands_......................................... 123
_The Army's Grand Review_............................... 130
_The Navy's Informal Inspection_........................ 143
6. NEW DIRECTIONS......................................... 152
_The Gillem Board Report_............................... 153
_Integration of the General Service_.................... 166
_The Marine Corps_...................................... 170
7. A PROBLEM OF QUOTAS.................................... 176
_The Quota in Practice_................................. 182
_Broader Opportunities_................................. 189
_Assignments_........................................... 194
_A New Approach_........................................ 198
_The Quota System: An Assessment_....................... 202
8. SEGREGATION'S CONSEQUENCES............................. 206
_Discipline and Morale Among Black Troops_.............. 206
_Improving the Status of the Segregated Soldier_........ 215
_Discrimination and the Postwar Army_................... 223 (p. xiv)
_Segregation in Theory and Practice_.................... 226
_Segregation: An Assessment_............................ 231
9. THE POSTWAR NAVY....................................... 234
_The Steward's Branch_.................................. 238
_Black Officers_........................................ 243
_Public Image and the Problem of Numbers_............... 248
10. THE POSTWAR MARINE CORPS.............................. 253
_Racial Quotas and Assignments_......................... 253
_Recruitment_........................................... 257
_Segregation and Efficiency_............................ 261
_Toward Integration_.................................... 266
11. THE POSTWAR AIR FORCE................................. 270
_Segregation and Efficiency_............................ 271
_Impulse for Change_.................................... 280
12. THE PRESIDENT INTERVENES.............................. 291
_The Truman Administration and Civil Rights_............ 292
_Civil Rights and the Department of Defense_............ 297
_Executive Order 9981_.................................. 309
13. SERVICE INTERESTS VERSUS PRESIDENTIAL INTENT.......... 315
_Public Reaction to Executive Order 9981_............... 315
_The Army: Segregation on the Defensive_................ 318
_A Different Approach_.................................. 326
_The Navy: Business as Usual_........................... 331
_Adjustments in the Marine Corps_....................... 334
_The Air Force Plans for Limited Integration_........... 338
14. THE FAHY COMMITTEE VERSUS THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE... 343
_The Committee's Recommendations_....................... 348
_A Summer of Discontent_................................ 362
_Assignments_........................................... 368
_Quotas_................................................ 371
_An Assessment_......................................... 375
15. THE ROLE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, 1949-1951....... 379
_Overseas Restrictions_................................. 385
_Congressional Concerns_................................ 389
16. INTEGRATION IN THE AIR FORCE AND THE NAVY............. 397
_The Air Force, 1949-1951_.............................. 397
_The Navy and Executive Order 9981_..................... 412
17. THE ARMY INTEGRATES................................... 428
_Race and Efficiency: 1950_............................. 428
_Training_.............................................. 434
_Performance of Segregated Units_....................... 436
_Final Arguments_....................................... 440
_Integration of the Eighth Army_........................ 442
_Integration of the European and Continental Commands_.. 448 (p. xv)
18. INTEGRATION OF THE MARINE CORPS....................... 460
_Impetus for Change_.................................... 461
_Assignments_........................................... 466
19. A NEW ERA BEGINS...................................... 473
_The Civil Rights Revolution_........................... 474
_Limitations on Executive Order 9981_................... 479
_Integration of Navy Shipyards_......................... 483
_Dependent Children and Integrated Schools_............. 487
20. LIMITED RESPONSE TO DISCRIMINATION.................... 501
_The Kennedy Administration and Civil Rights_........... 504
_The Department of Defense, 1961-1963_.................. 510
_Discrimination Off the Military Reservation_........... 511
_Reserves and Regulars: A Comparison_................... 517
21. EQUAL TREATMENT AND OPPORTUNITY REDEFINED............. 530
_The Secretary Makes a Decision_........................ 530
_The Gesell Committee_.................................. 535
_Reaction to a New Commitment_.......................... 545
_The Gesell Committee: Final Report_.................... 552
22. EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN THE MILITARY COMMUNITY........... 556
_Creating a Civil Rights Apparatus_..................... 558
_Fighting Discrimination Within the Services_........... 566
23. FROM VOLUNTARY COMPLIANCE TO SANCTIONS................ 581
_Development of Voluntary Action Programs_.............. 581
_Civil Rights, 1964-1966_............................... 586
_The Civil Rights Act and Voluntary Compliance_......... 590
_The Limits of Voluntary Compliance_.................... 593
24. CONCLUSION............................................ 609
_Why the Services Integrated_........................... 609
_How the Services Integrated, 1946-1954_................ 614
_Equal Treatment and Opportunity_....................... 619
NOTE ON SOURCES........................................... 625
INDEX..................................................... 635
Illustrations
Crewmen of the USS _Miami_ During the Civil War............. 4
Buffalo Soldiers............................................ 5
Integration in the Army of 1888............................. 9
Gunner's Gang on the USS _Maine_........................... 10 (p. xvi)
General John J. (Black Jack) Pershing Inspects Troops...... 11
Heroes of the 369th Infantry, February 1919................ 13
Judge William H. Hastie.................................... 20
General George C. Marshall and Secretary of War Henry
L. Stimson............................................... 21
Engineer Construction Troops in Liberia, July 1942......... 26
Labor Battalion Troops in the Aleutian Islands, May 1943... 27
Sergeant Addressing the Line............................... 28
Pilots of the 332d Fighter Group........................... 29
Service Club, Fort Huachuca................................ 35
93d Division Troops in Bougainville, April 1944............ 44
Gun Crew of Battery B, 598th Field Artillery,
September 1944........................................... 47
Tankers of the 761st Medium Tank Battalion Prepare for
Action................................................... 48
WAAC Replacements.......................................... 50
Volunteers for Combat in Training.......................... 53
Road Repairmen............................................. 56
Mess Attendant, First Class, Dorie Miller Addressing
Recruits at Camp Smalls.................................. 60
Admiral Ernest J. King and Secretary of the Navy Frank
Knox..................................................... 61
Crew Members of USS _Argonaut_, Pearl Harbor, 1942......... 62
Messmen Volunteer as Gunners, July 1942.................... 65
Electrician Mates String Power Lines....................... 68
Laborers at Naval Ammunition Depot......................... 73
Seabees in the South Pacific............................... 74
Lt. Comdr. Christopher S. Sargent.......................... 76
USS _Mason_................................................ 78
First Black Officers in the Navy........................... 81
Lt. (jg.) Harriet Ida Pickens and Ens. Frances Wills....... 88
Sailors in the General Service............................. 89
Security Watch in the Marianas............................. 90
Specialists Repair Aircraft................................ 93
The 22d Special Construction Battalion Celebrates V-J Day.. 97
Marines of the 51st Defense Battalion, Montford
Point, 1942............................................. 102
Shore Party in Training, Camp Lejeune, 1942............... 105
D-day on Peleliu.......................................... 106
Medical Attendants at Rest, Peleliu, October 1944......... 107
Gun Crew of the 52d Defense Battalion..................... 110
Crewmen of USCG Lifeboat Station, Pea Island, North
Carolina................................................ 112
Coast Guard Recruits at Manhattan Beach Training
Station, New York....................................... 113
Stewards at Battle Station on the Cutter _Campbell_....... 117
Shore Leave in Scotland................................... 118
Lt. Comdr. Carlton Skinner and Crew of the USS
_Sea Cloud_............................................. 120
Ens. Joseph J. Jenkins and Lt. (jg.) Clarence Samuels..... 121
President Harry S. Truman Addressing the NAACP
Convention.............................................. 127
Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy................. 130
Civilian Aide to the Secretary of War Truman K. Gibson.... 131 (p. xvii)
Company I, 370th Infantry, 92d Division, Advances
Through Cascina, Italy.................................. 134
92d Division Engineers Prepare a Ford for Arno River
Traffic................................................. 136
Lester Granger Interviewing Sailors....................... 146
Granger With Crewmen of a Naval Yard Craft................ 147
Lt. Gen. Alvan C. Gillem, U.S. Army....................... 154
Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson...................... 162
Admiral Louis E. Denfeld, U.S. Navy....................... 167
General Gerald C. Thomas, U.S. Marine Corps............... 172
Lt. Gen. Willard S. Paul.................................. 178
Adviser to the Secretary of War Marcus Ray................ 184
Lt. Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger Inspects 24th Infantry
Troops.................................................. 191
Army Specialists Report for Airborne Training............. 200
Bridge Players, Seaview Service Club, Tokyo,
Japan, 1948............................................. 203
24th Infantry Band, Gifu, Japan, 1947..................... 214
Lt. Gen. Clarence R. Huebner Inspects the 529th
Military Police Company................................. 216
Reporting to Kitzingen.................................... 218
Inspection by the Chief of Staff.......................... 228
Brig. Gen. Benjamin O. Davis, Sr.......................... 230
Shore Leave in Korea...................................... 236
Mess Attendants, USS _Bushnell_, 1918..................... 239
Mess Attendants, USS _Wisconsin_, 1953.................... 240
Lt. Comdr. Dennis D. Nelson II............................ 244
Naval Unit Passes in Review, Naval Advanced Base,
Bremerhaven, Germany.................................... 249
Submariner................................................ 251
Marine Artillery Team..................................... 254
2d Lt. and Mrs. Frederick C. Branch....................... 267
Training Exercises........................................ 269
Damage Inspection......................................... 272
Col. Noel F. Parrish...................................... 274
Officers' Softball Team................................... 276
Checking Ammunition....................................... 278
Squadron F, 318th AAF Battalion, in Review................ 281
Col. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., Commander, 477th Composite
Group, 1945............................................. 285
Lt. Gen. Idwal H. Edwards................................. 287
Col. Jack F. Marr......................................... 288
Walter F. White........................................... 295
Truman's Civil Rights Campaign............................ 297
A. Philip Randolph........................................ 300
National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 April
1948.................................................... 306
MP's Hitch a Ride......................................... 320
Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall Reviews
Military Police Battalion............................... 323
Spring Formal Dance, Fort George G. Meade,
Maryland, 1952.......................................... 327
Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal................... 330
General Clifton B. Cates.................................. 335 (p. xviii)
1st Marine Division Drill Team on Exhibition.............. 337
Secretary of the Air Force W. Stuart Symington............ 340
Secretary of Defense Louis C. Johnson..................... 347
Fahy Committee With President Truman and Armed Services
Secretaries............................................. 349
E. W. Kenworthy........................................... 353
Charles Fahy.............................................. 354
Roy K. Davenport.......................................... 355
Press Notice.............................................. 361
Secretary of the Army Gordon Gray......................... 370
Chief of Staff of the Army J. Lawton Collins.............. 371
"No Longer a Dream"....................................... 377
Navy Corpsman in Korea.................................... 382
25th Division Troops in Japan............................. 388
Assistant Secretary of Defense Anna M. Rosenberg.......... 391
Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Eugene M. Zuckert.... 402
Music Makers.............................................. 408
Maintenance Crew, 462d Strategic Fighter Squadron......... 410
Jet Mechanics............................................. 411
Christmas in Korea, 1950.................................. 417
Rearming at Sea........................................... 418
Broadening Skills......................................... 419
Integrated Stewards Class Graduates, Great Lakes, 1953.... 423
WAVE Recruits, Naval Training Center, Bainbridge,
Maryland, 1953.......................................... 425
Rear Adm. Samuel L. Gravely, Jr........................... 426
Moving Up................................................. 431
Men of Battery A, 159th Field Artillery Battalion......... 433
Survivors of an Intelligence and Reconnaissance
Platoon, 24th Infantry.................................. 438
General Matthew B. Ridgway, Far East Commander............ 444
Machine Gunners of Company L, 14th Infantry, Hill 931,
Korea................................................... 446
Color Guard, 160th Infantry, Korea, 1952.................. 448
Visit With the Commander.................................. 454
Brothers Under the Skin................................... 455
Marines on the Kansas Line, Korea......................... 465
Marine Reinforcements..................................... 466
Training Exercises on Iwo Jima, March 1954................ 469
Marines From Camp Lejeune................................. 470
Lt. Col. Frank E. Petersen, Jr............................ 471
Sergeant Major Edgar R. Huff.............................. 472
Clarence Mitchell......................................... 475
Congressman Adam Clayton Powell........................... 484
Secretary of the Navy Robert B. Anderson.................. 486
Reading Class in the Military Dependents School, Yokohama. 495
Civil Rights Leaders at the White House................... 503
President John F. Kennedy and President Jorge Allessandri. 509 (p. xix)
Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara................... 516
Adam Yarmolinsky.......................................... 532
James C. Evans............................................ 533
The Gesell Committee Meets With the President............. 541
Alfred B. Fitt............................................ 547
Arriving in Vietnam....................................... 560
Digging In................................................ 562
Listening to the Squad Leader............................. 567
Supplying the Seventh Fleet............................... 576
USAF Ground Crew, Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Vietnam.......... 580
Fighter Pilots on the Line................................ 583
Medical Examination....................................... 589
Auto Pilot Shop........................................... 594
Submarine Tender Duty..................................... 600
First Aid................................................. 606
Vietnam Patrol............................................ 611
Marine Engineers in Vietnam............................... 613
Loading a Rocket Launcher................................. 615
American Sailors Help Evacuate a Vietnamese Child......... 618
Booby Trap Victim from Company B, 47th Infantry........... 619
Camaraderie............................................... 622
All illustrations are from the files of the Department of Defense and
the National Archives and Records Service with the exception of the
pictures on pages 6 and 10, courtesy of William G. Bell; on page 20,
by Fabian Bachrach, courtesy of Judge William H. Hastie; on page 120,
courtesy of Carlton Skinner; on page 297, courtesy of the Washington
_Star_, on page 361, courtesy of the _Afro-American_ Newspapers; on
page 377, courtesy of the Sengstacke Newspapers; and on page 475,
courtesy of the Washington Bureau of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People.
Tables
_No._
1. Classification of All Men Tested From March 1941 Through
December 1942........................................... 25
2. AGCT Percentages in Selected World War II Divisions.... 138
3. Percentage of Black Enlisted Men and Women............. 395
4. Disposition of Black Personnel at Eight Air Force
Bases, 1949............................................ 403
5. Racial Composition of Air Force Units.................. 404
6. Black Strength in the Air Force........................ 405
7. Racial Composition of the Training Command,
December 1949.......................................... 406
8. Black Manpower, U.S. Navy.............................. 416 (p. xx)
9. Worldwide Distribution of Enlisted Personnel by Race,
October 1952........................................... 458
10. Distribution of Black Enlisted Personnel by Branch
and Rank, 31 October 1952............................. 458
11. Black Marines, 1949-1955.............................. 463
12. Defense Installations With Segregated Public Schools.. 491
13. Black Strength in the Armed Forces for Selected Years. 522
14. Estimated Percentage Distribution of Draft-Age
Males in U.S. Population by AFQT Groups............... 523
15. Rate of Men Disqualified for Service in 1962.......... 523
16. Rejection Rates for Failure To Pass Armed Forces
Mental Test, 1962..................................... 524
17. Nonwhite Inductions and First Enlistments, Fiscal
Years 1953-1962....................................... 525
18. Distribution of Enlisted Personnel in Each Major
Occupation, 1956...................................... 525
19. Occupational Group Distribution by Race, All DOD,
1962.................................................. 525
20. Occupational Group Distribution of Enlisted
Personnel by Length of Service, and Race.............. 526
21. Percentage Distribution of Navy Enlisted Personnel
by Race, AFQT Groups and Occupational Areas, and
Length of Service, 1962............................... 526
22. Percentage Distribution of Blacks and Whites by Pay
Grade, All DOD, 1962.................................. 527
23. Percentage Distribution of Navy Enlisted Personnel
by Race, AFQT Groups, Pay Grade, and Length of
Service, 1962......................................... 528
24. Black Percentages, 1962-1968.......................... 568
25. Rates for First Reenlistments, 1964-1967.............. 569
26. Black Attendance at the Military Academies, July 1968. 569
27. Army and Air Force Commissions Granted at
Predominately Black Schools........................... 570
28. Percentage of Negroes in Certain Military Ranks,
1964-1966............................................. 571
29. Distribution of Servicemen in Occupational Groups
by Race, 1967......................................... 573
INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES (p. 001)
1940-1965
CHAPTER 1 (p. 003)
Introduction
In the quarter century that followed American entry into World War II,
the nation's armed forces moved from the reluctant inclusion of a few
segregated Negroes to their routine acceptance in a racially
integrated military establishment. Nor was this change confined to
military installations. By the time it was over, the armed forces had
redefined their traditional obligation for the welfare of their
members to include a promise of equal treatment for black servicemen
wherever they might be. In the name of equality of treatment and
opportunity, the Department of Defense began to challenge racial
injustices deeply rooted in American society.
For all its sweeping implications, equality in the armed forces
obviously had its pragmatic aspects. In one sense it was a practical
answer to pressing political problems that had plagued several
national administrations. In another, it was the services' expression
of those liberalizing tendencies that were permeating American society
during the era of civil rights activism. But to a considerable extent
the policy of racial equality that evolved in this quarter century was
also a response to the need for military efficiency. So easy did it
become to demonstrate the connection between inefficiency and
discrimination that, even when other reasons existed, military
efficiency was the one most often evoked by defense officials to
justify a change in racial policy.
_The Armed Forces Before 1940_
Progress toward equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces
was an uneven process, the result of sporadic and sometimes
conflicting pressures derived from such constants in American society
as prejudice and idealism and spurred by a chronic shortage of
military manpower. In his pioneering study of race relations, Gunnar
Myrdal observes that ideals have always played a dominant role in the
social dynamics of America.[1-1] By extension, the ideals that helped
involve the nation in many of its wars also helped produce important
changes in the treatment of Negroes by the armed forces. The
democratic spirit embodied in the Declaration of Independence, for
example, opened the Continental Army to many Negroes, holding out to
them the promise of eventual freedom.[1-2]
[Footnote 1-1: Gunnar Myrdal, _The American Dilemma:
The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy_, rev. ed.
(New York: Harper Row, 1962), p. lxi.]
[Footnote 1-2: Benjamin Quarles, _The Negro in the
American Revolution_ (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1961), pp. 182-85. The
following brief summary of the Negro in the
pre-World War II Army is based in part on the
Quarles book and Roland C. McConnell, _Negro Troops
of Antebellum Louisiana: A History of the
Battalion of Free Men of Color_ (Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1968); Dudley T.
Cornish, _Sable Arm: Negro Troops in the Union
Army, 1861-1865_ (New York: Norton, 1966); William
H. Leckie, _The Buffalo Soldiers: A Narrative of
the Negro Cavalry in the West_ (Norman: University
of Oklahoma Press, 1969); William Bruce White, "The
Military and the Melting Pot: The American Army and
Minority Groups, 1865-1924" (Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Wisconsin, 1968); Marvin E. Fletcher,
_The Black Soldier and Officer in the United States
Army, 1891-1917_ (Columbia: University of Missouri
Press, 1974); Arthur E. Barbeau and Florette Henri,
_Unknown Soldiers: Black American Troops in World
War I_ (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
1974). For a general survey of black soldiers in
America's wars, see Jack Foner, _Blacks and the
Military in American History: A New Perspective_
(New York: Praeger, 1974).]
Yet the fact that the British themselves were taking large numbers (p. 004)
of Negroes into their ranks proved more important than revolutionary
idealism in creating a place for Negroes in the American forces. Above
all, the participation of both slaves and freedmen in the Continental
Army and the Navy was a pragmatic response to a pressing need for
fighting men and laborers. Despite the fear of slave insurrection
shared by many colonists, some 5,000 Negroes, the majority from New
England, served with the American forces in the Revolution, often in
integrated units, some as artillerymen and musicians, the majority as
infantrymen or as unarmed pioneers detailed to repair roads and
bridges.
Again, General Jackson's need for manpower at New Orleans explains the
presence of the Louisiana Free Men of Color in the last great battle
of the War of 1812. In the Civil War the practical needs of the Union
Army overcame the Lincoln administration's fear of alienating the
border states. When the call for volunteers failed to produce the
necessary men, Negroes were recruited, generally as laborers at first
but later for combat. In all, 186,000 Negroes served in the Union
Army. In addition to those in the sixteen segregated combat regiments
and the labor units, thousands also served unofficially as laborers,
teamsters, and cooks. Some 30,000 Negroes served in the Navy, about 25
percent of its total Civil War strength.
The influence of the idealism fostered by the abolitionist crusade
should not be overlooked. It made itself felt during the early months
of the war in the demands of Radical Republicans and some Union
generals for black enrollment, and it brought about the postwar
establishment of black units in the Regular Army. In 1866 Congress
authorized the creation of permanent, all-black units, which in 1869
were designated the 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 24th and 25th
Infantry.
[Illustration: CREWMEN OF THE USS MIAMI DURING THE CIVIL WAR]
Military needs and idealistic impulses were not enough to guarantee
uninterrupted racial progress; in fact, the status of black servicemen
tended to reflect the changing patterns in American race relations.
During most of the nineteenth century, for example, Negroes served in
an integrated U.S. Navy, in the latter half of the century averaging
between 20 and 30 percent of the enlisted strength.[1-3] But the
employment of Negroes in the Navy was abruptly curtailed after
1900. Paralleling the rise of Jim Crow and legalized segregation (p. 005)
in much of America was the cutback in the number of black sailors, who
by 1909 were mostly in the galley and the engine room. In contrast to
their high percentage of the ranks in the Civil War and Spanish-American
War, only 6,750 black sailors, including twenty-four women reservists
(yeomanettes), served in World War I; they constituted 1.2 percent of
the Navy's total enlistment.[1-4] Their service was limited chiefly to
mess duty and coal passing, the latter becoming increasingly rare as
the fleet changed from coal to oil.
[Footnote 1-3: Estimates vary; exact racial
statistics concerning the nineteenth century Navy
are difficult to locate. See Enlistment of Men of
Colored Race, 23 Jan 42, a note appended to
Hearings Before the General Board of the Navy,
1942, Operational Archives, Department of the Navy
(hereafter OpNavArchives). The following brief
summary of the Negro in the pre-World War II Navy
is based in part on Foner's _Blacks and the
Military in American History_ as well as Harold D.
Langley, "The Negro in the Navy and Merchant
Service, 1798-1860," _Journal of Negro History_ 52
(October 1967):273-86; Langley's _Social Reform in
the United States Navy 1798-1862_, (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1967) Peter Karsten,
_The Naval Aristocracy: The Golden Age of Annapolis
and the Emergence of Modern American Navalism_ (New
York: The Free Press, 1972); Frederick S. Harrod,
_Manning the New Navy: The Development of a Modern
Naval Enlisted Force, 1899-1940_ (Westport:
Greenwood Press, 1978).]
[Footnote 1-4: Ltr, Rear Adm C. W. Nimitz, Actg
Chief, Bureau of Navigation, to Rep. Hamilton Fish,
17 Jun 37, A9-10, General Records of the Department
of the Navy (hereafter GenRecsNav).]
[Illustration: BUFFALO SOLDIERS. (_Frederick Remington's 1888
sketch._)]
When postwar enlistment was resumed in 1923, the Navy recruited
Filipino stewards instead of Negroes, although a decade later it
reopened the branch to black enlistment. Negroes quickly took
advantage of this limited opportunity, their numbers rising from 441
in 1932 to 4,007 in June 1940, when they constituted 2.3 percent of
the Navy's 170,000 total.[1-5] Curiously enough, because black (p. 006)
reenlistment in combat or technical specialties had never been barred,
a few black gunner's mates, torpedomen, machinist mates, and the like
continued to serve in the 1930's.
[Footnote 1-5: Memo, H. A. Badt, Bureau of
Navigation, for Officer in Charge, Public
Relations, 24 Jul 40, sub: Negroes in U.S. Navy,
Nav-641, Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel
(hereafter BuPersRecs).]
Although the Army's racial policy differed from the Navy's, the
resulting limited, separate service for Negroes proved similar. The
laws of 1866 and 1869 that guaranteed the existence of four black
Regular Army regiments also institutionalized segregation, granting
federal recognition to a system racially separate and theoretically
equal in treatment and opportunity a generation before the Supreme
Court sanctioned such a distinction in _Plessy_ v. _Ferguson_.[1-6] So
important to many in the black community was this guaranteed existence
of the four regiments that had served with distinction against the
frontier Indians that few complained about segregation. In fact, as
historian Jack Foner has pointed out, black leaders sometimes
interpreted demands for integration as attempts to eliminate black
soldiers altogether.[1-7]
[Footnote 1-6: 163 U.S. 537 (1896). In this 1896 case
concerning segregated seating on a Louisiana
railroad, the Supreme Court ruled that so long as
equality of accommodation existed, segregation
could not in itself be considered discriminatory
and therefore did not violate the equal rights
provision of the Fourteenth Amendment. This
"separate but equal" doctrine would prevail in
American law for more than half a century.]
[Footnote 1-7: Foner, _Blacks and the Military in
American History_, p. 66.]
The Spanish-American War marked a break with the post-Civil War
tradition of limited recruitment. Besides the 3,339 black regulars,
approximately 10,000 black volunteers served in the Army during (p. 007)
the conflict. World War I was another exception, for Negroes made up
nearly 11 percent of the Army's total strength, some 404,000 officers
and men.[1-8] The acceptance of Negroes during wartime stemmed from
the Army's pressing need for additional manpower. Yet it was no means
certain in the early months of World War I that this need for men
would prevail over the reluctance of many leaders to arm large groups
of Negroes. Still remembered were the 1906 Brownsville affair, in
which men of the 25th Infantry had fired on Texan civilians, and the
August 1917 riot involving members of the 24th Infantry at Houston,
Texas.[1-9] Ironically, those idealistic impulses that had operated in
earlier wars were operating again in this most Jim Crow of
administrations.[1-10] Woodrow Wilson's promise to make the world safe
for democracy was forcing his administration to admit Negroes to the
Army. Although it carefully maintained racially separate draft calls,
the National Army conscripted some 368,000 Negroes, 13.08 percent of
all those drafted in World War I.[1-11]
[Footnote 1-8: Ulysses Lee, _The Employment of Negro
Troops_, United States Army in World War II
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1966), p.
5. See also Army War College Historical Section,
"The Colored Soldier in the U.S. Army," May 1942,
p. 22, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 1-9: For a modern analysis of the two
incidents and the effect of Jim Crow on black units
before World War I, see John D. Weaver, _The
Brownsville Raid_ (New York: W. W. Norton Co.,
1970); Robert V. Haynes, _A Night of Violence: The
Houston Riot of 1917_ (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University Press, 1976).]
[Footnote 1-10: On the racial attitudes of the Wilson
administration, see Nancy J. Weiss, "The Negro and
the New Freedom: Fighting Wilsonian Segregation,"
_Political Science Quarterly_ 84 (March
1969):61-79.]
[Footnote 1-11: _Special Report of the Provost
Marshal General on Operations of the Selective
Service System to December 1918_ (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1919), p. 193.]
Black assignments reflected the opinion, expressed repeatedly in Army
staff studies throughout the war, that when properly led by whites,
blacks could perform reasonably well in segregated units. Once again
Negroes were called on to perform a number of vital though unskilled
jobs, such as construction work, most notably in sixteen specially
formed pioneer infantry regiments. But they also served as frontline
combat troops in the all-black 92d and 93d Infantry Divisions, the
latter serving with distinction among the French forces.
Established by law and tradition and reinforced by the Army staff's
conviction that black troops had not performed well in combat,
segregation survived to flourish in the postwar era.[1-12] The familiar
practice of maintaining a few black units was resumed in the Regular
Army, with the added restriction that Negroes were totally excluded
from the Air Corps. The postwar manpower retrenchments common to all
Regular Army units further reduced the size of the remaining black
units. By June 1940 the number of Negroes on active duty stood at
approximately 4,000 men, 1.5 percent of the Army's total, about the
same proportion as Negroes in the Navy.[1-13]
[Footnote 1-12: The development of post-World War I
policy is discussed in considerable detail in Lee,
_Employment of Negro Troops_, Chapters I and II.
See also U.S. Army War College Miscellaneous File
127-1 through 127-23 and 127-27, U.S. Army Military
History Research Collection, Carlisle Barracks
(hereafter AMHRC).]
[Footnote 1-13: The 1940 strength figure is
extrapolated from Misc Div, AGO, Returns Sec, 9 Oct
39-30 Nov 41. The figures do not include some 3,000
Negroes in National Guard units under state
control.]
_Civil Rights and the Law in 1940_ (p. 008)
The same constants in American society that helped decide the status
of black servicemen in the nineteenth century remained influential
between the world wars, but with a significant change.[1-14] Where once
the advancing fortunes of Negroes in the services depended almost
exclusively on the good will of white progressives, their welfare now
became the concern of a new generation of black leaders and emerging
civil rights organizations. Skilled journalists in the black press and
counselors and lobbyists presenting such groups as the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the
National Urban League, and the National Negro Congress took the lead
in the fight for racial justice in the United States. They represented
a black community that for the most part lacked the cohesion,
political awareness, and economic strength which would characterize it
in the decades to come. Nevertheless, Negroes had already become a
recognizable political force in some parts of the country. Both the
New Deal politicians and their opponents openly courted the black vote
in the 1940 presidential election.
[Footnote 1-14: This discussion of civil rights in
the pre-World War II period draws not only on Lee's
_Employment of Negro Troops_, but also on Lee
Finkle, _Forum for Protest: The Black Press During
World War II_ (Cranbury: Fairleigh Dickinson
University Press, 1975); Harvard Sitkoff, "Racial
Militancy and Interracial Violence in the Second
World War," _Journal of American History_ 58
(December 1971):661-81; Reinhold Schumann, "The
Role of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People in the Integration of
the Armed Forces According to the NAACP Collection
in the Library of Congress" (1971), in CMH; Richard
M. Dalfiume, _Desegregation of the United States
Armed Forces: Fighting on Two Fronts, 1939-1953_
(Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1969).]
These politicians realized that the United States was beginning to
outgrow its old racial relationships over which Jim Crow had reigned,
either by law or custom, for more than fifty years. In large areas of
the country where lynchings and beatings were commonplace, white
supremacy had existed as a literal fact of life and death.[1-15] More
insidious than the Jim Crow laws were the economic deprivation and
dearth of educational opportunity associated with racial
discrimination. Traditionally the last hired, first fired, Negroes
suffered all the handicaps that came from unemployment and poor jobs,
a condition further aggravated by the Great Depression. The "separate
but equal" educational system dictated by law and the realities of
black life in both urban and rural areas, north and south, had proved
anything but equal and thus closed to Negroes a traditional avenue to
advancement in American society.
[Footnote 1-15: The Jim Crow era is especially well
described in Rayford W. Logan's _The Negro in
American Life and Thought: The Nadir, 1877-1901_
(New York: Dial, 1954) and C. Vann Woodward's _The
Strange Career of Jim Crow_, 3d ed. rev. (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1974)]
In these circumstances, the economic and humanitarian programs of the
New Deal had a special appeal for black America. Encouraged by these
programs and heartened by Eleanor Roosevelt's public support of civil
rights, black voters defected from their traditional allegiance to the
Republican Party in overwhelming numbers. But the civil rights leaders
were already aware, if the average black citizen was not, that despite
having made some considerable improvements Franklin Roosevelt never,
in one biographer's words, "sufficiently challenged Southern (p. 009)
traditions of white supremacy to create problems for himself."[1-16]
Negroes, in short, might benefit materially from the New Deal, but
they would have to look elsewhere for advancement of their civil
rights.
[Footnote 1-16: Frank Freidel, _F.D.R. and the South_
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
1965), pp. 71-102. See also Bayard Rustin,
_Strategies for Freedom: The Changing Patterns of
Black Protest_ (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1976), p. 16.]
Men like Walter F. White of the NAACP and the National Urban League's
T. Arnold Hill sought to use World War II to expand opportunities for
the black American. From the start they tried to translate the
idealistic sentiment for democracy stimulated by the war and expressed
in the Atlantic Charter into widespread support for civil rights in
the United States. At the same time, in sharp contrast to many of
their World War I predecessors, they placed a price on black support
for the war effort: no longer could the White House expect this
sizable minority to submit to injustice and yet close ranks with other
Americans to defeat a common enemy. It was readily apparent to the
Negro, if not to his white supporter or his enemy, that winning
equality at home was just as important as advancing the cause of
freedom abroad. As George S. Schuyler, a widely quoted black
columnist, put it: "If nothing more comes out of this emergency than
the widespread understanding among white leaders that the Negro's
loyalty is conditional, we shall not have suffered in vain."[1-17] The
NAACP spelled out the challenge even more clearly in its monthly
publication, _The Crisis_, which declared itself "sorry for brutality,
blood, and death among the peoples of Europe, just as we were sorry
for China and Ethiopia. But the hysterical cries of the preachers of
democracy for Europe leave us cold. We want democracy in Alabama,
Arkansas, in Mississippi and Michigan, in the District of Columbia--in
the _Senate of the United States_."[1-18]
[Footnote 1-17: Pittsburgh _Courier_, December 21,
1940.]
[Footnote 1-18: _The Crisis_ 47 (July 1940):209.]
This sentiment crystallized in the black press's Double V campaign, a
call for simultaneous victories over Jim Crow at home and fascism
abroad. Nor was the Double V campaign limited to a small group of
civil rights spokesmen; rather, it reflected a new mood that, as
Myrdal pointed out, was permeating all classes of black society.[1-19]
The quickening of the black masses in the cause of equal treatment and
opportunity in the pre-World War II period and the willingness of
Negroes to adopt a more militant course to achieve this end might well
mark the beginning of the modern civil rights movement.
[Footnote 1-19: Myrdal, _American Dilemma_, p. 744.]
[Illustration: INTEGRATION IN THE ARMY OF 1888. _The Army Band at Fort
Duchesne, Utah, composed of soldiers from the black 9th Cavalry and
the white 21st Infantry._]
Historian Lee Finkle has suggested that the militancy advocated by
most of the civil rights leaders in the World War II era was merely a
rhetorical device; that for the most part they sought to avoid
violence over segregation, concentrating as before on traditional
methods of protest.[1-20] This reliance on traditional methods was
apparent when the leaders tried to focus the new sentiment among
Negroes on two war-related goals: equality of treatment in the armed
forces and equality of job opportunity in the expanding defense
industries. In 1938 the Pittsburgh _Courier_, the largest and one (p. 010)
of the most influential of the nation's black papers, called upon the
President to open the services to Negroes and organized the Committee
for Negro Participation in the National Defense Program. These moves
led to an extensive lobbying effort that in time spread to many other
newspapers and local civil rights groups. The black press and its
satellites also attracted the support of several national
organizations that were promoting preparedness for war, and these
groups, in turn, began to demand equal treatment and opportunity in
the armed forces.[1-21]
[Footnote 1-20: Lee Finkle, "The Conservative Aims of
Militant Rhetoric: Black Protest During World War
II," _Journal of American History_ 60 (December
1973):693.]
[Footnote 1-21: Some impression of the extent of this
campaign and its effect on the War Department can
be gained from the volume of correspondence
produced by the Pittsburgh _Courier_ campaign and
filed in AG 322.99 (2-23-38)(1).]
The government began to respond to these pressures before the United
States entered World War II. At the urging of the White House the Army
announced plans for the mobilization of Negroes, and Congress amended
several mobilization measures to define and increase the military
training opportunities for Negroes.[1-22] The most important of these
legislative amendments in terms of influence on future race relations
in the United States were made to the Selective Service Act of 1940.
The matter of race played only a small part in the debate on this
highly controversial legislation, but during congressional hearings on
the bill black spokesmen testified on discrimination against Negroes
in the services.[1-23] These witnesses concluded that if the draft law
did not provide specific guarantees against it, discrimination would
prevail.
[Footnote 1-22: The Army's plans and amendments are
treated in great detail in Lee, _Employment of
Negro Troops_.]
[Footnote 1-23: Hearings Before the Committee on
Military Affairs. House of Representatives, 76th
Cong., 3d sess., on H.R. 10132, _Selective
Compulsory Military Training and Service_, pp.
585-90.]
[Illustration: GUNNER'S GANG ON THE USS MAINE.]
A majority in both houses of Congress seemed to agree. During (p. 011)
floor debate on the Selective Service Act, Senator Robert F. Wagner of
New York proposed an amendment to guarantee to Negroes and other
racial minorities the privilege of voluntary enlistment in the armed
forces. He sought in this fashion to correct evils described some ten
days earlier by Rayford W. Logan, chairman of the Committee for Negro
Participation in the National Defense, in testimony before the House
Committee on Military Affairs. The Wagner proposal triggered critical
comments and questions. Senators John H. Overton and Allen J. Ellender
of Louisiana viewed the Wagner amendment as a step toward "mixed"
units. Overton, Ellender, and Senator Lister Hill of Alabama proposed
that the matter should be "left to the Army." Hill also attacked the
amendment because it would allow the enlistment of Japanese-Americans,
some of whom he claimed were not loyal to the United States.[1-24]
[Footnote 1-24: _Congressional Record_, 76th Cong.,
3d sess., vol. 86, p. 10890.]
[Illustration: GENERAL PERSHING, AEF COMMANDER, INSPECTS TROOPS _of
the 802d (Colored) Pioneer Regiment in France, 1918_.]
No filibuster was attempted, and the Wagner amendment passed the
Senate easily, 53 to 21. It provided
that any person between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five
regardless of race or color shall be afforded an opportunity
voluntarily to enlist and be inducted into the land and naval
forces (including aviation units) of the United States for the
training and service prescribed in subsection (b), if he is
acceptable to the land or naval forces for such training and
service.[1-25]
[Footnote 1-25: 54 _U.S. Stat._ 885(1940).]
The Wagner amendment was aimed at _volunteers_ for military service.
Congressman Hamilton Fish, also of New York, later introduced a
similar measure in the House aimed at _draftees_. The Fish (p. 012)
amendment passed the House by a margin of 121 to 99 and emerged intact
from the House-Senate conference. The law finally read that in the
selection and training of men and execution of the law "there shall be
no discrimination against any person on account of race or color."[1-26]
[Footnote 1-26: Ibid. Fish commanded black troops in
World War I. Captain of Company K, Fifteenth New
York National Guard (Colored), which subsequently
became the 369th Infantry, Fish served in the much
decorated 93d Division in the French sector of the
Western Front.]
[Illustration: HEROES OF THE 369TH INFANTRY. _Winners of the Croix de
Guerre arrive in New York Harbor, February 1919._]
The Fish amendment had little immediate impact upon the services'
racial patterns. As long as official policy permitted separate draft
calls for blacks and whites and the officially held definition of
discrimination neatly excluded segregation--and both went unchallenged
in the courts--segregation would remain entrenched in the armed
forces. Indeed, the rigidly segregated services, their ranks swollen
by the draft, were a particular frustration to the civil rights forces
because they were introducing some black citizens to racial
discrimination more pervasive than any they had ever endured in
civilian life. Moreover, as the services continued to open bases
throughout the country, they actually spread federally sponsored
segregation into areas where it had never before existed with the
force of law. In the long run, however, the 1940 draft law and
subsequent draft legislation had a strong influence on the armed
forces' racial policies. They created a climate in which progress
could be made toward integration within the services. Although not
apparent in 1940, the pressure of a draft-induced flood of black (p. 013)
conscripts was to be a principal factor in the separate decisions of
the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps to integrate their units.
_To Segregate Is To Discriminate_
As with all the administration's prewar efforts to increase
opportunities for Negroes in the armed forces, the Selective Service
Act failed to excite black enthusiasm because it missed the point of
black demands. Guarantees of black participation were no longer
enough. By 1940 most responsible black leaders shared the goal of an
integrated armed forces as a step toward full participation in the
benefits and responsibilities of American citizenship.
The White House may well have thought that Walter White of the NAACP
singlehandedly organized the demand for integration in 1939, but he
was merely applying a concept of race relations that had been evolving
since World War I. In the face of ever-worsening discrimination,
White's generation of civil rights advocates had rejected the idea of
the preeminent black leader Booker T. Washington that hope for the
future lay in the development of a separate and strong black (p. 014)
community. Instead, they gradually came to accept the argument of one
of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, William E. B. DuBois, that progress was possible only
when Negroes abandoned their segregated community to work toward a
society open to both black and white. By the end of the 1930's this
concept had produced a fundamental change in civil rights tactics and
created the new mood of assertiveness that Myrdal found in the black
community. The work of White and others marked the beginning of a
systematic attack against Jim Crow. As the most obvious practitioner
of Jim Crow in the federal government, the services were the logical
target for the first battle in a conflict that would last some thirty
years.
This evolution in black attitudes was clearly demonstrated in
correspondence in the 1930's between officials of the NAACP and the
Roosevelt administration over equal treatment in the armed forces. The
discussion began in 1934 with a series of exchanges between Chief of
Staff Douglas MacArthur and NAACP Counsel Charles H. Houston and
continued through the correspondence between White and the
administration in 1937. The NAACP representatives rejected MacArthur's
defense of Army policy and held out for a quota guaranteeing that
Negroes would form at least 10 percent of the nation's military
strength. Their emphasis throughout was on numbers; during these first
exchanges, at least, they fought against disbandment of the existing
black regiments and argued for similar units throughout the
service.[1-27]
[Footnote 1-27: See especially Ltr, Houston to CofS,
1 Aug and 29 Aug 34; Ltr, CofS to Houston, 20 Aug
34; Ltr, Maj Gen Edgar T. Conley, Actg AG, USA, to
Walter White, 25 Nov 35; Ltr, Houston to Roosevelt,
8 Oct 37; Ltr, Houston to SW, 8 Oct 37. See also
Elijah Reynolds, _Colored Soldiers and the Regular
Army_ (NAACP Pamphlet, December 10, 1934). All in
C-376, NAACP Collection, Library of Congress.]
Yet the idea of integration was already strongly implied in Houston's
1934 call for "a more united nation of free citizens,"[1-28] and in
February 1937 the organization emphasized the idea in an editorial in
_The Crisis_, asking why black and white men could not fight side by
side as they had in the Continental Army.[1-29] And when the Army
informed the NAACP in September 1939 that more black units were
projected for mobilization, White found this solution unsatisfactory
because the proposed units would be segregated.[1-30] If democracy was
to be defended, he told the President, discrimination must be
eliminated from the armed forces. To this end, the NAACP urged
Roosevelt to appoint a commission of black and white citizens to
investigate discrimination in the Army and Navy and to recommend the
removal of racial barriers.[1-31]
[Footnote 1-28: Ibid. Ltr, Houston to CofS, 1 Aug
34.]
[Footnote 1-29: _The Crisis_ 46 (1939):49, 241, 337.]
[Footnote 1-30: Ltr, Presley Holliday to White, 11
Sep 39; Ltr, White to Holliday, 15 Sep 39. Both in
C-376, NAACP Collection, LC.]
[Footnote 1-31: Ltr, White to Roosevelt, 15 Sep 39,
in C-376, NAACP Collection, LC. This letter was
later released to the press.]
The White House ignored these demands, and on 17 October the secretary
to the President, Col. Edwin M. Watson, referred White to a War
Department report outlining the new black units being created under
presidential authorization. But the NAACP leaders were not to be
diverted from the main chance. Thurgood Marshall, then the head of (p. 015)
the organization's legal department, recommended that White tell the
President "that the NAACP is opposed to the separate units existing in
the armed forces at the present time."[1-32]
[Footnote 1-32: Memo, Marshall for White, 28 Oct 39;
Ltr, Secy to the President to White, 17 Oct 39.
Both in C-376, NAACP Collection, LC.]
When his associates failed to agree on a reply to the administration,
White decided on a face-to-face meeting with the President.[1-33]
Roosevelt agreed to confer with White, Hill of the Urban League, and
A. Philip Randolph, head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters,
the session finally taking place on 27 September 1940. At that time
the civil rights officials outlined for the President and his defense
assistants what they called the "important phases of the integration
of the Negro into military aspects of the national defense program."
Central to their argument was the view that the Army and Navy should
accept men without regard to race. According to White, the President
had apparently never considered the use of integrated units, but after
some discussion he seemed to accept the suggestion that the Army could
assign black regiments or batteries alongside white units and from
there "the Army could 'back into' the formation of units without
segregation."[1-34]
[Footnote 1-33: Memo, White for Roy Wilkins et al.,
Oct 39; Ltr, Houston to White, Oct 39; Memo,
Wilkins to White, 23 Oct 39. All in C-376, NAACP
Collection, LC.]
[Footnote 1-34: Walter White, "Conference at White
House, Friday, September 27, 11:35 A.M.," Arthur B.
Spingarn Papers, Library of Congress. See also
White's _A Man Called White_ (New York: Viking
Press, 1948), pp. 186-87.]
Nothing came of these suggestions. Although the policy announced by
the White House subsequent to the meeting contained concessions
regarding the employment and distribution of Negroes in the services,
it did not provide for integrated units. The wording of the press
release on the conference implied, moreover, that the administration's
entire program had been approved by White and the others. To have
their names associated with any endorsement of segregation was
particularly infuriating to these civil rights leaders, who
immediately protested to the President.[1-35] The White House later
publicly absolved the leaders of any such endorsement, and Press
Secretary Early was forced to retract the "damaging impression" that
the leaders had in any way endorsed segregation. The President later
assured White, Randolph, and Hill that further policy changes would be
made to insure fair treatment for Negroes.[1-36]
[Footnote 1-35: Ltr, White to Stephen Early, 21 Oct
40. See also Memo, White for R. S. W. [Roy
Wilkins], 18 Oct 40. Both in C-376, NAACP
Collection, LC. See also Ltr, S. Early to White, 18
Oct 40, Incl to Ltr, White to Spingarn, 24 Oct 40,
Spingarn Papers, LC.]
[Footnote 1-36: White, _A Man Called White_, pp.
187-88.]
Presidential promises notwithstanding, the NAACP set out to make
integration of the services a matter of overriding interest to the
black community during the war. The organization encountered
opposition at first when some black leaders were willing to accept
segregated units as the price for obtaining the formation of more
all-black divisions. The NAACP stood firm, however, and demanded at
its annual convention in 1941 an immediate end to segregation.
In a related move symbolizing the growing unity behind the campaign to
integrate the military, the leaders of the March on Washington
Movement, a group of black activists under A. Philip Randolph, (p. 016)
specifically demanded the end of segregation in the Army and Navy. The
movement was the first since the days of Marcus Garvey to involve the
black masses; in fact Negroes from every social and economic class
rallied behind Randolph, ready to demonstrate for equal treatment and
opportunity. Although some black papers objected to the movement's
militancy, the major civil rights organization showed no such hesitancy.
Roy Wilkins, a leader of the NAACP, later claimed that Randolph could
supply only about 9,000 potential demonstrators and that the NAACP had
provided the bulk of the movement's participants.[1-37]
[Footnote 1-37: Roy Wilkins Oral History Interview,
Columbia University Oral History Collection. See
also A. Philip Randolph, "Why Should We March,"
_Survey Graphic_ 31 (November 1942), as reprinted
in John H. Franklin and Isidore Starr, eds., _The
Negro in Twentieth Century America_ (New York:
Random House, 1967).]
Although Randolph was primarily interested in fair employment
practices, the NAACP had been concerned with the status of black
servicemen since World War I. Reflecting the degree of NAACP support,
march organizers included a discussion of segregation in the services
when they talked with President Roosevelt in June 1941. Randolph and
the others proposed ways to abolish the separate racial units in each
service, charging that integration was being frustrated by prejudiced
senior military officials.[1-38]
[Footnote 1-38: White, _A Man Called White_, pp.
190-93.]
The President's meeting with the march leaders won the administration
a reprieve from the threat of a mass civil rights demonstration in the
nation's capital, but at the price of promising substantial reform in
minority hiring for defense industries and the creation of a federal
body, the Fair Employment Practices Committee, to coordinate the
reform. While it prompted no similar reform in the racial policies of
the armed forces, the March on Washington Movement was nevertheless a
significant milestone in the services' racial history.[1-39] It signaled
the beginning of a popularly based campaign against segregation in the
armed forces in which all the major civil rights organizations, their
allies in Congress and the press, and many in the black community
would hammer away on a single theme: segregation is unacceptable in a
democratic society and hypocritical during a war fought in defense of
the four freedoms.
[Footnote 1-39: Herbert Garfinkle, _When Negroes
March: The March on Washington Movement in the
Organizational Politics of FEPC_ (Glencoe: The Free
Press, 1959), provides a comprehensive account of
the aims and achievements of the movement.]
CHAPTER 2 (p. 017)
World War II: The Army
Civil rights leaders adopted the "Double V" slogan as their rallying
cry during World War II. Demanding victory against fascism abroad and
discrimination at home, they exhorted black citizens to support the
war effort and to fight for equal treatment and opportunity for
Negroes everywhere. Although segregation was their main target, their
campaign was directed against all forms of discrimination, especially
in the armed forces. They flooded the services with appeals for a
redress of black grievances and levied similar demands on the White
House, Congress, and the courts.
Black leaders concentrated on the services because they were public
institutions, their officials sworn to uphold the Constitution. The
leaders understood, too, that disciplinary powers peculiar to the
services enabled them to make changes that might not be possible for
other organizations; the armed forces could command where others could
only persuade. The Army bore the brunt of this attention, but not
because its policies were so benighted. In 1941 the Army was a fairly
progressive organization, and few institutions in America could match
its record. Rather, the civil rights leaders concentrated on the Army
because the draft law had made it the nation's largest employer of
minority groups.
For its part, the Army resisted the demands, its spokesmen contending
that the service's enormous size and power should not be used for
social experiment, especially during a war. Further justifying their
position, Army officials pointed out that their service had to avoid
conflict with prevailing social attitudes, particularly when such
attitudes were jealously guarded by Congress. In this period of
continuous demand and response, the Army developed a racial policy
that remained in effect throughout the war with only superficial
modifications sporadically adopted to meet changing conditions.
_A War Policy: Reaffirming Segregation_
The experience of World War I cast a shadow over the formation of the
Army's racial policy in World War II.[2-1] The chief architects of the
new policy, and many of its opponents, were veterans of the first war
and reflected in their judgments the passions and prejudices of that
era.[2-2] Civil rights activists were determined to eliminate the (p. 018)
segregationist practices of the 1917 mobilization and to win a
fair representation for Negroes in the Army. The traditionalists of
the Army staff, on the other hand, were determined to resist any
radical change in policy. Basing their arguments on their evaluation
of the performance of the 92d Division and some other black units in
World War I, they had made, but not publicized, mobilization plans
that recognized the Army's obligation to employ black soldiers yet
rigidly maintained the segregationist policy of World War I.[2-3] These
plans increased the number of types of black units to be formed and
even provided for a wide distribution of the units among all the arms
and services except the Army Air Forces and Signal Corps, but they did
not explain how the skilled Negro, whose numbers had greatly increased
since World War I, could be efficiently used within the limitations of
black units. In the name of military efficiency the Army staff had, in
effect, devised a social rather than a military policy for the
employment of black troops.
[Footnote 2-1: This survey of the Army and the Negro
in World War II is based principally on Lee's
_Employment of Negro Troops_. A comprehensive
account of the development of policy, the
mobilization of black soldiers, and their use in
the various theaters and units of World War II,
this book is an indispensable source for any
serious student of the subject.]
[Footnote 2-2: For examples of how World War I
military experiences affected the thinking of the
civil rights advocates and military traditionalists
of World War II, see Lester B. Granger Oral History
Interview, 1960, Columbia University Oral History
Collection; Interview, Lee Nichols with Lt. Gen.
John C. H. Lee (c. 1953). For the influence of
World War II on a major contributor to postwar
racial policy, see Interview, Lee Nichols with
Harry S. Truman, 24 Jun 53. Last two in Nichols
Collection, CMH. These interviews are among many
compiled by Nichols as part of his program
associated with the production of _Breakthrough on
the Color Front_ (New York: Random House, 1954).
Nichols, a journalist, presented this collection of
interviews, along with other documents and
materials, to the Center of Military History in
1972. The interviews have proved to be a valuable
supplement to the official record. They capture the
thoughts of a number of important participants,
some no longer alive, at a time relatively close to
the events under consideration. They have been
checked against the sources whenever possible and
found accurate.]
[Footnote 2-3: Memo, ACofS, G-3, for CofS, 3 Jun 40,
sub: Employment of Negro Manpower, G-3/6541-527.]
The White House tried to adjust the conflicting demands of the civil
rights leaders and the Army traditionalists. Eager to placate and
willing to compromise, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought an
accommodation by directing the War Department to provide jobs for
Negroes in all parts of the Army. The controversy over integration
soon became more public, the opponents less reconcilable; in the weeks
following the President's meeting with black representatives on 27
September 1940 the Army countered black demands for integration with a
statement released by the White House on 9 October. To provide "a fair
and equitable basis" for the use of Negroes in its expansion program,
the Army planned to accept Negroes in numbers approximate to their
proportion in the national population, about 10 percent. Black
officers and enlisted men were to serve, as was then customary, only
in black units that were to be formed in each major branch, both
combatant and noncombatant, including air units to be created as soon
as pilots, mechanics, and technical specialists were trained. There
would be no racial intermingling in regimental organizations because
the practice of separating white and black troops had, the Army staff
said, proved satisfactory over a long period of time. To change would
destroy morale and impair preparations for national defense. Since
black units in the Army were already "going concerns, accustomed
through many years to the present system" of segregation, "no
experiments should be tried ... at this critical time."[2-4]
[Footnote 2-4: Memo, TAG for CG's et al., 16 Oct 40,
sub: War Department Policy in Regard to Negroes, AG
291.21 (10-9-40) M-A-M.]
The President's "OK, F.D.R." on the War Department statement (p. 019)
transformed what had been a routine prewar mobilization plan into a
racial policy that would remain in effect throughout the war. In fact,
quickly elevated in importance by War Department spokesmen who made
constant reference to the "Presidential Directive," the statement
would be used by some Army officials as a presidential sanction for
introducing segregation in new situations, as, for example, in the
pilot training of black officers in the Army Air Corps. Just as
quickly, the civil rights leaders, who had expected more from the tone
of the President's own comments and more also from the egalitarian
implications of the new draft law, bitterly attacked the Army's
policy.
Black criticism came at an awkward moment for President Roosevelt, who
was entering a heated campaign for an unprecedented third term and
whose New Deal coalition included the urban black vote. His opponent,
the articulate Wendell L. Willkie, was an unabashed champion of civil
rights and was reportedly attracting a wide following among black
voters. In the weeks preceding the election the President tried to
soften the effect of the Army's announcement. He promoted Col.
Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., to brigadier general, thereby making Davis the
first Negro to hold this rank in the Regular Army. He appointed the
commander of reserve officers' training at Howard University, Col.
Campbell C. Johnson, Special Aide to the Director of Selective
Service. And, finally, he named Judge William H. Hastie, dean of the
Howard University Law School, Civilian Aide to the Secretary of War.
A successful lawyer, Judge Hastie entered upon his new assignment with
several handicaps. Because of his long association with black causes,
some civil rights organizations assumed that Hastie would be their man
in Washington and regarded his duties as an extension of their crusade
against discrimination. Hastie's War Department superiors, on the
other hand, assumed that his was a public relations job and expected
him to handle all complaints and mobilization problems as had his
World War I predecessor, Emmett J. Scott. Both assumptions proved
false. Hastie was evidently determined to break the racial logjam in
the War Department, yet unlike many civil rights advocates he seemed
willing to pay the price of slow progress to obtain lasting
improvement. According to those who knew him, Hastie was confident
that he could demonstrate to War Department officials that the Army's
racial policies were both inefficient and unpatriotic.[2-5]
[Footnote 2-5: The foregoing impressions are derived
largely from Interviews, Lee Nichols with James C.
Evans, who worked for Judge Hastie during World War
II, and Ulysses G. Lee (c. 1953). Both in Nichols
Collection, CMH.]
Judge Hastie spent his first ten months in office observing what was
happening to the Negro in the Army. He did not like what he saw. To
him, separating black soldiers from white soldiers was a fundamental
error. First, the effect on black morale was devastating. "Beneath the
surface," he wrote, "is widespread discontent. Most white persons are
unable to appreciate the rancor and bitterness which the Negro, as a
matter of self-preservation, has learned to hide beneath a smile, a
joke, or merely an impassive face." The inherent paradox of trying to
inculcate pride, dignity, and aggressiveness in a black soldier while
inflicting on him the segregationist's concept of the Negro's (p. 020)
place in society created in him an insupportable tension. Second,
segregation wasted black manpower, a valuable military asset. It was
impossible, Hastie charged, to employ skilled Negroes at maximum
efficiency within the traditionally narrow limitations of black units.
Third, to insist on an inflexible separation of white and black
soldiers was "the most dramatic evidence of hypocrisy" in America's
professed concern for preserving democracy.
Although he appreciated the impossibility of making drastic changes
overnight, Judge Hastie was disturbed because he found "no apparent
disposition to make a beginning or a trial of any different plan." He
looked for some form of progressive integration by which qualified
Negroes could be classified and assigned, not by race, but as
individuals, according to their capacities and abilities.[2-6]
[Footnote 2-6: Memo, William H. Hastie for SW, with
attachment, 22 Sep 41, sub: Survey and
Recommendations Concerning the Integration of the
Negro Soldiers Into the Army, G-1/15640-120. See
also Intervs, Nichols with Evans and Lee.]
[Illustration: JUDGE HASTIE.]
Judge Hastie gained little support from the Secretary of War, Henry L.
Stimson, or the Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, when he
called for progressive integration. Both considered the Army's
segregated units to be in accord with prevailing public sentiment
against mixing the races in the intimate association of military life.
More to the point, both Stimson and Marshall were sensitive to
military tradition, and segregated units had been a part of the Army
since 1863. Stimson embraced segregation readily. While conveying to
the President that he was "sensitive to the individual tragedy which
went with it to the colored man himself," he nevertheless urged
Roosevelt not to place "too much responsibility on a race which was
not showing initiative in battle."[2-7] Stimson's attitude was not
unusual for the times. He professed to believe in civil rights for
every citizen, but he opposed social integration. He never tried to
reconcile these seemingly inconsistent views; in fact, he probably did
not consider them inconsistent. Stimson blamed what he termed Eleanor
Roosevelt's "intrusive and impulsive folly" for some of the criticism
visited upon the Army's racial policy, just as he inveighed against
the "foolish leaders of the colored race" who were seeking "at (p. 021)
bottom social equality," which, he concluded, was out of the question
"because of the impossibility of race mixture by marriage."[2-8]
Influenced by Under Secretary Robert P. Patterson, Assistant Secretary
John J. McCloy, and Truman K. Gibson, Jr., who was Judge Hastie's
successor, but most of all impressed by the performance of black
soldiers themselves, Stimson belatedly modified his defense of
segregation. But throughout the war he adhered to the traditional
arguments of the Army's professional staff.
[Footnote 2-7: Stimson, a Republican, had been
appointed by Roosevelt in 1940, along with
Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, in an effort to
enlist bipartisan support for the administration's
foreign policy in an election year. Stimson brought
a wealth of experience with him to the office,
having served as Secretary of War under William
Howard Taft and Secretary of State under Herbert
Hoover. The quotations are from Stimson Diary, 25
October 1940, Henry L. Stimson Papers, Yale
University Library.]
[Footnote 2-8: Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy,
_On Active Service in Peace and War_ (New York:
Harper and Brothers, 1947), pp. 461-64. The
quotations are from Stimson Diary, 24 Jan 42.]
[Illustration: GENERAL MARSHALL AND SECRETARY STIMSON.]
General Marshall was a powerful advocate of the views of the Army
staff. He lived up to the letter of the Army's regulations,
consistently supporting measures to eliminate overt discrimination in
the wartime Army. At the same time, he rejected the idea that the Army
should take the lead in altering the racial mores of the nation. Asked
for his views on Hastie's "carefully prepared memo,"[2-9] General
Marshall admitted that many of the recommendations were sound but said
that Judge Hastie's proposals
would be tantamount to solving a social problem which has
perplexed the American people throughout the history of this
nation. The Army cannot accomplish such a solution and (p. 022)
should not be charged with the undertaking. The settlement of
vexing racial problems cannot be permitted to complicate the
tremendous task of the War Department and thereby jeopardize
discipline and morale.[2-10]
[Footnote 2-9: Memo, USW for CofS, 6 Oct 41,
G-1/15640-120.]
[Footnote 2-10: Memo, CofS for SW, 1 Dec 41, sub:
Report of Judge William H. Hastie, Civilian Aide to
the Secretary of War, dated 22 Sep 41, OCS
20602-219.]
As Chief of Staff, Marshall faced the tremendous task of creating in
haste a large Army to deal with the Axis menace. Since for several
practical reasons the bulk of that Army would be trained in the south
where its conscripts would be subject to southern laws, Marshall saw
no alternative but to postpone reform. The War Department, he said,
could not ignore the social relationship between blacks and whites,
established by custom and habit. Nor could it ignore the fact that the
"level of intelligence and occupational skill" of the black population
was considerably below that of whites. Though he agreed that the Army
would reach maximum strength only if individuals were placed according
to their abilities, he concluded that experiments to solve social
problems would be "fraught with danger to efficiency, discipline, and
morale." In sum, Marshall saw no reason to change the policy approved
by the President less than a year before.[2-11]
[Footnote 2-11: Ibid. See also Forrest C. Pogue,
_George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory_ (New
York: The Viking Press, 1973), pp. 96-99.]
The Army's leaders and the secretary's civilian aide had reached an
impasse on the question of policy even before the country entered the
war. And though the use of black troops in World War I was not
entirely satisfactory even to its defenders,[2-12] there appeared to be
no time now, in view of the larger urgency of winning the war, to plan
other approaches, try other solutions, or tamper with an institution
that had won victory in the past. Further ordering the thoughts of
some senior Army officials was their conviction that wide-scale mixing
of the races in the services might, as Under Secretary Patterson
phrased it, foment social revolution.[2-13]
[Footnote 2-12: The Army staff's mobilization
planning for black units in the 1930's generally
relied upon the detailed testimony of the
commanders of black units in World War I. This
testimony, contained in documents submitted to the
War Department and the Army War College, was often
critical of the Army's employment of black troops,
although rarely critical of segregation. The
material is now located in the U.S. Army's Military
History Research Collection, Carlisle Barracks,
Pennsylvania. For discussion of the post-World War
I review of the employment of black troops, see
Lee's _Employment of Negro Troops_, Chapter I, and
Alan M. Osur's _Blacks in the Army Air Forces
During World War II: The Problem of Race Relations_
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1977),
Chapter I.]
[Footnote 2-13: Memo, USW for Maj Gen William Bryden
(principal deputy chief of staff), 10 Jan 42, OCS
20602-250.]
These opinions were clearly evident on 8 December 1941, the day the
United States entered World War II, when the Army's leaders met with a
group of black publishers and editors. Although General Marshall
admitted that he was not satisfied with the department's progress in
racial matters and promised further changes, the conference concluded
with a speech by a representative of The Adjutant General who
delivered what many considered the final word on integration during
the war.
The Army is made up of individual citizens of the United States
who have pronounced views with respect to the Negro just as they
have individual ideas with respect to other matters in their
daily walk of life. Military orders, fiat, or dicta, will not
change their viewpoints. The Army then cannot be made the (p. 023)
means of engendering conflict among the mass of people
because of a stand with respect to Negroes which is not
compatible with the position attained by the Negro in civil
life.... The Army is not a sociological laboratory; to be
effective it must be organized and trained according to the
principles which will insure success. Experiments to meet the
wishes and demands of the champions of every race and creed for
the solution of their problems are a danger to efficiency,
discipline and morale and would result in ultimate defeat.[2-14]
[Footnote 2-14: Col Eugene R. Householder, TAGO,
Speech Before Conference of Negro Editors and
Publishers, 8 Dec 41, AG 291.21 (12-1-41) (1).]
The civil rights advocates refused to concede that the discussion was
over. Judge Hastie, along with a sizable segment of the black press,
believed that the beginning of a world war was the time to improve
military effectiveness by increasing black participation in that
war.[2-15] They argued that eliminating segregation was part of the
struggle to preserve democracy, the transcendent issue of the war, and
they viewed the unvarying pattern of separate black units as consonant
with the racial theories of Nazi Germany.[2-16] Their continuing efforts
to eliminate segregation and discrimination eventually brought Hastie
a sharp reminder from John J. McCloy. "Frankly, I do not think that
the basic issues of this war are involved in the question of whether
colored troops serve in segregated units or in mixed units and I doubt
whether you can convince people of the United States that the basic
issues of freedom are involved in such a question." For Negroes, he
warned sternly, the basic issue was that if the United States lost the
war, the lot of the black community would be far worse off, and some
Negroes "do not seem to be vitally concerned about winning the war."
What all Negroes ought to do, he counseled, was to give unstinting
support to the war effort in anticipation of benefits certain to come
after victory.[2-17]
[Footnote 2-15: Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_,
ch. VI.]
[Footnote 2-16: Noteworthy is the fact that for
several reasons not related to race (for instance,
language and nationality) the German Army also
organized separate units. Its 162d Infantry
Division was composed of troops from Turkestan and
the Caucasus, and its 5th SS Panzer Division had
segregated Scandinavian, Dutch, and Flemish
regiments. Unlike the racially segregated U.S.
Army, Germany's so-called Ost units were only
administratively organized into separate divisions,
and an Ost infantry battalion was often integrated
into a "regular" German infantry regiment as its
fourth infantry battalion. Several allied armies
also had segregated units, composed, for example,
of Senegalese, Gurkhas, Maoris, and Algerians.]
[Footnote 2-17: Memo, ASW for Judge Hastie, 2 Jul 42,
ASW 291.2, NT 1942.]
Thus very early in World War II, even before the United States was
actively engaged, the issues surrounding the use of Negroes in the
Army were well defined and the lines sharply drawn. Was segregation, a
practice in conflict with the democratic aims of the country, also a
wasteful use of manpower? How would modifications of policy
come--through external pressure or internal reform? Could traditional
organizational and social patterns in the military services be changed
during a war without disrupting combat readiness?
_Segregation and Efficiency_
In the years before World War II, Army planners never had to consider
segregation in terms of manpower efficiency. Conditioned by the
experiences of World War I, when the nation had enjoyed a surplus of
untapped manpower even at the height of the war, and aware of the
overwhelming manpower surplus of the depression years, the staff (p. 024)
formulated its mobilization plans with little regard for the
economical use of the nation's black manpower. Its decision to use
Negroes in proportion to their percentage of the population was the
result of political pressures rather than military necessity. Black
combat units were considered a luxury that existed to indulge black
demands. When the Army began to mobilize in 1940 it proceeded to honor
its pledge, and one year after Pearl Harbor there were 399,454 Negroes
in the Army, 7.4 percent of the total and 7.95 percent of all enlisted
troops.[2-18]
[Footnote 2-18: Strength of the Army, 1 Jan 46,
STM-30, p. 61.]
The effect of segregation on manpower efficiency became apparent only
as the Army tried to translate policy into practice. In the face of
rising black protest and with direct orders from the White House, the
Army had announced that Negroes would be assigned to all arms and
branches in the same ratio as whites. Several forces, however, worked
against this equitable distribution. During the early months of
mobilization the chiefs of those arms and services that had
traditionally been all white accepted less than their share of black
recruits and thus obliged some organizations, the Quartermaster Corps
and the Engineer Corps in particular, to absorb a large percentage of
black inductees. The imbalance worsened in 1941. In December of that
year Negroes accounted for 5 percent of the Infantry and less than 2
percent each of the Air Corps, Medical Corps, and Signal Corps. The
Quartermaster Corps was 15 percent black, the Engineer Corps 25
percent, and unassigned and miscellaneous detachments were 27 percent
black.
The rejection of black units could not always be ascribed to racism
alone. With some justification the arms and services tried to restrict
the number and distribution of Negroes because black units measured
far below their white counterparts in educational achievement and
ability to absorb training, according to the Army General
Classification Test (AGCT). The Army had introduced this test system
in March 1941 as its principal instrument for the measurement of a
soldier's learning ability. Five categories, with the most gifted in
category I, were used in classifying the scores made by the soldiers
taking the test (_Table 1_). The Army planned to take officers and
enlisted specialists from the top three categories and the semiskilled
soldiers and laborers from the two lowest.
Table 1--Classification of All Men Tested From March 1941 Through
December 1942
White Black
AGCT Category Number Percentage Number Percentage
I 273,626 6.6 1,580 0.4
II 1,154,700 28.0 14,891 3.4
III 1,327,164 32.1 54,302 12.3
IV 1,021,818 24.8 152,725 34.7
V 351,951 8.5 216,664 49.2
Total 4,129,259 100.0 440,162 100.0
_Source_: Tab A, Memo, G-3 for CofS, 10 Apr 43, AG 201.2 (19 Mar 43)(1).
Although there was considerable confusion on the subject, basically
the Army's mental tests measured educational achievement rather than
native intelligence, and in 1941 educational achievement in the United
States hinged more on geography and economics than color. Though black
and white recruits of comparable educations made comparable scores,
the majority of Negroes came from areas of the country where inferior
schools combined with economic and cultural poverty to put them at a
significant disadvantage.[2-19] Many whites suffered similar (p. 025)
disadvantages, and in absolute numbers more whites than blacks appeared
in the lower categories. But whereas the Army could distribute the
low-scoring white soldiers throughout the service so that an
individual unit could easily absorb its few illiterate and
semiliterate white men, the Army was obliged to assign an almost equal
number of low-scoring Negroes to the relatively few black units where
they could neither be absorbed nor easily trained. By the same token,
segregation penalized the educated Negro whose talents were likely to
be wasted when he was assigned to service units along with the
unskilled.
[Footnote 2-19: Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_,
pp. 241-57. For an extended discussion of Army test
scores and their relation to education, see
Department of the Army, _Marginal Man and Military
Service: A Review_ (Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1966). This report was prepared for the
Deputy Under Secretary of the Army for Personnel
Management by a working group under the leadership
of Dr. Samuel King, Office of the Chief of Research
and Development.]
Segregation further hindered the efficient use of black manpower by
complicating the training of black soldiers. Although training
facilities were at a premium, the Army was forced to provide its
training and replacement centers with separate housing and other
facilities. With an extremely limited number of Regular Army Negroes
to draw from, the service had to create cadres for the new units and
find officers to lead them. Black recruits destined for most arms and
services were assured neither units, billets, nor training cadres. The
Army's solution to the problem: lower the quotas for black inductees.
The use of quotas to regulate inductees by race was itself a source of
tension between the Army and the Bureau of Selective Service.[2-20]
Selective Service questioned the legality of the whole procedure
whereby white and black selectees were delivered on the basis of
separate calls; in many areas of the country draft boards were under
attack for passing over large numbers of Negroes in order to fill
these racial quotas. With the Navy depending exclusively on
volunteers, Selective Service had by early 1943 a backlog of 300,000
black registrants who, according to their order numbers, should have
been called to service but had been passed over. Selective Service
wanted to eliminate the quota system altogether. At the very least it
demanded that the Army accept more Negroes to adjust the racial
imbalance of the draft rolls. The Army, determined to preserve the
quota system, tried to satisfy the Selective Service's minimum
demands, making room for more black inductees by forcing its arms (p. 026)
and services to create more black units. Again the cost to efficiency
was high.
[Footnote 2-20: For discussion of how Selective
Service channeled manpower into the armed forces,
see Selective Service System, Special Monograph
Number 10, _Special Groups_ (Washington: Government
Printing Office, 1953), ch. VIII, and Special
Monograph Number 12, _Quotas, Calls, and
Inductions_ (Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1948), chs. IV-VI.]
Under the pressure of providing sufficient units for Negroes, the
organization of units for the sake of guaranteeing vacancies
became a major goal. In some cases, careful examination of the
usefulness of the types of units provided was subordinated to the
need to create units which could receive Negroes. As a result,
several types of units with limited military value were formed in
some branches for the specific purpose of absorbing otherwise
unwanted Negroes. Conversely, certain types of units with
legitimate and important military functions were filled with
Negroes who could not function efficiently in the tasks to which
they were assigned.[2-21]
[Footnote 2-21: Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_, p.
113.]
[Illustration: ENGINEER CONSTRUCTION TROOPS IN LIBERIA, JULY 1942.]
The practice of creating units for the specific purpose of absorbing
Negroes was particularly evident in the Army Air Forces.[2-22] Long
considered the most recalcitrant of branches in accepting Negroes, (p. 027)
the Air Corps had successfully exempted itself from the allotment of
black troops in the 1940 mobilization plans. Black pilots could not be
used, Maj. Gen. Henry H. Arnold, Chief of the Air Corps, explained,
"since this would result in having Negro officers serving over white
enlisted men. This would create an impossible social problem."[2-23]
And this situation could not be avoided, since it would take several
years to train black mechanics; meanwhile black pilots would have to
work with white ground crews, often at distant bases outside their
regular chain of command. The Air Corps faced strong opposition (p. 028)
when both the civil rights advocates and the rest of the Army attacked
this exclusion. The civil rights organizations wanted a place for
Negroes in the glamorous Air Corps, but even more to the point the
other arms and services wanted this large branch of the Army to absorb
its fair share of black recruits, thus relieving the rest of a
disproportionate burden.
[Footnote 2-22: The Army's air arm was reorganized
several times. Designated as the Army Air Corps in
1926 (the successor to the historic Army Air
Service), it became the Army Air Forces in the
summer of 1941. This designation lasted until a
separate U.S. Air Force was created in 1947.
Organizationally, the Army was divided in March
1942 into three equal parts: the Army Ground
Forces, the Army Service Forces (originally
Services of Supply), and the Army Air Forces. This
division was administrative. Each soldier continued
to be assigned to a branch of the Army, for
example, Infantry, Artillery, or Air Corps, a title
retained as the name of an Army branch.]
[Footnote 2-23: Memo, CofAC for G-3, 31 May 40, sub:
Employment of Negro Personnel in Air Corps Units,
G-3/6541-Gen-527.]
[Illustration: LABOR BATTALION TROOPS IN THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, MAY
1943. _Stevedores pause for a hot meal at Massacre Bay._]
[Illustration: SERGEANT ADDRESSING THE LINE. _Aviation squadron
standing inspection, 1943._]
When the War Department supported these demands the Army Air Forces
capitulated. Its 1941 mobilization plans provided for the formation of
nine separate black aviation squadrons which would perform the
miscellaneous tasks associated with the upkeep of airfields. During
the next year the Chief of Staff set the allotment of black recruits
for the air arm at a rate that brought over 77,500 Negroes into the
Air Corps by 1943. On 16 January 1941 Under Secretary Patterson
announced the formation of a black pursuit squadron, but the Army Air
Forces, bowing to the opposition typified by General Arnold's comments
of the previous year, trained the black pilots in separate facilities
at Tuskegee, Alabama, where the Army tried to duplicate the expensive
training center established for white officers at Maxwell Field, just
forty miles away.[2-24] Black pilots were at first trained exclusively
for pursuit flying, a very difficult kind of combat for which a Negro
had to qualify both physically and technically or else, in Judge (p. 029)
Hastie's words, "not fly at all."[2-25] The 99th Fighter Squadron was
organized at Tuskegee in 1941 and sent to the Mediterranean theater in
April 1943. By then the all-black 332d Fighter Group with three
additional fighter squadrons had been organized, and in 1944 it too
was deployed to the Mediterranean.
[Footnote 2-24: USAF Oral History Program, Interv
with Maj Gen Noel F Parrish (USAF, Ret.), 30 Mar
73.]
[Footnote 2-25: William H. Hastie, _On Clipped Wings:
The Story of Jim Crow in the Army Air Corps_ (New
York: NAACP, 1943). Based on War Department
documents and statistics, this famous pamphlet was
essentially an attack on the Army Air Corps. For a
more comprehensive account of the Negro and the
Army Air Forces, see Osur, _Blacks in the Army Air
Forces During World War II_.]
[Illustration: PILOTS OF THE 332D FIGHTER GROUP BEING BRIEFED _for
combat mission in Italy_.]
These squadrons could use only a limited number of pilots, far fewer
than those black cadets qualified for such training. All applicants in
excess of requirements were placed on an indefinite waiting list where
many became overage or were requisitioned for other military and
civilian duties. Yet when the Army Air Forces finally decided to
organize a black bomber unit, the 477th Bombardment Group, in late
1943, it encountered a scarcity of black pilots and crewmen. Because
of the lack of technical and educational opportunities for Negroes in
America, fewer blacks than whites were included in the manpower pool,
and Tuskegee, already overburdened with its manifold training
functions and lacking the means to train bomber crews, was unable to
fill the training gap. Sending black cadets to white training schools
was one obvious solution; the Army Air Forces chose instead to
postpone the operational date of the 477th until its pilots could be
trained at Tuskegee. In the end, the 477th was not declared (p. 030)
operational until after the war. Even then some compromise with the
Army Air Forces' segregation principles was necessary, since Tuskegee
could not accommodate B-25 pilot transition and navigator-bombardier
training. In 1944 black officers were therefore temporarily assigned
to formerly all-white schools for such training. Tuskegee's position
as the sole and separate training center for black pilots remained
inviolate until its closing in 1946, however, and its graduates, the
"Tuskegee Airmen," continued to serve as a powerful symbol of armed
forces segregation.[2-26]
[Footnote 2-26: For a detailed discussion of the
black training program, see Osur, _Blacks in the
Army Air Forces During World War II_, ch. III; Lee,
_Employment of Negro Troops_, pp. 461-66; Charles
E. Francis, _The Tuskegee Airmen: The Story of the
Negro in the U.S. Air Force_ (Boston Bruce
Humphries, 1955).]
Training for black officer candidates other than flyers, like that of
most officer candidates throughout the Army, was integrated. At first
the possibility of integrated training seemed unlikely, for even
though Assistant Secretary of War for Air Robert A. Lovett had assured
Hastie that officer candidate training would be integrated, the
Technical Training Command announced plans in 1942 for a segregated
facility. Although the plans were quickly canceled the command's
announcement was the immediate cause for Hastie's resignation from the
War Department. The Air staff assured the Assistant Secretary of War
in January of 1943 that qualified Negroes were being sent to officer
candidate schools and to training courses "throughout the school
system of the Technical Training Command."[2-27] In fact, Negroes did
attend the Air Forces' officer candidate school at Miami Beach,
although not in great numbers. In spite of their integrated training,
however, most of these black officers were assigned to the
predominantly black units at Tuskegee and Godman fields.
[Footnote 2-27: Memo, CofAS for ASW, 12 Jan 43, ASW
291.2.]
The Army Air Forces found it easier to absorb the thousands of black
enlisted men than to handle the black flying squadrons. For the
enlisted men it created a series of units with vaguely defined duties,
usually common labor jobs operating for the most part under a bulk
allotment system that allowed the Air Forces to absorb great numbers
of new men. Through 1943 hundreds of these aviation training
squadrons, quartermaster truck companies, and engineer aviation and
air base security battalions were added to the Air Forces'
organization tables. Practically every American air base in the world
had its contingent of black troops performing the service duties
connected with air operations.
The Air Corps, like the Armor and the Artillery branches, was able to
form separate squadrons or battalions for black troops, but the
Infantry and Cavalry found it difficult to organize the growing number
of separate black battalions and regiments. The creation of black
divisions was the obvious solution, although this arrangement would
run counter to current practice, which was based in part on the Army's
experience with the 92d Division in World War I. Convinced of the poor
performance of that unit in 1918, the War Department had decided in
the 1920's not to form any more black divisions. The regiment would
serve as the basic black unit, and from time to time these regiments
would be employed as organic elements of divisions whose other
regiments and units would be white. In keeping with this decision, the
black 9th and 10th Cavalry regiments were combined in October (p. 031)
1940 with white regiments to form the 2d Cavalry Division.
Before World War II most black leaders had agreed with the Army's
opposition to all-black divisions, but for different reasons. They
considered that such divisions only served to strengthen the
segregation pattern they so opposed. In the early weeks of the war a
conference of black editors, including Walter White, pressed for the
creation of an experimental integrated division of volunteers. White
argued that such a unit would lift black morale, "have a tremendous
psychological effect upon white America," and refute the enemy's
charge that "the United States talks about democracy but practices
racial discrimination and segregation."[2-28] The NAACP organized a
popular movement in support of the idea, which was endorsed by many
important individuals and organizations.[2-29] Yet this experiment was
unacceptable to the Army. Ignoring its experience with all-volunteer
paratroopers and other special units, the War Department declared that
the volunteer system was "an ineffective and dangerous" method of
raising combat units. Admitting that the integrated division might be
an encouraging gesture toward certain minorities, General Marshall
added that "the urgency of the present military situation necessitates
our using tested and proved methods of procedure, and using them with
all haste."[2-30]
[Footnote 2-28: Ltr, Walter White to Gen Marshall, 22
Dec 41, AG 291.21 (12-22-41).]
[Footnote 2-29: See C-279, 2, Volunteer Division
Folder, NAACP Collection, Manuscripts Division,
LC.]
[Footnote 2-30: Ltr, CofS to Dorothy Canfield Fisher,
16 Feb 42, OCS 20602-254.]
Even though it rejected the idea of a volunteer, integrated division,
the Army staff reviewed in the fall of 1942 a proposal for
the assignment of some black recruits to white units. The
Organization-Mobilization Group of G-3, headed by Col. Edwin W.
Chamberlain, argued that the Army General Classification Test scores
proved that black soldiers in groups were less useful to the Army than
white soldiers in groups. It was a waste of manpower, funds, and
equipment, therefore, to organize the increasingly large numbers of
black recruits into segregated units. Not only was such organization
wasteful, but segregation "aggravated if not caused in its entirety"
the racial friction that was already plaguing the Army. To avoid both
the waste and the strife, Chamberlain recommended that the Army halt
the activation of additional black units and integrate black recruits
in the low-score categories, IV and V, into white units in the ratio
of one black to nine whites. The black recruits would be used as
cooks, orderlies, and drivers, and in other jobs which required only
the minimum basic training and which made up 10 to 20 percent of those
in the average unit. Negroes in the higher categories, I through III,
would be assigned to existing black units where they could be expected
to improve the performance of those units. Chamberlain defended his
plan against possible charges of discrimination by pointing out that
the Negroes would be assigned wholly on the basis of native capacity,
not race, and that this plan would increase the opportunities for
Negroes to participate in the war effort. To those who objected on the
grounds that the proposal meant racial integration, Chamberlain
replied that there was no more integration involved than in "the (p. 032)
employment of Negroes as servants in a white household."[2-31]
[Footnote 2-31: Draft Memo (initialed E.W.C.) for Gen
Edwards, G-3 Negro File, 1942-44. See also Lee,
_Employment of Negro Troops_, pp. 152-57.]
The Chamberlain Plan and a variant proposed the following spring
prompted discussion in the Army staff that clearly revealed general
dissatisfaction with the current policy. Nonetheless, in the face of
opposition from the service and ground forces, the plan was abandoned.
Yet because something had to be done with the mounting numbers of
black draftees, the Army staff reversed the decision made in its
prewar mobilization plans and turned once more to the concept of the
all-black division. The 93d Infantry Division was reactivated in the
spring of 1942 and the 92d the following fall. The 2d Cavalry Division
was reconstituted as an all-black unit and reactivated in February
1943. These units were capable of absorbing 15,000 or more men each
and could use men trained in the skills of practically every arm and
service.
This absorbency potential became increasingly important in 1943 when
the chairman of the War Manpower Commission, Paul V. McNutt, began to
attack the use of racial quotas in selecting inductees. He considered
the practice of questionable legality, and the commission faced
mounting public criticism as white husbands and fathers were drafted
while single healthy Negroes were not called.[2-32] Secretary Stimson
defended the legality of the quota system. He did not consider the
current practice "discriminatory in any way" so long as the Army
accepted its fair percentage of Negroes. He pointed out that the
Selective Service Act provided that no man would be inducted "_unless
and until_" he was acceptable to the services, and Negroes were
acceptable "only at a rate at which they can be properly
assimilated."[2-33] Stimson later elaborated on this theme, arguing that
the quota system would be necessary even after the Army reached full
strength because inductions would be limited to replacement of losses.
Since there were few Negroes in combat, their losses would be
considerably less than those of whites. McNutt disagreed with
Stimson's interpretation of the law and announced plans to abandon it
as soon as the current backlog of uninducted Negroes was absorbed, a
date later set for January 1944.[2-34]
[Footnote 2-32: Ltr, Paul V. McNutt to SW, 17 Feb 43,
AG 327.31 (9-19-40) (1) sec. 12.]
[Footnote 2-33: Ltr, SW to McNutt, 20 Feb 43, AG
327.31 (9-19-40) (1) sec. 12.]
[Footnote 2-34: Ltr, McNutt to SW, 23 Mar 43, AG
327.31 (9-19-40) (1) sec. 12.]
A crisis over the quota system was averted when, beginning in the
spring of 1943, the Army's monthly manpower demands outran the ability
of the Bureau of Selective Service to provide black inductees. So long
as the Army requested more Negroes than the bureau could supply,
little danger existed that McNutt would carry out his threat.[2-35] But
it was no victory for the Army. The question of the quota's legality
remained unanswered, and it appeared that the Army might be forced to
abandon the system at some future time when there was a black surplus.
[Footnote 2-35: The danger was further reduced when,
as part of a national manpower allocation reform,
President Roosevelt removed the Bureau of Selective
Service from the War Manpower Commission's control
and restored it to its independent status as the
Selective Service System on 5 December 1943. See
Stimson and Bundy, _On Active Service_, pp. 483-86;
Theodore Wyckoff, "The Office of the Secretary of
War Under Henry L. Stimson," in CMH.]
There were many reasons for the sudden shortage of black inductees (p. 033)
in the spring of 1943. Since more Negroes were leaving the service for
health or other reasons, the number of calls for black draftees had
increased. In addition, local draft boards were rejecting more
Negroes. But the basic reason for the shortage was that the magnitude
of the war had finally turned the manpower surpluses of the 1930's
into manpower shortages, and the shortages were appearing in black as
well as white levies for the armed forces. The Negro was no longer a
manpower luxury. The quota calls for Negroes rose in 1944, and black
strength stood at 701,678 men in September, approximately 9.6 percent
of the whole Army. [2-36] The percentage of black women in the Army
stayed at less than 6 percent of the Women's Army Auxiliary
Corps--after July 1943 the Women's Army Corps--throughout the war.
Training and serving under the same racial policy that governed the
employment of men, the women's corps also had a black recruitment goal
of 10 percent, but despite the active efforts of recruiters and
generally favorable publicity from civil rights groups, the volunteer
organization was unable to overcome the attitude among young black
women that they would not be well received at Army posts.[2-37]
[Footnote 2-36: Strength of the Army, 1 Jan 46,
STM-30, p. 60.]
[Footnote 2-37: Memo, Dir of Mil Pers, SOS, for G-1,
12 Sep 42, SPGAM/322.5 (WAAC) (8-24-42). See also
Edwin R. Embree, "Report of Informal Visit to
Training Camp for WAAC's Des Moines, Iowa" (c.
1942), SPWA 291.21. For a general description of
Negroes in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, see
Mattie E. Treadwell, _The Women's Army Corps_,
United States Army in World War II (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1954), especially
Chapter III. See also Lee, _Employment of Negro
Troops_, pp. 421-26.]
Faced with manpower shortages, the Army began to reassess its plan to
distribute Negroes proportionately throughout the arms and services.
The demand for new service units had soared as the size of the
overseas armies grew, while black combat units, unwanted by overseas
commanders, had remained stationed in the United States. The War
Department hoped to ease the strain on manpower resources by
converting black combat troops into service troops. A notable example
of the wholesale conversion of such combat troops and one that
received considerable notice in the press was the inactivation of the
2d Cavalry Division upon its arrival in North Africa in March 1944.
Victims of the change included the 9th and 10th Cavalry regiments,
historic combat units that had fought with distinction in the Indian
wars, with Teddy Roosevelt in Cuba, and in the Philippine
Insurrection.[2-38]
[Footnote 2-38: Inactivation of the 2d Cavalry
Division began in February 1944, and its
headquarters completed the process on 10 May. The
9th Cavalry was inactivated on 7 March, the 10th
Cavalry on 20 March 1944.]
By trying to justify the conversion, Secretary Stimson only aggravated
the controversy. In the face of congressional questions and criticism
in the black press, Stimson declared that the decision stemmed from a
study of the relative abilities and status of training of the troops
in the units available for conversion. If black units were
particularly affected, it was because "many of the Negro units have
been unable to master efficiently the techniques of modern
weapons."[2-39] Thus, by the end of 1944, the Army had abandoned its
attempt to maintain a balance between black combat and service units,
and during the rest of the war most Negroes were assigned to service
units.
[Footnote 2-39: Ltr, SW to Rep. Hamilton Fish, 19 Feb
44, reprinted in U.S. Congress, House,
_Congressional Record_, 78th Cong., 2d sess., pp.
2007-08.]
According to the War Department, the relationship between Negroes (p. 034)
and the Army was a mutual obligation. Negroes had the right and duty
to serve their country to the best of their abilities; the Army had
the right and the duty to see that they did so. True, the use of black
troops was made difficult because their schooling had been largely
inferior and their work therefore chiefly unskilled. Nevertheless, the
Army staff concluded, all races were equally endowed for war and most
of the less mentally alert could fight if properly led.[2-40] A manual
on leadership observed:
War Department concern with the Negro is focused directly and
solely on the problem of the most effective use of colored troops
... the Army has no authority or intention to participate in
social reform as such but does view the problem as a matter of
efficient troop utilization. With an imposed ceiling on the
maximum strength of the Army it is the responsibility of all
officers to assure the most efficient use of the manpower
assigned.[2-41]
[Footnote 2-40: War Department Pamphlet 20-6,
_Command of Negro Troops_, 29 February 1944.]
[Footnote 2-41: Army Service Forces Manual M-5,
_Leadership and the Negro Soldier_, October 1944,
p. iv.]
But the best efforts of good officers could not avail against poor
policy. Although the Army maintained that Negroes had to bear a
proportionate share of the casualties, by policy it assigned the
majority to noncombat units and thus withheld the chance for them to
assume an equal risk. Subscribing to the advantage of making full use
of individual abilities, the Army nevertheless continued to consider
Negroes as a group and to insist that military efficiency required
racially segregated units. Segregation in turn burdened the service
with the costly provision of separate facilities for the races.
Although a large number of Negroes served in World War II, their
employment was limited in opportunity and expensive for the service.
_The Need for Change_
If segregation weakened the Army's organization for global war, it had
even more serious effects on every tenth soldier, for as it deepened
the Negro's sense of inferiority it devastated his morale. It was a
major cause of the poor performance and the disciplinary problems that
plagued so many black units. And it made black soldiers blame their
personal difficulties and misfortunes, many the common lot of any
soldier, on racial discrimination.[2-42]
[Footnote 2-42: Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_, p.
84; for a full discussion of morale, see ch. XI.
See also David G. Mandelbaum, _Soldier Groups and
Negro Soldiers_ (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1952); Charles Dollard and Donald Young, "In
the Armed Forces," _Survey Graphic_ 36 (January
1947):66ff.]
Deteriorating morale in black units and pressure from a critical
audience of articulate Negroes and their sympathizers led the War
Department to focus special attention on its race problem. Early in
the war Secretary Stimson had agreed with a General Staff
recommendation that a permanent committee be formed to evaluate racial
incidents, propose special reforms, and answer questions involving the
training and assignment of Negroes.[2-43] On 27 August 1942 he
established the Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies, with
Assistant Secretary McCloy as chairman.[2-44] Caught in the cross (p. 035)
fire of black demands and Army traditions, the committee contented
itself at first with collecting information on the racial situation
and acting as a clearinghouse for recommendations on the employment of
black troops.[2-45]
[Footnote 2-43: Memo, G-1 for CofS, 18 Jul 42; DF,
G-1 to TAG, 11 Aug 42. Both in AG 334 (Advisory
Cmte on Negro Trp Policies, 11 Jul 42) (1).]
[Footnote 2-44: The committee included the Assistant
Chiefs of Staff, G-1, of the War Department General
Staff, the Air Staff, and the Army Ground Forces;
the Director of Personnel, Army Service Forces;
General Davis, representing The Inspector General,
and an acting secretary. The Civilian Aide to the
Secretary of War was not a member, although Judge
Hastie's successor was made an _ex officio_ member
in March 1943. See Min of Mtg of Advisory Cmte, Col
J. S. Leonard, 22 Mar 43, ASW 291.2 NTC.]
[Footnote 2-45: See, for example, Memo, Recorder,
Cmte on Negro Troop Policies (Col John H.
McCormick), for CofS, sub: Negro Troops, WDCSA
291.2 (12-24-42).]
[Illustration: SERVICE CLUB, FORT HUACHUCA.]
Serious racial trouble was developing by the end of the first year of
the war. The trouble was a product of many factors, including the
psychological effects of segregation which may not have been so
obvious to the committee or even to the black soldier. Other factors,
however, were visible to all and begged for remedial action. For
example, the practice of using racially separated facilities on
military posts, which was not sanctioned in the Army's basic plan for
black troops, took hold early in the war. Many black units were
located at camps in the south, where commanders insisted on applying
local laws and customs inside the military reservations. This (p. 036)
practice spread rapidly, and soon in widely separated sections of the
country commanders were separating the races in theaters, post
exchanges, service clubs, and buses operating on posts. The
accommodations provided Negroes were separate but rarely equal, and
substandard recreational and housing facilities assigned to black
troops were a constant source of irritation. In fact the Army, through
the actions of local commanders, actually introduced Jim Crow in some
places at home and abroad. Negroes considered such practices in
violation of military regulations and inconsistent with the announced
principles for which the United States was fighting. Many believed
themselves the victims of the personal prejudices of the local
commander. Judge Hastie reported their feelings: "The traditional
mores of the South have been widely accepted and adopted by the Army
as the basis of policy and practice affecting the Negro soldier.... In
tactical organization, in physical location, in human contacts, the
Negro soldier is separated from the white soldier as completely as
possible."[2-46]
[Footnote 2-46: Memo, Hastie for SW, 22 Sep 41, sub:
Survey and Recommendations Concerning the
Integration of the Negro Soldier Into the Army,
G-1/15640-120.]
In November 1941 another controversy erupted over the discovery that
the Red Cross had established racially segregated blood banks. The Red
Cross readily admitted that it had no scientific justification for the
racial separation of blood and blamed the armed services for the
decision. Despite the evidence of science and at risk of demoralizing
the black community, the Army's Surgeon General defended the
controversial practice as necessary to insure the acceptance of a
potentially unpopular program. Ignoring constant criticism from the
NAACP and elements of the black press, the armed forces continued to
demand segregated blood banks throughout the war. Negroes appreciated
the irony of the situation, for they were well aware that a black
doctor, Charles R. Drew, had been a pioneer researcher in the plasma
extraction process and had directed the first Red Cross blood
bank.[2-47]
[Footnote 2-47: On 16 January 1942 the Navy announced
that "in deference to the wishes of those for whom
the plasma is being provided, the blood will be
processed separately so that those receiving
transfusions may be given blood of their own race."
Three days later the Chief of the Bureau of
Medicine, who was also the President's personal
physician, told the Secretary of the Navy, "It is
my opinion that at this time we cannot afford to
open up a subject such as mixing blood or plasma
regardless of the theoretical fact that there is no
chemical difference in human blood." See Memo, Rear
Adm Ross T. McIntire for SecNav, 19 Jan 42,
GenRecsNav. See also Florence Murray, ed., _Negro
Handbook, 1946-1947_ (New York: A. A. Wyn, 1948),
pp. 373-74. For effect of segregated blood banks on
black morale, see Mary A. Morton, "The Federal
Government and Negro Morale," _Journal of Negro
Education_ (Summer 1943): 452, 455-56.]
Black morale suffered further in the leadership crisis that developed
in black units early in the war. The logic of segregated units
demanded a black officer corps, but there were never enough black
officers to command all the black units. In 1942 only 0.35 percent of
the Negroes in the Army were officers, a shortcoming that could not be
explained by poor education alone.[2-48] But when the number of black
officers did begin to increase, obstacles to their employment
appeared: some white commanders, assuming that Negroes did not
possess leadership ability and that black troops preferred white (p. 037)
officers, demanded white officers for their units. Limited segregated
recreational and living facilities for black officers prevented their
assignment to some bases, while the active opposition of civilian
communities forced the Army to exclude them from others. The Army
staff practice of forbidding Negroes to outrank or command white
officers serving in the same unit not only limited the employment and
restricted the rank of black officers but also created invidious
distinctions between white and black officers in the same unit. It
tended to convince enlisted men that their black leaders were not
full-fledged officers. Thus restricted in assignment and segregated
socially and professionally, his ability and status in question, the
black officer was often an object of scorn to himself and to his men.
[Footnote 2-48: Eli Ginzberg, _The Negro Potential_
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1956), p. 85.
Ginzberg points out that only about one out of ten
black soldiers in the upper two mental categories
became an officer, compared to one out of four
white soldiers.]
The attitude and caliber of white officers assigned to black units
hardly compensated for the lack of black officers. In general, white
officers resented their assignment to black units and were quick to
seek transfer. Worse still, black units, where sensitive and patient
leaders were needed to create an effective military force, often
became, as they had in earlier wars, dumping grounds for officers
unwanted in white units.[2-49] The Army staff further aggravated black
sensibilities by showing a preference for officers of southern birth
and training, believing them to be generally more competent to
exercise command over Negroes. In reality many Negroes, especially
those from the urban centers, particularly resented southern officers.
At best these officers appeared paternalistic, and Negroes disliked
being treated as a separate and distinct group that needed special
handling and protection. As General Davis later circumspectly
reported, "many colored people of today expect only a certain line of
treatment from white officers born and reared in the South, namely,
that which follows the southern pattern, which is most distasteful to
them."[2-50]
[Footnote 2-49: Memo, DCofS to CG, AAF, 10 Aug 42,
sub: Professional Qualities of Officers Assigned to
Negro Units, WDGAP 322.99; Memo, CG, VII Corps, to
CG, AGF, 28 Aug 42, same sub, GNAGS 210.31.]
[Footnote 2-50: Brig Gen B. O. Davis, "History of a
Special Section Office of the Inspector General (29
June 1941 to 16 November 1944)," p. 8, in CMH.]
Some of these humiliations might have been less demeaning had the
black soldier been convinced that he was a full partner in the crusade
against fascism. As news of the conversion of black units from combat
to service duties and the word that no new black combat units were
being organized became a matter of public knowledge, the black press
asked: Will any black combat units be left? Will any of those left be
allowed to fight? In fact, would black units ever get overseas?
Actually, the Army had a clear-cut plan for the overseas employment of
both black service and combat units. In May 1942 the War Department
directed the Army Air Forces, Ground Forces, and Service Forces to
make sure that black troops were ordered overseas in numbers not less
than their percentage in each of these commands. Theater commanders
would be informed of orders moving black troops to their commands, but
they would not be asked to agree to their shipment beforehand. Since
troop shipments to the British Isles were the chief concern at (p. 038)
that time, the order added that "there will be no positive
restrictions on the use of colored troops in the British Isles, but
shipment of colored units to the British Isles will be limited,
initially, to those in the service categories."[2-51]
[Footnote 2-51: Ltr, TAG to CG, AAF, et al., 13 May
42, AG 291.21 (3-31-42).]
The problem here was not the Army's policy but the fact that certain
foreign governments and even some commanders in American territories
wanted to exclude Negroes. Some countries objected to black soldiers
because they feared race riots and miscegenation. Others with large
black populations of their own felt that black soldiers with their
higher rates of pay might create unrest. Still other countries had
national exclusion laws. In the case of Alaska and Trinidad, Secretary
Stimson ordered, "Don't yield." Speaking of Iceland, Greenland, and
Labrador, he commented, "Pretty cold for blacks." To the request of
Panamanian officials that a black signal construction unit be
withdrawn from their country he replied, "Tell them [the black unit]
they must complete their work--it is ridiculous to raise such
objections when the Panama Canal itself was built with black labor."
As for Chile and Venezuela's exclusion of Negroes he ruled that "As we
are the petitioners here we probably must comply."[2-52] Stimson's
rulings led to a new War Department policy: henceforth black soldiers
would be assigned without regard to color except that they would not
be sent to extreme northern areas or to any country against its will
when the United States had requested the right to station troops in
that country.[2-53]
[Footnote 2-52: Stimson's comments were not limited
to overseas areas. To a request by the Second Army
commander that Negroes be excluded from maneuvers
in certain areas of the American south he replied:
"No, get the Southerners used to them!" Memo,
ACofS, WPD, for CofS, 25 Mar 42, sub: The Colored
Troop Problem, OPD 291.2. Stimson's comments are
written marginally in ink and initialed "H.L.S."]
[Footnote 2-53: Memo, G-1 for TAG, 4 Apr 42, and
Revised Proposals, 22 Apr and 30 Apr 42. All in
G-1/15640-2.]
Ultimately, theater commanders decided which troops would be committed
to action and which units would be needed overseas; their decisions
were usually respected by the War Department where few believed that
Washington should dictate such matters. Unwilling to add racial
problems to their administrative burdens, some commanders had been
known to cancel their request for troops rather than accept black
units. Consequently, very few Negroes were sent overseas in the early
years of the war.
Black soldiers were often the victims of gross discrimination that
transcended their difficulties with the Army's administration. For
instance, black soldiers, particularly those from more integrated
regions of the country, resented local ordinances governing
transportation and recreation facilities that put them at a great
disadvantage in the important matters of leave and amusement.
Infractions of local rules were inevitable and led to heightened
racial tension and recurring violence.[2-54] At times black soldiers
themselves, reflecting the low morale and lack of discipline in their
units, instigated the violence. Whoever the culprits, the Army's files
are replete with cases of discrimination charged, investigations
launched, and exonerations issued or reforms ordered.[2-55] An
incredible amount of time and effort went into handling these cases
during the darkest days of the war--cases growing out of a policy (p. 039)
created in the name of military efficiency.
[Footnote 2-54: Memo, Civilian Aide to SW, 17 Nov 42,
ASW 291.2 NT.]
[Footnote 2-55: See, for example, AAF Central Decimal
Files for October 1942-May 1944 (RG 18). For an
extended discussion of this subject, see Lee,
_Employment of Negro Troops_, ch XI-XIII.]
Nor was the violence limited to the United States. Racial friction
also developed in Great Britain where some American troops, resenting
their black countrymen's social acceptance by the British, tried to
export Jim Crow by forcing the segregation of recreational facilities.
Appreciating the treatment they were receiving from the British, the
black soldiers fought back, and the clashes grew at times to riot
proportions. General Davis considered discrimination and prejudice the
cause of trouble, but he placed the immediate blame on local
commanders. Many commanders, convinced that they had little
jurisdiction over racial disputes in the civilian community or simply
refusing to accept responsibility, delegated the task of keeping order
to their noncommissioned officers and military police.[2-56] These men,
rarely experienced in handling racial disturbances and often
prejudiced against black soldiers, usually managed to exacerbate the
situation.
[Footnote 2-56: Memo, Brig Gen B. O. Davis for the
IG, 24 Dec 42, IG 333.9-Great Britain.]
In an atmosphere charged with rumors and counterrumors, personal
incidents involving two men might quickly blow up into riots involving
hundreds. In the summer of 1943 the Army began to reap what Ulysses
Lee called the "harvest of disorder." Race riots occurred at military
reservations in Mississippi, Georgia, California, Texas, and Kentucky.
At other stations, the Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies
somberly warned, there were indications of unrest ready to erupt into
violence.[2-57] By the middle of the war, violence over racial issues at
home and abroad had become a source of constant concern for the War
Department.
[Footnote 2-57: Memo, ASW for CofS, 3 Jul 43, sub:
Negro Troops, ASW 291.2 NT. The Judge Advocate
General described disturbances of this type as
military "mutiny." See The Judge Advocate General,
_Military Justice, 1 July 1940 to 31 December
1945_, p. 60, in CMH.]
_Internal Reform: Amending Racial Practices_
Concern over troop morale and discipline and the attendant problem of
racial violence did not lead to a substantial revision of the Army's
racial policy. On the contrary, the Army staff continued to insist
that segregation was a national issue and that the Army's task was to
defend the country, not alter its social customs. Until the nation
changed its racial practices or until Congress ordered such changes
for the armed forces, racially separated units would remain.[2-58] In
1941 the Army had insisted that debate on the subject was closed,[2-59]
and, in fact, except for discussion of the Chamberlain Plan there was
no serious thought of revising racial policy in the Army staff until
after the war.
[Footnote 2-58: Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_, p.
83.]
[Footnote 2-59: Ltr, TAG to Dr. Amanda V. G. Hillyer,
Chmn Program Cmte, D.C. Branch, NAACP, 12 Apr 41,
AG 291.21 (2-28-41) (1).]
Had the debate been reopened in 1943, the traditionalists on the Army
staff would have found new support for their views in a series of surveys
made of white and black soldiers in 1942 and 1943. These surveys
supported the theory that the Army, a national institution (p. 040)
composed of individual citizens with pronounced views on race, would
meet massive disobedience and internal disorder as well as national
resistance to any substantial change in policy. One extensive survey,
covering 13,000 soldiers in ninety-two units, revealed that 88 percent
of the whites and 38 percent of the Negroes preferred segregated
units. Among the whites, 85 percent preferred separate service clubs
and 81 percent preferred separate post exchanges. Almost half of the
Negroes thought separate service clubs and post exchanges were a good
idea.[2-60] These attitudes merely reflected widely held national
views as suggested in a 1943 survey of five key cities by the Office
of War Information.[2-61] The survey showed that 90 percent of the
whites and 25 percent of the blacks questioned supported segregation.
[Footnote 2-60: Research Branch, Special Service
Division, "What the Soldier Thinks," 8 December
1942, and "Attitudes of the Negro Soldier," 28 July
1943. Both cited in Lee, _Employment of Negro
Troops_, pp. 304-06. For detailed analysis, see
Samuel A. Stouffer et al., _Studies in Social
Psychology in World War II_, vol. I, _The American
Soldier: Adjustment During Army Life_ (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1949), pp. 556-80. For
a more personal view of black experiences in World
War II service clubs, see Margaret Halsey's _Color
Blind: A White Woman Looks at the Negro_ (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1946). For a comprehensive
expression of the attitudes of black soldiers, see
Mary P. Motley, ed., _The Invisible Soldier: The
Experience of the Black Soldier, World War II_
(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1975), a
compilation of oral histories by World War II
veterans. Although these interviews were conducted
a quarter of a century after the event and in the
wake of the modern civil rights movement, they
provide useful insight to the attitude of black
soldiers toward discrimination in the services.]
[Footnote 2-61: Office of War Information, The
Negroes' Role in the War: A Study of White and
Colored Opinions (Memorandum 59, Surveys Division,
Bureau of Special Services), 8 Jul 43, in CMH.]
Some Army officials considered justification by statistics alone a
risky business. Reviewing the support for segregation revealed in the
surveys, for example, the Special Services Division commented: "Many
of the Negroes and some of the whites who favor separation in the Army
indicate by their comments that they are opposed to segregation in
principle. They favor separation in the Army to avoid trouble or
unpleasantness." Its report added that the longer a Negro remained in
the Army, the less likely he was to support segregation.[2-62] Nor did
it follow from the overwhelming support for segregation that a policy
of integration would result in massive resistance. As critics later
pointed out, the same surveys revealed that almost half the
respondents expressed a strong preference for civilian life, but the
Army did not infer that serious disorders would result if these men
were forced to remain in uniform.[2-63]
[Footnote 2-62: Special Services Division, "What the
Soldier Thinks," Number 2, August 1943, pp. 58-59,
SSD 291.2.]
[Footnote 2-63: Dollard and Young, "In the Armed
Forces," p. 68.]
By 1943 Negroes within and without the War Department had just about
exhausted arguments for a policy change. After two years of trying,
Judge Hastie came to believe that change was possible only in response
to "strong and manifest public opinion." He concluded that he would be
far more useful as a private citizen who could express his views
freely and publicly than he was as a War Department employee, bound to
conform to official policy. Quitting the department, Hastie joined the
increasingly vocal black organizations in a sustained attack on the
Army's segregation policy, an attack that was also being translated
into political action by the major civil rights organizations. In
1943, a full year before the national elections, representatives of
twenty-five civil rights groups met and formulated the demands (p. 041)
they would make of the presidential candidates: full integration (some
groups tempered this demand by calling for integrated units of
volunteers); abolition of racial quotas; abolition of segregation in
recreational and other Army facilities; abolition of blood plasma
segregation; development of an educational program in race relations
in the Army; greater black participation in combat forces; and the
progressive removal of black troops from areas where they were subject
to disrespect, abuse, and even violence.[2-64]
[Footnote 2-64: New York _Times_, December 2, 1943.]
The Army could not afford to ignore these demands completely, as
Truman K. Gibson, Jr., Judge Hastie's successor, pointed out.[2-65] The
political situation indicated that the racial policy of the armed
forces would be an issue in the next national election. Recalling the
changes forced on the Army as a result of political pressures applied
before the 1940 election, Gibson predicted that actions that might now
seem impolitic to the Army and the White House might not seem so
during the next campaign when the black vote could influence the
outcome in several important states, including New York, Pennsylvania,
Illinois, and Michigan. Already the Chicago _Tribune_ and other
anti-administration groups were trying to encourage black protest in
terms not always accurate but nonetheless believable to the black
voter. Gibson suggested that the Army act before the political
pressure became even more intense.[2-66]
[Footnote 2-65: Gibson, a lawyer and a graduate of
the University of Chicago, became Judge Hastie's
assistant in 1940. After Hastie's resignation on 29
January 1943, Gibson served as acting civilian aide
and assumed the position permanently on 21
September 1943. See Memo, ASW for Admin Asst (John
W. Martyn), 21 Sep 43, ASW 291.2 NT-Civ Aide.]
[Footnote 2-66: Memo, Gibson to ASW, 3 Nov 43, ASW
291.2 NT. See also New York _Times_, December 2,
1943.]
Caught between the black demands and War Department traditions, the
Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies launched an attack--much
too late and too weak, its critics agreed--on what it perceived as the
causes of the Army's racial disorders. Some of the credit for this
attack must go to Truman Gibson. No less dedicated to abolition of
racial segregation than Hastie, Gibson eschewed the grand gesture and
emphasized those practical changes that could be effected one step at
a time. For all his zeal, Gibson was admirably detached.[2-67] He knew
that his willingness to recognize that years of oppression and
injustice had marred the black soldier's performance would earn for
him the scorn of many civil rights activists, but he also knew that
his fairness made him an effective advocate in the War Department. He
worked closely with McCloy's committee, always describing with his
alternatives for action their probable effect upon the Army, the
public, and the developing military situation. As a result of the
close cooperation between the Advisory Committee and Gibson, the Army
for the first time began to agree on practical if not policy changes.
[Footnote 2-67: For discussion of Gibson's attitude
and judgments, see Interv, author with Evans, 3 Jun
73.]
The Advisory Committee's first campaign was directed at local commanders.
After a long review of the evidence, the committee was convinced that
the major cause of racial disorder was the failure of commanders in
some echelons to appreciate the seriousness of racial unrest and their
own responsibility for dealing with the discipline, morale, and (p. 042)
welfare of their men. Since it found that most disturbances began with
real or fancied incidents of discrimination, the committee concluded
that there should be no discrimination against Negroes in the matter
of privileges and accommodations and none in favor of Negroes that
compromised disciplinary standards. The committee wanted local
commanders to be reminded that maintaining proper discipline and good
order among soldiers, and between soldiers and civilians, was a
definite command responsibility.[2-68]
[Footnote 2-68: Memo, Chmn, Advisory Cmte, for CofS,
3 Jul 43, sub: Negro Troops, ASW 291.2 NT. This was
not sent until 6 July.]
General Marshall incorporated the committee's recommendations in a
letter to the field. He concluded by saying that "failure on the part
of any commander to concern himself personally and vigorously with
this problem will be considered as evidence of lack of capacity and
cause for reclassification and removal from assignment."[2-69] At the
same time, the Chief of Staff did not adopt several of the committee's
specific recommendations. He did not require local commanders to
recommend changes in War Department policy on the treatment of Negroes
and the organization and employment of black units. Nor did he require
them to report on steps taken by them to follow the committee's
recommendations. Moreover, he did not order the dispatch of black
combat units to active theaters although the committee had pointed to
this course as "the most effective means of reducing tension among
Negro troops."
[Footnote 2-69: Memo, CofS for CG, AAF, et al., 13
Jul 43, sub: Negro Troops, WDCSA 291.21.]
Next, the Advisory Committee turned its attention to the black press.
Judge Hastie and the representatives of the senior civil rights
organizations were judicious in their criticism and accurate in their
charges, but this statement could not be made for much of the black
press. Along with deserving credit for spotlighting racial injustices
and giving a very real impetus to racial progress, a segment of the
black press had to share the blame for fomenting racial disorder by
the frequent publication of inaccurate and inflammatory war stories.
Some field commanders charged that the constant criticism was
detrimental to troop morale and demanded that the War Department
investigate and even censor particular black newspapers. In July 1943
the Army Service Forces recommended that General Marshall officially
warn the editors against printing inciting and untrue stories and
suggested that if this caution failed sedition proceedings be
instituted against the culprits.[2-70] General Marshall followed a more
moderate course suggested by Assistant Secretary McCloy.[2-71] The Army
staff amplified and improved the services of the Bureau of Public
Relations by appointing Negroes to the bureau and by releasing more
news items of special interest to black journalists. The result was a
considerable increase in constructive and accurate stories on (p. 043)
black participation in the war, although articles and editorials
continued to be severely critical of the Army's segregation policy.
[Footnote 2-70: Memo, Advisory Cmte for CofS, 16 Mar
43, sub: Inflammatory Publications, ASW 291.2 NT
Cmte; Memo, CG, 4th Service Cmd, ASF, to CG, ASF,
12 Jul 43, sub: Disturbances Among Negro Troops,
with attached note initialed by Gen Marshall, WDCSA
291.2 (12 Jul 43).]
[Footnote 2-71: Memo, J. J. McC (John J. McCloy) for
Gen Marshall, 21 Jul 43, with attached note signed
"GCM," ASW 291.2 NT.]
The proposal to send black units into combat, rejected by Marshall
when raised by the Advisory Committee in 1943, became the preeminent
racial issue in the Army during the next year.[2-72] It was vitally
necessary, the Advisory Committee reasoned, that black troops not be
wasted by leaving them to train endlessly in camps around the country,
and that the War Department begin making them a "military asset." In
March 1944 it recommended to Secretary Stimson that black units be
introduced into combat and that units and training schedules be
reorganized if necessary to insure that this deployment be carried out
as promptly as possible. Elaborating on the committee's
recommendation, Chairman McCloy added:
There has been a tendency to allow the situation to develop where
selections are made on the basis of efficiency with the result
that the colored units are discarded for combat service, but
little is done by way of studying new means to put them in shape
for combat service.
With so large a portion of our population colored, with the
example of the effective use of colored troops (of a much lower
order of intelligence) by other nations, and with the many
imponderables that are connected with the situation, we must, I
think, be more affirmative about the use of our Negro troops. If
present methods do not bring them to combat efficiency, we should
change those methods. That is what this resolution purports to
recommend.[2-73]
[Footnote 2-72: Min of Mtg of Advisory Cmte on Negro
Troop Policies, 29 Feb 44, ASW 291.2 Negro Troops
Cmte; Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_, pp.
449-50.]
[Footnote 2-73: Memo, ASW for SW, 2 Mar 44, inclosing
formal recommendations, WDCSA 291.2/13 Negroes
(1944).]
Stimson agreed, and on 4 March 1944 the Advisory Committee met with
members of the Army staff to decide on combat assignments for
regimental combat teams from the 92d and 93d Divisions. In order that
both handpicked soldiers and normal units might be tested, the team
from the 93d would come from existing units of that division, and the
one from the 92d would be a specially selected group of volunteers.
General Marshall and his associates continued to view the commitment
of black combat troops as an experiment that might provide
documentation for the future employment of Negroes in combat.[2-74] In
keeping with this experiment, the Army staff suggested to field
commanders how Negroes might be employed and requested continuing
reports on the units' progress.
[Footnote 2-74: Pogue, _Organizer of Victory_, p.
99.]
The belated introduction of major black units into combat helped
alleviate the Army's racial problems. After elements of the 93d
Division were committed on Bougainville in March 1944 and an advanced
group of the 92d landed in Italy in July, the Army staff found it
easier to ship smaller supporting units to combat theaters, either as
separate units or as support for larger units, a course that reduced
the glut of black soldiers stationed in the United States. Recognizing
that many of these units had poor leaders, Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair,
head of the Army Ground Forces, ordered that, "if practicable," all
leaders of black units who had not received "excellent" or higher (p. 044)
in their efficiency ratings would be replaced before the units were
scheduled for overseas deployment.[2-75] Given the "if practicable"
loophole, there was little chance that all the units would go overseas
with "excellent" commanders.
[Footnote 2-75: Memo, CG, AGF, for CG's, Second Army,
et al., n.d., sub: Efficiency Ratings of Commanders
of Negro Units Scheduled for Overseas Shipment,
GNGAP-L 201.61/9.]
[Illustration: 93D DIVISION TROOPS IN BOUGAINVILLE, APRIL 1944. _Men,
packing mortar shells, cross the West Branch Texas River._]
A source of pride to the black community, the troop commitments also
helped to reduce national racial tensions, but they did little for the
average black soldier who remained stationed in the United States. He
continued to suffer discrimination within and without the gates of the
camp. The committee attributed that discrimination to the fact that
War Department policy was not being carried out in all commands. In
some instances local commanders were unaware of the policy; in others
they refused to pay sufficient attention to the seriousness of what
was, after all, but one of many problems facing them. For some time
committee members had been urging the War Department to write special
instructions, and finally in February 1944 the department issued a
pamphlet designed to acquaint local commanders with an official
definition of Army racial policy and to improve methods of developing
leaders in black units. _Command of Negro Troops_ was a landmark (p. 045)
publication.[2-76] Its frank statement of the Army's racial problems,
its scholarly and objective discussion of the disadvantages that
burdened the black soldier, and its outline of black rights and
responsibilities clearly revealed the committee's intention to foster
racial harmony by promoting greater command responsibility. The
pamphlet represented a major departure from previous practice and
served as a model for later Army and Navy statements on race.[2-77]
[Footnote 2-76: WD PAM 20-6, _Command of Negro
Troops_, 29 Feb 44.]
[Footnote 2-77: The Army Service Forces published a
major supplement to War Department Pamphlet 20-6 in
October 1944, see Army Service Forces Manual M-5,
_Leadership and the Negro Soldier_.]
But pamphlets alone would not put an end to racial discrimination; the
committee had to go beyond its role of instructor. Although the War
Department had issued a directive on 10 March 1943 forbidding the
assignment of any recreational facility, "including theaters and post
exchanges," by race and requiring the removal of signs labeling
facilities for "white" and "colored" soldiers, there had been little
alteration in the recreational situation. The directive had allowed
the separate use of existing facilities by designated units and camp
areas, so that in many places segregation by unit had replaced
separation by race, and inspectors and commanders reported that
considerable confusion existed over the War Department's intentions.
On other posts the order to remove the racial labels from facilities
was simply disregarded. On 8 July 1944 the committee persuaded the War
Department to issue another directive clearly informing commanders
that facilities could be allocated to specific areas or units, but
that all post exchanges and theaters must be opened to all soldiers
regardless of race. All government transportation, moreover, was to be
available to all troops regardless of race. Nor could soldiers be
restricted to certain sections of government vehicles on or off base,
regardless of local customs.[2-78]
[Footnote 2-78: Ltr, TAG to CG, AAF, et al., 8 Jul
44, sub: Recreational Facilities, AG 353.8 (5 Jul
44) OB-S-A-M.]
Little dramatic change ensued in day-to-day life on base. Some
commanders, emphasizing that part of the directive which allowed the
designation of facilities for units and areas, limited the degree of
the directive's application to post exchanges and theaters and ignored
those provisions concerned with individual rights. This interpretation
only added to the racial unrest that culminated in several incidents,
of which the one at the officers' club at Freeman Field, Indiana, was
the most widely publicized.[2-79] After this incident the committee
promptly asked for a revision of WD Pamphlet 20-6 on the command of
black troops that would clearly spell out the intention of the authors
of the directive to apply its integration provisions explicitly to
"officers' clubs, messes, or similar social organizations."[2-80] In
effect the War Department was declaring that racial separation applied
to units only. For the first time it made a clear distinction (p. 046)
between Army race policy to be applied on federal military reservations
and local civilian laws and customs to be observed by members of the
armed forces when off post. In Acting Secretary Patterson's words:
The War Department has maintained throughout the emergency and
present war that it is not an appropriate medium for effecting
social readjustments but has insisted that all soldiers,
regardless of race, be afforded equal opportunity to enjoy the
recreational facilities which are provided at posts, camps and
stations. The thought has been that men who are fulfilling the
same obligation, suffering the same dislocation of their private
lives, and wearing the identical uniform should, within the
confines of the military establishment, have the same privileges
for rest and relaxation.[2-81]
[Footnote 2-79: Actually, the use of officers' clubs
by black troops was clearly implied if not ordained
in paragraph 19 of Army Regulation 210-10, 20
December 1940, which stated that any club operating
on federal property must be open to all officers
assigned to the post, camp, or station. For more on
the Freeman Field incident, see Chapter 5, below.]
[Footnote 2-80: Memo, Secy, Advisory Cmte, for
Advisory Cmte on Special Troop Policies, 13 Jun 45,
sub: Minutes of Meeting, ASW 291.2 NT.]
[Footnote 2-81: Ltr, Actg SW to Gov. Chauncey Sparks
of Alabama, 1 Sep 44, WDCSA 291.2 (26 Aug 44).]
Widely disseminated by the black press as the "anti-Jim Crow law," the
directive and its interpretation by senior officials produced the
desired result. Although soldiers most often continued to frequent the
facilities in their own base areas, in effect maintaining racial
separation, they were free to use any facilities, and this knowledge
gradually dispelled some of the tensions on posts where restrictions
of movement had been a constant threat to good order.
With some pride, Assistant Secretary McCloy claimed on his Advisory
Committee's first birthday that the Army had "largely eliminated
discrimination against the Negroes within its ranks, going further in
this direction than the country itself."[2-82] He was a little
premature. Not until the end of 1944 did the Advisory Committee
succeed in eliminating the most glaring examples of discrimination
within the Army. Even then race remained an issue, and isolated racial
incidents continued to occur.
[Footnote 2-82: Ltr, ASW to Herbert B. Elliston,
Editor, Washington _Post_, 5 Aug 43, ASW 291.2 NT
(Gen).]
_Two Exceptions_
Departmental policy notwithstanding, a certain amount of racial
integration was inevitable during a war that mobilized a biracial army
of eight million men. Through administrative error or necessity,
segregation was ignored on many occasions, and black and white
soldiers often worked and lived together in hospitals,[2-83] rest camps,
schools, and, more rarely, units. But these were isolated cases,
touching relatively few men, and they had no discernible effect on
racial policy. Of much more importance was the deliberate integration
in officer training schools and in the divisions fighting in the
European theater in 1945. McCloy referred to these deviations from
policy as experiments "too limited to afford general conclusions."[2-84]
But if they set no precedents, they at least challenged the Army's
cherished assumptions on segregation and strengthened the postwar
demands for change.
[Footnote 2-83: Ltr, USW to Roane Waring, National
Cmdr, American Legion, 5 May 43, SW 291.2 NT.
Integrated hospitals did not appear until 1943. See
Robert J. Parks, "The Development of Segregation in
U.S. Army Hospitals, 1940-1942," _Military Affairs_
37 (December 1973): 145-50.]
[Footnote 2-84: Ltr, ASW to SecNav, 22 Aug 45, ASW
291.2 NT (Gen).]
The Army integrated its officer candidate training in an effort to
avoid the mistakes of the World War I program. In 1917 Secretary of
War Newton D. Baker had established a separate training school for (p. 047)
black officer candidates at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, with disappointing
results. To fill its quotas the school had been forced to lower its
entrance standards, and each month an arbitrary number of black
officer candidates were selected and graduated with little regard for
their qualifications. Many World War I commanders agreed that the
black officers produced by the school proved inadequate as troop
commanders, and postwar staff studies generally opposed the future use
of black officers. Should the Army be forced to accept black officers
in the future, these commanders generally agreed, they should be
trained along with whites.[2-85]
[Footnote 2-85: Ltr, William Hastie to Lee Nichols,
15 Jul 53, in Nichols Collection, CMH; see also
Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_ pp. 15-20; Army
War College Misc File 127-1 through 127-22, AMHRC.]
[Illustration: GUN CREW OF BATTERY B, 598TH FIELD ARTILLERY, _moving
into position near the Arno River, Italy, September 1944_.]
Despite these criticisms, mobilization plans between the wars all
assumed that black officers would be trained and commissioned,
although, as the 1937 mobilization plan put it, their numbers would be
limited to those required to provide officers for organizations
authorized to have black officers.[2-86] No detailed plans were drawn up
on the nature of this training, but by the eve of World War II a
policy had become fixed: Negroes were to be chosen and trained
according to the same standards as white officers, preferably in the
same schools.[2-87] The War Department ignored the subject of race (p. 048)
when it established the officer candidate schools in 1941. "The basic
and predominating consideration governing selections to OCS," The
Adjutant General announced, would be "outstanding qualities of
leadership as demonstrated by actual services in the Army."[2-88]
General Davis, who participated in the planning conferences, reasoned
that integrated training would be vital for the cooperation that would
be necessary in battle. He agreed with the War Department's silence on
race, adding, "you can't have Negro, white, or Jewish officers, you've
got to have American officers."[2-89]
[Footnote 2-86: As published in Mobilization
Regulation 1-2 (1938 and May 1939 versions), par.
11d, and 15 Jul 39 version, par. 13b.]
[Footnote 2-87: Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_, p.
50.]
[Footnote 2-88: TAG Ltr, 26 Apr 41, AG 352 (4-10-41)
M-M-C.]
[Footnote 2-89: Davis, "History of a Special Section
Office of the Inspector General."]
[Illustration: TANKERS OF THE 761ST MEDIUM TANK BATTALION _prepare for
action in the European theater, August 1944_.]
The Army's policy failed to consider one practical problem: if race
was ignored in War Department directives, would black candidates ever
be nominated and selected for officer training? Early enrollment
figures suggested they would not. Between July 1941, when the schools
opened, and October 1941, only seventeen out of the 1,997 students
enrolled in candidate schools were Negroes. Only six more Negroes
entered during the next two months.[2-90]
[Footnote 2-90: Eleven of these were candidates at
the Infantry School, 2 at the Field Artillery
School, 7 at the Quartermaster School, and 1 each
at the Cavalry, Ordnance, and Finance Schools.
Memo, TAG for Admin Asst, OSW, 16 Sep 41, sub:
Request of the Civ Aide to the SW for Data Relative
to Negro Soldiers, AG 291.21 (9-12-41) M; Memo, TAG
for Civ Aide to SW, 18 Nov 41, sub: Request for
Data Relative to Negro Soldiers Admitted to OCS, AG
291.21 (10-30-41) RB.]
Some civil rights spokesmen argued for the establishment of a (p. 049)
quota system, and a few Negroes even asked for a return to segregated
schools to insure a more plentiful supply of black officers. Even
before the schools opened, Judge Hastie warned Secretary Stimson that
any effective integration plan "required a directive to Corps Area
Commanders indicating that Negroes are to be selected in numbers
exactly or approximately indicated for particular schools."[2-91] But
the planners had recommended the integrated schools precisely to avoid
a quota system. They were haunted by the Army's 1917 experience,
although the chief of the Army staff's Organizations Division did not
allude to these misgivings when he answered Judge Hastie. He argued
that a quota could not be defended on any grounds "except those of a
political nature" and would be "race discrimination against the
whites."[2-92]
[Footnote 2-91: Ltr, Hastie to SW, 8 May 41, ASW
291.2 NT.]
[Footnote 2-92: Memo, ACofS, G-3, for CofS, 12 May
41, sub: Negro Officers; Memo, ACofS, G-3, for
ACofS, G-1 (ATTN: Col Wharton), 12 Jun 41, same
sub. Both in WDGOT 291.2.]
General Marshall agreed that racial parity could not be achieved at
the expense of commissioning unqualified men, but he was equally
adamant about providing equal opportunity for all qualified
candidates, black and white. He won support for his position from some
of the civil rights advocates.[2-93] These arguments may not have swayed
Hastie, but in the end he dropped the idea of a regular quota system,
judging it unworkable in the case of the officer candidate schools. He
concluded that many commanders approached the selection of officer
candidates with a bias against the Negro, and he recommended that a
directive or confidential memorandum be sent to commanders charged
with the selection of officer candidates informing them that a certain
minimum percentage of black candidates was to be chosen. Hastie's
recommendation was ignored, but the widespread refusal of local
commanders to approve or transmit applications of Negroes, or even to
give them access to appropriate forms, halted when Secretary Stimson
and the Army staff made it plain that they expected substantial
numbers of Negroes to be sent to the schools.[2-94]
[Footnote 2-93: Pogue, _Organizer of Victory_, p.
96.]
[Footnote 2-94: Memo, Hastie for ASW, 5 Sep 41,
G-1/15640-120; Ltr, Hastie to Nichols, 15 Jul 53;
Tab C to AG 320.2 (11-24-42).]
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
meanwhile moved quickly to prove that the demand for a return to
segregated schools, made by Edgar G. Brown, president of the United
States Government Employees, and broadcaster Fulton Lewis, Jr.,
enjoyed little backing in the black community. "We respectfully
submit," Walter White informed Stimson and Roosevelt, "that no leader
considered responsible by intelligent Negro or white Americans would
make such a request."[2-95] In support of its stand the NAACP issued a
statement signed by many influential black leaders.
[Footnote 2-95: Telg, Walter White, NAACP, to SW and
President Roosevelt, 23 Oct 41, AG 291.21
(10-23-41) (3); Ltr, Edgar W. Brown to President
Roosevelt and SW, 15 Oct 41, AG 291.2 (10-15-41)
(1). See also Memo, ACofS, G-3, for CofS, 23 Oct
41, sub: Negro Officer Candidate Schools,
G-3/43276.]
[Illustration: WAAC REPLACEMENTS _training at Fort Huachuca, December
1942_.]
The segregationists attacked integration of the officer candidate (p. 050)
schools for the obvious reasons. A group of Florida congressmen, for
example, protested to the Army against the establishment of an
integrated Air Corps school at Miami Beach. The War Department
received numerous complaints when living quarters at the schools were
integrated. The president of the White Supremacy League complained
that young white candidates at Fort Benning "have to eat and sleep
with Negro candidates," calling it "the most damnable outrage that was
ever perpetrated on the youth of the South." To all such complaints
the War Department answered that separation was not always possible
because of the small number of Negroes involved.[2-96]
[Footnote 2-96: Ltr, Horace Wilkinson to Rep. John J.
Sparkman (Alabama), 24 Aug 43; Ltr, TAG to Rep.
John Starnes (Alabama), 15 Sep 43. Both in AG 095
(Wilkinson) (28 Aug 43). See also Interv, Nichols
with Ulysses Lee, 1953.]
In answering these complaints the Army developed its ultimate
justification for integrated officer schools: integration was
necessary on the grounds of efficiency and economy. As one Army
spokesman put it, "our objection to separate schools is based (p. 051)
primarily on the fact that black officer candidates are eligible
from every branch of the Army, including the Armored Force and tank
destroyer battalions, and it would be decidedly uneconomical to
attempt to gather in one school the materiel and instructor personnel
necessary to give training in all these branches."[2-97]
[Footnote 2-97: Ltr, SGS to Sen. Carl Hayden
(Arizona), 12 Dec 41, AG 352 (12-12-41). See also
Memo, ACofS, G-3, for CofS, 23 Oct 41, sub: Negro
Officer Candidate Schools, G-3/43276.]
Officer candidate training was the Army's first formal experiment with
integration. Many blacks and whites lived together with a minimum of
friction, and, except in flight school, all candidates trained
together.[2-98] Yet in some schools the number of black officer
candidates made racially separate rooms feasible, and Negroes were
usually billeted and messed together. In other instances Army
organizations were slow to integrate their officer training. The
Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, for example, segregated black candidates
until late 1942 when Judge Hastie brought the matter to McCloy's
attention.[2-99] Nevertheless, the Army's experiment was far more
important than its immediate results indicated. It proved that even in
the face of considerable opposition the Army was willing to abandon
its segregation policy when the issues of economy and efficiency were
made sufficiently clear and compelling.
[Footnote 2-98: Dollard and Young, "In the Armed
Forces."]
[Footnote 2-99: Memos, Hastie for ASW, 4 Nov 42 and
15 Dec 42; Ltr, Maj Gen A. D. Bruce, Cmdr, Tank
Destroyer Center, to ASW, 31 Dec 42. All in ASW
291.2 NT (12-2-42).]
The Army's second experiment with integration came in part from the
need for infantry replacements during the Allied advance across
Western Europe in the summer and fall of 1944.[2-100] The Ground Force
Replacement Command had been for some time converting soldiers from
service units to infantry, and even as the Germans launched their
counterattack in the Ardennes the command was drawing up plans to
release thousands of soldiers in Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee's
Communications Zone and train them as infantrymen. These plans left
the large reservoir of black manpower in the theater untapped until
General Lee suggested that General Dwight D. Eisenhower permit black
service troops to volunteer for infantry training and eventual
employment as individual replacements. General Eisenhower agreed, and
on 26 December Lee issued a call to the black troops for volunteers to
share "the privilege of joining our veteran units at the front to
deliver the knockout blow." The call was limited to privates in the
upper four categories of the Army General Classification Test who had
had some infantry training. If noncommissioned officers wanted to
apply, they had to accept a reduction in grade. Although patronizing
in tone, the plan was a bold departure from War Department policy: "It
is planned to assign you without regard to color or race to the units
where assistance is most needed, and give you the opportunity of
fighting shoulder to shoulder to bring about victory.... Your
relatives and friends everywhere have been urging that you be granted
this privilege."[2-101]
[Footnote 2-100: For a detailed discussion, see Lee,
_Employment of Negro Troops_, Chapter XXII.]
[Footnote 2-101: Ltr, Lt Gen John C. H. Lee to
Commanders of Colored Troops, ComZ, 26 Dec 44, sub:
Volunteers for Training and Assignment as
Reinforcements, AG 322X353XSGS.]
The revolutionary nature of General Lee's plan was not lost on (p. 052)
Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force. Arguing that the
circular promising integrated service would embarrass the Army, Lt.
Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, the chief of staff, recommended that General
Eisenhower warn the War Department that civil rights spokesmen might
seize on this example to demand wider integration. To avoid future
moves that might compromise Army policy, Smith wanted permission to
review any Communications Zone statements on Negroes before they were
released.
General Eisenhower compromised. Washington was not consulted, and
Eisenhower himself revised the circular, eliminating the special call
for black volunteers and the promise of integration on an individual
basis. He substituted instead a general appeal for volunteers, adding
the further qualification that "in the event that the number of
suitable negro volunteers exceeds the replacement needs of negro
combat units, these men will be suitably incorporated in other
organizations so that their service and their fighting spirit may be
efficiently utilized."[2-102] This statement was disseminated throughout
the European theater.
[Footnote 2-102: Revised version of above, same date.
Copies of both versions in CMH. Later General
Eisenhower stated that he had decided to employ the
men "as individuals," but the evidence is clear
that he meant platoons in 1944, see Ltr, D.D.E. to
Gen Bruce C. Clarke, 29 May 63, in CMH.]
The Eisenhower revision needed considerable clarification. It
mentioned the replacement needs of black combat units, but there were
no black infantry units in the theater;[2-103] and the replacement
command was not equipped to retrain men for artillery, tank, and tank
destroyer units, the types of combat units that did employ Negroes in
Europe. The revision also called for volunteers in excess of these
needs to be "suitably incorporated in other organizations," but it did
not indicate how they would be organized. Eisenhower later made it
clear that he preferred to organize the volunteers in groups that
could replace white units in the line, but again the replacement
command was geared to train individual, not unit, replacements. After
considerable discussion and compromise, Eisenhower agreed to have
Negroes trained "as members of Infantry rifle platoons familiar with
the Infantry rifle platoon weapons." The platoons would be sent for
assignment to Army commanders who would provide them with platoon
leaders, platoon sergeants, and, if needed, squad leaders.
[Footnote 2-103: The 92d Division was assigned to the
Mediterranean theater.]
Unaware of how close they had come to being integrated as individuals,
so many Negroes volunteered for combat training and duty that the
operations of some service units were threatened. To prevent
disrupting these vital operations, the theater limited the number to
2,500, turning down about 3,000 men. Early in January 1945 the
volunteers assembled for six weeks of standard infantry conversion
training. After training, the new black infantrymen were organized
into fifty-three platoons, each under a white platoon leader and
sergeant, and were dispatched to the field, two to work with armored
divisions and the rest with infantry divisions. Sixteen were shipped
to the 6th Army Group, the rest to the 12th Army Group, and all (p. 053)
saw action with a total of eleven divisions in the First and Seventh
Armies.
[Illustration: VOLUNTEERS FOR COMBAT IN TRAINING, _47th Reinforcement
Depot, February 1945_.]
In the First Army the black platoons were usually assigned on the
basis of three to a division, and the division receiving them normally
placed one platoon in each regiment. At the company level, the black
platoon generally served to augment the standard organization of three
rifle platoons and one heavy weapons platoon. In the Seventh Army, the
platoons were organized into provisional companies and attached to
infantry battalions in armored divisions. General Davis warned the
Seventh Army commander, Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch, that the men had
not been trained for employment as company units and were not being
properly used. The performance of the provisional companies failed to
match the performance of the platoons integrated into white companies
and their morale was lower.[2-104] At the end of the war the theater
made clear to the black volunteers that integration was over. Although
a large group was sent to the 69th Infantry Division to be returned
home, most were reassigned to black combat or service units in the
occupation army.
[Footnote 2-104: Davis, "History of a Special Section
Office of the Inspector General," p. 19.]
The experiment with integration of platoons was carefully scrutinized.
In May and June 1945, the Research Branch of the Information and
Education Division of Eisenhower's theater headquarters made a (p. 054)
survey solely to discover what white company-grade officers and
platoon sergeants thought of the combat performance of the black rifle
platoons. Trained interviewers visited seven infantry divisions and
asked the same question of 250 men--all the available company officers
and a representative sample of platoon sergeants in twenty-four
companies that had had black platoons. In addition, a questionnaire,
not to be signed, was submitted to approximately 1,700 white enlisted
men in other field forces for the purpose of discovering what their
attitudes were toward the use of black riflemen. No Negro was asked
his opinion.
More than 80 percent of the white officers and noncommissioned
officers who were interviewed reported that the Negroes had performed
"very well" in combat; 69 percent of the officers and 83 percent of
the noncommissioned officers saw no reason why black infantrymen
should not perform as well as white infantrymen if both had the same
training and experience. Most reported getting along "very well" with
the black volunteers; the heavier the combat shared, the closer and
better the relationships. Nearly all the officers questioned admitted
that the camaraderie between white and black troops was far better
than they had expected. Most enlisted men reported that they had at
first disliked and even been apprehensive at the prospect of having
black troops in their companies, but three-quarters of them had
changed their minds after serving with Negroes in combat, their
distrust turning into respect and friendliness. Of the officers and
noncommissioned officers, 77 percent had more favorable feelings
toward Negroes after serving in close proximity to them, the others
reported no change in attitude; not a single individual stated that he
had developed a less favorable attitude. A majority of officers
approved the idea of organizing Negroes in platoons to serve in white
companies; the practice, they said, would stimulate the spirit of
competition between races, avoid friction with prejudiced whites,
eliminate discrimination, and promote interracial understanding.
Familiarity with Negroes dispersed fear of the unknown and bred
respect for them among white troops; only those lacking experience
with black soldiers were inclined to be suspicious and hostile.[2-105]
[Footnote 2-105: ETO I&E Div Rpt E-118 Research Br,
The Utilization of Negro Infantry Platoons in White
Companies, Jun 45; ASF I&E Div Rpt B-157, Opinions
About Negro Infantry Platoons in White Companies of
Seven Divisions, 3 Jul 45. For a general critique
of black performance in World War II, see Chapter 5
below.]
General Brehon B. Somervell, commanding general of the Army Service
Forces, questioned the advisability of releasing the report. An
experiment involving 1,000 volunteers--his figure was inaccurate,
actually 2,500 were involved--was hardly, he believed, a conclusive
test. Furthermore, organizations such as the NAACP might be encouraged
to exert pressure for similar experiments among troops in training in
the United States and even in the midst of active operations in the
Pacific theater--pressure, he believed, that might hamper training and
operations. What mainly concerned Somervell were the political
implications. Many members of Congress, newspaper editors, and others
who had given strong support to the War Department were, he contended,
"vigorously opposed" to integration under any conditions. A strong
adverse reaction from this influential segment of the nation's (p. 055)
opinion-makers might alienate public support for a postwar program of
universal military training.[2-106]
[Footnote 2-106: Memo, CG, ASF, to ASW, 11 Jul 45,
ASW 291.2 NT.]
General Omar N. Bradley, the senior American field commander in
Europe, took a different tack. Writing for the theater headquarters
and drawing upon such sources of information as the personal
observations of some officers, General Bradley disparaged the
significance of the experiment. Most of the black platoons, he
observed, had participated mainly in mopping-up operations or combat
against a disorganized enemy. Nor could the soldiers involved in the
experiment be considered typical, in Bradley's opinion. They were
volunteers of above average intelligence according to their
commanders.[2-107] Finally, Bradley contended that, while no racial
trouble emerged during combat, the mutual friendship fostered by
fighting a common enemy was threatened when the two races were closely
associated in rest and recreational areas. Nevertheless, he agreed
that the performance of the platoons was satisfactory enough to
warrant continuing the experiment but recommended the use of draftees
with average qualifications. At the same time, he drew away from
further integration by suggesting that the experiment be expanded to
include employment of entire black rifle companies in white regiments
to avoid some of the social difficulties encountered in rest
areas.[2-108]
[Footnote 2-107: The percentage of high school
graduates and men scoring in AGCT categories I, II,
and III among the black infantry volunteers was
somewhat higher than that of all Negroes in the
European theater. As against 22 percent high school
graduates and 29 percent in the first three test
score categories for the volunteers, the
percentages for all Negroes in the theater were 18
and 17 percent. At the same time the averages for
black volunteers were considerably below those for
white riflemen, of whom 41 percent were high school
graduates and 71 percent in the higher test
categories--figures that tend to refute the
general's argument. See ASF I&E Div Rpt B-157, 3
Jul 45.]
[Footnote 2-108: Msg, Hq ComZ, ETO, Paris, France
(signed Bradley), to WD 3 Jul 45. For similar
reports from the field see, for example, Ltr, Brig
Gen R. B. Lovett, ETO AG, to TAG, 7 Sep 45, sub:
The Utilization of Negro Platoons in White
Companies; Ltr, Hq USFET to TAG, 24 Oct 45, same
sub. Both in AG 291.2 (1945).]
General Marshall, the Chief of Staff, agreed with both Somervell and
Bradley. Although he thought that the possibility of integrating black
units into white units should be "followed up," he believed that the
survey should not be made public because "the conditions under which
the [black] platoons were organized and employed were most
unusual."[2-109] Too many of the circumstances of the experiment were
special--the voluntary recruitment of men for frontline duty, the
relatively high number of noncommissioned officers among the
volunteers, and the fact that the volunteers were slightly older and
scored higher in achievement tests than the average black soldier.
Moreover, throughout the experiment some degree of segregation, with
all its attendant psychological and morale problems, had been
maintained.
[Footnote 2-109: Memo, CofS for ASW, 25 Aug 45, WDCSA
291.2 Negroes (25 Aug 45).]
The platoon experiment was illuminating in several respects. The fact
that so late in the war thousands of Negroes volunteered to trade the
safety of the rear for duty at the front said something about black
patriotism and perhaps something about the Negro's passion for equality.
It also demonstrated that, when properly trained and motivated and (p. 056)
treated with fairness, blacks, like whites, performed with bravery and
distinction in combat. Finally, the experiment successfully attacked
one of the traditionalists' shibboleths, that close association of the
races in Army units would cause social dissension.
[Illustration: ROAD REPAIRMEN, _Company A, 279th Engineer Battalion,
near Rimberg, Germany, December 1944_.]
It is now apparent that World War II had little immediate effect on
the quest for racial equality in the Army. The Double V campaign
against fascism abroad and racism at home achieved considerably less
than the activists had hoped. Although Negroes shared in the
prosperity brought by war industries and some 800,000 of them served
in uniform, segregation remained the policy of the Army throughout the
war, just as Jim Crow still ruled in large areas of the country.
Probably the campaign's most important achievement was that during the
war the civil rights groups, in organizing for the fight against
discrimination, began to gather strength and develop techniques that
would be useful in the decades to come. The Army's experience with
black units also convinced many that segregation was a questionable
policy when the country needed to mobilize fully.
For its part the Army defended the separation of the races in the name
of military efficiency and claimed that it had achieved a victory over
racial discrimination by providing equal treatment and job opportunity
for black soldiers. But the Army's campaign had also been less than
completely successful. True, the Army had provided specialist training
and opened job opportunities heretofore denied to thousands of
Negroes, and it had a cadre of potential leaders in the hundreds of
experienced black officers. For the times, the Army was a progressive
minority employer. Even so, as an institution it had defended the
separate but equal doctrine and had failed to come to grips with
segregation. Under segregation the Army was compelled to combine large
numbers of undereducated and undertrained black soldiers in units that
were often inefficient and sometimes surplus to its needs. This system
in turn robbed the Army of the full services of the educated and able
black soldier, who had every reason to feel restless and rebellious.
The Army received no end of advice on its manpower policy during the
war. Civil rights spokesmen continually pointed out that segregation
itself was discriminatory, and Judge Hastie in particular hammered on
this proposition before the highest officials of the War (p. 057)
Department. In fact Hastie's recommendations, criticisms, and
arguments crystallized the demands of civil rights leaders. The Army
successfully resisted the proposition when its Advisory Committee on
Negro Troop Policies under John McCloy modified but did not
appreciably alter the segregation policy. It was a predictable course.
The Army's racial policy was more than a century old, and leaders
considered it dangerous if not impossible to revise traditional ways
during a global war involving so many citizens with pronounced and
different views on race.
What both the civil rights activists and the Army's leaders tended to
ignore during the war was that segregation was inefficient. The myriad
problems associated with segregated units, in contrast to the
efficient operation of the integrated officer candidate schools and
the integrated infantry platoons in Europe, were overlooked in the
atmosphere of charges and denials concerning segregation and
discrimination. John McCloy was an exception. He had clearly become
dissatisfied with the inefficiency of the Army's policy, and in the
week following the Japanese surrender he questioned Navy Secretary
James V. Forrestal on the Navy's experiments with integration. "It has
always seemed to me," he concluded, "that we never put enough thought
into the matter of making a real military asset out of the very large
cadre of Negro personnel we received from the country."[2-110] Although
segregation persisted, the fact that it hampered military efficiency
was the hope of those who looked for a change in the Army's policy.
[Footnote 2-110: Ltr, ASW to SecNav, 22 Aug 45, ASW
291.2 NT (Gen).]
CHAPTER 3 (p. 058)
World War II: The Navy
The period between the world wars marked the nadir of the Navy's
relations with black America. Although the exclusion of Negroes that
began with a clause introduced in enlistment regulations in 1922
lasted but a decade, black participation in the Navy remained severely
restricted during the rest of the inter-war period. In June 1940 the
Navy had 4,007 black personnel, 2.3 percent of its nearly 170,000-man
total.[3-1] All were enlisted men, and with the exception of six regular
rated seamen, lone survivors of the exclusion clause, all were
steward's mates, labeled by the black press "seagoing bellhops."
[Footnote 3-1: All statistics in this chapter are
taken from the files of the U.S. Navy, Bureau of
Naval Personnel (hereafter cited as BuPers).]
The Steward's Branch, composed entirely of enlisted Negroes and
oriental aliens, mostly Filipinos, was organized outside the Navy's
general service. Its members carried ratings up to chief petty
officer, but wore distinctive uniforms and insignia, and even chief
stewards never exercised authority over men rated in the general naval
service. Stewards manned the officers' mess and maintained the
officers' billets on board ship, and, in some instances, took care of
the quarters of high officials in the shore establishment. Some were
also engaged in mess management, menu planning, and the purchase of
supplies. Despite the fact that their enlistment contracts restricted
their training and duties, stewards, like everyone else aboard ship,
were assigned battle stations, including positions at the guns and on
the bridge. One of these stewards, Dorie (Doris) Miller, became a hero
on the first day of the war when he manned a machine gun on the
burning deck of the USS _Arizona_ and destroyed two enemy planes.[3-2]
[Footnote 3-2: After some delay and considerable
pressure from civil rights sources, the Navy
identified Miller, awarded him the Navy Cross, and
promoted him to mess attendant, first class. Miller
was later lost at sea. See Dennis D. Nelson, _The
Integration of the Negro Into the U.S. Navy_ (New
York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1951), pp. 23-25.
The Navy further honored Miller in 1973 by naming a
destroyer escort (DE 1091) after him.]
By the end of December 1941 the number of Negroes in the Navy had
increased by slightly more than a thousand men to 5,026, or 2.4
percent of the whole, but they continued to be excluded from all
positions except that of steward.[3-3] It was not surprising that civil
rights organizations and their supporters in Congress demanded a
change in policy.
[Footnote 3-3: There were exceptions to this
generalization. The Navy had 43 black men with
ratings in the general service in December 1941:
the 6 regulars from the 1920's, 23 others returned
from retirement, and 14 members of the Fleet
Reserve. See U.S. Navy, Bureau of Naval Personnel,
"The Negro in the Navy in World War II" (1947)
(hereafter "BuPers Hist"), p. 1. This study is part
of the bureau's unpublished multivolume
administrative history of World War II. A copy is
on file in the bureau's Technical Library. The work
is particularly valuable for its references to
documents that no longer exist.]
_Development of a Wartime Policy_ (p. 059)
At first the new secretary, Frank Knox, and the Navy's professional
leaders resisted demands for a change. Together with Secretary of War
Stimson, Knox had joined the cabinet in July 1940 when Roosevelt was
attempting to defuse a foreign policy debate that threatened to
explode during the presidential campaign.[3-4] For a major cabinet
officer, Knox's powers were severely circumscribed. He had little
knowledge of naval affairs, and the President, himself once an
Assistant Secretary of the Navy, often went over his head to deal
directly with the naval bureaus on shipbuilding programs and manpower
problems as well as the disposition of the fleet. But Knox was a
personable man and a forceful speaker, and he was particularly useful
to the President in congressional liaison and public relations.
Roosevelt preferred to work through the secretary in dealing with the
delicate question of black participation in the Navy. Knox himself was
fortunate in his immediate official family. James V. Forrestal became
under secretary in August 1940; during the next year Ralph A. Bard, a
Chicago investment banker, joined the department as assistant
secretary, and Adlai E. Stevenson became special assistant.
[Footnote 3-4: One of Theodore Roosevelt's Rough
Riders, a World War I field artillery officer, and
later publisher of the Chicago _Daily News_, Knox
was an implacable foe of the New Deal but an ardent
internationalist, strongly sympathetic to President
Roosevelt's foreign policy.]
Able as these men were, Frank Knox, like most new secretaries
unfamiliar with the operations and traditions of the vast department,
was from the beginning heavily dependent on his naval advisers. These
were the chiefs of the powerful bureaus and the prominent senior
admirals of the General Board, the Navy's highest advisory body.[3-5]
Generally these men were ardent military traditionalists, and, despite
the progressive attitude of the secretary's highest civilian advisers,
changes in the racial policy of the Navy were to be glacially slow.
[Footnote 3-5: In 1940 the bureaus were answerable
only to the Secretary of the Navy and the
President, but after a reorganization of 1942 they
began to lose some of their independence. In March
1942 President Roosevelt merged the offices of the
Chief of Naval Operations and Commander in Chief,
U.S. Fleet, giving Admiral Ernest J. King, who held
both titles, at least some direction over most of
the bureaus. Eventually the Chief of Naval
Operations would become a figure with powers
comparable to those exercised by the Army's Chief
of Staff. See Julius A. Furer, _Administration of
the Navy Department in World War II_ (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1959), pp. 113-14. This
shift in power was readily apparent in the case of
the administration of the Navy's racial policy.]
The Bureau of Navigation, which was charged with primary
responsibility for all personnel matters, was opposed to change in the
racial composition of the Navy. Less than two weeks after Knox's
appointment, it prepared for his signature a letter to Lieutenant
Governor Charles Poletti of New York defending the Navy's policy. The
bureau reasoned that since segregation was impractical, exclusion was
necessary. Experience had proved, the bureau claimed, that when given
supervisory responsibility the Negro was unable to maintain discipline
among white subordinates with the result that teamwork, harmony, and
ship's efficiency suffered. The Negro, therefore, had to be segregated
from the white sailor. All-black units were impossible, the bureau
argued, because the service's training and distribution system (p. 060)
demanded that a man in any particular rating be available for any duty
required of that rating in any ship or activity in the Navy. The Navy
had experimented with segregated crews after World War I, manning one
ship with an all-Filipino crew and another with an all-Samoan crew,
but the bureau was not satisfied with the result and reasoned that
ships with black crews would be no more satisfactory.[3-6]
[Footnote 3-6: Ltr, SecNav to Lt. Gov. Charles
Poletti (New York), 24 Jul 40, Nav-620-AT,
GenRecsNav.]
[Illustration: DORIE MILLER.]
During the next weeks Secretary Knox warmed to the subject, speaking
of the difficulty faced by the Navy when men had to live aboard ship
together. He was convinced that "it is no kindness to Negroes to
thrust them upon men of the white race," and he suggested that the
Negro might make his major contribution to the armed forces in the
Army's black regimental organizations.[3-7] Confronted with widespread
criticism of this policy, however, Knox asked the Navy's General Board
in September 1940 to give him "some reasons why colored persons should
not be enlisted for general service."[3-8] He accepted the board's
reasons for continued exclusion of Negroes--generally an extension of
the ones advanced in the Poletti letter--and during the next eighteen
months these reasons, endorsed by the Chief of Naval Operations and
the Bureau of Navigation, were used as the department's standard
answer to questions on race.[3-9] They were used at the White House
conference on 18 June 1941 when, in the presence of black leaders,
Knox told President Roosevelt that the Navy could do nothing about
taking Negroes into the general service "because men live in such
intimacy aboard ship that we simply can't enlist Negroes above the
rank of messman."[3-10]
[Footnote 3-7: Idem to Sen. Arthur Capper (Kansas), 1
Aug 40, QN/P14-4, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 3-8: Memo, Rear Adm W. R. Sexton, Chmn of
Gen Bd, for Capt Morton L. Deyo, 17 Sep 40, Recs of
Gen Bd, OpNavArchives.]
[Footnote 3-9: Idem for SecNav, 17 Sep 40, sub:
Enlistment of Colored Persons in the U.S. Navy,
Recs of Gen Bd, OpNavArchives. 1st Ind to Ltr, Natl
Public Relations Comm of the Universal Negro
Improvement Assn to SecNav, 4 Oct 41; Memo, Chief,
BuNav, for CNO, 24 Oct 41, and 2d Ind to same, CNO
to SecNav (Public Relations). Both in BuPers
QN/P14-4 (411004), GenRecsNav. For examples of the
Navy's response on race, see Ltr, Ens Ross R.
Hirshfield, Off of Pub Relations, to Roberson
County Training School, 25 Oct 41; Ltr, Ens William
Stucky to W. Henry White, 4 Feb 42. Both in
QN/P14-4. BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 3-10: Quoted in White, _A Man Called
White_, p. 191.]
The White House conference revealed an interesting contrast between
Roosevelt and Knox. Whatever his personal feelings, Roosevelt agreed
with Knox that integration of the Navy was an impractical step in (p. 061)
wartime, but where Knox saw exclusion from general service as the
alternative to integration Roosevelt sought a compromise. He suggested
that the Navy "make a beginning" by putting some "good Negro bands"
aboard battleships. Under such intimate living conditions white and
black would learn to know and respect each other, and "then we can
move on from there."[3-11] In effect the President was trying to lead
the Navy toward a policy similar to that announced by the Army in
1940. While his suggestion about musicians was ignored by Secretary
Knox, the search for a middle way between exclusion and integration
had begun.
[Footnote 3-11: Ibid.]
[Illustration: ADMIRAL KING AND SECRETARY KNOX _on the USS Augusta_.]
The general public knew nothing of this search, and in the heightened
atmosphere of early war days, charged with unending propaganda about
the four freedoms and the forces of democracy against fascism, the
administration's racial attitudes were being questioned daily by civil
rights spokesmen and by some Democratic politicians.[3-12] As protest
against the Navy's racial policy mounted, Secretary Knox turned once
again to his staff for reassurance. In July 1941 he appointed a
committee consisting of Navy and Marine Corps personnel officers and
including Addison Walker, a special assistant to Assistant Secretary
Bard, to conduct a general investigation of that policy. The committee
took six months to complete its study and submitted both a majority
and minority report.
[Footnote 3-12: Memo, W. A. Allen, Office of Public
Relations, for Lt Cmdr Smith, BuPers, 29 Jan 42,
BuPers QN/P-14, BuPersRecs.]
The majority report marshaled a long list of arguments to prove that
exclusion of the Negro was not discriminatory, but "a means of
promoting efficiency, dependability, and flexibility of the Navy as a
whole." It concluded that no change in policy was necessary since
"within the limitations of the characteristics of members of certain
races, the enlisted personnel of the Naval Establishment is
representative of all the citizens of the United States."[3-13] The
majority invoked past experience, efficiency, and patriotism to
support the _status quo_, but its chorus of reasons for excluding
Negroes sounded incongruous amid the patriotic din and call to colors
that followed Pearl Harbor.
[Footnote 3-13: Ltr, Chief, BuNav, to Chmn, Gen Bd,
22 Jan 42, sub: Enlistment of Men of Colored Race
in Other Than Messman Branch, Recs of Gen Bd,
OpNavArchives.]
[Illustration: CREW MEMBERS OF USS ARGONAUT _relax and read mail,
Pearl Harbor, 1942_.]
Demonstrating changing social attitudes and also reflecting the (p. 062)
compromise solution suggested by the President in June, Addison
Walker's minority report recommended that a limited number of Negroes
be enlisted for general duty "on some type of patrol or other small
vessel assigned to a particular yard or station." While the
enlistments could frankly be labeled experiments, Walker argued that
such a step would mute black criticism by promoting Negroes out of the
servant class. The program would also provide valuable data in case
the Navy was later directed to accept Negroes through Selective
Service. Reasoning that a man's right to fight for his country was
probably more fundamental than his right to vote, Walker insisted that
the drive for the rights and privileges of black citizens was a social
force that could not be ignored by the Navy. Indeed, he added, "the
reconciliation of social friction within our own country" should be a
special concern of the armed forces in wartime.[3-14]
[Footnote 3-14: Ibid.]
Although the committee's majority won the day, its arguments were
overtaken by events that followed Pearl Harbor. The NAACP, viewing the
Navy's rejection of black volunteers in the midst of the intensive
recruiting campaign, again took the issue to the White House. The
President, in turn, asked the Fair Employment Practices Committee to
consider the case.[3-15] Committee chairman Mark Ethridge conferred with
Assistant Secretary Bard, pointing out that since Negroes had been
eligible for general duty in World War I, the Navy had actually taken
a step backward when it restricted them to the Messman's Branch. The
committee was even willing to pay the price of segregation to insure
the Negro's return to general duty. Ethridge recommended that the Navy
amend its policy and accept Negroes for use at Caribbean stations or
on harbor craft.[3-16] Criticism of Navy policy, hitherto emanating
almost exclusively from the civil rights organizations and a few (p. 063)
congressmen, now broadened to include another government agency. As
President Roosevelt no doubt expected, the Fair Employment Practices
Committee had come out in support of his compromise solution for the
Navy.
[Footnote 3-15: The FEPC was established 25 June 1941
to carry out Roosevelt's Executive Order 8802
against discrimination in employment in defense
industries and in the federal government.]
[Footnote 3-16: "BuPers Hist," pp. 4-5; Ltr, Mark
Ethridge to Lee Nichols. 14 Jul 53, in Nichols
Collection, CMH.]
But the committee had no jurisdiction over the armed services, and
Secretary Knox continued to assert that with a war to win he could not
risk "crews that are impaired in efficiency because of racial
prejudice." He admitted to his friend, conservationist Gifford
Pinchot, that the problem would have to be faced someday, but not
during a war. Seemingly in response to Walker and Ethridge, he
declared that segregated general service was impossible since enough
men with the skills necessary to operate a war vessel were unavailable
even "if you had the entire Negro population of the United States to
choose from." As for limiting Negroes to steward duties, he explained
that this policy avoided the chance that Negroes might rise to command
whites, "a thing which instantly provokes serious trouble."[3-17] Faced
in wartime with these arguments for efficiency, Assistant Secretary
Bard could only promise Ethridge that black enlistment would be taken
under consideration.
[Footnote 3-17: Ltr, SecNav to Gifford Pinchot, 19
Jan 42, 54-1-15, GenRecsNav.]
At this point the President again stepped in. On 15 January 1942 he
asked his beleaguered secretary to consider the whole problem once
more and suggested a course of action: "I think that with all the Navy
activities, BuNav might invent something that colored enlistees could
do in addition to the rating of messman."[3-18] The secretary passed the
task on to the General Board, asking that it develop a plan for
recruiting 5,000 Negroes in the general service.[3-19]
[Footnote 3-18: Quoted in "BuPers Hist," p. 5.]
[Footnote 3-19: Memo, SecNav for Chmn, Gen Bd, 16 Jan
42, sub: Enlistment of Men of Colored Race in Other
Than Messman Branch, Recs of Gen Bd,
OpNavArchives.]
When the General Board met on 23 January to consider the secretary's
request, it became apparent that the minority report on the role of
Negroes in the Navy had gained at least one convert among the senior
officers. One board member, the Inspector General of the Navy, Rear
Adm. Charles P. Snyder, repeated the arguments lately advanced by
Addison Walker. He suggested that the board consider employing Negroes
in some areas outside the servant class: in the Musician's Branch, for
example, because "the colored race is very musical and they are versed
in all forms of rhythm," in the Aviation Branch where the Army had
reported some success in employing Negroes, and on auxiliaries and
minor vessels, especially transports. Snyder noted that these schemes
would involve the creation of training schools, rigidly segregated at
first, and that the whole program would be "troublesome and require
tact, patience, and tolerance" on the part of those in charge. But, he
added, "we have so many difficulties to surmount anyhow that one more
possibly wouldn't swell the total very much." Foreseeing that
segregation would become the focal point of black protest, he argued
that the Navy had to begin accepting Negroes somewhere, and it might
as well begin with a segregated general service.
Adamant in its opposition to any change in the Navy's policy, the (p. 064)
Bureau of Navigation ignored Admiral Snyder's suggestions. The spokesman
for the bureau warned that the 5,000 Negroes under consideration were
just an opening wedge. "The sponsors of the program," Capt. Kenneth
Whiting contended, "desire full equality on the part of the Negro and
will not rest content until they obtain it." In the end, he predicted,
Negroes would be on every man-of-war in direct proportion to their
percentage of the population. The Commandant of the Marine Corps, Maj.
Gen. Thomas Holcomb, echoed the bureau's sentiments. He viewed the
issue of black enlistments as crucial.
If we are defeated we must not close our eyes to the fact that
once in they [Negroes] will be strengthened in their effort to
force themselves into every activity we have. If they are not
satisfied to be messmen, they will not be satisfied to go into
the construction or labor battalions. Don't forget the colleges
are turning out a large number of well-educated Negroes. I don't
know how long we will be able to keep them out of the V-7 class.
I think not very long.
The commandant called the enlistment of Negroes "absolutely tragic";
Negroes had every opportunity, he added, "to satisfy their aspiration
to serve in the Army," and their desire to enter the naval service was
largely an effort "to break into a club that doesn't want them."
The board heard similar sentiments from representatives of the Bureau
of Aeronautics, the Bureau of Yards and Docks, and, with reservations,
from the Coast Guard. Confronted with such united opposition from the
powerful bureaus, the General Board capitulated. On 3 February it
reported to the secretary that it was unable to submit a plan and
strongly recommended that the current policy be allowed to stand. The
board stated that "if, in the opinion of higher authority, political
pressure is such as to require the enlistment of these people for
general service, let it be for that." If restriction of Negroes to the
Messman's Branch was discrimination, the board added, "it was but part
and parcel of a similar discrimination throughout the United
States."[3-20]
[Footnote 3-20: Enlistment of Men of Colored Race
(201), 23 Jan 42, Hearings Before the General Board
of the Navy, 1942; Memo, Chmn, Gen Bd, for SecNav,
3 Feb 42, sub: Enlistment of Men of Colored Race in
Other Than Messman Branch. Both in Recs of Gen Bd,
OpNavArchives.]
Secretary Knox was certainly not one to dispute the board's findings,
but it was a different story in the White House. President Roosevelt
refused to accept the argument that the only choice lay between
exclusion in the Messman's Branch and total integration in the general
service. His desire to avoid the race issue was understandable; the
war was in its darkest days, and whatever his aspirations for American
society, the President was convinced that, while some change was
necessary, "to go the whole way at one fell swoop would seriously
impair the general average efficiency of the Navy."[3-21] He wanted the
board to study the question further, noting that there were some
additional tasks and some special assignments that could be worked (p. 065)
out for the Negro that "would not inject into the whole personnel of
the Navy the race question."[3-22]
[Footnote 3-21: Quoted in "BuPers Hist," p. 6.]
[Footnote 3-22: Memo, SecNav for Chmn, Gen Bd, 14 Feb
42, Recs of Gen Bd, OpNavArchives. The quotation is
from the Knox Memo and is not necessarily in the
exact words of the President.]
[Illustration: MESSMEN VOLUNTEER AS GUNNERS, _Pacific task force, July
1942_.]
The Navy got the message. Armed with these instructions from the White
House, the General Board called on the bureaus and other agencies to
furnish lists of stations or assignments where Negroes could be used
in other than the Messman's Branch, adding that it was "unnecessary
and inadvisable" to emphasize further the undesirability of recruiting
Negroes. Freely interpreting the President's directive, the board
decided that its proposals had to provide for segregation in order to
prevent the injection of the race issue into the Navy. It rejected the
idea of enlisting Negroes in such selected ratings as musician and
carpenter's mate or designating a branch for Negroes (the possibility
of an all-black aviation department for a carrier was discussed).
Basing its decision on the plans quickly submitted by the bureaus, the
General Board recommended a course that it felt offered "least
disadvantages and the least difficulty of accomplishment as a war
measure": the formation of black units in the shore establishment, black
crews for naval district local defense craft and selected Coast (p. 066)
Guard cutters, black regiments in the Seabees, and composite
battalions in the Marine Corps. The board asked that the Navy
Department be granted wide latitude in deciding the number of Negroes
to be accepted as well as their rate of enlistment and the method of
recruiting, training, and assignment.[3-23] The President agreed to
the plan, but balked at the board's last request. "I think this is a
matter," he told Secretary Knox, "to be determined by you and
me."[3-24]
[Footnote 3-23: Memos, Chmn, Gen Bd, for Chief,
BuNav, Cmdt, CG, and Cmdt, MC, 18 Feb 42, sub:
Enlistment of Men of Colored Race in Other Than
Messman Branch. For examples of responses, see Ltr,
Cmdt, to Chmn, Gen Bd, 24 Feb 42, same sub; Memo,
Chief, BuNav, for Chmn, Gen Bd, 7 Mar 42, same sub;
Memo, CNO for Chief, BuNav, 25 Feb 42, same sub,
with 1st Ind by CINCUSFLT, 28 Feb 42, same sub. The
final enlistment plan is found in Memo, Chmn, Gen
Bd, for SecNav, 20 Mar 42, same sub (G. B. No 421).
All in Recs of Gen Bd, OpNavArchives. It was
transmitted to the President in Ltr, SecNav to
President, 27 Mar 42, P14-4/MM, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 3-24: Memo, President for Secy of Navy, 31
Mar 42, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park,
New York.]
The two-year debate over the admission of Negroes ended just in time,
for the opposition to the Navy's policy was enlisting new allies
daily. The national press made the expected invidious comparisons when
Joe Louis turned over his share of the purse from the Louis-Baer fight
to Navy Relief, and Wendell Willkie in a well-publicized speech at New
York's Freedom House excoriated the Navy's racial practices as a
"mockery" of democracy.[3-25] But these were the last shots fired. On 7
April 1942 Secretary Knox announced the Navy's capitulation. The Navy
would accept 277 black volunteers per week--it was not yet drafting
anyone--for enlistment in all ratings of the general service of the
reserve components of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. Their
actual entry would have to await the construction of suitable, meaning
segregated, facilities, but the Navy's goal for the first year was
14,000 Negroes in the general service.[3-26]
[Footnote 3-25: New York _Times_, January 10 and
March 20, 1942.]
[Footnote 3-26: Office of SecNav, Press Release, 7
Apr 42.]
Members of the black community received the news with mixed emotions.
Some reluctantly accepted the plan as a first step; the NAACP's
_Crisis_ called it "progress toward a more enlightened point of view."
Others, like the National Negro Congress, complimented Knox for his
"bold, patriotic action."[3-27] But almost all were quick to point out
that the black sailor would be segregated, limited to the rank of
petty officer, and, except as a steward, barred from sea duty.[3-28] The
Navy's plan offered all the disadvantages of the Army's system with
none of the corresponding advantages for participation and advancement.
The NAACP hammered away at the segregation angle, informing its public
that the old system, which had fathered inequalities and humiliations
in the Army and in civilian life, was now being followed by the Navy.
A. Philip Randolph complained that the change in Navy policy merely
"accepts and extends and consolidates the policy of Jim-Crowism in the
Navy as well as proclaims it as an accepted, recognized government (p. 067)
ideology that the Negro is inferior to the white man."[3-29] The
editors of the National Urban League's _Opportunity_ concluded that,
"faced with the great opportunity to strengthen the forces of
Democracy, the Navy Department chose to affirm the charge that Japan
is making against America to the brown people ... that the so-called
Four Freedoms enunciated in the great 'Atlantic Charter' were for
white men only."[3-30]
[Footnote 3-27: "The Navy Makes a Gesture," _Crisis_
49 (May 1942):51. The National Negro Congress
quotation reprinted in Dennis D. Nelson's summary
of reactions to the Secretary of the Navy's
announcement. See Nelson, "The Integration of the
Negro in the United States Navy, 1776-1947"
(NAVEXOS-P-526), p. 38. (This earlier and different
version of Nelson's published work, derived from
his master's thesis, was sponsored by the U.S.
Navy.)]
[Footnote 3-28: Although essentially correct, the
critics were technically inaccurate since some
Negroes would be assigned to Coast Guard cutters
which qualified as sea duty.]
[Footnote 3-29: Quoted in Nelson, "The Integration of
the Negro," p. 37.]
[Footnote 3-30: _Opportunity_ (May 1942), p. 82.]
_A Segregated Navy_
With considerable alacrity the Navy set a practical course for the
employment of its black volunteers. On 21 April 1942 Secretary Knox
approved a plan for training Negroes at Camp Barry, an isolated
section of the Great Lakes Training Center. Later renamed Camp Robert
Smalls after a black naval hero of the Civil War, the camp not only
offered the possibility of practically unlimited expansion but, as the
Bureau of Navigation put it, made segregation "less obvious" to
recruits. The secretary also approved the use of facilities at Hampton
Institute, the well-known black school in Virginia, as an advanced
training school for black recruits.[3-31]
[Footnote 3-31: Memo, Chief, BuNav, for SecNav, 17
Apr 42, sub: Training Facilities for Negro
Recruits, Nav-102; Memo, SecNav for Rear Adm
Randall Jacobs, 21 Apr 42, 54-1-22. Both in
GenRecsNav.]
Black enlistments began on 1 June 1942, and black volunteers started
entering Great Lakes later that month in classes of 277 men. At the
same time the Navy opened enlistments for an unlimited number of black
Seabees and messmen. Lt. Comdr. Daniel Armstrong commanded the recruit
program at Camp Smalls. An Annapolis graduate, son of the founder of
Hampton Institute, Armstrong first came to the attention of Knox in
March 1942 when he submitted a plan for the employment of black
sailors that the secretary considered practical.[3-32] Under Armstrong's
energetic leadership, black recruits received training that was in
some respects superior to that afforded whites. For all his success,
however, Armstrong was strongly criticized, especially by educated
Negroes who resented his theories of education. Imbued with the
paternalistic attitude of Tuskegee and Hampton, Armstrong saw the
Negro as possessing a separate culture more attuned to vocational
training. He believed that Negroes needed special treatment and
discipline in a totally segregated environment free from white
competition. Educated Negroes, on the other hand, saw in this special
treatment another form of discrimination.[3-33]
[Footnote 3-32: Memo, SecNav for Chmn, Gen Bd, 7 Mar
42, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 3-33: For a discussion of Armstrong's
philosophy from the viewpoint of an educated black
recruit, see Nelson, "Integration of the Negro,"
pp. 28-34. Sec also Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb
70, CMH files.]
During the first six months of the new segregated training program,
before the great influx of Negroes from the draft, the Navy set the
training period at twelve weeks. Later, when it had reluctantly
abandoned the longer period, the Navy discovered that the regular
eight-week course was sufficient. Approximately 31 percent of those
graduating from the recruit course were qualified for Class A (p. 068)
schools and entered advanced classes to receive training that would
normally lead to petty officer rating for the top graduates and
prepare men for assignment to naval stations and local defense and
district craft. There they would serve in such class "A" specialties
as radioman, signalman, and yeoman and the other occupational
specialties such as machinist, mechanic, carpenter, electrician, cook,
and baker.[3-34] Some of these classes were held at Hampton, but, as the
number of black recruits increased, the majority remained at Camp
Smalls for advanced training.
[Footnote 3-34: With the exception of machinist
school, where blacks were in training twice as long
as whites, specialist training for Negroes and
whites was similar in length. See "BuPers Hist,"
pp. 28-30, 60-61.]
[Illustration: ELECTRICIAN MATES _string power lines in the Central
Pacific_.]
The rest of the recruit graduates, those unqualified for advanced
schooling, were divided. Some went directly to naval stations and
local defense and district craft where they relieved whites as seaman,
second class, and fireman, third class, and as trainees in specialties
that required no advanced schooling; the rest, approximately eighty
men per week, went to naval ammunition depots as unskilled
laborers.[3-35]
[Footnote 3-35: BuPers, "Reports, Schedules, and
Charts Relating to Enlistment, Training, and
Assignment of Negro Personnel," 5 Jun 42, Pers-617,
BuPersRecs.]
The Navy proceeded to assimilate the black volunteers along these
lines, suffering few of the personnel problems that plagued the Army
in the first months of the war. In contrast to the Army's chaotic
situation, caused by the thousands of black recruits streaming in from
Selective Service, the Navy's plans for its volunteers were disrupted
only because qualified Negroes showed little inclination to flock to
the Navy standard, and more than half of those who did were rejected.
The Bureau of Naval Personnel[3-36] reported that during the first three
weeks of recruitment only 1,261 Negroes volunteered for general
service, and 58 percent of these had to be rejected for physical and
other reasons. The Chief of Naval Personnel, Rear Adm. Randall Jacobs,
was surprised at the small number of volunteers, a figure far below
the planners' expectations, and his surprise turned to concern in the
next months as the seventeen-year-old volunteer inductees, the primary
target of the armed forces recruiters, continued to choose the Army
over the Navy at a ratio of 10 to 1.[3-37] The Navy's personnel
officials agreed that they had to attract their proper share of
intelligent and able Negroes but seemed unable to isolate the (p. 069)
cause of the disinterest. Admiral Jacobs blamed it on a lack of
publicity; the bureau's historians, perhaps unaware of the Navy's
nineteenth century experience with black seamen, later attributed it
to Negroes' "relative unfamiliarity with the sea or the large inland
waters and their consequent fear of the water."[3-38]
[Footnote 3-36: In May 1942 the name of the Bureau of
Navigation was changed to the Bureau of Naval
Personnel to reflect more accurately the duties of
the organization.]
[Footnote 3-37: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for CO, Great
Lakes NTC, 23 Apr 43. P14-1, BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 3-38: "BuPers Hist," p. 54.]
The fact was, of course, that Negroes shunned the Navy because of its
recent reputation as the exclusive preserve of white America. Only
when the Navy began assigning black recruiting specialists to the
numerous naval districts and using black chief petty officers,
reservists from World War I general service, at recruiting centers to
explain the new opportunities for Negroes in the Navy was the bureau
able to overcome some of the young men's natural reluctance to
volunteer. By 1 February 1943 the Navy had 26,909 Negroes (still 2
percent of the total enlisted): 6,662 in the general service; 2,020 in
the Seabees; and 19,227, over two-thirds of the total, in the
Steward's Branch.[3-39]
[Footnote 3-39: Ibid., p. 9.]
The smooth and efficient distribution of black recruits was
short-lived. Under pressure from the Army, the War Manpower
Commission, and in particular the White House, the Navy was forced
into a sudden and significant expansion of its black recruit program.
The Army had long objected to the Navy's recruitment method, and as
early as February 1942 Secretary Stimson was calling the volunteer
recruitment system a waste of manpower.[3-40] He was even more direct
when he complained to President Roosevelt that through voluntary
recruiting the Navy had avoided acceptance of any considerable number
of Negroes. Consequently, the Army was now faced with the possibility
of having to accept an even greater proportion of Negroes "with
adverse effect on its combat efficiency." The solution to this
problem, as Stimson saw it, was for the Navy to take its recruits from
Selective Service.[3-41] Stimson failed to win his point. The President
accepted the Navy's argument that segregation would be difficult to
maintain on board ship. "If the Navy living conditions on board ship
were similar to the Army living conditions on land," he wrote Stimson,
"the problem would be easier but the circumstances ... being such as
they are, I feel that it is best to continue the present system at
this time."[3-42]
[Footnote 3-40: Memo, SW for SecNav, 16 Feb 42, sub:
Continuing of Voluntary Recruiting by the Navy,
QN/P14-4, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 3-41: Idem for President, 16 Mar 42, copy
in QN/P14-4, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 3-42: Memo, President for SW, 20 Mar 42,
copy in QN/P14-4, GenRecsNav.]
But the battle over racial quotas was only beginning. The question of
the number of Negroes in the Navy was only part of the much broader
considerations and conflicts over manpower policy that finally led the
President, on 5 December 1942, to direct the discontinuance in all
services of volunteer enlistment of men between the ages of eighteen
and thirty-eight.[3-43] Beginning in February 1943 all men in this age
group would be obtained through Selective Service. The order also
placed Selective Service under the War Manpower Commission.
[Footnote 3-43: Executive Order 9279, 5 Dec 42.]
The Navy issued its first call for inductees from Selective (p. 070)
Service in February 1943, adopting the Army's policy of placing its
requisition on a racial basis and specifying the number of whites and
blacks needed for the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. The Bureau
of Naval Personnel planned to continue its old monthly quota of about
1,200 Negroes for general service and 1,500 for the Messman's Branch.
Secretary Knox explained to the President that it would be impossible
for the Navy to take more Negroes without resorting to mixed crews in
the fleet, which, Knox reminded Roosevelt, was a policy "contrary to
the President's program." The President agreed with Knox and told him
so to advise Maj. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey, Director of Selective
Service.[3-44]
[Footnote 3-44: Memo, SecNav for Rear Adm Randall
Jacobs, 5 Feb 43, 54-1-22, GenRecsNav.]
The problem of drafting men by race was a major concern of the Bureau
of Selective Service and its parent organization, the War Manpower
Commission. At a time when a general shortage of manpower was
developing and industry was beginning to feel the effects of the
draft, Negroes still made up only 6 percent of the armed forces, a
little over half their percentage of the population, and almost all of
these were in the Army. The chairman of the War Manpower Commission,
Paul V. McNutt, explained to Secretary Knox as he had to Secretary
Stimson that the practice of placing separate calls for white and
black registrants could not be justified. Not only were there serious
social and legal implications in the existing draft practices, he
pointed out, but the Selective Service Act itself prohibited racial
discrimination. It was necessary, therefore, to draft men by order
number and not by color.[3-45]
[Footnote 3-45: Ltr, Paul McNutt to SecNav, 17 Feb
43, WMC Gen files, NARS.]
On top of this blow, the Navy came under fire from another quarter.
The President was evidently still thinking about Negroes in the Navy.
He wrote to the secretary on 22 February:
I guess you were dreaming or maybe I was dreaming if Randall
Jacobs is right in regard to what I am supposed to have said
about employment of negroes in the Navy. If I did say that such
employment should be stopped, I must have been talking in my
sleep. Most decidedly we must continue the employment of negroes
in the Navy, and I do not think it the least bit necessary to put
mixed crews on the ships. I can find a thousand ways of employing
them without doing so.
The point or the thing is this. There is going to be a great deal
of feeling if the Government in winning this war does not employ
approximately 10% of negroes--their actual percentage to the
total population. The Army is nearly up to this percentage but
the Navy is so far below it that it will be deeply criticized by
anybody who wants to check into the details.
Perhaps a check by you showing exactly where all white enlisted
men are serving and where all colored enlisted men are serving
will show you the great number of places where colored men could
serve, where they are not serving now--shore duty of all kinds,
together with the handling of many kinds of yard craft.
You know the headache we have had about this and the reluctance
of the Navy to have any negroes. You and I have had to veto that
Navy reluctance and I think we have to do it again.[3-46]
[Footnote 3-46: Memo, President for SecNav, 22 Feb
43, FDR Library.]
In an effort to save the quota concept, the Bureau of Naval (p. 071)
Personnel ground out new figures that would raise the current call of
2,700 Negroes per month to 5,000 in April and 7,350 for each of the
remaining months of 1943. Armed with these figures, Secretary Knox was
able to promise Commissioner McNutt that 10 percent of the men
inducted for the rest of 1943 would be Negroes, although separate
calls had to be continued for the time being to permit adjusting the
flow of Negroes to the expansion of facilities.[3-47] In other words,
the secretary promised to accept 71,900 black draftees in 1943; he did
not promise to increase the black strength of the Navy to 10 percent
of the total.
[Footnote 3-47: Ltr, Knox to McNutt, 26 Feb 43, WMC
Gen files.]
Commissioner McNutt understood the distinction and found the Navy's
offer wanting for two reasons. The proposed schedule was inadequate to
absorb the backlog of black registrants who should have been inducted
into the armed services, and it did not raise the percentage of
Negroes in the Navy to a figure comparable to their strength in the
national population. McNutt wanted the Navy to draft at least 125,000
Negroes before January 1944, and he insisted that the practice of
placing separate calls be terminated "as soon as feasible."[3-48] The
Navy finally struck a compromise with the commission, agreeing that up
to 14,150 Negroes a month would be inducted for the rest of 1943 to
reach the 125,000 figure by January 1944.[3-49] The issue of separate
draft calls for Negroes and whites remained in abeyance while the
services made common cause against the commission by insisting that
the orderly absorption of Negroes demanded a regular program that
could only be met by maintaining the quota system.
[Footnote 3-48: Ltr, McNutt to Knox, 23 Mar 43, WMC
Gen files.]
[Footnote 3-49: Ltr, SecNav to Paul McNutt, 13 Apr
43; Ltr, McNutt to Knox, 23 Apr 43; both in WMC Gen
files.]
Total black enlistments never reached 10 percent of the Navy's wartime
enlisted strength but remained nearer the 5 percent mark. But this
figure masks the Navy's racial picture in the later years of the war
after it became dependent on Selective Service. The Navy drafted
150,955 Negroes during the war, 11.1 percent of all the men it
drafted. In 1943 alone the Navy placed calls with Selective Service
for 116,000 black draftees. Although Selective Service was unable to
fill the monthly request completely, the Navy received 77,854 black
draftees (versus 672,437 whites) that year, a 240 percent rise over
the 1942 black enlistment rate.[3-50]
[Footnote 3-50: Selective Service System, _Special
Groups_, vol. II, pp. 198-201. See also Memos,
Director of Planning and Control, BuPers, for
Chief, BuPers, 25 Feb 43, sub: Increase in Colored
Personnel for the Navy; and 1 Apr 43, sub; Increase
in Negro Personnel in Navy. Both in P-14,
BuPersRecs.]
Although it wrestled for several months with the problem of
distributing the increased number of black draftees, the Bureau of
Naval Personnel could invent nothing new. The Navy, Knox told
President Roosevelt, would continue to segregate Negroes and restrict
their service to certain occupations. Its increased black strength
would be absorbed in twenty-seven new black Seabee battalions, in
which Negroes would serve overseas as stevedores; in black crews for
harbor craft and local defense forces; and in billets for cooks and
port hands. The rest would be sent to shore stations for guard (p. 072)
and miscellaneous duties in concentrations up to about 50 percent of
the total station strength. The President approved the Navy's
proposals, and the distribution of Negroes followed these lines.[3-51]
[Footnote 3-51: Memos, SecNav for President, 25 Feb
and 14 Apr 43, quoted in "BuPers Hist," pp. 13-14;
Memo, Actg Chief, NavPers, for SecNav, 24 Feb 43,
sub: Employment of Colored Personnel in the Navy,
Pers 10, GenRecsNav. For Roosevelt's approval see
"BuPers Hist," p. 14.]
To smooth the racial adjustments implicit in these plans, the Bureau
of Naval Personnel developed two operating rules: Negroes would be
assigned only where need existed, and, whenever possible, those from
northern communities would not be used in the south. These rules
caused some peculiar adjustments in administration. Negroes were not
assigned to naval districts for distribution according to the
discretion of the commander, as were white recruits. Rather, after
conferring with local commanders, the bureau decided on the number of
Negroes to be included in station complements and the types of jobs
they would fill. It then assigned the men to duty accordingly, and the
districts were instructed not to change the orders without consulting
the bureau. Subsequently the bureau reinforced this rule by enjoining
the commanders to use Negroes in the ratings for which they had been
trained and by sending bureau representatives to the various commands
to check on compliance.
Some planners feared that the concentration of Negroes at shore
stations might prove detrimental to efficiency and morale. Proposals
were circulated in the Bureau of Naval Personnel for the inclusion of
Negroes in small numbers in the crews of large combat ships--for
example, they might be used as firemen and ordinary seamen on the new
aircraft carriers--but Admiral Jacobs rejected the recommendations.[3-52]
The Navy was not yet ready to try integration, it seemed, even though
racial disturbances were becoming a distinct possibility in 1943. For
as Negroes became a larger part of the Navy, they also became a
greater source of tension. The reasons for the tension were readily
apparent. Negroes were restricted for the most part to shore duty,
concentrated in large groups and assigned to jobs with little prestige
and few chances of promotion. They were excluded from the WAVES (Women
Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), the Nurse Corps, and the
commissioned ranks. And they were rigidly segregated.
[Footnote 3-52: "BuPersHist," p. 41.]
Although the Navy boasted that Negroes served in every rating and at
every task, in fact almost all were used in a limited range of
occupations. Denied general service assignments on warships, trained
Negroes were restricted to the relatively few billets open in the
harbor defense, district, and small craft service. Although assigning
Negroes to these duties met the President's request for variety of
opportunity, the small craft could employ only 7,700 men at most, a
minuscule part of the Navy's black strength.
Most Negroes performed humbler duties. By mid-1944 over 38,000 black
sailors were serving as mess stewards, cooks, and bakers. These jobs
remained in the Negro's eyes a symbol of his second-class citizenship
in the naval establishment. Under pressure to provide more (p. 073)
stewards to serve the officers whose number multiplied in the early
months of the war, recruiters had netted all the men they could for
that separate duty. Often recruiters took in many as stewards who were
equipped by education and training for better jobs, and when these men
were immediately put into uniforms and trained on the job at local
naval stations the result was often dismaying. The Navy thus received
poor service as well as unwelcome publicity for maintaining a
segregated servants' branch. In an effort to standardize the training
of messmen, the Bureau of Naval Personnel established a stewards
school in the spring of 1943 at Norfolk and later one at Bainbridge,
Maryland. The change in training did little to improve the standards
of the service and much to intensify the feeling of isolation among
many stewards.
[Illustration: LABORERS AT NAVAL AMMUNITION DEPOT. _Sailors passing
5-inch canisters, St. Julien's Creek, Virginia._]
Another 12,000 Negroes served as artisans and laborers at overseas
bases. Over 7,000 of these were Seabees, who, with the exception of
two regular construction battalions that served with distinction in
the Pacific, were relegated to "special" battalions stevedoring cargo
and supplies. The rest were laborers in base companies assigned to the
South Pacific area. These units were commanded by white officers, and
almost all the petty officers were white.
Approximately half the Negroes in the Navy were detailed to shore
billets within the continental United States. Most worked as laborers
at ammunition or supply depots, at air stations, and at section (p. 074)
bases,[3-53] concentrated in large all-black groups and sometimes
commanded by incompetent white officers.[3-54]
[Footnote 3-53: Naval districts organized section
bases during the war with responsibility, among
other things, for guarding beaches, harbors, and
installations and maintaining equipment.]
[Footnote 3-54: See CNO ALNAV, 7 Aug 44, quoted in
Nelson, "Integration of the Negro," p. 46.]
[Illustration: SEABEES IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC _righting an undermined
water tank_.]
While some billets existed in practically every important rating for
graduates of the segregated specialty schools, these jobs were so few
that black specialists were often assigned instead to unskilled
laboring jobs.[3-55] Some of these men were among the best educated
Negroes in the Navy, natural leaders capable of articulating their
dissatisfaction. They resented being barred from the fighting, and
their resentment, spreading through the thousands of Negroes in the
shore establishment, was a prime cause of racial tension.
[Footnote 3-55: Memo, Actg Chief, NavPers, for Cmdts,
AlNav Districts et al., 26 Sep 44, sub: Enlisted
Personnel--Utilization of in Field for which
Specifically Trained, Pers 16-3/MM, BuPersRecs.]
No black women had been admitted to the Navy. Race was not mentioned
in the legislation establishing the WAVES in 1942, but neither was
exclusion on account of color expressly forbidden. The WAVES and the
Women's Reserve of both the Coast Guard (SPARS) and the Marine Corps
therefore celebrated their second birthday exclusively white. The Navy
Nurse Corps was also totally white. In answer to protests passed to
the service through Eleanor Roosevelt, the Navy admitted in November
1943 that it had a shortage of 500 nurses, but since another (p. 075)
500 white nurses were under indoctrination and training, the Bureau of
Medicine and Surgery explained, "the question relative to the
necessity for accepting colored personnel in this category is not
apparent."[3-56]
[Footnote 3-56: Ltr, Eleanor Roosevelt to SecNav, 20
Nov 43; Ltr, SecNav to Mrs. Roosevelt, 27 Nov 43;
both in BUMED-S-EC, GenRecsNav. Well known for her
interest in the cause of racial justice, the
President's wife received many complaints during
the war concerning discrimination in the armed
forces. Mrs. Roosevelt often passed such protests
along to the service secretaries for action.
Although there is no doubt where Mrs. Roosevelt's
sympathies lay in these matters, her influence was
slight on the policies and practices of the Army or
Navy. Her influence on the President's thinking is,
of course, another matter. See White, _A Man Called
White_, pp. 168-69, 190.]
Another major cause of unrest among black seamen was the matter of
rank and promotion. With the exception of the Coast Guard, the naval
establishment had no black officers in 1943, and none were
contemplated. Nor was there much opportunity for advancement in the
ranks. Barred from service in the fleet, the nonrated seamen faced
strong competition for the limited number of petty officer positions
in the shore establishment. In consequence, morale throughout the
ranks deteriorated.
The constant black complaint, and the root of the Navy's racial
problem, was segregation. It was especially hard on young black
recruits who had never experienced legal segregation in civilian life
and on the "talented tenth," the educated Negroes, who were quickly
frustrated by a policy that decided opportunity and assignment on the
basis of color. They particularly resented segregation in housing,
messing, and recreation. Here segregation off the job, officially
sanctioned, made manifest by signs distinguishing facilities for white
and black, and enforced by military as well as civilian police, was a
daily reminder for the Negro of the Navy's discrimination.
Such discrimination created tension in the ranks that periodically
released itself in racial disorder. The first sign of serious unrest
occurred in June 1943 when over half the 640 Negroes of the Naval
Ammunition Depot at St. Julien's Creek, Virginia, rioted against
alleged discrimination in segregated seating for a radio show. In
July, 744 Negroes of the 80th Construction Battalion staged a protest
over segregation on a transport in the Caribbean. Yet, naval
investigators cited leadership problems as a major factor in these and
subsequent incidents, and at least one commanding officer was relieved
as a consequence.[3-57]
[Footnote 3-57: For a discussion of these racial
disturbances, see "BuPers Hist," pp. 75-80.]
_Progressive Experiments_
Since the inception of black enlistment there had been those in the
Bureau of Naval Personnel who argued for the establishment of a group
to coordinate plans and policies on the training and use of black
sailors. Various proposals were considered, but only in the wake of
the racial disturbances of 1943 did the bureau set up a Special
Programs Unit in its Planning and Control Activity to oversee the
whole black enlistment program. In the end the size of the unit
governed the scope of its program. Originally the unit was to monitor
all transactions involving Negroes in the bureau's operating divisions,
thus relieving the Enlisted Division of the critical task of (p. 076)
distributing billets for Negroes. It was also supposed to advise local
commanders on race problems and interpret departmental policies for
them. When finally established in August 1943, the unit consisted of
only three officers, a size which considerably limited its activities.
Still, the unit worked diligently to improve the lot of the black
sailor, and eventually from this office would emerge the plans that
brought about the integration of the Navy.
[Illustration: COMMANDER SARGENT.]
The Special Programs Unit's patron saint and the guiding spirit of the
Navy's liberalizing race program was Lt. Comdr. Christopher S.
Sargent. He never served in the unit himself, but helped find the two
lieutenant commanders, Donald O. VanNess and Charles E. Dillon, who
worked under Capt. Thomas F. Darden in the Plans and Operations
Section of the Bureau of Naval Personnel and acted as liaison between
the Special Programs Unit and its civilian superiors. A legendary
figure in the bureau, the 31-year-old Sargent arrived as a lieutenant,
junior grade, from Dean Acheson's law firm, but his rank and official
position were no measure of his influence in the Navy Department. By
birth and training he was used to moving in the highest circles of
American society and government, and he had wide-ranging interests and
duties in the Navy. Described by a superior as "a philosopher who
could not tolerate segregation,"[3-58] Sargent waged something of a
moral crusade to integrate the Navy. He was convinced that a social
change impossible in peacetime was practical in war. Not only would
integration build a more efficient Navy, it might also lead the way to
changes in American society that would bridge the gap between the
races.[3-59] In effect, Sargent sought to force the generally
conservative Bureau of Naval Personnel into making rapid and sweeping
changes in the Navy's racial policy.
[Footnote 3-58: Interv, Lee Nichols with Rear Adm. R.
H. Hillenkoetter, 1953, in Nichols Collection,
CMH.]
[Footnote 3-59: Nichols, _Breakthrough on the Color
Front_, pp. 54-59. Nichols supports his
affectionate portrait of Sargent, who died shortly
after the war, with interviews of many wartime
officials who worked in the Bureau of Naval
Personnel with Sargent. See Nichols Collection,
CMH. See also _Christopher Smith Sargent,
1911-1946_, a privately printed memorial prepared
by the Sargent family in 1947, copy in CMH.]
During its first months of existence the Special Programs Unit tried
to quiet racial unrest by a rigorous application of the separate but
equal principle. It began attacking the concentration of Negroes in
large segregated groups in the naval districts by creating more overseas
billets. Toward the end of 1943, Negroes were being assigned in (p. 077)
greater numbers to duty in the Pacific at shore establishments and
aboard small defense, district, and yard craft. The Bureau of Naval
Personnel also created new specialties for Negroes in the general
service. One important addition was the creation of black shore patrol
units for which a school was started at Great Lakes. The Special
Programs Unit established a remedial training center for illiterate
draftees at Camp Robert Smalls, drawing the faculty from black
servicemen who had been educators in civilian life. The twelve-week
course gave the students the equivalent of a fifth grade education in
addition to regular recruit training. Approximately 15,000 Negroes
took this training before the school was consolidated with a similar
organization for whites at Bainbridge, Maryland, in the last months of
the war.[3-60]
[Footnote 3-60: For further discussion, see Nelson,
"Integration of the Negro," pp. 124-46.]
At the other end of the spectrum, the Special Programs Unit worked for
the efficient use of black Class A school graduates by renewing the
attack on improper assignments. The bureau had long held that the
proper assignment of black specialists was of fundamental importance
to morale and efficiency, and in July 1943 it had ordered that all men
must be used in the ratings and for the types of work for which they
had been trained.[3-61] But the unit discovered considerable deviation
from this policy in some districts, especially in the south, where
there was a tendency to regard Negroes as an extra labor source above
the regular military complement. In December 1943 the Special Programs
Unit got the bureau to rule in the name of manpower efficiency that,
with the exception of special units in the supply departments at South
Boston and Norfolk, no black sailor could be assigned to such civilian
jobs as maintenance work and stevedoring in the continental United
States.[3-62]
[Footnote 3-61: BuPers Ltr, Pers 106-MBR, 12 Jul 43.]
[Footnote 3-62: "BuPers Hist," p. 53.]
These reforms were welcome, but they ignored the basic dilemma: the
only way to abolish concentrations of shore-based Negroes was to open
up positions for them in the fleet. Though many black sailors were
best suited for unskilled or semiskilled billets, a significant number
had technical skills that could be properly used only if these men
were assigned to the fleet. To relieve the racial tension and to end
the waste of skilled manpower engendered by the misuse of these men,
the Special Programs Unit pressed for a chance to test black
seamanship. Admiral King agreed, and in early 1944 the Bureau of Naval
Personnel assigned 196 black enlisted men and 44 white officers and
petty officers to the USS _Mason_, a newly commissioned destroyer
escort, with the understanding that all enlisted billets would be
filled by Negroes as soon as those qualified to fill them had been
trained. It also assigned 53 black rated seamen and 14 white officers
and noncommissioned officers to a patrol craft, the PC 1264.[3-63] Both
ships eventually replaced their white petty officers and some of their
officers with Negroes. Among the latter was Ens. Samuel Gravely, who
was to become the Navy's first black admiral.
[Footnote 3-63: Memo, Chief, BuPers, for CINCUSFLEET,
1 Dec 43, sub: Negro Personnel, P16/MM, BuPersRecs.
The latter experiment has been chronicled by its
commanding officer, Eric Purdon, in _Black Company:
The Story of Subchaser 1264_ (Washington: Luce,
1972).]
[Illustration: USS MASON. _Sailors look over their new ship._]
Although both ships continued to operate with black crews well (p. 078)
into 1945, the _Mason_ on escort duty in the Atlantic, only four
other segregated patrol craft were added to the fleet during the
war.[3-64] The _Mason_ passed its shakedown cruise test, but the Bureau
of Naval Personnel was not satisfied with the crew. The black petty
officers had proved competent in their ratings and interested in their
work, but bureau observers agreed that the rated men in general were
unable to maintain discipline. The nonrated men tended to lack respect
for the petty officers, who showed some disinclination to put their
men on report. The Special Programs Unit admitted the truth of these
charges but argued that the experiment only proved what the Navy
already knew: black sailors did not respond well when assigned to
all-black organizations under white officers.[3-65] On the other hand,
the experiment demonstrated that the Navy possessed a reservoir of
able seamen who were not being efficiently employed, and--an
unexpected dividend from the presence of white noncommissioned
officers--that integration worked on board ship. The white petty
officers messed, worked, and slept with their men in the close contact
inevitable aboard small ships, with no sign of racial friction.
[Footnote 3-64: Memo, CNO for Cmdt, First and Fifth
Naval Districts, 10 May 44, sub: Assignment of
Negro Personnel, P-16-3/MM, BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 3-65: For an assessment of the performance
of the _Mason's_ crew. see "BuPers Hist," pp. 42-43
and 92.]
Opportunity for advancement was as important to morale as (p. 079)
assignment according to training and skill, and the Special Programs
Unit encouraged the promotion of Negroes according to their ability
and in proportion to their number. Although in July 1943 the Bureau of
Naval Personnel had warned commanders that it would continue to order
white enlisted men to sea with the expectation that they would be
replaced in shore jobs by Negroes,[3-66] the Special Programs Unit
discovered that rating and promotion of Negroes was still slow. At the
unit's urging, the bureau advised all naval districts that it expected
Negroes to be rated upward "as rapidly as practicable" and asked them
to report on their rating of Negroes.[3-67] It also authorized stations
to retain white petty officers for up to two weeks to break in their
black replacements, but warned that this privilege must not be abused.
The bureau further directed that all qualified general service
candidates be advanced to ratings for which they were eligible
regardless of whether their units were authorized enough spaces to
take care of them. This last directive did little for black promotions
at first because many local commanders ruled that no Negroes could be
"qualified" since none were allowed to perform sea duties. In January
1944 the bureau had to clarify the order to make sure that Negroes
were given the opportunity to advance.[3-68]
[Footnote 3-66: BuPers Ltr, P16-3, 12 Jul 43, sub:
The Expanded Use of Negroes, BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 3-67: Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to Cmdts, All
Naval Districts, 19 Aug 43, sub: Advancement in
Rating re: Negro Personnel, P17-2/MM, BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 3-68: BuPers Cir Ltr 6-44, 12 Jan 44.]
Despite these evidences of command concern, black promotions continued
to lag in the Navy. Again at the Special Programs Unit's urging, the
Bureau of Naval Personnel began to limit the number of rated men
turned out by the black training schools so that more nonrated men
already on the job might have a better chance to win ratings. The
bureau instituted a specialist leadership course for rated Negroes at
Great Lakes and recommended in January 1944 that two Negroes so
trained be included in each base company sent out of the country. It
also selected twelve Negroes with backgrounds in education and public
relations and assigned them to recruiting duty around the country. The
bureau expanded the black petty officer program because it was
convinced by the end of 1943 that the presence of more black leaders,
particularly in the large base companies, would improve discipline and
raise morale. It was but a short step from this conviction to a
realization that black commissioned officers were needed.
Despite its 100,000 enlisted Negroes, the absence of black
commissioned officers in the fall of 1943 forced the Navy to answer an
increasing number of queries from civil rights organizations and
Congress.[3-69] Several times during 1942 suggestions were made within
the Bureau of Naval Personnel that the instructors at the Hampton
specialist school and seventy-five other Negroes be commissioned (p. 080)
for service with the large black units, but nothing happened.
Secretary Knox himself thought that the Navy would have to develop a
considerable body of black sailors before it could even think about
commissioning black officers.[3-70] But the secretary failed to
appreciate the effect of the sheer number of black draftees that
overwhelmed the service in the spring of 1943, and he reckoned without
the persuasive arguments of his special assistant, Adlai
Stevenson.[3-71]
[Footnote 3-69: News that the Navy had inadvertently
commissioned a black student at Harvard University
in the spring of 1942 produced the following
reaction in one personnel office: "LtCmdr B ...
[Special Activities Branch, BuPers] says this is
true due to a slip by the officer who signed up
medical students at Harvard. Cmdr. B. says this boy
has a year to go in medical school and hopes they
can get rid of him some how by then. He earnestly
asks us to be judicious in handling this matter and
prefers that nothing be said about it." Quoted in a
Note, H. M. Harvey to M Mc (ca. 20 Jun 42), copy on
file in the Dennis D. Nelson Collection, San Diego,
California.]
[Footnote 3-70: Ltr, SecNav to Sen. David I. Walsh
(Massachusetts), 21 May 42, 51-1-26; see also idem
to Sen. William H. Smathers (Florida), 7 Feb 42,
Nav-32-C. Both in GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 3-71: Interv, Lee Nichols with Lester
Granger, 1953, in Nichols Collection, CMH.]
Secretary Knox often referred to Adlai Stevenson as "my New Dealer,"
and, as the expression suggested, the Illinois lawyer was in an
excellent position to influence the secretary's thinking.[3-72] Although
not so forceful an advocate as Christopher Sargent, Stevenson lent his
considerable intelligence and charm to the support of those in the
department who sought equal opportunity for the Negro. He was an
invaluable and influential ally for the Special Programs Unit.
Stevenson knew Knox well and understood how to approach him. He was
particularly effective in getting Negroes commissioned. In September
1943 he pointed out that, with the induction of 12,000 Negroes a
month, the demand for black officers would be mounting in the black
community and in the government as well. The Navy could not and should
not, he warned, postpone much longer the creation of some black
officers. Suspicion of discrimination was one reason the Navy was
failing to get the best qualified Negroes, and Stevenson believed it
wise to act quickly. He recommended that the Navy commission ten or
twelve Negroes from among "top notch civilians just as we procure
white officers" and a few from the ranks. The commissioning should be
treated as a matter of course without any special publicity. The news,
he added wryly, would get out soon enough.[3-73]
[Footnote 3-72: Kenneth S. Davis, _The Politics of
Honor: A Biography of Adlai E. Stevenson_ (New
York: Putnam, 1957), p. 146; Ltr, A. E. Stevenson
to Dennis D. Nelson, 10 Feb 48, Nelson Collection,
San Diego, California.]
[Footnote 3-73: Memo, Stevenson for the Secretary
[Knox], 29 Sep 43, 54-1-50, GenRecsNav.]
There were in fact three avenues to a Navy commission: the Naval
Academy, the V-12 program, and direct commission from civilian life or
the enlisted ranks. But Annapolis had no Negroes enrolled at the time
Stevenson spoke, and only a dozen Negroes were enrolled in V-12
programs at integrated civilian colleges throughout the country.[3-74]
The lack of black students in the V-12 program could be attributed in
part to the belief of many black trainees that the program barred
Negroes. Actually, it never had, and in December 1943 the bureau
publicized this fact. It issued a circular letter emphasizing to all
commanders that enlisted men were entitled to consideration for transfer
to the V-12 program regardless of race.[3-75] Despite this effort (p. 081)
it was soon apparent that the program would produce only a few black
officers, and the Bureau of Naval Personnel, at the urging of its
Special Programs Unit, agreed to follow Stevenson's suggestion and
concentrate on the direct commissioning of Negroes. Unlike Stevenson
the bureau preferred to obtain most of the men from the enlisted
ranks, and only in the case of certain specially trained men did the
Navy commission civilians.
[Footnote 3-74: The V-12 program was designed to
prepare large numbers of educated men for the
Navy's Reserve Midshipmen schools and to increase
the war-depleted student bodies of many colleges.
The Navy signed on eligible students as apprentice
seamen and paid their academic expenses. Eventually
the V-12 program produced some 80,000 officers for
the wartime Navy. For an account of the experiences
of a black recruit in the V-12 program, see Carl T.
Rowan, "Those Navy Boys Changed My Life," _Reader's
Digest_ 72 (January 1958):55-58. Rowan, the
celebrated columnist and onetime Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for Public Affairs, was one of
the first Negroes to complete the V-12 program.
Another was Samuel Gravely.]
[Footnote 3-75: BuPers Cir Ltr 269-43, 15 Dec 43.]
[Illustration: FIRST BLACK OFFICERS IN THE NAVY. _From left to right_:
(_top row_) _John W. Reagan_, _Jesse W. Arbor_, _Dalton L. Baugh_;
(_second row_) _Graham E. Martin_, _W. O. Charles B. Lear_, _Frank C.
Sublett_; (_third row_) _Phillip S. Barnes_, _George Cooper_,
_Reginald Goodwin_; (_bottom row_) _James E. Hare_, _Samuel E.
Barnes_, _W. Sylvester White_, _Dennis D. Nelson II_.]
The Bureau of Naval Personnel concluded that, since many units were
substantially or wholly manned by Negroes, black officers could be
used without undue difficulty, and when Secretary Knox, prodded by
Stevenson, turned to the bureau, it recommended that the Navy (p. 082)
commission twelve line and ten staff officers from a selected list of
enlisted men.[3-76] Admiral King endorsed the bureau's recommendation
and on 15 December 1943 Knox approved it, although he conditioned his
approval by saying: "After you have commissioned the twenty-two
officers you suggest, I think this matter should again be reviewed
before any additional colored officers are commissioned."[3-77]
[Footnote 3-76: Memo, SecNav for Chief, NavPers, 20
Nov 43, 54-1-50; Memo, Chief, NavPers, for SecNav,
2 Dec 43, sub: Negro Officers. Both in GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 3-77: Memo, SecNav for Rear Adm Jacobs, 15
Dec 43, quoted in "BuPers Hist," p. 33.]
On 1 January 1944 the first sixteen black officer candidates, selected
from among qualified enlisted applicants, entered Great Lakes for
segregated training. All sixteen survived the course, but only twelve
were commissioned. In the last week of the course, three candidates
were returned to the ranks, not because they had failed but because
the Bureau of Naval Personnel had suddenly decided to limit the number
of black officers in this first group to twelve. The twelve entered
the U.S. Naval Reserve as line officers on 17 March. A thirteenth man,
the only candidate who lacked a college degree, was made a warrant
officer because of his outstanding work in the course.
Two of the twelve new ensigns were assigned to the faculty at Hampton
training school, four others to yard and harbor craft duty, and the
rest to training duty at Great Lakes. All carried the label "Deck
Officers Limited--only," a designation usually reserved for officers
whose physical or educational deficiencies kept them from performing
all the duties of a line officer. The Bureau of Naval Personnel never
explained why the men were placed in this category, but it was clear
that none of them lacked the physical requirements of a line officer
and all had had business or professional careers in civil life.
Operating duplicate training facilities for officer candidates was
costly, and the bureau decided shortly after the first group of black
candidates was trained that future candidates of both races would be
trained together. By early summer ten more Negroes, this time
civilians with special professional qualifications, had been trained
with whites and were commissioned as staff officers in the Medical,
Dental, Chaplain, Civil Engineer, and Supply Corps. These twenty-two
men were the first of some sixty Negroes to be commissioned during the
war.
Since only a handful of the Negroes in the Navy were officers, the
preponderance of the race problems concerned relations between black
enlisted men and their white officers. The problem of selecting the
proper officers to command black sailors was a formidable one never
satisfactorily solved during the war. As in the Army, most of the
white officers routinely selected for such assignments were
southerners, chosen by the Bureau of Naval Personnel for their assumed
"understanding" of Negroes rather than for their general competency.
The Special Programs Unit tried to work with these officers, assembling
them for conferences to discuss the best techniques and procedures for
dealing with groups of black subordinates. Members of the unit sought
to disabuse the officers of preconceived biases, constantly reminding
them that "our prejudices must be subordinated to our traditional (p. 083)
unfailing obedience to orders."[3-78] Although there was ample proof
that many Negroes actively resented the paternalism exhibited by many
of even the best of these officers, this fact was slow to filter
through the naval establishment. It was not until January 1944 that an
officer who had compiled an enviable record in training Seabee units
described how his organization had come to see the light:
We in the Seabees no longer follow the precept that southern
officers exclusively should be selected for colored battalions. A
man may be from the north, south, east or west. If his attitude
is to do the best possible job he knows how, regardless of what
the color of his personnel is, that is the man we want as an
officer for our colored Seabees. We have learned to steer clear
of the "I'm from the South--I know how to handle 'em variety." It
follows with reference to white personnel, that deeply accented
southern whites are not generally suited for Negro
battalions.[3-79]
[Footnote 3-78: Quoted in Record of "Conference With
Regard to Negro Personnel," held at Hq, Fifth Naval
District, 26 Oct 43, Incl to Ltr, Chief, NavPers,
to All Sea Frontier Cmds et al., 5 Jan 44, sub:
Negro Personnel--Confidential Report of Conference
With Regard to the Handling of, Pers 1013, BuPers
Recs. The grotesque racial attitudes of some
commanders, as well as the thoughtful questions and
difficult experiences of others, were fully aired
at this conference.]
[Footnote 3-79: Ibid.]
Further complicating the task of selecting suitable officers for black
units was the fact that when the Bureau of Naval Personnel asked unit
commanders to recommend men for such duty many commanders used the
occasion to rid themselves of their least desirable officers. The
Special Programs Unit then tried to develop its own source of officers
for black units. It discovered a fine reservoir of talent among the
white noncommissioned officers who ran the physical training and drill
courses at Great Lakes. These were excellent instructors, mature and
experienced in dealing with people. In January 1944 arrangements were
made to commission them and to assign them to black units.
Improvement in the quality of officers in black units was especially
important because the attitude of local commanders was directly
related to the degree of segregation in living quarters and
recreational facilities, and such segregation was the most common
source of racial tension. Although the Navy's practice of segregating
units clearly invited separate living and recreational facilities, the
rules were unwritten, and local commanders had been left to decide the
extent to which segregation was necessary. Thus practices varied
greatly and policy depended ultimately on the local commanders. Rather
than attack racial practices at particular bases, the unit decided to
concentrate on the officers. It explained to these leaders the Navy's
policy of equal treatment and opportunity, a concept basically
incompatible with many of their practices.
This conclusion was embodied in a pamphlet entitled _Guide to the
Command of Negro Naval Personnel_ and published by the Bureau of Naval
Personnel in February 1944.[3-80] The Special Programs Unit had to
overcome much opposition within the bureau to get the pamphlet
published. Some thought the subject of racial tension was best
ignored; others objected to the "sociological" content of the work,
considering this approach outside the Navy's province. The unit (p. 084)
argued that racial tension in the Navy was a serious problem that
could not be ignored, and since human relations affected the Navy's
mission the Navy should deal with social matters objectively and
frankly.[3-81]
[Footnote 3-80: NavPers 15092, 12 Feb 44.]
[Footnote 3-81: "BuPers Hist," pt. II, pp. 2-3.]
Scholarly and objective, the pamphlet was an important document in the
history of race relations in the Navy. In language similar to that
used in the War Department's pamphlet on race, the Bureau of Naval
Personnel stated officially for the first time that discrimination
flowed of necessity out of the doctrine of segregation:
The idea of compulsory racial segregation is disliked by almost
all Negroes, and literally hated by many. This antagonism is in
part a result of the fact that as a principle it embodies a
doctrine of racial inferiority. It is also a result of the lesson
taught the Negro by experience that in spite of the legal formula
of "separate but equal" facilities, the facilities open to him
under segregation are in fact usually inferior as to location or
quality to those available to others.[3-82]
[Footnote 3-82: NavPers 15092, 12 Feb 44, p. 10.]
The guide also foreshadowed the end of the old order of things: "The
Navy accepts no theories of racial differences in inborn ability, but
expects that every man wearing its uniform be trained and used in
accordance with his maximum individual capacity determined on the
basis of individual performance."[3-83]
[Footnote 3-83: Ibid., p. 1.]
_Forrestal Takes the Helm_
The Navy got a leader sympathetic to the proposition of equal
treatment and opportunity for Negroes, and possessed of the
bureaucratic skills to achieve reforms, when President Roosevelt
appointed Under Secretary James Forrestal to replace Frank Knox, who
died suddenly on 28 April 1944. During the next five years Forrestal,
a brilliant, complex product of Wall Street, would assume more and
more responsibility for directing the integration effort in the
defense establishment. Although no racial crusader, Forrestal had been
for many years a member of the National Urban League, itself a pillar
of the civil rights establishment. He saw the problem of employing
Negroes as one of efficiency and simple fair play, and as the months
went by he assumed an active role in experimenting with changes in the
Navy's policy.[3-84]
[Footnote 3-84: See Columbia University Oral Hist
Interv with Granger; USAF Oral History Program,
Interview with James C. Evans, 24 Apr 73.]
His first experiment was with sea duty for Negroes. After the
experience of the _Mason_ and the other segregated ships which
actually proved very little, sentiment for a partial integration of
the fleet continued to grow in the Bureau of Naval Personnel. As early
as April 1943, officers in the Planning and Control Activity
recommended that Negroes be included in small numbers in the crews of
the larger combat ships. Admiral Jacobs, however, was convinced that
"you couldn't dump 200 colored boys on a crew in battle,"[3-85] so this
and similar proposals later in the year never survived passage through
the bureau.
[Footnote 3-85: Interv, Lee Nichols with Vice Adm
Randall Jacobs, 29 Mar 53, in Nichols Collection,
CMH.]
Forrestal accepted Jacob's argument that as long as the war (p. 085)
continued any move toward integrating the fighting ships was
impractical. At the same time, he agreed with the Special Programs
Unit that large concentrations of Negroes in shore duties lowered
efficiency and morale. Forrestal compromised by ordering the bureau to
prepare as an experiment a plan for the integration of some fleet
auxiliary ships. On 20 May 1944 he outlined the problem for the
President:
"From a morale standpoint, the Negroes resent the fact that they are
not assigned to general service billets at sea, and white personnel
resent the fact that Negroes have been given less hazardous
assignments." He explained that at first Negroes would be used only on
the large auxiliaries, and their number would be limited to not more
than 10 percent of the ship's complement. If this step proved
workable, he planned to use Negroes in small numbers on other types of
ships "as necessity indicates." The White House answered: "OK,
FDR."[3-86]
[Footnote 3-86: Memo, SecNav for President, 20 May
44, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]
Secretary Forrestal also won the support of the Chief of Naval
Operations for the move, but Admiral King still considered integration
in the fleet experimental and was determined to keep strict control
until the results were known. On 9 August 1944 King informed the
commanding officers of twenty-five large fleet auxiliaries that
Negroes would be assigned to them in the near future. As Forrestal had
suggested, King set the maximum number of Negroes at 10 percent of the
ship's general service. Of this number, 15 percent would be
third-class petty officers from shore activities, selected as far as
possible from volunteers and, in any case, from those who had served
the longest periods of shore duty. Of the remainder, 43 percent would
be from Class A schools and 42 percent from recruit training. The
basic 10 percent figure proved to be a theoretical maximum; no ship
received that many Negroes.
Admiral King insisted that equal treatment in matters of training,
promotion, and duty assignments must be accorded all hands, but he
left the matter of berthing to the commanding officers, noting that
experience had proved that in the shore establishment, when the
percentage of blacks to whites was small, the two groups could be
successfully mingled in the same compartments. He also pointed out
that a thorough indoctrination of white sailors before the arrival of
the Negroes had been useful in preventing racial friction ashore.[3-87]
[Footnote 3-87: Ltr, CNO to CO, USS _Antaeus_ et al.,
9 Aug 44, sub: Negro Enlisted Personnel--Assignment
of to Ships of the Fleet, P16-3/MM, OpNavArchives.]
King asked all commanders concerned in the experiment to report their
experiences.[3-88] Their judgment: integration in the auxiliary fleet
worked. As one typical report related after several months of
integrated duty:
The crew was carefully indoctrinated in the fact that Negro
personnel should not be subjected to discrimination of any sort
and should be treated in the same manner as other members of the
crew.
The Negro personnel when they came aboard were berthed
indiscriminately throughout the crew's compartments in the same
manner as if they had been white. It is felt that the
assimilation of the general service Negro personnel aboard this
ship has been remarkably successful. To the present date (p. 086)
there has been no report of any difficulty which could be
laid to their color. It is felt that this is due in part, at
least, to the high calibre of Negroes assigned to this ship.[3-89]
[Footnote 3-88: Idem to Cmdr, _Antaeus_ et al., 9 Jan
45, P16-3, OpNavArchives.]
[Footnote 3-89: Ltr, CO, USS _Antaeus_, to Chief,
NavPers, 16 Jan 45, sub: Negro Enlisted
Personnel--Assignment of to Ships of the Fleet,
Ag67/P16-3/MM; see also Memo, Cmdr D. Armstrong for
ComSerForPac, 29 Dec 44, sub: Negro Enlisted
Personnel (General Service Ratings) Assignment of
to Ships of the Fleet; Ltr, ComSerForPac to Chief,
NavPers, 2 Jan 45, with CINCPac&POA end thereto,
same sub; Ltrs to Chief, NavPers, from CO, USS
_Laramie_, 17 Jan 45, USS _Mattole_, 19 Jan 45,
with ComSerForLant end, and USS _Ariel_, 1 Feb 45.
All Incl to Memo, Chief, NavPers, for CINCUSFLEET,
6 Mar 45, sub: Negro Personnel--Expanded Use of,
Pers 2119 FB. All in OpNavArchives.]
The comments of his commanders convinced King that the auxiliary
vessels in the fleet could be integrated without incident. He approved
a plan submitted by the Chief of Naval Personnel on 6 March 1945 for
the gradual assignment of Negroes to all auxiliary vessels, again in
numbers not to exceed 10 percent of the general service billets in any
ship's complement.[3-90] A month later Negroes were being so assigned in
an administratively routine manner.[3-91] The Bureau of Naval Personnel
then began assigning black officers to sea duty on the integrated
vessels. The first one went to the _Mason_ in March, and in succeeding
months others were sent in a routine manner to auxiliary vessels
throughout the fleet.[3-92] These assignments were not always carried
out according to the bureau's formula. The commander of the USS
_Chemung_, for example, told a young black ensign:
I'm a Navy Man, and we're in a war. To me, it's that stripe that
counts--and the training and leadership that it is supposed to
symbolize. That's why I never called a meeting of the crew to
prepare them, to explain their obligation to respect you, or
anything like that. I didn't want anyone to think you were
different from any other officer coming aboard.[3-93]
[Footnote 3-90: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for
CINCUSFLEET, 6 Mar 45, sub: Negro
Personnel--Expanded Use of, with 1st Ind, from
Fleet Adm, USN, for Vice CNO, 28 Mar 45, same sub,
FFI/P16-3/MM, OpNavArchives.]
[Footnote 3-91: BuPers Cir Ltr 105-45, 13 Apr 45,
sub: Negro General-Service Personnel, Assignment of
to Auxiliary Vessels of the Fleet.]
[Footnote 3-92: Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to CO, USS
_Mason_, 16 Mar 45, sub: Negro Officer--Assignment
of, Pers 2119-FB; see also idem to CO, USS
_Kaweah_, 16 Jul 45, sub: Negro Officer--Assignment
of to Auxiliary Vessel of the Fleet, AO 15/P16-1;
idem to CO, USS _Laramie_, 21 Aug 45, same sub, AO
16/P16-1. All in OpNavArchives.]
[Footnote 3-93: Quoted in Rowan, "Those Navy Boys
Changed My Life." pp 57-58.]
Admitting Negroes to the WAVES was another matter considered by the
new secretary in his first days in office. In fact, the subject had
been under discussion in the Navy Department for some two years. Soon
after the organization of the women's auxiliary, its director, Capt.
Mildred H. McAfee, had recommended that Negroes be accepted, arguing
that their recruitment would help to temper the widespread criticism
of the Navy's restrictive racial policy. But the traditionalists in
the Bureau of Naval Personnel had opposed the move on the grounds that
WAVES were organized to replace men, and since there were more than
enough black sailors to fill all billets open to Negroes there was no
need to recruit black women.
Actually, both arguments served to mask other motives, as did Knox's
rejection of recruitment on the grounds that integrating women into
the Navy was difficult enough without taking on the race (p. 087)
problem.[3-94] In April 1943 Knox "tentatively" approved the "tentative"
outline of a bureau plan for the induction of up to 5,000 black WAVES,
but nothing came of it.[3-95] Given the secretary's frequent
protestation that the subject was under constant review,[3-96] and his
statement to Captain McAfee that black WAVES would be enlisted "over
his dead body,"[3-97] the tentative outline and approval seems to have
been an attempt to defer the decision indefinitely.
[Footnote 3-94: Ltr, Mildred M. Horton to author, 14
Mar 75, CMH files.]
[Footnote 3-95: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for SecNav, 27
Apr 43, Pers 17MD, BuPersRecs, Memo, SecNav for Adm
Jacobs, 29 Apr 43, 54-1-43, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 3-96: See, for example, Ltr, SecNav to
Algernon D. Black, City-Wide Citizen's Cmte on
Harlem, 23 Apr 43, 54-1-43, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 3-97: Quoted in Ltr, Horton to author, 14
Mar 75.]
Secretary Knox's delay merely attracted more attention to the problem
and enabled the protestors to enlist powerful allies. At the time of
his death, Knox was under siege by a delegation from the Congress of
Industrial Organizations (CIO) demanding a reassessment of the Navy's
policy on the women's reserve.[3-98] His successor turned for advice to
Captain McAfee and to the Bureau of Naval Personnel where, despite
Knox's "positive and direct orders" against recruiting black WAVES,
the Special Programs Unit had continued to study the problem.[3-99]
Convinced that the step was just and inevitable, the unit also agreed
that the WAVES should be integrated. Forrestal approved, and on 28
July 1944 he recommended to the President that Negroes be trained in
the WAVES on an integrated basis and assigned "wherever needed within
the continental limits of the United States, preferably to stations
where there are already Negro men." He concluded by reiterating a
Special Programs Unit warning: "I consider it advisable to start
obtaining Negro WAVES before we are forced to take them."[3-100]
[Footnote 3-98: Memo, Ralph Bard for Forrestal, 4 May
44, sub: Navy Policy on Recruitment of Negro
Females as WAVES; Ltr, Nathan Cowan, CIO, to
Forrestal, 20 May 44, 54-1-1. Both in GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 3-99: Memo, J. V. F. (Forrestal) for Adm
Denfeld (ca. 7 Jun 44); Memo, Capt Mildred McAfee
for Adm Denfeld, 7 Jun 44; both in 54-1-4,
GenRecsNav. See also Memo, Chief, NavPers, for
SecNav, 11 May 44, sub: Navy Policy on Recruitment
of Negro Females as WAVES, Pers 17, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 3-100: Memo, Forrestal for President, 28
Jul 44, 54-1-4, GenRecsNav.]
To avoid the shoals of racial controversy in the midst of an election
year, Secretary Forrestal did trim his recommendations to the extent
that he retained the doctrine of separate but equal living quarters
and mess facilities for the black WAVES. Despite this offer of
compromise, President Roosevelt directed Forrestal to withhold action
on the proposal.[3-101] Here the matter would probably have stood until
after the election but for Thomas E. Dewey's charge in a Chicago
speech during the presidential campaign that the White House was
discriminating against black women. The President quickly instructed
the Navy to admit Negroes into the WAVES.[3-102]
[Footnote 3-101: Memo, Lt Cmdr John Tyree (White
House aide) for Forrestal, 9 Aug 44, 54-1-4,
GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 3-102: Navy Dept Press Release, 19 Oct 44.]
The first two black WAVE officers graduated from training at Smith
College on 21 December, and the enlistment of black women began a week
later. The program turned out to be more racially progressive than
initially outlined by Forrestal. He had explained to the President
that the women would be quartered separately, a provision (p. 088)
interpreted in the Bureau of Naval Personnel to mean that black
recruits would be organized into separate companies. Since a recruit
company numbered 250 women, and since it quickly became apparent that
such a large group of black volunteers would not soon be forthcoming,
some of the bureau staff decided that the Navy would continue to bar
black women. In this they reckoned without Captain McAfee who insisted
on a personal ruling by Forrestal. She warned the secretary that his
order was necessary because the concept "was so strange to Navy
practice."[3-103] He agreed with her that the Negroes would be
integrated along with the rest of the incoming recruits, and the
Bureau of Naval Personnel subsequently ordered that the WAVES be
assimilated without making either special or separate arrangements.[3-104]
[Footnote 3-103: Oral History Interview, Mildred
McAfee Horton, 25 Aug 69, Center of Naval History.]
[Footnote 3-104: Ltr, Asst Chief, NavPers, to CO,
NavTraScol (WR), Bronx, N.Y., 8 Dec 44, sub:
Colored WAVE Recruits, Pers-107, BuPersRecs.]
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT PICKENS AND ENSIGN WILLS. _First black WAVE
officers, members of the final graduating class at Naval Reserve
Midshipmen's School (WR), Northhampton, Massachusetts._]
By July 1945 the Navy had trained seventy-two black WAVES at Hunter
College Naval Training School in a fully integrated and routine
manner. Although black WAVES were restricted somewhat in specialty
assignments and a certain amount of separate quartering within
integrated barracks prevailed at some duty stations, the Special
Programs Unit came to consider the WAVE program, which established a
forceful precedent for the integration of male recruit training, its
most important wartime breakthrough, crediting Captain McAfee and her
unbending insistence on equal treatment for the achievement.
Forrestal won the day in these early experiments, but he was a
skillful administrator and knew that there was little hope for any
fundamental social change in the naval service without the active
cooperation of the Navy's high-ranking officers. His meeting with
Admiral King on the subject of integration in the summer of 1944 has
been reported by several people. Lester Granger, who later became
Forrestal's special representative on racial matters, recalled:
He [Forrestal] said he spoke to Admiral King, who was then chief
of staff, and said, "Admiral King, I'm not satisfied with the
situation here--I don't think that our Navy Negro personnel are
getting a square break. I want to do something about it, but I
can't do anything about it unless the officers are behind me. I
want your help. What do you say?"
He said that Admiral King sat for a moment, and looked out (p. 089)
the window and then said reflectively, "You know, we say that
we are a democracy and a democracy ought to have a democratic
Navy. I don't think you can do it, but if you want to try, I'm
behind you all the way." And he told me, "And Admiral King was
behind me, all the way, not only he but all of the Bureau of
Personnel, BuPers. They've been bricks."[3-105]
[Footnote 3-105: Quoted in the Columbia University
Oral History Interview with Granger. Granger's
incorrect reference to Admiral King as "chief of
staff" is interesting because it illustrates the
continuing evolution of that office during World
War II.]
[Illustration: SAILORS IN THE GENERAL SERVICE MOVE AMMUNITION.]
Admiral Jacobs, the Chief of Naval Personnel, also pledged his
support.[3-106]
[Footnote 3-106: James V. Forrestal, "Remarks for
Dinner Meeting at National Urban League," 12 Feb
58, Box 31, Misc file, Forrestal Papers, Princeton
Library. Forrestal's truncated version of the King
meeting agreed substantially with Granger's
lengthier remembrance.]
As news of the King-Forrestal conversation filtered through the
department, many of the programs long suggested by the Special
Programs Unit and heretofore treated with indifference or disapproval
suddenly received respectful attention.[3-107] With the high-ranking
officers cooperating, the Navy under Forrestal began to attack some of
the more obvious forms of discrimination and causes of racial tension.
Admiral King led the attack, personally directing in August 1944 that
all elements give close attention to the proper selection of officers
to command black sailors. As he put it: "Certain officers will be
temperamentally better suited for such commands than others."[3-108] The
qualifications of these officers were to be kept under constant (p. 090)
review. In December he singled out the commands in the Pacific area,
which had a heavy concentration of all-black base companies, calling
for a reform in their employment and advancement of Negroes.[3-109]
[Footnote 3-107: Intervs, Lee Nichols with Adm Louis
E. Denfeld (Deputy Chief of Naval Personnel, later
CNO) and with Cmdr Charles Dillon (formerly of
BuPers Special Unit), 1953; both in Nichols
Collection, CMH.]
[Footnote 3-108: ALNAV, 7 Aug 44, quoted in Nelson,
"Integration of the Negro," p. 46.]
[Footnote 3-109: Dir, CNO, to Forward Areas, Dec 44,
quoted in Nelson's "Integration of the Negro," p.
51.]
[Illustration: SECURITY WATCH IN THE MARIANAS. _Ratings of these men
guarding an ammunition depot include boatswain, second class, seaman,
first class, and fireman, first class._]
The Bureau of Naval Personnel also stepped up the tempo of its
reforms. In March 1944 it had already made black cooks and bakers
eligible for duty in all commissary branches of the Navy.[3-110] In June
it got Forrestal's approval for putting all rated cooks and stewards
in chief petty officer uniforms.[3-111] (While providing finally for the
proper uniforming of the chief cooks and stewards, this reform set
their subordinates, the rated cooks and stewards, even further apart
from their counterparts in the general service who of course continued
to wear the familiar bell bottoms.) The bureau also began to attack
the concentration of Negroes in ammunition depots and base companies.
On 21 February 1945 it ordered that all naval magazines and ammunition
depots in the United States and, wherever practical, overseas limit
their black seamen to 30 percent of the total employed.[3-112] It (p. 091)
also organized twenty logistic support companies to replace the
formless base companies sent to the Pacific in the early months of the
recruitment program. Organized to perform supply functions, each
company consisted of 250 enlisted men and five officers, with a
flexible range of petty officer billets.
[Footnote 3-110: BuPers Cir Ltr 72-44, 13 Mar 44,
sub: Negro Personnel of the Commissary Branch,
Assignment to Duty of.]
[Footnote 3-111: Idem, 182-44, 29 Jun 44, "Uniform
for Chief Cooks and Chief Stewards and Cooks and
Stewards."]
[Footnote 3-112: Idem, 45-18, 21 Feb 45, and 45-46,
31 May 45, sub: Negro Enlisted
Personnel--Limitation on Assignment of to Naval
Ammunition Depots and Naval Magazines.]
In the reform atmosphere slowly permeating the Bureau of Naval
Personnel, the Special Programs Unit found it relatively easy to end
segregation in the specialist training program.[3-113] From the first,
the number of Negroes eligible for specialist training had been too
small to make costly duplication of equipment and services practical.
In 1943, for example, the black aviation metalsmith school at Great
Lakes had an average enrollment of eight students. The school was
quietly closed and its students integrated with white students. Thus,
when the _Mason's_ complement was assembled in early 1944, Negroes
were put into the destroyer school at Norfolk side by side with
whites, and the black and white petty officers were quartered
together. As a natural consequence of the decision to place Negroes in
the auxiliary fleet, the Bureau of Naval Personnel opened training in
seagoing rates to Negroes on an integrated basis. Citing the
practicality of the move, the bureau closed the last of the black
schools in June 1945.[3-114]
[Footnote 3-113: There is some indication that
integration was already going on unofficially in
some specialist schools; see Ltr, Dr. M. A. F.
Ritchie to James C. Evans, 13 Aug 65, CMH files.]
[Footnote 3-114: BuPers Cir Ltr 194-44, sub: Advanced
Schools, Nondiscrimination in Selection of
Personnel for Training in; Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to
CO, AdComd, NavTraCen, 12 Jun 45, sub: Selection of
Negro Personnel for Instruction in Class "A"
Schools, 54-1-21, GenRecsNav.]
Despite these reforms, the months following Forrestal's talk with King
saw many important recommendations of the Special Programs Unit
wandering uncertainly through the bureaucratic desert. For example, a
proposal to make the logistic support companies interracial, or at
least to create comparable white companies to remove the stigma of
segregated manual labor, failed to survive the objections of the
enlisted personnel section. The Bureau of Naval Personnel rejected a
suggestion that Negroes be assigned to repair units on board ships and
to LST's, LCI's, and LCT's during the expansion of the amphibious
program. On 30 August 1944 Admiral King rejected a bureau
recommendation that the crews of net tenders and mine ships be
integrated. He reasoned that these vessels were being kept in
readiness for overseas assignment and required "the highest degree of
experienced seamanship and precision work" by the crews. He also cited
the crowded living quarters and less experienced officers as further
reasons for banning Negroes.[3-115]
[Footnote 3-115: Memo, CNO for Chief, NavPers, 30 Aug
44, sub: Negro Personnel--Assignment to ANs and
YMs, P13-/MM, BuPersRecs.]
There were other examples of backsliding in the Navy's racial
practices. Use of Negroes in general service had created a shortage of
messmen, and in August 1944 the Bureau of Naval Personnel authorized
commanders to recruit among black seamen for men to transfer to the
Steward's Branch. The bureau suggested as a talking point the fact (p. 092)
that stewards enjoyed more rapid advancement, shorter hours, and
easier work than men in the general service.[3-116] And, illustrating
that a move toward integration was sometimes followed by a step
backward, a bureau representative reported in July 1945 that whereas a
few black trainees at the Bainbridge Naval Training Center had been
integrated in the past, many now arriving were segregated in all-black
companies.[3-117]
[Footnote 3-116: BuPers Cir Ltr 227-44, 12 Aug 44,
sub: Steward's Branch, Procurement of From
General-Service Negroes.]
[Footnote 3-117: Memo, Lt William H. Robertson, Jr.,
for Rear Adm William M. Fechteler, Asst Chief,
NavPers, 20 Jul 45, sub: Conditions Existing at
NTC, Bainbridge, Md., Regarding Negro Personnel,
Reported on by Lt Wm. H. Robertson, Jr.,
Pers-2119-FB, BuPersRecs.]
There were reasons for the inconsistent stance in Washington. The
Special Programs Unit had for some time been convinced that only full
integration would eliminate discrimination and dissolve racial
tensions in the Navy, and it had understood Forrestal's desire "to do
something" for the Negro to mean just that. Some senior commanders and
their colleagues in the Bureau of Naval Personnel, on the other hand,
while accepting the need for reform and willing to accept some racial
mixing, nevertheless rejected any substantial change in the policy of
restricted employment of Negroes on the grounds that it might disrupt
the wartime fleet. Both sides could argue with assurance since
Forrestal and King had not made their positions completely clear.
Whatever the secretary's ultimate intention, the reforms carried out
in 1944 were too little and too late. Perhaps nothing would have been
sufficient, for the racial incidents visited upon the Navy during the
last year of the war were symptomatic of the overwhelming
dissatisfaction Negroes felt with their lot in the armed forces. There
had been incidents during the Knox period, but investigation had
failed to isolate any "single, simple cause," and troubles continued
to occur during 1944.[3-118]
[Footnote 3-118: "BuPers Hist," p. 75.]
Three of these incidents gained national prominence.[3-119] The first
was a mutiny at Mare Island, California, after an explosion destroyed
two ammunition ships loading at nearby Port Chicago on 17 July 1944.
The explosion killed over 300 persons, including 250 black seamen who
had toiled in large, segregated labor battalions. The survivors
refused to return to work, and fifty of them were convicted of mutiny
and sentenced to prison. The incident became a _cause celebre_.
Finally, through the intervention of the black press and black
organizations and the efforts of Thurgood Marshall and Lester Granger,
the convictions were set aside and the men restored to active duty.
[Footnote 3-119: Nelson, "Integration of the Negro,"
ch. VIII.]
A riot on Guam in December 1944 was the climax of months of friction
between black seamen and white marines. A series of shootings in and
around the town of Agana on Christmas Eve left a black and a white
marine dead. Believing one of the killed a member of their group,
black sailors from the Naval Supply Depot drove into town to confront
the outnumbered military police. No violence ensued, but the next day
two truckloads of armed Negroes went to the white Marine camp. A riot
followed and forty-three Negroes were arrested, charged with rioting
and theft of the trucks, and sentenced to up to four years in prison.
The authorities also recommended that several of the white marines (p. 093)
involved be court-martialed. These men too were convicted of various
offenses and sentenced.[3-120] Walter White went to Guam to
investigate the matter and appeared as a principal witness before the
Marine Court of Inquiry. There he pieced together for officials the
long history of discrimination suffered by men of the base company.
This situation, combined with poor leadership in the unit, he
believed, caused the trouble. His efforts and those of other civil
rights advocates led to the release of the black sailors in early
1946.[3-121]
[Footnote 3-120: Henry I. Shaw, Jr., and Ralph W.
Donnelly, _Blacks in the Marine Corps_ (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1975), pp. 44-45.]
[Footnote 3-121: White's testimony before the Court
of Inquiry was attached to a report by Maj Gen
Henry L. Larsen to CMC (ca. 22 Jan 45), Ser. No.
04275, copy in CMH.]
[Illustration: SPECIALISTS REPAIR AIRCRAFT, _Naval Air Station,
Seattle, Washington, 1945_.]
A hunger strike developed as a protest against discrimination in a
Seabee battalion at Port Hueneme, California, in March 1945. There was
no violence. The thousand strikers continued to work but refused to
eat for two days. The resulting publicity forced the Navy to
investigate the charges; as a result, the commanding officer, the
focus of the grievance, was replaced and the outfit sent overseas.
The riots, mutinies, and other incidents increased the pressure for
further modifications of policy. Some senior officers became convinced
that the only way to avoid mass rebellion was to avert the (p. 094)
possibility of collective action, and collective action was less
likely if Negroes were dispersed among whites. As Admiral Chester W.
Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet and an eloquent proponent of
the theory that integration was a practical means of avoiding trouble,
explained to the captain of an attack cargo ship who had just received
a group of black crewmen and was segregating their sleeping quarters:
"If you put all the Negroes together they'll have a chance to share
grievances and to plot among themselves, and this will damage
discipline and morale. If they are distributed among other members of
the crew, there will be less chance of trouble. And when we say we
want integration, we mean _integration_."[3-122] Thus integration grew
out of both idealism and realism.
[Footnote 3-122: As quoted in White, _A Man Called
White_, p. 273. For a variation on this theme, see
Interv, Nichols with Hillenkoetter.]
If racial incidents convinced the admirals that further reforms were
necessary, they also seem to have strengthened Forrestal's resolve to
introduce a still greater change in his department's policy. For
months he had listened to the arguments of senior officials and naval
experts that integration of the fleet, though desirable, was
impossible during the war. Yet Forrestal had seen integration work on
the small patrol craft, on fleet auxiliaries, and in the WAVES. In
fact, integration was working smoothly wherever it had been tried.
Although hard to substantiate, the evidence suggests that it was in
the weeks after the Guam incident that the secretary and Admiral King
agreed on a policy of total integration in the general service. The
change would be gradual, but the progress would be evident and the end
assured--Negroes were going to be assigned as individuals to all
branches and billets in the general service.[3-123]
[Footnote 3-123: Ltr, Rear Adm Hillenkoetter to
Nichols, 22 May 53; see also Intervs, Nichols with
Granger, Hillenkoetter, Jacobs, Thomas Darden,
Dillon, and other BuPers officials. In contrast to
the Knox period, where the files are replete with
Secretary of the Navy memos, BuPers letters, and
General Board reports on the development of the
Navy's racial policy, there is scant documentation
on the same subject during the early months of the
Forrestal administration. This is understandable
because the subject of integration was extremely
delicate and not readily susceptible to the usual
staffing needed for most policy decisions.
Furthermore, Forrestal's laconic manner of
expressing himself, famous in bureaucratic
Washington, inhibited the usual flow of letters and
memos.]
Forrestal and King received no end of advice. In December 1944 a group
of black publicists called upon the secretary to appoint a civilian
aide to consider the problems of the Negro in the Navy. The group also
added its voice to those within the Navy who were suggesting the
appointment of a black public relations officer to disseminate news of
particular interest to the black press and to improve the Navy's
relations with the black community.[3-124] One of Forrestal's assistants
proposed that an intradepartmental committee be organized to
standardize the disparate approaches to racial problems throughout the
naval establishment; another recommended the appointment of a black
civilian to advise the Bureau of Naval Personnel; and still another
recommended a white assistant on racial affairs in the office of the
under secretary.[3-125]
[Footnote 3-124: Ltr, John H. Sengstacke to
Forrestal, 19 Dec 44, 54-1-9, GenRecsNav; Interv,
Nichols with Granger.]
[Footnote 3-125: Memo, Under Sec Bard for SecNav, 1
Jan 45; Memo, H Struve Hensel (Off of Gen Counsel)
for Forrestal, 5 Jan 45; both in 54-1-9, Forrestal
file, GenRecsNav.]
These ideas had merit. The Special Programs Unit had for some time
been urging a public relations effort, pointing to the existence of
an influential black press as well as to the desirability of (p. 095)
fostering among whites a greater knowledge of the role of Negroes in
the war. Forrestal brought two black officers to Washington for
possible assignment to public relations work, and he asked the
director of public relations to arrange for black newsmen to visit
vessels manned by black crewmen. Finally, in June 1945, a black
officer was added to the staff of the Navy's Office of Public
Relations.[3-126]
[Footnote 3-126: Memo, SecNav for Eugene Duffield
(Asst to Under Sec), 16 Jan 45, 54-1-9; idem for
Rear Adm A. Stanton Merrill (Dir of Pub Relations),
24 Mar and 4 May 45, 54-1-16. All in Forrestal
file, GenRecsNav.]
Appointment of a civilian aide on racial affairs was under
consideration for some time, but when no agreement could be reached on
where best to assign the official, Forrestal, who wanted someone he
could "casually talk to about race relations,"[3-127] invited the
Executive Secretary of the National Urban League to "give us some of
your time for a period."[3-128] Thus in March 1945 Lester B. Granger
began his long association with the Department of Defense, an
association that would span the military's integration effort.[3-129]
Granger's assignment was straightforward. From time to time he would
make extensive trips representing the secretary and his special
interest in racial problems at various naval stations.
[Footnote 3-127: Quoted in Forrestal, "Remarks for
Dinner of Urban League."]
[Footnote 3-128: Ltr, SecNav to Lester Granger, 1 Feb
45, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 3-129: Ltrs, Granger to Forrestal, 19 Mar
and 3 Apr 45, 54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.
Granger and Forrestal had attended Dartmouth
College, but not together as Forrestal thought. For
a detailed and affectionate account of their
relationship, see Columbia University Oral History
Interview with Granger.]
Forrestal was sympathetic to the Urban League's approach to racial
justice, and in Granger he had a man who had developed this approach
into a social philosophy. Granger believed in relating the Navy's
racial problems not to questions of fairness but to questions of
survival, comfort, and security for all concerned. He assumed that if
leadership in any field came to understand that its privilege or its
security were threatened by denial of fairness to the less privileged,
then a meeting of minds was possible between the two groups. They
would begin to seek a way to eliminate insecurity, and from the
process of eliminating insecurity would come fairness. As Granger
explained it, talk to the commander about his loss of efficient
production, not the shame of denying a Negro a man's right to a job.
Talk about the social costs that come from denial of opportunity and
talk about the penalty that the privileged pay almost in equal measure
to what the Negro pays, but in different coin. Only then would one
begin to get a hearing. On the other hand, talk to Negroes not about
achieving their rights but about making good on an opportunity. This
would lead to a discussion of training, of ways to override barriers
"by maintaining themselves whole."[3-130] The Navy was going to get a
lesson in race relations, Urban League style.
[Footnote 3-130: Columbia University Oral Hist Interv
with Granger.]
At Forrestal's request, Granger explained how he viewed the special
adviser's role. He thought he could help the secretary by smoothing
the integration process in the general service through consultations
with local commanders and their men in a series of field visits. He
could also act as an intermediary between the department and the civil
rights organizations and black press. Granger urged the formation (p. 096)
of an advisory council, which would consist of ranking representatives
from the various branches, to interpret and administer the Navy's
racial policy. The need for such intradepartmental coordination seemed
fairly obvious. Although in 1945 the Bureau of Naval Personnel had
increased the resources of its Special Programs Unit, still the only
specialized organization dealing with race problems, that group was
always too swamped with administrative detail to police race problems
outside Washington. Furthermore, the Seabees and the Medical and
Surgery Department were in some ways independent of the bureau, and
their employment of black sailors was different from that of other
branches--a situation that created further confusion and conflict in
the application of race policy.[3-131]
[Footnote 3-131: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Cmdr
Richard M. Paget (Exec Office of the SecNav), 21
Apr 45, sub: Organization of Advisory Cmte, Pers
2119, GenRecsNav. See also "BuPers Hist," pt. II,
p. 3.]
Assuming that the advisory council would require an executive agent,
Granger suggested that the secretary have a full-time assistant for
race relations in addition to his own part-time services. He wanted
the man to be black and he wanted him in the secretary's office, which
would give him prestige in the black community and increase his power
to deal with the bureaus. Forrestal rejected the idea of a council and
a full-time assistant, pleading that he must avoid creating another
formal organization. Instead he decided to assemble an informal
committee, which he invited Granger to join, to standardize the Navy's
handling of Negroes.[3-132]
[Footnote 3-132: Ltr, Granger to SecNav, 19 Mar 45;
Ltrs, SecNav to Granger, 26 Mar and 5 Apr 45. All
in 54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav. The
activities of the intradepartmental committee will
be discussed in Chapter 5.]
It was obvious that Forrestal, convinced that the Navy's senior
officials had made a fundamental shift in their thinking on equal
treatment and opportunity for Negroes in the Navy, was content to let
specific reforms percolate slowly throughout the department. He would
later call the Navy's wartime reforms "a start down a long road."[3-133]
In these last months of the war, however, more barriers to equal
treatment of Negroes were quietly falling. In March 1945, after months
of prodding by Forrestal, the Surgeon General announced that the Navy
would accept a "reasonable" number of qualified black nurses and was
now recruiting for them.[3-134] In June the Bureau of Naval Personnel
ordered the integration of recruit training, assigning black general
service recruits to the nearest recruit training command "to obtain
the maximum utilization of naval training and housing facilities."[3-135]
Noting that this integration was at variance with some individual
attitudes, the bureau justified the change on the grounds of
administrative efficiency. Again at the secretary's urging, plans were
set in motion in July for the assignment of Negroes to submarine and
aviation pilot training.[3-136] At the same time Lester Granger, acting
as the secretary's personal representative, was visiting the (p. 097)
Navy's continental installations, prodding commanders and converting
them to the new policy.[3-137]
[Footnote 3-133: Ltr, Forrestal to Marshall Field III
(publisher of _PM_), 14 Jul 45, 54-1-13, Forrestal
file, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 3-134: Memo, SecNav for Rear Adm W. J. C.
Agnew, Asst Surg Gen, 28 Jan 45; Memo, Surg Gen for
Eugene Duffield, 19 Mar 45; both in 54-1-3,
Forrestal file, GenRecsNav. By V-J day the Navy had
four black nurses on active duty.]
[Footnote 3-135: Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to Cmdts, All
Naval Districts, 11 Jun 45, sub: Negro Recruit
Training--Discontinuance of Special Program and
Camps for, P16-3/MM, BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 3-136: Memo, SecNav for Artemus L. Gates,
Asst Sec for Air, et al. 16 Jul 45; Ltr, SecNav to
Granger, 14 Jul 45; both in 54-1-20, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 3-137: Ltr, Granger to Forrestal, 4 Aug 45,
54-1-13, GenRecsNav.]
[Illustration: THE 22D SPECIAL CONSTRUCTION BATTALION CELEBRATES V-J
DAY.]
The Navy's wartime progress in race relations was the product of
several forces. At first Negroes were restricted to service as
messmen, but political pressure forced the Navy to open general
service billets to them. In this the influence of the civil rights
spokesmen was paramount. They and their allies in Congress and the
national political parties led President Roosevelt to demand an end to
exclusion and the Navy to accept Negroes for segregated general
service. The presence of large numbers of black inductees and the
limited number of assignments for them in segregated units prevented
the Bureau of Naval Personnel from providing even a semblance of
separate but equal conditions. Deteriorating black morale and the
specter of racial disturbance drove the bureau to experiment with
all-black crews, but the experiment led nowhere. The Navy could never
operate a separate but equal fleet. Finally in 1944 Forrestal began to
experiment with integration in seagoing assignments.
The influence of the civil rights forces can be overstated. Their
attention tended to focus on the Army, especially in the later years
of the war; their attacks on the Navy were mostly sporadic and
uncoordinated and easily deflected by naval spokesmen. Equally
important to race reform was the fact that the Navy was developing its
own group of civil rights advocates during the war, influential men in
key positions who had been dissatisfied with the prewar status of the
Negro and who pressed for racial change in the name of military
efficiency. Under the leadership of a sympathetic secretary, (p. 098)
himself aided and abetted by Stevenson and other advisers in his
office and in the Bureau of Naval Personnel, the Navy was laying plans
for a racially integrated general service when Japan capitulated.
To achieve equality of treatment and opportunity, however, takes more
than the development of an integration policy. For one thing, the
liberalization of policy and practices affected only a relatively
small percentage of the Negroes in the Navy. On V-J day the Navy could
count 164,942 enlisted Negroes, 5.37 percent of its total enlisted
strength.[3-138] More than double the prewar percentage, this figure was
still less than half the national ratio of blacks to whites. In August
1945 the Navy had 60 black officers, 6 of whom were women (4 nurses
and 2 WAVES), and 68 enlisted WAVES who were not segregated. The
integration of the Navy officer corps, the WAVES, and the nurses had
an immediate effect on only 128 people. Figures for black enlisted men
show that they were employed in some sixty-seven ratings by the end of
the war, but steward and steward's mate ratings accounted for some
68,000 men, about 40 percent of the total black enlistment.
Approximately 59,000 others were ordinary seamen, some were recruits
in training or specialists striking for ratings, but most were
assigned to the large segregated labor units and base companies.[3-139]
Here again integrated service affected only a small portion of the
Navy's black recruits during World War II.
[Footnote 3-138: Pers 215-BL, "Enlisted
Strength--U.S. Navy," 26 Jul 46, BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 3-139: Pers 215-12-EL, "Number of Negro
Enlisted Personnel on Active Duty," 29 Nov 45
(statistics as of 31 Oct 45), BuPersRecs.]
Furthermore, a real chance existed that even this limited progress
might prove to be temporary. On V-J day the Regular Navy had 7,066
Negroes, just 2.14 percent of its total.[3-140] Many of these men could
be expected to stay in the postwar Navy, but the overwhelming majority
of them were in the separate Steward's Branch and would remain there
after the war. Black reservists in the wartime general service would
have to compete with white regulars and reservists for the severely
reduced number of postwar billets and commissions in a Navy in which
almost all members would have to be regulars. Although Lester Granger
had stressed this point in conversations with James Forrestal, neither
the secretary nor the Bureau of Naval Personnel took the matter up
before the end of the war. In short, after setting in motion a number
of far-reaching reforms during the war, the Navy seemed in some danger
of settling back into its old prewar pattern.
[Footnote 3-140: Pers-215-BL, "Enlisted
Strength--U.S. Navy," 26 Jul 46.]
Still, the fact that reforms had been attempted in a service that had
so recently excluded Negroes was evidence of progress. Secretary
Forrestal was convinced that the Navy's hierarchy had swung behind the
principle of equal treatment and opportunity, but the real test was
yet to come. Hope for a permanent change in the Navy's racial
practices lay in convincing its tradition-minded officers that an
integrated general service with a representative share of black
officers and men was a matter of military efficiency.
CHAPTER 4 (p. 099)
World War II: The Marine Corps and the Coast Guard
The racial policies of both the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard were
substantially the same as the Navy policy from which they were
derived, but all three differed markedly from each other in their
practical application. The differences arose partly from the
particular mission and size of these components of the wartime Navy,
but they were also governed by the peculiar legal relationship that
existed in time of war between the Navy and the other two services.
By law the Marine Corps was a component of the Department of the Navy,
its commandant subordinate to the Secretary of the Navy in such
matters as manpower and budget and to the Chief of Naval Operations in
specified areas of military operations. In the conduct of ordinary
business, however, the commandant was independent of the Navy's
bureaus, including the Bureau of Naval Personnel. The Marine Corps had
its own staff personnel officer, similar to the Army's G-1, and, more
important for the development of racial policy, it had a Division of
Plans and Policies that was immediately responsible to the commandant
for manpower planning. In practical terms, the Marine Corps of World
War II was subject to the dictates of the Secretary of the Navy for
general policy, and the secretary's 1942 order to enlist Negroes
applied equally to the Marine Corps, which had no Negroes in its
ranks, and to the Navy, which did. At the same time, the letters and
directives of the Chief of Naval Operations and the Chief of Naval
Personnel implementing the secretary's order did not apply to the
corps. In effect, the Navy Department imposed a racial policy on the
corps, but left it to the commandant to carry out that policy as he
saw fit. These legal distinctions would become more important as the
Navy's racial policy evolved in the postwar period.
The Coast Guard's administrative position had early in the war become
roughly analogous to that of the Marine Corps. At all times a branch
of the armed forces, the Coast Guard was normally a part of the
Treasury Department. A statute of 1915, however, provided that during
wartime or "whenever the President may so direct" the Coast Guard
would operate as part of the Navy, subject to the orders of the
Secretary of the Navy.[4-1] At the direction of the President, the Coast
Guard passed to the control of the Secretary of the Navy on 1 November
1941 and so remained until 1 January 1946.[4-2]
[Footnote 4-1: 38 _U.S. Stat. at L_ (1915), 800-2.
Since 1967 the Coast Guard has been a part of the
Department of Transportation.]
[Footnote 4-2: Executive Order 8928, 1 Nov 41. A
similar transfer under provisions of the 1915 law
was effected during World War I. The service's
predecessor organizations, the Revenue Marine,
Revenue Service, Revenue-Marine Service, and the
Revenue Cutter Service, had also provided the Navy
with certain specified ships and men during all
wars since the Revolution.]
At first a division under the Chief of Naval Operations, the (p. 100)
headquarters of the Coast Guard was later granted considerably more
administrative autonomy. In March 1942 Secretary Knox carefully
delineated the Navy's control over the Coast Guard, making the Chief
of Naval Operations responsible for the operation of those Coast Guard
ships, planes, and stations assigned to the naval commands for the
"proper conduct of the war," but specifying that assignments be made
with "due regard for the needs of the Coast Guard," which must
continue to carry out its regular functions. Such duties as providing
port security, icebreaking services, and navigational aid remained
under the direct control and supervision of the commandant, the local
naval district commander exercising only "general military control" of
these activities in his area.[4-3] Important to the development of
racial policy was the fact that the Coast Guard also retained
administrative control of the recruitment, training, and assignment of
personnel. Like the Marine Corps, it also had a staff agency for
manpower planning, the Commandant's Advisory Board, and one for
administration, the Personnel Division, independent of the Navy's
bureaus.[4-4] In theory, the Coast Guard's manpower policy, at least in
regard to those segments of the service that operated directly under
Navy control, had to be compatible with the racial directives of the
Navy's Bureau of Naval Personnel. In practice, the Commandant of the
Coast Guard, like his colleague in the Marine Corps, was left free to
develop his own racial policy in accordance with the general
directives of the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval
Operations.
[Footnote 4-3: Ltr, SecNav to CominCh-CNO, 30 Mar 42,
sub: Administration of Coast Guard When Operating
Under Navy Department, quoted in Furer,
_Administration of the Navy Department in World War
II_, pp. 608-10.]
[Footnote 4-4: For a survey of the organization and
functions of the U.S. Coast Guard Personnel
Division, see USCG Historical Section, _Personnel_,
The Coast Guard at War, 25:16-27.]
_The First Black Marines_
These legal distinctions had no bearing on the Marine Corps' prewar
racial policy, which was designed to continue its tradition of
excluding Negroes. The views of the commandant, Maj. Gen. Thomas
Holcomb, on the subject of race were well known in the Navy. Negroes
did not have the "right" to demand a place in the corps, General
Holcomb told the Navy's General Board when that body was considering
the expansion of the corps in April 1941. "If it were a question of
having a Marine Corps of 5,000 whites or 250,000 Negroes, I would
rather have the whites."[4-5] He was more circumspect but no more
reasonable when he explained the racial exclusion publicly. Black
enlistment was impractical, he told one civil rights group, because
the Marine Corps was too small to form racially separate units.[4-6]
And, if some Negroes persisted in trying to volunteer after Pearl
Harbor, there was another deterrent, described by at least one senior
recruiter: the medical examiner was cautioned to disqualify the black
applicant during the enlistment physical.[4-7]
[Footnote 4-5: Quoted in Navy General Board, "Plan
for the Expansion of the USMC," 18 Apr 41 (No.
139), Recs of Gen Bd, OpNavArchives.]
[Footnote 4-6: Ltr, CMC to Harold E. Thompson,
Northern Phila. Voters League, 6 Aug 40, AQ-17,
Central Files, Headquarters, USMC (hereafter MC
files).]
[Footnote 4-7: Memo, Off in Charge, Eastern
Recruiting Div, for CMC, 16 Jan 42, sub: Colored
Applicants for Enlistment in the Marine Corps, WP
11991, MC files.]
Such evasions could no longer be practiced after President (p. 101)
Roosevelt decided to admit Negroes to the general service of the naval
establishment. According to Secretary Knox the President wanted the
Navy to handle the matter "in a way that would not inject into the
whole personnel of the Navy the race question."[4-8] Under pressure to
make some move, General Holcomb proposed the enlistment of 1,000
Negroes in the volunteer Marine Corps Reserve for duty in the general
service in a segregated composite defense battalion. The battalion
would consist primarily of seacoast and antiaircraft artillery, a
rifle company with a light tank platoon, and other weapons units and
components necessary to make it a self-sustaining unit.[4-9] To inject
the subject of race "to a less degree than any other known scheme,"
the commandant planned to train the unit in an isolated camp and
assign it to a remote station.[4-10] The General Board accepted this
proposal, explaining to Secretary Knox that Negroes could not be used
in the Marine Corps' amphibious units because the inevitable
replacement and redistribution of men in combat would "prevent the
maintenance of necessary segregation." The board also mentioned that
experienced noncommissioned officers were at a premium and that
diverting them to train a black unit would be militarily
inefficient.[4-11]
[Footnote 4-8: Memo, SecNav for Adm W. R. Sexton, 14
Feb 42, P14-4, Recs of Gen Bd, OpNavArchives. The
quotation is from the Knox Memo and is not
necessarily in the President's exact words.]
[Footnote 4-9: In devising plans for the composite
battalion the Director of Plans and Policies
rejected a proposal to organize a black raider
battalion. The author of the proposal had explained
that Negroes would make ideal night raiders "as no
camouflage of faces and hands would be necessary."
Memo, Col Thomas Gale for Exec Off, Div of Plans
and Policies, 19 Feb 42, AO-250, MC files.]
[Footnote 4-10: Memo, CMC for Chmn of Gen Bd, 27 Feb
42, sub: Enlistment of Men of the Colored Race in
Other Than Messman Branch, AO-172, MC files.]
[Footnote 4-11: Memo, Chmn of Gen Bd for SecNav, 20
Mar 42, sub: Enlistment of Men of the Colored Race
in Other Than Messman Branch (G.B. No. 421), Recs
of Gen Bd, OpNavArchives.]
Although the enlistment of black marines began on 1 June 1942, the
corps placed the reservists on inactive status until a training-size
unit could be enlisted and segregated facilities built at Montford
Point on the vast training reservation at Marine Barracks, New River
(later renamed Camp Lejeune), North Carolina.[4-12] On 26 August the
first contingent of Negroes began recruit training as the 51st
Composite Defense Battalion at Montford Point under the command of
Col. Samuel A. Woods, Jr. The corps had wanted to avoid having to
train men as typists, truck drivers, and the like--specialist skills
needed in the black composite unit. Instead, the commandant
established black quotas for three of the four recruiting divisions,
specifying that more than half the recruits qualify in the needed
skills.[4-13]
[Footnote 4-12: Memo, CMC for District Cmdrs, All
Reserve Districts Except 10th, 14th, 15th, and
16th, 25 May 42, sub: Enlistment of Colored
Personnel in the Marine Corps, Historical and
Museum Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps
(hereafter Hist Div, HQMC). For further discussion
of the training of black marines and other matters
pertaining to Negroes in the Marine Corps, see Shaw
and Donnelly, _Blacks in the Marine Corps_. This
volume by the corps' chief historian and the former
chief of its history division's reference branch is
the official account.]
[Footnote 4-13: Memo, CMC for Off in Charge, Eastern,
Central, and Southern Recruiting Divs, 15 May 42,
sub: Enlistment of Colored Personnel in the Marine
Corps, AP-54 (1535), MC files. The country was
divided into four recruiting divisions, but black
enlistment was not opened in the west coast
division on the theory that there would be few
volunteers and sending them to North Carolina would
be unjustifiably expensive. Only white marines were
trained in California. This circumstance brought
complaints from civil rights groups. See, for
example, Telg, Walter White to SecNav, 14 Jul 42,
AP-361, MC files.]
[Illustration: MARINES OF THE 51ST DEFENSE BATTALION _await turn on
rifle range, Montford Point, 1942_.]
The enlistment process proved difficult. The commandant reported (p. 102)
that despite predictions of black educators to the contrary the corps
had netted only sixty-three black recruits capable of passing the
entrance examinations during the first three weeks of recruitment.[4-14]
As late as 29 October the Director of Plans and Policies was reporting
that only 647 of the scheduled 1,200 men (the final strength figure
decided upon for the all-black unit) had been enlisted. He blamed the
occupational qualifications for the delay, adding that it was doubtful
"if even white recruits" could be procured under such strictures. The
commandant approved his plan for enlisting Negroes without specific
qualifications and instituting a modified form of specialist training.
Black marines would not be sent to specialist schools "unless there is
a colored school available," but instead Marine instructors would be
sent to teach in the black camp.[4-15] In the end many of these first
black specialists received their training in nearby Army
installations.
[Footnote 4-14: Memo, CMC for SecNav, 23 Jun 42,
AP-54 (1535-110), MC files.]
[Footnote 4-15: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 29 Oct 42, sub: Enlistment of Colored
Personnel in the Marine Corps Reserve, AO-320, MC
files.]
Segregation was the common practice in all the services in 1942, (p. 103)
as indeed it was throughout much of American society. If this practice
appeared somehow more restrictive in the Marine Corps than it did in
the other services, it was because of the corps' size and traditions.
The illusion of equal treatment and opportunity could be kept alive in
the massive Army and Navy with their myriad units and military
occupations; it was much more difficult to preserve in the small and
specialized Marine Corps. Given segregation, the Marine Corps was
obliged to put its few black marines in its few black units, whose
small size limited the variety of occupations and training
opportunities.
Yet the size of the corps would undergo considerable change, and on
balance it was the Marine Corps' tradition of an all-white service,
not its restrictive size, that proved to be the most significant
factor influencing racial policy. Again unlike the Army and Navy, the
Marine Corps lacked the practical experience with black recruits that
might have countered many of the alarums and prejudices concerning
Negroes that circulated within the corps during the war. The
importance of this experience factor comes out in the reminiscences of
a senior official in the Division of Plans and Policies who looked
back on his 1942 experiences:
It just scared us to death when the colored were put on it. I
went over to Selective Service and saw Gen. Hershey, and he
turned me over to a lieutenant colonel [Campbell C.
Johnson]--that was in April--and he was one grand person. I told
him, "Eleanor [Mrs. Roosevelt] says we gotta take in Negroes, and
we are just scared to death, we've never had any in, we don't
know how to handle them, we are afraid of them." He said, "I'll
do my best to help you get good ones. I'll get the word around
that if you want to die young, join the Marines. So anybody that
joins is got to be pretty good!" And it was the truth. We got
some awfully good Negroes.[4-16]
[Footnote 4-16: USMC Oral History Interview, General
Ray A. Robinson (USMC Ret.), 18-19 Mar 68, p. 136,
Hist Div, HQMC.]
Unfortunately for the peace of mind of the Marine Corps' personnel
planner, the conception of a carefully limited and isolated black
contingent was quickly overtaken by events. The President's decision
to abolish volunteer enlistments for the armed forces in December 1942
and the subsequent establishment of a black quota for each component
of the naval establishment meant that in the next year some 15,400
more Negroes, 10 percent of all Marine Corps inductees, would be added
to the corps.[4-17] As it turned out the monthly draft calls were never
completely filled, and by December 1943 only 9,916 of the scheduled
black inductions had been completed, but by the time the corps stopped
drafting men in 1946 it had received over 16,000 Negroes through the
Selective Service. Including the 3,129 black volunteers, the number of
Negroes in the Marine Corps during World War II totaled 19,168,
approximately 4 percent of the corps' enlisted men.
[Footnote 4-17: Memo, CMC for Chief, NavPers, 1 Apr
43, sub: Negro Registrants To Be Inducted Into the
Marine Corps, AO-320-2350-60, MC files.]
The immediate problem of what to do with this sudden influx of Negroes
was complicated by the fact that many of the draftees, the product of
vastly inferior schooling, were incompetent. Where black volunteers
had to pass the corps' rigid entrance requirements, draftees had (p. 104)
only to meet the lowest selective service standards. An exact
breakdown of black Marine Corps draftees by General Classification
Test category is unavailable for the war period. A breakdown of some
15,000 black enlisted men, however, was compiled ten weeks after V-J
day and included many of those drafted during the war. Category I
represents the most gifted men:[4-18]
Category: I II III IV V
Percentage: 0.11 5.14 24.08 59.63 11.04
[Footnote 4-18: Memo, Dir, Pers, for Dir, Div of
Plans and Policies, 21 Jul 48, sub: GCT Percentile
Equivalents for Colored Enlisted Marines in
November 1945 and in March 1948, sub file: Negro
Marines--Test and Testing, Ref Br, Hist Div, HQMC.]
If these figures are used as a base, slightly more than 70 percent of
all black enlisted men, more than 11,000, scored in the two lowest
categories, a meaningless racial statistic in terms of actual numbers
because the smaller percentage of the much larger group of white
draftees in these categories gave the corps more whites than blacks in
groups IV and V. Yet the statistic was important because low-scoring
Negroes, unlike the low-scoring whites who could be scattered
throughout the corps' units, had to be concentrated in a small number
of segregated units to the detriment of those units. Conversely, the
corps had thousands of Negroes with the mental aptitude to serve in
regular combat units and a small but significant number capable of
becoming officers. Yet these men were denied the opportunity to serve
in combat or as officers because the segregation policy dictated that
Negroes could not be assigned to a regular combat unit unless all the
billets in that unit as well as all replacements were black--a
practical impossibility during World War II.
Segregation, not the draft, forced the Marine Corps to devise new jobs
and units to absorb the black inductees. A plan circulated in the
Division of Plans and Policies called for more defense battalions, a
branch for messmen, and the assignment of large black units to local
bases to serve as chauffeurs, messengers, clerks, and janitors.
Referring to the janitor assignment, one division official admitted
that "I don't think we can get away with this type duty."[4-19] In the
end the Negroes were not used as chauffeurs, messengers, clerks, and
janitors. Instead the corps placed a "maximum practical number" in
defense battalions. The number of these units, however, was limited,
as Maj. Gen. Harry Schmidt, the acting commandant, explained in March
1943, by the number of black noncommissioned officers available. Black
noncommissioned officers were necessary, he continued, because in the
Army's experience "in nearly all cases to intermingle colored and
white enlisted personnel in the same organization" led to "trouble and
disorder."[4-20] Demonstrating his own and the Marine Corps' lack of
experience with black troops, the acting commandant went on to provide
his commanders with some rather dubious advice based on what he
perceived as the Army's experience: black units should be commanded by
men "who thoroughly knew their [Negroes'] individual and racial (p. 105)
characteristics and temperaments," and Negroes should be assigned to
work they preferred.
[Footnote 4-19: Unsigned Memo for Dir, Plans and
Policies Div, 26 Dec 42, sub: Colored Personnel,
with attached handwritten note, AO-320, MC files.]
[Footnote 4-20: Ltr, Actg CMC to Major Cmdrs, 20 Mar
43, sub: Colored Personnel, AP-361, MC files.]
[Illustration: SHORE PARTY IN TRAINING, CAMP LEJEUNE, 1942.]
The points emphasized in General Schmidt's letter to Marine
commanders--a rigid insistence on racial separation and a willingness
to work for equal treatment of black troops--along with an
acknowledgement of the Marine Corps' lack of experience with racial
problems were reflected in Commandant Holcomb's basic instruction on
the subject of Negroes two months later: "All Marines are entitled to
the same rights and privileges under Navy Regulations," and black
marines could be expected "to conduct themselves with propriety and
become a credit to the Marine Corps." General Holcomb was aware of the
adverse effect of white noncommissioned officers on black morale, and
he wanted them removed from black units as soon as possible. Since the
employment of black marines was in itself a "new departure," he wanted
to be informed periodically on how Negroes adapted to Marine Corps
life, what their off-duty experience was with recreational facilities,
and what their attitude was toward other marines.[4-21]
[Footnote 4-21: Ltr of Instruction No. 421, CMC to
All CO's, 14 May 43, sub: Colored Personnel, MC
files.]
[Illustration: D-DAY ON PELELIU. _Support troops participate in the
landing of 1st Marine Division._]
These were generally progressive sentiments, evidence of the
commandant's desire to provide for the peaceful assimilation and
advancement of Negroes in the corps. Unfortunately for his reputation
among the civil rights advocates, General Holcomb seemed overly
concerned with certain social implications of rank and color. (p. 106)
Undeterred by a lack of personal experience with interracial command,
he was led in the name of racial harmony to an unpopular conclusion.
"It is essential," he told his commanders, "that in no case shall
there be colored noncommissioned officers senior to white men in the
same unit, and desirable that few, if any be of the same rank."[4-22]
He was particularly concerned with the period when white instructors
and noncommissioned officers were being phased out of black units. He
wanted Negroes up for promotion to corporal transferred, before
promotion, out of any unit that contained white corporals.
[Footnote 4-22: Ibid. The subject of widespread
public complaint when its existence became known
after the war, the instruction was rescinded. See
Memo, J. A. Stuart, Div of Plans and Policies, for
CMC, 14 Feb 46, sub: Ltr of Inst #421 Revocation
of, AO-1, copy in Ref Br, Hist Div, HQMC.]
[Illustration: MEDICAL ATTENDANTS AT REST, PELELIU, OCTOBER, 1944.]
The Division of Plans and Policies tried to follow these strictures as
it set about organizing the new black units. Job preference had
already figured in the organization of the new Messman's Branch
established in January 1943. At that time Secretary Knox had approved
the reconstitution of the corps' all-white Mess Branch as the
Commissary Branch and the organization of an all-black Messman's
Branch along the lines of the Navy's Steward's Branch.[4-23] In (p. 107)
authorizing the new branch, which was quickly redesignated the
Steward's Branch to conform to the Navy model, Secretary Knox
specified that the members must volunteer for such duty. Yet the
corps, under pressure to produce large numbers of stewards in the
early months of the war, showed so little faith in the volunteer
system that Marine recruiters were urged to induce half of all black
recruits to sign on as stewards.[4-24] Original plans called for the
assignment of one steward for every six officers, but the lack of
volunteers and the needs of the corps quickly caused this estimate to
be scaled down.[4-25] By 5 July 1944 the Steward's Branch numbered (p. 108)
1,442 men, roughly 14 percent of the total black strength of the
Marine Corps.[4-26] It remained approximately this size for the rest
of the war.
[Footnote 4-23: Memo, CMC for SecNav, 30 Dec 42, sub:
Change of Present Mess Branch in the Marine Corps
to Commissary Branch and Establishment of a
Messman's Branch and Ranks Therein, with SecNav
approval indicated, AO-363-311. See also Memo, CMC
for Chief, NavPers, 30 Dec 42, sub: Request for
Allotment to MC..., A-363; Memo, Dir, Div of Plans
and Policies, for CMC, 23 Nov 42, sub: Organization
of Mess Branch (Colored), AO-283. All in MC files.]
[Footnote 4-24: Memo, Dir of Recruiting for Off in
Charge, Eastern Recruiting Div et al., 25 Feb 42,
sub: Messman Branch, AP-361-1390; Memo, CMC for
SecNav, 3 Apr 43, sub: Change in Designation...,
AO-340-1930. Both in MC files.]
[Footnote 4-25: Memo, Dir, Plans and Policies, for
CMC, 18 May 43, sub: Assignment of Steward's Branch
Personnel, AO-371, MC files.]
[Footnote 4-26: Memo, H. E. Dunkelberger, M-1 Sec,
Div of Plans and Policies, for Asst CMC, 5 Jul 44,
sub: Steward's Branch Personnel, AO-660, MC files.]
The admonition to employ black marines to the maximum extent practical
in defense battalions was based on the mobilization planners' belief
that each of these battalions, with its varied artillery, infantry,
and armor units, would provide close to a thousand black marines with
varied assignments in a self-contained, segregated unit. But the
realities of the Pacific war and the draft quickly rendered these
plans obsolete. As the United States gained the ascendancy, the need
for defense battalions rapidly declined, just as the need for special
logistical units to move supplies in the forward areas increased. The
corps had originally depended on its replacement battalions to move
the mountains of supply involved in amphibious assaults, but the
constant flow of replacements to battlefield units and the need for
men with special logistical skill had led in the middle of the war to
the organization of pioneer battalions. To supplement the work of
these shore party units and to absorb the rapidly growing number of
black draftees, the Division of Plans and Policies eventually created
fifty-one separate depot companies and twelve separate ammunition
companies manned by Negroes. The majority of these new units served in
base and service depots, handling ammunition and hauling supplies, but
a significant number of them also served as part of the shore parties
attached to the divisional assault units. These units often worked
under enemy fire and on occasion joined in the battle as they moved
supplies, evacuated the wounded, and secured the operation's supply
dumps.[4-27] Nearly 8,000 men, about 40 percent of the corps' black
enlistment, served in this sometimes hazardous combat support duty.
The experience of these depot and ammunition companies provided the
Marine Corps with an interesting irony. In contrast to Negroes in the
other services, black marines trained for combat were never so used.
Those trained for the humdrum labor tasks, however, found themselves
in the thick of the fighting on Saipan, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and
elsewhere, suffering combat casualties and winning combat citations
for their units.
[Footnote 4-27: Shaw and Donnelly, _Blacks in the
Marine Corps_, pp. 29-46. See also, HQMC Div of
Public Information, "The Negro Marine, 1942-1945,"
Ref Br, Hist Div, HQMC.]
The increased allotment of black troops entering the corps and the
commandant's call for replacing all white noncommissioned officers
with blacks as quickly as they could be sufficiently trained caused
problems for the black combat units. The 51st Defense Battalion in
particular suffered many vicissitudes in its training and deployment.
The 51st was the first black unit in the Marine Corps, a doubtful
advantage considering the frequent reorganization and rapid troop
turnover that proved its lot. At first the reception and training of
all black inductees fell to the battalion, but in March 1943 a
separate Headquarters Company, Recruit Depot Battalion, was organized
at Montford Point.[4-28] Its cadre was drawn from the 51st, as (p. 109)
were the noncommissioned officers and key personnel of the newly
organized ammunition and depot companies and the black security
detachments organized at Montford Point and assigned to the Naval
Ammunition Depot, McAlester, Oklahoma, and the Philadelphia Depot of
Supplies.
[Footnote 4-28: Memo, CO, 51st Def Bn, for Dir, Plans
and Policies, 29 Jan 43, sub: Colored Personnel,
Ref Br, Hist Div, HQMC.]
In effect, the 51st served as a specialist training school for the
black combat units. When the second black defense battalion, the 52d,
was organized in December 1943 its cadre, too, was drawn from the
51st. By the time the 51st was actually deployed, it had been
reorganized several times and many of its best men had been siphoned
off as leaders for new units. To compound these losses of experienced
men, the battalion was constantly receiving large influxes of
inexperienced and educationally deficient draftees and sometimes there
was infighting among its officers.[4-29]
[Footnote 4-29: For charges and countercharges on the
part of the 51st's commanders, see Hq, 51st Defense
Bn, "Record of Proceedings of an Investigation," 27
Jun 44; Memo, Lt Col Floyd A. Stephenson for CMC,
30 May 44, sub: Fifty-First Defense Battalion,
Fleet Marine Force, with indorsements and
attachments; Memo, CO, 51st Def Bn, for CMC, 20 Jul
44, sub: Combat Efficiency, Fifty-First Defense
Battalion. All in Ref Br, Hist Div, HQMC.]
Training for black units only emphasized the rigid segregation
enforced in the Marine Corps. After their segregated eight-week
recruit training, the men were formed into companies at Montford
Point; those assigned to the defense battalions were sent for
specialist training in the weapons and equipment employed in such
units, including radar, motor transport, communications, and artillery
fire direction. Each of the ammunition companies sent sixty of its men
to special ammunition and camouflage schools where they would be
promoted to corporal when they completed the course. In contrast to
the depot companies and elements of the defense battalions, the
ammunition units would have white staff sergeants as ordnance
specialists throughout the war. This exception to the rule of black
noncommissioned officers for black units was later justified on the
grounds that such units required experienced supervisors to emphasize
and enforce safety regulations.[4-30] On the whole specialist training
was segregated; whenever possible even the white instructors were
rapidly replaced by blacks.
[Footnote 4-30: Shaw and Donnelly, _Blacks in the
Marine Corps_, p. 31.]
Before being sent overseas, black units underwent segregated field
training, although the length of this training varied considerably
according to the type of unit. Depot companies, for example, were
labor units pure and simple, organized to perform simple tasks, and
many of them were sent to the Pacific less than two weeks after
activation. In contrast, the 51st Defense Battalion spent two months
in hard field training, scarcely enough considering the number of raw
recruits, totally unfamiliar with gunnery, that were being fed
regularly into what was essentially an artillery battalion.
[Illustration: GUN CREW OF THE 52D DEFENSE BATTALION _on duty, Central
Pacific, 1945_.]
The experience of the two defense battalions demonstrates that racial
consideration governed their eventual deployment just as it had
decided their organization. With no further strategic need for defense
battalions, the Marine Corps began to dismantle them in 1944, just as
the two black units became operational and were about to be sent to
the Central and South Pacific. The eighteen white defense (p. 110)
battalions were subsequently reorganized as antiaircraft artillery
battalions for use with amphibious groups in the forward areas. While
the two black units were similarly reorganized, only they and one of
the white units retained the title of defense battalion. Their
deployment was also different. The policy of self-contained,
segregated service was, in the case of a large combat unit, best
followed in the rear areas, and the two black battalions were assigned
to routine garrison duties in the backwaters of the theater, the 51st
at Eniwetok in the Marshalls, the 52d at Guam. The latter unit saw
nearly half its combat-trained men detailed to work as stevedores. It
was not surprising that the morale in both units suffered.[4-31]
[Footnote 4-31: For a discussion of black morale in
the combat-trained units, see USMC Oral History
Interview, Obie Hall, 16 Aug 72, Ref Br, and John
H. Griffin, "My Life in the Marine Corps," Personal
Papers Collection, Museums Br. Both in Hist Div,
HQMC.]
Even more explicitly racial was the warning of a senior combat
commander to the effect that the deployment of black depot units to
the Polynesian areas of the Pacific should be avoided. The Polynesians,
he explained, were delightful people, and their "primitively romantic"
women shared their intimate favors with one and all. Mixture with the
white race had produced "a very high-class half-caste," mixture with
the Chinese a "very desirable type," but the union of black and
"Melanesian types ... produces a very undesirable citizen." The (p. 111)
Marine Corps, Maj. Gen. Charles F. B. Price continued, had a special
moral obligation and a selfish interest in protecting the population
of American Samoa, especially, from intimacy with Negroes; he strongly
urged therefore that any black units deployed to the Pacific should be
sent to Micronesia where they "can do no racial harm."[4-32]
[Footnote 4-32: Ltr, Maj Gen Charles F. B. Price to
Brig Gen Keller E. Rockey, 24 Apr 43; 26132, Ref
Br, Hist Div, HQMC.]
General Price must have been entertaining second thoughts, since two
depot companies were already en route to Samoa at his request.
Nevertheless, because of the "importance" of his reservations the
matter was brought to the attention of the Director of Plans and
Policies.[4-33] As a result, the assignment of the 7th and 8th Depot
Companies to Samoa proved short-lived. Arriving on 13 October 1943,
they were redeployed to the Ellice Islands in the Micronesia group the
next day.
[Footnote 4-33: Brig Gen Rockey for S-C files, 4 Jun
43, Memo, G. F. Good, Div of Plans and Policies, to
Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, 3 Sep 43. Both
attached to Price Ltr, see n. 32 above.]
Thanks to the operations of the ammunition and depot companies, a
large number of black marines, serving in small, efficient labor
units, often exposed to enemy fire, made a valuable contribution. That
so many black marines participated, at least from time to time, in the
fighting may explain in part the fact that relatively few racial
incidents took place in the corps during the war. But if many Negroes
served in forward areas, they were all nevertheless severely
restricted in opportunity. Black marines were excluded from the corps'
celebrated combat divisions and its air arm. They were also excluded
from the Women's Reserve, and not until the last months of the war did
the corps accept its first black officer candidates. Marine spokesmen
justified the latter exclusion on the grounds that the corps lacked
facilities--that is, segregated facilities--for training black
officers.[4-34]
[Footnote 4-34: Ltr, Phillips D. Carleton, Asst to
Dir, MC Reserve, to Welford Wilson, U.S. Employment
Service, 27 Mar 43, AF-464, MC files. For more on
black officers in the Marine Corps, see Chapter 9.]
These exclusions did not escape the attention of the civil rights
spokesmen who took their demands to Secretary Knox and the White
House.[4-35] It was to little avail. With the exception of the officer
candidates in 1945, the separation of the races remained absolute, and
Negroes continued to be excluded from the main combat units of the
Marine Corps.
[Footnote 4-35: See, for example, Ltr, Mary Findley
Allen, Interracial Cmte of Federation of Churches,
to Mrs. Roosevelt (ca. 9 Mar 43); Memo, SecNav for
Rear Adm Jacobs, 22 Mar 43, P-25; Memo, R. C.
Kilmartin, Jr., Div of Plans and Policies, for Dir,
Div of Plans and Policies, 25 Sep 43, AO-434. All
in Hist Div, HQMC.]
Personal prejudices aside, the desire for social harmony and the fear
of the unknown go far toward explaining the Marine Corps' wartime
racial policy. A small, specialized, and racially exclusive
organization, the Marine Corps reacted to the directives of the
Secretary of the Navy and the necessities of wartime operation with a
rigid segregation policy, its black troops restricted to about 4
percent of its enlisted strength. A large part of this black strength
was assigned to labor units where Negroes performed valuable and
sometimes dangerous service in the Pacific war. Complaints from civil
rights advocates abounded, but neither protests nor the cost to
military efficiency of duplicating training facilities were of (p. 112)
sufficient moment to overcome the sentiment against significant racial
change, which was kept to a minimum. Judged strictly in terms of
keeping racial harmony, the corps policy must be considered a success.
Ironically this very success prevented any modification of that policy
during the war.
[Illustration: CREWMEN OF USCG LIFEBOAT STATION, PEA ISLAND, NORTH
CAROLINA, _ready surf boat for launching_.]
_New Roles for Black Coast Guardsmen_
The Coast Guard's pre-World War II experience with Negroes differed
from that of the other branches of the naval establishment. Unlike the
Marine Corps, the Coast Guard could boast a tradition of black
enlistment stretching far back into the previous century. Although it
shared this tradition with the Navy, the Coast Guard, unlike the Navy,
had always severely restricted Negroes both in terms of numbers
enlisted and jobs assigned. A small group of Negroes manned a
lifesaving station at Pea Island on North Carolina's outer banks.
Negroes also served as crewmen at several lighthouses and on tenders
in the Mississippi River basin; all were survivors of the transfer of
the Lighthouse Service to the Coast Guard in 1939. These guardsmen
were almost always segregated, although a few served in integrated
crews or even commanded large Coast Guard vessels and small harbor (p. 113)
craft.[4-36] They also served in the separate Steward's Branch,
although it might be argued that the small size of most Coast Guard
vessels integrated in fact men who were segregated in theory.
[Footnote 4-36: Capt. Michael Healy, who was of Irish
and Afro-American heritage, served as commanding
officer of the _Bear_ and other major Coast Guard
vessels. At his retirement in 1903 Healy was the
third ranking officer in the U.S. Revenue Cutter
Service. See Robert E. Greene, _Black Defenders of
America, 1775-1973_ (Chicago: Johnson Publishing
Company, 1974), p. 139. For pre-World War II
service of Negroes in the Coast Guard, see Truman
R. Strobridge, _Blacks and Lights: A Brief
Historical Survey of Blacks and the Old U.S.
Lighthouse Service_ (Office of the USCG Historian,
1975); H. Kaplan and J. Hunt, _This Is the United
States Coast Guard_ (Cambridge, Md.: Cornell
Maritime Press, 1971); Rodney H. Benson, "Romance
and Story of Pea Island Station," _U.S. Coast Guard
Magazine_ (November 1932):52; George Reasons and
Sam Patrick, "Richard Etheridge--Saved Sailors,"
Washington _Star_, November 13, 1971. For the
position of Negroes on the eve of World War II
induction, see Enlistment of Men of Colored Race
(201), 23 Jan 42, Hearings Before the General Board
of the Navy, 1942.]
[Illustration: COAST GUARD RECRUITS _at Manhattan Beach Training
Station, New York_.]
The lot of the black Coast Guardsman on a small cutter was not
necessarily a happy one. To a surprising extent the enlisted men of
the prewar Coast Guard were drawn from the eastern shore and outer
banks region of the Atlantic coast where service in the Coast Guard
had become a strong family tradition among a people whose attitude
toward race was rarely progressive. Although these men tolerated an
occasional small black Coast Guard crew or station, they might well
resist close service with individual Negroes. One commander reported
that racial harassment drove the solitary black in the prewar (p. 114)
crew of the cutter _Calypso_ out of the service.[4-37]
[Footnote 4-37: Interv, author with Capt W. C.
Capron, USCGR, 20 Feb 75, CMH files.]
Coast Guard officials were obviously mindful of such potential
troubles when, at Secretary Knox's bidding, they joined in the General
Board's discussion of the expanded use of Negroes in the general
service in January 1942. In the name of the Coast Guard, Commander
Lyndon Spencer agreed with the objections voiced by the Navy and the
Marine Corps, adding that the Coast Guard problem was "enhanced
somewhat by the fact that our units are small and contacts between the
men are bound to be closer." He added that while the Coast Guard was
not "anxious to take on any additional problems at this time, if we
have to we will take some of them [Negroes]."[4-38]
[Footnote 4-38: Enlistment of Men of Colored Race
(201), 23 Jan 42, Hearings Before the General Board
of the Navy, 1942.]
When President Roosevelt made it clear that Negroes were to be
enlisted, Coast Guard Commandant Rear Adm. Russell R. Waesche had a
plan ready. The Coast Guard would enlist approximately five hundred
Negroes in the general service, he explained to the chairman of the
General Board, Vice Adm. Walton R. Sexton. Some three hundred of these
men would be trained for duty on small vessels, the rest for shore
duty under the captain of the port of six cities throughout the United
States. Although his plan made no provision for the training of black
petty officers, the commandant warned Admiral Sexton that 50 to 65
percent of the crew in these small cutters and miscellaneous craft
held such ratings, and it followed that Negroes would eventually be
allowed to try for such ratings.[4-39]
[Footnote 4-39: Memo, Cmdt, CG, for Adm Sexton, Chmn
of Gen Bd, 2 Feb 42, sub: Enlistment of Men of the
Colored Race in Other Than Messman Branch, attached
to Enlistment of Men of Colored Race (201), 23 Jan
42, Hearings Before the General Board of the Navy,
1942.]
Further refining the plan for the General Board on 24 February,
Admiral Waesche listed eighteen vessels, mostly buoy tenders and
patrol boats, that would be assigned black crews. All black enlistees
would be sent to the Manhattan Beach Training Station, New York, for a
basic training "longer and more extensive" than the usual recruit
training. After recruit training the men would be divided into groups
according to aptitude and experience and would undergo advanced
instruction before assignment. Those trained for ship duty would be
grouped into units of a size to enable them to go aboard and assume
all but the petty officer ratings of the designated ships. The
commandant wanted to initiate this program with a group of 150 men. No
other Negroes would be enlisted until the first group had been trained
and assigned to duty for a period long enough to permit a survey of
its performance. Admiral Waesche warned that the whole program was
frankly new and untried and was therefore subject to modification as
it evolved.[4-40]
[Footnote 4-40: Memo, Cmdt, CG, for Chmn of Gen Bd,
24 Feb 42. sub: Enlistment of Men of the Colored
Race in Other Than Messman Branch, P-701, attached
to Recs of Gen Bd, No 421 (Serial 204-X),
OpNavArchives.]
The plan was a major innovation in the Coast Guard's manpower policy.
For the first time a number of Negroes, approximately 1.6 percent of
the guard's total enlisted complement, would undergo regular (p. 115)
recruit and specialized training.[4-41] More than half would serve
aboard ship at close quarters with their white petty officers. The
rest would be assigned to port duty with no special provision for
segregated service. If the provision for segregating nonrated Coast
Guardsmen when they were at sea was intended to prevent the
development of racial antagonism, the lack of a similar provision for
Negroes ashore was puzzling; but whatever the Coast Guard's reasoning
in the matter, the General Board was obviously concerned with the
provisions for segregation in the plan. Its chairman told Secretary
Knox that the assignment of Negroes to the captains of the ports was a
practical use of Negroes in wartime, since these men could be
segregated in service units. But their assignment to small vessels,
Admiral Sexton added, meant that "the necessary segregation and
limitation of authority would be increasingly difficult to maintain"
and "opportunities for advancement would be few." For that reason, he
concluded, the employment of such black crews was practical but not
desirable.[4-42]
[Footnote 4-41: Unless otherwise noted, all
statistics on Coast Guard personnel are derived
from Memo, Chief, Statistical Services Div, for
Chief, Pub Information Div, 30 Mar 54, sub: Negro
Personnel, Officers and Enlisted; Number of, Office
of the USCG Historian; and "Coast Guard Personnel
Growth Chart," _Report of the Secretary of the
Navy-Fiscal 1945_, p. A-15.]
[Footnote 4-42: Memo, Chmn of Gen Bd for SecNav, 20
Mar 42, sub: Enlistment of Men of the Colored Race
in Other Than Messman Branch, G.B. No. 421 (Serial
204), OpNavArchives.]
The General Board was overruled, and the Coast Guard proceeded to
recruit its first group of 150 black volunteers, sending them to
Manhattan Beach for basic training in the spring of 1942. The small
size of the black general service program precluded the establishment
of a separate training station, but the Negroes were formed into a
separate training company at Manhattan Beach. While training classes
and other duty activities were integrated, sleeping and messing
facilities were segregated. Although not geographically separated as
were the black sailors at Camp Smalls or the marines at Montford
Point, the black recruits of the separate training company at
Manhattan Beach were effectively impressed with the reality of
segregation in the armed forces.[4-43]
[Footnote 4-43: Interv, author with Ira H. Coakley,
26 Feb 75, CMH files. Coakley was a recruit in one
of the first black training companies at Manhattan
Beach.]
After taking a four-week basic course, those who qualified were
trained as radiomen, pharmacists, yeomen, coxswains, fire controlmen,
or in other skills in the seaman branch.[4-44] Those who did not so
qualify were transferred for further training in preparation for their
assignment to the captains of the ports. Groups of black Coast
Guardsmen, for example, were sent to the Pea Island Station after
their recruit training for several weeks' training in beach duties.
Similar groups of white recruits were also sent to the Pea Island
Station for training under the black chief boatswain's mate in
charge.[4-45] By August 1942 some three hundred Negroes had been
recruited, trained, and assigned to general service duties under the
new program. At the same time the Coast Guard continued to recruit
hundreds of Negroes for its separate Steward's Branch.
[Footnote 4-44: For a brief account of the Coast
Guard recruit training program, see Nelson,
"Integration of the Negro," pp. 84-87, and "A Black
History in World War II," _Octagon_ (February
1972): 31-32.]
[Footnote 4-45: Log of Pea Island Station, 1942,
Berry Collection, USCG Headquarters.]
The commandant's program for the orderly induction and assignment (p. 116)
of a limited number of black volunteers was, as in the case of the
Navy and Marine Corps, abruptly terminated in December 1942 when the
President ended volunteer enlistment for most military personnel. For
the rest of the war the Coast Guard, along with the Navy and Marine
Corps, came under the strictures of the Selective Service Act,
including its racial quota system. The Coast Guard, however, drafted
relatively few men, issuing calls for a mere 22,500 and eventually
inducting only 15,296. But more than 12 percent of its calls (2,500
men between February and November 1943) and 13 percent of all those
drafted (1,667) were Negro. On the average, 137 Negroes and 1,000
whites were inducted each month during 1943.[4-46] Just over 5,000
Negroes served as Coast Guardsmen in World War II.[4-47]
[Footnote 4-46: Selective Service System, _Special
Groups_, 2:196-201.]
[Footnote 4-47: Testimony of Coast Guard
Representatives Before the President's Committee on
Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Services, 18 Mar 49, p. 8.]
As it did for the Navy and Marine Corps, the sudden influx of Negroes
from Selective Service necessitated a revision of the Coast Guard's
personnel planning. Many of the new men could be assigned to steward
duties, but by January 1943 the Coast Guard already had some 1,500
stewards and the branch could absorb only half of the expected black
draftees. The rest would have to be assigned to the general
service.[4-48] And here the organization and mission of the Coast Guard,
far more so than those of the Navy and Marine Corps, militated against
the formation of large segregated units. The Coast Guard had no use
for the amorphous ammunition and depot companies and the large Seabee
battalions of the rest of the naval establishment. For that reason the
large percentage of its black seamen in the general service
(approximately 37 percent of all black Coast Guardsmen) made a
considerable amount of integration inevitable; the small number of
Negroes in the general service (1,300 men, less than 1 percent of the
total enlisted strength of the Coast Guard) made integration socially
acceptable.
[Footnote 4-48: USCG Public Relations Div, Negroes in
the U.S. Coast Guard, July 1943, Office of the USCG
Historian.]
The majority of black Coast Guardsmen were only peripherally concerned
with this wartime evolution of racial policy. Some 2,300 Negroes
served in the racially separate Steward's Branch, performing the same
duties in officer messes and quarters as stewards in the Navy and
Marine Corps. But not quite, for the size of Coast Guard vessels and
their crews necessitated the use of stewards at more important battle
stations. For example, a group of stewards under the leadership of a
black gun captain manned the three-inch gun on the afterdeck of the
cutter _Campbell_ and won a citation for helping to destroy an enemy
submarine in February 1943.[4-49] The Personnel Division worked to make
the separate Steward's Branch equal to the rest of the service in
terms of promotion and emoluments, and there were instances when
individual stewards successfully applied for ratings in general
service.[4-50] Again, the close quarters aboard Coast Guard (p. 117)
vessels made the talents of stewards for general service duties more
noticeable to officers.[4-51] The evidence suggests, however, that the
majority of the black stewards, about 63 percent of all the Negroes in
the Coast Guard, continued to function as servants throughout the war.
As in the rest of the naval establishment, the stewards in the Coast
Guard were set apart not only by their limited service but also by
different uniforms and the fact that chief stewards were not regarded
as chief petty officers. In fact, the rank of chief steward was not
introduced until the war led to an enlargement of the Coast Guard.[4-52]
[Footnote 4-49: Ltr, Cmdt, USCG, to Cmdr, Third CG
District, 18 Jan 52, sub: ETHERIDGE, Louis C; ...
Award of the Bronze Star Medal, P15, BuPersRecs;
USCG Pub Rel Div, Negroes in the U.S. Coast Guard,
Jul 43.]
[Footnote 4-50: USCG Pers Bull 37-42, 31 Mar 43, sub:
Apprentice Seamen and Mess Attendants, Third Class,
Advancement of, USCG Cen Files 61A701.]
[Footnote 4-51: Intervs, author with Cmdt Carlton
Skinner, USCGR, 18 Feb 75, and with Capron, CMH
files.]
[Footnote 4-52: For discussion of limited service of
Coast Guard stewards, see Testimony of Coast Guard
Representatives Before the President's Committee on
Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Services, 18 Mar 49, pp. 27-31.]
[Illustration: STEWARDS AT BATTLE STATION _on the afterdeck of the
cutter Campbell_.]
The majority of black guardsmen in general service served ashore under
the captains of the ports, local district commanders, or at
headquarters establishments. Men in these assignments included
hundreds in security and labor details, but more and more served as
yeomen, radio operators, storekeepers, and the like. Other Negroes
were assigned to local Coast Guard stations, and a second all-black
station was organized during the war at Tiana Beach, New York. Still
others participated in the Coast Guard's widespread beach patrol (p. 118)
operations. Organized in 1942 as outposts and lookouts against
possible enemy infiltration of the nation's extensive coastlines, the
patrols employed more than 11 percent of all the Coast Guard's
enlisted men. This large group included a number of horse and dog
patrols employing only black guardsmen.[4-53] In all, some 2,400 black
Coast Guardsmen served in the shore establishment.
[Footnote 4-53: USCG Historical Section, The Coast
Guard at War, 18:1-10, 36.]
[Illustration: SHORE LEAVE IN SCOTLAND. (_The distinctive uniform of
the Coast Guard steward is shown_.)]
The assignment of so many Negroes to shore duties created potential
problems for the manpower planners, who were under orders to rotate
sea and shore assignments periodically.[4-54] Given the many black
general duty seamen denied sea duty because of the Coast Guard's
segregation policy but promoted into the more desirable shore-based
jobs to the detriment of whites waiting for rotation to such
assignments, the possibility of serious racial trouble was obvious.
[Footnote 4-54: USCG Pers Bull 44-42, 25 Jun 42, sub:
Relief of Personnel Assigned to Seagoing Units,
USCG Cen Files 61A701.]
At least one officer in Coast Guard headquarters was concerned enough
to recommend that the policy be revised. With two years' service in
Greenland waters, the last year as executive officer of the USCGC
_Northland_, Lt. Carlton Skinner had firsthand experience with the
limitations of the Coast Guard's racial policy. While on the
_Northland_ Skinner had recommended that a skilled black mechanic, (p. 119)
then serving as a steward's mate, be awarded a motor mechanic petty
officer rating only to find his recommendation rejected on racial
grounds. The rating was later awarded after an appeal by Skinner, but
the incident set the stage for the young officer's later involvement
with the Coast Guard's racial traditions. On shore duty at Coast Guard
headquarters in June 1943, Skinner recommended to the commandant that
a group of black seamen be provided with some practical seagoing
experience under a sympathetic commander in a completely integrated
operation. He emphasized practical experience in an integrated
setting, he later revealed, because he was convinced that men with
high test scores and specialized training did not necessarily make the
best sailors, especially when their training was segregated. Skinner
envisioned a widespread distribution of Negroes throughout the Coast
Guard's seagoing vessels. His recommendation was no "experiment in
social democracy," he later stressed, but was a design for "an
efficient use of manpower to help win a war."[4-55]
[Footnote 4-55: Interv, author with Skinner; Ltr,
Skinner to author, 29 Jun 75, in CMH files. The
Skinner memorandum to Admiral Waesche, like so many
of the personnel policy papers of the U.S. Coast
Guard from the World War II period, cannot be
located. For a detailed discussion of Skinner's
motives and experiences, see his testimony before
the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment
and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 25 Apr 49,
pp. 1-24.]
Although Skinner's immediate superior forwarded the recommendation as
"disapproved," Admiral Waesche accepted the idea. In November 1943
Skinner found himself transferred to the USS _Sea Cloud_ (IX 99), a
patrol ship operating in the North Atlantic as part of Task Force 24
reporting on weather conditions from four remote locations in northern
waters.[4-56] The commandant also arranged for the transfer of black
apprentice seamen, mostly from Manhattan Beach, to the _Sea Cloud_ in
groups of about twenty men, gradually increasing the number of black
seamen in the ship's complement every time it returned to home
station. Skinner, promoted to lieutenant commander and made captain of
the _Sea Cloud_ on his second patrol, later decided that the
commandant had "figured he could take a chance on me and the _Sea
Cloud_."[4-57]
[Footnote 4-56: A unique vessel, the _Sea Cloud_ was
on loan to the government for the duration of the
war by its owner, the former Ambassador to Russia,
Joseph Davies. Davies charged a nominal sum and
extracted the promise that the vessel would be
restored to its prewar condition as one of the
world's most famous private yachts.]
[Footnote 4-57: Interv, author with Skinner.]
It was a chance well taken. Before decommissioning in November 1944,
the _Sea Cloud_ served on ocean weather stations off the coasts of
Greenland, Newfoundland, and France. It received no special treatment
and was subject to the same tactical, operating, and engineering
requirements as any other unit in the Navy's Atlantic Fleet. It passed
two Atlantic Fleet inspections with no deficiencies and was officially
credited with helping to sink a German submarine in June 1944. The
_Sea Cloud_ boasted a completely integrated operation, its 4 black
officers and some 50 black petty officers and seamen serving
throughout the ship's 173-man complement.[4-58] No problems of a racial
nature arose on the ship, although its captain reported that his crew
experienced some hostility in the various departments of the Boston
Navy Yard from time to time. Skinner was determined to provide truly
integrated conditions. He personally introduced his black officers (p. 120)
into the local white officers' club, and he saw to it that when his
men were temporarily detached for shore patrol duty they would go in
integrated teams. Again, all these arrangements were without sign of
racial incident.[4-59]
[Footnote 4-58: Log of the _Sea Cloud_ (IX 99),
Aug-Nov 44, NARS, Suitland.]
[Footnote 4-59: Interv, author with Skinner.]
[Illustration: COMMANDER SKINNER AND CREW OF THE USS SEA CLOUD.
_Skinner officiates at awards ceremony._]
It is difficult to assess the reasons for the commandant's decision to
organize an integrated crew. One senior personnel officer later
suggested that the _Sea Cloud_ was merely a public relations device
designed to still the mounting criticism by civil rights spokesmen of
the lack of sea duty for black Coast Guardsmen.[4-60] The public
relations advantage of an integrated ship operating in the war zone
must have been obvious to Admiral Waesche, although the Coast Guard
made no effort to publicize the _Sea Cloud_. In fact, this absence of
special attention had been recommended by Skinner in his original
proposal to the commandant. Such publicity, he felt, would disrupt the
military experiment and make it more difficult to apply generally the
experience gained.
[Footnote 4-60: Interv, author with Rear Adm R. T.
McElligott, 24 Feb 75, CMH files. For an example of
the Coast Guard reaction to civil rights criticism,
see Ltr, USCG Public Relations Officer to Douglas
Hall, Washington _Afro-American_, July 12, 1943, CG
051, Office of the USCG Historian.]
The success of the _Sea Cloud_ experiment did not lead to the
widespread integration implied in Commander Skinner's recommendation.
The only other extensively integrated Coast Guard vessel assigned to a
war zone was the destroyer escort _Hoquim_, operating in 1945 out (p. 121)
of Adak in the Aleutian Islands, convoying shipping along the Aleutian
chain. Again, the commander of the ship was Skinner. Nevertheless the
practical reasons for Skinner's first recommendation must also have
been obvious to the commandant, and the evidence suggests that the
_Sea Cloud_ project was but one of a series of liberalizing moves the
Coast Guard made during the war, not only to still the criticism in
the black community but also to solve the problems created by the
presence of a growing number of black seamen in the general service.
There is also reason to believe that the Coast Guard's limited use of
racially mixed crews influenced the Navy's decision to integrate the
auxiliary fleet in 1945. Senior naval officials studied a report on
the _Sea Cloud_, and one of Secretary Forrestal's assistants consulted
Skinner on his experiences and their relation to greater manpower
efficiency.[4-61]
[Footnote 4-61: Ltr, Skinner to author, 2 Jun 75.]
[Illustration: ENSIGN JENKINS AND LIEUTENANT SAMUELS, _first black
Coast Guard officers, on board the Sea Cloud_.]
Throughout the war the Coast Guard never exhibited the concern shown
by the other services for the possible disruptive effects if blacks
outranked whites. As the war progressed, more and more blacks advanced
into petty officer ranks; by August 1945 some 965 Negroes, almost a
third of their total number, were petty or warrant officers, many of
them in the general service. Places for these trained specialists in
any kind of segregated general service were extremely limited, and by
the last year of the war many black petty officers could be found
serving in mostly white crews and station complements. For example, a
black pharmacist, second class, and a signalman, third class, served
on the cutter _Spencer_, a black coxswain served on a cutter in the
Greenland patrol, and other black petty officers were assigned to
recruiting stations, to the loran program, and as instructors at the
Manhattan Beach Training Station.[4-62]
[Footnote 4-62: USCG Historical Section, The Coast
Guard at War, 23:53; Intervs, author with Lt Harvey
C. Russell, USCGR, 14 Feb 75, and with Capron, CMH
files.]
The position of instructor at Manhattan Beach became the usual avenue
to a commission for a Negro. Joseph C. Jenkins went from Manhattan
Beach to the officer candidate school at the Coast Guard Academy,
graduating as an ensign in the Coast Guard Reserve in April 1943,
almost a full year before Negroes were commissioned in the Navy.
Clarence Samuels, a warrant officer and instructor at Manhattan (p. 122)
Beach, was commissioned as a lieutenant (junior grade) and assigned to
the _Sea Cloud_ in 1943. Harvey C. Russell was a signal instructor at
Manhattan Beach in 1944 when all instructors were declared eligible to
apply for commissions. At first rejected by the officer training
school, Russell was finally admitted at the insistence of his
commanding officer, graduated as an ensign, and was assigned to the
_Sea Cloud_.[4-63]
[Footnote 4-63: "A Black History in WWII," pp. 31-34.
For an account of Samuels' long career in the Coast
Guard, see Joseph Greco and Truman R. Strobridge,
"Black Trailblazer Has Colorful Past," _Fifth
Dimension_ (3d Quarter, 1973); see also Interv,
author with Russell.]
These men commanded integrated enlisted seamen throughout the rest of
the war. Samuels became the first Negro in this century to command a
Coast Guard vessel in wartime, first as captain of Lightship No. 115
and later of the USCGC _Sweetgum_ in the Panama Sea Frontier. Russell
was transferred from the integrated _Hoquim_ to serve as executive
officer on a cutter operating out of the Philippines in the western
Pacific, assuming command of the racially mixed crew shortly after the
war.
At the behest of the White House, the Coast Guard also joined with the
Navy in integrating its Women's Reserve. In the fall of 1944 it
recruited five black women for the SPARS. Only token representation,
but understandable since the SPARS ceased all recruitment except for
replacements on 23 November 1944, just weeks after the decision to
recruit Negroes was announced. Nevertheless the five women trained at
Manhattan Beach and were assigned to various Coast Guard district
offices without regard to race.[4-64]
[Footnote 4-64: USCG Historical Section, The Coast
Guard at War, 25:25. See also Oral History
Interview, Dorothy C. Stratton, 24 Sep 70, Center
of Naval History.]
This very real progress toward equal treatment and opportunity for
Negroes in the Coast Guard must be assessed with the knowledge that
the progress was experienced by only a minuscule group. Negroes never
rose above 2.1 percent of the Coast Guard's wartime population, well
below the figures for the other services. This was because the other
services were forced to obtain draft-age men, including a significant
number of black inductees from Selective Service, whereas the Coast
Guard ceased all inductions in early 1944.
Despite their small numbers, however, the black Coast Guardsmen
enjoyed a variety of assignments. The different reception accorded
this small group of Negroes might, at least to some extent, be
explained by the Coast Guard's tradition of some black participation
for well over a century. To a certain extent this progress could also
be attributed to the ease with which the directors of a small
organization can reorder its policies.[4-65] But above all, the
different reception accorded Negroes in the Coast Guard was a small
organization's practical reaction to a pressing assimilation problem
dictated by the manpower policies common throughout the naval
establishment.
[Footnote 4-65: For discussion of this point, see
Testimony of Coast Guard Representatives Before the
President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and
Opportunity in the Armed Services, 18 Mar 49, pp.
25-26.]
CHAPTER 5 (p. 123)
A Postwar Search
The nation's military leaders and the leaders of the civil rights
movement were in rare accord at the end of World War II. They agreed
that despite considerable wartime improvement the racial policies of
the services had proved inadequate for the development of the full
military potential of the country's largest minority as well as the
efficient operation and management of the nation's armed forces.
Dissatisfaction with the current policy of the armed forces was a
spearpoint of the increasingly militant and powerful civil rights
movement, and this dissatisfaction was echoed to a great extent by the
services themselves. Intimate association with minority problems had
convinced the Army's Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies and
the Navy's Special Programs Unit that new policies had to be devised
and new directions sought. Confronted with the incessant demands of
the civil rights advocates and presented by their own staffs with
evidence of trouble, civilian leaders of the services agreed to review
the status of the Negro. As the postwar era opened, both the Army and
the Navy were beginning the interminable investigations that augured a
change in policy.
Unfortunately, the services and the civil rights leaders had somewhat
different ends in mind. Concerned chiefly with military efficiency but
also accustomed to racial segregation or exclusion, most military
leaders insisted on a rigid appraisal of the performance of segregated
units in the war and ignored the effects of segregation on that
performance. Civil rights advocates, on the other hand, seeing an
opportunity to use the military as a vehicle for the extension of
social justice, stressed the baneful effects of segregation on the
black serviceman's morale. They were inclined to ignore the
performance of the large segregated units and took issue with the
premise that desegregation of the armed forces in advance of the rest
of American society would threaten the efficient execution of the
services' military mission. Neither group seemed able to appreciate
the other's real concerns, and their contradictory conclusions
promised a renewal of the discord in their wartime relationship.
_Black Demands_
World War II marked the beginning of an important step in the
evolution of the civil rights movement. Until then the struggle for
racial equality had been sustained chiefly by the "talented tenth,"
the educated, middle-class black citizens who formed an economic and
political alliance with white supporters. Together they fought to (p. 124)
improve the racial situation with some success in the courts, but with
little progress in the executive branch and still less in the
legislative. The efforts of men like W. E. B. DuBois, Walter White,
and Thurgood Marshall of the NAACP and Lester Granger of the National
Urban League were in the mainstream of the American reform movement,
which stressed an orderly petitioning of government for a redress of
grievances.
But there was another facet to the American reform tradition, one that
stressed mass action and civil disobedience, and the period between
the March on Washington Movement in 1940 and the threat of a black
boycott of the draft in 1948 witnessed the beginnings of a shift in
the civil rights movement to this kind of reform tactic. The
articulate leaders of the prewar struggle were still active, and in
fact would make their greatest contribution in the fight that led to
the Supreme Court's pronouncement on school segregation in 1954. But
their quiet methods were already being challenged by A. Philip
Randolph and others who launched a sustained demand for equal
treatment and opportunity in the armed forces during the early postwar
period. Randolph and leaders of his persuasion relied not so much on
legal eloquence in their representations to the federal government as
on an understanding of bloc voting in key districts and the implicit
threat of civil disobedience. The civil rights campaign, at least in
the effort to end segregation in the armed forces, had the appearance
of a mass movement a full decade before a weary Rosa Parks boarded a
Montgomery bus and set off the all-embracing crusade of Martin Luther
King, Jr.
The growing political power of the Negro and the threat of mass action
in the 1940's were important reasons for the breakthrough on the color
front that began in the armed forces in the postwar period. For
despite the measure of good will and political acumen that
characterized his social programs, Harry S. Truman might never have
made the effort to achieve racial equality in the services without the
constant pressure of civil rights activists.
The reasons for the transformation that was beginning in the civil
rights struggle were varied and complex.[5-1] Fundamental was the
growing urbanization of the Negro. By 1940 almost half the black
population lived in cities. As the labor shortage became more acute
during the next five years, movement toward the cities continued, not
only in the south but in the north and west. Attracted by economic
opportunities in Los Angeles war industries, for example, over 1,000
Negroes moved to that city each month during the war. Detroit,
Seattle, and San Francisco, among others, reported similar migrations.
The balance finally shifted during the war, and the 1950 census showed
that 56 percent of the black population resided in metropolitan (p. 125)
areas, 32 percent in cities of the north and west.[5-2]
[Footnote 5-1: This discussion is based in great part
on Arnold M. Rose, "The American Negro Problem in
the Context of Social Change," _Annals of the
Academy of Political Science_ 257 (January
1965):1-17; Rustin, _Strategies for Freedom_, pp.
26-46; Leonard Broom and Norval Glenn,
_Transformation of the Negro American_ (New York:
Harper and Row, 1965); St. Clair Drake and Horace
Cayton, _Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in
a Northern City_ (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1970);
John Hope Franklin, _From Slavery to Freedom: A
History of Negro America_, 3d ed. (New York: Knopf,
1967); Woodward's _The Strange Career of Jim Crow_;
Seymour Wolfbein, "Postwar Trends in Negro
Employment," a report by the Occupational Outlook
Division, Bureau of Labor Statistics, in CMH; Oscar
Handlin, "The Goals of Integration," and Kenneth B.
Clark, "The Civil Rights Movement: Momentum and
Organization," both in _Daedalus_ 95 (Winter
1966).]
[Footnote 5-2: For a discussion of this trend, see
Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Social and Economic
Conditions of Negroes in the United States"
(Current Population Reports P23, October 1967); see
also Charles S. Johnson, "The Negro Minority,"
_Annals of the Academy of Political Science_ 223
(September 1942):10-16.]
This mass migration, especially to cities outside the south, was of
profound importance to the future of American race relations. It meant
first that the black masses were separating themselves from the
archaic social patterns that had ruled their lives for generations.
Despite virulent discrimination and prejudice in northern and western
cities, Negroes could vote freely and enjoy some protection of the law
and law-enforcement machinery. They were free of the burden of Jim
Crow. Along with white citizens they were given better schooling, a
major factor in improving status. The mass migration also meant that
this part of America's peasantry was rapidly joining America's
proletariat. The wartime shortage of workers, coupled with the efforts
of the Fair Employment Practices Committee and other government
agencies, opened up thousands of jobs previously denied black
Americans. The number of skilled craftsmen, foremen, and semiskilled
workers among black Americans rose from 500,000 to over 1,000,000
during the war, while the number of Negroes working for the federal
government increased from 60,000 to 200,000.[5-3]
[Footnote 5-3: Selective Service System, _Special
Groups_, vol. I, pp. 177-78; see also Robert C.
Weaver, "Negro Labor Since 1929," _The Journal of
Negro History_ 35 (January 1950):20-38.]
Though much of the increase in black employment was the result of
temporarily expanded wartime industries, black workers gained valuable
training and experience that enabled them to compete more effectively
for postwar jobs. Employment in unionized industries strengthened
their position in the postwar labor movement. The severity of
inevitable postwar cuts in black employment was mitigated by continued
prosperity and the sustained growth of American industry. Postwar
industrial development created thousands of new upper-level jobs,
allowing many black workers to continue their economic advance without
replacing white workers and without the attendant development of
racial tensions.
The armed forces played their part in this change. Along with better
food, pay, and living conditions provided by the services, many
Negroes were given new work experiences. Along with many of their
white fellows, they acquired new skills and a new sophistication that
prepared them for the different life of the postwar industrial world.
Most important, military service in World War II divorced many Negroes
from a society whose traditions had carefully defined their place, and
exposed them for the first time to a community where racial equality,
although imperfectly realized, was an ideal. Out of this experience
many Negroes came to understand that their economic and political
position could be changed. Ironically, the services themselves became
an early target of this rising self-awareness. The integration of the
armed forces, immediate and total, was a popular goal of the newly
franchised voting group, which was turning away from leaders of both
races who preached a philosophy of gradual change.
The black press was spokesman for the widespread demand for (p. 126)
equality in the armed forces; just as the growth of the black press
was dramatically stimulated by urbanization of the Negro, so was the
civil rights movement stimulated by the press. The Pittsburgh
_Courier_ was but one of many black papers and journals that developed
a national circulation and featured countless articles on the subject
of discrimination in the services. One black sociologist observed that
it was "no exaggeration to say that the Negro press was the major
influence in mobilizing Negroes in the struggle for their rights
during World War II."[5-4] Sometimes inaccurate, often inflammatory, and
always to the consternation of the military, the black press rallied
the opposition to segregation during and after the war.
[Footnote 5-4: E. Franklin Frazier, _The Negro in the
United States_ (New York: Macmillan, 1957), p.
513.]
Much of the black unrest and dissatisfaction dramatized by the press
continued to be mobilized through the efforts of such organizations as
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the
National Urban League, and the Congress of Racial Equality. The NAACP,
for example, revitalized by a new and broadened appeal to the black
masses, had some 1,200 branches in forty-three states by 1946 and
boasted a membership of more than half a million. While the
association continued to fight for minority rights in the courts, to
stimulate black political participation, and to improve the conditions
of Negroes generally, its most popular activity during the 1940's was
its effort to eliminate discrimination in the armed forces. The files
of the services and the White House are replete with NAACP complaints,
requests, demands, and charges that involved the military departments
in innumerable investigations and justifications. If the complaints
effected little immediate change in policy, they at least dramatized
the plight of black servicemen and mobilized demands for reform.[5-5]
[Footnote 5-5: Clark, "The Civil Rights Movement,"
pp. 240-47.]
Not all racial unrest was so constructively channeled during the war.
Riots and mutinies in the armed services were echoed around the
country. In Detroit competition between blacks and whites, many
recently arrived from the south seeking jobs, culminated in June 1943
in the most serious riot of the decade. The President was forced to
declare a state of emergency and dispatch 6,000 troops to patrol the
city. The Detroit riot was only the most noticeable of a number of
racial incidents that inevitably provoked an ugly reaction, and the
postwar period witnessed an increase in antiblack sentiment and
violence in the United States.[5-6] Testifying to the black community's
economic and political progress during the war as well as a
corresponding increase in white awareness of and protest against the
mistreatment of black citizens, this antiblack sentiment was only the
pale ghost of a similar phenomenon after World War I.
[Footnote 5-6: _Report of the National Advisory
Commission on Civil Disorders, 1 March 1968_,
Kerner Report (Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1968), pp. 104-05; see also Dalfiume,
_Desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces_, pp.
132-34. For a detailed account of the major riot,
see R. Shogan and T. Craig, _The Detroit Race Riot:
A Study in Violence_ (New York: Chilton Books,
1964).]
[Illustration: PRESIDENT TRUMAN ADDRESSING THE NAACP CONVENTION,
_Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C., June 1947. Seated at the
President's left are Walter White, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Senator
Wayne Morse; visible in the rear row are Admiral of the Fleet Chester
W. Nimitz, Attorney General Tom C. Clark, and Chief Justice Fred M.
Vinson_.]
Nevertheless, the sentiment was widespread. Traveling cross-country in
a train during Christmastime, 1945, the celebrated American essayist
Bernard De Voto was astonished to hear expressions of antiblack (p. 127)
sentiment. In Wisconsin, "a state where I think I had never before
heard the word 'nigger,' that [dining] car was full of talk about
niggers and what had to be done about them."[5-7] A white veteran bore
out the observation. "Anti-Negro talk ... is cropping up in many
places ... the assumption [being] that there is more prejudice, never
less.... Throughout the war the whites were segregated from the
Negroes (why not say it this way for a change?) so that there were
almost no occasions for white soldiers to get any kind of an
impression of Negroes, favorable or otherwise." There had been some
race prejudice among servicemen, but, the veteran asked, "What has
caused this anti-Negro talk among those who stayed at home?"[5-8]
About the same time, a U.S. senator was complaining to the Secretary
of War that white and black civilians at Kelly Field, Texas, (p. 128)
shared the same cafeterias and other facilities. He hoped the
secretary would look into the matter to prevent disturbances that
might grow out of a policy of this sort.[5-9]
[Footnote 5-7: Bernard De Voto, "The Easy Chair"
_Harper's_ 192 (January 1946):38-39.]
[Footnote 5-8: Ltr, John H. Caldwell (Hartsdale, New
York) to the Editor, _Harper's_ 192 (March 1946):
unnumbered front pages.]
[Footnote 5-9: Ltr, Sen. W. Lee O'Daniel of Texas to
SW, 27 Feb 46, ASW 291.2 (1946).]
Nor did the armed forces escape the rise in racial tension. For
example, the War Department received many letters from the public and
members of Congress when black officers, nearly the base's entire
contingent of four hundred, demonstrated against the segregation of
the officers' club at Freeman Field, Indiana, in April 1945. The
question at issue was whether a post commander had the authority to
exclude individuals on grounds of race from recreational facilities on
an Army post. The Army Air Forces supported the post commander and
suggested a return to a policy of separate and equal facilities for
whites and blacks, primarily because a club for officers was a social
center for the entire family. Since it was hardly an accepted custom
in the country for the races to intermingle, officials argued, the
Army had to follow rather than depart from custom, and, further, the
wishes of white officers as well as those of Negroes deserved
consideration.[5-10]
[Footnote 5-10: This important incident in the Air
Force's racial history has been well documented.
See AAF Summary Sheet, 5 May 45, sub: Racial
Incidents at Freeman Field and Ft. Huachuca,
Arizona, and Memo, Maj Gen H. R. Harmon, ACofS,
AAF, for DCofS, 29 May 45, both in WDGAP 291.2. See
also Memo, The Inspector General for DCofS, 1 May
45, sub: Investigation at Freeman Field, WDSIG
291.2 Freeman Field, and Memo, Truman Gibson for
ASW, 14 May 45, ASW 291.2 NT. For a critical
contemporary analysis, see Hq Air Defense Command,
"The Training of Negro Combat Units by the First
Air Force" (Monograph III, May 1946), vol. 1; ch.
III, AFSHRC. The incident is also discussed in
Osur, _Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World
War II_, ch. VI, and in Alan L. Gropman's _The Air
Force Integrates, 1943-1964_ (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1978). Gropman's work
is the major source for the history of Negroes in
the postwar Air Force.]
The controversy reached the desk of John McCloy, the Assistant
Secretary of War, who considered the position taken by the Army Air
Forces a backward step, a reversal of the War Department position in
an earlier and similar case at Selfridge Field, Michigan. McCloy's
contention prevailed--that the commander's administrative discretion
in these matters fell short of authority to exclude individuals from
the right to enjoy recreational facilities provided by the federal
government or maintained with its funds. Secretary of War Stimson
agreed to amend the basic policy to reflect this clarification.[5-11]
[Footnote 5-11: Memo, ASW for SW, 4 Jun 45; Memo, SGS
for DCofS, 7 Jun 45, sub: Report of Advisory
Committee on Special Troop Policies, both in ASW
291.2 (NT).]
In December 1945 the press reported and the War and Navy Departments
investigated an incident at Le Havre, France, where soldiers were
embarking for the United States for demobilization. Officers of a Navy
escort carrier objected to the inclusion of 123 black enlisted men on
the grounds that the ship was unable to provide separate
accommodations for Negroes. Army port authorities then substituted
another group that included only one black officer and five black
enlisted men who were placed aboard over the protests of the ship's
officers.[5-12] The Secretary of the Navy had already declared that the
Navy did not differentiate between men on account of race, and on (p. 129)
12 December 1945 he reiterated his statement, adding that it applied
to members of all the armed forces.[5-13] Demonstrating the frequent
gap between policy and practice, Forrestal's order was ignored six
months later by port officials when a group of black officers and men
was withdrawn from a shipping list at Bremerhaven, Germany, on the
grounds that "segregation is a War Department policy."[5-14]
[Footnote 5-12: OPD Summary Sheet to CofS, 2 Apr 46,
CS 291.2 Negroes; Memo, WD Bureau of Public
Relations for Press, 5 Jan 46; Ltr, Exec to Actg
ASW to P. Bernard Young, Jr., Norfolk _Journal and
Guide_, 14 Dec 45, ASW 291.2.]
[Footnote 5-13: ALNAV 423-45, 12 Dec 45.]
[Footnote 5-14: Memo, Marcus H. Ray, Civ Aide to SW,
for ASW, 11 Jun 46, ASW 291.2 (NT).]
Overt antiblack behavior and social turbulence in the civilian
community also reached into the services. In February 1946 Issac
Woodard, Jr., who had served in the Army for fifteen months in the
Pacific, was ejected from a commercial bus and beaten by civilian
police. Sergeant Woodard had recently been discharged from the Army at
Camp Gordon, Georgia, and was still in uniform at the time of the
brutal attack that blinded him. His case was quickly taken up by the
NAACP and became the centerpiece of a national protest.[5-15] Not only
did the civil rights spokesmen protest the sadistic blinding, they
also charged that the Army was incapable of protecting its own members
in the community.
[Footnote 5-15: See Ltr, Walter White, Secy, NAACP,
to SW, 6 May 46, and a host of letters in SW 291.2
file. See also copies of NAACP press releases on
the subject in CMH files.]
While service responsibility for countering off-base discrimination
against servicemen was still highly debatable in 1946, the right of
men on a military base to protection was uncontestable. Yet even
service practices on military bases were under attack as racial
conflicts and threats of violence multiplied. "Dear Mother," one
soldier stationed at Sheppard Field, Texas, felt compelled to write in
early 1946, "I don't know how long I'll stay whole because when those
Whites come over to start [trouble] again I'll be right with the rest
of the fellows. Nothing to worry about. Love,..."[5-16] If the
soldier's letter revealed continuing racial conflict in the service,
it also testified to a growing racial unity among black servicemen
that paralleled the trend in the black community. When Negroes could
resolve with a new self-consciousness to "be right with the rest of
the fellows," their cause was immeasurably strengthened and their
goals brought appreciably nearer.
[Footnote 5-16: Ltr, 28 Feb 46, copy in SW 291.2.]
Civil rights spokesmen had several points to make regarding the use of
Negroes in the postwar armed forces. Referring to the fact that World
War II began with Negroes fighting for the right to fight, they
demanded that the services guarantee a fair representation of Negroes
in the postwar forces. Furthermore, to avoid the frustration suffered
by Negroes trained for combat and then converted into service troops,
they demanded that Negroes be trained and employed in all military
specialties. They particularly stressed the correlation between poor
leaders and poor units. The services' command practices, they charged,
had frequently led to the appointment of the wrong men, either black
or white, to command black units. Their principal solution was to
provide for the promotion and proper employment of a proportionate
share of competent black officers and noncommissioned officers. Above
all, they pointed to the humiliations black soldiers suffered in (p. 130)
the community outside the limits of the base.[5-17] One particularly
telling example of such discrimination that circulated in the black
press in 1945 described German prisoners of war being fed in a
railroad restaurant while their black Army guards were forced to eat
outside. But such discrimination toward black servicemen was hardly
unique, and the civil rights advocates were quick to point to the
connection between such practices and low morale and performance. For
them there was but one answer to such discrimination: all men must be
treated as individuals and guaranteed equal treatment and opportunity
in the services. In a word, the armed forces must integrate. They
pointed with pride to the success of those black soldiers who served
in integrated units in the last months of the European war, and they
repeatedly urged the complete abolition of segregation in the
peacetime Army and Navy.[5-18]
[Footnote 5-17: For a summary of these views, see
Warman Welliver, "Report on the Negro Soldier,"
_Harper's_ 192 (April 1946):333-38 and back pages.]
[Footnote 5-18: Murray, _Negro Handbook, 1946-1947_,
pp. 369-70.]
[Illustration: ASSISTANT SECRETARY MCCLOY.]
When an executive of the National Urban League summed up these demands
for President Truman at the end of the war, he clearly indicated that
the changes in military policy that had brought about the gradual
improvement in the lot of black servicemen during the war were now
beside the point.[5-19] The military might try to ignore this fact for a
little while longer; a politically sensitive President was not about
to make such an error.
[Footnote 5-19: Ltr, Exec Secy, National Urban
League, to President Truman, 27 Aug 45, copy in
Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]
_The Army's Grand Review_
In the midst of this intensifying sentiment for integration, in fact a
full year before the war ended, the Army began to search for a new
racial policy. The invasion of Normandy and the extraordinary advance
to Paris during the summer of 1944 had led many to believe that the
war in Europe would soon be over, perhaps by fall. As the Allied
leaders at the Quebec Conference in September discussed arrangements
to be imposed on a defeated Germany, American officials in Washington
began to consider plans for the postwar period. Among them was
Assistant Secretary of War McCloy. Dissatisfied with the manner in
which the Army was using black troops, McCloy believed it was time to
start planning how best to employ them in the postwar Army, which (p. 131)
according to current assumptions, would be small and professional and
would depend upon a citizen reserve to augment it in an emergency.
[Illustration: TRUMAN GIBSON.]
McCloy concluded that despite a host of prewar studies by the General
Staff, the Army War College, and other military agencies, the Army was
unprepared during World War II to deal with and make the most
efficient use of the large numbers of Negroes furnished by Selective
Service. Policies for training and employing black troops had
developed in response to specific problems rather than in accordance
with a well thought out and comprehensive plan. Because of "inadequate
preparation prior to the period of sudden expansion," McCloy believed
a great many sources of racial irritation persisted. To develop a
"definite, workable policy, for the inclusion and utilization in the
Army of minority racial groups" before postwar planning crystallized
and solidified, McCloy suggested to his assistants that the War
Department General Staff review existing practices and experiences at
home and abroad and recommend changes.[5-20]
[Footnote 5-20: Memos, McCloy for Advisory Committee
on Special Troop Policies, 31 Jul and 1 Sep 44,
sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Post-War
Military Establishment; Memo, ASW for SW, 10 Jan
45, same sub, all in ASW 291.2 (NT).]
The Chief of Staff, General Marshall, continued to insist that the
Army's racial problem was but part of a larger national problem and,
as McCloy later recalled, had no strong views on a solution.[5-21]
Whatever his personal feelings, Marshall, like most Army staff
officers, always emphasized efficiency and performance to the
exclusion of social concerns. While he believed that the limited scope
of the experiment with integrated platoons toward the end of the war
in Europe made the results inconclusive, Marshall still wanted the
platoons' performance considered in the general staff study.[5-22]
[Footnote 5-21: Ltr, John J. McCloy to author, 18 Sep
69, CMH files.]
[Footnote 5-22: Memo, CofS for McCloy, 25 Aug 45,
WDCSA 291.2 Negroes (25 Aug 45).]
The idea of a staff study on the postwar use of black troops also
found favor with Secretary Stimson, and a series of conferences and
informal discussions on the best way to go about it took place in the
highest echelons of the Army during the early months of 1945. The
upshot was a decision to ask the senior commanders at home and
overseas for their comments. How did they train and use their black
troops? What irritations, frictions, and disorders arising from racial
conflicts had hampered their operations? What were their (p. 132)
recommendations on how best to use black troops after the war? Two
weeks after the war ended in Europe, a letter with an attached
questionnaire was sent to senior commanders.[5-23] The questionnaire
asked for such information as: "To what extent have you maintained
segregation beyond the actual unit level, and what is your
recommendation on this subject? If you have employed Negro platoons in
the same company with white platoons, what is your opinion of the
practicability of this arrangement?"
[Footnote 5-23: Ltr, TAG to CinC, Southwest Pacific
Area, et al., 23 May 45, sub: Participation of
Negro Troops in Post-War Military Establishment, AG
291.2 (23 May 45). On the high-level discussions,
see Memo, Maj Gen W. F. Tompkins, Dir, Special
Planning Div, for ACofS, G-1, and Personnel
Officers of the Air, Ground, and Service Forces, 24
Feb 45, same sub; DF, G-1, WDGS (Col O. G. Haywood,
Exec), 8 Mar 45, same sub; Memo, Col G. E. Textor,
Dep Dir, WDSSP, for ACofS, G-1, 10 Mar 45, same
sub; Memo for the File (Col Lawrence Westbrook), 16
Mar 45; Memo, Maj Bell I. Wiley for Col Mathews, 18
Apr 45, all in AG 291.2.]
Not everyone agreed that the questionnaire was the best way to review
the performance of Negroes in World War II. Truman Gibson, for one,
doubted the value of soliciting information from senior commanders,
feeling that these officers would offer much subjective material of
little real assistance. Referring to the letter to the major senior
commanders, he said:
Mere injunctions of objectivity do not work in the racial field
where more often than not decisions are made on a basis of
emotion, prejudice or pre-existing opinion.... Much of the
difficulty in the Army has arisen from improper racial attitudes
on both sides. Indeed, the Army's basic policy of segregation is
said to be based principally on the individual attitudes and
desires of the soldiers.
But who knew what soldiers' attitudes were? Why not, he suggested,
make some scientific inquiries? Why not try to determine, for example,
how far public opinion and pressure would permit the Army to go in
developing policies for black troops?[5-24]
[Footnote 5-24: Memo, Gibson for ASW, 30 May 45, ASW
291.2 (NT).]
Gibson had become, perforce, an expert on public opinion. During the
last several months he had suffered the slings and arrows of an
outraged black press for his widely publicized analysis of the
performance of black troops. Visiting black units and commanders in
the Mediterranean and European theaters to observe, in McCloy's words,
"the performance of Negro troops, their attitudes, and the attitudes
of their officers toward them,"[5-25] Gibson had arrived in Italy at the
end of February 1945 to find theater officials concerned over the poor
combat record of the 92d Infantry Division, the only black division in
the theater and one of three activated by the War Department. After a
series of discussions with senior commanders and a visit to the
division, Gibson participated in a press conference in Rome during
which he spoke candidly of the problems of the division's infantry
units.[5-26] Subsequent news reports of the conference stressed Gibson's
confirmation of the division's disappointing performance, but
neglected the reasons he advanced to explain its failure. The reports
earned a swift and angry retort from the black community. Many (p. 133)
organizations and journals condemned Gibson's evaluation of the
92d outright. Some seemed less concerned with the possible accuracy of
his statement than with the effects it might have on the development
of future military policy. The NAACP's _Crisis_, for example, charged
that Gibson had "carried the ball for the War Department," and that
"probably no more unfortunate words, affecting the representatives of
the entire race, were ever spoken by a Negro in a key position in such
a critical hour. We seem destined to bear the burden of Mr. Gibson's
Rome adventure for many years to come."[5-27]
[Footnote 5-25: Ltr, Gibson to Gen John C. H. Lee,
CG, ComZ, ETOUSA, 31 Mar 45, ASW 291.2 (NT).]
[Footnote 5-26: Memo, Truman Gibson for Maj Gen O. L.
Nelson, 12 Mar 45, sub: Report on Visit to 92d
Division (Negro Troops), ASW 291.2.]
[Footnote 5-27: "Negro Soldier Betrayed," _Crisis_ 52
(April 1945):97; "Gibson Echo," ibid. (July
1945):193.]
Other black journals took a more detached view of the situation,
asserting that Gibson's remarks revealed nothing new and that the
problem was segregation, of which the 92d was a notable victim. Gibson
took this tack in his own defense, pointing to the irony of a
situation in which "some people can, on the one hand, argue that
segregation is wrong, and on the other ... blindly defend the product
of that segregation."[5-28]
[Footnote 5-28: Washington _Afro-American_, April 15,
1945, quoted in Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_,
p. 579. For details of the Gibson controversy, see
Lee, pp. 575-79.]
Gibson had defenders in the Army whose comments might well apply to
all the large black units in the war. At one extreme stood the Allied
commander in Italy, General Mark W. Clark, who attributed the 92d's
shortcomings to "our handling of minority problems at home." Most of
all, General Clark thought, black soldiers needed the incentive of
feeling that they were fighting for home and country as equals. But
his conclusion--"only the proper environment in his own country can
provide such an incentive"--neatly played down Army responsibility for
the division's problems.[5-29]
[Footnote 5-29: Mark W. Clark, _A Calculated Risk_
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950), pp. 414-15.]
Another officer, who as commander of a divisional artillery unit was
intimately acquainted with the division's shortcomings, delineated an
entirely different set of causes. The division was doomed to
mediocrity and worse, Lt. Col. Marcus H. Ray concluded, from the
moment of its activation. Undercurrents of racial antipathy as well as
distrust and prejudice, he believed, infected the organization from
the outset and created an unhealthy beginning. The practice of
withholding promotion from deserving black officers along with
preferential assignments for white officers prolonged the malady. The
basic misconception was that southern white officers understood
Negroes; under such officers Negroes who conformed with the southern
stereotype were promoted regardless of their abilities, while those
who exhibited self-reliance and self-respect--necessary attributes of
leadership--were humiliated and discouraged for their uppityness. "I
was astounded," he said, "by the willingness of the white officers who
preceded us to place their own lives in a hazardous position in order
to have tractable Negroes around them."[5-30] In short, the men of the
92d who fought and died bravely should be honored, but their unit,
which on balance did not perform well, should be considered a (p. 134)
failure of white leadership.
[Footnote 5-30: Ltr, Ray to Gibson, 14 May 45, WDGAP
291.2. Ray later succeeded Gibson as Civilian Aide
to the Secretary of War.]
[Illustration: COMPANY I, 370TH INFANTRY, 92D DIVISION, _advances
through Cascina, Italy_.]
Lt. Gen. Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., then Fifth Army commander in Italy,
disagreed. Submitting the proceedings of a board of review that had
investigated the effectiveness of black officers and enlisted men in
the 92d Division, he was sympathetic to the frustrations encountered
by the division commander, Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond. "In justice to
those splendid officers"--a reference to the white senior commanders
and staff members of the division--"who have devoted themselves
without stint in an endeavor to produce a combat division with Negro
personnel and who have approached this problem without prejudice,"
Truscott endorsed the board's hard view that many infantrymen in the
division "would not fight."[5-31] This conclusion was in direct conflict
with the widely held and respected truism that competent leadership
solved all problems, from which it followed that the answer to the
problem of Negroes in combat was command. Good commanders prevented
friction, performed their mission effectively, and achieved success no
matter what the obstacles--a view put forth in a typical report from
World War II that "the efficiency of Negro units depends entirely on
the leadership of officers and NCO's."[5-32]
[Footnote 5-31: 1st Ind, Hq Fifth Army (signed L. K.
Truscott, Jr.), 30 Jul 45, to Proceedings and Board
of Review, 92d Inf Div, Fifth Army files.]
[Footnote 5-32: WD file 291.2 (Negro Troop Policy),
1943-1945, is full of statements to this effect.
The quote is from 2d Ind, Hq USASTAF, 26 Jul 45,
attached to AAF Summary Sheets to CofS, 17 Sep 45,
sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Post-War
Military Establishment, AG 291.2 (23 May 45).]
In fact, General Truscott's analysis of the 92d Division's problems
seemed at variance with his analysis of command problems in other
units, as illustrated by his later attention to problems in the
all-white 34th Infantry Division.[5-33] The habit of viewing unit
problems as command problems was also demonstrated by General Jacob L.
Devers, who was deputy Allied commander in the Mediterranean when the
92d arrived in Italy. Reflecting later upon the 92d Division, General
Devers agreed that its engineer and armor unit performed well, but the
infantry did not "because their commanders weren't good enough."[5-34]
[Footnote 5-33: L. K. Truscott, Jr., _Command
Missions: A Personal Story_ (New York: Dutton,
1959), see pages 461-62 and 471-72 for comparison
of Truscott's critical analysis of problems of the
34th and 92d Infantry Divisions.]
[Footnote 5-34: Interv, author with General Jacob
Devers, 30 Mar 71, CMH files.]
Years later General Almond, the division's commander, was to claim (p. 135)
that the 92d Division had done "many things well and some things
poorly." It fought in extremely rugged terrain against a determined
enemy over an exceptionally broad front. The division's artillery as
well as its technical and administrative units performed well. Negroes
also excelled in intelligence work and in dealing with the Italian
partisans. On the other hand, General Almond reported, infantry
elements were unable to close with the enemy and destroy him. Rifle
squads, platoons, and companies tended "to melt away" when confronted
by determined opposition. Almond blamed this on "a lack of dedication
to purpose, pride of accomplishment and devotion to duty and teammates
by the majority of black riflemen assigned to Infantry Units."[5-35]
[Footnote 5-35: Ltr, Lt Gen Edward M. Almond to Brig
Gen James L. Collins, Jr., 1 Apr 72, CMH files.
General Almond's views are thoroughly explored in
Paul Goodman, _A Fragment of Victory_ (Army War
College, 1952). For an objective and detailed
treatment of the 92d Division, see Lee, _Employment
of Negro Troops_, Chapter XIX, and Ernest F.
Fisher, Jr., _Cassino to the Alps_, United States
Army in World War II (Washington: Government
Printing Office, 1977), Chapter XXIII.]
Similar judgments were expressed concerning the combat capability of
the other major black unit, the 93d Infantry Division.[5-36] When
elements of the 93d, the 25th Regimental Combat Team in particular,
participated in the Bougainville campaign in the Solomon Islands,
their performance was the subject of constant scrutiny by order of the
Chief of Staff.[5-37] The combat record of the 25th included enough
examples of command and individual failure to reinforce the War
Department's decision in mid-1944 to use the individual units of the
division in security, laboring, and training duties in quiet areas of
the theater, leaving combat to more seasoned units.[5-38] During the
last year of the war the 93d performed missions that were essential
but not typical for combat divisions.
[Footnote 5-36: A third black division, the 2d
Cavalry, never saw combat because it was disbanded
upon arrival in the Mediterranean theater.]
[Footnote 5-37: Rad, Marshall to Lt Gen Millard
Harmon, CG, USAFISPA, 18 Mar 44, CM-OUT 7514 (18
Mar 44).]
[Footnote 5-38: Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_,
pp. 498-517. Lee discusses here the record of the
93d Infantry Division and War Department decisions
concerning its use.]
Analyses of the division's performance ran along familiar lines. The
XIV Corps commander, under whom the division served, rated the
performance of the 25th Regimental Combat Team infantry as fair and
artillery as good, but found the unit, at least those parts commanded
by black officers, lacking in initiative, inadequately trained, and
poorly disciplined. Other reports tended to agree. All of them, along
with reports on the 24th Infantry, another black unit serving in the
area, were assembled in Washington for Assistant Secretary McCloy.
While he admitted important limitations in the performance of the
units, McCloy nevertheless remained encouraged. Not so the Secretary
of War. "I do not believe," he told McCloy, "they can be turned into
really effective combat troops without all officers being white."[5-39]
[Footnote 5-39: The above digested reports and
quotations are from Lee, _Employment of Negro
Troops_, pp. 513-17.]
Black officers of the 93d, however, entertained a different view. They
generally cited command and staff inefficiencies as the major cause of
the division's discipline and morale problems. One respondent, a company
commander in the 25th Infantry, singled out the "continuous (p. 136)
dissension and suspicion characterizing the relations between white
and colored officers of the division." All tended to stress what they
considered inadequate jungle training, and, like many white observers,
they all agreed the combat period was too brief to demonstrate the
division's developing ability.[5-40]
[Footnote 5-40: USAFFE Board Reports No. 185, 20 Jan
45, and 221, 25 Feb 45, sub: Information on Colored
Troops. These reports were prepared at the behest
of the commanding general of the Army Ground Forces
during the preparation of Bell I. Wiley's _The
Training of Negro Troops_ (AGF Study No. 36, 1946).
The quotation is from Exhibit K of USAFFE Board
Report No. 221.]
[Illustration: 92D DIVISION ENGINEERS PREPARE A FORD FOR ARNO RIVER
TRAFFIC.]
Despite the performance of some individuals and units praised by all,
the combat performance of the 92d and 93d Infantry Divisions was
generally considered less than satisfactory by most observers. A much
smaller group of commentators, mostly black journalists, never
accepted the prevailing view. Pointing to the decorations and honors
received by individuals in the two divisions, they charged that the
adverse reports were untrue, reflections of the prejudices of white
officers. Such an assertion presupposed that hundreds of officers and
War Department officials were so consumed with prejudice that they
falsified the record. And the argument from decorations, as one expert
later pointed out, faltered once it was understood that the 92d (p. 137)
and 93d Infantry Divisions combined a relatively high number of
decorations with relatively few casualties.[5-41]
[Footnote 5-41: E. W. Kenworthy, "The Case Against
Army Segregation," _Annals of the American Academy
of Political Science_ 275 (May 1952):28-29. A low
decoration to casualty ratio is traditionally used
as one measure of good unit performance. However,
so many different unit attitudes and standards for
decorations existed during World War II that any
argument over ratios can only be self-defeating no
matter what the approach.]
Actually, there was little doubt that the performance of the black
divisions in World War II was generally unacceptable. Beyond that
common conclusion, opinions diverged widely. Commanders tended to
blame undisciplined troops and lack of initiative and control by black
officers and noncommissioned officers as the primary cause of the
difficulty. Others, particularly black observers, cited the white
officers and their lack of racial sensitivity. In fact, as Ulysses Lee
points out with careful documentation, all these factors were
involved, but the underlying problem usually overlooked by observers
was segregation. Large, all-black combat units submerged able soldiers
in a sea of men with low aptitude and inadequate training. Segregation
also created special psychological problems for junior black officers.
Carefully assigned so that they never commanded white officers or men,
they were often derided by white officers whose attitudes were quickly
sensed by the men to the detriment of good discipline. Segregation was
also a factor in the rapid transfer of men in and out of the
divisions, thus negating the possible benefits of lengthy training.
Furthermore, the divisions were natural repositories for many
dissatisfied or inadequate white officers, who introduced a host of
other problems.
Truman Gibson was quick to point out how segregation had intensified
the problem of turning civilians into soldiers and groups into units.
The "dissimilarity in the learning profiles" between black and white
soldiers as reflected in their AGCT scores was, he explained to
McCloy, primarily a result of inferior black schooling, yet its
practical effect on the Army was to burden it with several large units
of inferior combat ability (_Table 2_). In addition to the fact that
large black units had a preponderance of slow learners, Gibson
emphasized that nearly all black soldiers were trained near
"exceedingly hostile" communities. This hostile atmosphere, he
believed, had played a decisive role in their adjustment to Army life
and adversely affected individual motivation. Gibson also charged the
Army with promoting some black officers who lacked leadership
qualifications and whose performance, consequently, was under par. He
recommended a single measure of performance for officers and a single
system for promotion, even if this system reduced promotions for black
officers. Promotions on any basis other than merit, he concluded,
deprived the Army of the best leadership and inflicted weak commanders
on black units.
Table 2--AGCT Percentages in Selected World War II Divisions
Unit I II III IV V Total
(130 +) (110-120) (90-109) (60-89) (0-59)
11th Armored
Division....... 3.0 23.8 33.8 33.1 6.3 100
35th Infantry
Division....... 3.3 27.0 34.2 28.0 7.5 100
92d Infantry
Division (Negro) 0.4 5.2 11.8 43.5 39.1 100
93d Infantry
Division (Negro) 0.1 3.5 13.0 38.4 45.0 100
100th Infantry
Division........ 3.6 27.1 34.1 29.1 6.1 100
_Source_: Tables submitted by The Adjutant General to the Gillem
Board, 1945.
Gibson was not trying to magnify the efficiency of segregated (p. 138)
units. He made a special effort to compare the performance of the 92d
Division with that of the integrated black platoons in Germany because
such a comparison would demonstrate, he believed, that the Army's
segregation policy was in need of critical reexamination. He cited
"many officers" who believed that the problems connected with large
segregated combat units justified their abolition in favor of the
integration of black platoons into larger white units. Although such
unit integration would not abolish segregation completely, Gibson
concluded, it would permit the Army to use men and small units on the
basis of ability alone.[5-42]
[Footnote 5-42: Memo, Gibson for ASW, 23 Apr 45, sub:
Report of Visit to MTO and ETO, ASW 291.2 (NT); see
also Interv, Bell I. Wiley with Truman K. Gibson,
Civilian Aide to Secretary of War, 30 May 45, CMH
files.]
The flexibility Gibson detected among many Army officers was not
apparent in the answers to the McCloy questionnaire that flowed into
the War Department during the summer and fall of 1945. With few
exceptions, the senior officers queried expressed uniform reactions.
They reiterated a story of frustration and difficulty in training and
employing black units, characterized black soldiers as unreliable and
inefficient, and criticized the performance of black officers and
noncommissioned officers. They were particularly concerned with racial
disturbances, which, they believed, were not only the work of racial
agitators but also the result of poor morale and a sense of
discrimination among black troops. Yet they wanted to retain
segregation, albeit in units of smaller size, and they wanted to
depend, for the most part, on white officers to command these black
units. Concerned with performance, pragmatic rather than reflective in
their habits, the commanders showed little interest in or
understanding of the factors responsible for the conditions of which
they complained. Many believed that segregation actually enhanced
black pride.[5-43]
[Footnote 5-43: Eventually over thirty-five commands
responded to the McCloy questionnaire. For examples
of the attitudes mentioned above, see Ltr, HQ, U.S.
Forces, European Theater (Main) to TAG, 1 Oct 45,
sub: Study of Participation of Negro Troops in the
Postwar Establishment; Ltr, HQ, U.S. Forces, India,
Burma Theater, to TAG, 28 Aug 45, same sub; Ltr,
GHQ USARPAC to TAG, 3 Sep 45, same sub. All in AG
291.2 (23 May 45). Some of these and many others
are also located in WDSSP 291.2 (1945).]
These responses were summarized by the commanding generals of the
major force commands at the request of the War Department's Special
Planning Division.[5-44] For example, the study prepared by the Army
Service Forces, which had employed a high proportion of black troops
in its technical services during the war, passed on the
recommendations made by these far-flung commands and touched
incidentally on several of the points raised by Gibson.[5-45] Like
Gibson, the Army Service Forces recommended that Negroes of little (p. 139)
or no education be denied induction or enlistment and that no
deviation from normal standards for the sake of maintaining racial
quotas in the officer corps be tolerated. The Army Service Forces also
wanted Negroes employed in all major forces, participating
proportionately in all phases of the Army's mission, including
overseas and combat assignments, but not in every occupation. For the
Army Service Forces had decided that Negroes performed best as truck
drivers, ammunition handlers, stevedores, cooks, bakers, and the like
and should be trained in these specialties rather than more highly
skilled jobs such as armorer or machinist. Even in the occupations
they were best suited to, Negroes should be given from a third more to
twice as much training as whites, and black units should have 25 to 50
percent more officers than white units. At the same time, the Army
Service Forces wanted to retain segregated units, although it
recommended limiting black service units to company size. Stating in
conclusion that it sought only "to insure the most efficient training
and utilization of Negro manpower" and would ignore the question of
racial equality or the "wisdom of segregation in the social sense,"
the Army Service Forces overlooked the possibility that the former
could not be attained without consideration of the latter.
[Footnote 5-44: Memo, Dir, WDSSP, for CG's, ASF et
al., 23 May 45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops
in the Postwar Military Establishment, AG 291.2 (23
May 45).]
[Footnote 5-45: Memo, CofS, ASF, for Dir, Special
Planning Division, WDSS, 1 Oct 45, sub:
Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar
Military Establishment, WDSSP 291.2 (2 Oct 45). On
the use of Negroes in the Signal Corps, see the
following volumes in the United States Army in
World War II series: Dulany Terrett, _The Signal
Corps: The Emergency_ (Washington: Government
Printing Office, 1956); George Raynor Thompson et
al., _The Signal Corps: The Test_ (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1957); George Raynor
Thompson and Dixie R. Harris, _The Signal Corps:
The Outcome_ (Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1966).]
The Army Ground Forces, which trained black units for all major
branches of the field forces, also wanted to retain black units, but
its report concluded that these units could be of battalion size. The
organization of black soldiers in division-size units, it claimed,
only complicated the problem of training because of the difficulty in
developing the qualified black technicians, noncommissioned officers,
and field grade officers necessary for such large units and finding
training locations as well as assignment areas with sufficient
off-base recreational facilities for large groups of black soldiers.
The Army Ground Forces considered the problem of finding and training
field grade officers particularly acute since black units employing
black officers, at least in the case of infantry, had proved
ineffective. Yet white officers put in command of black troops felt
they were being punished, and their presence added to the frustration
of the blacks.
The Army Ground Forces was also particularly concerned with racial
disturbances, which, it believed, stemmed from conflicting white and
black concepts of the Negro's place in the social pattern. The Army
Ground Forces saw no military solution for a problem that transcended
the contemporary national emergency, and its conclusion--that the
solution lay in society at large and not primarily in the armed
forces--had the effect, whether or not so intended, of neatly
exonerating the Army. In fact, the detailed conclusions and
recommendations of the Army Ground Forces were remarkably similar to
those of the Army Service Forces, but the Ground Forces study, more
than any other, was shot full with blatant racism. The study quoted a
1925 War College study to the effect that the black officer was (p. 140)
"still a Negro with all the faults and weaknesses of character
inherent in the Negro race." It also discussed the "average Negro" and
his "inherent characteristics" at great length, dwelling on his
supposed inferior mentality and weakness of character, and raising
other racial shibboleths. Burdened with these prejudices, the Army
Ground Forces study concluded
that the conception that negroes should serve in the military
forces, or in particular parts of the military forces, or sustain
battle losses in proportion to their population in the United
States, may be desirable but is impracticable and should be
abandoned in the interest of a logical solution to the problem of
the utilization of negroes in the armed forces.[5-46]
[Footnote 5-46: Memo, Ground AG, AGF, for CofSA, 28
Nov 45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the
Postwar Military Establishment, with Incl, WDSSP
291.2 (27 Dec 45).]
The Army Air Forces, another large employer of black servicemen,
reported a slightly different World War II experience. Conforming with
departmental policies on utilizing black soldiers, it had selected
Negroes for special training on the same basis as whites with the
exception of aviation cadets. Negroes with a lower stanine (aptitude)
had been accepted in order to secure enough candidates to meet the
quota for pilots, navigators, and bombardiers in the black units. In
its preliminary report to the War Department on the employment of
Negroes, the Army Air Forces admitted that individuals of both races
with similar aptitudes and test scores had the same success in
technical schools, could be trained as pilots and technicians in the
same period of time, and showed the same degree of mechanical
proficiency. Black units, on the other hand, required considerably
more time in training than white units, sometimes simply because they
were understrength and their performance was less effective. At the
same time the Air Forces admitted that even after discounting the
usual factors, such as time in service and job assignment, whites
advanced further than blacks. No explanation was offered.
Nevertheless, the commanding general of the Air Forces reported very
little racial disorder or conflict overseas. There had been a
considerable amount in the United States, however; many Air Forces
commanders ascribed this to the unwillingness of northern Negroes to
accept southern laws or social customs, the insistence of black
officers on integrated officers' clubs, and the feeling among black
fliers that command had been made an exclusive prerogative of white
officers rather than a matter depending on demonstrated qualification.
In contrast to the others, the Army Air Forces revealed a marked
change in sentiment over the post-World War I studies of black troops.
No more were there references to congenital inferiority or inherent
weaknesses, but everywhere a willingness to admit that Negroes had
been held back by the white majority.
The commanding general of the Army Air Forces recommended Negroes be
apportioned among the three major forces--the Army Ground Forces, the
Army Service Forces, and the Army Air Forces--but that their numbers
in no case exceed 10 percent of any command; that black servicemen be
trained exactly as whites; and that Negroes be segregated in units (p. 141)
not to exceed air group size. Unlike the others, the Army Air Forces
wanted black units to have black commanders as far as possible and
recommended that the degree of segregation in messing, recreation, and
social activities conform to the custom of the surrounding community.
It wanted Negroes assigned overseas in the same proportion as whites,
and in the United States, to the extent practicable, only to those
areas considered favorable to their welfare. Finally, the Air Forces
wanted Negroes to be neither favored nor discriminated against in
disciplinary matters.[5-47]
[Footnote 5-47: Memo, CG, AAF, for CofSA, 17 Sep 45,
sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar
Military Establishment, WDSSP 291.2 (1945). For the
final report of 2 Oct 45, which summed up the
previous recommendations, see Summary Sheet,
AC/AS-1 for Maj Gen C. C. Chauncey, DCofAS, 2 Oct
45, same sub and file.]
Among the responses of the subordinate commands were some exceptions
to the generalizations found in those of the major forces. One
commander, for example, while concluding that segregation was
desirable, admitted that it was one of the basic causes of the Army's
racial troubles and would have to be dealt with "one way or the
other."[5-48] Another recommended dispersing black troops, one or two in
a squad, throughout all-white combat units.[5-49] Still another pointed
out that the performance of black officers and noncommissioned
officers in terms of resourcefulness, aggressiveness, sense of
responsibility, and ability to make decisions was comparable to the
performance of white soldiers when conditions of service were nearly
equal. But the Army failed to understand this truth, the commander of
the 1st Service Command charged, and its separate and unequal
treatment discriminated in a way that would affect the efficiency of
any man. The performance of black troops, he concluded, depended on
how severely the community near a post differentiated between the
black and white soldier and how well the Negro's commander
demonstrated the fairness essential to authority. The Army admitted
that black units needed superior leadership, but, he added, it
misunderstood what this leadership entailed. All too often commanders
of black units acted under the belief that their men were different
and needed special treatment, thus clearly suggesting racial
inferiority. The Army, he concluded, should learn from its wartime
experience the deleterious effect of segregation on motivation and
ultimately on performance.[5-50]
[Footnote 5-48: Ltr, OCSigO (Col David E. Washburn,
Exec Off) to WDSSP, 31 Jul 45, sub: Participation
of Negro Troops in the Postwar Military
Establishment, WDSSP 291.2 (1945).]
[Footnote 5-49: Ltr, Maj Gen James L. Collins, CG,
Fifth Service Cmd, to CG, ASF, 24 Jul 45, sub:
Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar
Military Establishment, WDSSP 291.2.]
[Footnote 5-50: Memo, CG, First Service Cmd, for CG,
ASF, 23 Jul 45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops
in the Postwar Military Establishment, WDSSP 291.2
(1945).]
Truman Gibson took much the same approach when he summed up for McCloy
his estimate of the situation facing the Army. After rehearsing the
recent history of segregation in the armed forces, he suggested that
it was not enough to compare the performance of black and white
troops; the reports of black performance should be examined to
determine whether the performance would be improved or impaired by
changing the policy of segregation. Any major Army review, he urged,
should avoid the failure of the old studies on race that based (p. 142)
differences in performance on racial characteristics and should
question instead the efficiency of segregation. For him, segregation
was the heart of the matter, and he counseled that "future policy
should be predicated on an assumption that civilian attitudes will not
remain static. The basic policy of the Army should, therefore, not
itself be static and restrictive, but should be so framed as to make
further progress possible on a flexible basis."[5-51]
[Footnote 5-51: Memo, Truman Gibson for ASW, 8 Aug
45, ASW 291.2.]
Before passing Gibson's suggestions to the Assistant Secretary of War,
McCloy's executive assistant, Lt. Col. Davidson Sommers, added some
ideas of his own. Since it was "pretty well recognized," he wrote,
that the Army had not found the answer to the efficient use of black
manpower, a first-class officer or group of officers of high rank,
supplemented perhaps with a racially mixed group of civilians, should
be designated to prepare a new racial policy. But, he warned, their
work would be ineffectual without specific directions from Army
leaders. He wanted the Army to make "eventual nonsegregation" its
goal. Complete integration, Sommers felt, was impossible to achieve at
once. Classification test scores alone refuted the claim that "Negroes
in general make as good soldiers as whites." But he thought there was
no need "to resort to racial theories to explain the difference," for
the lack of educational, occupational, and social opportunities was
sufficient.[5-52]
[Footnote 5-52: Memo, Exec Off, ASW, for McCloy, 28
Aug 45, ASW 291.2 (NT).]
Sommers had, in effect, adopted Gibson's gradualist approach to the
problem, suggesting an inquiry to determine "the areas in which
nonsegregation can be attempted first and the methods by which it can
be introduced ... instead of merely generalizing, as in the past, on
the disappointing and not very relevant experiences with large
segregated units." He foresaw difficulties: a certain amount of social
friction and perhaps a considerable amount of what he called
"professional Negro agitation" because Negroes competing with whites
would probably not achieve comparable ranks or positions immediately.
But Sommers saw no cause for alarm. "We shall be on firm ground," he
concluded, "and will be able to defend our actions by relying on the
unassailable position that we are using men in accordance with their
ability."
Competing with these calls for gradual desegregation was the Army's
growing concern with securing some form of universal military
training. Congress would discuss the issue during the summer and fall
of 1945, and one of the questions almost certain to arise in the
congressional hearings was the place contemplated for Negroes. Would
the Army use Negroes in combat units? Would the Army train and use
Negroes in units together with whites? Upon the answers to these
questions hinged the votes of most, if not all, southern congressmen.
Prudence dictated that the Army avoid any innovations that might
jeopardize the chance for universal military training. In other words,
went the prevalent view, what was good for the Army--and universal
military training was in that category--had to come before all
else.[5-53]
[Footnote 5-53: Memos, Col Frederick S. Skinner for
Dir, Special Planning Div, WDSS, 25 May and 2 Jun
45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the
Postwar Military Establishment, WDSSP 291.2
(1945).]
Even among officers troubled by the contradictory aspects of an (p. 143)
issue clouded by morality, many felt impelled to give their prime
allegiance to the Army as it was then constituted. The Army's
impressive achievement during the war, they reasoned, argued for its
continuation in conformance with current precepts, particularly in a
world still full of hostilities. The stability of the Army came first;
changes would have to be made slowly, without risking the menace of
disruption. An attempt to mix the races in the Army seemed to most
officers a dangerous move bordering on irresponsibility. Furthermore,
the majority of Army officers, dedicated to the traditions of the
service, saw the Army as a social as well as a military institution.
It was a way of life that embraced families, wives and children. The
old manners and practices were comfortable because they were well
known and understood, had produced victory, and had represented a life
that was somewhat isolated and insulated--particularly in the
field--from the currents and pressures of national life. Why then
should the old patterns be modified; why exchange comfort for possible
chaos? Why should the Army admit large numbers of Negroes; what had
Negroes contributed to winning World War II; what could they possibly
contribute to the postwar Army?
Although opinion among Army officials on the future role of Negroes in
the Army was diverse and frankly questioning in tone, opinion on the
past performance of black units was not. Commanders tended to agree
that with certain exceptions, particularly small service and combat
support units, black units performed below the Army average during the
war and considerably below the best white units. The commanders also
generally agreed that black units should be made more efficient and
usually recommended they be reduced in size and filled with better
qualified men. Most civil rights spokesmen and their allies in the
Army, on the other hand, viewed segregation as the underlying cause of
poor performance. How, then, could the conflicting advice be channeled
into construction of an acceptable postwar racial policy? The task was
clearly beyond the powers of the War Department's Special Planning
Division, and in September 1945 McCloy adopted the recommendation of
Sommers and Gibson and urged the Secretary of War to turn over this
crucial matter to a board of general officers. Out of this board's
deliberations, influenced in great measure by opinions previously
expressed, would emerge the long-awaited revision of the Army's policy
for its black minority.
_The Navy's Informal Inspection_
In contrast to the elaborate investigation conducted by the Army, the
Navy's search for a policy consisted mainly of an informal
intradepartmental review and an inspection of its black units by a
civilian representative of the Secretary of the Navy. In general this
contrast may be explained by the difference in the services' postwar
problems. The Army was planning for the enlistment of a large cross
section of the population through some form of universal military
training; the Navy was planning for a much smaller peacetime
organization of technically trained volunteers. Moreover, the Army
wanted to review the performance of its many black combat units, (p. 144)
whereas the naval establishment, which had excluded most of its
Negroes from combat, had little to gain from measuring their wartime
performance.
The character and methods of the Secretary of the Navy had an
important bearing on policy. Forrestal believed he had won the senior
officers to his view of equal treatment and opportunity, and to be
assured of success he wanted to convince lower commanders and the
ranks as well. He wrote in July 1945: "We are making every effort to
give more than lip service to the principles of democracy in the
treatment of the Negro and we are trying to do it with the minimum of
commotion.... We would rather await the practical demonstration of the
success of our efforts.... There is still a long road to travel but I
am confident we have made a start."[5-54]
[Footnote 5-54: Ltr, Forrestal to Field, 14 Jul 45,
54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]
Forrestal's wish for a racially democratic Navy did not noticeably
conflict with the traditionalists' plan for a small, technically elite
force, so while the Army launched a worldwide quest in anticipation of
an orthodox policy review, the Navy started an informal investigation
designed primarily to win support for the racial program conceived by
the Secretary of the Navy.
The Navy's search began in the last months of the war when Secretary
Forrestal approved the formation of an informal Committee on Negro
Personnel. Although Lester Granger, the secretary's adviser on racial
matters, had originally proposed the establishment of such a committee
to "help frame sound and effective racial policies,"[5-55] the Chief of
Naval Personnel, a preeminent representative of the Navy's
professionals, saw an altogether different reason for the group. He
endorsed the idea of a committee, he told a member of the secretary's
staff, "not because there is anything wrong or backward about our
policies," but because "we need greater cooperation from the technical
Bureaus in order that those policies may succeed."[5-56] Forrestal did
little to define the group's purpose when on 16 April 1945 he ordered
Under Secretary Bard to organize a committee "to assure uniform
policies" and see that all subdivisions of the Navy were familiar with
each other's successful and unsuccessful racial practices.[5-57]
[Footnote 5-55: Ltr, Lester Granger to SecNav, 19 Mar
45, 54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 5-56: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Cmdr
Richard M. Paget (Exec Off, SecNav), 21 Apr 45,
sub: Formation of Informal Cmte to Assure Uniform
Policies on the Handling of Negro Personnel, P-17,
BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 5-57: Memo, SecNav for Cmdr Richard M.
Paget, 16 Apr 45, 54-1-19, Forrestal file,
GenRecsNav.]
By pressing for the uniform treatment of Negroes, Forrestal doubtless
hoped to pull backward branches into line with more liberal ones so
that the progressive reforms of the past year would be accepted
throughout the Navy. But if Forrestal's ultimate goal was plain, his
failure to give clear-cut directions to his informal committee was
characteristic of his handling of racial policy. He carefully followed
the recommendations of the Chief of Naval Personnel, who wanted the
committee to be a military group, despite having earlier expressed his
intention of inviting Granger to chair the committee. As announced on
25 April, the committee was headed by a senior official of the Bureau
of Naval Personnel, Capt. Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, with another (p. 145)
of the bureau's officers serving as committee recorder.[5-58]
Restricting the scope of the inquiry, Forrestal ordered that "whenever
practical" the committee should assign each of its members to
investigate the racial practices in his own organization.
[Footnote 5-58: Other members of the committee
included four senior Navy captains and
representatives of the Marine Corps and Coast
Guard. Memo, SecNav for Under SecNav, 25 Apr 45,
QB495/A3-1, GenRecsNav.]
Nevertheless when the committee got down to work it quickly went
beyond the limited concept of its mission as advanced by the Chief of
Naval Personnel. Not only did it study statistics gathered from all
sections of the department and review the experiences of various
commanders of black units, it also studied Granger's immediate and
long-range recommendations for the department, an extension of his
earlier wartime work for Forrestal. Specifically, Granger had called
for the formulation of a definite integration policy and for a
strenuous public relations campaign directed toward the black
community. He had also called for the enlistment and commissioning of
a significant number of Negroes in the Regular Navy, and he wanted
commanders indoctrinated in their racial responsibilities. Casting
further afield, Granger had warned that discriminatory policies and
practices in shipyards and other establishments must be eliminated,
and employment opportunities for black civilians in the department
broadened.[5-59]
[Footnote 5-59: Ltr, Granger to SecNav, 19 Mar 45,
54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]
The committee deliberated on all these points, and, after meeting
several times, announced in May 1945 its findings and recommendations.
It found that the Navy's current policies were sound and when properly
executed produced good results. At the same time it saw a need for
periodic reviews to insure uniform application of policy and better
public relations. Such findings could be expected from a body headed
by a senior official of the personnel bureau, but the committee then
came up with the unexpected--a series of recommendations for sweeping
change. Revealing the influence of the Special Programs Unit, the
committee asked that Negroes be declared available for assignment to
all types of ships and shore stations in all classifications, with
selections made solely on merit. Since wholesale reassignments were
impractical, the committee recommended well-planned, gradual
assimilation--it avoided the word integration--as the best policy for
ending the concentration of Negroes at shore activities. It also
attacked the Steward's Branch as the conspicuous symbol of the
Negroes' second-class status and called for the assignment of white
stewards and allowing qualified stewards to transfer to general
service.
The committee wanted the Judge Advocate General to assign legal
advisers to all major trials, especially those involving minorities,
to prevent errors in courts-martial that might be construed as
discrimination. It further recommended that Negroes be represented in
the secretary's public relations office; that news items concerning
Negroes be more widely disseminated through bureau bulletins; and,
finally, that all bureaus as well as the Coast Guard and Marine Corps
be encouraged to enroll commanders in special indoctrination programs
before they were assigned to units with substantial numbers of (p. 146)
Negroes.[5-60]
[Footnote 5-60: Memo, Cmte on Personnel for Under
SecNav, 22 May 45, sub: Report and Recommendations
of Committee on Negro Personnel, P. 16-3,
GenRecsNav.]
[Illustration: GRANGER INTERVIEWING SAILORS _on inspection tour in the
Pacific_.]
The committee's recommendations, submitted to Under Secretary Bard on
22 May 1945, were far more than an attempt to unify the racial
practices of the various subdivisions of the Navy Department. For the
first time, senior representatives of the department's often
independent branches accepted the contention of the Special Programs
Unit that segregation was militarily inefficient and a gradual but
complete integration of the Navy's general service was the solution to
racial problems.
Yet as a formula for equal treatment and opportunity in the Navy, the
committee's recommendations had serious omissions. Besides overlooking
the dearth of black officers and the Marine Corps' continued strict
segregation, the committee had ignored Granger's key proposal that
Negroes be guaranteed a place in the Regular Navy. Almost without
exception, Negroes in the Navy's general service were reservists,
products of wartime volunteer enlistment or the draft. All but a few
of the black regulars were stewards. Without assurance that many of
these general service reservists would be converted to regulars or
that provision would be made for enlistment of black regulars, (p. 147)
the committee's integration recommendations lacked substance.
Secretary Forrestal must have been aware of these omissions, but he
ignored them. Perhaps the problem of the Negro in the postwar Navy
seemed remote during this last, climactic summer of the war.
[Illustration: GRANGER WITH CREWMEN OF A NAVAL YARD CRAFT.]
To document the status of the Negro in the Navy, Forrestal turned
again to Lester Granger. Granger had acted more than once as the
secretary's eyes and ears on racial matters, and the association
between the two men had ripened from mutual respect to close
rapport.[5-61] During August 1945 Granger visited some twenty
continental installations for Forrestal, including large depots and
naval stations on the west coast, the Great Lakes Training Center, and
bases and air stations in the south. Shortly after V-J day Granger
launched a more ambitious tour of inspection that found him traveling
among the 45,000 Negroes assigned to the Pacific area.
[Footnote 5-61: Columbia University Oral Hist Interv
with Granger.]
Unlike the Army staff, whose worldwide quest for information stressed
black performance in the familiar lessons-learned formula and only
incidentally treated those factors that affected performance, Granger,
a civilian, never really tried to assess performance. He was, (p. 148)
however, a race relations expert, and he tried constantly to discover
how the treatment accorded Negroes in the Navy affected their
performance and to pass on his findings to local commanders. He later
explained his technique. First, he called on the commanding officer
for facts and opinions on the performance and morale of the black
servicemen. Then he proceeded through the command, unaccompanied,
interviewing Negroes individually as well as in small and large
groups. Finally, he returned to the commanding officer to pass along
grievances reported by the men and his own observations on the
conditions under which they served.[5-62]
[Footnote 5-62: Granger's findings and an account of
his inspection technique are located in Ltrs,
Granger to SecNav, 4 Aug, 10 Aug, 27 Aug, and 31
Oct 45; and in "Minutes of Press Conference Held by
Mr. Lester B. Granger," 1 Nov 45. All in 54-1-13,
Forrestal file, GenRecsNav. See also Columbia
University Oral Hist Interv with Granger.]
Granger always related the performance of enlisted men to their
morale. He pointed out to the commanders that poor morale was at the
bottom of the Port Chicago mass mutiny and the Guam riot, and his
report to the secretary confirmed the experiences of the Special
Programs Unit: black performance was deeply affected by the extent to
which Negroes felt victimized by racial discrimination or handicapped
by segregation, especially in housing, messing, and military and
civilian recreational facilities. Although no official policy on
segregated living quarters existed, Granger found such segregation
widely practiced at naval bases in the United States. Separate housing
meant in most cases separate work crews, thereby encouraging voluntary
segregation in mess halls. In some cases the Navy's separate housing
was carried over into nearby civilian communities where no segregation
existed before. In others shore patrols forced segregation on civilian
places of entertainment, even when state laws forbade it. On southern
bases, especially, many commanders willingly abandoned the Navy's ban
against discrimination in favor of the racial practices of local
communities. There enforced segregation was widespread, often made
explicit with "colored" and "white" signs.
Yet Granger found encouraging exceptions which he passed along to
local commanders elsewhere. At Camp Perry, Virginia, for example,
there was a minimum of segregation, and the commanding officer had
intervened to see that Virginia's segregated bus laws did not apply to
Navy buses operating between the camp and Norfolk. This situation was
unusual for the Navy although integrated busing had been standard
practice in the Army since mid-1944. He found Camp Perry "a pleasant
contrast" to other southern installations, and from his experiences
there he concluded that the attitude of the commanding officer set the
pace. "There is practically no limit," Granger said, "to the
progressive changes in racial attitudes and relationships which can be
made when sufficiently enlightened and intelligent officer leadership
is in command." The development of hard and fast rules, he concluded,
was unnecessary, but the Bureau of Naval Personnel must constantly see
to it that commanders resisted the "influence of local conventions."
At Pearl Harbor Granger visited three of the more than two hundred
auxiliary ships manned by mixed crews. On two the conditions were
excellent. The commanding officer in each case had taken special (p. 149)
pains to avoid racial differentiation in ratings, assignments,
quarters, and messes; efficiency was superior, morale was high, and
racial conflict was absent. On the third ship Negroes were separated;
they were specifically assigned to a special bunk section in the
general crew compartment and to one end of the chow table. Here there
was dissatisfaction among Negroes and friction with whites.
At the naval air bases in Hawaii performance and morale were good
because Negroes served in a variety of ratings that corresponded to
their training and ability. The air station in Oahu, for example, had
black radar operators, signalmen, yeomen, machinist mates, and others
working amiably with whites; the only sign of racial separation
visible was the existence of certain barracks, no different from the
others, set aside for Negroes.
Morale was lowest in black base companies and construction battalions.
In several instances able commanding officers had availed themselves
of competent black leaders to improve race relations, but in most
units the racial situation was generally poor. Granger regarded the
organization of the units as "badly conceived from the racial
standpoint." Since base companies were composed almost entirely of
nonrated men, spaces for black petty officers were lacking. In such
units the scaffold of subordinate leadership necessary to support and
uphold the authority of the officers was absent, as were opportunities
for individual advancement. Some units had been provisionally
re-formed into logistic support companies, and newly authorized
ratings were quickly filled. This partial remedy had corrected some
deficiencies, but left unchanged a number of the black base companies
in the Pacific area. Although construction battalions had workers of
both races, Granger reported them to be essentially segregated because
whites were assigned to headquarters or to supervisory posts. Some
officers had carried this arbitrary segregation into off-duty areas,
one commander contending that strict segregation was the civilian
pattern and that everyone was accustomed to it.
The Marine Corps lagged far behind the rest of the naval
establishment, and there was little pretense of conforming with the
Navy's racial policy. Black marines remained rigidly segregated and
none of the few black officer candidates, all apparently well
qualified, had been commissioned. Furthermore, some black marines who
wanted to enlist as regulars were waiting word whether they could be
included in the postwar Marine Corps. Approximately 85 percent of the
black marines in the Pacific area were in depot and ammunition
companies and steward groups. In many cases their assignments failed
to match their qualifications and previous training. Quite a few
specialists complained of having been denied privileges ordinarily
accorded white men of similar status--for example, opportunities to
attend schools for first sergeants, musicians, and radar operators.
Black technicians were frequently sent to segregated and hastily
constructed schools or detached to Army installations for schooling
rather than sent to Marine Corps schools. Conversely, some white
enlisted men, assigned to black units for protracted periods as
instructors, were often accorded the unusual privilege of living in
officers' quarters and eating in the officers' mess in order to
preserve racial segregation.
Most black servicemen, Granger found, resented the white fleet (p. 150)
shore patrols in the Pacific area which they considered biased in
handling disciplinary cases and reporting offenders. The commanding
officer of the shore patrol in Honolulu defended the practice because
he believed the use of Negroes in this duty would be highly dangerous.
Granger disagreed, pointing to the successful employment of black
shore patrols in such fleet liberty cities as San Diego and Miami. He
singled out the situation in Guam, which was patrolled by an all-white
Marine Corps guard regarded by black servicemen as racist in attitude.
Frequently, racial clashes occurred, principally over the attentions
of native women, but it was the concentration of Negroes in the naval
barracks at Guam, Granger concluded, along with the lack of black
shore patrols, that intensified racial isolation, induced a suspicion
of racial policies, and aggravated resentment.
At every naval installation Granger heard vigorous complaints over the
contrast between black and white ratings and promotions. Discrepancies
could be explained partly by the fact that, since the general service
had been opened to Negroes fairly late in the war, many white men had
more than two years seniority over any black. But Granger found
evidence that whites were transferred into units to receive promotions
and ratings due eligible black members. In many cases, he found
"indisputable racial discrimination" by commanding officers, with the
result that training was wasted, trained men were prevented from
acquiring essential experience and its rewards, and resentment
smoldered.
Evidence of overt prejudice aside, Granger stressed again and again
that the primary cause of the Navy's racial problems was segregation.
Segregation was "impractical and inefficient," he pointed out, because
racial isolation bred suspicion, which in turn inflamed resentment,
and finally provoked insubordination. The best way to integrate
Negroes, Granger felt, was to take the most natural course, that is,
eliminate all special provisions, conditions, or cautions regarding
their employment. "There should be no exceptional approach to problems
involving Negroes," he counseled, "for the racial factor in naval
service will disappear only when problems involving Negroes are
accepted as part of the Navy's general program for insuring efficient
performance and first-class discipline."
Despite his earlier insistence on a fair percentage of Negroes in the
postwar Regular Navy, Granger conceded that the number and proportion
would probably decrease during peacetime. It was hardly likely, he
added, that black enlistment would exceed 5 percent of the total
strength, a manageable proportion. He even saw some advantages in
smaller numbers, since, as the educational standards for all enlistees
rose, the integration of relatively few but better qualified Negroes
would "undoubtedly make for greater racial harmony and improved naval
performance."
Despite the breadth and acuity of his observations, Granger suggested
remarkedly few changes. Impressed by the progress made in the
treatment of Negroes during the war, he apparently expected it to
continue uninterrupted. Although his investigations uncovered basic
problems that would continue to trouble the Navy, he did not (p. 151)
recognize them as such. For his part, Forrestal sent Granger's
voluminous reports with their few recommendations to his military
staff and thanked the Urban League official for his contribution.[5-63]
[Footnote 5-63: Memo, J.F. [James Forrestal] for Vice
Adm Jacobs (Chief of Naval Personnel), 23 Aug 45;
Ltr, SecNav to Granger, 29 Dec 45, both in 54-1-13,
Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]
Although different in approach and point of view, Granger's
observations neatly complemented the findings and recommendations of
the Committee on Negro Personnel. Both reinforced the secretary's
postwar policy aims and both supported his gradualist approach to
racial reform. Granger cited segregation, in particular the
concentration of masses of black sailors, as the principal cause of
racial unrest and poor morale among Negroes. The committee urged the
gradual integration of the general service in the name of military
efficiency. Granger and the committee also shared certain blind spots.
Both were encouraged by the progress toward full-scale integration
that occurred during the war, but this improvement was nominal at
best, a token bow to changing conditions. Their assumption that
integration would spread to all branches of the Navy neglected the
widespread and deeply entrenched opposition to integration that would
yield only to a strategy imposed by the Navy's civilian and military
leaders. Finally, the hope that integration would spread ignored the
fact that after the war few Negroes except stewards would be able to
meet the enlistment requirements for the Regular Navy. In short, the
postwar Navy, so far as Negroes were concerned, was likely to resemble
the prewar Navy.
The search for a postwar racial policy led the Army and Navy down some
of the same paths. The Army manpower planners decided that the best
way to avoid the inefficient black divisions was to organize Negroes
into smaller, and therefore, in their view, more efficient segregated
units in all the arms and services. At the same time Secretary
Forrestal's advisers decided that the best way to avoid the
concentration of Negroes who could not be readily assimilated in the
general service was to integrate the small remnant of black
specialists and leave the majority of black sailors in the separate
Steward's Branch. In both instances the experiences of World War II
had successfully demonstrated to the traditionalists that large-scale
segregated units were unacceptable, but neither service was yet ready
to accept large-scale integration as an alternative.
CHAPTER 6 (p. 152)
New Directions
All the services developed new racial policies in the immediate
postwar period. Because these policies were responses to racial
stresses peculiar to each service and were influenced by the varied
experiences of each, they were, predictably, disparate in both
substance and approach; because they were also reactions to a common
set of pressures on the services they proved to be, perhaps not so
predictably, quite similar in practical consequences. One pressure
felt by all the services was the recently acquired knowledge that the
nation's military manpower was not only variable but also limited in
quantity. Military efficiency demanded, therefore, that the services
not only make the most effective use of available manpower, but also
improve its quality. Since Negroes, who made up approximately 10
percent of the population, formed a substantial part of the nation's
manpower, they could no longer be considered primarily a source of
unskilled labor. They too must be employed appropriately, and to this
end a higher proportion of Negroes in the services must be qualified
for specialized jobs.
Continuing demands by civil rights groups added to the pressure on the
services to employ Negroes according to their abilities. Arguing that
Negroes had the right to enjoy the privileges and share the
responsibilities of citizenship, civil rights spokesmen appeared
determined to test the constitutionality of the services' wartime
policies in the courts. Their demands placed the Truman administration
on the defensive and served warning on the armed forces that never
again could they look to the exclusion of black Americans as a
long-term solution to their racial problems.
In addition to such pressures, the services had to reckon with a more
immediate problem. Postwar black reenlistment, particularly among
service men stationed overseas, was climbing far beyond expectation.
As the armed forces demobilized in late 1945 and early 1946, the
percentage of Negroes in the Army rose above its wartime high of 9.68
percent of the enlisted strength and was expected to reach 15 percent
and more by 1947. Aside from the Marine Corps, which experienced a
rapid drop in black enlistment, the Navy also expected a rise in the
percentage of Negroes, at least in the near future. The increase
occurred in part because Negroes, who had less combat time than whites
and therefore fewer eligibility points for discharge, were being
separated from service later and more slowly. The rise reflected as
well the Negro's expectation that the national labor market would
deteriorate in the wake of the war. Although greater opportunities for
employment had developed for black Americans, civilians already filled
the posts and many young Negroes preferred the job security of a
military career. But there was another, more poignant reason why many
Negroes elected to remain in uniform: they were afraid to reenter (p. 153)
what seemed a hostile society and preferred life in the armed forces,
imperfect as that might be. The effect of this increase on the
services, particularly the largest service, the Army, was sharp and
direct. Since many Negroes were poorly educated, they were slow to
learn the use of sophisticated military equipment, and since the best
educated and qualified men, black and white, tended to leave, the
services faced the prospect of having a large proportion of their
enlisted strength black and unskilled.
_The Gillem Board Report_
Clearly, a new policy was necessary, and soon after the Japanese
surrender Assistant Secretary McCloy sent to the recently appointed
Secretary of War the accumulated pile of papers on the subject of how
best to employ Negroes in the postwar Army. Along with the answers to
the questionnaires sent to major commanders and a collection of
interoffice memos went McCloy's reminder that the matter ought to be
dealt with soon. McCloy wanted to form a committee of senior officers
to secure "an objective professional view" to be used as a base for
attacking the whole race problem. But while he considered it important
to put this professional view on record, he still expected it to be
subject to civilian review.[6-1]
[Footnote 6-1: Memo, McCloy for SW, 17 Sep 45, SW
291.2; Ltr, McCloy to author, 25 Sep 69, CMH
files.]
Robert P. Patterson became Secretary of War on 27 September 1945,
after serving with Henry Stimson for five years, first as assistant
and later as under secretary. Intimately concerned with racial matters
in the early years of the war, Patterson later became involved in war
procurement, a specialty far removed from the complex and
controversial racial situation that faced the Army. Now as secretary
he once again assumed an active role in the Army's black manpower
problems and quickly responded to McCloy's request for a policy
review.[6-2] In accordance with Patterson's oral instructions, General
Marshall appointed a board, under the chairmanship of Lt. Gen. Alvan
C. Gillem, Jr., which met on 1 October 1945. Three days later a formal
directive signed by the Deputy Chief of Staff and approved by the
Secretary of War ordered the board to "prepare a policy for the use of
the authorized Negro manpower potential during the postwar period
including the complete development of the means required to derive the
maximum efficiency from the full authorized manpower of the nation in
the event of a national emergency."[6-3] On this group, to be known as
the Gillem Board, would fall the responsibility for formulating a
policy, preparing a directive, and planning the use of Negroes in the
postwar Army.
[Footnote 6-2: See, for example, Memo, SW for CofS, 7
Nov 45, SW 291.2; see also Ltr, McCloy to author,
25 Sep 69.]
[Footnote 6-3: Quoted in Memo, Gen Gillem for CofS,
17 Nov 45, sub: Report of Board of General Officers
on Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Post-War
Army, copy in CSGOT 291.2 (1945) BP.]
None of the board members was particularly prepared for the new
assignment. General Gillem, a Tennessean, had come up through the
ranks to command the XIII Corps in Europe during World War II.
Although he had written one of the 1925 War College studies on the (p. 154)
use of black troops and had many black units in his corps, Gillem
probably owed his appointment to the fact that he was a three-star
general, available at the moment, and had recently been selected by
the Chief of Staff to direct a Special Planning Division study on the
use of black troops that had been superseded by the new board.[6-4]
Burdened with the voluminous papers collected by McCloy, Gillem headed
a board composed of Maj. Gen. Lewis A. Pick, a Virginian who had built
the Ledo Road in the China-Burma-India theater; Brig. Gen. Winslow C.
Morse of Michigan, who had served in a variety of assignments in the
Army Air Forces culminating in wartime duties in China; and Brig. Gen.
Aln D. Warnock, the recorder without vote, a Texan who began his
career in the Arizona National Guard and had served in Iceland during
World War II.[6-5] These men had broad and diverse experience and gave
the board a certain geographical balance. Curiously enough, none was a
graduate of West Point.[6-6]
[Footnote 6-4: Interv, Capt Alan Osur, USAF, with Lt
Gen Alvan C. Gillem (USA Ret.), 3 Feb 72, copy in
CMH.]
[Footnote 6-5: Memo, Maj Gen Ray Porter, Dir, Spec
Planning Div, for Gillem, 28 Sep 45, sub: War
Department Special Board on Negro Manpower, WDCSA
320.2.]
[Footnote 6-6: In a later comment on the selections,
McCloy said that the geographical spread and lack
of West Point representation was accidental and
that the use of general officers reflected the
importance of the subject to him and to Patterson.
See Ltr, McCloy to author, 25 Sep 69, and Ltr, Gen
Morse to author, 10 Sep 74, CMH files.]
[Illustration: GENERAL GILLEM.]
Although new to the subject, the board members worked quickly. Less
than a month after their first session, Gillem informed the Chief of
Staff that they had already reached certain conclusions. They
recognized the need to build on the close relationships developed
between the races during the war by introducing progressive measures
that could be put into operation promptly and would provide for the
assignment of black troops on the basis of individual merit and
ability alone. After studying and comparing the racial practices of
the other services, the board decided that the Navy's partial
integration had stimulated competition which improved black
performance without causing racial friction. By contrast, strict
segregation in the Marine Corps required longer training periods and
closer supervision for black marines. In his memorandum Gillem
refrained from drawing the logical conclusion and simply went on to
note that the Army had, for example, integrated its black and white
patients in hospitals because of the greater expense, inefficiency,
and general impracticality of duplicating complex medical (p. 155)
equipment and installations.[6-7] By inference the same disadvantages
applied to maintaining separate training facilities, operational units,
and the rest of the apparatus of the shrinking Army establishment. At
one point in his progress report, Gillem seemed close to recommending
integration, at least to the extent already achieved in the Navy. But
stated explicitly such a recommendation would have been a radical
step, out of keeping with the climate of opinion in the country and in
the Army itself.
[Footnote 6-7: Memo, Gen Gillem for CofS, 26 Oct 45,
sub: Progress Rpt on Board Study of Utilization of
Negro Manpower in the Post-War Army, WDCSA 291.2;
see also Interv, Osur with Gillem.]
On 17 November 1945 the Gillem Board finished the study and sent its
report to the Chief of Staff.[6-8] In six weeks the board had questioned
more than sixty witnesses, consulted a mass of documentary material,
and drawn up conclusions and recommendations on the use of black
troops. The board declared that its recommendations were based on two
complementary principles: black Americans had a constitutional right
to fight, and the Army had an obligation to make the most effective
use of every soldier. But the board also took into account reports of
the Army's wartime experience with black units. It referred constantly
to this experience, citing the satisfactory performance of the black
service units and some of the smaller black combat units, in
particular the artillery and tank battalions. It also described the
black infantry platoons integrated into white companies in Europe as
"eminently successful." At the same time large black combat units had
not been satisfactory, most often because their junior officers and
noncommissioned officers lacked the ability to lead. The difficulties
the Army encountered in properly placing its black troops during the
war, the board decided, stemmed to some extent from inadequate staff
work and improper planning. Poor staff work allowed a disproportionate
number of Negroes with low test scores to be allocated to combat
elements. Lack of early planning, constant reorganization and
regrouping of black units, and continuous shifting of individuals from
one type of training to another had confused and bewildered black
troops, who sometimes doubted that the Army intended to commit them to
combat at all.
[Footnote 6-8: Memo, Gillem for CofS, 17 Nov 45, sub:
Report of Board of General Officers on the
Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Post-War Army.
Unless otherwise noted this section is based on the
report.]
It was necessary, the board declared, to avoid repetition of this
experience. Advance planning was needed to develop a broader base of
trained men among black troops to provide cadres and leaders to meet
national emergencies more efficiently. The Army had to realize and
take advantage of the advances made by Negroes in education, industry,
and government service. The wide range of skills attained by Negroes
had enhanced their military value and made possible a broader
selectivity with consequent benefit to military efficiency. Thus, the
Army had to adopt a racial policy that provided for the progressive
and flexible use of black manpower "within proportions corresponding
to those in the civilian population." This policy, it added, must "be
implemented _promptly ... must_ be objective by nature ... must (p. 156)
eliminate, at the earliest practicable moment, any special
consideration based on race ... and should point towards the immediate
objective of an evaluation of the Negro on the basis of individual
merit and ability."
The board made eighteen specific recommendations, of which the
following were the most important.
"That combat and service units be organized and activated from the
Negro manpower available in the postwar Army to meet the requirements
of training and expansion and in addition qualified individuals be
utilized in appropriate special and overhead units." The use of
qualified Negroes in overhead units was the first break with the
traditional policy of segregation, for though black enlisted men would
continue to eat and sleep in segregated messes and barracks, they
would work alongside white soldiers and perform the same kind of duty
in the same unit.
"The proportion of Negro to white manpower as exists in the civil
population be the accepted ratio for creating a troop basis in the
postwar Army."[6-9]
[Footnote 6-9: The 10 percent quota that eventually
emerged from the Gillem Board was an approximation;
Gillem later recalled that the World War II
enlisted ratio was nearer 9.5 percent, but that
General Eisenhower, the Chief of Staff, saying he
could not remember that, suggested making it "an
even 10 percent." See Interv, Osur with Gillem.]
"That Negro units organized or activated for the postwar Army conform
in general to other units of the postwar Army but the maximum strength
of type [sic] units should not exceed that of an infantry regiment or
comparable organization." Here the board wanted the Army to avoid the
division-size units of World War II but retain separate black units
which would be diversified enough to broaden the professional base of
Negroes in the Regular Army by offering them a larger selection of
military occupations.
"That in the event of universal training in peacetime additional
officer supervision is supplied to units which have a greater than
normal percentage of personnel falling into A.G.C.T. classifications
IV and V." Such a policy had existed in World War II, but was never
carried out.
"That a staff group of selected officers whose background has included
commanding troops be formed within the G-1 Division of the staffs of
the War Department and each major command of the Army to assist in the
planning, promulgation, implementation and revision of policies
affecting all racial minorities." This was the administrative
machinery the board wanted to facilitate the prompt and efficient
execution of the Army's postwar racial policies.
"That reenlistment be denied to regular Army soldiers who meet only
the minimum standards." This provision was in line with the concept
that the peacetime Army was a cadre to be expanded in time of
emergency. As long as the Army accepted all reenlistments regardless
of aptitude and halted black enlistments when black strength exceeded
10 percent, it would deny enlistment to many qualified Negroes. It
would also burden the Army with low-scoring men who would never rise
above the rank of private and whose usefulness in a peacetime (p. 157)
cadre, which had the function of training for wartime expansion,
would be extremely limited.
"That surveys of manpower requirements conducted by the War Department
include recommendations covering the positions in each installation of
the Army which could be filled by Negro military personnel." This
suggestion complemented the proposal to use Negroes in overhead
positions on an individual basis. By opening more positions to
Negroes, the Army would foster leadership, maintain morale, and
encourage a competitive spirit among the better qualified. By forcing
competition with whites "on an individual basis of merit," the Army
would become more attractive as a career to superior Negroes, who
would provide many needed specialists as a "nucleus for rapid
expansion of Army units in time of emergency."
"That groupings of Negro units with white units in composite
organizations be continued in the postwar Army as a policy." Since
World War II demonstrated that black units performed satisfactorily
when grouped or operated with white combat units, the inclusion of a
black service company in a white regiment or a heavy weapons company
in an infantry battalion could perhaps be accomplished "without
encountering insurmountable difficulties." Such groupings would build
up a professional relationship between blacks and whites, but, the
board warned, experimentation must not risk "the disruption of
civilian racial relationships."
"That there be accepted into the Regular Army an unspecified number of
qualified Negro officers ... that all officers, regardless of race, be
required to meet the same standard for appointment ... be accorded
equal rights and opportunities for advancement and professional
improvement; and be required to meet the same standard for
appointment, promotion and retention in all components of the Army."
The board set no limit on the number of black officers in the Army,
nor did it suggest that black officers be restricted to service in
black units.
Its report rendered, the board remained in existence ready to make
revisions "as may be warranted" by the comments of the many
individuals and agencies that were to review the policy in conformance
with a directive of the Secretary of War.[6-10]
[Footnote 6-10: Memo, Brig Gen H. I. Hodes, ADCofS,
for Gillem, 24 Nov 45, sub: War Department Special
Board on Negro Management, WDCSA 320.2 (17 Nov
45).]
No two individuals were more intimately concerned with the course of
events that led to the Gillem Board Report than John J. McCloy and
Truman Gibson, and although both were about to leave government
service, each gave the new Secretary of War his opinion of the
report.[6-11] McCloy called the report a "fine achievement" and a "great
advance over previous studies." It was most important, he said, that
the board had stated the problem in terms of manpower efficiency. At
the same time both men recognized ambiguities in the board's (p. 158)
recommendations, and their criticisms were strong, precise, and,
considering the conflicts that developed in the Army over these
issues, remarkedly acute. Both agreed the report needed a clear
statement on the basic issue of segregation, and they wanted the board
to eliminate the quota. Gibson pointed out that the board proposed as
a long-range objective the utilization of all persons on the basis of
individual ability alone. "This means, of course," he announced with
more confidence than was warranted, "a completely integrated Army." In
the interest of eventually achieving an integrated Army he was willing
to settle for less than immediate and total integration, but
nevertheless he attacked the board for what he called the vagueness of
its recommendations. Progressive and planned integration, he told
Secretary Patterson, demanded a clear and explicit policy stating that
segregation was outmoded and integration inevitable, and the Army
should move firmly and steadily from one to the other.
[Footnote 6-11: Memo, Civilian Aide for ASW, 13 Nov
45, ASW 291.2 Negro Troops (Post War); Ltr, idem to
SW, 13 Nov 45; Memo, McCloy for Patterson, 24 Nov
45; Memo, Gibson for SW, 28 Nov 45. Last three in
SW 291.2. The Gibson quote is from the 28 November
memo.]
On some fundamental issues McCloy thought the board did "not speak
with the complete clarity necessary," but he considered the ambiguity
unintentional. Experience showed, he reminded the secretary, "that we
cannot get enforcement of policies that permit of any possibility of
misconstruction." Directness, he said, was required in place of
equivocation based on delicacy. If the Gillem Board intended black
officers to command white officers and men, it should have said so
flatly. If it meant the Army should try unsegregated and mixed units,
it should have said so. Its report, McCloy concluded, should have put
these matters beyond doubt. He was equally forthright in his rejection
of the quota, which he found impractical because it deprived the Army
of many qualified Negroes who would be unable to enlist when the quota
was full. Even if the quota was meant as a floor rather than a
ceiling, McCloy thought it objectionable. "I do not see any place," he
wrote, "for a quota in a policy that looks to utilize Negroes on the
basis of ability."
If the Gillem Board revealed the Army's willingness to compromise in
treating a pressing efficiency problem, detailed comments by
interested staff agencies revealed how military traditionalists hoped
to avoid a pressing social problem. For just as McCloy and Gibson
criticized the board for failing to spell out concrete procedures
toward integration, other staff experts generally approved the board's
report precisely because its ambiguities committed them to very
little. Their specific criticisms, some betraying the biases of the
times, formed the basis of the standard traditionalist defense of the
racial _status quo_ for the next five years.
Comments from the staff's personnel organization set the tone of this
criticism.[6-12] The Assistant Chief of Staff for Personnel, G-1, Maj.
Gen. Willard S. Paul, approved the board's recommendations, calling
them a "logical solution to the problem of effective utilization of
Negro manpower." Although he thought the report "sufficiently (p. 159)
detailed to permit intelligent, effective planning," he passed along
without comment the criticisms of his subordinates. He was opposed to
the formation of a special staff group. "We must soon reach the
point," he wrote, "where our general staff must be able to cope with
such problems without the formation of ad hoc committees or
groups."[6-13]
[Footnote 6-12: For examples of this extensive review
of the Gillem Board Report in G-1, see the
following Memos: Col J. F. Cassidy (Exec Office,
G-1) for Col Parks, 10 Dec 45; Chief, Officer
Branch, G-1, for Exec Off, G-1 Policy Group, 14 Dec
45; Actg Chief, Req and Res Br, for Chief, Policy
Control Group, 14 Dec 45; Lt Col E. B. Jones,
Special Projects Br, for G-1, 19 and 21 Dec 45,
sub: Policy for Utilization of Negro Manpower in
Post-War Army. All in WDGAP 291.2.]
[Footnote 6-13: Memo, Gen Paul, G-1, for CofS, 27 Dec
45, sub: Policy for Utilization of Negro Manpower
in Post-War Army, WDGAP 291.2 (24 Nov 45).]
The Assistant Chief of Staff for Organization and Training, G-3, Maj.
Gen. Idwal H. Edwards, was chiefly concerned with the timing of the
new policy. In trying to employ black manpower on a broader
professional scale, he warned, the Army must recognize the "ineptitude
and limited capacity of the Negro soldier." He wanted various phases
of the new policy timed "with due consideration for all factors such
as public opinion, military requirements and the military situation."
If the priority given public opinion in the sequence of these factors
reflected Edwards's view of their importance, the list is somewhat
curious. Edwards concurred in the recommendations, although he wanted
the special staff group established in the personnel office rather
than in his organization, and he rejected any arbitrary percentage of
black officers. More black officers could be obtained through
expansion of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, he suggested, but
he rejected the board's call for special classification of all
enlistees in reception and training centers, on grounds that the
centers were not adequate for the task.[6-14]
[Footnote 6-14: G-3 Summary Sheet to ADCofS, 2 Jan
46, sub: War Department Special Board on Negro
Manpower, WDGCT 291.21 (24 Nov 45).]
The chief of the General Staff's Operations Division, Lt. Gen. John E.
Hull, dismissed the Gillem report with several blunt statements: black
enlisted men should be assigned to black units capable of operational
use within white units at the rate of one black battalion per
division; a single standard of professional proficiency should be
followed for white and black officers; and "no Negro officer be given
command of white troops."[6-15]
[Footnote 6-15: Memo, Lt Gen John E. Hull, ACofS, OPD
(signed Brig Gen E. D. Post, Dep Chief, Theater Gp,
OPD), for ACofS, G-3, 4 Jan 46, sub: War Department
Special Board on Negro Manpower, WDGCT 291.21.]
The deputy commander of the Army Air Forces, Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker,
agreed with the board that the Army should not be "a testing ground
for problems in race relationships." Neither did he think the Air
Forces should organize units for the sole purpose of "advancing the
prestige of one race, especially when it is necessary to utilize
personnel that do not have the proper qualifications in order to keep
these units up to strength." Black combat units should be limited by
the 10 percent quota and by the small number of Negroes qualified for
tactical training. Most Negroes should be placed in Air Forces service
units, where "their wartime record was the best," even though such
placement would leave the Air Forces open to charges of
discrimination. The idea of experimental groupings of black and white
units in composite organizations might prove "impractical," Eaker
wrote to the Chief of Staff, because an Air Forces group operated as
an integral unit rather than as three or four separate squadrons;
units often exchanged men and equipment, and common messes were used.
Composite organizations were practical "only when it is not (p. 160)
necessary for the units to intermingle continually in order to carry
on efficiently." Why intermingling could not be synonymous with
efficiency, he failed to explain. The inference was clear that
segregation was not only normal but best.
Yet he advocated continuing integrated flying schools and agreed that
Negroes should be stationed where community attitudes were favorable.
He cited the difficulties involved in stationing. For more than two
years the Army Air Forces had tried to find a suitable base for its
only black tactical group. Even in northern cities with large black
communities--Syracuse, New York, Columbus, Ohio, and Windsor Locks,
Connecticut, among others--officials had vehemently protested against
having the black group.
The War Department, Eaker concluded, "should never be ahead of popular
opinion on this subject; otherwise it will put itself in a position of
stimulating racial disorders rather than overcoming them." Along these
lines, and harking back to the Freeman Field incident, he protested
against regulations reaffirmed by the Gillem Board for the joint use
of clubs, theaters, post exchanges, and the like at stations in
localities where such use was contrary to civilian practices.[6-16]
[Footnote 6-16: 1st Ind, Lt Gen Ira C. Eaker, Deputy
Cmdr, AAF, to CofS, 19 Dec 45, sub: War Department
Special Board on Negro Manpower, copy at Tab H,
Supplemental Report of Board of Officers on
Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Post-War Army,
26 Jan 46, copy in CMH.]
The Army Ground Forces headquarters concurred generally with the
Gillem Board's conclusions and recommendations but suggested the Army
not act alone. The headquarters recommended a policy be formulated for
the entire military establishment; only then should individual
elements of the armed forces come forward with their own policies. The
idea that Negroes should serve in numbers proportionate to their
percentage of the population and bear their share of battle losses
"may be desirable but is impracticable and should be abandoned in the
interest of a logical solution."[6-17] Since the abilities of Negroes
were limited, the report concluded, their duties should be restricted.
[Footnote 6-17: Memo, Lt Col S. R. Knight (for CG,
AGF) for CofS, 18 Dec 45, sub: Army Ground Forces
Comments and Recommendations on Report of the War
Department Special Board (Gillem) on Negro
Manpower, dated 17 Nov 45, GNGPS 370.01 (18 Dec
45); AGF Study, "Participation of Negro Troops in
the Postwar Military Establishment," 28 Nov 45,
forwarded to CofS, ATTN: Dir, WD Special Planning
Div, GNDCG 370.01 (28 Nov 45).]
The commanding general of the Army Service Forces claimed the Gillem
Board Report was advocating substantially the same policy his
organization had followed during the war. The Army Service Forces had
successfully used an even larger percentage of Negroes than the Gillem
Board contemplated. Concurring generally with the board's
recommendations, he cautioned that the War Department should not
dictate the use of Negroes in the field; to do so would be a serious
infringement of command prerogatives that left each commander free to
select and assign his men. As for the experimental groupings of black
and white units, the general believed that such mixtures were
appropriate for combat units but not for the separate small units
common to the Army Service Forces. Separate, homogeneous companies or
battalions formed during the war worked well, and experience proved
mixed units impractical below group and regimental echelons.
The Service Forces commander called integration infeasible "for (p. 161)
the present and foreseeable future." It was unlawful in many areas, he
pointed out, and not common practice elsewhere, and requiring soldiers
to follow a different social pattern would damage morale and defeat
the Army's effort to increase the opportunities and effectiveness of
black soldiers. He did not try to justify his contention, but his
meaning was clear. It would be a mistake for the Army to attempt to
lead the nation in such reforms, especially while reorganization,
unification, and universal military training were being
considered.[6-18]
[Footnote 6-18: Memo, Maj Gen Daniel Noce, Actg CofS,
ASF, for CofS, 28 Dec 45, sub: War Department
Special Board on Negro Manpower, copy at Tab J,
Supplemental Report of War Department Special Board
on Negro Manpower, 26 Jan 46, CMH files.]
Reconvened in January 1946 to consider the comments on its original
report, the Gillem Board deliberated for two more weeks, heard
additional witnesses, and stood firm in its conclusions and
recommendations.[6-19] The policy it proposed, the board emphasized, had
one purpose, the attainment of maximum manpower efficiency in time of
national emergency. To achieve this end the armed forces must make
full use of Negroes now in service, but future use of black manpower
had to be based on the experience gained in two major wars. The board
considered the policy it was proposing flexible, offering opportunity
for advancement to qualified individuals and at the same time making
possible for the Army an economic use of national manpower as a whole.
[Footnote 6-19: Supplemental Report of War Department
Special Board on Negro Manpower, "Policy for
Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Post-War
Army," 26 Jan 46. The following quotations are
taken from this amended version of the Gillem Board
Report, a copy of which, with all tabs and annexes,
is in CMH.]
To its original report the board added a statement at once the hope
and despair of its critics and supporters.
_The Initial Objectives_: The utilization of the proportionate
ratio of the manpower made available to the military
establishment during the postwar period. The manpower potential
to be organized and trained as indicated by pertinent
recommendations.
_The Ultimate Objective_: The effective use of _all_ manpower
made available to the military establishment in the event of a
major mobilization at some unknown date against an undetermined
aggressor. The manpower to be utilized, in the event of another
major war, in the Army without regard to antecedents or race.
When, and if such a contingency arises, the manpower of the
nation should be utilized in the best interests of the national
security.
The Board cannot, and does not, attempt to visualize at this
time, intermediate objectives. Between the first and ultimate
objective, timely phasing may be interjected and adjustments made
in accordance with conditions which may obtain at this
undetermined date.
The board based its ultimate objective on the fact that the black
community had made important advances in education and job skills in
the past generation, and it expected economic and educational
conditions for Negroes to continue to improve. Since such improvement
would make it possible to employ black manpower in a variety of ways,
the board's recommendations could be only a guide for the future, a
policy that must remain flexible.
To the specific objections raised by the reviewing agencies, the board
replied that although black units eventually should be commanded by
black officers "no need exists for the assignment of Negro commanders
to units composed of white troops." It also agreed with those who (p. 162)
felt it would be beneficial to correlate Army racial policies with
those of the Navy. On other issues the board stood firm. It rejected
the proposal that individual commanders be permitted to choose
positions where Negroes could be employed in overhead installations on
the grounds that this delegation of responsibility "hazards lack of
uniformity and makes results doubtful." It refused to drop the quota,
arguing it was needed for planning purposes. At the same time the
board did admit that the 10 percent ratio, suitable for the moment,
might be changed in the future in the interest of efficiency--though
changed in which way it did not say.
[Illustration: SECRETARY PATTERSON.]
The board rejected the proposition that the Army Service Forces and
the Army Air Forces were unable to use small black units in white
organizations and took a strong stand for elimination of the
professional private, the career enlistee lacking the background or
ability to advance beyond the lowest rank. Finally, the board rejected
demands that the color line be reestablished in officers' messes and
enlisted recreational facilities. "This large segment of the
population contributed materially to the success attained by our
military forces.... The Negro enjoyed the privileges of citizenship
and, in turn, willingly paid the premium by accepting service. In many
instances, this payment was settled through the medium of the supreme
sacrifice."
The board's recommendations were well received, at least in the
highest echelons of the War Department. General Dwight D. Eisenhower,
now Chief of Staff,[6-20] quickly sent the proposed policy to the
Secretary of War with a recommendation for approval "subject to such
adjustment as experience shows is necessary."[6-21] On 28 February 1946
Secretary Patterson approved the new policy in a succinct restatement
of the board's recommendations. The policy and the full Gillem Board
Report were published as War Department Circular 124 on 27 April 1946.
At the secretary's direction the circular was dispatched to the field
"without delay."[6-22] On 4 March the report was released to the
press.[6-23] The most exhaustive and intensive inquiry ever made (p. 163)
by the Army into the employment of black manpower had survived the
review and analysis process with its conclusions and recommendations
intact.
[Footnote 6-20: Eisenhower succeeded Marshall as
Chief of Staff on 19 November 1945.]
[Footnote 6-21: Memo, CofS for SW, 1 Feb 46, sub:
Supplemental Report of Board of Officers on
Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Post-War Army,
WDCSA 320.2 (1 Feb 46).]
[Footnote 6-22: Ltr, TAG for CG's, AGF et al., 6 May
46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the
Post-War Army, WDGAP 291.2.]
[Footnote 6-23: WD Press Release, 4 Mar 46, "Report
of Board of Officers on Utilization of Negro
Manpower in the Post-War Army."]
Attitudes toward the new policy varied with interpretations of the
board's statement of objectives. Secretary Patterson saw in the report
"a significant development in the status of the Negro soldiers in the
Army." The immediate effect of using Negroes in composite units and
overhead assignments, he predicted, would be to change War Department
policy on segregation.[6-24] But the success of the policy could not be
guaranteed by a secretary of war, and some of his advisers were more
guarded in their estimates. To Truman Gibson, once again in government
service, but briefly this time, the report seemed a good beginning
because it offered a new approach, one that had originated within the
Army itself. Yet Gibson was wary of its chances for success: The
board's recommendations, he told the Assistant Secretary of War, would
make for a better Army "only if they are effectively carried out."[6-25]
The newly appointed assistant secretary, Howard C. Petersen, was
equally cautious. Explaining the meaning of the report to the Negro
Newspaper Publishers Association, he warned that "a strong policy
weakly enforced will be of little value to the Army."[6-26]
[Footnote 6-24: Memo, SW for CofS, 28 Feb 46, WDCSA
320.2 (28 Feb 46).]
[Footnote 6-25: Memo, Truman Gibson, Expert
Consultant to the SW, for Howard C. Petersen, 28
Feb 46, ASW 291.2 Negro Troops (Post-War).]
[Footnote 6-26: Remarks of the Assistant Secretary of
War at Luncheon for Negro Newspaper Publishers
Association, 1 Mar 46, ASW 291.2.]
Marcus H. Ray, Gibson's successor as the secretary's adviser on racial
affairs,[6-27] stressed the board's ultimate objective to employ
manpower without regard to race and called its recommendations "a step
in the direction of efficient manpower utilization." It was a
necessary step, he added, because "any racial group which lives under
the stigma of implied inferiority inherent in a system of enforced
separation cannot give over-all top performance in peace or in
war."[6-28]
[Footnote 6-27: Ray, a former commander of an
artillery battalion in the 92d Infantry Division,
was appointed civilian aide on 2 January 1946; see
WD Press Release, 7 Jan 46.]
[Footnote 6-28: Ltr, Marcus Ray to Capt Warman K.
Welliver, 10 Apr 46, copy in CMH. Welliver, the
commander of a black unit during the war, was a
student of the subject of Negroes in the Army; see
his "Report on the Negro Soldier."]
On the whole, the black community was considerably less sanguine about
the new policy. The _Norfolk Journal and Guide_ called the report a
step in the right direction, but reserved judgment until the Army
carried out the recommendations.[6-29] To a distinguished black
historian who was writing an account of the Negro in World War II, the
Gillem Board Report reflected the Army's ambiguity on racial matters.
"It is possible," L. D. Reddick of the New York Public Library wrote,
"to interpret the published recommendations as pointing in opposite
directions."[6-30] One NAACP official charged that it "tries to dilute
Jim-Crow by presenting it on a smaller scale." After citing the
tremendous advances made by Negroes and all the reasons for ending
segregation, he accused the Gillem Board of refusing to take the (p. 164)
last step.[6-31] Most black papers adopted the same attitude,
characterizing the new policy as "the same old Army." The Pittsburgh
_Courier_, for one, observed that the new policy meant that the Army
command had undergone no real change of heart.[6-32] Other segments of
the public were more forebearing. One veterans' organization commended
the War Department for the work of the Gillem Board but called its
analysis and recommendations incomplete. Citing evidence that Jim
Crow, not the enemy, "defeated" black combat units, the chairman of
the American Veterans Committee called for an immediate end to
segregation.[6-33]
[Footnote 6-29: Norfolk _Journal and Guide_, March 9,
1946.]
[Footnote 6-30: Ltr, L. D. Reddick, N.Y. Pub. Lib.,
to SW, 12 Mar 46, SW 291.]
[Footnote 6-31: Ltr, Bernard Jackson, Youth Council,
NAACP Boston Br, to ASW, 4 Apr 46, ASW 291.2 (NT).]
[Footnote 6-32: Pittsburgh _Courier_, May 11, 1946.]
[Footnote 6-33: Ltr, Charles G. Bolte, Chmn, Amer
Vets Cmte, to SW, 8 Mar 46; see also Ltr, Ralph
DeNat, Corr Secy, Amer Vets Cmte, to SW, 28 May 46,
both in SW 291.2 (Cmte) (9 Aug 46).]
Clearly, opposition to segregation was not going to be overcome with
palliatives and promises, yet Petersen could only affirm that the
Gillem Board Report would mean significant change. He admitted
segregation's tenacious hold on Army thinking and that black units
would continue to exist for some time, but he promised movement toward
desegregation. He also made the Army's usual distinction between
segregation and discrimination. Though there were many instances of
unfair treatment during the war, he noted, these were individual
matters, inconsistent with Army policy, which "has consistently
condemned discrimination." Discrimination, he concluded, must be
blamed on "defects" of enforcement, which would always exist to some
degree in any organization as large as the Army.[6-34]
[Footnote 6-34: Ltrs, ASW to Bernard H. Solomon and
to Bernard Jackson, 9 Apr 46, both in ASW 291.2.]
Actually, Petersen's promised "movement" toward integration was likely
to be a very slow process. So substantive a change in social practice,
the Army had always argued, required the sustained support of the
American public, and judging from War Department correspondence and
press notices large segments of the public remained unaware of what
the Army was trying to do about its "Negro problem." Most military
journalists continued to ignore the issue; perhaps they considered the
subject of the employment of black troops unimportant compared with
the problems of demobilization, atomic weaponry, and service
unification. For example, in listing the principal military issues
before the United States in the postwar period, military analyst
Hanson Baldwin did not mention the employment of Negroes in the
service.[6-35]
[Footnote 6-35: Hanson Baldwin, "Wanted: An American
Military Policy," _Harper's_ 192 (May
1946):403-13.]
Given the composition of the Gillem Board and the climate of opinion
in the nation, the report was exemplary and fair, its conclusions
progressive. If in the light of later developments the recommendations
seem timid, even superficial, it should be remembered to its credit
that the board at least made integration a long-range goal of the Army
and made permanent the wartime guarantee of a substantial black
representation.
Nevertheless the ambiguities in the Gillem Board's recommendations
would be useful to those commanders at all levels of the Army who were
devoted to the racial _status quo_. Gillem and his colleagues (p. 165)
discussed black soldiers in terms of social problems rather than
military efficiency. As a result, their recommendations treated the
problem from the standpoint of how best Negroes could be employed
within the traditional segregated framework even while they spoke of
integration as an ultimate goal. They gave their blessing to the
continued existence of segregated units and failed to inquire whether
segregation might not be a factor in the inefficiency and
ineffectiveness of black units and black soldiers. True, they sought
to use qualified Negroes in specialist jobs as a solution to better
employment of black manpower, but this effort could have little
practical effect. Few were qualified--and determination of
qualifications was often done by those with little sympathy for the
Negro and even less for the educated Negro. Black serviceman holding
critical specialties and those assigned to overhead installations
would never amount to more than a handful of men whose integration
during duty hours only would fall far short even of tokenism.
To point out as the board did that the policy it was recommending no
longer required segregation was meaningless. Until the Army ordered
integration, segregation, simply by virtue of inertia, would remain.
As McCloy, along with Gibson and others, warned, without a strong,
explicit statement of intent by the Army the changes in Army practice
suggested by the Gillem Board would be insignificant. The very
acceptance of the board's report by officials traditionally opposed to
integration should have been fair warning that the report would be
difficult to use as a base for a progressive racial policy; in fact it
could be used to justify almost any course of action. From the start,
the War Department encountered overwhelming difficulties in carrying
out the board's recommendations, and five years later the ultimate
objective was still out of reach.
Clearly, the majority of Army officers viewed segregated service as
the acceptable norm. General Jacob L. Devers, then commanding general
of Army Ground Forces, gave a clue to their view when he told his
fellow officers in 1946 that "we are going to put colored battalions
in white divisions. This is purely business--the social side will not
be brought into it."[6-36] Here then was the dilemma: Was not the Army a
social institution as well as a fighting organization? The solution to
the Army's racial problems could not be achieved by ignoring the
social implications. On both counts there was a reluctance among many
professional soldiers to take in Negroes. They registered acute social
discomfort at the large influx of black soldiers, and many who had
devoted their lives to military service had very real misgivings over
using Negroes in white combat units or forming new black combat units
because they felt that black fighters in the air and on the ground had
performed badly in the past. To entrust the fighting to Negroes who
had failed to prove their competence in this highest mission of the
Army seemed to them to threaten the institution itself.
[Footnote 6-36: Remarks by Gen J. L. Devers, Armored
Conference Report, 16 May 46.]
Despite these shortcomings, the work of the Gillem Board was a
progressive step in the history of Army race relations. It broke with
the assumption implicit in earlier Army policy that the black soldier
was inherently inferior by recommending that Negroes be assigned (p. 166)
tasks as varied and skilled as those handled by white soldiers. It
also made integration the Army's goal by declaring as official policy
the ultimate employment of all manpower without regard to race.
Even the board's insistence on a racial quota, it could be argued, had
its positive aspects, for in the end it was the presence of so many
black soldiers in the Korean War that finally ended segregation. In
the meantime, controversy over the quota, whether it represented a
floor supporting minimum black participation or a ceiling limiting
black enlistment, continued unabated, providing the civil rights
groups with a focal point for their complaints. No matter how hard the
Army tried to justify the quota, the quota increased the Army's
vulnerability to charges of discrimination.
_Integration of the General Service_
The Navy's postwar revision of racial policy, like the Army's, was the
inevitable result of its World War II experience. Inundated with
unskilled and undereducated Negroes in the middle of the war, the Navy
had assigned most of these men to segregated labor battalions and was
surprised by the racial clashes that followed. As it began to
understand the connection between large segregated units and racial
tensions, the Navy also came to question the waste of the talented
Negro in a system that denied him the job for which he was qualified.
Perhaps more to the point, the Navy's size and mission made
immediately necessary what the Army could postpone indefinitely.
Unlike the Army, the Navy seriously modified its racial policy in the
last year of the war, breaking up some of the large segregated units
and integrating Negroes in the specialist and officer training
schools, in the WAVES, and finally in the auxiliary fleet and the
recruit training centers.
Yet partial integration was not enough. Lester Granger's surveys and
the studies of the secretary's special committee had demonstrated that
the Navy could resolve its racial problems only by providing equal
treatment and opportunity. But the absurdity of trying to operate two
equal navies, one black and one white, had been obvious during the
war. Only total integration of the general service could serve justice
and efficiency, a conclusion the civil rights advocates had long since
reached. After years of leaving the Navy comparatively at peace, they
now began to demand total integration.
There was no assurance, however, that a move to integration was
imminent when Granger returned from his final inspection trip for
Secretary Forrestal in October 1945. Both Granger and the secretary's
Committee on Negro Personnel had endorsed the department's current
practices, and Granger had been generally optimistic over the reforms
instituted toward the end of the war. Admirals Nimitz and King both
endorsed Granger's recommendations, although neither saw the need for
further change.[6-37] For his part Secretary Forrestal seemed determined
to maintain the momentum of reform. "What steps do we take," he (p. 167)
asked the Chief of Naval Personnel, "to correct the various practices
... which are not in accordance with Navy standards?"[6-38]
[Footnote 6-37: Ltr, CINCPAC&POA to SecNav via Ch,
NavPers, 30 Oct 45, sub: Negro Naval
Personnel--Pacific Ocean Areas, and 2d Ind, CNO, 7
Dec 45, same sub, both in P16-3/MM, OpNavArchives.]
[Footnote 6-38: Memo, J. F. for Adm Jacobs, 23 Aug
45, 54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]
[Illustration: ADMIRAL DENFELD.]
In response the Bureau of Naval Personnel circulated the Granger
reports throughout the Navy and ordered steps to correct practices
identified by Granger as "not in accordance with Navy standards."[6-39]
But it was soon apparent that the bureau would be selective in
adopting Granger's suggestions. In November, for example, the Chief of
Naval Personnel, Admiral Louis E. Denfeld, arguing that officers
"could handle black personnel without any special indoctrination,"
urged the secretary to reject Granger's recommendation that an office
be established in headquarters to deal exclusively with racial
problems. At the same time some of the bureau's recruiting officials
were informing Negroes that their reenlistment in the Regular Navy was
to be limited to the Steward's Branch.[6-40] With the help of Admiral
Nimitz, Chief of Naval Operations, Forrestal quickly put an end to
this recruiting practice, but he paid no further attention to racial
matters except to demand in mid-December a progress report on racial
reforms in the Pacific area.[6-41] Nor did he seem disturbed when the
Pacific commander reported a large number of all-black units, some
with segregated recreational facilities, operating in the Pacific area
as part of the permanent postwar naval organization.[6-42]
[Footnote 6-39: Memo, Asst Ch, NavPers, for SecNav,
10 Sep 45, sub: Ur Memo of August 23, 1945,
Relative to Lester B. Granger ... 54-1-13,
Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 6-40: 1st Ind, Chief, NavPers, to Ltr,
CINCPAC&POA to SecNav, 30 Oct 45, sub: Negro
Personnel--Pacific Ocean Areas (ca. 15 Nov 45),
P16-3MM, OpNavArchives; Memo, M. F. Correa (Admin
Asst to SecNav) for Capt Robert N. McFarlane, 30
Nov 45, 54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 6-41: Forrestal's request for a progress
report was circulated in CNO Dispatch 142105Z Dec
45 to CINCPAC&POA, quoted in Nelson, "Integration
of the Negro," p. 58.]
[Footnote 6-42: Memo, CINCPAC&POA for CNO, 5 Jan 46,
sub: Negro Naval Personnel--Pacific Ocean Areas,
P10/P11, OpNavArchives.]
In the end the decision to integrate the general service came not from
the secretary but from that bastion of military tradition, the Bureau
of Naval Personnel. Despite the general reluctance of the bureau to
liberalize the Navy's racial policy, there had been all along some
manpower experts who wanted to increase the number of specialties open
to black sailors. Capt. Hunter Wood, Jr., for example, suggested in
January 1946 that the bureau make plans for an expansion in
assignments for Negroes. Wood's proposal fell on the sympathetic ears
of Admiral Denfeld, who considered the Granger recommendations (p. 168)
practical for the postwar Navy. Denfeld, of course, was well aware
that these recommendations had been endorsed by Admirals King and
Nimitz as well as Forrestal, and he himself had gone on record as
believing that Negroes in the peacetime Navy should lose none of the
opportunities opened to them during the war.[6-43]
[Footnote 6-43: Admiral Denfeld's statement to the
black press representatives in this regard is
referred to in Memo, Capt H. Wood, Jr., for Chief,
NavPers, 2 Jan 46, P16-3/MM, BuPersRecs.]
Denfeld had had considerable experience with the Navy's evolving
racial policy in his wartime assignment as assistant chief of
personnel where his principal concern had been the efficient
distribution and assignment of men. He particularly objected to the
fact that current regulations complicated what should have been the
routine transfer of sailors. Simple control procedures for the
segregation of Negroes in general service had been effective when
Negroes were restricted to particular shore stations and duties, he
told Admiral Nimitz on 4 January 1946, but now that Negroes were
frequently being transferred from shore to sea and from ship to ship
the restriction of Negroes to auxiliary ships was becoming extremely
difficult to manage and was also "noticeably contrary to the
non-differentiation policy enunciated by the Secretary of the Navy."
The only way to execute that policy effectively and maintain
efficiency, he concluded, was to integrate the general service
completely. Denfeld pointed out that the admission of Negroes to the
auxiliary fleet had caused little friction in the Navy and passed
almost unnoticed by the press. Secretary Forrestal had promised to
extend the use of Negroes throughout the entire fleet if the
preliminary program proved practical, and the time had come to fulfill
that promise. He would start with "the removal of restrictions
governing the type of duty to which general service Negroes can be
assigned," but would limit the number of Negroes on any ship or at any
shore station to a percentage no greater than that of general service
Negroes throughout the Navy.[6-44]
[Footnote 6-44: Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to CNO, 4 Jan
46, sub: Assignment of Negro Personnel, P16-3MM,
BuPersRecs.]
With the enlistment of the Chief of Naval Personnel in the cause, the
move to an integrated general service was assured. On 27 February 1946
the Navy published Circular Letter 48-46: "Effective immediately all
restrictions governing types of assignments for which Negro naval
personnel are eligible are hereby lifted. Henceforth, they shall be
eligible for all types of assignments in all ratings in all activities
and all ships of naval service." The letter went on to specify that
"in housing, messing, and other facilities, there would be no special
accommodations for Negroes." It also directed a redistribution of
personnel by administrative commands so that by 1 October 1946 no ship
or naval activity would be more than 10 percent Negro. The single
exception would be the Naval Academy, where a large contingent of
black stewards would be left intact to serve the midshipmen's meals.
The publication of Circular Letter 48-46 was an important step in the
Navy's racial history. In less than one generation, in fewer years
actually than the average sailor's service life, the Navy had made a
complete about-face. In a sense the new policy was a service (p. 169)
reform rather than a social revolution; after a 23-year hiatus
integration had once again become the Navy's standard racial policy.
Since headlines are more often reserved for revolutions than
reformations, the new policy attracted little attention. The
metropolitan press gave minimum coverage to the event and never
bothered to follow later developments. For the most part the black
press treated the Navy's announcement with skepticism. On behalf of
Secretary Forrestal, Lester Granger invited twenty-three leading black
editors and publishers to inspect ships in the fleet as well as shore
activities to see for themselves the changes being made. Not one
accepted. As one veteran put it, the editors shrank from praising the
Navy's policy change for fear of being proved hasty. They preferred to
remain on safe ground, "givin' 'em hell."[6-45]
[Footnote 6-45: As reported in Ltr, Granger to
author, 25 Jun 69, CMH files.]
The editors had every reason to be wary: integration was seriously
circumscribed in the new directive, which actually offered few
guarantees of immediate change. Applying only to enlisted men in the
shore establishment and on ships, the directive ignored the Navy's
all-white officer corps and its nonwhite servants branch of stewards.
Aimed at abolishing discrimination in the service, it failed to
guarantee either through enlistment, assignment guidelines, or
specific racial quotas a fair proportion of black sailors in the
postwar Navy. Finally, the order failed to create administrative
machinery to carry out the new policy. In a very real sense the new
policy mirrored tradition. It was naval tradition to have black
sailors in the integrated ranks and a separate Messman's Branch. The
return to this tradition embodied in the order complemented
Forrestal's philosophy of change as an outgrowth of self-realized
reform. At the same time naval tradition did not include the concept
of high-ranking black officers, white servants, and Negroes in
specialized assignments. Here Forrestal's hope of self-reform did not
materialize, and equal treatment and opportunity for Negroes in the
Navy remained an elusive goal.
But Forrestal and his military subordinates made enough of a start to
draw the fire of white segregationists. The secretary answered charges
and demands in a straightforward manner. When, for example, a
congressman complained that "white boys are being forced to sleep with
these negroes," Forrestal explained that men were quartered and messed
aboard ship according to their place in the ship's organization
without regard to race. The Navy made no attempt to prescribe the
nature or extent of their social relationships, which were beyond the
scope of its authority. Although Forrestal expressed himself as
understanding the strong feelings of some Americans on this matter, he
made it clear that the Navy had finally decided segregation was the
surest way to emphasize and perpetuate the gap between the races and
had therefore adopted a policy of integration.[6-46]
[Footnote 6-46: Ltr, Congressman Stephen Pace of
Georgia to Forrestal, 22 Jun 46; Ltr, Forrestal to
Pace, 14 Aug 46, both in 54-1-13, Forrestal file,
GenRecsNav.]
What Forrestal said was true, but the translation of the Navy's
postwar racial policy into the widespread practice of equal treatment
and opportunity for Negroes was still before him and his officers. (p. 170)
To achieve it they would have to fight the racism common in many
segments of American society as well as bureaucratic inertia. If put
into practice the new policy might promote the efficient use of naval
manpower and give the Navy at least a brief respite from the criticism
of civil rights advocates, but because of Forrestal's failure to give
clear-cut direction--a characteristic of his approach to racial
reform--the Navy might well find itself proudly trumpeting a new
policy while continuing its old racial practices.
_The Marine Corps_
As part of the naval establishment, the Marine Corps fell under the
strictures of Secretary Forrestal's announced policy of racial
nondiscrimination.[6-47] At the same time the Marine Corps was
administratively independent of the Chief of Naval Operations and the
Chief of Naval Personnel, and Circular Letter 48-46, which
desegregated the Navy's general service, did not apply to the corps.
In the development of manpower policy the corps was responsible to the
Navy, in organization it closely resembled the Army, but in size and
tradition it was unique. Each of these factors contributed to the
development of the corps' racial policy and helped explain its postwar
racial practices.
[Footnote 6-47: The latest pronouncement of that
policy was ALNAV 423-45.]
Because of the similarities in organization and mission between the
Army and the Marine Corps, the commandant leaned toward the Army's
solution for racial problems. The Army staff had contended that
racially separate service was not discriminatory so long as it was
equal, and through its Gillem Board policy it accepted the
responsibility of guaranteeing that Negroes would be represented in
equitable numbers and their treatment and opportunity would be similar
to that given whites. Since the majority of marines served in the
ground units of the Fleet Marine Force, organized like the Army in
regiments, battalions, and squadrons with tables of organization and
equipment, the formation of racially separate units presented no great
problem.
Although the Marine Corps was similar to the Army in organization, it
was very different in size and tradition. With a postwar force of
little more than 100,000 men, the corps was hardly able to guarantee
its segregated Negroes equal treatment and opportunity in terms of
specialized training and variety of assignment. Again in contrast to
the Army and Navy with their long tradition of Negroes in service, the
Marine Corps, with a few unauthorized exceptions, had been an
exclusively white organization since 1798. This habit of racial
exclusion was strengthened by those feelings of intimacy and
fraternity natural to any small bureaucracy. In effect the marines
formed a small club in which practically everybody knew everybody else
and was reluctant to admit strangers.[6-48] Racial exclusion often
warred with the corps' clear duty to provide the fair and equal
service for all Americans authorized by the Secretary of the Navy. At
one point the commandant, General Alexander Vandegrift, even had (p. 171)
to remind his local commanders that black marines would in fact be
included in the postwar corps.[6-49]
[Footnote 6-48: See USMC Oral History Interviews, Lt
Gen James L. Underhill, 25 Mar 68, and Lt Gen Ray
A. Robinson, 18 Mar 68, both in Hist Div, HQMC.]
[Footnote 6-49: Memo, CO, 26th Marine Depot Co.,
Fifth Service Depot, Second FMF, Pacific, for CMC,
2 Nov 45, with Inds, sub: Information Concerning
Peacetime Colored Marine Corps, Request for; Memos,
CMC for CG, FMF (Pacific), et al., 11 Dec 45, sub:
Voluntary Enlistments, Negro Marines, in Regular
Marine Corps, Assignment of Quotas; idem for Cmdr,
MCAB, Cherry Point, N.C., et al., 14 Dec 45. Unless
otherwise noted, all documents cited in this
section are located in Hist Div, HQMC.]
One other factor influenced the policy deliberations of the Marine
Corps: its experiences with black marines during World War II.
Overshadowing the praise commanders gave the black depot companies
were reports of the trials and frustrations suffered by those who
trained the large black combat units. Many Negroes trained long and
hard for antiaircraft duty, yet a senior group commander found them
ill-suited to the work because of "emotional instability and lack of
appreciation of materiel." One battery commander cited the "mechanical
ineptitude" of his men; another fell back on "racial characteristics
of the Negro as a whole" to explain his unit's difficulty.[6-50]
Embodying rash generalization and outright prejudice, the reports of
these commanders circulated in Marine Corps headquarters, also
revealed that a large group of black marines experienced enough
problems in combat training to cast serious doubt on the reliability
of the defense battalions. This doubt alone could explain the corps'
decision to relegate the units to the backwaters of the war zone.
Seeing only the immediate shortcomings of the large black combat
units, most commanders ignored the underlying reasons for the failure.
The controversial commander of the 51st Defense Battalion, Col. Curtis
W. LeGette,[6-51] however, gave his explanation to the commandant in
some detail. He reported that more than half the men in the 51st as it
prepared for overseas deployment--most of them recent draftees--were
in the two lowest categories, IV and V, for either general
classification or mechanical aptitude. That some 212 of the
noncommissioned officers of the units were also in categories IV and V
was the result of the unit's effort to carry out the commandant's
order to replace white noncommissioned officers as quickly as
possible. The need to develop black noncommissioned officers was
underscored by LeGette, who testified to a growing resentment among
his black personnel at the assignment of new white noncoms.
Symptomatic of the unit's basic problems in 1944 was what LeGette
called an evolving "occupational neurosis" among white officers forced
to serve for lengthy periods with black marines.[6-52]
[Footnote 6-50: AAA Gp, 51st Defense Bn, FMF,
Montford Pt., Gp Cmdr's Endorsement on Annual
Record Practice, Year 1943, 20 Dec 43; AAA Gp, 51st
Defense Bn, FMF, Montford Pt., Battery Cmdr's
Narrative Report of Record Practice, 1943, 21 Dec
43; idem, Battery Cmdr's Narrative Rpt (signed R.
H. Twisdale) (ca. 20 Dec 43).]
[Footnote 6-51: For the extensive charges and
countercharges concerning the controversy between
Colonel LeGette and his predecessor in the 51st,
see files of Hist Div, HQMC.]
[Footnote 6-52: Memo, CO, 51st Defense Bn, FMF, for
CMC, 20 Jul 44, sub: Combat Efficiency, Fifty-First
Defense Battalion, Serial 1085.]
The marines experienced far fewer racial problems than either the Army
or Navy during the war, but the difficulties that occurred were
nonetheless important in the development of postwar racial policy. The
basic cause of race problems was the rigid concentration of (p. 172)
often undertrained and undereducated men, who were subjected to racial
slurs and insensitive treatment by some white officials and given
little chance to serve in preferred military specialties or to advance
in the labor or defense units or steward details to which they were
invariably consigned. But this basic cause was ignored by Marine Corps
planners when they discussed the postwar use of Negroes. They
preferred to draw other lessons from the corps' wartime experience.
The employment of black marines in small, self-contained units
performing traditional laboring tasks was justified precisely because
the average black draftee was less well-educated and experienced in
the use of the modern equipment. Furthermore, the correctness of this
procedure seemed to be demonstrated by the fact that the corps had
been relatively free of the flare-ups that plagued the other services.
Many officials would no doubt have preferred to eliminate race
problems by eliminating Negroes from the corps altogether. Failing
this, they were determined that regular black marines continue to
serve in those assignments performed by black marines during the war:
in service units, stewards billets, and a few antiaircraft artillery
units, the postwar successors to defense battalions.[6-53]
[Footnote 6-53: Shaw and Donnelly, _Blacks in the
Marine Corps_, pp 47-49; Interv, James Westfall
with Col Curtis W. LeGette (USMC, Ret.), 8 Feb 72,
copy in CMH.]
[Illustration: GENERAL THOMAS.]
The development of a postwar racial policy to carry out the Navy
Department's nondiscrimination order in the Marine Corps fell to the
Division of Plans and Policies and its director, Brig. Gen. Gerald C.
Thomas. It was a complicated task, and General Thomas and his staff
after some delay established a series of guidelines intended to steer
a middle path between exclusion and integration that would be
nondiscriminatory. In addition to serving in the Steward's Branch,
which contained 10 percent of all blacks in the corps, Negroes would
serve in segregated units in every branch of the corps, and their
strength would total some 2,800 men. This quota would not be like that
established in the Army, which was pegged to the number of black
soldiers during the war and which ultimately was based on national
population ratios. The Marine Corps ratio of blacks to whites would be
closer to 1 in 30 and would merely represent the estimated number of
billets that might be filled by Negroes in self-sustaining segregated
units.
The directorate also established a table of distribution plan that for
the first time provided for black regular marines in aviation units
and several other Marine Corps activities. Aviation units alone (p. 173)
accounted for 25 percent of the marines in the postwar corps, General
Thomas contended, and must absorb their proportionate share of black
strength. Further, the Navy's policy of nondiscrimination demanded
that all types of assignments be opened to black marines. Segregation
"best suits the needs of the Marine Corps," General Thomas concluded.
Ignoring the possibility of black officers and women marines, he
thought that the opening of all specialties and types of duty to the
enlisted ranks would find the Marine Corps "paralleling Navy
policy."[6-54] Clearly, the Division of Plans and Policies wanted the
corps to adopt a formula roughly analogous to the Gillem Board's
separate but equal system without that body's provisions for a fixed
quota, black officers, or some integrated service.
[Footnote 6-54: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 8 Apr 46, sub: Negro Personnel in the
Post-War Marine Corps. This memo was not submitted
for signature and was superseded by a memo of 13
May 46.]
But even this concession to nondiscrimination was never approved, for
the Plans and Policies Division ran afoul of a basic fact of
segregation: the postwar strength of many elements of the Marine Corps
was too small to support separate racial units. The Director of
Aviation, for example, argued that because of the size and nature of
his operation, segregated service was impossible. A substantial number
of his enlisted men also did double duty by serving in air stations
where Negroes could not be segregated, he explained. Only completely
separate aviation units, police and maintenance, and construction
units would be available for Negroes, a state of affairs "which would
be open to adverse criticism." He recommended instead that Negroes in
aviation be used only as stewards.[6-55] He failed to explain how this
solution would escape adverse criticism.
[Footnote 6-55: Memos, Dir, Aviation, for CMC, 26 Apr
46, sub: Negro Personnel in the Post-War Marine
Corps, and 31 May 46, sub: Enlistment of Negroes
"For Duty in Aviation Units Only."]
General Thomas rejected these proposals, repeating that Secretary
Forrestal's nondiscrimination policy demanded that a separate but
equal system be extended throughout the Marine Corps. He also borrowed
one of the Gillem Board's arguments: Negroes must be trained in the
postwar military establishment in every occupation to serve as a cadre
for future general mobilizations.[6-56] Thomas did not mention the fact
that although large branches such as Fleet Marine Force aviation could
maintain separate but equal living facilities for its black marines,
even they would have to provide partially integrated training and
working conditions. And the smaller organizations in the corps would
be forced to integrate fully if forced to accept black marines. In
short, if the corps wanted segregation it must pay the price of
continued discrimination against black marines in terms of numbers
enlisted and occupations assigned.
[Footnote 6-56: Div of Plans and Policies (signed G.
C. Thomas), Consideration of Non-Concurrence, 2 May
46, attached to Memo, Dir, Aviation, for CMC, 26
Apr 46.]
The choice was left to Commandant Vandegrift. One solution to the
"Negro question," General Thomas told him, was complete integration
and the abolition of racial quotas, but Thomas did not press this
solution. Instead, he reviewed for Vandegrift the racial policies of
the other services, pointing out that these policies had more often
been devised to "appease the Negro press and other 'interested' (p. 174)
agencies than to satisfy their own needs." Until the matter was
settled on a "higher level," Thomas concluded, the services were not
required to go further than had been their custom, and until
Vandegrift decided on segregation or integration, setting quotas for
the different branches in the corps was inappropriate. Thomas himself
recommended that segregated units be adopted and that a quota be
devised only after each branch of the corps reported how many Negroes
it could use in segregated units.[6-57] Vandegrift approved Thomas's
recommendation for segregated black units, and the Marine Corps lost
the chance, temporarily, to adopt a policy in line with either the
Navy's limited and integrated system or the Army's separate but equal
system.
[Footnote 6-57: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 13 May 46, sub: Negro Personnel in the
Post-War Marine Corps.]
General Thomas spent the summer collecting and reviewing the proposals
of the corps' various components for the employment of black marines.
On the basis of this review General Vandegrift approved a postwar
policy for the employment of Negroes in the Marine Corps on 26
September 1946. The policy called for the enlistment of 2,264 Negroes,
264 as stewards, the rest to serve in separate units, chiefly in
ground security forces of the Fleet Marine Force in Guam and Saipan
and in Marine Corps activities of the naval shore establishment. No
Negroes except stewards would serve in Marine aviation, Marine forces
afloat, or, with the exception of service depots, in the Marine
logistic establishment.[6-58]
[Footnote 6-58: Idem for CMC, 25 Sep 46, sub:
Post-War Negro Personnel Requirements. For examples
of the proposals submitted by the various
components, see Memo, F. D. Beans, G-3, for G-1, 6
Aug 46, sub: Employment of Colored Personnel in the
Fleet Marine Force (Ground) (less Service Ground)
and in Training Activities; Memo, Lt Col Schmuck,
G-3, for Col Stiles, 10 Jun 46, sub: Utilization of
Negro Personnel in Post-War Infantry Units of the
Fleet Marine Force; Memo, QMC for CMC, 4 Sep 46,
sub: Negro Personnel in the Post-War Marine Corps.]
The policy was in effect by January 1947. In the end the Marine Corps'
white-only tradition had proved strong enough to resist the
progressive impulses that were pushing the other services toward some
relaxation of their segregation policies. Committed to limiting
Negroes to a token representation and employing black marines in
rigidly self-contained units, the Marine Corps could not establish a
quota for Negroes based on national racial proportions and could offer
no promise of equal treatment and opportunity in work assignments and
promotions.
Thus all the services emerged from their deliberations with postwar
policies that were markedly different in several respects but had in
common a degree of segregation. The Army, declaring that military
efficiency demanded ultimate integration, temporized, guaranteeing as
a first step an intricate system of separate but equal treatment and
opportunity for Negroes. The Marine Corps began with the idea that
separate but equal service was not discriminatory, but when equal
service proved unattainable, black marines were left with separatism
alone. The Navy announced the most progressive policy of all,
providing for integration of its general service. Yet it failed to
break the heavy concentration of Negroes in the Steward's Branch, (p. 175)
where no whites served. And unlike the segregated Army, the integrated
Navy, its admission standards too high to encourage black enlistments,
did not guarantee to take any black officers or specialists.
None of these policies provided for the equal treatment and
opportunity guaranteed to every black serviceman under the
Constitution, although the racial practices of all the services stood
far in advance of those of most institutions in the society from which
they were derived. The very weaknesses and inadequacies inherent in
these policies would in themselves become a major cause of the reforms
that were less than a decade away.
CHAPTER 7 (p. 176)
A Problem of Quotas
The War Department encountered overwhelming problems when it tried to
put the Gillem Board's recommendations into practice, and in the end
only parts of the new policy for the use of black manpower were ever
carried out. The policy foundered for a variety of reasons: some
implicit in the nature of the policy itself, others the result of
manpower exigencies, and still others because of prejudices lingering
in the staff, the Army, and the nation at large.
Even before the Army postwar racial policy was published in War
Department Circular 124 on 27 April 1946 it met formidable opposition
in the staff. Although Secretary Patterson had approved the new course
of action, the Assistant Chief of Staff for Personnel, General Paul,
sent a copy of what he called the "proposed" policy to the Army Air
Forces for further comment.[7-1] The response of the air commander,
General Carl Spaatz, revealed that he too considered the policy still
open for discussion. He suggested that the Army abandon the quota in
favor of admitting men on the basis of intelligence and professional
ability and forbid enlistment to anyone scoring below eighty in the
entry tests. He wanted the composite organizations of black and white
units recommended by the board held to a minimum, and none smaller
than an air group--a regimental-size unit. Black combat units should
have only black service units in support. In fact, Spaatz believed
that most black units should be service units, and he wanted to see
Negroes employed in overhead assignments only where and when their
specialties were needed. He did not want jobs created especially for
them.[7-2]
[Footnote 7-1: DF, ACofS, G-1, to CG, AAF, 15 Mar 46,
sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar
Army, WDGAP 291.2.]
[Footnote 7-2: Memo, CG, AAF, for ACofS, G-1, 3 Apr
46, sub: Utilization of Manpower in the Postwar
Army, WDGAP 291.2.]
These were not the only portents of difficulty for the new policy.
Before its publication General Paul had announced that he would not
establish a staff group on racial affairs as called for by the Gillem
Board. Citing manpower shortages and the small volume of work he
envisaged, Paul planned instead to divide such duties between his
Welfare Branch and Military Personnel Services Group.[7-3] The concept
of a central authority for the direction of racial policy was further
weakened in April when Paul invited the Assistant Chief of Staff for
Organization and Training, General Edwards, one of whose primary tasks
was to decide the size and number of military units, to share
responsibility for carrying out the recommendations of the Gillem
Board.[7-4]
[Footnote 7-3: DF, ACofS, G-1, to ASW, 26 Mar 46,
sub: Implementation of WD Cir 124, WDGAP 291.2.]
[Footnote 7-4: Idem to ACofS, G-3, 29 Apr 46, sub:
Implementation of WD Cir 124, WDGAP 291.2.]
Assistant Secretary Petersen was perturbed at the mounting (p. 177)
evidence of opposition. Specifically, he believed Spaatz's comments
indicated a lack of accord with Army policy, and he wanted the Army
Air Forces told that "these basic matters are no longer open for
discussion." He also wanted to establish a troop basis that would
lead, without the imposition of arbitrary percentages, to the
assignment of a "fair proportion" of black troops to all major
commands and their use in all kinds of duties in all the arms and
services. Petersen considered the composite unit one of the most
important features of the new policy, and he wanted "at least a few"
such units organized soon. He mentioned the assignment of a black
parachute battalion to the 82d Airborne Division as a good place to
begin.
Petersen had other concerns. He was distressed at the dearth of black
specialists in overhead detachments, and he wondered why War
Department Circular 105, which provided for the assignment of men to
critically needed specialties, explicitly excluded Negroes.[7-5] He
wanted the circular revised. Above all, Petersen feared the new policy
might falter from a lack of aggressive leadership. He estimated that
at first it would require at least the full attention of several
officers under the leadership of an "aggressive officer who knows the
Army and has its confidence and will take an active interest in
vigorous enforcement of the program."[7-6] By implication Petersen was
asking General Paul to take the lead.
[Footnote 7-5: WD Cir 105, 10 Apr 46.]
[Footnote 7-6: Memo, ASW for ACofS, G-1, 27 Apr 46,
ASW 291.2.]
Within a week of Petersen's comments on leadership, Paul had revised
Circular 105, making its provisions applicable to all enlisted men,
regardless of race or physical profile.[7-7] A few days later, he was
assuring Petersen that General Spaatz's comments were "inconsistent
with the approved recommendations" and were being disregarded.[7-8] Paul
also repeated the principal points of the new policy for the major
commanders, especially those dealing with composite units and overhead
assignments for black specialists. He stressed that, whenever
possible, Negroes should be assigned to places where local community
attitudes were most favorable and no undue burden would be imposed on
local civilian facilities.[7-9]
[Footnote 7-7: G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS, 3 May 46,
sub: Changes to WD Cir 105, 1946, WDGAP 291.2.
Revision appeared as WD Circular 142, 17 May 46.]
[Footnote 7-8: DF, ACofS, G-1, to ASW, 13 May 46,
sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in Postwar Army,
WDGAP 291.2.]
[Footnote 7-9: Ltr, TAG to CG's, AGF, AAF, and ASF, 6
May 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in
Postwar Army, AGAM-PM 291.2 (30 Apr 46); idem to
CG's, 10 Jun 46, same sub, same file (4 Jun 46).]
General Paul believed the principal impediment to practical
application of the new policy was not so much the opposition of field
commanders as the fact that many black units continued to perform
poorly. He agreed with Marcus Ray, Civilian Aide to the Secretary of
War, who had predicted as early as January 1946 that the success of
the Gillem Board's recommendations would depend on how many Negroes of
higher than average ability the armed forces could attract and retain.
Ray reasoned that among the Negroes enlisting in the Regular Army--14
percent of the 1945 total--were large numbers of noncommissioned (p. 178)
officers in the three highest grades whose abilities were limited.
They were able to maintain their ratings, usually in service units,
because their duties required knowledge of neither administration nor
weapons. Truckmasters, foremen, riggers, and the like, they rushed to
reenlist in order to freeze themselves in grade. Since many of these
men were in the two lowest test categories, they could not supply the
leaders needed for black units. Ray wanted to replace these men with
better educated enlistees who could be used on the broadened
professional base recommended by the Gillem Board. To that end he
wanted the Army to test all enlisted men, discharge those below
minimum standards, and launch a recruiting campaign to attract better
qualified men, both black and white.[7-10] For his part, Paul also
deplored the enlistment of men who were, in his words, "mentally
incapable of development into the specialists, technicians, and
instructors that we must have in the post-war Regular Army."[7-11]
[Footnote 7-10: Memo, Marcus H. Ray for ASW, 22 Jan
46, ASW 291.2.]
[Footnote 7-11: Memo, ACofS, G-1, for CofS, 25 Jan
46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the
Postwar Army, WDGAP 291.2.]
[Illustration: GENERAL PAUL.]
Here, even before the new racial policy was published, the Army staff
ran head on into the realities of postwar manpower needs. In a rapid
demobilization, the Army was critically short of troops, particularly
for overseas replacements, and it could maintain troop strength only
by accepting all the men it could get. Until Paul had more definite
information on the future operations of Selective Service and the rate
of voluntary Regular Army enlistments, he would have to postpone
action to curtail the admission of low-scoring men. So pressing were
the Army's needs that Paul could do nothing to guarantee that black
strength would not greatly exceed the 10 percent figure suggested by
the Gillem Board. He anticipated that by 1 July 1946 the regular and
active reserve components of the Army would together be approximately
15 percent black, a percentage impossible to avoid if the Army was to
retain 1.8 million men. Since all planning had been based on a 10
percent black strength, plans would have to be revised to make use of
the excess. In February 1946 the Chief of Staff approved General
Paul's program: Negroes would continue to be drafted at the 10 percent
ratio; at the same time their enlistment in the Regular Army would
continue without restriction on numbers. Negroes would be limited to
15 percent of the overseas commands, and the continental commands (p. 179)
would absorb all the rest.[7-12]
[Footnote 7-12: DF, ACofS, G-1, 23 Jan 46, sub:
Utilization of Negro Personnel, WDGAP 291.2 (23 Jan
46); Ltr, TAG to CG's, Major Forces, and Overseas
Cmdrs, 4 Feb 46, same sub, AG 291.2 (31 Jan 46)
OB-S-A-M.]
Paul's program for absorbing Negroes faced rough going, for the
already complex manpower situation was further complicated by
limitations on the use of Negroes in certain overseas theaters and the
demands of the War Department's major commands. The Army was
prohibited by an agreement with the State Department from sending
Negroes to the Panama Canal Zone; it also respected an unwritten
agreement that barred black servicemen from Iceland, the Azores, and
China.[7-13] Since the War Department was unable to use Negroes
everywhere, the areas where they could be used had to take more. The
increase in black troops provoked considerable discussion in the large
Pacific and European commands because it entailed separate housing,
transportation, and care for dependents--all the usual expensive
trappings of segregation. Theater commanders also faced additional
problems in public relations and management. As one War Department
staff officer claimed, black units required more than normal
administration, stricter policing, and closer supervision. This in
turn demanded additional noncommissioned officers, and "more Negro
bodies must be maintained to produce equivalent results."[7-14]
[Footnote 7-13: G-1 Memo for Rcd, Col Coyne,
Operations Gp, 19 Feb 47, WDGAP 291.2; prohibitions
for certain areas are discussed in detail in
Chapter 15.]
[Footnote 7-14: Memo, Actg Chief, Pac Theater Sec,
OPD, for Maj Gen H. A. Craig, Dep ACofS, OPD, 12
Feb 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, WDGOT
291.2.]
Both commands protested the War Department decision. Representatives
from the European theater arrived in Washington in mid-February 1946
to propose a black strength of 8.21 rather than the prescribed 15
percent. Seeking to determine where black soldiers could be used "with
the least harmful effect on theater operations," they discovered in
conferences with representatives of the War Department staff only the
places Negroes were not to be used: in infantry units, in the
constabulary, which acted as a border patrol and occupation police, in
highly technical services, or as supervisors of white civilian
laborers.[7-15]
[Footnote 7-15: Memo, Chief, Eur Sec, OPD, for Maj
Gen Howard A. Craig, Dep ACofS, OPD, 15 Feb 46,
sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel, WDGOT 291.2.]
The commander of Army Forces, Pacific, was even more insistent on a
revision, asking how he could absorb so many Negroes when his command
was already scheduled to receive 50,000 Philippine Scouts and 29,500
Negroes in the second half of 1947. These two groups, which the
command considered far less adaptable than white troops to
occupational duties, would together make up about 40 percent of the
command's total strength. Although Philippine Scouts in the theater
never exceeded 31,000, the command's protest achieved some success.
The War Department agreed to reduce black troops in the Pacific to 14
percent by 1 January 1947 and 13 percent by 1 July 1947.[7-16]
[Footnote 7-16: Memo for Rcd, Lt Col French, Theater
Group, OPD, 7 May 46, sub: Negro Enlisted Strength,
Pacific Theater, 1947, WDGOT 291.2. For a
discussion of the Philippine Scouts in the Pacific
theater, see Robert Ross Smith, "The Status of
Philippine Military Forces During World War II,"
CMH files.]
No sooner had the demands of the overseas theaters been dealt with (p. 180)
than the enlarged black quotas came under attack from the commanders
of major forces. Instead of planning to absorb more Negroes, the Army
Air Forces wanted to divest itself of some black units on the premise
that unskilled troops were a liability in a highly technical service.
General Spaatz reported that some 60 percent of all his black troops
stationed in the United States in January 1946 were performing the
duties of unskilled laborers and that very few could be trained for
skilled tasks. He predicted that the Army Air Forces would soon have
an even higher percentage of low-scoring Negroes because 15 percent of
all men enlisting in his Regular Army units--expected to reach a total
of 45,000 men by 1 July 1946--were black. To forestall this increase
in "undesirable and uneconomical" troops, he wanted to stop inducting
Negroes into the Army Air Forces and suspend all black enlistments in
the Regular Army.[7-17]
[Footnote 7-17: Memo, CG, AAF, for ACofS, G-1, 25 Jan
46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the
Postwar Army, WDGAP 291.2.]
The Army Air Forces elaborated on these arguments in the following
months, refining both its estimates and demands. Specifically, its
manpower officials estimated that to reach the 15 percent black
strength ordered by 1 July 1946 the Air Forces would have to take
50,500 Negroes into units that could efficiently use only 22,000 men.
This embarrassment of more than 28,000 unusable men, the Army Air
Forces claimed, would require eliminating tactical units and creating
additional quartermaster car companies, mess platoons, and other
service organizations.[7-18] The Air staff wanted to eliminate the
unwanted 28,000 black airmen by raising to eighty the minimum
classification test score for Regular Army enlistment in the Army Air
Forces. In the end it retreated from this proposal, and on 25 February
requested permission to use the 28,000 Negroes in service units, but
over and above its 400,000-man troop basis. It promised to absorb all
these men into the troop basis by 30 June 1946.[7-19]
[Footnote 7-18: Memo, Brig Gen William Metheny, Off,
Commitments Div, ACofS Air Staff-3, for ACofS Air
Staff-3, 18 Feb 46, WDGOT 291.2.]
[Footnote 7-19: DF, DCofAS (Maj Gen C. C. Chauncey)
to G-3 25 Feb 46, sub: Utilization of Negro
Manpower in the Postwar Army, WDGOT 291.2.]
The Army staff rejected this plan on the grounds that any excess
allowed above the current Air Forces troop basis would have to be
balanced by a corresponding and unacceptable deficit in the Army
Ground Forces and Army Service Forces.[7-20] The Army Air Forces
countered with a proposal to discharge all black enlistees in excess
of Air Forces requirements in the European theater who would accept
discharge. It had in mind a group of 8,795 Negroes recently enlisted
for a three-year period, who, in accordance with a lure designed to
stimulate such enlistments, had chosen assignment in the Air Forces
and a station in Europe. With a surplus of black troops, the Air
Forces found itself increasingly unable to fulfill the "overseas
theater of choice" enlistment contract. Since some men would
undoubtedly refuse to serve anywhere but Europe, the Air staff (p. 181)
reasoned, why not offer a discharge to all men who preferred
separation over service elsewhere?
[Footnote 7-20: Memo, Actg ACofS, G-3, for CG, AAF,
14 Mar 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in
the Postwar Army, WDGOT 291.2.]
Again the Army staff turned down a request for a reduction in black
troops. This time the Air Forces bowed to the inevitable--15 percent
of its enlisted strength black--but grudgingly, for a quota of 50,419
Negroes, General Spaatz charged, "seriously jeopardizes the ability of
the AAF to perform its assigned mission."[7-21]
[Footnote 7-21: Memo, ACofS, G-3, for CG, AAF, 21 Mar
46, sub: Authorized Military Personnel as of 31
December 1946 and 30 June 1947, WDGOT 320.2 (21 Mar
46); DF, CG, AAF, to ACofS, G-3, 26 Mar 46, same
sub, WDGOT 291.21 (12 Feb 46).]
The Army Service Forces also objected. When queried,[7-22] the chiefs of
its technical and administrative services all agreed they could use
only small percentages of black troops, and only those men in the
higher categories of the classification test. From the replies of the
chiefs it was plain that none of the technical services planned to use
Negroes in as much as 10 percent of spaces, and several wanted to
exclude black units altogether. Furthermore, the test qualifications
they wanted set for many jobs were consistently higher than those
achieved by the men then performing the tasks. The staff of the Army
Service Forces went so far as to advocate that no more than 3.29
percent of the overhead and miscellaneous positions in the Army
Service Forces be entrusted to black troops.[7-23]
[Footnote 7-22: Memo, Actg Dir, Plans and Policy,
ASF, for PMG et al., 23 May 46, sub: Utilization of
Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army, AG 291.2 (23
May 46).]
[Footnote 7-23: The replies of the individual
technical and administrative service chiefs, along
with the response of the ASF Personnel Director,
are inclosed in Memo, Chief, Plans and Policy Off,
Dir of SS&P, for Dir, O&T, 21 Jun 46, sub:
Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army,
WDGSP 291.2 (Negro).]
These answers failed to impress the War Department's Director of
Personnel and Administration and the Director of Organization and
Training.[7-24] Both agreed that the technical and administrative
services had failed to appreciate the problems and responsibilities
outlined in War Department Circular 124; the assumption that black
troops would not be used in certain types of duty in the future
because they had not been so used in the past was unwarranted, General
Paul added. Limited or token employment of Negroes, he declared, was
no longer acceptable.[7-25]
[Footnote 7-24: Under WD Circular 134, 14 May 46, the
War Department General Staff was reorganized, and
many of its offices, including G-1 and G-3, were
redesignated as of 11 June 1946. For an extended
discussion of these changes, see James E. Hewes,
Jr., _From Root to McNamara: Army Organization and
Administration, 1900-1963_ (Washington: Government
Printing Office, 1975), Chapter IV.]
[Footnote 7-25: DF, D/OT to D/PA, 13 Jul 46, sub:
Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army,
WDGOT 291.21 (21 Jun 46); DF, D/PA to D/OT, 30 Jul
46, same sub, WDGAP 291.2 (15 Jul 46).]
Yet somehow the reality of black enlistments and inductions in 1946
never quite matched the Army's dire predictions. According to plans
for 1 April 1946, Negroes in the continental United States would
comprise 15.2 percent of the Army Service Forces, 15.4 percent of the
Army Ground Forces, and 17 percent of the Army Air Forces. Actually,
Negroes in continental commands on 30 April 1946 made up 14.86 percent
of the Army Service Forces, 5.62 percent of the Army Ground Forces,
and 11.86 percent of the Army Air Forces. The 116,752 black soldiers
amounted to 12.35 percent of all troops based in the United States;
overseas, the 67,372 Negroes constituted 7.73 percent of American (p. 182)
force. Altogether, the 184,124 Negroes in the Army amounted to 10.14
percent of the whole.[7-26]
[Footnote 7-26: Strength of the Army (STM-30), 1 May
46; see also Memo, ACofS, G-1, for Chief, MPD, ASF,
3 Jun 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel,
WDGPA 291.2. (12 Jul 46).]
_The Quota in Practice_
While the solution to the problem of too many black enlistees and too
many low-scoring men was obvious, it was also replete with difficulty.
The difficulty came from the complex way the Army obtained its
manpower. It accepted volunteers for enlistment in the Regular Army
and qualified veterans for the Organized Reserves; until November 1946
it also drafted men through the Selective Service and accepted
volunteers for the draft.[7-27] At the same time, under certain
conditions it accepted enlistment in the Regular Army of drafted men
who had completed their tours. To curtail enlistment of Negroes and
discharge low-scoring professionals, the Army would be obliged to
manipulate the complex regulations governing the various forms of
enlistment and sidestep the egalitarian provisions of the Selective
Service System at a time when the service was trying to attract
recruits and avoid charges of racial discrimination. Altogether it was
quite a large order, and during the next two years the Army fought the
battle of numbers on many fronts.
[Footnote 7-27: Volunteers for the draft were men
classified 1-A by Selective Service who were
allowed to sign up for immediate duty often in the
service of their choice. The volunteer for the
draft was only obliged to serve for the shorter
period imposed on the draftee rather than the
36-month enlistment for the Regular Army.]
It first took on the draft. Although to stop inducting Negroes when
the administration was trying to persuade Congress to extend the draft
act was politically unwise, the Army saw no way to restrict the number
of Negroes or eliminate substandard men so long as Selective Service
insisted on 10 percent black calls and a minimum classification test
score of seventy. In April 1946 the Army issued a call for 126,000
men, boldly specifying that no Negroes would be accepted. Out of the
battle of memos with Selective Service that followed, a compromise
emerged: a black call of 4 percent of the total in April, a return to
the usual 10 percent call for Negroes in May, and another 4 percent
call in June.[7-28] No draft calls were issued in July and August, but
in September the Army staff tried again, canceling the call for
Negroes and rejecting black volunteers for induction.[7-29] Again it
encountered resistance from the Selective Service and the black
community, and when the Secretary of War was sued for violation of the
Selective Service Act the Army issued a 3 percent call for Negroes in
October, the last call made under the 1940 draft law. In all, 16,888
Negroes were drafted into the Army in 1946, some 10.5 percent of the
total.[7-30]
[Footnote 7-28: Report of the Director, Office of
Selective Service Review, 31 March 1947, Table 56,
copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 7-29: Memo, Chief, Manpower Control Gp,
D/PA, for TAG, 6 Sep 46, Utilization of Negro
Manpower in Postwar Army, WDGPA 291.2; D/PA Memo
for Rcd, 1 Sep 46. WDGPA 291.2 (1 Sep 46-31 Dec
46).]
[Footnote 7-30: Figures vary for the number actually
drafted; those given above are from Selective
Service Monograph No. 10, _Special Groups_,
Appendix, p. 201. See also "Review of the Month,"
_A Monthly Summary of Events and Trends in Race
Relations_ 4 (October 1946):67.]
The Army had more success restricting black enlistments. In April (p. 183)
1946, at the same time it adopted the Gillem Board recommendations,
the Army began to deny enlistment or reenlistment in the Regular Army
to anyone scoring below seventy on the Army General Classification
Test. The only exceptions were men who had been decorated for valor
and men with previous service who had scored sixty-five and were
recommended for reenlistment by their commanders.[7-31] The Army also
stopped enlisting men with active venereal disease, not because the
Medical Department was unable to cure them but because by and large
their educational levels were low and, according to the classification
tests, they had little aptitude for learning. The Army stopped
recruiting men for special stations, hoping a denial of the European
theater and other attractive assignments would lower the number of
unwanted recruits.
[Footnote 7-31: WD Cir 110, 17 Apr 46.]
Using the new enlistment standards as a base, the Army quickly revised
its estimated black strength downward. On 16 April 1946 the Secretary
of War rescinded the order requiring major commands to retain a black
strength of 15 percent.[7-32] The acting G-3 had already informed the
commanding general of the Army Air Forces of the predicted drop in the
number of black troops--from 13.3 percent in June 1946 to 10 percent a
year later--and agreed the Army Air Forces could reduce its planned
intake accordingly.[7-33] Estimating the European theater's capacity to
absorb black troops at 21,845 men, approximately 10 percent of the
command total, the Army staff agreed to readjust its planned allotment
of Negroes to that command downward by some 1,500 spaces.[7-34]
[Footnote 7-32: Ltr, TAG to CG, AAF, et al., 16 Apr
46, sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel, AGAO-S-A-M
291.2 (12 Apr 46).]
[Footnote 7-33: Memo, Actg ACofS, G-3, for CG, AAF,
12 Apr 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel,
WDGOT 291.21 (12 Feb 46).]
[Footnote 7-34: Memo, ACofS, OPD, for CofS, 13 May
46, sub: Augmentation of the ETO Ceiling Strengths
as of 1 Jul 46 (less AAF), WDCSA 320.2 (1946).]
These changes proved ill-advised, for the effort to curb the number of
Negroes in the Regular Army was largely unsuccessful. The staff had
overlooked the ineffectiveness of the Army's testing measures and the
zeal of its recruiters who, pressed to fill their quotas, accepted
enlistees without concern for the new standards. By mid-June the
effect was readily apparent. The European theater, for example,
reported some 19,000 Negroes in excess of billets in black units and
some 2,000 men above the theater's current allotment of black troops.
Assignment of Negroes to Europe had been stopped, but the number of
black regulars waiting for overseas assignment stood at 5,000, a
figure expected to double by the end of the summer. Some of this
excess could be absorbed in eight newly created black units, but that
still left black units worldwide 18 to 40 percent overstrength.[7-35]
[Footnote 7-35: G-1 Memo for Rcd (signed Col E. L.
Heyduck, Enl Div), 18 Jun 46, WDGAP 291.2; see also
EUCOM Hist Div (prepared by Margaret L. Geis),
"Negro Personnel in the European Command, 1 January
1946-30 June 1950," Occupation Forces in Europe
Series (Historical Division, European Command,
1952) (hereafter Geis Monograph), pp. 14-18, copy
in CMH.]
Notice that Negroes totaled 16 percent of the Regular Army on 1 July
1946 with the personnel staff's projections running to a 24 percent
level for the next year precipitated action in the War Department. (p. 184)
On 15 July Marcus Ray and Dean Rusk, Special Assistant to the
Assistant Secretary of War, met with representatives of the Army staff
to discuss black strength. Basing his decision on the consensus of
that meeting, the Secretary of War on 17 July suspended enlistment of
Negroes in the Regular Army. He excepted two categories of men from
this ruling. Men who qualified and had actually served for six months
in any of forty-eight unusual military occupational specialties in
which there were chronic manpower shortages would be enlisted without
promise of specific assignment to branch or station. At the same time,
because of manpower shortages, the Army would continue to accept
Negroes, already regulars, who wanted to reenlist.[7-36]
[Footnote 7-36: Ltr, TAG to CG, Each Army, et al., 17
Jul 46, sub: Enlistment of Negroes, AGSE-P342.06 (9
Jul 46); D/PA Summary Sheet to CofS, 9 Jul 46, sub:
Enlistment of Negroes in Regular Army, WDGPA
291.2.]
[Illustration: MARCUS RAY.]
While the new enlistment policy would help restore the Gillem Board's
quantitative equilibrium to the Army, the secretary's exception
allowing reenlistment of regulars would only intensify the qualitative
imbalance between black and white soldiers. The nation's biracial
educational system had produced an average black soldier who scored
well below the average white soldier on all the Army's educational and
training tests. The segregation policy had only complicated the
problem by denying the talented Negro the full range of Army
occupations and hence an equal chance for advancement. With the
suspension of first-time enlistments, the qualitative imbalance was
sure to grow, for now the highly qualified civilian would be passed
over while the less qualified soldier was permitted to reenlist.
This imbalance was of particular concern to Marcus Ray who was present
when the suspension of black enlistments had been decided upon. Ray
had suggested that instead of barring all new enlistees the Army
should discharge all Class V soldiers, whites and blacks alike, for
the convenience of the government and recruit in their place an equal
number of Class I and II candidates. Manpower officials had objected,
arguing there was no point in enlisting more Negroes in Class I and II
until the 10 percent ratio was again reached. Such a reduction, with
current attrition, would take two years. At the same time, the Army
manpower shortages made it impractical to discharge 92,000 soldiers,
half of whom were white, in Class V. The organization and training
representatives, on the other hand, agreed with Ray that it was (p. 185)
in the best interest of the Army to discharge these men, pointing
out that a recent increase in pay for enlisted men together with the
continuing need for recruits with greater aptitude for learning would
make the policy palatable to the Congress and the public.[7-37]
[Footnote 7-37: D/OT Memo for Red, 15 Jul 46; DF,
D/OT to D/PA, 15 Jul 46, sub: Basic Training of
Negro Personnel; both in WDGOT 291.2.]
The conferees deferred decision on the matter, but during the
following months the War Department set out to achieve a qualitative
balance between its black and white recruits. On 10 August 1946 the
Chief of Staff directed commanders, under the authority of Army
Regulation 615-369 which defined ineptness for military service, to
eliminate after six months men "incapable of serving in the Army in a
desirable manner after reasonable attempts have been made to utilize
their capabilities." He went on to explain that this category included
those not mentally qualified, generally defined as men scoring below
seventy, and those repeatedly guilty of minor offenses.[7-38] The Army
reissued the order in 1947, further defining the criteria for
discharge to include those who needed continued and special
instruction or supervision or who exhibited habitual drunkenness,
ineptness, or inability to conform to group living. A further
modification in 1949 would deny reenlistment to married men who had
failed during their first enlistment to make corporal or single men
who did not make private first class.[7-39]
[Footnote 7-38: WD Cir 241, 10 Aug 46.]
[Footnote 7-39: WD Cir 93, 9 Apr 47; D/PA Summary
Sheet, 1 Sep 49, sub: Method of Reducing Negro
Reenlistment Rate, WDGPA 291.2 (6 Apr 49).]
The measures were aimed at eliminating the least qualified men of both
races, and in October 1946 General Paul decided the Army could now
begin taking black recruits with the qualifications and background
that allowed them "to become useful members of the Army."[7-40] To that
end The Adjutant General announced on 2 October that as a further
exception to the prohibition against black enlistments in the Regular
Army all former officers and noncommissioned officers who volunteered
would be accepted without limitation.[7-41] On 31 October he announced
the establishment of a selective procurement program. With the
exception of men who had been in certain specialized occupations for
six months, all Negroes enlisting in the Regular Army had to score one
hundred on the Army General Classification Test; the minimum score for
white enlistees remained seventy.[7-42] At the same time, The Adjutant
General rescinded for Negroes the choice-of-assignment provision of
Regular Army enlistment contracts.
[Footnote 7-40: P&A Memo for Red, 30 Sep 46, attached
to copy of Ltr, TAG to CG, Each Army, et al., 2 Oct
46, sub: Enlistment of Negroes, AGSE-P342.06, WDGAP
291.2.]
[Footnote 7-41: Ltr, TAG to CG, Each Army, et al., 2
Oct 46, sub: Enlistment of Negroes, AGSE-P342.06
(30 Sep 46).]
[Footnote 7-42: Ibid., 31 Oct 46, sub: Enlistment of
Negroes, AGSE-P342.06 (23 Oct 46); see also WD Cir
103, 1947. An exception to the AGCT 70 minimum for
whites was made in the case of enlistment into the
AAF which remained at 100 for both races.]
These measures helped lower the percentage of Negroes in the Army and
reduced to some extent the differential in test scores between white
and black soldiers. The percentage of Negroes dropped by 30 June 1947
to 7.91 percent of the Army, 8.99 percent of its enlisted strength (p. 186)
and 9.4 percent of its Regular Army strength. Black enlisted strength
of all the overseas commands stood at 8.75 percent, down from the
10.77 percent of the previous December. Percentages in the individual
theaters reflected this trend; the European theater, for example,
dropped from 10.33 percent black to 9.96, the Mediterranean theater
from 10.05 to 8.03, and Alaska from 26.6 to 14.54.[7-43]
[Footnote 7-43: All figures are from STM-30, Strength
of the Army. Figures for the Pacific theater were
omitted because of the complex reorganization of
Army troops in that area in early 1947. On 30 June
1947 the Army element in the Far East Command, the
major Army organization in the Pacific, had 18,644
black enlisted troops, 8.56 percent of the
command's total.]
Precise figures on the number of poorly qualified troops eliminated
are unknown, but the European command expected to discharge some
12,000 low-scoring and unsuitable men, many of them black, in
1947.[7-44] Several commands reported that the new regulations
materially improved the quality of black units by opening vacancies to
better qualified men. General Paul could argue with considerable
justification that in regulating the quality of its recruits the Army
was following the spirit if not the letter of the Gillem Board Report.
If the Army could set high enough standards it would get good men, and
to this end the General Staff's Personnel and Administration Division
asked for the support of commanders.[7-45]
[Footnote 7-44: Memo, Brig Gen J. J. O'Hare, Dep Dir,
P&A, for SA, 9 Mar 48, sub: Implementation of WD
Cir 124, CSGPA 291.2.]
[Footnote 7-45: G-1 Memo for Rcd, 30 Sep 46, attached
to Ltr, TAG to CG, Each Army, et al., 2 Oct 46,
sub: Enlistment of Negroes, AGSE-P342.06 (30 Sep
46).]
Although these measures were helpful to the Army, they were frankly
discriminatory, and they immediately raised a storm of protest. During
the summer of 1946, for example, many black soldiers and airmen
complained about the Army's rejection of black enlistments for the
European theater. The NAACP, which received some of the soldiers'
complaints, suggested that the War Department honor its pledges or
immediately release all Negroes who were refused their choice of
location.[7-46] The Army did just that, offering to discharge honorably
those soldiers who, denied their theater of choice, rejected any
substitute offered.[7-47]
[Footnote 7-46: Ltr, Walter White to SW, 18 Jun 46;
Telg, White to SW, 24 Jun 46; both in SW 291.2
(Negro Troops).]
[Footnote 7-47: DF, OTIG to D/PA, 23 Jul 46, sub:
Assignment of Negro Enlistees Who Have Selected ETO
as Choice of Initial Assignment, WDSIG 220.3--Negro
Enlistees.]
Later in 1946 a young Negro sued the Secretary of War and a Pittsburgh
recruiting officer for refusing to enlist him. To make standards for
black applicants substantially higher than those for whites, he
alleged, violated the Preamble and Fifth Amendment of the
Constitution, while the inducements offered for enlistment, for
example the GI Bill of Rights, constituted a valuable property right
denied him because of race. The suit asked that all further
enlistments in the Army be stopped until Negroes were accepted on
equal terms with whites and all special enlistment requirements for
Negroes were abolished.[7-48] Commenting on the case, the chief of the
War Department's Public Relations Division, Maj. Gen. Floyd L. Parks,
defended the Gillem Board's 10 percent quota, but agreed that (p. 187)
"we are on weak ground [in] having a different standard for admission
between white and colored.... I think the thing to do is to put a
ceiling over the number you take in, and then take the best
ones."[7-49]
[Footnote 7-48: Pittsburgh _Post Gazette_, December
19, 1946.]
[Footnote 7-49: Memo, D/PRD for SW, ASW, and D/P&A,
19 Dec 46, ASW 291.2.]
The suit brought to a climax the feeling of indignation against Army
policy that had been growing among some civil rights activists. One
organization called on the Secretary of War to abandon the Gillem
Board policy "and unequivocably and equitably integrate Negroes ...
without any discrimination, segregation or quotas in any form, concept
or manner."[7-50] Senator Robert M. LaFollette, Jr., of Wisconsin called
the decision to suspend black enlistments race discrimination.[7-51]
Walter P. Reuther, president of the United Automobile Workers and the
codirector of his union's Fair Practices Department, branded the
establishment of a quota "undemocratic and in violation of principles
for which they [Negroes] fought in the war" and demanded that black
enlistment be reinstated and the quota abolished.[7-52] Invoking
American tradition and the United Nations Charter, John Haynes Holmes,
chairman of the board of directors of the American Civil Liberties
Union, called for the abolition of enlistment quotas. The national
commander of the United Negro and Allied Veterans of America announced
that his organization unreservedly condemned the quota because it
deliberately deprived citizens of their constitutional right to serve
their country.[7-53]
[Footnote 7-50: Ltr, American Veterans Committee,
Manhattan Chapter, to SW, 17 Jul 46, SW 291.2
(NT).]
[Footnote 7-51: Ltr, LaFollette to SW, 25 Jul 46, SW
291.2.]
[Footnote 7-52: Ltr, Reuther and William Oliver to
SW, 23 Jul 46, SW 291.2.]
[Footnote 7-53: Ltr, J. H. Holmes to SW, 26 Jul 46;
Ltr, Arthur D. Gatz, Nat'l Cmdr, United Negro and
Allied Veterans of America, to SW, 20 Jul 46; both
in SW 291.2.]
The replies of the Secretary of War to all these protests were very
much alike. The Army's enlistment practices, he wrote, were based on a
belief that black strength in the Army ought to bear a direct
relationship to the percentage of Negroes in the population. As for the
basic premise of what seemed to him a perfectly logical course of action,
Patterson concluded that "acceptance of the Negro-white ratio existing
in the civilian population as a basis for the Army's distribution of
units and personnel is not considered discriminatory."[7-54] The
secretary's responses were interesting, for they demonstrated a
significant change in the Army's attitude toward the quota. There is
evidence that the quota was devised by the Gillem Board as a temporary
expedient to guarantee the substantial participation of Negroes. It
was certainly so viewed by civil rights advocates. As late as December
1946 Assistant Secretary Petersen was still echoing this view when he
explained that the quota was a temporary ceiling and the Army had no
right to use it as a permanent bar to black enlistment.[7-55]
[Footnote 7-54: See Ltrs, SW to Wesley P. Brown,
Adjutant, Jesse Clipper American Legion Post No.
430, Buffalo, N.Y., 30 Aug 46, and to Jesse O.
Dedmon, Jr., Secy, Veterans Affairs Bureau, NAACP,
18 Nov 46; both in SW 291.2. The quote is from the
latter document.]
[Footnote 7-55: Memo, Maj Gen Parks for SW, et al.,
19 Dec 46 (with attached note signed "HP"), SW
291.2.]
Nevertheless it is also clear that the traditionalists considered the
quota a means of permanently limiting black soldiers to a percentage
equivalent to Negroes in the population. Assistant Secretary (p. 188)
McCloy belonged to neither group. More than a year before in reviewing
the Gillem Board's work he had declared: "I do not see any place for a
quota in a policy that looks to utilization of Negroes on the basis of
ability."
After a year of dealing with black overstrengths and juggling
enlistment standards, General Paul and his staff thought otherwise.
They believed that a ceiling must be imposed on the Army's black
strength if a rapid and uncontrolled increase in the number of black
troops was to be avoided. And it had to be avoided, they believed,
lest it create a disproportionately large pool of black career
soldiers with low aptitudes that would weaken the Army. Using the
quota to limit the number of black troops, they maintained, was not
necessarily discriminatory. It could be defended as a logical reading
of the Gillem Board's declaration that "the proportion of Negro to
white manpower as exists in the civil population" should be accepted
in the peacetime Army to insure an orderly and uniform mobilization in
a national emergency. With the Gillem policy to support it, the Army
staff could impose a strict quota on the number of black soldiers and
justify different enlistment standards for blacks and whites, a course
that was in fact the only alternative to the curtailment of white
enlistment under the manpower restrictions being imposed upon the
postwar Army.[7-56]
[Footnote 7-56: DF, D/P&A to D/O&T, 28 Apr 47, sub:
Negro Enlisted Strength, WDGPA 291.2 (12 Jul 46);
idem for SA, 6 Aug 48, sub: Removing Restrictions
on Negro Enlistments, CSGPA 291.2.]
Paul's reasoning was eventually endorsed by the new Chief of Staff,
General Omar N. Bradley, Secretary Patterson, and his successor,
Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall.[7-57] Beginning in mid-1947 the
enlistment of Negroes was carefully geared to their percentage of the
total strength of the Army, not to a fixed quota or percentage of
those enlisting. This limitation on black enlistment was made more
permanent in 1949 when it was included in the Army's mobilization
plan, the basic manpower planning document.[7-58]
[Footnote 7-57: Memo, ONB (Gen Bradley) for Gen Paul,
9 Aug 48, CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (6 Aug 48). Bradley
succeeded Eisenhower as Chief of Staff on 7
February 1948, and Royall succeeded Patterson on 19
July 1947. Royall assumed the title Secretary of
the Army on 17 September 1947 under the terms of
the National Security Act of 1947.]
[Footnote 7-58: AMP-1 Personnel Annex, 1 Jun 49, P&D
370.0 (25 Apr 49); see also Memo, Chief, Planning
Office, P&A, for Brig Gen John E. Dahlquist (Dep
P&A), 4 Feb 49, sub: Utilization of Negroes in
Mobilization, D/PA 291.2 (4 Feb 49).]
The adjustment of enlistment quotas to increase or curtail black
strength quickly became routine in the Army. When the number of
Negroes dropped below 10 percent of the Army's total strength in June
1947, The Adjutant General set a quota for the enlistment of black
soldiers.[7-59] When this quota was met in late August, the enlistment
of Negroes with no special training was reduced to 500 men per
month.[7-60] As part of a Personnel and Administration Division program
to increase the number and kinds of black units, the quota was
temporarily increased to 3,000 men per month for four months beginning
in December 1947.[7-61] Finding itself once again exceeding the 10 (p. 189)
percent black strength figure, the Army suspended the enlistment of
all Negroes for nine months beginning in April 1949.[7-62]
[Footnote 7-59: Ltr, TAG to CG, Each Army, et al., 9
Jul 47, sub: Enlistment of Negroes AGSE-P291.2. (27
Jun 47).]
[Footnote 7-60: T-7286, TAG to CO, Gen Ground, Ft.
Monroe (AGF), 27 Aug 47, 291.254 Negroes; Ltr, TAG
to CG, Each Army, et al., 3 Sep 47, sub: Enlistment
of Negroes, AGSE-P291.2.]
[Footnote 7-61: Msg, TAG to CG's, All ZI Armies, 19
Dec 47, AGSE-P 291.254.]
[Footnote 7-62: Msg, TAG to CG, All Armies (ZI), et
al., 17 Mar 49, WCL 22839; D/PA Summary Sheet for
VCofS, 1 Sep 49, sub: Method of Reducing the Negro
Reenlistment Rate, CSGPA 291.2 (6 Apr 49).]
In effect, the Gillem Board's critics who predicted that the quota
would become permanent were correct, but the quota was only the most
publicized manifestation of the general scheme of apportioning
manpower by race throughout the Army. General Paul had offered one
solution to the problem in July 1946. He recommended that each major
command and service be allocated its proportionate share of black
troops; that such troops "have the over-all average frequency of AGCT
grades occurring among Negro military personnel"; and that major
commands and services submit plans for establishing enough units and
overhead positions to accommodate their total allocations.[7-63] But
Paul did not anticipate the low-scoring soldier's penchant for
reenlistment or the ability of some commanders, often on the basis of
this fact, to justify the rejection of further black allotments. Thus,
in pursuit of a racial policy designed to promote the efficient use of
manpower, the G-1 and G-3 sections of the General Staff wrestled for
almost five years with the problem of racial balances in the various
commands, continental armies, and training programs.
[Footnote 7-63: DF, D/PA to D/OT, 30 Jul 46, sub:
Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army,
WDGPA 291.2 (15 Jul 46).]
_Broader Opportunities_
The equitable distribution of Negroes throughout each major command
and service was complicated by certain provisions of Circular 124.
Along with the quota, the policy prescribed grouping black units, not
to exceed regimental size, with white units in composite organizations
and integrating black specialists in overhead organizations. The
composite organizations were primarily the concern of the G-3 (later
the Organization and Training Division) section of the General Staff,
and in June 1946 its director, Lt. Gen. Charles P. Hall, brought the
matter to the attention of major commanders. Although the War
Department did not want to establish an arbitrary number of black
combat units, Hall explained, the new policy stressed the development
of such units to provide a broader base for future expansion, and he
wanted more black combat units organized as rapidly as trained troops
became available. To that end he called for a survey of all black
units to find out their current organization and assignment.[7-64]
[Footnote 7-64: Cir as Memo, TAG for CG, AAF et al.,
10 Jun 46, sub: Organization of Negro Manpower in
Postwar Army, AG 291.2 (4 Jun 46).]
Army Ground Forces reported that it had formed some composite units,
but its largest black unit, the 25th Regimental Combat Team, had been
attached to the V Corps at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, instead of
being made an organic element in a division. Practically all service
group headquarters reported separate black and white battalions (p. 190)
under their control, but many of the organizations in the Army Service
Forces--those under the Provost Marshal General and the Surgeon
General, for example--still had no black units, let alone composite
organizations. The Caribbean Defense Command, the Trinidad Base
Command, and the Headquarters Base Command of the Antilles Department
reported similar situations. The Mediterranean theater was using some
Negroes with special skills in appropriate overhead organizations, but
in the vast European Command Negroes were assigned to separate
regiments and smaller units. There were two exceptions: one
provisional black regiment was attached to the 1st Infantry Division,
and a black field artillery battalion was attached to each of the
three occupation divisions. The Alaskan Department and the Okinawa
Base Command had black units, both separate and grouped with white
units, but the Yokohama Base Command continued to use specially
skilled Negroes in black units because of the great demand for
qualified persons in those units.[7-65]
[Footnote 7-65: Memo, D/O&T for ASW, 18 Jul 46, sub:
Organization of Negro Manpower in Postwar Army,
WDGOT 291.2.]
To claim, as Hall did to Assistant Secretary Petersen, that black
units were being used like white units was misleading. Despite the
examples cited in the survey, many black units still remained
independent organizations, and with one major exception black combat
units grouped with white units were attached rather than assigned as
organizational elements of a parent unit. This was an important
distinction.[7-66] The constant imposition of attached status on a unit
that under normal circumstances would be assigned as an organic
element of a division introduced a sense of impermanence and
alienation just as it relieved the division commander of considerable
administrative control and hence proprietary interest in the unit.
[Footnote 7-66: An attached unit, such as a tank
destroyer battalion, is one temporarily included in
a larger organization; an assigned unit is one
permanently given to a larger organization as part
of its organic establishment. On the distinction
between attached and assigned status, see Ltr, CSA
to CG, CONARC, 21 Jul 55, CSUSA 322.17 (Div), and
CMH, "Lineages and Honors: History, Principles, and
Preparation," June 1962, in CMH.]
Attached status, so common for black units, thus weakened morale and
hampered training as Petersen well understood. Noting the favorable
attitude of the division commander, he had asked in April 1946 if it
was possible to assign the black 555th Parachute Battalion to the
celebrated 82d Airborne Division.[7-67] The answer was no. The
commanding general of the Army Ground Forces, General Devers,
justified attachment rather than assignment of the black battalion to
the 82d on the grounds that the Army's race policy called for the
progressive adoption of the composite unit and attachment was a part
of this process. Assignment of such units was, on the other hand, part
of a long-range plan to put the new policy into effect and should
still be subject to considerable study. Further justifying the _status
quo_, he pointed to the division's low strength, which he said
resulted from a lack of volunteers. Offering his own variation (p. 191)
of the "Catch-22" theme, he suggested that before any black battalion
was assigned to a large combat unit, the effect of such an assignment
on the larger unit's combat efficiency would first have to be studied.
Finally, he questioned the desirability of having a black unit assume
the history of a white unit; evidently he did not realize that the
intention was to assign a black unit with its black history to the
division.[7-68]
[Footnote 7-67: Memo, Actg, ACofS, G-3, for CG, AGF,
3 Jun 46, sub: Formation of Composite White-Negro
Units, with attachment, WDGOT 291.21 (30 Apr 46).]
[Footnote 7-68: Memo, CG, AFG, for CofS, 21 June 46,
sub: Formation of Composite White-Negro Units,
GNGCT-41 291.2 (Negro) (3 Jun 46).]
[Illustration: GENERAL EICHELBERGER, EIGHTH ARMY COMMANDER, _inspects
24th Infantry troops, Camp Majestic, Japan, June 1947_.]
In the face of such arguments Hall accepted what he called the
"nonfeasibility" of replacing one of the 82d's organic battalions with
the 555th, but he asked whether an additional parachute battalion
could be authorized for the division so that the 555th could be
assigned without eliminating a white battalion. He reiterated the
arguments for such an assignment, adding that it would invigorate the
555th's training, attract more and better black recruits, and better
implement the provisions of Circular 124.[7-69] General Devers remained
unconvinced. He doubted that assigning the black battalion to the (p. 192)
division would improve the battalion's training, and he was
"unalterably opposed" to adding an extra battalion. He found the idea
unsound from both a tactical and organizational point of view. It was,
he said, undesirable to reorganize a division solely to assign a black
unit.[7-70]
[Footnote 7-69: DF, D/O&T to CG, AGF, 24 Jul 46, sub:
Formation of Composite White-Negro Units, WDGOT
291.21 (30 Apr 46).]
[Footnote 7-70: Memo, CG, AGF, for D/O&T, 1 Aug 46,
sub: Formation of Composite White-Negro Units, CMT
2 to DF, D/O&T to CG, AGF, 24 Jul 46, same sub,
WDGOT 291.21 (30 Apr 46).]
General Hall gave up the argument, and the 555th remained attached to
the 82d. Attached status would remain the general pattern for black
combat units for several years.[7-71] The assignment of the 24th
Infantry to the 25th Infantry Division in Japan was the major
exception to this rule, but the 24th was the only black regiment left
intact, and it was administratively difficult to leave such a large
organization in attached status for long. The other black regiment on
active duty, the 25th Infantry, was split; its battalions, still
carrying their unit designations, were attached to various divisions
to replace inactive or unfilled organic elements. The 9th and 10th
Cavalry, the other major black units, were inactivated along with the
2d Cavalry Division in 1944, but reactivated in 1950 as separate tank
battalions.
[Footnote 7-71: Memo, D/O&T for SW, 19 Sep 46, sub:
Request for Memorandum, WDGOT 291.21 (12 Sep 46).]
That this distinction between attached and assigned status was
considered important became clear in the fall of 1947. At that time
the personnel organization suggested that the word "separate" be
deleted from a sentence of Circular 124: "Employment will be in Negro
regiments or groups, separate battalions or squadrons, and separate
companies, troops, or batteries." General Paul reasoned that the word
was redundant since a black unit was by definition a separate unit.
General Devers was strongly opposed to deletion on grounds that it
would lead to the indiscriminate organization of small black units
within larger units. He argued that the Gillem Board had provided for
black units as part of larger units, but not as organic parts. He
believed that a separate black unit should continue to be attached
when it replaced a white unit; otherwise it would lose its identity by
becoming an organic part of a mixed unit. Larger considerations seem
also to have influenced his conclusion: "Our implementation of the
Negro problem has not progressed to the degree where we can accept
this step. We have already progressed beyond that which is acceptable
in many states and we still have a considerable latitude in the
present policy without further liberalizing it from the Negro
viewpoint."[7-72] The Chief of Staff supported Paul's view, however, and
the word "separate" was excised.[7-73]
[Footnote 7-72: DF, CG, AGF, to D/P&A, 15 Sep 47,
sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar
Army. Policy; AGF DF, 27 Aug 47, same sub; both in
GNGAP-M 291.2 (27 Aug 47). The quote is from the
former document.]
[Footnote 7-73: DA Cir 32-III, 30 Oct 47. The life of
Circular 124 was extended indefinitely by DA
Circular 24-II, 17 Oct 47, and DA Ltr AGAO 291.2
(16 Mar 49).]
But the practice of attaching rather than assigning black units
continued until the end of 1949. Only then, and increasingly during
1950, did the Army begin to assign a number of black units as organic
parts of combat divisions. More noteworthy, Negroes began to be
assigned to fill the spaces in parts of white units. Thus the 3d (p. 193)
Battalion of the 9th Infantry and the 3d Battalion of the 188th
became black units in 1950.
Despite the emergence of racially composite units, the Army's
execution of the Gillem Board recommendation on the integration of
black and white units was criticized by black leaders. The board had
placed no limitation on the size of the units to be integrated, and
its call for progressive steps to utilize black manpower implied to
many that the process of forming composite black and white units would
continue till it included the smaller service units, which still
contained the majority of black troops. It was one thing, the Army
staff concluded, to assign a self-sustaining black battalion to a
division, but quite another to assign a small black service unit in a
similar fashion. As a spokesman for the Personnel and Administration
Division put it in a 1946 address, the Army was "not now ready to mix
Negro and white personnel in the same company or battery, for messing
and housing." Ignoring the Navy's experience to the contrary, he
concluded that to do so might provoke serious opposition from the men
in the ranks and from the American public.[7-74]
[Footnote 7-74: Col. H. E. Kessinger, Exec Off,
ACofS, G-1, "Utilization of Negro Manpower, 1946,"
copy in WDGPA 291.2 (1946).]
Accordingly, G-1 and G-3 agreed to reject the Mediterranean theater's
1946 plan to organize composite service units in the 88th Infantry
Division because such organization "involves the integration of Negro
platoons or Negro sections into white companies, a combination which
is not in accordance with the policy as expressed in Circular
124."[7-75] In the separate case of black service companies--for
example, the many transportation truck companies and ordnance
evacuation companies--theater commanders tended to combine them first
into quartermaster trains and then attach them to their combat
divisions.[7-76]
[Footnote 7-75: DF, ACofS, G-1, to CofS, 3 Jun 46,
sub: Implementation of the Gillem Board, WDGAP
291.2 (24 Nov 45); see also Routing Form, ACofS,
G-1, same date, subject, and file.]
[Footnote 7-76: For the formation of quartermaster
trains in Europe, see Geis Monograph, pp. 89-90.]
Despite the relaxation in the distinction between attached and
assigned status in the case of large black units, the Army staff
remained adamantly opposed to the combination of small black with
small white units. The Personnel and Administration Division jealously
guarded the orthodoxy of this interpretation. Commenting on one
proposal to combine small units in April 1948, General Paul noted that
while grouping units of company size or greater was permissible, the
Army had not yet reached the stage where two white companies and two
black companies could be organized into a single battalion. Until the
process of forming racially composite units developed to this extent,
he told the Under Secretary of the Army, William H. Draper, Jr., the
experimental mixing of small black and white units had no place in the
program to expand the use of Negroes in the Army.[7-77] He did not say
when such a process would become appropriate or possible. Several
months later Paul flatly told the Chief of Staff that integration of
black and white platoons in a company was precluded by stated Army
policy.[7-78]
[Footnote 7-77: Memo, D/P&A for Under SA, 29 Apr 48,
sub: Negro Utilization in the Postwar Army, CSGPA
291.2.]
[Footnote 7-78: Idem for CofS, 21 Jun 48, CSGPA
291.2.]
_Assignments_ (p. 194)
The organization of black units was primarily the concern of the
Organization and Training Division; the Personnel and Administration
Division's major emphasis was on finding more jobs for black soldiers
in keeping with the Gillem Board's call for the use of Negroes on a
broader professional scale. This could best be done, Paul decided, by
creating new black units in a variety of specialties and by using more
Negroes in overhead spaces in unit headquarters where black
specialists would be completely interspersed with white. To that end
his office prepared plans in November 1946 listing numerous
occupational specialties that might be offered black recruits. It also
outlined in considerable detail a proposal for converting several
organizations to black units, including a field artillery (155-mm.
howitzer) battalion, a tank company, a chemical mortar company, and an
ordnance heavy automotive maintenance company. These units would be
considered experimental in the sense that the men would be specially
selected and distributed in terms of ability. The officers, Negroes
insofar as practical, and cadre noncommissioned officers would be
specially assigned. Morale and learning ability would be carefully
monitored, and special training would be given men with below average
AGCT scores. At the end of six months, these organizations would be
measured against comparable white units. Mindful of the controversial
aspects of his plan, Paul had a draft circulated among the major
commands and services.[7-79]
[Footnote 7-79: DF, D/P&A to CG, AGF, et al., 16 Nov
46, sub: Proposed Directive, Utilization of Negro
Military Personnel; see also P&A Memo for Rcd, 14
Nov 46; both in WDGPA 291.2 (12 Jul 46).]
The Army Ground Forces, first to answer, concentrated on Paul's
proposal for experimental black units. Maj. Gen. Charles L. Bolte,
speaking for the commanding general, reported that in July 1946 the
command had begun a training experiment to determine the most
effective assignments for black enlisted men in the combat arms.
Because of troop reductions and the policy of discharging individuals
with low test scores, he said, the experiment had lasted only five
weeks. Five weeks was apparently long enough, however, for Brig. Gen.
Benjamin F. Caffey, commander of the 25th Regimental Combat Team
(Provisional), to reach some rather startling conclusions. He
discovered that the black soldier possessed an untrained and
undisciplined mind and lacked confidence and pride in himself. In the
past the Negro had been unable to summon the physical courage and
stamina needed to withstand the shocks of modern battle. Integrating
individual Negroes or small black units into white organizations would
therefore only lower the standard of efficiency of the entire command.
He discounted the integration after the Battle of the Bulge, saying
that it succeeded only because it came at the end of the war and
during pursuit action. "It still remains a moot question," Caffey
concluded, "as to whether the Negroes in integrated units would have
fought in a tough attack or defensive battle." Curiously enough he
went on to say that until Negroes reached the educational level of
whites, they should be organized into small combat units--battalions
and smaller--and attached to white organizations in order to learn the
proper standards of military discipline, conduct, administration, (p. 195)
and training. Despite its unfavorable opinion of experimental black
units, the Army Ground Forces did not reject the whole proposal
outright but asked for a postponement of six months until its own
reorganization, required by the War Department, was completed.[7-80]
[Footnote 7-80: Ltr, Brig Gen B. F. Caffey, CG, 25th
RCT (Prov), Ft. Benning Ga., to CG, AGF, 4 Dec 46,
AGF 291.2; DF, CG, AGF, to D/P&A, 22 Nov 46, sub:
Utilization of Negro Military Personnel, WDGPA
291.2 (Negro) (16 Nov 46).]
The other forces also rejected the idea of experimental black units.
General Spaatz once again declared that the mission of the Army Air
Forces was already seriously hampered by budgetary and manpower
limitations and experimentation would only sacrifice time, money,
manpower, and training urgently needed by the Army Air Forces to
fulfill its primary mission. He believed, moreover, that such an
experiment would be weighted in favor of Negroes since comparisons
would be drawn between specially selected and trained black units and
average white units.[7-81] In a similar vein the Director of
Organization and Training, General Hall, found the conversion
"undesirable at this time." He also concluded that the problem was not
limited to training difficulties but involved a "combination of
factors" and could be solved through the application of common sense
by the local commander.[7-82] The Chiefs of Ordnance and the Chemical
Corps, the technical services involved in the proposed experiment,
concurred in the plan but added that they had no Negroes available for
the designated units.[7-83]
[Footnote 7-81: DF, CG, AAF, to D/P&A, 27 Nov 45,
sub: Utilization of Negro Military Personnel, WDGPA
291.2 (16 Nov 46).]
[Footnote 7-82: Memo, D/O&T for D/P&A, 4 Dec 46, sub:
Utilization of Negro Military Personnel, WDGOT
291.2 (16 Nov 46).]
[Footnote 7-83: Tabs E and F to DF, D/P&A to DCofS,
10 Jan 47, sub: Utilization of Negro Military
Personnel in Overhead Installations, WDGPA 291.2
(12 Jul 46).]
In the face of this strong opposition, Paul set aside his plan to
establish experimental black units and concentrated instead on the use
of Negroes in overhead positions. On 10 January 1947 he drew up for
the Chief of Staff's office a list of 112 military occupational
specialties most commonly needed in overhead installations, including
skilled jobs in the Signal, Ordnance, Transportation, Medical, and
Finance Corps from which Negroes had been excluded. He called for an
immediate survey of the Army commands to determine specialties to
which Negroes might be assigned, the number of Negroes that could be
used in each, and the number of Negroes already qualified and
available for immediate assignment. Depending on the answers to this
survey, he proposed that commanders assign immediately to overhead
jobs those Negroes qualified by school training, and open the
pertinent specialist courses to Negroes. Black quotas for the courses
would be increased, not only for recruits completing basic training,
who would be earmarked for assignment to overhead spaces, but also for
men already assigned to units, who would be returned to their units
for such assignments upon completion of their courses. Negroes thus
assigned would perform the same duties as whites alongside them, but
they would be billeted and messed in separate detachments or (p. 196)
attached to existing black units for quarters and food.[7-84]
[Footnote 7-84: DF, D/P&A to DCofS, 10 Jan 47, sub:
Utilization of Negro Military Personnel in Overhead
Installations, WDGPA 291.2 (12 Jul 46).]
This proposal also met with some opposition. General Spaatz, for
example, objected on the same grounds he had used against experimental
black units. Forcing the military development of persons on the basis
of color, General Ira C. Eaker, the deputy commander of Army Air
Forces, argued, was detrimental to the organization as a whole. Spaatz
added that it was desirable and necessary to select individual men on
the basis of their potential contribution to the service rather than
in response to such criteria as race.[7-85]
[Footnote 7-85: DF, CG, AAF (signed by Dep CG, Lt Gen
Ira C. Eaker), to D/P&A, 20 Jan 47, sub:
Utilization of Negro Military Personnel in Overhead
Installations, WDGPA 291.2 (12 Jul 46).]
The Acting Deputy Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Henry I. Hodes, objected
to the timing of the Paul proposal since it would require action by
field commanders during a period when continuing mass demobilization
and severe budget limitations were already causing rapid and frequent
adjustments, especially in overhead installations. He also felt that
sending men to school would disrupt unit activities; altogether too
many men would be assigned to overhead jobs, particularly during the
period when Negroes were receiving training. Finally, he believed that
Paul's directive was too detailed. He doubted that it was workable
because it centralized power in Washington.[7-86]
[Footnote 7-86: Memo, ADCofS for D/P&A, 24 Jan 47,
sub: Utilization of Negro Military Personnel in
Overhead Installations, WDCSA 291.2 (10 Jan 47).]
General Paul disagreed. The major flow of manpower, he maintained, was
going to domestic rather than overseas installations. A relatively
small shift of manpower was contemplated in his plan and would
therefore cause little dislocation. The plan would provide commanders
with the trained men they had been asking for. School training
inevitably required men to be temporarily absent from their units,
but, since commanders always complained about the scarcity of trained
Negroes, Paul predicted that they would accept a temporary
inconvenience in order to have their men school trained. The Gillem
Board policy had been in effect for nine months, and "no material
implementation by field commanders has as yet come to the attention of
the division." If any changes were to be accomplished, Paul declared,
"a specific directive must be issued." Since the Chief of Staff had
charged the Personnel and Administration Division with implementing
Gillem Board policy and since that policy expressly directed the use
of Negroes in overhead positions, it seemed to Paul "inconceivable
that any proposition ... designed to improve the caliber of any of
their Negro personnel would be unworkable in the sense of creating a
personnel shortage." He again recommended that the directive be
approved and released to the public to "further the spirit and
recommendations of the Gillem Board Report."[7-87]
[Footnote 7-87: Memo, D/P&A for General Hodes, 29 Jan
47, sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel in Overhead
Installations, WDGPA 291.2 (12 Jul 46).]
His superiors did not agree. Instead of a directive, General Hodes
ordered yet another survey to determine whether commanders were
actually complying with Circular 124. He wanted all commands (p. 197)
to itemize all the occupation specialties of major importance that
contained black troops in overhead spaces.[7-88] Needless to say, the
survey added little to the Army's knowledge of its racial problems.
Most commanders reported full compliance with the circular and had no
further recommendations.
[Footnote 7-88: Memo, ADCofS for D/P&A, 4 Feb 47,
sub: Utilization of Negro Military Personnel in
Overhead Installations, WDCSA 291.2 (10 Jan 47);
Ltr, TAG to CG, AAF, et al., 5 Mar 47, same sub,
AGAM-PM 291.2 (27 Feb 47).]
With rare exceptions their statistics proved their claims specious.
The Far East Command, for example, reported no Negroes in overhead
spaces, although General MacArthur planned to incorporate about 400
Negroes into the bulk overhead units in Japan in July 1947. He
reported that he would assign Negroes to overhead positions when
qualified men could be spared. For the present they were needed in
black units.[7-89] Other commands produced similar statistics. The
Mediterranean theater, 8 percent black, had only four Negroes in 2,700
overhead spaces, a decrease over the previous year, because, as its
commander explained, a shortage of skilled technicians and
noncommissioned officers in black units meant that none could be
spared. More than 20 percent black, the Alaskan Department had no
Negroes in overhead spaces. In Europe, on the other hand, some 2,125
overhead spaces, 18.5 percent of the total, were filled by
Negroes.[7-90]
[Footnote 7-89: Msg, CINCFE to WD for AGPP-P, 3 May
47, C-52352. Although CINCFE was a joint commander,
his report concerned Army personnel only.]
[Footnote 7-90: Ltr, CG, MTO, to TAG, 16 Apr 47, sub:
Utilization of Negro Military Personnel in Overhead
Installations; Ltr, CG, Alaskan Dept, to TAG, 14
Apr 47, same sub; Ltr, CG, EUCOM, to TAG, 15 Apr
47, same sub. All in AGPP-P 291.2 (6 Feb 47).]
Although Negroes held some 7 percent of all overhead positions in the
field services, the picture was far from clear. More than 8 percent of
the Army Air Forces' 105,000 overhead spaces, for example, were filled
by Negroes, but the Army Ground Forces used only 473 Negroes, who
occupied 5 percent of its overhead spaces. In the continental armies
almost 14,000 Negroes were assigned to overhead, 13.35 percent of the
total of such spaces--a more than equitable figure. Yet most were
cooks, bakers, truck drivers, and the like; all finance clerks, motion
picture projectionists, and personnel assistants were white. In the
field commands the use of Negroes in Signal, Ordnance, Transportation,
Medical, and Finance overhead spaces was at a minimum, although
figures varied from one command to the other. The Transportation
Corps, more than 23 percent black, used almost 25 percent of its
Negroes in overhead; the Chemical Corps, 28 percent black, used more
than 30 percent of its Negroes in overhead. At the same time virtually
all skilled military occupational specialties were closed to Negroes
in the Signal Corps, and the Chief of Finance stated flatly: "It is
considered impractical to have negro overhead assigned to these
[field] activities and none are utilized."[7-91]
[Footnote 7-91: The reports of all these services are
inclosures to DF, TAG to D/P&A, 23 Apr 47, sub:
Utilization of Negro Military Personnel in Overhead
Installations, AGPP-P 291.2 (6 Feb 47). The quote
is from Ltr, Chief of Finance Corps to TAG, 25 Mar
47, same sub.]
The survey attested to a dismal lack of progress in the (p. 198)
development of specialist training for Negroes. Although all the
commanders of the zone of interior armies reported that Negroes had
equal opportunity with whites to attend Army schools, in fact more
than half of all the Army's courses were not open to black soldiers
regardless of their qualifications. The Ordnance Department, for
example, declared that all its technical courses were open to
qualified Negroes, but as late as November 1947 the Ordnance School in
Atlanta, Georgia, had openings for 440 whites but none for blacks.
Ironically, the results of the Hodes survey were announced just four
days short of Circular 124's first birthday. Along with the other
surveys and directives of the past year, it demonstrated that in
several important particulars the Gillem Board's recommendations were
being only partially and indifferently followed. Obviously, some way
must be found to dispel the atmosphere of indifference, and in some
quarters hostility, that now enveloped Circular 124.
_A New Approach_
A new approach was possible mainly because General Paul and his staff
had amassed considerable experience during the past year in how to use
black troops. They had come to understand that the problems inherent
in broadening the employment of black soldiers--the procurement of
desirable black recruits, their training, especially school training
for military occupational specialties, and their eventual placement in
spaces that used that training--were interrelated and that progress in
one of these areas was impossible without advances in the other two.
In November 1947 the Personnel and Administration Division decided to
push for a modest step-by-step increase in the number of jobs open to
Negroes, using this increase to justify an expansion of school quotas
for Negroes and a special recruitment program.
It was a good time for such an initiative, for the Army was in the
midst of an important reorganization of its program for specialist
training. On 9 May 1947 the War Department had introduced a Career
Guidance Program for managing the careers of enlisted men. To help
each soldier develop his maximum potential and provide the most
equitable system for promotions, it divided all Army jobs into several
career fields--two, for example, were infantry and food service--and
established certain job progressions, or ladders, within each field.
An enlisted man could move up the ladder in his career field to
increased responsibility and higher rank as he completed school
courses, gained experience, and passed examinations.[7-92]
[Footnote 7-92: WD Cir 118, 9 May 47.]
General Paul wanted to take advantage of this unusually fluid
situation. He could point out that black soldiers must be included in
the new program, but how was he to fit them in? Black units lacked the
diverse jobs open to whites, and as a result Negroes were clustered in
a relatively small number of military specialties with few career
fields open to them. Moreover, some 111 of the Army's 124 listed
school courses required an Army General Classification Test score (p. 199)
of ninety for admission, and the Personnel and Administration Division
discovered that 72 percent of Negroes enlisted between April 1946 and
March 1947 as compared to 29 percent of whites scored below that
minimum. Excluded from schools, these men would find it difficult to
move up the career ladders.[7-93]
[Footnote 7-93: P&A Memo for Rcd, attached to DF,
D/P&A to TAG, 11 Jun 47, sub: Utilization of Negro
Manpower in the Postwar Army in Connection With
Enlisted Career Guidance Program, WDGPA 291.2 (11
Jun 47).]
Concerned that the new career program would discriminate against black
soldiers, Paul could not, however, agree with the solution suggested
by Roy K. Davenport, an Army manpower expert. On the basis of a
detailed study that he and a representative of the Personnel and
Administration Division conducted on Negroes in the career program,
Davenport concluded that despite significant improvement in the
quality of black recruits in recent months more than half the black
enlisted men would still fail to qualify for the schooling demanded in
the new program. He wanted the Army to consider dropping the test
score requirement for school admission and substituting a "composite
of variables," including length of service in a military occupation
and special performance ratings. Such a system, he pointed out, would
insure the most capable in terms of performance would be given
opportunities for schooling and would eliminate the racial
differential in career opportunity. It was equally important,
Davenport thought, to broaden arbitrarily the list of occupational
specialties, open all school courses to Negroes, and increase the
black quotas for courses already open to them.[7-94]
[Footnote 7-94: Davenport, "Matters Relating to the
Participation of Negro Personnel in the Career
Program," attached to DF, D/P&A to Brig Gen J. J.
O'Hare, Chief, Mil Pers Mgt Gp, P&A Div, 3 Nov 47,
WDGPA 291.2 (11 Jul 47).]
Mindful of the strong opposition to his recent attempts to train
Negroes for new overhead assignments, General Paul did not see how
occupational specialties could be increased until new units or
converted white ones were formed, or, for that matter, how school
quotas could be increased unless positions for Negroes existed to
justify the training. He believed that the Army should first widen the
employment of black units and individuals in overhead spaces, and then
follow up with increased school quotas and special recruitment. Paul
had already learned from recent surveys that the number of available
overhead positions would allow only a modest increase in the number of
specialized jobs available to Negroes; any significant increase would
require the creation of new black units. Given the limitations on
organized units, any increase would be at the expense of white units.
The Organization and Training Division had the right to decide which
units would be white and which black, and considering the strong
opposition in that division to the creation of more black units, an
opposition that enjoyed support from the Chief of Staff's office,
Paul's efforts seemed in vain. But again an unusual opportunity
presented itself when the Chief of Staff approved a reorganization of
the general reserve in late 1947. It established a continentally
based, mobile striking force of four divisions with supporting units.
Each unit would have a well-trained core of Regular Army or other
troops who might be expected to remain in the service for a (p. 200)
considerable period of time. Manpower and budget limitations precluded
a fully manned and trained general reserve, but new units for the four
continental divisions, which were in varying stages of readiness, were
authorized.[7-95]
[Footnote 7-95: For a discussion of the
reorganization of the general reserve, see the
introduction to John B. Wilson's "U.S. Army Lineage
and Honors: The Division," in CMH.]
[Illustration: ARMY SPECIALISTS REPORT FOR AIRBORNE TRAINING, _Fort
Bragg, North Carolina, 1948_.]
Here was a chance to create some black units, and Paul jumped at it.
During the activation and reorganization of the units for the general
reserve he persuaded the Organization and Training Division to convert
nineteen white units to black: seven combat (including infantry and
field artillery battalions), five combat support, and seven service
units for a total of 8,000 spaces. Nine of the units were attached to
general reserve divisions, including the 2d Armored, 2d Infantry, and
82d Airborne Division. The rest, nondivisional elements, were assigned
to the various continental armies.[7-96]
[Footnote 7-96: Ltrs, TAG to CG, Each Army, et al.,
18 Dec 47 and 1 Mar 48. sub: Activation and
Reorganization of Certain Units of the General
Reserve, AGAO-1 322 (28 Nov 47 and 8 Jan 48).]
With the spaces in hand, the Personnel and Administration Division
launched a special drive in late December 1947 to secure 6,318
Negroes, 565 men per week, above the normal recruiting quotas. It
called on the commanding generals of the continental armies to enlist
men for three years' service in the Regular Army from among those (p. 201)
who had previous military service, had completed high school, or
had won the Bronze Star, Commendation Ribbon, or a decoration for
valor, and who could make a "reasonable" score on the classification
test. After basic training at Fort Dix and Fort Knox, the men would be
eligible for specialized schooling and direct assignment to the newly
converted units.[7-97]
[Footnote 7-97: Army Memo 600-750-26, 17 Dec 47, sub:
Enlistment of Negroes for Special Units; DF, D/P&A
to TAG, 27 Jan 48, sub: Training Div Assignment
Procedures for Negro Pers Enlisting Under
Provisions of DA Memo 600-750-26, 17 Dec 47, CSGPA
291.2 (7 Jan 48).]
The conversion of units did not expand to any great extent the range
of military specialties open to Negroes because they were already
serving in similarly organized units. But it did increase the number
of skilled occupation slots available to them. To force a further
increase in the number of school-trained Negroes, Paul asked The
Adjutant General to determine how many spaces for school-trained
specialists existed in the units converted from white to black and how
many spaces for school-trained specialists were unfilled in black
units worldwide. He wanted to increase the quotas for each
school-trained specialty to insure filling all these positions.[7-98] He
also arranged to increase black quotas in certain Military Police,
Signal, and Medical Corps courses, and he insisted that a directive be
sent to all major continental commands making mandatory the use of
Negroes trained under the increased school quotas.[7-99] Moving further
along these lines, Paul suggested The Adjutant General assign a black
officer to study measures that might broaden the use of Negroes in the
Army, increase school quotas for them, select black students properly,
and assign trained black soldiers to suitable specialties.[7-100]
[Footnote 7-98: DF, D/P&A to TAG, 27 Jan 48, sub:
Training Div Assignment Procedures for Negro
Personnel Enlisting Under Provisions of DA Memo
600-750-26, 17 Dec 47; ibid., 29 Jan 48, sub:
Notification to Z1 Armies of Certain Negro School
Training; both in CSGPA 291.2 (7 Jan 48).]
[Footnote 7-99: Ibid., 1 Mar 48, sub: Utilization of
Negro School Trained Personnel, CSGPA 291.2 (7 Jan
48).]
[Footnote 7-100: DF D/P&A for Brig Gen Joseph J.
O'Hare, Chief Mil Pers Mgt Gp, 3 Nov 47, CSGPA
291.2 (3 Nov 47).]
The Adjutant General assigned Maj. James D. Fowler, a black graduate
of West Point, class of 1941, to perform all these tasks. Fowler
surveyed the nineteen newly converted units and recommended that 1,134
men, approximately 20 percent of those enlisted for the special
expansion of the general reserve, be trained in thirty-seven courses
of instruction--an increase of 103 black spaces in these courses.
Examining worldwide Army strength to determine deficiencies in
school-trained specialties in black units, he recommended a total
increase of 172 spaces in another thirty-seven courses. Studying the
organizational tables of more than two hundred military bases, Fowler
recommended that black school quotas for another eleven military
occupational specialties, for which there were currently no black
quotas, be set at thirty-nine spaces.
On the basis of these recommendations, the Army increased the number
of courses with quotas for Negroes from 30 to 62; black quotas were
increased in 14 courses; 16 others remained unchanged or their black
quotas were slightly decreased. New courses were opened to Negroes in
the Adjutant General's School, the airborne section of the (p. 202)
Infantry School, and the Artillery, Armored, Engineer, Medical,
Military Police, Ordnance, Quartermaster, Signal, and Transportation
schools. Courses with increased quotas were in Transportation,
Quartermaster, Ordnance, and Engineer schools.[7-101] The number of
black soldiers in courses open to recruits quickly grew from 5 to 13.7
percent of total enrollment, and the number of courses open to Negroes
rose from 30 to 48 percent of all the entry courses in the Army school
system.
[Footnote 7-101: Memo, Chief, Morale, and Welfare Br,
P&A, for Chief, Mil Pers Mgt Gp, P&A, 27 Feb 48,
sub: School Input Quotas for Enlisted Personnel
From the Replacement Stream (other than Air), CSGPA
291.2.]
_The Quota System: An Assessment_
The conversion of nineteen units from white to black in December 1947,
the procurement of 6,000 Negroes to man these units, and the increases
in black quotas for the Army schools to train specialists for these
and other black units worldwide marked the high point of the Army's
attempt to broaden the employment of Negroes under the terms of the
Gillem Board policy. As Paul well knew, the training of black troops
was linked to their placement and until the great expansion of the
Army in 1950 for the Korean War no other units were converted from
white to black. The increase in black combat units and the spread in
the range of military occupations for black troops, therefore, were
never achieved as planned. The interval between wars ended just as it
began with the majority of white soldiers serving in combat or
administrative units and the majority of black soldiers continuing to
work in service or combat support units.[7-102]
[Footnote 7-102: Memo, Brig Gen J. J. O'Hare, Dep
Dir, P&A, for SA, 9 Mar 48, sub: Implementation of
WD Circular 124, CSGPA 291.2.]
The Personnel and Organization Division made no further requests for
increased school quotas for Negroes, and even those increases already
approved were short-lived. As soon as the needs of the converted units
were met, the school quotas for Negroes were reduced to a level
sufficient to fill the replacement needs of the black units. By March
1949, spaces for black students in the replacement stream courses had
declined from the 237 recommended by Major Fowler to eighty-two; the
number of replacement stream courses open to Negroes fell from 48
percent of all courses offered to 19.8 percent. Fowler had expected to
follow up his study of school quotas in the Military Police, Signal
Corps, and Medical Corps with surveys of other schools figuring in the
Career Guidance Program, but since no additional overhead positions
were ever converted from white to black, no further need existed for
school quota studies. The three-point study suggested by Paul to find
ways to increase school quotas for Negroes was never made.
The War Department's problems with its segregation policy were only
intensified by its insistence on maintaining a racial quota. Whatever
the authors' intention, the quota was publicized as a guarantee of
black participation. In practice it not only restricted the number of
Negroes in the Army but also limited the number and variety of (p. 203)
black units that could be formed and consequently the number and
variety of jobs available to Negroes. Further, it restricted the
openings for Negroes in the Army's training schools.
[Illustration: BRIDGE PLAYERS, SEAVIEW SERVICE CLUB, TOKYO, JAPAN,
1948.]
At the same time, enlistment policies combined with Selective Service
regulations to make it difficult for the Army to produce from its
black quota enough men with the potential to be trained in those
skills required by a variety of units. Attracted by the superior
economic status promised by the Army, the average black soldier
continued to reenlist, thus blocking the enlistment of potential
military leaders from the increasing number of educated black youths.
This left the Army with a mass of black soldiers long in service but
too old to fight, learn new techniques, or provide leadership for the
future. Subject to charges of discrimination, the Army only fitfully
and for limited periods tried to eliminate low scorers to make room
for more qualified men. Yet to the extent to which it failed to
attract educated Negroes and provide them with modern military skills,
it failed to perform a principal function of the peacetime Army, that
of preparing a cadre of leaders for future wars.
In discussing the problem of low-scoring Negroes it should be
remembered that the Army General Classification Test, universally
accepted in the armed services as an objective device to measure
ability, has been seriously questioned by some manpower experts. (p. 204)
Since World War II, for example, educational psychologists have
learned that ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds have an
important influence on performance in general testing. Davenport, who
eventually became a senior manpower official in the Department of
Defense has, for one, concluded that the test scores created a
distorted picture of the mental ability of the black soldier. He has
also questioned the fairness of the Army testing system, charging that
uniform time periods were not always provided for black and white
recruits taking the tests and that this injustice was only one of
several inequalities of test administration that might have
contributed to the substantial differences in the scores of
applicants.[7-103]
[Footnote 7-103: Ltr, Roy K. Davenport to author, 11
Dec 71, CMH files. Davenport became Deputy Under
Secretary of the Army and later Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense (Manpower Planning and
Research) in the Johnson administration.]
The accuracy of test scores can be ignored when the subject is viewed
from the perspective of manpower utilization. In the five years after
World War II, the actual number of white soldiers who scored in the
lowest test categories equaled or exceeded the number of black
soldiers. The Army had no particular difficulty using these white
soldiers to advantage, and in fact refused to discharge all Class V
men in 1946. Segregation was the heart of the matter; the less gifted
whites could be scattered throughout the Army but the less gifted
blacks were concentrated in the segregated black units.
Reversing the coin, what could the Army do with the highly qualified
black soldier? His technical skills were unneeded in the limited
number and variety of black units; he was barred from white units. In
an attempt to deal with this problem, the Gillem policy directed that
Negroes with special skills or qualifications be employed in overhead
detachments. Such employment, however, depended in great part on the
willingness of commanders to use school-trained Negroes. Many of these
officers complained that taking the best qualified Negroes out of
black units for assignment to overhead detachments deprived black
units of their leaders. Furthermore, overhead units represented so
small a part of the whole that they had little effect on the Army's
problem.
The racial quota also complicated the postwar reduction in Army
strength. Since the strength and composition of the Army was fixed by
the defense budget and military planning, the majority of new black
soldiers produced by the quota could be organized into units only at
the expense of white units already in existence. In light of past
performance of black units and in the interests of efficiency and
economy, particularly at a time of reduced operating funds and a
growing cold war, how could the Army justify converting efficient
white units into less capable black units? The same question applied
to the formation of composite units. Grouping lower scoring black
units with white units, many of the Army staff believed, would lower
the efficiency of the whole and complicate the Army's relations with
the civilian community. As a result, the black units remained largely
separate, limited in number, and tremendously overstrength throughout
the postwar period.
Some of these problems, at least, might have been solved had the (p. 205)
Army created a special staff group to oversee the new policy, a key
proposal of the Gillem Board. The Personnel and Administration
Division was primarily interested in individuals, in trying to place
qualified Negroes on an individual basis; the Organization and
Training Division was primarily concerned with units, in trying to
expand the black units to approximate the combat to service ratio of
white units. These interests conflicted at times, and with no single
agency possessing overriding authority, matters came to an impasse,
blocking reform of Army practices. Instead, the staff played a sterile
numbers game, seeking to impose a strict ratio everywhere. But it was
impossible to have a 10 percent proportion of Negroes in every post,
in every area, in every overseas theater; it was equally impossible to
have 10 percent in every activity, in every arm and service, in every
type of task. Yet wherever the Army failed to organize its black
strength by quota, it was open to charges of racial discrimination.
It would be a mistake to overlook the signs of racial progress
achieved under the Gillem Board policy. Because of its provisions
thousands of Negroes came to serve in the postwar Regular Army, many
of them in a host of new assignments and occupations. But if the
policy proved a qualified success in terms of numbers, it still failed
to gain equal treatment and opportunity for black soldiers, and in the
end the racial quotas and diverse racial units better served those who
wanted to keep a segregated Army.
CHAPTER 8 (p. 206)
Segregation's Consequences
The Army staff had to overcome tremendous obstacles in order to carry
out even a modest number of the Gillem Board's recommendations. In
addition to prejudices the Army shared with much of American society
and the institutional inertia that often frustrates change in so large
an organization, the staff faced the problem of making efficient
soldiers out of a large group of men who were for the most part
seriously deficient in education, training, and motivation. To the
extent that it overcame these difficulties, the Army's postwar racial
policy must be judged successful and, considered in the context of the
times, progressive.
Nevertheless, the Gillem Board policy was doomed from the start.
Segregation was at the heart of the race problem. Justified as a means
of preventing racial trouble, segregation only intensified it by
concentrating the less able and poorly motivated. Segregation
increased the problems of all commanders concerned and undermined the
prestige of black officers. It exacerbated the feelings of the
nation's largest minority toward the Army and multiplied demands for
change. In the end Circular 124 was abandoned because the Army found
it impossible to fight another war under a policy of racial quotas and
units. But if the quota had not defeated the policy, other problems
attendant on segregation would probably have been sufficient to the
task.
_Discipline and Morale Among Black Troops_
By any measure of discipline and morale, black soldiers as a group
posed a serious problem to the Army in the postwar period. The
standard military indexes--serious incidents statistics, venereal
disease rates, and number of courts-martial--revealed black soldiers
in trouble out of all proportion to their percentage of the Army's
population. When these personal infractions and crimes were added to
the riots and serious racial incidents that continued to occur in the
Army all over the world after the war, the dimensions of the problem
became clear.
In 1945, when Negroes accounted for 8.5 percent of the Army's average
strength, black prisoners entering rehabilitation centers,
disciplinary barracks, and federal institutions were 17.3 percent of
the Army total. In 1946, when the average black strength had risen (p. 207)
to 9.35 percent of the Army's total, 25.9 percent of the soldiers sent
to the stockade were Negroes. The following tabulation gives their
percentage of all military prisoners by offense:
Negro
Military Offenses Percentage
Absent without leave 13.4
Desertion 17.4
Misbehavior before the enemy 1.9
Violation of arrest or confinement 12.6
Discreditable conduct toward superior 49.6
Civil Offenses
Murder 62.2
Rape 53.1
Robbery 33.1
Manslaughter 46.3
Burglary and housebreaking 29.0
Larceny 17.2
Forgery 8.9
Assault 59.0
_Source_: Correction Branch, TAGO, copy in CMH.
The most common explanation offered for such statistics is that
fundamental injustices drove these black servicemen to crime. Probably
more to the point, most black soldiers, especially during the early
postwar period, served in units burdened with many disadvantaged
individuals, soldiers more likely to get into trouble given the
characteristically weak leadership in these units. But another
explanation for at least some of these crime statistics hinged on
commanders' power to define serious offenses. In general, unit
commanders had a great deal of discretion in framing the charges
brought against an alleged offender; indeed, where some minor offenses
were concerned officers could even conclude that a given infraction
was not a serious matter at all and simply dismiss the soldier with a
verbal reprimand and a warning not to repeat his offense. Whereas one
commander might decide that a case called for a charge of aggravated
assault, another, faced with the same set of facts, might settle for a
charge of simple assault. If it is reasonable to assume that, as a
part of the pattern of discrimination, Negroes accused of offenses
like misconduct toward superiors, AWOL, and assault often received
less generous treatment from their officers than white servicemen,
then it is reasonable to suspect that statistics on Negroes involved
in crime may reflect such discriminatory treatment.
The crime figures were particularly distressing to the individual
black soldier, as indeed they were to his civilian counterpart,
because as a member of a highly visible minority he became identified
with the wrongdoing of some of his fellows, spectacularly reported in
the press, while his own more typical attendance to orders and
competent performance of duty were more often buried in the Army's
administrative reports. In particular, Negroes among the large
overseas commands suffered embarrassment. The Gillem Board policy (p. 208)
was announced just as the Army began the occupation of Germany and
Japan. As millions of veterans returned home, to be replaced in lesser
numbers by volunteers, black troops began to figure prominently in the
occupation forces. On 1 January 1947 the Army had 59,795 Negroes
stationed overseas, 10.77 percent of the total number of overseas
troops, divided principally between the two major overseas commands.
By 1 March 1948, in keeping with the general reduction of forces,
black strength overseas was reduced to 23,387 men, but black
percentages in Europe and the Far East remained practically
unchanged.[8-1] It was among these Negroes, scattered throughout
Germany and Japan, that most of the disciplinary problems occurred.
[Footnote 8-1: STM-30, Strength of the Army, 1 Jan 47
and 1 Mar 48.]
During the first two years of peace, black soldiers consistently
dominated the Army's serious-incident rate, a measure of indictments
and accusations involving troops in crimes against persons and
property. In June 1946, for example, black soldiers in the European
theater were involved in serious incidents (actual and alleged) at the
rate of 2.57 cases per 1,000 men. The rate among white soldiers for
the same period was .79 cases per 1,000. The rate for both groups rose
considerably in 1947. The figure for Negroes climbed to a yearly
average of 3.94 incidents per 1,000; the figure for whites, reflecting
an even greater gain, reached 1.88. These crime rates were not out of
line with America's national crime rate statistics, which, based on a
sample of 173 cities, averaged about 3.25 during the same period.[8-2]
Nevertheless, the rate was of particular concern to the government
because the majority of the civil offenses were perpetuated against
German and Japanese nationals and therefore lowered the prestige and
effectiveness of the occupation forces.
[Footnote 8-2: Geis Monograph, pp. 138-39 and Chart
4.]
Less important but still a serious internal problem for the Army was a
parallel rise in the incidence of venereal disease. Various reasons
have been advanced for the great postwar rise in the Army's venereal
disease rate. It is obvious, for example, that the rapid conversion
from war to peacetime duties gave many American soldiers new leisure
and freedom to engage in widespread fraternization with the civilian
population. Serious economic dislocation in the conquered countries
drove many citizens into a life of prostitution and crime. By the same
token, the breakdown of public health services had removed a major
obstacle to the spread of social disease. But whatever the reasons, a
high rate of venereal disease--the overseas rate was three times
greater than the rate reported for soldiers in the United
States--reflected a serious breakdown in military discipline, posed a
threat to the combat effectiveness of the commands, and produced lurid
rumors and reports on Army morality.
As in the case of crime statistics, the rate of venereal disease for
black soldiers in the overseas commands far exceeded the figure for
whites. The Eighth Army, the major unit in the Far East, reported for
the month of June 1946 1,263 cases of venereal disease for whites, or
139 cases per 1,000 men per year; 769 cases were reported for Negroes,
or 1,186 cases per 1,000 men per year. The rates for the European (p. 209)
Command for July 1946 stood at 806 cases per 1,000 Negroes per year as
compared with 203 for white soldiers. The disease rate improved
considerably during 1947 in both commands, but still the rates for
black troops averaged 354 per 1,000 men per year in Eighth Army
compared to 89 for whites. In Europe the rate was 663 per 1,000 men
per year for Negroes compared to 172 for whites. At the same time the
rate for all soldiers in the United States was 58 per 1,000 per
year.[8-3] Some critics question the accuracy of these statistics,
charging that more white soldiers, with informal access to medical
treatment, were able to escape detection by the Medical Department's
statisticians, at least in cases of more easily treated strains of
venereal disease.
[Footnote 8-3: Ibid., pp. 138-39; Eighth Army (AFPAC)
Hist Div, _Occupational Monograph of the Eighth
Army in Japan_ (hereafter AFPAC Monograph), 3:171.]
The court-martial rate for black soldiers serving overseas was also
higher than for white soldiers. Black soldiers in Europe, for example,
were court-martialed at the rate of 3.48 men per 1,000 during the
third quarter of 1946 compared with a 1.14 rate for whites. A similar
situation existed in the Far East where the black service units had a
monthly court-martial rate nearly double the average rate of the
Eighth Army as a whole.[8-4]
[Footnote 8-4: Geis Monograph; AFPAC Monograph,
3:87-88 and charts, 4:91-97 and JAG Illus. No. 3.
It should be noted that on occasion individual
white units registered disciplinary rates
spectacularly higher than these averages. In a
nine-month period in 1946-47, for example, a
120-man white unit stationed in Vienna, Austria,
had 10 general courts-martial, between 30 and 40
special and summary courts-martial, and 40 of its
members separated under the provisions of AR
368-369.]
The disproportionate black crime and disease rates were symptomatic of
a condition that also revealed itself in the racially oriented riots
and disturbances that continued to plague the postwar Army. Sometimes
black soldiers were merely reacting to blatant discrimination
countenanced by their officers, to racial insults, and at times even
to physical assaults, but nevertheless they reacted violently and in
numbers. The resulting incidents prompted investigations,
recriminations, and publicity.
Two such disturbances, more spectacular than the typical flare-up, and
important because they influenced Army attitudes toward blacks,
occurred at Army bases in the United States. The first was a mutiny at
MacDill Airfield, Florida, which began on 27 October 1946 at a dance
for black noncommissioned officers to which privates were denied
admittance. Military police were called when a fight broke out among
the black enlisted men and rapidly developed into a belligerent
demonstration by a crowd that soon reached mob proportions. Police
fire was answered by members of the mob and one policeman and one
rioter were wounded. Urged on by its ringleaders, the mob then
overwhelmed the main gate area and disarmed the sentries. The rioters
retained control of the area until early the next day, when the
commanding general persuaded them to disband. Eleven Negroes were
charged with mutiny.[8-5] A second incident, a riot with strong racial
overtones, occurred at Fort Leavenworth in May 1947 following an
altercation between white and black prisoners in the Army Disciplinary
Barracks. The rioting, caused by allegations of favoritism (p. 210)
accorded to prisoners, lasted for two days; one man was killed and six
were injured.[8-6]
[Footnote 8-5: "History of MacDill Army Airfield,
326th AAB Unit, October 1946," pp. 10-11, AFCHO
files.]
[Footnote 8-6: Florence Murray, ed., _The Negro
Handbook, 1949_ (New York: Macmillan, 1949), pp.
109-10.]
Disturbances in overseas commands, although less serious, were of deep
concern to the Army because of the international complications. In
April 1946, for example, soldiers of the 449th Signal Construction
Detachment threw stones at two French officers who were driving
through the village of Weyersbusch in the Rhine Palatinate. The
officers, one of them injured, returned to the village with French
MP's and requested an explanation of the incident. They were quickly
surrounded by about thirty armed Negroes of the detachment who,
according to the French, acted in an aggressive and menacing manner.
As a result, the Supreme French Commander in Germany requested his
American counterpart to remove all black troops from the French zone.
The U.S. commander in Europe, General Joseph T. McNarney, investigated
the incident, court-martialed its instigators, and transferred the
entire detachment out of the French zone. At the same time his staff
explained to the French that to prohibit the stationing of Negroes in
the area would be discriminatory and contrary to Army policy. Black
specialists continued to operate in the French zone, although none
were subsequently stationed there permanently.[8-7]
[Footnote 8-7: Geis Monograph, pp. 145-47.]
The Far East Command also suffered racial incidents. The Eighth Army
reported in 1946 that "racial agitation" was one of the primary causes
of assault, the most frequent violent crime among American troops in
Japan. This racial agitation was usually limited to the American
community, however, and seldom involved the civilian population.[8-8]
[Footnote 8-8: AFPAC Monograph, 2:176.]
The task of maintaining a biracial Army overseas in peacetime was
marked with embarrassing incidents and time-consuming investigations.
The Army was constantly hearing about its racial problems overseas and
getting no end of advice. For example, in May 1946 Louis Lautier,
chief of the Negro Newspaper Publishers Association news service,
informed the Assistant Secretary of War that fifty-five of the seventy
American soldiers executed for crimes in the European theater were
black. Most were category IV and V men. "In light of this fact,"
Lautier charged, "the blame for the comparatively high rate of crime
among black soldiers belongs to the American educational system."[8-9]
[Footnote 8-9: Ltr, Louis R. Lautier to Howard C.
Petersen, 28 May 46. ASW 291.2 (NT).]
But when a delegation of publishers from Lautier's organization toured
European installations during the same period, the members took a more
comprehensive look at the Seventh Army's race problems. They told
Secretary Patterson that they found all American soldiers reacting
similarly to poor leadership, substandard living conditions, and
menial occupations whenever such conditions existed. Although they
professed to see no difference in the conduct of white and black
troops, they went on to list factors that contributed to the bad
conduct of some of the black troops including the dearth of black
officers, hostility of military police, inadequate recreation, and
poor camp location. They also pointed out that many soldiers in the
occupation had been shipped overseas without basic training, (p. 211)
scored low in the classification tests, and served under young and
inexperienced noncoms. Many black regulars, on the other hand, once
proud members of combat units, now found themselves performing menial
tasks in the backwaters of the occupation. Above all, the publishers
witnessed widespread racial discrimination, a condition that followed
inevitably, they believed, from the Army's segregation policy.
Conditions in the Army appeared to them to facilitate an immediate
shift to integration; conditions in Europe and elsewhere made such a
shift imperative. Yet they found most commanders in Europe still
unaware of the Gillem Board Report and its liberalizing provisions,
and little being done to encourage within the Army the sensitivity to
racial matters that makes life in a biracial society bearable. Until
the recommendations of the board were carried out and discrimination
stopped, they warned the secretary, the Army must expect racial
flare-ups to continue.[8-10]
[Footnote 8-10: Frank L. Stanley, Report of the Negro
Newspaper Publishers Association to the Honorable
Secretary of War on Troops and Conditions in
Europe, 18 Jul 46, copy in CMH.]
Characteristically, the Secretary of War's civilian aide, Marcus Ray,
never denied evidence of misconduct among black troops, but
concentrated instead on finding the cause. Returning from a month's
tour of Pacific installations in September 1946, he bluntly pointed
out to Secretary Patterson that high venereal disease and
court-martial rates among black troops were "in direct proportion to
the high percentage of Class IV and Vs among the Negro personnel."
Given Ray's conclusion, the solution was relatively simple: the Army
should "vigorously implement" its recently promulgated policy, long
supported by Ray, and discharge persons with test scores of less than
seventy.[8-11]
[Footnote 8-11: Ray, Rpt of Tour of Pacific
Installations to SW Patterson, 7 Aug-6 Sep 46, ASW
291.2.]
The civilian aide was not insensitive to the effects of segregation on
black soldiers, but he stressed the practical results of the Army's
policy instead of making a sweeping indictment of segregation. For
example, he criticized the report of the noted criminologist, Leonard
Keeler, who had recently studied the criminal activities of American
troops in Europe for the Army's Criminal Investigation Division. Ray
was critical, not because Keeler had been particularly concerned with
the relatively high black crime rate and its effect on Europeans, but
because the report overlooked the concentration of segregated black
units which had increased the density of Negroes in some areas of
Europe to a point where records and reports of misconduct presented a
false picture. In effect, black crime statistics were meaningless, Ray
believed, as long as the Army's segregation policy remained intact.
Where Keeler implied that the solution was to exclude Negroes from
Europe, Ray believed that the answer lay in desegregating and
spreading them out.[8-12]
[Footnote 8-12: Memo, Ray for ASW Petersen, 1 Nov 46,
ASW 291.2.]
It was probably inevitable that all the publicity given racial
troubles would attract attention on Capitol Hill. When the Senate's
Special Investigations Committee took up the question of military
government in occupied Europe in the fall of 1946, it decided to look
into the conduct of black soldiers also. Witnesses asserted that black
troops in Europe were ill-behaved and poorly disciplined and their (p. 212)
officers were afraid to punish them properly for fear of displeasing
higher authorities. The committee received a report on the occupation
prepared by its chief counsel, George Meader. A curious amalgam of
sensational hearsay, obvious racism, and unimpeachable fact, the
document was leaked to the press and subsequently denounced publicly
by the committee's chairman, Senator Harley M. Kilgore of West
Virginia. Kilgore charged that parts of the report dealing with
Negroes were obviously based on hearsay. "Neither prejudice nor
malice," the senator concluded, "has any place in factual
reports."[8-13]
[Footnote 8-13: U.S. Congress, Senate Special
Committee Investigating National Defense Programs,
Part 42, "Military Government in Germany," 80th
Cong., 22 November 1946, pp. 26150-89; see also New
York _Times_, November 27 and December 4, 1946. The
quotation is from the _Times_ of November 27th.]
Although the committee's staff certainly had displayed remarkable
insensitivity, Meader's recommendations appeared temperate enough. He
wanted the committee to explore with the War Department possible
solutions to the problem of black troops overseas, and he called on
the War Department to give careful consideration to the
recommendations of its field commanders. The European commander was
already on record with a recommendation to recall all black troops
from Europe, citing the absence of Negroes from the U.S. Occupation
Army in the Rhineland after World War I. Lt. Gen. Lucius D. Clay, then
U.S. Commander, Berlin, who later succeeded General McNarney as
theater commander and military governor, wanted Negroes in the
occupation army used primarily as parade troops. Meader contended that
the War Department was reluctant to act on these theater
recommendations because it feared political repercussions from the
black community. He had no such fear: "certainly, the conduct of the
negro troops, as provable from War Department records, is no credit to
the negro race and proper action to solve the problem should not
result in any unfavorable reaction from any intelligent negro
leaders."[8-14]
[Footnote 8-14: Senate Special Committee, "Military
Government in Germany," 80th Cong., 22 Nov 1946,
pp. 26163-64; see also Geis Monograph, pp. 142-43.]
The War Department was not insensitive to the opinions being aired on
Capitol Hill. The under secretary, Kenneth C. Royall, had already
dispatched a group from the Inspector General's office under Brig.
Gen. Elliot D. Cooke to find out among other things if black troops
were being properly disciplined and to investigate other charges Lt.
Col. Francis P. Miller had made before the Special Investigations
Committee. Examining in detail the records of one subordinate European
command, which had 12,000 Negroes in its force of 44,000, the Cooke
group decided that commanders were not afraid to punish black
soldiers. Although Negroes were responsible for vehicle accidents and
disciplinary infractions in numbers disproportionate to their
strength, they also had a proportionately higher court-martial
rate.[8-15]
[Footnote 8-15: Geis Monograph, pp. 144-45; EUCOM
Hist Div, _Morale and Discipline in the European
Command, 1945-1949_, Occupation Forces in Europe
Series, pp. 45-46, in CMH.]
While the Cooke group was still studying the specific charges of the
Senate's Investigations Committee, Secretary Patterson decided on a
general review of the situation. He ordered Ray to tour European
installations and report on how the Gillem Board policy was being (p. 213)
put into effect overseas. Ray visited numerous bases and housing
and recreation areas in Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland, and
Austria. He examined duties, living conditions, morale, and
discipline. He also looked into race relations and community
attitudes. His month's tour, ending on 17 December 1946, reinforced
his conviction that substandard troops--black and white--were at the
heart of the Army's crime and venereal disease problem. Ray supported
the efforts of local commanders to discharge these men, although he
wanted the secretary to reform and standardize the method of
discharge. In his analysis of the overseas situation, the civilian
aide avoided any specific allusion to the nexus between segregation
and racial unrest. In a rare burst of idealism, however, he did
condemn those who would exclude Negroes from combat units and certain
occupations because of presumed prejudices on the part of the German
population. To bow to such prejudices, he insisted, was to negate
America's aspirations for the postwar world. In essence, Ray's formula
for good race relations was quite simple: institute immediately the
reforms outlined in the Gillem Board Report.
In addition to broader use of black troops, Ray was concerned with
basic racial attitudes. The Army, he charged, generally failed to see
the connection between prejudice and national security; many of its
leaders even denied that prejudice existed in the Army. Yet to ignore
the problem of racial prejudice, he claimed, condemned the Army to
perpetual racial upsets. He wanted the secretary to restate the Army's
racial objectives and launch an information and education program to
inform commanders and troops on racial matters.[8-16]
[Footnote 8-16: Ray, "Rpt to SecWar, Mr. Robert P.
Patterson, of Tour of European Installations," 17
Dec 46, Incl to Memo, SW for DCofS, 7 Jan 47, SW
291.2.]
In all other respects a lucid progress report on the Gillem Board
policy, Ray's analysis was weakened by his failure to point out the
effect of segregation on the performance and attitude of black
soldiers. Ray believed that the Gillem Board policy, with its quota
system and its provisions for the integration of black specialists,
would eventually lead to an integrated Army. Preoccupied with
practical and imminently possible racial reforms, Ray, along with
Secretary Patterson and other reformers within the Army establishment,
tended to overlook the tenacious hold that racial segregation had on
Army thought.
This hold was clearly illustrated by the reaction of the Army staff to
Ray's recommendations. Speaking with the concurrence of the other
staff elements and the approval of the Deputy Chief of Staff, General
Paul warned that very little could be accomplished toward the
long-range objective of the Gillem Board--integration--until the Army
completed the long and complex task of raising the quality and
lowering the quantity of black soldiers. He also considered it
impractical to use Negroes in overhead positions, combat units, and
highly technical and professional positions in exact proportion to
their percentage of the population. Such use, Paul claimed, would
expend travel funds already drastically curtailed and further
complicate a serious housing situation. He admitted that the
deep-seated prejudice of some Army members in all grades would (p. 214)
have a direct bearing on the progress of the Army's new racial
policy.
[Illustration: 24TH INFANTRY BAND, GIFU, JAPAN, 1947.]
The staff generally agreed with Ray's other recommendations with one
exception: it opposed his suggestion that black units be used in the
European theater's constabulary, the specially organized and trained
force that patrolled the East-West border and helped police the German
occupation. The theater commander had so few capable Negroes, Paul
reasoned, that to siphon off enough to form a constabulary unit would
threaten the efficiency of other black units. Besides, even if enough
qualified Negroes were available, he believed their use in supervisory
positions over German nationals would be unacceptable to many
Germans.[8-17] The staff offered no evidence for this latter argument,
and indeed there was none available. In marked contrast to their
reaction to the French government's quartering of Senegalese soldiers
in the Rhineland after World War I, the German attitude toward
American Negroes immediately after World War II was notably tolerant,
a factor in the popularity among Negroes of assignments to Europe. It
was only later that the Germans, especially tavern owners and the (p. 215)
like, began to adopt the discriminatory practices of their
conquerors.[8-18]
[Footnote 8-17: WDGPA Summary Sheet, 25 Jan 47, sub:
Utilization of Negroes in the European Theater,
with Incls, WDGPA 291.2 (7 Jan 47).]
[Footnote 8-18: Interv, author with Lt Gen Clarence
R. Huebner (former CG, U.S. Army, Europe), 31 Mar
71, CMH files.]
Ray's proposals and the reaction to them formed a kind of watershed in
the War Department's postwar racial policy. Just ten months after the
Gillem Board Report was published, the Army staff made a judgment on
the policy's effectiveness: the presence of Negroes in numbers
approximating 10 percent of the Army's strength and at the current
qualitative level made it necessary to retain segregation
indefinitely. Segregation kept possible troublemakers out of important
combat divisions, promoted efficiency, and placated regional
prejudices both in the Army and Congress. Integration must be
postponed until the number of Negroes in the Army was carefully
regulated and the quality of black troops improved. Both, the staff
thought, were goals of a future so distant that segregated units were
not threatened.
But the staff's views ran contrary to the Gillem Board policy and the
public utterances of the Secretary of War. Robert Patterson had
consistently supported the policy in public and before his advisers.
Besides, it was unthinkable that he would so quickly abandon a policy
developed at the cost of so much effort and negotiation and announced
with such fanfare. He had insisted that the quota be maintained, most
recently in the case of the European Command.[8-19] In sum, he believed
that the policy provided guidelines, practical and expedient, albeit
temporary, that would lead to the integration of the Army.
[Footnote 8-19: Geis Monograph, pp. 143-44.]
In face of this impasse between the secretary and the Army staff there
slowly evolved what proved to be a new racial policy. Never clearly
formulated--Circular 124 continued in effect with only minor changes
until 1950--the new policy was based on the substantially different
proposition that segregation would continue indefinitely while the
staff concentrated on weeding out poorly qualified Negroes, upgrading
the rest, and removing vestiges of discrimination, which it saw as
quite distinct from segregation. At the same time the Army would
continue to operate under a strict 10 percent quota of Negroes, though
not necessarily within every occupation or specialty. The staff
overlooked the increasingly evident connection between segregation and
racial unrest, thereby assuring the continuation of both. From 1947
on, integration, the stated goal of the Gillem Board policy, was
ignored, while segregation, which the board saw as an expedient to be
tolerated, became for the Army staff a way of life to be treasured. It
was from this period in 1947 that Circular 124 and the Gillem Board
Report began to gain their reputations as regressive documents.
_Improving the Status of the Segregated Soldier_
In 1947 the Army accelerated its long-range program to discharge
soldiers who scored less than seventy on the Army General
Classification Test. Often a subject of public controversy, the
program formed a major part of the Army's effort to close the (p. 216)
educational and training gap between black and white troops.[8-20]
Of course, there were other ways to close the gap, and on occasion the
Army had taken the more positive and difficult approach of upgrading
its substandard black troops by giving them extra training. Although
rarely so recognized, the Army's long record of providing remedial
academic and technical training easily qualified it as one of the
nation's major social engineers.
[Footnote 8-20: For the use of AR 315-369 to
discharge low-scoring soldiers, see Chapter 7.]
[Illustration: GENERAL HUEBNER _inspects the 529th Military Police
Company, Giessen, Germany, 1948_.]
In World War II thousands of draftees were taught to read and write in
the Army's literacy program. In 1946 at Fort Benning an on-duty
educational program was organized in the 25th Regimental Combat Team
for soldiers, in this case all Negroes, with less than an eighth grade
education. Although the project had to be curtailed because of a lack
of specialized instructors, an even more ambitious program was
launched the next year throughout the Army after a survey revealed an
alarming illiteracy rate in replacement troops. In a move of primary
importance to black recruits, the Far East Command, for example,
ordered all soldiers lacking the equivalent of a fifth grade education
to attend courses. The order was later changed to include all soldiers
who failed to achieve Army test scores of seventy.[8-21]
[Footnote 8-21: AFPAC Monograph, 4:193.]
In 1947 the European theater launched the most ambitious project by
far for improving the status of black troops, and before it was over
thousands of black soldiers had been examined, counseled, and trained.
The project was conceived and executed by the deputy and later theater
commander, Lt. Gen. Clarence R. Huebner, and his adviser on Negro
affairs, Marcus Ray, now a lieutenant colonel.[8-22] These men were
convinced that a program could be devised to raise the status of the
black soldier. Huebner wanted to lay the foundation for a command-wide
educational program for all black units. "If you're going to make
soldiers out of people," he later explained, "they have the right to
be trained." Huebner had specialized in training in his Army career,
had written several of the Army's training manuals, and possessed an
abiding faith in the ability of the Army to change men. "If your (p. 217)
soldiers don't know how, teach them."[8-23]
[Footnote 8-22: At the suggestion of Secretary
Patterson, General Huebner established the position
of Negro adviser. After several candidates were
considered, the post went to Marcus Ray, who left
the secretary's office and went on active duty.]
[Footnote 8-23: Interv, author with Huebner.]
General Huebner got his chance in March 1947 when the command decided
to use some 3,000 unassigned black troops in guard duties formerly
performed by the 1st Infantry Division. The men were organized into
two infantry battalions,[8-24] but because of their low test scores
Huebner decided to establish a twelve-to thirteen-week training
program at the Grafenwohr Training Center and directed the commanding
general of the 1st Division to train black soldiers in both basic
military and academic subjects. Huebner concluded his directive by
saying:
This is our first opportunity to put into effect in a large way
the War Department policy on Negro soldiers as announced in War
Department Circular No. 124, 1946. Owing to the necessity for
rapid training, and to the press of occupational duties, little
time has been available in the past for developing the leadership
of the Negro soldier. We can now do that.... I wish you to study
the program, its progress, its deficiencies and its advantages,
in order that a full report may be compiled and lessons in
operation and training drawn.[8-25]
[Footnote 8-24: The 370th and 371st Infantry
Battalions (Separate) were organized on 20 June
1947. The men came from EUCOM's inactivated
engineer service battalions and construction
companies, ambulance companies, and ordnance
ammunition, quartermaster railhead, signal heavy
construction, and transportation corps car
companies; see Geis Monograph, p. 80.]
[Footnote 8-25: Ltr, CG, Ground and Service Forces,
Europe, to CG, 1st Inf Div, 1 May 47, sub: Training
of Negro Infantry Battalions, quoted in Geis
Monograph, pp. 113-14.]
As the improved military bearing and efficiency of black trainees and
the subsequent impressive performance of the two new infantry
battalions would suggest, the reports on the Grafenwohr training were
optimistic and the lessons drawn ambitious. They prompted Huebner on 1
December 1947 to establish a permanent training center at Kitzingen
Air Base.[8-26] Essentially, he was trying to combine both drill and
constant supervision with a broad-based educational program. Trainees
received basic military training for six hours daily and academic
instruction up to the twelfth grade level for two hours more. The
command ordered all black replacements and casuals arriving from the
United States to the training center for classifying and training as
required. Eventually all black units in Europe were to be rotated
through Kitzingen for unit refresher and individual instruction. As
each company completed the course at Kitzingen, the command assigned
academic instructors to continue an on-duty educational program in the
field. A soldier was required to participate in the educational
program until he passed the general education development test for
high school level or until he clearly demonstrated that he could not
profit from further instruction.
[Footnote 8-26: The training center had already moved
from Grafenwohr to larger quarters at Mannheim
Koafestal, Germany.]
Washington was quick to perceive the merit of the European program,
and Paul reported widespread approval "from all concerned."[8-27] The
program quickly produced some impressive statistics. Thousands of (p. 218)
soldiers--at the peak in 1950 more than 62 percent of all Negroes in
the command--were enrolled in the military training course at
Kitzingen or in on-duty educational programs organized in over
two-thirds of the black companies throughout the command. By June 1950
the program had over 2,900 students and 200 instructors. A year later,
the European commander estimated that since the program began some
1,169 Negroes had completed fifth grade in his schools, 2,150 had
finished grade school, and 418 had passed the high school equivalency
test.[8-28] The experiment had a practical and long-lasting effect on
the Army. For example, in 1950 a sampling of three black units showed
that after undergoing training at Kitzingen and in their own units the
men scored an average of twenty points higher in Army classification
tests. According to a 1950 European Command estimate, the command's
education program was producing some of the finest trained black
troops in the Army.
[Footnote 8-27: Ltr, D/P&A to Huebner, 15 Oct 47,
CSGPA 291.2. This approval did not extend to all
civil rights advocates, some of whom objected to
the segregated training. Walter White, however,
supported the program. See Interv, author with
Huebner.]
[Footnote 8-28: EUCOM Hist Div, _EUCOM Command
Report, 1951_, pp. 128, 251, copy in CMH.]
[Illustration: REPORTING TO KITZINGEN. _Men of Company B, 371st
Infantry Battalion, arrive for refresher course in basic military
training._]
The training program even provoked jealous reaction among some white
troops who claimed that the educational opportunities offered Negroes
discriminated against them. They were right, for in comparison to the
on-duty high school courses offered Negroes, the command restricted
courses for white soldiers to so-called literacy training or
completion of the fifth grade. Command spokesmen quite openly
justified the disparity on the grounds that Negroes on the whole (p. 219)
had received fewer educational opportunities in the United States and
that the program would promote efficiency in the command.[8-29]
[Footnote 8-29: Ltr, Chief, EUCOM TI&E Div, to EUCOM
DCSOPS, 18 Jun 48, cited in Geis Monograph, p.
130.]
Whether a connection can be made between the Kitzingen training
program and improvement in the morale and discipline of black troops,
the fact was that by January 1950 a dramatic change had occurred in
the conduct of black soldiers in the European Command. The rate of
venereal disease among black soldiers had dropped to an average
approximating the rate for white troops (and not much greater than the
always lower average for troops in the United States). This phenomenon
was repeated in the serious incident rate. In the first half of 1950
courts-martial that resulted in bad conduct discharges totaled
fifty-nine for Negroes, a figure that compared well with the 324
similar verdicts for the larger contingent of white soldiers.[8-30] For
once the Army could document what it had always preached, that
education and training were the keys to the better performance of
black troops. The tragedy was that the education program was never
applied throughout the Army, not even in the Far East and in the
United States, where far more black soldiers were stationed than in
Europe.[8-31] The Army lost yet another chance to fulfill the promise of
its postwar policy.
[Footnote 8-30: Geis Monograph, Charts 3 and 4 and p.
139.]
[Footnote 8-31: Not comparable was the brief literacy
program reinstituted in the 25th Regimental Combat
Team at Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1947.]
In later years Kitzingen assumed the task of training black officers,
a natural progression considering the attitude of General Huebner and
Marcus Ray. The general and the command adviser were convinced that
the status of black soldiers depended at least in part on the caliber
of black officers commanding them. Huebner deftly made this point in
October 1947 soon after Kitzingen opened when he explained to General
Paul that he wanted more "stable, efficient, and interested Negro
officers and senior non-commissioned officers" who, he believed, would
set an example for the trainees.[8-32] Others shared Huebner's views.
The black publishers touring Europe some months later observed that
wherever black officers were assigned there was "a noticeable
improvement in the morale, discipline and general efficiency of the
units involved."[8-33]
[Footnote 8-32: Ltr, Huebner to D/P&A, 1 Oct 47,
CSGPA 291.2.]
[Footnote 8-33: Memo, DCofS for D/P&A, 14 May 48,
sub: Report of Visit by Negro Publishers and
Editors to the European Theater, CSUSA 291.2
Negroes (14 May 48).]
The European Command had requisitioned only five black officers during
the last eight months, General Paul noted; this might have caused its
shortage of black officers. Still, Paul knew the problem went deeper,
and he admitted that many black officers now on duty were relatively
undesirable and many desirable ones were being declared surplus. He
was searching for a solution.[8-34] The Personnel and Administration
Division could do very little about the major cause of the shortage,
for the lack of black officers was fundamentally connected with the
postwar demobilization affecting all the services. Most black officers
were unable to compete in terms of length of service, combat experience,
and other factors that counted heavily toward retention. (p. 220)
Consequently their numbers dropped sharply from an August 1945 high of
7,748 to a December 1947 low of 1,184. The drop more than offset the
slight rise in the black percentage of the whole officer corps, .8
percent in 1945 to 1.0 percent in 1947.
[Footnote 8-34: Ltr, D/P&A to Huebner, 15 Oct 47,
CSGPA 291.2.]
At first General Paul was rather passive in his attitude toward the
shortage of black officers. Commenting on Assistant Secretary of War
Petersen's suggestion in May 1946 that the Army institute a special
recruitment program to supplement the small number of black officers
who survived the competition for Regular Army appointments, Paul noted
that all appointments were based on merit and competition and
that special consideration for Negroes was itself a form of
discrimination.[8-35] Whether through fear of being accused of
discrimination against whites or because of the general curtailment of
officer billets, it was not until April 1948 that the Personnel and
Administration Division launched a major effort to get more black
officers.
[Footnote 8-35: Memo, ASW for D/P&A, 23 May 46, sub:
Negro Officers in the Regular Establishment; Memo,
D/P&A for ASW, 29 May 46, same sub; Memo, "D. R."
(Exec Asst to ASW, Lt Col D. J. Rogers) for
Petersen, 12 Jun 46. Copies of all in ASW 291.2 (23
May 46).]
In April 1948 General Paul had his Manpower Control Group review the
officer strength of seventy-eight black units stationed in the United
States. The group uncovered a shortage of seventy-two officers in the
seventy-eight units, but it went considerably beyond identifying
simple shortages. In estimating the number of black officers needed,
the group demonstrated not only how far the Gillem Board policy had
committed the Army, but in view of contemporary manpower shortages
just how impossible this commitment was of being fulfilled. The
manpower group discovered that according to Circular 124, which
prescribed more officers for units containing a preponderance of men
with low test scores, the seventy-eight units should have 187
additional officers beyond their regular allotment. Also taking into
account Circular 124's provision that black officers should command
black troops, the group discovered that these units would need another
477 black officer replacements. The group temporized. It recommended
that the additional officers be assigned to units in which 70 percent
or more of the men were in grades IV and V and without mentioning
specific numbers noted that high priority be given to the replacement
of white officers with Negroes. Assuming the shortages discovered in
the seventy-eight units would be mirrored in the 315 black units
overseas as well as other temporary units at home, the group also
wanted General Paul to order a comprehensive survey of all black
units.[8-36]
[Footnote 8-36: Memo, Chief, Manpower Survey Gp, for
Paul, 29 Apr 48, sub: Assignment of Officers of
Negro T/O&E Units in Compliance with WD Cir 124,
1946, CSGPA 210.31 (29 Apr 48); "Report on Negro
Officer Strength in Army," incl w/Memo, D/P&A for
DCofS, 21 Jun 48, sub: Report of Negro Publishers
and Editors on Tour of European Installations,
CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (14 May 48).]
Paul complied with the group's request by ordering the major
commanders in May to list the number of officers by branch, grade, and
specialty needed to fill the vacant spaces in their black units.[8-37]
But there was really little need for further surveys because the (p. 221)
key to all the group's recommendations--the availability of suitable
black officers--was beyond the immediate reach of the Army. General
Paul was able to fill the existing vacancies in the seventy-eight
continental units by recalling black officers from inactive duty, but
the number eligible for recall or available from other sources was
limited. As of 31 May 1948, personnel officials could count on only
2,794 black reserve and National Guard officers who could be assigned
to extended active duty. This number was far short of current needs;
Negroes would have to approximate 4.1 percent (3,000 officers) of the
Army's officer corps if all the whites in black units were replaced.
As for the other provisions of the Gillem Board, the Organization and
Training Division urged restraint, arguing that Circular 124 was not
an authorization for officers in excess of organization table
ceilings, but rather that the presence of many low-scoring men
constituted a basis for requesting more officers.[8-38]
[Footnote 8-37: Memo, D/P&A for TAG, 24 May 48, sub:
Negro Officers in TO&E Units, CSGPA 291.2 (24 May
48).]
[Footnote 8-38: Ibid.; "Report on Negro Officer
Strength in Army," incl w/Memo, D/P&A for DCofS, 21
Jun 48, sub: Report of Negro Publishers and
Editors..., CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (14 May 48).]
General Paul did not argue the point. Admitting that the 4.1 percent
figure was "an objective to be achieved over a period of time," he
could do little but instruct the commanders concerned to indicate in
future requisitions that they wanted black officers as fillers or
replacements in black units. Clearly, as long as the number of black
officers remained so low, the provisions of Circular 124 calling for
black officers to replace whites or supplement the officer strength of
units containing men with low test scores would have to be ignored.
There were other long-range possibilities for procuring more black
officers, the most obvious the expansion of the Reserve Officers'
Training Corps. As of January 1948 the Army had ROTC units at nine
predominantly black colleges and universities with a total enrollment
of 3,035 cadets. The Organization and Training Division contemplated
adding one more unit during 1948, but after negotiations with
officials from Secretary Royall's office, themselves under
considerable congressional and public pressure, the division added
three more advanced ROTC units, one service and two combat, at
predominantly black institutions.[8-39] At the same time some hope
existed for increasing the number of black cadets at West Point. The
academy had nine black cadets in 1948, including five plebes. General
Paul hoped that the graduation of these cadets would stimulate further
interest and a corresponding increase in applications from
Negroes.[8-40]
[Footnote 8-39: Memo, Asst Secy, GS, for DCofS, 2 Jun
48, sub: Negro ROTC Units, CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (2
Jun 48); see also Department of National Defense,
"National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs," 26
Apr 48, morning session, pp. 31-34, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 8-40: "Report on Negro Officer Strength in
Army," incl w/Memo, D/P&A for DCofS, 21 Jun 48,
sub: Report of Negro Publishers and Editors...,
CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (14 May 48).]
It was probably naive to assume that an increase of black cadets from
four to nine would stir much interest when other statistics suggested
that black officers had a limited future in the service. As Secretary
Royall pointed out, even if the total number of black officers could
not be quickly increased, the percentage of black officers in the (p. 222)
Regular Army could.[8-41] Yet by April 1948 the Army had almost
completed the conversion of reservists into regulars, and few black
officers had been selected. In June 1945, for example, there were 8
black officers in the Regular Army; by April 1948 they numbered only
41, including 4 West Point graduates and 32 converted reservists.[8-42]
The Army had also recently nominated 13 young Negroes, designated
Distinguished Military Graduates of the advanced ROTC program, for
Regular Army commissions.
[Footnote 8-41: Department of National Defense,
"National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs," 26
Apr 48, morning session, pp. 20-21. Prior to World
War II, an officer held a commission in the Regular
Army, in the Army Reserve, or in the National
Guard. Another type of commission, one in the Army
of the United States (AUS), was added during World
War II, and all temporary promotions granted during
the war were to AUS rank. For example, a Regular
Army captain could become an AUS major but would
retain his Regular Army captaincy. Many reservists
and some National Guard officers remaining on
active duty sought conversion to, or "integration"
into, the Regular Army for career security.]
[Footnote 8-42: These black officers were converted
to Regular Army officers in the following arms and
services: Infantry, 13; Chaplain Corps, 9; Medical
Service Corps, 1; Army Nurse Corps, 1; Field
Artillery, 1; Quartermaster, 7 (4 of whom were
transferred later to the Transportation Corps).
These figures include the first black doctor and
nurse converted to Regular Army officers.]
During the Regular Army integration program, 927 Negroes and 122,520
whites applied for the Regular Army; the Army and the Air Force
awarded commissions to 27,798 white officers (22.7 percent of those
applying) and 96 black officers (10.3 percent of the applicants).
Preliminary rejections based on efficiency and education ran close to
40 percent of the applicants of both races. The disparity in
rejections by race appeared when applicants went before the Selection
Board itself; only 18.55 percent of the remaining black applicants
were accepted while 39.35 percent of the white applicants were
selected for Regular Army commissions.[8-43]
[Footnote 8-43: "Analysis of Negro Officers in the
Army," incl w/Memo, D/P&A for DCAS, 21 Jun 48, sub:
Report of Negro Publishers and Editors..., CSUSA
291.2 Negroes (14 May 48).]
Given statistics like these, it was difficult to stimulate black
interest in a career as an Army officer, as General Paul was well
aware. He had the distribution of black officers appointed to the
Regular Army studied in 1947 to see if it was in consonance with the
new racial policy. While most of the arms and services passed muster
with the Personnel and Administration Division, Paul felt compelled to
remind the Chief of Engineers, whose corps had so far awarded no
Regular Army commission to the admittedly limited number of black
applicants, that officers were to be accepted in the Regular Army
without regard to race. He repeated this warning to the Quartermaster
General and the Chief of Transportation; both had accepted black
officers for the Regular Army but had selected only the smallest
fraction of those applying. Although the black applicants did score
slightly below the whites, Paul doubted that integration would lower
the standards of quality in these branches, and he wanted every effort
made to increase the number of black officers.[8-44]
[Footnote 8-44: DF, D/P&A to Chief of Engrs, 25 Jul
47, sub: Appointment of Negro Officers to the
Regular Army, w/attached Memo for Rcd, WDGPA 291.2
(23 Jul 47).]
The Chief of Engineers, quick to defend his record, explained that the
race of candidates was difficult to ascertain and had not been
considered in the selection process. Nevertheless, he had reexamined
all rejected applications and found two from Negroes whose (p. 223)
composite scores were acceptable. Both men, however, fell so short of
meeting the minimum professional requirements that to appoint either
would be to accord preferential treatment denied to hundreds of other
underqualified applicants.[8-45] It would appear that bias and prejudice
were not the only governing factors in the shortage of black officers,
but rather that in some ways at least Circular 124 was making
impossible demands on the Army's personnel system.
[Footnote 8-45: DF, Chief of Engrs to D/P&A, 1 Aug
47, sub: Appointment of Negro Officers to the
Regular Army, copy in WPGPA 291.2 (23 Jul 47).]
_Discrimination and the Postwar Army_
Training black soldiers and trying to provide them with black officers
was a practical move demanded by the Army's new race policy. At the
same time, often with reluctance and only after considerable pressure
had been brought to bear, the Army also began to attack certain
practices that discriminated against the black soldier. One was the
arbitrary location of training camps after the war. In November 1946,
for example, the Army Ground Forces reorganized its training centers
for the Army, placing them at six installations: Fort Dix, New Jersey;
Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Fort Knox, Kentucky; Fort Jackson, South
Carolina; Fort Lewis, Washington, and Fort Ord, California. White
enlisted and reenlisted men were sent to the training centers within
the geographical limits of the Army area of their enlistment. Because
it was impossible for the Army Ground Forces to maintain separate
black training cadres of battalion size at each of the six centers,
all Negroes, except those slated for service in the Army Air Forces,
were sent to Fort Jackson.[8-46]
[Footnote 8-46: WD Memo 615-500-4, 21 Nov 46, sub:
Flow of Enlisted Personnel From Induction Centers
and Central Examining Stations.]
The Gillem Board had called for the assignment of Negroes to
localities where community attitudes were favorable, and Marcus Ray
protested the Ground Forces action. "It is in effect a restatement of
policy and ... has implications which will affect adversely the
relationship of the Army and our Negro manpower potential.... I am
certain that this ruling will have the immediate effect of
crystallizing Negro objections to the enlistment of qualified men and
also Universal Military Training."[8-47]
[Footnote 8-47: Memo, Marcus Ray for ASW, 23 Jan 47,
ASW 291.2.]
Ray reminded Assistant Secretary of War Petersen that the Fort Jackson
area had been the scene of many racial disturbances since 1941 and
that an increase in the black troop population would only intensify
the hostile community attitude. He wanted to substitute Fort Dix and
Fort Ord for Fort Jackson. He also had another suggestion: Why not
assign black training companies to white battalions, especially in
those training centers that drew their populations from northern,
eastern, and western communities?
Petersen ignored for the time being Ray's suggestion for composite
training groups, but he readily agreed on training black soldiers at
more congenial posts, particularly after Ray's views were aired in the
black press. Petersen also urged the Deputy Chief of Staff to (p. 224)
coordinate staff actions with Ray whenever instructions dealing
with race relations in the Army were being prepared.[8-48] At the same
time, Secretary of War Patterson assured Walter White of the NAACP,
who had also protested sending Negroes to Fort Jackson, that the
matter was under study.[8-49] Within a matter of months Negroes entering
the Army from civilian life were receiving their training at Fort Dix
and Fort Ord.
[Footnote 8-48: Memo, ASW for DCofS, 7 Feb 47, ASW
291.2.]
[Footnote 8-49: Ltr, SW Robert P. Patterson to Walter
White, 7 Feb 47, SW 291.2.]
Turning its back on the overt racism of some southern communities, the
Army unwittingly exposed an example of racism in the west. The plan to
train Negroes at Fort Ord aroused the combined opposition of the
citizens around Monterey Bay, who complained to Senator William F.
Knowland that theirs was a tourist area unable to absorb thousands of
black trainees "without serious threat of racial conflict." The Army
reacted with forthright resistance. Negroes would be trained at Fort
Ord, and the Secretary of the Army would be glad to explain the
situation and cooperate with the local citizenry.[8-50]
[Footnote 8-50: Telg, Hugh F. Dormody, Mayor of
Monterey, Calif., et al., to Sen. William F.
Knowland, 31 Jul 48; Ltr, SA to Sen. Knowland, 16
May 48; both in CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (10 Aug 48).]
On the recommendation of the civilian aide, the Assistant Secretary of
War introduced another racial reform in January 1947 that removed
racial designations from overseas travel orders and authorizations
issued to dependents and War Department civilian employees.[8-51] The
order was strongly opposed by some members of the Army staff and had
to be repeated by the Secretary of the Army in 1951.[8-52] Branding
racial designations on travel orders a "continuous source of
embarrassment" to the Army, Secretary Frank Pace, Jr., sought to
include all travel orders in the prohibition, but the Army staff
persuaded him it was unwise. While the staff agreed that orders
involving travel between reception centers and training organizations
need not designate race, it convinced the secretary that to abolish
such designations on other orders, including overseas assignment
documents, would adversely affect strength and accounting procedures
as well as overseas replacement systems.[8-53] The modest reform
continued in effect until the question of racial designation became a
major issue in the 1960's.
[Footnote 8-51: AG Memo for Office of SW et al., 10
Jan 47, sub: Designation of Race on Overseas Travel
Orders, AGAO-C 291.2 (6 Jan 47), WDGSP; Memo for
Rcd attached to Memo, D/SSP for TAG, 6 Jan 47, same
sub, AG 291.2 (6 Jan 47).]
[Footnote 8-52: Memo, SA for CofSA, 2 Apr 52, sub:
Racial Designations on Travel Orders, CS 291.2 (2
Apr 51).]
[Footnote 8-53: G-1 Summary Sheet, 26 Apr 52, sub:
Racial Designations on Travel Orders; Memo, CofS
for SA, 5 May 51, same sub; both in CS 291.2 (2 Apr
51).]
Not all the reforms that followed the Gillem Board's deliberations
were so quickly adopted. For in truth the Army was not the monolithic
institution so often depicted by its critics, and its racial
directives usually came out of compromises between the progressive and
traditional factions of the staff. The integration of the national
cemeteries, an emotion-laden issue in 1947, amply demonstrated that
sharp differences of opinion existed within the department. Although
long-standing regulations provided for segregation by rank only, local
custom, and in one case--the Long Island National Cemetery--a 1935
order by Secretary of War George H. Dern, dictated racial (p. 225)
segregation in most of the cemeteries. The Quartermaster General
reviewed the practice in 1946 and recommended a new policy
specifically opening new sections of all national cemeteries to
eligible citizens of all races. He would leave undisturbed segregated
grave sites in the older sections of the cemeteries because
integration would "constitute a breach of faith with the next of kin
of those now interred."[8-54] As might be expected, General Paul
supported the quartermaster suggestion, as did the commander of the
Army Ground Forces. The Army Air Forces commander, on the other hand,
opposed integrating the cemeteries, as did the Chief of Staff, who on
22 February 1947 rejected the proposal. The existing policy was
reconfirmed by the Under Secretary of War three days later, and there
the matter rested.[8-55]
[Footnote 8-54: Memo, QMG for DCofS, 15 Apr 47,
CSUSA, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 8-55: WDSP Summary Sheet, 22 Jan 47, sub:
Staff Study--Segregation of Grave Sites, WDGSP/C3
1894.]
Not for long, for civil rights spokesmen and the black press soon
protested. The NAACP confessed itself "astonished" at the Army's
decision and demanded that Secretary Patterson change a practice that
was both "un-American and un-democratic."[8-56] Marcus Ray predicted
that continuing agitation would require further Army action, and he
reminded Under Secretary Royall that cemeteries under the jurisdiction
of the Navy, Veterans Administration, and Department of the Interior
had been integrated with considerable publicity. He urged adoption of
the Quartermaster General's recommendation.[8-57] That was enough for
Secretary Patterson. On 15 April he directed that the new sections of
national cemeteries be integrated.[8-58]
[Footnote 8-56: Telg, Secy Veterans Affairs, NAACP,
to SW, attached to Memo, SW for DCofS, 11 Apr 47,
copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 8-57: Memo, Civilian Aide for USW, 15 Mar
47, sub: Segregation in Grave Site Assignment, copy
in CMH.]
[Footnote 8-58: Memo, SW for DCofS, 15 Apr 47, copy
in CMH. The secretary's directive was incorporated
in the _National Cemetery Regulations_, August
1947, and Army Regulation 290-5, 2 October 1951.]
It was a hollow victory for the reformers because the traditionalists
were able to cling to the secretary's proviso that old sections of the
cemeteries be left alone, and the Army continued to gather its dead in
segregation and in bitter criticism. Five months after the secretary's
directive, the American Legion protested to the Secretary of War over
segregation at the Fort Snelling National Cemetery, Minnesota, and in
August 1950 the Governor's Interracial Commission of the State of
Minnesota carried the matter to the President, calling the policy "a
flagrant disregard of human dignity."[8-59] The Army continued to
justify segregation as a temporary and limited measure involving the
old sections, but a decade after the directive the commander of the
Atlanta Depot was still referring to segregation in some
cemeteries.[8-60] The controversial practice would drag on into the next
decade before the Department of Defense finally ruled that there would
be no lines drawn by rank or race in national cemeteries.
[Footnote 8-59: Ltr, Royall to Rep. Edward J. Devitt
of Minnesota, 4 Sep 47; Ltr, Clifford Rucker to the
President, 9 Aug 50; both in SW 291.2.]
[Footnote 8-60: Ltr, CG, Atlanta Depot, to DQMG, 19
Mar 56, MGME-P. See also Memo, ASA (M&RF) for CofS,
27 Sep 52, sub: Segregation of National Cemeteries;
DF, QMF to G-4, 6 Oct 52, same sub; both in CS 687
(27 Sep 52).]
An attempt to educate the rank and file in the Army's racial (p. 226)
policy met some opposition in the Army staff. At General Paul's
request, the Information and Education Division prepared a pamphlet
intended to improve race relations through troop indoctrination.[8-61]
_Army Talk 170_, published on 1 April 1947, was, like its World War II
predecessors, _Command of Negro Troops_ and _The Negro Soldier_,
progressive for the times. While it stressed the reforms projected in
the Army's policy, including eventual integration, it also clearly
defended the Army's continued insistence on segregation on the grounds
that segregation promoted interracial harmony. The official position
of the service was baldly stated. "The Army is not an instrument of
social reform. Its interest in matters of race is confined to
considerations of its own effectiveness."
[Footnote 8-61: Memo, D/P&A for CofS, 26 Feb 47, sub:
Army Talks on "Utilization of Negro Manpower,"
WDGPA 291.2 (7 Jan 47).]
Even before publication the pamphlet provoked considerable discussion
and soul-searching in the Army staff. The Deputy Chief of Staff, Lt.
Gen. Thomas T. Handy, questioned some of the Information and Education
Division's claims for black combatants. In the end the matter had to
be taken to General Eisenhower for resolution. He ordered publication,
reminding local commanders that if necessary they should add further
instructions of their own, "in keeping with the local situation" to
insure acceptance of the Army's policy. The pamphlet was not to be
considered an end in itself, he added, but only one element in a
"progressive process toward maximum utilization of manpower in the
Army."[8-62]
[Footnote 8-62: WD Cir 76, 22 Mar 47; see also Ltrs,
Col David Lane (author of _Army Talk 170_) to
Martin Blumenson, 29 Dec 66, and to author, 15 Mar
71, CMH files.]
_Segregation in Theory and Practice_
Efforts to carry out the policy set forth in Circular 124 reached a
high-water mark in mid-1948. By then black troops, for so long limited
to a few job categories, could be found in a majority of military
occupational fields. The officer corps was open to all without the
restrictions of a racial quota, and while a quota for enlisted men
still existed all racial distinctions in standards of enlistment were
gone. The Army was replacing white officers in black units with
Negroes as fast as qualified black replacements became available. And
more were qualifying every day. By 30 June 1948 the Army had almost
1,000 black commissioned officers, 5 warrant officers, and 67 nurses
serving with over 65,000 enlisted men and women.[8-63]
[Footnote 8-63: STM-30, Strength of the Army, 1 Jul
48. For an optimistic report on the execution of
Circular 124, see _Annual Report of the Secretary
of the Army, 1948_ (Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1949), pp. 7-8, 83, 94.]
But here, in the eyes of the Army's critics, was the rub: after three
years of racial reform segregation not only remained but had been
perfected. No longer would the Army be plagued with the vast all-black
divisions that had segregated thousands of Negroes in an admittedly
inefficient and often embarrassing manner. Instead, Negroes would
be segregated in more easily managed hundreds. By limiting (p. 227)
integration to the battalion level (the lowest self-sustaining unit in
the Army system), the Army could guarantee the separation of the races
in eating, sleeping, and general social matters and still hope to
escape some of the obvious discrimination of separate units by making
the black battalions organic elements of larger white units. The
Army's scheme did not work. Schooling and specialty occupations aside,
segregation quite obviously remained the essential fact of military
life and social intercourse for the majority of black soldiers, and
all the evidence of reasonable and genuine reform that came about
under the Gillem Board policy went aglimmering. The Army was in for
some rough years with its critics.
But why were the Army's senior officers, experienced leaders at the
pinnacle of their careers and dedicated to the well-being of the
institution they served, so reluctant to part with segregation? Why
did they cling to an institution abandoned by the Navy and the Air
Force,[8-64] the target of the civil rights movement and its allies in
Congress, and by any reasonable judgment so costly in terms of
efficient organization? The answers lie in the reasoned defense of
their position developed by these men during the long controversy over
the use of black troops and so often presented in public statements
and documents.[8-65] Arguments for continued segregation fell into four
general categories.
[Footnote 8-64: The Air Force became a separate
service on 18 September 1947.]
[Footnote 8-65: Unless otherwise noted, the following
paragraphs are based on Nichols' interviews in 1953
with Generals Eisenhower, Bradley, and Lee and with
Lt. Col. Steve Davis (a black officer assigned to
the P&A Division during the Gillem Board period);
author's interview with General Wade H. Haislip, 18
Mar 71, and with General J. Lawton Collins, 27 Apr
71; all in CMH files; and U.S. Congress, Senate,
Hearings Before the U.S. Senate Committee on _Armed
Services, Universal Military Training_, 80th Cong.,
2d sess., 1948, pp. 995-96. See also Morris
Janowitz, _The Professional Soldier: A Social and
Political Portrait_ (New York: Free Press, 1960),
pp. 87ff.]
First, segregation was necessary to preserve the internal stability of
the Army. Prejudice was a condition of American society, General of
the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower told a Senate committee in 1948, and the
Army "is merely one of the mirrors that holds up to our faces the
United States of America." Since society separated the races, it
followed that if the Army allowed black and white soldiers to live and
socialize together it ran the very real risk of riots and racial
disturbances which could disrupt its vital functions. Remembering the
contribution of black platoons to the war in Europe, General
Eisenhower, for his part, was willing to accept the risk and integrate
the races by platoons, believing that the social problems "can be
handled," particularly on the large posts. Nevertheless he made no
move toward integrating by platoons while he was Chief of Staff. Later
he explained that
the possibility of applying this lesson [World War II integration
of Negro platoons] to the peacetime Army came up again and again.
Objection involved primarily the social side of the soldier's
life. It was argued that through integration we would get into
all kinds of difficulty in staging soldiers' dances and other
social events. At that time we were primarily occupied in
responding to America's determination "to get the soldiers
home"--so, as I recall, little progress toward integration was
made during that period.[8-66]
[Footnote 8-66: Ltr, DDE to Gen Bruce Clarke
(commander of the 2d Constabulary Brigade when it
was integrated in 1950), 29 May 67, copy in CMH.]
[Illustration: INSPECTION BY THE CHIEF OF STAFF. _General Dwight D.
Eisenhower talks with a soldier of the 25th Combat Team Motor Pool
during a tour of Fort Benning, Georgia, 1947._]
"Liquor and women," Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee pronounced, were the (p. 228)
major ingredients of racial turmoil in the Army. Although General
Lee had been a prime mover in the wartime integration of combat
platoons, he wanted the Army to avoid social integration because of
the disturbances he believed would attend it. As General Omar N.
Bradley saw it, the Army could integrate its training programs but not
the soldier's social life. Hope of progress would be destroyed if
integration was pushed too fast. Bradley summed up his postwar
attitude very simply: "I said let's go easy--as fast as we can."
Second, segregation was an efficient way to isolate the poorly
educated and undertrained black soldier, especially one with a combat
occupational specialty. To integrate Negroes into white combat units,
already dangerously understrength, would threaten the Army's fighting
ability. When he was Chief of Staff, Eisenhower thought many of the
problems associated with black soldiers, problems of morale, health,
and discipline, were problems of education, and that the Negro was
capable of change. "I believe," he said, "that a Negro can improve his
standing and his social standing and his respect for certain of the
standards that we observe, just as well as we can." Lt. Gen. Wade H.
Haislip, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Administration, concluded that
the Army's racial mission was education. All that Circular 124 meant,
he explained, "was that we had to begin educating the Negro soldiers
so they could be mixed sometime in the future." Bradley observed in
agreement that "as you begin to get better educated Negroes in the
service," there is "more reason to integrate." The Army was pledged to
accept Negroes and to give them a wide choice of assignment, but until
their education and training improved they had to be isolated.
Third, segregation was the only way to provide equal treatment and
opportunity for black troops. Defending this paternalistic argument,
Eisenhower told the Senate:
In general, the Negro is less well educated ... and if you make a
complete amalgamation, what you are going to have is in every
company the Negro is going to be relegated to the minor jobs, and
he is never going to get his promotion to such grades as
technical sergeant, master sergeant, and so on, because the
competition is too tough. If, on the other hand, he is in (p. 229)
smaller units of his own, he can go up to that rate, and I
believe he is entitled to the chance to show his own wares.
Fourth, segregation was necessary because segments of American society
with powerful representatives in Congress were violently opposed to
mixing the races. Bradley explained that integration was part of
social evolution, and he was afraid that the Army might move too fast
for certain sections of the country. "I thought in 1948 that they were
ready in the North," he added, "but not in the South." The south
"learned over the years that mixing the races was a vast problem."
Bradley continued, "so any change in the Army would be a big step in
the South." General Haislip reasoned, you "just can't do it all of a
sudden." As for the influence of those opposed to maintaining the
Army's social _status quo_, Haislip, who was the Vice Chief of Staff
during part of the Gillem Board period, recalled that "everybody was
floundering around, trying to find the right thing to do. I didn't
lose any sleep over it [charges of discrimination]." General
Eisenhower, as he did so often during his career, accurately distilled
the thinking of his associates:
I believe that the human race may finally grow up to the point
where it [race relations] will not be a problem. It [the race
problem] will disappear through education, through mutual
respect, and so on. But I do believe that if we attempt merely by
passing a lot of laws to force someone to like someone else, we
are just going to get into trouble. On the other hand, I do not
by any means hold out for this extreme segregation as I said when
I first joined the Army 38 years ago.
These arguments might be specious, as a White House committee would
later demonstrate, but they were not necessarily guileful, for they
were the heartfelt opinions of many of the Army's leaders, opinions
shared by officials of the other services. These men were probably
blind to the racism implicit in their policies, a racism nurtured by
military tradition. Education and environment had fostered in these
career officers a reverence for tradition. Why should the Army, these
traditionalists might ask, abandon its black units, some with
histories stretching back almost a century? Why should the ordered
social life of the Army post, for so long a mirror of the segregated
society of most civilian communities, be so uncomfortably changed? The
fact that integration had never really been tried before made it
fraught with peril, and all the forces of military tradition conspired
to support the old ways.
What had gone unnoticed by Army planners was the subtle change in the
attitude of the white enlisted man toward integration. Opinion surveys
were rare in an institution dedicated to the concept of military
discipline, but nevertheless in the five years following the war
several surveys were made of the racial views of white troops (the
views of black soldiers were ignored, probably on the assumption that
all Negroes favored integration). In 1946, just as the Gillem Board
policy was being enunciated, the Army staff found enlisted men in
substantial agreement on segregation. Although most of those surveyed
supported the expanded use of Negroes in the Army, an overwhelming
majority voted for the principle of having racially separate working
and living arrangements. Yet the pollsters found much less opposition
to integration when they put their questions on a personal basis--"How
do _you_ feel about...?" Only southerners as a group registered a
clear majority for segregated working conditions. The survey also (p. 230)
revealed another encouraging portent: most of the opposition to
integration existed among older and less educated men.[8-67]
[Footnote 8-67: The 1946 survey is contained in
CINFO, "Supplementary Rpt on Attitudes of Whites
Toward Serving With Negro EM," Incl to Memo, Col
Charles S. Johnson, Exec Off, CofS, for DCofS, 24
May 49, sub: Segregation in the Army, CSUSA 291.2
Negroes (24 May 48).]
[Illustration: GENERAL DAVIS.]
Three years later the Secretary of Defense sponsored another survey of
enlisted opinion on segregation. This time less than a third of those
questioned were opposed to integrated working conditions and some 40
percent were not "definitely opposed" to complete integration of both
working and living arrangements. Again men from all areas tended to
endorse integration as their educational level rose; opposition, on
the other hand, centered in 1949 among the chronic complainers and
those who had never worked with Negroes.[8-68]
[Footnote 8-68: Armed Forces I&E Div, OSD, Rpt No.
101, "Morale Attitudes of Enlisted Men, May-June
1949," pt. II, Attitude Toward Integration of Negro
Soldiers in the Army, copy in CMH.]
In discussing prejudice and discrimination it is necessary to compare
the Army with the rest of American society. Examining the question of
race relations in the Army runs the risk of distorting the importance
given the subject by the nation as a whole in the postwar period.
While resistance to segregation was undoubtedly growing in the black
community and among an increasing number of progressives in the white
community, there was as yet no widespread awareness of the problem and
certainly no concerted public effort to end it. This lack of
perception might be particularly justified in the case of Army
officers, for few of them had any experience with black soldiers and
most undoubtedly were not given to wide reading and reflecting on the
subject of race relations. Moreover, the realities of military life
tended to insulate Army officers from the main currents of American
society. Frequently transferred and therefore without roots in the
civilian community, isolated for years at a time in overseas
assignments, their social life often centered in the military
garrison, officers might well have been less aware of racial
discrimination.
Perhaps because of the insulation imposed on officers by their duties,
the Army's leaders were achieving reforms far beyond those accepted
elsewhere in American society. Few national organizations and
industries could match the Army in 1948 for the number of Negroes
employed, the breadth of responsibility given them, and the variety
of their training and occupations. Looked at in this light, the (p. 231)
Army of 1948 and the men who led it could with considerable
justification be classed as a progressive force in the fight for
racial justice.
_Segregation: An Assessment_
The gap between the Army's stated goal of integration and its
continuing practices had grown so noticeable in 1948, a presidential
election year, that most civil rights spokesmen and their allies in
the press had become disillusioned with Army reforms. Benjamin O.
Davis, still the Army's senior black officer and still after eight
years a brigadier general, called the Army staff's attention to the
shift in attitude. Most had greeted publication of Circular 124 as
"the dawn of a new day for the colored soldier"--General Davis's
words--and looked forward to the gradual eradication of segregation.
But Army practices in subsequent months had brought disappointment, he
warned the under secretary, and the black press had become "restless
and impatient." He wanted the Army staff to give "definite expression
of the desire of the Department of National Defense for the
elimination of all forms of discrimination-segregation from the Armed
Services."[8-69] The suggestion was disapproved. General Paul explained
that the Army could not make such a policy statement since Circular
124 permitted segregated units and a quota that by its nature
discriminated at least in terms of numbers of Negroes assigned.[8-70]
[Footnote 8-69: Memo, Brig Gen B. O. Davis, Sp Asst
to SA, for Under SA, 7 Jan 48, sub: Negro
Utilization in the Postwar Army, WDGPA 291-2;
ibid., 24 Nov 47; both in SA files. The quotations
are from the latter document.]
[Footnote 8-70: Memo, D/P&A for Under SA, 29 Apr 48,
sub: Negro Utilization in the Postwar Army, WDGPA
291.2.]
In February 1948 the Chief of Information tried to counter criticism
by asking personnel and administrative officials to collect favorable
opinions from prominent civilians, "particularly Negroes and
sociologists." But this antidote to public criticism failed because,
as the deputy personnel director had to admit, "the Division does not
have knowledge of any expressed favorable opinion either of
individuals or organizations, reference our Negro policy."[8-71]
[Footnote 8-71: DF's, CINFO to D/P&A, 9 Feb 48, and
Dep D/P&A to CINFO, 12 Feb 48; both in WDGPA 291.2
(9 Feb 48).]
A constant concern because it marred the Army's public image,
segregation also had a profound effect on the performance and
well-being of the black soldier. This effect was difficult to measure
but nevertheless real and has been the subject of considerable study
by social scientists.[8-72] Their opinions are obviously open to debate,
and in fact most of them were not fully formulated during the period
under discussion. Yet their conclusions, based on modern sociological
techniques, clearly reveal the pain and turmoil suffered by black
soldiers because of racial separation. Rarely did the Army staff
bother to delve into these matters in the years before Korea, (p. 232)
although the facts on which the scientists based their conclusions
were collected by the War Department itself. This indifference is the
more curious because the Army had always been aware of what the War
Department Policies and Programs Review Board called in 1947 "that
intangible aspect of military life called prestige and spirit."[8-73]
[Footnote 8-72: For a detailed discussion of this
point, see Mandelbaum, _Soldier Groups and Negro
Soldiers_; Stouffer et al., _The American Soldier:
Adjustment During Army Life_, ch. XII; Eli
Ginzberg, _The Negro Potential_ (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1956); Ginzberg et al., _The
Ineffective Soldier_, vol. III, _Patterns of
Performance_ (New York: Columbia University Press,
1959); _To Secure These Rights: The Report of the
President's Committee on Civil Rights_ (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1947); Dollard and
Young, "In the Armed Forces."]
[Footnote 8-73: Final Rpt, WD Policies and Programs
Review Board, 11 Aug 47, CSUSA files.]
Burdened with the task of shoring up its racial policy, the Army staff
failed to concern itself with the effect of segregation. Yet by
ignoring segregation the staff overlooked the primary cause of its
racial problems and condemned the Army to their continuation. It need
not have been, because as originally conceived, the Gillem Board
policy provided, in the words of the Assistant Secretary of War, for
"progressive experimentation" leading to "effective manpower
utilization without regard to race or color."[8-74] This reasonable
approach to a complex social issue was recognized as such by the War
Department and by many black spokesmen. But the Gillem Board's
original goal was soon abandoned, and in the "interest of National
Defense," according to Secretary Royall, integration was postponed for
the indefinite future.[8-75] Extension of individual integration below
the company level was forbidden, and the lessons learned at the
Kitzingen Training Center were never applied elsewhere; in short,
progressive experimentation was abandoned.
[Footnote 8-74: Ltr, Howard C. Petersen, ASW, to
William M. Taylor, 12 May 47, ASW 291.2.]
[Footnote 8-75: Department of National Defense,
"National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs," 26
Apr 48, morning session, p. 24.]
The Gillem Board era began with Secretary Patterson accepting the
theory of racially separate but equal service as an anodyne for
temporary segregation; it ended with Secretary Royall embracing a
permanent separate but equal system as a shield to protect the racial
_status quo_. While Patterson and his assistants accepted restriction
on the number of Negroes and their assignment to segregated jobs and
facilities as a temporary expedient, military subordinates used the
Gillem Board's reforms as a way to make more efficient a segregation
policy that neither they nor, they believed, society in general was
willing to change. Thus, despite some real progress on the periphery
of its racial problem, the Army would have to face the enemy in Korea
with an inefficient organization of its men.
The Army's postwar policy was based on a false premise. The Gillem
Board decided that since Negroes had fought poorly in segregated
divisions in two world wars, they might fight better in smaller
segregated organizations within larger white units. Few officers
really believed this, for it was commonly accepted throughout the Army
that Negroes generally made poor combat soldiers. It followed then
that the size of a unit was immaterial, and indeed, given the manpower
that the Army received from reenlistments and Selective Service, any
black unit, no matter its size, would almost assuredly be an
inefficient, spiritless group of predominately Class IV and V men. For
in addition to its educational limitations, the typical black unit
suffered a further handicap in the vital matter of motivation. The
Gillem Board disregarded this fact, but it was rarely overlooked by
the black soldier: he was called upon to serve as a second-class (p. 233)
soldier to defend what he often regarded as his second-class
citizenship. In place of unsatisfactory black divisions, Circular 124
made the Army substitute three unsatisfactorily mixed divisions whose
black elements were of questionable efficiency and a focus of
complaint among civil rights advocates. Commanders at all levels faced
a dilemma implicit in the existence of white and black armies side by
side. Overwhelmed by regulations and policies that tried to preserve
the fiction of separate but equal opportunity, these officers wasted
their time and energy and, most often in the case of black officers,
lost their self-confidence.
In calling for the integration of small black units rather than
individuals, the Gillem Board obviously had in mind the remarkably
effective black platoons in Europe in the last months of World War II.
But even this type of organization was impossible in the postwar Army
because it demanded a degree of integration that key commanders,
especially the major Army component commanders, were unwilling to
accept.
These real problems were intensified by the normal human failings of
prejudice, vested interest, well-meaning ignorance, conditioned
upbringing, shortsightedness, preoccupation with other matters, and
simple reluctance to change. The old ways were comfortable, and the
new untried, frightening in their implications and demanding special
effort. Nowhere was there enthusiasm for the positive measures needed
to implement the Gillem Board's recommendations leading to
integration. This unwillingness to act positively was particularly
noticeable in the Organization and Training Division, in the Army
Ground Forces, and even to some extent in the Personnel and
Administration Division itself.
The situation might have improved had the Gillem Board been able or
willing to spell out intermediate goals. For the ultimate objective of
using black soldiers like white soldiers as individuals was
inconceivable and meaningless or radical and frightening to many in
the Army. Interim goals might have provided impetus for gradual change
and precluded the virtual inertia that gripped the Army staff. But at
best Circular 124 served as a stopgap measure, allowing the Army to
postpone for a few more years any substantial change in race policy.
This postponement cost the service untold time and effort devising and
defending a system increasingly under attack from the black community
and, significantly, from that community's growing allies in the
administration.
CHAPTER 9 (p. 234)
The Postwar Navy
That Army concerns and problems dominated the discussions of race
relations in the armed forces in the postwar years is understandable
since the Army had the largest number of Negroes and the most widely
publicized segregation policy of all the services. At the same time
the Army bore, unfairly, the brunt of public criticism for all the
services' race problems. The Navy, committed to a policy of
integration, but with relatively few Negroes in its integrated general
service or in the ranks of the segregated Marine Corps and the new Air
Force, its racial policy still fluid, merely attracted less attention
and so escaped many of the charges hurled at the Army by civil rights
advocates both in and out of the federal government. But however
different or unformed their racial policies, all the services for the
most part segregated Negroes in practice and all were open to charges
of discrimination.
Although the services developed different racial policies out of their
separate circumstances, all three were reacting to the same set of
social forces and all three suffered from race prejudice. They also
faced in common a growing indifference to military careers on the part
of talented young Negroes who in any case would have to compete with
an aging but persistent group of less talented black professionals for
a limited number of jobs. Of great importance was the fact that the
racial practices of the armed forces were a product of the individual
service's military traditions. Countless incidents support the
contention that service traditions were a transcendent factor in
military decisions. Marx Leva, Forrestal's assistant, told the story
of a Forrestal subordinate who complained that some admirals were
still opposed to naval aviation, to which Forrestal replied that he
knew some admirals who still opposed steam engines.[9-1] Forrestal's
humorous exaggeration underscored the tenacity of traditional
attitudes in the Navy. Although self-interest could never be
discounted as a motive, tradition also figured prominently, for
example, in the controversy between proponents of the battleship and
proponents of the aircraft carrier. Certainly the influence of
tradition could be discerned in the antipathy of Navy officials toward
racial change.[9-2]
[Footnote 9-1: Interv, Lee Nichols with Marx Leva,
1953, in Nichols Collection, CMH.]
[Footnote 9-2: On the survival of traditional
attitudes in the Navy, see Karsten, _Naval
Aristocracy_, ch. v; Waldo H. Heinricks, Jr., "The
Role of the U.S. Navy," in Dorothy Borg and Shumpei
Okamoto, eds., _Pearl Harbor as History_ (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1973); David Rosenberg,
"Arleigh Burke and Officer Development in the
Inter-war Navy," _Pacific Historical Review_ 44
(November 1975).]
The Army also had its problems with tradition. It endured tremendous
inner conflict before it decided to drop the cavalry in favor of
mechanized and armored units. Nor did the resistance to armor die
quickly. Former Chief of Staff Peyton C. March reported that a (p. 235)
previous Chief of Cavalry told him in 1950 that the Army had
betrayed the horse.[9-3] President Roosevelt was also a witness to how
military tradition frustrated attempts to change policy. He picked his
beloved Navy to make the point: "To change anything in the Na-a-vy is
like punching a feather bed. You punch it with your right and you
punch it with your left until you are finally exhausted, and then you
find the damn bed just as it was before you started punching."[9-4] Many
senior officers resisted equal treatment and opportunity simply
because of their traditional belief that Negroes needed special
treatment and any basic change in their status was fraught with
danger.[9-5]
[Footnote 9-3: Edward M. Coffman, _The Hilt of the
Sword_ (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1966), p. 245.]
[Footnote 9-4: Quoted in Marriner S. Eccles,
_Beckoning Frontiers: Public and Personal
Recollections_, ed. Sidney Hyman (New York: Knopf,
1951), p. 336.]
[Footnote 9-5: The influence of tradition on naval
racial practices was raised during the hearings of
the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment
and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 13 January
1949, pages 105-08, 111-12.]
Still, tradition could work two ways, and in the case of the Navy, at
least, the postwar decision to liberalize racial practices can be
traced in part to its sense of tradition. When James Forrestal started
to integrate the general service in 1944, his appeals to his senior
military colleagues, the President, and the public were always couched
in terms of military efficiency. But if military efficiency made the
new policy announced in February 1946 inevitable, military tradition
made partial integration acceptable. Black sailors had served in
significant numbers in an integrated general service during the
nation's first century and a half, and those in the World War II
period who spoke of a traditional Navy ban against Negroes were just
as wrong as those who spoke of a traditional ban on liquor. The same
abstemious secretary who completely outlawed alcohol on warships in
1914 initiated the short-lived restrictions on the service of Negroes
in the Navy.[9-6] Both limited integration and liquor were old
traditions in the American Navy, and the influence of military
tradition made integration of the general service relatively simple.
[Footnote 9-6: SecNav (Josephus Daniels) General
Order 90, 1 Jul 14. Alcohol had been outlawed for
enlisted men at sea by Secretary John D. Long more
than a decade earlier. The 1914 prohibition rule
infuriated the officers. One predicted that the
ruling would push officers into "the use of cocaine
and other dangerous drugs." Quoted in Ronald
Spector, _Admiral of the New Empire_ (Baton Rouge:
University of Louisiana Press, 1974), pp. 191-92.]
Forrestal was convinced that in order to succeed racial reform must
first be accepted by the men already in uniform; integration, if
quietly and gradually put into effect, would soon demonstrate its
efficiency and make the change acceptable to all members of the
service. Quiet gradualism became the hallmark of his effort. In August
1945 the Navy had some 165,000 Negroes, almost 5.5 percent of its
total strength. Sixty-four of them, including six women, were
commissioned officers.[9-7] Presumably, these men and women would be the
first to enjoy the fruits of the new integration order. Their number
could also be expected to increase because, as Secretary Forrestal
reported in August 1946, the only quotas on enlistment were those
determined by the needs of the Navy and the limitation of (p. 236)
funds.[9-8] Even as he spoke, at least some black sailors were being
trained in almost all naval ratings and were serving throughout the
fleet, on planes and in submarines, working and living with whites.
The signs pointed to a new day for Negroes in the Navy.
[Footnote 9-7: Unless otherwise noted the statistical
information used in this section was supplied by
the Office, Assistant Chief for Management
Information, BuPers. See also BuPers, "Enlisted
Strength--U.S. Navy," 26 Jul 46, Pers 215-BL, copy
in CMH.]
[Footnote 9-8: Ltr, SecNav to Harvard Chapter, AVC,
26 Aug 46, P16-3 MM GenRecsNav.]
[Illustration: SHORE LEAVE IN KOREA. _Men of the USS Topeka land in
Inch'on, 1948._]
But during the chaotic months of demobilization a different picture
began to emerge. Although Negroes continued to number about 5 percent
of the Navy's enlisted strength, their position altered radically. The
average strength figures for 1946 showed 3,300 Negroes, 16 percent of
the total black strength, serving in the integrated general service
while 17,300, or 84 percent, were classified as stewards. By mid-1948
the outlook was somewhat brighter, but still on the average only 38
percent of the Negroes in the Navy held jobs in the general service
while 62 percent remained in the nonwhite Steward's Branch. At this
time only three black officers remained on active duty. Again, what
Navy officials saw as military efficiency helps explain this postwar
retreat. Because of its rapidly sinking manpower needs, the Navy could
afford to set higher enlistment standards than the Army, and the fewer
available spaces in the general service went overwhelmingly to the
many more eligible whites who applied. Only in the Steward's Branch,
with its separate quotas and lower enlistment standards, did the (p. 237)
Navy find a place for the many black enlistees as well as the
thousands of stewards ready and willing to reenlist for peacetime
service.
If efficiency explains why the Navy's general service remained
disproportionately white, tradition explains how segregation and
racial exclusion could coexist with integration in an organization
that had so recently announced a progressive racial policy. Along with
its tradition of an integrated general service, the Navy had a
tradition of a white officer corps. It was natural for the Navy to
exclude black officers from the Regular Navy, Secretary John L.
Sullivan said later, just as it was common to place Negroes in mess
jobs.[9-9] A _modus vivendi_ could be seen emerging from the twin
dictates of efficiency and tradition: integrate a few thousand black
sailors throughout the general service in fulfillment of the letter of
the Bureau of Naval Personnel circular; as for the nonwhite Steward's
Branch and the lack of black officers, these conditions were ordinary
and socially comfortable. Since most Navy leaders agreed that the new
policy was fair and practical, no further changes seemed necessary in
the absence of a pressing military need or a demand from the White
House or Congress.
[Footnote 9-9: Interv, Nichols with Secretary John L.
Sullivan, Dec 52, in Nichols Collection, CMH.
Sullivan succeeded James Forrestal as secretary on
18 September 1947.]
To black publicists and other advocates of civil rights, the Navy's
postwar manpower statistics were self-explanatory: the Navy was
discriminating against the Negro. Time and again the Navy responded to
this charge, echoing Secretary Forrestal's contention that the Navy
had no racial quotas and that all restrictions on the employment of
black sailors had been lifted. As if suggesting that all racial
distinctions had been abandoned, personnel officials discontinued
publishing racial statistics and abolished the Special Programs
Unit.[9-10] Cynics might have ascribed other motives for these
decisions, but the civil rights forces apparently never bothered. For
the most part they left the Navy's apologists to struggle with the
increasingly difficult task of explaining why the placement of Negroes
deviated so markedly from assignment for whites.
[Footnote 9-10: The BuPers Progress Report (Pers
215), the major statistical publication of the
department, terminated its statistical breakdown by
race in March 1946. The Navy's racial affairs
office was closed in June 1946. See BuPers,
"Narrative of Bureau of Naval Personnel, 1
September 1945 to 1 October 1946" (hereafter
"BuPers Narrative"), 1:73.]
The Navy's difficulty in this regard stemmed from the fact that the
demobilization program under which it geared down from a 3.4
million-man service to a peacetime force of less than half a million
was quite straightforward and simple. Consequently, the latest state
of the Negro in the Navy was readily apparent to the black serviceman
and to the public. The key to service in the postwar Navy was
acceptance into the Regular Navy. The wartime Navy had been composed
overwhelmingly of reservists and inductees, and shortly after V-J day
the Navy announced plans for the orderly separation of all reservists
by September 1946. In April 1946 it discontinued volunteer enlistment
in the Naval Reserve for immediate active duty, and in May it (p. 238)
issued its last call for draftees through Selective Service.[9-11]
[Footnote 9-11: Ibid., p. 143; Selective Service
System, _Special Groups_ (Monograph 10), 2:200.
Between September 1945 and May 1946 the Navy
drafted 20,062 men, including 3,394 Negroes.]
At the same time the Bureau of Naval Personnel launched a vigorous
program to induce reservists to switch to the Regular Navy. In October
1945 it opened all petty officer ratings in the Regular Navy to such
transfers and offered reservists special inducements for changeover in
the form of ratings, allowance extras, and, temporarily, short-term
enlistments. So successful was the program that by July 1947 the
strength of the Regular Navy had climbed to 488,712, only a few
thousand short of the postwar authorization. The Navy ended its
changeover program in early 1947.[9-12] While it lasted, black
reservists and inductees shared in the program, although the chief of
the personnel recruiting division found it necessary to amplify the
recruiting instructions to make this point clear.[9-13] The Regular Navy
included 7,066 enlisted Negroes on V-J day, 2.1 percent of the total
enlisted strength. This figure nearly tripled in the next year to
20,610, although the percentage of Negroes only doubled.[9-14]
[Footnote 9-12: "BuPers Narrative," 1:141, 192; see
also BuPers Cir Ltr 41-46, 15 Feb 46.]
[Footnote 9-13: See Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to CO, Naval
Barracks, NAD, Seal Beach, Calif., 8 Oct 45, sub:
Eligibility of Negroes for Enlistment in USN, P16
MM, BuPersRecs; Recruiting Dir, BuPers, Directive
to Recruiting Officers, 25 Jan 46, quoted in
Nelson, "Integration of the Negro," p. 58.]
[Footnote 9-14: BuPers, "Enlisted Strength--U.S.
Navy," 26 Jul 46, Pers 215-BL.]
_The Steward's Branch_
The major concern of the civil rights groups was not so much the
number of Negroes in the Regular Navy, although this remained far
below the proportion of Negroes in the civilian population, but that
the majority of Negroes were being accepted for duty in the nonwhite
Steward's Branch. More than 97 percent of all black sailors in the
Regular Navy in December 1945 were in this branch. The ratio improved
somewhat in the next six months when 3,000 black general service
personnel (out of a wartime high of 90,000) transferred into the
Regular Navy while more than 10,000 black reservists and draftees
joined the 7,000 regulars already in the Steward's Branch.[9-15] The
statistical low point in terms of the ratio of Negroes in the postwar
regular general service and the Steward's Branch occurred in fiscal
year 1947 when only 19.21 percent of the Navy's regular black
personnel were assigned outside the Steward's Branch.[9-16] In short,
more than eight out of every ten Negroes in the Navy trained and
worked separately from white sailors, performing menial tasks and led
by noncommissioned officers denied the perquisites of rank.
[Footnote 9-15: Memo, Dir of Planning and Control,
BuPers, for Chief, NavPers (ca. Jan 46), sub: Negro
Personnel, Pers 21B, BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 9-16: BuPers, Memo on Discrimination of the
Negro, 24 Jan 59. filed in BuPers Technical
Library.]
The Navy itself had reason to be concerned. The Steward's Branch
created efficiency problems and was a constant source of embarrassment
to the service's public image. Because of its low standards, the
branch attracted thousands of poorly educated and underprivileged
individuals who had a high rate of venereal disease but were (p. 239)
engaged in preparing and serving food. Leaders within the branch
itself, although selected on the basis of recommendations from
superiors, examinations, and seniority, were often poor performers.
Relations between the individual steward and the outfit to which he
was assigned were often marked by personal conflicts and other
difficulties. Consequently, while stewards eagerly joined the branch
in the Regular Navy, the incidence of disciplinary problems among them
was high. The branch naturally earned the opprobrium of civil rights
groups, who were sensitive not only to the discrimination of a
separate branch for minorities but also to the unfavorable image these
men created of Negroes in the service.[9-17]
[Footnote 9-17: Memo, Lt Dennis D. Nelson for Dep
Dir. Pub Relations. 26 Mar 48, sub: Problems of the
Stewards' Branch, PR 221-5393, GenRecsNav. On
mental standards for stewards, sec BuPers Cir Ltr
41-46, 15 Feb 46.]
[Illustration: MESS ATTENDANTS, USS BUSHNELL, 1918.]
[Illustration: MESS ATTENDANTS, USS WISCONSIN, 1953.]
The Navy had a ready defense for its management of the branch. Its
spokesmen frequently explained that it performed an essential
function, especially at sea. Since this function was limited in scope,
they added, the Navy was able to reduce the standards for the branch,
thus opening opportunities for many men otherwise ineligible to join
the service. In order to offer a chance for advancement the Navy
had to create a separate recruiting and training system for (p. 240)
stewards. This separation in turn explained the steward's usual
failure to transfer to branches in the regular command channels. Since
there were no minimum standards for the branch, it followed that most
of its noncommissioned officers remained unqualified to exercise
military command over personnel other than their branch subordinates.
Lack of command responsibility was also present in a number of other
branches not directly concerned with the operation of ships. It was
not the result of race prejudice, therefore, but of standards for
enlistment and types of duties performed. Nor was the steward's
frequent physical separation based on race; berthing was arranged by
department and function aboard large vessels. Separation did not exist
on smaller ships. Messmen were usually berthed with other men of the
supply department, including bakers and storekeepers. Chief stewards,
however, as Under Secretary Kimball later explained, had not been
required to meet the military qualifications for chief petty officer,
and therefore it was "considered improper that they should be accorded
the same messing, berthing, club facilities, and other privileges
reserved for the highest enlisted grade of the Navy."[9-18] Stewards of
the lower ranks received the same chance for advancement as members of
other enlisted branches, but to grant them command responsibility
would necessitate raising qualifications for the whole branch, (p. 241)
thus eliminating many career stewards and extending steward training
to include purely military subjects.[9-19]
[Footnote 9-18: Ltr, Under SecNav for Congressman
Clyde Doyle of California. 24 Aug 49, MM(1),
GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 9-19: For examples of the Navy's official
explanation of steward duties, see Ltr, Actg SecNav
to Lester Granger, 22 Apr 46, QN/MM(2), and Ltr,
Under SecNav to Congressman Clyde Doyle of
California, 24 Aug 49; both in GenRecsNav. See also
Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to Dr. Carl Yaeger, 16 Oct 47,
P16-1, BuPersRecs, and Testimony of Capt Fred R.
Stickney, BuPers, and Vice Adm William M.
Fechteler, Chief of Naval Personnel, before the
President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and
Opportunity in the Armed Services (Fahy Cmte), 13
Jan and 28 Mar 49.]
There was truth in these assertions. Stewards had taken advantage of
relaxed regulations, flocking into the Regular Navy during the first
months of the changeover program. Many did so because they had many
years invested in a naval career. Some may have wanted the training
and experience to be gained from messman's service. In fact, some
stewards enjoyed rewarding careers in restaurant, club, and hotel work
after retirement. More surprising, considering the numerous complaints
about the branch from civil rights groups, the Steward's Branch
consistently reported the highest reenlistment rate in the Navy.
Understandably, the Navy constantly reiterated these statistics.
Actually, the stewards themselves were a major stumbling block to
reform of the branch. Few of the senior men aspired to other ratings;
many were reluctant to relinquish what they saw as the advantages of
the messman's life. Whatever its drawbacks, messman's duty proved to
be a popular assignment.[9-20]
[Footnote 9-20: Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb 70.]
The Navy's defense was logical, but not too convincing. Technically
the Steward's Branch was open to all, but in practice it remained
strictly nonwhite. Civil rights activists could point to the fact that
there were six times as many illiterate whites as Negroes in the
wartime Navy, yet none of these whites were ever assigned to the
Steward's Branch and none transferred to that branch of the Regular
Navy after the war.[9-21] Moreover, shortly after the war the Bureau of
Naval Personnel predicted a 7,577-man shortage in the Steward's
Branch, but the Navy made no attempt to fill the places with white
sailors. Instead, it opened the branch to Filipinos and Guamanians,
recruiting 3,500 of the islanders before the program was stopped on 4
July 1946, the date of Philippine independence. Some Navy recruiters
found other ways to fill steward quotas. The Urban League and others
reported cases in which black volunteers were rejected by recruiters
for any assignment but steward duty.[9-22] Nor did civil rights
spokesmen appreciate the distinction in petty officer rank the Navy
made between the steward and other sailors; they continued to
interpret it as part and parcel of the "injustices, lack of respect
and the disregard for the privileges accorded rated men in other
branches of the service."[9-23] They also resented the paternalism
implicit in the secretary's assurances that messman's duty was a haven
for men unable to compete.
[Footnote 9-21: Ltr, Dir, Plans and Oper Div, BuPers,
to Richard Lueking, Berea College, 6 Dec 46, P16.1,
BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 9-22: Department of National Defense,
"National Defense Conference on Racial Affairs," 26
Apr 48, morning session, pp. 46-47.]
[Footnote 9-23: Memo, Lt D. D. Nelson, office of
Public Relations, for Capt E. B. Dexter, Office of
Public Relations, 24 Aug 48, sub: Negro Stewards,
Petty Officer Ratings, Status of, PR 221-14003,
GenRecsNav.]
Some individuals in the department were aware of this resentment in
the black community and pushed for reform in the Steward's Branch. The
Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air, John Nicholas Brown, (p. 242)
wanted more publicity given both in and outside the service to the
fact that the branch was not restricted to any one race and,
conversely, that Negroes were welcome in the general service.[9-24] In
view of the strong tradition of racial separateness in the stewards
rating, such publicity might be considered sheer sophistry, but no
more so than the suggestion made by a senior personnel official that
the Commissary Branch and Steward's Branch be combined to achieve a
racially balanced specialty.[9-25] Lester Granger, now outside the
official Navy family but still intimately concerned with the
department's racial affairs, also pleaded for a merger of the
commissary and steward functions. He reasoned that, since members of
the Commissary Branch could advance to true petty officer rating, such
a merger would provide a new avenue of advancement for stewards.
[Footnote 9-24: Ltr, Asst SecNav to Lester Granger,
22 Apr 48, QN-MM (2), GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 9-25: Interv, Nichols with Capt George A.
Holderness, Jr., USN, in Nichols Collection, CMH.]
But more to the point Granger also pushed for reform in the standards
of the Steward's Branch. He recognized that educational and other
requirements had been lowered for stewards, but, he told Forrestal's
successor, Secretary John L. Sullivan, there was little wisdom in
"compounding past error." He also pointed out that not all messmen
were in the lower intelligence classifications and recommended that
the higher scoring men be replaced with low-scoring whites.[9-26]
[Footnote 9-26: Ltr, Granger to SecNav, 15 Mar 48,
SO-3-18-56, SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]
From within the Navy itself Lt. Dennis D. Nelson, one of the first
twelve Negroes commissioned and still on active duty, added his voice
to the demand for reform of the Steward's Branch. An analogy may be
drawn between the Navy career of Nelson and that of the legendary
Christopher Sargent. Lacking Sargent's advantages of wealth and family
connection, Nelson nevertheless became a familiar of Secretary
Sullivan's and, though not primarily assigned to the task, made equal
opportunity his preeminent concern. A highly visible member of the
Navy's racial minority in Washington, he made himself its spokesman,
pressing senior officials to bring the department's manpower practices
closer to its stated policy. Once again the Navy experienced the
curious phenomenon of a lieutenant firing off memos and letters to
senior admirals and buttonholing the Secretary of the Navy.[9-27]
[Footnote 9-27: Interv, Nichols with Sullivan;
Intervs, author with Lt Cmdr D. D. Nelson, 17 Sep
69, and with James C. Evans, Counselor to the
SecDef, 10 Jan 73; Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb
70. All in CMH files.]
Nelson had a host of suggestions for the Steward's Branch: eliminate
the branch as a racially separate division of labor in the Navy,
provide permanent officer supervision for all steward units, develop
capable noncommissioned officers in the branch with privileges and
responsibilities similar to those of other petty officers,
indoctrinate all personnel in the ramifications of the Navy's stated
integration policy, and create a committee to work out the details of
these changes. On several occasions Nelson tried to show his superiors
how nuances in their own behavior toward the stewards reinforced,
perhaps as much as separate service itself, the image of
discrimination. He recommended that the steward's uniform be changed,
eliminating the white jacket and giving the steward a regular (p. 243)
seaman's look. He also suggested that petty officer uniforms for
stewards be regularized. At one poignant moment this lonely officer
took on the whole service, trying to change singlehandedly a
thoughtless habit that demeaned both blacks and whites. He admonished
the service: "refrain from the use of 'Boy' in addressing Stewards.
This has been a constant practice in the Service and is most
objectionable, is in bad taste, shows undue familiarity and pins a
badge of inferiority, adding little to the dignity and pride of
adults."[9-28]
[Footnote 9-28: Memo, Lt Nelson for Capt Dexter, Pub
Rels Office, 24 Aug 48, sub: Negro Stewards, Petty
Officer Ratings, Status of, PR 221-14003; idem for
Dep Dir, Off of Pub Relations, 26 Mar 48, sub:
Problems of the Stewards' Branch, PR 221-5393; both
in GenRecsNav. The quotation is from the latter
document.]
In summing up these recommendations for the Secretary of the Navy in
January 1949, Nelson reminded Sullivan that only 37 percent of the
Navy's Negroes were in the general service, in contrast to 72 percent
of the Negroes in the Marine Corps. He warned that this imbalance
perturbed the members of the recently convened National Defense
Conference on Negro Affairs and predicted it would interest those
involved in the forthcoming presidential inquiry on equality in the
armed forces.[9-29]
[Footnote 9-29: Ltr, Nelson to SecNav, 7 Jan 49,
SecNav files, GenRecsNav. For discussion of the
presidential inquiry, see Chapter 14.]
Despite its continued defense of the _status quo_ in the Steward's
Branch, the Bureau of Naval Personnel was not insensitive to
criticism. To protect Negroes from overzealous recruiters for the
branch, the bureau had announced in October 1945 that any Negro in the
general service desiring transfer to the Steward's Branch had to make
his request in writing.[9-30] In mid-1946 it closed the branch to first
enlistment, thereby abolishing possible abuses in the recruiting
system.[9-31] Later in the year the bureau tried to upgrade the quality
of the branch by instituting a new and more rigorous training course
for second-and third-class stewards and cooks at Bainbridge, Maryland.
Finally, in June 1947 it removed from its personnel manual all
remaining mention of restrictions on the transfer of messmen to the
general service.[9-32] These changes were important, but they failed to
attack racial separation, the major problem of the branch. Thus the
controversy over messmen, in which tradition, prejudice, and necessity
contended, went on, and the Steward's Branch, a symbol of
discrimination in the Navy, remained to trouble both the service and
the civil rights groups for some time.
[Footnote 9-30: BuPers Cir Ltr, 17 Oct 45.]
[Footnote 9-31: Testimony of Capt Fred Stickney at
National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26
Apr 48, morning session, p. 47.]
[Footnote 9-32: Change 12 to Ankle D-5114, BuPers
Manual, 1942.]
_Black Officers_
The Navy had a racial problem of more immediate concern to men like
Lieutenant Nelson, one of three black officers remaining on active
duty. These were the survivers of a most exclusive group that had
begun its existence with much hope. In the months following graduation
of the first twelve black officers and one warrant officer in March
1944, scores of Negroes had passed through the Navy's training school.
By the end of the war the V-12 program had thirty-six black candidates,
with three others attending the Supply Corps School at Harvard. (p. 244)
The number of black officers had grown at an agonizingly slow rate,
although in June 1944 the Secretary of the Navy approved a personnel
bureau request that in effect removed any numerical quotas for black
officers. Unfortunately, black officers were still limited to filling
"needs as they appeared," and the need for black officers was
curtailed by the restricted range of activities open to them in the
segregated wartime service. Further, most nominees for commissions
were selected from the ranks and depended on the sponsorship of their
commanding officer who might not be able to spare a competent enlisted
man who deserved promotion. Putting the matter in the best possible
light, one Navy historian blamed the dearth of black officers on
bureaucratic inertia.[9-33]
[Footnote 9-33: "BuPers Hist," pp. 83-85, and
Supplement (LN), pp. 4-8, copy in CMH. Unless
otherwise noted the data for this section on black
officers in World War II are from this source.]
[Illustration: COMMANDER NELSON.]
Despite procurement failures and within the limitations of general
segregation policy, the Navy treated black officers with scrupulous
fairness during the war. The Bureau of Naval Personnel insisted they
be given the privileges of rank in wardroom and ashore, thus crushing
an attempt by authorities at Great Lakes to underwrite a tacit ban on
the use of the officers' club by Negroes. In fact, integration proved
to be more the rule than the exception in training black officers. The
small number of black candidates made segregated classes impractical,
and after graduation of the first group of black officers at Great
Lakes, Negroes were accepted in all officer candidate classes. As part
of this change, the Special Programs Unit successfully integrated the
Navy's officer candidate school in the posh hotels of still-segregated
Miami Beach.
The officers graduated into a number of assignments. Some saw duty
aboard district and yard craft, others at departmental headquarters in
Washington. A few served in recruit training assignments at Great
Lakes and Hampton Institute, but the majority went overseas to work in
logistical and advanced base companies, the stevedore-type outfits
composed exclusively of Negroes. Nelson, for example, was sent to the
Marshall Islands where he was assigned to a logistic support company
composed of some three hundred black sailors and noncommissioned
officers with a racially mixed group of officers. Black staff
officers, engineers, doctors, dentists, and chaplains were also
attached to these units, where they had limited responsibilities and
little chance for advancement.[9-34]
[Footnote 9-34: Nelson, "Integration of the Negro,"
pp. 156-58.]
Exceptions to the assignment rule increased during the last months (p. 245)
of the war. The Special Programs Unit had concluded that restricting
black officers to district craft and shore billets might further
encourage the tendency to build an inshore black Navy, and the Bureau
of Naval Personnel began assigning black officers to seagoing vessels
when they completed their sea duty training. By July 1945 several were
serving in the fleet. To avoid embarrassment, the Chief of Naval
Personnel made it a practice to alert the commanding officers of a
ship about to receive a black officer so that he might indoctrinate
his officers. As his assistant, Rear Adm. William M. Fechteler,
explained to one such commander, "if such officers are accorded the
proper respect and are required to discharge the duties commensurate
with their rank they should be equally competent to white officers of
similar experience."[9-35]
[Footnote 9-35: "BuPers Hist," p. 85. The quotation
is from Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to CO, USS _Laramie_,
16 Jul 45, BuPersRecs.]
Fechteler's prediction proved accurate. By V-J day, the Navy's black
officers, both line and staff, were serving competently in many
occupations. The bureau reported that the "personnel relationship
aspect" of their introduction into the service had worked well. Black
officers with white petty officers and enlisted men under them handled
their command responsibilities without difficulty, and in general
bureau reports and field inspections noted considerable satisfaction
with their performance.[9-36] But despite this satisfactory record, only
three black officers remained on active duty in 1946. The promise
engendered by the Navy's treatment of its black officers in the
closing months of the war had not been fulfilled during the
demobilization period that followed, and what had been to the civil
rights movement a brightening situation rapidly became an intolerable
one.
[Footnote 9-36: "BuPers Hist," p. 85.]
There were several reasons for the rapid demobilization of black
officers. Some shared the popular desire of reserve officers to return
to civilian life. Among them were mature men with substantial academic
achievements and valuable technical experience. Many resented in
particular their assignment to all-black labor units, and wanted to
resume their civilian careers.[9-37] But a number of black officers,
along with over 29,000 white reservists, did seek commissions in the
Regular Navy.[9-38] Yet not one Negro was granted a regular commission
in the first eighteen months after the war. Lester Granger was
especially upset by these statistics, and in July 1946 he personally
took up the case of two black candidates with Secretary Forrestal.[9-39]
[Footnote 9-37: Nelson "Integration of the Negro," p.
157.]
[Footnote 9-38: ALNAV 252-46, 21 May 46, sub:
Transfer to Regular Navy.]
[Footnote 9-39: Ltr, Granger to SecNav, 31 Jul 46,
54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav. One of these
applicants was Nelson, then a lieutenant, who
received a promotion upon assignment as commanding
officer of a logistic support company in the
Marshall Islands. The grade became permanent upon
Nelson's assignment to the Public Relations Bureau
in Washington in 1946.]
The Bureau of Naval Personnel offered what it considered a reasonable
explanation. As a group, black reserve officers were considerably
overage for their rank and were thus at a severe disadvantage in the
fierce competition for regular commissions. The average age of the
first class of black officers was over thirty-one years. All had been
commissioned ensigns on 17 March 1944, and all had received one (p. 246)
promotion to lieutenant, junior grade, by the end of the war. When age
and rank did coincide, black reservists were considered for transfer.
For example, on 15 March 1947 Ens. John Lee, a former V-12 graduate
assigned as gunnery officer aboard a fleet auxiliary craft, received a
regular commission, and on 6 January 1948 Lt. (jg.) Edith DeVoe, one
of the four black nurses commissioned in March 1945, was transferred
into the Regular Navy. The following October Ens. Jessie Brown was
commissioned and assigned to duty as the first black Navy pilot.
In a sense, the black officers had the cards stacked against them. As
Nelson later explained, the bureau did not extend to its black line
officers the same consideration given other reservists. While the
first twelve black officers were given unrestricted line officer
training, the bureau assigned them to restricted line positions, an
added handicap when it came to promotions and retention in the postwar
Navy. All were commissioned ensigns, although the bureau usually
granted rank according to the candidate's age, a practice followed
when it commissioned its first black staff officers, one of whom
became a full lieutenant and the rest lieutenants, junior grade. As an
overage reservist himself, Nelson remained on active duty after the
war through the personal intervention of Secretary Forrestal. His tour
in the Navy's public relations office was repeatedly extended until
finally on 1 January 1950, thanks to Secretary Sullivan, he received a
regular commission.[9-40]
[Footnote 9-40: Nelson, "Integration of the Negro,"
pp. 157-59; Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb 70;
Interv, Nichols with Sullivan.]
Prospects for an increase in black officers were dim. With rare
exception the Navy's officers came from the academy at Annapolis, the
officer candidate program, or the Naval Reserve Officers' Training
Corps (NROTC) program. Ens. Wesley A. Brown would graduate in the
academy's class of 1949, the sixth Negro to attend and the first to
graduate in the academy's 104-year history. Only five other Negroes
were enrolled in the academy's student body in 1949, and there was
little indication that this number would rapidly increase. For the
most part the situation was beyond the control of the Bureau of Naval
Personnel. Competition was keen for acceptance at Annapolis. The
American Civil Liberties Union later asserted that the exclusion of
Negroes from many of the private prep schools, which so often produced
successful academy applicants, helped explain why there were so few
Negroes at the academy.[9-41]
[Footnote 9-41: Ltr. Exec Dir. ACLU, to SecNav, 26
Nov 57, GenRecsNav.]
Nor were many black officers forthcoming from the Navy's two other
sources. Officer candidate schools, severely reduced in size after the
war and a negligible source of career officers, had no Negroes in
attendance from 1946 through 1948. Perhaps most disturbing was the
fact that in 1947 just fourteen Negroes were enrolled among more than
5,600 students in the NROTC program, the usual avenue to a Regular
Navy commission.[9-42] The Holloway program, the basis for the Navy's
reserve officer training system, offered scholarships at fifty-two
colleges across the nation, but the number of these scholarships was
small, the competition intense, and black applicants, often burdened
by inferior schooling, did not fare well.
[Footnote 9-42: "BuPers Narrative," 1:295.]
Statistics pointed at least to the possibility that racial (p. 247)
discrimination existed in the NROTC system. Unlike the Army and Air
Force programs, reserve officer training in the Navy depended to a
great extent on state selection committees dominated by civilians.
These committees exercised considerable leeway in selecting candidates
to fill their state's annual NROTC quota, and their decisions were
final. Not one Negro served on any of the state committees. In fact,
fourteen of the fifty-two colleges selected for reserve officer
training barred Negroes from admission by law and others--the exact
number is difficult to ascertain--by policy. One black newspaper
charged that only thirteen of the participating institutions admitted
Negroes.[9-43] In all, only six black candidates survived this process
to win commissions in 1948.
[Footnote 9-43: Norfolk _Journal and Guide_, August
20, 1949.]
Lester Granger blamed the lack of black candidates on the fact that so
few Negroes attended the schools; undoubtedly, more Negroes would have
been enrolled in reserve officer training had the program been
established at one of the predominantly black colleges. But black
institutions were excluded from the wartime V-12 program, and when the
program was extended to include fifty-two colleges in November 1945
the Navy again rejected the applications of black schools, justifying
the exclusion, as it did for many white schools, on grounds of
inadequacies in enrollment, academic credentials, and physical
facilities.[9-44] Some black spokesmen called the decision
discriminatory. President Mordecai Johnson of Howard University
ruefully wondered how the Navy's unprejudiced and nondiscriminatory
selection of fifty-two colleges managed to exclude so neatly all black
institutions.[9-45]
[Footnote 9-44: Ltr, SecNav to William T. Farley,
Chmn, Civilian Components Policy Bd, DOD, 4 Mar 50,
Q4, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 9-45: Statement of Dr. Mordecai Johnson at
National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26
Apr 48, morning session, p. 42.]
Others disagreed. From the first the Special Programs Unit had
rejected the clamor for forming V-12 units in predominantly black
colleges, arguing that in the long run this could be considered
enforced segregation and hardly contribute to racial harmony. Although
candidates were supposed to attend the NROTC school of their choice,
black candidates were restricted to institutions that would accept
them. If a black school was added to the program, all black candidates
would very likely gravitate toward it. Several black spokesmen,
including Nelson, took this attitude and urged instead a campaign to
increase the number of Negroes at the various integrated schools in
the NROTC system.[9-46] Whatever the best solution, a significant and
speedy increase in the number of black officers was unlikely.
[Footnote 9-46: Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb 70; see
also "BuPersHist," p. 84.]
Of lesser moment because of the small size of the WAVES and the Nurse
Corps, the role of black women in the postwar Navy nevertheless
concerned several civil rights leaders. Roy Wilkins, for one,
concluded that the Navy's new policy which "hasn't worked out on the
officer level ... hadn't worked on the women's level" either.[9-47] The
Navy's statistics seemed to proved his contention. The service had (p. 248)
68 black enlisted women and 6 officers (including 4 nurses) on V-J
day; a year later the number had been reduced to 5 black WAVES and 1
nurse. The Navy sought to defend these statistics against charges of
discrimination. A spokesman explained that the paucity of black WAVES
resulted from the fact that Negroes were barred from the WAVES until
December 1944, just months before the Navy stopped recruiting all
WAVES. Black WAVES who had remained in the postwar Navy had been
integrated and were being employed without discrimination.[9-48]
[Footnote 9-47: Statement of Roy Wilkins at National
Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48,
morning session p. 44.]
[Footnote 9-48: Testimony of Stickney at National
Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48,
morning session, p. 43.]
But criticism persisted. In February 1948 the Navy could count six
black WAVES out of a total enlisted force of 1,700, and during
hearings on a bill to regularize the women's services several
congressmen joined with a representative of the NAACP to press for a
specific anti-discrimination amendment. The amendment was defeated,
but not before Congressman Adam Clayton Powell charged that the status
of black women in the Navy proved discrimination and demonstrated that
the administration was practicing "not merely discrimination,
segregation, and Jim Crowism, but total exclusion."[9-49] The same
critics also demanded a similar amendment to the companion legislation
on the WAC's, but it, too, was defeated.
[Footnote 9-49: U.S. Congress, House, Committee on
Armed Services, Subcommittee No. 3, Organization
and Mobilization, _Hearings on S. 1641, To
Establish the Women's Army Corps in the Regular
Army, To Authorize the Enlistment and Appointment
of Women in the Regular Navy and Marine Corps and
the Naval and Marine Corps Reserve and for Other
Purposes_, 80th Cong., 2d sess., 18 Feb 48, pp.
5603-08, 5657, 5698, 5734-36. The Powell quotation
is on page 5734.]
Black nurses presented a different problem. Two of the wartime nurses
had resigned to marry and the third was on inactive status attending
college. The Navy, Secretary Forrestal claimed in July 1947, was
finding it difficult to replace them or add to their number. Observing
that black leaders had shown considerable interest in the Navy's
nursing program, Forrestal noted that a similar interest had not been
forthcoming from black women themselves. During the Navy's 1946
recruitment drive to attract 1,000 new nurses, only one Negro applied,
and she was disqualified on physical grounds.[9-50]
[Footnote 9-50: Ltr, SecNav to Congresswoman Margaret
Chase Smith (Maine), 24 Jul 47, OG/P14-2,
GenRecsNav.]
_Public Image and the Problem of Numbers_
Individual black nurses no doubt had cogent reasons for failing to
apply for Navy commissions, but the fact that only one applied called
attention to a phenomenon that first appeared about 1946. Black
Americans were beginning to ignore the Navy. Attempts by black reserve
officers to procure NROTC applicants in black high schools and
colleges proved largely unproductive. Nelson spoke before 8,500
potential candidates in 1948, and a special recruiting team reached an
equal number the following year, but the combined effort brought fewer
than ninety black applicants to take the competitive examination.[9-51]
Recruiters had similar problems in the enlistment of Negroes (p. 249)
for general service. Viewed from a different perspective, even the
complaints and demands of black citizens, at flood tide during the
war, now merely trickled into the secretary's office, reflecting, it
could be argued, a growing indifference. That such unwillingness to
enlist, as Lester Granger put it, should occur on the heels of a
widely publicized promise of racial equality in the service was
ironic. The Navy was beginning to welcome the Negro, but the Negro no
longer seemed interested in joining.[9-52]
[Footnote 9-51: Memo, Dir, Pol Div, BuPers, for Capt
William C. Chapman, Office of Information, Navy
Dept, 21 Sep 65; Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Chief,
Bur of Public Relations, 16 Dec 48. QR4; both in
BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 9-52: See Testimony of Lester Granger and
Assistant Secretary Brown at National Defense
Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48, morning
session, pp. 45-46; and Memo, Nelson for Marx Leva,
24 May 48, copy in Nelson Archives.]
[Illustration: NAVAL UNIT PASSES IN REVIEW, _Naval Advanced Base,
Bremerhaven, Germany, 1949_.]
Several reasons were suggested for this attitude. Assistant Secretary
Brown placed the blame, at least in part, on the gap between policy
and practice. Because of delay in abolishing old discriminatory
practices, he pointed out to the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations,
"the Navy's good public relations are endangered."[9-53] The personnel
bureau promptly investigated, found justification for complaints (p. 250)
of discrimination, and took corrective action.[9-54] Yet, as Nelson
pointed out, such corrections, often in the form of "clarifying
directives," were usually directed to specific commanders and tied to
specific incidents and were ignored by other commanders as
inapplicable to their own racial experiences.[9-55] Despite the
existence of the racially separate Steward's Branch, the Navy's policy
seemed so unassailable to the Chief of Naval Personnel that when his
views on a congressional measure to abolish segregation in the
services were solicited he reported without reservation that his
bureau interposed no objection.[9-56]
[Footnote 9-53: Memo, Asst SecNav for Air for Dep
CNO, 3 Feb 48, sub: Racial Discrimination, P1-4
(8), GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 9-54: See Memo, Chief, NavPers, for CO, USS
_Grand Canyon_ (AD 28), 17 Dec 48, sub: Navy
Department's Non Discrimination Policy--Alleged
Violation of, P14; Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to Cmdt,
Twelfth Nav Dist, 27 Feb 46, sub: Officer Screening
Procedure and Indoctrination Course in the
Supervision of Negro Personnel--Establishment of,
Pers 4221; both in BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 9-55: Memo, Nelson for Chief, NavPers, 29
Nov 48, sub: Complaint of Navy Enlisted Man Made to
Pittsburgh Courier..., PR221, BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 9-56: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for JAG, 11 Feb
47, sub: HR 279: To Prohibit Race Segregation in
the Armed Forces of the United States, GenRecsNav.]
The Navy's major racial problem by 1948 was the shockingly small
number of Negroes in the service. In November 1948, a presidential
election month, Negroes accounted for 4.3 percent of the navy's
strength. Not only were there few Negroes in the Navy, but there were
especially too few in the general service and practically no black
officers, a series of statistics that made the predominately black and
separate stewards more conspicuous. The Navy rejected an obvious
solution, lowering recruitment standards, contending that it could not
run its ships and aircraft with men who scored below ninety in the
general classification test.[9-57] The alternative was to recruit among
the increasing numbers of educated Negroes, as the personnel bureau
had been trying to do. But here, as Nelson and others could report,
the Navy faced severe competition from other employers, and here the
Navy's public image had its strongest effect.
[Footnote 9-57: For discussion of the problem of
comparative enlistment standards, see Chapter 12.]
Lt. Comdr. Edward Hope, a black reserve officer assigned to officer
procurement, concluded that the black community, especially veterans,
distrusted all the services. Consequently, Negroes tended to disregard
announced plans and policies applicable to all citizens unless they
were specially labeled "for colored." Negroes tried to avoid the
humiliation of applying for certain rights or benefits only to be
arbitrarily rejected.[9-58] Compounding the suspicion and fear of
humiliation, Hope reported, was a genuine lack of information on Navy
policy that seriously limited the number of black applicants.
[Footnote 9-58: Ltr, Lt Cmdr, E. S. Hope to SecDef,
17 May 48, with attached rpt, D54-1-10,
GenRecsNav.]
The cause of confusion among black students over Navy policy was easy
to pinpoint, for memories of the frustrations and insults suffered by
black seamen during the war were still fresh. Negroes remembered the
labor battalions bossed by whites--much like the old plantation
system, Lester Granger observed. Unlike the Army, the Navy had offered
few black enlisted men the chance of serving in vital jobs under black
commanders. This slight, according to Granger, robbed the black sailor
of pride in service, a pride that could hardly be restored by the
postwar image of the black sailor not as a fighting man but as
a servant or laborer. Always a loyal member of the Navy team, (p. 252)
Granger was anxious to improve the Navy's public image in the black
community, and he and others often advanced plans for doing so.[9-59]
But any discussion of image quickly foundered on one point: the Navy
would remain suspect in the eyes of black youth and be condemned by
civil rights leaders as long as it retained that symbol of racism, the
racially separate Steward's Branch.
[Footnote 9-59: See, for example, Ltr, Granger to
SecNav, 10 Jun 47, 54-1-13, Forrestal file,
GenRecsNav, and Granger's extensive comments and
questions at the National Defense Conference on
Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48.]
[Illustration: SUBMARINER.]
Here the practical need for change ran headlong into strong military
tradition. An integrated general service was traditional and therefore
acceptable; an integrated servants' branch was not. Faced with the
choice of a small number of Negroes in the Navy and the attendant
charges of racism or a change in its traditions, the Navy accepted the
former. Lack of interest on the part of the black community was not a
particularly pressing problem for the Navy in the immediate postwar
years. Indeed, it might well have been a source of comfort for the
military traditionalists who, armed with an unassailable integration
policy, could still enjoy a Navy little changed from its prewar
condition. Nevertheless, the lack of black volunteers for general
service was soon to be discussed by a presidential commission, and in
the next fifteen years would become a pressing problem when the Navy,
the first service with a policy of integration, would find itself
running behind in the race to attract minority members.
CHAPTER 10 (p. 253)
The Postwar Marine Corps
Unlike the Army and Navy, the all-white Marine Corps seemed to
consider the wartime enlistment of over 19,000 Negroes a temporary
aberration. Forced by the Navy's nondiscrimination policy to retain
Negroes after the war, Marine Corps officials at first decided on a
black representation of some 2,200 men, roughly the same proportion as
during the war. But the old tradition of racial exclusion remained
strong, and this figure was soon reduced. The corps also ignored the
Navy's integration measures, adopting instead a pattern of segregation
that Marine officials claimed was a variation on the Army's historic
"separate but equal" black units. In fact, separation was real enough
in the postwar corps; equality remained elusive.
_Racial Quotas and Assignments_
The problem was that any "separate but equal" race policy, no matter
how loosely enforced, was incompatible with the corps' postwar
manpower resources and mission and would conflict with its
determination to restrict black units to a token number. The dramatic
manpower reductions of 1946 were felt immediately in the two major
elements of the Marine Corps. The Fleet Marine Force, the main
operating unit of the corps and usually under control of the Chief of
Naval Operations, retained three divisions, but lost a number of its
combat battalions. The divisions kept a few organic and attached
service and miscellaneous units. Under such severe manpower
restrictions, planners could not reserve one of the large organic
elements of these divisions for black marines, thus leaving the
smaller attached and miscellaneous units as the only place to
accommodate self-contained black organizations. At first the Plans and
Policies Division decided to assign roughly half the black marines to
the Fleet Marine Force. Of these some were slated for an antiaircraft
artillery battalion at Montford Point which would provide training as
well as an opportunity for Negroes' overseas to be rotated home.
Others were placed in three combat service groups and one service
depot where they would act as divisional service troops, and the rest
went into 182 slots, later increased to 216, for stewards, the
majority in aviation units.
The other half of the black marines was to be absorbed by the so
called non-Fleet Marine Force, a term used to cover training,
security, and miscellaneous Marine units, all noncombat, which
normally remained under the control of the commandant. This part of
the corps was composed of many small and usually self-contained units,
but in a number of activities, particularly in the logistical
establishment and the units afloat, reductions in manpower would (p. 254)
necessitate considerable sharing of living and working facilities,
thus making racial separation impossible. The planners decided,
therefore, to limit black assignments outside the Fleet Marine Force
to naval ammunition depots at McAlester, Oklahoma, and Earle, New
Jersey, where Negroes would occupy separate barracks; to Guam and
Saipan, principally as antiaircraft artillery; and to a small training
cadre at Montford Point. Eighty stewards would also serve with units
outside the Fleet Marine Force. With the exception of the depot at
Earle, all these installations had been assigned Negroes during the
war. Speaking in particular about the assignment of Negroes to
McAlester, the Director of the Plans and Policies Division, Brig. Gen.
Gerald C. Thomas, commented that "this has proven to be a satisfactory
location and type of duty for these personnel."[10-1] Thomas's
conception of "satisfactory" duty for Negroes became the corps'
rationale for its postwar assignment policy.
[Footnote 10-1: Memos, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 25 Sep and 17 Oct 46, sub: Post War
Personnel Requirements, A0-1, MC files. Unless
otherwise noted, all the documents cited in this
chapter are located in Hist Div, HQMC. The
quotation is from the September memo.]
[Illustration: MARINE ARTILLERY TEAM. _Men of the 51st Defense
Battalion in training at Montford Point with 90-mm. antiaircraft
gun._]
To assign Negroes to unskilled jobs because they were accustomed to
such duties and because the jobs were located in communities that
would accept black marines might be satisfactory to Marine officials,
but it was considered racist by many civil rights spokesmen and left
the Marine Corps open to charges of discrimination. The policy of
tying the number of Negroes to the number of available, appropriate
slots also meant that the number of black marines, and consequently
the acceptability of black volunteers, was subject to chronic
fluctuation. More important, it permitted if not encouraged further
restrictions on the use of the remaining black marines who had combat
training, thereby allowing the traditionalists to press for a
segregated service in which the few black marines would be mostly
servants and laborers.
The process of reordering the assignment of black marines began just
eleven weeks after the commandant approved the staff's postwar policy
recommendations. Informing the commandant on 6 January 1947 that
"several changes have been made in concepts upon which such (p. 255)
planning was based," General Thomas explained that the requirement for
antiaircraft artillery units at Guam and Saipan had been canceled,
along with the plan for maintaining an artillery unit at Montford
Point. Because of the cancellation his division wanted to reduce the
number of black marines to 1,500. These men could be assigned to depot
companies, service units, and Marine barracks--all outside the Fleet
Marine Force--or they could serve as stewards. The commandant's
approval of this plan reduced the number of Negroes in the corps by 35
percent, or 700 men. Coincidental with this reduction was a 17 percent
rise in spaces for black stewards to 350.[10-2]
[Footnote 10-2: Memo, G. C. Thomas, Div of Plans and
Policies, for CMC, 6 Jan 47, sub: Negro
Requirements, A0-1.]
Approval of this plan eliminated the last Negroes from combat
assignments, a fact that General Thomas suggested could be justified
as "consistent with similar reductions being effected elsewhere in the
Corps." But the facts did not support such a palliative. In June 1946
the corps had some 1,200 men serving in three antiaircraft artillery
battalions and an antiaircraft artillery group headquarters. In June
1948 the corps still had white antiaircraft artillery units on Guam
and at Camp Lejeune totaling 1,020 men. The drop in numbers was
explained almost entirely by the elimination of the black units.[10-3]
[Footnote 10-3: USMC Muster Rolls of Officers and
Enlisted Men, 1946 and 1948.]
A further realignment of black assignments occurred in June 1947 when
General Vandegrift approved a Plans and Policies Division decision to
remove more black units from security forces at naval shore
establishments. The men were reassigned to Montford Point with the
result that the number of black training and overhead billets at that
post jumped 200 percent--a dubious decision at best considering that
black specialist and recruit training was virtually at a standstill.
General Thomas took the occasion to advise the commandant that
maintaining an arbitrary quota of black marines was no longer a
consideration since a reduction in their strength could be "adequately
justified" by the general manpower reductions throughout the corps.[10-4]
[Footnote 10-4: Memo, G. C. Thomas for CMC, 11 Jun 47,
sub: Negro Requirements and Assignments, A0-1.]
Actually the Marine Corps was not as free to reduce the quota of 1,500
Negroes as General Thomas suggested. To make further cuts in what was
at most a token representation, approximately 1 percent of the corps
in August 1947, would further inflame civil rights critics and might
well provoke a reaction from Secretary Forrestal. Even Thomas's
accompanying recommendation carefully retained the black strength
figure previously agreed upon and actually raised the number of
Negroes in the ground forces by seventy-six men. The 1,500-man minimum
quota for black enlistment survived the reorganization of the Fleet
Marine Force later in 1947, and the Plans and Policies Division even
found it necessary to locate some 375 more billets for Negroes to
maintain the figure. In August the commandant approved plans to add
100 slots for stewards and 275 general duty billets overseas, the
latter to facilitate rotation and provide a broader range of
assignments for Negroes.[10-5] Only once before the Korean War, (p. 256)
and then only briefly, did the authorized strength of Negroes
drop below the 1,500 mark, although because of recruitment lags actual
numbers never equaled authorized strength.[10-6]
[Footnote 10-5: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 28 Aug 47, sub: Requirements for General
Duty Negro Marines, A0-1.]
[Footnote 10-6: Idem for Div, Pub Info, 10 Nov 48,
sub: Information Relating to Negro Marines, A0-1.]
By mid-1947, therefore, the Marine Corps had abandoned its complex
system of gearing the number of black marines to available assignments
and, like the Army and the Air Force, had adopted a racial quota--but
with an important distinction. Although they rarely achieved it, the
Army and the Air Force were committed to accepting a fixed percentage
of Negroes; in an effort to avoid the problems with manpower
efficiency plaguing the other services, the Marine Corps established a
straight _numerical_ quota. Authorized black strength would remain at
about 1,500 men until the Korean War. During that same period the
actual percentage of Negroes in the Marine Corps almost doubled,
rising from 1.3 percent of the 155,679-man corps in June 1946 to
slightly more than 2 percent of the 74,279-man total in June 1950.[10-7]
[Footnote 10-7: Unless otherwise noted, statistics in
this section are from NA Pers, 15658 (A), _Report,
Navy and Marine Corps Military Statistics_, 30 Jun
59, BuPers. Official figures on black marines are
from reports of the USMC Personnel Accounting
Section.]
Yet neither the relatively small size of the Marine Corps nor the fact
that few black marines were enrolled could conceal the inefficiency of
segregation. Over the next three years the personnel planning staff
tried to find a solution to the problem of what it considered to be
too many Negroes in the general service. First it began to reduce
gradually the number of black units accommodated in the Operating
Force Plan, absorbing the excess black marines by increasing the
number of stewards. This course was not without obvious public
relations disadvantages, but they were offset somewhat by the fact
that the Marine Corps, unlike the Navy, never employed a majority of
its black recruits as stewards. In May 1948 the commandant approved
new plans for a 10 percent decrease in the number of general duty
assignments and a corresponding increase in spaces for stewards.[10-8]
The trend away from assigning Negroes to general service duty
continued until the Korean War, and in October 1949 a statistical high
point was reached when some 33 percent of all black marines were
serving as stewards. The doctrine that all marines were potential
infantrymen stood, but it was small comfort to civil rights activists
who feared that what at best was a nominal black representation in the
corps was being pushed into the kitchen.
[Footnote 10-8: Memo, Dir, Plans and Policies Div, for
CMC, 20 May 48, sub: Procurement and Assignment of
Negro Enlisted Personnel, A0-1.]
But they had little to fear since the number of Negroes that could be
absorbed in the Steward's Branch was limited. In the end the Marine
Corps still had to accommodate two-thirds of its black strength in
general duty billets, a course with several unpalatable consequences.
For one, Negroes would be assigned to new bases reluctant to accept
them and near some communities where they would be unwelcome. For
another, given the limitations in self-contained units, there was the
possibility of introducing some integration in the men's living or
working arrangements. Certainly black billets would have to be created
at the expense of white billets. The Director of Plans and Policies
warned in August 1947 that the reorganization of the Fleet Marine (p. 257)
Force, then under way, failed to allocate spaces for some 350 Negroes
with general duty contracts. While he anticipated some reduction in
this number as a result of the campaign to attract volunteers for the
Steward's Branch, he admitted that many would remain unassigned and
beyond anticipating a reduction in the black "overage" through
attrition, his office had no long-range plans for creating the needed
spaces.[10-9] When the attrition failed to materialize, the commandant
was forced in December 1949 to redesignate 202 white billets for black
marines with general duty contracts.[10-10] The problem of finding
restricted assignments for black marines in the general service lasted
until it was overtaken by the manpower demands of the Korean War.
Meanwhile to the consternation of the civil rights advocates, as the
corps' definition of "suitable" assignment became more exact, the
variety of duties to which Negroes could be assigned seemed to
decrease.[10-11]
[Footnote 10-9: Ibid., 28 Aug 47, sub: Requirements
for General Duty Negro Marines, A0-1.]
[Footnote 10-10: Ibid., 14 Nov 49, sub: Designation of
Units for Assignment of Negro Marines, A0-1.]
[Footnote 10-11: For criticism of assignment
restrictions, see comments and questions at the
National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26
Apr 48 (afternoon session), pp. 1-10, copy in CMH.]
_Recruitment_
Postwar quotas and assignments for Negroes did nothing to curb the
black community's growing impatience with separate and limited
opportunities, a fact brought home to Marine Corps recruiters when
they tried to enlist the Negroes needed to fill their quota. At first
it seemed the traditionalists would regain their all-white corps by
default. The Marine Corps had ceased drafting men in November 1945 and
launched instead an intensive recruiting campaign for regular marines
from among the thousands of reservists about to be discharged and
regulars whose enlistments would soon expire. Included in this group
were some 17,000 Negroes from among whom the corps planned to recruit
its black contingent. To charges that it was discriminating in the
enlistment of black civilians, the corps readily admitted that no new
recruits were being accepted because preference was being given to men
already in the corps.[10-12] In truth, the black reservists were
rejecting the blandishments of recruiters in overwhelming numbers. By
May 1946 only 522 Negroes, less than a quarter of the small postwar
black complement, had enlisted in the regular service.
[Footnote 10-12: G-1, Div of Plans and Policies,
Operational Diary, Sep 45-Oct 46, 23 Apr 47; Memo,
Dir of Personnel (Div of Recruiting) for Off in
Charge, Northeastern Recruiting Div, 17 Jan 46,
sub: Enlistment of Negro Ex-Marines, MC 706577. See
also _Afro-American_, February 16, 1946.]
The failure to attract recruits was particularly noticeable in the
antiaircraft battalions. To obtain black replacements for these
critically depleted units, the commandant authorized the recruitment
of reservists who had served less than six months, but the measure
failed to produce the necessary manpower. On 28 February 1946 the
commanding general of Camp Lejeune reported that all but seven Negroes
on his antiaircraft artillery roster were being processed for
discharge.[10-13] Since this list included the black noncommissioned
instructors, the commander warned that future training of black (p. 258)
marines would entail the use of officers as instructors. The
precipitous loss of black artillerymen forced Marine headquarters to
assign white specialists as temporary replacements in the heavy
antiaircraft artillery groups at Guam and Saipan, both designated as
black units in the postwar organization.[10-14]
[Footnote 10-13: Msg, CMC to CG, Cp Lejeune, 19 Feb
46, MC 122026; Memo, CG, Cp Lejeune, for CMC, 28
Feb 46, sub: Personnel and Equipment for
Antiaircraft Artillery Training Battalion
(Colored), Availability of, RPS-1059, MC files.]
[Footnote 10-14: Memo, G. C. Thomas for Dir of
Personnel, 6 Mar 48, sub: Replacements for Enlisted
Personnel (Colored) Assignment of, Request for,
A0-3; Msg, CINCPAC/POA PEARL to CNO, 282232Z Apr
46, MC 76735, MC files.]
It was not the fault of the black press if this expression of black
indifference went unnoticed. The failure of black marines to reenlist
was the subject of many newspaper and journal articles. The reason for
the phenomenon advanced by the Norfolk _Journal and Guide_ would be
repeated by civil rights spokesmen on numerous occasions in the era
before integration. The paper declared that veterans remembered their
wartime experiences and were convinced that the same distasteful
practices would be continued after the war.[10-15] Marine Corps officials
advanced different reasons. The Montford Point commander attributed
slow enlistment rates to a general postwar letdown and lack of
publicity, explaining that Montford Point "had an excellent athletic
program, good chow and comfortable barracks." A staff member of the
Division of Plans and Policies later prepared a lengthy analysis of
the treatment the Marine Corps had received in the black press. He
charged that the press had presented a distorted picture of conditions
faced by blacks that had "agitated" the men and turned them against
reenlistment. He recommended a public relations campaign at Montford
Point to improve the corps' image.[10-16] But this analysis missed the
point, for while the black press might influence civilians, it could
hardly instruct Marine veterans. Probably more than any other factor,
the wartime treatment of black marines explained the failure of the
corps to attract qualified, let alone gifted, Negroes to its postwar
junior enlisted ranks.
[Footnote 10-15: Norfolk _Journal and Guide_, May 4,
1946. See also Murray, _Negro Yearbook_, 1949 pp.
272-73. On the general accuracy of the press
charges, see Shaw and Donnelly, _Blacks in the
Marine Corps_, pp. 47-51.]
[Footnote 10-16: CO, Montford Point, Press Conference
(ca. 1 May 47), quoted in Div of Plans and Policies
Staff Report, "Rescinding Ltr of Instruction #421,"
MC files; unsigned, untitled Memo written in the
Division of Plans and Policies on black marines and
the black press (ca. Aug 55).]
Considering the critical shortages, temporarily and "undesirably" made
up for by white marines, and the "leisurely" rate at which black
reservists were reenlisting, General Thomas recommended in May 1946
that the corps recruit some 1,120 Negroes from civilian sources. This,
he explained to the commandant, would accelerate black enlistment but
still save some spaces for black reservists.[10-17] The commandant
agreed,[10-18] and contrary to the staff's expectations, most Negroes in
the postwar service were new recruits. The mass departure of World (p. 259)
War II veterans eloquently expressed the attitude of experienced black
servicemen toward the Marines' racial policy.
[Footnote 10-17: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 3 May 46, sub: Enlisting of Negroes in the
Marine Corps From Civilian Sources, A0-1.]
[Footnote 10-18: Ibid., 23 Oct 46, sub: Enlistment of
Negroes, 1335-110; Memo, CMC to Off in Charge,
Northeastern Recruiting Div, et al., 23 Oct 46,
sub: Negro First Enlistments, Quota for Month of
November, 1946, AP-1231. There was an attempt to
stall first enlistment, see Memo, Dir of Personnel,
for Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, 17 May 46, sub:
Enlisting of Negroes in the Marine Corps From
Civilian Sources; but it was overruled, Memo, Dir,
Div of Plans and Policies, for Dir of Personnel. 23
May 46, same sub, A0-1.]
The word spread quickly among the new black marines. When in mid-1947
the Division of Plans and Policies was looking for ways to reduce the
number of black marines in keeping with the modified manpower ceiling,
it discovered that if offered the opportunity about one-third of all
Negroes would apply for discharge. An even higher percentage of
discharge requests was expected from among black marines overseas. The
commandant agreed to make the offer, except to the stewards, and in
the next six months black strength dropped by 700 men.[10-19]
[Footnote 10-19: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 28 May 47, sub: Program for Accelerated
Attrition of Negro Marines, A0-1; Maj S. M. Adams,
"Additional Directives From Plans and Policies--3
June 1947," 3 Jun 47; Speed Ltr, CMC to CG, Marine
Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, N.C., et al., 8
May 47, A0-1; Memo, CMC to Depot Quartermaster,
Depot of Supplies, 3 Jun 47, sub: Discharge for the
Convenience of the Government Certain Enlisted
Negro Members of the Marine Corps, 070-15-447.]
Even the recruitment of stewards did not go according to predictions.
Thomas had assured the commandant in the spring of 1946 that a
concrete offer of steward duty to black reservists would produce the
300-man quota for the regular corps. He wanted the offer published at
all separation centers and a training program for stewards instituted
at Camp Lejeune.[10-20] General Vandegrift approved the proposal, but a
month later the commander of Camp Lejeune reported that only three
reservists and one regular had volunteered.[10-21] He advised the
commandant to authorize recruitment among qualified civilians. Faced
with wholesale rejection of such duty by black marines, General Thomas
in March 1947 opened the Steward's Branch to Negroes with previous
military service in any of the armed forces and qualifications for
such work.[10-22] This ploy also proved a failure. Looking for 250
stewards, the recruiters could find but one acceptable applicant in
the first weeks of the program. Retreating still further, the
commandant canceled the requirement for previous military service in
April, and in October dropped the requirement for "clearly established
qualifications."[10-23] Apparently the staff would take a chance on any
warm body.
[Footnote 10-20: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 12 Mar 46, sub: Steward's Branch
Personnel, Information Concerning, A0-3, MC files.]
[Footnote 10-21: Ltr, CG, Cp Lejeune, to CMC, 4 Apr
46, sub: Steward's Branch Personnel, 060105.]
[Footnote 10-22: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 18 Mar 47, sub: Enlistment of Negro
Personnel, 01A7647.]
[Footnote 10-23: Ibid., 16 Apr 47, sub: First
Enlistment of Negro Personnel, A0-1, and 9 Oct 47,
sub: Procurement and Assignment of Stewards
Personnel, Box 1515-30; Ltr, CMC (Div of
Recruiting) to Off in Charge, Northeastern
Recruiting Div, 29 Apr 47, sub: Negro First
Enlistments, 07A11947.]
In dropping the requirement for prior military service, the corps
introduced a complication. Recruits for steward duty would be obliged
to undergo basic training and their enlistment contracts would read
"general duty"; Navy regulations required that subsequent
reclassification to "stewards duty only" status had to be made at the
request of the recruit. In August 1947 three men enlisted under the
first enlistment program for stewards refused to execute a change of
enlistment contract after basic training.[10-24] Although these men could
have been discharged "for the good of the service," the commandant (p. 260)
decided not to contest their right to remain in the general service.
This action did not go unnoticed, and in subsequent months a number of
men who signed up with the intention of becoming stewards refused to
modify their enlistment contract while others, who already had changed
their contract, suddenly began to fail the qualifying tests for
stewards school.
[Footnote 10-24: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 15 Sep 47, sub: Disposition of Negro
Personnel Who Enlisted With a View Toward
Qualifying for Stewards Duties..., 01A25847.]
The possibility of filling the quota became even more distant when in
September 1947 the number of steward billets was increased to 380.
Since only 57 stewards had signed up in the past twelve months,
recruiters now had to find some 200 men, at least 44 per month for the
immediate future. The commandant, furthermore, approved plans to
increase the number of stewards to 420. In December the Plans and
Policies Division, conceding defeat, recommended that the commandant
arrange for the transfer of 175 men from the Navy's oversubscribed
Steward's Branch. At the same time, to overcome what the division's
new director, Brig. Gen. Ray A. Robinson, called "the onus attached to
servant type duties," the commandant was induced to approve a plan
making the rank and pay of stewards comparable to those of general
duty personnel.[10-25]
[Footnote 10-25: Ibid., 26 Dec 47, sub: Procurement of
Steward Personnel, A0-1; see also Ltr, CMC to Chief
of Naval Personnel, 6 Jan 48, sub: Discharge of
Steward Personnel From Navy to Enlist in the Marine
Corps, MC 967879; Memo, Chief of Naval Personnel
for CMC, 28 Jan 48, sub: Discharge of Certain
Steward Branch Personnel for Purpose of Enlistment
in the Marine Corps.]
These measures seemed to work. The success of the transfer program and
the fact that first enlistments had finally begun to balance
discharges led the recruiters to predict in March 1948 that their
steward quota would soon be filled. Unfortunately, success tempted the
planners to overreach themselves. Assured of a full steward quota,
General Robinson recommended that approval be sought from the
Secretary of the Navy to establish closed messes, along with the
requisite steward billets, at the shore quarters for bachelor officers
overseas.[10-26] Approval brought another rise in the number of steward
billets, this time to 580, and required a first-enlistment goal of
twenty men per month.[10-27] The new stewards, however, were not
forthcoming. After three months of recruiting the corps had netted ten
men, more than offset by trainees who failed to qualify for steward
school. Concluding that the failures represented to a great extent a
scheme to remain in general service and evade the ceiling on general
enlistment, the planners wanted the men failing to qualify discharged
"for the good of the service."[10-28]
[Footnote 10-26: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 19 Mar 48, sub: Procurement and
Distribution of Steward Personnel, A0-1.]
[Footnote 10-27: Ibid., 12 Aug 48, sub: Steward
Personnel, Allowances and Procurement, A0-1; Ltr,
CMC to CG, Marine Barracks, Cp Lejeune, 16 Aug 48,
sub: Negro Recruits, 01A22948.]
[Footnote 10-28: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 15 Oct 48, sub: Disposition of Negro
Personnel Who Enlist "For Steward Duty Only" and
Subsequently Fail to Qualify for Such Duty, Study
#169-48; Ltr, QMG of MC to CMC, 17 Sep 48, same
sub, CA6.]
The lack of recruits for steward duty and constant pressure by
stewards for transfer to general duty troubled the Marine Corps
throughout the postwar period. Reviewing the problem in December
1948, the commanding general of Camp Lejeune saw three causes: (p. 261)
"agitation from civilian sources," which labeled steward duty
degrading servant's work; lack of rapid promotion; and badgering from
black marines on regular duty.[10-29] But the commander's solution--a
public relations campaign using black recruits to promote the
attractions of steward duty along with a belated promise of more rapid
promotion--failed. It ignored the central issue, the existence of a
segregated branch in which black marines performed menial, nonmilitary
duties.
[Footnote 10-29: Msg, CG, Cp Lejeune, N.C., to CMC, 31
Dec 48.]
Headquarters later resorted to other expedients. It obtained
seventy-five more men from the Navy and lowered the qualification test
standards for steward duty. But like earlier efforts, these steps also
failed to produce enough men.[10-30] Ironically, while the corps aroused
the ire of the civil rights groups by maintaining a segregated
servants' branch, it was never able to attract a sufficient number of
stewards to fill its needs in the postwar period.
[Footnote 10-30: Memo, Chief of Naval Personnel and
CMC for All Ships and Stations, 28 Feb 49, sub:
Discharge of Stewards, USN, For the Purpose of
Immediate Enlistment in Marine Corps, Pers-66,
GenRecsNav; Memo, CMC for Dir of Recruiting, 25 Feb
49, sub: Mental Requirements for Enlistment for
"Steward Duty Only," A0-1; Ltr, CMC (Div of
Recruiting) to Off in Charge, Northeastern
Recruiting Div, 3 Mar 49, sub: Mental Standards for
Enlistment for Steward Duty Only, MC1088081; Msg,
CMC to Div of Recruiting, 7 Apr 49.]
Many of the corps' critics saw in the buildup of the Steward's Branch
the first step in an attempt to eliminate Negroes from the general
service. If such a scheme had ever been contemplated, it was
remarkably unsuccessful, for the corps would enter the Korean War with
most of its Negroes still in the general service. Nevertheless, the
apprehension of the civil rights advocates was understandable because
during most of the postwar period enlistment in the general service
was barred to Negroes or limited to a very small number of men. Closed
to Negroes in early 1947, enlistment was briefly reopened at the rate
of forty men per month later that year to provide the few hundred
extra men called for in the reorganization of the Operating Force
Plan.[10-31] Enlistment was again opened in May 1948 when the recruiting
office established a monthly quota for black recruits at ten men for
general duty and eight for the Steward's Branch. The figure for
stewards quickly rose to thirty per month, but effective 1 May 1949
the recruitment of Negroes for general service was closed.[10-32]
[Footnote 10-31: Memo, CMC for CG, Marine Barracks, Cp
Lejeune, N.C., 8 Dec 47, sub: Negro Recruits,
01A33847.]
[Footnote 10-32: Ltr, CMC to CG, Cp Lejeune, 24 May
48, A0-1; Memo, CMC for Off in Charge of Recruiting
Div, 29 Jan 49, sub: Enlistment of Negroes,
07D14848; Msg, CMC to Offs in Charge of Recruiting
Divs, 25 Apr 49.]
These rapid changes, indeed the whole pattern of black enlistment in
the postwar Marine Corps, demonstrated that the staff's manpower
practices were out of joint with the times. Not only did they invite
attack from the increasingly vocal civil rights forces, but they also
fostered a general distrust among black marines themselves and among
those young Negroes the corps hoped to attract.
_Segregation and Efficiency_
The assignment policies and recruitment practices of the corps were
the inevitable result of its segregation policy. Prejudice and
discrimination no doubt aggravated the situation, but the policy of
separation limited the ways Negroes could be employed and places (p. 262)
to which they might be assigned. Segregation explained, for example,
why Negroes were traditionally employed in certain types of combat
units, and why, when changing missions and manpower restrictions
caused a reduction in the number of such units, Negroes were not given
other combat assignments. Most Negroes with combat military
occupational specialties served in defense battalions during World War
II. These units, chiefly antiaircraft artillery, were self-contained
and could therefore be segregated; at the same time they cloaked a
large group of men with the dignity of a combat assignment. But what
was possible during the war was no longer practical and efficient in
the postwar period. Some antiaircraft artillery units survived the
war, but they no longer operated as battalions and were divided
instead into battery-size organizations that simply could not be
segregated in terms of support and recreational facilities. In fact,
the corps found it impossible after the war to maintain segregation in
any kind of combat unit.
Even if segregated service had been possible, the formation of
all-black antiaircraft artillery battalions would have been precluded
by the need of this highly technical branch for so many kinds of
trained specialists. Not only would separate training facilities for
the few Negroes in the peacetime corps be impossibly expensive and
inefficient, but not enough black recruits were eligible for such
training. A wartime comparison of the General Classification Test and
Mechanical Aptitude Test scores of the men in the 52d Defense
Battalion with those of men in two comparable white units showed the
Negroes averaging considerably lower than the whites.[10-33] It was
reasonable to expect this difference to continue since, on the whole,
black recruits were scoring lower than their World War II
counterparts.[10-34] Under current policies, therefore, the Marine Corps
saw little choice but to exclude Negroes from antiaircraft artillery
and other combat units.
[Footnote 10-33: Ltr, CO, 52d Defense Battalion, to
CMC, 15 Jan 46, sub: Employment of Colored
Personnel as Antiaircraft Artillery Troops,
Recommendations on, 02-46, MC files.]
[Footnote 10-34: Memo, Dir of Personnel for Dir, Div
of Plans and Policies, 21 Jul 48, sub: General
Classification Test Scores of Colored Enlisted
Marines, 07DZ0348. The GCT distribution of 991
black marines as of 1 March 1948 was as follows:
Group I (130-163), 0%; Group II (110-129), 4.94%;
Group III (90-109), 24.7%; Group IV (60-89),
61.45%; and Group V (42-59), 9.54%. Memo, Dir of
Personnel to Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, 30 May
48, sub: Marines--Tests and Testing.]
Obviously the corps had in its ranks some Negroes capable of
performing any task required in an artillery battalion. Yet because
the segregation policy demanded that there be enough qualified men to
form and sustain a whole black battalion, the abilities of these
high-scoring individuals were wasted. On the other hand, many billets
in antiaircraft artillery or other types of combat battalions could be
filled by men with low test scores, but less gifted black marines were
excluded because they had to be assigned to one of the few black
units. Segregation, in short, was doubly inefficient, it kept both
able and inferior Negroes out of combat units that were perpetually
short of men.
Segregation also promoted inefficiency in the placement of black
Marine units. While the assignment of an integrated unit with a few
black marines would probably go unnoticed in most naval
districts--witness the experience of the Navy itself--the task of (p. 263)
finding a naval district and an American community where a large
segregated group of black marines could be peacefully assimilated was
infinitely more difficult.
The original postwar racial program called for the assignment of black
security units to the Marine Barracks at McAlester, Oklahoma, and
Earle, New Jersey. Noting that the station was in a strict Jim Crow
area where recreational facilities for Negroes were limited and
distant, the commanding officer of the Marine Barracks at McAlester
recommended that no Negroes be assigned. He reminded the commandant
that guard duty required marines to question and apprehend white
civilian employees, a fact that would add to the racial tension in the
area. His conclusions, no doubt shared by commanders in many parts of
the country, summed up the problem of finding assignments for black
marines: any racial incident which might arise out of disregard for
local racial custom, he wrote,
would cause the Marine Corps to become involved by protecting
such personnel as required by Federal law and Navy Regulations.
It is believed that if one such potential incident occurred, it
would seriously jeopardize the standing of the Marine Corps
throughout the Southwest. To my way of thinking, the Marine Corps
is not now maintaining the high esteem of public opinion, or
gaining in prestige, by the manner in which its uniform and
insignia are subjected to such laws. The uniform does not count,
it is relegated to the background and made to participate in and
suffer the restrictions and limitations placed upon it by virtue
of the wearer being subject to the Jim Crow laws.[10-35]
[Footnote 10-35: Ltr, CO, MB, NAD, McAlester, Okla.,
to CMC, 5 Nov 46, sub: Assignment of Colored
Marines, 2385.]
The commander of the McAlester ammunition depot endorsed this
recommendation, adding that Oklahoma was a "border" state where the
Negro was not accepted as in the north nor understood and tolerated as
in the south. This argument moved the Director of Plans and Policies
to recommend that McAlester be dropped and the black unit sent instead
to Port Chicago, California.[10-36] With the approval of the commandant
and the Chief of Naval Operations, plans for the assignment were well
under way in June 1947 when the commandant of the Twelfth Naval
District intervened.[10-37] The presence of a black unit, he declared,
was undesirable in a predominantly white area that was experiencing
almost constant labor turmoil. The possibility of clashes between
white pickets and black guards would invite racial conflict. His
warnings carried the day, and Port Chicago was dropped in favor of the
Marine Barracks, Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn, New York, with station at
Bayonne, New Jersey. At the same time, because of opposition from
naval officials, the plan for assigning Negroes to Earle, New Jersey,
was also dropped, and the commandant launched inquiries about the (p. 264)
depots at Hingham, Massachusetts, and Fort Mifflin, Pennsylvania.[10-38]
[Footnote 10-36: Ltr, CO, NAD, McAlester, Okla., to
CMC, 5 Nov 46, 1st Ind to Ltr, CO, MB, McAlester,
2385; Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for
CMC, 3 Dec 46, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines to
MB, Naval Magazine, Port Chicago, Calif., in lieu
of MB, NAD, McAlester, Okla., A0-1.]
[Footnote 10-37: Memo, CMC for CNO, 3 Dec 46, sub:
Assignment of Negro Marines to MB, Naval Magazine,
Port Chicago, Calif., and MB, NAD, Earle, N.J.,
A0-1; idem for CO, MB, NAD, Earle, N.J., 9 Jan 47,
sub: Assignment of Colored Marines to Marine
Barracks, Naval Ammunition Depot, Earle, N.J.; idem
for CO, Department of the Pacific, and CO, MB, NAD,
McAlester, Okla., A0-1; Memo, CNO for CMC, 6 Jan
47, same sub, OP 30 M.]
[Footnote 10-38: Speed Ltr, CMC to Cmdt, Twelfth Naval
District, 12 Jun 47; Memo, CMC for CO, MB, Naval
Shipyard, Brooklyn, N.Y., 13 Jun 47, sub:
Assignment of Negro Marines to Second Guard
Company, Marine Barracks Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn,
N.Y., A0-1; idem for CO, MB, USNAD, Hingham, Mass.,
18 Jun 47, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines, A0-1;
Speed Ltr, CMC to Cmdt, Twelfth Naval District, 18
Jun 47, 01A76847; Memo, CMC for CO, MB, NAD, Ft.
Mifflin, Pa., 18 Jun 47, sub: Assignment of Negro
Marines, A0-1; Memo, Cmdt, Fourth Naval District
for CO, MB, NAD, Ft. Mifflin, Pa., 18 Jun 47, same
sub.]
Fort Mifflin agreed to take fifty black marines, but several officials
objected to the proposed assignment to Hingham. The Marine commander,
offering what he called his unbiased opinion in the best interests of
the service, explained in considerable detail why he thought the
assignment of Negroes would jeopardize the fire-fighting ability of
the ammunition depot. The commanding officer of the naval depot
endorsed these reasons and added that assigning black marines to guard
duty that included vehicle search would create a problem in industrial
relations.[10-39] The commandant of the First Naval District apparently
discounted these arguments, but he too voted against the assignment of
Negroes on the grounds that the Hingham area lacked a substantial
black population, was largely composed of restricted residential
neighborhoods, and was a major summer resort on which the presence of
black units would have an adverse effect.[10-40]
[Footnote 10-39: Memo, CO, MB, NAD, Hingham, Mass.,
for CMC, 26 Jun 47, sub: Comments on Assignment of
Negro Marines, AB-1; Memo, CO, NAD, Hingham, Mass.,
for CMC, 26 Jun 47, 1st Ind to AB-1, 26 Jun 47.]
[Footnote 10-40: Ltr, Cmdt, First Naval District, to
CMC, 30 Jun 47, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines,
2d Ind to AB-1, 26 Jun 47.]
The commander of the Naval Base, New York, meanwhile had refused to
approve a plan to assign a black unit to Bayonne, New Jersey, and
suggested that it be sent to Earle, New Jersey, instead because there
the unit "presented fewer problems and difficulties than at any other
Naval activity." The commander noted that stationing Negroes at
Bayonne would necessitate a certain amount of integration in mess and
ship service facilities. Bayonne was also reputed to have the toughest
gate duty in the New York area, and noncommissioned officers had to
supervise a white civilian police force. At Earle, on the other hand,
the facilities were completely separate, and although some complaints
from well-to-do summer colonists in the vicinity could be expected,
men could be bused to Newark or Jersey City for recreation. Moreover,
Earle could absorb a 175-man unit.[10-41] But chief of the Navy's Bureau
of Ordnance wanted to retain white marines at Earle because a recent
decision to handle ammonium nitrate fertilizer there made it unwise to
relieve the existing trained detachment. Earle was also using contract
stevedores and expected to be using Army troops whose use of local
facilities would preclude plans for a segregated barracks and
mess.[10-42]
[Footnote 10-41: Ltr, CO, Naval Base, New York, to
CMC, 10 July 47, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines
to Second Guard Company, Marine Barracks, New York
Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn, N.Y., NB-139.]
[Footnote 10-42: Ltr, Chief, Bur of Ord, to CNO, 11
Aug 47, sub: Naval Ammunition Depot, Earle,
N.J.--Assignment of Negro Marine Complement,
NTI-34.]
The commandant accepted these arguments and on 20 August 1947 revoked
the assignment of a black unit to Earle. Still, with its ability to
absorb 175 men and its relative suitability in terms of separate (p. 265)
living facilities, the depot remained a prime candidate for black
units, and in November General Vandegrift reversed himself. The Chief
of Naval Operations supported the commandant's decision over the
renewed objections of the Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance.[10-43] With
Hingham, Massachusetts, ruled out, the commandant now considered the
substitution of Marine barracks at Trinidad, British West Indies;
Scotia, New York; and Oahu, Hawaii. He rejected Trinidad in favor of
Oahu, and officials in Hawaii proved amenable.[10-44]
[Footnote 10-43: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 19 Nov 47, sub: First Enlistments of Negro
Personnel, A0-1; Memo, Chief, Bur of Ord, for CNO,
15 Dec 47, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines at
Naval Ammunition Depot, Earle, Red Bank, N.J.;
Memo, CNO for Chief, Bur of Ord, 6 Jan 48, same
sub.]
[Footnote 10-44: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
29 Jul 47, sub: Negro Requirements and Assignments,
A0-1, MC files.]
The chief of the Navy's Bureau of Supplies and Accounts objected to
the use of black marines at the supply depot in Scotia, claiming that
such an assignment to the Navy's sole installation in upper New York
State would bring about a "weakening of the local public relations
advantage now held by the Navy" and would be contrary to the Navy's
best interests. He pointed out that the assignment would necessitate
billeting white marine graves registration escorts and black marines
in the same squad rooms. The use of black marines for firing squads at
funerals, he thought, would be "undesirable." He also pointed out that
the local black population was small, making for extremely limited
recreational and social opportunities.[10-45] The idea of using Scotia
with all these attendant inconveniences was quietly dropped, and the
black marines were finally assigned to Earle, New Jersey; Fort
Mifflin, Pennsylvania; and Oahu, Hawaii.
[Footnote 10-45: Memo, Chief, Bur of Supplies and
Accounts, for CNO, 14 Oct 47, sub: Assignment of
Negro Marines, P-16-1; Memo, CNO to CMC, 20 Nov 47,
same sub, Op 415 D.]
Approved on 8 November 1946, the postwar plan to assign black units to
security guard assignments in the United States was not fully put into
practice until 15 August 1948, almost two years later. This episode in
the history of discrimination against Americans in uniform brought
little glory to anyone involved and revealed much about the extent of
race prejudice in American society. It was an indictment of people in
areas as geographically diverse as Oklahoma, New York, Massachusetts,
and New Jersey who objected to the assignment of black servicemen to
their communities. It was also an indictment of a great many
individual commanders, both in the Navy and Marine Corps, some perhaps
for personal prejudices, others for so readily bowing to community
prejudices. But most of all the blame must fall on the Marine Corps'
policy of segregation. Segregation made it necessary to find
assignments for a whole enlisted complement and placed an intolerable
administrative burden on the corps. The dictum that black marines
could not deal with white civilians, especially in situations in which
they would give orders, further limited assignments since such duties
were routine in any security unit. Thus, bound to a policy that was
neither just nor practical, the commandant spent almost two years
trying to place four hundred men.
Despite the obvious inefficiency and discrimination involved, the (p. 266)
commandant, General Vandegrift, adamantly defended the Marine
segregation policy before Secretary of the Navy Forrestal. Wartime
experience showed, he maintained, oblivious to overwhelming evidence
to the contrary since 1943, "that the assignment of negro Marines to
separate units promotes harmony and morale and fosters the competitive
spirit essential to the development of a high esprit."[10-46] His stand
was bound to antagonize the civil rights camp; the black press in
particular trumpeted the theme that the corps was as full of race
discrimination as it had been during the war.[10-47]
[Footnote 10-46: Memo, Gen Vandegrift to SecNav, 25
Aug 47, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines, 54-1-29,
GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 10-47: See, for example, the analysis that
appeared in the Chicago _Defender_, August 14,
1948.]
_Toward Integration_
But even as the commandant defended the segregation policy, the corps
was beginning to yield to pressure from outside forces and the demands
of military efficiency. The first policy breach concerned black
officers. Although a proposal for commissions had been rejected when
the subject was first raised in 1944, three black candidates were
accepted by the officer training school at Quantico in April 1945. One
failed to qualify on physical and two on scholastic grounds, but they
were followed by five other Negroes who were still in training on V-J
day. One of this group, Frederick Branch of Charlotte, North Carolina,
elected to stay in training through the demobilization period. He was
commissioned with his classmates on 10 November 1945 and placed in the
inactive reserves. Meanwhile, three Negroes in the V-12 program
graduated and received commissions as second lieutenants in the
inactive Marine Corps Reserve. Officer training for all these men was
integrated.[10-48]
[Footnote 10-48: Shaw and Donnelly, _Blacks and the
Marine Corps_, pp. 47-48; see also Selective
Service System, _Special Groups_ (Monograph 10),
I:105.]
The first Negro to obtain a regular commission in the Marine Corps was
John E. Rudder of Paducah, Kentucky, a Marine veteran and graduate of
the Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps. Analyzing the case for the
commandant in May 1948, the Director of Plans and Policies noted that
the law did not require the Marine Corps to commission Rudder, but
that he was only the first of several Negroes who would be applying
for commissions in the next few years through the Naval Reserve
Officers' Training Corps. Since the reserve corps program was a vital
part of the plan to expand Marine Corps officer strength, rejecting a
graduate on account of race, General Robinson warned, might jeopardize
the entire plan. He thought that Rudder should be accepted for duty.
Rudder was appointed a second lieutenant in the Regular Marine Corps
on 28 May 1948 and ordered to Quantico for basic schooling.[10-49] In
1949 Lieutenant Rudder resigned. Indicative of the changing civil
rights scene was the apprehension shown by some Marine Corps officials
about public reaction to the resignation. But although Rudder reported
instances of discrimination at Quantico--stemming for the most (p. 267)
part from a lack of military courtesy that amounted to outright
ostracism--he insisted his decision to resign was based on personal
reasons and was irreversible. The Director of Public Information was
anxious to release an official version of the resignation,[10-50] but
other voices prevailed, and Rudder's exit from the corps was handled
quietly both at headquarters and in the press.[10-51]
[Footnote 10-49: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 11 May 48, sub: Appointment to
Commissioned Rank in the Regular Marine Corps, Case
of Midshipman John Earl Rudder, A0-1; see also Dept
of Navy Press Release, 25 Aug 48.]
[Footnote 10-50: Memo, Dir of Public Information for
CMC, 11 Feb 49, sub: Publicity on Second Lieutenant
John Rudder, USMC, AG 1364; see also Ltr, Lt Cmdr
Dennis Nelson to James C. Evans, 24 Feb 70, CMH
files.]
[Footnote 10-51: Memo, Oliver Smith for CMC, 11 Feb
49, with attached CMC note.]
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT AND MRS. BRANCH.]
The brief active career of one black officer was hardly evidence of a
great racial reform, but it represented a significant breakthrough
because it affirmed the practice of integrated officer training and
established the right of Negroes to command. And Rudder was quickly
followed by other black officer candidates, some of whom made careers
in the corps. Rudder's appointment marked a permanent change in Marine
Corps policy.
Enlistment of black women marked another change. Negroes had been
excluded from the Women's Reserve during World War II, but in March
1949 A. Philip Randolph asked the commandant, in the name of the
Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training, if black
women could join the corps. The commandant's reply was short and
direct: "If qualified for enlistment, negro women will be accepted on
the same basis as other applicants."[10-52] In September 1949 Annie N.
Graham and Ann E. Lamb reported to Parris Island for integrated
training and subsequent assignment.
[Footnote 10-52: Ltr, A. Philip Randolph to Gen C. B.
Cates, 8 Mar 49; Ltr, CMC to Randolph, 10 Mar 49,
AW 828.]
Yet another racial change, in the active Marine Corps Reserve, could
be traced to outside pressure. Until 1947 all black reservists were
assigned to inactive and unpaid volunteer reserve status, and
applications for transfer to active units were usually disapproved by
commanding officers on grounds that such transfers would cost the unit
a loss in whites. Rejections did not halt applications, however, and
in May 1947 the Director of Marine Corps Reserve decided to seek a
policy decision. While he wanted each commander of an active unit left
free to decide whether he would take Negroes, the director also wanted
units with black enlisted men formed in the organized reserve,
all-black voluntary training units recognized, and integrated active
duty training provided for reservists.[10-53] A group of Negroes (p. 268)
in Chicago had already applied for the formation of a black voluntary
training unit.
[Footnote 10-53: Memo, Dir, Div of Reserve, for CMC, 6
May 47, sub: General Policy Governing Negro
Reservists, AF 1271; Ltr, William Griffin to CMC, 3
Mar 47; Ltr, Col R. McPate to William Griffin, 11
Mar 47.]
General Thomas, Director of Plans and Policies, was not prepared to go
the whole way. He agreed that within certain limitations the local
commander should decide on the integration of black reservists into an
active unit, and he accepted integrated active duty training. But he
rejected the formation of black units in the organized reserve and the
voluntary training program; the latter because it would "inevitably
lead to the necessity for Negro officers and for authorizing drill
pay" in order to avoid charges of discrimination. Although Thomas
failed to explain why black officers and drill pay were unacceptable
or how rejecting the program would save the corps from charges of
discrimination, his recommendations were approved by the commandant
over the objection of the Reserve Division.[10-54] But the Director of
Reserves rejoined that volunteer training units were organized under
corps regulations, the Chicago group had met all the specifications,
and the corps would be subject to just criticism if it refused to form
the unit. On the other hand, by permitting the formation of some
all-black volunteer units, the corps might satisfy the wish of Negroes
to be a part of the reserve and thus avoid any concerted attempt to
get the corps to form all-black units in the organized reserve.[10-55]
[Footnote 10-54: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 7 May 47, sub: General Policy Governing
Negro Reservists, A0-1.]
[Footnote 10-55: Memo, Dir of Reserve for CMC, 15 May
47, sub: General Policy Concerning Negro
Reservists, AF 394.]
At this point the Division of Plans and Policies offered to
compromise. General Robinson recommended that when the number of
volunteers so warranted, the corps should form black units of company
size or greater, either separate or organic to larger reserve units
around the country. He remained opposed to integrated units,
explaining that experience proved--he neglected to mention what
experience, certainly none in the Marine Corps--that integrated units
served neither the best interests of the individual nor the corps.[10-56]
While the commandant's subsequent approval set the stage for the
formation of racially composite units in the reserve, the stipulation
that the black element be of company size or larger effectively
limited the degree of reform.
[Footnote 10-56: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 1 Mar 48, sub: Enlistment of Negro
Ex-Marines in Organized Reserve, A0-1.]
The development of composite units in the reserve paralleled a far
more significant development in the active forces. In 1947 the Marine
Corps began organizing such units along the lines established in the
postwar Army. Like the Army, the corps discovered that maintaining a
quota--even when the quota for the corps meant maintaining a minimum
number of Negroes in the service--in a period of shrinking manpower
resources necessitated the creation of new billets for Negroes. At the
same time it was obviously inefficient to assign combat-trained
Negroes, now surplus with the inactivation of the black defense
battalions, to black service and supply units when the Fleet Marine
Force battalions were so seriously understrength. Thus the strictures
against integration notwithstanding, the corps was forced to begin (p. 269)
attaching black units to the depleted Fleet Marine Force units.
In January 1947, for example, members of Headquarters Unit, Montford
Point Camp, and men of the inactivated 3d Antiaircraft Artillery
Battalion were transferred to Camp Geiger, North Carolina, and
assigned to the all-black 2d Medium Depot Company, which, along with
eight white units, was organized into the racially composite 2d Combat
Service Group in the 2d Marine Division.[10-57] Although the units of the
group ate in separate mess halls and slept in separate barracks,
inevitably the men of all units used some facilities in common. After
Negroes were assigned to Camp Geiger, for instance, recreational
facilities were open to all. In some isolated cases, black
noncommissioned officers were assigned to lead racially mixed details
in the composite group.[10-58]
[Footnote 10-57: USMC Muster Rolls, 1947.]
[Footnote 10-58: Interv, Martin Blumenson with 1st Sgt
Jerome Pressley, 21 Feb 66, CMH files.]
[Illustration: TRAINING EXERCISES. _Black Marine unit boards ship at
Morehead City, North Carolina, 1949._]
But these reforms, which did very little for a very few men, scarcely
dented the Marine Corps' racial policy. Corps officials were still
firmly committed to strict segregation in 1948, and change seemed very
distant. Any substantial modification in racial policy would require a
revolution against Marine tradition, a movement dictated by higher
civilian authority or touched off by an overwhelming military need.
CHAPTER 11 (p. 270)
The Postwar Air Force
The Air Force was a new service in 1947, but it was also heir to a
long tradition of segregation. Most of its senior officers, trained in
the Army, firmly supported the Army's policy of racially separate
units and racial quotas. And despite continuing objections to what
many saw as the Gillem Board's far too progressive proposals, the Air
Force adopted the Army's postwar racial policy as its own. Yet after
less than two years as an independent service the Air Force in late
1948 stood on the threshold of integration.
This sudden change in attitude was not so much the result of
humanitarian promptings by service officials, although some of them
forcibly demanded equal treatment and opportunity. Nor was it a
response to civil rights activists, although Negroes in and outside
the Air Force continued to exert pressure for change. Rather,
integration was forced upon the service when the inefficiency of its
racial practices could no longer be ignored. The inefficiency of
segregated troops was less noticeable in the Army, where a vast number
of Negroes could serve in a variety of expandable black units, and in
the smaller Navy, where only a few Negroes had specialist ratings and
most black sailors were in the separate Steward's Branch. But the
inefficiency of separatism was plainly evident in the Air Force.
Like the Army, the Air Force had its share of service units to absorb
the marginal black airman, but postwar budget restrictions had made
the enlargement of service units difficult to justify. At the same
time, the Gillem Board policy as well as outside pressures had made it
necessary to include a black air unit in the service's limited number
of postwar air wings. However socially desirable two air forces might
seem to most officials, and however easy it had been to defend them as
a wartime necessity, it quickly became apparent that segregation was,
organizationally at least, a waste of the Air Force's few black pilots
and specialists and its relatively large supply of unskilled black
recruits. Thus, the inclination to integrate was mostly pragmatic;
notably absent were the idealistic overtones sounded by the Navy's
Special Programs Unit during the war. Considering the magnitude of the
Air Force problem, it was probably just as well that efficiency rather
than idealism became the keynote of change. On a percentage basis the
Air Force had almost as many Negroes as the Army and, no doubt, a
comparable level of prejudice among its commanders and men. At the
same time, the Air Force was a new service, its organization still
fluid and its policies subject to rapid modification. In such
circumstances a straightforward appeal to efficiency had a chance to
succeed where an idealistic call for justice and fair play might well
have floundered.
_Segregation and Efficiency_ (p. 271)
Many officials in the Army Air Forces had defended segregated units
during the war as an efficient method of avoiding dangerous social
conflicts and utilizing low-scoring recruits.[11-1] General Arnold
himself repeatedly warned against bringing black officers and white
enlisted men together. Unless strict unit segregation was imposed,
such contacts would be inevitable, given the Air Forces' highly mobile
training and operations structure.[11-2] But if segregation restricted
contacts between the races it also imposed a severe administrative
burden on the wartime Air Forces. It especially affected the black
flying units because it ordained that not only pilots but the ground
support specialists--mechanics, supply clerks, armorers--had to be
black. Throughout most of the war the Air Forces, competing with the
rest of the Army for skilled and high-scoring Negroes, was unable to
fill the needs of its black air units. At a time when the Air Forces
enjoyed a surplus of white air and ground crews, the black fighter
units suffered from a shortage of replacements for their combat
veterans, a situation as inefficient as it was damaging to morale.[11-3]
[Footnote 11-1: For a comprehensive and authoritative
account of the Negro in the Army Air Forces during
World War II, sec Osur's _Blacks in the Army Air
Forces During World War II_.]
[Footnote 11-2: See Memo, CS/AC for G-3, 31 May 40,
sub: Employment of Negro Personnel in the Air Corps
Units, G-3/6541-Gen 527.]
[Footnote 11-3: For the effect on unit morale, see
Charles E. Francis, _The Tuskegee Airmen: The Story
of the Negro in the U.S. Air Force_ (Boston: Bruce
Humphries, 1955), p. 164; see also USAF Oral
History Program, Interview with Lt Gen B. O. Davis,
Jr., Jan 73.]
The shortage was compounded in the penultimate year of the war when
the all-black 477th Bombardment Group was organized. (Black airmen and
civil rights spokesmen complained that restricting Negroes to fighter
units excluded them from many important and prestigious types of air
service.) In the end the new bombardment group only served to limit
black participation in the air war. Already short of black pilots, the
Army Air Forces now had to find black navigators and bombardiers as
well, thereby intensifying the competition for qualified black cadets.
The stipulation that pilots and bombardiers for the new unit be
trained at segregated Tuskegee was another obvious cause for the
repeated delays in the operational date of the 477th, and its crews
were finally assembled only weeks before the end of the war.
Competition for black bomber crews also led to a ludicrous situation
in which men highly qualified for pilot training according to their
stanine scores (achievements on the battery of qualifying tests taken
by all applicants for flight service) were sent instead to
navigator-bomber training, for which they were only barely
qualified.[11-4]
[Footnote 11-4: Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_, pp.
462-64; see also Interv, author with Lt Gen
Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., 12 Jun 70, CMH files.]
Unable to obtain enough Negroes qualified for flight training, the
Army Air Forces asked the Ground and Service Forces to screen their
personnel for suitable candidates, but a screening early in 1945
produced only about one-sixth of the men needed. Finally, the Air
Forces recommended that the Army staff lower the General Classification
Test score for pilot training from 110 to 100, a recommendation the
Service and Ground Forces opposed because such a move would eventually
mean the mass transfer of high-scoring Negroes to the Air Forces, (p. 272)
thus depriving the Service and Ground Forces of their proportionate
share. Although the Secretary of War approved the Air Forces proposal,
the change came too late to affect the shortage of black pilots and
specialists before the end of the war.
[Illustration: DAMAGE INSPECTION. _A squadron operations officer of
the 332d Fighter Group points out a cannon hole to ground crew, Italy,
1945._]
While short of skilled Negroes, the Army Air Forces was being
inundated with thousands of undereducated and unskilled Negroes from
Selective Service. It tried to absorb these recruits, as it absorbed
some of its white draftees, by creating a great number of service and
base security battalions. A handy solution to the wartime quota
problem, the large segregated units eventually caused considerable
racial tension. Some of the tension might have been avoided had black
officers commanded black squadrons, a logical course since the Air
Force had a large surplus of nonrated black officers stationed at
Tuskegee.[11-5] Most were without permanent assignment or were assigned
such duties as custodial responsibility for bachelor officer quarters,
occupations unrelated to their specialties.[11-6]
[Footnote 11-5: A nonrated officer is one not having
or requiring a currently effective aeronautical
rating; that is, an officer who is not a pilot,
navigator, or bombardier.]
[Footnote 11-6: Interv, author with Davis; see also
Osur's _Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World
War II_, ch. V.]
Few of these idle black officers commanded black service units because
the units were scattered worldwide while the nonrated officers were
almost always assigned to the airfield at Tuskegee. Approximately
one-third of the Air Forces' 1,559 black officers were stationed at
Tuskegee in June 1945. Most others were assigned to the fighter group
in the Mediterranean theater or the new bombardment group in flight
training at Godman Field, Kentucky. Only twenty-five black (p. 273)
officers were serving at other stations in the United States. The
Second, Third, and Fourth Air Forces and I Troop Carrier Command, for
example, had a combined total of seventeen black officers as against
22,938 black enlisted men.[11-7] Col. Noel F. Parrish, the wartime
commander at Tuskegee, explained that the principal reason for this
restriction was the prevailing fear of social conflict. If assigned to
other bases, black officers might try to use the officers' clubs and
other base facilities. Thus, despite the surplus of black officers
only too evident at Tuskegee, their requests for transfer to other
bases for assignment in their rating were usually denied on the
grounds that the overall shortage of black officers made their
replacement impossible.[11-8]
[Footnote 11-7: "Summary of AAF Post-War Surveys,"
prepared by Noel Parrish, copy in NAACP Collection,
Library of Congress.]
[Footnote 11-8: Noel F. Parrish, "The Segregation of
the Negro in the Army Air Forces," thesis submitted
to the USAF Air Command and Staff School, Maxwell
AFB, Ala., 1947, pp. 50-55.]
Fearing trouble between black and white officers and assuming that
black airmen preferred white officers, the Air Forces assigned white
officers to command black squadrons. Actually, such assignments
courted morale problems and worse because they were extremely
unpopular with both officers and men. Moreover, the Air Forces
eventually had to admit that there was a tendency to assign white
officers "of mediocre caliber" to black squadrons.[11-9] Yet few
assignments demanded greater leadership ability, for these officers
were burdened not only with the usual problems of a unit commander but
also with the complexities of race relations. If they disparaged their
troops, they failed as commanders; if they fought for their men, they
were dismissed by their superiors as "pro-Negro." Consequently, they
were generally a harassed and bewildered lot, bitter over their
assignments and bad for troop morale.[11-10]
[Footnote 11-9: Ltr, Hq AAF, to CG, Tactical Training
Cmd, 21 Aug 42, sub: Professional Qualities of
Officers Assigned to Negro Units, 220.765-3,
AFSHRC.]
[Footnote 11-10: Parrish, "Segregation of the Negro in
the Army Air Forces," pp. 50-55. The many
difficulties involved in the assignment of white
officers to black units are discussed in Osur's
_Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World War
II_, ch V.]
The social problems predicted for integration proved inevitable under
segregation. Commanders found it prohibitively expensive to provide
separate but equal facilities, and without them discrimination became
more obvious. The walk-in protest at the Freeman Field Officers Club
was but one of the natural consequences of segregation rules. And such
demonstrations were only the more spectacular problems. Just as
time-consuming and perhaps more of a burden were the many
administrative difficulties. The Air Transport Command admitted in
1946 that it was too expensive to maintain, as the command was
obligated to do, separate and equal housing and messing, including
separate orderly and day rooms for black airmen. At the same time it
complained of the disproportionately high percentage of black troops
violating military and civil law. Although Negroes accounted for 20
percent of the command's troops, they committed more than 50 percent
of its law infractions. The only connection the command was able to
make between the separate, unequal facilities and the high misconduct
rate was to point out that, while it had done its best to provide for
Negroes, they "had not earned a very enviable record by
themselves."[11-11]
[Footnote 11-11: AAF Transport Cmd, "History of the
Command, 1 July 1946-31 December 1946" pp. 120-26.]
In one crucial five-month period of the war, Army Air Forces (p. 274)
headquarters processed twenty-two separate staff actions involving
black troops.[11-12] To avoid the supposed danger of large-scale social
integration, the Air Forces, like the rest of the Army during World
War II, had been profligate in its use of material resources,
inefficient in its use of men, and destructive of the morale of black
troops.
[Footnote 11-12: Parrish, "Segregation of the Negro in
the Army Air Forces."]
[Illustration: COLONEL PARRISH. (_1946 photograph_).]
The Air staff was not oblivious to these facts and made some
adjustments in policy as the war progressed. Notably, it rejected
separate training of nonrated black officers and provided for
integrated training of black navigators and bombardiers. In the last
days of the war General Arnold ordered his commanders to "take
affirmative action to insure that equity in training and assignment
opportunity is provided all personnel."[11-13] And when it came to
postwar planning, the Air staff demonstrated it had learned much from
wartime experience:
The degree to which negroes can be successfully employed in the
Post-War Military Establishment largely depends on the success of
the Army in maintaining at a minimum the feeling of
discrimination and unfair treatment which basically are the
causes for irritation and disorders ... in the event of a future
emergency the arms will employ a large number of negroes and
their contribution in such an emergency will largely depend on
the training, treatment and intelligent use of negroes during the
intervening years.[11-14]
[Footnote 11-13: AAF Ltr 35-268, 11 Aug 45.]
[Footnote 11-14: Rpt, ACS/AS-1 to WDSS, 17 Sep 45,
sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Post-War
Military Establishment, WDSS 291.2.]
But while admitting that discrimination was at the heart of its racial
problem, the Air staff failed to see the connection between
discrimination and segregation. Instead it adopted the recommendations
of its senior commanders. The consensus was that black combat (flying)
units had performed "more or less creditably," but required more
training than white units, and that the ground echelon and combat
support units had performed below average. Rather than abolish these
below average units, however, commanders wanted them preserved and
wanted postwar policy to strengthen segregation. The final
recommendation of the Army Air Forces to the Gillem Board was that
blacks be trained according to the same standards as whites but that
they be employed in separate units and segregated for recreation,
messing, and social activities "on the post as well as off," in (p. 275)
keeping with prevailing customs in the surrounding civilian
community.[11-15]
[Footnote 11-15: Ibid. For an analysis of these
recommendations, see Gropman's _The Air Force
Integrates_, ch. II.]
The Army Air Forces' postwar use of black troops was fairly consonant
with the major provisions of the Gillem Board Report. To reduce black
combat units in proportion to the reduction of its white units, it
converted the 477th Bombardment Group (M) into the 477th Composite
Group. This group, under the command of the Army's senior black pilot,
Col. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., included a fighter, a bombardment, and a
service squadron. To provide segregated duty for its black
specialists, the Army Air Forces organized regular black squadrons,
mostly ammunition, motor transport, and engineer throughout its
commands. To absorb the large number of unskilled Negroes, it
organized one black squadron (Squadron F) in each of the ninety-seven
base units in its worldwide base system to perform laboring and
housekeeping chores. Finally, it promised "to the fullest possible
extent" to assign Negroes with specialized skills and qualifications
to overhead and special units.[11-16]
[Footnote 11-16: WD Bureau of Public Relations, Memo
for the Press, 20 Sep 45; Office of Public
Relations, Godman Field, Ky., "Col. Davis Issues
Report on Godman Field," 10 Oct 45; Memo, Chief,
Programs and Manpower Section, Troop Basis Branch,
Organization Division, D/T&R, for Dir of Military
Personnel, 23 Apr 48, no sub; all in Negro Affairs,
SecAF files. See also "History of Godman Field,
Ky., 1 Mar--15 Oct 45," AFSHRC.]
In the summer of 1947, the Army Air Forces integrated aviation
training at Randolph Field, Texas, and quietly closed Tuskegee
airfield, thus ending the last segregated officer training in the
armed forces. The move was unrelated to the Gillem Board Report or to
the demands of civil rights advocates. The Tuskegee operation had
simply become impractical. In the severe postwar retrenchment of the
armed forces, Tuskegee's cadet enrollment had dropped sharply, only
nine men graduated in the October 1945 class.[11-17] To the general
satisfaction of the black community, the few black cadets shared both
quarters and classes with white students.[11-18] Nine black cadets were
in training at the end of 1947.[11-19]
[Footnote 11-17: "History of the 2143d AAF Base Unit,
Pilot School, Basic, Advanced, and Tuskegee Army
Air Field, 1 Sep 1945-31 Oct 1945," AFSHRC.]
[Footnote 11-18: For an example of black reaction see
_Ebony_ Magazine V (September 1949).]
[Footnote 11-19: Memo, James C. Evans, Adviser to the
SecDef, for Capt Robert W. Berry, 10 Feb 48, SecDef
291.2 files.]
Another postwar reduction was not so advantageous for Negroes. By
February 1946 the 477th Composite Group had been reduced to sixteen
B-25 bombers, twelve P-47 fighter-bombers, and only 746 men--a 40
percent drop in four months.[11-20] Although the Tactical Air Command
rated the unit's postwar training and performance satisfactory, and
its transfer to the more hospitable surroundings and finer facilities
of Lockbourne Field, Ohio, raised morale, the 477th, like other
understaffed and underequipped organizations, faced inevitable
conversion to specialized service. In July 1947 the 477th was
inactivated and replaced by the 332d Fighter Group composed of the
99th, 100th, and 301st Fighter Squadrons. Black bomber pilots were
converted to fighter pilots, and the bomber crews were removed from
flying status.
[Footnote 11-20: "History of the 477th Composite
Group," 15 Sep 45-15 Feb 46, Feb-Mar 46, and 1
Mar-15 Jul 46, AFSHRC.]
[Illustration: OFFICERS' SOFTBALL TEAM _representing the 477th
Composite Group, Godwin Field, Kentucky_.]
These changes flew in the face of the Gillem Board Report, for (p. 276)
however slightly that document may have changed the Army's segregation
policy, it did demand at least a modest response to the call for equal
opportunity in training, assignment, and advancement. The board
clearly looked to the command of black units by qualified black
officers and the training of black airmen to serve as a cadre for any
necessary expansion of black units in wartime. Certainly the
conversion of black bomber pilots to fighters did not meet these
modest demands. In its defense the Army Air Forces in effect pleaded
that there were too many Negroes for its present force, now severely
reduced in size and lacking planes and other equipment, and too many
of the black troops lacked education for the variety of assignments
recommended by the board.
The Army Air Forces seemed to have a point, for in the immediate
postwar period its percentage of black airmen had risen dramatically.
It was drafting men to replace departing veterans, and in 1946 it was
taking anyone who qualified, including many Negroes. In seven months
the air arm lost over half its black strength, going from a wartime
high of 80,606 on 31 August 1945 to 38,911 on 31 March 1946, but in
the same period the black percentage almost doubled, climbing from 4.2
to 7.92.[11-21] The War Department predicted that all combat arms would
have a black strength of 15 percent by 1 July 1946.[11-22]
[Footnote 11-21: All figures from STM-30, 1 Sep 45 and
1 Apr 46.]
[Footnote 11-22: Memo, TAG for CG's et al., 4 Feb 46,
sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel, AG 291.2 (31
Jan 46).]
This prophecy never materialized in the Air Forces. Changes in
enlistment standards, curtailment of overseas assignments for Negroes,
and, finally, suspension of all black enlistments in the Regular Army
except in certain military specialist occupations turned the
percentage of Negroes downward. By the fall of 1947, when the Air (p. 277)
Force became a separate service,[11-23] the proportion of black airmen
had leveled off at nearly 7 percent. Nor did the proportion of Negroes
ever exceed the Gillem Board's 10 percent quota during the next
decade.
[Footnote 11-23: Under the terms of the National
Security Act of 1947 the U.S. Air Force was created
as a separate service in a Department of the Air
Force on 18 September 1947. The new service
included the old Army Air Forces; the Air Corps,
U.S. Army; and General Headquarters Air Force. The
strictures of WD Circular 124, like those of many
other departmental circulars, were adopted by the
new service. For convenience' sake the terms _Air
Force_ and _service_ will be employed in the
remaining sections of this chapter even where the
terms _Army Air Forces_ and _component_ would be
more appropriate.]
The Air Force seemed on safer ground when it pleaded that it lacked
the black airmen with skills to carry out the variety of assignments
called for by the Gillem Board. The Air Force was finding it
impossible to organize effective black units in appreciable numbers;
even some units already in existence were as much as two-thirds below
authorized strength in certain ground specialist slots.[11-24] Yet here
too the statistics do not reveal the whole truth. Despite a general
shortage of Negroes in the high test score categories, the Air Force
did have black enlisted men qualified for general assignment as
specialists or at least eligible for specialist training, who were
instead assigned to labor squadrons.[11-25] In its effort to reduce the
number of Negroes, the service had also relieved from active duty
other black specialists trained in much needed skills. Finally, the
Air Force still had a surplus of black specialists in some categories
at Lockbourne Field who were not assigned to the below-strength units.
[Footnote 11-24: "Tactical Air Command (TAC) History,
1 Jan-30 Dec 48," pp. 94-96, AFSHRC; see also
Lawrence J. Paszek, "Negroes and the Air Force,
1939-1949," _Military Affairs_ (Spring 1967), p.
8.]
[Footnote 11-25: Memo, DCofS/Personnel, TAC, for CG,
TAC, 18 Mar 48, AFSHRC.]
Again it was not too many black enlisted men or too few black officers
or specialists but the policy of strict segregation that kept the Air
Force from using black troops efficiently. Insistence on segregation,
not the number of Negroes, caused maldistribution among the commands.
In 1947, for example, the Tactical Air Command contained some 5,000
black airmen, close to 28 percent of the command's strength. This
situation came about because the command counted among its units the
one black air group and many of the black service units whose members
in an integrated service would have been distributed throughout all
the commands according to needs and abilities. The Air Force
segregation policy restricted all but forty-five of the black officers
in the continental United States to one base,[11-26] just as it was the
Air Force's attempt to avoid integration that kept black officers from
command. In November 1947, 1,581 black enlisted men and only two black
officers were stationed at MacDill Field; at San Antonio there were
3,450 black airmen and again two black officers. These figures provide
some clue to the cause of the riot involving black airmen at MacDill
Field on 27 October 1946.[11-27]
[Footnote 11-26: Memo, DCofS/P&A, USAF, for Asst
SecAF, 5 Dec 47, sub: Air Force Negro Troops in the
Zone of Interior, Negro Affairs, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 11-27: "History of MacDill Army Airfield,
Oct 46," pp. 10-11, AFSHRC. For a detailed analysis
of the MacDill riot and its aftermath, see Gropman,
_The Air Force Integrates_, ch. I; see also ch. 5,
above.]
Segregation also prevented the use of Negroes on a broader
professional scale. In April 1948, 84.2 percent of Negroes in the Air
Force were working in an occupational specialty as against 92.7 (p. 278)
percent of whites, but the number of Negroes in radar, aviation
specialist, wire communications, and other highly specialized skills
required to support a tactical air unit was small and far below the
percentage of whites. The Air Force argued that since Negroes were
assigned to black units and since there was only one black tactical
unit, there was little need for Negroes with these special skills.
[Illustration: CHECKING AMMUNITION. _An armorer in the 332d Fighter
Group inspects the P-51 Mustang, Italy, 1945._]
The fact that rated black officers and specialists were restricted to
one black fighter group particularly concerned civil rights advocates.
Without bomber, transport, ferrying, or weather observation
assignments, black officers qualified for larger aircraft had no
chance to diversify their careers. It was essentially the same story
for black airmen. Without more varied and large black combat units the
Air Force had no need to assign many black airmen to specialist
training. In December 1947, for example, only 80 of approximately
26,000 black airmen were attending specialist schools.[11-28] When asked
about the absence of Negroes in large aircraft, especially bombers,
Air Force spokesmen cited the conversion of the 477th Composite Group,
which contained the only black bomber unit, to a specialized fighter
group as merely part of a general reorganization to meet the needs (p. 279)
of a 55-wing organization.[11-29] That the one black bomber unit
happened to be organized out of existence was pure accident.
[Footnote 11-28: Memo, unsigned (probably DCofS/P&A),
for Asst SecAF Zuckert, 22 Apr 48, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 11-29: See Air Force Testimony Before the
National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs
(afternoon session), pp. 29-32, CMH files.]
The Gillem Board had sought to expand the training and placement of
skilled Negroes by going outside the regular black units and giving
them overhead assignments. After the war some base commanders made
such assignments unofficially, taking advantage of the abilities of
airmen in the overmanned, all-black Squadron F's and assigning them to
skilled duties. In one instance the base commander's secretary was a
member of his black unit; in another, black mechanics from Squadron F
worked on the flight line with white mechanics. But whatever their
work, these men remained members of Squadron F, and often the whole
black squadron, rather than individual airmen, found itself
functioning as an overhead unit, contrary to the intent of the Gillem
Board. Even the few Negroes formally trained in a specialty and placed
in an integrated overhead unit did not approximate the Gillem Board's
intention of training a cadre that would be readily expandable in an
emergency.
The alternative to expanded overhead assignments was continuation of
segregated service units and Squadron F's, but, as some manpower
experts pointed out, many special purpose units suitable for unskilled
airmen were disappearing from the postwar Air Force. Experience gained
through the assignment of large numbers of marginal men to such units
in peacetime would be of questionable value during large-scale
mobilization.[11-30] As Colonel Parrish, the wartime commander of
training at Tuskegee, warned, a peacetime policy incapable of wartime
application was not only unrealistic, but dangerous.[11-31]
[Footnote 11-30: Memo, DCofS/P&A, TAC, for CG, TAC, 18
Mar 48, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower,
AFSHRC.]
[Footnote 11-31: Parrish, "Segregation of the Negro in
the Army Air Forces," pp. 72-73.]
The Air staff tried to carry out the Gillem Board's suggestion that
Negroes be stationed "where attitudes are most favorable for them
insofar as military factors permit," but even here the service lagged
behind civilian practice. When Marcus H. Ray arrived at Wright Field,
Ohio, for a two-day inspection tour in July 1946, he found almost
3,000 black civilians working peacefully and effectively alongside
18,000 white civilians, all assigned to their jobs without regard to
race. "I would rate this installation," Ray reported, "as the best
example of efficient utilization of manpower I have seen." He went on
to explain: "The integration has been accomplished without publicity
and simply by assigning workers according to their capabilities and
without regard to race, creed, or color." But Ray also noted that
there were no black military men on the base.[11-32] Assistant Secretary
of War Petersen was impressed. "In view of the fact that the racial
climate seems exceptionally favorable at Wright Field," he wrote
General Carl Spaatz, "consideration should be given to the employment
of carefully selected Negro military personnel with specialist ratings
for work in that installation."[11-33]
[Footnote 11-32: Memo, Ray for ASW, 25 Jul 46, ASW
291.2.]
[Footnote 11-33: Memo, Petersen for CG, AAF, 29 Jul
46, ASW 291.2.]
The Air Force complied. In the fall of 1946 it was forming black (p. 280)
units for assignment to Air Materiel Command Stations, and it planned
to move a black unit to Wright Field in the near future.[11-34] In
assigning an all-black unit to Wright, however, the Air Force was
introducing segregation where none had existed before, and here as in
other areas its actions belied the expressed intent of the Gillem
Board policy.
[Footnote 11-34: Memo, Brig Gen Reuben C. Hood, Jr.,
Office of CG, AAF, for ASW, 13 Sep 46, ASW 291.2.]
_Impulse for Change_
The problems associated with efficient use of black airmen intensified
when the Air Force became an independent service in 1947. The number
of Negroes fluctuated during the transition from Army Air Forces to
Air Force, and as late as April 1948 the Army still retained a number
of specialized black units whose members had the right to transfer to
the Air Force. Estimates were that some 5,400 black airmen would
eventually enter the Air Force from this source. Air Force officials
believed that when these men were added to the 26,507 Negroes already
in the new service, including 118 rated and 127 nonrated male officers
and 4 female officers, the total would exceed the 10 percent quota
suggested by the Gillem Board. Accordingly, soon after it became an
independent service, the Air Force set the number of black enlistments
at 300 per month until the necessary adjustments to the transfer
program could be made.[11-35]
[Footnote 11-35: Memo, unsigned, for Asst SecAF
Zuckert, 22 Apr 48, SecAF files. The figures cited
in this memorandum were slightly at variance with
the official strength figures as compiled later in
the _Unites States Air Force Statistical Digest I_
(1948). The _Digest_ put the Air Force's strength
(excluding Army personnel still under Air Force
control) on 31 March 1948 at 345,827, including
25,404 Negroes (8.9 percent of the total). The 10
percent plus estimate mentioned in the memorandum,
however, was right on the mark when statistics for
enlisted strength alone are considered.]
In addition to the chronic problems associated with black enlistments
and quotas, four very specific problems demonstrated clearly to Air
Force officials the urgent need for a change in race policy. The first
of these was the distribution of black airmen which threatened the
operational efficiency of the Tactical Air Command. A second, related
to the first, revolved around the personnel shortages in black
tactical units that necessitated an immediate reorganization of those
units, a reorganization both controversial and managerially
inefficient. The third and fourth problems were related; the demands
of black leaders for a broader use of black servicemen suddenly
intensified, dovetailing with the personal inclinations of the
Secretary of the Air Force, who was making the strict segregation of
black officers and specialists increasingly untenable. These four
factors coalesced during 1948 and led to a reassessment of policy and,
finally, to a _volte-face_.
Limiting black enlistment to 300 per month did little to ease the
situation in the Tactical Air Command. There, the percentage of black
personnel, although down from its postwar high of 28 percent to 15.4
percent by the end of 1947, remained several points above the Gillem
Board's 10 percent quota throughout 1948. In March 1948 the command's
Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, Col. John E. Barr, found that the
large number of Negroes gave the command a surplus of "marginal (p. 281)
individuals," men who could not be trained economically for the
various skills needed. He argued that this theoretical surplus of
Negroes was "potentially parasitic" and threatened the command's
mission.[11-36]
[Footnote 11-36: Memo, DCofS/P&A, TAC, for CG, TAC, 18
Mar 48, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower,
AFSHRC.]
[Illustration: SQUADRON F, 318TH AAF BATTALION, _in review, Lockbourne
Air Force Base, Ohio, 1947_.]
At the same time, the command's personnel director found that Negroes
were being inefficiently used. With one squadron designated for their
black airmen, most commanders deemed surplus any Negroes in excess of
the needs of that squadron and made little attempt to use them
effectively. Even when some of these men were given a chance at
skilled jobs in the Tactical Air Command their assignments proved
short-lived. Because of a shortage of white airmen at Shaw Air Force
Base, South Carolina, in early 1948, for example, Negroes from the
base's Squadron F were assigned to fill all the slots in Squadron C,
the base fire department. The Negroes performed so creditably that
when enough white airmen to man Squadron C became available the
commander suggested that the black fire fighters be transferred to
Lockbourne rather than returned to their menial assignments.[11-37] The
advantage of leaving the all-black Squadron C at Shaw was apparently
overlooked by everyone.
[Footnote 11-37: Memo, Adj, 20th Fighter Wing, for CG,
Ninth AF, undated, sub: Transfer of Structural
Firefighters; 2d Ind, Hq 332d Fighter Wing,
Lockbourne, to CG, Ninth AF, 26 Apr 48, Hist of
Ninth AF, AFSHRC.]
Even this limited chance at occupational preferment was exceptional
for black airmen in the Tactical Air Command. The command's personnel
staff admitted that many highly skilled black technicians were
performing menial tasks and that measures taken to raise the
performance levels of other black airmen through training were
inadequate. The staff also concluded that actions designed by the
command to raise morale among black airmen left much to be desired. It
mentioned specifically the excessively high turnover of officers
assigned to black units, officers who for the most part proved
mediocre as leaders. Most devastating of all, the study admitted that
promotions and other rewards for duties performed by black airmen were
not commensurate with those received by whites.[11-38]
[Footnote 11-38: Memo, DCofS/P&A, TAC, for CG, TAC, 18
Mar 48, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower,
AFSHRC.]
Colonel Barr offered a solution that echoed the plea of Air Force (p. 282)
commanders everywhere: revise Circular 124 to allow his organization
to reduce the percentage of Negroes. Among a number of "compromise
solutions" he recommended raising enlistment standards to reduce the
number of submarginal airmen; designating Squadron E, the
transportation squadron of the combat wings, a black unit; assigning
all skilled black technicians to Lockbourne or declaring them surplus
to the command; and selecting only outstanding officers to command
black units.
One of these recommendations was under fire in Colonel Barr's own
command. All-black transportation squadrons had already been discussed
in the Ninth Air Force and had brought an immediate objection from
Maj. Gen. William D. Old, its commander. Old explained that few black
airmen in his command were qualified for "higher echelon maintenance
activities," that is, major motor and transmission overhaul, and he
had no black officers qualified to command such troops. On-the-job
training would be impossible during total conversion of the squadrons
from white to black; formal schooling for whole squadrons would have
to be organized. Besides, Old continued, making transportation
squadrons all black would only aggravate the command's race problems,
for it would result in a further deviation from the "desired ratio of
one to ten." Old wanted to reduce the number of black airmen in the
Ninth Air Force by 1,633 men. The loss would not materially affect the
efficiency of his command, he concluded. It would leave the Ninth Air
Force with a ratio of one black officer to ten white and one black
airman to eight white, and still permit the manning of black tactical
units at full strength.[11-39] In the end none of these recommendations
was followed. They needed the approval of Air Force headquarters, and
as Lt. Gen. Elwood R. Quesada, commander of the Tactical Air Command,
explained to General Old, the headquarters was in the midst of a
lengthy review of Circular 124. In the meantime the command would have
to carry on without guidance from higher headquarters.[11-40] Carry on it
did, but the problems associated with the distribution of black
airmen, problems the command constantly shared with Air Force
headquarters, lingered throughout 1948.[11-41]
[Footnote 11-39: Memo, Maj Gen Old for CG, TAC, 26 Jan
48, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, 9AF 200.3,
Hist of Ninth AF, AFSHRC.]
[Footnote 11-40: Ltr, Lt Gen Quesada to Maj Gen Old,
Ninth AF, 9 Apr 48, Hist of Ninth AF, AFSHRC.]
[Footnote 11-41: Ltrs, CG, TAC, to CS/USAF, 1 Sep 48,
sub: Reception of Submarginal Enlisted Personnel;
VCS/USAF to CG, TAC, 11 Sep 48, sub: Elimination of
Undesirable or Substandard Airmen; CG, TAC, to
CS/USAF, 24 Sep 48, same sub. All in AFSHRC.]
The Air Force's segregation policy had meanwhile created a critical
situation in the black tactical units. The old 332d, now the 332d
Fighter Wing, shared with the rest of the command the burden of too
many low-scoring men--35 percent of Lockbourne's airmen were in the
two lowest groups, IV and V--but here the problem was acute since the
presence of so many persons with little ability limited the number of
skilled black airmen that the Tactical Air Command could transfer to
the wing from other parts of the command. Under direction of the
command, the Ninth Air Force was taking advantage of a regulation that
restricted the reenlistment of low-scoring airmen, but the high
percentage of unskilled Negroes persisted at Lockbourne. Negroes (p. 283)
in the upper test brackets were not reenlisting while the low scorers
unquestionably were.[11-42]
[Footnote 11-42: Ltr, DCofS/P&A, TAC, to CG, Ninth AF,
19 May 48, sub: Submarginal Enlisted Personnel;
Record of Dir of Per Staff, TAC, Mtg, 28 Oct 48;
both in AFSHRC.]
At the same time there was a shortage of rated black officers. The
332d Fighter Wing was authorized 244 officers, but only 200 were
assigned in February 1948. There was no easy solution to the shortage,
a product of many years of neglect. Segregation imposed the necessity
of devising a broad and long-range recruitment and training program
for black officers, but not until April 1948 did the Tactical Air
Command call for a steady flow of Negroes through officer candidate
and flight training schools.[11-43] It hoped to have another thirty-one
black pilot graduates by March 1949 and planned to recall thirty-two
others from inactive status.[11-44] Even these steps could not possibly
alleviate the serious shortage caused by the perennial failure to
replace the wing's annual pilot attrition.
[Footnote 11-43: Ltr, CG, TAC, to CG, Ninth AF, 9 Apr
48, TAC 314 (9 Apr 48), AFSHRC.]
[Footnote 11-44: Hq TAC, Record and Routing Sheet, 16
Apr 48, sub: Supervisory Visit 332d Ftr Gp,
Lockbourne AFB, AFSHRC.]
The chronic shortage of black field grade officers in the 332d was the
immediate cause of the change in Air Force policy. By February 1948
the 332d had only thirteen of its forty-eight authorized field grade
officers on duty. The three tactical units of the wing were commanded
by captains instead of the authorized lieutenant colonels. If Colonel
Davis were reassigned, and his attendance at the Air War College was
expected momentarily, his successor as wing commander would be a major
with five years' service.[11-45] The Tactical Air Commander was trying to
have all field grade Negroes assigned to the 332d, but even that
expedient would not provide enough officers.[11-46] Finally, General
Quesada decided to recommend that "practically all" the key field
grade positions in the 332d Wing be filled by whites.[11-47]
[Footnote 11-45: Ltr, CG, Ninth AF, to CG, TAC, 10 Feb
48, sub: Assignment of Negro Personnel, Hist of
Ninth AF, AFSHRC.]
[Footnote 11-46: Hq TAC, Record and Routing Sheet, 16
Apr 48, sub: Supervisory Visit 332d Ftr Gp,
Lockbourne AFB, AFSHRC.]
[Footnote 11-47: Ltrs, CG, TAC, to CG, Ninth AF, 9 Apr
48, and DCG, TAC, to CG, Ninth AF, 7 May 48, TAC
210.3; both in Hist of Ninth AF, AFSHRC.]
Subsequent discussions at Air Force headquarters gave the Air Force
Chief of Staff, General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, three choices: leave
Lockbourne manned exclusively by black officers; assign a white wing
commander with a racially mixed staff; or permit Colonel Davis to
remain in command with a racially mixed staff. Believing that General
Vandenberg would approve the last course, the Tactical Air Command
proceeded to search for appropriate white officers to fill the key
positions under Davis.[11-48]
[Footnote 11-48: Memo, A-1, Ninth AF, for C/S, Ninth
AF, 18 May 48, sub: Manning of 332d Fighter Wing,
Hist of Ninth AF; Record of the TAC Staff Conf, 18
May 48; both in AFSHRC.]
The deputy commander of the Ninth Air Force, Brig. Gen. Jarred V.
Crabb, predicted that placing whites in key positions in the 332d
would cause trouble, but leaving Davis in command of a mixed staff
"would be loaded with dynamite."[11-49] The commander of the Ninth (p. 284)
Air Force called the proposal to integrate the 332d's staff contrary
to Air Force policy, which prescribed segregated units of not less
than company strength. General Old was forthright:
[Integration] would be playing in the direction in which the
negro press would like to force us. They are definitely
attempting to force the Army and Air Force to solve the racial
problem. As you know, they have been strongly advocating mixed
companies of white and colored. For obvious reasons this is most
undesirable and to do so would definitely limit the geographical
locations in which such units could be employed. If the Air
Forces go ahead and set a precedent, most undesirable
repercussions may occur. Regardless of how the problem is solved,
we would certainly come under strong criticism of the negro
press. That must be expected.
In view of the combat efficiency demonstrated by colored
organizations during the last war, my first recommendation in the
interest of national defense and saving the taxpayer's money is
to let the organization die on the vine. We make a big subject of
giving the taxpayers the maximum amount of protection for each
dollar spent, then turn around and support an organization that
would contribute little or nothing in an emergency. It is my own
opinion that it is an unnecessary drain on our national
resources, but for political reasons I presume the organization
must be retained. Therefore, my next recommended solution is to
transfer all of the colored personnel from the Wing Headquarters
staff to the Tactical and Service Organizations within the Wing
structure and replace it with a completely white staff.[11-50]
[Footnote 11-49: Ltr, Brig Gen J. V. Crabb to Maj Gen
Robert M. Lee, Hq TAC, 19 May 48, Hist of Ninth AF,
AFSHRC.]
[Footnote 11-50: Ltr, CG, Ninth AF, to Maj Gen R. M.
Lee, TAC, 18 May 48, Hist of Ninth AF, AFSHRC.]
It is difficult to estimate the extent to which these views were
shared by other senior commanders, but they were widespread and
revealed the tenacious hold of segregation.[11-51]
[Footnote 11-51: For discussion of these views and
their influence on officers, see USAF Oral History
Program, Interviews with Brig Gen Noel Parrish, 30
Mar 73, Col Jack Marr, 1 Oct 73, and Eugene
Zuckert, Apr 73.]
The Ninth Air Force's deputy commander offered another solution: use
"whatever colored officers we have" to run Lockbourne. He urged that
Colonel Davis's absence at the Air War College be considered a
temporary arrangement. Meanwhile, the general added, "we can carry
Lockbourne along for that period of time by close supervision from
this headquarters."[11-52] As Davis later put it, cost effectiveness, not
prejudice, was the key factor in the Air Force's wish to get rid of
the 332d. The Air Force, he concluded, "wasn't getting its money's
worth from negro pilots in a black air force."[11-53]
[Footnote 11-52: Ltr, Brig Gen J. V. Crabb to Maj Gen
Robert M. Lee, Hq TAC, 19 May 48, Hist of Ninth AF,
AFSHRC.]
[Footnote 11-53: Interv, author with Davis.]
The Tactical Air Command's use of black troops is always singled out
because of the numbers involved, but the problem was common to nearly
all commands. Most Negroes in the Strategic Air Command, for example,
were assigned to aviation engineer units where, as construction
workers, they built roads, runways, and housing for the command's
far-flung bases. These duties were transient, however, and like
migrant workers at home, black construction crews were shifted from
base to base as the need arose; they had little chance for promotion,
let alone the opportunity to develop other skills.[11-54]
[Footnote 11-54: See history of various aviation air
units in "History of the Strategic Air Command,
1948," vols VI and VIII, AFSHRC.]
The distribution of Negroes in all commands, and particularly the
shortage of black specialists and officers in the 332d Fighter Wing,
strongly influenced the Air Force to reexamine its racial policy, (p. 285)
but pressures came from outside the department as well as from the
black community which began to press its demands on the new
service.[11-55] The prestigious Pittsburgh _Courier_ opened the
campaign in March 1948 by directing a series of questions on Air Force
policy to the Chief of Staff. General Carl Spaatz responded with a
smooth summary of the Gillem Board Report, leaning heavily on that
document's progressive aims. "It is the feeling of this Headquarters,"
the Chief of Staff wrote, "that the ultimate Air Force objective must
be to eliminate segregation among its personnel by the unrestricted
use of Negro personnel in free competition for any duty within the Air
Force for which they may qualify."[11-56] Unimpressed with this
familiar rhetoric, the _Courier_ headlined its account of the
exchange, "Air Force to Keep Segregated Policy."
[Footnote 11-55: For discussion of the strength of
this outside pressure, see USAF Oral History
Program. Interviews with Davis and Brig Gen Lucius
Theus, Jan 73.]
[Footnote 11-56: Ltr, Lemuel Graves to Gen Carl
Spaatz, 26 Mar 48; Ltr, Spaatz to Graves, 19 Apr
48. A copy of the correspondence was also sent to
the SecAF. See Col Jack F. Marr, "A Report on the
First Year of Implementation of Current Policies
Regarding Negro Personnel," n.d., PPB 291.2.]
[Illustration: COLONEL DAVIS.]
Assistant Secretary Eugene M. Zuckert followed General Spaatz's line
when he met with black leaders at the National Defense Conference on
Negro Affairs in April 1948, but his audience also showed little
interest in future intentions. Putting it bluntly, they wanted to know
why segregation was necessary in the Air Force. Zuckert could only
assure them that segregation was a "practical military expediency,"
not an "endorsement of belief in racial distribution."[11-57] But the
black leaders pressed the matter further. Why was it expedient in a
system dedicated to consideration of the individual, asked the
president of Howard University, to segregate a Negro of superior
mentality? At Yale or Harvard, Dr. Mordecai Johnson continued, he
would be kept on the team, but if he entered the Air Force he would be
"brigaded with all the people from Mississippi and Alabama who had had
education that costs $100 a year."[11-58]
[Footnote 11-57: Department of National Defense,
"National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs," 26
Apr 48 (morning session) p. 62. The conference,
convened by Secretary of Defense Forrestal,
provided an opportunity for a group of black
leaders to question major defense officials on the
department's racial policies. See ch. 13.]
[Footnote 11-58: Department of National Defense,
"National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs," 28
Apr 48, (morning session), p. 67.]
Answering for the Air Force, Lt. Gen. Idwal H. Edwards, the Deputy
Chief of Staff for Personnel, admitted segregation was unnecessary,
promised eventual integration, but stated firmly that for the present
segregation remained Air Force policy. As evidence of progress, (p. 286)
Edwards pointed to the peaceful integration of black officers in
training at Randolph Field. For one conferee this "progress" led to
another conclusion: resistance to integration had to emanate from the
policymakers, not from the fighting men. All Edwards could manage in
the way of a reply was that Air Force policy was considered "the best
way to make this thing work under present conditions."[11-59] Later
Edwards, who was not insensitive to the arguments of the black
leaders, told Secretary of the Air Force W. Stuart Symington that
perhaps some recommendation "looking toward the integration of whites
and negroes in the same units may be forthcoming" from the Air Board's
study of racial policy which was to commence the first week in
May.[11-60]
[Footnote 11-59: Ibid., p. 69.]
[Footnote 11-60: Memo, Edwards for SecAF, 29 Apr 48,
sub: Conference With Group of Prominent Negroes,
Negro Affairs 1948, SecAF files.]
If the logic of the black leaders impressed General Edwards, the
demands themselves had little effect on policy. It remained for James
C. Evans, now the adviser to Secretary of Defense Forrestal, to
translate these questions and demands into recommendations for
specific action. Taking advantage of a long acquaintance with the
Secretary of the Air Force, Evans discussed the department's race
problem with him in May 1948. Symington was sympathetic. "Put it on
paper," he told Evans.[11-61]
[Footnote 11-61: Interv, author with Evans, 7 Apr 70;
Note, Evans to Col Marr, 8 Jun 50, SD 291.2.]
Couching his recommendations in terms of the Gillem Board policy,
Evans faithfully summarized for the secretary the demands of black
leaders. Specifically, he asked that Colonel Davis, the commander of
Lockbourne Air Force Base, be sent for advanced military schooling
without delay. Diversification of career was long overdue for Davis,
the ranking black officer in the Air Force, as it was for others who
were considered indispensable because of the small number of qualified
black leaders. For Davis, most of all, the situation was unfair since
he had always been in command of practically all rated black officers.
Nor was it good for his subordinates. The Air Force should not
hesitate to assign a white replacement for Davis. In effect, Evans was
telling Symington that the black community would understand the
necessity for such a move.
Besides, under the program Evans was recommending, the all-black wing
would soon cease to exist. He wanted the Air Force to "deemphasize"
Lockbourne as the black air base and scatter the black units
concentrated there. He wanted to see Negroes dispersed throughout the
Air Force, either individually or in small units contemplated by the
Gillem Board, but he wanted men assigned on the basis of technical
specialty and proficiency rather than race. It was unrealistic, he
declared, to assume all black officers could be most effectively
utilized as pilots and all enlisted men as Squadron F laborers.
Limiting training and job opportunity because of race reduced fighting
potential in a way that never could be justified. The Air Force should
open to its Negroes a wide variety of training, experience, and
opportunity to acquire versatility and proficiency.[11-62]
[Footnote 11-62: Memo, Evans for SecAF, 7 Jun 48, sub:
Negro Air Units, D54-1-12. SecDef files.]
If followed, this program would fundamentally alter Air Force (p. 287)
racial practices. General Edwards recommended that the reply to Evans
should state that certain policy changes would be forthcoming,
although they would have to await the outcome of a departmental
reevaluation currently under way. The suggestions had been solicited
by Symington, and Edwards was anxious for Evans to understand the
delay was not a device to defer action.[11-63]
[Footnote 11-63: DCofS/P Summary Sheet for CofS, 15
Jul 48, sub: Negro Air Units, Negro Affairs 1948,
SecAF files.]
[Illustration: GENERAL EDWARDS.]
Edwards was in a position to make such assurances. He was an
influential member of the Air staff with considerable experience in
the field of race relations. As a member of the Army staff during
World War II he had worked closely with the old McCloy committee on
black troops and had strongly advocated wartime experiments with the
integration of small-scale units.[11-64] His background, along with his
observations as chief personnel officer in the new Air Force, had
taught him to avoid abstract appeals to justice and to make
suggestions in terms of military efficiency. Concern with efficiency
led him, soon after the Air Force became a separate service, to order
Lt. Col. Jack F. Marr, a member of his staff, to study the Air Force's
racial policy and practices. Testifying to Edwards's pragmatic
approach, Marr later said of his own introduction to the subject:
"There was no sociology involved. It was merely a routine staff action
along with a bunch of other staff actions that were taking place."[11-65]
[Footnote 11-64: During World War II, Edwards served
as the Army's Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3. For a
discussion of his opposition at that time to the
concentration of large groups of men in categories
IV and V, see Edwin W. Kenworthy, "The Case Against
Army Segregation," _The Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science_ 275 (May
1951):29. See also Lee's _Employment of Negro
Troops_, p. 159. Edward's part in the integration
program is based on USAF Oral History Program,
Interviews with Zuckert, General William F. McKee,
Davis, Senator Stuart Symington, and Marr. See also
Interv, author with Lt Gen Idwal H. Edwards, Nov
73, CMH files.]
[Footnote 11-65: Ltr, Marr to author, 19 Jun 70, CMH
files.]
A similar concern for efficiency, this time triggered by criticism at
the National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs in April 1948 and
Evans's discussions with Secretary Symington the following month, led
Edwards, after talking it over with Assistant Secretary Zuckert, to
raise the subject of the employment of Negroes in the Air Board in
May.[11-66] In the wake of the Air Board discussion the Chief of Staff
appointed a group under Maj. Gen. Richard E. Nugent, then Director (p. 288)
of Civilian Personnel, to reexamine the service's race policy.[11-67]
Nugent was another Air Force official who viewed the employment of
Negroes as a problem in military efficiency.[11-68] These three,
Edwards, Nugent, and Marr, were the chief figures in the development
of the Air Force integration plan, which grew out of the Nugent
group's study. Edwards and Nugent supervised its many refinements in
the staff while Marr, whom Zuckert later described as the
indispensable man, wrote the plan and remained intimately connected
with it until the Air Force carried it out.[11-69] Antedating the
Truman order to integrate the services, the provisions of this plan
eventually became the program under which the Air Force was
integrated.[11-70]
[Footnote 11-66: A group created to review policy and
make recommendations to the Chief of Staff when
called upon, the Air Board consisted at this time
of the Assistant Chiefs of the Air Staff, the Air
Inspector, the Air Comptroller, the Director of
Information, the Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff
for Research and Development, and other officials
when appropriate.]
[Footnote 11-67: Memo, Maj Leon Bell for Zuckert, 27
Oct 48, SecAF files. Nugent later succeeded Edwards
as the chief Air Force personnel officer.]
[Footnote 11-68: This attitude is strongly displayed
in the USAF Oral History Program, Interviews with
Lt Gen Richard E. Nugent, 8 Jun 73, and Marr, 1 Oct
73.]
[Footnote 11-69: USAF Oral Hist Interv with Zuckert.]
[Footnote 11-70: Colonel Marr recalled a different
chronology for the Air Force integration plan.
According to Marr, his proposals were forwarded by
Edwards to Symington who in turn discussed them at
a meeting of the Secretary of Defense's Personnel
Policy Board sometime before June 1948. The board
rejected the plan at the behest of Secretary of the
Army Royall, but later in the year outside pressure
caused it to be reconsidered. Nothing is available
in the files to corroborate Marr's recollections,
nor do the other participants remember that Royall
was ever involved in the Air Force's internal
affairs. The records do not show when the Air Force
study of race policy, which originated in the Air
Board in May 1948, evolved into the plan for
integration that Marr wrote and the Chief of Staff
signed in December 1948, but it seems unlikely that
the plan would have been ready before June. See
Ltrs, Marr to author, 19 Jun 70, and 28 Jul 70, CMH
files; see also USAF Oral Hist Interv with Marr.]
[Illustration: COLONEL MARR.]
As it evolved during the months of deliberation,[11-71] the Air Force
study of black manpower weighed Air Force practices against the Gillem
Board Report and found them "considerably divergent" from the policy
as outlined. It isolated several reasons for this divergence. Black
airmen on the whole, as measured by classification tests, were
unsuitable and inadequate for operating all-black air units organized
and trained for modern combat. To achieve a balance of skills and
training in black units was a "never ending problem for which there
appears to be no solution under either the current Air Force policies
or the policies recommended by the Gillem Board." In short, practices
with respect to Negroes were "wasteful, deleterious to military
effectiveness and lacking in wartime application."
[Footnote 11-71: The Air Force integration plan
underwent considerable revision and modification
before its submission to the Secretary of Defense
in January 1949. The quotations in the next
paragraphs are taken from the version approved by
the Chief of Staff on 29 December 1948.]
Edwards and his staff saw several advantages in complete (p. 289)
integration. Wherever qualified black airmen had been permitted to
compete with whites on their individual qualifications and abilities,
the Negroes "achieved a certain amount of acceptance and recognition."
Students in some schools lived and learned side by side as a matter of
practical necessity. "This degree of integration and acceptance on a
competitive basis has been eminently successful and has to a
remarkable degree solved the 'Negro problem' for the training schools
involved." At some bases qualified black airmen were administratively
assigned to black units but actually performed duties in white units.
Some commanders had requested that these men be permanently
transferred and assigned to the white units because the men deserved
higher grades but could not receive them in black units and because it
was poor management to have individuals performing duties for one
military organization and living under the administrative jurisdiction
of another.
In the end consideration of full integration was dropped in favor of a
program based on the Navy's postwar integration of its general
service. Edwards and his personnel staff dismissed the Navy's problems
with stewards and its difficulty in enlisting skilled Negroes as
temporary embarrassments with little practical consequence. This
problem apparently allowed an economic and efficient use of Negroes
and also "relieved the Navy of the necessity for repeated efforts to
justify an untenable position." They saw several practical advantages
in a similar policy for the Air Force. It would allow the elimination
of the 10 percent quota. The inactivation of some black units--"and
the pronounced relief of the problems involved in maintaining those
units under present conditions"--could be accomplished without
injustice to Negroes and with benefit to the Air Force. Nor would the
integration of qualified Negroes in technical and combat units
appreciably alter current practices; according to contemporary
estimates such skilled men would never total more that 1 percent of
the service's manpower.
The logic of social justice might have led to total integration, but
it would not have solved the Air Force's pressing problem of too many
unskilled blacks. It was consideration of military efficiency,
therefore, that led these personnel experts to propose a system of
limited integration along the lines of the Navy's postwar policy. Such
a system, they concluded, would release the Air Force from its quota
obligation--and hence its continuing surplus of unskilled men--and
free it to assign its relatively small group of skilled black recruits
where they were needed and might advance.
Although limited, the proposed reform was substantial enough to arouse
opposition. General Edwards reported overwhelming opposition to any
form of integration among Air Force officers, and never during the
spring of 1948 did the Chief of Staff seriously consider even partial
integration.[11-72] But if integration, even in a small dose, was
unpalatable, widespread inefficiency was intolerable. And a new (p. 290)
service, still in the process of developing policy, might embrace
the new and the practical, especially if pressure were exerted from
above. Assistant Secretary Zuckert intimated as much when he finally
replied to James Evans, "You have my personal assurance that our
present position is not in the interest of maintaining the status quo,
but it is in anticipation of a more progressive and more satisfactory
action in the relatively near future."[11-73]
[Footnote 11-72: Memo, Edwards for SecAF, 29 Apr 48,
sub: Conference With Group of Prominent Negroes,
Negro Affairs 1948, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 11-73: Memo, Zuckert to Evans, 22 Jul 48,
sub: Negro Air Units, SecAF files.]
CHAPTER 12 (p. 291)
The President Intervenes
On 26 July 1948 President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981,
calling on the armed forces to provide equal treatment and opportunity
for black servicemen. This act has variously been described as an
example of presidential initiative, the capstone of the Truman civil
rights program, and the climax of the struggle for racial equality in
the armed forces. But in some ways the order was simply a practical
response to a presidential dilemma.
The President's order was related to the advent of the cold war.
Developments in the Middle East and Europe testified to the ambitions
of the Soviet Union, and many Americans feared the spread of communism
throughout the world, a threat more ominous with the erosion of
American military strength since World War II. In March 1947 Truman
enunciated a new foreign policy calling for the containment of Soviet
expansion and pledging economic and military aid to Greece and Turkey.
A year later he asked Congress to adopt the Marshall Plan for economic
aid to Europe, authorize military training, and enact a new selective
service law to maintain the armed forces at expanded levels. That same
month his principal military advisers met at Key West, Florida, to
discuss new military roles and missions for the armed forces, grapple
with paralyzing divisions among the services, and re-form the military
establishment into a genuinely unified whole.[12-1] As if to underscore
the urgency of these measures, the Soviet Union began in April 1948 to
harass Allied troops in Berlin, an action that would develop into a
full-scale blockade by June.
[Footnote 12-1: On the development of cold war roles
and missions for the services, see Timothy W.
Stanley, _American Defense and National Security_
(Washington: Public Affairs Press, 1956), Chapter
VIII.]
Integration of the armed forces hardly loomed large on the
international scene, but if the problem of race appeared insignificant
to military planners, the sheer number of Negroes in the armed forces
gave them new prominence in national defense. Because of postwar
racial quotas, particularly in the Army and Air Force, black
servicemen now constituted a significant segment of the service
population, and consequently their abilities and well-being had a
direct bearing on the nation's cold war defenses. The black community
represented 10 percent of the country's manpower, and this also
influenced defense planning. Black threats to boycott the segregated
armed forces could not be ignored, and civil rights demands had to be
considered in developing laws relating to selective service and
universal training. Nor could the administration overlook the fact
that the United States had become a leading protagonist in a cold war
in which the sympathies of the undeveloped and mostly colored world
would soon assume a special importance. Inasmuch as integration of
the services had become an almost universal demand of the black (p. 292)
community, integration became, willy-nilly, an important defense
issue.
A second stimulus to improvement of the black serviceman's position
was the Truman administration's strong civil rights program, which
gave executive sanction to a national movement started some years
before. The civil rights movement was the product of many factors,
including the federal government's increased sense of responsibility
for the welfare of all its citizens, a sense that had grown out of the
New Deal and a world war which expanded horizons and increased
economic power for much of the black population. The Supreme Court had
recently accelerated this movement by broadening its interpretation of
the Fourteenth Amendment. In the black community itself greater
participation in elections and new techniques in community action were
eroding discriminatory traditions and practices in many communities.
The civil rights movement had in fact progressed by 1948 to a stage at
which it was politically attractive for a Democratic president to
assume a vigorous civil rights stance. The urban black vote had become
a major goal of Truman's election campaign, and he was being pressed
repeatedly by his advisers to demonstrate his support for black
interests. A presidential order on armed forces integration logically
followed because the services, conspicuous practitioners of
segregation and patently susceptible to unilateral action on the part
of the Chief Executive, were obvious and necessary targets in the
black voters' campaign for civil rights.
Finally, the integration order resulted in part from the move toward
service unification and the emergence of James V. Forrestal as
Secretary of Defense. Despite misgivings over centralized control of
the nation's defense establishment and overconcentration of power in
the hands of a Secretary of Defense, Forrestal soon discovered that
certain problems rising out of common service experiences naturally
converged on the office of the secretary. Both by philosophy and
temperament he was disposed to avoid a clash with the services over
integration. He remained sensitive to their interests and rights, and
he frankly doubted the efficacy of social change through executive
fiat. Yet Forrestal was not impervious to the aspirations of the civil
rights activists; guided by a humane interest in racial equality, he
made integration a departmental goal. His technique for achieving
integration, however, proved inadequate in the face of strong service
opposition, and finally the President, acting on the basis of these
seemingly unrelated motives, had to issue the executive order to
strengthen the defense secretary's hand.
_The Truman Administration and Civil Rights_
Executive and legislative interest in the civil rights of black
Americans reached a level in 1948 unmatched since Reconstruction. The
President himself was the catalyst. By creating a presidential
committee on civil rights and developing a legislative program based
on its findings, Truman brought the black minority into the political
arena and committed the federal government to a program of social
legislation that it has continued to support ever since. Little in (p. 293)
the President's background suggested he would sponsor basic social
changes. He was a son of the middle border, from a family firmly
dedicated to the Confederate cause. His appreciation of black
aspirations was hardly sophisticated, as he revealed to a black
audience in 1940: "I wish to make it clear that I am not appealing for
social equality of the Negro. The Negro himself knows better than
that, and the highest types of Negro leaders say quite frankly they
prefer the society of their own people. Negroes want justice, not
social relations."[12-2]
[Footnote 12-2: Jonathan Daniels, _The Man of
Independence_ (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1950), p.
338. The quotation is from a speech before the
National Colored Democratic Convention, Chicago,
reprinted in the _Congressional Record_, 76th
Cong., 3d sess., vol. 86, 5 Aug 1940, Appendix, pp.
5367-69.]
Nor did his attitude change drastically in later years. In 1961, seven
years after the Supreme Court's vital school integration decision,
Truman was calling the Freedom Riders "meddlesome intruders who should
stay at home and attend to their own business." His suggestion to
proprietors of lunch counters undergoing sit-ins was to kick out
unwelcome customers.[12-3] But if he failed to appreciate the scope of
black demands, Truman nevertheless demonstrated as early as 1940 an
acute awareness of the connection between civil rights for blacks and
civil liberties for all Americans:
In giving Negroes the rights which are theirs we are only acting
in accord with our own ideals of a true democracy. If any class
or race can be permanently set apart from, or pushed down below
the rest in political and civil rights, so may any other class or
race when it shall incur the displeasure of its more powerful
associates, and we may say farewell to the principles on which we
count our safety.[12-4]
[Footnote 12-3: Quoted in James Peck, _Freedom Ride_
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962), pp. 154-55.]
[Footnote 12-4: Quoted in Daniels, _Man of
Independence_, pp. 339-40.]
He would repeat these sentiments to other gatherings, including the
assembled delegates of the NAACP's 1946 convention.[12-5] The President's
civil rights program would be based, then, on a practical concern for
the rights of the majority. Neither his social philosophy nor his
political use of black demands should detract from his achievements in
the field of civil rights.
[Footnote 12-5: Msg, HST to NAACP Convention, 29 Jun
47, _Public Papers of the President, 1947_
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1963), pp.
311-13.]
It was probably just as well that Truman adopted a pragmatic approach
to civil rights, for there was little social legislation a reform
president could hope to get through the postwar Congresses. Dominated
by a conservative coalition that included the Dixiecrats, a group of
sometimes racially reactionary southerners, Congress showed little
interest in civil rights. The creation of a permanent Fair Employment
Practices Commission, the one piece of legislation directly affecting
Negroes and the only current test of congressional intent in civil
rights, was floundering on Capitol Hill. Truman conspicuously
supported the fair employment measure, but did little else
specifically in the first year after the war to advance civil rights.
Instead he seemed content to carry on with the New Deal approach to
the problem: improve the social condition of all Americans and the
condition of the minorities will also improve. In this vein his first
domestic program concentrated on national projects for housing,
health, and veterans' benefits.
The conversion of Harry Truman into a forceful civil rights (p. 294)
advocate seems to have come about, at least partially, from his
exposure to what he later called the "anti-minority" incidents visited
on black servicemen and civilians in 1946.[12-6] Although the lynchings,
property destruction, and assaults never matched the racial violence
that followed World War I, they were enough to convince many civil
rights leaders that the pattern of racial strife was being repeated.
Some of these men, along with a group of labor executives and
clergymen, formed a National Emergency Committee Against Mob Violence
to warn the American public against the dangers of racial intolerance.
A delegation from this committee, with Walter White as spokesman, met
with the President on 19 September 1946 to demand government action.
White described the scene:
The President sat quietly, elbows resting on the arms of his
chair and his fingers interlocked against his stomach as he
listened with a grim face to the story of the lynchings.... When
I finished, the President exclaimed in his flat, midwestern
accent, "My God! I had no idea it was as terrible as that! We've
got to do something!"[12-7]
[Footnote 12-6: Harry S. Truman, _Memoirs_ (New York:
Doubleday, 1958), II:180-81; White, _A Man Called
White_, pp. 330-31. Truman's concept of civil
rights is analyzed in considerable detail in Donald
R. McCoy and Richard T. Ruetten, _Quest and
Response: Minority Rights and the Truman
Administration_ (Lawrence, Kansas: University of
Kansas Press, 1973), Chapter III.]
[Footnote 12-7: White, _A Man Called White_, pp.
330-31.]
But the Truman administration had nearly exhausted the usual remedies
open to it. The Attorney General had investigated the lynchings and
Klan activities and the President had spoken out strongly and
repeatedly against mob violence but without clear and pertinent civil
rights legislation presidential exhortations and investigations
counted for very little. Civil rights leaders like White understood
this, and, given the mood of Congress, they were resigned to the lack
of legislative support. Nevertheless, it was in this context that the
President decided to create a committee to investigate and report on
the status of civil rights in America.
The concept of a federal civil rights group had been circulating in
the executive branch for some time. After the Detroit race riot in
1943, presidential assistant Jonathan Daniels had organized a
committee to deal with racial troubles. Proposals to create a national
organization to reduce racial tensions were advanced later in the war,
principally by Saul K. Padover, a minority specialist in the Interior
Department, and David K. Niles of the White House staff. Little came
of the committee idea, however, because Roosevelt was convinced that
any steps associated with integration would prove divisive and were
unwise during wartime.[12-8] With the war over and a different political
climate prevailing, Niles, now senior White House adviser on minority
affairs, proposed the formation of a committee not only to investigate
racial violence but also to explore the entire subject of civil
rights.
[Footnote 12-8: Intervs, Nichols with Oscar Ewing,
former federal security administrator and senior
presidential adviser, and Jonathan Daniels, 1954,
in Nichols Collection, CMH; see also McCoy and
Ruetten, _Quest and Response_, p. 49.]
Walter White and his friends greeted the idea with some skepticism.
They had come demanding action, but were met instead with another
promise of a committee and the probability of interminable (p. 295)
congressional debate and unproductive hearings.[12-9] But this time,
for several reasons, it would be different. In the first place the
civil rights leaders underestimated the sincerity of Truman's reaction
to the racial violence. He had quickly agreed to create Niles's
committee by executive order to save it from possible pigeonholing at
the hands of a hostile Congress. He had also given the group, called
the President's Committee on Civil Rights, a broad directive "to
determine whether and in what respect current law enforcement measures
and the authority and means possessed by Federal, State, and local
governments may be strengthened and improved to safeguard the civil
rights of the people."[12-10] The civil rights leaders also failed to
gauge the effect Republican victories in the 1946 congressional
elections would have on the administration. Finding it necessary to
court the Negro and other minorities and hoping to confound
congressional opposition, the administration sought a strong civil
rights program to put before the Eightieth Congress. Thus, the
committee's recommendations would get respectful attention in the
White House. Finally, neither the civil rights leaders nor the
President could have foreseen the effectiveness of the committee
members. Serving under Charles E. Wilson, president of the General
Electric Company, the group included among its fifteen members
distinguished church leaders, public service lawyers, the presidents
of Dartmouth College and the University of North Carolina, and
prominent labor executives. The committee had two black members, Sadie
T. M. Alexander, a lawyer from Philadelphia, and Channing H. Tobias,
director of the Phelps-Stokes Fund. Its members not only prepared a
comprehensive survey of the condition of civil rights in America but
also presented to the President on 29 October 1947 a far-reaching
series of recommendations, in effect a program for corrective action
that would serve as a bench mark for civil rights progress for many
years.[12-11]
[Footnote 12-9: White, _A Man Called White_, pp.
330-31.]
[Footnote 12-10: Executive Order 9808, 5 Dec 46.]
[Footnote 12-11: In addition to Chairman Wilson, the
following people served on the committee: Sadie T.
M. Alexander, James B. Carey, John S. Dickey,
Morris L. Ernst, Roland B. Gittelsohn, Frank P.
Graham, Francis J. Haas, Charles Luckman, Francis
P. Matthews, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., Henry Knox
Sherrill, Boris Shishkin, Dorothy Tilly, and
Channing Tobias.]
[Illustration: WALTER WHITE.]
The group recommended the concentration of civil rights work in the
Department of Justice, the establishment of a permanent civil rights
commission, a federal antilynching act, a permanent Fair Employment
Practices Commission, and legislation to correct discrimination in
voting and naturalization laws. It also examined the state of (p. 296)
civil rights in the armed forces and incidentally publicized the
long-ignored survey of black infantry platoons that had fought in
Europe in 1945.[12-12] It concluded:
The injustice of calling men to fight for freedom while
subjecting them to humiliating discrimination within the fighting
forces is at once apparent. Furthermore, by preventing entire
groups from making their maximum contribution to the national
defense, we weaken our defense to that extent and impose heavier
burdens on the remainder of the population.[12-13]
[Footnote 12-12: Parts of the survey of attitudes of
participants in the World War II integration of
platoons were included in remarks by Congresswoman
Helen G. Douglas, published in the _Congressional
Record_, 79th Cong., 2d sess., 1 Feb 1946,
Appendix, pp. 432-443.]
[Footnote 12-13: _To Secure These Rights_, p. 162.]
The committee called for sweeping change in the armed forces,
recommending that Congress enact legislation, followed by appropriate
administrative action, to end all discrimination and segregation in
the services. Concluding that the recent service unification provided
a timely opportunity for revision of existing policies and practices,
the committee proposed a specific ban on discrimination and
segregation in all phases of recruitment, assignment, and training,
including selection for service schools and academies, as well as in
mess halls, quarters, recreational facilities, and post exchanges. It
also wanted commissions and promotions awarded on merit alone and
asked for new laws to protect servicemen from discrimination in
communities adjacent to military bases.[12-14] The committee wanted the
President to look beyond the integration of people working and living
on military bases, and it introduced a concept that would gain
considerable support in a future administration. The armed forces, it
declared, _should_ be used as an instrument of social change. World
War II had demonstrated that the services were a laboratory in which
citizens could be educated on a broad range of social and political
issues, and the administration was neglecting an effective technique
for teaching the public the advantages of providing equal treatment
and opportunity for all citizens.[12-15]
[Footnote 12-14: Ibid., pp. 162-63.]
[Footnote 12-15: Ibid., p. 47.]
President Truman deleted the recommendations on civil rights in the
services when he transmitted the committee's recommendations to
Congress in the form of a special message on 2 February 1948. Arguing
that the services' race practices were matters of executive interest
and pointing to recent progress toward better race relations in the
armed forces, the President told Congress that he had already
instructed the Secretary of Defense to take steps to eliminate
remaining instances of discrimination in the services as rapidly as
possible. He also promised that the personnel policies and practices
of all the services would be made uniform.[12-16]
[Footnote 12-16: Truman, Special Message to the
Congress on Civil Rights, 2 Feb 48, _Public Papers
of the President, 1948_, pp. 121-26.]
To press for civil rights legislation for the armed forces or even to
mention segregation was politically imprudent. Truman had two pieces
of military legislation to get through Congress: a new draft law and a
provision for universal military training. These he considered (p. 297)
too vital to the nation's defense to risk grounding on the shoals of
racial controversy. For the time being at least, integration of the
armed forces would have to be played down, and any civil rights
progress in the Department of Defense would have to depend on the
persuasiveness of James Forrestal.
[Illustration: TRUMAN'S CIVIL RIGHTS CAMPAIGN _as seen by Washington
Star cartoonist Clifford K. Berryman, March 14, 1948_.]
_Civil Rights and the Department of Defense_
The basic postwar reorganization of the National Military
Establishment, the National Security Act of 1947, created the Office
of the Secretary of Defense, a separate Department of the Air Force,
the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. It
also reconstituted the War Department as the Department of the Army
and gave legal recognition as a permanent agency to the Joint Chiefs
of Staff. The principle of military unification that underlay the
reorganization plan was muted in the legislation that finally emerged
from Congress. Although the Secretary of Defense was given authority
to establish general policies and to exercise general direction (p. 298)
and control of the services, the services themselves retained a large
measure of autonomy in their internal administration and individual
service secretaries retained cabinet rank. In effect, the act created
a secretary without a department, a reorganization that largely
reflected the viewpoint of the Navy. The Army had fought for a much
greater degree of unification, which would not be achieved until the
passage of the National Security Act amendments of 1949. This
legislation redesignated the unified department the Department of
Defense, strengthened the powers of the Secretary of Defense, and
provided for uniform budgetary procedures. Although the services were
to be "separately administered," their respective secretaries
henceforward headed "military departments" without cabinet status.
The first Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal, was a man of
exceptional administrative talents, yet even before taking office he
expressed strong reservations on the wisdom of a unified military
department. As early as 30 July 1945, at breakfast with President
Truman during the Potsdam Conference, Forrestal questioned whether any
one man "was good enough to run the combined Army, Navy, and Air
Departments." What kind of men could the president get in peacetime,
he asked, to be under secretaries of War, Navy, and Air if they were
subordinate to a single defense secretary?[12-17] Speaking to Lester
Granger that same year on the power of the Secretary of the Navy to
order the Marine Corps to accept Negroes, Forrestal expressed
uncertainty about a cabinet officer's place in the scheme of things.
"Some people think the Secretary is god-almighty, but he's just a
god-damn civilian."[12-18] Even after his appointment as defense
secretary doubts lingered: "My chief misgivings about unification
derived from my fear that there would be a tendency toward
overconcentration and reliance on one man or one-group direction. In
other words, too much central control."[12-19]
[Footnote 12-17: Quoted in Walter Millis, ed., _The
Forrestal Diaries_ (New York: Viking Press, 1951),
p. 88.]
[Footnote 12-18: Quoted by Granger in the interview he
gave Nichols in 1954.]
[Footnote 12-19: Quoted in Millis, _Forrestal
Diaries_, p. 301.]
Forrestal's philosophy of management reinforced the limitations placed
on the Secretary of Defense by the National Security Act. He sought a
middle way in which the efficiency of a unified system could be
obtained without sacrificing what he considered to be the real
advantages of service autonomy. Thus, he supported a 1945 report of
the defense study group under Ferdinand Eberstadt that argued for a
"coordinated" rather than a "unitary" defense establishment.[12-20]
Practical experience modified his fears somewhat, and by October 1948,
convinced he needed greater power to control the defense
establishment, Forrestal urged that the language of the National
Security Act, which limited the Secretary of Defense to "general"
authority only over the military departments, be amended to eliminate
the word _general_. Yet he always retained his basic distrust of (p. 299)
dictation, preferring to understand and adjust rather than to conclude
and order.[12-21]
[Footnote 12-20: Ibid., pp. 117, 147. Timothy Stanley
describes the Eberstadt report as the Navy's
"constructive alternative" to unification. See
Stanley's _American Defense and National Security_,
p. 75; see also Hewes, _From Root to McNamara_, pp.
276-77. For a detailed analysis of defense
unification, see Lawrence Legere, Jr., "Unification
of the Armed Forces," Chapter VI, in CMH.]
[Footnote 12-21: Millis, _Forrestal Diaries_, pp. 301,
497.]
Nowhere was Forrestal's philosophy of government more evident than in
his approach to the problem of integration. His office would be
concerned with equal opportunity, he promised Walter White soon after
his elevation to the new post, but "the job of Secretary of Defense,"
he warned, "is one which will have to develop in an evolutionary
rather than a revolutionary manner." Further dashing hopes of sudden
reform, Forrestal added that specific racial problems, as distinct
from general policy matters, would remain the province of the
individual services.[12-22] He retained this attitude throughout his
tenure. He considered the President's instructions to end remaining
instances of discrimination in the services "in accord with my own
conception of my responsibilities under unification," and he was in
wholehearted agreement with a presidential wish that the National
Military Establishment work out the answer to its racial problems
through administrative action. He wanted to see a "more nearly uniform
approach to interracial problems by the three Services," but
experience had demonstrated, he believed, that racial problems could
not be solved simply by publishing an executive order or passing a
law. Racial progress would come from education. Such had been his
observation in the wartime Navy, and he was ready to promise that
"even greater progress will be made in the future." But, he added,
"progress must be made administratively and should not be put into
effect by fiat."[12-23]
[Footnote 12-22: Ltr, Forrestal to White, 21 Oct 47,
Day file, Forrestal Papers, Princeton University
Library.]
[Footnote 12-23: Remarks by James Forrestal at Dinner
Meeting of the National Urban League, 12 Feb 48,
copy in Misc file, Forrestal Papers; see also Ltr,
Forrestal to John N. Brown, 27 Oct 47, Day file,
ibid.]
Executive fiat was just what some of Forrestal's advisers wanted. For
example, his executive assistant, John H. Ohly, his civilian aide,
James C. Evans,[12-24] and Truman Gibson urged the secretary to consider
establishing an interservice committee along the lines of the old
McCloy committee to prepare a uniform racial policy that he could
apply to all the services. They wanted the committee to examine past
and current practices as well as the recent reports of the President's
Advisory Commission on Universal Training and the Committee on Civil
Rights and to make specific recommendations for carrying out and
policing department policy. Truman Gibson went to the heart of the
matter: the formulation of such an interservice committee would signal
to the black community better than anything else the defense
establishment's determination to change the racial situation. More and
more, he warned, the discrepancies among the services' racial
practices were attracting public attention. Most important to the
administration was the fact that these discrepancies were
strengthening opposition to universal military training and the
draft.[12-25]
[Footnote 12-24: In addition to his duties as Civilian
Aide to the Secretary of the Army, Evans was made
aide to the Secretary of Defense on 29 October
1947. (See Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 29 Oct 47,
D70-1-5, files of Historian, OSD.) Evans was
subsequently appointed "civilian assistant" to the
Secretary of Defense by Secretary Louis Johnson on
28 Apr 49. (See NME Press Release, 17-49-A.)]
[Footnote 12-25: Ltr, Gibson to Ohly, 25 Nov 47,
D54-1-3, Sec Def files.]
[Illustration: A. PHILIP RANDOLPH. (_Detail from
painting by Betsy G. Reyneau._)]
Gibson was no doubt referring to A. Philip Randolph, president (p. 300)
of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and organizer of the 1940
March on Washington Movement, who had spoken out against the pending
legislation. Randolph was particularly concerned that the bill did not
prohibit segregation, and he quoted a member of the Advisory
Commission on Universal Training who admitted that the bill ignored
the racial issue because "the South might oppose UMT if Negroes were
included." Drafting eighteen-year olds into a segregated Army was a
threat to black progress, Randolph charged, because enforced segregation
made it difficult to break down other forms of discrimination.
Convinced that the Pentagon was trying to bypass the segregation
issue, Randolph and Grant Reynolds, a black clergyman and New York
politician, formed a Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service
and Training. They planned to submit a proposal to the President and
Congress for drafting a nondiscrimination measure for the armed
forces, and they were prepared to back up this demand with a march on
Washington--no empty gesture in an election year. Randolph had
impressive backing from black leaders, among them Dr. Channing H.
Tobias of the Civil Rights Committee, George S. Schuyler, columnist of
the Pittsburgh _Courier_, L. D. Reddick, curator of the Schomburg
Collection of the New York Public Library, and Joe Louis.[12-26]
[Footnote 12-26: New York Times, November 23, 1947;
_Herald Tribune_, November 23, 1947. See also L. D.
Reddick, "The Negro Policy of the American Army
Since World War II," _Journal of Negro History_ 38
(April 1953):194-215.]
Black spokesmen were particularly incensed by the attitude of the
Secretary of the Army and his staff. Walter White pointed out that
these officials continued to justify segregated units on the grounds
that segregation was--he quoted them--"in the interest of national
defense." White went to special pains to refute the Army's contention
that segregation was necessary because the Army had to conform to
local laws and customs. "How," he asked Secretary Forrestal,
can the imposition of segregation upon northern states having
clear-cut laws and policies in opposition to such practices be
justified by the Army?...
In view of President Truman's recent report to the Congress and
in view of the report of his Committee on Civil Rights condemning
segregation in the Armed Forces, I am at a loss to understand the
reluctance on the part of the Department of Defense to
immediately eliminate all vestiges of discrimination and (p. 301)
segregation in the Armed Forces of this country. As the
foremost defender of democratic principles in international
councils, the United States can ill afford to any longer
discriminate against its Negro citizens in its Armed Forces
solely because they were fortunate or unfortunate enough to be
born Negroes.[12-27]
[Footnote 12-27: Ltr, White to Forrestal, 17 Feb 48,
D54-1-3, SecDef files.]
Forrestal stubbornly resisted the pleas of his advisers and black
leaders that he assume a more active role. In the first place he had
real doubts concerning his authority to do so. Forrestal was also
aware of the consequences an integration campaign would have on
Capitol Hill, where he was in the midst of delicate negotiations on
defense measures. But most of all the role of crusader did not fit
him. "I have gone somewhat slowly," Forrestal had written in late
October 1947, "because I believe in the theory of having things to
talk about as having been done rather than having to predict them, and
... morale and confidence are easy to destroy but not easy to rebuild.
In other words, I want to be sure that any changes we make are changes
that accomplish something and not merely for the sake of change."[12-28]
[Footnote 12-28: Ltr, Forrestal to Rear Adm W. B.
Young, 23 Oct 47, quoted in Millis, _Forrestal
Diaries_, p. 334.]
To Forrestal equal opportunity was not a pious platitude, but a
practical means of solving the military's racial problems. Equal
opportunity was the tactic he had used in the Navy where he had
encouraged specialized training for all qualified Negroes. He
understood that on shipboard machinists ate and bunked with
machinists, firemen with firemen. Inaugurated in the fleet, the
practice naturally spread to the shore establishment, and equal
opportunity led inevitably to the integration of the general service.
Given the opportunity to qualify for all specialties, Negroes--albeit
their number was limited to the small group in the general
service--quickly gained equal treatment in off-the-job activities.
Forrestal intended to apply the same tactic to achieve the same
results in the other services.[12-29]
[Footnote 12-29: Interv, Blumenson with Marx Leva,
Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense
(1947-49) and later Assistant Secretary of Defense
(Legal and Legislative Affairs), 4 May 64, CMH
files.]
As in the past, he turned first to Lester Granger, his old friend from
the National Urban League. Acting on the recommendation of his special
assistant, Marx Leva, Forrestal invited Granger to the Pentagon to
discuss the department's racial problems with a view to holding a
general conference and symposium on the subject. As usual, Granger was
full of ideas, and he and the secretary agreed that Forrestal should
create a "critics group," which would discuss "Army and general
defense policies in the use of Negro personnel."[12-30] Granger suggested
a roster of black and white experts, influential in the black
community and representing most shades of opinion, but he would
exclude those apt to make political capital out of the issues.
[Footnote 12-30: Handwritten Memo, Leva for Forrestal,
attached to Ltr, White to Forrestal, 17 Feb 48;
Ltr, Leva to Granger, 19 Feb 48; Ltr, Granger to
Forrestal, 2 Mar 48. All in D54-1-3, SecDef files.
The quotation is from the 2 March letter.]
The Leva-Granger conference idea fitted neatly into Forrestal's
thinking. It offered the possibility of introducing to the services in
a systematic and documented way the complaints of responsible black
leaders while instructing those leaders in the manpower problems
confronting the postwar armed forces. He hoped the conference (p. 302)
would modify traditionalist attitudes toward integration while curbing
mounting unrest in the black community. Granger and Forrestal agreed
that the conference should be held soon. Although Granger wanted some
"good solid white representation" in the group, Forrestal decided
instead to invite fifteen black leaders to meet on 26 April in the
Pentagon; he alerted the service secretaries, asking them to attend or
to designate an assistant to represent them in each case.[12-31]
[Footnote 12-31: Memo, Marx Leva for SA et al., 13 Apr
48; idem for Forrestal, 24 Apr 48; ltr, SecDef to
All Invited, 10 Apr 48. All in D54-1-3, SecDef
files. Those invited were Truman Gibson; Dr.
Channing Tobias; Dr. Sadie T. M. Alexander; Mary
McLeod Bethune; Dr. John W. Davis of West Virginia
State College; Dr. Benjamin E. Mays of Morehouse
College; Dr. Mordecai Johnson of Howard University;
P. B. Young, Jr., of the Norfolk _Journal and
Guide_; Willard Townsend of the United Transport
Service Employees; Rev. John H. Johnson of New
York; Walter White; Hobson E. Reynolds of the
International Order of Elks; Bishop J. W. Gregg of
Kansas City; Loren Miller of Los Angeles; and
Charles Houston of Washington, D.C. Unable to
attend, White sent his assistant Roy Wilkins,
Townsend sent George L. P. Weaver, and Mrs. Bethune
was replaced by Ira F. Lewis of the Pittsburgh
_Courier_.]
Announcement of the conference was upstaged in the press by the
activities of some civil rights militants, including those whom
Granger sought to exclude from the Forrestal conference because he
thought they would make a political issue of the war against
segregation. Forrestal first learned of the militants' plans from
members of the National Negro Publishers Association, a group of
publishers and editors of important black journals who were about to
tour European installations as guests of the Army.[12-32] At Granger's
suggestion Forrestal had met with the publishers and editors to
explain the causes for the delay in desegregating the services.
Instead, he found himself listening to an impassioned demand for
immediate change. Ira F. Lewis, president of the Pittsburgh _Courier_
and spokesman for the group, told the secretary that the black
community did not expect the services to be a laboratory or
clearinghouse for processing the social ills of the nation, but it
wanted to warn the man responsible for military preparedness that the
United States could not afford another war with one-tenth of its
population lacking the spirit to fight. The problem of segregation
could best be solved by the policymakers. "The colored people of the
country have a high regard for you, Mr. Secretary, as a square
shooter," Lewis concluded. And from Forrestal they expected
action.[12-33]
[Footnote 12-32: Representing eight papers, a cross
section of the influential black press, the
journalists included Ira F. Lewis and William G.
Nunn, Pittsburgh _Courier_; Cliff W. Mackay,
_Afro-American_; Louis Martin and Charles Browning,
Chicago _Defender_; Thomas W. Young and Louis R.
Lautier, Norfolk _Journal and Guide_; Carter
Wesley, Houston _Defender_; Frank L. Stanley,
Louisville _Defender_; Dowdal H. Davis, Kansas City
_Call_; Dan Burley, _Amsterdam News_. See Evans,
list of Publishers and Editors of Negro Newspapers,
Pentagon, 18 Mar 48, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 12-33: Sentiments of the meeting were
summarized in Ltr, Ira F. Lewis to Forrestal, 24
Mar 48; see also Ltr, Granger to Forrestal, 2 Mar
48; both in D54-1-4, SecDef files.]
While black newspapermen were pressing the executive branch, Randolph
and his Committee Against Jim Crow were demanding congressional
action. Randolph concentrated on one explosive issue, the Army's
procurement of troops. The first War Department plans for postwar
manpower procurement were predicated on some form of universal
military training, a new concept for the United States. The plans
immediately came under fire from Negroes because the Army, citing the
Gillem Board Report as its authority, had specified that black
recruits be trained in segregated units. The Army had also specified
that the black units form parts of larger, racially mixed units and
would be trained in racially mixed camps.[12-34] The President's (p. 303)
Advisory Commission on Universal Training (the Compton Commission),
appointed to study the Army's program, strongly objected to the
segregation provisions, but to no avail.[12-35] As if to signal its
intentions the Army trained an experimental universal military
training unit in 1947 at Fort Knox that carefully excluded black
volunteers.
[Footnote 12-34: WD Ltr, AGAO-S 353 (28 May 47),
WDGOT-M, 11 Jun 47.]
[Footnote 12-35: _A Program for National Security:
Report of the President's Advisory Commission on
Universal Training, 29 May 1947_ (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1947), p. 42.]
The showdown between civil rights organizations and the administration
over universal military training never materialized. Faced with
chronic opposition to the program and the exigencies of the cold war,
the administration quietly shelved universal training and concentrated
instead on the reestablishment of the selective service system. When
black attention naturally shifted to the new draft legislation,
Randolph was able to capitalize on the determination of many leaders
in the civil rights movement to defeat any draft law that countenanced
the Army's racial policy. Appearing at the Senate Armed Services
Committee hearings on the draft bill, Randolph raised the specter of
civil disobedience, pledging
to openly counsel, aid, and abet youth, both white and Negro, to
quarantine any Jim Crow conscription system, whether it bear the
label of universal military training or selective service....
From coast to coast in my travels I shall call upon all Negro
veterans to join this civil disobedience movement and to recruit
their younger brothers in an organized refusal to register and be
drafted....
I shall appeal to the thousands of white youths ... to
demonstrate their solidarity with Negro youth by ignoring the
entire registration and induction machinery....
I shall appeal to the Negro parents to lend their moral support
to their sons, to stand behind them as they march with heads held
high to Federal prisons as a telling demonstration to the world
that Negroes have reached the limit of human endurance, that, in
the words of the spiritual, we will be buried in our graves
before we will be slaves.[12-36]
[Footnote 12-36: Senate, Hearings Before the Committee
on Armed Services, _Universal Military Training_,
80th Cong., 2d sess., 1948, p. 688.]
Randolph argued that hard-won gains in education, job opportunity, and
housing would be nullified by federal legislation supporting
segregation. How could a Fair Employment Practices Commission, he
asked, dare criticize discrimination in industry if the government
itself was discriminating against Negroes in the services? "Negroes
are just sick and tired of being pushed around," he concluded, "and we
just do not propose to take it, and we do not care what happens."[12-37]
[Footnote 12-37: Ibid., p. 689.]
When Senator Wayne Morse warned Randolph that such statements in times
of national emergency would leave him open to charges of treason,
Randolph replied that by fighting for their rights Negroes were
serving the cause of American democracy. Borrowing from the rhetoric
of the cold war, he predicted that such was the effect of segregation
on the international fight for men's minds that America could never
stop communism as long as it was burdened with Jim Crowism. Randolph
threw down the gauntlet. "We have to face this thing sooner or (p. 304)
later, and we might just as well face it now."[12-38] It was up to the
administration and Congress to decide whether his challenge was the
beginning of a mass movement or a weightless threat by an extremist
group.
[Footnote 12-38: Ibid., pp. 691-94. The quotation is
from page 694.]
The immediate reaction of various spokesmen for the black community
supported both possibilities. Also testifying before the Senate Armed
Services Committee, Truman Gibson, who was a member of the Compton
Commission that had objected to segregation, expressed "shock and
dismay" at Randolph's pledge and predicted that Negroes would continue
to participate in the country's defense effort.[12-39] For his pains
Gibson was branded a "rubber stamp Uncle Tom" by Congressman Adam
Clayton Powell. The black press, for the most part, applauded
Randolph's analysis of the mood of Negroes, but shied away from the
threat of civil disobedience. The NAACP and most other civil rights
organizations took the same stand, condemning segregation but
disavowing civil disobedience.[12-40]
[Footnote 12-39: Ibid., p. 645.]
[Footnote 12-40: The Philadelphia _Inquirer_, April
11, 1948; PM, April 11, 1948. See also McCloy and
Ruetten, _Quest and Response_, pp. 107-08; "Crisis
in the Making: U.S. Negroes Tussle With the Issue,"
_Newsweek_, June 7, 1948, pp. 28-29; L. Bennett,
Jr., _Confrontation Black and White_ (Chicago:
Johnson Press, 1965), pp. 192-94; Grant Reynolds,
"A Triumph for Civil Disturbance," _Nation_ 167
(August 28, 1948):228-29.]
Although the administration could take comfort in the relatively mild
reaction from conservative blacks, an important element of the black
community supported Randolph's stand. A poll of young educated Negroes
conducted by the NAACP revealed that 71 percent of those of draft age
would support the civil disobedience campaign. So impressive was
Randolph's support--the New York _Times_ called it a blunt warning
from the black public--that one news journal saw in the campaign the
specter of a major national crisis.[12-41] On the other hand, the
Washington _Post_ cautioned its readers not to exaggerate the
significance of the protest. Randolph's words, the _Post_ declared,
were intended "more as moral pressure" for nondiscrimination clauses
in pending draft and universal military training legislation than as a
serious threat.[12-42]
[Footnote 12-41: New York _Times_, April 1, 1948.]
[Footnote 12-42: Washington _Post_, April 2, 1948.]
Whatever its ultimate influence on national policy, the Randolph civil
disobedience pledge had no visible effect on the position of the
President or Congress. With a draft bill and a national political
convention pending, the President was not about to change his
hands-off policy toward the segregation issue in the services. In fact
he showed some heat at what he saw as a threat by extremists to
exploit an issue he claimed he was doing his best to resolve.[12-43] As
for members of Congress, most of those who joined in the debate on the
draft bill simply ignored the threatened boycott.
[Footnote 12-43: McCoy and Ruetten, _Quest and
Response_, p. 107.]
In contrast to the militant Randolph, the Negroes who gathered at
Secretary Forrestal's invitation for the National Defense Conference
on 26 April appeared to be a rather sedate group. But academic honors,
business success, and gray hairs were misleading. These eminent
educators, clergymen, and civil rights leaders proved just as (p. 305)
determined as Randolph and his associates to be rid of segregation
and, considering their position in the community, were more likely to
influence the administration. That they were their own men quickly
became apparent in the stormy course of the Pentagon meeting. They
subjected a score of defense officials[12-44] to searching questions,
submitted themselves to cross-examination by the press, and agreed to
prepare a report for the Secretary of Defense.
[Footnote 12-44: Department of National Defense,
"National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs," 26
Apr 48. This document includes the testimony and
transcript of the news conference that followed.
Officials appearing before the committee included
James Forrestal, Secretary of Defense; Robert P.
Patterson, former Secretary of War; Marx Leva,
Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense;
James Evans, Adviser to the Secretary of Defense;
Kenneth C. Royall, Secretary of the Army; John N.
Brown, Assistant Secretary of the Navy; W. Stuart
Symington, Secretary of the Air Force; and
personnel officials and consultants from each
service.]
While the group refrained from endorsing Randolph's position, it also
refrained from criticizing him and strongly supported his thesis that
segregation in itself was discrimination. Nor were its views
soft-pedaled in the press release issued after the conference. The
Secretary of Defense was forced to announce that the black leaders
declined to serve as advisers to the National Military Establishment
as long as the services continued to practice segregation. The group
unanimously recommended that the armed services eliminate segregation
and challenged the Army's interpretation of its own policy, insisting
that the Army could abolish segregation even within the framework of
the Gillem Board recommendations. The members planned no future
meetings but adjourned to prepare their report.[12-45]
[Footnote 12-45: NME Press Releases, 26 Apr and 8 Sep
48.]
This adamant stand should not have surprised the Secretary of Defense.
Forrestal could appreciate more than most the pressures operating on
the group. In the aftermath of the report of the President's Committee
on Civil Rights and in the heightened atmosphere caused by the
rhetoric of the Randolph campaign, these men were also caught up in
the militants' cause. If they were reluctant to attack the services
too severely lest they lose their chance to influence the course of
racial events in the department, they were equally reluctant to accept
the pace of reform dictated by the traditionalists. In the end they
chose to side with their more radical colleagues. Thus despite Lester
Granger's attempt to soften the blow, the conference designed to bring
the opponents together ended with yet another condemnation of
Forrestal's gradualism.
Forrestal himself agreed with the goals of the conferees, he told
Granger, but at the same time he refused to abandon his approach,
insisting that he could not force people into cooperation and mutual
respect by issuing a directive. Instead he arranged for Granger to
meet with Army leaders to spread the gospel of equal opportunity and
ordered a report prepared showing precisely what the Navy did during
the late months of the war and "how much of it has stuck--on the
question of non-segregation both in messing and barracks." The report,
written by Lt. Dennis D. Nelson, was sent to Secretary of the Army
Royall along with sixteen photographs picturing blacks and whites (p. 306)
being trained together and working side by side.[12-46]
[Footnote 12-46: Memo, Forrestal for Marx Leva, 30 Apr
48; Ltr, Nelson to Leva, 24 May 48; Memo, Leva for
SA, 25 May 48. All in D54-1-3, SecDef files.]
[Illustration: NATIONAL DEFENSE CONFERENCE ON NEGRO AFFAIRS.
_Conferees prepare to meet with the press, 26 April 1948._]
Given the vast size of the Army, it was perfectly feasible to open all
training to qualified Negroes and yet continue for years racial
practices that had so quickly proved impossible in the Navy's smaller
general service. Of course, even in the Army the number of segregated
jobs that could be created was limited, and in time Forrestal's
tactics might, it could be argued, have succeeded despite the Army's
size and the intractability of its leaders. Time, however, was
precisely what Forrestal lacked, given the increasing political
strength of the civil rights movement.
Sparked by Randolph's stand before the congressional committee, some
members of the black community geared up for greater protests. Worse
still for an administration facing a critical election, the protest
was finding some support in the camps of the President's rivals. Early
in May, for example, a group of prominent civil rights activists
formed the Commission of Inquiry with the expressed purpose of
examining the treatment of black servicemen during World War II.
Organized by Randolph and Reynolds, the commission boasted Arthur
Garfield Hayes, noted civil libertarian and lawyer, as its counsel.
The commission planned to interrogate witnesses and, on the basis of
the testimony gathered, issue a report to Congress and the public that
would include recommendations on conscription legislation. Various
Defense Department officials were invited to testify but only James C.
Evans, who acted as department spokesman, accepted. During the (p. 307)
inquiry, which Evans estimated was attended by 180 persons, little
attention was given to Randolph's civil disobedience pledge, but Evans
himself came in for considerable ridicule, and there were headlines
aplenty in the black press.[12-47]
[Footnote 12-47: Ltr, Grant Reynolds and Randolph to
Evans, 3 May 48; Memo, Evans for SecDef, 13 May 48,
sub: Commission of Inquiry; both in SecDef files.
See also A. Philip Randolph, Statement Before
Commission of Inquiry, 8 May 48, copy in USAF
Special Files 35, 1948, SecAF files.]
These attacks were being carried out in an atmosphere of heightened
political interest in the civil rights of black servicemen. Henry A.
Wallace, the Progressive Party's presidential candidate, had for some
time been telling his black audiences that the administration was
insincere because if it wanted to end segregation it could simply
force the resignation of the Secretary of the Army.[12-48] Henry Cabot
Lodge, the Republican senator from Massachusetts, called on Forrestal
to make "a real attempt, well thought out and well organized," to
integrate a sizable part of the armed forces with soldiers
volunteering for such arrangements. Quoting from General Eisenhower's
testimony before the Armed Services Committee, he reminded Forrestal
that segregation was not only an undeserved and unjustified
humiliation to the Negro, but a potential danger to the national
defense effort. In the face of a manpower shortage, it was inexcusable
to view segregation simply as a political question, "of concern to a
few individuals and to a few men in public life and to be dealt with
as adroitly as possible, always with an eye to the largest number of
votes."[12-49]
[Footnote 12-48: New York _Times_, February 16, 1948.]
[Footnote 12-49: Ltr, Sen. Henry C. Lodge, Jr.
(Mass.), to SecDef, 19 Apr 48, D54-1-3, SecDef
files.]
Yet as the timing of Senator Lodge's letter suggests, the political
implications of the segregation fight were a prime concern of every
politician involved, and Forrestal had to act with this fact in mind.
The administration considered the Wallace campaign a real but minor
threat because of his appeal to black voters in the early months of
the campaign.[12-50] The Republican incursion into the civil rights field
was more ominous, and Forrestal, having acknowledged Lodge's letter,
turned to Lester Granger for help in drafting a detailed reply. It
took Granger some time to suggest an approach because he agreed with
Lodge on many points but found some of his inferences as unsound as
the Army's policy. For instance Lodge approved Eisenhower's comments
on segregation, and the only real difference between Eisenhower and
the Army staff was that Eisenhower wanted segregation made more
efficient by putting smaller all-black units into racially composite
organizations. Negroes opposed segregation as an insult to their race
and to their manhood. Granger wanted Forrestal to tell Lodge that no
group of Negroes mindful of its public standing could take a position
other than total opposition to segregation. Having to choose between
Randolph's stand and Eisenhower's, Negroes could not endorse
Eisenhower. Granger also thought Forrestal would do well to explain to
Lodge that he himself favored for the other services the policy
followed by the Navy in the name of improving efficiency and
morale.[12-51]
[Footnote 12-50: McCoy and Ruetten, _Quest and
Response_, pp. 98-99.]
[Footnote 12-51: Ltr, Granger to Leva, 14 May 48,
D54-1-3, SecDef files.]
A reply along these line was prepared, but Marx Leva persuaded (p. 308)
Forrestal not to send it until the selective service bill had safely
passed Congress.[12-52] Forrestal was "seriously concerned," he wrote
the President on 28 May 1948, about the fate of that legislation. He
wanted to express his opposition to an amendment proposed by Senator
Richard B. Russell of Georgia that would guarantee segregated units
for those draftees who wished to serve only with members of their own
race. He also wanted to announce his intention of making "further
progress" in interracial relations. To that end he had discussed with
Special Counsel to the President Clark M. Clifford the creation of an
advisory board to recommend specific steps his department could take
in the race relations field. Reiterating a long-cherished belief,
Forrestal declared that this "difficult problem" could not be solved
by issuing an executive order or passing a law, "for progress in this
field must be achieved by education, and not by mandate."[12-53] The
President agreed to these maneuvers,[12-54] but just three days later
Forrestal returned to the subject, passing along to Truman a warning
from Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio that both the Russell amendment
and one proposed by Senator William Langer of North Dakota to prohibit
all segregation were potential roadblocks to passage of the
bill.[12-55] In the end Congress rejected both amendments, passing a
draft bill without any special racial provisions on 19 June 1948.
[Footnote 12-52: Memo, Leva to Forrestal, 18 May 48,
D54-1-3, SecDef files. Forrestal's response,
suggesting that Lodge meet with Lester Granger to
discuss the matter, was finally sent on 24 Jun 48.
See also Memo, Leva for Forrestal, 22 Jun 48, and
Ltr, SecDef to Sen. Lodge, 24 Jun 48, both in
D51-1-3, SecDef files.]
[Footnote 12-53: Memo, James Forrestal for President,
28 May 48, Secretary's File (PSF), Harry S. Truman
Library.]
[Footnote 12-54: Memo, President for SecDef, 1 Jun 48,
Secretary's File (PSF), Truman Library.]
[Footnote 12-55: Note, SecDef for President, 31 May
48, sub: Conversation With Senator Taft,
Secretary's File (PSF), Truman Library.]
The proposal for an advisory board proved to be Forrestal's last
attempt to change the racial practices of the armed forces through
gradualism. In the next few weeks the whole problem would be taken out
of his hands by a White House grown impatient with his methods. There,
in contrast to the comparatively weak position of the Secretary of
Defense, who had not yet consolidated his authority, the full force
and power of the Commander in Chief would be used to give a dramatic
new meaning to equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces.
Given the temper of the times, Forrestal's surrender was inevitable,
for a successful reform program had to show measurable improvements,
and despite his maneuvers with the civil rights activists, the
Congress, and the services, Forrestal had no success worth proclaiming
in his first eight months of office.
This lack of progress disappointed civil rights leaders, who had
perhaps overestimated the racial reforms made when Forrestal was
Secretary of the Navy. It can be argued that as Secretary of Defense
Forrestal himself was inclined to overestimate them. Nevertheless, he
could demonstrate some systematic improvement in the lot of the black
sailor, enough improvement, according to his gradualist philosophy, to
assure continued progress. Ironically, considering Forrestal's faith
in the efficacy of education and persuasion, whatever can be counted
as his success in the Navy was accomplished by the firm authority he
and his immediate subordinates exercised during the last months of (p. 309)
the war. Yet this authority was precisely what he lacked in his new
office, where his power was limited to only a general control over
intransigent services that still insisted on their traditional
autonomy.
In any case, by 1948 there was no hope for widespread reform through a
step-by-step demonstration of the practicality and reasonableness of
integration. Too much of the remaining opposition was emotional,
rooted in prejudice and tradition, to yield to any but forceful
methods. If the services were to be integrated in the short run,
integration would have to be forced upon them.
_Executive Order 9981_
Although politics was only one of several factors that led to
Executive Order 9981, the order was born during a presidential
election campaign, and its content and timing reflect that fact.
Having made what could be justified as a military decision in the
interest of a more effective use of manpower in the armed forces, the
President and his advisers sought to capitalize on the political
benefits that might accrue from it.[12-56] The work of the President's
Committee on Civil Rights and Truman's subsequent message to Congress
had already elevated civil rights to the level of a major campaign
issue. As early as November 1947 Clark Clifford, predicting the
nomination of Thomas Dewey and Henry Wallace, had advised the
President to concentrate on winning the allegiance of the nation's
minority voters, especially the black, labor, and Jewish blocs.[12-57]
Clifford had discounted the threat of a southern defection, but in the
spring of 1948 southern Democrats began to turn from the party, and
the black vote, an important element in the big city Democratic vote
since the formation of the Roosevelt coalition, now became in the
minds of the campaign planners an essential ingredient in a Truman
victory. Through the efforts of Oscar Ewing, head of the Federal
Security Administration and White House adviser on civil rights
matters, and several other politicians, Harry Truman was cast in the
role of minority rights champion.[12-58]
[Footnote 12-56: Interv, Nichols with Ewing; Interv,
Blumenson with Leva.]
[Footnote 12-57: Memo, Clark Clifford for President,
19 Nov 47; ibid., 17 Aug 48, sub: The 1948
Campaign; both in Truman Library. See also Cabell
B. Phillips, _The Truman Presidency_ (New York:
Macmillan, 1966), pp. 198-99, and McCoy and
Ruetten, _Quest and Response_, ch. VI.]
[Footnote 12-58: Interv, Nichols with Ewing.]
Theirs was not a difficult task, for the President's identification
with the civil rights movement had become part of the cause of his
unpopularity in some Democratic circles and a threat to his
renomination. He overcame the attempt to deny him the presidential
nomination in June, and he accepted the strong civil rights platform
that emerged from the convention. The resolution committee of that
convention had proposed a mild civil rights plank in the hope of
preventing the defection of southern delegates, but in a dramatic
floor fight Hubert H. Humphrey, the mayor of Minneapolis and a
candidate for the U.S. Senate, forced through one of the strongest
civil rights statements in the history of the party. This plank
endorsed Truman's congressional message on civil rights and called (p. 310)
for "Congress to support our President in guaranteeing these basic and
fundamental rights ... the right of equal treatment in the service and
defense of our nation."[12-59]
[Footnote 12-59: Quoted in Memo, Leva for SecDef, 15
Jul 48, D54-1-3, SecDef files.]
Truman admitted to Forrestal that "he had not himself wanted to go as
far as the Democratic platform went on the civil rights issue." The
President had no animus toward those who voted against the platform;
he would have done the same if he had come from their states. But he
was determined to run on the platform, and for him, he later said, a
platform was not a window dressing. His southern colleagues understood
him. When a reporter pointed out to Governor Strom Thurmond of South
Carolina that the President had only accepted a platform similar to
those supported by Roosevelt, the governor answered, "I agree, but
Truman really means it."[12-60] After the platform fight the Alabama and
Mississippi delegates walked out of the convention. The Dixiecrat
revolt was on in earnest.
[Footnote 12-60: Quoted in Truman, _Memoirs_, II:183;
see also Interv, Nichols with Truman, and Millis,
_Forrestal Diaries_, p. 458.]
Both the Democratic platform and the report of the President's Civil
Rights Committee referred to discrimination in the federal government,
a matter obviously susceptible to presidential action. For once the
"do-nothing" Congress could not be blamed, and if Truman failed to act
promptly he would only invite the wrath of the civil rights forces he
was trying to court. Aware of this political necessity, the
President's advisers had been studying the areas in which the
President alone might act in forbidding discrimination as well as the
mechanics by which he might make his actions effective. According to
Oscar Ewing, the advisers had decided as early as October 1947 that
the best way to handle discrimination in the federal government was to
issue a presidential order securing the civil rights of both civilian
government employees and members of the armed forces. In the end the
President decided to issue two executive orders.[12-61]
[Footnote 12-61: Interv, Nichols with Ewing.]
Clifford, Ewing, and Philleo Nash, who was a presidential specialist
on minority matters, worked on drafting both orders. After consulting
with Truman Gibson, Nash proposed that the order directed to the
services should create a committee within the military establishment
to push for integration, one similar to the McCloy committee in World
War II. Like Gibson, Nash was convinced that change in the armed
forces racial policy would come only through a series of steps
initiated in each service. By such steps progress had been made in the
Navy through its Special Programs Unit and in the Army through the
efforts of the McCloy committee. Nash argued against the publication
of an executive order that spelled out integration or condemned
segregation. Rather, let the order to the services call for equal
treatment and opportunity--the language of the Democratic platform.
Tie it to military efficiency, letting the services discover, under
guidance from a White House committee, the inefficiency of segregation.
The services would quickly conclude, the advisers assumed, that equal
treatment and opportunity were impossible in a segregated (p. 311)
system.[12-62] After a series of discussions with the President, Nash,
Clifford, and Ewing drew up a version of the order to the services
along the lines suggested by Nash.[12-63]
[Footnote 12-62: Memo, Niles for Clifford, 12 May 48;
Memo, Clifford for SecDef, 13 May 48, Nash
Collection, Truman Library.]
[Footnote 12-63: Interv, Nichols with Ewing.]
The draft underwent one significant revision at the request of the
Secretary of Defense. In keeping with his theory that the services
should be given the chance to work out their own methods of compliance
with the order to integrate, Forrestal wanted no deadlines set. To
keep antagonisms to a minimum he wanted the order to call simply for
progress "as rapidly as feasible." The President agreed.[12-64]
[Footnote 12-64: Nichols, _Breakthrough on the Color
Front_, p. 86.]
The timing of the order was politically important to Truman, and by
late July the White House was extremely anxious to publish the
document. The President now had his all-important selective service
legislation; he was beginning to campaign on a platform calling for a
special session of Congress--a Congress dominated by Republicans, who
had also just approved a party platform calling for an end to
segregation in the armed forces. Haste was evident in the fact that
the order, along with copies for the service secretaries, was sent to
the Secretary of Defense on the morning of 26 July--the day it was
issued--for comment and review by that afternoon.[12-65] The order was
also submitted to Walter White and A. Philip Randolph before it was
issued.[12-66]
[Footnote 12-65: Ltr, Donald S. Dawson, Admin Asst to
the President, to SecDef, 26 Jul 48. The executive
order on equal opportunity for federal employees
was also issued on 26 July.]
[Footnote 12-66: Columbia University Oral Hist Interv
with Wilkins.]
Actually, the order had been read to Forrestal on the evening of the
previous day, and his office had suggested one more change. Marx Leva
believed that the order would be improved if it mentioned the fact
that substantial progress in civil rights had been made during the war
and in the years thereafter. Since a sentence to this effect had been
included in Truman's civil rights message of February, Leva thought it
would be well to include it in the executive order. Believing also
that policy changes ought to be the work of the government or of the
executive branch of the government rather than of the President alone,
he offered a sentence for inclusion: "To the extent that this policy
has not yet been completely implemented, such alterations or
improvements in existing rules, procedures and practices as may be
necessary shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible." Although
Forrestal approved the sentence, it was not accepted by the
President.[12-67]
[Footnote 12-67: Memo, Leva for Forrestal, 26 Jul 48,
SecDef files.]
Approvals were quickly gathered from interested cabinet officials. The
Attorney General passed on the form and legality of the order.
Forrestal was certain that Stuart Symington of the Air Force and John
L. Sullivan, Secretary of the Navy, would approve the order, but he
suggested that Oscar Ewing discuss the draft with Kenneth Royall.
According to Ewing, the Secretary of the Army read the order twice (p. 312)
and said, "tell the President that I not only have no objections but
wholeheartedly approve, and we'll go along with it."[12-68]
[Footnote 12-68: Interv, Nichols with Ewing: Ltr, Atty
Gen to President, 26 Jul 48, 1285-0, copy in
Eisenhower Library.]
The historic document, signed by Truman on 26 July 1948, read as
follows:
EXECUTIVE ORDER 9981
Whereas it is essential that there be maintained in the armed
services of the United States the highest standards of democracy,
with equality of treatment and opportunity for all those who
serve in our country's defense:
Now, therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me as
President of the United States, and as Commander in Chief of the
armed services, it is hereby ordered as follows:
1. It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that
there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all
persons in the armed services without regard to race, color,
religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect
as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to
effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or
morale.
2. There shall be created in the National Military Establishment
an advisory committee to be known as the President's Committee on
Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services,
which shall be composed of seven members to be designated by the
President.
3. The Committee is authorized on behalf of the President to
examine into the rules, procedures and practices of the armed
services in order to determine in what respect such rules,
procedures and practices may be altered or improved with a view
to carrying out the policy of this order. The Committee shall
confer and advise with the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of
the Army, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Secretary of the Air
Force, and shall make such recommendations to the President and
to said Secretaries as in the judgment of the Committee will
effectuate the policy hereof.
4. All executive departments and agencies of the Federal
Government are authorized and directed to cooperate with the
Committee in its work, and to furnish the Committee such
information or the services of such persons as the Committee may
require in the performance of its duties.
5. When requested by the Committee to do so, persons in the armed
services or in any of the executive departments and agencies of
the Federal Government shall testify before the Committee and
shall make available for the use of the Committee such documents
and other information as the Committee may require.
6. The Committee shall continue to exist until such time as the
President shall terminate its existence by Executive Order.
The White House HARRY S. TRUMAN
July 26, 1948
As indicated by the endorsement of such diverse protagonists as Royall
and Randolph, the wording of the executive order was in part both
vague and misleading. The vagueness was there by design. The failure
to mention either segregation or integration puzzled many people and
angered others, but it was certainly to the advantage of a president
who wanted to give the least offense possible to voters who supported
segregation. In fact integration was not the precise word to describe
the complex social change in the armed forces demanded by civil rights
leaders, and the emphasis on equality of treatment and opportunity with
its portent for the next generation was particularly appropriate.
Truman, however, was not allowed to remain vague for long. (p. 313)
Questioned at his first press conference after the order was issued, the
President refused to set a time limit, but he admitted that he expected
the order to abolish racial segregation in the armed forces.[12-69]
The order was also misleading when it created the advisory committee
"in" the National Military Establishment. Truman apparently intended
to create a presidential committee to oversee the manpower policies of
all the services, and despite the wording of the order the committee
would operate as a creature of the White House, reporting to the
President rather than to the Secretary of Defense.
[Footnote 12-69: Presidential News Conference, 29 Jul
48, _Public Papers of the President_, 1948, p.
422.]
The success of the new policy would depend to a great extent, as
friends and foes of integration alike recognized, on the ability and
inclination of this committee. The final choice of members was the
President's, but he conspicuously involved the Democratic National
Committee, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of the Army. He
repeatedly solicited Forrestal's suggestions, and it was apparent that
the views of the Pentagon would carry much weight in the final
selection. Just four days after the publication of Executive Order
9981, the President's administrative assistant, Donald S. Dawson,
wrote Forrestal that he would be glad to talk to him about the seven
members.[12-70] Before Forrestal replied he had Leva discuss possible
nominees with the three military departments and obtain their
recommendations. The Pentagon's list went to the White House on 3
August. A list compiled subsequently by Truman's advisers, chiefly
Philleo Nash and Oscar Ewing, and approved by the Democratic National
Committee, duplicated a number of Forrestal's suggestions; its
additions and deletions revealed the practical political
considerations under which the White House had to operate.[12-71]
[Footnote 12-70: Ltr, Dawson to Forrestal, 30 Jul 48,
SecDef files.]
[Footnote 12-71: Memos, Leva for Forrestal, 3 and 12
Aug 48; Ltr, Forrestal to President, 3 Aug 48,
D54-1-3, SecDef files.]
By mid-September the committee was still unformed. The White House had
been unable to get either Frank Graham, president of the University of
North Carolina, a member of the President's Committee on Civil Rights,
and the first choice of both the White House and the Pentagon for
chairman, or Charles E. Wilson, second choice, to accept the
chairmanship. Secretary of the Army Royall was particularly incensed
that some of the men being considered for the committee "have publicly
expressed their opinion in favor of abolishing segregation in the
Armed Services. At least one of them, Lester Grainger [_sic_], has
been critical both of the Army and of me personally on this particular
matter."[12-72] Royall wanted no one asked to serve on the President's
committee who had fixed opinions on segregation, and certainly no one
who had made a public pronouncement on the subject. He wanted the
nominees questioned to make sure they could give "fair consideration"
to the subject.[12-73] Royall favored Jonathan Daniels, Ralph McGill of
the Atlanta _Constitution_, Colgate Darden, president of the
University of Virginia, and Douglas Southall Freeman, distinguished
Richmond historian.[12-74] Names continued to be bruited about. (p. 314)
Dawson asked Forrestal if he had any preferences for Reginald E.
Gillmor, president of Sperry Gyroscope, or Julius Ochs Adler, noted
publisher and former military aide to Secretary Stimson, as
possibilities for chairman. Forrestal inclined toward Adler; "I
believe he would be excellent although as a Southerner he might have
limiting views."[12-75]
[Footnote 12-72: Ltr, Royall to President, 17 Sep 48,
OSA 291.2 (17 Sep 48).]
[Footnote 12-73: Ibid.]
[Footnote 12-74: Memo, Royall for Forrestal, 10 Sep
48, OSA 291.2 (10 Sep 48).]
[Footnote 12-75: Memo, Leva for Forrestal, 1 Sep 48,
and Handwritten Note by Forrestal, D54-1-3, SecDef
files.]
With the election imminent, the need for an announcement on the
membership of the committee became pressing. On 16 September Dawson
told Leva that a chairman and five of the six members had been
selected and had agreed to serve: Charles Fahy, chairman, Charles
Luckman, Lester Granger, John H. Sengstacke, Jacob Billikopf, and
Alphonsus J. Donahue. The sixth member, still uninvited, was to be
Dwight Palmer. Dawson said he would wait on this appointment until
Forrestal had time to consider it, but two days later he was back,
telling the secretary that the President had instructed him to release
the names. There was final change: William E. Stevenson's name was
substituted for Billikopf's.[12-76]
[Footnote 12-76: Memo, Leva for Forrestal, 18 Sep 48,
D54-1-3, SecDef files.]
Although only two of Forrestal's nominees, Lester Granger and John
Sengstacke, survived the selection process, the final membership was
certainly acceptable to the Secretary of Defense. Charles Fahy was
suggested by presidential assistant David K. Niles, who described the
soft-voiced Georgian as a "reconstructed southerner liberal on race."
A lawyer and former Solicitor General, Fahy had a reputation for
sensitive handling of delicate problems, "with quiet authority and the
punch of a mule." Granger's appointment was a White House bow to
Forrestal and a disregard for Royall's objections. Sengstacke, a noted
black publisher suggested by Forrestal and Ewing and supported by
William L. Dawson, the black congressman from Chicago, was appointed
in deference to the black press. Moreover, he had supported Truman's
reelection "in unqualified terms." William Stevenson was the president
of Oberlin College and was strongly recommended by Lloyd K. Garrison,
president of the National Urban League. Finally, there was a trio of
businessmen on the committee: Donahue was a Connecticut industrialist,
highly recommended by Senator Howard J. McGrath of Rhode Island and
Brian McMahon of Connecticut; Luckman was president of Lever Brothers
and a native of Kansas City, Missouri; and Dwight Palmer was president
of the General Cable Corporation.[12-77]
[Footnote 12-77: Interv, Nichols with Ewing; Interv,
Blumenson with Leva. Donahue resigned for health
reasons shortly after the committee began its work;
see Ltr, Donahue to Truman, 23 May 49, Truman
Library. Luckman did not participate at all in the
committee's work or sign its report. The
committee's active members, in addition to its
chairman, were Granger, Sengstacke, Palmer, and
Stevenson.]
These were the men with whom, for a time at least, the Secretary of
Defense would share his direction over the racial policies of the
armed forces.
CHAPTER 13 (p. 315)
Service Interests Versus Presidential Intent
Several months elapsed between the appointment of the President's
Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Services and its first meeting, a formal session with the President at
the White House on 12 January 1949. Actually, certain advantages
accrued from the delay, for postponing the meetings until after the
President's reelection enabled the committee to face the services with
assurance of continued support from the administration. Renewed
presidential backing was probably necessary, considering the services'
deliberations on race policy during this half-year hiatus. Their
reactions to the order, logical outgrowths of postwar policies and
practices, demonstrated how their perceived self-interests might
subvert the President's intentions. The events of this six-month
period also began to show the relative importance of the order and the
parochial interests of the services as factors in the integration of
the armed forces.
_Public Reaction to Executive Order 9981_
Considering the substantial changes it promised, the President's order
provoked surprisingly little public opposition. Its publication
coincided with the convening of the special session of a Congress
smarting under Truman's "do-nothing" label. In this charged political
atmosphere, the anti-administration majority in Congress quietly
sidestepped the President's 27 July call for civil rights legislation.
To do otherwise would only have added to the political profits already
garnered by Truman in some important voting areas. For the same reason
congressional opponents avoided all mention of Executive Order 9981,
although the widely expected defeat of Truman and the consequent end
to this executive sally into civil rights might have contributed to
the silence. Besides, segregationists could do little in an immediate
legislative way to counteract the presidential command. Congress had
already passed the Selective Service Act and Defense Appropriations
Act, the most suitable vehicles for amendments aimed at modifying the
impact of the integration order. National elections and the advent of
a new Congress precluded any other significant moves in this direction
until later in the next year.
Yet if it was ignored in Congress, the order was nevertheless a clear
signal to the friends of integration and brought with it a tremendous
surge of hope to the black community. Publishing the order made Harry
Truman the "darling of the Negroes," Roy Wilkins said later. Nor did
the coincidence of its publication to the election, he added, bother a
group that was becoming increasingly pragmatic about the reasons (p. 316)
for social reform.[13-1] Both the declaredly Democratic Chicago
_Defender_ and Republican-oriented Pittsburgh _Courier_ were aware of
the implications of the order. The _Defender_ ran an editorial on 7
August under the heading "Mr. Truman Makes History." The "National
Grapevine" column of Charlie Cherokee in the same issue promised its
readers a blow-by-blow description of the events surrounding the
President's action. An interview in the same issue with Col. Richard
L. Jones, black commander of the 178th Regimental Combat Team
(Illinois), emphasized the beneficial effects of the proposed
integration, and in the next issue, 14 August, the editor broadened
the discussion with an editorial entitled "What About Prejudice?"[13-2]
The _Courier_, for its part, questioned the President's sincerity
because he had not explicitly called for an end to segregation. At the
same time it contrasted the futility of civil disobedience with the
efficiency of such an order on the services, and while maintaining its
support for the candidacy of Governor Dewey the paper revealed a
strong enthusiasm for President Truman's civil rights program.[13-3]
[Footnote 13-1: Columbia University Oral Hist Interv
with Wilkins.]
[Footnote 13-2: Chicago _Defender_, August 7 and
August 14, 1948.]
[Footnote 13-3: Pittsburgh _Courier_, August 7, August
28, and September 25, 1948.]
These affirmations of support for Executive Order 9981 in the major
black newspapers fitted in neatly with the administration's political
strategy. Nor was the Democratic National Committee averse to using
the order to win black votes. For example it ran a half-page
advertisement in the _Defender_ under the heading "By His Deeds Shall
Ye Know Him."[13-4] At the same time, not wishing to antagonize the
opponents of integration further, the administration made no special
effort to publicize the order in the metropolitan press. Consequently,
when the order was mentioned at all, it was usually carried without
comment, and the few columnists who treated the subject did so with
some caution. Arthur Krock's "Reform Attempts Aid Southern Extremists"
in the New York _Times_, for example, lauded the President's civil
rights initiatives but warned that any attempt to force social
integration would only strengthen demagogues at the expense of
moderate politicians.[13-5]
[Footnote 13-4: Chicago _Defender_, August 21, 1948.]
[Footnote 13-5: New York _Times_, September 12, 1948.]
If the President's wooing of the black voter was good election
politics, his executive order was also a successful practical response
to the threat of civil disobedience and the failure of the Secretary
of Defense to strive actively for racial equality throughout the
services. Declaring the President's action a substantial gain, A.
Philip Randolph canceled the call for a boycott of the draft, leaving
only a small number of diehards to continue the now insignificant
effort. The black leaders who had participated in Secretary
Forrestal's National Defense Conference gave the President their full
support, and Donald S. Dawson, administrative assistant to the
President, was able to assure Truman that the black press, now
completely behind the committee on equal treatment and opportunity,
had abandoned its vigorous campaign against the Army's racial
policy.[13-6]
[Footnote 13-6: Memo, Donald Dawson for President, 9
Sep 48, Nash Collection, Truman Library; Memo,
SecDef for [Clark] Clifford, 2 Aug 48, and Ltr,
Bayard Rustin of the Campaign to Resist Military
Segregation to James V. Forrestal, 20 Aug 48; both
in D54-1-14, SecDef files. It should be noted that
Dawson's claim that the black press universally
supported the executive order has not been accepted
by all commentators; see McCoy and Ruetten, _Quest
and Response_, p. 130.]
Ironically, the most celebrated pronouncement on segregation at (p. 317)
the moment of the Truman order came not from publicists or politicians
but from the Army's new Chief of Staff, General Omar N. Bradley.[13-7]
Speaking to a group of instructors at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and unaware
of the President's order and the presence of the press, Bradley
declared that the Army would have to retain segregation as long as it
was the national pattern.[13-8] This statement prompted questions at
the President's next news conference, letters to the editor, and
debate in the press.[13-9] Bradley later explained that he had
supported the Army's segregation policy because he was against making
the Army an instrument of social change in areas of the country which
still rejected integration.[13-10] His comment, as amplified and
broadcast by military analyst Hanson W. Baldwin, summarized the Army's
position at the time of the Truman order. "It is extremely dangerous
nonsense," Baldwin declared, "to try to make the Army other than one
thing--a fighting machine." By emphasizing that the Army could not
afford to differ greatly in customs, traditions, and prejudices from
the general population, Baldwin explained, Bradley was only
underscoring a major characteristic of any large organization of
conscripts. Most import, Baldwin pointed out, the Chief of Staff
considered an inflexible order for the immediate integration of all
troops one of the surest ways to break down the morale of the Army and
destroy its efficiency.[13-11]
[Footnote 13-7: Bradley succeeded Eisenhower as Chief
of Staff on 7 February 1948.]
[Footnote 13-8: Washington _Post_, July 28, 1948;
Atlanta _Constitution_, July 28, 1948.]
[Footnote 13-9: News Conference, 29 Jul 48, _Public
Papers of the Presidents: Harry S. Truman, 1948_,
p. 165; New York _Times_, July 30, 1948; Chicago
_Defender_, August 7, 1948; Pittsburgh _Courier_,
August 21, 1948; Washington _Post_, August 23,
1948.]
[Footnote 13-10: Interv, Nichols with Bradley.]
[Footnote 13-11: Hanson Baldwin, "Segregation in the
Army," New York _Times_, August 8, 1948.]
But such arguments were under attack by the very civil rights groups
the President was trying to court. "Are we to understand that the
President's promise to end discrimination," one critic asked,
was made for some other purpose than to end discrimination in its
worst form--segregation? General Bradley's statement, subsequent
to the President's orders, would seem to indicate that the
President either did not mean what he said or his orders were not
being obeyed. We should like to point out that General Bradley's
reported observation ... was decidedly wide of the mark.
Segregation is the legal pattern of only a few of our most
backward states.... In view of the trends in law and social
practice, it is high time that the Defense forces were not used
as brakes on progress toward genuine democracy.[13-12]
[Footnote 13-12: Ltr, A. A. Heist, Dir, American Civil
Liberties Union, South California Branch, to
Forrestal, 7 Sep 48, D54-1-4, SecDef files.]
General Bradley apologized to the President for any confusion caused
by his statement, and Truman publicly sloughed off the affair, but not
before he stated to the press that his order specifically directed the
integration of the armed forces.[13-13] It was obvious that the situation
had developed into a standoff. Some of the President's most (p. 318)
outspoken supporters would not let him forget his integration order,
and the Army, as represented by its Chief of Staff, failed to realize
that events were rapidly moving beyond the point where segregation
could be considered a workable policy for an agency of the United
States government.
[Footnote 13-13: Ltrs, Bradley to President Truman, 30
Jul 48, and Truman to Bradley, 4 Aug 48, CSUSA
291.2 (4 Aug 48). See also Ltr, SA to President, 29
Jul 48, OSA 291.2 (Negroes) (7-29-48).]
_The Army: Segregation on the Defensive_
The President's order heralded a series of attacks on the Army's race
policy. As further evidence of the powerful pressures for change,
several state governors now challenged segregation in the National
Guard. Generally the race policy of the reserve components echoed that
of the Regular Army, in part because it seemed logical that state
units, subject to federal service, conform to federal standards of
performance and organization. Accordingly, in the wake of the
publication of the Gillem Board Report, the Army's Director of
Personnel and Administration recommended to the Committee on National
Guard Policy[13-14] that it amend its regulation on the employment of
black troops to conform more closely with the new policy.
Specifically, General Paul asked the committee to spell out the
prohibition against integration of white and black troops below
battalion level, warning that federal recognition would be denied any
state unit organized in violation of this order.[13-15]
[Footnote 13-14: As provided in various laws since
1920, most notably in Section V of the amendments
to the National Defense Act, members of the General
Staff's Committee on National Guard Policy and
Committee on Reserve Policy were the principal
advisers to the Secretary of War on reserve
component matters. All questions regarding these
organizations were referred to the committees,
which usually met in combined session as the
Committee on National Guard and Reserve Policy. The
combined committee was composed of twenty-one
officers, seven each from the Regular Army, the
guard, and the reserves. When the business under
consideration was restricted exclusively to one of
the reserve components, the representatives of the
other would absent themselves, the remaining
members, along with the Regular Army members,
reconstituting themselves as the Committee on
National Guard Policy or the Committee on Reserve
Policy. These groups, familiarly known as the
"Section V Committees," wielded considerable power
in the development of the postwar program for the
reserves.]
[Footnote 13-15: Memo, Chief, Classification and
Personnel Actions Br, P&A, for Brig Gen Ira Swift,
Chief, Liaison, Planning and Policy Coordination
Gp, P&A, 8 Apr 47, sub: Resolution Regarding
Employment of Negro Troops in the National Guard;
Memo, Dir, P&A, for Dir, Intel, 9 Apr 47, same sub;
both in WDGPA 291.2 (3 Apr 47).]
Agreeing to comply with General Paul's request, the National Guard
Committee went a step further and recommended that individual states
be permitted to make their own decisions on the wisdom and utility of
organizing separate black units.[13-16] The Army staff rejected this
proposal, however, on the grounds that it gave too much discretionary
power to the state guard authorities.[13-17] Interestingly enough in view
of later developments, neither the committee nor the staff disputed
the War Department's right to withhold federal recognition in racial
matters, and both displayed little concern for the principle of (p. 319)
states' rights. Their attitude was important, for while the
prohibition against integration sat well in some circles, it drew
severe criticism in others. Unlike the Regular Army, the National
Guard and the Army Reserve were composed of units deeply rooted in the
local community, each reflecting the parochial attitudes of its
members and its section. This truth was forcefully pointed out to the
Army staff in 1946 when it tried to reactivate the 313th Infantry and
designate it as a black unit in the 79th Division (Pennsylvania).
Former members of the old white 313th, now prominent citizens,
expressed their "very strong sentiments" on the matter, and the Army
had to beat a hasty retreat. In the future, the staff decided, either
black reserve units would be given the name and history of inactive
black units or new units would be constituted.[13-18]
[Footnote 13-16: DF, WDGS Cmte on National Guard
Policy, to Chief, NGB, 20 May 47, sub: Integration
of Negro Troops; idem to Dir, P&A, and Dir, O&T,
same date and sub. See also Ltr, Maj Gen Kenneth F.
Cramer, CG, 43d Inf Div (Conn. NG) to Col Russell
Y. Moore, OCofS, 17 Mar 47. All in Office file,
Army Reserve Forces Policy Cmte.]
[Footnote 13-17: Memo, Dir, O&T, for WDGS Cmte on
National Guard Policy, 23 Jun 47, sub: Integration
of Negro Troops, WDGOT 291.2.]
[Footnote 13-18: Memo, Exec for Reserve and ROTC
Affairs, O&T, for Dir, O&T, 22 Jul 46; O&T Memo for
Rcd, 12 Aug 46; both in WDGOT 291.2.]
On the other hand, in 1947 citizen groups sprang up in Connecticut,
New York, New Jersey, Ohio, and California to agitate among their
state adjutants general for liberalization of the National Guard's
racial policy. As early as February 1947 Governor James L. McConnaughy
had publicly deplored segregation of Negroes in his own Connecticut
National Guard. Adopting the states' rights stance more commonly
associated with defenders of racial discrimination, Governor
McConnaughy argued that by requiring segregation the War Department
ran contrary to the wishes of individual states. Marcus Ray, the
secretary's adviser on race, predicted that integration in the reserve
components would continue to be a "point of increasing pressure." As
he pointed out to Assistant Secretary Petersen, the Army had always
supported segregation in its southern installations on the grounds
that it had to conform with local mores. How then could it refuse to
conform with the local statutes and customs of some northern states
without appearing inconsistent? He recommended the Army amend its race
policy to permit reserve components in states which wished it to
integrate at a level consistent with "local community attitudes."[13-19]
[Footnote 13-19: Memo, Ray for Petersen, 2 Apr 47,
sub: Integration of Negro Personnel in the Reserve
Components, ASW 291.2.]
The Army staff would have nothing to do with Ray's suggestion.
Instead, both the Director of Personnel and Administration and the
Director of Organization and Training supported a new resolution by
the National Guard Policy Committee that left the number of black
units and the question of their integration with white units above the
company level up to the states involved. Integration at the company
level was prohibited, and such integrated companies would be denied
federal recognition. The committee's resolution was adopted by the
Secretary of War in May 1947.[13-20]
[Footnote 13-20: Memo, D/O&T for ASW, 17 Apr 47, sub:
Integration of Negro Personnel in the Reserve
Components, WDGOT 291.2; Memo, D/P&A thru D/O&T for
ASW, 10 Apr 47, same sub, WDGPA 291.2; DF, D/P&A to
CofS, 20 May 47, sub: Integration of Negro Troops,
CSUSA 291.2 Negroes.]
But the fight was not over yet. In 1947 New Jersey adopted a new
constitution that specifically prohibited segregation in the state
militia. By extension no New Jersey National Guard unit could receive
federal recognition. In February 1948 Governor McConnaughy brought (p. 320)
Connecticut back into the fray, this time taking the matter up with
the White House. A month later Governor Luther W. Youngdahl appealed
to the Secretary of Defense on behalf of Negroes in the Minnesota
National Guard. Secretary of the Army Royall quickly reappraised the
situation and excepted New Jersey from the Army's segregation rule.
Secretary Symington followed suit by excepting the New Jersey Air
National Guard.[13-21] Royall also let the governors of Connecticut
and Minnesota know that he would be inclined to make similar
concessions to any state which, by legislative action, prohibited its
governor from conforming to the federal requirements. At that time
Connecticut and Minnesota had no such legislation, but Royall
nevertheless agreed to refer their requests to his Committee on
National Guard Policy.[13-22]
[Footnote 13-21: Ltr, Kenneth Royall to Alfred
Driscoll, 7 Feb 48; Ltr, W. Stuart Symington to
Driscoll, 17 Mar 48; copies of both in CMH.]
[Footnote 13-22: Ltrs, SA to Luther Youngdahl and
James C. Shannon, 20 May 48, both in OSA 291.2
Negroes (5-28-48); Memos, CofSA for Dir, O&T, 2 Jan
and 9 Mar 48, sub: Utilization of Negroes in the
National Guard, CSUSA 291.2. Shannon succeeded
McConnaughy as governor of Connecticut in March
1948.]
[Illustration: MP'S HITCH A RIDE ON ARMY TANKS, AUGSBURG, GERMANY,
1949.]
Here the secretary did no more than comply with the National Defense
Act, which required that all National Guard policy matters be
formulated in the committee. Privately, Royall admitted that he did
not feel bound to accept a committee recommendation and would be
inclined to recognize any state prohibition against segregation. But
he made a careful distinction between constitutional or legislative
action and executive action in the states. A governor's decision to
integrate, he pointed out, would not be recognized by the Army because
such an action was subject to speedy reversal by the governor's
successor and could cause serious confusion in the guard.[13-23] (p. 321)
The majority of the National Guard Committee, supported by the
Director of Organization and Training, recommended that the secretary
make no exceptions to the segregation policy. The Director of
Personnel and Administration, on the other hand, joined with the
committee's minority in recommending that Royall's action in the New
Jersey case be used as a precedent.[13-24] Commenting independently,
General Bradley warned Royall that integrating individual Negroes in
the National Guard would, from a military point of view, "create
problems which may have serious consequences in case of national
mobilization of those units."[13-25]
[Footnote 13-23: Remarks by Kenneth Royall in the
Committee of Four, 9 Mar 48, OSD Historical Office
files.]
[Footnote 13-24: P&A Summary Sheet, 7 Jul 48, sub:
Utilization of Negro Manpower in the National
Guard, WDGPA 291.2; O&T Summary Sheet, 8 Apr 48,
same sub. See also Memo, Col William Abendroth,
Exec, Cmte on NG and Reserve Policy, for CofSA, 30
Jun 48, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the
National Guard of the United States, Office file,
Army Reserve Forces Policy Cmte. Thirteen of the
seventeen committee members concurred with the
staff study without reservation; the remaining four
concurred with the proviso that states prohibiting
segregation be granted the right to integrate.]
[Footnote 13-25: Memo, CofSA for SA, 7 Jul 48, CSUSA
291.2 Negroes (1 Jul 48).]
Here the matter would stand for some time, the Army's segregation
policy intact, but an informal allowance made for excepting individual
states from prohibitions against integration below the company level.
Yet the publicity and criticism attendant upon these decisions might
well have given the traditionalists pause. While Secretary Royall, and
on occasion his superior, Secretary of Defense Forrestal, reiterated
the Army's willingness to accommodate certain states,[13-26] civil rights
groups were gaining allies for another proposition. The American
Veterans Committee had advanced the idea that to forbid integration at
the platoon level was a retreat from World War II practice, and to
accept the excuse that segregation was in the interest of national
defense was to tolerate a "travesty on words."[13-27] Hearings were
conducted in Congress in 1949 and 1951 on bills H.R. 1403 and H.R.
1389 to prohibit segregation in the National Guard. Royall's
interpretation of the National Defense Act did not satisfy advocates
of a thoroughly integrated guard, for it was clear that not many
states were likely to petition for permission to integrate. At the
same time the exceptions to the segregation rule promised an
incompatible situation between the segregated active forces and the
incompletely integrated reserve organization.
[Footnote 13-26: See Ltrs, James Forrestal to A. A.
Heist, Dir, American Civil Liberties Union, 13 Sep
48, and Augustus F. Hawkins, 22 Sep 48; both in
D54-1-2, SecDef files; DF, Dir, P&A, to CofSA, 2
Nov 49, sub: Executive Order to Permit Integration
of Negroes Into Minnesota National Guard, CSUSA
291.2 Negroes (2 Nov 49).]
[Footnote 13-27: Ltr, J. Steward McClendon, Secy,
Minneapolis Chapter, Am Vets Cmte, to SecDef
[_sic_] Royall, 28 May 48, CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (28
May 48).]
Royall's ruling, while perhaps a short-term gain for traditionalists,
was significant because it established a precedent that would be used
by integrationists in later years. The price for defending the Army's
segregation policy, guard officials discovered, was the surrender of
their long-cherished claim of state autonomy. The committee's
recommendation on the matter of applying the Gillem Board policy to
the guard was inflexible, leaving no room for separate decisions by
officials of the several states. Maj. Gen. Jim Dan Hill of the
Wisconsin National Guard recognized this danger. Along with a minority
of his colleagues he maintained that the decision on segregation "will
have to be solved at the state level."[13-28] The committee (p. 322)
majority argued the contrary, agreeing with Brig. Gen. Alexander G.
Paxton of Mississippi that the National Defense Act of 1945 prohibited
the sort of exception made in the New Jersey case. General Paxton
called for a uniform policy for all guard units:
National Security is an obligation of all the states, and its
necessity in time of emergency transcends all local issues.
Federal recognition of the National Guard units of the several
States is extended for the purpose of affording these units a
Federal status under the National Defense Act. The issue in
question is purely one of compliance with Federal Law.[13-29]
[Footnote 13-28: Ltr, Maj Gen Jim Dan Hill, Wisconsin
National Guard, to Secy, WD Advisory Cmte, 24 Jun
48; see also Ltr, Brig Gen Harry Evans, Maryland
National Guard, to Col William Abendroth, Exec,
Cmte on NG and Reserve Policy, 22 Jun 48, Office
file, Army Reserve Forces Policy Cmte.]
[Footnote 13-29: Ltr, Brig Gen A. G. Paxton,
Mississippi National Guard, to Col William
Abendroth, 13 May 1948, Office file, Army Reserve
Forces Policy Cmte.]
Here was tacit recognition of federal supremacy over the National
Guard. In supporting the right of the Secretary of the Army to dictate
racial policy to state guards in 1948, the National Guard Committee
adopted a position that would haunt it when the question of
integrating the guard came up again in the early 1960's.
Despite the publicity given to General Bradley's comments at Fort
Knox, it was the Secretary of the Army, not the Chief of Staff, who
led the fight against change in the Army's racial practices. As the
debate over these practices warmed in the administration and the
national press, Kenneth C. Royall emerged as the principal spokesman
against further integration and the principal target of the civil
rights forces. Royall's sincere interest in the welfare of black
soldiers, albeit highly paternalistic, was not in question. His
trouble with civil rights officials stemmed from the fact that he
alone in the Truman administration still clung publicly to the belief
that segregation was not in itself discrimination, a belief shared by
many of his fellow citizens. Royall was convinced that the separate
but equal provisions of the Army's Gillem Board policy were right in
as much as they did provide equal treatment and opportunity for the
black minority. His opinion was reinforced by the continual assurances
of his military subordinates that in open competition with white
soldiers few Negroes would ever achieve a proportionate share of
promotions and better occupations. And when his subordinates added to
this sentiment the notion that integration would disrupt the Army and
endanger its efficiency, they quickly persuaded the already
sympathetic Royall that segregation was not only correct but
imperative.[13-30] The secretary might easily have agreed with General
Paul, who told an assembly of Army commanders that aside from some
needed improvement in the employment of black specialists "there isn't
a single complaint anyone can make in our use of the Negro."[13-31]
[Footnote 13-30: Ltr, Marx Leva to author, 24 May 70,
CMH files; see also Testimony of Royall at National
Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48,
copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 13-31: General Paul's Remarks at Army
Commanders Conference, 30 Mar-2 Apr 48, p. 30,
CSUSA 337.]
Secure in his belief that segregation was right and necessary, Royall
confidently awaited the judgment of the recently appointed President's
committee. He was convinced that any fair judge could draw but one
conclusion: under the provisions of Circular 124, Negroes had (p. 323)
already achieved equal treatment and opportunity in the Army. His job,
therefore, was relatively simple. He had to defend Army policy against
outside attack and make sure it was applied uniformly throughout the
service. His stand marked one of the last attempts by a major federal
official to support a racially separate but equal system before the
principle was finally struck down by the Supreme Court in _Brown_ v.
_Board of Education_.
[Illustration: SECRETARY ROYALL REVIEWS MILITARY POLICE, _Yokohama,
Japan, 1949_.]
Royall readily conceded that it was proper and necessary for Negroes
to insist on integration, but, echoing a long-cherished Army belief,
he adamantly opposed using the Army to support or oppose any social
cause. The Army, he contended, must follow the nation, not lead it, in
social matters. The Army must not experiment. When, "without prejudice
to the National Defense," the Army could reduce segregation to the
platoon level it would do so, but all such steps should be taken one
at a time. And 1948, he told the conference of black leaders in April
of that year, was not the time.[13-32]
[Footnote 13-32: See Testimony of Royall at National
Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48, pp.
24-26.]
Convinced of the rightness of the Army's policy, Secretary Royall was
understandably agitated by the unfavorable publicity directed at him
and his department. The publicity, he was convinced, resulted from
discrimination on the part of "the Negro and liberal press" (p. 324)
against the Army's policy in favor of the Navy and Air Force. He was
particularly incensed at the way the junior services had escaped the
"rap"--his word--on racial matters. He ascribed it in large part, he
told the Secretary of Defense in September 1948, to the "unfortunate"
National Defense Conference, the gathering of black spokesmen held
under Forrestal's auspices the previous spring.[13-33] The specific
object of Royall's indignation was Lester Granger's final report on
the work of the National Defense Conference. That report emphasized
the conferees' rebuttal to Royall's defense of segregation on the
grounds of military expediency and past experience with black
soldiers. The Army has assumed a position, Granger claimed, that was
unjustified by its own experience. Overlooking evidence to the
contrary, Granger added that the Army position was at variance with
the experience of the other services. His parting shot was aimed at
the heart of the Army's argument: "It is as unwise as it is unsound to
cite the resistance of military leadership against basic changes in
policy as sufficient cause for delaying immediate and effective
action."[13-34]
[Footnote 13-33: Memo, SA for SecDef, 22 Sep 48, copy
in CD30-1-2, SecDef files.]
[Footnote 13-34: Ltr, Granger and Conferees to
Forrestal, 26 Aug 48, D54-1-3, SecDef files.]
Adding to Royall's discomfort, Forrestal released the report on 8
September, and his letter of appreciation to Granger and the conferees
assured them he would send their report to the President's committee.
The New York _Times_ promptly picked up Granger's reference to
opposition among military leaders.[13-35] Royall tried to counter this
attack. Since neither the President nor the Secretary of Defense had
disapproved the Army's racial policy nor suggested any modifications,
Royall told Forrestal he wanted him to go on record as approving the
Army position. This course would doubtless be more palatable to
Forrestal, Royall suggested, than having Royall announce that
Forrestal had given tacit approval to the Army's policy.[13-36]
[Footnote 13-35: NME Press Release, 8 Sep 48; New York
_Times_, September 9, 1948; Memo, Leva for
Forrestal, 30 Aug 48; Ltr, Forrestal to Granger, 30
Aug 48. Last two in D54-1-3, SecDef files.]
[Footnote 13-36: Memo, SA for SecDef, 22 Sep 48, copy
in CD30-1-2, SecDef files.]
Forrestal quickly scotched this maneuver. It was true, he told Royall,
that the Army's policy had not been disapproved. But neither had the
Army's policy or that of the Navy or Air Force yet been reviewed by
the Secretary of Defense. The President's committee would probably
make such a review an early order of business. Meanwhile, the Army's
race policy would continue in effect until it was altered either by
Forrestal's office or by action from some other source.[13-37]
[Footnote 13-37: Memo (unsigned), Forrestal for
Royall, 22 Sep 48. The answer was prepared by Leva
and used by Forrestal as the basis for his
conversation with Royall. See Memos, Leva for
Forrestal, undated, and 30 Sep 48, both in
CD30-1-2, SecDef files.]
Even as Secretary Royall tried to defend the Army from the attacks of
the press, the service's policy was challenged from another quarter.
The blunt fact was that with the reinstitution of selective service in
1948 the Army was receiving more black recruits--especially those in
the lower mental categories--than a segregated system could easily
absorb. The high percentage of black soldiers so proudly publicized by
Royall at the National Defense Conference was in fact a source of
anxiety for Army planners. The staff particularly resented the
different standards adopted by the other services to determine (p. 325)
the acceptability of selectees. The Navy and Air Force, pleading their
need for skilled workers and dependence on volunteer enlistments,
imposed a higher minimum achievement score for admission than the
Army, which, largely dependent upon the draft for its manpower, was
required to accept men with lower scores. Thousands of Negroes, less
skilled and with little education, were therefore eligible for service
in the Army although they were excluded from the Navy and Air Force.
Given such circumstances, it was probably inevitable that differences
in racial policies would precipitate an interservice conflict. The
Army claimed the difference in enlistment standards was discriminatory
and contrary to the provisions of the draft law which required the
Secretary of Defense to set enlistment standards. In April 1948
Secretary Royall demanded that Forrestal impose the same mental
standards on all the services. He wanted inductees allocated to the
services according to their physical and mental abilities and Negroes
apportioned among them.
The other services countered that there were not enough well-educated
people of draft age to justify raising the Army's mental standards to
the Navy and Air Force levels, but neither service wanted to lower its
own entrance standards to match the level necessity had imposed on the
Army. The Air Force eventually agreed to enlist Negroes at a 10
percent ratio to whites, but the Navy held out for higher standards
and no allocation by race. It contended that setting the same
standards for all services would improve the quality of the Army's
black enlistees only imperceptibly while it would do great damage to
the Navy. The Navy admitted that the other services should help the
Army, but not "up to the point of _unnecessarily_ reducing their own
effectiveness.... The modern Navy cannot operate its ships and
aircraft with personnel of G.C.T. 70."[13-38] General Bradley cut to the
point: if the Navy carried the day it would receive substantially
fewer Negroes than the other two services and a larger portion of the
best qualified.[13-39] Secretary Forrestal first referred the
interservice controversy to the Munitions Board in May 1948 and later
that summer to a special interservice committee. After both groups
failed to reach an agreement,[13-40] Forrestal decided not to force a
parity in mental standards upon the services. On 12 October he
explained to the secretaries that parity could be imposed only during
time of full mobilization, and since conditions in the period between
October 1948 and June 1949 could not be considered comparable to those
of full mobilization, parity was impossible. He promised, however, to
study the qualitative needs of each service. Meanwhile, he had found
no evidence that any service was discriminating in the selection
of enlistees and settled for a warning that any serious (p. 326)
discrimination by any two of the services would place "an intolerable
burden" on the third.[13-41]
[Footnote 13-38: Memo, SecNav for SecDef, 27 May 48,
sub: Liaison With the Selective Service System and
Determination of Parity Standards, P14-6; Memo,
Actg SecNav for SecDef, 17 Aug 48; sub: Items in
Disagreement Between the Services as Listed in
SecDef's Memo of 15 Jul 48, P 14-4; both in
GenRecsNav. The quotation is from an inclosure to
the latter memo.]
[Footnote 13-39: CofSA, Rpt of War Council Min, 3 Aug
48, copy in OSD Historical Office files.]
[Footnote 13-40: For a detailed analysis of the
various service arguments and positions, see Office
of the Secretary of Defense, "Proposed Findings and
Decisions on Questions of Parity of Mental
Standards, Allocation of Inductees According to
Physical and Mental Capabilities and Allocation of
Negroes" (Noble Report), 29 Oct 48, copy in SecDef
files.]
[Footnote 13-41: Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 12 Oct
48, with attached Summary of Supplement, copy in
CMH.]
Convinced that Forrestal had made the wrong decision, the Army staff
was nevertheless obliged to concern itself with the percentage of
Negroes it would have to accept under the new selective service law.
Although by November 1948 the Army's black strength had dropped to
9.83 percent of the total, its proportion of Negroes was still large
when compared with the Navy's 4.3 percent, the Marine Corps' 1.79
percent, and the Air Force's 6 percent. Projecting these figures
against the possible mobilization of five million men (assuming each
service increased in proportion to its current strength and absorbed
the same percentage of a black population remaining at 12 percent of
the whole), the Army calculated that its low entrance requirements
would give it a black strength of 21 percent. In the event of a
mobilization equaling or surpassing that of World War II, the minimum
test score of seventy would probably be lowered, and thus the Army
would shoulder an even greater burden of poorly educated men, a burden
that in the Army's view should be shared by all the services.[13-42]
[Footnote 13-42: DF, Dir, P&A, to CofS, 24 Jan 49,
sub: Experimental Unit, GSPGA 291.2 (24 Jan 49).]
_A Different Approach_
No matter how the Army tried to justify segregation or argue against
the position of the Navy and Air Force, the integrationists continued
to gain ground. Royall, in opposition, adopted a new tactic in the
wake of the Truman order. He would have the Army experiment with
integration, perhaps proving that it would not work on a large scale,
certainly buying time for Circular 124 and frustrating the rising
demand for change. He had expressed willingness to experiment with an
integrated Army unit when Lester Granger made the suggestion through
Forrestal in February 1948, but nothing came of it.[13-43] In September
he returned to the idea, asking the Army staff to plan for the
formation of an integrated unit about the size of a regimental combat
team, along with an engineer battalion and the station complement of a
post large enough to accommodate these troops. Black enlisted men were
to form 10 percent of the troop basis and be used in all types of
positions. Black officers, used in the same ratio as black officers in
the whole Army, were to command mixed troops. General Bradley reported
the staff had studied the idea and concluded that such units "did not
prove anything on the subject." Royall, however, dismissed the staff's
objection and reiterated his order to plan an experiment at a large
installation and in a permanent unit.[13-44]
[Footnote 13-43: Memo, SecDef for President, 29 Feb
48, Secretary's File (PSF), Truman Library.]
[Footnote 13-44: Memo, CofS for Dir, O&T, 11 Oct 48,
CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (11 Oct 48).]
Despite the staff's obvious reluctance, Maj. Gen. Harold R. Bull, the
new Director of Organization and Training, made an intensive study of
the alternatives. He produced a plan that was in turn further refined
by a group of senior officers including the Deputy Chief of Staff for
Administration and the Chief of Information.[13-45] These officers (p. 327)
decided that "if the Secretary of the Army so orders," the Army could
activate an experimental unit in the 3d Infantry Division at Camp
Campbell, Kentucky. The troops, 10 percent of them black, would be
drawn from all parts of the country and include ten black officers,
none above the rank of major. The unit would be carefully monitored by
the Army staff, and its commander would report on problems encountered
after a year's trial.
[Footnote 13-45: Lt Col D. M. Oden, Asst Secy, CS,
Memo for Rcd, 4 Nov 48, sub: Organization of an
Experimental Unit, CSUSA 291.2 (Negroes) (11 Oct
48).]
[Illustration: SPRING FORMAL DANCE, FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, MARYLAND,
1952.]
It was obvious that Forrestal wanted to avoid publicizing the project.
He had his assistants, Marx Leva and John Ohly, discuss the proposal
with the Secretary of the Array to impress on him the need for secrecy
until all arrangements were completed. More important, he hoped to
turn Royall's experiment back on the Army itself, using it to gain a
foothold for integration in the largest service. Leva and Ohly
suggested to Royall that instead of activating a special unit he
select a Regular Army regiment--Leva recommended one from the 82d
Airborne Division to which a number of black combat units were already
attached--as the nucleus of the experiment. With an eye to the
forthcoming White House investigation, Leva added that, while the
details would be left to the Army, integration of the unit, to be put
into effect "as soon as possible," should be total.[13-46]
[Footnote 13-46: Memo, Marx Leva for SA, 22 Nov 48;
see also idem for Ohly, 16 Nov 48; both in CD
30-1-2, SecDef files.]
The plan for a large-scale integrated unit progressed little (p. 328)
beyond this point, but it was significant if only because it marked
the first time since the Revolution that the Army had seriously
considered using a large number of black soldiers in a totally
integrated unit. The situation was not without its note of irony, for
the purpose of the plan was not to abolish the racial discrimination
that critics were constantly laying at the Army's doorstep. In fact,
Army leaders, seriously dedicated to the separate but equal principle,
were convinced the Gillem Board policy had already eliminated
discrimination. Nor was the plan designed to carry out the President's
order or prompted by the Secretary of Defense. Rather, it was pushed
by Secretary Royall as a means of defending the Army against the
anticipated demands of the President's committee.
The plan died because, while the Army staff studied organizations and
counted bodies, Royall expanded his proposal for an integrated unit to
include elements of the whole national defense establishment. Several
motives have been suggested for his move. By ensnaring the Navy and
Air Force in the experiment, he might impress on all concerned the
problems he considered certain to arise if any service attempted the
integration of a large number of Negroes. An experiment involving the
whole department might also divert the White House from trying to
integrate the Army immediately. Besides, the scheme had an escape
clause. If the Navy and Air Force refused to cooperate, and Royall
thought it likely they would, given the shortage of skilled black
recruits, the Army could then legitimately cancel its offer to
experiment with integration and let the whole problem dissipate in a
lengthy interservice argument.[13-47]
[Footnote 13-47: Interv, author with James C. Evans, 1
Jul 70; Ltr, E. W. Kenworthy, Exec Secy,
Presidential Committee, to Lee Nichols, 28 Jul 53;
both in CMH files.]
Royall formally proposed a defense-wide experiment in integration to
Forrestal on 2 December. He was not oblivious to the impression his
vacillation on the subject had produced and went to some lengths to
explain why he had opposed such experiments in the past. Although he
had been thinking about such an experiment for some time, he told
Forrestal, he had publicly rejected the idea at the National Defense
Conference and during the Senate hearings on the draft law because of
the tense international situation and the small size of the Army at
that time. His interest in the experiment revived as the size of the
Army increased and similar suggestions were made by both black leaders
and southern politicians, but again he had hesitated, this time
because of the national elections. He was now prepared to go ahead,
but only if similar action were taken by the other services.
The experimental units, he advised Forrestal, should contain both
combat and service elements of considerable size, and he went on to
specify their composition in some detail. The Navy and Marine Corps
should include at least one shore station "where the social problems
for individuals and their families will approximate those confronting
the Army." To insure the experiment's usefulness, he wanted Negroes
employed in all positions, including supervisory ones, for which they
qualified, and he urged that attention be paid to "the problem of
social relations in off-duty hours." He was candid about the plan's
weaknesses. The right to transfer out of the experimental unit might
confine the experiment to white and black troops who wanted it to (p. 329)
succeed; hence any conclusions drawn might be challenged as invalid
since men could not be given the right to exercise similar options in
time of war. Therefore, if the experiment succeeded, it would have to
be followed by another in which no voluntary options were granted. The
experiment might also bring pressure from groups outside the Army, and
if it failed "for any reason" the armed services would be accused of
sabotage, no matter how sincere their effort. Curiously, he admitted
that the plan was not favored by his military advisers. The Army
staff, he noted in what must have surprised anyone familiar with the
staff's consistent defense of segregation, thought the best way to
eliminate segregation was to reduce gradually the size of segregated
units and extend integration in schools, hospitals, and special units.
Nevertheless, Royall recommended that the National Military
Establishment as a whole, not the Army separately, go forward with the
experiment and that it start early in 1949.[13-48]
[Footnote 13-48: Memo, SA for SecDef, 2 Dec 48, CD
30-1-2, SecDef files.]
The other services had no intention of going forward with such an
experiment. The Air Force objected, as Secretary Symington explained,
because the experiment would be inconclusive; too many artificial
features were involved, especially having units composed of
volunteers. Arbitrary quotas violated the principle of equal
opportunity, he charged, and the experiment would be unfair to Negroes
because the proportion of Negroes able to compete with whites was less
than 1 to 10. Symington also warned against the public relations
aspect of the scheme, which was of "minimal military significance but
of major significance in the current public controversy on purely
racial issues." The Air Force could conduct the experiment without
difficulty, he conceded, for there were enough trained black
technicians to man 10 percent of the positions and give a creditable
performance, but these men were representative neither of the general
black population of the Air Force nor of Negroes coming into the
service during wartime.
Symington predicted that Negroes would suffer no matter how the
experiment came out--success would be attributed to the special
conditions involved; failure would reflect unjustly on the Negro's
capabilities. The Air Force, therefore, preferred to refrain from
participation in the experiment. Symington added that he was
considering a study prepared by the Air staff over the past six months
that would insure equality of treatment and increased opportunities
for Negroes in the Air Force, and he expected to offer proposals to
Forrestal in the immediate future.[13-49]
[Footnote 13-49: Memo, SecAF for SecDef, 22 Dec 48, CD
30-1-2, SecDef files.]
The Navy also wanted no part of the Royall experiment. Its acting
secretary, John Nicholas Brown, believed that the gradual
indoctrination of the naval establishment was producing the desired
nondiscriminatory practices "on a sound and permanent basis without
concomitant problems of morale and discipline." To adopt Royall's
proposal, on the other hand, would "unnecessarily risk losing all that
has been accomplished in the solution of the efficient utilization of
Negro personnel to the limit of their ability."[13-50] Brown did not
spell out the risk, but a Navy spokesman on Forrestal's staff was (p. 330)
not so reticent. "Mutiny cannot be dismissed from consideration,"
Capt. Herbert D. Riley warned, if the Navy were forced to integrate
its officers' wardrooms, staterooms, and clubs. Such integration ran
considerably in advance of the Navy's current and carefully controlled
integration of the enlisted general service and would, like the
proposal to place Negroes in command of white officers and men,
Captain Riley predicted, have such dire results as wholesale
resignations and retirements.[13-51]
[Footnote 13-50: Memo, Actg SecNav for SecDef, 28 Dec
48, CD 30-1-2, SecDef files.]
[Footnote 13-51: Memo, Capt H. D. Riley, USN, OSD, for
SecDef, 6 Dec 48, sub: Comment on the Secretary of
the Army's Proposal Concerning Experimental
Non-Segregated Units in the Armed Forces, CD
30-1-2, SecDef files.]
[Illustration: SECRETARY FORRESTAL, _accompanied by General Huebner,
inspects the 427th Army Band and the 7777th EUCOM Honor Guard,
Heidelberg, Germany, November 1948_.]
The decisive opposition of the Navy and Air Force convinced Forrestal
that interservice integration was unworkable. In short, the Navy and
Air Force had progressed in their own estimation to the point where,
despite shortcomings in their racial policies rivaling the Army's,
they had little to fear from the coming White House investigation. The
Army could show no similar forward motion. Despite Royall's claim that
he and the Army staff favored eventual integration of black soldiers
through progressive reduction in the size of the Army's segregated
black units, the facts indicated otherwise. For example, while
Secretary of Defense Forrestal was touring Germany in late 1948 he
noted in his diary of Lt. Gen. Clarence R. Huebner, now the commander
of Europe: "Huebner's experience with colored troops is excellent....
He is ready to proceed with the implementation of the President's
directive about nonsegregation down to the platoon level, and proposes
to initiate this in the three cavalry regiments and the AA battalion
up north, but does not want to do it if it is premature."[13-52]
[Footnote 13-52: Millis, _Forrestal Diaries_, p. 528.]
Huebner's concern with prematurity was understandable, for the
possibility of using black soldiers in the constabulary had been a
lively topic in the Army for some time. Marcus Ray had proposed it in
his December 1946 report to the Secretary of War, but it was quickly
rejected by the Army staff. The staff had approved Huebner's decision
in July 1948 to attach a black engineer construction battalion and a
transportation truck company, a total of 925 men, to the constabulary.
The Director of Organization and Training, however, continued to
make a careful distinction between attached units and "organic (p. 331)
assignment," adding that "the Department of the Army does not favor
the organic assignment of Negro units to the Constabulary at this
time."[13-53]
[Footnote 13-53: DF, Dir, O&T, to DCofS, 14 Jul 48,
sub: Report of Visit by Negro Publishers and
Editors to the European Theater, CSGOT 291.2 (14
May 48); Memo for Rcd, attached to Memo, Dir, P&A,
for DCofS, 21 Jul 48, same sub, CSGPA 291.2 (14 May
48). See also Geis Monograph, pp. 88-89.]
But by November 1948 Huebner wished to go considerably further. As he
later put it, he had no need for a black infantry regiment, but since
the constabulary, composed for the most part of cavalry units, lacked
foot soldiers, he wanted to integrate a black infantry battalion, in
platoon-size units, in each cavalry regiment.[13-54] The staff turned
down his request. Arguing that the inclusion of organic black units in
the constabulary "might be detrimental to the proper execution of its
mission," and quoting the provision of Circular 124 limiting
integration to the company level, the staff's organization experts
concluded that the use of black units in the European theater below
company size "would undoubtedly prove embarrassing to the Department
of the Army ... in the Zone of the Interior in view of the announced
Department of the Army policy." General Bull, Director of Organization
and Training, informed Huebner he might use black units in composite
groupings only at the company level, including his constabulary
forces, "if such is desired by you," but it was "not presently
contemplated that integration of Negro units on the platoon level will
be approved as Department of the Army policy."[13-55] Huebner later
recalled that the constabulary was his outfit, to be run his way, and
"Bradley and Collins always let me do what I had to."[13-56] Still, when
black infantrymen joined the constabulary in late 1948, they came in
three battalion-size units "attached" for training and tactical
control.[13-57]
[Footnote 13-54: Interv, author with Huebner.]
[Footnote 13-55: Ltr, Dir, O&T, to CG, EUCOM, 13 Dec
48, sub: Integration of Negro Units on the Platoon
Level Within the Constabulary EUCOM, CSGOT 291.21
(24 Nov 48); DF, Dir, O&T, to CofS, 9 Dec 48, same
sub, CSUSA 291.2 (24 Nov 48).]
[Footnote 13-56: Interv, author with Huebner.]
[Footnote 13-57: Geis Monograph, p. 90. For the
reaction of a constabulary brigade commander to the
attachment of black infantrymen, see Bruce C.
Clarke, "Early Integration," _Armor_ (Nov-Dec
1978):29.]
The Truman order had no immediate effect on the Army's racial policy.
The concession to state governors regarding integration of their
National Guard units was beside the point, and Royall's limited offer
to set up an experimental integrated unit in the Regular Army was more
image than substance. Accurately summarizing the situation in March
1949, The Adjutant General informed Army commanders that although it
was "strategically unwise" to republish War Department Circular 124
while the President's committee was meeting, the policies contained in
that document, which was about to expire, would continue in effect
until further notice.[13-58]
[Footnote 13-58: Ltr, TAG to Distribution, 23 Mar 49,
sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, AGAO 291.2.]
_The Navy: Business as Usual_
The Navy Department also saw no reason to alter its postwar racial
policy because of the Truman order. As Acting Secretary of Navy Brown
explained to the Secretary of Defense in December 1948, whites in (p. 332)
his service had come to accept the fact that blacks must take their
rightful place in the Navy and Marine Corps. This acceptance, in turn,
had led to "very satisfactory progress" in the integration of the
department's black personnel without producing problems of morale and
discipline or a lowering of _esprit de corps_.[13-59]
[Footnote 13-59: Memo, Actg SecNav for SecDef et al.,
28 Dec 48, sub: The Secretary of the Army's
Confidential Memorandum of 2 December..., copy in
SecAF files.]
Brown had ample statistics at hand to demonstrate that at least in the
Navy this nondiscrimination policy was progressive. Whereas at the end
of the World War II demobilization only 6 percent of the Navy's
Negroes served in the general service, some two years later 38 percent
were so assigned. These men and women generally worked and lived under
total integration, and the men served on many of the Navy's combat
ships. The Bureau of Naval Personnel predicted in early 1949 that
before the end of the year at least half of all black sailors would be
assigned to the general service.[13-60] In contrast to the Army's policy
of separate but equal service for its black troops, the Navy's postwar
racial policy was technically correct and essentially in compliance
with the President's order. Yet progress was very limited and in fact
in the two years under its postwar nondiscrimination policy, the
Navy's performance was only marginally different from that of the
other services. The number of Negroes in the Navy in December 1948,
the same month Brown was extolling its nondiscrimination policy,
totaled some 17,000 men, 4.5 percent of its strength and about half
the Army's proportion. This percentage had remained fairly constant
since World War II and masked a dramatic drop in the number of black
men in uniform as the Navy demobilized. Thus while the _percentage_ of
the Navy's black sailors assigned to the integrated general service
rose from 6 to 38, the _number_ of Negroes in the general service
dropped from 9,900 in 1946 to some 6,000 in 1948. Looked at another
way, the 38 percent figure of blacks in the general service meant that
62 percent of all Negroes in the Navy, 10,871 men in December 1948,
still served in the separate Steward's Branch.[13-61] In contrast to the
Army and Air Force, the Navy's Negroes were, with only the rarest
exception, enlisted men. The number of black officers in December 1948
was four; the WAVES could count only six black women in its 2,130 (p. 333)
total. Clearly, the oft repeated rationale for these statistics--Negroes
favored the Army because they were not a seafaring people--could
not explain them away.[13-62]
[Footnote 13-60: Testimony of Stickney Before the
President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and
Opportunity in the Armed Services, 25 Apr 49, pp.
19-20. See also, Memo, Actg SecNav for SecDef et
al., 28 Dec 48, sub: The Secretary of the Army's
Confidential Memorandum of 2 December....]
[Footnote 13-61: Lt Cmdr G. E. Minor, BuPers, Memo for
File, 10 Mar 49, sub: Information for Lt.
Nelson-Press Section, Pers 251, BuPersRecs.
_Separate_ is probably a better term for describing
the Steward's Branch, since the branch was never
completely segregated. On 31 March 1949, for
example, the racial and ethnic breakdown of the
branch was as follows:
Negro 10,499 Hawaiian 5
Filipino 4,707 Puerto Rican 4
Chamorro 641 Japanese 1
Chinese 55 American Indian 1
Samoan 25 Caucasian 1
Korean 9 Total 15,945
_Source_: Figures taken from BuPers, "Steward Group
Personnel by Race," 24 May 49, Pers 25,
BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 13-62: This dubious assertion on the
seagoing interests of races had been most recently
expressed by the Chief of Naval Personnel before a
meeting of the President's Committee on Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services;
see Testimony of Fechteler, 13 Jan 49, pp. 107-08.]
A substantial increase in the number of Negroes would have absolved
the Navy from some of the stigma of racial discrimination it endured
in the late 1940's. Since the size of the Steward's Branch was limited
by regulation and budget, any increase in black enlistment would
immediately raise the number of Negroes serving in the integrated
general service. Increased enlistments would also widen the choice of
assignments, creating new opportunities for promotion to higher
grades. But even this obvious and basic response to the Truman order
was not forthcoming. The Navy continued to exclude many potential
black volunteers on the grounds that it needed to maintain stricter
mental and physical standards to secure men capable of running a
modern, technically complex Navy. True, regular and reserve officers
were periodically sent to black colleges to discuss naval careers with
the students, but as one official, speaking of the reserves, confessed
to the Fahy Committee in April 1949, "We aren't doing anything special
to procure Negro officers or Negro enlisted men."[13-63]
[Footnote 13-63: Testimony of Capt J. H. Schultz, Asst
Chief of Naval Personnel for Naval Reserve, Before
President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and
Opportunity in the Armed Services, 26 Apr 49,
afternoon session, p. 19.]
At best, recruiting more Negroes for the general service would only
partly fulfill the Navy's obligation to conform to the Truman order.
It would still leave untouched the Steward's Branch, which for years
had kept alive the impression that the Navy valued minority groups
only as servants. The Bureau of Naval Personnel had closed the branch
to first enlistments and provided for the transfer of eligible
stewards to the general service, but black stewards were only
transferring at the rate of seven men per month, hardly enough to
alter the racial composition of the branch. In the six months
following September 1948 the branch's black strength dropped by 910
men, but because the total strength of the branch also dropped, the
percentage of black stewards remained constant.[13-64] What was needed
was an infusion of whites, but this remedy, like an increase of black
officers, would require a fundamental change in the racial attitudes
of Navy leaders. No such change was evident in the Navy's postwar
racial policy. While solemnly proclaiming its belief in the principle
of nondiscrimination, the service had continued to sanction practices
that limited integration and equal opportunity to a degree consistent
with its racial tradition and manpower needs. Curiously, the Navy
managed to avoid strong criticism from the civil rights groups
throughout the postwar period, and the Truman order notwithstanding,
it was therefore in a strong position to resist precipitous change (p. 334)
in its racial practices.
[Footnote 13-64: Memo, Head, Pers Accounting and
Statistical Control Sec, BuPers, for Dir, Fiscal
Div (Pers 83), 14 Dec 48, sub: Statistics on
Steward Group Personnel in Navy; Memo, W. C.
Kincaid, BuPers Fiscal Div, for Cmdr Smith, BuPers,
6 May 48, sub: Negroes, USN--Transferring From
Commissary or Steward Branch to General Service;
BuPers, "Steward Group Personnel by Race," 24 May
49. All in Pers 25, BuPersRecs.]
_Adjustments in the Marine Corps_
Unlike the Navy, the Marine Corps did not enjoy so secure a position.
Its policy of keeping black marines strictly segregated was becoming
untenable in the face of its shrinking size, and by the time President
Truman issued his order the corps was finding it necessary to make
some adjustments. Basic training, for example, was integrated in the
cause of military efficiency. With fewer than twenty new black
recruits a month, the corps was finding it too expensive and
inefficient to maintain a separate recruit training program, and on 1
July 1949 the commandant, General Clifton B. Cates, ordered that
Negroes be trained with the rest of the recruits at Parris Island, but
in separate platoons.[13-65] Even this system proved too costly, however,
because black recruits were forced to wait for training until their
numbers built up to platoon size. Given the length of the training
cycle, the camp commander had to reserve three training platoons for
the few black recruits. Maj. Gen. Alfred H. Noble, the commander,
repeatedly complained of the waste of instructors, time, and
facilities and the "otherwise generally undesirable" features of
separate black training platoons. He pointed out to the commandant
that black students had been successfully assimilated into personnel
administration and drill instructor schools without friction or
incident, and reservist training and local intramural sports had
already peacefully introduced integration to the base. Noble wanted to
integrate black recruits as they arrived, absorbing them in the white
training platoons then being processed. He also wanted to use selected
black noncommissioned officers as instructors.[13-66]
[Footnote 13-65: Memo, CMC for CG, MB, Cp Lejeune,
N.C., 23 Aug 48, sub: Recruit Training Load at
Montford Point Camp, MC 1035238; idem for CG, MCRD,
26 May 49, MC 1091093; Memo, Dir of Recruiting for
Off in Charge, Recruit Divs, 13 Jun 49, sub:
Enlistment of Negro Personnel. All in Hist Div,
HQMC. Unless otherwise noted all documents cited in
this section are located in this office.]
[Footnote 13-66: Memo, CG, MCRD, Parris Island, for
CMC, 15 Sep 49, sub: Negro Recruits, ser. 08355.]
The commandant approved the integration of recruit training on 22
September, and Noble quietly began assigning recruits without regard
to color.[13-67] Integration of black noncommissioned officer platoon
leaders followed, along with integration of the noncommissioned
officers' club and other facilities. Noble later recalled the
circumstance of the first significant instance of integration in the
history of the Marine Corps:
This innovation not only produced no unfavorable reaction among
the Marines, but also it had no unfavorable reaction among the
civilian citizens of South Carolina in the vicinity. Of course I
consulted the civilian leaders first and told them what I was
going to do and got their advice and promises of help to try to
stop any adverse criticisms of it. It seemed like integration was
due to take place sooner or later anyway in this country,
certainly in the Armed Forces, and I thought that it should take
place in the Armed Forces first.[13-68]
[Footnote 13-67: This limited integration program was
announced by the Secretary of the Navy on 22
December 1949; see Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn,
PPB, 22 Dec 49, PPB files.]
[Footnote 13-68: USMC Oral History Interview with
Noble, 20-23 May 68.]
Since manpower restrictions also made the organization of (p. 335)
administratively separate black units hard to justify, the postwar
reduction in the number of black marines eventually led to the
formation of a number of racially composite units. Where once separate
black companies were the norm, by 1949 the corps had organized most of
its black marines into separate platoons and assigned them as parts of
larger white units. In March 1949 Secretary of the Navy Sullivan
reported that with the minor exception of several black depot
companies, the largest black units in the Marine Corps were platoons
of forty-three men, "and they are integrated with other platoons of
whites."[13-69]
[Footnote 13-69: Testimony of the Secretary of the
Navy Before President's Committee on Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 28
Mar 49, afternoon session, p. 15.]
[Illustration: GENERAL CATES.]
The cutback in the size and kinds of black units and the integration
of recruit training removed the need for the separate camp at Montford
Point, home base for black marines since the beginning of World War
II. The camp's last two organizations, a provisional company and a
headquarters company, were inactivated on 31 July and 9 September,
respectively, thus ending an era in the history of Negroes in the
Marine Corps.[13-70]
[Footnote 13-70: On the closing of Montford Point, see
Interv, Blumenson with Sgt Max Rousseau, Admin
Chief, G-1 Div, USMC (former member of the Montford
Point Camp headquarters), 21 Feb 66, CMH files.]
Composite grouping of small black units usually provided for separate
assignment and segregated facilities. As late as February 1949, the
commandant made clear he had no intention of allowing the corps to
drift into a _de facto_ integration policy. When, for example, it came
to his attention that some commanders were restricting appointment of
qualified black marines to specialist schools on the grounds that
their commands lacked billets for black specialists, the commandant
reiterated the principle that assignment to specialty training was to
be made without regard to race. At the same time he emphasized that
this policy was not to be construed as an endorsement of the use of
black specialists in white units. General Cates specifically
stipulated that where no billets in their specialty or a related one
were available for black specialists in black units, his headquarters
was to be informed. The implication of this order was obvious to the
Division of Plans and Policies. "This is an important one," a division
official commented, "it involves finding billets for Negro specialists
even if we have to create a unit to do it."[13-71] It was also obvious
that when the Under Secretary of the Navy, Dan A. Kimball, (p. 336)
reported to the Personnel Policy Board in May that "Negro Marines,
including Stewards, are assigned to other [white] Marine Corps units
in accord with their specialty," he was speaking of rare exceptions to
the general rule.[13-72]
[Footnote 13-71: Memo, CMC for CG, FMF, Pacific, 11
Feb 49, with attached Handwritten Note, Div of
Plans and Policies to Asst CMC, 11 Feb 49.]
[Footnote 13-72: Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 2
May 49, PPB 291.2.]
Cates seemed determined to ignore the military inefficiency attendant
on such elaborate attempts to insure the continued isolation of black
marines. The defense establishment, he was convinced, "could not be an
agency for experimentation in civil liberty without detriment to its
ability to maintain the efficiency and the high state of readiness so
essential to national defense." Having thus tied military efficiency
to segregation, Cates explained to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy
for Air that the efficiency of a unit was a command responsibility,
and so long as that responsibility rested with the commander, he must
be authorized to make such assignments as he deemed necessary. It
followed, then, that segregation was a national, not a military,
problem, and any attempt to change national policy through the armed
forces was, in the commandant's words, "a dangerous path to pursue
inasmuch as it affects the ability of the National Military
Establishment to fulfill its mission." Integration must first be
accepted as a national custom, he concluded, "before it could be
adopted in the armed forces."[13-73] Nor was General Cates ambiguous on
Marine Corps policy when it was questioned by civil rights leaders.
Individual marines, he told the commander of a black depot company in
a case involving opportunities available to reenlisting black marines,
would be employed in the future as in the past "to serve the best
interests of the Corps under existing circumstances."[13-74]
[Footnote 13-73: Memo, CMC for Asst SecNav for Air, 17
Mar 49, sub: Proposed Directive for the Armed
Forces for the Period 1 July 1949 to 1 July 1950,
AO-1, MC files.]
[Footnote 13-74: Idem for CO, Second Depot Co, Service
Cmd, FMF, 2 May 49, sub: Employment of Negroes in
the Marine Corps, MC1008783, MC files.]
Actually, Cates was only forcibly expressing a cardinal tenet common
to all the military services: the civil rights of the individual must
be subordinated to the mission of the service. What might appear to a
civil rights activist to be a callous and prejudiced response to a
legitimate social complaint was more likely an expression of the
commandant's overriding concern for his military mission. Still it was
difficult to explain such elaborate precautions in a corps where
Negroes numbered less than 2 percent of the total strength.[13-75] How
could the integration of 1,500 men throughout the worldwide units of
the corps disrupt its mission, civil rights spokesmen might well (p. 337)
ask, especially given the evidence to the contrary in the Navy? In
view of the President's order, how could the corps justify the
proliferation of very small black units that severely restricted the
spread of occupational opportunities for Negroes?
[Footnote 13-75: On 30 June 1949 the Marine Corps had
1,504 Negroes on active duty, 1.9 percent of the
total if the one-year enlistees were included or
2.08 percent if the one-year enlistees were
excluded. See Office of the Civilian Aide, OSD,
_Negro Strength Summary_, 18 Jul 49, copy in CMH.
For purposes of comparison, the following gives the
percentage of Negroes in the Navy and the Marine
Corps for earlier years.
_Date_ _Navy_ _Marine Corps_
Dec 43 5.0 3.2
Dec 44 5.5 3.6
Dec 45 5.9 5.4
Dec 46 4.7 2.3
Dec 47 5.4 1.6
Feb 48 5.05 1.9
_Source_: Officer in Charge, Pers Acctg & Stat
Control, Memo for File, 23 Apr 48, Pers 215
BuPersRecs.]
[Illustration: 1ST MARINE DIVISION DRILL TEAM ON EXHIBITION _at San
Diego's Balboa Stadium, 1949_.]
The corps ignored these questions during the summer of 1949,
concentrating instead on the problem of finding racially separate
assignments for its 1,000 Negroes in the general service. As the
number of marines continued to drop, the Division of Plans and
Policies was forced to justify the existence of black units by a
series of reorganizations and redistributions. When, for example, the
reorganization of the Fleet Marine Force caused the inactivation of
two black depot units, the division designated a 108-man truck company
as a black unit to take up the slack. At the same time the division
found yet another "suitable" occupation for black marines by laying
down a policy that all security detachments at inactive naval
facilities were to be manned by Negroes. It also decided to assign
small black units to the service battalions of the Marine divisions,
maintaining that such assignments would not run counter to the
commandant's policy of restricting Negroes to noncombat
organizations.[13-76]
[Footnote 13-76: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 28 Jul 49, sub: Re-assignment of Negro
Marines to Existing units (DP&P Study 88-49), MC
files.]
The Marine Corps, in short, had no intention of relaxing its policy of
separating the races. The timing of the integration of recruit
training and the breakup of some large black units perhaps suggested a
general concession to the Truman order, but these administrative
changes were actually made in response to the manpower restrictions of
the Truman defense budget. In fact, the position of black marines
in small black units became even more isolated in the months (p. 338)
following the Truman order as the Division of Plans and Policies began
devising racially separate assignments. Like the stewards before them,
the security guards at closed naval installations and ammunition
depots found themselves in assignments increasingly viewed as
"colored" jobs. That the number of Negroes in the Marine Corps was so
small aided and abetted these arrangements, which promised to continue
despite the presidential order until some dramatic need for change
arose.
_The Air Force Plans for Limited Integration_
Of all the services, the Air Force was in the best position to respond
promptly to President Truman's call for equal treatment and
opportunity. For some time a group of Air staff officers had been
engaged in devising a new approach to the use of black manpower.
Indeed their study, much of which antedated the Truman order,
represented the solution of the Air Force's manpower experts to a
pressing problem in military efficiency. More important than the
executive order or demands of civil rights advocates, the criticism of
segregation by these experts in uniform led the Air Force to accept
the need for limited integration.
But there was to be no easy road to integration for the service.
Considerable resistance was yet to be overcome, both in the Air staff
and among senior commanders. As Secretary Zuckert later put it, while
there was sentiment for integration among a few of the highest
officers, "you didn't have to scratch far to run into opposition."[13-77]
The Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, General Edwards, reported to
Secretary Symington that he had found solid opposition to any proposed
policy of integration in the service.[13-78] Normally such resistance
would have killed the study group's proposals. In the Army, for
example, opposition supported by Secretary Royall had blocked change.
In the Air Force, the opposition received no such support. Indeed,
Secretary Symington proved to be the catalyst that the Army had
lacked. He was the Air Force's margin of difference, transforming the
study group's proposal from a staffing paper into a program for
substantial change in racial policy.
[Footnote 13-77: Notes on Telecon, author with
Zuckert, 28 Apr 70, CMH files.]
[Footnote 13-78: Memo, DCofS/P&A, USAF, for SecAF, 29
Apr 48, sub: Conference With Group of Prominent
Negroes, Negro Affairs, 1948, SecAF files.]
In Symington the Air Force had a secretary who was not only a
tough-minded businessman demanding efficiency but a progressive
politician with a humanitarian interest in providing equal opportunity
for Negroes. "With Symington," Eugene Zuckert has pointed out, "it was
principle first, efficiency second."[13-79] Symington himself later
explained the source of his humanitarian interest. "What determined me
many years ago was a quotation from Bernard Shaw in Myrdal's book,
_American Dilemma_, which went something like this--'First the
American white man makes the negro clean his shoes, then criticizes
him for being a bootblack.' All Americans should have their chance.
And both my grandfathers were in the Confederate Army."[13-80] Symington
had successfully combined efficiency and humanitarianism before. (p. 339)
As president of the Emerson Electric Manufacturing Company of St.
Louis, he had racially integrated a major industry carrying out vital
war work in a border state, thereby increasing productivity. When he
became secretary, Symington was immediately involved in the Air
Force's race problems; he wanted to know, for instance, why only nine
black applicants had passed the qualifying examination for the current
cadet program.[13-81] When President Truman issued his executive
order, Symington was ready to move. In his own words, "when Mr. Truman
as Commander-in-Chief issued an order to integrate the Air Force, I
asked him if he was serious. He said he was. Accordingly we did just
that. I turned the actual operations of the job over to my Assistant
Secretary Eugene Zuckert.... It all worked out routinely."[13-82]
[Footnote 13-79: Telecon, author with Zuckert.]
[Footnote 13-80: Ltr, Symington to David K. Niles, 28
Jan 50, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 13-81: Memo, SecAF for Zuckert, 5 Jan 48;
Penciled Note, signed "Stu," attached to Memo,
ASecAF for Symington, 20 Jan 48. All in SecAF
files.]
[Footnote 13-82: Ltr, W. Stuart Symington to author, 6
May 70, CMH files.]
To call "routine" the fundamental change that took place in Air Force
manpower practices stretches the definition of the word. The
integration program required many months of intensive study and
planning, and many more months to carry out. Yet if integration under
Symington was slow, it was also inevitable. Zuckert reported that
Symington gave him about eight reasons for integration, the last
"because I said do it."[13-83] Symington's tough attitude, along with the
presidential order, considerably eased the burden of those in the Air
Force who were expected to abandon a tradition inherited from their
Army days. The secretary's diplomatic skill also softened opposition
in other quarters. Symington, a master at congressional relations,
smoothed the way on Capitol Hill by successfully reassuring some
southern leaders, in particular Congressman Carl Vinson of Georgia,
that integration had to come, but that it would come quietly and in a
way least calculated to provoke its congressional opponents.[13-84]
[Footnote 13-83: Telecon, author with Zuckert.]
[Footnote 13-84: Ibid.; see also USAF Oral Hist Interv
with Zuckert.]
Symington assigned general responsibility for equal opportunity
matters to his assistant secretary for management, Eugene Zuckert, but
the task of formulating the specific plan fell to General Edwards. To
avoid conflict with some of his colleagues, Edwards resorted to the
unorthodox means of ignoring the usual staff coordination. He sent his
proposals directly to the Chief of Staff and then on to the secretary
for approval without reference to other staff agencies, one of which,
the Office of the Vice Chief of Staff, General Muir S. Fairchild, was
the focal point of staff opposition.[13-85]
[Footnote 13-85: For discussion of the close-held
nature of the USAF integration plan, see USAF Oral
Hist Intervs with Davis and Marr; see also Ltrs,
Marr to author, 19 Jun and 28 Jul 70.]
On the basis of evidence submitted by his long-standing study group,
General Edwards concluded that current Air Force policy for the use of
black manpower was "wasteful, deleterious to military effectiveness
and lacking in wartime application." The policy of the Navy was
superior, he told the Chief of Staff and the secretary, with respect
to military effectiveness, economy, and morale, especially when the
needs of full mobilization were considered. The Air Force would (p. 340)
profit by adopting a policy similar to that of the Navy, and he
proposed a program, to be "vigorously implemented and monitored," that
would inactivate the all-black fighter wing and transfer qualified
black servicemen from that wing as well as from all the major commands
to white units. One exception would be that those black specialists,
whose work was essential to the continued operation of their units,
would stay in their black units. Some black units would be retained to
provide for individuals ineligible for transfer to white units or for
discharge.
[Illustration: SECRETARY SYMINGTON.]
The new program would abolish the 10 percent quota and develop
recruiting methods to enable the Air Force to secure only the "best
qualified" enlistees of both races. Men chronically ineligible for
advancement, both black and white, would be eliminated. If too many
Negroes enlisted despite these measures, Edwards explained that an
"administratively determined ceiling of Negro intake" could be
established, but the Air Force had no intention of establishing a
minimum for black enlistees. As the Director of Personnel Planning put
it, a racial floor was just as much a quota as a racial ceiling and
had the same effect of denying opportunity to some while providing
special consideration for others.[13-86]
[Footnote 13-86: Memo, Dir, Personnel Planning USAF,
for the Fahy Cmte, 15 Jan 49, sub: Air Force
Policies Regarding Negro Personnel, SecAF files.]
The manpower experts had decided that the social complications of such
a policy would be negligible--"more imaginary than real." Edwards
referred to the Navy's experience with limited integration, which, he
judged, had relieved rather than multiplied social tensions between
the races. Nevertheless he and his staff proposed "as a conservative
but progressive step" toward the integration of living quarters that
the Air Force arrange for separate sleeping quarters for blacks and
whites. The so-called "barracks problem" was the principal point of
discussion within the Air staff, Edwards admitted, and "perhaps the
most critical point of the entire policy." He predicted that the trend
toward more privacy in barracks, especially the separate cubicles
provided in construction plans for new barracks, would help solve
whatever problems might arise.[13-87]
[Footnote 13-87: Summary Sheet DCS/P, USAF, for CS,
USAF, and SecAF, 29 Dec 48, sub: Air Force Policies
on Negro Personnel, SecAF files.]
While the Chief of Staff, General Vandenberg, initialed the program
without comment, Assistant Secretary Zuckert was enthusiastic. As
Zuckert explained to Symington, the program was predicated on free
competition for all Air Force jobs, and he believed that it would also
eliminate social discrimination by giving black officers and men (p. 341)
all the privileges of Air Force social facilities. Although he
admitted that in the matter of living arrangements the plan "only goes
part way," he too was confident that time and changes in barracks
construction would eliminate any problems.[13-88]
[Footnote 13-88: Memo, ASecAF for Symington, 5 Jan 49,
SecAF files.]
Symington was already familiar with most of Edwards's conclusions, for
a summary had been sent him by the Assistant Vice Chief of Staff on 22
December "for background."[13-89] When he received Zuckert's comments he
acted quickly. The next day he let the Secretary of Defense know what
the Air Force was doing. "We propose," he told Forrestal, "to adopt a
policy of integration." But he qualified that statement along the
lines suggested by the Air staff: "Although there will still be units
manned entirely by Negroes, all Negroes will not necessarily be
assigned to these units. Qualified Negro personnel will be assigned to
any duties in any Air Force activity strictly on the basis of the
qualifications of the individual and the needs of the Air Force."[13-90]
Symington tied the new program to military efficiency, explaining to
Forrestal that efficient use of black servicemen was one of the
essentials of economic and effective air power. In this vein he
summarized the program and listed what he considered its advantages
for the Air Force.
[Footnote 13-89: Memo, Maj Gen William F. McKee for
Symington, 22 Dec 48, sub: Mr. Royall's Negro
Experiment, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 13-90: Memo, SecAF for Forrestal, 6 Jan 49,
Negro Affairs, 1949, SecAF files.]
The proposal forwarded to the Secretary of Defense in January 1949
committed the Air Force to a limited integration policy frankly
imitative of the Navy's. A major improvement over the Air Force's
current practices, the plan still fell considerably short of the
long-range goals enunciated in the Gillem Board Report, to say nothing
of the implications of the President's equal opportunity order.
Although it is impossible to say exactly why Symington decided to
settle for less than full integration, there are several explanations
worth considering.
In the first place the program sent to Forrestal may well not have
reflected the exact views of the Air Force secretary, nor conveyed all
that his principal manpower assistant intended. Actually, the concern
expressed by Air Force officials for military efficiency and by civil
rights leaders for equal opportunity always centered specifically on
the problems of the black tactical air unit and related specialist
billets at Lockbourne Air Force Base. In fact, the need to solve the
pressing administrative problems of Colonel Davis's command provoked
the Air staff study that eventually evolved into the integration
program. The program itself focused on this command and provided for
the integrated assignment of its members throughout the Air Force.
Other black enlisted men, certainly those serving as laborers in the F
Squadrons, scattered worldwide, did not pose a comparable manpower
problem. They were ignored on the theory that abolition of the quota,
along with the application of more stringent recruitment procedures,
would in time rid the services of its unskilled and unneeded men.
It can be argued that the purpose of the limited integration proposal
was not so much to devise a new policy as to minimize the impact of
change on congressional opponents. Edwards certainly hoped that his
plan would placate senior commanders and staff officers who (p. 342)
opposed integration or feared the social upheaval they assumed would
follow the abolition of all black units. This explanation would
account for the cautious approach to racial mixing in the proposal,
the elaborate administrative safeguards against social confrontation,
and the promised reduction in the number of black airmen. Some of
those pressing for the new program certainly considered the retention
of segregated units a stopgap measure designed to prevent a too
precipitous reorganization of the service. As Lt. Col. Jack Marr, a
member of Edwards's staff and author of the staff's integration study,
explained to the Fahy Committee, "we are trying to do our best not to
tear the Air Force all apart and try to reorganize it overnight."[13-91]
Marr predicted that as those eligible for reassignment were
transferred out of black units, the units themselves, bereft of
essential personnel, would become inoperative and disappear one by
one.
[Footnote 13-91: Testimony of Lt Col Jack F. Marr
Before President's Committee on Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 13
Jan 49, afternoon session, p 46.]
In the end it must be admitted that race relations possess an inner
dynamic, and it is impossible to relate the integration of the Air
Force to any isolated decision by a secretary or proposal by a group
from his military staff. The decision to integrate was the result of
several disparate forces--the political interests of the
administration, the manpower needs of the Air Force, the aspirations
of its black minority, and perhaps more than all the rest, the
acceptance by its airmen of a different social system. Together, these
factors would make successive steps to full integration impossible to
resist. Integration, then, was an evolutionary process, and
Symington's acceptance of a limited integration plan was only one step
in a continuing process that stretched from the Air staff's study of
black manpower in 1948 to the disappearance of the last black unit two
years later.
CHAPTER 14 (p. 343)
The Fahy Committee Versus the Department of Defense
Given James Forrestal's sympathy for integration, considerable
cooperation could be expected between members of his department and
the Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Services, better known as the Fahy Committee. In the wake of the
committee's establishment, Forrestal proposed that the service
secretaries assign an assistant secretary to coordinate his
department's dealings with the group and a ranking black officer from
each service be assigned to advise the assistant secretaries.[14-1] His
own office promised to supply the committee with vital documentation,
and his manpower experts offered to testify. The service secretaries
agreed to follow suit.
[Footnote 14-1: Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 21 Oct 48,
copy in Fahy Committee file, CMH [hereafter cited
as FC file]. The Center of Military History has
retained an extensive collection of significant
primary materials pertaining to the Fahy Committee
and its dealings with the Department of Defense.
While most of the original documents are in the
Charles Fahy Papers and the Papers of the
President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and
Opportunity in the Armed Services at the Harry S.
Truman Library or in the National Archives, this
study will cite the CMH collection when possible.]
Willing to cooperate, Forrestal still wanted to chart his own course.
Both he and his successor, Louis A. Johnson, made it quite clear that
as a senior cabinet officer the Secretary of Defense was accountable
in all matters to the President alone. The Fahy Committee might report
on the department's racial practices and suggest changes, but the
development of policy was his prerogative. Both men dealt directly
with the committee from time to time, but their directives to the
services on the formulation of race policy were developed
independently of the White House group.[14-2] Underscoring this
independent attitude, Marx Leva reminded the service secretaries that
the members of the Personnel Policy Board were to work with the
representatives of their respective staffs on racial matters. They
were not expected "to assist Fahy."[14-3]
[Footnote 14-2: Ltrs, James Forrestal to Fahy, 26 Mar
49, and Louis Johnson to Fahy, 18 Apr 49; both in
FC file. See also Ltr, Thomas R. Reid to R. M.
Dalfiume, 12 Feb 65, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 14-3: Min, Cmte of Four Secretaries Mtg, 26
Oct 48, Office of OSD Historian. The Committee of
the Four Secretaries was an informal body composed
of the Secretary of Defense or his representative
and the secretaries of the three armed services.]
At the same time Secretary of Defense Forrestal was aware that the
interests of a committee enjoying White House support could not be
ignored. His attempt to develop a new racial policy was probably in
part an effort to forestall committee criticism and in part a wish to
draw up a policy that would satisfy the committee without really doing
much to change things. After all, such a departmental attitude toward
committees, both congressional and presidential, was fairly normal.
Faced with the conflicting racial policies of the Air Force and Army,
Forrestal agreed to let the services present their separate (p. 344)
programs to the Fahy Committee, but he wanted to develop a race policy
applicable to all the services.[14-4] Some of his subordinates debated
the wisdom of this decision, arguing that the President had assigned
that task to the Fahy Committee, but they were overruled. Forrestal
ordered the newly created Personnel Policy Board to undertake,
simultaneously with the committee, a study of the department's racial
policy. The board was to concentrate on "breaking down the problem,"
as Forrestal put it, into its component parts and trying to arrive
quietly at areas of agreement on a uniform policy that could be held
in readiness until the Fahy Committee made its report.[14-5]
[Footnote 14-4: Min, War Council Mtg, 12 Jan 49,
Office of OSD Historian; Memo, Secy of War Council
for SA et al., 13 Jan 49, sub: Significant Action
of the Special Meeting of the War Council on 12
January 1949, OSD 291.2. The War Council,
established by Section 210 of the National Security
Act of 1947, consisted of the Secretary of Defense
as chairman with power of decision, the service
secretaries, and the military chiefs of the Army,
Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps.]
[Footnote 14-5: Memo, Thomas R. Reid, Chmn, PPB, for
Worthington Thompson, OSD, 15 Feb 49, sub: Meeting
of Committee of Four, 10 A.M. Tuesday--15 February,
FC file.]
The Personnel Policy Board, established by Forrestal to help regulate
the military and civilian policies of his large department, was the
logical place to prepare a departmental racial policy.[14-6] But could a
group basically interservice in nature be expected to develop a
forceful, independent racial policy for all the services along the
lines Forrestal appeared to be following? It seemed unlikely, for at
their first meeting the board members agreed that any policy developed
must be "satisfactory to the three services."[14-7]
[Footnote 14-6: Forrestal signed an interim directive
appointing members of the board on 22 February
1949. Composed of a civilian chairman and an under
secretary or assistant secretary from each service,
the board was to have a staff of personnel experts
under a director, an officer of flag rank,
appointed by the chairman; see NME Press Releases,
28 Dec 48, and 1 Apr 49.]
[Footnote 14-7: Min PPB Mtg, 26 Feb 49, FC file.]
Undeterred by members' calling for more investigation and debate
before the board prepared a common policy, Chairman Thomas R. Reid and
his chief of staff, Army Brig. Gen. Charles T. Lanham, acted.[14-8] On 28
February they drafted a directive for the Secretary of Defense that
would abolish all racial quotas and establish uniform standards of
induction for service which in times of emergency would include
provisions for the apportionment of enlistees both qualitatively and
quantitatively. Moreover, all black enlistees would be given the
opportunity to serve as individuals in integrated units. The services
would be completely integrated by 1 July 1950. To ease the change,
Reid and Lanham would in the interim regulate the number of Negroes in
integrated units, allowing not less than four men and not more than 10
percent in a company-size unit. Enlisted men could choose to serve
under officers of their own race.[14-9]
[Footnote 14-8: Memo, Col J. F. Cassidy, PPB, for Dir,
PPB Staff, 25 Feb 49, sub: Policies of the Three
Departments With Reference to Negro Personnel, FC
file.]
[Footnote 14-9: PPB, Draft (Reid and Lanham), Proposed
Directive for the Armed Forces for the Period 1
July 1949 to 1 July 1950, 28 Feb 49, FC file.]
Favorably received in the secretary's office, the proposed directive
came too late for speedy enactment. On 3 March Forrestal resigned, and
although Leva hoped the directive could be issued before Forrestal's
actual departure, "in view of his long-standing interest in this
field," Forrestal was obviously reluctant to commit his successor (p. 345)
to so drastic a course.[14-10] With a final bow to his belief in
service autonomy, Forrestal asked Reid and Lanham to submit their
proposal to the service secretaries for review.[14-11] The secretaries
approved the idea of a unified policy in principle, but each had very
definite and individual views on what that policy should contain and
how it should be carried out. Denied firm direction from the ailing
Forrestal, Reid and Lanham could do little against service opposition.
Their proposal was quietly tabled while the board continued its search
for an acceptable unified policy.
[Footnote 14-10: Note, Leva thru Ohly to Buck Lanham,
attached to Draft of Proposed Directive cited in n.
9.]
[Footnote 14-11: Memo, Chmn, PPB, for John Ohly,
Assistant to SecDef, 15 Mar 49; Revised Min, PPB
Mtg, 18 Mar 49; both in FC file.]
Perhaps it was just as well, for the Reid-Lanham draft had serious
defects. It failed to address the problems of qualitative imbalance in
the peacetime services, probably in deference to Forrestal's recent
rejection of the Army's call for a fair distribution of high-scoring
enlistees. While the proposal encouraged special training for Negroes,
it also limited their assignment to a strict 10 percent quota in any
unit. The result would have been an administrative nightmare, with
trained men in excess of the 10 percent quota assigned to other,
nonspecialty duties. As one manpower expert later admitted, "you ran
the real chance of haying black engineers and the like pushing
wheelbarrows."[14-12]
[Footnote 14-12: Interv, author with Roy K. Davenport,
7 Oct 71, CMH.]
The service objections to a carefully spelled out policy were in
themselves quite convincing to Lanham and Reid. Reid agreed with
Eugene Zuckert, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, that "probably
the most logical and soundest approach" was for each service to
prepare a policy statement and explain how it was being carried out.
The board could then prepare a general policy based on these
statements, and, with the approval of the Secretary of Defense, send
it to the Fahy Committee in time for its report to the President.[14-13]
But if Zuckert's scheme was logical and sound, it also managed to
reduce the secretary's status to final endorsement officer. Such a
role never appealed to James Forrestal, and would be even less
acceptable to the politically energetic Louis Johnson, who succeeded
Forrestal as Secretary of Defense on 28 March 1949.
[Footnote 14-13: Memo for Files, Clarence H. Osthagen,
Assistant to SecAF, 31 Mar 49, sub: Conference With
Thomas Reid, FC file.]
Reid appreciated this distinction, and while he was willing to abandon
the idea of a policy directive spelling out matters of personnel
administration, he was determined that there be a general policy
statement on the subject and that it originate not with the services
but with the Secretary of Defense, who would then review individual
service plans for implementing his directive.[14-14] Reid set the board's
staff to this task, but it took several draftings, each stronger and
more specific than the last, before a directive acceptable to Reid and
Lanham was devised.[14-15] Approved by the full board on 5 April 1949 and
signed by Secretary Johnson the next day, the directive reiterated the
President's executive order, adding that all persons would be considered
on the basis of individual merit and ability and must qualify (p. 346)
according to the prescribed standards for enlistment, promotion,
assignment, and school attendance. All persons would be accorded equal
opportunity for appointment, advancement, professional improvement,
and retention, and although some segregated units would be retained,
"qualified" Negroes would be assigned without regard to race. The
secretary ordered the services to reexamine their policies and submit
detailed plans for carrying out this directive.[14-16]
[Footnote 14-14: Memo, Thomas Reid for Asst SecNav, 1
Apr 49, sub: Statement on Equality of Treatment and
Opportunity, FC file.]
[Footnote 14-15: PPB, Draft Memo, SecDef for Svc Secys
(prepared by Col J. F. Cassidy for Reid), 31 Mar
49; PPB, Proposed Policy for the National Military
Establishment, 4 Apr 49; both in FC file.]
[Footnote 14-16: Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 6 Apr 49,
sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the
Armed Services; Min, PPB Mtg, 5 Apr 49; both in FC
file.]
Although responsible for preparing the secretary's directive, Reid and
Lanham had second thoughts about it. They were concerned lest the
services treat it as an endorsement of their current policies. Reid
pointedly explained to their representatives on the Personnel Policy
Board that the service statements due by 1 May should not merely
reiterate present practices, but should represent a "sincere effort"
by the departments to move toward greater racial equality.[14-17] Service
responses, he warned, would be scrutinized to determine "their
adequacy in the light of the intent of the Secretary's policy." Reid
later admitted to Secretary Johnson that the directive was so broadly
formed that it "permits almost any practice under it."[14-18] He, Lanham,
and others agreed that since its contents were bound to reach the
press anyway, the policy should be publicized in a way that played
down generalizations and emphasized the responsibilities it imposed
for new directions. Johnson agreed, and the announcement of his
directive, emphasizing the importance of new service programs and
setting a deadline for their submission, was widely circulated.[14-19]
[Footnote 14-17: Min, PPB Mtg, 8 Apr 49, FC file.]
[Footnote 14-18: Memo, Reid for SecDef, 14 Apr 49,
sub: The President's Committee on Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, FC
file.]
[Footnote 14-19: Min, PPB Mtg, 5 May 49; NME Press
Release 3-49A, 20 Apr 49; both in FC file.]
The directive reflected Louis Johnson's personality, ambition, and
administrative strategy. If many of his associates questioned his
personal commitment to the principle of integration, or indeed even
his private feeling about President Truman's order, all recognized his
political ambition and penchant for vigorous and direct action.[14-20]
The secretary would recognize the political implications of the
executive order just as he would want to exercise personal control
over integration, an issue fraught with political uncertainties that
an independent presidential committee would only multiply. A dramatic
public statement might well serve Johnson's needs. By creating at
least the illusion of forward motion in the field of race relations, a
directive issued by the Secretary of Defense might neutralize the Fahy
Committee as an independent force, protecting the services from
outside interference while enhancing Johnson's position in the White
House and with the press. A "blustering bully," one of Fahy's
assistants later called Johnson, whose directive was designed, he
charged, to put the Fahy Committee out of business.[14-21]
[Footnote 14-20: This conclusion is based on
Interviews, author with Charles Fahy, 8 Feb 68,
James C. Evans, 6 Apr 69, and Brig Gen Charles T.
Lanham, 10 Jan 71. It is also based on letters to
author from John Ohly, 9 Jan 71, and Thomas Reid,
15 Jan 71. All in CMH.]
[Footnote 14-21: Memo, Kenworthy for Chief of Military
History, 13 Oct 76. CMH.]
If such was his motive, the secretary was taking a chance. (p. 347)
Announcing his directive to the press transformed what could have been
an innocuous, private reaffirmation of the department's pledge of
equal treatment and opportunity into a public exercise in military
policymaking. The Secretary of Defense in effect committed himself to
a public review of the services' racial practices. In this sense the
responses he elicited from the Army and Navy were a disappointment.
Both services contented themselves with an outline of their current
policies and ignored the secretary's request for future plans. The
Army offered statistics to prove that its present program guaranteed
equal opportunity, while the Navy concluded that its practices and
procedures revealed "no inconsistencies" with the policy prescribed by
the Secretary of Defense.[14-22] Summing up his reaction to these
responses for the Personnel Policy Board, Reid said that the Army had
a poor policy satisfactorily administered, while the Navy had an
acceptable policy poorly administered. Neither service complied "with
the spirit or letter of the request."[14-23]
[Footnote 14-22: Memo, Actg SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 2
May 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity
in the Navy and Marine Corps; Memo, SA for SecDef,
21 Apr 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and
Opportunity in the Armed Services; both in FC
file.]
[Footnote 14-23: Min, PPB Mtg, 5 May 49, FC file.]
[Illustration: SECRETARY OF DEFENSE JOHNSON.]
Not all the board members agreed. In the wake of the Army and Navy
replies, some saw the possible need for separate service policies
rather than a common policy; considering the many advances enumerated
in the replies, one member even suggested that Johnson might achieve
more by getting the services to prosecute their current policies
vigorously. Although Chairman Reid promised that these suggestions
would all be taken into consideration, he still hoped to use the Air
Force response to pry further concessions out of the Army and
Navy.[14-24]
[Footnote 14-24: Ibid.; see also Ltr, Thomas Reid to
Richard Dalfiume, 1 Apr 65, Incl to Ltr, Reid to
author, 15 Jan 71. All in CMH.]
The Air Force plan had been in existence for some time, its
implementation delayed because Symington had agreed with Royall in
January that a joint Army-Air Force plan might be developed and
because he and Zuckert needed the time to sell the new plan to some of
their senior military assistants.[14-25] But greater familiarity with
the plan quickly convinced Royall that the Army and Air Force (p. 348)
positions could never be reconciled, and the Air Force plan was
independently presented to the Fahy Committee and later, with some
revision that further liberalized its provisions, to Johnson as the
Air Force reply to his directive.[14-26] The Personnel Policy Board
approved the Air Force's proposal for the integration of a large group
of its black personnel, and after discussing it with Fahy and the
other services, Reid recommended to the Secretary of Defense that he
approve it also.[14-27]
[Footnote 14-25: Min, War Council Mtg, 11 Jan 49, FC
file; see also Interv, author with W. Stuart
Symington, 1974, CMH.]
[Footnote 14-26: Memo, SecAF for Chmn, PPB, OSD, 30
Apr 49; Memo, Asst SecAF for SecAF, 20 Apr 49, sub:
Department of Air Force Implementation of
Department of Defense Policy on Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services;
both in SecAF files.]
[Footnote 14-27: Min, PPB Mtg, 5 May 49; Memo, Reid
for SecDef, 10 May 49, sub: Equality of Treatment
and Opportunity in the Armed Forces, FC file.]
To achieve maximum benefit from the Air Force plan, Reid and his
associates had to link it publicly with the inadequate replies from
the other services. Disregarding the views of some board members, he
suggested that Johnson reject the Army and Navy answers and, without
indicating the form he thought their answers should take, order them
to prepare new proposals.[14-28] Johnson would also have to ignore a
warning from Secretary of the Army Royall, who had recently reminded
him that Forrestal had assured Congress during the selective service
hearings that the administration would not issue a preemptory order
completely abolishing segregation. "I have no reason to believe that
the President had changed his mind," Royall continued, "but I think
you should be advised of these circumstances because if any action
were later taken by you or other authority to abolish segregation in
the Army I am confident that these Southern senators would remember
this incident."[14-29]
[Footnote 14-28: Ibid.]
[Footnote 14-29: Memo, SA for SecDef, 22 Apr 49, OSA
291.2.]
Despite Royall's not so subtle warning, Reid's scheme worked. The
Secretary of Defense explicitly and publicly approved the Air Force
program and rejected those of the Army and Navy. Johnson told the
Army, for example, that he was pleased with the progress made in the
past few years, but he saw "that much remains to be done and that the
rate of progress toward the objectives of the Executive Order must be
accelerated."[14-30] He gave the recalcitrants until 25 May to submit
"specific additional actions which you propose to take."
[Footnote 14-30: Memo, SecDef for SA, 13 May 49, sub:
Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Forces; idem for SecAF and SecNav, 11 May 49, same
sub; DOD Press Release 35-49A, 11 May 42. All in FC
file.]
_The Committee's Recommendations_
If there was ever any question of what their programs should contain,
the services had only to turn to the Fahy Committee for plenty of
advice. The considerable attention paid by senior officials of the
Department of Defense to racial matters in the spring of 1949 could be
attributed in part to the commonly held belief that the Fahy Committee
planned an integration crusade, using the power of the White House to
transform the services' racial policies in a profound and dramatic
way. Indeed, some members of the committee itself demanded that the
chairman "lay down the law to the services."[14-31] But this approach,
Charles Fahy decided, ignored both the personalities of the (p. 349)
participants and the realities of the situation.
[Footnote 14-31: Interv, author with Fahy.]
[Illustration: FAHY COMMITTEE WITH PRESIDENT TRUMAN AND ARMED SERVICES
SECRETARIES. _Seated with the President are Secretary Forrestal and
Committeeman A. J. Donahue. Standing from the left: Chairman of the
Personnel Policy Board Thomas R. Reid; Chief of Staff of the Personnel
Policy Board Brig. Gen. Charles T. Lanham; Committeemen John H.
Sengstacke and William M. Stevenson; Secretary Royall; Secretary
Symington; Committeemen Lester Granger and Dwight R. Palmer; Secretary
Sullivan; and Charles Fahy._]
The armed forces had just won a great world war, and the opinions of
the military commanders, Fahy reasoned, would carry much weight with
the American public. In any conflict between the committee and the
services, Fahy believed that public opinion would be likely to side
with the military. He wanted the committee to issue no directive.
Instead, as he reported to the President, the committee would seek the
confidence and help of the armed services in working out changes in
manpower practices to achieve Truman's objectives.[14-32] It was
important to Fahy that the committee not make the mistake of telling
the services what should be done and then have to drop the matter with
no assurances that anything would be done. He was determined, rather,
to obtain not only a change in policy, but also a "program in being"
during the life of the committee. To achieve this change the group
would have to convince the Army and the other services of the need for
and justice of integration. To do less, to settle for the issuance of
an integration directive alone, would leave the services the (p. 350)
option of later disregarding the reforms on the grounds of national
security or for other reasons. Fahy explained to the President that
all this would take time.[14-33] "Take all the time you need," Truman
told his committee.[14-34] This the committee proceeded to do, gathering
thousands of pages of testimony, while its staff under the direction
of Executive Secretary Edwin W. Kenworthy toured military
installations, analyzed the existing programs and operations of the
three services, and perused the reams of pertinent historical
documents.
[Footnote 14-32: Ibid.; see also Fahy Cmte, "A
Progress Report for the President," 7 Jun 49, FC
file.]
[Footnote 14-33: Memo, Fahy for Brig Gen James L.
Collins, Jr. 16 Aug 76, CMH.]
[Footnote 14-34: Interv, author with Fahy.]
That the committee expected the Secretary of Defense to take the lead
in racial affairs, refraining from dictating policy itself, did not
mean that Fahy and his associates lacked a definite point of view.
From the first, Fahy understood Truman's executive order to mean
unequivocally that the services would have to abandon segregation, an
interpretation reinforced in a later discussion he had with the
President.[14-35] The purpose of the committee, in Fahy's view, was not
to impose integration on the services, but to convince them of the
merits of the President's order and to agree with them on a plan to
make it effective.
[Footnote 14-35: Interv, Blumenson with Fahy, 7 Apr
66; Interv, author with Davenport, 31 Oct 71; both
in CMH.]
The trouble, the committee quickly learned, lay in trying to convince
the Army of the practical necessity for integration. On one hand the
Army readily admitted that there were some advantages in spreading
black soldiers through the white ranks. "It might remove any false
charges that equal opportunities are not provided," General Bradley
testified. "It would simplify administration and the use of manpower,
and it would distribute our losses in battle more nearly in proportion
to the percentage of the two races."[14-36] But then the Army had so
carefully and often repeated the disadvantages of integration that
Bradley and others could very easily offer a logical and
well-rehearsed apology for continuing the Army's current policy. Army
officials repeatedly testified, for example, that their situation
fundamentally differed from those of the other two services. The Army
had a much higher proportion of Negroes in its ranks, 10 to 11 percent
during the period of the committee's life, and in addition was
required by law to accept by the thousands recruits, many of them
black, whose aptitude or education would automatically disqualify them
for the Air Force or Navy. Armed with these inequities, the Army
remained impervious to the claims of the Navy and Air Force, defending
its time-honored charge that segregation was necessary to preserve the
efficiency of its combat forces. In Zuckert's opinion, the Army was
trying to maintain the _status quo_ at any cost.[14-37]
[Footnote 14-36: Testimony of General Omar N. Bradley,
Fahy Cmte Hearings, 28 Mar 49, afternoon session,
p. 71.]
[Footnote 14-37: Memo, Asst SecAF for Symington, 11
Apr 49, sub: Statement of the Secretary of the Army
Before the President's Committee on Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Services--March 28, 1949, SecAF files.]
The Army offered other reasons. Its leaders testified that the
unlimited induction of Negroes into an integrated Army would seriously
affect enlistments and the morale of troops. Morale in particular
affected battle efficiency. Again General Bradley testified.
I consider that a unit has high morale when the men have (p. 351)
confidence in themselves, confidence in their fellow members of
their unit, and confidence in their leaders. If we try to force
integration on the Army before the country is ready to accept
these customs, we may have difficulty attaining high morale along
the lines I have mentioned.[14-38]
[Footnote 14-38: Testimony of Bradley, Fahy Cmte
Hearings, 28 Mar 49, afternoon session, pp. 71-72.]
Underlying all these discussions of morale and efficiency lurked a
deep-seated suspicion of the combat reliability and effectiveness of
black troops and the fear that many white soldiers would refuse to
serve with blacks. Many Army leaders were convinced that the
performance of black troops in the past two wars did not qualify
Negroes for a role in the Army's current mission, the execution of
field operations in relatively small groups. These reservations were
expressed frequently in Army testimony. Bradley, in defense of
segregation, for example, cited the performance of the 92d Division.
When asked whether a 15 percent black Army would reduce efficiency, he
said, "from our experience in the past I think the time might come
when it wouldn't, but the average educational standards of these men
would not be up to the average of the white soldier. In modern combat
a man is thrown very much on his own initiative."[14-39] This attitude
was closely related to the Army's estimates of white morale: white
soldiers, the argument ran, especially many among those southerners
who comprised an unusually high proportion of the Army's strength,
would not accept integration. Many white men would refuse to take
orders from black superiors, and the mutual dependence of individual
soldiers and small units in combat would break down when the races
were mingled.
[Footnote 14-39: Ibid., p. 83.]
Although these beliefs were highly debatable, they were tenaciously
held by many senior officials and were often couched in terms that
were extremely difficult to refute. For instance, Royall summed up the
argument on morale: "I am reluctant--and I am sure all sincere
citizens will be reluctant--to force a pace faster than is consistent
with the efficiency and morale of the Army--or to follow a course
inconsistent with the ability of the Army, in the event of war, to
take the battlefield with reasonable assurance of success."[14-40]
[Footnote 14-40: Testimony of the Secretary of the
Army, Fahy Cmte Hearings, 28 Mar 49, morning
session, p. 28.]
But in time the Fahy Committee found a way, first suggested by its
executive secretary, to turn the efficiency argument around. Certainly
a most resourceful and imaginative man, Kenworthy had no doubt about
the immorality of segregation, but he also understood, as he later
told the Secretary of the Army, that whatever might be morally
undeniable in the abstract, military efficiency had to govern in
matters of military policy. His study of the record and his
investigation of existing service conditions convinced him that
segregation actually impeded military efficiency. Convinced from the
start that appeals to morality would be a waste of time, Kenworthy
pressed the committee members to tackle the services on their own
ground--efficiency.[14-41] After seeing the Army so effectively dismiss
in the name of military efficiency and national security the moral
arguments against segregation as being valid but irrelevant, Kenworthy
asked Chairman Fahy:
I wonder if the one chance of getting something done isn't (p. 352)
to meet the military on their own ground--the question of
military efficiency. They have defended their Negro manpower
policies on the grounds of efficiency. Have they used Negro
manpower efficiently?... Can it be that the whole policy of
segregation, especially in large units like the 92nd and 93rd
Division, ADVERSELY AFFECTS MORALE AND EFFICIENCY?[14-42]
[Footnote 14-41: Ltr, Kenworthy to SA, 20 Jul 50, FC
file; see also Memo, Kenworthy for Chief of
Military History, 13 Oct 76, CMH.]
[Footnote 14-42: Ltr, Kenworthy to Fahy, 10 Mar 49, FC
file.]
The committee did not have to convince the Navy or the Air Force of
the practical necessity for integration. With four years of experience
in integrating its ships and stations, the Navy did not bother arguing
the merits of integration with the committee, but instead focused its
attention on black percentages and the perennial problem of the
largely black Steward's Branch. Specifically, naval officials
testified that integration increased the Navy's combat efficiency.
Speaking for the Air Force, Symington told the committee that "in our
position we believe that non-segregation will improve our efficiency
in at least some instances" and consequently "it's simply been a case
[of] how we are going to do it, not whether we are going to do it."
Convinced of the simple justice of integration, Symington also told
the committee: "You've got to clear up that basic problem in your
heart before you can really get to this subject. Both Zuckert and
Edwards feel right on the basic problem."[14-43]
[Footnote 14-43: Testimony of the Secretary of the Air
Force, Fahy Cmte Hearings, 28 Mar 49, afternoon
session, p. 27.]
Even while the Air Force and the Navy were assuring Fahy of their
belief in the efficiency of integration, they hastened to protect
themselves against a change of heart. General Edwards gave the
committee a caveat on integration: "if it comes to a matter of
lessening the efficiency of the Air Force so it can't go to war and do
a good job, there isn't any question that the policy of
non-segregation will have to go by the boards. In a case like that,
I'd be one of the first to recommend it."[14-44] Secretary of the Navy
Sullivan also supported this view and cautioned the committee against
making too much of the differences in the services' approach to racial
reforms. Each service, he suggested, should be allowed to work out a
program that would stand the test of war. "If war comes and we go back
[to segregation], then we have taken a very long step in the wrong
direction." He wanted the committee to look to the "substance of the
advance rather than to the apparent progress."[14-45]
[Footnote 14-44: Fahy Cmte Hearings, 28 Mar 49,
afternoon session, pp. 28-29.]
[Footnote 14-45: Ibid., p. 29.]
Kenworthy predicted that attacking the Army's theory of military
efficiency would require considerable research by the committee into
Army policy as well as the past performance of black units. Ironically
enough, he got the necessary evidence from the Army itself, in the
person of Roy K. Davenport.[14-46] Davenport's education at Fisk and
Columbia universities had prepared him for the scholar's life, but
Pearl Harbor changed all that, and Davenport eventually landed behind
a desk in the office that managed the Army's manpower affairs. One of
the first black professionals to break through the armed forces racial
barrier, Davenport was not a "Negro specialist" and did not wish to be
one. Nor could he, an experienced government bureaucrat, be blamed if
he saw in the Fahy Committee yet one more well-meaning attempt by (p. 353)
an outside group to reform the Army. Only when Kenworthy convinced him
that this committee was serious about achieving change did Davenport
proceed to explain in great detail how segregation limited the
availability of military occupational specialties, schooling, and
assignments for Negroes.
[Footnote 14-46: Intervs, Blumenson with Fahy, and
author with Fahy.]
[Illustration: E. W. KENWORTHY.]
Kenworthy decided that the time had come for Fahy to meet Davenport,
particularly since the chairman was inclined to be impressed with, and
optimistic over, the Army's response to Johnson's directive of 6 April
1949. Fahy, Kenworthy knew, was unfamiliar with military language and
the fine art practiced by military staffs of stating a purpose in
technical jargon that would permit various interpretations. There was
no fanfare, no dramatic scene. Kenworthy simply invited Fahy and
Davenport, along with the black officers assigned by the services to
assist the committee, to meet informally at his home one evening in
April.[14-47]
[Footnote 14-47: This incident is described in detail
in Interviews, author with Fahy; Davenport, 17 Oct
71; and E. W. Kenworthy (by telephone), 1 Dec 71.
See also Interv, Nichols with Davenport, in Nichols
Collection. All in CMH.]
Never one to waste time, Fahy summarized the committee's activities
thus far, outlined its dealings with Army witnesses, and then handed
out copies of the Army's response to Secretary Johnson's directive.
Fahy was inclined to recommend approval, a course agreed to by the
black officers present, but he nevertheless turned courteously to the
personnel expert from the Department of the Army and asked him for his
opinion of the official Army position. Davenport did not hesitate.
"The directive [the Army's response to Secretary Johnson's 6 April
directive] isn't worth the paper it's written on," he answered. It
called for sweeping changes in the administration of the Army's
training programs, he explained, but would produce no change because
personnel specialists at the training centers would quickly discover
that their existing procedures, which excluded so many qualified black
soldiers, would fit quite comfortably under the document's idealistic
but vague language. The Army's response, Davenport declared, had been
very carefully drawn up to retain segregation rather than to end it.
Chairman Fahy seemed annoyed by this declaration. After all, he had
listened intently to the Army's claims and promises and was inclined
to accept the Army's proposal as a slow, perhaps, but certain way to
bring about racial integration. He was, however, a tough-minded
man and was greatly impressed by the analysis of the situation (p. 354)
presented by the Army employee. When Davenport asked him to reexamine
the directive with eyes open to the possibility of deceit, Fahy walked
to a corner of the room and reread the Army's statement in the light
of Davenport's charges. Witnesses would later remember the flush of
anger that came to his face as he read. His committee was going to
have to hear more from Davenport.
[Illustration: CHARLES FAHY _(a later portrait)_.]
If efficiency was to be the keynote of the committee's investigation,
Davenport explained, it would be a simple thing to prove that the Army
was acting inefficiently. In a morning of complex testimony replete
with statistical analysis of the Army's manpower management, he and
Maj. James D. Fowler, a black West Point graduate and personnel
officer, provided the committee with the needed breakthrough. Step by
step they led Fahy and his associates through the complex workings of
the Army's career guidance program, showing them how segregation
caused the inefficient use of manpower on several counts.[14-48] The
Army, for example, as part of a continuing effort to find men who
_could_ be trained for specialties in which it had a shortage of men,
published a monthly list, the so-called "40 Report," of its authorized
and actual strength in each of its 490 military occupational
specialties. Each of these specialties was further broken down by
race. The committee learned that no authorization existed at all for
Negroes in 198 of these specialties, despite the fact that in many of
them the Army was under its authorized strength. Furthermore, for many
of the specialties in which there were no authorizations for Negroes
no great skill was needed. In short, it was the policy of segregated
service that allowed the Army, which had thousands of jobs unfilled
for lack of trained specialists, to continue to deny training and
assignment to thousands of Negroes whose aptitude test scores showed
them at least minimally suited for those jobs. How could the Army
claim that it was operating efficiently when a shortage existed and
potentially capable persons were being ignored?
[Footnote 14-48: Fahy Cmte Hearings, 28 Apr 49,
morning session.]
One question led to another. If there were no authorizations for black
soldiers in 198 specialties, what were the chances for qualified
Negroes to attend schools that trained men for these specialties? It
turned out that of the 106 school courses available after a man
finished basic training, only twenty-one were open to Negroes. That
is, 81 percent of the courses offered by the Army were closed to
Negroes. The Army denied that discrimination was involved. Since (p. 355)
existing black units could not use the full range of the Army's
military occupational specialties, went the official line of
reasoning, it would be wasteful and inefficient to train men for
nonexistent jobs in those units. It followed that the Organization and
Training Division must exclude many Negroes from being classified in
specialties for which they were qualified and from Army schools that
would train others for such unneeded specialties.
[Illustration: ROY DAVENPORT.]
This reasoning was in the interest of segregation, not efficiency, and
Davenport and others were able to prove to the committee's
satisfaction that the Army's segregation policy could be defended
neither in terms of manpower efficiency nor common fairness. With
Davenport and Fowler's testimony, Charles Fahy later explained, he
began to "see light for a solution."[14-49] He began to see how he would
probably be able to gain the committee's double objective: the
announcement of an integration policy for the Army and the
establishment of a practical program that would immediately begin
moving the Army from segregation to integration.
[Footnote 14-49: Interv, Nichols with Fahy, in Nichols
Collection, CMH.]
In fact, military efficiency was a potent weapon which, if skillfully
handled, might well force the Army into important concessions leading
to integration. Taking its cue from Davenport and Fowler, the
committee would contend that, as the increasing complexity of war had
created a demand for skilled manpower, the country could ill-afford to
use any of its soldiers below their full capacity or fail to train
them adequately. With a logic understandable to President and public
alike, the committee could later state that since maximum military
efficiency demanded that all servicemen be given an equal opportunity
to discover and exploit their talents, an indivisible link existed
between military efficiency and equal opportunity.[14-50] Thus equal
opportunity in the name of military efficiency became one of the
committee's basic premises; until the end of its existence the
committee hammered away at this premise.
[Footnote 14-50: Fahy Cmte, "Second Interim Report to
the President," 27 Jul 49, FC file.]
While the committee's logic was unassailable when applied to the
plight of a relatively small number of talented and qualified black
soldiers, a different solution would have to prevail when the far
larger number of Negroes ineligible for Army schooling either by
talent, inclination, or previous education was considered. Here the
Army's plea for continued segregation in the name of military efficiency
carried some weight. How could it, the Army asked, endanger the
morale and efficiency of its fighting forces by integrating these (p. 356)
men? How could it, with its low enlistment standards, abandon its
racial quota and risk enlarging the already burdensome concentration
of "professional black privates?" The committee admitted the justice
of the Army's claim that the higher enlistment score required by the
Navy and Air Force resulted in the Army's getting more than its share
of men in the low-test categories IV and V. And while Kenworthy
believed that immediate integration was less likely to cause serious
trouble than the Army's announced plan of mixing the races in
progressively smaller units, he too accepted the argument that it
would be dangerous to reassign the Army's group of professional black
privates to white units. Fahy saw the virtue of the Army's position
here; his committee never demanded the immediate, total integration of
the Army.
One solution to the problem, reducing the number of soldiers with low
aptitude by forcing the other services to share equally in the burden
of training and assimilating the less gifted and often black enlistee
and draftee, had recently been rejected by the Navy and Air Force, a
rejection endorsed by Secretary of Defense Forrestal. Even in the
event that the Army could raise its enlistment standards and the other
services be induced to lower theirs, much time would elapse before the
concentration of undereducated Negroes could be broken up. Davenport
was aware of all this when he limited his own recommendations to the
committee to matters concerning the integration of black specialists,
the opening of all Army schools to Negroes, and the establishment of
some system to monitor the Army's implementation of these reforms.[14-51]
[Footnote 14-51: Interv, author with Davenport, 31 Oct
71.]
Having gained some experience, the committee was now able to turn the
Army's efficiency argument against the racial quota. It decided that
the quota had helped defeat the Gillem Board's aim of using Negroes on
a broad professional scale. It pointed out that, when forced by
manpower needs and the selective service law to set a lower enlistment
standard, the Army had allowed its black quota to be filled to a great
extent by professional privates and denied to qualified black men, who
could be used on a broad professional scale, the chance to enlist.[14-52]
It was in the name of military efficiency, therefore, that the
committee adopted a corollary to its demand for equal opportunity in
specialist training and assignment: the racial quota must be abandoned
in favor of a quota based on aptitude.
[Footnote 14-52: Fahy Cmte, "Initial Recommendations
by the President's Committee on Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services,"
attached to Fahy Cmte, "A Progress Report for the
President", 7 Jun 49, FC file.]
Fahy was not sure, he later admitted, how best to proceed at this
point with the efficiency issue, but his committee obviously had to
come up with some kind of program if only to preserve its
administrative independence in the wake of Secretary Johnson's
directive. As Kenworthy pointed out, short of demanding the
elimination of all segregated units, there was little the committee
could do that went beyond Johnson's statement.[14-53] Fahy, at least, was
not prepared to settle for that. His solution, harmonizing with his
belief in the efficacy of long-range practical change and his estimate
of the committee's strength vis-à-vis the services' strength, was (p. 357)
to prepare a "list of suggestions to guide the Army and Navy in its
[_sic_] determinations."[14-54] The suggestions, often referred to by
the committee as its "Initial Recommendations," would in the fullness
of time, Fahy thought, effect substantial reforms in the way the Negro
was employed by the services.
[Footnote 14-53: Ltr, Kenworthy to Fahy, 5 May 49,
Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-54: Fahy Cmte, "A Progress Report for the
President," 7 Jun 49, FC file.]
The committee's recommendations, sent to the Personnel Policy Board in
late May 1949, are easily summarized.[14-55] Questioning why the Navy's
policy, "so progressive on its face," had attracted so few Negroes
into the general service, the committee suggested that Negroes
remembered the Navy's old habit of restricting them to servant duties.
It wanted the Navy to aim a vigorous recruitment program at the black
community in order to counteract this lingering suspicion. At the same
time the committee wanted the Navy to make a greater effort among
black high school students to attract qualified Negroes into the Naval
Reserve Officers' Training Corps program. To reinforce these campaigns
and to remove one more vestige of racial inequality in naval service,
the committee also suggested that the Navy give to chief stewards all
the perquisites of chief petty officers. The lack of this rating, in
particular, had continued to cast doubt on the Navy's professed
policy, the committee charged. "There is no reason, except custom, why
the chief steward should not be a chief petty officer, and that custom
seems hardly worth the suspicion it evokes." Finally, the committee
wanted the Navy to adopt the same entry standards as the Army. It
rejected the Navy's claim that men who scored below ninety were
unusable in the general service and called for an analysis by outside
experts to determine what jobs in the Navy could be performed by men
who scored between seventy and ninety. At the same time the committee
reiterated that it did not intend the Navy or any of the services to
lower the qualifications for their highly skilled positions.
[Footnote 14-55: Min, War Council Mtg, 24 May 49; Fahy
Cmte, "Initial Recommendations by the President's
Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity
in the Armed Services," attached to Fahy Cmte, "A
Progress Report for the President", 7 Jun 49, FC
file. Excerpts from the "Initial Recommendations"
were sent to the services via the Personnel Policy
Board, which explains the document in the SecNav's
files with the penciled notation "Excerpt from Fahy
Recommendation 5/19." See also Ltr, Kenworthy to
Fahy, 16 May 49, Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]
The committee also suggested to the Air Force that it establish a
common enlistment standard along with the other services. Commenting
that the Air Force had apparently been able to use efficiently
thousands of men with test scores below ninety in the past, the
committee doubted that the contemporary differential in Air Force and
Army standards was justified. With a bow to Secretary Symington's new
and limited integration policy, the committee deferred further
recommendations.
It showed no such reluctance when it came to the Army. It wanted the
Army to abolish racial considerations in the designation of military
occupational specialties, attendance at its schools, and use of its
school graduates in their military specialties. In line with the
establishment of a parity of enlistment standards among the services,
the committee wanted the Army to abandon its racial quotas. The
committee did not insist on an immediate end to segregation in the
Army, believing that no matter how desirable, such a drastic change
could not be accomplished, as Davenport had warned, without very (p. 358)
serious administrative confusion. Besides, there were other pragmatic
reasons for adopting the gradualist approach. For the committee to
demand immediate and complete integration would risk an outcry from
Capitol Hill that might endanger the whole reform program. Gradual
change, on the other hand, would allow time for qualified Negroes to
attend school courses, and the concept that Negroes had a right to
equal educational opportunities was one that was very hard for the
segregationists to attack, given the American belief in education and
the right of every child to its benefits.[14-56] If the Army could be
persuaded to adopt these recommendations, the committee reasoned, the
Army itself would gradually abolish segregation. The committee's
formula for equality of treatment and opportunity in the Army,
therefore, was simple and straightforward, but each of its parts had
to be accepted to achieve the whole.
[Footnote 14-56: Memo, Kenworthy for Chief of Military
History, 13 Oct 76, CMH.]
As it was, the committee's program for gradual change proved to be a
rather large dose for senior service officials. An Army representative
on the Personnel Policy Board staff characterized the committee's work
as "presumptuous," "subjective," and "argumentative." He also charged
the committee with failing to interpret the executive order and thus
leaving unclear whether the President wanted across-the-board
integration, and if so how soon.[14-57] The Personnel Policy Board
ignored these larger questions when it considered the subject on 26
May, focusing its opposition instead on two of the committee's
recommendations. It wanted Secretary Johnson to make "a strong
representation" to Fahy against the suggestion that there be a parity
of scores for enlistment in the services. The board also unanimously
opposed the committee's suggestion that the Army send all qualified
Negroes to specialty schools within eighteen months of enlistment,
arguing that such a policy would be administratively impossible to
enforce and would discriminate against white servicemen.[14-58]
[Footnote 14-57: Col J. F. Cassidy, Comments on
Initial Recommendations of Fahy Committee (ca. 26
May 49) FC file.]
[Footnote 14-58: Min, PPB Mtg, 26 May 49, FC file.]
Chairman Reid temporized somewhat in his recommendations to Secretary
Johnson. He admitted that the whole question of parity of entrance
standards was highly controversial. He recognized the justice in
establishing universal standards for enlistment through selective
service, but at the same time he believed it unfair to ask any service
to accept volunteers of lesser quality than it could obtain through
good enlistment and recruitment methods. He wanted Johnson to
concentrate his attack on the parity question.[14-59]
[Footnote 14-59: Memo, Reid for Under SecDef, 23 May
49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in
the Armed Services; idem for SecDef, 1 Jun 49, sub:
Fahy Committee Initial Recommendations--Discussion
With Members of the Fahy Committee; both in PPB
files. See also Memo, Ohly for Reid, 26 May 49,
sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the
Armed Services, FC file.]
Before Johnson could act on his personnel group's recommendations, the
Army and Navy formally submitted their second replies to his directive
on the executive order. Surprisingly, the services provided a measure
of support for the Fahy Committee. For its part, the Navy was under
particular pressure to develop an acceptable program. It, after all,
had been the first to announce a general integration policy for which
it had, over the years, garnered considerable praise. But now it (p. 359)
was losing this psychological advantage under steady and persistent
criticism from civil rights leaders, the President's committee, and,
finally, the Secretary of Defense himself. Proud of its racial policy
and accustomed to the rapport it had always enjoyed with Forrestal,
the Navy was suddenly confronted with a new Secretary of Defense who
bluntly noted its "lack of any response" to his 6 April directive,
thus putting the Navy in the same league as the Army.
Secretary Johnson's rejection of the Navy's response made a
reexamination of its race program imperative, but it was still
reluctant to follow the Fahy Committee's proposals completely.
Although the personnel bureau had already planned special recruitment
programs, as well as a survey of all jobs in the Navy and the mental
requirements for each, the idea of making chief petty officers out of
chief stewards caused "great anger and resentment in the upper reaches
of BuPers," Capt. Fred Stickney of the bureau admitted to a
representative of the committee. Stickney was confident that the
bureau's opposition to this change could be surmounted, but he was not
so sure that the Navy would surrender on the issue of equality of
enlistment standards. The committee's arguments to the contrary, the
Navy remained convinced that standardizing entrance requirements for
all the services would mean "lowering the calibre of men taken into
the Navy."[14-60]
[Footnote 14-60: Ltr, Kenworthy to Fahy, 24 May 49, FC
file.]
But even here the Navy proved unexpectedly conciliatory. Replying to
the Secretary of Defense a second time on 23 May, Acting Secretary Dan
Kimball committed the Navy to a program that incorporated to a great
extent the recommendations of the Fahy Committee, including raising
the status of chief stewards and integrating recruit training in the
Marine Corps. While he did not agree with the committee's proposal for
equality of enlistment standards, Kimball broke the solid opposition
to the committee's recommendation on this subject by promising to
study the issue to determine where men who scored less than forty-five
(the equivalent of General Classification Test score ninety) could be
used without detriment to the Navy.[14-61]
[Footnote 14-61: Memo, Actg SecNav for SecDef, 23 May
49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in
the Armed Forces, FC file.]
The question of parity of enlistment standards aside, the Navy's
program generally followed the suggestions of the Fahy Committee, and
Chairman Reid urged Johnson to accept it.[14-62] The secretary's
acceptance was announced on 7 June and was widely reported in the
press.[14-63]
[Footnote 14-62: Draft Memo, Reid for SecNav, 3 Jun
49, and Memo, Reid for SecDef, 1 Jun 49, both in
PPB files; Memo, Kenworthy for Fahy, 30 May 49,
sub: Replies of Army and Navy to Mr. Johnson's May
11 Memo, FC file.]
[Footnote 14-63: NME, Off of Pub Info, Release 78-49A,
7 Jun 49. See Washington _Post_, June 7, 1949, and
New York _Times_, June 8, 1949.]
To some extent the Army had an advantage over the Navy in its dealings
with Johnson and Fahy. It never had an integration policy to defend,
had in fact consistently opposed the imposition of one, and was not,
therefore, under the same psychological pressures to react positively
to the secretary's latest rebuff. Determined to defend its current
interpretation of the Gillem Board policy, the Army resisted the
Personnel Policy Board's use of the Air Force plan, Secretary Johnson's
directive, and the initial recommendations of the Fahy Committee (p. 360)
to pry out of it a new commitment to integrate. In lieu of such a
commitment, Acting Secretary of the Army Gordon Gray[14-64] offered
Secretary Johnson another spirited defense of Circular 124 on 26 May,
promising that the Army's next step would be to integrate black
companies in the white battalions of the combat arms. This step could
not be taken, he added, until the reactions to placing black
battalions in white regiments and black companies in composite
battalions had been observed in detail over a period of time. Gray
remained unmoved by the committee's appeal for the wider use and
broader training of the talented black soldiers in the name of combat
efficiency and continued to defend the _status quo_. He cited with
feeling the case of the average black soldier who because of his
"social environment" had most often missed the opportunity to develop
leadership abilities and who against the direct competition with the
better educated white soldier would find it difficult to "rise above
the level of service tasks." Segregation, Gray claimed, was giving
black soldiers the chance to develop leadership "unhindered and
unfettered by overshadowing competition they are not yet equipped to
meet." He would be remiss in his duties, he warned Johnson, if he
failed to report the concern of many senior officers who believed that
the Army had already gone too far in inserting black units into white
units and that "we are weakening to a dangerous degree the combat
efficiency of our Army."[14-65]
[Footnote 14-64: Following the resignation of
Secretary Royall, President Truman nominated Gordon
Gray as Secretary of the Army. His appointment was
confirmed by the Senate on 13 June 1949. A lawyer,
Gray had been a newspaper publisher in North
Carolina before his appointment as assistant
secretary in 1947.]
[Footnote 14-65: Memo, Actg SA for SecDef, 26 May 49,
sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the
Armed Services; see also P&A Summary Sheet, 19 May
49, same sub, FC file.]
The Army's response found the Fahy Committee and the office of the
Secretary of Defense once again in agreement. The committee rejected
Gray's statement, and Kenworthy drew up a point-by-point rebuttal. He
contended that unless the Army took intermediate steps, its first
objective, a specific quota of black units segregated at the battalion
level, would always block the realization of integration, its ultimate
objective.[14-66] The secretary's Personnel Policy Board struck an even
harder blow. Chairman Reid called Gray's statement a rehash of Army
accomplishments "with no indication of significant change or step
forward." It ignored the committee's recommendations. In particular,
and in contrast to the Navy, which had agreed to restudy the
enlistment parity question, the Army had rejected the committee's
request that it reconsider its quota system. Reid's blunt advice to
Johnson: reject the Army's reply and demand a new one by a definite
and early date.[14-67]
[Footnote 14-66: Memo, Kenworthy for Fahy, 30 May 49,
sub: Replies of Army and Navy to Mr. Johnson's May
11 Memo, FC file.]
[Footnote 14-67: Memo, Reid for SecDef, 1 Jun 49, sub:
Army and Navy Replies to Your Memorandum of 6 April
on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the
Army Services; Min, PPB Mtg, 2 Jun 49; both in FC
file.]
Members of the Fahy Committee met with Johnson and Reid on 1 June.
Despite the antagonism that was growing between the Secretary of
Defense and the White House group, the meeting produced several notable
agreements. For his part, Johnson, accepting the recommendations of
Fahy and Reid, agreed to reject the Army's latest response and (p. 361)
order the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff to confer
informally with the committee in an attempt to produce an acceptable
program. At the same time, Johnson made no move to order a common
enlistment standard; he told Fahy that the matter was extremely
controversial and setting such standards would involve rescinding
previous interdepartmental agreements. On the committee's behalf, Fahy
agreed to reword the recommendation on schooling for all qualified
Negroes within eighteen months of enlistment and to discuss further
the parity issue.[14-68]
[Footnote 14-68: Min, PPB Mtg, 2 Jun 49; Ltr, Fahy to
Johnson, 25 Jul 49, FC file.]
[Illustration: PRESS NOTICE. _Rejection of the Army's second proposal
as seen by the Afro-American, June 14, 1949._]
General Lanham endorsed the committee's belief that there was a need
for practical, intermediate steps when he drafted a response to the
Army for Secretary Johnson to sign. "It is my conviction," he wanted
Johnson to say, "that the Department of the Army must meet this issue
[the equal opportunity imposed by Executive Order 9981] squarely and
that its action, no matter how modest or small at its inception, must
be progressive in spirit and carry with it the unmistakable promise of
an ultimate solution in consonance with the Chief Executive's position
and our national policy."[14-69]
[Footnote 14-69: Draft Memo, Lanham for SecDef, 2 Jun
49, FC file.]
But the Army received no such specific instruction. Although Johnson
rejected the Army's second reply and demanded another based on a
careful consideration of the Fahy Committee's recommendations,[14-70]
he deleted Lanham's demand for immediate steps toward providing equal
opportunity. Johnson's rejection of Lanham's proposal--a tacit
rejection of the committee's basic premise as well--did not
necessarily indicate a shift in Johnson's position, but it did
establish a basis for future rivalry between the secretary and the
committee. Until now Johnson and the committee, through the medium of
the Personnel Policy Board, had worked in an informal partnership
whose fruitfulness was readily apparent in the development of
acceptable Navy and Air Force programs and in Johnson's rejection of
the Army's inadequate responses. But this cooperation was to be (p. 362)
short-lived; it would disappear altogether as the Fahy Committee began
to press the Army, while the Secretary of Defense, in reaction, began
to draw closer to the Army's position.[14-71]
[Footnote 14-70: Memo, SecDef for SA, 7 Jun 49, sub:
Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Services; NME, Off of Pub Info, Press Release
78-49A, 7 Jun 49. The secretary gave the Army a new
deadline of 20 June, but by mutual agreement of all
concerned this date was postponed several times and
finally left to the Secretary of the Army to submit
his program "at his discretion," although at the
earliest possible date. See Memo, T. Reid for Maj
Gen Levin Allen, 6 Jul 49, sub: Army Reply to the
Secretary of Defense on Equality of Treatment; Min,
PPB Mtg, 18 Aug 49. All in FC file.]
[Footnote 14-71: Interv, author with Kenworthy.]
_A Summer of Discontent_
The committee approached its negotiations with the Army with
considerable optimism. Kenworthy was convinced that the committee's
moderate and concrete recommendations had reassured Reid and the
Personnel Policy Board and would strengthen its hand in dealing with
the recalcitrant Army,[14-72] and Fahy, outlining for the President the
progress the committee had made with the services, said that he looked
forward to his coming meetings with Gray and Bradley.[14-73]
[Footnote 14-72: Ltr, Kenworthy to Fahy, 20 May 49,
Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-73: Fahy Cmte, "A Progress Report for the
President," 7 Jun 49, FC file.]
To remove any unnecessary obstacle to what Fahy hoped would be
fruitful sessions, the committee revised its initial recommendations
to the Army. First, as Fahy had promised Johnson, it modified its
position on guaranteeing qualified black soldiers already assigned to
units the opportunity to attend Army schools within eighteen months.
Calling the imbroglio over this issue a mere misunderstanding--the
committee did not intend that preferential treatment be given Negroes
nor that the Army train more people than it needed--Fahy explained to
Johnson that the committee only wanted to make sure that qualified
Negroes would have the same chance as qualified white men. It would be
happy, Fahy said, to work with the Army on rewording the
recommendation.[14-74] The committee also added the suggestion that so
long as racial units existed, the Army might permit enlisted men in
the four lowest grades, at their request, to remain in a unit
predominantly composed of men of their own race. This provision,
however, was not to extend to officers and noncommissioned officers in
the top three grades, who received their promotions on a worldwide
competitive basis. Finally, the committee offered a substitute for the
numerical quota it wanted abolished. So that the Army would not get
too many low-scoring recruits, either black or white, the committee
proposed a separate quota for each category in the classification test
scores. Only so many voluntary enlistments would be accepted in
categories I through III, their numbers based on the normal spread of
scores that existed in both the wartime and peacetime Army. If the
Army netted more high scorers than average in any period, it would
induct fewer men from the next category. It would also deny
reenlistment to any man scoring less than eighty (category IV).[14-75]
[Footnote 14-74: Ltr, Fahy to Johnson, 15 Jun 49, FC
file.]
[Footnote 14-75: Idem to SA, 25 Jul 49, FC file.]
After meeting first with Gray and then the Chief of Staff, Fahy called
the sessions "frank and cordial" and saw some prospect of accord,
although their positions were still far apart.[14-76] Just how far
apart had already become apparent on 5 July when Gray presented (p. 363)
Fahy with an outline for yet another program for using black soldiers.
This new program was based in part on the comments of the field
commanders, and the Director of Personnel and Administration warned
that "beyond the steps listed in this plan, there is very little major
compromise area left short of complete integration."[14-77] While the
Army plan differed from the committee's recommendations in many ways,
in essence the disagreement was limited to two fundamental points.
Determined to retain segregated units, the Army opposed the
reassignment of school-trained Negroes to vacancies in white units;
and in order to prevent an influx of Negroes in the low achievement
categories, the Army was determined to retain the numerical
quota.[14-78]
[Footnote 14-76: Idem to SecDef, 25 Jul 49, FC file.]
[Footnote 14-77: P&A Summary Sheet to DC/S (Adm), 24
Jun 49, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, CSUSA
291.2 Negroes. For comments of Army commanders, see
the following Memos: Wade H. Haislip (DC/S Adm) for
Army Cmdrs, 8 Jun 49, sub: Draft Recommendations of
Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity;
Lt Gen M. S. Eddy for CofS, 10 Jun 49, same sub; Lt
Gen W. B. Smith for CofS, 10 Jun 49, same sub; Lt
Gen S. J. Chamberlain, 5th Army Cmdr, for CofS, 13
Jun 49, same sub; Lt Gen John R. Hodge for CofS, 14
Jun 49, same sub; Gen Jacob Devers, 13 Jun 49, same
sub; Gen Thomas T. Handy, 4th Army Cmdr, for CofS,
10 Jun 49, sub: Comments on Fahy Committee Draft
Recommendations. All in CSUSA 291.2 Negroes.]
[Footnote 14-78: An Outline Plan for Utilization of
Negro Manpower Submitted by the Army to the
President's Committee, 5 Jul 49, Incl to Ltr, Fahy
to SecDef, 25 Jul 49, FC file. See also Ltr,
Kenworthy to Fahy, 23 Jun 49, Fahy Papers, Truman
Library; Fahy Cmte, "Meeting to Discuss the
Proposals Made by the Army as Preliminary to the
Third Response," 11 Jul 49, FC file.]
The committee argued that if the Army was to train men according to
their ability, hence efficiently, and in accord with the principle of
equality, it must consider assigning them without regard to race. It
could not see how removal of the numerical quota would result in a
flood of Negroes joining the Army, but it could see how retaining the
quota would prevent the enlistment of blacks for long periods of time.
These two provisions--that school-trained Negroes be freely assigned
and that the quota be abolished--were really the heart of the
committee's plan and hope for the gradual integration of the Army. The
provisions would not require the abolition of racial units "at this
time," Fahy explained to President Truman, but they would gradually
extend the integration already practiced in overhead installations and
Army schools. The committee could not demand any less, he confessed,
in light of the President's order.[14-79]
[Footnote 14-79: Ltrs, Fahy to SecDef and SA, 25 Jul
49; idem to President, 27 Jul 49. All in FC file.]
The committee and the Army had reached a stalemate. As a staff member
of the Personnel Policy Board put it, their latest proposal and
counterproposals were simply extensions of what had long been put
forth by both parties. He advised Chairman Reid to remain neutral
until both sides presented their "total proposal."[14-80] But the
press was not remaining neutral. The New York _Times_, for example,
accused the Army of stalling and equivocating, engaging in a "private
insurrection," and trying "to preserve a pattern of bigotry which
caricatures the democratic cause in every corner of the world." There
was no room for compromise, the _Times_ added, and President Truman
could not retreat without abdicating as Commander in Chief.[14-81]
Secretary Gray countered with a statement that the Army was still (p. 364)
under injunction from the Secretary of Defense to submit a new race
program, and he was contemplating certain new proposals on the
military occupational specialty issue.[14-82]
[Footnote 14-80: Memo, Col J. F. Cassidy for Reid, 23
Aug 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity
in the Department of the Army, FC file.]
[Footnote 14-81: New York _Times_, July 16 and 18,
1949.]
[Footnote 14-82: Interv, NBC's "Meet the Press" with
Gordon Gray, 18 Jul 49; Ltr, SecDef to Charles
Fahy, 3 Aug 49, FC file.]
The Army staff did prepare another reply for the Secretary of Defense,
and on 16 September Gray met with Fahy and others to discuss it.
General Wade H. Haislip, the Vice Chief of Staff, claimed privately to
Gray that the new reply was almost identical with the plan presented
to the committee on 5 July and that the new concessions on
occupational specialties would only require the conversion of some
units from white to black.[14-83] Haislip, however, had not reckoned
with the concession that Gray was prepared to make to Fahy. Gray
accepted in principle the committee's argument that the assignment of
black graduates of specialist schools should not be limited to black
units or overhead positions but could be used to fill vacancies in any
unit. At the same time, he remained adamant on the quota. When the
committee spoke hopefully of the advantages of an Army open to all,
the Army contemplated fearfully the racial imbalance that might
result. The future was to prove the committee right about the
advantages, but as of September 1949 Gray and his subordinates had no
intention of giving up the quota.[14-84] Gray did agree, however, to
continue studying the quota issue with the committee, and Fahy
optimistically reported to President Truman: "It is the Committee's
expectation that it will be able within a few weeks to make a formal
report to you on a complete list of changes in Army policy and
practices."[14-85]
[Footnote 14-83: Memo, VCofS for Gray, 29 Aug 49, sub:
Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Services, CSUSA 291.2 Negroes.]
[Footnote 14-84: Interv, Nichols with Gordon Gray,
1953, in Nichols Collection, CMH; Memo, Kenworthy
for Cmte, 19 Sep 49, sub: Meeting With Gray, 16 Sep
49, Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-85: Ltrs, Fahy to President, 21 Sep and
26 Sep 49, both in FC file.]
Fahy made his prediction before Secretary of Defense Johnson took a
course of action that, in effect, rendered the committee's position
untenable. On 30 September Johnson received from Gray a new program
for the employment of black troops. Without reference to the Fahy
Committee, Johnson approved the proposal and announced it to the
press. Gray's program opened all military occupational specialties to
all qualified men, abolished racial quotas for the Army's schools, and
abolished racially separate promotion systems and standards. But it
also specifically called for retention of the racial quota on
enlistments and conspicuously failed to provide for the assignment of
black specialists beyond those jobs already provided by the old Gillem
Board policy.[14-86] Secretary Gray had asked for Fahy's personal
approval before forwarding the plan discussed by the two men at such
length, but Fahy refused; he wanted the plan submitted to his full
committee. When Johnson received the plan he did not consult the
committee at all, although he briefly referred it to the acting
chairman of the Personnel Policy Board, who interposed no
objection.[14-87]
[Footnote 14-86: Memo, SA for SecDef, 30 Sep 49, sub:
Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Services, CSGPA 291.2; DOD, Off of Pub Info, Press
Release 256-49, 30 Sep 49, FC file.]
[Footnote 14-87: Memo, Kenworthy for Cmte, 27 Sep 49,
sub: Army's Reply to Secretary Johnson, Fahy
Papers, Truman Library; Note, handwritten and
signed McCrea, attached to memo, SA for SecDef, 30
Sep 49; Memo, Thompson for Leva, 3 Oct 49, sub:
Army Policy of Equality of Treatment and
Opportunity, CD 30-1-4; both in SecDef files.]
It is not difficult to understand Johnson's reasons for ignoring (p. 365)
the President's committee. He had been forced to endure public
criticism over the protracted negotiations between the Army and the
committee. Among liberal elements on Capitol Hill, his position--that
his directive and the service replies made legislation to prohibit
segregation in the services unnecessary--was obviously being
compromised by the lack of an acceptable Army response.[14-88] In a
word, the argument over civil rights in the armed forces had become a
political liability for Louis Johnson, and he wanted it out of the
way. Glossing over the Army's truculence, Johnson blamed the committee
and its recommendations for his problem, and when his frontal assault
on the committee failed--Kenworthy reported that the secretary tried
to have the committee disbanded--he had to devise another
approach.[14-89] The Army's new proposal, a more reasonable-sounding
document than its predecessor, provided him with a convenient
opportunity. Why not quickly approve the program, thereby presenting
the committee with a _fait accompli_ and leaving the President with
little excuse for prolonging the civil rights negotiations?
[Footnote 14-88: Ltr, SecDef to Congressman Vinson, 7
Jul 49; Memo, Lanham for Reid, 29 Mar 49; both in
PPB files.]
[Footnote 14-89: Ltr, Kenworthy to Nichols, 28 Jul 53,
in Nichols Collection, CMH.]
Unfortunately for Johnson the gambit failed. While Fahy admitted that
the Army's newest proposal was an improvement, for several reasons he
could not accept it. The assignment of black specialists to white
units was a key part of the committee's program, and despite Gray's
private assurances that specialists would be integrated, Fahy was not
prepared to accept the Army's "equivocal" language on this subject.
There was also the issue of the quota, still very much alive between
the committee and the Army. The committee was bound, furthermore, to
resent being ignored in the approval process. Fahy and his associates
had been charged by the President with advising the services on
equality of treatment and opportunity, and they were determined to be
heard.[14-90] Fahy informed the White House that the committee would
review the Army's proposal in an extraordinary meeting. He asked that
the President meanwhile refrain from comment.[14-91]
[Footnote 14-90: Memo, Kenworthy to Cmte, 27 Sep 49,
sub: Army's Reply to Secretary Johnson, and Ltr,
Kenworthy to Joseph Evans, 30 Sep 49, both in Fahy
Papers, Truman Library; Memo, Worthington Thompson
for Leva, 3 Oct 49, sub: Army Policy of Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity, SecDef files; Ltr,
Kenworthy to Nichols, 28 Jul 53, in Nichols
Collection, CMH.]
[Footnote 14-91: Memo for Rcd, probably written by
Philleo Nash, 3 Oct 49, Nash Collection, Truman
Library.]
The committee's stand received support from the black press and
numerous national civil rights organizations, all of which excoriated
the Army's position.[14-92] David K. Niles, the White House adviser on
racial matters, warned President Truman about the rising controversy
and predicted that the committee would again reject the Army's
proposal. He advised the President to tell the press that Johnson's
news release was merely a "progress report," that it was not final,
and that the committee was continuing its investigation.[14-93] The
President did just that, adding: "Eventually we will reach, I (p. 366)
hope, what we contemplated in the beginning. You can't do it all at
once. The progress report was a good report, and it isn't finished
yet."[14-94] And lest his purpose remain unclear, the President
declared that his aim was the racial integration of the Army.
[Footnote 14-92: See Los Angeles _Star Review_,
October 6, 1949; _Afro-American_, October 8, 1949;
Washington _Post_, October 6, 1949; Pittsburgh
_Courier_, Octobers, 1949; Norfolk _Journal and
Guide_, October 15, 1949; New York _Amsterdam
News_, October 15, 1949.]
[Footnote 14-93: Ltr, Niles to President, 5 Oct 49,
Nash Collection, Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-94: News Conference, 6 Oct 49, as quoted
in _Public Papers of the President: Harry S.
Truman, 1949_, p. 501.]
The President's statement signaled a victory for the committee; its
extent became apparent only when the Army tried to issue a new
circular, revising its Gillem Board policy along the lines of the
outline plan approved by Johnson on 30 September. During the weeks of
protracted negotiations that followed, the committee clearly remained
in control, its power derived basically from its willingness to have
the differences between the committee and the Army publicized and the
reluctance of the White House to have it so. The attitudes toward
publicity were already noticeable when, on 11 October, Fahy suggested
to Truman some possible solutions to the impasse between the committee
and the Army. The Secretary of Defense could issue a supplementary
statement on the Army's assignment policy, the committee could release
its recommendations to the press, or the Army and the committee could
resume discussions.[14-95]
[Footnote 14-95: Memo, Fahy for President, 11 Oct 49,
FC file.]
President Truman ordered his military aide to read the committee's 11
October suggestion and "then take [it] up with Johnson."[14-96] As a
result the Secretary of Defense retired from the controversy.
Reminding Gray through intermediaries that he had approved the Army's
plan in outline form, Johnson declared that it was "inappropriate" for
him to approve the plan's publication as an Army circular as the Army
had requested.[14-97] About the same time, Niles informed the Army
that any revision of Circular 124 would have to be submitted to the
White House before publication, and he candidly admitted that
presidential approval would depend on the views of the Fahy
Committee.[14-98] Meanwhile, his assistant, Philleo Nash, predicting
that the committee would win both the assignment and quota arguments,
persuaded Fahy to postpone any public statement until after the Army's
revised circular had been reviewed by the committee.[14-99]
[Footnote 14-96: Penciled Note, signed HST, on Memo,
Niles for President, Secretary's File (PSF), Truman
Library.]
[Footnote 14-97: Memo, Maj Gen Levin C. Allen, Exec
Secy, SecDef, for SA, 14 Oct 49; Memo, Vice Adm
John McCrea, Dir of Staff, PPB, for Allen, 25 Oct
49; both in CD 30-1-4, SecDef files.]
[Footnote 14-98: Memo for Rcd, Karl Bendetsen, Spec
Consultant to SA, 28 Nov 49, SA files; Ltr,
Kenworthy to Fahy, 22 Nov 49, and Memo, Kenworthy
for Fahy Cmte, 29 Oct 49, sub: Background to
Proposed Letter to Gray; both in Fahy Papers,
Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-99: Ltr, Fahy to Cmte, 17 Nov 49, Fahy
Papers, Truman Library.]
Chairman Fahy was fully aware of the leverage these actions gave his
committee, although he and his associates now had few illusions about
the speedy end to the contest. "I know from the best authority within
P&A," Kenworthy warned the committee, that the obstructionists in Army
Personnel hoped to see the committee submit final recommendations--"what
its recommendations are they don't much care"--and then disband. Until
the committee disbanded, its opponents would try to block any real
change in Army policy.[14-100] Kenworthy offered in evidence the
current controversy over the Army's instructions to its field
commanders. These instructions, a copy of the outline plan (p. 367)
approved by Secretary Johnson, had been sent to the commanders by The
Adjutant General on 1 October as "additional policies" pending a
revision of Circular 124.[14-101] Included in the message, of course,
was Gray's order to open all military occupational specialties to
Negroes; but when some commanders, on the basis of their
interpretation of the message, began integrating black specialists in
white units, officials in the Personnel and Administration and the
Organization and Training Divisions dispatched a second message on 27
October specifically forbidding such action "except on Department of
Army orders."[14-102] Negroes would continue to be authorized for
assignment to black units, the message explained, and to "Negro spaces
in T/D [overhead] units." In effect, the Army staff was ordering
commanders to interpret the secretary's plan in its narrowest sense,
blocking any possibility of broadening the range of black assignments.
[Footnote 14-100: Memo, Kenworthy for Cmte, 29 Oct 49,
sub: Background to Proposed Letter to Gray, Fahy
Papers, Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-101: Msg, TAG to Chief, AFF, et al., WCL
45586, 011900Z Oct 49, copy in AG 220.3.]
[Footnote 14-102: Memo, D/PA for TAG, 25 Oct 49, sub:
Assignment of Negro Enlisted Personnel, with
attached Memo for Rcd, Col John H. Riepe, Chief,
Manpower Control Gp, D/PA; Memo, Deputy Dir, PA,
for Gen Brooks (Dir of PA), 3 Nov 49, same sub;
Msg, TAG to Chief, AFF, et al., WCL 20682, 27 Oct
49. All in CSGPA 291.2 (25 Oct 49).]
Kenworthy was able to turn this incident to the committee's advantage.
He made a practice of never locking his Pentagon office door nor his
desk drawer. He knew that Negroes, both civilian and military, worked
in the message centers, and he suspected that if any hanky-panky was
afoot they would discover it and he would be anonymously apprised of
it. A few days after the dispatch of the second message, Kenworthy
opened his desk drawer to find a copy. For the first and only time, he
later explained, he broke his self-imposed rule of relying on
negotiations between the military and the committee and its staff _in
camera_. He laid both messages before a long-time friend of his, the
editor of the Washington _Post_'s editorial page.[14-103] Thus
delivered to the press, the second message brought on another round of
accusations, corrections, and headlines to the effect that "The Brass
Gives Gray the Run-Around." Kenworthy was able to denounce the
incident as a "step backward" that even violated the Gillem Board
policy by allocating "Negro spaces" in overhead units. The Army
staff's second message nullified the committee's recommendations since
they depended ultimately on the unlimited assignment of black
specialists. The message demonstrated very well, Kenworthy told the
committee, that careful supervision of the Army's racial policy would
be necessary.[14-104] Some newspapers were less charitable. The
Pittsburgh _Courier_ charged that the colonel blamed for the release
of the second message had been made the "goat" in a case that involved
far more senior officials, and the Washington _Post_ claimed that the
message "vitiates" even the limited improvements outlined in the
Army's plan as approved by Secretary Johnson. The paper called on
Secretary Gray to assert himself in the case.[14-105]
[Footnote 14-103: Memo, Kenworthy for Chief of
Military History, 13 Oct 76, CMH.]
[Footnote 14-104: Idem for Cmte, 29 Oct 49, sub:
Instructions to Commanding Generals on New Army
Policy, Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-105: Lem Graves, Jr. (Washington
correspondent of the Pittsburgh _Courier_), "A
Colonel Takes the Rap," Pittsburgh _Courier_,
October 29, 1949; Washington _Post_, November 3,
1949.]
A furious secretary, learning of the second message from the press (p. 368)
stories, did enter the case. Branding the document a violation of his
announced policy, he had it rescinded and, publicizing a promise made
earlier to the committee, announced that qualified black specialists
would be assigned to some white units.[14-106] At the same time Gray
was not prepared to admit that the incident demonstrated how open his
plan was to evasion, just as he refused to admit that his rescinding
of the errant message represented a change in policy. He would
continue, in effect, the plan approved by the Secretary of Defense on
30 September, he told Fahy.[14-107]
[Footnote 14-106: DOD, Off of Pub Info, Release
400-49, 3 Nov 49, FC file.]
[Footnote 14-107: Ltr, SA to Fahy, 17 Nov 49, FC
file.]
The Army staff's draft revision of the Gillem Board circular, sent to
the committee on 25 November, reflected Gray's 30 September
plan.[14-108] In short, when it emerged from its journey through the
various Army staff agencies, the proposed revision still contained
none of the committee's key recommendations. It continued the severe
restrictions on the assignment of Negroes who had specialty training;
it specifically retained the numerical quota; and, with several
specific exceptions, it carefully preserved the segregation of Army
life.[14-109] Actually, the proposed revision amounted to little more
than a repetition of the Gillem Board policy with minor modifications
designed to make it easier to carry out. Fahy quickly warned the
Deputy Director of Personnel and Administration that there was no
chance of its winning the committee's approval.[14-110]
[Footnote 14-108: Ltr, Bendetsen to Fahy, 25 Nov 49;
Memo for Rcd, Kenworthy, 28 Nov 49; both in Fahy
Papers, Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-109: Army Draft No. 1 of Revised Circular
124, 16 Nov 49, FC file.]
[Footnote 14-110: Ltr, Fahy to Maj Gen C. E. Byers, 30
Nov 49, FC file.]
_Assignments_
The quota and assignments issues remained the center of controversy
between the Army and the committee. Although Fahy was prepared to
postpone a decision on the quota while negotiations continued, he was
unwilling to budge on the assignments issue. As the committee had
repeatedly emphasized, the question of open, integrated assignment of
trained Negroes was at the heart of its program. Without it the
opening of Army schools and military occupational specialties would be
meaningless and the intent of Executive Order 9981 frustrated.
At first glance it would seem that the revision of Circular 124
supported the assignment of Negroes to white units, as indeed
Secretary Gray had recently promised. But this was not really the
case, as Kenworthy explained to the committee. The Army had always
made a distinction between _specialists_, men especially recruited for
critically needed jobs, and _specialties_, those military occupations
for which soldiers were routinely trained in Army schools. The draft
revision did not refer to this second and far larger category and was
intended to provide only for the placement of the rare black
specialist in white units. The document as worded even limited (p. 369)
the use of Negroes in overhead units. Only those with skills
considered appropriate by the personnel office--that is, those who
possessed a specialty either inappropriate in a black unit or in
excess of its needs--would be considered for racially mixed overhead
units.[14-111]
[Footnote 14-111: Memo, Kenworthy for President's
Cmte, 18 Nov 49, sub: Successor Policy to WD Cir
124; idem for Fahy, 28 Nov 49, sub: Revised WD Cir
124; both in Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]
Fahy was determined to have the Army's plan modified, and furthermore
he had learned during the past few weeks how to get it done. On 9
December Kenworthy telephoned Philleo Nash at the White House to
inform him of the considerable sentiment in the committee for
publicizing the whole affair and read to him the draft of a press
statement prepared by Fahy. As Fahy expected, the White House wanted
to avoid publicity; the President, through Nash, assured the committee
that the issues of assignment and quota were still under discussion.
Nash suggested that instead of a public statement the committee
prepare a document for the Army and the White House explaining what
principles and procedures were demanded by the presidential order. In
his opinion, Nash assured Kenworthy, the White House would order the
Army to meet the committee's recommendations.[14-112]
[Footnote 14-112: Memo for Rcd, Kenworthy, 9 Dec 49,
sub: Telephone Conversation With Nash, Fahy Papers,
Truman Library.]
White House pressure undoubtedly played a major role in the resolution
of the assignment issue. When on 14 December 1949 the committee
presented the Army and the President with its comments on the Army's
proposed revision of Circular 124, it took the first step toward what
was to be a rapid agreement on black assignments. At the same time it
would be a mistake to discount the effectiveness of reasonable men of
good will discussing their very real differences in an effort to reach
a consensus. There is considerable evidence that when Fahy met on 27
December with Secretary Gray and General J. Lawton Collins, the Chief
of Staff, he was able to convince them that the committee's position
on the assignment of black graduates of specialist schools was right
and inevitable.[14-113]
[Footnote 14-113: Interv, Nichols with Fahy. J. Lawton
Collins became Chief of Staff of the Army on 1
August 1949, succeeding Omar Bradley who stepped up
to the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.]
While neither Gray nor Collins could even remotely be described as
social reformers, both were pragmatic leaders, prepared to accept
changes in Army tradition.[14-114] Collins, unlike his immediate
predecessors, was not so much concerned with finding the Army in the
vanguard of American social practices as he was in determining that
its racial practices guaranteed a more efficient organization. While
he wanted to retain the numerical quota, lest the advantages of an
Army career attract so large a number of Negroes that a serious racial
imbalance would result, he was willing to accept a substantive
revision of the Gillem Board policy.
[Footnote 14-114: Intervs, Nichols with Gray and Fahy,
and author with Collins.]
Gray was perhaps more cautious than Collins. Confessing later that he
had never considered the question of equal opportunity until Fahy
brought it to his attention, Gray began with a limited view of the
executive order--the Army must eliminate racial discrimination, (p. 370)
not promote racial integration. In their meeting on 27 December Fahy
was able to convince Gray that the former was impossible without the
latter. According to Kenworthy, Gray demonstrated an "open and
unbiased" view of the problem throughout all discussions.[14-115]
[Footnote 14-115: Ltr, Kenworthy to Gray, 20 Jul 50,
FC file; Intervs, Nichols with Gray, Davenport, and
Fahy.]
[Illustration: SECRETARY OF THE ARMY GRAY.]
The trouble was, as Roy Davenport later noted, Gordon Gray was a
lawyer, not a personnel expert, and he failed to grasp the full
implications of the Army staff's recommendations.[14-116] Davenport
was speaking from firsthand knowledge because Gray, after belatedly
learning of his experience and influence with the committee, sent for
him. Politely but explicitly Davenport told Gray that the staff
officers who were advising him and writing the memos and directives to
which he was signing his name had deceived him. Gray was at first
annoyed and incredulous; after Davenport finally convinced him, he was
angry. Kenworthy, years later, wrote that the Gray-Davenport
discussion was decisive in changing Gray's mind on the assignment
issue and was of great help to the Fahy Committee.[14-117]
[Footnote 14-116: Interv, author with Davenport, 31
Oct 71.]
[Footnote 14-117: Memo, Kenworthy for Chief of
Military History, 13 Oct 76, CMH.]
Fahy reduced the whole problem to the case of one qualified black
soldier denied a job because of color and pictured the loss to the
Army and the country, eloquently pleading with Gray and Collins at the
27 December meeting to try the committee's way. "I can't say you won't
have problems," Fahy concluded, "but try it." Gray resisted at first
because "this would mean the complete end of segregation," but unable
to deny the logic of Fahy's arguments he agreed to try.[14-118] There
were compromises on both sides. When Collins pointed out some of the
administrative difficulties that could come from the "mandatory"
language recommended by the committee, Fahy said that the policy
should be administered "with latitude." To that end he promised to
suggest some changes in wording that would produce "a policy with some
play in the joints." The conferees also agreed that the quota issue
should be downplayed while the parties continued their discussions on
that subject.[14-119]
[Footnote 14-118: Memo for Rcd, Karl R. Bendetsen,
Spec Asst to SA, 27 Dec 49, sub: Conference With
Judge Charles Fahy, SA files. Intervs, Nichols with
Gray and Fahy, author with Fahy, and Blumenson with
Fahy.]
[Footnote 14-119: Memo for Rcd, Bendetsen, 27 Dec 49,
SA files; Ltr, Fahy to Cmte, 27 Dec 49, Fahy
papers, Truman Library.]
Agreement followed rapidly on the heels of the meeting of the
principals. Roy Davenport presented the committee members with the
final draft of the Army proposal and urged that it be accepted as (p. 371)
"the furthest and most hopeful they could get."[14-120] Lester
Granger, Davenport later reported, was the first to say he would
accept, with Fahy and the rest following suit,[14-121] and on 16
January 1950 the Army issued Special Regulation 600-629-1,
_Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Army_, with the committee's
blessing.
[Footnote 14-120: Interv, Nichols with Davenport.]
[Footnote 14-121: Ltr, Kenworthy to Nichols, 29 Jul
53, in Nichols Collection, CMH; Interv, Nichols
with Davenport.]
[Illustration: GENERAL COLLINS.]
Fahy reported to Truman that the new Army policy was consistent with
the executive order. Its paragraphs on assignments spelled out the
principle long advocated by the committee: "Negro manpower possessing
appropriate skills and qualifications will be utilized in accordance
with such skills and qualifications, and will be assigned to any ...
unit without regard to race or color." Adding substance to this
declaration, the Army also announced that a list of critical
specialties in which vacancies existed would be published periodically
and ordered major commanders to assign Negroes who possessed those
specialties to fill the vacancies without regard to race. The first
such list was published at the same time as the new regulation. The
Army had taken a significant step, Fahy told the President, toward the
realization of equal treatment and opportunity for all soldiers.[14-122]
[Footnote 14-122: Memo, Fahy for President, 16 Jan 50,
FC file; SR 600-629-1, 16 Jan 50; DOD, Off of Pub
Info, Release 64-50, 16 Jan 50. The special
regulation was circulated worldwide on the day of
the issue; see Memo, D/P&A to TAG, 16 Jan 50, WDGPA
291.2.]
Secretary of Defense Johnson was also optimistic, but he warned Gordon
Gray that many complex problems remained and asked the Army for
periodic reports. His request only emphasized the fact that the Army's
new regulation lacked the machinery for monitoring compliance with its
provisions for integration. As the history of the Gillem Board era
demonstrated, any attempt to change the Army's traditions demanded not
only exact definition of the intermediate steps but also establishment
of a responsible authority to enforce compliance.
_Quotas_
In the wake of the Army's new assignment regulation, the committee
turned its full attention to the last of its major recommendations,
the abolition of the numerical quota. Despite months of discussion,
the disagreement between the Army and the committee over the quota (p. 372)
showed no signs of resolution. Simply put, the Fahy Committee wanted
the Army to abolish the Gillem Board's racial quota and to substitute
a quota based on General Classification Test scores of enlistees. The
committee found the racial quota unacceptable in terms of the
executive order and wasteful of manpower since it tended to encourage
the reenlistment of low-scoring Negroes and thereby prevented the
enlistment of superior men. None of the Negroes graduating from high
school in June 1949, for example, no matter how high their academic
rating, could enlist because the black quota had been filled for
months. Quotas based on test scores, on the other hand, would limit
enlistment to only the higher scoring blacks and whites.
Specifically, the committee wanted no enlistment to be decided by
race. The Army would open all enlistments to anyone who scored ninety
or above, limiting the number of blacks and whites scoring between
eighty and eighty-nine to 13.4 percent of the total Army strength, a
percentage based on World War II strengths. With rare exception it
would close enlistment to anyone who scored less than eighty. Applying
this formula to the current Army, 611,400 men on 31 March 1949, and
assessing the number of men from seventeen to thirty-four years old in
the national population, the committee projected a total of 65,565
Negroes in the Army, almost exactly 10 percent of the Army's strength.
In a related statistical report prepared by Davenport, the committee
offered figures demonstrating that the higher black reenlistment rates
would not increase the number of black soldiers.[14-123]
[Footnote 14-123: D/PA Summary Sheet for SA, 28 Feb
50, sub: Fahy Committee Proposal re: Numerical
Enlistment Quota, CSGPA 291.2 (2 Nov 49); Roy
Davenport, "Figures on Reenlistment Rate and
Explanation," Document FC XL, FC file; Memo, Fahy
for SA, 9 Feb 50, sub: Recapitulation of the
Proposal of the President's Committee for the
Abolition of the Racial Quota, FC file; Memo,
Kenworthy for Dwight Palmer (cmte member), 8 Feb
50, Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]
The Army's reply was based on the premise that "the Negro strength of
the Army must be restricted and that the population ratio is the most
equitable method [of] limitation." In fact, the _only_ method of
controlling black strength was a numerical quota of original
enlistments. The personnel staff argued that enlistment specifically
unrestricted by race, as the high rate of unrestricted black
reenlistment had demonstrated, would inevitably produce a "very high
percentage of Negroes in the Army." A quota based on the
classification test scores could not limit sufficiently the number of
black enlistments if, as the committee insisted, it required that
identical enlistment standards be maintained for both blacks and
whites. Looking at the census figure another way, the Army had its own
statistics to prove its point. Basing its figures on the number of
Negroes who became eighteen each month (11,000), the personnel staff
estimated that black enlistments would total from 15 to 20 percent of
the Army's monthly strength if an entrance quota was imposed with the
cut-off score set at ninety or from 19 to 31 percent if the enlistment
standards were lowered to eighty. It also pointed to the experience of
the Air Force where with no quotas in the third quarter of 1949 black
enlistments accounted for 16.4 percent of the total; even when a (p. 373)
GCT quota of 100 was imposed in October and November, 10 percent of
all Air Force enlistees were black.[14-124]
[Footnote 14-124: Memo, Actg D/PA for Karl R.
Bendetsen, Spec Asst to SA, 13 Dec 49, sub: Ten
Percent Racial Quota; D/PA Summary Sheet, with
Incl, for SA, 28 Feb 50, sub: Fahy Committee
Proposals re: Numerical Enlistment Quota; both in
CSGPA 291.2 (2 Nov 49). The quotations are from the
former document.]
The committee quickly pointed out that the Army had neglected to
subtract from the monthly figure of 11,000 blacks those physically and
mentally disqualified (those who scored below eighty) and those in
school. Using the Army's own figures and taking into account these
deductions, the committee predicted that Negroes would account for
10.6 percent of the men accepted in the 8,000 monthly intake, probably
at the GCT eighty level, or 5 percent of the 6,000 men estimated
acceptable at the GCT ninety level.[14-125]
[Footnote 14-125: Memo, Kenworthy for Karl Bendetsen,
19 Oct 49, sub: Manpower Policy, Fahy Papers,
Truman Library.]
On 14 December 1949 the Army, offering to compromise on the quota,
retired from its statistical battle with the committee. It would
accept the unlimited enlistment of Negroes scoring 100 or better,
limiting the number of those accepted below 100 so that the total
black strength would remain at 10 percent of the Army's
population.[14-126] Attractive to the committee because it would
provide for the enlistment of qualified men at the expense of the less
able, the proposal was nevertheless rejected because it still insisted
upon a racial quota. Again there was a difference between the
committee and the Army, but again the advantage lay with the
committee, for the White House was anxious for the quota problem to be
solved.[14-127]
[Footnote 14-126: Memo for Rcd, Kenworthy, 14 Dec 49,
sub: Conference With Maj Lieblich and Col Smith, 14
Dec 49, FC file.]
[Footnote 14-127: Memo, Fahy for President's Cmte, 1
Feb 50, Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]
Niles warned the President that the racial imbalance which had for so
long frustrated equal treatment and opportunity for Negroes in the
Army would continue despite the Army's new assignment policy unless
the Army was able to raise the quality of its black enlistees. Niles
considered the committee's proposal doubly attractive because, while
it abolished the quota, it would also raise the level of black
recruits. The proposal was sensible and fair, Niles added, and he
believed it would reduce the number of black soldiers as it raised
their quality. It had been used successfully by the Navy and Air
Force, and, as it had in those services, would provide for the gradual
dissolution of the all-black units rather than a precipitous
change.[14-128] The Army staff did not agree, and as late as 28
February 1950 the Director of Personnel and Administration was
recommending that the Army retain the racial quota at least for all
Negroes scoring below 110 on the classification test.[14-129]
[Footnote 14-128: Ltr, Niles to President, 7 Feb 50,
Secretary's File (PSF), Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-129: D/PA Summary Sheet for SA, 28 Feb
50, sub: Fahy Committee Proposal re: Numerical
Enlistment Quota, CSGPA 291.2 (2 Nov 49).]
Secretary Gray, aware that the Army's arguments would not move the
committee, was sure that the President did not want to see a
spectacular and precipitous rise in the Army's black strength. He
decided on a personal appeal to the Commander in Chief.[14-130] The
Army would drop the racial quota, he told Truman on 1 March, with (p. 374)
one proviso: "If, as a result of a fair trial of this new system,
there ensues a disproportionate balance of racial strengths in the
Army, it is my understanding that I have your authority to return to a
system which will, in effect, control enlistments by race."[14-131]
The President agreed.
[Footnote 14-130: Interv, Nichols with Gray.]
[Footnote 14-131: Ltr, SA to President, 1 Mar 50, Fahy
Papers, Truman Library.]
At the President's request, Gray outlined a program for open
recruitment, fixing April as the date when all vacancies would be open
to all qualified individuals. Gray wanted to handle the changes in
routine fashion. With the committee's concurrence, he planned no
public announcement. From his vacation quarters in Key West, Truman
added a final encouraging word: "I am sure that everything will work
out as it should."[14-132] The order opening recruiting to all races
went out on 27 March 1950.[14-133]
[Footnote 14-132: Memo, President for SA, 27 Mar 50,
FC file; Memo, SA for President, 24 Mar 50, sub:
Discontinuance of Racial Enlistment Quotas, copy in
CSGPA 291.2.]
[Footnote 14-133: Msg, TAG to Chief, AFF, et al., Fort
Monroe, Va., WCL 44600, 27 Mar 50, copy in FC
file.]
Despite the President's optimism, the Fahy Committee was beginning to
have doubts about just how everything would work out. Specifically,
some members were wondering how they could be sure the Army would
comply with the newly approved policies. Such concern was reasonable,
despite the Army's solemn commitments, when one considers the
committee's lengthening experience with the Defense Department's
bureaucracy and its familiarity with the liabilities of the Gillem
Board policy. The committee decided, therefore, to include in its
final report to the President a request for the retention of a
watchdog group to review service practices. In this its views clashed
directly with those of Secretary Johnson, who wanted the President to
abolish the committee and make him solely responsible for the equal
treatment and opportunity program.[14-134]
[Footnote 14-134: Memo, Clark Clifford for President
(ca. Mar 50), Nash Collection, Truman Library.]
Niles, anxious to settle the issue, tried to reconcile the
differences[14-135] and successfully persuaded the committee to omit a
reference in its final report to a successor group to review the
services' progress. Such a move, he told Kenworthy, would imply that,
unless policed, the services would not carry out their programs.
Public discussion about how long the committee was to remain in effect
would also tend to tie the President's hands. Niles suggested instead
that the committee members discuss the matter with the President when
they met with him to submit their final report and perhaps suggest
that a watchdog group be appointed or their committee be retained on a
standby basis for a later review of service actions.[14-136] Before
the committee met with the President on 22 May, Niles recommended to
Truman that he make no commitment on a watchdog group.[14-137]
Privately, Niles agreed with Clark Clifford that the committee should
be retained for an indefinite period, but on an advisory rather than
an operating basis so that, in Clifford's words, "it will be in a
position to see that there is not a gap between policy and an (p. 375)
administration of policy in the Defense Establishment."[14-138]
[Footnote 14-135: Interv, author with Kenworthy.]
[Footnote 14-136: Memo, Kenworthy for Fahy, 28 Apr 50,
Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-137: Ltr, Niles to President, 22 May 50,
Nash Collection, Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-138: Memo, Clifford for President, Nash
Collection, Truman Library.]
The President proceeded along these lines. Several months after the
committee presented its final report, _Freedom to Serve_,[14-139] in a
public ceremony, Truman relieved the group of its assignment.
Commenting that the services should have the opportunity to work out
in detail the new policies and procedures initiated by the committee,
he told Fahy on 6 July 1950 that he would leave his order in effect,
noting that "at some later date, it may prove desirable to examine the
effectuation of your Committee's recommendations, which can be done
under Executive Order 9981."[14-140]
[Footnote 14-139: _Freedom to Serve: Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services; A
Report by the President's Committee_ (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1950).]
[Footnote 14-140: Ltr, President to Fahy, 6 Jul 50,
Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]
_An Assessment_
Thus ended a most active period in the history of armed forces
integration, a period of executive orders, presidential conferences,
and national hearings, of administrative infighting broadcast to the
public in national headlines. The Fahy Committee was the focus of this
bureaucratic and journalistic excitement. Charged with examining the
policies of the services in light of the President's order, the
committee could have glanced briefly at current racial practices and
automatically ratified Secretary Johnson's general policy statement.
Indeed, this was precisely what Walter White and other civil rights
leaders expected. But the committee was made of sterner stuff. With
dedication and with considerable political acumen, it correctly
assessed the position of black servicemen and subjected the racial
policies of the services to a rigorous and detailed examination, the
first to be made by an agency outside the Department of Defense. As a
result of this scrutiny, the committee clearly and finally
demonstrated that segregation was an inefficient way to use military
manpower; once and for all it demolished the arguments that the
services habitually used against any demand for serious change. Most
important is the fact that the committee kept alive the spirit of
reform the Truman order had created. The committee's definition of
equal treatment and opportunity became the standard by which future
action on racial issues in the armed forces would be measured.
Throughout its long existence, the Fahy Committee was chiefly
concerned with the position of the Negro in the Army. After protracted
argument it won from the Army an agreement to abolish the racial quota
and to open all specialties in all Army units and all Army schools and
courses to qualified Negroes. Finally, it won the Army's promise to
cease restricting black servicemen to black units and overhead
installations alone and to assign them instead on the basis of
individual ability and the Army's need.
As for the other services, the committee secured from the Navy a
pledge to give petty officer status to chief stewards and stewards of
the first, second, and third class, and its influence was discernible
in the Navy's decision to allow stewards to transfer to the general
service. The committee also made, and the Navy accepted, several
practical suggestions that might lead to an increase in the number (p. 376)
of black officers and enlisted men. The committee approved the Air
Force integration program and publicized the success of this major
reform as it was carried out during 1949; for the benefit of the
reluctant Army, the committee could point to the demonstrated ability
of black servicemen and the widespread acceptance of integration among
the rank and file of the Air Force. In regard to the Marine Corps,
however, the committee was forced to acknowledge that the corps had
not yet "fully carried out Navy policy."[14-141]
[Footnote 14-141: _Freedom to Serve_, p. 27.]
The Fahy Committee won from the services a commitment to equal
treatment and opportunity and a practical program to achieve that end.
Yet even with this victory and the strong support of many senior
military officials, the possibility that determined foes of
integration might erect roadblocks or that simple bureaucratic inertia
would delay progress could not be discounted. There was, for example,
nothing in the postwar practices of the Marine Corps, even the
temporary integration of its few black recruits during basic training,
that hinted at any long-range intention of adopting the Navy's
integration program. And the fate of one of the committee's major
recommendations, that all the services adopt equal enlistment
standards, had yet to be decided. The acceptance of this
recommendation hinged on the results of a Defense Department study to
determine the jobs in each service that could be filled by men in the
lowest mental classification category acceptable to all three
services. Although the Navy and the Air Force had agreed to reexamine
the matter, they had consistently opposed the application of
enlistment parity in the past, and the Secretary of Defense's
Personnel Policy Board had indorsed their position. Secretary
Forrestal, himself, had rejected the concept, and there was nothing in
the record to suggest that his successor would do otherwise. Yet the
parity of enlistment standards was a vital part of the committee's
argument for the abolition of the Army's racial quota. If enlistment
standards were not equalized, especially in a period when the Army was
turning to Selective Service for much of its manpower, the number of
men in the Army's categories IV and V was bound to increase, and that
increase would provide strong justification for reviving the racial
quota. The Army staff was aware, if the public was not, that a
resurrected quota was possible, for the President had given the
Secretary of the Army authority to take such action if there was "a
disproportionate balance of racial strengths."[14-142]
[Footnote 14-142: Ltr, SA to President, 1 Mar 50, Fahy
Papers, Truman Library.]
The Army's concern with disproportionate balance was always linked to
a concern with the influx of men, mostly black, who scored poorly on
the classification tests. The problem, the Army repeatedly claimed,
was not the quantity of black troops but their quality. Yet at the
time the Army agreed to the committee's demand to drop the quota, some
40 percent of all black soldiers scored below eighty. These men could
rarely profit from the Army's agreement to integrate all specialist
training and assignments. The committee, aware of the problem, had
strongly urged the Army to refuse reenlistment, with few exceptions,
to anyone scoring below eighty. On 11 May 1950 Fahy reminded Secretary
of the Army Frank Pace, Jr., that despite the Army's promise to
eliminate its low scorers it continued to reenlist men scoring (p. 377)
less than seventy.[14-143] But by July even the test score for
first-time enlistment into the Army had declined to seventy because
men were needed for the Korean War. The law required that whenever
Selective Service began drafting men the Army would automatically
lower its enlistment standards to seventy. Thus, despite the
committee's recommendations, the concentration of low-scoring Negroes
in the lower grades continued to increase, creating an even greater
pool of men incapable of assignment to the schools and specialties
open without regard to race.
[Footnote 14-143: Memo, Fahy for SA, 11 May 50, Fahy
Papers, Truman Library. Frank Pace, an Arkansas
lawyer and former Assistant Director of the Bureau
of the Budget, succeeded Gordon Gray as Secretary
of the Army on 12 April 1950.]
[Illustration: "NO LONGER A DREAM." _The Pittsburgh Courier's reaction
to the services' agreements with the Fahy Committee, May 20, 1950._]
Even the Army's promise to enlarge gradually the number of specialties
open to Negroes was not carried out expeditiously. By July 1950, the
last month of the Fahy Committee's life, the Army had added only seven
more specialties with openings for Negroes to the list of forty
published seven months before at the time of its agreement with the
committee. In a pessimistic mood, Kenworthy confessed to Judge (p. 378)
Fahy[14-144] that "so long as additions are not progressively made to
the critical list of MOS in which Negroes can serve, and so long as
segregated units continue to be the rule, all MOS and schools can not
be said to be open to Negroes because Negro units do not have calls
for many of the advanced MOS." Kenworthy was also disturbed because
the Army had disbanded the staff agency created to monitor the new
policies and make future recommendations and had transferred both its
two members to other duties. In the light of progress registered in
the half year since the Army had adopted the committee's proposal,
Kenworthy concluded that "the Army intends to do as little as possible
towards implementing the policy which it adopted and published."[14-145]
[Footnote 14-144: President Truman appointed Charles
Fahy to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia on 15 October 1949. Fahy did
not assume his judicial duties, however, until 15
December after concluding his responsibilities as a
member of the American delegation to the United
Nations General Assembly.]
[Footnote 14-145: Memo, Kenworthy for Fahy, 25 Jul 50,
Fahy Papers, Truman Library. In the memorandum the
number of additional specialties is erroneously
given as six; see DCSPER Summary Sheet, 23 Apr 50,
sub: List of Critical Specialties Referred to in SR
600-629-1, G-1 291.2 (25 Oct 49).]
Roy Davenport later suggested that such pessimism was ill-founded.
Other factors were at work within the Army in 1950, particularly after
the outbreak of war in Korea.[14-146] Davenport alluded principally to
the integration of basic training centers and the assignment of
greater numbers of black inductees to combat specialties--developments
that were pushing the Army ahead of the integration timetable
envisioned by committee members and making concern over black
eligibility for an increased number of occupation categories less
important.
[Footnote 14-146: Ltr, Davenport to OSD Historian, 31
Aug 76, copy in CMH. For a discussion of these
war-related factors, see Chapters 14 and 17.]
The Fahy Committee has been given full credit for proving that
segregation could not be defended on grounds of military efficiency,
thereby laying the foundation for the integration of the Army. But
perhaps in the long run the group's idealism proved to be equally
important. The committee never lost sight of the moral implications of
the services' racial policies. Concern for the rightness and wrongness
of things is readily apparent in all its deliberations, and in the end
the committee would invoke the words of Saint Paul to the Philippians
to remind men who perhaps should have needed no such reminder that
they should heed "whatsoever things are true ... whatsoever things are
just." What was right and just, the committee concluded, would
"strengthen the nation."[14-147]
[Footnote 14-147: _Freedom to Serve_, pp. 66-67.]
The same ethics stood forth in the conclusion of the committee's final
report, raising that practical summary of events to the status of an
eloquent state paper. The committee reminded the President and its
fellow citizens that the status of the individual, "his equal worth in
the sight of God, his equal protection under the law, his equal rights
and obligations of citizenship and his equal opportunity to make just
and constructive use of his endowment--these are the very foundation
of the American system of values."[14-148]
[Footnote 14-148: _Ibid._, p. 67.]
To its lasting honor the Fahy Committee succeeded in spelling out for
the nation's military leaders how these principles, these "high
standards of democracy" as President Truman called them in his order,
must be applied in the services.
CHAPTER 15 (p. 379)
The Role of the Secretary of Defense
1949-1951
Having ordered the integration of the services and supported the Fahy
Committee in the development of acceptable racial programs, President
Truman quickly turned the matter over to his subordinates in the
Department of Defense, severing White House ties with the problem.
Against the recommendations of some of his White House advisers,
Truman adjourned the committee, leaving his executive order in effect.
"The necessary programs having been adopted," he told Fahy, it was
time for the services "to work out in detail the procedures which will
complete the steps so carefully initiated by the committee."[15-1] In
effect, the President was guaranteeing the services the freedom to put
their own houses in order.
[Footnote 15-1: Ltr, Truman to Fahy, 6 Jul 50, FC
file.]
The issue of civil rights, however, was still of vital interest to one
of the President's major constituencies. Black voters, recognized as a
decisive factor in the November 1948 election, pressed their demands
on the victorious President; in particular some of their spokesmen
called on the administration to implement fully the program put forth
by the Fahy Committee. These demands were being echoed in Congress by
a civil rights bloc--for bloc it had now become in the wake of the
election that sent Harry Truman back to the White House. No longer the
concern of a congressman or two, the cause of the black serviceman was
now supported by a group of politicians who, joining with civil rights
leaders, pressed the Department of Defense for rapid changes in its
racial practices.
The traditionalists in the armed forces also had congressional allies.
In all probability these legislators would accept an integrated Navy
because it involved relatively few Negroes; they might even tolerate
an integrated Air Force because they lacked a proprietary attitude
toward this new service; but they would fight to keep the Army
segregated because they considered the Army their own.[15-2]
Congressional segregationists openly opposed changes in the Army's
racial policy only when they thought the time was right. They carefully
avoided the subject in the months following publication of the (p. 380)
executive order, waiting to bargain until their support became crucial
to the success of such vital military legislation as the renewal of
the Selective Service Act and the establishment of universal military
training.
[Footnote 15-2: Interv, Nichols with Gen Wade H.
Haislip, 1953, in Nichols Collection; Telephone
Interv, author with Haislip, 18 Mar 71; Interv,
author with Martin Blumenson, 8 Jan 68. All in CMH
files.]
At most, Congress played only a minor role in the dramatic changes
beginning in the armed forces. Champions of civil rights had little
effect on service practices, although these congressmen channeled the
complaints of black voters and kept the military traditionalists on
the defensive. As for the congressional traditionalists, their support
may have helped sustain those on the staff who resisted racial change
within the Army, thus slowing down that service's integration. But the
demands of congressional progressives and obstructionists tended to
cancel each other out, and in the wake of the Fahy Committee's
disbandment the services themselves reemerged as the preeminent factor
in the armed forces racial program.
The services regained control by default. Logically, direction of
racial reforms in the services should have fallen to the Secretary of
Defense. In the first place, the secretary, other administration
officials, and the public alike had begun to use the secretary's
office as a clearinghouse for reconciling conflicting demands of the
services, as an appellate court reviewing decisions of the service
secretaries, and as the natural channel of communication between the
services and the White House, Congress, and the public. Many racial
problems had become interservice in nature, and only the Office of the
Secretary of Defense possessed the administrative machinery to deal
with such matters. The Personnel Policy Board or, later, the new
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and
Personnel might well have become the watchdog recommended by the Fahy
Committee to oversee the services' progress toward integration, but
neither did.
Certainly the Secretary of Defense had other matters pressing for his
attention. Secretary Johnson had become the central character in the
budgetary conflicts of Truman's second term, and both he and General
George C. Marshall, who succeeded him as secretary on 20 September
1950, were suddenly thrust into leadership of the Korean War. In
administrative matters, at least, Marshall had to concentrate on
boosting the morale of a department torn by internecine budgetary
arguments. Integration did not appear to have the same importance to
national security as these weighty matters. More to the point, Johnson
and Marshall were not social reformers. Whatever their personal
attitudes, they were content to let the services set the pace of
racial reform. With one notable exception neither man initiated any of
the historic racial changes that took place in the armed forces during
the early 1950's.
For the most part those racial issues that did involve the Secretary
of Defense centered on the status of the Negro in the armed forces in
general and were extraneous to the issue of integration. One of the
most persistent status problems was classification by race. First
posed during the great World War II draft calls, the question of how
to determine a serviceman's race, and indeed the related one of who
had the right to make such a determination, remained unanswered five
years later. In August 1944 the Selective Service System decided (p. 381)
that the definition of a man's race should be left to the man himself.
While this solution no doubt pleased racial progressives and certainly
simplified the induction process, not to speak of protecting the War
Department from a ticklish court review, it still left the services
the difficult and important task of designating racial categories into
which men could be assigned. As late as April 1949 the Army and the
Air Force listed a number of specific racial categories, one of which
had to be chosen by the applicant or recruiter--the regulation left
the point unclear--to identify the applicant's race. The regulation
listed "white, Negro, Indian (referring to American Indian only),
Puerto Rican, Cuban, Mexican, Hawaiian, Filipino, Chinese, East
Indian, etc.," and specifically included mulattoes and "others of
negroid race or extraction" in the Negro category, leaving other men
of mixed race to be entered under their predominant race.[15-3]
[Footnote 15-3: SR 615-105-1 (AFR 39-9), 15 Apr 49.]
The regulation was obviously subject to controversy, and in the wake
of the President's equality order it is not surprising that some
group--a group of Spanish-speaking Americans from southern California,
as it turned out--would raise the issue. Specifically, they objected
to a practice of Army and Air Force recruiters, who often scratched
out "white" and inserted "Mexican" in the applications of
Spanish-speaking volunteers. These young men wanted to be integrated
into every phase of community life, Congressman Chet Holifield told
the Secretary of Defense, and he passed on a warning from his
California constituents that "any attempt to forestall this ambition
by treating them as a group apart is extremely repellent to them and
gives rise to demoralization and hostility."[15-4] If the Department
of Defense considered racial information essential, Holifield
continued, why not make the determination in a less objectionable
manner? He suggested a series of questions concerning the birthplace
of the applicant's parents and the language spoken in his home as
innocuous possibilities.
[Footnote 15-4: Ltr, Holifield to SecDef, 10 Aug 49,
SD 291.2 Negroes.]
Secretary Johnson sent the congressman's complaint to the Personnel
Policy Board, which, ignoring the larger considerations posed by
Holifield, concentrated on simplifying the department's racial
categories to five--Caucasian, Negroid, Mongolian, Indian (American),
and Malayan--and making their use uniform throughout the services. The
board also adopted the use of inoffensive questions to help determine
the applicant's proper race category. Obviously, the board could not
abandon racial designations because the Army's quota system, still in
effect, depended on this information. Less clear, however, was why the
board failed to consider the problem of who should make the racial
determination. At any rate, its new list of racial categories,
approved by the secretary and published on 11 October, immediately
drew complaints from members of the department.[15-5]
[Footnote 15-5: Memo, Dep Dir, Personnel Policy Bd
Staff, for Chmn, PPB, 13 Sep 49, sub: Project
Summary--Change of Nomenclature on Enlistment Forms
as Pertains to "Race" Entries (M-63); Memo, Chmn,
PPB, for SA et al., 11 Oct 49, sub: Policy
Regarding Race Entries on Enlistment Contracts and
Shipping Articles; both in PPB 291.2.]
[Illustration: NAVY CORPSMAN IN KOREA _attends wounded from the 1st
Marine Division, 1950_.]
The secretary's racial adviser, James C. Evans, saw no need for (p. 382)
racial designations on departmental forms, but knowing their removal
was unlikely in the near future, he concentrated on trying to change
the newly revised categories. He explained to the board, obviously
unschooled in the nuance of racial slurs, that the word "Negroid" was
offensive to many Negroes. Besides, the board's categories made no
sense since Indian (American) and Malayan were not comparable to the
other three entries listed. Why not, he suggested, settle for the old
black, white, yellow, red, and brown designations?[15-6]
[Footnote 15-6: Memo, Evans for Chmn, PPB, 25 Nov 49,
sub: Racial Designation and Terminology, SD 291.2;
Interv, author with Evans, 22 Jul 71, CMH files.]
The Navy, too, objected to the board's categories. After consulting a
Smithsonian ethnologist, the Under Secretary of the Navy suggested
that the board create a sixth category, Polynesian, for use in
shipping articles and in forms for reporting casualties. The Army,
also troubled by the categories, requested they be defined. The
categories were meant to provide a uniform basis for classifying
military personnel, The Adjutant General pointed out, but given the
variety and complexity of Army forms--he had discovered that the Army
was using seven separate forms with racial entries, each with a
different procedure for deciding race--uniformity was practically (p. 383)
impossible without a careful delineation of each category.[15-7]
[Footnote 15-7: Memo, Head, Strength and Statistics
Br, BuPers, for Head, Policy Control Br, BuPers, 27
Oct 49, sub: Policy Regarding Race Entries, Pers
25-EL, BuPersRecs; Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn,
PPB, 25 Nov 49, sub: Policy Regarding "Race"
Entries on Enlistment Contracts and Shipping
Articles, GenRecsNav; DF, D/P&A to TAG, 18 Oct 49,
same sub, with CMT 2, TAG to D/P&A, 2 Nov 49, copy
in AG 291.2 (11 Oct 49).]
Its ruling under attack from the services, the board made a hasty
appeal to authority. Its chief of staff, Vice Adm. John L.
McCrea,[15-8] recommended that the Army and Navy consult Funk and
Wagnalls _Standard Dictionary_ for specific definitions of the five
racial categories. That source, the admiral explained to the Under
Secretary of the Navy, listed Polynesian in the Malayan category, and
if the Navy decided to add race to its shipping articles, the five
categories should be sufficient. The board, he added, had not meant to
encourage additional use of racial information. The Navy had always
used the old color categories on its shipping articles forms, the
ones, incidentally, favored by Evans, and McCrea thought they
generally corresponded to the categories developed by the board.[15-9]
The admiral also suggested that the Army use the color system to help
clarify the board's categories. He offered some generalizations on
specific Army questions: "a) Puerto Ricans are officially Caucasian,
unless of Indian or Negro birth; b) Filipinos are Malayan; c)
Hawaiians are Malayan; d) Latin Americans are Caucasian or Indian; and
e) Indian-Negro and White-Negro mixtures should be classified in
accordance with the laws of the states of their birth."[15-10] The
lessons on definition of race so painfully learned during World War II
were ignored. Henceforth race was to be determined by a dictionary, a
color scheme, and the legal vagaries found in the race laws of the
several states.
[Footnote 15-8: Admiral McCrea succeeded General
Lanham as director of the board's staff in 1949.]
[Footnote 15-9: Memo, Dir, PPB Staff, for Under
SecNav, 7 Dec 49, sub: Policy Regarding "Race"
Entries on Enlistment Contracts and Shipping
Articles, PPB 291.2.]
[Footnote 15-10: Idem for Administrative Asst to SA, 8
Dec 49, sub: Policy Regarding "Race" Entries on
Enlistment Contracts and Shipping Articles, OSA
291.2.]
The board's rulings, unscientific and open to all sorts of legal
complications, could only be stopgap measures, and when on 4 January
1950 the Army again requested clarification of the racial categories,
the board quickly responded. Although it continued to defend the use
of racial categories, it tried to soften the ruling by stating that an
applicant's declaration of race should be accepted, subject to
"sufficient justification" from the applicant when his declaration
created "reason to doubt." It was 5 April before the board's new
chairman, J. Thomas Schneider,[15-11] issued a revised directive to
this effect.[15-12]
[Footnote 15-11: Schneider succeeded Thomas Reid as
chairman on 2 February 1950.]
[Footnote 15-12: Memo, Chmn, PPB, for SA et al., 5 Apr
50, sub: Policy Regarding "Race" on Enlistment
Contracts and Shipping Articles, PPB 291.2.]
The board's decision to accept an applicant's declaration was simply a
return to the reasonable and practical method the Selective Service
had been using for some time. But adopting the vague qualification
"sufficient justification" invited further complaints. When the
services finally translated the board's directive into a new
regulation, the role of the applicant in deciding his racial identity
was practically abolished. In the Army and the Air Force, for (p. 384)
example, recruiters had to submit all unresolved identity cases to the
highest local commander, whose decision, supposedly based on available
documentary evidence and answers to the questions first suggested by
Congressman Holifield, was final. Further, the Army and the Air Force
decided that "no enlistment would be accomplished" until racial
identity was decided to the satisfaction of both the applicant and the
service.[15-13] The Navy adopted a similar procedure when it placed
the board's directive in effect.[15-14] The new regulation promised
little comfort for young Americans of racially mixed parentage and
even less for the services. Contrary to the intent of the Personnel
Policy Board, its directive once again placed the burden of deciding
an applicant's race, with the concomitant complaints and potential
civil suits, back on the services.
[Footnote 15-13: SR 615-105-1 (AFR 39-9), 6 Sep 50.]
[Footnote 15-14: BuPers Cir Ltr 84-50, 1 Jun 50.]
At the time the Army did not see this responsibility as a burden and
in its quest for uniformity was willing to assume an even greater
share of the decision-making in a potentially explosive issue. On 7
August the Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff, G-1, asked the Personnel
Policy Board to include Army induction centers in the directive meant
originally for recruiting centers only.[15-15] In effect the Army was
offering to assume from Selective Service the task of deciding the
race of all draftees. The board obtained the necessary agreement from
Maj. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey, and Selective Service was thus relieved of
an onerous task reluctantly acquired in 1944. On 29 August 1950 The
Adjutant General ordered induction stations to begin entering the
draftee's race in the records.[15-16]
[Footnote 15-15: Memo, Dep Asst CS/G-1 for Dep Dir of
Staff, Mil Pers, PPB, 7 Aug 50, sub: "Race" Entries
on Induction Records, PPB 291.2. The Director,
Personnel and Administration, was redesignated the
Assistant Chief of Staff, G-1, in the 1950
reorganization of the Army staff; see Hewes, _From
Root to McNamara_.]
[Footnote 15-16: Memo, Dir, PPB Staff, for Dep ACS,
G-1, 29 Aug 50, sub: "Race" Entries on Induction
Records, PPB 291.2 (27 Aug 50); Memo, Chief, Class
and Standards Br, G-1, for TAG, 6 Sep 50, same sub,
G-1 291.2 (11 Oct 49); Ltr, Dir, Selective Service,
to Actg Dir of Production Management, Munitions Bd,
27 Nov 50, copy in G-1 291.2; G-1 Memo for Rcd,
attached to G-1 DF to TAG, 28 Dec 50, same sub, G-1
291.2 (11 Oct 50).]
The considerable staff activity devoted to definitions of race between
1949 and 1951 added very little to racial harmony or the cause of
integration. The simplified racial categories and the regulations
determining their application continued to irritate members of
America's several minority groups. The ink was hardly dry on the new
regulation, for example, before the director of the NAACP's Washington
bureau was complaining to Secretary of the Air Force Thomas K.
Finletter that the department's five categories were comparatively
meaningless and caused unnecessary humiliation for inductees. He
wanted racial entries eliminated.[15-17] Finletter explained that
racial designations were not used for assignment or administrative
purposes but solely for evaluating the integration program and
answering questions from the public. His explanation prompted much
discussion within the services and correspondence between them and
Clarence Mitchell and Walter White of the NAACP. It culminated in a
meeting of the service secretaries with the Secretary of Defense (p. 385)
on 16 January 1951 at which Finletter reaffirmed his position.[15-18]
[Footnote 15-17: Ltr, Clarence Mitchell to SecAF
Thomas K. Finletter, 13 Dec 50, SecAF files.
Finletter had become secretary on 24 April 1950.]
[Footnote 15-18: Ltr, SecAF to Mitchell, Dir,
Washington Bureau, NAACP, 3 Jan 51, and Ltr,
Mitchell to Asst SecAF, 8 Jan 51, both in SecAF
files; Memo, Edward T. Dickinson, Asst to Joint
Secys, OSD, for SA et al., 17 Jan 51, OSD files.]
There was some justification for the Defense Department's position.
Many of those who found racial designations distasteful also demanded
hard statistical proof that members of minority groups were given
equal treatment and opportunity,[15-19] and such assurances, of
course, demanded racial determinations on the records. Still, not all
the reasons for retaining the racial identification entry were so
defensible. The Army, for example, had to maintain accurate statistics
on the number of Negroes inducted because of its concern with a
possible unacceptable rise in their number and the President's promise
to reimpose the quota to prevent such an increase. Whatever the
reasons, it was obvious that racial statistics had to be kept. It was
also obvious that as long as they were kept and continued to matter,
the Secretary of Defense would be saddled with the task of deciding in
the end which racial tag to attach to each man in the armed forces. It
was an unenviable duty, and it could be performed with neither
precision nor justice.
[Footnote 15-19: Memo, Dep Asst SecAF (Program
Management) for SecAF, 18 Jan 51, SecAF files;
Memo, Col Robin B. Pape, Asst to Dir, PPB Staff,
for Chmn, PPB, 4 May 51, sub: Racial Entries on
Enlistment Records, PPB 291.2.]
_Overseas Restrictions_
Another problem involving the Secretary of Defense concerned
restrictions placed on the use of black servicemen in certain foreign
areas. The problem was not new. Making a distinction in cases where
American troops were stationed in a country at the request of the
United States government, the services excluded black troops from
assignment in some Allied countries during and immediately after World
War II.[15-20] The Army, for example, barred the assignment of black
units to China (the Chinese government did not object to assignment of
individual black soldiers up to 15 percent of any unit's strength),
and the Navy removed black messmen from stations in Iceland.[15-21]
Although these restrictions did not improve the racial image of the
services, they were only a minor inconvenience to military officials
since Negroes were for the most part segregated and their placement
could be controlled easily. The armed forces continued to exclude
black servicemen from certain countries into 1949 under what the
Personnel Policy Board called "operating agreements (probably not in
writing)" with the State Department.[15-22] But the situation changed
radically when some of the services started to integrate. Efficient
administration then demanded that black servicemen be interchanged (p. 386)
freely among the various duty stations. Even in the case of the still
segregated Army the exclusion of Negroes from certain commands further
complicated the chronic maldistribution of black soldiers throughout
the service.
[Footnote 15-20: Memo, Secy, Cmte on Negro Policies,
for ASW, 26 Sep 42, sub: Digest of War Department
Policy Pertaining to Negro Military Personnel, ASW
291.2 Negro Troops.]
[Footnote 15-21: Msg, CG, China Theater, to War
Department, 16 Mar 46, G-1 291.2 (1 Jan-31 Mar 46);
Memo Vice CNO for Chief of NavPers, 1 Jul 42, sub:
Colored Personnel on Duty in Iceland--Replacement
of, P-14, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 15-22: Memo, Thomas R. Reid for Najeeb
Halaby, Dir, Office of Foreign Military Affairs,
OSD, 7 Jul 49, sub: Foreign Assignments of Negro
Personnel, PPB 291.2 (7 Jul 49).]
The interservice and departmental aspects of the problem involved
Secretary of Defense Johnson. Following promulgation of his directive
on racial equality and at the instigation of his Personnel Policy
Board and his assistant, Najeeb Halaby, Johnson asked the Secretary of
State for a formal expression of views on the use of black troops in a
lengthy list of countries.[15-23] Such an expression was clearly
necessary, as Air Force spokesmen pointed out. Informed of the
consultations, Assistant Secretary Zuckert asked that an interim
policy be formulated, so urgent had the problem become in the Air
Force where new racial policies and assignments were under way.[15-24]
[Footnote 15-23: Ltr, SecDef to Secy of State, 14 Sep
49, CD 30-1-4, SecDef files.]
[Footnote 15-24: Memo, Asst SecAF for Chmn, PPB, 16
Sep 49, sub: Assignment of Negroes to Overseas
Areas; Memo, Dir of Staff, PPB, for Asst SecAF, 28
Sep 49, same sub; Memo, Asst SecAF for Chmn, PPB,
12 Oct 49, same sub. All in SecAF files.]
For his part the Secretary of State had no objection to stationing
Negroes in any of the listed countries. In fact, Under Secretary James
E. Webb assured Johnson, the State Department welcomed the new Defense
Department policy of equal treatment and opportunity as a step toward
the achievement of the nation's foreign policy objectives. At the same
time Webb admitted that there were certain countries--he listed
specifically Iceland, Greenland, Canada, Newfoundland, Bermuda, and
British possessions in the Caribbean--where local attitudes might
affect the morale of black troops and their relations with the
inhabitants. The State Department, therefore, preferred advance
warning when the services planned to assign Negroes to these countries
so that it might consult the host governments and reduce "possible
complications" to a minimum.[15-25]
[Footnote 15-25: Ltr, James E. Webb to Louis Johnson,
17 Oct 49; Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 27 Oct 49;
both in CD 30-1-4, SecDef files.]
This policy definition did not end the matter. In the first place the
State Department decided not to restrict its list of excepted areas to
the six mentioned. While it had no objection to the assignment of
individual Negroes or nonsegregated units to Panama, the department
informally advised the Army in December 1949, it did interpose grave
objections to the assignment of black units.[15-26] Accordingly, only
individual Negroes were assigned to temporary units in the Panama
Command.[15-27]
[Footnote 15-26: DF, D/PA to D/OT, 1 Mar 50, sub:
Utilization of Negro Manpower; Ltr, D/PA for Maj
Gen Ray E. Porter, CG, USACARIB, 9 Feb 50; both in
CSGPA 291.2.]
[Footnote 15-27: G-1 Summary Sheet, 12 Apr 50, sub:
Utilization of Negro Manpower, CSGPA 291.2.]
Yet for several reasons, the services were uneasy about the situation.
The Director of Marine Corps Personnel, for example, feared that since
in the bulk reassignment of marines enlisted men were transferred by
rank and military occupational specialties only, a black marine might
be assigned to an excepted area by oversight. Yet the corps was
reluctant to change the system.[15-28] An Air Force objection was (p. 387)
more pointed. General Edwards worried that the restrictions were
becoming public knowledge and would probably cause adverse criticism
of the Air Force. He wanted the State Department to negotiate with the
countries concerned to lift the restrictions or at least to establish
a clear-cut, defensible policy. Secretary Symington discussed the
matter with Secretary of Defense Johnson, and Halaby, knowing Deputy
Under Secretary of State Dean Rusk's particular interest in having men
assigned without regard to race, agreed to take the matter up with
Rusk.[15-29] Secretary of the Navy Francis P. Matthews reminded
Johnson that black servicemen already numbered among the thousands of
Navy men assigned to four of the six areas mentioned, and if the
system continued these men would periodically and routinely be
replaced with other black sailors. Should the Navy, he wanted to know,
withdraw these Negroes? Given the "possible unfavorable reaction" to
their withdrawal, the Navy wanted to keep Negroes in these areas in
approximately their present numbers.[15-30] Both the Fahy Committee
and the Personnel Policy Board made it clear that they too wanted
black servicemen retained wherever they were currently assigned.[15-31]
[Footnote 15-28: Memo, Dir of Personnel, USMC, for
Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, 22 Dec 49, Hist
Div, HQMC.]
[Footnote 15-29: Memo, Dep CS/Pers for SecAF, 28 Dec
49; Memo, Clarence H. Osthagen, Asst to SecAF, for
Asst SecAF, 6 Jan 50; Rcd of Telecon, Halaby with
Zuckert, 10 Jan 50. All in SecAF files.]
[Footnote 15-30: Memo, SecNav for SecDef, 3 Jan 50,
sub: Foreign Assignment of Negro Personnel, CD
30-1-4, SecDef files.]
[Footnote 15-31: Memo, NEH (Halaby) for Maj Gen J. H.
Burns, 10 Feb 50, attached to Ltr, Burns to Rusk,
13 Feb 50, CD 30-1-4, SecDef files.]
Maj. Gen. James H. Burns, Secretary Johnson's assistant for foreign
military affairs, put the matter to the State Department, and James
Evans followed up by discussing it with Rusk. Reassured by these
consultations, Secretary Johnson issued a more definitive policy
statement for the services on 5 April explaining that "the Department
of State endorses the policy of freely assigning Negro personnel or
Negro or non-segregated units to any part of the world to which US
forces are sent; it is prepared to support the desires of the
Department of Defense in this respect."[15-32] Nevertheless, since
certain governments had from time to time indicated an unwillingness
to accept black servicemen, Johnson directed the services to inform
him in advance when black troops were to be dispatched to countries
where no blacks were then stationed so that host countries might be
consulted. This new statement produced immediate reaction in the
services. Citing a change in policy, the Air Force issued directives
opening all overseas assignments except Iceland to Negroes. After an
extended discussion on the assignment of black troops to the Trieste
(TRUST) area, the Army followed suit.[15-33]
[Footnote 15-32: Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 5 Apr 50,
sub: Foreign Assignment of Negro Personnel; Ltr,
Dean Rusk to Maj Gen Burns, 1 Mar 50; Memo, Burns
for SecDef, 3 Apr 50. All in CD 30-1-4, SecDef
files.]
[Footnote 15-33: DF, ACS, G-1, for CSA, 3 Dec 52, sub:
Restricted Distribution of Negro Personnel; ibid.,
30 Mar 53, sub: Assignment of Negro Personnel to
TRUST; both in CS 291.2 Negroes. See also Memo,
ACS, G-1, for TAG, 24 Apr 53, sub: Assignment of
Negro Personnel, AG 291.2 (13 Apr 53); Memo, ASecAF
for SecDef, 28 Apr 50, sub: Foreign Assignment of
Negro Personnel, CD 30-1-4, SecDef files.]
Yet the problem refused to go away, largely because the services
continued to limit foreign assignment of black personnel, particularly
in attache offices, military assistance advisory groups, and military
missions. The Army's G-3, for example, concluded in 1949 that, (p. 388)
while the race of an individual was not a factor in determining
eligibility for a mission assignment, the attitude of certain
countries (he was referring to certain Latin American countries) made
it advisable to inform the host country of the race of the prospective
applicant. For a host country to reject a Negro was undesirable, he
concluded, but for a Negro to be assigned to a country that did not
welcome him would be embarrassing to both countries.[15-34] When the
chief of the military mission in Turkey asked the Army staff in 1951
to reconsider assigning black soldiers to Turkey because of the
attitude of the Turks, the Army canceled the assignment.[15-35]
[Footnote 15-34: G-3 Summary Sheet, 15 Nov 49, sub:
Assignment of Negro Personnel, G-3 291.2.]
[Footnote 15-35: Msg, Chief, JAMMAT, Ankara, Turkey,
to DA, personal for the G-1, 14 Apr 51; Ltr, Brig
Gen W. E. Dunkelberg to Maj Gen William H. Arnold,
Chief, JAMMAT, 24 Apr 51; idem to Brig Gen John B.
Murphy, G-1 Sec, EUCOM, 24 April 51. All in G-1
291.2.]
[Illustration: 25TH DIVISION TROOPS UNLOAD TRUCKS AND EQUIPMENT _at
Sasebo Railway Station, Japan, for transport to Korea, 1950_.]
Undoubtedly certain countries objected to the assignment of American
servicemen on grounds of race or religion, but there were also
indications that racial restrictions were not always made at the
behest of the host country.[15-36] In 1957 Congressman Adam Clayton
Powell protested that Negroes were not being assigned to the (p. 389)
offices of attaches, military assistance advisory groups, and military
missions.[15-37] In particular he was concerned with Ethiopia, whose
emperor had personally assured him that his government had no race
restrictions. The Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army admitted that
Negroes were barred from Ethiopia, and although documentary evidence
could not be produced, the ban was thought to have been imposed at the
request of the United Nations. The State Department claimed it was
unaware of any such ban, nor could it find documentation to support
the Army's contention. It objected neither to the assignment of
individual Negroes to attache and advisory offices in Ethiopia nor to
"most" other countries.[15-38] Having received these assurances, the
Department of Defense informed the services that "it was considered
appropriate" to assign black servicemen to the posts discussed by
Congressman Powell.[15-39] For some time, however, the notion
persisted in the Department of Defense that black troops should not be
assigned to Ethiopia.[15-40] In fact, restrictions and reports of
restrictions against the assignment of Americans to a number of
overseas posts on grounds of race or religion persisted into the
1970's.[15-41]
[Footnote 15-36: Jack Greenberg, _Race Relations and
American Law_ (New York: Columbia University Press,
1959), pp. 359-60.]
[Footnote 15-37: Memo, Dep ASA for ASD/ISA, 6 Feb 57,
sub: Racial Assignment Restrictions, OSA 291.2
Ethiopia.]
[Footnote 15-38: Ltr, Dep Asst Secy of State for
Personnel to Dep ASD (MP&R), 24 May 57, OASD (MP&R)
291.2.]
[Footnote 15-39: Memo, Dep ASD for ASA (MP&R) et al.,
24 Jun 57, ASD (MP&R) 291.2.]
[Footnote 15-40: Memo, James C. Evans for Paul Hopper,
ISA, 29 Oct 58; Memo for Rcd, Exec to Civilian
Asst, OSD, 21 Jan 60, sub: MAAG's and Missions,
copies of both in CMH.]
[Footnote 15-41: See AFM 35-11L, Appendix M, 14 Dec
60, sub: Assignment Restrictions; Memo, USMC IG for
Dir of Pers, MC, 31 Aug 62, sub: Problem Area at
Marine Barracks, Argentia, Hist Div, HQMC. See also
New York _Times_, December 5, 1959 and November 16,
17, and 18, 1971.]
_Congressional Concerns_
Congress was slow to see that changes were gradually transforming the
armed services. In its special preelection session, the Eightieth
Congress ignored the recently issued Truman order on racial equality
just as it ignored the President's admonition to enact a general civil
rights program. But when the new Eighty-first Congress met in January
1949 the subjects of armed forces integration, the Truman order, and
the Fahy Committee all began to receive attention. Debate on race in
the services occurred frequently in both houses. Each side appealed to
constitutional and legal principles to support its case, but the
discussions might well have remained a philosophical debate if the
draft law had not come up for renewal in 1950. The debate focused
mostly on an amendment proposed by Senator Richard B. Russell of
Georgia that would allow inductees and enlistees, upon their written
declaration of intent, to serve in a unit manned exclusively by
members of their own race. Russell had made this proposal once before,
but because it seemed of little consequence to the still largely
segregated services of 1948 it was ignored. Now in the wake of the
executive order and the Fahy Committee Report, the amendment came to
sudden prominence. And when Russell succeeded in discharging the draft
bill with his amendment from the Senate Armed Forces Committee with
the members' unanimous approval, civil rights supporters quickly (p. 390)
jumped to the attack. Even before the bill was formally introduced on
the floor, Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon told his colleagues that the
Russell amendment conflicted with the stated policy of the
administration as well as with sound Republican principles. He cited
the waste of manpower the amendment would bring about and reminded his
colleagues of the international criticism the armed forces had endured
in the past because of undemocratic social practices.[15-42]
[Footnote 15-42: _Congressional Record_, 81st Cong.,
2d sess., vol. 96, p. 8412.]
When debate began on the amendment, Senator Leverett Saltonstall of
Massachusetts was one of the first to rise in opposition. While
confessing sympathy for the states' rights philosophy that recognized
the different customs of various sections of the nation, he branded
the Russell amendment unnecessary, provocative, and unworkable, and
suggested Congress leave the services alone in this matter. To support
his views he read into the record portions of the Fahy Committee
Report, which represented, he emphasized, the judgment of impartial
civilians appointed by the President, another civilian.[15-43]
[Footnote 15-43: Ibid., pp. 8973, 9073.]
Discussion of the Russell amendment continued with opponents and
defenders raising the issues of military efficiency, legality, and
principles of equality and states' rights. In the end the amendment
was defeated 45 to 27 with 24 not voting, a close vote if one
considers that the abstentions could have changed the outcome.[15-44]
A similar amendment, this time introduced by Congressman Arthur
Winstead of Mississippi, was also defeated in 1951.
[Footnote 15-44: Ibid., p. 9074; see also Memo, Rear
Adm H. A. Houser, OSD Legis Liaison, for ASD
Rosenberg, 17 Mar 51, sub: Winstead
Anti-nonsegregation Amendment, SD 291.2.]
The Russell amendment was the high point of the congressional fight
against armed forces integration. During the next year the
integrationists took their turn, their barrage of questions and
demands aimed at obtaining from the Secretary of Defense additional
reforms in the services. On balance, these congressmen were no more
effective than the segregationists. Secretary Johnson had obviously
adopted a hands-off policy on integration.[15-45] Certainly he openly
discouraged further public and congressional investigations of the
department's racial practices. When the Committee Against Jim Crow
sought to investigate racial conditions in the Seventh Army in
December 1949, Johnson told A. Philip Randolph and Grant Reynolds that
he could not provide them with military transport, and he closed the
discussion by referring the civil rights leaders to the Army's new
special regulation on equal opportunity published in January
1950.[15-46]
[Footnote 15-45: See Ltrs, Rep. Kenneth B. Keating to
Johnson, 19 Dec 49; SecDef to Keating, 20 Jan 50;
idem to Hubert H. Humphrey, 24 Mar 50; Humphrey to
SecDef, 28 Feb 50; Rep. Jacob Javits to Johnson, 22
Dec 49; Draft Ltr, SecDef to Javits, 16 Jan 50 (not
sent); Memos, Leva for Johnson, 12 and 17 Jan 50.
All in SD 291.2 Negroes.]
[Footnote 15-46: Ltrs, Johnson to Reynolds, 23 Dec 49;
Reynolds to Johnson, 13 Jan 50; Reynolds and
Randolph to Johnson, 15 Jan 50; Johnson to Reynolds
and Randolph, 6 Feb 50. The Committee Against Jim
Crow was particularly upset with Johnson's
assistants, Leva and Evans; see Ltrs, Reynolds to
Johnson, 19 Dec 49; Leva to Niles, 7 Feb 50;
Reynolds to Evans, 13 Jan 50. All in SD 291.2.]
[Illustration: ASSISTANT SECRETARY ROSENBERG _talks with men of the
140th Medium Tank Battalion during a Far East tour_.]
Johnson employed much the same technique when Congressman Jacob (p. 391)
K. Javits of New York, who with several other legislators had become
interested in the joint congressional-citizen commission proposed by
the Committee Against Jim Crow, introduced a resolution in the House
calling for a complete investigation into the racial practices and
policies of the services by a select House committee.[15-47] Johnson
tried to convince Chairman Adolph J. Sabath of the House Committee on
Rules that the new service policies promised equal treatment and
opportunity, again using the new Army regulation to demonstrate how
these policies were being implemented.[15-48] Once more he succeeded
in diverting the integrationists. The Javits resolution came to
naught, and although that congressman still harbored some reservations
on racial progress in the Army, he nevertheless reprinted an article
from _Our World_ magazine in the _Congressional Record_ in April 1950
that outlined "the very good progress" being made by the Secretary (p. 392)
of Defense in the racial field.[15-49] Javits would have no
reason to suspect, but the "very good progress" he spoke of had not
issued from the secretary's office. For all practical purposes,
Johnson's involvement in civil rights in the armed forces ended with
his battle with the Fahy Committee. Certainly in the months after the
committee was disbanded he did nothing to push for integration and
allowed the subject of civil rights to languish.
[Footnote 15-47: Ltr, Javits to Johnson, 22 Dec 49;
Press Release, Jacob K. Javits, 12 Jan 50; Ltr,
Javits to Johnson, 24 Jan 50. Other legislators
expressed interest in the joint commission idea;
see Ltrs, Saltonstall to Johnson, 11 Jan 50; Sen.
William Langer to Johnson, 29 Oct 49; Henry C.
Lodge to Johnson, 30 Nov 49. All in SD 291.2. See
also Ltr, Javits to author, with attachments, 28
Oct 71, CMH files.]
[Footnote 15-48: Ltr, SecDef to Chmn, Cmte on Rules,
21 Mar 50, SD 291.2 (21 Mar 50).]
[Footnote 15-49: _Congressional Record_, 81st Cong.,
2d sess., pp. A3267-68; Memo, Leva for Johnson, 9
May 50; Ltr, Johnson to Javits, 18 May 50; both in
SecDef files. See also Ltr, Javits to author, 28
Oct 71.]
Departmental interest in racial affairs quickened noticeably when
General Marshall, Johnson's successor, appointed the brilliant labor
relations and manpower expert Anna M. Rosenberg as the first Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Personnel.[15-50] Rosenberg had
served on both the Manpower Consulting Committee of the Army and Navy
Munitions Board and the War Manpower Commission and toward the end of
the war in the European theater as a consultant to General Eisenhower,
who recommended her to Marshall for the new position.[15-51] She was
encouraged by the secretary to take independent control of the
department's manpower affairs, including racial matters.[15-52] That
she was well acquainted with integration leaders and sympathetic to
their objectives is attested by her correspondence with them. "Dear
Anna," Senator Hubert H. Humphrey wrote in March 1951, voicing
confidence in her attitude toward segregation, "I know I speak for
many in the Senate when I say that your presence with the Department
of Defense is most reassuring."[15-53]
[Footnote 15-50: Carl W. Borklund, _Men of the
Pentagon_ (New York: Praeger, 1966), pp. 121-24;
Ltr, Anna Rosenberg Hoffman to author, 23 Sep 71;
Interv, author with James C. Evans, 13 Sep 71; both
in CMH files.]
[Footnote 15-51: Immediately before her appointment as
the manpower assistant, Rosenberg was a public
member of the Committee on Mobilization Policy of
the National Security Resources Board and a special
consultant on manpower problems to the chairman of
the board, Stuart Symington.]
[Footnote 15-52: Interv, author with Davenport, 17 Oct
71.]
[Footnote 15-53: Ltr, Humphrey to Rosenberg, 7 Mar 51,
SD 291.2.]
Still, to bring about effective integration of the services would take
more than a positive attitude, and Rosenberg faced a delicate
situation. She had to reassure integrationists that the new racial
policy would be enforced by urging the sometimes reluctant services to
take further steps toward eliminating discrimination. At the same time
she had to promote integration and avoid provoking the segregationists
in Congress to retaliate by blocking other defense legislation. The
bill for universal military training was especially important to the
department and to push for its passage was her primary assignment. It
is not surprising, therefore, that she accomplished little in the way
of specific racial reform during the first year of the Korean War.
Secretary Rosenberg took it upon herself to meet with legislators
interested in civil rights to outline the department's current
progress and future plans for guaranteeing equal treatment for black
servicemen. She also arranged for her assistants and Brig. Gen. B. M.
McFayden, the Army's Deputy G-1, to brief officials of the various
civil rights organizations on the same subject.[15-54] She had
congressional complaints and proposals speedily investigated, and (p. 393)
demanded from the services periodic progress reports which she issued
to legislators who backed civil rights.[15-55]
[Footnote 15-54: See Memo for Rcd, Maj M. O. Becker,
G-1, 13 Mar 51, G-1 291.2; Ltrs, Granger to Leva,
25 Jan 51, Leva to Granger, 13 Feb 51, Clarence
Mitchell, NAACP, to Rosenberg, 26 Mar 51, last
three in SD 291.2. Legislators attending these
briefings included Senators Lehman, William Benton
of Connecticut, Humphrey, John Pastore of Rhode
Island, and Kilgore.]
[Footnote 15-55: See Ltrs, Humphrey to Rosenberg, 10
Mar 51; Rosenberg to Humphrey, 26 Mar 51; Javits to
SecDef, 10 Mar 51; Marshall to Javits, 30 Mar 51;
Memo, Leva for Rosenberg, 23 Mar 51; Ltrs,
Rosenberg to Douglas, Humphrey, Benton, Kilgore,
Lehman, and Javits, 26 Jun 51; Memo, Rosenberg for
SA, 16 May 51, sub: Private Lionel E. Bolin. All in
SD 291.2. See also DF, ACS, G-1, to CSA, 6 Apr 51,
sub: Summary of Advances in Utilization of Negro
Manpower, CS 291.2 Negroes.]
Rosenberg and her departmental colleagues were less forthcoming in
some other areas of civil rights. Reflecting a desire to placate
segregationist forces in Congress, they did little, for example, to
promote federal protection of servicemen in cases of racial violence
outside the military reservation. The NAACP had been urging the
passage of such legislation for many years, and in March 1951 Clarence
Mitchell called Rosenberg's attention to the mistreatment of black
servicemen and their families suffered at the hands of policemen and
civilians in communities surrounding some military bases.[15-56] At
times, Walter White charged, these humiliations and abuses by
civilians were condoned by military police. He warned that such
treatment "can only succeed in adversely affecting the morale of Negro
troops ... and hamper efforts to secure fullhearted support of the
American Negro for the Government's military and foreign policy
program."[15-57]
[Footnote 15-56: Ltr, Mitchell to Rosenberg, 26 Mar
51, SD 291.2.]
[Footnote 15-57: Telgs, White to Marshall and SA, 9
Jan 51, copy in SD 291.2.]
The civil rights leaders had at least some congressional support for
their demand. Congressman Abraham J. Multer of New York called on the
Armed Services Committee to include in the 1950 extension of the
Selective Service Act an amendment making attacks on uniformed men and
women and discrimination against them by public officials and in
public places of recreation and interstate travel federal
offenses.[15-58] Focusing on a different aspect of the problem,
Senator Humphrey introduced an amendment to the Senate version of the
bill to protect servicemen detained by public authority against civil
violence or punishment by extra legal forces. Both amendments were
tabled before final vote on the bill.[15-59]
[Footnote 15-58: _Congressional Record_, 81st Cong.,
2d sess., vol. 96, p. A888.]
[Footnote 15-59: Ibid., p. 904. For the Army's
opposition to these proposals, see Memo ACofS, G-1,
for CofS, 12 Apr 50, sub: Department of the Army
Policies re Segregation and Utilization of Negro
Manpower, G-1 291.2 (5 Apr 50).]
The matter came up again in the next Congress when Senator Herbert H.
Lehman of New York offered a similar amendment to the universal
military training bill.[15-60] Commenting for his department,
Secretary Marshall admitted that defense officials had been supporting
such legislation since 1943 when Stimson asked for help in protecting
servicemen in the civilian community. But Marshall was against linking
the measure to the training bill, which, he explained to Congressman
Franck R. Havenner of California, was of such fundamental importance
that its passage should not be endangered by consideration of
extraneous issues. He wanted the problem of federal protection
considered as a separate piece of legislation.[15-61]
[Footnote 15-60: Memo for Rcd, Maj M. O. Becker, G-1,
13 Mar 51, G-1 291.2.]
[Footnote 15-61: Ltr, SecDef to Havenner, 27 Mar 51,
SecDef files.]
But evidently not just yet, for when the NAACP's Mitchell, (p. 394)
referring to Marshall's letter to Congressman Havenner, asked
Rosenberg to press for separate legislation, he was told that since
final congressional action was still pending on the universal military
training and reserve programs it was not an auspicious moment for
action on a federal protection bill.[15-62] The department's
reluctance to act in the matter obviously involved more than concern
with the fate of universal military training. Summing up department
policy on 1 June, the day after the training bill passed the House,
Rosenberg explained that the Department of Defense would not itself
propose any legislation to extend to servicemen the protection
afforded "civilian employees" of the federal government but would
support such a proposal if it came from "any other source."[15-63]
This limitation was further defined by Rosenberg's colleagues in the
Defense Department. On 19 June the Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Legal and Legislative Affairs, Daniel K. Edwards, rejected Mitchell's
request for help in preparing the language of a bill to protect black
servicemen. Mitchell had explained that discussions with congressional
leaders convinced the NAACP that chances for such legislation were
favorable, but the Defense Department's Assistant General Counsel
declared the department did not ordinarily act "as a drafting service
for outside agencies."[15-64] In fact, effective legislation to
protect servicemen off military bases was more than a decade away.
[Footnote 15-62: Ltr, Mitchell to Rosenberg, 16 Apr
51; Ltr, Rosenberg to Mitchell, 9 May 51; both in
SD 291.2.]
[Footnote 15-63: Memo, ASD (MP&R) for ASD (Legal and
Legis Affairs), 14 Jun 51, SD 291.1; PL 51, 82d
Congress.]
[Footnote 15-64: Ltr, Mitchell, Dir, Washington Br,
NAACP, to Dir of Industrial Relations, DOD, 25 May
51; Ltr, ASD (Legal and Legis Affairs) to Mitchell,
19 Jun 51; Memo, Asst Gen Counsel, OSD, for ASD
(Legal and Legis Affairs), 19 Jun 51. All in SD
291.2.]
Despite her concern over possible congressional opposition, Rosenberg
achieved one important reform during her first year in office. For
years the Army's demand for a parity of enlistment standards had been
opposed by the Navy and the Air Force and had once been rejected by
Secretary Forrestal. Now Rosenberg was able to convince Marshall and
the armed services committees that in times of manpower shortages the
services suffered a serious imbalance when each failed to get its fair
share of recruits from the various so-called mental categories.[15-65]
Her assistant, Ralph P. Sollat, prepared a program for her
incorporating Roy K. Davenport's specific suggestions. The program
would allow volunteer enlistments to continue but would require all
the services to give a uniform entrance test to both volunteers and
draftees. (Actually, rather than develop a completely new entrance
test, the other services eventually adopted the Army's, which was
renamed the Armed Forces Qualification Test.) Sollat also devised an
arrangement whereby each service had to recruit men in each of the
four mental categories in accordance with an established quota.
Manpower experts agreed that this program offered the best chance to
distribute manpower equally among the services. Approved by Secretary
Marshall on 10 April 1951 under the title Qualitative Distribution of
Military Manpower Program, it quickly changed the intellectual
composition of the services by obliging the Navy and Air Force to
share responsibility with the Army for the training and employment (p. 395)
of less gifted inductees. For the remainder of the Korean War, for
example, each of the services, not just the Army, had to take 24
percent of its new recruits from category IV, the low-scoring group.
This figure was later reduced to 18 percent and finally in 1958 to 12
percent.[15-66]
[Footnote 15-65: Ltr, Anna Rosenberg Hoffman to
author, 23 Sep 71.]
[Footnote 15-66: BuPers Study, Pers A 1224 (probably
Jan 59), GenRecsNav.]
The Navy and the Air Force had always insisted their high minimum
entrance requirements were designed to maintain the good quality of
their recruits and had nothing to do with race. Roy Davenport believed
otherwise and read into their standards an intent to exclude all but a
few Negroes. Rosenberg saw in the new qualitative distribution program
not only the chance to upgrade the Army but also a way of "making sure
that the other Services had their proper share of Negroes."[15-67]
Because so many Negroes scored below average in achievement tests and
therefore made up a large percentage of the men in category IV, the
new program served Rosenberg's double purpose. Even after discounting
the influence of other factors, statistics suggest that the imposition
of the qualitative distribution program operated just as Rosenberg and
the Fahy Committee before her had predicted. (_Table 3_)
[Footnote 15-67: Interv, author with Davenport, 17 Oct
71; and Ltr, Anna Rosenberg Hoffman to author, 23
Sep 71.]
Table 3--Percentage of Black Enlisted Men and Women
Service 1 July 1949 1 July 1954 1 July 1956
Army 12.4 13.7 12.8
Navy 4.7 3.6 6.3
Air Force 5.1 8.6 10.4
Marine Corps 2.1 6.5 6.5
_Source_: Memo for Rcd, ASD/M, 12 Sep 56, sub: Integration
Percentages, ASD(M) 291.2.
The program had yet another consequence: it destroyed the Army's best
argument for the reimposition of the racial quota. Upset over the
steadily rising number of black enlistments in the early months of the
Korean War, the Army's G-1 had pressed Secretary Pace in October 1950,
and again five months later with G-3 concurrence, to reinstate a
ceiling on black enlistments. Assistant Secretary Earl D. Johnson
returned the request "without action," noting that the new qualitative
distribution program would produce a "more equitable" solution.[15-68]
The President's agreement with Secretary Gray about reimposing a quota
notwithstanding, it was highly unlikely that the Army could have done
so without returning to the White House for permission, and when in
May 1951 the Army staff renewed its demand, Pace considered asking the
White House for a quota on Negroes in category IV. After consulting
with Rosenberg on the long-term effects of qualitative distribution of
manpower, however, Pace agreed to drop the matter.[15-69]
[Footnote 15-68: G-1 Summary Sheet with incl, 13 Mar
51, sub: Negro Strength in the Army; Memo, ASA for
CofS, 13 Apr 51, same sub; both in CS 291.2 Negroes
(13 Mar 51).]
[Footnote 15-69: Memo, Actg CofS for SA, 31 May 51,
sub: Present Overstrength in Segregated Units; G-1
Summary Sheet for CofS, 26 May 51, same sub; Draft
Memo, Frank Pace, Jr., for President; Memo, ASA for
SA, 1 Jul 51. All in G-1 291.2 (26 May 51).]
Executive Order 9981 passed its third anniversary in July 1951 (p. 396)
with little having happened in the Office of the Secretary of Defense
to lift the hearts of the champions of integration. The race issues
with which the Secretary of Defense concerned himself in these
years--the definition of race, the status of black servicemen
overseas, even the parity of enlistment standards--while no doubt
important in the long run to the status of the Negro in the armed
forces, had little to do with the immediate problem of segregation.
Secretary Johnson had done nothing to enforce the executive order in
the Army and his successor achieved little more. Willing to let the
services set the pace of reform, neither secretary substantially
changed the armed forces' racial practices. The integration process
that began in those years was initiated, appropriately enough perhaps,
by the services themselves.
CHAPTER 16 (p. 397)
Integration in the Air Force and the Navy
The racial reforms instituted by the four services between 1949 and
1954 demonstrated that integration was to a great extent concerned
with effective utilization of military manpower. In the case of the
Army and the Marine Corps the reforms would be delayed and would
occur, finally, on the field of battle. The Navy and the Air Force,
however, accepted the connection between military efficiency and
integration even before the Fahy Committee began to preach the point.
Despite their very dissimilar postwar racial practices, the Air Force
and the Navy were facing the same problem. In a period of reduced
manpower allocations and increased demand for technically trained men,
these services came to realize that racial distinctions were imposing
unacceptable administrative burdens and reducing fighting efficiency.
Their response to the Fahy Committee was merely to expedite or revise
integration policies already decided upon.
_The Air Force, 1949-1951_
The Air Force's integration plan had gone to the Secretary of Defense
on 6 January 1949, committing that service to a major reorganization
of its manpower. In a period of severe budget and manpower
retrenchment, the Air Force was proposing to open all jobs in all
fields to Negroes, subject only to the individual qualifications of
the men and the needs of the service.[16-1] To ascertain these needs
and qualifications the Director of Personnel Planning was prepared to
screen the service's 20,146 Negroes (269 officers and 19,877 airmen),
approximately 5 percent of its strength, for the purpose of
reassigning those eligible to former all-white units and training
schools and dropping the unfit from the service.[16-2] As Secretary of
the Air Force Symington made clear, his integration plan would be
limited in scope. Some black service units would be retained; the rest
would be eliminated, "thereby relieving the Air Force of the critical
problems involved in manning these units with qualified
personnel."[16-3]
[Footnote 16-1: Memo, ASecAF for Symington, 25 Mar 49,
sub: Salient Factors of Air Force Policy Regarding
Negro Personnel, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 16-2: Negro strength figures as of 5 April
1949. Ltr, ASecAF to Robert Harper, Chief Clerk,
House Armed Services Cmte, 5 Apr 49, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 16-3: Memo, Symington for Forrestal, 6 Jan
49, SecAF files.]
In the end the integration process was not a drawn-out one; much of
Symington's effort in 1949 was devoted instead to winning approval
for the plan. Submitted to Forrestal on 6 January 1949, it was (p. 398)
slightly revised after lengthy discussions in both the Fahy Committee
and the Personnel Policy Board and in keeping with the Defense
Secretary's equal treatment and opportunity directive of 6 April 1949.
Some further delay resulted from the Personnel Policy Board's abortive
attempt to achieve an equal opportunity program common to all the
services. The Air Force plan was not finally approved by the Secretary
of Defense until 11 May. Some in the Air Force were worried about the
long delay in approval. As early as 12 January the Chief of Staff
warned Symington that budget programming for the new 48-wing force
required an early decision on the plan, especially in regard to the
inactivation of the all-black wing at Lockbourne. Further delay, he
predicted, would cause confusion in reassignment of some 4,000
troops.[16-4] In conversation with the Secretary of Defense, Symington
mentioned a deadline of 31 March, but Assistant Secretary Zuckert was
later able to assure Symington that the planners could tolerate a
delay in the decision over integration until May.[16-5]
[Footnote 16-4: Memo, Hoyt S. Vandenberg, CofS, USAF,
for SecAF, 12 Jan 49, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 16-5: Memo, SecAF for Forrestal, 17 Feb 49;
Memo, ASecAF for Symington, 24 Mar 49, sub:
Lockbourne AFB; both in SecAF files.]
By then the long official silence had produced serious consequences,
for despite the lack of any public announcement, parts of the plan had
leaked to the press and caused some debate in Congress and
considerable dissatisfaction among black servicemen. Congressional
interest in the internal affairs of the armed forces was always of
more than passing concern to the services. When a discussion of the
new integration plan appearing in the Washington _Post_ on 29 March
caused a flurry of comment on Capitol Hill, Zuckert's assistant,
Clarence H. Osthagen, met with the clerk of the House Armed Services
Committee to "explain and clarify" for the Air Force. The clerk,
Robert Harper, warned Osthagen that the impression in the House was
that a "complete intermingling of Negro and white personnel was to
take place" and that Congressman Winstead of Mississippi had been
tempted to make a speech on the subject. Still, Harper predicted that
there would be no adverse criticism of the plan in the House "at this
time," adding that since that body had already passed the Air Force
appropriation Chairman Carl Vinson was generally unconcerned about the
Air Force racial program. Reporting on Senate reaction, Harper noted
that while many members of the upper house would have liked to see the
plan deferred, they recognized that the President's order made change
mandatory. At any rate, Harper reassured Osthagen, the announcement of
an integration plan would not jeopardize pending Air Force
legislation.[16-6]
[Footnote 16-6: Memo for Files, Osthagen, Asst to
ASecAF, 13 Apr 49, SecAF files.]
Unfortunately, the Air Force's black personnel were not so easily
reassured, and the service had a morale problem on its hands during
the spring of 1949. As later reported by the Fahy Committee staff,
black troops generally supported the inactivation of the all-black
332d Fighter Wing at Lockbourne as a necessary step toward
integration, but news reports frequently linked the disbandment of
that unit to the belt tightening imposed on the Air Force by the 1950
budget. Some Negroes in the 332d concluded that the move was not (p. 399)
directed at integration but at saving money for the Air Force.[16-7]
They were concerned lest they find themselves relegated to unskilled
labor units despite their training and experience. This fear was not
so farfetched, considering Zuckert's private prediction that the
redistribution of Lockbourne men had to be executed exactly according
to the proposed program or "we would find experienced Air Force Negro
technical specialists pushing wheelbarrows or driving trucks in Negro
service units."[16-8]
[Footnote 16-7: Ltr, Joseph H. Evans, Assoc Exec Secy,
Fahy Cmte, to Fahy Cmte, 23 Jun 49, FC file. See
also "U.S. Armed Forces: 1950," _Our World 5_ (June
1950):11-35.]
[Footnote 16-8: Draft Memo, Zuckert for Symington, 15
Feb 49, sub: Air Force Policies on Negro Personnel
(not sent), SecAF files.]
The truth was that, while most Negroes in the Air Force favored
integration, some were disturbed by the prospect of competition with
whites of equivalent rank that would naturally follow. Many of the
black officers were overage in grade, their proficiency geared to the
F-51, a wartime piston plane, and they were the logical victims of any
reduction in force that might occur in this period of reduced military
budgets.[16-9] Some men doubted that the new program, as they
imperfectly understood it, would truly integrate the service. They
could, for example, see no way for the Air Force to break through what
the press called the "community patterns" around southern bases, and
they were generally suspicious of the motives of senior department
officials. The Pittsburgh _Courier_ summarized this attitude by
quoting one black officer who expressed doubt "that a fair program
will be enforced from the top echelon."[16-10]
[Footnote 16-9: Washington _Post_, April 4, 1949; USAF
Oral History Program, Interview with Lt Col Spann
Watson (USAF, Ret.), 3 Apr 73.]
[Footnote 16-10: Pittsburgh _Courier_, January 22,
1949.]
But such suspicions were unfounded, for the Air Force's senior
officials were determined to enforce the new program both fairly and
expeditiously. General Vandenberg, the Chief of Staff, reported to the
War Council on 11 January that the Air Force would "effect full and
complete implementation" of its integration plan not only by issuing
the required directives and orders, but also by assigning
responsibility for monitoring the worldwide implementation of the
program to his deputy for personnel. The Chief of Staff also planned
to call a meeting of his senior commanders to discuss and solve
problems rising from the plan and impress on them the personal
attention they must give to carrying it out in the field.[16-11]
[Footnote 16-11: Memo, Vandenberg, CofS, USAF, for
SecAF, 12 Jan 49, SecAF files.]
The Air Force Commanders' Conference, assembled on 12 April 1949,
heard Lt. Gen. Idwal Edwards, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel,
explain the genesis of the integration plan and outline its major
provisions. He mentioned two major steps to be taken in the first
phase of the program. First, the 332d Fighter Wing would be
inactivated on or before 30 June, and all blacks would be removed from
Lockbourne. The commander of the Continental Air Command would create
a board of Lockbourne officers to screen those assigned to the
all-black base, dividing them into three groups. The skilled and
qualified officers and airmen would be reassigned worldwide to white
units "just like any other officers or airmen of similar skills (p. 400)
and qualifications." General Edwards assumed that the number of men in
this category would not be large. Some 200 officers and 1,500 airmen,
he estimated, would be found sufficiently qualified and proficient for
such reassignment. He added parenthetically that Colonel Davis
understood the "implications" of the new policy and intended to
recommend only an individual "of such temperament, judgment, and
common sense that he can get along smoothly as an individual in a
white unit, and second, that his ability is such as to warrant respect
of the personnel of the unit to which he is transferred."
The technically unqualified but still "usable" men would be reassigned
to black service units. The staff recognized, General Edwards added,
that some Negroes were unsuited for assignment to white units for
"various reasons" and had specifically authorized the retention of
"this type of Negro" in black units. Finally, those who were found
neither qualified nor useful would be discharged under current
regulations.
The second major action would be taken at the same time as the first.
All commands would similarly screen their black troops with the object
of reassigning the skilled and qualified to white units and
eliminating the chronically unqualified. At the same time racial
quotas for recruitment and school attendance would be abolished.
Henceforth, blacks would enter the Air Force under the same standards
as whites and would be classified, assigned, promoted, or eliminated
in accordance with rules that would apply equally to all. "In other
words," Edwards commented, "no one is either helped or hindered
because of the color of his skin; how far or how fast each one goes
depends upon his own ability." To assure equal treatment and
opportunity, he would closely monitor the problem. Edwards admitted
that the subject of integrated living quarters had caused discussion
in the staff, but based on the Navy's years of good experience with
integrated quarters and bolstered by the probability that the number
of Negroes in any white unit would rarely exceed 1 percent, the staff
saw no need for separate sleeping accommodations.
General Edwards reminded the assembled commanders that, while
integration was new to the Air Force, the Navy had been following a
similar policy for years, encountering no trouble, even in the Deep
South where black troops as well as the nearby civilian communities
understood that when men left the base they must conform to the laws
and customs of the community. And as a parting shot he made the
commanders aware of where the command responsibility lay:
There will be frictions and incidents. However, they will be
minimized if commanders give the implementation of this policy
their personal attention and exercise positive command control.
Unless our young commanders are guided and counselled by the
senior commanders in unbiased implementation, we may encounter
serious troubles which the Navy has very ably avoided. It must
have your _personal attention and personal control_.[16-12]
[Footnote 16-12: Lt Gen I. H. Edwards, "Remarks on
Major Personnel Problems Presented to USAF
Commanders' Conference Headquarters, USAF," 12 Apr
49, SecAF files. Italics in the original.]
Compelling reasons for reform notwithstanding, the effectiveness of
an integration program would in the end depend on the attitude and
initiative of the local commander. In the Air Force's case the (p. 401)
ultimate effectiveness owed much to the fact that the determination of
its senior officials was fully explained and widely circulated
throughout the service. As Lt. Gen. Daniel (Chappie) James, Jr., later
recalled, those who thought to frustrate the process were well aware
that they risked serious trouble if their opposition was discovered by
the senior commanders. None of the obvious excuses for preserving the
racial _status quo_ remained acceptable after Vandenberg and Edwards
made their positions clear.[16-13]
[Footnote 16-13: USAF Oral History Program, Interview
with Lt Gen Daniel James, Jr., 2 Oct 73. James was
to become the first four-star black officer in the
armed forces.]
The fact that the control of the new plan was specifically made a
personal responsibility of the senior commanders spoke well for its
speedy and efficient execution. This was the kind of talk commanders
understood, and as the order filtered down to the lower echelons its
terms became even more explicit.[16-14] "Direct attention to this
changed condition is required throughout the Command," Maj. Gen.
Laurence S. Kuter notified his subordinate commanders at the Military
Air Transport Service. "Judgment, leadership, and ingenuity are
demanded. Commanders who cannot cope with the integration of Negroes
into formerly white units or activities will have no place in the Air
Force structure."[16-15]
[Footnote 16-14: Ltr, Marr to author, 19 Jun 70.]
[Footnote 16-15: MATS Hq Ltr No. 9, 1 May 49, SecAF
files.]
The order itself, as approved by the Secretary of Defense on 11 May
1949 and published on the same day as Air Force Letter 35-3, was
unmistakable in intent and clearly spelled out a new bill of rights
for Negroes in the Air Force.[16-16] The published directive differed
in some respects from the version drafted by the Chief of Staff in
January. Despite General Edwards's comments at the commanders'
conference in April, the provision for allowing commanders to
segregate barracks "if considered necessary" was removed even before
the plan was first forwarded to the Secretary of Defense. This
deletion was made in the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force,
probably by Zuckert.[16-17] Later Zuckert commented, "I wouldn't want
to give the commanders that kind of sweeping power. I would be afraid
of how it might be exercised."[16-18] From the beginning, black airmen
were billeted routinely in the living quarters of the units to which
they were assigned.
[Footnote 16-16: AF Ltr 35-3, 11 May 49. Effective
until 11 May 1950, the order was superseded by a
new but similar letter, AF Ltr 35-78, on 14
September 1950.]
[Footnote 16-17: Memo, ASecAF for Symington, 12 Jan
49, AF Negro Affairs 49, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 16-18: USAF Oral Hist Interv with Zuckert.]
The final version of the directive also deleted reference to a 10
percent limitation on black strength in formerly white units. Zuckert
had assured the Fahy Committee this limitation was designed to
facilitate, not frustrate, the absorption of Negroes into white units,
and Edwards even agreed that given the determination of Air Force
officials to make a success of their program, the measure was probably
unnecessary.[16-19] In the end Zuckert decided to drop any reference
to such limitations "because of the confusion that seemed to arise
from this statement."[16-20]
[Footnote 16-19: Testimony of Zuckert and Edwards,
USAF, Before the Fahy Committee, 28 Mar 49,
afternoon session, pp. 7-8.]
[Footnote 16-20: Memo, ASecAF for Symington, 29 Apr
49, sub: Department of the Air Force Implementation
of the Department of Defense Policy on Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services,
SecAF files.]
[Illustration: ASSISTANT SECRETARY ZUCKERT.]
Zuckert also deleted several clauses in the supplementary letter (p. 402)
to Air Force commanders that was to accompany and explain the order.
These clauses had listed possible exemptions from the new order: one
made it possible to retain a man in a black unit if he was one of the
"key personnel" considered necessary for the successful functioning of
a black unit, and the other allowed the local commander to keep those
Negroes he deemed "best suited" for continued assignment to black
units. The free reassignment of all eligible Negroes, particularly the
well-qualified, was essential to the eventual dissolution of the
all-black units. The Fahy Committee had objected to these provisions
and considered it important for the Air Force to delete them,[16-21]
but the matter was not raised during the committee hearings. There is
evidence that the deletions were actually requested by the Secretary
of Defense's Personnel Policy Board, whose influence in the
integration of the Air Force is often overlooked.[16-22]
[Footnote 16-21: _Freedom to Serve_, pp. 37-38.]
[Footnote 16-22: Memo, SecAF for Chmn, PPB, 30 Apr 49,
copy in FC file. McCoy and Ruetten, _Quest and
Response_, p. 223, call the deletion a victory for
the committee.]
The screening of officers and men at Lockbourne got under way on 17
May. A board of officers under the presidency of Col. Davis, the
commander of Lockbourne, and composed of representatives of Air Force
headquarters, the Continental Air Command, and the Air Training
Command, and important officers of Lockbourne, interviewed every
officer in the wing. After considering each man's technical training,
his performance, and his career field preference, the board
recommended him for reassignment in a specific duty field. Although
Edwards had promised that the screening boards would also judge each
man's "adaptability" to integrated service, this requirement was
quickly dropped by Davis and his fellow board members.[16-23] In fact,
the whole idea of having screening boards was resented by some black
officers. Zuckert later admitted that the screening may have been a
mistake, but at the time it had been considered the best mechanism for
ascertaining the proper assignment for the men.[16-24]
[Footnote 16-23: USAF Oral Hist Interv with Davis.]
[Footnote 16-24: USAF Oral Hist Interv with Zuckert.]
At the same time, a screening team in the Air Training Command gave a
written examination to Lockbourne's more than 1,100 airmen and WAF's
to determine if they were in appropriate military occupational
specialties. A team of personnel counselors interviewed all (p. 403)
airmen, weighed test scores, past performances, qualifications outside
of assigned specialty, and choices of a career field, and then placed
them in one of three categories. First, they could be earmarked for
general reassignment in a specific military occupational specialty
different from the one they were now in; second, they could be
scheduled for additional or more advanced technical training; or
third, they could be trained in their current specialties. The
screeners referred marginal or extraordinary cases to Colonel Davis's
board for decision.[16-25]
[Footnote 16-25: NME Fact Sheet No. 105-49, 27 Jul
49.]
Concurrently with the Lockbourne processing, individual commanders
established similar screening procedures wherever black airmen were
then assigned. All these teams uncovered a substantial number of men
and women considered eligible for further training or reassignment.
(_Table 4_)
Table 4--Disposition of Black Personnel at Eight Air Force Bases, 1949
Percentages
Total Asgmt to Asgmt to Asgmt to Recom for
Base Tested Instr Tech Present Board
Duty School MOS Action
Lockbourne
Male 970 .32 12.08 64.64 22.98
Female 58 0.00 25.86 55.17 18.97
Lackland 247 1.62 20.65 67.61 10.12
Barksdale 158 0.00 20.25 65.82 13.93
Randolph 252 2.38 26.19 57.14 14.29
Waco 146 2.06 30.14 57.53 10.27
Mather 126 .79 27.78 40.48 30.95
Williams 144 8.33 21.53 39.58 30.56
Goodfellow 122 .82 36.89 40.89 21.31
Total 2,223 1.35 19.61 59.20 19.84
_Source_: President's Cmte on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in
the Armed Forces, "A First Report on the Racial Integration Program of
the Air Force," 6 Feb 50, FC file.
The process of screening Lockbourne's troops was quickly completed,
but the process of reassigning them was considerably more drawn-out.
The reassignments were somewhat delayed in the first place by
indecision, caused by budgetary uncertainties, on the future of
Lockbourne itself. By 25 July, a full two months after the screening
began, the Lockbourne board had recommended only 181 officers and 700
airmen to Air Force headquarters for new assignment. A short time
later, however, Lockbourne was placed on inactive status and its
remaining men and women, with the exception of a small caretaker
detachment, were quickly reassigned throughout the Air Force.
The staff had predicted that the speed with which the integration
order was carried out would follow a geographical pattern, with
southern bases the last to integrate, but in fact no special pattern
prevailed. For the many Negroes assigned to all-black base squadrons
for administrative purposes but serving on a day-to-day basis in
integrated units, the change was relatively simple. These men had
already demonstrated their ability to perform their duties competently
under integration, and in conformity with the new order most (p. 404)
commanders immediately assigned them to the units in which they were
already working. Except for their own squadron overhead, some base
service squadrons literally disappeared when these reassignments were
effected. After the screening process, most commanders also quickly
reassigned troops serving in the other all-black units, such as
Squadron F's, air ammunition, motor transport, vehicle repair, signal
heavy construction, and aviation engineer squadrons.[16-26]
[Footnote 16-26: "Report on the First Year of
Implementation of Current Policies Regarding Negro
Personnel," Incl to Memo, Maj Gen Richard E. Nugent
for ASecAF, 14 Jul 50, sub: Distribution of Negro
Personnel, PPB 291.2 (9 Jul 50) (hereafter referred
to as Marr Report). See also USAF Oral Hist Interv
with Marr.]
There were of course a few exceptions. Some commanders, noticeably
more cautious than the majority, began the integration process with
considerably less ease and speed.[16-27] As late as January 1950, for
example, the Fahy Committee's executive secretary found that, with the
exception of a small number of Negroes assigned to white units, the
black airmen at Maxwell Air Force Base were still assigned to the
all-black 3817th Base Service Squadron, the only such unit he found,
incidentally, in a tour of seven installations.[16-28] But as the
months went by even the most cautious commander, learning of the
success of the new policy in other commands, began to reassign his
black airmen according to the recommendations of the screening board.
Despite the announcement that some black units would be retained,
practically all units were integrated by the end of the first year of
the new program. Even using the Air staff's very restricted definition
of a "Negro unit," that is, one whose strength was over 50 percent
black, statistics show how radical was the change in just one year.
(_Table 5_)
[Footnote 16-27: USAF Oral Hist Interv with Davis.]
[Footnote 16-28: President's Committee on Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Forces, "A
First Report on the Racial Integration Program of
the Air Force," 6 Feb 50, FC file (hereafter cited
as Kenworthy Report).]
Table 5--Racial Composition of Air Force Units
Negroes Assigned Negroes Assigned
Month Black Integrated to Black to Integrated
Units Units Units Units[1]
1949
June 106 167 Not available Not available
July 89 350 14,609 7,369
August 86 711 11,921 11,977
September 91 863 11,521 13,290
October 88 1,031 9,522 15,980
November 75 1,158 8,038 17,643
December 67 1,253 7,402 18,489
1950
January 59 1,301 6,773 18,929
February 36 1,399 5,511 20,654
March 26 1,476 5,023 20,938
April 24 1,515 4,728 20,793
May 24 1,506 4,675 21,033
[Tablenote 1: Figures extracted from the Marr
Report; see also monthly reports on AF integration,
for example Memo, Dir, Pers Plng, for Osthagen
(SecAF office), 10 Mar 50, sub: Distribution of
Negro Personnel, SecAF files.]
Despite the predictions of some analysts, the effect of (p. 405)
integration on black recruitment proved to be negligible. In a service
whose total strength remained about 415,000 men during the first year
of integration, Negroes numbered as follows (_Table 6_):
Table 6--Black Strength in the Air Force
Percentage
Officer Enlisted of Air Force
Date Strength[1] Strength[1] Strength
December 1948 Not available Not available 6.5
June 1949 319 (47) 21,782 (2,196) 6.0
August 1949 330 (32) 23,568 (2,275) 6.5
December 1949 368 (18) 25,523 (3,072) 7.2
May 1950 341 (8) 25,367 (2,611) 7.1
[Tablenote 1: Includes in parentheses the Special
Category Army Personnel with Air Force (SCARWAF),
those soldiers assigned for duty in the Air Force
but still administratively under the segregated
Army, leftovers from the Department of Defense
reorganization of 1947. Figures extracted from Marr
Report.]
The Air staff explained that the slight surge in black recruits in the
early months of integration was related less to the new policy than to
the abnormal recruiting conditions of the period. In addition to the
backlog of Negroes who for some time had been trying to enlist only to
find the Air Force quota filled, there were many black volunteers who
had turned to the quota-free Air Force when the Army, its quota of
Negroes filled for some time, stopped recruiting Negroes.
With Negroes serving in over 1,500 separate units there was no need to
invoke the 10 percent racial quota in individual units as Vandenberg
had ordered. One notable exception during the first months of the
program was the Air Training Command, where the rapid and unexpected
reassignment of many black airmen caused some bases, James Connally in
Texas, for example, to acquire a great many Negroes while others
received few or none. To prevent a recurrence of the Connally
experience and "to effect a smooth operation and proper adjustment of
social importance," the commander of the Air Training Command imposed
an 8 to 10 percent black quota on his units and established a
procedure for staggering the assignment of black airmen in small
groups over a period of thirty to sixty days instead of assigning them
to any particular base in one large increment. These quotas were not
applied to the basic training flights, which were completely
integrated. It was not uncommon to find black enlistees in charge of
racially mixed training flights.[16-29] Of all Air Force
organizations, the Training Command received the greatest number of
black airmen as a result of the screening and reassignment. (_Table 7_)
[Footnote 16-29: ATC, "History of ATC, July-December
1949," I:29-31; New York _Times_, September 18,
1949.]
Table 7--Racial Composition of the Training Command, December 1949 (p. 406)
A. Flight Training
_Percent_
_White_ _Black_ _Black_
Officers 1,345 11 .8
Enlisted 2,063 22 1.0
Total 3,408 33 .9
B. Technical Training
Officers 1,897 37 1.9
Enlisted 25,838 1,819 6.5
Total 27,735 1,856 6.0
C. Indoctrination (Basic) Training
White 7,649
Black 1,007
Total 8,656
Percent black 11.6[a]
D. Officers Candidate Training
(candidates graduating from
28 November through 26
December 1949)
White 225
Black 7
Total 232
Percent black 3.0
E. Course Representation
_Base_ _No. of Courses_[b] _No. of Courses
with Blacks_
Chanute 31 21
Warren 11 10
Keesler 16 7
Lowry 23 13
Scott 6 4
Sheppard 4 1
[Tablenote a: In January 1950, probably as a result
of a decline in backlog and the raising of
enlistment standard to GCT 100, this percentage
dropped to 8.8.]
[Tablenote b: Negroes in 61 percent of the courses
offered as of 26 Dec 1949.]
_Source_: Kenworthy Report.
At the end of the first year under the new program, the Acting Deputy
Chief of Staff for Personnel, General Nugent, informed Zuckert that
integration had progressed "rapidly, smoothly and virtually without
incident."[16-30] In view of this fact and at Nugent's recommendation,
the Air Force canceled the monthly headquarters check on the program.
[Footnote 16-30: Memo, Actg DCSPER for Zuckert, 14 Jul
50, USAF file No. 3370, SecAF files.]
To some extent the Air Force's integration program ran away with
itself. Whatever their personal convictions regarding discrimination,
senior Air Force officials had agreed that integration would be
limited. They were most concerned with managerial problems associated
with continued segregation of the black flying unit and the black
specialists scattered worldwide. Other black units were not considered
an immediate problem. Assistant Secretary Zuckert admitted as much in
March 1949 when he reported that black service units would be retained
since they performed a "necessary Air Force function."[16-31] As
originally conceived, the Air Force plan was frankly imitative of the
Navy's postwar program, stressing merit and ability as the limiting
factors of change. The Air Force promised to discharge all its
substandard men, but those black airmen either ineligible for
discharge or for reassignment to specialist duty would remain in
segregated units.
[Footnote 16-31: Memo, ASecAF for Symington, 25 Mar
49, sub: Salient Factors of Air Force Policy
Regarding Negro Personnel, SecAF files.]
Yet once begun, the integration process quickly became universal. By
the end of 1950, for example, the Air Force had reduced the number of
black units to nine with 95 percent of its black airmen serving in
integrated units. The number of black officers rose to 411, an (p. 407)
increase of 10 percent over the previous year, and black airmen to
25,523, an increase of 15 percent, although the proportion of blacks
to whites continued to remain between 6 and 7 percent.[16-32] Some
eighteen months later only one segregated unit was left, a 98-man
outfit, itself more than 26 percent white. Negroes were then serving
in 3,466 integrated units.[16-33]
[Footnote 16-32: _Air Force Times_, 10 February 1951.
These figures do not take into account the SCARWAF
(Army personnel) who continued to serve in
segregated units within the Air Force.]
[Footnote 16-33: Memo, DepSecAF for Manpower and
Organizations for ASD/M, 5 Sep 52, SecAF files.]
There were several reasons for the universal application of what was
conceived as a limited program. First, the Air Force was in a sense
the captive of its own publicity. While Secretary Symington had
carefully delineated the limits of his departmental plan for the
Personnel Policy Board in January 1949, he was carried considerably
beyond these limits when he addressed President Truman in the open
forum of the Fahy Committee's first formal meeting:
As long as you mentioned the Air Force, sir, I just want to
report to you that our plan is to completely eliminate
segregation in the Air Force. For example, we have a fine group
of colored boys. Our plan is to take those boys, break up that
fine group, and put them with the other units themselves and go
right down the line all through these subdivisions one hundred
percent.[16-34]
[Footnote 16-34: Transcript of the Meeting of the
President and the Four Service Secretaries With the
President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and
Opportunity in the Armed Services, 12 Jan 49, FC
file, which reports the President's response as
being "That's all right."]
Later, Symington told the Fahy Committee that while the new program
would probably temporarily reduce Air Force efficiency "we are ready,
willing, and anxious to embark on this idea. We want to eliminate the
fundamental aspect of class in this picture."[16-35] Clearly, the
retention of large black units was incompatible with the elimination
of class distinctions.
[Footnote 16-35: Testimony of the Secretary of the Air
Force Before the Fahy Committee, 28 Mar 49,
afternoon session, p. 33.]
The more favorable the publicity garnered by the plan in succeeding
months, the weaker the distinction became between the limited
integration of black specialists and total integration. Reinforcing
the favorable publicity were the monthly field reports that registered
a steady drop in the number of black units and a corresponding rise in
the number of integrated black airmen. This well-publicized progress
provided another, almost irresistible reason for completing the task.
More to the point, the success of the program provided its own impetus
to total integration. The prediction that a significant number of
black officers and men would be ineligible for reassignment or further
training proved ill-founded. The Air Force, it turned out, had few
untrainable men, and after the screening process and transfer of those
eligible was completed, many black units were so severely reduced in
strength that their inactivation became inevitable. The fear of white
opposition that had inhibited the staff planners and local commanders
also proved groundless. According to a Fahy Committee staff report
in March 1950, integration had been readily accepted at all levels
and the process had been devoid of friction. "The men," E. W. (p. 408)
Kenworthy reported, "apparently were more ready for equality of
treatment and opportunity than the officer corps had realized."[16-36]
At the same time, Kenworthy noted the effect of successful integration
on the local commanders. Freed from the charges of discrimination that
had plagued them at every turn, most of the commanders he interviewed
remarked on the increased military efficiency of their units and the
improved utilization of their manpower that had come with integration.
They liked the idea of a strictly competitive climate of equal
standards rigidly applied, and some expected that the Air Force
example would have an effect, eventually, on civilian attitudes.[16-37]
[Footnote 16-36: Kenworthy Report, as quoted and
commented on in Memo, Worthington Thompson
(Personnel Policy Board staff) for Leva, 9 Mar 50,
sub: Some Highlights of Fahy Committee Report on
Air Force Racial Integration Program, SD 291.2.]
[Footnote 16-37: Ltr, Kenworthy to Zuckert, 5 Jan 50,
SecAF files.]
[Illustration: MUSIC MAKERS _of the U.S. Far East Air Force prepare to
celebrate Christmas, Korea, 1950_.]
For the Air Force, it seemed, the problem of segregation was all over
but for the celebrating. And there was plenty of that, thanks to the
Fahy Committee and the press. In a well-publicized tour of a cross
section of Air Force installations in early 1950, Kenworthy surveyed
the integration program for the committee. His favorable report won
the Air Force laudatory headlines in the national press and formed the
core of the Air Force section of the Fahy Committee's final report,
_Freedom to Serve_.[16-38] For its part, the black press covered the
program in great detail and gave its almost unanimous approval. As
early as July 1949, for example, Dowdal H. Davis, president of the
Negro Newspaper Publishers Association, reported on the highly
encouraging reaction to the breakup of the 332d, and the headlines
reflected this attitude: "The Air Force Leads the Way," the Chicago
_Defender_ headlined; "Salute to the Air Force," the Minneapolis
_Spokesman_ editorialized; and "the swiftest and most amazing upset of
racial policy in the history of the U.S. Military," _Ebony_ concluded.
Pointing to the Air Force program as the best, the Pittsburgh
_Courier_ called the progress toward total integration "better than
most dared hope."[16-39]
[Footnote 16-38: See, for example, the Washington
_Post_, March 27, 1950.]
[Footnote 16-39: Press reaction summarized in Memo,
James C. Evans for PPB, 19 Jan 50, PPB 291.2. See
also, Ltr, Dowdal Davis, Gen Manager of the Kansas
City _Call_, to Evans, 9 Jul 49, SD 291.2; Memo,
Evans for SecAF, 5 Jul 49; and Memo, Zuckert for
SecAF, 2 Aug 49, both in SecAF files; Chicago
_Defender_, June 18, 1949; Minneapolis _Spokesman_,
January 13, 1950; _Ebony_ Magazine, 4 (September
1949):15; Pittsburgh _Courier_, July 25, 1952;
Detroit _Free Press_, May 14, 1953.]
General Vandenberg and his staff were well aware of the rapid and (p. 409)
profound change in the Air Force wrought by the integration order.
From the start his personnel chief carefully monitored the program and
reviewed the reports from the commands, ready to investigate any
racial incidents or differences attributable to the new policy. The
staff had expected a certain amount of testing of the new policy by
both white and black troops, and with few exceptions the incidents
reported turned out to be little more than that. Some arose from
attempts by Negroes to win social acceptance at certain Air Force
installations, but the majority of cases involved attempts by white
airmen to introduce their black comrades into segregated off-base
restaurants and theaters. Two examples might stand for all. The first
involved a transient black corporal who stopped off at the Bolling Air
Force Base, Washington, D.C., to get a haircut in a post exchange
barbershop. He was refused service and in the absence of the post
exchange officer he returned to the shop to trade words and eventually
blows with the barber. The corporal was subsequently court-martialed,
but the sentence was set aside by a superior court.[16-40] Another
case involved a small group of white airmen who ordered refreshments
at a segregated lunch counter in San Antonio, Texas, for themselves
"and a friend who would join them later." The friend, of course, was a
black airman. The Inspector General reported this incident to be just
one of a number of attempts by groups of white and black airmen to
integrate lunch counters and restaurants. In each case the commanders
concerned cautioned their men against such action, and there were few
reoccurrences.[16-41]
[Footnote 16-40: Memo, IG, USAF, for ASecAF, 25 Jul
49, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 16-41: Idem for DCSPER, 7 Sep 49, copy in
SecAF files; see also ACofS, G-2, Fourth Army, Ft.
Sam Houston, Summary of Information, 7 Sep 49, copy
in SA 291.2.]
The commanders' warnings were understandable because, as any official
from Secretary Symington on down would quickly explain, the Air Force
did not regard itself as being in the business of forcing changes in
American society; it was simply trying to make the best use of its
manpower to build military efficiency in keeping with its national
defense mission.[16-42] But in the end the integration order proved
effective on both counts. Racial feelings, racial incidents, charges
of discrimination, and the problems of procurement, training, and
assignment always associated with racially designated units had been
reduced by an appreciable degree or eliminated entirely. The problems
anticipated from the mingling of blacks and whites in social
situations had proved to be largely imaginary. The Air Force adopted a
standard formula for dealing with these problems during the next
decade. Incidents involving black airmen were treated as individual
incidents and dealt with on a personal basis like any ordinary
disciplinary case. Only when there was no alternative was an incident
labeled "racial" and then the commander was expected to deal speedily
and firmly with the troublemakers.[16-43] This sensible procedure
freed the Air Force for a decade from the charges of on-base
discrimination that had plagued it in the past.
[Footnote 16-42: See, for example, Memo, SecAF for
SecDef, 17 Feb 49; Ltr, SecAF to Sen. Burnet R.
Maybank, 21 Jul 49; both in SecAF files.]
[Footnote 16-43: Memo, Evans, OSD, for Worthington
Thompson, 18 May 53, sub: Summary of Topics
Reviewed in Thompson's office 15 May 53, SD 291.2.]
[Illustration: MAINTENANCE CREW, _462d Strategic Fighter Squadron,
disassembles aft section of an F-84 Thunderstreak_.]
Without a doubt the new policy improved the Air Force's manpower (p. 410)
efficiency, as the experience of the 3202d Installation Group
illustrates. A segregated unit serving at Eglin Air Force Base,
Florida, the 3202d was composed of an all-black heavy maintenance and
construction squadron, a black maintenance repair and utilities
squadron, and an all-white headquarters and headquarters squadron.
This rigid segregation had caused considerable trouble for the unit's
personnel section, which was forced to assign men on the basis of
color rather than military occupational specialty. For example, a
white airman with MOS 345, a truck driver, although assigned to the
unit, could not be assigned to the heavy maintenance and construction
squadron where his specialty was authorized but had to be assigned to
the white headquarters squadron where his specialty was not
authorized. Clearly operating in an inefficient manner, the unit was
charged with misassignment of personnel by the Air Inspector; in July
1950 it was swiftly and peaceably, if somewhat belatedly, integrated,
and its three squadrons were converted to racially mixed units,
allowing an airman to be assigned according to his training and not
his color.[16-44]
[Footnote 16-44: History Officer, 3202d Installations
Groups, "History of the 3202d Installations Group,
1 July-31 October 1950," Eglin AFB, Fla., pp. 8-9.]
The preoccupation of high officials with the effects of integration on
a soldier's social life seemed at times out of keeping with the issues
of national defense and military efficiency. At one of the Fahy
Committee hearings, for instance, an exasperated Charles Fahy asked
Omar Bradley, "General, are you running an Army or a dance?"[16-45]
Yet social life on military bases at swimming pools, dances, bridge
parties, and service clubs formed so great a part of the fabric of
military life that the Air Force staff could hardly ignore the
possibility of racial troubles in the countless social exchanges that
characterized the day-to-day life in any large American institution.
The social situation had been seriously considered before the new
racial policy was approved. At that time the staff had predicted that
problems developing out of integration would not prove insurmountable,
and indeed on the basis of a year's experience a member of the Air
staff declared that (p. 411)
at the point where the Negro and the white person are actually in
contact the problem has virtually disappeared. Since all races of
Air Force personnel work together under identical environmental
conditions on the base, it is not unnatural that they participate
together, to the extent that they desire, in certain social
activities which are considered a normal part of service life.
This type of integration has been entirely voluntary, without
incident, and considerably more complete and more rapid than was
anticipated.[16-46]
[Footnote 16-45: This off-the-record comment occurred
during the committee hearings in the Pentagon and
was related to the author by E. W. Kenworthy in
interview on 17 October 1971. See also Memo,
Kenworthy to Brig Gen James L. Collins, Jr., 13 Oct
76, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 16-46: Marr Report.]
[Illustration: JET MECHANICS _work on an F-100 Supersabre, Foster Air
Force Base, Texas_.]
The Air staff had imposed only two rules on interracial social
activities: with due regard for sex and rank all Air Force facilities
were available for the unrestricted use of all its members;
troublemakers would get into trouble. Under these inflexible rules,
the Fahy Committee later reported, there was a steady movement in the
direction of shared facilities. "Here again, mutual respect engendered
on the job or in the school seemed to translate itself into friendly
association."[16-47] Whether it liked it or not, the Air Force was in
the business of social change.
[Footnote 16-47: _Freedom to Serve_, p. 41.]
Typical of most unit reports was one from the commander of the 1701st
Air Transport Wing, Great Falls Air Force Base, Montana, who wrote
Secretary Symington that the unit's eighty-three Negroes, serving in
ten different organizations, lived and worked with white airmen "on an
apparently equal and friendly basis."[16-48] The commander had been
unable to persuade local community leaders, however, to promote
equality of treatment outside the base, and beyond its movie theaters
Great Falls had very few places that allowed black airmen. The
commander was touching upon a problem that would eventually trouble
all the services: airmen, he reported to Secretary Symington, although
they have good food and entertainment on the base, sooner or later
want to go to town, sit at a table, and order what they want. The Air
Force was now coming into conflict with local custom which it could
see no way to control. As the _Air Force Times_ put it, "The Air
Force, like the other services, feels circumspect policy in this
regard is the only advisable one on the grounds that off-base
segregation is a matter for civilian rather than military
decision."[16-49]
[Footnote 16-48: Ltr, Col Paul H. Prentiss, Cmdr,
1701st AT Wing, to SecAF, 27 Dec 49, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 16-49: _Air Force Times_, 10 February 1951.]
But this problem could not detract from what had been accomplished on
the bases. Judged by the standards it set for itself before the Fahy
Committee, the Air Force had achieved its goals. Further, they (p. 412)
were achieved in the period between 1949 and 1956 when the percentage
of blacks in the service doubled, an increase resulting from the
Defense Department's qualitative distribution of manpower rather than
the removal of the racial quota.[16-50] During these years the number
of black airmen rose from 5.1 to 10.4 percent of the enlisted strength
and the black officers from 0.6 to 1.1 percent. Reviewing the
situation in 1960, _Ebony_ noted that the program begun in 1949 was
working well and that white men were accepting without question
progressive racial practices forbidden in their home communities.
Minor racial flare-ups still occurred, but integration was no longer a
major problem in the Air Force; it was a fact of life.[16-51]
[Footnote 16-50: Memo for Rcd, ADS(M), 12 Sep 56, sub:
Integration Percentages, ADS(M) 291.2. For further
discussion of the qualitative distribution program,
see Navy section, below.]
[Footnote 16-51: "Integration in the Air Force
Abroad," _Ebony_ 15 (March 1960):27.]
_The Navy and Executive Order 9981_
The changing government attitude toward integration in the late 1940's
had less dramatic effect on the Navy than upon the other services
because the Navy was already the conspicuous possessor of a racial
policy guaranteeing equal treatment and opportunity for all its
members. But as the Fahy Committee and many other critics insisted,
the Navy's 1946 equality guarantee was largely theoretical; its major
racial problem was not one of policy but of practice as statistics
demonstrated. It was true, for example, that the Navy had abolished
racial quotas in recruitment, yet the small number of black
sailors--17,000 during 1949, averaging 4.5 percent of the total
strength--made the absence of a quota academic.[16-52] It was true
that Negroes served side by side with white sailors in almost every
occupation and training program in the Navy, but it was also a fact
that 62 percent of all Negroes in the Navy in 1949 were still assigned
to the nonwhite Steward's Branch. This figure shows that as late as
December 1949 fewer than 7,000 black sailors were serving in racially
integrated assignments.[16-53] Again, with only 19 black officers,
including 2 nurses, in a 1949 average officer strength of 45,464, it
meant little to say that the Navy had an integrated officer corps. A
shadow had fallen, then, between the promise of the Navy's policy and
its fulfillment, partly because of indifferent execution.
[Footnote 16-52: Unless otherwise noted all statistics
are from information supplied by the Bureau of
Naval Personnel. The exact percentage on 1 July
1949 was 4.7; see Memo for Rcd, ASD(M), 12 Sep 56,
sub: Integration Percentages, ASD(M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 16-53: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Under
SecNav, 5 Dec 49, sub: Proposed Report to Chairman
Personnel Policy Board Regarding the Implementation
of Executive Order 9981, Pers 21, GenRecsNav.]
Submitted to and approved by the Secretary of Defense, the new Navy
plan announced on 7 June 1949 called for a specific series of measures
to bring departmental practices into line with policy.[16-54] Once he
had gained Johnson's approval, Secretary of the Navy Matthews did not
tarry. On 23 June he issued an explicit statement to all ships and
stations, abjuring racial distinctions in the Navy and Marine (p. 413)
Corps and ordering that all personnel be enlisted or appointed,
trained, advanced or promoted, assigned and administered without
regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.[16-55] Admirable
and comprehensive, Matthew's statement scarcely differed in intent
from his predecessor's general declaration of equal treatment and
opportunity of 12 December 1945 and the more explicit directive of the
Chief of Naval Operations on the same subject on 27 February 1946. Yet
despite the close similarity, a reiteration was clearly necessary. As
even the most ardent apologist for the navy's postwar racial policy
would admit, these groundbreaking statements had not done the job,
and, to satisfy the demands of the Fahy Committee and the Secretary of
Defense, Secretary Matthews had to convince his subordinates that the
demand for equal treatment and opportunity was serious and had to be
dealt with immediately. His specific mention of the Marine Corps and
the problems of enlistment, assignment, and promotion, subjects
ignored in the earlier directives, represented a start toward the
reform of his department's racial practices currently out of step with
its expressed policy.
[Footnote 16-54: Memo, SecNav for SecDef, 23 May 49,
sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the
Armed Forces, copy in FC file.]
[Footnote 16-55: ALNAV 447-49, which remained in force
until 23 March 1953 when SecNav Instruction 1000.2
superseded it without substantial change.]
Yet a restatement of policy, no matter how specific, was not enough.
As Under Secretary Dan A. Kimball admitted, the Navy had the
formidable task of convincing its own people of the sincerity of its
policy and of erasing the distrust that had developed in the black
community "resulting from past discriminating practices."[16-56] Those
who were well aware of the Navy's earlier failure to achieve
integration by fiat were bound to greet Secretary Matthews's directive
with skepticism unless it was accompanied by specific reforms.
Matthews, aware of the necessity, immediately inaugurated a campaign
to recruit more black sailors, commission more black officers, and
remove the stigma attached to service in the Steward's Branch.
[Footnote 16-56: Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22
Dec 49, sub: Implementation of Executive Order
9981, PPB 291.2.]
It was logical enough to start a reform of the Navy's integration
program by attacking the perennial problem of too few Negroes in the
general service. In his annual report to the Secretary of Defense,
Matthews outlined some of the practical steps the Navy was taking to
attract more qualified young blacks. The Bureau of Naval Personnel, he
explained, planned to assign black sailors and officers to its
recruiting service. As a first step it assigned eight Negroes to
Recruitment Procurement School and subsequently to recruit duty in
eight major cities with further such assignments planned when current
manpower ceilings were lifted.[16-57]
[Footnote 16-57: SecNav, Annual Report to SecDef, FY
1949, p. 230; Memo, Under SecNav Chmn, PPB, 22 Dec
49, sub: Implementation of Executive Order 9981,
PPB 291.2.]
The Bureau of Naval Personnel had also polled black reservists on the
possibility of returning to active duty on recruiting assignments, and
from this group had chosen five officers for active duty in the New
York, Philadelphia, Washington, Detroit, and Chicago recruiting
offices. At the same time black officers and petty officers were sent
to extol the advantages of a naval career before black student (p. 414)
bodies and citizen groups.[16-58] Their performances were exceedingly
well received. The executive secretary of the Dayton, Ohio, Urban
League, for example, thanked Secretary Matthews for the appearances of
Lieutenant Nelson before groups of students, reporters, and community
leaders in the city. The lieutenant, he added, not only "clearly and
effectively interpreted the opportunities open to Negro youth in the
United States Navy" but also "greatly accelerated" the community's
understanding of the Navy's integration program.[16-59] Nelson,
himself, had been a leading advocate of an accelerated public
relations program to advertise the opportunities for Negroes in the
Navy.[16-60] The personnel bureau had adopted his suggestion that all
recruitment literature, including photographs testifying to the fact
that Negroes were serving in the general service, be widely
distributed in predominantly black institutions. Manpower ceilings,
however, had forced the bureau to postpone action on Nelson's
suggestion that posters, films, pamphlets, and the like be
used.[16-61]
[Footnote 16-58: Memo, Dir, Recruiting Div, BuPers,
for Admin Aide to SecNav, 22 Dec 50, sub: Negro
Officer in Recruiting on the West Coast; Ltr,
SecNav to Actg Exec Dir, Urban League, Los Angeles,
22 Dec 50; both in Pers B6, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 16-59: Ltr, Charles W. Washington, Exec
Secy, Dayton, Ohio, Urban League, to SecNav, 19 Oct
50, copy in Pers 1376, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 16-60: Memo, Nelson for Charles Durham, Fahy
Committee, sub: Implementation of Proposed Navy
Racial Policy, 17 Jun 49, FC file.]
[Footnote 16-61: Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22
Dec 49, sub: Implementation of Executive Order
9981, PPB 291.2.]
An obvious concomitant to the increase in the number of black sailors
was an increase in the number of black officers. The personnel bureau
was well aware of this connection; Comdr. Luther C. Heinz, officer in
charge of naval reserve officer training, called the shortage of
Negroes in his program a particularly important problem. He promised,
"in accord with the desires of the President," as he put it, to
increase black participation in the Naval Reserve Officers' Training
Corps, and his superior, the Chief of Naval Personnel, started a
program in the bureau for that purpose.[16-62] With the help of the
National Urban League, Heinz arranged a series of lectures by black
officers at forty-nine black schools and other institutions to
interest Negroes in the Navy's reserve officers program. In August
1949, for example, Ens. Wesley Brown, the first Negro to be graduated
from Annapolis, addressed gatherings in Chicago on the opportunities
for Negroes as naval officers.[16-63]
[Footnote 16-62: Memo, Off in Charge, NROTC Tng, for
Chief, Plans & Policy Div, BuPers, 14 Jul 49, sub:
NROTC Personnel Problems, Pers 424, BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 16-63: Ltr, Granger to Chief, NavPers, 3 Aug
49, Pers 42, BuPersRecs.]
At the same time the Bureau of Naval Personnel wrote special press
releases, arranged interviews for naval officials with members of the
black press, and distributed publicity materials in predominantly
black schools to attract candidates and to assure interested young men
that race was no bar to their selection. In this connection Commander
Heinz bid for and received an invitation to address the Urban League's
annual conference in August 1949 to outline the Navy's program.
The Chief of Naval Personnel, Rear Adm. Thomas L. Sprague, also (p. 415)
arranged for the training of all those engaged in promoting the
program--professors of naval science, naval procurement officers, and
the like. In states where such assignments were considered acceptable,
Sprague planned to appoint Negroes to selection committees.[16-64] In
a related move he also ordered that when local law or custom required
the segregation of facilities used for the administration of
qualifying tests for reserve officer training, the Navy would use its
own facilities for testing. This ruling was used when the 1949
examinations were given in Atlanta and New Orleans; to the delight of
the black press the Navy transferred the test site to its nearby
facilities.[16-65] These efforts had some positive effect. In 1949
alone some 2,700 black youths indicated an interest in the Naval
Reserve Officers' Training Corps by submitting applications.[16-66]
[Footnote 16-64: Memo, Dir of Tng, BuPers, for Chief,
NavPers, 1 Jul 49; Ltr, Granger to Cmdr Luther
Heinz, 3 Aug 49; Ltr, Heinz to Granger, 18 Aug 49.
All in Pers 42, BuPersRecs. See also Interv, author
with Nelson, 26 May 69, and Ltr, Nelson to author,
10 Feb 70, both in CMH files.]
[Footnote 16-65: Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to Cmdt, All
Continental Naval Dists, 17 Mar 50, Pers 42,
BuPersRecs; Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22
Dec 49, PPB 291.2.]
[Footnote 16-66: Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22
Dec 49, PPB 291.2.]
Despite these well-intentioned efforts, the Navy failed to increase
significantly the number of black officers or sailors in the next
decade (_Table 8_). The percentage of Negroes in the Navy increased so
slowly that not until 1955, in the wake of the great manpower buildup
during the Korean War, did it exceed the 1949 figure. Although the
percentage of black enlistments increased significantly at
times--approximately 12 percent of all enlistments in 1955 were black,
for example--the proportion of Negroes in the Navy's enlisted ranks
was only 0.4 percent higher in 1960 than in 1949. While the number of
black officers increased more than sevenfold in the same decade, it
was still considerably less than 1 percent of the total officer
strength, well below Army and Air Force percentages.
Table 8--Black Manpower, U.S. Navy
A. Enlisted Strength
_Percent
_Year_ _Total Strength_ _Black Strength_ Black_
1949 363,622 17,051 4.5
1950 329,114 14,858 3.7
1951 656,371 17,604 2.7
1952 728,511 23,010 3.2
1953 698,367 24,734 3.5
1954 635,103 24,236 3.8
1955 574,157 30,623 5.3
1956 586,782 37,308 6.3
1957 593,022 38,222 6.4
1958 558,955 30,978 5.7
1959 547,236 30,098 5.5
1960 544,323 26,760 4.9
B. Percentage of Blacks Enlisted in Steward's and Other Branches
_Year_ _Steward's Branch_ _Other Branches_
1949 65.12 34.88
1950 57.07 42.93
1951 55.27 44.73
1952 54.95 45.05
1953 51.73 48.27
1954 53.43 48.57
1955 51.19 48.81
1956 25.38 74.62
1957 21.66 78.34
1958 23.35 76.65
C. Officer Strength (Selected Years)
_Year_ _Black Officers on Active Duty_ _Total Officers_
1949 19 45,464
1951 23 66,323
1953 53 78,095
1955 81 71,591
1960 149
_Source_: BuPers, Personnel Statistics Branch. See especially BuPers,
"Memo on Discrimination of the Negro," 24 Jan 59, BAF2-014. BuPers
Technical Library. All figures represent yearly averages.
The Navy had an explanation for the small number of Negroes. The
reduced manpower ceilings imposed on the Navy, even during the Korean
War, had caused a drastic curtailment in recruiting. At the same time,
with the brief exception of the Korean War, the Navy had depended on
volunteers for enlistment and had required volunteers to score ninety
or higher on the general classification test. The percentage of those
who scored above ninety was lower for blacks than for whites--16
percent against 67 percent, a ratio, naval spokesmen suggested, that
explained the enlistment figures. Furthermore, the low enlistment
quotas produced a long waiting list of those desiring to volunteer.
All applicants for the relatively few openings were thoroughly
screened, and competition was so keen that any Negroes accepted for
the monthly quota had to be extraordinarily well qualified.[16-67]
[Footnote 16-67: For a public expression of these
sentiments see, for example, Ltr, Capt R. B. Ellis,
Policy Control Br, BuPers, to President of
Birmingham, Ala., Branch, NAACP, 30 Mar 50, Pers 66
MM, GenRecsNav.]
What the Navy's explanation failed to mention was that the rise and
decline in the Navy's black strength during the 1950's was intimately
related to the number of group IV enlistees being forced on the
services under the provisions of the Defense Department's program (p. 416)
for the qualitative distribution of manpower. Each service was
required to accept 24 percent of all recruits in group IV from fiscal
year 1953 to 1956, 18 percent in fiscal year 1957, and 12 percent
thereafter. Between 1953 and 1956 the Navy accepted well above the
required 24 percent of group IV men, but in fiscal year 1957 took only
15.1 percent, and in 1958 only 6.8 percent. In 1958, with the
knowledge of the Secretary of Defense, all the services took in fewer
of the group IV's than the distribution program required, but
justified the reduction on the grounds that declining strength made it
necessary to emphasize high quality in recruits. In a move endorsed by
the Navy, the Air Force finally requested in 1959 that the qualitative
distribution program be held in abeyance. On the basis of this request
the Navy temporarily ceased to accept all group IV and some group III
men, but resumed recruiting them when it seemed likely that the (p. 417)
Secretary of Defense would refuse the request.[16-68]
[Footnote 16-68: BuPers, "Memo on Discrimination of
the Negro," 24 January 1959, Pers A1224, BuPers
Tech Library.]
[Illustration: CHRISTMAS IN KOREA, 1950.]
The correlation between the rise and fall of the group IV enlistments
and the percentage of Negroes in the Navy shows that all the increases
in black strength between 1952 and 1959 came not through the Navy's
publicized and organized effort to attract the qualified black
volunteers it had promised the Fahy Committee, but from the men forced
upon it by the Defense Department's distribution program. The
correlation also lends credence to the charges of some of the civil
rights critics who saw another reason for the shortage of Negroes.
They claimed that there had been no drop in the number of applicants
but that fewer Negroes were being accepted by Navy recruiters. One
NAACP official claimed that Negroes were "getting the run around."
Those who had fulfilled all enlistment requirements were not being
informed, and others were being given false information by recruiters.
He concluded that the Navy was operating under an unwritten policy of
filling recruit quotas with whites, accepting Negroes only when whites
were unavailable.[16-69] If these accusations were true, the Navy was
denying itself the services of highly qualified black applicants at a
time when the Defense Department's qualitative distribution program
was forcing it to take large numbers of the less gifted. Certainly the
number of Negroes capable of moving up the career and promotion ladder
was reduced and the Navy left vulnerable to further charges of
discrimination.
[Footnote 16-69: Ltr, Exec Secy, Birmingham, Ala.,
Branch, NAACP, to Chief, NavPers, 14 Mar 50, Pers
A, GenRecsNav.]
As for the shortage of officers, Nelson cited the awareness among
candidates that promotions were slower for blacks in the Navy than in
the other services where there was "less caste and class to
buck."[16-70] Nelson was aware that out of the 2,700 blacks who had
indicated an interest in the reserve officer training program in 1949
only 250 actually took the aptitude tests. Of these, only two passed
the tests and one of these was later rejected for poor eyesight. An
Urban League spokesman believed that some failed to take the tests out
of fear of failure but that many harbored a suspicion that the program
was not entirely open to all regardless of race.[16-71] Reinforcing
this suspicion was the fact that, despite the intentions of the (p. 418)
Bureau of Naval Personnel and the Navy's increasing control over the
appointment process, as of 1965 not a single Negro had been appointed
to any of the 150-man state selection committees on reserve officer
training.[16-72] Also to be considered, as the American Civil
Liberties Union later pointed out, was the promotion record of black
officers. As late as 1957 no black officer had ever commanded a ship,
and while both black and white officers started up the same promotion
ladder, the blacks were usually transferred out of the line into staff
billets.[16-73]
[Footnote 16-70: Interv, Nichols with Nelson, 1953, in
Nichols Collection; Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb
70; both in CMH files.]
[Footnote 16-71: Quoted in Memo, Dir of Tng, BuPers,
for Chief, NavPers, 1 Jul 49, Pers 42, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 16-72: Memo for Rcd, Evans, 23 Jun 65, sub:
NROTC Boards, ASD/M 291.2.]
[Footnote 16-73: Ltr, Exec Dir, ACLU, to SecNav, 26
Nov 57, GenRecsNav.]
[Illustration: REARMING AT SEA. _Ordnancemen at work on the deck of
the USS Philippine Sea, off Korea, October 1950._]
Given the pressure on the personnel bureau to develop some respectable
black manpower statistics, it is unlikely that the lack of educated,
black recruits can be blamed on widespread subterfuge at the
recruiting level. Far more likely is the explanation offered by Under
Secretary Kimball, that the black community distrusted the
Navy.[16-74] First apparent in the 1940's, this distrust lasted
throughout the next decade as young Negroes continued to show a
general apathy toward the Navy, which at times turned into open
hostility. In September 1961 the Chief of Naval Personnel reported
that recruiters were not infrequently being treated to "booing,
hissing and other disorderly conduct" when they tried to discuss the
opportunities for naval careers before black audiences.[16-75]
[Footnote 16-74: Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22
Dec 49, sub: Implementation of Executive Order
9981, PPB 291.2.]
[Footnote 16-75: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Pers B, 23
Sep 61, copy in Harris Wofford Collection, J. F.
Kennedy Library.]
The Navy's poor reputation in the black community centered on the
continued existence of the racially separate servants' branch, in the
eyes of many the symbol of the service's racial exclusiveness. The
Steward's Branch remained predominantly black. In 1949 it had 10,499
Negroes, 4,707 Filipinos, 741 other nonwhites, and 1 white man. Chief
stewards continued to be denied the grade of chief petty officer, on
the grounds that since stewards were not authorized to exercise
military command over others than stewards because of their lack of
military training, chief stewards were not chiefs in the military
sense of the word. This difference in authority also explained, as the
Chief of Naval Personnel put it, why as a general rule chief stewards
were not quartered with other petty officers.[16-76] These (p. 419)
distinctions were true also for stewards in the first, second, and
third classes, a fact in their case symbolized by differences in
uniform. Most of the thousands of black stewards continued to be
recruited, trained, and employed exclusively in that branch, and thus
for over half the Negroes--65 percent--in the 1949 Navy the chance for
advancement was severely limited and the chance to qualify for a
different job almost nonexistent.
[Footnote 16-76: Testimony of Vice Adm William M.
Fechteler Before the President's Committee on
Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Services (the Fahy Cmte), 28 Mar 49, p. 18.]
[Illustration: BROADENING SKILLS. _Stewards on the USS Valley Forge
volunteer for classes leading to advancement in other fields, Korea,
1950._]
The Navy instituted several changes in the branch in the wake of the
Fahy Committee's recommendations. On 25 July 1949 the Chief of Naval
Personnel ordered all chief stewards designated chief petty officers
with all the prerogatives of that status; in precedence they came
immediately after chief dental technicians,[16-77] who were at the
bottom of the list. That the change was limited to chief stewards did
not go unnoticed. Joseph Evans of the Fahy Committee staff charged
that the bureau "seemed to have ordered this to accede to the
committee's recommendations never intending to go beyond Chief
Stewards."[16-78] Nelson, by now a sort of unofficial ombudsman and
gadfly for black sailors, urged his superiors to broaden the reform,
and Kimball warned Admiral Sprague that limiting the change to
chief stewards might be "justified on the literal statement of (p. 420)
intention, but is vulnerable to criticism of continued discrimination."
Without compelling reasons to the contrary, he added, "I do not feel
that we can afford to risk any possible impression of reluctant
implementation of the spirit of the directive."[16-79]
[Footnote 16-77: BuPers Cir Ltr 115-49, 25 Jul 49.]
[Footnote 16-78: Memo, Evans for Fahy Cmte, 23 Aug 49,
sub: Progress in Navy, Fahy Papers, Truman
Library.]
[Footnote 16-79: Memo, Under SecNav for Chief,
NavPers, 10 Aug 49, MM (1) GenRecsNav.]
Admiral Sprague got the point, and on 30 August he announced that
effective with the new year, stewards--first, second, and third
class--would be designated petty officers with appropriate pay,
prerogatives, and precedence, and that their uniforms would be changed
to conform to those of other petty officers. He also amended the
bureau's manual to allow commanding officers to change the ratings of
stewards without headquarters approval, thus enlarging the opportunity
for stewards, in all other respects qualified, to transfer into other
ratings.[16-80] These reforms brought about a slow but steady change
in the assignment of black sailors. Between January 1950 and August
1953, the percentage of Negroes in the general service rose from 42 to
47 percent of the Navy's 23,000 man black strength, with a
corresponding drop in the percentage of those assigned to the
Steward's Branch.[16-81]
[Footnote 16-80: BuPers Cir Ltr 141-49, 30 Aug 49. See
also Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22 Dec 49,
sub: Implementation of Executive Order 9981, PPB
291.2; Memo, Chief, NavPers, for SecNav, 4 May 50,
sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity, Pers
42, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 16-81: Memo, Dir, Plans and Policy, BuPers,
for Capt Brooke Schumm, USN, PPB, 17 Jul 50, sub:
Secretary of Defense Semi-Annual Report, Negro
Enlisted Personnel Data for, Pers 14B; Memo, Head,
Strength and Statistics Br, BuPers, for Head,
Technical Info Br, BuPers, 25 Aug 53, sub:
Information Requested by LCDR D. D. Nelson
Concerning Negro Strength, Pers A14; both in
BuPersRecs.]
Yet these reforms were modest in terms of the pressing need for a
substantive change in the racial composition of the Steward's Branch.
Despite the changes in assignment policy, the Steward's Branch was
still nearly 65 percent black in 1952, and the rest were mostly
Filipino citizens under contract. Secretary of the Navy Kimball's
observation that 133 stewards had transferred out of the branch in a
recent four-month period hardly promised any speedy change in the
current percentages.[16-82] In fact there was evidence even at that
late date that some staff members in the personnel bureau were working
at cross-purposes to the Navy's expressed policy. Worried about the
shortages of volunteers for the Steward's Branch, a group of officials
had met in August 1951 to discuss ways of improving branch morale.
Some suggested publicizing the branch to the black press and schools,
showing that Negroes were in all branches of the Navy including the
Steward's. They also studied a pamphlet called "The Advantages of
Stewards Duty in the Navy" that gave nine reasons why a man should
become a steward.[16-83]
[Footnote 16-82: Kimball was sworn in as Secretary of
the Navy on 31 July 1951. Ltr, SecNav to Granger,
19 Nov 52, SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 16-83: BuPers, Plans and Policy Div, "Review
of Suggestions and Recommendations to Improve
Standards, Morale, and Attitudes Toward Stewards
Branch of U.S. Navy" (ca. 2 Aug 51), BuPersRecs.]
Obviously the Navy had to set a steady course if it intended any
lasting racial reform of the Steward's Branch, but its leaders seemed
ambivalent toward the problem. Despite his earlier efforts to raise
the status of stewards, Kimball, in a variation on an old postwar
argument, tried to show that the exclusiveness of the Steward's (p. 421)
Branch actually worked to the Negro's advantage. As he explained to
Lester Granger in November 1952, any action to effect radical or
wholesale changes in ratings "would not only tend to reduce the
efficiency of the Navy, but also in many instances be to the
disadvantage or detriment of the individuals concerned, particularly
those in the senior Steward ratings."[16-84] Supporting this line of
argument, the Chief of Naval Personnel announced the reenlistment
figures for the Steward's Branch--over 80 percent during the Korean
War period. These figures, Vice Admiral James L. Holloway, Jr., added,
proved the branch to be the most popular in the Navy and offered "a
rational measure of the state of the morale and job satisfaction."[16-85]
[Footnote 16-84: Ltr, SecNav for Granger, 19 Nov 52,
SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 16-85: Ltrs, Chief, NavPers, to James C.
Evans, OSD, 19 Jun 53, and Granger, 28 Jul 53, both
in P 8 (4), BuPersRecs.]
These explanations still figured prominently in the Navy's 1961
defense of its racial statistics. Discussing the matter at a White
House meeting of civil rights leaders, the Chief of Naval Personnel
pointed out that all the black stewards could be replaced with
Filipinos, but the Navy had refrained from such a course for several
reasons. The branch still had the highest reenlistment rate. It
provided jobs for those group IV men the Navy was obliged to accept
but could never use in technical billets. Without the opportunity
provided by the branch, moreover, "many of the rated black stewards
would probably not achieve a petty officer rating at all."[16-86]
[Footnote 16-86: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Pers B, 23
Sep 61, Harris Wofford Collection, J. F. Kennedy
Library. See also Memo, Chief, NavPers, for ASD/M,
29 Mar 61, sub: Stewards in U.S. Navy, Pers 8 (4),
BuPersRecs; Memo, Special Asst to SecDef, Adam
Yarmolinsky, for Frederic Dutton, Special Asst to
President, 31 Oct 61, sub: Yarmolinsky Memo of
October 26, Harris Wofford Collection, J. F.
Kennedy Library.]
However well founded these arguments were, they did not satisfy the
Navy's critics, who continued to press for the establishment of one
recruitment standard and the assignment of men on the basis of
interest and training rather than race. Lester Granger, for example,
warned Secretary Kimball of the skepticism that persisted among
sections of the black community: "As long as that branch [the
Steward's Branch] is composed entirely of nonwhite personnel, the Navy
is apt to be held by some to be violating its own stated
policy."[16-87] To Kimball's successor, Robert B. Anderson,[16-88]
Granger was even more blunt. The Steward's Branch, he declared, was "a
constant irritant to the Negro public." He saw some logical reason for
the continued concentration of Negroes in the branch but added "logic
does not necessarily imply wisdom and I sincerely believe that it is
unwise from the standpoint of efficiency and public relations to
continue the Stewards Branch on its present basis."[16-89]
[Footnote 16-87: Ltr, Granger to SecNav, 24 Oct 52,
SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 16-88: Secretary Anderson, appointed by
President Eisenhower, became Secretary of the Navy
on 4 February 1953.]
[Footnote 16-89: Ltr, Granger to SecNav, 24 Apr 53,
SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]
Granger's suggestion for change was straightforward. He wanted the
Bureau of Naval Personnel to find a way to introduce a sufficiently
large number of whites into the branch to transform its racial
composition. The task promised to be difficult if the charges leveled
in the Detroit _Free Press_ were accurate. In May 1953 the paper (p. 422)
reported incidents of naval recruiting officers who, "by one ruse or
another," were shunting young volunteers, sometimes without their
knowledge, into the Steward's Branch.[16-90]
[Footnote 16-90: Detroit _Free Press_, May 16, 1953.]
Granger's suggestions were taken up by Secretary Anderson, who
announced his intention of integrating the Steward's Branch and
ordered the Chief of Naval Personnel to draw up plans to that
end.[16-91] To devise some practical measures for handling the
problem, the personnel bureau brought back to active duty three
officers who had been important to the development of the Navy's 1946
integration policy. Their study produced three recommendations:
abolish the segregation of the Steward's Branch from the general
service and separate recruitment for its members; consider
consolidating the branch with the predominantly white Commissary
Branch; and change the steward's insignia.[16-92]
[Footnote 16-91: UP News Release, September 21, 1953,
copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 16-92: Ltr, Cmdr Durwood W. Gilmore, USNR et
al., to Chief, NavPers, Vice Adm J. L. Holloway,
Jr., 31 Aug 53, P 8 (4), BuPersRecs.]
The group acknowledged that the Steward's Branch was a "sore spot with
the Negroes, and is our weakest position from the standpoint of Public
Relations," and two of their recommendations were obviously aimed at
immediate improvement of public relations. Combining the messmen and
commissary specialists would of course create an integrated branch,
which Granger estimated would be only 20 percent black, and would
probably provide additional opportunities for promotions, but in the
end it could not mask the fact that a high proportion of black sailors
were employed in food service and valet positions. Nor was it clear
how changing the familiar crescent insignia, symbolic of the steward's
duties, would change the image of a separate group that still
performed the most menial duties. Long-term reform, everyone agreed,
demanded the presence of a significant number of whites in the branch,
and there was strong evidence that the general service contained more
than a few group IV white sailors. The group's proposal to abolish
separate recruiting would probably increase the number of blacks in
the general service and eliminate the possibility that unsuspecting
black recruits would be dragooned into a messman's career; both were
substantial reforms but did not guarantee that whites would be
attracted or assigned to the branch.
Admiral Holloway was concerned about this latter point, which dominated
his discussions with the Secretary of the Navy on 1 September 1953. He
had, he told Anderson, discussed with his recruiting specialists the
possibility of recruiting white sailors for the branch, and while they
all agreed that whites must not be induced to join by "improper
procedures," such as preferential recruitment to escape the draft,
they felt that whites could be attracted to steward duty by skillful
recruiters, especially in areas of the country where industrial
integration had already been accomplished. His bureau was considering
the abolition of separate recruiting, but to make specific recommendations
on matters involving the stewards he had created an ad hoc committee,
under the Deputy Chief of Naval Personnel and composed of (p. 423)
representatives of the other bureaus. When he received this committee's
views, Holloway promised to take "definite administrative action."[16-93]
[Footnote 16-93: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for SecNav, 1
Sep 53, sub: Mr. Granger's Visit and Related
Matters, Pers, GenRecsNav.]
[Illustration: INTEGRATED STEWARDS CLASS GRADUATES, GREAT LAKES, 1953.]
The three recommendations of the reservist experts did not survive
intact the ad hoc committee's scrutiny. At the committee's suggestion,
Holloway rejected the proposed merger of the commissary and steward
functions on the grounds that such a move was unnecessary in an era of
high reenlistment. He also decided that stewards would retain their
branch insignia. He did approve, however, in a decision announced on
28 February 1954, putting an end to the separate recruitment of
stewards with the exception of the contract enlistment of Filipino
citizens. As Anderson assured Congressman Adam Clayton Powell of New
York, only after recruit training and "with full knowledge of the
opportunities in various categories of administrative specialties"
would an enlistee be allowed to volunteer for messman's duty.[16-94]
[Footnote 16-94: Ltr, SecNav to Congressman Adam C.
Powell, 19 Mar 54, SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]
Admiral Holloway promised a further search for ways to eliminate
"points of friction" regarding the stewards, and naval officials
discussed the problem with civil rights leaders and Defense Department
officials on several occasions in the next years.[16-95] The (p. 424)
Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, Adam Yarmolinsky,
reported in 1961 that the Bureau of Naval Personnel "was not sanguine"
about recruiting substantial numbers of white seamen for the Steward's
Branch.[16-96] In answer, the Chief of Naval Personnel could only
point out that no matter what their qualifications or ambitions all
men assigned to the Steward's Branch were volunteers. As one
commentator observed, white sailors were very rarely attracted to the
messmen's field because of its reputation as a black specialty.[16-97]
[Footnote 16-95: See, for example, ASD/M, Thursday
Reports, 7 Jan 54 and 12 Apr 56, copies in Dep ASD
(Civil Rights) files; see also Memo, Chief,
NavPers, for Special Asst to SecDef, 29 Mar 61,
sub: Stewards in U.S. Navy, BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 16-96: Memo, Adam Yarmolinsky for Fred
Dutton, 31 Oct 61, sub: Yarmolinsky Memo of October
26, Harris Wofford Collection, J. F. Kennedy
Library.]
[Footnote 16-97: Greenberg, _Race Relations and
American Law_, p. 359.]
Nevertheless, by 1961 a definite pattern of change had emerged in the
Steward's Branch. The end of separate recruitment drastically cut the
number of Negroes entering the rating, while the renewed emphasis on
transferring eligible chief stewards to other specialties somewhat
reduced the number of Negroes already in the branch. Between 1956 and
1961, some 600 men out of the 1,800 tested transferred to other rating
groups or fields. The substantial drop in black strength resulting
from these changes combined with a corresponding rise in the number of
contract messmen from the western Pacific region reduced for the first
time in some thirty years Negroes in the Steward's Branch to a
minority. Even for those remaining in the branch, life changed
considerably. Separate berthing for stewards, always justified on the
grounds of different duties and hours, was discontinued, and the
amount of time spent by stewards at sea, with the varied military work
that sea duty involved, was increased.[16-98]
[Footnote 16-98: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Special
Asst to SecDef, 29 Mar 61, sub: Stewards in U.S.
Navy, Pers 8 (4), GenRecsNav.]
If these changes caused by the increased enlistment of stewards from
the western Pacific relieved the Steward's Branch of its reputation as
the black man's navy, they also perpetuated the notion that servants'
duties were for persons of dark complexion. The debate over a
segregated branch that had engaged the civil rights leaders and the
Navy since 1932 was over, but it had left a residue of ill will; some
were bitter at what they considered the listless pace of reform, a
pace which left the impression that the service had been forced to
change against its will. To some extent the Navy in the 1950's failed
to capitalize on its early achievements because it had for so long
missed the point of the integrationists' arguments about the stewards.
In the fifties the Navy expended considerable time and energy
advertising for black officer candidates and recruits whom they
guaranteed a genuinely equal chance to participate in all specialties,
but these efforts were to some extent dismissed by critics as not
germane. In 1950, for example, only 114 Negroes served in the
glamorous submarine assignments and even fewer in the naval air
service.[16-99] Yet this obvious underrepresentation caused no great
outcry from the black community. What did cause bitterness and (p. 425)
protest in an era of aroused racial pride was the fact that servants'
duties fell almost exclusively on nonwhite Americans. That these
duties were popular--the 80 percent reenlistment rate in the Steward's
Branch continued throughout the decade and the transfer rate into the
branch almost equaled the transfer out--was disregarded by many of the
more articulate spokesmen, who considered the branch an insult to the
black public. As Congressman Powell informed the Navy in 1953, "no one
is interested in today's world in fighting communism with a frying pan
or shoe polish."[16-100] Although statistics showed nearly half the
black sailors employed in other than menial tasks, Powell voiced the
mood of a large segment of the black community.
[Footnote 16-99: The Navy commissioned its first black
pilot, Ens. Jesse L. Brown, in 1950. He was killed
in action in Korea.]
[Footnote 16-100: Ltr, Powell to John Floberg, Asst
SecNav for Air, 29 Jun 53, SecNav files,
GenRecsNav.]
[Illustration: WAVE RECRUITS, _Naval Training Center, Bainbridge,
Maryland, 1953_.]
The Fahy Committee had acknowledged that manpower statistics alone
were not a reliable index of equal opportunity. Convinced that Negroes
were getting a full and equal chance to enlist in the general service
and compete for officer commissions, the committee had approved the
Navy's policy, trusting to time and equal opportunity to produce the
desired result. Unfortunately for the Navy, there would be many
critics both in and out of government in the 1960's who disagreed with
the committee's trust in time and good intentions, for equal opportunity
would remain very much a matter of numbers and percentages. In an (p. 426)
era when a premium would be placed on the size of minority membership,
the palm would go to the other services. "The blunt fact is," Granger
reminded the Secretary of the Navy in 1954, "that as a general rule
the most aspiring Negro youth are apt to have the least interest in a
Navy career, chiefly because the Army and Air Force have up to now
captured the spotlight."[16-101] A decade later the statement still
held.
[Footnote 16-101: Ltr, Granger to SecNav, 7 Jan 54,
SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]
[Illustration: ADMIRAL GRAVELY (_1973 portrait_).]
It was ironic that black youth remained aloof from the Navy in the
1950's when the way of life for Negroes on shipboard and at naval
bases had definitely taken a turn for the better. The general service
was completely integrated, although the black proportion, 4.9 percent
in 1960, was still far less than might reasonably be expected,
considering the black population.[16-102] Negroes were being trained
in every job classification and attended all the Navy's technical
schools. Although not yet represented in proportionate numbers in the
top grades within every rating, Negroes served in all ratings in every
branch, a fact favorably noticed in the metropolitan press.[16-103]
Black officers, still shockingly out of proportion to black strength,
were not much more so than in the other services and were serving more
often with regular commissions in the line as well as on the staff.
Their lack of representation in the upper ranks demonstrated that the
climb to command was slow and arduous even when the discriminatory
tactics of earlier times had been removed. In 1961 the Navy could
finally announce that a black officer, Lt. Comdr. Samuel L. Gravely,
Jr., had been ordered to command a destroyer escort, the USS
_Falgout_.[16-104]
[Footnote 16-102: Memo, ASD/M for SA et al., 21 Nov
51, sub: Manuscript on the Negro in the Armed
Forces, SecDef 291.2.]
[Footnote 16-103: See New York _Herald Tribune_,
December 2, 1957, and New York Post, March 14,
1957.]
[Footnote 16-104: Gravely would eventually become the
first black admiral in the U.S. Navy.]
But how were these changes being accepted among the rank and file?
Comments from official sources and civil rights groups alike showed
the leaven of racial tolerance at work throughout the service.[16-105]
Reporter Lee Nichols, interviewing members of all the services in (p. 427)
1953,[16-106] found that whites expected blacks to prove themselves in
their assignments while blacks were skeptical that equal opportunities
for assignment were really open to them. Yet the Nichols interviews
reveal a strain of pride and wonderment in the servicemen at the
profound changes they had witnessed.
[Footnote 16-105: See, for example, Ltr, Exec Secy,
President's Cmte on Equal Treatment and Opportunity
in the Armed Services, to CNO, 21 Jun 49, FC file;
Memo, Chief, NavPers, for SecNav, BuPersRecs; Memo,
ASD/M for SA et al., 21 Nov 51, sub: Manuscript on
the Negro in the Armed Forces, SecDef 291.2; Ltr,
Exec Secy, ACLU, to SecNav, 26 Nov 57, SecNav
files, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 16-106: Nichols's sampling, presented in the
form of approximately a hundred interviews with men
and women from all the services, was completely
unscientific and informal and was undertaken for
the preparation of his book, _Breakthrough on the
Color Front_. Considering their timing, the
interviews supply an interesting sidelight to the
integration period. They are included in the
Nichols Collection, CMH.]
In time integrated service became routine throughout the Navy, and
instances of Negroes in command of integrated units increased. Bigots
of both races inevitably remained, and the black community continued
to resent the separate Steward's Branch, but the sincerity of the
Navy's promise to integrate the service seemed no longer in doubt.
CHAPTER 17 (p. 428)
The Army Integrates
The integration of the United States Army was not accomplished by
executive fiat or at the demand of the electorate. Nor was it the
result of any particular victory of the civil rights advocates over
the racists. It came about primarily because the definition of
military efficiency spelled out by the Fahy Committee and demonstrated
by troops in the heat of battle was finally accepted by Army leaders.
The Army justified its policy changes in the name of efficiency, as
indeed it had always, but this time efficiency led the service
unmistakably toward integration.
_Race and Efficiency: 1950_
The Army's postwar planners based their low estimate of the black
soldier's ability on the collective performance of the segregated
black units in World War II and assumed that social unrest would
result from mixing the races. The Army thus accepted an economically
and administratively inefficient segregated force in peacetime to
preserve what it considered to be a more dependable fighting machine
for war. Insistence on the need for segregation in the name of
military efficiency was also useful in rationalizing the prejudice and
thoughtless adherence to traditional practice which obviously played a
part in the Army's tenacious defense of its policy.
An entirely different conclusion, however, could be drawn from the
same set of propositions. The Fahy Committee, for example, had clearly
demonstrated the inefficiency of segregation, and more to the point,
some senior Army officials, in particular Secretary Gray and Chief of
Staff Collins, had come to question the conventional pattern.
Explaining later why he favored integration ahead of many of his
contemporaries, Collins drew on his World War II experience. The major
black ground units in World War II, and to a lesser degree the 99th
Pursuit Squadron, he declared, "did not work out." Nor, he concluded,
did the smaller independent black units, even those commanded by black
officers, who were burdened with problems of discipline and
inefficiency. On the other hand, the integrated infantry platoons in
Europe, with which Collins had personal experience, worked well. His
observations had convinced him that it was "pointless" to support
segregated black units, and while the matter had "nothing to do with
sociology itself," he reasoned that if integration worked at the
platoon level "why not on down the line?" The best plan, he believed,
was to assign two Negroes to each squad in the Army, always assuming
that the quota limiting the total number of black soldiers would be
preserved.[17-1]
[Footnote 17-1: Interv, author with Collins.]
But the Army had promised the Fahy Committee in April 1950 it (p. 429)
would abolish the quota. If carried out, such an agreement would
complicate an orderly and controlled integration, and Collins's desire
for change was clearly tempered by his concern for order and control.
So long as peacetime manpower levels remained low and inductions
through the draft limited, a program such as the one contemplated by
the Chief of Staff was feasible, but any sudden wartime expansion
would change all that. Fear of such a sudden change combined with the
strong opposition to integration still shared by most Army officials
to keep the staff from any initiative toward integration in the period
immediately after the Fahy Committee adjourned.
Even before Gray and Collins completed their negotiations with the
Fahy Committee, they were treated by the Chamberlin Board to yet
another indication of the scope of Army staff opposition to
integration. Gray had appointed a panel of senior officers under Lt.
Gen. Stephen J. Chamberlin on 18 September 1949 in fulfillment of his
promise to review the Army's racial policy periodically "in the light
of changing conditions and experiences of this day and time."[17-2]
After sitting four months and consulting more than sixty major Army
officials and some 280 officers and men, the board produced a
comprehensive summary of the Army's racial status based on test
scores, enlistment rates, school figures, venereal disease rates,
opinion surveys, and the like.
[Footnote 17-2: Memo, SA for Lt Gen Stephen J.
Chamberlin, 30 Nov 49, sub: Utilization of Negro
Manpower in the Army, CSGPA 291.2. See also Dir,
P&A, Summary Sheet to CofS, 2 Nov 49, sub: Board to
Study the Utilization of Negro Manpower in
Peacetime Army, CSGPA 291.2, and TAG to Chamberlin,
18 Nov 49, same sub, AG 334 (17 Nov 49). In
addition to Chamberlin, the board included Maj.
Gen. Withers A. Buress, commanding general of the
Infantry Center; Maj. Gen. John M. Divine,
commanding general of 9th Infantry Division, Fort
Dix; and Col. M. VanVoorst, Personnel and
Administration Division, as recorder without vote.]
The conclusions and recommendations of the Chamberlin Board represent
perhaps the most careful and certainly the last apologia for a
segregated Army.[17-3] The Army's postwar racial policy and related
directives, the board assured Secretary Gray, were sound, were proving
effective, and should be continued in force. It saw only one objection
to segregated units: black units had an unduly high proportion of men
with low classification test scores, a situation, it believed, that
could be altered by raising the entrance level and improving training
and leadership. At any rate, the board declared, this disadvantage was
a minor one compared to the advantages of an organization that did not
force Negroes into competition they were unprepared to face, did not
provoke the resentment of white soldiers with the consequent risk of
lowered combat effectiveness, and avoided placing black officers and
noncommissioned officers in command of white troops, "a position which
only the exceptional Negro could successfully fill."
[Footnote 17-3: Memo, Gen Chamberlin et al. for SA, 9
Feb 50, sub: Report of Board of Officers on
Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Army, AG 291.2
(6 Dec 49). A copy of the report and many of the
related and supporting documents are in CMH.]
A decision on these matters, the board stated, had to be based on
combat effectiveness, not the use of black manpower, and what
constituted maximum effectiveness was best left to the judgment of
war-tested combat leaders. These men, "almost without exception,"
vigorously opposed integration. Ignoring the Army's continuing (p. 430)
negotiations with the Fahy Committee on the matter, the board called
for retaining the 10 percent quota. To remove the quota without
imposing a higher entrance standard, it argued, would result in an
influx of Negroes "with a corresponding deterioration of combat
efficiency." In short, ignoring the political and budgetary realities
of the day, the board called on Secretary Gray to repudiate the
findings of the Fahy Committee and the stipulations of Executive Order
9981 and to maintain a rigidly segregated service with a carefully
regulated percentage of black members.
While Gray and Collins let the recommendations of the Chamberlin Board
go unanswered, they did very little to change the Army's racial
practices in the year following their agreements with the Fahy
Committee. The periodic increase in the number of critical specialties
for which Negroes were to be trained and freely assigned did not
materialize. The number of trained black specialists increased, and
some were assigned to white units, but this practice, while
substantially different from the Gillem Board's idea of limiting such
integration to overhead spaces, nevertheless produced similar results.
Black specialists continued to be assigned to segregated units in the
majority of cases, and in the minds of most commanders such assignment
automatically limited black soldiers to certain jobs and schools no
matter what their qualifications. Kenworthy's blunt conclusion in May
1951 was that the Army had not carried out the policy it had agreed
to.[17-4] Certainly the Army staff had failed to develop a successful
mechanism for gauging its commanders' compliance with its new policy.
Despite the generally progressive sentiments of General Collins and
Secretary Gray's agreement with the Fahy Committee, much of the Army
clung to old sentiments and practices for the same old reasons.
[Footnote 17-4: Kenworthy, "The Case Against Army
Segregation," p. 32.]
The catalyst for the sudden shift away from these sentiments and
practices was the Korean War. Ranking among the nation's major
conflicts, the war caused the Army to double in size in five months.
By June 1951 it numbered 1.6 million, with 230,000 men serving in
Korea in the Eighth Army. This vast expansion of manpower and combat
commitment severely tested the Army's racial policy and immediately
affected the racial balance of the quota-free Army. When the quota was
lifted in April 1950, Negroes accounted for 10.2 percent of the total
enlisted strength; by August this figure reached 11.4 percent. On 1
January 1951, Negroes comprised 11.7 percent of the Army, and in
December 1952 the ratio was 13.2 percent. The cause of this striking
rise in black strength was the large number of Negroes among wartime
enlistments. The percentage of Negroes among those enlisting in the
Army for the first time jumped from 8.2 in March 1950 to 25.2 in
August, averaging 18 percent of all first-term enlistments during the
first nine months of the war. Black reenlistment increased from 8.5 to
12.9 percent of the total reenlistment during the same period, and the
percentage of black draftees in the total number of draftees supplied
by Selective Service averaged 13 percent.[17-5]
[Footnote 17-5: Memo, G-1 for VCofS, sub: Negro
Statistics, 16 Jun 50-6 Oct 50, CS 291.2 Negro;
idem for G-3, 18 Apr 51, sub: Training Spaces for
Negro Personnel, OPS 291.2; Memo, Chief, Mil Opers
Management Branch, G-1, for G-1, 1 Feb 51, sub:
Distribution of Negro Manpower in the Army, G-1
291.2, and Memo, Chief, Procurement and
Distribution Div, G-1, for G-1, 20 Oct 53, same sub
and file.]
[Illustration: MOVING UP. _25th Division infantrymen head for the
front, Korea, July 1950._]
The effect of these increases on a segregated army was tremendous. (p. 431)
By April 1951, black units throughout the Army were reporting large
overstrengths, some as much as 60 percent over their authorized
organization tables. Overstrength was particularly evident in the
combat arms because of the steady increase in the number of black
soldiers with combat occupational specialties. Largely assigned to
service units during World War II--only 22 percent, about half the
white percentage, were in combat units--Negroes after the war were
assigned in ever-increasing numbers to combat occupational specialties
in keeping with the Gillem Board recommendation that they be trained
in all branches of the service. By 1950 some 30 percent of all black
soldiers were in combat units, and by June 1951 they were being
assigned to the combat branches in approximately the same percentage
as white soldiers, 41 percent.[17-6]
[Footnote 17-6: STM-30, Strength of the Army, Sep 50,
Mar 51, and Jul 51.]
The Chief of Staff's concern with the Army's segregation policy went
beyond immediate problems connected with the sudden manpower increases.
Speaking to Maj. Gen. Lewis A. Craig, the Inspector General, in August
1950, Collins declared that the Army's social policy was unrealistic
and did not represent the views of younger Americans whose attitudes
were much more relaxed than those of the senior officers who (p. 432)
established policy. Reporting Collins's comment to the staff, Craig
went on to say the situation in Korea confirmed his own observations
that mixing whites and blacks "in reasonable proportions" did not
cause friction. Continued segregation, on the other hand, would force
the Army to reinstate the old division-size black unit, with its
ineffectiveness and frustrations, to answer the Negro's demand for
equitable promotions and job opportunities. In short, both Collins and
Craig agreed that the Army must eventually integrate, and they wanted
the use of black servicemen restudied.[17-7]
[Footnote 17-7: IG Summary Sheet for CofS, 7 Dec 50,
sub: Policy Regarding Negro Segregation, CS 291.2
(7 Dec 50).]
Their view was at considerable variance with the attitude displayed by
most officers on the Army staff and in the major commands in December
1950. His rank notwithstanding, Collins still had to persuade these
men of the validity of his views before they would accept the
necessity for integration. Moreover, with his concept of orderly and
controlled social change threatened by the rapid rise in the number of
black soldiers, Collins himself would need to assess the effects of
racial mixing in a fluid manpower situation. These necessities explain
the plethora of staff papers, special boards, and field investigations
pertaining to the employment of black troops that characterized the
next six months, a period during which every effort was made to
convince senior officers of the practical necessity for integration.
The Chief of Staff's exchange of views with the Inspector General was
not circulated within the staff until December 1950. At that time the
personnel chief, Lt. Gen. Edward H. Brooks, recommended reconvening
the Chamberlin Board to reexamine the Army's racial policy in light of
the Korean experience. Brooks wanted to hold off the review until
February 1951 by which time he thought adequate data would be
available from the Far East Command. His recommendation was approved,
and the matter was returned to the same group which had so firmly
rejected integration less than a year before.[17-8]
[Footnote 17-8: G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS, 18 Dec 50,
sub: Policy Regarding Negro Segregation, G-1
291.2.]
Even as the Chamberlin Board was reconvening, another voice was added
to those calling for integration. Viewing the critical overstrength in
black units, Assistant Secretary Earl D. Johnson recommended
distributing excess black soldiers among other units of the
Army.[17-9] The response to his proposal was yet another attempt to
avoid the dictates of the draft law and black enlistments. Maj. Gen.
Anthony C. McAuliffe, the G-1, advised against integrating the
organized white units on the grounds that experience gained thus far
on the social impact of integration was inadequate to predict its
effect on "overall Army efficiency." Since the Army could not continue
assigning more men to the overstrength black units, McAuliffe wanted
to organize additional black units to accommodate the excess, and he
asked Maj. Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, the G-3, to activate the necessary
units.[17-10]
[Footnote 17-9: Memo, ASA for SA, 3 Apr 51, sub:
Present Overstrength in Segregated Units, G-1
291.2.]
[Footnote 17-10: Memo, G-1 for CofS, 26 May 51, sub:
Present Overstrength in Segregated Units; DF, G-1
for G-3, 16 Apr 51, sub: Training Spaces for Negro
Personnel; both in G-1 291.2.]
The chief of the Army Field Forces was even more direct. Integration
was untimely, General Mark W. Clark advised, and the Army should
instead reimpose the quota and push for speedy implementation of the
Secretary of Defense's directive on the qualitative distribution (p. 433)
of manpower.[17-11] Clark's plea for a new quota was one of many
circulating in the staff since black enlistment percentages started to
rise. But time had run out on the quota as a solution to overstrength
black units. Although the Army staff continued to discuss the need for
the quota, and senior officials considered asking the President for
permission to reinstitute it, the Secretary of Defense's acceptance of
parity of enlistment standards had robbed the Army of any excuse for
special treatment on manpower allotments.[17-12]
[Footnote 17-11: Memo, CG, AFF, for G-1, 8 May 51,
sub: Negro Strength in the Army, G-1 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-12: Memo, ASA for SA, 1 Jul 51, and Draft
Memo, SA for President (not sent), both in SA
291.2.]
[Illustration: MEN OF BATTERY A, _159th Field Artillery Battalion,
fire 105-mm. howitzer, Korea, August 1950_.]
McAuliffe's recommendation for additional black units ran into serious
opposition and was not approved. Taylor's staff, concerned with the
practical problems of Army organization, objected to the proposal,
citing budget limitations that precluded the creation of additional
units and policy restrictions that forbade the creation of new units
merely to accommodate black recruits. The operations staff recommended
instead that black soldiers in excess of unit strength be shipped
directly from training centers to overseas commands as replacements
without regard for specific assignment. McAuliffe's personnel staff,
in turn, warned that on the basis of a monthly average dispatch of
25,000 replacements to the Far East Command, the portion of Negroes in
those shipments would be 15 percent for May 1951, 21 percent for June,
22 percent for July, and 16 percent for August. McAuliffe listed the
familiar problems that would accrue to the Far East commanders from
this decision, but he was unable to break the impasse in Washington.
Thus the problem of excess black manpower was passed on to the
overseas commanders for resolution.[17-13]
[Footnote 17-13: CMT 2 (Brig Gen D. A. Ogden, Chief,
Orgn & Tng Div, G-3), 3 May 51, CMT 3 (Brig Gen W.
E. Dunkelberg, Chief, Manpower Control Div, G-1),
21 May 51, and CMT 4 (Ogden), 24 May 51, to G-1
Summary Sheet for CofS, 18 Apr 51, sub: Negro
Overstrengths, G-1 291.2.]
Commanders in Korea had already begun to apply the only practical
remedy. Confronted with battle losses in white units and a growing
surplus of black replacements arriving in Japan, the Eighth Army began
assigning individual black soldiers just as it had been assigning
individual Korean soldiers to understrength units.[17-14] In August
1950, for example, initial replacements for battle casualties in (p. 434)
the 9th Infantry of the U.S. 2d Infantry Division included two black
officers and eighty-nine black enlisted men. The commander assigned
them to units in his severely undermanned all-white 1st and 2d
Battalions. In September sixty more soldiers from the regiment's
all-black 3d Battalion returned to the regiment for duty. They were
first attached but later, with the agreement of the officers and men
involved, assigned to units of the 1st and 2d Battalions.
Subsequently, 225 black replacements were routinely assigned wherever
needed throughout the regiment.[17-15] By December the 9th Infantry
had absorbed Negroes to about their proportion of the national
population, 11 percent. Of six black officers among them, one
commanded Company C and another was temporarily in command of Company
B when that unit fought in November on the Ch'ongch'on River line. S.
L. A. Marshall later described Company B as "possibly the bravest"
unit in that action.[17-16]
[Footnote 17-14: The Korean Augmentation to the United
States Army, known as KATUSA, a program for
integrating Korean soldiers in American units, was
substantially different from the integration of
black Americans in terms of official authorization
and management; see CMH study by David C. Skaggs,
"The Katusa Program," in CMH.]
[Footnote 17-15: Memo, CO, 9th Inf, for TIG, 29 Oct
50, attached to IG Summary Sheet for CofS, 7 Dec
50, sub: Policy Regarding Negro Segregation, CS
291.2 (7 Dec 50); FEC, "G-1 Command Report, 1
January-31 October 1950."]
[Footnote 17-16: S. L. A. Marshall, "Integration,"
Detroit _News_, May 13, 1956.]
The practice of assigning individual blacks throughout white units in
Korea accelerated during early 1951 and figured in the manpower
rotation program which began in Korea during May. By this time the
practice had so spread that 9.4 percent of all Negroes in the theater
were serving in some forty-one newly and unofficially integrated
units.[17-17] Another 9.3 percent were in integrated but predominantly
black units. The other 81 percent continued to serve in segregated
units: in March 1951 these numbered 1 black regiment, 10 battalions,
66 separate companies, and 7 separate detachments. Looked at another
way, by May 1951 some 61 percent of the Eighth Army's infantry
companies were at least partially integrated.
[Footnote 17-17: ORO Technical Memorandum T-99, A
Preliminary Report on the Utilization of Negro
Manpower, 30 Jun 51, p. 34, copy in CMH.]
Though still limited, the conversion to integrated units was
permanent. The Korean expedient, adopted out of battlefield necessity,
carried out haphazardly, and based on such imponderables as casualties
and the draft, passed the ultimate test of traditional American
pragmatism: it worked. And according to reports from Korea, it worked
well. The performance of integrated troops was praiseworthy with no
report of racial friction.[17-18] It was a test that could not fail to
impress field commanders desperate for manpower.
[Footnote 17-18: Ibid., p. 35. For a popular report on
the success of this partial integration, see Harold
H. Martin, "How Do Our Negro Troops Measure Up?,"
_Saturday Evening Post_ 223 (June 16, 1951):30-31.]
_Training_
Training units in the United States were subject to many of the
stresses suffered by the Eighth Army, and without fanfare they too
began to integrate. There was little precedent for the change. True,
the Army had integrated officer training in World War II and basic
training at the Women's Army Corps Training Center at Fort Lee,
Virginia, in April 1950. But beyond that only the rare black trainee
designated for specialist service was assigned to a white training
unit. Until 1950 there was no effort to mix black and white trainees
because the Army's manpower experts always predicted a "social (p. 435)
problem," a euphemism for the racial conflict they feared would follow
integration at large bases in the United States.
Not that demands for integration ever really ceased. Civil rights
organizations and progressive lawmakers continued to press the Army,
and the Selective Service System itself complained that black draftees
were being discriminated against even before induction.[17-19] Because
so many protests had focused on the induction process, James Evans,
the Civilian Aide to the Secretary of Defense, recommended that the
traditional segregation be abandoned, at least during the period
between induction and first assignment.[17-20] Congressman Jacob
Javits, always a critic of the Army's segregation policy, was
particularly disturbed by the segregation of black trainees at Fort
Dix, New Jersey. His request that training units be integrated was
politely rejected in the fall of 1950 by General Marshall, who implied
that the subject was an unnecessary intrusion, an attitude
characteristic of the Defense Department's war-distracted feelings
toward integration.[17-21]
[Footnote 17-19: Ltr, Lewis B. Hershey to SA, 21 Sep
50, SA 291.2; Memo, Col W. Preston Corderman, Exec,
Office of ASA, for CofS, 8 Sep 50, sub: Racial
Complaints, CS 291.2. For an example of complaints
by a civil rights organization, see Telg, J. L.
LeFore, Mobile, Ala., NAACP, to President, 18 Sep
50, and Ltr, A. Philip Randolph to SecDef, 30 Oct
50, both in SD 291.2 Neg.]
[Footnote 17-20: Memo, Evans for Leva, ASD, 5 Oct 50,
sub: Racial Complaint From the Mobile Area, SD
291.2 Neg (18 Sep 50).]
[Footnote 17-21: Ltrs, Javits to SecDef, 6 Sep and 2
Oct 50; Ltrs, SecDef to Javits, 19 Sep and 10 Oct
50. All in SD 291.2 Neg.]
Again, the change in Army policy came not because the staff ordered
it, but because local commanders found it necessary. The commanders of
the nine training divisions in the continental United States were hard
pressed because the number of black and white inductees in any monthly
draft call, as well as their designated training centers, depended on
Selective Service and was therefore unpredictable. It was impossible
for commanders to arrange for the proper number of separate white and
black training units and instructors to receive the inductees when no
one knew whether a large contingent of black soldiers or a large group
of whites would get off the train. A white unit could be undermanned
and its instructors idle while a black unit was overcrowded and its
instructors overworked. This inefficient use of their valuable
training instructors led commanders, first at Fort Ord and then at the
other training divisions and replacement centers throughout the United
States, to adopt the expedient of mixing black and white inductees in
the same units for messing, housing, and training. As the commander of
Fort Jackson, South Carolina, put it, sorting out the rapidly arriving
inductees was "ridiculous," and he proceeded to assign new men to
units without regard to color. He did, however, divert black inductees
from time to time "to hold the Negro population down to a workable
basis."[17-22]
[Footnote 17-22: G-1 Summary Sheet for VCofS, 22 Apr
52, sub: Information for the G-1 Information Book,
G-1 291.2; Memo, ASA (M&PR) for ASD (M&PR), 22 Aug
52, sub: Progress Report on Elimination of
Segregation in the Army, SD 291.2; Memo, VCofS for
SA, 18 Jun 51, sub: Assimilation of Negroes at Ft.
Jackson, S.C., SA 291.2. See also Lt Col William M.
Nichols, "The DOD Program to Ensure Civil Rights
Within the Services and Between the Services and
the Community," Rpt 116, 1966, Industrial College
of the Armed Forces, p. 24.]
The commanding general of the 9th Infantry Division at Fort Dix raised
another question about integrating trainees. He had integrated all
white units other than reserve units at his station, he explained (p. 436)
to the First Army commander in January 1951, but since he was receiving
many more white trainees than black he would soon be forced to
integrate his two black training regiments as well by the unprecedented
assignment of white soldiers to black units with black officers and
noncommissioned officers.[17-23] Actually, such reverse integration
was becoming commonplace in Korea, and in the case of Fort Dix the
Army G-1 solved the commander's dilemma by simply removing the
asterisk, which meant black, from the names of the 364th and 365th
Infantry Regiments.[17-24]
[Footnote 17-23: Ltr, Maj Gen W. K. Harrison, CG, 9th
Inf Div, Ft. Dix, N.J., to CG, First Army, 19 Jan
51, sub: Request for an Additional Training
Regiment, G-1 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-24: Memo, DA, G-1 for CGIA, for 9th Inf
Div, 28 Feb 51, G-1 291.2; AGAO-I, 3 Mar 51, AG
322.]
The nine training divisions were integrated by March 1951, with Fort
Dix, New Jersey, and Fort Knox, Kentucky, the last to complete the
process. Conversion proved trouble-free and permanent; no racial
incidents were reported. In June Assistant Secretary of the Army
Johnson assured the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and
Personnel, Anna Rosenberg, that current expansion of training
divisions would allow the Army to avoid in the future even the
occasional funneling of some inductees into temporarily segregated
units in times of troop overstrengths.[17-25] Logic dictated that
those who trained together would serve together, but despite
integrated training, the plethora of Negroes in overseas replacement
pipelines, and the increasing amount of integrated fighting in Korea,
98 percent of the Army's black soldiers still served in segregated
units in April 1951, almost three years after President Truman issued
his order.
[Footnote 17-25: Memo, ASA for ASD (M&P), 5 Jun 51;
Memo, SA for ASD (M&P), 3 Sep 52; both in SD
291.2.]
_Performance of Segregated Units_
Another factor leading to a change in racial policy was the
performance of segregated units in Korea. Despite "acts of heroism and
capable performance of duty" by some individuals, the famous old 24th
Infantry Regiment as a whole performed poorly. Its instability was
especially evident during the fighting on Battle Mountain in August
1950, and by September the regiment had clearly become a "weak link in
the 25th Division line," and in the Eighth Army as well.[17-26] On 9
September the division commander recommended that the regiment be
removed from combat. "It is my considered opinion," Maj. Gen. William
B. Kean told the Eighth Army commander, that the 24th Infantry has
demonstrated in combat that
it is untrustworthy and incapable of carrying out missions
expected of an Infantry Regiment. In making this statement, I am
fully cognizant of the seriousness of the charges that I am
making, and the implications involved.... The continued use of
this Regiment in combat will jeopardize the United Nations war
effort in Korea.[17-27]
[Footnote 17-26: Roy E. Appleman, _South to the
Naktong, North to the Yalu_ (Washington: Government
Printing Office, 1961), pp. 485-86. For a detailed
account of the battlefield performance of the 24th
and other segregated units, see ibid., passim.]
[Footnote 17-27: Ltr, Maj Gen W. B. Kean to CG, Eighth
Army, 9 Sep 50, sub: Combat Effectiveness of the
24th Infantry Regiment, AG 330.1 (A).]
Kean went on to spell out his charges. The regiment was unreliable (p. 437)
in combat, particularly on the defensive and at night; it abandoned
positions without warning to troops on its flanks; it wasted
equipment; it was prone to panic and hysteria; and some of its members
were guilty of malingering. The general made clear that his charges
were directed at the unit as an organization and not at individual
soldiers, but he wanted the unit removed and its men reassigned as
replacements on a percentage basis in the other units of the Eighth
Army.
General Kean also claimed to have assigned unusually able officers to
the regiment, but to no avail. In attempting to lead their men in
battle, all the unit's commanders had become casualties. Concluding
that segregated units would not work in a combat situation, the
general believed that the combat value of black soldiers would never
be realized unless they were integrated into white units at a rate of
not more than 10 percent.[17-28]
[Footnote 17-28: Observer Report, Lt Col J. D.
Stevens, Plans Div, G-3, 25 Oct 50, G-3 333 PAC
(Sec I-D), Case 18, Tab G.]
The 25th Division commander's charges were supported by the Eighth
Army inspector general, who investigated the 24th Infantry at length
but concluded that the inactivation of the 24th was unfeasible.
Instead he suggested integrating Negroes in all Eighth Army units up
to 15 percent of their strength by means of the replacement process.
The Far East Command's inspector general, Brig. Gen. Edwin A. Zundel,
concurred, stating that the rotation process would provide a good
opportunity to accomplish integration and expressing hope that the
theater would observe the "spirit" of the Army's latest racial
regulations.[17-29]
[Footnote 17-29: FECOM Check Sheet, IG to G-1, FEC, 27
May 51, sub: Report of Investigation; Memo, FEC G-1
for CofS, FEC, 30 Apr 51, sub: G-1 Topics Which
CINC May Discuss With Gen Taylor; both are quoted
in FECOM Mil Hist Section, "History of the Korean
War," III (pt. 2): 151-52, in CMH.]
Lt. Gen. Walton H. Walker, the Eighth Army commander, accepted the
inspector general's report, and the 24th Infantry remained on duty in
Korea through the winter. Zundel meanwhile continued the investigation
and in March 1951 offered a more comprehensive assessment of the 24th.
It was a fact, for example, that 62 percent of the unit's troops were
in categories IV and V as against 41 percent of the troops in the 35th
Infantry and 46 percent in the 27th, the 25th Division's white
regiments. The Gillem Board had recommended supplying all such units
with 25 percent more officers in the company grades, something not
done for the 24th Infantry. Some observers also reported evidence in
the regiment of the lack of leadership and lack of close relationships
between officers and men; absence of unit _esprit de corps_;
discrimination against black officers; and poor quality of
replacements.
Whatever the cause of the unit's poor performance, the unanimous
recommendation in the Eighth Army, its inspector general reported, was
integration. Yet he perceived serious difficulty in integration. To
mix the troops of the eighty-four major segregated units in the Eighth
Army under wartime conditions would create an intolerable
administrative burden and would be difficult for the individuals
involved. If integration was limited to the 24th Infantry alone, on
the other hand, its members, indeed even its former members, would
share the onus of its failure. The inspector general therefore (p. 438)
again recommended retaining the 24th, assigning additional officers
and noncommissioned officers to black units with low test averages,
and continuing the integration of the Eighth Army.[17-30]
[Footnote 17-30: Ltr, EUSAK IG to CG, EUSAK, 15 Mar
51, sub: Report of Investigation Concerning 24th
Infantry Regiment and Negro Soldiers in Combat,
EUSAK IG Report.]
[Illustration: SURVIVORS OF AN INTELLIGENCE AND RECONNAISSANCE
PLATOON, _24th Infantry, Korea, May 1951_.]
The Eighth Army was not alone in investigating the 24th Infantry. The
NAACP was also concerned with reports of the regiment's performance,
in particular with figures on the large number of courts-martial.
Thirty-six of the men convicted, many for violation of Article 75 of
the Articles of War (misbehavior before the enemy), had appealed to
the association for assistance, and Thurgood Marshall, then one of its
celebrated attorneys, went to the Far East to investigate. Granted
_carte blanche_ by the Far East commander, General Douglas MacArthur,
Marshall traveled extensively in Korea and Japan reviewing the record
and interviewing the men. His conclusions: "the men were tried in an
atmosphere making justice impossible," and the NAACP had the evidence
to clear most of them.[17-31] Contrasting the Army's experiences
with those of the Navy and the Air Force, Marshall attributed (p. 439)
discrimination in the military justice system to the Army's
segregation policy. He blamed MacArthur for failing to carry out
Truman's order in the Far East and pointed out that no Negroes served
in the command's headquarters. As long as racial segregation
continued, the civil rights veteran concluded, the Army would dispense
the kind of injustice typical of the courts-martial he reviewed.
[Footnote 17-31: Thurgood Marshall, _Report on Korea:
The Shameful Story of the Courts Martial of Negro
GIs_ (New York: NAACP, 1951).]
It would be hard to refute Marshall's contention that discrimination
was a handmaiden of segregation. Not so Walter White's contention that
the reports of the 24th Infantry's poor performance constituted an
attempt to discredit the combat ability of black soldiers and return
them to labor duties. The association's executive secretary had fought
racial injustice for many decades, and, considering his World War II
experiences with the breakup of the 2d Cavalry Division into labor
units, his acceptance of a conspiracy theory in Korea was
understandable. But it was inaccurate. The Army operated under a
different social order in 1951, and many combat leaders in the Eighth
Army were advocating integration. The number of black service units in
the Eighth Army, some ninety in March 1951, was comparable to the
number in other similar Army commands. Nor, for that matter, was the
number of black combat units in the Eighth Army unusual. In March 1951
the Eighth Army had eighty-four such units ranging in size from
regiment to detachment. Far from planning the conversion of black
combat troops to service troops, most commanders were recommending
their assignment to integrated combat units throughout Korea.
Apprised of these various conclusions, MacArthur ordered his staff to
investigate the problem of segregation in the command.[17-32] The Far
East Command G-1 staff incorporated the inspector general's report in
its study of the problem, adding that "Negro soldiers can and do fight
well when integrated." The staff went on to dismiss the importance of
leadership as a particular factor in the case of black troops by
observing that "no race has a monopoly on stupidity."[17-33]
[Footnote 17-32: Ltr, Lt Gen Edward Almond, CofS,
FECOM, to TIG, 15 Mar 51, IG 333.9.]
[Footnote 17-33: FECOM Check Sheet, IG to G-1, FEC, 27
May 51, sub: Report of Investigation; Memo, FEC G-1
for CofS FEC, 30 Apr 51, sub: G-1 Topics Which CINC
May Discuss With Gen Taylor.]
Before the staff could finish its investigation, General Matthew B.
Ridgway replaced MacArthur as Far East commander. Fresh from duty as
Eighth Army commander, Ridgway had had close-hand experience with the
24th Infantry's problems; from both a military and a human viewpoint
he had concluded that segregation was "wholly inefficient, not to say
improper." He considered integration the only way to assure _esprit de
corps_ in any large segment of the Army. As for segregation, Ridgway
concluded, "it has always seemed to me both un-American and
un-Christian for free citizens to be taught to downgrade themselves
this way as if they were unfit to associate with their fellows or to
accept leadership themselves."[17-34] He had planned to seek
authorization to integrate the major black units of the Eighth Army in
mid-March, but battlefield preoccupations and his sudden elevation to
theater command interfered. Once he became commander in chief, however,
he quickly concurred in his inspector general's recommendation, adding
that "integration in white combat units in Korea is a practical (p. 440)
solution to the optimum utilization of Negro manpower provided the
overall theater level of Negroes does not exceed 15 percent of troop
level and does not exceed over 12 percent in any combat unit."[17-35]
[Footnote 17-34: Matthew B. Ridgway, _The Korean War_
(New York: Doubleday, 1967), pp. 192-93.]
[Footnote 17-35: Memorandum for File, FECOM IG, 2 May
51, copy in AG 330.1.]
The 24th Infantry's experiences struck yet another blow at the Army's
race policy. Reduce the size of black units, the Gillem Board had
reasoned, and you will reduce inefficiency and discrimination. Such a
course had not worked. The same troubles that befell the 92d Division
in Italy were now being visited in Korea on the 24th Infantry, a unit
rich with honors extending back to the Indian fighting after the Civil
War, the War with Spain, and the Philippine Insurrection. The unit
could also boast among its medal of honor winners the first man to
receive the award in Korea, Pfc. William Thompson of Company M. Before
its inactivation in 1951 the 24th had yet another member so honored,
Sgt. Cornelius H. Carlton of Company H.
_Final Arguments_
To concentrate on the widespread sentiment for integration in the Far
East would misrepresent the general attitude that still prevailed in
the Army in the spring of 1951. This attitude was clearly reflected
again by the Chamberlin Board, which completed its reexamination of
the Army's racial policy in light of the Korean experience in April.
The board recognized the success of integrated units and even cited
evidence indicating that racial friction had decreased in those units
since the men generally accepted any replacement willing to fight. But
in the end the board retreated into the Army's conventional wisdom:
separate units must be retained, and the number of Negroes in the Army
must be regulated.[17-36]
[Footnote 17-36: Report of Board of Officers on
Utilization of Negro Manpower (2d Chamberlin
Report), 3 Apr 51, G-1 334 (8 Nov 51).]
The board's recommendations were not approved. Budgetary limitations
precluded the creation of more segregated units and the evidence of
Korea could not be denied. Yet the board still enjoyed considerable
support in some quarters. The Vice Chief of Staff, General Haislip,
who made no secret of his opposition to integration, considered it
"premature" to rely and act solely on the experience with integration
in Korea and the training divisions, and he told Secretary Pace in May
1951 that "no action should be taken which would lead to the immediate
elimination of segregated units."[17-37] And then there was the
assessment of Lt. Gen. Edward M. Almond, World War II commander of the
92d Division and later X Corps commander in Korea and MacArthur's
chief of staff. Twenty years after the Korean War Almond's attitude
toward integration had not changed.
I do not agree that integration improves military efficiency; I
believe that it weakens it. I believe that integration was and is
a political solution for the composition of our military forces
because those responsible for the procedures either do not
understand the characteristics of the two human elements (p. 441)
concerned, the white man and the Negro as individuals.
The basic characteristics of Negro and White are fundamentally
different and these basic differences must be recognized by those
responsible for integration. By trial and error we must test the
integration in its application. These persons who promulgate and
enforce such policies either have not the understanding of the
problem or they do not have the intestinal fortitude to do what
they think if they do understand it. There is no question in my
mind of the inherent difference in races. This is not racism--it
is common sense and understanding. Those who ignore these
differences merely interfere with the combat effectiveness of
battle units.[17-38]
[Footnote 17-37: Memo, Actg CofS for SA, 31 May 51,
sub: Negro Strength in the Army, CS 291.2 Negroes
(11 Apr 51); see also Interv, author with Haislip,
14 Feb 71, CMH files.]
[Footnote 17-38: Incl to Ltr, Almond to CMH, 1 Apr 72,
CMH files.]
The opinions of senior commanders long identified with segregated
units in combat carried weight with the middle-ranking staff officers
who, lacking such experience, were charged with devising policy.
Behind the opinions expressed by many staff members there seemed to be
a nebulous, often unspoken, conviction that Negroes did not perform
well in combat. The staff officers who saw proof for their convictions
in the troubles of the 24th Infantry ignored the possibility that
segregated units, not individual soldiers, was the problem. Their
attitude explains why the Army continued to delay changes made
imperative by its experience in Korea.
It also explains why at this late date the Army turned to the
scientific community for still another review of its racial policy.
The move originated with the Army's G-3, Maj. Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor,
who in February called for the collection of all information on the
Army's experiences with black troops in Korea. If the G-1, General
McAuliffe, did not consider the available data sufficient, General
Taylor added, he would join in sponsoring further investigation in the
Far East.[17-39] The result was two studies. The G-1 sent an Army
personnel research team, which left for Korea in April 1951, to study
the Army's regulations for assigning men under combat conditions and
to consider the performance of integrated units.[17-40] On 29 March,
Maj. Gen. Ward S. Maris, the G-4, requested the Operations Research
Office, a contract agency for the Army, to make a study of how best to
use black manpower in the Army.[17-41] The G-1 investigation,
undertaken by manpower experts drawn from several Army offices,
concentrated on the views of combat commanders; the contract agency
reviewed all available data, including a detailed battlefield survey
by social scientists. Both groups submitted preliminary reports in
July 1951.
[Footnote 17-39: Memo, ACofS, G-3, for ACofS, G-1, 22
Feb 51, WDGPA 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-40: Memo, Chief, Pers Mgmt Div, G-1, for
CofS, G-3, 6 Mar 51, WDGPA 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-41: Ltr, Maj Gen Ward Maris, G-4, for
Dir, ORO, 29 Mar 51, G-4 291.2. The Operations
Research Office, a subsidiary of the Johns Hopkins
University, performed qualitative and quantitative
analyses of strategy, tactics, and materiel. Some
of its assignments were subcontracted to other
research institutions; all were assigned by the
G-4's Research and Development Division and
coordinated with the Department of Defense.]
Their findings complemented each other. The G-1 team reported that
integration of black soldiers into white combat units in Korea had
been accomplished generally "without undue friction and with better
utilization of manpower." Combat commanders, the team added, "almost
unanimously favor integration."[17-42] The individual soldier's own
motivation determined his competence, the team concluded. The (p. 442)
contract agency, whose report was identified by the code name Project
CLEAR,[17-43] observed that large black units were, on average, less
reliable than large white units, but the effectiveness of small black
units varied widely. The performance of individual black soldiers in
integrated units, on the other hand, approximated that of whites. It
found that white officers commanding black units tended to attribute
their problems to race; those commanding integrated units saw their
problems as military ones. The contract team also confirmed previous
Army findings that efficient officers and noncommissioned officers,
regardless of race, were accepted by soldiers of both races.
Integration, it decided, had not lowered white morale, but it had
raised black morale. Virtually all black soldiers supported
integration, while white soldiers, whatever their private sentiments,
were not overtly hostile. In most situations, white attitudes toward
integration became more favorable with firsthand experience. Although
opinions varied, most combat commanders with integration experience
believed that a squad should contain not more than two Negroes. In
sum, the Project CLEAR group concluded that segregation hampered the
Army's effectiveness while integration increased it. Ironically, this
conclusion practically duplicated the verdict of the Army's surveys of
the integration of black and white units in Europe at the end of World
War II.
[Footnote 17-42: DA Personnel Research Team, "A
Preliminary Report on Personnel Research Data" (ca.
28 Jul 51), AG 333.3.]
[Footnote 17-43: ORO-T-99, "A Preliminary Report on
the Utilization of Negro Manpower," 30 Jun 51,
S4-S6, copy in CMH. A draft version of a more
comprehensive study on the same subject was
prepared in seven volumes (ORO-R-11) in November
1951. These several documents are usually referred
to as Project CLEAR, the code name for the complete
version. The declassification and eventual
publication of this very important social document
had a long and interesting history; see, for
example, Memo, Howard Sacks, Office of the General
Counsel, SA, for James C. Evans, 3 Nov 55, in CMH.
For over a decade a "sanitized" version of Project
CLEAR remained For Official Use Only. The study was
finally cleared and published under the title
_Social Research and the Desegregation of the U.S.
Army_, ed. Leo Bogart (Chicago: Markham, 1969).]
General Collins immediately accepted the Project CLEAR conclusions
when presented to him verbally on 23 July 1951.[17-44] His endorsement
and the subsequent announcement that the Army would integrate its
forces in the Far East implied a connection which did not exist.
Actually, the decision to integrate in Korea was made before Project
CLEAR or the G-1 study appeared. This is not to denigrate the
importance of these documents. Their justification of integration in
objective, scientific terms later helped convince Army traditionalists
of the need for worldwide change and absolved the Secretary of the
Army, his Chief of Staff, and his theater commander of the charge of
having made a political and social rather than a military
decision.[17-45]
[Footnote 17-44: ORO, "Utilization of Negro Manpower
in the Army: A 1951 Study" (advance draft), pp.
viii-ix, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 17-45: Ltr, Dir, ORO, to G-3, 20 Nov 52, G-3
291.2; see also Interv, Nichols with Davis.]
_Integration of the Eighth Army_
On 14 May 1951 General Ridgway forced the issue of integration by
formally requesting authority to abolish segregation in his command.
He would begin with the 24th Infantry, which he wanted to replace
after reassigning its men to white units in Korea. He would then
integrate the other combat units and, finally, the service units. (p. 443)
Where special skills were not a factor Ridgway wanted to assign his
black troops throughout the theater to a maximum of 12 percent of any
unit. To do this he needed permission to integrate the 40th and 45th
Divisions, the federalized National Guard units then stationed in
Japan. He based his proposals on the need to maintain the combat
effectiveness of his command where segregated units had proved
ineffective and integrated units acceptable.[17-46]
[Footnote 17-46: Msg, CINCFE to DA, DA IN 12483, 14
May 51, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the
FEC; ibid., DA IN 13036, 15 May 51, same sub. See
also Ltrs, CG, Eighth Army, to CINCFE, 7 May 51,
sub: Redesignation of Negro Combat Units, and
Ridgway to author, 3 Dec 73, both in CMH.]
When it finally arrived, the proposal for wide-scale integration of
combat units encountered no real opposition from the Army staff.
General Ridgway had rehearsed his proposal with the G-3 when the
latter visited the Far East in April. Taylor "heartily approved,"
calling the times auspicious for such a move.[17-47] Of course his
office quickly approved the plan, and McAuliffe in G-1 and the rest of
the staff followed suit. There was some sentiment on the staff,
eventually suppressed, for retaining the 24th Infantry as an
integrated unit since the statutory requirement for the four black
regiments had been repealed in 1950.[17-48] The staff did insist, over
the G-1's objections, on postponing the integration of the two
National Guard divisions until their arrival in Korea, where the
change could be accomplished through normal replacement-rotation
procedures.[17-49] There were other minor complications and
misunderstandings between the Far East Command and the Army staff over
the timing of the order, but they were easily ironed out.[17-50]
Collins discussed the plan with the appropriate congressional
chairmen, Ridgway further briefed the Secretary of Defense during
General Marshall's 1951 visit to Japan, and Secretary of the Army Pace
kept the President informed.[17-51]
[Footnote 17-47: Ridgway, _The Korean War_, p. 192.]
[Footnote 17-48: Section 401, Army Organization Act of
1950 (PL 581, 81st Cong.), published in DA Bull 9,
6 Jul 50. See also Msg, DA to CINCFE, DA 92561, 28
May 51; G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS and SA, 14 May
51, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower; Memo for
Rcd, G-1 (ca. 14 May 51). All in G-1 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-49: G-1 Summary Sheets for CofS, 18 and
23 May 51, sub: Utilization of Negro Troops in
FECOM, G-1 291.2. See also Elva Stillwaugh's study,
"Personnel Problems in the Korean Conflict," pp.
26-29, in CMH.]
[Footnote 17-50: See, for example, Msg, DA to CINCFE,
DA 92561, 28 May 51; Msg, CINCFE to DA, C6444, 8
Jun 51.]
[Footnote 17-51: Memo, Actg CofS for SA, 28 May 51,
sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, CS 291.2.]
Pace had succeeded Gordon Gray as secretary in April 1950 and
participated in the decisions leading to integration. A
Harvard-trained lawyer with impressive managerial skills, Pace did not
originate any of the Army's racial programs, but he fully supported
the views of his Chief of Staff, General Collins.[17-52] Meeting with
his senior civilian assistants, the G-1 and G-3 of the Army, and
Assistant Secretary of Defense Rosenberg on 9 June, Pace admitted that
their discussions were being conducted "probably with a view to
achieving complete integration in the Army." Nevertheless, he stressed
a cautionary approach because "once a step was taken it was very much
harder to retract." He was particularly worried about the high
percentage of black soldiers, 12.5 percent of the Army's total,
compared with the percentage of Negroes in the other services. He
summarized the three options still under discussion in the Department
of the Army: Ridgway's call for complete integration in Korea, followed
by integration of Army elements in Japan, with a 10 percent limit (p. 444)
on black replacements; Mark Clark's proposal to ship black combat
battalions to Korea to be used at the division commanders' discretion,
with integration limited to combat-tested individuals and then only in
support units; and, finally, the Army staff's decision to continue
sending replacements for use as the Far East Command saw fit.
[Footnote 17-52: Interv, author with Collins.]
[Illustration: GENERAL RIDGWAY.]
Commenting on the Ridgway proposal, one participant pointed out that a
10 percent limit on black replacements, even if integration spread to
the European Command, would mean that the majority of the Army's
Negroes would remain in the United States. Rosenberg, however,
preferred the Ridgway plan. Stressing that it was an Army decision and
that she was "no crusader," she nevertheless reminded Secretary Pace
that the Army needed to show some progress. Rosenberg mentioned the
threat of a Congress which might force more drastic measures upon the
Army and pointedly offered to defer answering her many congressional
inquisitors until the Army reached a decision.[17-53]
[Footnote 17-53: Memo for Rcd, Col James F. Collins,
Asst to ASD (M&P), 9 Jun 51, SD 291.2.]
The decision was finally announced on 1 July 1951. A message went out
to General Ridgway approving "deactivation of the 24th Infantry and
your general plan for integration of Negroes into all units (with the
temporary exception of the 40th and 45th Divisions)."[17-54] The staff
wanted the move to be gradual, progressive, and secret to avoid any
possible friction in the Eighth Army and to win general acceptance for
integration. But it did not remain secret for long. In the face of
renewed public criticism for its segregated units and after lengthy
staff discussion, the Army announced the integration of the Far East
Command on 26 July, the third anniversary of the Truman order.[17-55]
Prominent among the critics of the Army's delay was General MacArthur,
who publicly blamed President Truman for the continued segregation of
his former command. The charge, following as it did the general's
dismissal, was much discussed in the press and the Department of
Defense. Easily disputed, it was eventually overtaken by the fact of
integration.
[Footnote 17-54: Msg, DA to CINCFE, DA 95359, 1 Jul
51.]
[Footnote 17-55: Memo, Chief, Public Info Div, CINFO,
for Dir, Office of Public Info, DOD, 26 Jul 51; DOD
Press Release, 26 Jul 51. For last-minute criticism
of the continued segregation see, for example, Ltr,
Sens. Herbert Lehman and Hubert Humphrey to SecDef,
25 Jul 51; Memo, ASA for ASD (M&P), 19 Jul 51, sub:
Racial Segregation in FECOM; Telg, Elmer W.
Henderson, Dir, American Council on Human Rights,
to George C. Marshall, SecDef, 31 May 51. All in
SecDef 291.2.]
Three problems had to be solved in carrying out the integration (p. 445)
order. The first, inactivation of the 24th Infantry and the choice of
a replacement, was quickly overcome. From the replacements suggested,
Ridgway decided on the 14th Infantry, which had been recently assigned,
minus men and equipment, to the Far East Command. It was filled with
troops and equipment from the 34th Infantry, then training replacements
in Japan. On 1 October it was assigned to the 24th's zone of
responsibility in the 25th Division's line. The 24th Infantry, its men
and equipment transferred to other infantry units in Korea, was
inactivated on 1 October and "transferred to the control of the
Department of the Army."[17-56]
[Footnote 17-56: Per Ltr, TAG to CINCFE, 9 Aug 51,
AGAO-I 322 (26 Jul 51), implemented by Eighth Army
GO 717, 22 Sep 51.]
The second problem, integration of units throughout the command,
proved more difficult and time-consuming. Ridgway considered the need
most urgent in the infantry units and wanted their integration to take
precedence. The 3d Battalion of the 9th Infantry was reorganized
first, many of its black members scattered throughout other infantry
units in the 2d Division. But then things got out of phase. To speed
the process the Army staff dropped its plan for inactivating all
segregated units and decided simply to remove the designation
"segregated" and assign white soldiers to formerly all-black units.
Before this form of integration could take place in the 3d Battalion,
15th Infantry, the last major black infantry unit, the 64th Tank
Battalion and the 58th Armored Field Artillery Battalion began the
process of shifting their black troops to nearby white units. The 77th
Engineer Combat Company was the last combat unit to lose the asterisk,
the Army's way of designating a unit black.[17-57] The command was
originally committed to an Army contingency plan that would transfer
black combat troops found superfluous to the newly integrated units to
service units, but this proved unnecessary. All segregated combat
troops were eventually assigned to integrated combat units.[17-58]
[Footnote 17-57: Msg, DA 81846, 19 Sep 51; Eighth Army
GO 774, 16 Oct 51.]
[Footnote 17-58: FECOM Mil Hist Section, "History of
the Korean War," III (pt. 2):153-57.]
To soften the emotional aspects of the change, troop transfers were
scheduled as part of the individual soldier's normal rotation. By the
end of October 1951 the Eighth Army had integrated some 75 percent of
its infantry units. The process was scheduled for completion by
December, but integration of the rest of its combat units and the
great number of service units dragged on for another half year. It was
not until May 1952 that the last divisional and nondivisional
organizations were integrated.[17-59]
[Footnote 17-59: Memo, ASA (M&RF) for ASD (M&P), 22
Aug 52, sub: Integration of Negro Manpower, SD
291.2.]
The third and greatest problem in the integration of the Far East
Command was how to achieve a proportionate distribution of black
troops throughout the command. Ridgway was under orders to maintain
black strength at a maximum 12 percent except in combat infantry
units, where the maximum was 10 percent. The temporary restriction on
integrating the 40th and 45th Divisions and the lack of specially
trained Negroes eligible for assignment to the Japan Logistical
Command added to the difficulty of achieving this goal, but the basic
cause of delay was the continued shipment of black troops to the (p. 446)
Far East in excess of the prescribed percentage. During the integration
period the percentage of black replacements averaged between 12.6 and
15 percent and occasionally rose above 15 percent.[17-60] Ridgway
finally got permission from Washington to raise the ratio of black
soldiers in his combat infantry units to 12 percent, and further
relief could be expected in the coming months when the two National
Guard divisions began integrating.[17-61] Still, in October 1951 the
proportion of Negroes in the Eighth Army had risen to 17.6 percent,
and the flow of black troops to the Far East continued unabated,
threatening the success of the integration program. Ridgway repeatedly
appealed for relief, having been warned by his G-1 that future black
replacements must not exceed 10 percent if the integration program was
to continue successfully.[17-62]
[Footnote 17-60: Ibid.; Stillwaugh, "Personnel
Problems in the Korean Conflict," pp. 33-35.]
[Footnote 17-61: Msg, CSA to CINCFE, DA 96489, 18 Jul
51.]
[Footnote 17-62: Journal Files, G-1, FEC, Oct 51,
Annex 2.]
[Illustration: MACHINE GUNNERS OF COMPANY L, 14TH INFANTRY, _Hill 931,
Korea, September 1952_.]
Ridgway was particularly concerned with the strain on his program
caused by the excessive number of black combat replacements swelling
the percentage of Negroes in his combat units. By September black
combat strength reached 14.2 percent, far above the limits set by
the Army staff. Ridgway wanted combat replacements limited to 12 (p. 447)
percent. He also proposed that his command be allowed to request
replacements by race and occupational specialty in order to provide
Army headquarters with a sound basis for allotting black enlisted men
to the Far East. While the Army staff promised to try to limit the
number of black combat troops, it rejected the requisition scheme.
Selection for occupational specialist training was not made by race,
the G-1 explained, and the Army could not control the racial
proportions of any particular specialty. Since the Army staff had no
control over the number of Negroes in the Army, their specialties or
the replacement needs of the command, no purpose would be served by
granting such a request.[17-63]
[Footnote 17-63: Rad, CINCFE for DA, DA IN 182547, 11
Sep 52, sub: Negro Personnel; Msg, DA to CINCFE, 23
Sep 52, G-1 291.2.]
Yet Ridgway's advice could not be ignored, because by year's end the
whole Army had developed a vested interest in the success of
integration in the Far East. The service was enjoying the praise of
civil rights congressmen, much of the metropolitan press, and even
some veterans' groups, such as the Amvets.[17-64] Secretary Pace was
moved to call the integration of the Eighth Army a notable advance in
the field of human relations.[17-65] But most of all, the Army began
to experience the fruits of racial harmony. Much of the conflict and
confusion among troops that characterized the first year of the war
disappeared as integration spread, and senior officials commented
publicly on the superior military efficiency of an integrated Army in
Korea.[17-66] As for the men themselves, their attitudes were in sharp
contrast to those predicted by the Army traditionalists. The
conclusion of some white enlisted men, wounded and returned from
Korea, were typical:
Far as I'm concerned it [integration] worked pretty good.... When
it comes to life or death, race does not mean any difference....
It's like one big family.... Got a colored guy on our machine gun
crew--after a while I wouldn't do without him.... Concerning
combat, what I've seen, an American is an American. When we have
to do something we're all the same.... Each guy is like your own
brother--we treated all the same.... Had a colored platoon
leader. They are as good as any people.... We [an integrated
squad] had something great in common, sleeping, guarding each
other--sometimes body against body as we slept in bunkers....
Takes all kinds to fight a war.[17-67]
[Footnote 17-64: See, for example, Press Release by
Senator Herbert H. Lehman, 27 July 1951, which
expressed the praise of nine U.S. senators;
Editorial in the Baltimore Sun, December 21, 1951;
Ltr, National Cmdr, Amvets, to CINCFE, 5 Dec 51,
copies in CMH.]
[Footnote 17-65: _Semiannual Report of the Secretary
of Defense, July 1-December 31, 1951_ (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1952), p. 13.]
[Footnote 17-66: See, for example, Interv, Nichols
with Bradley; Ltr, Ridgway to author, 3 Dec 73;
Mark S. Watson, "Most Combat GI's are
Unsegregated," datelined 15 Dec 51 (probably
prepared for the Baltimore _Sun_). All in CMH
files. See also James C. Evans and David Lane,
"Integration in the Armed Services," _Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Sciences_
304 (March 1956):78.]
[Footnote 17-67: Extracted from a series of interviews
conducted by Lee Nichols with a group of wounded
soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 12
November 1952, in Nichols Collection, CMH.]
Integration was an established fact in Korea, but the question
remained: could an attitude forged in the heat of battle be sustained
on the more tranquil maneuver grounds of central Europe and the
American south?
[Illustration: COLOR GUARD, 160TH INFANTRY, KOREA, 1952.]
_Integration of the European and Continental Commands_ (p. 448)
Since the Army was just 12 percent Negro in September 1951, it should
have been possible to solve Ridgway's problem of black overstrength
simply by distributing black soldiers evenly throughout the Army. But
this solution was frustrated by the segregation still in force in
other commands. Organized black units in the United States were small
and few in number, and black recruits who could not be used in them
were shipped as replacements to the overseas commands, principally in
the Far East and Europe.[17-68] Consequently, Ridgway's problem was
not an isolated one; his European counterpart was operating a largely
segregated command almost 13 percent black. The Army could not prevent
black overstrengths so long as Negroes were ordered into the
quota-free service by color-blind draft boards, but it could equalize
the overstrength by integrating its forces all over the world.
[Footnote 17-68: In 1951 the European Command was the
major Army headquarters in the European theater. It
was, at the same time, a combined command with some
20,000 members of the Air Force and Navy serving
along with 234,000 Army troops. In August 1952 a
separate Army command (U.S. Army, Europe) was
created within the European Command. Discussion of
the European Command and its commander in the
following paragraphs applies only to Army troops.]
This course, along with the knowledge that integration was working in
the Far East and the training camps, was leading senior Army officials
toward full integration. But they wanted certain reassurances.
Believing that integration of the continental commands would create,
in the words of the G-1, "obstacles and difficulties vastly greater
than those in FECOM," the Army staff wanted these problems (p. 449)
thoroughly analyzed before taking additional moves, "experimental or
otherwise," to broaden integration.[17-69] General Collins, although
personally committed to integration, voiced another widespread concern
over extending integration beyond the Far East units. Unlike the Navy
and the Air Force, which were able to secure more highly qualified men
on a volunteer basis, the Army had long been forced to accept anyone
meeting the draft's minimum standards. This circumstance was very
likely to result, he feared, in an army composed to an unprecedented
degree of poorly educated black soldiers, possibly as much as 30
percent in the near future.[17-70]
[Footnote 17-69: Memo, G-1 for DCofS, Admin, 18 Jul
51, G-1 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-70: Ltr, Eli Ginzberg to Lt Col Edward J.
Barta, Hist Div, USAREUR, attached to Ltr, Ginzberg
to Carter Burgess, ASD (M&P), 11 Nov 55, SD 291.2
(11 Nov 55).]
The Army's leaders received the necessary reassurances in the coming
months. The Secretary of Defense laid to rest their fear that the
draft-dependent Army would become a dumping ground for the ignorant
and untrainable when, in April 1951, he directed that troops must be
distributed among the services on a qualitative basis. Assistant
Secretary of the Army Johnson asked Professor Eli Ginzberg, a social
scientist and consultant to the Army, to explain to the Army Policy
Council the need for aggressive action to end segregation.[17-71] And
once again, but this time with considerable scientific detail to
support its recommendations, the Project CLEAR final report told Army
leaders that the service should be integrated worldwide. Again the
researchers found that the Army's problem was not primarily racial,
but a question of how best to use underqualified men. Refining their
earlier figures, they decided that black soldiers were best used in
integrated units at a ratio of 15 to 85. Integration on the job was
conducive to social integration, they discovered, and social
integration, dependent on several variables, was particularly amenable
to firm policy guidance and local control. Finally, the report found
that integration on military posts was accepted by local civilians as
a military policy unlikely to affect their community.[17-72]
[Footnote 17-71: Ltr, Ginzberg to Burgess, 11 Nov 55.]
[Footnote 17-72: ORO-R-11, Rpt, Utilization of Negro
Manpower in the Army, Project CLEAR, vol. 1; G-1
Summary Sheet for CofSA, 5 Jan 52, sub: Evaluation
of ORO-R-11 on Utilization of Negro Manpower in the
Army, CS 291.2 Negroes (5 Jan 52).]
The Chief of Staff approved the Project CLEAR final report, although
his staff had tried to distinguish between the report's view of
on-the-job integration and social integration, accepting the former
with little reservation, but considering the latter to be "weak in
supporting evidence." The personnel staff continued to stress the need
to reimpose a racial quota quickly without waiting for black
enrollment to reach 15 percent as the Project CLEAR report suggested.
It also believed that integration should be limited to the active
federal service, exempting National Guard units under state control.
General McAuliffe agreed to drop racial statistics but warned that
investigation of discrimination charges depended on such statistics.
He also agreed that blacks could be mixed with whites at 10 to 20
percent of the strength of any white unit, but to assign whites in
similar percentages to black units "would undoubtedly present
difficulties and place undue burdens on the assigned white personnel."
Finally, McAuliffe stressed that commanders would have flexibility (p. 450)
in working out the nonoperational aspects of integration so long as
their methods and procedures were consistent with Army policy.[17-73]
[Footnote 17-73: G-1 Summary Sheet for CofSA, 5 Jan
52.]
These reservations aside, McAuliffe concluded that integration was
working in enough varied circumstances to justify its extension to the
entire Army. General Collins agreed, and on 29 December 1951 he
ordered all major commanders to prepare integration programs for their
commands. Integration was the Army's immediate goal, and, he added, it
was to be progressive, in orderly stages, and without publicity.[17-74]
[Footnote 17-74: Ibid., 29 Dec 51, sub: Integration of
Negro Enlisted Personnel, G-1 291.2 Negroes.]
The Chief of Staff's decision was especially timely for the European
Command where General Thomas T. Handy faced manpower problems similar
to if not so critical as those in the Far East. During 1951 Army
strength in Europe had also risen sharply--from 86,000 to 234,000 men.
Black strength had increased even more dramatically, from 8,876 (or 11
percent) to 27,267 (or 13 percent). The majority of black soldiers in
Europe served in segregated units, the number of which more than
doubled because of the Korean War. From sixty-six units in June 1950,
the figure rose to 139 in March 1952. Most of these units were not in
divisions but in service organizations; 113 were service units, of
which fifty-three were transportation units.
Again as in the Far East, some integration in Europe occurred in
response to the influx of new soldiers as well as to Army directives.
Handy integrated his Noncommissioned Officers' Academy in 1950 in an
operation involving thousands of enlisted men. After he closed the
segregated Kitzingen Training Center in February 1951, black troops
were absorbed into other training and replacement centers on an
integrated basis. For some time Army commanders in Europe had also
been assigning certain black soldiers with specialist training to
white units, a practice dramatically accelerated in 1950 when the
command began receiving many Negroes with occupation specialties
unneeded in black units. In March 1951 Handy directed that, while the
assignment of Negroes to black units remained the first priority,
Negroes possessing qualifications unusable or in excess of the needs
of black units would be assigned where they could be used most
effectively.[17-75] Consequently, by the end of 1951 some 7 percent of
all black enlisted men, 17 percent of the black officers, and all
black soldiers of the Women's Army Corps in the command were serving
in integrated units.
[Footnote 17-75: Ltr, EUCOM to Sub Cmds, 16 Mar 51,
sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel, USAREUR SGS
291.2. See also EUCOM Hist Div, "Integration of
Negro and White Troops in the U.S. Army, Europe,
1952-1954," p. 4, in CMH. This monograph, prepared
by Ronald Sher, will be cited hereafter as Sher
Monograph.]
In sharp contrast to the Far East Command, there was little support
among senior Army officials in Europe for full integration. Sent by
Assistant Secretary Johnson to brief European commanders on the Army's
decision, Eli Ginzberg met with almost universal skepticism. Most
commanders were unaware of the Army's success with integration in the
Far East and in the training divisions at home; when so informed they
were quick to declare such a move impractical for Europe. They warned
of the social problems that would arise with the all-white civilian
population and predicted that the Army would be forced to abandon (p. 451)
the program in midstream.[17-76]
[Footnote 17-76: Ltr, Ginzberg to Burgess, 11 Nov 55,
CMH files.]
There were exceptions. Lt. Gen. Manton S. Eddy, the commander of the
Seventh Army, described the serious operational problems caused by
segregation in his command. Most of his black units were
unsatisfactory, and without minimizing the difficulties he concluded
in 1951 that integration was desirable not only for the sake of his
own mission but for the Army's efficiency and the nation's world
leadership. Officers at Headquarters, Supreme Allied Powers, Europe,
also recited personnel and training problems caused in their command
by segregation, but here, Ginzberg noted, the attitude was one of
cautious silence, an attitude that made little difference because
General Eisenhower's command was an international organization having
nothing to do with the Army's race policies. It would, however, be of
some interest during the 1952 political campaign when some
commentators made the false claim that Eisenhower had integrated
American units in Europe.[17-77]
[Footnote 17-77: See, for example, _Pathfinder_
Magazine 58 (May 7, 1952):11. See also Ltr, Philleo
Nash to Donald Dawson, 27 May 52, Nash Collection,
Truman Library; Ltr, Brig Gen Charles T. Lanham to
Evans, 7 Aug 51, CMH files; CINFO Summary Sheet, 12
Jun 52, sub: Query Washington Bureau, NAACP, CSA
291.2.]
Obviously it was going to take more than a visit from Ginzberg to move
the European Command's staff, and later in the year Collins took the
matter up personally with Handy. This consultation, and a series of
exchanges between McAuliffe and command officials, led Collins to ask
Handy to submit an integration plan as quickly as possible.[17-78]
Handy complied with a proposal that failed on the whole to conform to
the Army's current plans for worldwide integration and was quickly
amended in Washington. The European Command would not, Collins
decreed, conduct a special screening of its black officers and noncoms
for fitness for combat duty. The command would not retain segregated
service units, although the Army would allow an extension of the
program's timetable to accomplish the integration of these units.
Finally, the command would stage no publicity campaign but would
instead proceed quietly and routinely. The program was to begin in
April 1952.[17-79]
[Footnote 17-78: Msg, CofSA to CINCEUR, 4 Dec 51, DA
88688.]
[Footnote 17-79: Ltr, AG, EUCOM, to CofSA, 14 Dec 51,
sub: Racial Integration in Combat Units; G-1
Summary Sheet, 24 Jan 52, same sub; Ltr, CofSA to
Handy, 15 Feb 52; Msg, CINCEUR to CofSA, 22 Mar 52,
DA IN 119235; Msg, CofSA to CINCEUR, DA 904459, 24
Mar 52. All in CS 291.2.]
Integration of the European Command proceeded without incident, but
the administrative task was complicated and frequently delayed by the
problem of black overstrength. Handy directed that Negroes be assigned
as individuals in a 1 to 10 ratio in all units although he would
tolerate a higher ratio in service and temporary duty units during the
early stages of the program.[17-80] This figure was adjusted upward
the following year to a maximum of 12 percent black for armor and
infantry units, 15 percent for combat engineers and artillery, and
17.5 percent for all other units. During the process of integrating
the units, a 25 percent black strength was authorized.[17-81]
[Footnote 17-80: Memo, CINCEUCOM for Commanding
Generals et al., 1 Apr 52, sub: Racial Integration
of EUCOM Army Units, copy in CS 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-81: Sher Monograph, p. 27.]
The ratios were raised because the percentage of Negroes in the (p. 452)
command continued to exceed the 1 to 10 ratio and was still
increasing. In September 1953 the new commander, General Alfred M.
Gruenther, tried to slow the rate of increase.[17-82] He got
Washington to halt the shipment of black units, and he himself
instituted stricter reenlistment standards in Europe. Finally, he
warned that with fewer segregated units to which black troops might be
assigned, the racial imbalance was becoming more critical, and he
asked for a deferment of the program's completion.[17-83] The Army
staff promised to try to alleviate the racial disproportions in the
replacement stream, but asked Gruenther to proceed as quickly as
possible with integration.[17-84]
[Footnote 17-82: As of 1 August 1952 the major joint
American command in Europe was designated U.S.
European Command (USEUCOM). The U.S. Army element
in this command was designated U.S. Army, Europe
(USAREUR). Gruenther was the commander in chief of
the European Command from July 1953 to November
1956. At the same time he occupied the senior
position in the NATO Command under the title
Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR).]
[Footnote 17-83: Memo, USCINCEUR for TAG, 30 Sep 53,
sub: Racial Integration of USAREUR Units, AG 291.2
(30 Sep 53); see also Sher Monograph, pp. 24-27.]
[Footnote 17-84: Memos, G-1 for TAG, 30 Oct 53, sub:
Negro Overstrength in USAREUR, and TAG for
USCINCEUR, 2 Nov 53, same sub; both in AG 291.2 (30
Oct 53).]
There was little the Army staff could do. The continental commands had
the same overstrength problem, and the staff considered the European
Command an inappropriate place to raise black percentages. By mid-1953
Negroes accounted for some 16 percent of Army personnel in Europe and,
more important to the command, the number of Negroes with combat
occupation specialties continued to increase at the same rate. As an
alternative to the untenable practice of reclassifying combat-trained
men for noncombat assignments purely on account of race, Gruenther
again raised the acceptable ratio of blacks in combat units. At the
same time he directed the Seventh Army commander to treat ratios in
the future merely as guidelines, to be adhered to as circumstances
permitted.[17-85] The percentage of Negroes in the command leveled off
at this time, but not before the black proportion of the command's
transportation units reached 48.8 percent. Summing up his command's
policy on integration, Gruenther concluded: "I cannot permit the
assignment of large numbers of unqualified personnel, regardless of
race, to prejudice the operation readiness of our units in an effort
to attain 100 percent racial integration, however desirable that goal
may be."[17-86] A heavy influx of white replacements with
transportation specialties allowed the European Command to finish
integrating the elements of the Seventh Army in July 1954.[17-87] The
last black unit in the command, the 94th Engineer Battalion, was
inactivated in November.
[Footnote 17-85: Ltr, USCINCEUR to CG, Seventh Army, 8
Jul 53, sub: Racial Integration of USAREUR Units,
USAREUR AG 291.2 (1953).]
[Footnote 17-86: Ltr, CINCUSAREUR to SACEUR, 10 Apr
53, USAREUR SGS 291.2 (1953), quoted in Sher
Monograph, p. 28.]
[Footnote 17-87: Hq USAREUR, "Annual Historical
Report, 1 January 1953-30 June 1954," p. 60, in
CMH.]
Integration of black troops in Europe proved successful on several
counts, with the Army, in Assistant Secretary Fred Korth's words,
"achieving benefits therefrom substantially greater than we
had anticipated at its inception."[17-88] The command's combat (p. 453)
readiness increased, he claimed, while its racial incidents and
disciplinary problems declined. The reaction of the soldiers was,
again in Korth's words, "generally good" with incidents stemming from
integration "fewer and much farther between." Moreover, the program
had been a definite advantage in counteracting Communist propaganda,
with no evidence of problems with civilians arising from social
integration. More eloquent testimony to the program's success appeared
in the enthusiasm of the European Command's senior officials.[17-89]
Their fears and uncertainties eased, they abruptly reversed their
attitudes and some even moved from outright opposition to praise for
the program as one of their principal achievements.
[Footnote 17-88: Memo, ASA (M&RF) for J. C. Evans,
OASD (M), 26 Nov 52, sub: Negro Integration in
Europe, SD 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-89: Ltr, Ginzberg to Burgess, 15 Nov 55,
CMH files; Ernest Leiser, "For Negroes, It's a New
Army Now," _Saturday Evening Post_ 225 (December
13, 1952):26-27, 108-12.]
The smaller overseas commands also submitted plans to Army
headquarters for the breakup of their segregated units in 1951, and
integration of the Alaskan Command and the rest proceeded during 1952
without incident.[17-90] At the same time the continental Army
commands, faced with similar manpower problems, began making
exceptions, albeit considerably more timidly than the great overseas
commands, to the assignment of Negroes to black units. As early as
September 1951 the Army G-1 discovered instances of unauthorized
integration in every Army area,[17-91] the result of either
unrectified administrative errors or the need to find suitable
assignments for black replacements. "The concern shown by you over the
press reaction to integrating these men into white units," the Sixth
Army commander, Lt. Gen. Joseph M. Swing, reported to the Army staff,
"causes me to guess that your people may not realize the extent to
which integration has already progressed--at least in the Sixth
Army."[17-92] Swing concluded that gradual integration had to be the
solution to the Army's race problems everywhere. McAuliffe agreed with
Swing that the continental commands should be gradually integrated,
but, as he put it, "the difficulty is that my superiors are not
prepared to admit that we are already launched on a progressive
integration program" in the United States. The whole problem was a
very touchy one, McAuliffe added.[17-93]
[Footnote 17-90: On the integration of these commands,
see, for example, G-1 Summary Sheet, 4 Sep 52, sub:
Utilization of Negro Personnel; Ltr, CG, USARAL, to
DA, 15 Sep 51; Ltr, G-1 to Maj Gen Julian
Cunningham, 22 Oct 51. All in G-1 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-91: Memo, Chief, Manpower Control Div,
G-1, for Gen Taylor, 6 Sep 51, sub: Negro
Integration, G-1 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-92: Ltr, CG, Sixth Army, to ACofS, G-1,
10 Sep 51, G-1 291.2 Negroes.]
[Footnote 17-93: Ltr, G-1 to CG, Sixth Army, 17 Sep
51, G-1 291.2.]
The Army staff had agreed to halt the further integration of units in
the United States until the results of the overseas changes had been
carefully analyzed. Nevertheless, even while the integration of the
Far East forces was proceeding, General McAuliffe's office prepared a
comprehensive two-phase plan for the integration of the continental
armies. It would consolidate all temporary units then separated into
racial elements, redistributing all Negroes among the organized white
units; then, Negroes assigned to black components of larger white
units would be absorbed into similar white units through normal
attrition or by concentrated levies on the black units. McAuliffe (p. 454)
estimated that the whole process would take two years.[17-94]
[Footnote 17-94: G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS, 21 Sep
51, sub: G-1 Attitude Toward Integration of Negroes
Into CONUS Units, CS 291.2 Negroes (21 Sep 51). The
staff's decision to halt further integration was
announced in Memo, ACofS, G-1, for ACofS, G-3, 18
Jul 51, G-1 291.2.]
[Illustration: VISIT WITH THE COMMANDER. _Soldiers of the Ordnance
Branch, Berlin Command, meet with Brig. Gen. Charles F. Craig._]
McAuliffe's plan was put into effect when General Collins ordered
worldwide integration in December 1952. The breakdown of the "10
percent Army" proceeded uneventfully, and the old black units
disappeared. The 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments, now converted into
the 509th and 510th Tank Battalions (Negro), received white
replacements and dropped the racial designation. The 25th Infantry,
now broken down into smaller units, was integrated in September 1952.
On 12 October 1953 Assistant Secretary of Defense John Hannah
announced that 95 percent of the Army's Negroes were serving in
integrated units with the rest to be so assigned not later than June
1954.[17-95] His estimate was off by several months. The European (p. 455)
Command's 94th Engineer Battalion, the last major all-black unit, was
inactivated in November 1954, several weeks after the Secretary of
Defense had announced the end of all segregated units.[17-96]
[Footnote 17-95: _U.S. News and World Report_ 35
(October 16, 1953):99-100.]
[Footnote 17-96: Hq USAREUR, "Annual Historical
Report, 1 July 1954-30 June 1955," p. 83.]
[Illustration: BROTHERS UNDER THE SKIN, _inductees at Fort Sam
Houston, Texas, 1953_.]
Like a man who discovers that his profitable deeds are also virtuous,
the Army discussed its new racial policy with considerable pride. From
company commander to general officer the report was that the Army
worked better; integration was desirable, and despite all predictions
to the contrary, it was a success. Military commentators in and out of
uniform stoutly defended the new system against its few
critics.[17-97] Most pointed to Korea as the proving ground for the
new policy. Assistant Secretary of Defense Hannah generalized about
the change to integration: "Official analyses and reports indicate a
definite increase in combat effectiveness in the overseas areas....
From experience in Korea and elsewhere, Army commanders have (p. 456)
determined, also, that more economical and effective results accrue
from the policies which remove duplicate facilities and operations
based upon race."[17-98] The Army, it would seem, had made a complete
about-face in its argument from efficiency.
[Footnote 17-97: See, for example, _Semiannual Report
of the Secretary of Defense, January 1-June 30,
1933_, p. 24; ibid., January 1-June 30, 1954, pp.
21-22; and annual reports of the Secretary of the
Army for same period, as well as CINCUSAREUR's
response to criticisms by General Mark Clark, _Army
Times_, May 19, 1956, and S. L. A. Marshall's
devastating rejoinder to General Almond in the
Detroit _News_, May 13, 1956. Clark's views are
reported in _U.S. News and World Report_ 40 (May
11, 1956). See also Ltr, Lt Col Gordon Hill, CINFO,
to Joan Rosen, WCBS, 17 Apr 64, CMH files; New York
_Herald Tribune_, May 14, 1956; New York _Times_
May 6, 1956.]
[Footnote 17-98: Ltr, Hannah, ASD (M), to Sen. Lyndon
B. Johnson, 27 Feb 53, ASD (M) 291.2.]
But integration did more than demonstrate a new form of military
efficiency. It also stilled several genuine fears long entertained by
military leaders. Many thoughtful officials had feared that the social
mingling that would inevitably accompany integration in the
continental United States might lead to racial incidents and a
breakdown in discipline. The new policy seemed to prove this fear
groundless.[17-99] A 1953 Army-sponsored survey reported that, with
the single major exception of racially separate dances for enlisted
men at post-operated service clubs on southern bases, segregation
involving uniformed men and women now stopped at the gates of the
military reservation.[17-100] Army headquarters, carefully monitoring
the progress of social integration, found it without incident.[17-101]
At the same time the survey revealed that some noncommissioned
officers' clubs and enlisted men's clubs tended to segregate
themselves, but no official notice was taken of this tendency, and not
one such instance was a source of racial complaint in 1953. The survey
also discovered that racial attitudes in adjacent communities had
surprisingly little influence on the relations between white and black
soldiers on post. Nor was there evidence of any appreciable resentment
toward integration on the part of white civilian employees, even when
they worked with or under black officers and enlisted men.
[Footnote 17-99: One exception was the strong
objection in some states to racially mixed
marriages contracted by soldiers. Twenty-seven
states had some form of miscegenation law. The Army
therefore did not assign to stations in those
states soldiers who by reason of their mixed
marriages might be subject to criminal penalties.
See Memo, Chief, Classification and Standards
Branch, DCSPER, for Planning Office, 28 Feb 50,
sub: Assignment of Personnel; DF, DCSPER to TAG, 4
Jun 54; both in DCSPER 291.2. For further
discussion of the matter, see TAGO, Policy Paper,
July 1954; New York _Post_, November 13, 1957.]
[Footnote 17-100: HUMRRO, Integration of Social
Activities on Nine Army Posts, Aug 53. See also
Interv, Nichols with Davis. A DCSPER action
officer, Davis was intimately involved with the
Army's integration program during this period.]
[Footnote 17-101: Interv, author with Evans, 4 Dec 73,
CMH files.]
The on-post dance, a valuable morale builder, was usually restricted
to one race because commanders were afraid of arousing antagonism in
nearby communities. But even here restrictions were not uniform.
Mutual use of dance floors by white and black couples was frequent
though not commonplace and was accepted in officers' clubs, many
noncommissioned officers' clubs, and at special unit affairs. The
rules for social integration were flexible, and many adjustments could
be made to the sentiments of the community if the commander had the
will and the tact. Some commanders, unaware of what was being
accomplished by progressive colleagues, were afraid to establish a
precedent, and often avoided practices that were common elsewhere.
Social scientists reviewing the situation suggested that the Army
should acquaint the commanders with the existing wide range of social
possibilities.
Fear of congressional disapproval, another reason often given for
deferring integration, was exaggerated, as a meeting between Senator
Richard B. Russell and James Evans in early 1952 demonstrated. (p. 457)
At the request of the manpower secretary, Evans went to Capitol Hill
to inform the chairman of the Armed Services Committee that for
reasons of military efficiency the Army was going to integrate.
Senator Russell observed that he had been unable to do some things he
wanted to do "because your people [black voters] weren't strong enough
politically to support me." Tell the secretary, Russell added, "that I
won't help him integrate, but I won't hinder him either--and neither
will anyone else."[17-102] The senator was true to his word. News of
the Army's integration program passed quietly through the halls of
Congress without public or private protest.
[Footnote 17-102: Ibid.]
Much opposition to integration was based on the fear that low-scoring
black soldiers, handicapped by deficiencies in schooling and training,
would weaken integrated units as they had the all-black units. But
integration proved to be the best solution. As one combat commander
put it, "Mix 'um up and you get a strong line all the way; segregate
'um and you have a point of weakness in your line. The enemy hits you
there, and it's bug out."[17-103] Korea taught the Army that an
integrated unit was not as weak as its weakest men, but as strong as
its leadership and training. Integration not only diluted the impact
of the less qualified by distributing them more widely, but also
brought about measurable improvement in the performance and standards
of a large number of black soldiers.
[Footnote 17-103: Quoted in John B. Spore and Robert
F. Cocklin, "Our Negro Soldiers," _Reporter_ 6
(January 22, 1952):6-9.]
Closely related to the concern over the large number of ill-qualified
soldiers was the fear of the impact of integration on a quota-free
Army. The Project CLEAR team concluded that a maximum of 15 to 20
percent black strength "seems to be an effective interim working
level."[17-104] General McAuliffe pointed out in November 1952 that he
was trying to maintain a balanced distribution of black troops, not
only geographically but also according to combat and service
specialties (_see Tables 9 and 10_). Collins decided to retain the
ceiling on black combat troops--no more than 12 percent in any combat
unit--but he agreed that a substantially higher percentage was
acceptable in all other units.[17-105]
[Footnote 17-104: Ltr, Dir, ORO, to ACofS, G-3, 20 Nov
52, G-3 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-105: Memo for Rcd, G-1, 6 Nov 52, ref:
ACofS, G-1, Memo for CofS, sub: Distribution of
Negro Personnel, 14 Oct 52, G-1 291.2.]
Table 9--Worldwide Distribution of Enlisted Personnel by Race,
October 1952
(In Thousands)
European Far East Other Overseas Continental
Category Command Command Commands United Total
States
White 212.1 293.1 96.0 649.2 1,250.5
Black 35.6 41.5 5.8[a] 110.6 193.4
Total 247.7 334.6 101.8 759.8 1,445.9
Percent black 14.4 12.4 5.7 14.6 13.4
[Tablenote a: Restrictions remained in effect on
the assignment of Negroes to certain stations in
USARPAC, TRUST, and USARCARIB.]
_Source_: Memo, Chief, Per and Dist Br, G-1, for ACofS, G-1, 8 Oct 52,
sub: Distribution of Negro Enlisted Personnel, G-1, 291.2.
Table 10--Distribution of Black Enlisted Personnel by Branch and Rank,
31 October 1952
AUS Regular
Branch Total Percent[b] Total Percent[b]
Armor 7,738 13.7 3,565 13.8
Artillery 33,684 16.9 14,854 19.9
Infantry 37,220 14.1 15,713 14.9
Adjutant General's Corps 1,074 8.8 663 10.8
Chemical Corps 1,504 15.5 633 20.1
Corps of Engineers 18,987 16.4 8,315 17.9
Military Police Corps 3,012 8.1 1,751 9.8
Finance Corps 68 2.4 51 5.3
Army Medical Service 9,896 12.2 4,439 12.9
Ordnance Corps 5,683 10.2 2,598 12.0
Quartermaster Corps 9,690 20.8 4,187 20.6
Signal Corps 6,923 8.2 3,192 8.7
Transportation Corps 16,380 31.2 8,765 38.2
Women's Army Corps 1,310 13.1 1,283 13.3
No Branch assignment[a] 42,643 11.4 17,779 11.7
Total 195,812[c] 87,788
[Tablenote a: In training.]
[Tablenote b: Figures show black percentage of
total Army enlistments.]
[Tablenote c: Discrepancy with Table 9, which is
based on September figures.]
_Source_: STM-30, 31 Oct 52.
These percentages were part of a larger concern over the number of
Negroes in the Army as a whole. Based on the evidence of draft-swollen
enlistment statistics, it seemed likely that the 15 to 20 percent
figure would be reached or surpassed in 1953 or 1954, and there was
some discussion in the staff about restoring the quota. But such talk
quickly faded as the Korean War wound down and the percentage
declined. Negroes constituted 14.4 percent of enlisted strength in
December 1952 and leveled off by the summer of 1955 at 11.9 percent.
Statistics for the European Command illustrated the trend. In June
1955, Negroes accounted for 3.6 percent of the command's officer
strength and 11.4 percent of its enlisted strength. The enlisted
figure represents a drop from a high of 16.1 percent in June 1953.
The percentage of black troops was down to 11.2 percent of the (p. 458)
command's total strength--officers, warrant officers, and enlisted
men--by June 1956. The reduction is explained in part by a policy
adopted by all commands in February 1955 of refusing, with certain
exceptions, to reenlist three-year veterans who scored less than
ninety in the classification tests. In Europe alone some 5,300
enlisted men were not permitted to reenlist in 1955. Slightly more
than 25 percent were black.[17-106]
[Footnote 17-106: Hq USAREUR, "Annual Historical
Report, 1 July 1954-30 June 1955," pp. 76-80, 92;
ibid., 1 July 1955-30 June 1956, pp. 65-67.]
The racial quota, in the guise of an "acceptable" percentage of
Negroes in individual units, continued to operate long after the Army
agreed to abandon it. No one, black or white, appears to have voiced
in the early 1950's the logical observation that the establishment of
a racial quota in individual Army units--whatever the percentage and
the grounds for that percentage--was in itself a residual form of
discrimination. Nor did anyone ask how establishing a race quota,
clearly distinct from restricting men according to mental, moral, or
professional standards, could achieve the "effective working (p. 459)
level" posited by the Army's scientific advisers.
These questions would still be pertinent years later because the
alternative to the racial quota--the enlistment and assignment of men
without regard for color--would continue to be unacceptable to many.
They would argue that to abandon the quota, as the services did in the
1960's, was to violate the concept of racial balance, which is yet
another hallmark of an egalitarian society. For example, during the
Vietnam War some black Americans complained that too many Negroes were
serving in the more dangerous combat arms. Since men were assigned
without regard to race, these critics were in effect asking for the
quota again, reminding the service that the population of the United
States was only some 11 percent black. And during discussions of the
all-volunteer Army a decade later, critics would be asking how the
white majority would react to an army 30 or even 50 percent black.
These considerations were clearly beyond the ken of the men who
integrated the Army in the early 1950's. They concentrated instead on
the perplexities of enlisting and assigning vast numbers of segregated
black soldiers during wartime and closely watched the combat
performance of black units in Korea. Integration provided the Army
with a way to fill its depleted combat units quickly. The shortage of
white troops forced local commanders to turn to the growing surplus of
black soldiers awaiting assignment to a limited number of black units.
Manpower restrictions did not permit the formation of new black units
merely to accommodate the excess, and in any case experience with the
24th Infantry had strengthened the Army staff's conviction that black
combat units did not perform well. However commanders may have felt
about the social implications of integration, and whatever they
thought of the fighting ability of black units, the only choice left
to them was integration. When the Chief of Staff ordered the
integration of the Far East Command in 1951, what had begun as a
battlefield expedient became official policy.
Segregation became unworkable when the Army lost its power to limit
the number of black soldiers. Abandonment of the quota on enlistments,
pressed on the Army by the Fahy Committee, proved compatible with
segregated units only so long as the need for fighting men was not
acute. In Korea the need became acute. Ironically, the Gillem Board,
whose work became anathema to the integrationists, accurately
predicted the demise of segregation in its final report, which
declared that in the event of another major war the Army would use its
manpower "without regard to antecedents or race."
CHAPTER 18 (p. 460)
Integration of the Marine Corps
Even more so than in the Army, the history of racial equality in the
Marine Corps demonstrates the effect of the exigencies of war on the
integration of the armed forces. The Truman order, the Fahy Committee,
even the demands of civil rights leaders and the mandates of the draft
law, all exerted pressure for reform and assured the presence of some
black marines. But the Marine Corps was for years able to stave off
the logical outcome of such pressures, and in the end it was the
manpower demands of the Korean War that finally brought integration.
In the first place the Korean War caused a sudden and dramatic rise in
the number of black marines: from 1,525 men, almost half of them
stewards, in May 1949, to some 17,000 men, only 500 of them serving in
separate stewards duty, in October 1953.[18-1] Whereas the careful
designation of a few segregated service units sufficed to handle the
token black representation in 1949, no such organization was possible
in 1952, when thousands of black marines on active duty constituted
more than 5 percent of the total enlistment. The decision to integrate
the new black marines throughout the corps was the natural outcome of
the service's early experiences in Korea. Ordered to field a full
division, the corps out of necessity turned to the existing black
service units, among others, for men to augment the peacetime strength
of its combat units. These men were assigned to any unit in the Far
East that needed them. As the need for more units and replacements
grew during the war, newly enlisted black marines were more and more
often pressed into integrated service both in the Far East and at
home.
[Footnote 18-1: All statistics from official Marine
Corps sources, Hist Div, HQMC.]
Most significantly, the war provided a rising generation of Marine
Corps officers with a first combat experience with black marines. The
competence of these Negroes and the general absence of racial tension
during their integration destroyed long accepted beliefs to the
contrary and opened the way for general integration. Although the
corps continued to place special restrictions on the employment of
Negroes and was still wrestling with the problem of black stewards
well into the next decade, its basic policy of segregating marines by
race ended with the cancellation of the last all-black unit
designation in 1951. Hastily embraced by the corps as a solution to a
pressing manpower problem, integration was finally accepted as a
permanent manpower policy.
_Impetus for Change_ (p. 461)
This transformation seemed remote in 1949 in view of Commandant
Clifton B. Cates's strong defense of segregation. At that time Cates
made a careful distinction between allocating men to the services
without regard to race, which he supported, and ordering integration
of the services themselves. "Changing national policy in this respect
through the Armed Forces," he declared, "is a dangerous path to pursue
inasmuch as it effects [_sic_] the ability of the National Military
Establishment to fulfill its mission."[18-2] Integration of the
services had to follow, not precede, integration of American society.
[Footnote 18-2: Memo, CMC for Asst SecNav for Air, 17
Mar 49, MC files.]
The commandant's views were spelled out in a series of decisions
announced by the corps in the wake of the Secretary of the Navy's call
for integration of all elements of the Navy Department in 1949. On 18
November 1949 the corps' Acting Chief of Staff announced a new racial
policy: individual black marines would be assigned in accordance with
their specialties to vacancies "in any unit where their services can
be effectively utilized," but segregated black units would be retained
and new ones created when appropriate in the regular and reserve
components of the corps. In the case of the reserve component, the
decision on the acceptance of an applicant was vested in the unit
commander.[18-3] On the same day the commandant made it clear that the
policy was not to be interpreted too broadly. Priority for the
assignment of individual black marines, Cates informed the commander
of the Pacific Department, would be given to the support establishment
and black officers would be assigned to black units only.[18-4]
[Footnote 18-3: MC Memo 119-14, 18 Nov 49, sub: Policy
Regarding Negro Marines, Hist Div, HQMC, files.
Unless otherwise noted, all documents in this
section are located in these files.]
[Footnote 18-4: Msg, CMC (signed C. B. Cates) to CG,
Dept of Pacific, 18 Nov 49. Aware of the delicate
public relations aspects of this subject, the
Director of Plans and Policies recommended that
this message be classified; see Memo, E. A. Pollock
for Asst CMC, 8 Nov 49.]
Further limiting the chances that black marines would be integrated,
Cates approved the creation of four new black units. The Director of
Personnel and the Marine Quartermaster had opposed this move on the
grounds that the new units would require technical billets,
particularly in the supply specialties, which would be nearly
impossible to fill with available enlisted black marines. Either
school standards would have to be lowered or white marines would have
to be assigned to the units. Cates met this objection by agreeing with
the Director of Plans and Policies that no prohibition existed against
racial mixing in a unit during a period of on-the-job training. The
Director of Personnel would decide when a unit was sufficiently
trained and properly manned to be officially designated a black
organization.[18-5] In keeping with this arrangement, for example, the
commanding general of the 2d Marine Division reported in February 1950
that his black marines were sufficiently trained to assume complete
operation of the depot platoon within the division's service command.
Cates then designated the platoon as a unit suitable for general (p. 462)
duty black marines, which prompted the Coordinator of Enlisted
Personnel to point out that current regulations stipulated "after a
unit has been so designated, all white enlisted personnel will be
withdrawn and reassigned."[18-6]
[Footnote 18-5: DP&P Study 119-49, 14 Nov 49, sub:
Designation of Units for Assignment of Negro
Marines, approved by CMC, 2 Dec 49.]
[Footnote 18-6: Memo, CG, 2d Marine Div, for CMC, 18
Feb 50, sub: Assignment of Negro Enlisted
Personnel; Memo, CMC to CG, 2d Marine Div, 28 Mar
50, sub: Designation of the Depot Platoon, Support
Company, Second Combat Service Group, Service
Command, for Assignment of Negro Enlisted Marines;
MC Routing Sheet, Enlisted Coordinator, Personnel
Department, 27 Mar 50, same sub.]
Nor were there any plans for the general integration of black
reservists, although some Negroes were serving in formerly all-white
units. The 9th Infantry Battalion, for instance, had a black
lieutenant. As the assistant commandant, Maj. Gen. Oliver P. Smith,
put it on 4 January 1950, black units would be formed "in any area
where there is an expressed interest" provided that the black
population was large enough to support it.[18-7] When the NAACP
objected to the creation of another all-black reserve unit in New York
City as being contrary to Defense Department policy, the Marine Corps
justified it on the grounds that the choice of integrated or
segregated units must be made by the local community "in accord with
its cultural values."[18-8] Notwithstanding the Secretary of the
Navy's integration order and assignment policies directed toward
effective utilization, it appeared that the Marine Corps in early 1950
was determined to retain its system of racially segregated units
indefinitely.
[Footnote 18-7: Ltr, Smith to Franklin S. Williams,
Asst Special Counsel, NAACP, 4 Jan 50, AO-1, MC
files.]
[Footnote 18-8: Ltr, Roy Wilkins to SecDef, 27 Feb 50;
Memo, SecNav for SecDef, 17 Apr 50, sub: Activation
of Negro Reserve Units in the U.S. Marine Corps;
both in SecDef 291.2. See also Ltr, Asst CMC to
Franklin Williams, 7 Feb 50.]
But the corps failed to reckon with the consequences of the war that
broke out suddenly in Korea in June. Two factors connected with that
conflict caused an abrupt change in Marine race policy. The first was
the great influx of Negroes into the corps. Although the commandant
insisted that race was not considered in recruitment, and in fact
recruitment instructions since 1948 contained no reference to the race
of applicants, few Negroes had joined the Marine Corps in the two
years preceding the war.[18-9] In its defense the corps pointed to its
exceedingly small enlistment quotas during those years and its high
enlistment standards, which together allowed recruiters to accept only
a few men. The classification test average for all recruits enlisted
in 1949 was 108, while the average for black enlistees during the same
period was 94.7. New black recruits were almost exclusively enlisted
for stewards duty.[18-10]
[Footnote 18-9: Ltr, CMC to Walter White, 2 Jul 51.]
[Footnote 18-10: Memo, Div of Plans and Policies for
Asst Dir of Public Info, 4 Jun 51, sub: Article in
Pittsburgh _Courier_ of 26 May 51.]
A revision of Defense Department manpower policy combined with the
demands of the war to change all that. The imposition of a qualitative
distribution of manpower by the Secretary of Defense in April 1950
meant that among the thousands of recruits enlisted during the Korean
War the Marine Corps would have to accept its share of the large
percentage of men in lower classification test categories. Among these
men were a significant number of black enlistees who had failed to
qualify under previous standards. They were joined by thousands (p. 463)
more who were supplied through the nondiscriminatory process of the
Selective Service System when, during the war, the corps began using
the draft. The result was a 100 percent jump in the number of black
marines in the first year of war, a figure that would be multiplied
almost six times before war inductions ran down in 1953. (_Table 11_)
Table 11--black Marines, 1949-1955
Percent
Date Officers Enlisted Men of Corps
July 1949 0 1,525 1.6
July 1950 0 1,605 1.6
January 1951 2 2,077 1.2
July 1951 3 3,145 1.6
January 1952 3 8,315 3.7
July 1952 NA 13,858 6.0
January 1953 10 14,479 6.1
July 1953 13 15,729 6.0
November 1953 18 16,906 6.7
June 1954 19 15,682 6.5
January 1955 19 12,456 5.7
A second factor forcing a change in racial policy was the manpower
demands imposed upon the corps by the war itself. When General
MacArthur called for the deployment of a Marine regimental combat team
and supporting air group on 2 July 1950, the Secretary of the Navy
responded by sending the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade, which
included the 5th Marine Regiment, the 1st Battalion of the 11th
Marines (Artillery), and Marine Air Group 33. By 13 September the 1st
Marine Division and the 1st Marine Air Wing at wartime strength had
been added. Fielding these forces placed an enormous strain on the
corps' manpower, and one result was the assignment of a number of
black service units, often combined with white units in composite
organizations, to the combat units.
The pressures of battle quickly altered this neat arrangement.
Theoretically, every marine was trained as an infantryman, and when
shortages occurred in combat units commanders began assigning black
replacements where needed. For example, as the demand for more marines
for the battlefield grew, the Marine staff began to pull black marines
from routine duties at the Marine Barracks in New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, and Hawaii and send them to Korea to bring the fighting
units up to full strength. The first time black servicemen were
integrated as individuals in significant numbers under combat
conditions was in the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade during the
fighting in the Pusan Perimeter in August 1950. The assignment of
large numbers of black marines throughout the combat units of the 1st
Marine Division, beginning in September, provided the clearest
instance of a service abandoning a social policy in response to the
demands of the battlefield. The 7th Marines, for example, an organic
element of the 1st Marine Division since August 1950, received into
its rapidly expanding ranks, along with many recalled white reservists
and men from small, miscellaneous Marine units, a 54-man black (p. 464)
service unit. The regimental commander immediately broke up the
black unit, assigning the men individually throughout his combat
battalions.
That the emergency continued to influence the placement of Negroes is
apparent from the distribution of black marines in March 1951, when
almost half were assigned to combat duty in integrated units.[18-11]
Before the war was over, the 1st Marine Division had several thousand
black marines, serving in its ranks in Korea, where they were assigned
to infantry and signal units as well as to transportation and food
supply organizations. One of the few black reserve officers on active
duty found himself serving as an infantry platoon commander in Company
B of the division's 7th Marines.
[Footnote 18-11: _Location of Black Marines, 31 March
1951_
Posts and stations inside the United States 938
Posts and stations outside the United States 181
Troop training units 3
Aviation 190
Fleet Marine Force (Ground) 1,327
Ships 3
En route 58
Missing in action 8
Total 2,708
_Source_: Tab 1 to Memo, ACofS, G-1, to Asst Dir of
Public Info, 6 Jun 51, sub: Queries Concerning
Negro Marines.]
The shift to integration in Korea proved uneventful. In the words of
the 7th Marines commander: "Never once did any color problem bother
us.... It just wasn't any problem. We had one Negro sergeant in
command of an all-white squad and there was another--with a graves
registration unit--who was one of the finest Marines I've ever
seen."[18-12] Serving for the first time in integrated units, Negroes
proceeded to perform in a way that not only won many individuals
decorations for valor but also won the respect of commanders for
Negroes as fighting men. Reminiscing about the performance of black
marines in his division, Lt. Gen. Oliver P. Smith remembered "they did
everything, and they did a good job because they were integrated, and
they were with good people."[18-13] In making his point the division
commander contrasted the performance of his integrated men with the
Army's segregated 24th Infantry. The observations of field commanders,
particularly the growing opinion that a connection existed between
good performance and integration, were bound to affect the
deliberations of the Division of Plans and Policies when it began to
restudy the question of black assignments in the fall of 1951.
[Footnote 18-12: Washington _Post_, February 27,
1951.]
[Footnote 18-13: USMC Oral History Interview, Lt Gen
Oliver P. Smith, Jun 69.]
As a result of the division's study, the Commandant of the Marine
Corps announced a general policy of racial integration on 13 December
1951, thus abolishing the system first introduced in 1942 of
designating certain units in the regular forces and organized reserves
as black units.[18-14] He spelled out the new order in some detail (p. 465)
on 18 December, and although his comments were addressed to the
commanders in the Fleet Marine Force, they were also forwarded to
various commands in the support establishment that still retained
all-black units. The order indicated that the practices now so
commonplace in Korea were about to become the rule in the United
States.[18-15] Some six months later the commandant informed the Chief
of Naval Personnel that the Marine Corps had no segregated units and
while integration had been gradual "it was believed to be an
accomplished fact at this time."[18-16]
[Footnote 18-14: MC Policy Memo 109-51, 13 Dec 51,
sub: Policy Regarding Negro Marines.]
[Footnote 18-15: Memo, CMC for CG, FMF, Pacific, et
al., 18 Dec 51, sub: Assignment of Negro Enlisted
Personnel.]
[Footnote 18-16: Idem for Chief, NavPers (ca. Jun 51),
MC files.]
[Illustration: MARINES ON THE KANSAS LINE, KOREA. _Men of the 1st
Marines await word to move out._]
The change was almost immediately apparent in other parts of the
corps, for black marines were also integrated in units serving with
the fleet. Reporting on a Mediterranean tour of the 3d Battalion, 6th
Marines (Reinforced), from 17 April to 20 October 1952, Capt. Thomas
L. Faix, a member of the unit, noted: "We have about fifteen Negro
marines in our unit now, out of fifty men. We have but very little
trouble and they sleep, eat and go on liberty together. It would be
hard for many to believe but the thought is that here in the service
all are facing a common call or summons to service regardless of
color."[18-17] Finally, in August 1953, Lt. Gen. Gerald C. Thomas, (p. 466)
who framed the postwar segregation policy, announced that "integration
of Negroes in the Corps is here to stay. Colored boys are in almost
every military occupation specialty and certainly in every enlisted
rank. I believe integration is satisfactory to them, and it is
satisfactory to us."[18-18]
[Footnote 18-17: Extract from Thomas L. Faix, "Marines
on Tour (An Account of Mediterranean Goodwill
Cruise and Naval Occupation Duty), Third Battalion,
Sixth Marines (Reinforced), April 17-October 20,
1952," in Essays and Topics of Interest: #4, Race
Relations, p. 36.]
[Footnote 18-18: The Chief of Staff was quoted in
"Integration of the Armed Forces," _Ebony_ 13 (July
1958):22.]
[Illustration: MARINE REINFORCEMENTS. _A light machine gun squad of 3d
Battalion, 1st Marines, arrives during the battle for "Boulder
City."_]
_Assignments_
The 1951 integration order ushered in a new era in the long history of
the Marine Corps, but despite the abolition of segregated units, the
new policy did not bring about completely unrestricted employment of
Negroes throughout the corps. The commandant had retained the option
to employ black marines "where their services can be effectively
utilized," and in the years after the Korean War it became apparent
that the corps recognized definite limits to the kinds of duty to
which black marines could be assigned. Following standard assignment
procedures, the Department of Personnel's Detail Branch selected
individual staff noncommissioned officers for specific duty billets.
After screening the records of a marine and considering his race, the
branch could reject the assignment of a Negro to a billet for any (p. 467)
reason "of overriding interest to the Marine Corps."[18-19]
[Footnote 18-19: Memo, Head of Detail Br, Pers Dept,
for Dir of Pers, 10 Jun 52, sub: Policy Regarding
Negro Marines, MC files. This method of assigning
staff noncommissioned officers still prevailed in
1976.]
By the same token, the assignment of marines in the lower ranks was
left to the individual commands, which filled quotas established by
headquarters. Commanders usually filled the quotas from among eligible
men longest on station, but whether or not Negroes were included in a
transfer quota was left entirely to the discretion of the local
commander. The Department of Personnel reserved the right, however, to
make one racial distinction in regard to bulk quotas: it regulated the
number of black marines it took from recruit depots as replacements,
as insurance against a "disproportionate" number of Negroes in combat
units. Under the screening procedures of Marine headquarters and unit
commanders, black enlisted men were excluded from assignment to
reserve officer training units, recruiting stations, the State
Department for duty at embassies and legations, and certain special
duties of the Department of Defense and the Navy Department.[18-20]
[Footnote 18-20: Ibid., 4 Aug 52.]
For the service to reserve the right to restrict the assignment of
Negroes when it was of "overriding interest to the Marine Corps" was
perhaps understandable, but it was also susceptible to considerable
misinterpretation if not outright abuse. The Personnel Department was
"constantly" receiving requests from commanders that no black noncoms
be assigned to their units. While some of these requests seemed
reasonable, the chief of the division's Detail Branch noted, others
were not. Commanders of naval prison retraining centers did not want
black noncommissioned officers assigned because, they claimed, Negroes
caused unrest among the prisoners. The Marine Barracks in Washington,
D.C., where the commandant lived, did not want black marines because
of the ceremonial nature of its mission. The Marine Barracks at
Dahlgren, Virginia, did not want Negroes because conflicts might arise
with civilian employees in cafeterias and movies. Other commanders
questioned the desirability of assigning black marines to the Naval
Academy, to inspector-instructor billets in the clerical and supply
fields, and to billets for staff chauffeurs. The Detail Branch wanted
a specific directive that listed commands to which black marines
should not be assigned.[18-21]
[Footnote 18-21: Ibid., 10 Jun 52.]
Restrictions on the assignment of black marines were never codified,
but the justification for them changed. In place of the "overriding
interest to the Marine Corps" clause, the corps began to speak of
restrictions "solely for the welfare of the individual Marine." In
1955 the Director of Personnel, Maj. Gen. Robert O. Bare, pointed to
the unusually severe hardships imposed on Negroes in some communities
where the attitude toward black marines sometimes interfered with
their performance of duty. Since civilian pressures could not be
recognized officially, Bare reasoned, they had to be dealt with
informally on a person-to-person basis.[18-22] By this statement (p. 468)
he meant the Marine Corps would informally exclude Negroes from
certain assignments. Of course no one explained how barring Negroes
from assignment to recruitment, inspector-instructor, embassy, or even
chauffeur duty worked for "the welfare of the individual Marine." Such
an explanation was just what Congressman Powell was demanding in
January 1958 when he asked why black marines were excluded from
assignments to the American Embassy in Paris.[18-23]
[Footnote 18-22: Ltr, Maj Gen R. O. Bare to CO, 1st
Mar Div, 14 Jul 55; Ltr, Dir of Pers to CG, 1st Mar
Div (ca. 10 Dec 56). The quotation is from Ltr, CO,
Marine Barracks, NAD, Hawthorne, Nev., to Dir of
Pers, 15 Dec 62.]
[Footnote 18-23: Ltr, Powell to SecDef, 23 Jan 58. See
also unsigned Draft Ltr for the commandant's
signature to Powell, 12 Feb 58.]
Community attitudes toward Negroes in uniform had become a serious
matter in all the services by the late 1950's, and concern for the
welfare of black marines was repeatedly voiced by Marine commanders in
areas as far-flung as Nevada, Florida, and southern California.[18-24]
But even here there was reason to question the motives of some local
commanders, for during a lengthy discussion in the Personnel
Department some officials asserted that the available evidence
indicated no justification for restricting assignments. Anxiety over
assignments anywhere in the United States was unfounded, they claimed,
and offered in support statistics demonstrating the existence of a
substantial black community in all the duty areas from which Negroes
were unofficially excluded. The Assignment and Classification Branch
also pointed out that the corps had experienced no problems
in the case of the thirteen black marines then assigned to
inspector-instructor duty, including one in Mobile, Alabama. The
branch went on to discuss the possibility of assigning black marines
to recruiting duty. Since recruiters were assigned to areas where they
understood local attitudes and customs, some officials reasoned,
Negroes should be used to promote the corps among potential black
enlistees whose feelings and attitudes were not likely to be
understood by white recruiters.
[Footnote 18-24: See Ltrs, A. W. Gentleman, Hq MC Cold
Weather Tng Cen, Bridgeport, Calif., to Col
Hartley, 12 Nov 57; CO, MB, NAS, Jacksonville,
Fla., to Personnel Dept, 14 Dec 62; CO, MB, NAD,
Hawthorne, Nev., to same, 15 Dec 62.]
These matters were never considered officially by the Marine Corps
staff, and as of 1960 the Inspector General was still keeping a list
of stations to which Negroes would not be assigned. But the picture
quickly changed in the next year, and by June 1962 all restrictions on
the assignment of black marines had been dropped with the exception of
several installations in the United States where off-base housing was
unavailable and some posts overseas where the use of black marines was
limited because of the attitudes of foreign governments.[18-25]
[Footnote 18-25: Draft Memo, Head of Assignment and
Classification Br for Dir, Pers (ca. 1961), sub:
Restricted Assignments; Memo, IG for Dir, Pers, 31
Aug 62; Ltr, Lt Col A. W. Snell to Col R. S.
Johnson, CO, MB, Port Lyautey, 28 Jun 62. See also
Memo, Maj E. W. Snelling, MB, NAD, Charleston,
S.C., for Maj Duncan, 27 Nov 62; and the following
Ltrs: Col S. L. Stephan, CO, MB, Norfolk Nav
Shipyard, to Dir, Pers, 7 Dec 62; K. A. Jorgensen,
CO, MB, Nav Base, Charleston, S.C., to Duncan, 7
Dec 62; Col R. J. Picardi, CO, MB, Lake Mead Base,
to Duncan, 30 Nov 62.]
The perennial problem of an all-black Steward's Branch persisted into
the 1960's. Stewards served a necessary though unglamorous function
in the Marine Corps, and education standards for such duty were (p. 469)
considerably lower than those for the rest of the service. Everyone
understood this, and beyond the stigma many young people felt was
attached to such duties, many Negroes particularly resented the fact
that while the branch was officially open to all, somehow none of the
less gifted whites ever joined. Stewards were acquired either by
recruiting new marines with stewards-duty-only contracts or by
accepting volunteers from the general service. The evidence suggests
that there was truth in the commonly held assumption among stewards
that when a need for more stewards arose, "volunteers" were secured by
tampering with the classification test scores of men in the general
service.[18-26]
[Footnote 18-26: Shaw and Donnelly, _Blacks in the
Marine Corps_, pp. 64-65.]
[Illustration: TRAINING EXERCISES _on Iwo Jima, March 1954_.]
The commandant seemed less concerned with methods than results when
stewards were needed. In June 1950 he had reaffirmed the policy of
allowing stewards to reenlist for general duty, but when he learned
that some stewards had made the jump to general duty without being
qualified, he announced that men who had signed contracts for stewards
duty only were not acceptable for general duty unless they scored at
least in the 31st percentile of the qualifying tests. To make the
change to general duty even less attractive, he ruled that if a
steward reenlisted for general duty he would have to revert to the
rank of private, first class.[18-27] Such measures did nothing to
improve the morale of black stewards, many of whom, according to civil
rights critics, felt confined forever to performing menial tasks, nor
did it prevent constant shortages in the Steward's Branch and problems
arising from the lack of men with training in modern mess management.
[Footnote 18-27: Speed Ltr, CMC to Distribution List,
22 Jun 50; Routing Sheet, Pers Dept, 21 Jun 50,
sub: Enlistment of Stewards.]
The corps tried to attack these problems in the mid-1950's. At the
behest of the Secretary of the Navy it eliminated the stewards-duty-only
contract in 1954; henceforth all marines were enlisted for general
duty, and only after recruit training could volunteers sign up for
stewards duty. Acceptance of men scoring below ninety in the
classification tests would be limited to 40 percent of those
volunteering each month for stewards duty.[18-28] The corps also
instituted special training in modern mess management for stewards. In
1953 the Quartermaster General had created an inspection and
demonstration team composed of senior stewards to instruct members (p. 470)
of the branch in the latest techniques of cooking and baking,
supervision, and management.[18-29] In August 1954 the commandant
established an advanced twelve-week course for stewards based on the
Navy's successful system.
[Footnote 18-28: Ltrs, CMC to Distribution List, 16
Apr 55 and 18 Nov 55.]
[Footnote 18-29: Memo, Head, Enlisted Monitoring Unit,
Detail Br, for Lt Col Gordon T. West, 29 Oct 54,
Pers A. See also Shaw and Donnelly, _Blacks in the
Marine Corps_, pp. 65-66.]
[Illustration: MARINES FROM CAMP LEJEUNE ON THE USS VALLEY FORGE _for
training exercises, 1958_.]
These measures, however, did nothing to cure the chronic shortage of
men and the attendant problems of increased work load and low morale
that continued to plague the Steward's Branch throughout the 1950's.
Consequently, the corps still found it difficult to attract enough
black volunteers to the branch. In 1959, for example, the branch was
still 8 percent short of its 826-man goal.[18-30] The obvious
solution, to use white volunteers for messman duty, would be a radical
departure from tradition. True, before World War II white marines had
been used in the Marine Corps for duties now performed by black
stewards, but they had never been members of a branch organized
exclusively for that purpose. In 1956 tradition was broken when white
volunteers were quietly signed up for the branch. By March 1961 the
branch had eighty white men, 10 percent of its total. Reviewing the
situation later that year, the commandant decided to increase the
number of white stewards by setting a racial quota on steward
assignment. Henceforth, he ordered, half the volunteers accepted (p. 471)
for stewards duty would be white.[18-31]
[Footnote 18-30: Memo, J. J. Holicky, Detail Br, for
Dir of Pers, USMC, 3 Aug 59, sub: Inspection of
Occupational Field 36 (Stewards), Pers 1, MC
files.]
[Footnote 18-31: Memo, Asst Chief for Plans, BuPers
(Rear Adm B. J. Semmes, Jr.), for Chief of NavPers,
22 Jun 61.]
[Illustration: COLONEL PETERSEN (_1968 photograph_).]
The new policy made an immediate difference. In less than two months
the Steward's Branch was 20 percent white. In marked contrast to the
claims of Navy recruiters, the marines reported no difficulty in
attracting white volunteers for messman duties. Curiously, the
volunteers came mostly from the southeastern states. As the racial
composition of the Steward's Branch changed, the morale of its black
members seemed to improve. As one senior black warrant officer later
explained, simply opening stewards duty to whites made such duty
acceptable to many Negroes who had been prone to ask "if it [stewards
duty] was so good, why don't you have some of the whites in
it."[18-32] When transfer to general service assignments became easy
to obtain in the 1960's, the Marine Corps found that only a small
percentage of the black stewards now wished to make the change.
[Footnote 18-32: USMC Oral History Interview, CWO
James E. Johnson, 27 Mar 73.]
There were still inequities in the status of black marines, especially
the near absence of black officers (two on active duty in 1950,
nineteen in January 1955) and the relatively slow rate of promotion
among black marines in general. The corps had always justified its
figures on the grounds that competition in so small a service was
extremely fierce, and, as the commandant explained to Walter White in
1951, a man had to be good to compete and outstanding to be promoted.
He cited the 1951 selection figures for officer training: out of 2,025
highly qualified men applying, only half were selected and only half
of those were commissioned.[18-33] Promotion to senior billets for
noncommissioned officers was also highly competitive, with time in
service an important factor. It was unlikely in such circumstances
that many black marines would be commissioned from the ranks or a
higher percentage of black noncommissioned officers would be promoted
to the most senior positions during the 1950's.[18-34] The Marine
Corps had begun commissioning Negroes so recently that the development
of a representative group of black officers in a system of open
competition was of necessity a slow and arduous task. The task was
further complicated because most of the nineteen black officers on (p. 472)
active duty in 1955 were reservists serving out tours begun in the
Korean War. Only a few of them had made the successful switch from
reserve to regular service. The first two were 2d Lt. Frank E.
Petersen, Jr., the first black Marine pilot, and 2d Lt. Kenneth H.
Berthoud, Jr., who first served as a tank officer in the 3d Marine
Division. Both men would advance to high rank in the corps, Petersen
becoming the first black marine general.
[Footnote 18-33: Ltr, CMC to Walter White, 2 Jul 51,
AO-1, MC files. See also Memo, Div of Plans and
Policies (T. J. Colley) for Asst Dir of Public
Info, 4 Jun 51, sub: Article in Pittsburgh
_Courier_ of 26 May 51.]
[Footnote 18-34: Memo, Exec Off, ACofS, G-1, for
William L. Taylor, Asst Staff Dir, U.S. Commission
on Civil Rights, 27 Feb 63, sub: Personnel
Information Requested, AO-1C, MC files.]
[Illustration: SERGEANT MAJOR HUFF.]
As for the noncommissioned officers, there were a number of senior
enlisted black marines in the 1950's, many of them holdovers from the
World War II era, and Negroes were being promoted to the ranks of
corporal and sergeant in appreciable numbers.
But the tenfold increase in the number of black marines during the
Korean War caused the ratio of senior black noncommissioned officers
to black marines to drop. Here again promotion to higher rank was
slow. The first black marine to make the climb to the top in the
integrated corps was Edgar R. Huff. A gunnery sergeant in an
integrated infantry battalion in Korea, Huff later became battalion
sergeant major in the 8th Marines and eventually senior sergeant major
of the Marine Corps.[18-35]
[Footnote 18-35: Shaw and Donnelly, _Blacks in the
Marine Corps_, pp. 62-63. 66.]
By 1962 there were 13,351 black enlisted men, 7.59 percent of the
corps' strength, and 34 black officers (7 captains, 25 lieutenants,
and 2 warrant officers) serving in integrated units in all military
occupations. These statistics illustrate the racial progress that
occurred in the Marine Corps during the 1950's, a change that was both
orderly and permanent, and, despite the complicated forces at work, in
essence a gift to the naval establishment from the Korean battlefield.
CHAPTER 19 (p. 473)
A New Era Begins
On 30 October 1954 the Secretary of Defense announced that the last
racially segregated unit in the armed forces of the United States had
been abolished.[19-1] Considering the department's very conservative
definition of a segregated unit--one at least 50 percent black--the
announcement celebrated a momentous change in policy. In the little
more than six years since President Truman's order, all black
servicemen, some quarter of a million in 1954, had been intermingled
with whites in the nation's military units throughout the world. For
the services the turbulent era of integration had begun.
[Footnote 19-1: New York _Times_, October 31, 1954;
ibid., Editorial, November 1, 1954.]
The new era's turbulence was caused in part by the decade-long debate
that immediately ensued over the scope of President Truman's guarantee
of equal treatment and opportunity for servicemen. On one side were
ranged most service officials, who argued that integration, now a
source of pride to the services and satisfaction to the civil rights
movement, had ceased to be a public issue. Abolishing segregated
units, they claimed, fulfilled the essential elements of the executive
order, leaving the armed forces only rare vestiges of discrimination
to correct. Others, at first principally the civil rights bloc in
Congress and civil rights organizations, but later black servicemen
themselves, contended that the Truman order committed the Department
of Defense to far more than integration of military units. They
believed that off-base discrimination, so much more apparent with the
improvement of on-base conditions, seriously affected morale and
efficiency. They wanted the department to challenge local laws and
customs when they discriminated against black servicemen.
This interpretation made little headway in the Department of Defense
during the first decade of integration. Both the Eisenhower and
Kennedy administrations made commitments to the principle of equal
treatment within the services, and both admitted the connection
between military efficiency and discrimination, but both presumed, at
least until 1963, severe limitations on their power to change local
laws and customs. For their part, the services constantly referred to
the same limitations, arguing that their writ in regard to racial
reform ran only to the gates of the military reservation.
Yet while there was no substantive change in the services' view of
their racial responsibilities, the Department of Defense was able to
make significant racial reforms between 1954 and 1962. More than
expressing the will of the Chief Executive, these changes reflected
the fact that military society was influenced by some of the same
forces that were operating on the larger American society. Possessed
of a discipline that enabled it to reform rapidly, military society
still shared the prejudices as well as the reform impulses of the (p. 474)
body politic. Racial changes in the services during the first decade
of integration were primarily parochial responses to special internal
needs; nevertheless, they took place at a time when civil rights
demands were stirring the whole country. Their effectiveness must be
measured against the expectations such demands were kindling in the
black community.
_The Civil Rights Revolution_
The post-World War II civil rights movement was unique in the nation's
history. Contrasting this era of black awakening with the post-Civil
War campaign for black civil rights, historian C. Vann Woodward found
the twentieth century phenomenon "more profound and impressive ...
deeper, surer, less contrived, more spontaneous."[19-2] Again in
contrast to the original, the so-called second reconstruction period
found black Americans uniting in a demand for social justice so long
withheld. In 1953, the year before the Supreme Court decision to
desegregate the schools, Clarence Mitchell of the NAACP gave voice to
the revolutionary rise in black expectations:
Twenty years ago the Negro was satisfied if he could have even a
half-decent school to go to (and took it for granted that it
would be a segregated school) or if he could go to the hotel in
town or the restaurant maybe once a year for some special
interracial dinner and meeting. Twenty years ago much of the
segregation pattern was taken for granted by the Negro. Now it is
different.[19-3]
[Footnote 19-2: C. Vann Woodward, _Strange Career of
Jim Crow_, p. 170. This account of the civil rights
movement largely follows Woodward's famous study,
but the following works have also been consulted:
Benjamin Muse, _Ten Years of Prelude: The Story of
Integration Since the Supreme Court's 1954
Decision_ (New York: Viking Press, 1964); Constance
M. Green, _The Secret City: A History of Race
Relations in the Nation's Capital_ (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1967); Anthony Lewis
and the New York _Times_, _Portrait of a Decade_
(New York: New York _Times_, 1964); Franklin, _From
Slavery to Freedom; Freedom to the Free: A Report
to the President by the U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights_ (Washington: Government Printing Office,
1963); _Report of the National Advisory Commission
on Civil Disorders_; Interv, Nichols with Clarence
Mitchell, 1953, in Nichols Collection, CMH.]
[Footnote 19-3: Interv, Nichols with Mitchell.]
The difference was understandable. The rapid urbanization of many
black Americans, coupled with their experience in World War II,
especially in the armed forces and in defense industries, had enhanced
their economic and political power and raised their educational
opportunities. And what was true for the war generation was even truer
for its children. Possessed of a new self-respect, young Negroes began
to demonstrate confidence in the future and a determination to reject
the humiliation of second-class citizenship. Out of this attitude grew
a widespread demand among the young for full equality, and when this
demand met with opposition, massive participation in civil rights
demonstrations became both practical and inevitable. Again historian
Woodward's observations are pertinent:
More than a black revolt against whites, it was in part a
generational rebellion, an uprising of youth against the older
generation, against the parental "uncle Toms" and their
inhibitions. It even took the N.A.A.C.P. and CORE (Congress of
Racial Equality) by surprise. Negroes were in charge of their (p. 475)
own movement, and youth was in the vanguard.[19-4]
[Footnote 19-4: Woodward, _Strange Career of Jim
Crow_, p. 170.]
[Illustration: CLARENCE MITCHELL.]
To a remarkable extent, this youthful vanguard was strongly religious
and nonviolent. The influence of the church on the militant phase of
the civil rights movement is one of the movement's salient
characteristics.
This black awakening paralleled a growing realization among an
increasing number of white Americans that the demands of the civil
rights leaders were just and that the government should act. World War
II had made many thoughtful Americans aware of the contradiction
inherent in fighting fascism with segregated troops. In the postwar
years, the cold war rivalry for the friendship and allegiance of the
world's colored peoples, who were creating a multitude of new states,
added a pragmatic reason for ensuring equal treatment and opportunity
for black Americans. A further inducement, and a particularly forceful
one, was the size of the northern black vote, which had become the key
to victory in several electorally important states and had made the
civil rights cause a practical political necessity for both major
parties.
The U.S. Supreme Court was the real pacesetter. Significantly
broadening its interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court
reversed a century-old trend and called for federal intervention to
protect the civil rights of the black minority in transportation,
housing, voting, and the administration of justice. In the _Morgan_ v.
_Virginia_ decision of 1946,[19-5] for example, the Court launched an
attack on segregation in interstate travel. In another series of cases
it proclaimed the right of Negroes to be tried only in those courts
where Negroes could serve on juries and outlawed the all-white primary
system, which in some one-party states had effectively barred Negroes
from the elective process. The latter decision partly explains the
rise in the number of qualified black voters in twelve southern states
from 645,000 in 1947 to some 1.2 million by 1952. However, many
difficulties remained in the way of full enfranchisement. The poll
tax, literacy tests, and outright intimidation frustrated the
registration of Negroes in many areas, and in some rural counties
black voter registration actually declined in the early 1960's. But
the Court's intervention was crucial because its decisions established
the precedent for federal action that would culminate in the Voting
Rights Act of 1965.
[Footnote 19-5: 328 U.S. 373 (1946).]
These judicial initiatives whittled away at segregation's hold on (p. 476)
the Constitution, but it was the Supreme Court's rulings in the field
of public education that dealt segregation a mortal blow. Its
unanimous decision in the case of _Oliver Brown et al._ v. _Board of
Education of Topeka, Kansas_, on 17 May 1954[19-6] not only undermined
segregation in the nation's schools, but by an irresistible extension
of the logic employed in the case also committed the nation at its
highest levels to the principle of racial equality. The Court's
conclusion that "separate educational facilities are inherently
unequal" exposed segregation in all public areas to renewed judicial
scrutiny. It was, as Professor Woodward described it, the most
far-reaching Court decision in a century, and it marked the beginning
of the end of Jim Crow's reign in America.[19-7]
[Footnote 19-6: 347 U.S. 483 (1954); see also 349 U.S.
294 (1955).]
[Footnote 19-7: Woodward, _Strange Career of Jim
Crow_, p. 147.]
But it was only the beginning, for the Court's order that the
transition to racially nondiscriminatory school systems be
accomplished "with all deliberate speed"[19-8] encountered massive
resistance in many places. Despite ceaseless litigation and further
affirmations by the Court, and despite enforcement by federal troops
in the celebrated cases of Little Rock, Arkansas, and Oxford,
Mississippi, and by federal marshals in New Orleans, Louisiana,[19-9]
elimination of segregated public schools was painfully slow. As late
as 1962, for example, only 7.6 percent of the more than three million
Negroes of school age in the southern and border states attended
integrated schools.
[Footnote 19-8: 349 U.S. 294 (1955).]
[Footnote 19-9: For an outline of the federal and
National Guard intervention in these areas, see
Robert W. Coakley, Paul J. Scheips, Vincent H.
Demma, and M. Warner Stark, "Use of Troops in Civil
Disturbances Since World War II" (1945 to 1965 with
two supplements through 1967), Center of Military
History Study 75.]
The executive branch also took up the cause of civil rights, albeit in
a more limited way than the courts. The Eisenhower administration, for
instance, continued President Truman's efforts to achieve equal
treatment and opportunity for black servicemen. Just before the
_Brown_ decision the administration quickly desegregated most
dependent schools on military bases. It also desegregated the school
system of Washington, D.C., and, with a powerful push from the Supreme
Court in the case of the _District of Columbia_ v. _John R. Thompson
Co._ in 1953,[19-10] abolished segregation in places of public
accommodation in the nation's capital. Eisenhower also continued
Truman's fight against discrimination in federal employment, including
jobs covered by government contracts, by establishing watchdog
committees on government employment policy and government contracts.
[Footnote 19-10: 346 U.S. 100 (1953).]
Independent federal agencies also began to attack racial
discrimination. The Interstate Commerce Commission, with strong
assistance from the courts, made a series of rulings that by 1961 had
outlawed segregation in much interstate travel. The Federal Housing
Authority, following the Supreme Court's abrogation of the state's
power to enforce restrictive covenants in the sale of housing, began
in the early 1950's to push toward a federal open-occupancy policy in
public housing and all housing with federally guaranteed loans. (p. 477)
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, an investigatory agency appointed
by the President under the Civil Rights Act of 1957, examined
complaints of voting discrimination and denials of equal protection
under the law. Both Eisenhower and Kennedy dispatched federal
officials to investigate and prosecute violations of voting rights in
several states.
But civil rights progress was still painfully slow in the 1950's. The
fight for civil rights in that decade graphically demonstrated a
political fact of life: any profound change in the nation's social
system requires the concerted efforts of all three branches of the
national government. In this case the Supreme Court had done its part,
repeatedly attacking segregation in many spheres of national life. The
executive branch, on the other hand, did not press the Court's
decisions as thoroughly as some had hoped, although Eisenhower
certainly did so forcibly and spectacularly with federal troops at
Little Rock in 1957. The dispatch of paratroopers to Little
Rock,[19-11] a memorable example of federal intervention and one
popularly associated with civil rights, had, in fact, little to do
with civil rights, but was rather a vivid example of the exercise of
executive powers in the face of a threat to federal judicial
authority. Where the _Brown_ decision was concerned, Eisenhower's view
of judicial powers was narrow and his leadership antithetical to the
Court's call for "all deliberate speed." He even withheld his support
in school desegregation cases. Eisenhower was quite frank about the
limitations he perceived in his power and, by inference, his duty to
effect civil rights reforms. Such reforms, he believed, were a matter
of the heart and, as he explained to Congressman Powell in 1953, could
not be achieved by means of laws or directives or the action of any
one person, "no matter with how much authority and forthrightness he
acts."[19-12]
[Footnote 19-11: For an authoritative account of
Little Rock, see Robert W. Coakley's "Operation
Arkansas," Center of Military History Study 158M,
1967. See also Paul J. Scheips, "Enforcement of the
Federal Judicial Process by Federal Marshals," in
_Bayonets in the Streets; The Use of Troops in
Civil Disturbances_, ed. Robin Higham (Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas, 1969), pp. 39-42.]
[Footnote 19-12: Ltr, Eisenhower to Powell, 6 Jun 53,
G 124-A-1, Eisenhower Library. For a later and more
comprehensive expression of these sentiments, see
"Extemporaneous Remarks by the President at the
National Conference on Civil Rights, 9 June 1959,"
_Public Papers of the Presidents: Dwight D.
Eisenhower, 1959_, pp. 447-50.]
Despite the President's reluctance to lead in civil rights matters,
major blame for the lack of substantial progress must be assigned to
the third branch of government. The 1957 and 1960 civil rights laws,
pallid harbingers of later powerful legislation in this field,
demonstrated Congress's lukewarm commitment to civil rights reform
that severely limited federal action. The reluctance of Congress to
enact the reforms augured in the _Brown_ decision convinced many
Negroes that they would have to take further measures to gain their
full constitutional rights. They had seen presidents and federal
judges embrace principles long argued by civil rights organizations,
but to little avail. Seven years after the _Brown_ decision, Negroes
were still disfranchised in large areas of the south, still (p. 478)
endured segregated public transportation and places of public
accommodation, and still encountered discrimination in employment and
housing throughout the nation. Nor had favorable court decisions and
federal attempts at enforcement reversed the ominous trend in black
unemployment rates, which had been rising for a decade. Above all,
court decisions could not spare Negroes the sense of humiliation that
segregation produced. Segregation implied racial inferiority, a
"constant corroding experience," as Clarence Mitchell once called it.
It was segregation's seeming imperviousness to governmental action in
the 1950's that caused the new generation of civil rights leaders to
develop new civil rights techniques.
Their new methods forced the older leaders, temporarily at least, into
eclipse. No longer could they convince their juniors of the efficacy
of legal action, and the 1950's ended with the younger generation
taking to the streets in the first spontaneous battles of their civil
rights revolution. Under the direction of the Southern Christian
Leadership Council and its charismatic founder, Martin Luther King,
Jr., the strategy of massive civil disobedience, broached in 1948 by
A. Philip Randolph, became a reality. Other organizations quickly
joined the battle, including the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC), also organized by Dr. King but soon destined to
break away into more radical paths, and the Congress of Racial
Equality (CORE), an older organization, now expanded and under its new
director, James Farmer, rededicated to activism.
Rosa Parks's refusal to move to the rear of the Montgomery bus in 1955
and the ensuing successful black boycott that ended the city's
segregated transportation pointed the way to a wave of nonviolent
direct action that swept the country in the 1960's. Thousands of young
Americans, most notably in the student-led sit-ins enveloping the
south in 1960[19-13] and the scores of freedom riders bringing chaos
to the transportation system in 1961, carried the civil rights
struggle into all corners of the south. "We will wear you down by our
capacity to suffer," Dr. King warned the nation's majority, and suffer
Negroes did in the brutal resistance that met their demands. But it
was not in vain, for police brutality, mob violence, and
assassinations set off hundreds of demonstrations throughout the
country and made civil rights a national political issue.
[Footnote 19-13: For an account of the first major
sit-in demonstrations, which occurred at
Greensboro, North Carolina, and their influence on
civil rights organizations, including the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, see Miles Wolff,
_Lunch at the Five and Ten; The Greensboro Sit-in_
(New York: Stein and Day, 1970). See also Clark,
"The Civil Rights Movement," pp. 255-60.]
The stage was set for a climatic scene, and onto that stage walked the
familiar figure of A. Philip Randolph, calling for a massive march on
Washington to demand a redress of black grievances. This time, unlike
the response to his 1940 appeal, the answer was a promise of support
from both races. The churches joined in, many labor leaders, including
Walter Reuther, enlisted in the demonstration, and even the President,
at first opposed, gave his blessing to the national event. A quarter
of a million people, about 20 percent of them white, marched to
Lincoln Memorial on 28 August 1963 to hear King appeal to the (p. 479)
the nation's conscience by reciting his dream of a just society. In
the words of the Kerner Commission:
It [the march] was more than a summation of the past years of
struggle and aspiration. It symbolized certain new directions: a
deeper concern for the economic problems of the masses, more
involvement of white moderates and new demands from the most
militant, who implied that only a revolutionary change in
American institutions would permit Negroes to achieve the dignity
of citizens.[19-14]
[Footnote 19-14: _Report of the National Advisory
Commission on Civil Disorders_, p. 109.]
_Limitations on Executive Order 9981_
The decade of national civil rights activity that culminated
symbolically at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 was closely mirrored in
the Department of Defense, where the services' definition of equal
treatment and opportunity underwent a marked evolution. Here, a decade
that had begun with the department's placing severe limitations on its
defense of black servicemen's civil rights ended with the department's
joining the vanguard of the civil rights movement.
In the early 1950's the services were constantly referring to the
limitations of Executive Order 9981. The Air Force could not intervene
in local custom, Assistant Secretary Zuckert told Clarence Mitchell in
1951. Social change in local communities must be evolutionary, he
continued, either ignoring or contrasting the Air Force's own social
experience.[19-15] Defending the practice of maintaining large
training camps in localities discriminating against black soldiers,
the Army Chief of Staff explained to Senator Homer Ferguson of
Michigan that while its facilities were open to all soldiers
regardless of race, the Army had no control over nearby civilian
communities. There was little its commanders could do beyond urging
local civic organizations to cooperate.[19-16] The Deputy Chief of
Naval Personnel was even more blunt. "The housing situation at Key
West is not within the control of the Navy," he told the Assistant
Secretary of Defense in 1953. Housing was segregated, he admitted, but
it was the Federal Housing Authority, not the Navy, that controlled
the location of off-base housing for black sailors.[19-17]
[Footnote 19-15: Memo, Lt Col Leon Bell, Asst Exec,
Off, Asst SecAF, for Col Barnes, Office, SecAF, 9
Jan 51, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 19-16: Ltr, CofSA to Ferguson, 7 May 51; see
also Ltr, Under SA Earl D. Johnson to Sen. Robert
Taft, 19 Jul 51; both in CS 291.2 (27 Apr 51).]
[Footnote 19-17: Memo, Dep Chief, NavPers for ASD
(M&P), 19 Feb 53, sub: Alleged Race Segregation at
U.S. Naval Base, Key West, Florida, P 8 (4)/NB Key
West, GenRecs Nav.]
These excuses for not dealing with off-base discrimination continued
throughout the decade. As late as 1959, discussing a case of racial
discrimination near an Army base in Germany, a Defense Department
spokesman explained to Congressman James Roosevelt that "since the
incident did not take place on one of our military bases, we are not
in a position to offer direct relief in the situation...."[19-18] Even
James Evans, the racial counselor, came to use this explanation.
"Community mores with respect to race vary," Evans wrote in 1956, and
"such matters are largely beyond direct purview of the Department (p. 480)
of Defense."[19-19]
[Footnote 19-18: Ltr, ASD (MP&R) Charles C. Finucane
to James Roosevelt, 3 Jun 59, ASD (MP&R) files.]
[Footnote 19-19: Evans and Lane, "Integration in the
Armed Services," p. 83.]
Understandably, in view of the difficulties they perceived, the
services tried to avoid the whole problem. In 1954, for example, a
group of forty-eight black soldiers traveling on a bus in Columbia,
South Carolina, were arrested and fined when they protested the
attempted arrest of one of them for failing to comply with the state's
segregated seating law. In the ensuing furor, Secretary of Defense
Charles E. Wilson explained to President Eisenhower that soldiers were
subject to community law and his department contemplated no
investigation or disciplinary action in the case. In view of the civil
rights issues involved, Wilson continued,[19-20] the Judge Advocate
General of the Army discussed the matter with the Justice Department
and referred related correspondence to that department "for whatever
disposition it considered appropriate." "This reply," an assistant
noted on Wilson's file copy of the memo for the President, "gets them
off our neck, but I don't know about Brownell's [the Attorney
General]."[19-21]
[Footnote 19-20: Wilson, former president of General
Motors Corporation, became President Eisenhower's
first Secretary of Defense on 28 January 1953.]
[Footnote 19-21: Memo, CofS, G-1, for ASA, 6 Jan 54,
sub: Mass Jailing and Fining of Negro Soldiers in
Columbia, S.C.; Memo, ASA for ASD (M&P), same date
and sub; Memo, SecDef for President, 7 Jan 54. All
in G-1 291.2 (10 Dec 53).]
But the services never did get "them" off their neck, and to a large
extent defense officials could only blame themselves for their
troubles. Their attitude toward extending their standards of equal
treatment and opportunity to local communities implied a benign
neutrality on their part in racial disputes involving servicemen. This
attitude was belied by the fact that on numerous and sometimes
celebrated occasions the services helped reinforce local segregation
laws. In 1956, for example, Secretary of the Air Force Harold E.
Talbott explained that military commanders were expected to foster
good relations with local authorities and in many areas were obliged
to "require" servicemen to conform to the dictates of local law
"regardless of their own convictions or personal beliefs."[19-22]
[Footnote 19-22: SecAF statement, 1 May 56, quoted in
Address by James P. Goode, Employment Policy
Officer for the Air Force, at a meeting called by
the President's Committee on Government Employment
Policy, 24 May 56, AF File 202-56, Fair Employment
Program.]
This requirement could be rather brutal in practice and placed the
services, the nation's leading equal opportunity employer, in
questionable company. In 1953 a black pilot stationed at Craig Air
Force Base, Alabama, refused to move to the rear of a public bus until
the military police ordered him to comply with the state law. The Air
Force officially reprimanded and eventually discharged the pilot. The
position of the Air Force was made clear in the reprimand:
Your actions in this instance are prejudicial to good order and
military discipline and do not conform to the standards of
conduct expected of a commissioned officer of the United States
Air Force. As a member of the Armed Forces, you are obliged to
abide by all municipal and state laws, regardless of your
personal feelings or Armed Forces policy relative to the issue at
hand. Your open violation of the segregation policy established
by this Railroad Company and the State of Alabama is (p. 481)
indicative of extremely poor judgment on your part and reflects
unfavorably on your qualifications as a commissioned
officer.[19-23]
[Footnote 19-23: Memo, CG, 3380th Tactical Training
Wing, Keesler AFB, Miss., for (name withheld), Jul
53, sub: Administrative Reprimand; NAACP News
Release, 23 Nov 53; copies of both in SecAF files.]
As the young pilot's commanding officer put it, the lieutenant had
refused to accept the fact that military personnel must use tact and
diplomacy to avoid discrediting the United States Air Force.[19-24]
[Footnote 19-24: Memo, Cmdr, 3615th Pilot Tng Wing,
Craig AFB, Ala., for Cmdr, Flying Dir, Air Tng Cmd,
Waco, Tex., 4 Aug 53, sub: Disciplinary Punishment,
copy in SecAF files.]
Tact and diplomacy were also the keynote when the services helped
enforce the local segregation practices of the nation's allies. This
became increasingly true even in Europe in the 1950's, although never
with as much publicity as the events connected with the carrier
_Midway's_ visit to Capetown, South Africa, in 1955. Its captain, on
the advice of the U.S. consul, agreed to conform with a local law that
segregated sailors when they were ashore. This agreement became public
knowledge while the ship was en route, but despite a rash of protests
and congressional demands that the visit be canceled, the _Midway_
arrived at Capetown. Later a White House spokesman tried to put a good
face on the incident:
We believe that a far greater blow was struck for the cause of
equal justice when 23,000 South Africans came aboard the Midway
on a non-segregated basis--when the whole community saw American
democracy in action--than could have been made if we had decided
to by-pass Capetown. Certainly no friends for our cause would
have been gained in that way![19-25]
[Footnote 19-25: Ltr, Maxwell M. Rabb, President's
Assistant for Minority Affairs, to Dr. W. Montague
Cobb, as reproduced in Cobb, "The Strait Gate,"
_Journal of the National Medical Association_ 47
(September 1955):349.]
The black serviceman lacked the civilian's option to escape community
discrimination. For example, one black soldier requested transfer
because of discrimination he was forced to endure in the vicinity of
Camp Hanford, Washington. His request was denied, and in commenting on
the case the Army's G-1 gave a typical service excuse when he said
that the Army could not practically arrange for the mass reassignment
of black soldiers or the restriction of their assignments to certain
geographical areas to avoid discrimination.[19-26] The Air Force added
a further twist. Replying to a similar request, a spokesman wrote that
limiting the number of bases to which black airmen could be assigned
would be "contrary to the policy of equality of treatment."[19-27]
There was, however, one exception to the refusal to alter assignments
for racial reasons. Both the Air Force and the Army had an established
and frequently reiterated policy of not assigning troops involved (p. 482)
in interracial marriages to states where such unions were
illegal.[19-28]
[Footnote 19-26: Memo, ACofS, G-1, for TIG, 30 Nov 53,
sub: Complaint of Cpl Israel Joshua, G-1 291.2 (3
Nov 53). For an earlier expression of the same
sentiments, see ACofS, G-1, Summary Sheet for CofS,
27 Nov 50, sub: Request for Policy Determination,
G-1 291.2 (9 Nov 50). Camp Hanford was originally
the Hanford Engineer Works, which played a part in
the MANHATTAN project that produced the atom bomb.]
[Footnote 19-27: Memo, Maj Gen Joe Kelly, Dir, Legis
Liaison, USAF, for Lt Col William G. Draper, AF
Aide to President, 1 Sep 54, with attachments, sub:
Segregation in Gulfport, Mississippi; Memo, Col
Draper for Maxwell Rabb, 6 Oct 54; both in GF
124-A-1, Eisenhower Library.]
[Footnote 19-28: Career Management Div, TAGO, "Policy
Paper," Jul 54, AGAM 291.2 For other pronouncements
of this policy, see ibid.; DF, ACS/G-1 to TAG, 4
Jan 54, sub: Assignment of Personnel; and in G-1
291.2 the following: Memo, Chief, Classification
and Standards Br, G-1, for Planning Office, G-1, 28
Feb 50, sub: Assignment of Personnel; DF, G-1 to
TAG, 8 Mar 50, same sub.]
At times the services' respect for local laws and ordinances forced
them to retain some aspects of the segregation policies so recently
abolished. Answering a complaint made by Congressman Powell in 1956,
for example, The Adjutant General of the Army explained that off-duty
entertainment did not fall within the scope of the Truman order. Since
most dances were sponsored by outside groups, they had to take place
"under conditions cited by them." To insist on integration in this
instance, The Adjutant General argued, would mean cancellation of
these dances to the detriment of the soldiers' morale. For that
reason, segregated dances would continue on post.[19-29]
[Footnote 19-29: Ltr, TAG to Powell, 9 Aug 56, GF
124-A-1, Eisenhower Library.]
This response illustrates the services' approach to equal opportunity
and treatment during the Eisenhower administration. The President
showed a strong reluctance to interfere with local laws and customs, a
reluctance that seemed to flow out of a pronounced constitutional
scruple against federal intervention in defiance of local racial laws.
The practical consequence of this scruple was readily apparent in the
armed forces throughout his administration. In 1955, for example, a
black veteran called the President's attention to the plight of black
soldiers, part of an integrated group, who were denied service in an
Alabama airport and left unfed throughout their long journey.
Answering for the President, Maxwell M. Rabb, Secretary to the
Cabinet, reaffirmed Eisenhower's dedication to equal opportunity but
added that it was not in the scope of the President's authority "to
intervene in matters which are of local or state-wide concern and
within the jurisdiction of local legislation and determination."[19-30]
Again to a black soldier complaining of being denied service near Fort
Bragg, North Carolina, a White House assistant, himself a Negro,
replied that "outside of an Army post, there is little that the
Federal Government can do, except to appeal to the decency of the
citizens to treat men in uniform with courtesy and respect." He then
suggested a course of action for black soldiers:
The President's heart bleeds when any Americans are victims of
injustice, and he is doing everything he possibly can to rectify
this situation in our country.
You can hold up his hand by carrying on, despite the unpleasant
things that are happening to you at this moment, realizing that,
on this end, we will work all the harder to make your sacrifices
worthwhile.[19-31]
[Footnote 19-30: Ltrs, C. B. Nichols to President, 28
Mar 55, and Rabb to Nichols, 20 Apr 55; both in
G-124-1, Eisenhower Library.]
[Footnote 19-31: Ltr, E. Frederic Morrow to Pfc John
Washington, 9 Apr 57, in reply to Ltr, Washington
to President, 5 Mar 57; both in G-124-A-1,
Eisenhower Library.]
But as the record suggests, this promise to rectify the situation was
never meant to extend beyond the gates of the military reservation.
Thus, the countless incidents of blatant discrimination encountered by
black GI's would continue largely unchallenged into the 1960's, masking
the progress made by the Eisenhower administration in ordering the
sometimes reluctant services to adopt reforms. This presidential (p. 483)
resolution was particularly obvious in the integration of civilian
facilities at Navy shipyards and installations and in schools for
dependent children on military posts.
_Integration of Navy Shipyards_
The Navy employed many thousands of civilians, including a large
number of Negroes, at some forty-three installations from Virginia to
Texas. At the Norfolk shipyard, for example, approximately 35 percent
of the 15,000 employees were black. To the extent dictated by local
laws and customs, black employees were segregated and otherwise
discriminated against. The degree of segregation depended upon
location, and, according to a 1953 newspaper survey, ranged "from
minor in most instances to substantial in a few cases."[19-32]
[Footnote 19-32: UPI News Release, 20 Aug 53, copy in
CMH files.]
In January 1952 the Chief of the Office of Industrial Relations, Rear
Adm. W. McL. Hague, all but absolved Navy installations from the
provisions of Executive Order 9980.[19-33] He announced that
segregation would continue if "the station is subject to local laws of
the community in which located, and the laws of the community require
segregated facilities," or if segregation were "the norm of the
community and conversion to common facilities would, in the judgment
of the commanding officer, result in definite impediment to productive
effort." Known officially as "OIR Notice CP75," Hague's statement left
little doubt that segregation would remain the norm in most instances.
It specified that a change to integrated facilities would be allowed
only after the commander had decided that it could be accomplished
without "inordinate interference with the Station's ability to carry
out its mission." If other facilities stood nearby, the change would
be allowed only after he had coordinated with the naval district
commander.[19-34] Shortly thereafter the Acting Secretary of the Navy
expressed his agreement with Hague's statement,[19-35] thus elevating
it to an official expression of Navy policy.
[Footnote 19-33: Executive Order 9980, announcing
regulations governing fair employment practices
within the federal government, was signed by
President Truman on 26 July 1948, the same day and
as a companion to his order on equal treatment and
opportunity in the services.]
[Footnote 19-34: OIR Notice CP75, Chief, Office of
Industrial Relations, to Chiefs, Bureaus, et al.,
23 Jan 52, sub: Segregation of Facilities for Civil
Service Employees; Navy Department Policy.]
[Footnote 19-35: Ltr, Actg SecNav Francis Whitehair to
Jerry O. Gilliam, Norfolk Branch, NAACP, 19 Mar 52,
P 8(4), SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]
Official protestations to the contrary, the Navy was again segregating
people by race. Evans, in the Department of Defense, charged that this
was in fact the "insidious intent" of Hague's notice. He pointed out
to Assistant Secretary of Defense Rosenberg that signs and notices of
segregation were reappearing over drinking fountains and toilets at
naval installations which had abandoned such practices, that men in
uniform were now subjected to segregation at such facilities, and that
the local press was making the unrefuted claim that local law was (p. 484)
being reestablished on federal properties.[19-36] Somewhat late to the
battle, Dennis D. Nelson seemingly a permanent fixture in the
Pentagon, spoke out against his department's policy, but from a
different angle. He warned the Secretary of the Navy through his aide
that Notice 75 was embarrassing not only for the Navy but for the
White House as well.[19-37]
[Footnote 19-36: Draft Memo, Evans for Rosenberg,
SecDef 291.2. Evans delivered the draft memo to
Mrs. Rosenberg and discussed the situation with her
at length "in the spring of 1952." See Interv,
author with Evans, 28 Mar 72, CMH files. On Mrs
Rosenberg's request for a survey of the situation,
see Memo, ASD (M&P) for Under SecNav, 23 Dec 52.
See also Memo, CO, Norfolk Naval Shipyard, for
Chief, NavPers, 23 Apr 52, P 8(4), BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 19-37: Memo, Nelson for Aide to Asst SecNav,
20 May 53, P 8(4), GenRecsNav.]
[Illustration: CONGRESSMAN POWELL.]
Nelson was right of course. The notice quickly won the attention of
civil rights leaders. Walter White condemned the policy, but his
protest, along with the sharp complaints of the NAACP's Clarence
Mitchell and Jerry Gilliam and the arguments of the Urban League's
Lester Granger, failed to move Secretary of the Navy Dan A.
Kimball.[19-38] The secretary insisted that integrating these
installations might jeopardize the fulfillment of the Navy's mission,
dependent as it was on the "efficiency and whole-hearted cooperation"
of the employees. "In a very realistic way," he told Walter White, the
Navy must recognize and conform to local labor customs and
usages.[19-39] Answering Rosenberg's inquiry on the subject, the Navy
gave its formula for change:
This Department cannot take the initiative in correcting this
social ill but must content itself with being alert to take
advantage of the gradual dissolution of these racial prejudices
which can be effectively brought about only by a process of
social education and understanding. This Department is ever ready
to dissolve segregation practices of long standing as soon as
that can be done without decreasing the effectiveness of our
activities.[19-40]
[Footnote 19-38: Kimball succeeded Sullivan as
Secretary of the Navy on 31 July 1951.]
[Footnote 19-39: Ltrs, White to SecNav, 26 May 52;
Mitchell to same, 8 Feb 52; Jerry Gilliam to same,
10 Feb 52; Granger to same, 22 May and 27 Jun 52;
SecNav to Granger, 16 Jun 52; same to White, 20 Jun
52; Chief, OIR, to Mitchell, 4 Feb 52; Under SecNav
to Mitchell, 5 Mar 52. All in P 8(4), GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 19-40: Memo, Actg SecNav for ASD (M&P), 22
Jan 53; Memo, ASD (M&P) for Under SecNav, 23 Dec
52; both in P 8(4), GenRecsNav.]
President Eisenhower's newly appointed Secretary of the Navy, Robert
B. Anderson, endorsed Notice 75 along the same lines, informing
Mitchell that the Navy would "measure the pace of non-segregation by
the limits of what is practical and reasonable in each area."[19-41]
[Footnote 19-41: Ltr, SecNav to Mitchell (ca., Apr
53), OIR 161, GenRecsNav.]
But what seemed practical and reasonable in the Navy was not (p. 485)
necessarily so in the White House, where the President had publicly
pledged his administration to the abolition of segregation in the
federal government. Should Eisenhower falter, there was always his
1952 campaign ally, Congressman Powell, to remind him of his
"forthright stand on segregation when federal funds are expended."[19-42]
In colorful prose that pulled no punches, Powell reminded the
President of his many black supporters and pressed him on the Navy's
continuing segregation. Although he denied Powell's charge of
obstructionist tactics in the executive branch, the President had in
fact been told by Maxwell Rabb, now serving as his minority affairs
assistant, that "some government agencies were neglecting their
duty."[19-43] The President responded to this news promptly enough by
ordering Rabb to supervise the executive agencies in their application
of the presidential racial policy. Rabb thereafter discussed the
Navy's policy with Secretary Anderson and his assistants on 11 June
1953.
[Footnote 19-42: Ltr, Powell to Eisenhower, 17 Apr 53,
copy in SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 19-43: Dwight D. Eisenhower, _Mandate for
Change 1953-1956_ (New York: New American Library,
1963), p. 293.]
With his policy openly contradicting the President's, Anderson was in
an awkward position. He had been unaware of the implications of the
problem, he later explained, and had accepted his predecessor's
judgment. His mistake, he pled, was one of timing not intent.[19-44]
Yet Anderson had conducted a wide correspondence on the subject,
discussed the matter with Lester Granger, and as late as 28 May was
still defending Notice 75, telling Special White House Assistant
Wilton B. Persons that it represented a practical answer to a problem
that could not be corrected by edict. Nor could he introduce any
changes, he maintained, adopting his predecessor's argument that the
Navy should "be alert to take advantage of its [segregation's] gradual
dissolution through the process of social education and
understanding."[19-45]
[Footnote 19-44: Interv, Nichols with Anderson, 18 Sep
53, and Nichols UPI Release, 21 Sep 53; both in
Nichols Collection, CMH.]
[Footnote 19-45: Ltrs, SecNav to W. Persons, 28 May
53; SecNav to Granger, 28 May and 29 Jul 53;
Granger to Anderson, 24 Apr and 2 Jul 53. See also
Memo, Chief, NavPers for SecNav, 11 May 53. All in
SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]
But neither the civil rights leaders nor the White House could be put
off with gradualism. Anderson's stand was roundly criticized. In an
address to the NAACP annual convention, Walter White plainly referred
to the secretary's position as a "defiance of President Eisenhower's
order."[19-46] If such barbed criticism left the secretary unmoved,
Rabb carried a stronger weapon, and in their 11 June meeting the two
men discussed the President's order to integrate federally owned or
controlled properties, the possibility of a Supreme Court decision on
the same subject, and, more to the point, Powell's public statements
concerning segregation at the Norfolk and Charleston naval
shipyards.[19-47]
[Footnote 19-46: White, Address Delivered at 44th
NAACP Annual Convention, 28 Jun 53, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 19-47: Memo, Under SecNav for President, 23
Jun 53, sub: Segregation in Naval Activities,
attached to Ltr, Under SecNav to Sherman Adams, 24
Jun 53, P 8(4), GenRecsNav.]
[Illustration: SECRETARY ANDERSON _talks to a member of the fleet_.]
Anderson then proceeded to reverse his position. He began by (p. 486)
ordering a survey of a group of southern installations to estimate
the effect of integration on their civilian programs. He learned
segregation could be virtually eliminated at these shipyards and
stations within six months, although Under Secretary Charles S.
Thomas, who prepared the report, agreed with the local commanders that
an integration directive would be certain to cause trouble. But the
formula chosen by the commanders for eliminating segregation, in which
Thomas concurred, might well have given Anderson pause. They wanted to
remove racial signs from drinking fountains and toilets, certain that
the races would continue using separate facilities, and leave the
problem of segregated cafeterias till later. It was the unanimous
opinion of those involved, Thomas reported, that the situation should
not be forced by "agitators," a category in which they all placed
Powell.
On 20 August Anderson directed commanders of segregated facilities to
proceed steadily toward complete elimination of racial barriers.
Furthermore, each commander was to submit a progress report on 1
November and at sixty-day intervals thereafter.[19-48] Although the
secretary was concerned with the possible reaction of the civil rights
groups were integration not achieved in the first sixty days, he was
determined to give local commanders some leeway in carrying out his
order.[19-49] But he made it clear to the press that he did not intend
"to put up with inaction."
[Footnote 19-48: ALL NAV, 20 Aug 53; Ltr, Chief,
Industrial Relations, to Commandant, 6th Naval
District, 21 Aug 53, OIR 200, GenRecsNav. For an
example of how the new policy was transmitted to
the field, see COMFIVE Instruction 5800, 15 Sep 53,
A. (2), GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 19-49: Interv, Nichols with Anderson;
Nichols News Release, 23 Sep 53, in Nichols
Collection, CMH.]
He need not have worried. Evans reported on 29 October that
integration of the Charleston shipyard was almost complete and had
occurred so far without incident. In fact, he told Assistant Secretary
of Defense John A. Hannah, the reaction of the local press and
community had been "surprisingly tolerant and occasionally
favorable."[19-50] Evans, however, apparently overlooked an attempt by
some white employees to discourage the use of integrated facilities.
Although there was no disorder, the agitators were partly successful;
the Chief of Industrial Relations reported that white usage had (p. 487)
dropped severely.[19-51] Nevertheless by 14 January 1954 this same
officer could tell Secretary Anderson that all racial barriers for
civilian employees had been eliminated without incident.[19-52]
[Footnote 19-50: Evans, Weekly Thursday Report to ASD
(M&P), 29 Oct 53, SD 291.2. Begun by Evans as a
means of informing Rosenberg of activities in his
office, the Weekly Thursday Report was adopted by
the assistant secretary for use in all parts of the
manpower office.]
[Footnote 19-51: Memo, Chief, Industrial Relations,
for SecNav, 5 Nov 53, sub: Segregation of
Facilities for Civil Service Employees; see also
Ltr, SecNav to President, 9 Nov 53; both in P 8(4),
GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 19-52: Memo, Chief, Industrial Relations,
for SecNav, 5 Nov 53, sub: Segregation of
Facilities for Civil Service Employees, P 8(4),
GenRecsNav.]
_Dependent Children and Integrated Schools_
The Department of Defense's effort to integrate schools attended by
servicemen's children proved infinitely more complex than integrating
naval shipyards. In a period when national attention was focused on
the constitutional implications of segregated education, the
Eisenhower administration was thrust into a dispute over the intent of
federal aid to education and eventually into a reappraisal of the
federal role in public education. Confusing to the Department of
Defense, the President's personal attitude remained somewhat ambiguous
throughout the controversy. He had publicly committed himself to
ending segregation in federally financed institutions, yet he had
declared scruples against federal interference with state laws and
customs that would prevent him from acting to keep such a pledge when
all its ramifications were revealed.
In fact not one but four separate categories of educational
institutions came under scrutiny. Only the first category, schools run
by the U.S. Office of Education for the Department of Defense overseas
and on military reservations in the United States, operated
exclusively with federal funds. The next two categories, schools
operated by local school districts on military reservations and
schools on federal land usually adjacent to a military reservation,
were supported by local and state funds with federal subsidies. The
fourth and by far the largest group contained the many community
schools attended by significant numbers of military dependents. These
schools received considerable federal support through the impact aid
program.
The federal support program for schools in "federally impacted" areas
added yet another dimension to the administration's reappraisal. The
impact aid legislation (Public Laws 815 and 874),[19-53] like similar
programs during World War II, was based on the premise that a school
district derived no tax from land occupied by a federal installation
but usually incurred an increase in school enrollment. In many cases
the enrollment of military dependents was far greater than that of the
communities in the school district. Actually, these programs were not
limited to the incursion of military families; the most extreme
federal impact in terms of enrollment percentages was found in remote
mountain districts where in some cases almost all students were
children of U.S. Forest Service or National Park Service employees.
[Footnote 19-53: PL 815, 23 Sep 50, 64 U.S. 967; PL
874, 30 Sep 50, 64 U.S. 1100.]
In recognition of these inequities in the tax system, Congress gave
such school systems special "in-lieu of tax" support. Public Law 815
provided for capital projects, land, buildings, and major equipment;
Public Law 874 gave operating support in the form of salaries, (p. 488)
supplies, and the like. If, for example, a school district could prove
at least 3 percent of its enrollment federally connected, it was
eligible to receive from the U.S. Office of Education a grant equal to
the district's cost of instruction for federally connected students.
If it could show federally connected enrollment necessitated
additional classrooms, the school district was eligible for federally
financed buildings. Such schools were usually concentrated in military
housing areas, but examples existed of federally financed schools,
like federal dependents, scattered throughout the school district.
Students from the community at large attended the federally
constructed schools and the school district continued to receive state
support for all students. Although Public Law 874 was far more
important in terms of general application and fiscal impact, its
companion piece, Public Law 815, was more important to integration
because it involved the construction of schools. From the beginning
Congress sought to prevent these laws from becoming a means by which
federal authorities exercised control over the operation of school
districts. It stipulated that "no department, officer or employee of
the United States shall exercise any direction, supervision or control
over the personnel, curriculum or program of instruction" of any local
school or school system.[19-54] The firmness of this admonition, an
indication of congressional opinion on this important issue, later
played a decisive part in the integration story.
[Footnote 19-54: Sec. 7a, PL 874, 64 U.S. 1100.]
Attacks on segregation in schools attended by military dependents did
not begin until the early fifties when the Army, in answer to
complaints concerning segregated schools in Texas, Oklahoma, and
Virginia, began using a stock answer to the effect that the schools
were operated by state agencies as part of the state school system
subject to state law.[19-55] Trying to justify the situation to
Clarence Mitchell, Assistant Secretary of the Army Fred Korth cited
Public Law 874, whose intent, he claimed, was that educating children
residing on federal property was the responsibility of "the local
educational agency."[19-56]
[Footnote 19-55: DA Office of Legislative Liaison
Summary Sheet for ASA, 27 Sep 51, sub: Alleged
Segregation Practiced at Fort Bliss, Texas, CS
291.2 Negroes (17 Sep 51); Ltr, CG, The Artillery
School, to Parents of School Age Children, 2 Sep
52, sub: School Information, AG 352.9 AKPSIGP. For
examples of complaints on segregated schools, see
Ltrs, Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey to ASD (M&P), 16 Jun
52, and Dir, Washington Bureau, NAACP, to SecDef, 2
Oct 52; both in OASD (M&P) 291.2.]
[Footnote 19-56: Draft Ltr, ASA (M&P) to Mitchell.
Although he never dispatched it, Korth used this
letter as a basis for a discussion of the matter
with Mitchell in an October 1952 meeting.]
Senator Humphrey, for one, was not to be put off by such an
interpretation. He reminded Assistant Secretary Rosenberg that
President Truman had vetoed an education bill in 1951 because of
provisions requiring segregation in schools on federal property. As a
member of the subcommittee that guided Public Law 874 through
Congress, Humphrey could assure Rosenberg that at no time did Congress
include language requiring segregation in post schools. Thanks to the
Army's interpretation, he observed, local community segregation
practices were being extended for the first time to federal property
under the guise of compliance with federal law. He predicted further
incursions by the segregationists if this move was left
unchallenged.[19-57]
[Footnote 19-57: Ltr, Humphrey to ASD (M&P), 16 Oct
52, OASD (M&P) 291.2.]
After conferring with both Humphrey and Mitchell, Rosenberg took (p. 489)
the matter of segregated schools on military posts to the U.S.
Commissioner of Education, Earl J. McGrath. With Secretary of Defense
Lovett's approval she put the department on record as opposed to
segregated schools on posts because they were "violative not only of
the policy of the Department" but also of "the policy set forth by the
President."[19-58] Evidently McGrath saw Public Law 874 in the same
light, for on 15 January 1953 he informed Rosenberg that if the
Department of Defense outlawed segregated dependent schooling and
local educational agencies were unable to comply, his office would
have to make "other arrangements" for the children.[19-59]
[Footnote 19-58: Ltr, ASD (M&P) to U.S. Commissioner
of Educ, 10 Jan 53, SecDef 291.2.]
[Footnote 19-59: Ltr, U.S. Commissioner of Educ to ASD
(M&P), 15 Jan 53; Ltr, ASD (M&P) to Humphrey, 10
Jan 53; both in OASD 291.2.]
Commissioner McGrath proposed that his office discuss the integration
question further with Defense Department representatives but the
change in administrations interrupted these negotiations and
Rosenberg's successor, John A. Hannah, made it clear that there would
be no speedy change in the racial composition of post schools.
Commenting at Hannah's request on the points raised by McGrath, the
Army's principal personnel officer concluded that integration should
be considered a departmental goal, but one that should be approached
by steps "consistent with favorable local conditions as determined by
the installation commander concerned." In his opinion, committing the
department to integration of all on-post schools, as the Assistant
Secretary of Defense had proposed earlier, would create teacher
procurement problems and additional financial burdens.[19-60] This
cautious endorsement of integrated schools was further qualified by
the Secretary of the Army. It was a "desirable goal," he told Hannah,
but "positive steps to eliminate segregation ... should be preceded
by a careful analysis of the impact on each installation
concerned."[19-61] Hannah then broke off negotiations with the Office
of Education.
[Footnote 19-60: G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS, 13 Feb
53, sub: Segregation of School Children on Military
Installations, G-1 291.2 (15 Jan 53).]
[Footnote 19-61: Memo, Exec Off, SA, for ASD (M&P), 20
Feb 53, sub: Proposed Reply to U.S. Commissioner of
Education Regarding Segregation in Dependent
Schools, copy in G-1 291.2 (15 Jan 53).]
The matter was rescued from bureaucratic limbo when in answer to a
question during his 19 March 1953 press conference President
Eisenhower promised to investigate the school situation, adding:
I will say this--I repeat it, I have said it again and again:
whenever Federal funds are expended for anything, I do not see
how any American can justify--legally, or logically, or
morally--a discrimination in the expenditure of those funds as
among our citizens. All are taxed to provide these funds. If
there is any benefit to be derived from them, I think they must
all share, regardless of such inconsequential factors as race and
religion.[19-62]
[Footnote 19-62: President's News Conference, 19 Mar
53, _Public Papers of the Presidents: Dwight D.
Eisenhower, 1953_, p. 108.]
The sweeping changes implied in this declaration soon became apparent.
Statistics compiled as a result of the White House investigation
revealed that federal dependents attended thousands of schools, a
complex mix of educational institutions having little more in common than
their mutual dependence in whole or part on federal funds.[19-63] (p. 490)
Most were under local government control and the great majority,
including the community public schools, were situated a long distance
from any military base. The President was no doubt unaware of the
ramifications of federal enrollment and impacted aid on the nation's
schools when he made his declaration, and, given his philosophy of
government and the status of civil rights at the time, it is not
surprising that his promise to look into the subject came to nothing.
From the beginning Secretary of Defense Wilson limited the
department's campaign against segregated schools to those on federal
_property_ rather than those using federal _funds_. And even this
limited effort to integrate schools on federal property encountered
determined opposition from many local officials and only the
halfhearted support of some of the federal officials involved.
[Footnote 19-63: Memo for Rcd, Human Relations and
Research Br, G-1 (ca. Mar 53), copy in CMH. See
also Memo, Under SecNav for ASD (M&P), 11 Mar 53,
sub: Schools Operated by the Department of the Navy
Pursuant to Section 6 and 3 of Public Law 874, 81st
Congress, A18, GenRecsNav; "List of States and
Whether or Not Segregation is Practiced in Schools
for Dependents, as Given by Colonel Brody, OPNS
Secn, AGO, In Charge of Dependents Schools, 16 Oct
51," OSA 291.2 Negroes.]
The Department of Defense experienced few problems at first as it
integrated its own schools. Its overseas schools, especially in
Germany and Japan, had always been integrated, and its schools in the
United States now quickly followed suit. Eleven in number, they were
paid for and operated by the U.S. Commissioner of Education because
the states in which they were located prohibited the use of state
funds for schools on federal property. With only minimal public
attention, all but one of these schools was operating on an integrated
basis by 1953. The exception was the elementary school at Fort
Benning, Georgia, which at the request of the local school board
remained a white-only school. On 20 March 1953 the new Secretary of
the Army, Robert T. Stevens, informed the White House that this school
had been ordered to commence integrated operations in the fall.[19-64]
[Footnote 19-64: Memo, SA for James Hagerty, White
House Press Secretary, 20 Mar 53, sub: Segregation
in Army Schools, copy in CMH.]
The integration of schools operated by local school authorities on
military posts was not so simple, and before the controversy died down
the Department of Defense found itself assuming responsibility for a
number of formerly state-operated institutions. As of April 1953,
twenty-one of these sixty-three schools in the United States were
operating on a segregated basis. (_Table 12_)
Table 12--Defense Installations With Segregated Public Schools
State Installation
Alabama (C)[1] Maxwell Air Force Base
Craig Air Force Base
Arkansas (S)[2] Pine Bluff Arsenal (Army)
Florida (C) MacDill Air Force Base
Eglin Air Force Base
Tyndall Air Force Base
Naval Air Station, Pensacola
Patrick Air Force Base
Maryland (S) Andrews Air Force Base
Naval Air Station, Patuxent
Naval Powder Factory, Indianhead
Oklahoma (C) Fort Sill (Army)
Texas (C) Fort Bliss (Army)
Fort Hood (Army)
Fort Sam Houston (Army)
Randolph Air Force Base
Reese Air Force Base
Shepherd Air Force Base
Lackland Air Force Base
Virginia (C) Fort Belvoir (Army)
Langley Air Force Base
[Tablenote 1: (C) indicates segregation required by
state constitution.]
[Tablenote 2: (S) indicates segregation required by
state statute.]
The Secretary of the Army promised to investigate the possibility of
integrating schools on Army bases and to consider further action with
the Commissioner of Education "as the situation is clarified." He
warned the President that to "prod the commissioner" into setting up
integrated federal schools when segregated state schools were
available would invite charges in the press and Congress of
squandering money. Moreover, newly assembled faculties would have
state accreditation problems.[19-65] Admitting that there were
complicating factors, the President ignored the secretary's warnings
and noted that if integrated schools could not be provided by (p. 491)
state authorities "other arrangements will be considered."[19-66]
[Footnote 19-65: Ibid.]
[Footnote 19-66: Memo, Eisenhower for SecDef, 25 Mar
53, sub: Segregation in Schools on Army Posts;
Memo, Bernard Shanley (Special Counsel to
President) for SA, 25 Mar 53; both in 124A-4
Eisenhower Library.]
Others in the administration took these complications more seriously.
Oveta Culp Hobby, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, was
concerned with the attitude of Congress and the press. She pleaded for
more time to see what the Supreme Court would rule on the subject and
to study the effect of the conversion to federally operated schools
"so that we can feel confident of our ground in the event further
action should be called for." Going a step further than the Secretary
of the Army, Hobby suggested delaying action on the twenty-one
segregated schools on posts "for the immediate present."[19-67]
[Footnote 19-67: Ltr, Secy of HEW, to SecDef, 13 Apr
53, copy in CMH.]
In marked contrast to Hobby's recommendation, and incidentally
buttressing popular belief in the existence of an interdepartmental
dispute on the subject, Secretary of Defense Wilson told the President
that he wanted to end segregation in all schools on military
installations "as swiftly as practicable." He admitted it would be
difficult, as a comprehensive and partially covert survey of the
school districts by the local commanders had made clear. The
commanders found, for example, that the twenty-one school districts
involved would not operate the schools as integrated institutions. (p. 492)
Wilson also stressed that operating the schools under federal
authority would be very expensive, but his recommendation was
explicit. There should be no exact timetable, but the schools should
be integrated before the 1955 fall term.[19-68]
[Footnote 19-68: Ltr, SecDef to President, 29 May 53,
copy in CMH. On the Army's investigation of the
schools, see also G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS, 6 Apr
53, sub: Segregation in Schools on Army Posts, CS
291.2 Negroes (25 Mar 53), and the following: Ltrs,
TAG to CG's, Continental Armies et al., 30 Mar 53,
and to CG, Fourth Army, 17 Apr 53, sub: Segregation
in Schools on Army Posts, AGAO-R 352.9 (17 Apr 53);
Memo, Dir of Pers Policy, OSD, for ACS/G-1 and
Chief of NavPers, 6 May 53; Statement for Sherman
Adams in reply to Telg, Powell to President, as
attachment to Memo, ASD (M&P) for SecNav, 5 Jun 53;
last two in OASD (M&P) 291.2.]
Although both Wilson and Hobby later denied that the Department of
Health, Education, and Welfare was opposed to integrating the schools,
rumors and complaints persisted throughout the summer of 1953 that
Hobby opposed swift action and had carried her opposition "to the
cabinet level."[19-69] Lending credence to these rumors, President
Eisenhower later admitted that there was some foot-dragging in his
official family. He had therefore ordered minority affairs assistant
Rabb, already overseeing the administration's fight against segregated
shipyards, to "track down any inconsistencies of this sort in the rest
of the departments and agencies of the government."[19-70]
[Footnote 19-69: DOD OPI Release, 1 Feb 54; UPI News
Release, 31 Jan 54; Telg, Powell to President, ca.
1 Jun 53; Ltr, President to Powell, 6 Jun 53; Press
Release, Congressman Powell, 10 Jun 53; NAACP Press
Release, 16 Nov 53; White, Address Delivered at
44th NAACP Annual Convention, 28 Jun 53. Copies of
all in Nichols Collection, CMH. See also New York
_Times_, February 1, 1954.]
[Footnote 19-70: Eisenhower, _Mandate for Change_, p.
293.]
The interdepartmental dispute was quickly buried by Wilson's dramatic
order of 12 January 1954. Effective as of that date, the secretary
announced, "no new school shall be opened for operation on a
segregated basis, and schools presently so conducted shall cease
operating on a segregated basis, as soon as practicable, and under no
circumstances later than September 1, 1955."[19-71] Wilson promised to
negotiate with local authorities, but if they were unable to comply
the Commissioner of Education would be requested to provide integrated
facilities through the provisions of Public Law 874. Interestingly,
the secretary's order predated the Supreme Court decision on
segregated education by some four months.
[Footnote 19-71: Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 12 Jan
54, sub: Schools on Military Installations for
Dependents of Military and Civilian Personnel,
SecDef 291.2.]
The order prompted considerable public response. The Anti-Defamation
League of B'nai B'rith telegraphed "hearty approval of your directive
... action is consonant with democratic ideals and in particular with
the military establishment's successful program of integration in the
armed forces."[19-72] Walter White added the NAACP's approval in a
similar vein, and many individual citizens offered congratulations.[19-73]
But not all the response was favorable. Congressman Arthur A. Winstead
of Mississippi asked the secretary to outline for him "wherein you
believe that procedure will add anything whatsoever to the defense of
this country. Certainly it appears to me that you have every reason
anyone could desire to refuse to take action which is in total (p. 493)
violation of certain state laws."[19-74]
[Footnote 19-72: Telg, Anti-Defamation League of B'nai
B'rith to Wilson, 1 Feb 54, SecDef 291.2.]
[Footnote 19-73: Telg, Walter White to SecDef, 1 Feb
54; and as an example of a letter from an
individual citizen, see Ltr, Mrs. Louis Shearer to
SecDef, 1 Feb 54; both in SecDef 291.2.]
[Footnote 19-74: Ltr, Winstead to SecDef, 18 Feb 54,
SecDef 291.2.]
The three services quickly responded to the order. By 18 February all
had issued specific directives for enforcing it. The Secretary of the
Navy, for example, declared that the "policy of non-segregation" would
apply
to the operation of existing schools and school facilities
hereafter constructed on Navy and Marine Corps installations
within the United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the
Virgin Islands, the area in which Public Law 874 and ... 815 ...
are operative.... In the case of PL 874 this area will be
extended, effective 1 July 1954, to include Wake Island ... the
same policy of non-segregation will apply in all Navy-operated
schools for dependent children of military and civilian personnel
of the Department of Defense.[19-75]
[Footnote 19-75: SecNav Instruction 5700.1, 18 Feb 54,
which was renewed by SecNav Instruction 17755.1A,
31 Jul 58. For other services, see Memo, Chief,
Pers Ser Div, USAF, for all Major ZI Commands and
Alaskan Air Command, 8 Feb 54, sub: Elimination of
Segregation in On-Base Schools, AFPMP-12, AF files;
Ltr, TAG to CG's, Continental Armies, MDW, 4 Feb
54, sub: Elimination of Segregation in On-Post
Public Schools, AGCP 352.9 (4 Feb 54).]
Any local school official hoping for a reprieve from the deadlines
expressed in these orders was likely to be disappointed. In response
to queries on the subject, the services quoted their instructions, and
if they excused continued segregation during the 1954 school year they
were adamant about the September 1955 integration date.[19-76] The
response of Secretary of the Air Force Talbott to one request for an
extension revealed the services' determination to stick to the letter
of the Wilson order. Talbott agreed with the superintendent of the
Montgomery County, Alabama, school board that local school boards were
best qualified to run the schools for dependent children of the
military, but he refused to extend the deadline. "Unilateral action in
the case of individual Air Force base schools would be in violation of
the directive," he explained, adding: "At such time as the Alabama
legislature acts to permit your local board of education to operate
the school at Maxwell AFB on an integrated basis, the Air Force will
return operational responsibility for the school to the local board at
the earliest practicable date."[19-77]
[Footnote 19-76: Ltr, SecNav to Clarence Mitchell, 30
Apr 54; Ltr, Jack Cochrane, BuPers Realty Legal
Section, to B. Alden Lillywhite, Dept of HEW, 20
Apr 54; both in P 11-1, GenRecsNav. See also Ltr,
ASD (M&P) to Commissioner of Educ, 3 May 55; Ltr,
ASD (M&P) to Dr. J. W. Edgar, Texas Education
Agency, 3 May 55; both in OASD (M&P) 291.2 (3 May
55).]
[Footnote 19-77: Ltr, SecAF to Superintendent of
Montgomery Public Schools, 12 Jan 55, SecAF files.]
As a result of this unified determination on the part of departmental
officials, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense could
announce in December 1954 that two of the schools, the one at Craig
Air Force Base, Alabama, and Fort Belvoir, Virginia, were integrated;
two others, the Naval Air Station school at Pensacola, Florida, and
Reese Air Force Base, Texas, had been closed; the remaining seventeen
would be fully integrated by the September 1955 deadline.[19-78] Lee
Nichols, a prolific writer on integration, reported in November 1955
that schools segregated for generations suddenly had black and white
children sitting side by side. This move by the armed forces, he (p. 494)
pointed out, could have far-reaching effects. Educators from
segregated community schools would be watching the military experiment
closely for lessons in how to comply with the Supreme Court's
desegregation order.[19-79]
[Footnote 19-78: Memo for Rcd, Chief, Morale and
Welfare Br, ASD (M&P), 17 Dec 54, sub: Integration
of Certain Schools Located on Military
Installations, OASD (M&P) 291.2.]
[Footnote 19-79: UPI News Release, Incl to Memo, Dir,
DOD Office of Public Information, for ASD (M&P), 10
Nov 55, OASD (M&P) 291.2.]
Strictly speaking there were more than twenty-one segregated schools
operating on federal installations. A small group of institutions
built and operated by local authorities stood on land leased from the
services. At the time of Secretary Wilson's order this category of
schools included three with 75-year leases, those at Fort Meade,
Maryland, and Fort Bliss and Biggs Air Force Base, Texas, and one with
a 25-year lease at Pine Bluff Arsenal, Arkansas.[19-80] The Air
Force's general counsel believed the lease could be broken in light
of the Wilson order, but the possibility developed that some
extensions might be granted to these schools because of the lease
complication.[19-81] The Secretary of the Army went right to the
point, asking the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Carter L. Burgess,
for an extension in the case of Fort Meade pending Maryland's
integration of its schools under the Supreme Court's decision.[19-82]
In response Burgess ordered, as of 1 June 1955, the exemption of four
schools. "No attempt shall be made," he informed the services, "to
break the lease or take over operation of the schools pending further
instruction from the Secretary of Defense."[19-83]
[Footnote 19-80: Ltr, Col Staunton Brown, USA,
District Engineer, Little Rock District, to
Division Engineer, Southwestern Div, 8 Jun 56, sub:
Meeting With Representatives of White Hall School
District, Pine Bluff Arsenal; Memo, Asst Adjutant,
Second Army, for CG, Second Army, 7 Jun 56, sub:
Lease for Meade Heights Elementary School; copies
of both in OASD (M&P) 291.2.]
[Footnote 19-81: Memo, AF General Counsel for Dir of
Mil Pers, 29 Mar 55, sub: Lease on Property
Occupied by Briggs Air Force Base Dependent's
School; Memo, Asst SecAF for ASD (M&P), 24 May 55,
sub: Biggs Air Force Base Dependent School; both in
SecAF files.]
[Footnote 19-82: Memo, ASA for ASD (M&P), 3 May 55,
sub: Elimination of Segregation in On-Post Public
Schools, OASD (M&P) 291.2.]
[Footnote 19-83: Memo, ASD (M&P) for SA et al., 1 Jun
55, sub: Operation of Dependent Schools on Military
Installations on an Integrated Basis; idem for
SecDef et al., 25 Aug 55, sub: Status of Racial
Integration in Schools on Military Installations
for Dependents of Military and Civilian Personnel;
both in OASD (M&P) 291.2 (25 Aug 55).]
It was some time before the question of temporary extensions was
resolved. Two of the leased property schools, Biggs and Fort Bliss,
were integrated before the September deadline as a result of a change
in state law in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision. Then, on 16
July 1956, the Assistant Secretary of the Army reported that the
phased integration of Fort Meade's elementary school had
started.[19-84] The Pine Bluff Arsenal case was still unresolved in
1956, but since at that time there were no black dependents at the
installation it was not considered so pressing by Burgess, who allowed
the extension to continue beyond 1956. Besides, it turned out there
were still other schools in this category that the Navy had
temporarily exempted from the September 1955 deadline. The school at
the Patuxent River Naval Air Station, for example, which had no black
dependents eligible for attendance, was allowed to continue to operate
as usual while negotiations were under way for the transfer of the
school and property to the St. Mary's County, Maryland, school (p. 495)
board.[19-85] A lease for the temporary use of buildings by local
authorities for segregated schools on the grounds of the New Orleans
Naval Air Station was allowed to run on until 1959 because of
technicalities in the lease, but not, however, without considerable
public comment.[19-86]
[Footnote 19-84: Memo, ASA for ASD (M&P), 16 Jul 56,
sub: Status of Racial Integration in Schools at
Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, and Pine Bluff
Arsenal, Arkansas, OASD (M&P) 291.2.]
[Footnote 19-85: Memo, Cmdr Charles B. Reinhardt, OASD
(M&P), for Brig Gen John H. Ives, Mil Policy Div,
OASD (M&P), 26 Oct 55, sub: School at Patuxent
River Naval Air Stations, OASD (M&P) 291.2.]
[Footnote 19-86: See the following Memos: ASD (M&P)
for SecNav, 18 Nov 55, sub: Integration in Schools
on Military Installations for Department of
Military and Civilian Personnel; idem for Asst
SecNav (P&RF), 23 Jan 56, sub: Segregation in
Schools at the New Orleans Naval Base, Algiers,
Louisiana; Asst SecNav (P&RF) for ASD (M&P), 7 Apr
56, same sub; ASD (M&P) for Asst SecNav (FM), 15
Aug 58, sub: U.S. Naval Station, New Orleans,
Louisiana: One Year Extension of Outlease With
Orleans Parish School Board, New Orleans,
Louisiana; Ltrs, CO, New Orleans Naval Station, to
Rev. Edward Schlick, 24 Feb 56, and Rear Adm John
M. Will, OASD (M&P), to Clarence Mitchell, NAACP, 6
Dec 55 and 18 Apr 56. All in OASD (M&P) 291.2. For
public interest in the case, see the files of the
Chief of Naval Personnel (P 11-1) for the years
1956-59.]
[Illustration: READING CLASS IN THE MILITARY DEPENDENTS SCHOOL,
_Yokohama, Japan, 1955_.]
The Department of Defense could look with pride at its progress. In
less than three years after President Eisenhower had promised to look
into segregated schools for military dependents, the department had
integrated hundreds of classrooms, inducing local authorities to
integrate a series of schools in areas that had never before seen
blacks and whites educated together. It had even ordered the
integration of classes conducted on post by local universities and (p. 496)
voluntarily attended by servicemen in off-duty hours.[19-87] Yet many
dependent schools were untouched because Wilson's order applied only
to schools on federal property. It ignored the largest category of
dependent schools, those in the local community that because of heavy
enrollment of federal dependents were supported in whole or part by
federal funds. In these institutions some 28,000 federal dependents
were being educated in segregated classes. Integration for them would
have to await the long court battles that followed _Brown_ v. _Board
of Education_.
[Footnote 19-87: Ltr, Sen. Herbert Lehman to SecDef,
10 Oct 56; Ltr, SecDef to Lehman, 15 Oct 56, both
in SD 291.2.]
This dreary prospect had not always seemed so inevitable. Although
Wilson's order ignored local public schools, civil rights advocates
did not, and the problem of off-base segregation, typified by the
highly publicized school at the Little Rock Air Force Base in 1958,
became an issue involving not only the Department of Defense but the
whole administration. The decision to withhold federal aid to school
districts that remained segregated in defiance of court orders was
clearly beyond the power of the Department of Defense. In a memorandum
circulated among Pentagon officials in October 1958, Assistant
Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Elliot C. Richardson
discussed the legal background of federal aid to schools attended by
military dependents, especially congressional intent and the
definition of "suitable" facilities as expressed in Public Laws 815
and 874. He also took up the question of whether to provide off-base
integrated schooling, balancing the difficult problem of protecting
the civil rights of federal employees against the educational
advantages of a state-sponsored education system. Richardson mentioned
the great variation in school population--some bases having seven high
school aged children one year, none the next--and the fact that the
cost of educating the 28,087 dependents attending segregated schools
in 1957 would amount to more than $49 million for facilities and $8.7
million annually for operations. He was left with one possible
conclusion, that "irrespective of our feelings about the unsuitability
of segregated education as a matter of principle, we are constrained
by the legislative history, the settled administrative construction,
and the other circumstances surrounding the statutes in question to
adhere to the existing interpretation of them."[19-88]
[Footnote 19-88: Memo, Asst Secy of HEW for Secy of
HEW, 4 Oct 58, sub: Payments of Segregated Schools
Under P.L. 815 and P.L. 874, Incl to Ltr, Asst Secy
of HEW to ASD (M&P), 10 Oct 58, OASD (M&P)291.2 (10
Oct 58).]
Richardson might be "constrained" to accept the _status quo_, but some
black parents were not. In the fall of 1958 matters came to a head at
the school near the Little Rock air base. Here was a new facility,
built by the local school board exclusively with federal funds, on
state land, and intended primarily for the education of dependents
living at a newly constructed military base. On the eve of the
school's opening, the Pulaski County school board informed the Air
Force that the school would be for white students only. The decision
was brought to the President's attention by a telegram from a black
sergeant's wife whose child was denied admission.[19-89] The telegram
was only the first in a series of protests from congressmen, civil (p. 497)
rights organizations, and interested citizens. For all the Defense
Department had a stock answer: there was nothing the Air Force could
do. The service neither owned nor operated the school, and the impact
aid laws forbade construction of federal school facilities if the
local school districts could provide public school education for
federal dependents.[19-90]
[Footnote 19-89: Memo, Dir of Pers Policy, OSD, for
Stephen Jackson, 29 Aug 58, sub: Air Force
Segregated School Situation in Pulaski County,
Arkansas (San Francisco _Chronicle_ article of Aug
26, 58); Memo for Rec, Stephen Jackson, OASD (M&P),
8 Oct 58, sub: Integration of Little Rock Air Force
Base School, Jacksonville, Ark., attached to Memo,
ASD (M&P) for SA et al., 10 Oct 58. All in OASD
(M&P) 291.2.]
[Footnote 19-90: See, for example, Ltrs, Dir of Pers
Policy, OSD, to Sen. Richard L. Neuberger, 10 Sep
58, and ASD/M to Congressman Charles C. Diggs, Jr.,
23 Oct 58. See also Memo, Dep Dir of Mil Pers,
USAF, for Asst SecAF (Manpower, Pers, and Res
Forces), 9 Oct 58, sub: Dependent Schools. All in
OASD (M&P) 291.2.]
The department would not get off the hook so easily; the President
wanted something done about the Little Rock school, although he wanted
his interest kept quiet.[19-91] Yet any action would have unpleasant
consequences. If the department transferred the father, it was open to
a court suit on his behalf; if it tried to force integration on the
local authorities, they would close the school. Since neither course
was acceptable, Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles C. Finucane
ordered his troubleshooter, Stephen Jackson, to Little Rock to
investigate.[19-92]
[Footnote 19-91: Memo, Lt Col Winston P. Anderson,
Exec Off, Asst SecAF (M&P), for Asst SecAF (M&P),
24 Nov 58, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 19-92: Memo, ASD (MP&R) for SA et al., 10
Oct 58, OASD (MP&R) 291.2; Memo for Rcd, Spec Asst
to Asst SecAF, 17 Oct 58, sub: Meeting With Mr.
Finucane and Mr. Jackson re Little Rock Air Force
Base, SecAF files.]
Before he went to Little Rock, Jackson met with officials from the
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and decided, with the
concurrence of the Department of Justice, that the solution lay in
government purchase of the land. The school would then be on a
military base and subject to integration. Should local authorities
refuse to operate the integrated on-base school, the Air Force would
do so. In that event, Jackson warned local officials on his arrival in
Arkansas, the school district would lose much of its federal
enrollment and hence its very important federal subsidy. Nor could the
board be assured that the federal acquisition would be limited to one
school. Jackson later admitted the local black school had also been
constructed with federal funds, and he could not guarantee that it
would escape federal acquisition. Board members queried Jackson on
this point, introducing the possibility that the federal government
might try to acquire local high schools, also attended in large
numbers by military dependents and also segregated. Jackson assured
the school board that the department "had no desire to change the
community patterns where schools were already in existence merely
because they received federal aid,"[19-93] a statement that amounted
to a new federal policy.
[Footnote 19-93: Memo for Rcd, Dep ASD (MR&P), 8 Oct
58, sub: Integration of Little Rock Air Force Base
School, Jacksonville, Ark.; attached to Memo, ASD
(MP&R) for SA et al., 10 Oct 58, OASD (MP&R)
291.2.]
Jackson failed to convince the board, and in late October 1958 it
rejected the government's offer to run an integrated school on land
purchased from them.[19-94] Jackson thereupon met with justice
officials and together they decided that sometime before 1 January
1959 the Justice Department would acquire title to the school land for
one year by taking a leasehold through the right of eminent domain.
They did not at that time, however, formulate any definite plan of (p. 498)
action to accomplish the school take-over.[19-95]
[Footnote 19-94: Memo for Rcd, Dep Asst SecAF, 24 Nov
58, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 19-95: Ibid.; Memo, Lt Col Winston P.
Anderson, Exec Off, Asst SecAF (M&P) for Asst SecAF
(M&P), 24 Nov 58, SecAF files.]
It was just as well, for soon after this decision was reached the
NAACP brought up the subject of dependent schools near the Air Force
bases at Blytheville, Arkansas, and Stewart, Tennessee.[19-96] Air
Force Deputy Assistant Secretary James P. Goode was quick to point out
that there were at least five other segregated schools constructed
with federal funds, situated near Air Force bases, and attended almost
exclusively by federal dependents. He also predicted that a careful
survey would reveal perhaps another fifteen schools in segregated
districts serving only Air Force dependents. In light of these facts,
and with a frankly confessed aversion to the administration's
acquisition of the properties by right of eminent domain, Goode
preferred to have the schools integrated in an orderly manner through
the supervision of the federal courts.[19-97]
[Footnote 19-96: Memo, Asst SecAF (M&P) for Under
SecAF, 26 Nov 58, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 19-97: Memo, Dep Asst SecAF (MP&R) for Asst
SecAF (MP&R), 26 Nov 58, sub: Little Rock Air Force
Base Elementary School, SecAF files.]
This attitude was to prevail for some time in the Department of
Defense. In April 1961, for example, the Assistant Secretary for
Manpower informed a Senate subcommittee that, while schools under
departmental jurisdiction were integrated "without reservation and
with successful results," many children of black servicemen stationed
in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and elsewhere still attended
segregated off-post schools. Adjacent to military posts and attended
"in whole or in part by federal dependents," these schools "conformed
to state rather than federal laws."[19-98] And as late as May 1963, a
naval official admitted there was no way for the Navy to require
school officials in Key West, Florida, to conform to the Department of
Defense's policy of equal opportunity.[19-99]
[Footnote 19-98: Memo, ASD (M) for Chmn, Subcommittee
on Education, Cmte on Labor and Pub Welfare, of the
U.S. Senate, 25 Apr 61, OASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 19-99: Ltr, Rear Adm C. K. Duncan, Asst
Chief for Plans, BuPers, to Mrs. Rosetta
McCullough, 16 May 63, P 8, GenRecsNav.]
Yet even as the principle of noninterference with racial patterns of
the local community emerged intact from the lengthy controversy,
exceptions to its practical application continued to multiply. In the
fall of 1959, less than a year after the administration suspended its
campaign to integrate off-base schools in Arkansas, black Air Force
dependents quietly entered the Little Rock school. At the same time,
schools catering predominantly to military dependents near bases in
Florida and Tennessee integrated with little public attention.[19-100]
Under pressure from the courts, and after President Eisenhower had
discussed the case in a national press conference in terms of the
proper use of impact aid in segregated districts, the city of Norfolk,
Virginia, agreed to integrate its 15,000 students, roughly one-third
of whom were military dependents.[19-101]
[Footnote 19-100: Morton Puner, "What the Armed Forces
Taught Us About Integration," _Coronet_ (June
1960), reprinted in the _Congressional Record_,
vol. 106, pp. 11564-65.]
[Footnote 19-101: Press Conference, 21 Jan 59, _Public
Papers of the Presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower,
1959_, p. 122; see also Washington _Post_ January
28, 1959.]
The controversy over schools for dependents demonstrated the (p. 499)
limits of federal intervention in the local community on behalf of the
civil rights of servicemen. Before these limits could be breached a
new administration would have to redefine the scope of the Defense
Department's power. Nevertheless, the armed forces had scored some
dramatic successes in the field of race relations by 1960. Some five
million servicemen, civilians, and their dependents were proving the
practicality of integration on the job, in schools, and in everyday
living. Several writers even suggested that the services' experience
had itself become a dynamic force for social change in the United
States.[19-102] The New York _Times's_ Anthony Lewis went so far as to
say that the successful integration of military society led to the
black crusade against discrimination in civilian society.[19-103]
Others took the services' influence for granted, as Morton Puner did
when he observed in 1959 that "the armed services are more advanced in
their race relations than the rest of the United States. Perhaps it is
uniquely fitting that this should be so, that in one of the greatest
peacetime battles of our history, the armed forces should be leading
the way to victory."[19-104]
[Footnote 19-102: See Fred Richard Bahr, "The
Expanding Role of the Department of Defense as an
Instrument of Social Change" (Ph.D. dissertation,
George Washington University, February 1970), ch.
III.]
[Footnote 19-103: As quoted, ibid., p. 87.]
[Footnote 19-104: Morton Puner, "Integration in the
Army," _The New Leader_ 42 (January 12, 1959).]
As such encomiums became more frequent, successful integration became
a source of pride to the services. Military commanders with experience
in Korea had, according to Assistant Secretary of Defense Hannah,
universally accepted the new order as desirable, conceding that
integration worked "very well" despite predictions to the
contrary.[19-105] Nor was this attitude limited to military
commanders, for there had been considerable change in sentiment among
senior defense officials. Citing the major economies realized in the
use of manpower and facilities, Secretary Wilson reported to President
Eisenhower in March 1955 that the results of integration were
encouraging:
Combat effectiveness is increased as individual capabilities
rather than racial designations determine assignments and
promotions. Economics in manpower and funds are achieved by the
elimination of racially duplicated facilities and operations.
Above all, our national security is improved by the more
effective utilization of military personnel, regardless of
race.[19-106]
[Footnote 19-105: Extracted from an interview given by
Hannah and published in _U.S. News and World
Report_ 35 (October 16, 1953):99. See also Ltr, Lt
Col L. Hill, Chief, Public Info Div, CINFO, to Joan
Rosen, WCBS Eye on New York, 17 Apr 64, CMH Misc
291.2 Negroes.]
[Footnote 19-106: _Semiannual Report of the Secretary
of Defense, January 1-June 30, 1954_ (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1955), pp. 21-22.]
In other reports he expatiated on this theme, explaining how
integration cut down racial incidents in the services and improved
"national solidarity and strength."[19-107] After years of claiming
the contrary, defense officials were justifying integration in the
name of military efficiency.
[Footnote 19-107: Office of the Assistant Secretary of
Defense, Manpower, "Advances in the Utilization of
Negro Manpower: Extracts From Official Reports of
the Secretary of Defense, 1947-1961." The quotation
is from Secretary Wilson's report, 10 Dec 53.]
Certainly racial incidents in the armed forces practically (p. 500)
disappeared in the immediate post-integration period, and the number
of complaints about on-base discrimination that reached the Pentagon
from individual black servicemen dropped dramatically. Moreover,
supporting Secretary Wilson's claim of national solidarity, major
civil rights organizations began to cite the racial experiences of the
armed forces to strengthen their case against segregated American
society. Civil rights leaders continued to press for action against
discrimination outside the military reservation, but in the years
after Korea their sense of satisfaction with the department's progress
was quite obvious. At its national conventions in 1953 and 1954, for
example, the NAACP officially praised the services for their race
policy. As one writer observed, integration not only increased black
support for the armed forces and black commitment to national defense
during the cold war, but it also boosted the department's prestige in
the black and white community alike, creating indirect political
support for those politicians who sponsored the racial reforms.[19-108]
[Footnote 19-108: Bahr, "The Expanding Role of the
Department of Defense," pp. 86-87.]
But what about the black serviceman himself? A Negro enlisting in the
armed forces in 1960, unlike his counterpart in 1950, entered an
integrated military community. He would quickly discover traces of
discrimination, especially in the form of unequal treatment in
assignments, promotions, and the application of military justice, but
for a while at least these would seem minor irritants to a man who was
more often than not for the first time close to being judged by
ability rather than race.[19-109] It was a different story in the
civilian community, where the black serviceman's uniform commanded
little more respect than it did in 1950. Eventually this contrast
would become so intolerable that he and his sympathizers would
beleaguer the Department of Defense with demands for action against
discrimination in off-base housing, schools, and places of public
accommodation.
[Footnote 19-109: Ginzberg, _The Negro Potential_, p.
90.]
CHAPTER 20 (p. 501)
Limited Response to Discrimination
The good feelings brought on by the integration of the armed forces
lasted less than a decade. By the early 1960's the Department of
Defense and the civil rights advocates had begun once more to draw
apart, the source of contention centering on their differing
interpretations of the scope of the Truman order. The Defense
Department professed itself unable to interfere with community laws
and customs even when those laws and customs discriminated against men
in uniform. The civil rights leaders, however, rejected the federal
government's acceptance of the _status quo_. Reacting especially to
the widespread and blatant discrimination encountered by servicemen
both in communities adjacent to bases at home and abroad and in the
reserve components of the services in many parts of the country, they
stepped up demands for remedial action against a situation that they
believed continued at the sufferance of the armed forces.
Nor were their demands limited to the problem of discrimination in the
local community. Civil rights spokesmen backed the complaints of those
black servicemen who had begun to question their treatment in the
military community itself. Lacking what many of them considered an
effective procedure for dealing with racial complaints, black
servicemen usually passed on their grievances to congressmen and
various civil rights organizations, and these, in turn, took the
problems to the Defense Department. The number of complaints over
inequalities in promotion, assignment, and racial representation never
matched the volume of those on discrimination in the community, nor
did their appearance attest to a new set of problems or any particular
increase in discrimination. It seemed rather that the black
serviceman, after the first flush of victory over segregation, was
beginning to perceive from the vantage of his improved position that
other and perhaps more subtle barriers stood in his way. Whatever the
reason, complaints of discrimination within the services themselves,
rarely heard in the Pentagon in the late 1950's, suddenly
reappeared.[20-1] Actually, the complaints about discrimination both
in the local civilian community and on the military reservation called
for a basic alteration in the way the services interpreted their
policies of equal treatment and opportunity. In the end it would prove
easier for the services to attack the gaudier but ultimately less
complicated problems outside their gates.
[Footnote 20-1: For discussion of charges of
discrimination within the services, see Ltrs, ASD
(M) to Congressman Charles C. Diggs, Jr., 15 Mar
and 5 Sep 61; and the following Memos: Under SecNav
for ASD (M), 16 Mar 62, sub: Discrimination in U.S.
Military Services; Dep SecAF for Manpower,
Personnel, and Organization for ASD (M), 29 Mar 62,
sub: Alleged Racial Discrimination With the Air
Force; Dep Under SA (M) For ASD (M), 30 Mar 62,
sub: Servicemen's Complaints of Discrimination in
the U.S. Military. All in ASD (M) 291.2.]
It would be a mistake to equate the notice given the persistent (p. 502)
but subtle problem of on-base discrimination with the sometimes brutal
injustice visited on black servicemen off-base in the early 1960's.
Black servicemen often found the short bus ride from post to town a
trip into the past, where once again they were forced to endure the
old patterns of segregation. Defense Department officials were aware,
for example, that decent housing open to black servicemen was scarce.
With limited income, under military orders, and often forced by
circumstances to reside in the civilian community, black servicemen
were, in the words of Robert S. McNamara, President Kennedy's
Secretary of Defense, "singularly defenseless against this
bigotry."[20-2] While the services had always denied responsibility
for combating this particular form of discrimination, many in the
black community were anxious to remind them of John F. Kennedy's claim
in the presidential campaign of 1960 that discrimination in housing
could be alleviated with a stroke of the Chief Executive's pen.
[Footnote 20-2: Robert S. McNamara, _The Essence of
Security_ (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), p. 124.]
But housing was only part of a larger pattern of segregation that
included restrictions on black servicemen's use of many places of
public accommodation such as restaurants, theaters, and saloons, some
literally on the doorstep of military reservations. James Evans listed
some twenty-seven military installations in the United States where in
1961 segregation in transportation and places of public accommodation
was established in adjacent communities by law or custom.[20-3]
Moreover, instances of blatant Jim Crow tactics were rapidly
multiplying near bases in Japan, Germany, the Philippines, and
elsewhere as host communities began to adopt the prejudices of their
visitors.[20-4] The United States Commission on Civil Rights charged
that black servicemen were often reluctant to complain to their
superiors or the Inspector General because of the repeated failure of
local commands to show concern for the problem and suspicion that
complainers would be subjected to reprisals.[20-5]
[Footnote 20-3: James C. Evans, OASD (M), "Suggested
List of Military Installations," 9 Jun 61, copy in
CMH. Evans's list was based on incomplete data. A
great number of military installations were located
in Jim Crow areas in 1961. See also Memo, Dep ASD
(Military Personnel Policy) for ASD (M), 19 Oct 62,
sub: Forthcoming Conference With Representatives
From CORE, ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-4: Memo, Lee Nichols (UPI reporter) for
SecDef, Attn: Adam Yarmolinsky, 13 May 63, sub:
Racial Integration in the U.S. Armed Forces, copy
in CMH. Nichols had recently toured military bases
under Defense Department sponsorship. See also
Puner, "Integration in the Army"; news articles in
_Overseas Weekly_ (Frankfurt), November 18 and 25,
1962, and _Stars and Stripes_, November 15, 1962.]
[Footnote 20-5: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights,
_Civil Rights_ '63 (Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1963), p. 206.]
Civil rights leaders were particularly distressed by this form of
discrimination, which, considering the armed forces' persistent
declaration of impotence in the matter, seemed destined to remain a
permanent condition of service life. "These problems involve factors
which are not directly under the control of the Department of
Defense," Assistant Secretary for Manpower Carlisle P. Runge noted in
a typical response.[20-6] Similar sentiments were often expressed by
local commanders, although some tried to soften their refusal to act
with the hope that the military example might change local community
attitudes in the long run.[20-7] Congressman Charles C. Diggs, (p. 503)
Jr., did not share this hope. Citing numerous examples for the
President of discrimination against black servicemen, he charged that,
far from influencing local communities to change, commanders actually
cooperated in discrimination by punishing or otherwise identifying
protesting servicemen as troublemakers.[20-8]
[Footnote 20-6: Memo, ASD (M) for Asst Legal Counsel
to President, 7 Nov 61, sub: Racial Discrimination
in the Armed Services, ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-7: See transcribed taped interviews
conducted by Nichols of the UPI with military and
civilian personnel in the Charleston, S.C., area in
March 1963, copies in the James C. Evans
Collection, AMHRC.]
[Footnote 20-8: Ltr, Diggs to President, 27 Jun 62,
copy in Gesell Collection, John F. Kennedy
Library.]
[Illustration: CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS AT THE WHITE HOUSE. _Attorney
General Robert F. Kennedy poses with (from left) Martin Luther King,
Jr., Roy Wilkins, Whitney M. Young, Jr., and A. Philip Randolph._]
Especially galling to civil rights leaders was the conviction that the
armed forces had set up artificial and self-imposed barriers to a
needed social reform. In the end this conviction seemed to spur them
on. The American Veterans Committee, for example, demanded that when a
community "mistreats American troops, such as in Montgomery, Alabama,
or flaunts its Ku Klux Klan membership, as does Selma, Alabama, the
entire area should be placed 'off limits' to purchases by Defense
installations and by Servicemen."[20-9] Others were convinced that the
federal government was in effect supporting segregation through its
widespread economic assistance programs to state and local governments
and to private institutions in the fields of employment, housing,
education, health service, military affairs, and agriculture. In
August 1961 a group of fifty civil rights leaders petitioned the (p. 504)
President to end such federal support.[20-10] On a more modest scale,
the Congress of Racial Equality asked the Army in August 1962 to
declare segregated restaurants in Aberdeen, Maryland, off limits to
all military personnel. The activist group justified its demand by
stating that "the Army declares dangerous or immoral establishments
off limits to soldiers and what is more dangerous or immoral in a
democracy than racial intolerance?"[20-11] In this they failed to
distinguish between the commander's proper response to what was
illegal, for example prostitution, and what was still legal, for
example, segregated housing.
[Footnote 20-9: American Veterans Committee, "Audit of
Negro Veterans and Servicemen," 1960, p. 16, copy
in CMH.]
[Footnote 20-10: Leadership Conference on Civil
Rights, "Proposals for Executive Action to End
Federally Supported Segregation and Other Forms of
Racial Discrimination," August 1961, copy in SD
291.2. See also U.S. Commission on Civil Rights,
_Freedom to the Free: A Century of Emancipation_
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1963), pp.
158ff.]
[Footnote 20-11: Baltimore _Sun_, August 8, 1962. On
the particular problem in the Aberdeen area see
Telg, President Kennedy to John Field, President's
Cmte on Equal Employment Opportunity, 22 Sep 61,
copy in CMH.]
_The Kennedy Administration and Civil Rights_
The strong connection between black morale and military efficiency
made it likely that the new Secretary of Defense would be intimately
concerned with problems of discrimination. Highly trained in modern
managerial techniques, Robert S. McNamara came to the Pentagon with
the idea of instituting a series of fundamental changes in the
management of the armed forces through manpower reorganization and
what was becoming known as systems analysis. Whatever his attitude
toward racial justice, his initial interest in the Defense
Department's black employees, military and civilian, was closely
linked to his concern for military efficiency. Less than a week on the
job, he called for information on the status of Negroes in the
department. He had heard that some services were better integrated
than others, and he wanted his Assistant Secretary for Manpower to
investigate. He wanted to know if there was a "fair" proportion of
Negroes in the higher civilian grades. If not, he asked, "what do you
recommend be done about it?"[20-12] These questions, and indeed all
action on civil rights matters originating in his office in the months
to come, indicated that McNamara, like his predecessors, would limit
his reforms to discrimination within the services themselves. But as
time passed, McNamara, like President Kennedy, would warm to the civil
rights cause and eventually both would become firmly committed.
[Footnote 20-12: Memo, SecDef for ASD (MP&R)
Designate, 27 Jan 61, ASD (M) 291.2.]
The Kennedy administration has been closely identified with civil
rights, yet the President's major biographers and several of his
assistants agree that his commitment to civil rights reform did not
emerge full-blown on inauguration day. It was only in the last months
of his administration that Kennedy, subjected to civil rights demands
and sharing the interests and experiences of his brother Robert,
the Attorney General, threw himself wholeheartedly into the civil (p. 505)
rights fray.[20-13] As senator and later as President, Kennedy was
sympathetic to the aspirations of the black minority, appreciated its
support in his campaign, but regarded civil rights as one, and not the
most pressing, problem facing the Chief Executive. Even his
administrations's use of federal marshals during the freedom rides in
1961 and its use of both marshals and troops at Oxford, Mississippi,
in 1962 and troops again in Alabama in 1963 were justified in the name
of enforcement of federal judicial processes. Well into 1963 he
studiously downplayed the civil rights issues involved.
[Footnote 20-13: This discussion of Kennedy's civil
rights position is based on Arthur M. Schlesinger,
_A Thousand Days_ (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965);
Theodore C. Sorensen, _Kennedy_ (New York: Harper
and Row, 1965); and the following oral history
interviews in the J. F. Kennedy Library: Berl
Bernhard with Harris Wofford, 29 Nov 65, Roy
Wilkins, 13 Aug 64, and Thurgood Marshall, 7 Apr
64; Joseph O'Connor with Theodore Hesburgh, 27 Mar
66. Also consulted were Sorensen's _The Kennedy
Legacy_ (New York: New American Library, 1970);
Victor S. Navasky, _Kennedy Justice_ (New York:
Atheneum, 1971); William G. Carlton, "Kennedy in
History," in _Perspectives on 20th Century America:
Readings and Commentary_, ed. Otis L. Graham, Jr.
(New York: Dodd, Mead, 1973); Edwin Guthman, _We
Band of Brothers: A Memoir of Robert F. Kennedy_
(New York: Harper and Row, 1971); Burke Marshall,
_Federation and Civil Rights_ (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1974).]
Kennedy was convinced that the only answer to the injustices suffered
by Negroes was a series of strong laws, but he was also certain that
such legislation was impossible to achieve in 1961. To urge it on an
unwilling Congress would only jeopardize his legislative program,
increase the black minority's feeling of frustration, and divide the
nation in a period of national crisis. Discussing the Civil Rights
Commission's "non-negotiable" demands concerning the organized
reserves, for example, commission member Father Theodore Hesburgh
remembered the President saying:
Look, I have a serious problem in West Berlin, and I do not think
this is the proper time to start monkeying around with the
Army.... I have no problem with the principle of this, and we'll
certainly be doing it, but at this precise moment I have to keep
uppermost in mind that I may need these units ... and I can't
have them in the midst of a social revolution while I'm trying to
do this.[20-14]
[Footnote 20-14: Quoted from O'Connor's oral history
interview with Hesburgh, 27 Mar 66.]
Kennedy temporized. He would promptly and positively endorse the
principle of equal rights and enforce the civil rights decisions of
the Supreme Court through negotiation, moral suasion, executive order,
and, when necessary, through the use of federal marshals.[20-15] The
Justice Department meanwhile would pursue a vigorous course of
litigation to insure the franchise for Negroes from which, he
believed, all civil blessings flowed.
[Footnote 20-15: For a critical interpretation of the
Kennedy approach to enforcing the Court's
decisions, see Navasky's _Kennedy Justice_, pp.
97-98, and Howard Zinn, _Postwar America_,
1945-1971 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973), ch.
iv.]
Civil rights was not mentioned in Kennedy's first State of the Union
message. With the exception of a measure to outlaw literacy and poll
tax requirements for voting, no civil rights bills were sent to the
Eighty-seventh Congress. Yet at one of his first press conferences,
the President told newsmen that a plan to withhold federal funds in
certain segregation cases would be included in a general study "of
where the Federal Government might usefully place its power and
influence to expand civil rights."[20-16] On 6 March 1961 he signed
Executive Order 10925, which combined the committees on government (p. 506)
contracts and employment policy into a single Committee on Equal
Employment Opportunity chaired by the Vice President.[20-17] His
order, he believed, specified sanctions "sweeping enough to ensure
compliance."[20-18] Finally, in November 1962, after numerous and
increasingly pointed reminders from civil rights advocates, the
President issued Executive Order 11063, directing executive agencies
to take action against discrimination in the sale or lease of federal
housing or any housing bought with loans from or insured by the
federal government.[20-19]
[Footnote 20-16: Press Conference, 1 Mar 61, _Public
Papers of the Presidents: John F. Kennedy, 1961_,
p. 137.]
[Footnote 20-17: 26 _Federal Register_ 1977.]
[Footnote 20-18: Presidential statement, 7 Mar 61,
_Public Papers of the Presidents: Kennedy, 1961_,
p. 150. See also "President's Remarks on Meeting of
Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity," New
York _Times_, April 12, 1961; Memo, President for
Heads of All Executive Departments and Agencies, 18
Apr 61, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 20-19: Executive Order 11063, 20 Nov 62, 27
_Federal Register_ 11527.]
Besides executive orders, the White House had other ways, less formal
but perhaps more efficient, of getting the federal bureaucracy to move
on civil rights. Upon the recommendation of Special Assistant
Frederick G. Dutton, the President created the Civil Rights Subcabinet
Group in March 1961 to coordinate the administration's civil rights
actions. Under Dutton's chairmanship, this group included the
assistant secretaries responsible for racial matters in their
respective agencies, with White House Special Civil Rights Assistant
Harris Wofford serving as executive secretary.[20-20] The group
regularly scrutinized the racial programs of the various departments,
demanding reports and investigations of racial matters and insuring
that the interests and criticisms of the administration were quickly
disseminated at the operations level of the federal agencies
affected.[20-21]
[Footnote 20-20: Memo, Frederick G. Dutton, Spec Asst
to President, for Secy of State et al., 31 Mar 61,
and Memo, ASD (M) for Dutton (ca. 10 Apr 61), both
in ASD (M) 291.2; Memo, Nicholas D. Katzenbach for
Vice President Elect, 23 Nov 64, Burke Marshall
Papers, and Interv, Bernhard with Wofford, both in
J. F. Kennedy Library. According to Wofford there
was some discussion over just who would represent
the Department of Defense in the group. The
department's initial choice seems to have been
Evans, but Wofford rejected this selection on the
grounds that Evans's position did not place him in
the department's power structure. He preferred to
have Yarmolinsky or Assistant Secretary Carlisle P.
Runge. Yarmolinsky insisted that Runge be included
so that it would not appear that racial reform in
the Department of Defense was a duty only for the
administration's men.]
[Footnote 20-21: See Memo, ASD (M) for Under SA et
al., 7 Nov 61, sub: Minority Representation in
Officer Procurement and Training, ASD (M) 291.2.
See also Memos, Wofford for Civil Rights Subcabinet
Group, 15 Sep, 20 Oct, and 10 Nov 61, copies in
CMH.]
There is evidence that the subcabinet group was responsible for
considerable cross-fertilization of civil rights programs among the
departments. For example, it appears to have used the experience of
black servicemen in interstate travel to move the Department of
Justice and, with the assistance of Attorney General Kennedy,
the Interstate Commerce Commission toward eliminating such
discrimination.[20-22] And it was through the subcabinet group that
the Attorney General's interest in minority voting rights was
translated into a voting registration campaign among servicemen.[20-23]
[Footnote 20-22: Memo for Rcd, James C. Evans, 21 Jul
61, sub: Meeting, Subcabinet Group on Civil Rights,
Friday, July 21, 1961 (Judge Jackson represented
Mr. Runge); Ltr, SecDef to Atty Gen, 23 Jun 61;
both in ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-23: Civil Rights Subcabinet Group, Notes
on Meeting of 16 Jun 61; Ltr, Spec Asst to
Postmaster Gen to James C. Evans, 26 Jan 62; Memo,
Evans for Spec Asst to ASD (M), James W. Platt, 20
Mar 62; Memo, Harris Wofford for Subcabinet Group,
30 Jan 62. Copies of all in CMH.]
The existence of this group, with its surveys, questions, and (p. 507)
investigations, put constant pressure on the armed services. They were
not singled out for special treatment, but they obviously attracted
the attention of both the White House and the civil rights organizations
because their commitment to equal treatment and opportunity affected
so many people and their past successes and remaining problems were
having a decided impact on American society. In the words of
presidential assistant Wofford, the Defense Department was "a world
within itself," a world which by its magnitude could make a
"significant contribution by its example" to the solution of the
nation's racial problems.[20-24]
[Footnote 20-24: Memo for Rcd, James C. Evans, 21 Jul
61, sub: Meeting, Subcabinet Group on Civil Rights,
Friday, July 21, 1961 (Judge Jackson represented
Mr. Runge), ASD (M&P) 291.2.]
The size of the department's racial program alluded to by Wofford also
invited the attention of a federal agency outside White House control.
The United States Commission on Civil Rights was continually
investigating the services, probing allegations of discrimination
against black servicemen and evaluating the role of the department in
community race relations.[20-25] Of particular interest to an
understanding of racial policy in the 1960's is the commission's
comprehensive survey, titled "The Services and Their Relations with
the Community," which concluded that the continued existence of
community discrimination against servicemen and their dependents had a
detrimental effect on the morale and efficiency of significant numbers
of them. The commission cataloged the traditional alibis of military
commanders: "it is not the mission of the services to concern
themselves with the practices of the local community"; the commander's
responsibility "stops at the gate"; harmonious relations with the
community must be maintained; and, finally, in order to achieve
harmony, servicemen must comply with local laws and customs. Yet when
it came to other areas of community relations, particularly where the
general health, welfare, and morale of the servicemen were involved,
the commission found that commanders did not hesitate to ally
themselves with servicemen, local community controversy and opposition
notwithstanding. The commission wanted the services to take a similar
stand against racial discrimination in the community. Although its
specific recommendations differed little from those of civil rights
leaders, its position as an independent federal agency and its access
to the news media added a constant and special pressure on the
services.[20-26]
[Footnote 20-25: See, for example, Ltr, Chmn,
Commission on Civil Rights, to SecDef, 26 Mar 62;
Memo, ASD (M) for Under SA et al., 7 May 62, sub:
Survey, United States Commission on Civil Rights;
Memo, Under SecNav for ASD (M), 25 May 62, sub:
United States Commission on Civil Rights Survey of
the Department of Defense; Ltr, Yarmolinsky to Berl
I. Bernhard, Staff Dir, U.S. Comm on Civil Rights,
14 Nov 62; Memo, ASD (M) for Under SA et al., 31
May 61; Ltr, Bernhard to Runge, 6 Jul 61; Ltr Runge
to Bernhard, 17 Jul 61. Copies of all in CMH.]
[Footnote 20-26: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, "The
Services and Their Relations With the Community,"
17 Jun 63.]
Another pressure on the armed forces in the early sixties was exerted
by the civil rights bureaucracy in the White House itself. Various
presidential assistants subjected the services' reports on progress in
the equal opportunity field to unprecedented scrutiny, asking
questions that forced the Defense Department to explain or justify its
racial policies and practices.[20-27] In March 1961, civil rights
assistants on the President's staff inquired about the number of (p. 508)
Negroes on the Defense Department's military and civilian screening
boards.[20-28] Later, Special Assistant Frank D. Reeves inquired about
the employees working in the executive area of the department and
suggested that the front offices do something about hiring more black
office workers.[20-29] And again as a result of a number of questions
raised about the Navy's race policy, presidential assistant Wofford
sponsored a White House meeting on 18 September 1961 for several civil
rights representatives and Adam Yarmolinsky, Special Assistant to the
Secretary of Defense, with the Chief of Naval Personnel, Vice Adm.
William R. Smedberg. Beginning with Yarmolinsky's probing questions
concerning the perennial problem of racial composition of the
Steward's Branch, the meeting evolved into a general review of the
Navy's recent problems and achievements in race relations.[20-30]
[Footnote 20-27: For examples of DOD reports submitted
to the White House on this subject, see Memo, ASD
(M) for Harris Wofford, 15 Nov 61, and idem for
Frank D. Reeves, Spec Asst to President, 29 Jun 61.
For examples of White House interest in these
reports, see James C. Evans, OASD (M), Notes on
Civil Rights Subcabinet Group Meeting, 2 Feb and 2
Mar 62. All in ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-28: Memo, Yarmolinsky for Runge, 13 May
61; Memo, ASD (M) for SA et al., 16 Mar 61, sub:
Personnel Screening Boards; both in ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-29: Memo, Frank D. Reeves, Spec Asst to
President, for SecDef, Attn: Adam Yarmolinsky, 19
Apr 61, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 20-30: Ltr, Harris Wofford to ASD (M), 18
Sep 61; Memo for Rcd, James C. Evans, 25 Sep 61,
sub: Negro Naval Personnel; Informal Memo, Evans
for Runge, 22 Sep 61, same sub. All in ASD (M)
291.2.]
At times this White House scrutiny could be aggressively critical.
There was, for example, small comfort for Defense Department officials
in Dutton's review of department comments on the recommendations of
the Civil Rights Leadership Conference submitted to the White House in
August 1961.[20-31] Dutton wanted to know more about the department's
inquiry into possible racial discrimination in the sentences meted out
by military courts. He was concerned with the allegation,
categorically denied by the Defense Department, that black servicemen
with school-aged dependents were being moved off bases to avoid
integrating base schools. He wanted a prompt investigation. Dutton was
impatient with the Navy's explanation for the continuing predominance
of Negroes in the Steward's Branch, and he was especially critical of
the racial situation in the National Guard. He wanted a progress
report on these points. Finally, he was unhappy with the lack of
Negroes in officer training, an executive area, he claimed, in which
civilian agencies were forging ahead. He wanted something done about
that also.[20-32]
[Footnote 20-31: Composed of representatives of some
fifty civil rights groups under the chairmanship of
Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, the Leadership Conference
on Civil Rights presented to President Kennedy a
list of proposals for executive action to end
federally supported segregation. See U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights, _Freedom to the Free_,
p. 129.]
[Footnote 20-32: Memo, Dutton for Yarmolinsky, 26 Oct
61, copy in ASD (M) 291.2 (22 May 61).]
The disquietude White House staff members produced among Defense
Department officials was nothing compared to the trauma induced by the
President's personal attention. John Kennedy rarely intervened but he
did so on occasion quickly and decisively and in a way illustrative of
his administration's civil rights style. He acted promptly, for
example, when he noticed an all-white unit from the Coast Guard
Academy marching in his inaugural parade. His call to the Secretary of
the Treasury Douglas Dillon on inauguration night led to the admission
of the first black students to the Coast Guard Academy. He elaborated
on the incident during his first cabinet meeting, asking each (p. 509)
department head to analyze the minority employment situation in his
own department. He was also upset to see "few, if any" black honor
guardsmen in the units that greeted visiting Ghanian President Kwame
Nkrumah on 13 March, an observation not lost on Secretary McNamara.
"Would it be possible," the new defense chief asked his manpower
assistant, "to introduce into these units a reasonable number of negro
personnel?"[20-33] An immediate survey revealed that Negroes accounted
for 14 percent of the Air Force honor unit, 8 percent of the Army's,
and 2.2 percent of the Marines Corps'. The 100-man naval unit had no
black members.[20-34]
[Footnote 20-33: Memo, SecDef for ASD (M), 13 Mar 61,
ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-34: Memo, ASD (M) for SecDef, 14 Mac 61,
sub: Ceremonial Units and Honor Guard Details, ASD
(M) 291.2.]
[Illustration: PRESIDENT KENNEDY AND PRESIDENT ALLESSANDRI OF CHILE
_review an all-white honor guard unit, White House, 1962_.]
These were minor incidents, yet Kennedy's interest was bound to make a
difference. As Evans wryly put it in regard to the survey of blacks in
the honor guard: "Pending any further instructions it is submitted
that the alert which has been given in person and by telephone in
connection with the securing of the above data may be adequate
for accomplishing the objectives contemplated in the [McNamara] (p. 510)
memorandum."[20-35] If not conducive to substantive change in the lot
of the black serviceman, the President's intervention signaled in a
way clearly understood by Washington bureaucrats that a new style in
executive politics was at hand and a new awareness of the racial
implications of their actions was expected of them.[20-36]
[Footnote 20-35: Informal Memo, Evans for Judge
Jackson, 14 Mar 61, sub: Ceremonial Units and Honor
Guard Details. Remark repeated by ASD (M) in his
Memo for SecDef, 14 Mar 61, same sub. Both in ASD
(M) files.]
[Footnote 20-36: The Coast Guard incident in
particular seems to have impressed Washington. It
was cited by Mitchell, Wilkins, and Hesburgh during
their oral history interviews at the J. F. Kennedy
Library, and it continued to be discussed for some
time after the inauguration in official channels.
See, for example, Memos, Frederick Dutton for Secy
of Treas, 21 Mar 61, sub: Coast Guard Academy, and
Theodore Eliot (Spec Asst to Secy of Treas) for
Richard N. Goodwin (Asst Spec Counsel to
President), 25 Jun 61, sub: Negro in the Coast
Guard, with attached note, Dick [Goodwin] to
President; Ltr, Asst Secy of Treas to Tim Reardon,
31 Jan 62. All in White House Gen files, J. F.
Kennedy Library. The Coast Guard, it should be
recalled, was not part of the Department of Defense
in 1961.]
_The Department of Defense, 1961-1963_
The White House approach to civil rights matters was faithfully
adopted in McNamara's department. Despite a reputation for
foot-dragging in some quarters--Deputy Secretary Roswell L. Gilpatric
admitted that neither he nor McNamara was especially interested in
personnel matters and that some of their early appointments in the
personnel field were inappropriate--[20-37]the secretary and his
assistants issued a spate of directives and policy memorandums and
inaugurated a whole series of surveys and investigations. Yarmolinsky
was later able to recall eleven major papers produced by the
secretary's office during the first thirty months of McNamara's
incumbency. Evans's more comprehensive list of actions taken by the
office of the secretary's manpower assistant with regard to equal
opportunity contained some forty items.[20-38] These totals did not
include 1,717 racial complaints the Defense Department investigated
and adjudicated before September 1963 nor the scores of contract
compliance reviews conducted under the equal opportunity clauses in
defense contracts.[20-39]
[Footnote 20-37: Interv, Dennis O'Brien with Roswell
L. Gilpatric, 5 May 70, in J. F. Kennedy Library;
see also Interv, Bernhard with Wofford.]
[Footnote 20-38: Memo, Spec Asst to SecDef for Paul
Southwick, White House, 22 Oct 63; James C. Evans,
"Equality of Opportunity in the Armed Forces, A
Summary Report on Actions and Contributions of the
ASD (M), January 1961-July 1962"; copies of both in
CMH.]
[Footnote 20-39: Although it did not directly affect
black servicemen, the contract compliance program
deserves mention as a field in which the Department
of Defense pioneered for the federal government.
During the Kennedy administration the department
hired hundreds of contract compliance officers to
scrutinize its vast purchasing program, insuring
compliance with Executive Order 10925. See Ltr,
Adam Yarmolinsky to author, 22 Nov 74, CMH files.]
The number of Department of Defense rulings that pertained directly to
black servicemen was matched by the comprehensiveness of their subject
matter. Many concerned the recruitment of Negroes and the increase in
their proportion of the military establishment. Others pertained to
off-base matters, ranging from prohibitions against the use of
segregated facilities during field exercises to the use of military
units in ceremonies and shows involving segregated audiences.
Continued segregation in the reserves, the racial policies of
the United Services Organization, and even the racial rule of (p. 511)
morticians who dealt with the services came in for attention.
Yet if these investigations and directives bespoke a quickened tempo
in the fight for equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces,
they did not herald a substantive reinterpretation of policy. The
Defense Department continued to limit its actions to matters obviously
and directly within its purview. The same self-imposed restriction
that kept McNamara's immediate predecessors from dealing with the most
pressing demands for reforms by black servicemen and the civil rights
leaders continued to be observed. This fact was especially clear in
the case of the Defense Department's four major policy pronouncements
involving the complex problem of discrimination visited upon
servicemen and their dependents outside the gates of the military
reservation.
_Discrimination Off the Military Reservation_
In the first of these directives, which was derived from President
Kennedy's executive order on equal employment opportunity,[20-40]
Secretary McNamara laid down that no departmental facility could be
used by employee recreational organizations that practiced racial or
religious discrimination. Included were facilities financed from
nonappropriated funds as well as all organizations to which civilian
as well as military personnel belonged.[20-41] A straightforward
enough commitment to a necessary racial reform, the secretary's order
could by logical extension also be viewed as carrying the department's
fight against racial discrimination into the civilian community. Yet
precisely because of these implications, the directive was subjected
to later clarification. Official interpretation revealed that
secretarial rhetoric aside, the Department of Defense was not yet
ready to involve civilians in its equality crusade.
[Footnote 20-40: The Office of the Secretary of
Defense also issued several other statements
implementing sections of Executive Order 10925; see
DOD Dir 1125.4, 2 Jan 62, and OSD Admin Instr No.
31, 13 July 62, both in SD files.]
[Footnote 20-41: Memo, SecDef for Secys of Military
Departments et al., 28 Apr 61, sub: Military and
Civilian Employee Recreational Organizations, copy
in ASD (M) 291.2.]
The problem emerged when the commander of Maxwell Air Force Base, in
keeping with his reading of the McNamara order, prohibited the use of
Maxwell's dining halls for a segregated luncheon of the American
Legion's Boys' State and its playing fields for the segregated Maxwell
Little League teams. Assistant Secretary Runge quickly reassured
Senator Lister Hill of Alabama that the 28 April order was limited to
employee organizations and so informed the Under Secretary of the Air
Force.[20-42] But a further clarification and, in effect, a further
restriction of the department's policy in discrimination cases was
issued when the Civil Rights Commission became interested in the case.
"If these activities are not covered by the April 28 directive," the
commission's staff director-designate wanted to know, "what is the
position of the Department of Defense on them?"[20-43] Runge's (p. 512)
response, cleared through Special Assistant Yarmolinsky, was hardly
reassuring to the commission. The department did not inquire into the
racial rules of private organizations that used departmental
facilities, Runge explained, nor did it object when its departmentally
sponsored teams and groups played or performed with segregated private
recreational groups.[20-44]
[Footnote 20-42: Ltr, Runge to Hill, 14 Jun 61; Memo,
Runge for Under SecAF, 28 Jan 61, sub: Military and
Civilian Employee Recreational Organizations both
in ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-43: Ltr, Bernhard to Runge, 6 Jul 61, ASD
(M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-44: Ltr, Runge to Bernhard, 17 Jul 61,
with attached Handwritten Note, signed SSJ [Stephen
Jackson], 13 Jul 61, ASD (M) 291.2.]
With the effect of a stone dropped into water, the implications of the
anti-discrimination memorandum continued to ripple outward. The
commander of Brookley Air Force Base, Alabama, canceled the sale of
subsidized tickets to the Mobile Bears baseball games by the base's
civilian welfare council on the grounds that the ball park's
segregated seating of Air Force personnel violated the secretary's
order. Inquiries from Capitol Hill set off another round of
clarifications.[20-45] While the secretary's manpower advisers were
inclined to support the base commander's action, some of the
department's legal advisers had reservations. Canceling the sale of
tickets, a lawyer in the general counsel's office noted, was
consistent with one construction of the secretary's memorandum but was
not the "inevitable interpretation" since it was the ball club and not
the Air Force recreational organization that discriminated.[20-46]
Another departmental lawyer warned that if the commander's
interpretation was sustained the department would next have to
prohibit welfare groups from selling unsubsidized tickets to events
where the seating or even perhaps the performers themselves were
segregated.[20-47]
[Footnote 20-45: Ltr, Hill to Runge, 26 Jul 61; Memo,
ASD (M) for SecAF, 25 Sep 61, sub: Purchase and
Sale of Baseball Tickets at Brookley AFB; both in
ASD (M) 353.8.]
[Footnote 20-46: Memo, R.C. Gilliat for Bartimo, 31
Jul 61, attached to Draft Ltr, Runge to Hill, ASD
(M) 353.8.]
[Footnote 20-47: Memo, RTA [Robert T. Andrews] for FAB
[Frank A. Bartimo], 1 Aug 61, ASD (M) 353.8.]
Yarmolinsky ignored such speculations, and on 4 August 1961 informed
special presidential assistant Dutton that the secretary's office
approved the base commander's action. Although the sale of tickets did
not technically violate Executive Order 10925, the department's
sponsorship and subsidy of segregated events, he said, "is, in our
opinion, not consonant with the clear intent of the President's
memorandum."[20-48] Yarmolinsky suggested the White House might want
to consider proposing to the ball club that the air base would resume
the sale of tickets if it could sell a block of unsegregated seats.
The White House reply was postponed until after the passage of the
foreign aid bill, but the Air Force eventually received notice to
proceed along these lines.[20-49]
[Footnote 20-48: Memo, Yarmolinsky for Dutton, 4 Aug
61, sub: President's Memorandum of 18 April 1961,
ASD (M) 291.2 (22 May 61).]
[Footnote 20-49: Note, signed, "MB," 16 Aug 61, sub:
Call From Virginia McGuire, attached to Draft Ltr,
ASD (M) to Sen. Hill; Memo, ASD (M) for SecAF, 25
Sep 61, sub: Purchase and Sale of Baseball Tickets
at Brookley AFB; both in ASD (M) 291.2 (22 May
61).]
On 19 June 1961 Deputy Secretary Gilpatric issued a second major
policy statement. This one ostensibly dealt with the availability of
integrated community facilities for servicemen, but was in fact far
wider in scope, and brought the department nearer the uncharted (p. 513)
shoals of community race relations. A testament to the extraordinary
political sensitivity of the subject was the long time the document
spent in the drafting stage. Its wording incorporated the suggestions
of representatives of the three service secretaries and was carefully
reviewed by the President's civil rights advisers, who wanted the
draft shown to the President "because of his particular interest in
Civil Rights matters."[20-50] With their request in mind, and because
of what he considered "the tense situation now existent in the South,"
Runge urged the secretary to send the President the memorandum. Before
doing so McNamara asked his general counsel, Cyrus R. Vance, to
discuss the draft with the under secretaries of the services and
Assistant Attorney General Nicholas B. Katzenbach and Burke Marshall.
At the suggestion of the justice officials, the draft was slightly
revised; then it was sent once again to the services for review.
Finally on 19 June 1961, and only after Yarmolinsky had rejected
certain minor alterations suggested by the services, was the
memorandum issued under Gilpatric's signature and its provisions
passed down to the local commanders by the service secretaries.[20-51]
[Footnote 20-50: Memo, ASD (M) for SecDef, 22 May 61,
sub: Availability of Facilities to Military
Personnel, ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-51: Memo, Dep SecDef for Service Secys,
19 Jun 61, sub: Availability of Facilities to
Military Personnel, SD 291.2. For various comments
on the draft memo, see the following Memos: Vance
and Runge for SecDef, 5 Jun 61; ASD (M) for Dep
SecDef, 16 Jun 51, sub: Availability of Facilities
to Military Personnel; Dep SecDef for Service
Secys, 5 Jun 61, same sub; SecAF for Dep SecDef, 13
Jun 61, same sub. All in ASD (M) 291.2 (22 May
61).]
The policy that emerged from all this careful labor committed the
services to very little change. In the first place the title, The
Availability of Facilities to Military Personnel, was vague, a legacy
of the department's fear of congressional retaliation for any
substantive move in the politically sensitive area of race relations.
Actually the secretary's office was primarily concerned with
discrimination in places of public accommodation such as swimming
pools, recreational facilities, meeting halls, and the like while the
explosive subject of off-base housing was ignored. Although the
order's ambiguity did not preclude initiatives in the housing field by
some zealous commanders, neither did it oblige any commander to take
any specific action, thus providing a convenient excuse for no action
at all.[20-52] Commanders, for example, were ordered to provide
integrated facilities off post for servicemen "to the extent
possible," a significant qualification in areas where such facilities
were not available in the community. Commanders were also "expected to
make every effort" to obtain integrated facilities off base through
the good offices of their command-community relations committees. In
effect the department was asking its commanders to achieve through
tact what the courts and the Justice Department were failing to
achieve through legal process.
[Footnote 20-52: Interv, author with James C. Evans,
15 Nov 72, CMH files.]
Where the order was specific, it carefully limited the extent of
reforms. It barred the use of military police in the enforcement of
local segregation laws, a positive step but a limited reform since
only in very rare instances had military police ever been so employed.
The order also provided "as circumstances warranted" for legal
assistance to servicemen to insure that they were afforded due
process of law in cases growing out of the enforcement of local (p. 514)
segregation ordinances. Again what seemed a broad commitment and
extensive interference with local matters was in practice very
carefully circumscribed, as demonstrated by the Air Force policy
statement issued in the wake of the secretary's order.
The Air Force announced that in the case of discrimination in the
community, the local Air Force commander and his staff judge advocate
would interview the aggrieved serviceman to ascertain the facts and
advise him of his legal recourses, "but will neither encourage nor
discourage the filing of a criminal complaint." The purpose of the
policy, the Air Force Chief of Staff explained, was to assist
servicemen and at the same time avoid disrupting good community
relations. The commander should remain interested, but he should leave
the work to his judge advocate so that the commander would not
personally be "caught in the middle" to the detriment of his community
relations program. If local authorities refused to cooperate, the
matter should be referred to higher authority who might pursue it with
local government officials. Such procedures might keep the commander
from becoming embroiled in locally sensitive issues.[20-53] In short,
discrimination was to be fought through voluntary action at the local
command level, but nothing was to be done that might compromise the
commander's standing with the local authorities.
[Footnote 20-53: Memo, Maj Gen Albert M. Kuhfeld,
USAFJAG (for CofSAF), for ALMAJCOM (SJA), 2 Feb 62,
sub: Air Force Policy Statement Concerning
Violations of Anti-Discrimination Law, and attached
Memo, Dep CofS, Pers, for ALMAJCOM, 30 Jan 62, same
sub, SecAF files.]
McNamara's office displayed the same good intentions and crippling
inhibitions when it considered policy on the participation of
servicemen in civil rights demonstrations. The secretary had inherited
a policy from his predecessor who, in the wake of a series of sit-in
demonstrations involving black airmen in the spring of 1960, had
approved a plan devised by the judge advocate generals of the services
and other Defense Department officials. Declaring such activity
"inappropriate" in light of the services' mission, these officials
banned the participation of servicemen in civil rights demonstrations
and gave local commanders broad discretionary powers to prevent such
participation, including the right to declare the place of
demonstration off limits or to restrict servicemen to the base.
Although all the services adopted the new policy, only the Air Force
published detailed instructions.[20-54]
[Footnote 20-54: Memo for Rcd, ASD (P), 23 Mar 60;
Memo, Dep Chief, NavPers, for Asst SecNav (Pers and
Reserve Forces), 23 Mar 60, sub: Considerations
Relative to Department of Defense Policy Concerning
Disputes Over Local Laws or Customs; copies of both
in ASD (M) 291.2. For the Air Force instructions,
see Memo, AF Dep CofS (P) for All Major Cmdrs, 30
Mar 60, sub: Air Force Policy Statement Concerning
Involvement of Air Force Personnel in Local Civil
Disturbances, SecAF files.]
This prohibition did not deter all black servicemen, and some
commanders, in their zeal to enforce departmental policy, went beyond
the methods McNamara's predecessor had recommended. Such was the case
during a series of sit-ins at Killeen, Texas, near the Army's Fort
Hood, where, as reported in the national press and subsequently
investigated by the United States Commission on Civil Rights, the
commander used military police to break up two demonstrations.[20-55]
The secretary's office reacted quickly to the incidents. A (p. 515)
prohibition against the use of military police to quell civil rights
demonstrations was quickly included in the secretary's policy
statement, The Availability of Facilities to Military Personnel, then
being formulated. "This memorandum," Assistant Secretary Runge assured
McNamara, "should preclude any further such incidents."[20-56] In
specific reference to the situation in the Fort Hood area, the Deputy
Under Secretary of the Army reported that as a result of a new policy
and the emphasis placed on personal contact by commanders with local
community representatives, "a cordial relationship now exists between
Fort Hood and the surrounding communities."[20-57]
[Footnote 20-55: Memo, ASD (M) for SecDef, 18 Jul 61,
sub: Use of Military Police to Halt Sit-ins as
Reported by Drew Pearson's Column of July 19 in the
Washington Post; Ltr, U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights Staff Dir Designate to ASD (M), 26 Jul 61;
both in ASD (M) 291.2. The President's office
received considerable mail on the subject; see
White House Cen files, J. F. Kennedy Library.]
[Footnote 20-56: Memo, ASD (M) for SecDef, 18 Jul 61,
sub: Use of Military Police..., ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-57: Memo, Dep Under SA for Counselor,
OASD (M), 12 Jan 62, sub: Off-Base Racial
Discrimination in the Fort Hood Area, ASD (M)
291.2.]
But to ban the use of military police and to urge commanders to deal
with local business leaders to end segregation actually begged the
question. Significantly, the much-heralded memorandum on the
availability of integrated facilities failed to review the rules
governing participation in demonstrations, a subject of pressing
interest to an increasing number of Negroes as the civil rights
struggle moved into a more active phase. Bothered by this failure, Air
Force representatives on the policy drafting team had wanted to
provide local commanders with guidance before civil rights incidents
occurred. The justice officials who reviewed the memorandum at
McNamara's invitation, however, were reluctant to see specific
reference to such incidents incorporated, and the matter was
ignored.[20-58]
[Footnote 20-58: Memo, Vance and Runge for SecDef, 5
Jun 61, ASD (M) 291.2.]
In fact, justice officials were not the only ones reluctant to see the
issue raised. It was a common belief in the Defense Department that
military service placed some limitations on a man's basic liberties.
Because servicemen were assigned to their duty station, subject to
immediate transfers and on duty twenty-four hours a day, they were
allowed no opportunity for participating in demonstrations.[20-59] The
department's general counsel was even more specific, saying that a
prohibition against picketing would not conflict with the department's
anti-discrimination policies and could be lawfully imposed by the
services. "Indeed," he believed, "the role of the military
establishment in our society required the imposition of such a
limitation on the off-duty activities of service personnel."[20-60]
Blessed by such authority, the 1960 prohibition against participation
in civil rights demonstrations remained in effect for more than three
years.[20-61]
[Footnote 20-59: Ltr, ASD (M) to John de J. Pemberton,
Jr., Exec Dir, American Civil Liberties Union, 31
Jul 63; Memos for Rcd, OSD Counselor, 26 Apr 61 and
9 Jul 63. All in ASD (M) 291.2 (16 Jul 63).]
[Footnote 20-60: Memo, General Counsel for ASD (M), 15
Jun 62, sub: Picketing by Members of the Armed
Forces, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 20-61: See Memo, James P. Goode, Office of
SecAF, for Stephen Jackson and Carlisle Runge,
attached to Memo, AF Dep CofS (P) for All Major
Cmdrs, 30 Mar 60, sub: Air Force Policy Statement
Concerning Involvement of Air Force Personnel in
Local Civil Disturbances, SecAF files; Ltr, Under
SecNav to Jesse H. Turner, 6 Oct 61, copy in CMH.
See also Ltr, Adam Yarmolinsky to Adam C. Powell,
30 Oct 63, SD 291.2 (14 Jul 63).]
Such restrictions could not last much longer. Given the civil (p. 516)
rights temper of the times--1963 witnessed the mammoth march on
Washington, the introduction of President Kennedy's civil rights bill,
and the landmark directive of the Secretary of Defense on equal
opportunity in the armed forces--a total prohibition on servicemen's
participation in demonstrations appeared more and more incongruous.
Finally, on 16 July 1963, McNamara relaxed the department's policy.
Still declaring such participation inappropriate and unnecessary for
servicemen in view of their "special obligations of citizenship," he
nevertheless lifted the ban on military participation in
demonstrations, provided that the uniform was not worn; such activity
took place during off-duty hours, off the military reservation, and
did not constitute a breach of law and order; and no violence was
reasonably likely to result.[20-62]
[Footnote 20-62: Memo, SecDef for Secys of Mil Depts
et al., 16 Jul 63, SD files; see also New York
_Times_, July 16, 17, 20, 22, 28, and 30, 1963.]
[Illustration: SECRETARY OF DEFENSE MCNAMARA.]
Again an apparent liberalization of departmental racial policy
actually promised very little change. First, the continuing
prohibitions on participation in demonstrations were so broad and so
vague that they could be interpreted to cover almost any civil rights
activity. Then, too, the secretary left the interpretation of his
order to the judgment of local commanders, a dubious blessing in the
eyes of the civil libertarians and concerned servicemen in light of
the narrow constructions commanders had given recent Defense
Department memorandums. Finally, the relaxation of the ban was
applicable only to the continental United States. In response to a
request for guidance from the European commander, the Joint Chiefs of
Staff informed all overseas commanders that as guests of Allied
nations, U.S. servicemen had no right to picket, demonstrate, or
otherwise participate in any act designed to "alter the policies,
practices, or activities of the local inhabitants who are operating
within the framework of their own laws."[20-63]
[Footnote 20-63: Msg, USCINCEUR to JCS, 201256Z Aug
63; Msg, JCS 2190 to CINSCO et al. (info copies to
Service Chiefs of Staff, CINCAL, ASD [M], and ASD
[PA]), 221630Z Aug 63.]
The fourth major memorandum on racial matters outlined the
department's application of Executive Order 11063 on housing. Racial
discrimination in off-base housing had become perhaps the chief
complaint of black servicemen who were further incensed by many (p. 517)
local commanders who maintained lists of segregated houses in their
base housing offices. In some cases commanders referred their black
servicemen to the Urban League or similar organizations for help in
finding suitable housing.[20-64] Demands that the services do
something about the situation were rebuffed. As the Assistant
Secretary of Defense explained to a White House official, the
Department of Defense had "virtually no direct involvement" in
off-base housing, the segregation of which was "not readily
susceptible to change by actions that are within the control of the
military departments."[20-65]
[Footnote 20-64: Omaha _World Herald_, August 17,
1962; see also Memo, Adam [Yarmolinsky] for L.
White, 7 Sep 62, Lee White Collection, J. F.
Kennedy Library.]
[Footnote 20-65: Memo, ASD (M) for Asst Legal Counsel
to President, 7 Nov 61, sub: Racial Discrimination
in the Armed Services, ASD (M) 291.2.]
Several of McNamara's assistants disagreed. They drafted a housing
order for the secretary but not without opposition at first from some
of their colleagues. An Army representative, for example, suggested a
counterproposal that commanders be ordered to work through the federal
agencies established in various geographical areas of the country by
Executive Order 11063. An Air Force spokesman recommended the creation
of special regional and local community committees, chaired by
representatives of the Housing and Home Finance Agency and including
members from all major federal agencies. For his part, Stephen S.
Jackson, a special assistant in the manpower office, thought these
service proposals had merit, and he wanted to postpone action until
they had been discussed with other interested federal agencies.[20-66]
[Footnote 20-66: Memo, Jackson for Dep ASD, Family
Housing-OASD (I&L), 8 Feb 63, sub: Implementation
of EX 11063, Equal Opportunity in Housing, copy in
CMH.]
McNamara, however, "readily agreed" with his housing experts that a
letter on nondiscrimination in family housing was necessary. On 8
March 1963 he informed the service secretaries that effective
immediately all military leases for family housing, that is, contracts
for private housing rented by the services for servicemen, would
contain a nondiscrimination clause in accordance with the President's
executive order. He also ordered military bases to maintain listings
only on nonsegregated private housing.[20-67] Again an attempt to
bring about a needed change was severely limited in effectiveness by
the department's concern for the scope of the commander's authority in
the local community. The application of the President's order would
end segregation in leased housing, but only a small percentage of
black servicemen lived in such housing. The majority of service
families lived off base in private housing, which the new order,
except for banning the listing of segregated properties by base
housing offices, ignored. Barring the use of segregated private
housing to all servicemen, a more direct method of changing the racial
pattern surrounding military installations, would have to wait for a
substantive change in departmental thinking.
[Footnote 20-67: Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 8 Mar 63,
sub: Non-Discrimination in Family Housing; Memo,
ASD (I&L) for Dep ASD (Family Housing), 8 Mar 63;
copies of both in ASD (M) 291.2. The quote is from
the latter document.]
_Reserves and Regulars: A Comparison_
While the interest of both civil rights advocates and defense
officials was focused on off-base concerns during the early 1960's,
discrimination continued to linger in the armed forces. A (p. 518)
particularly sensitive issue to the services, which in the public mind
had complete jurisdiction over all men in uniform, was the position of
the Negro in the reserve components. To generalize on the racial
policies of the fifty-four National Guard organizations is difficult,
but whereas some state guards had been a progressive force in the
integration of the services in the early postwar period, others had
become symbols of racism by 1961. Some fourteen years after the Truman
order, ten states with large black populations and understaffed guard
units still had no Negroes in the guard. The Kennedy administration
was not the first to wrestle with the problem of applying a single
racial policy to both the regulars and the guard. It was aware that
too much tampering with the politically influential and volatile guard
could produce an explosion. At the same time any appearance of
timidity courted antagonism from another quarter.
From the beginning the new administration found itself criticized by
civil rights organizations, including the U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights, for not moving quickly against segregated National Guard
units.[20-68] A delegation from the NAACP's 1961 convention visited
Assistant Secretary Runge in July and criticized--to the exclusion of
all other subjects--discrimination in the National Guard. This group
wanted the federal government to withhold funds from states that
continued to bar black participation. Repeating the old claim that
special federal-state relationships precluded direct action by the
Secretary of Defense, Runge nevertheless promised the delegates a
renewed effort to provide equal opportunity. He also made a somewhat
irrelevant reference to the recent experience of a black citizen in
Oklahoma who had secured admission to the state guard by a direct
appeal to the governor.[20-69] How futile such appeals would be in
some states was demonstrated a week later when the Adjutant General of
Florida declared that since the guard was a volunteer organization and
his state had always drawn its members from among white citizens,
Florida was under no obligation to enlist black men.[20-70]
[Footnote 20-68: See petitions signed by thousands of
Negroes to the President demanding redress of
grievances against the discriminatory practices of
the National Guard, in White House Cen files, 1962,
J. F. Kennedy Library.]
[Footnote 20-69: Memo for Rcd, James C. Evans, OASD
(M), 17 Jul 61, sub: Mr. Runge Receives NAACP
Delegation, ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-70: Washington _Post_, July 28, 1961.]
That the new administration had quietly adopted different policies
toward the guard and the regular forces was confirmed when Runge
responded to a report prepared by the American Veterans Committee on
the lack of racial progress in the guard. The veterans group called on
the administration to use the threat of withdrawal of federal
recognition to alter guard practices.[20-71] The administration
refused. A policy of force might be acceptable for the active armed
forces, but voluntary persuasion seemed more appropriate for the
National Guard. Enunciating what would become the Defense Department's
position on the National Guard through 1963, Runge declared that the
federal government had no legal authority to force integration on the
guard when it was not serving in a federal status. Furthermore, (p. 519)
withdrawal of federal recognition or withholding federal funds as a
means of bringing about integration, though legally sound, would cause
some states to reject federal support and inactivate their units,
thereby stripping the country of a portion of its military reserve and
damaging national security. Citing the progress being made by
persuasion, Runge predicted that some recalcitrant states might in
time voluntarily move toward integration.[20-72] Noting instances of
recent progress and citing legal restrictions against forcing state
compliance, McNamara endorsed the policy of encouraging voluntary
compliance.[20-73]
[Footnote 20-71: Ltr, Murray Gross, Chmn of the AVC,
to SecDef, 22 Jun 61, SD 291.2. The report on the
integration of the National Guard was inclosed.]
[Footnote 20-72: Ltrs, Runge to Murray Gross, 19 Jul
and 29 Nov 61, ASD (M) 291.2, and n.d. (ca. Nov
61), copy in Wofford Collection, J. F. Kennedy
Library.]
[Footnote 20-73: Ltr, SecDef to Rep. Carl Vinson of
Georgia, Chmn, House Armed Services Cmte, 5 Aug 61,
reprinted in Appendix to _Congressional Record_,
87th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 107, p. A6589.]
Although unauthorized, similar patterns of discrimination persisted in
parts of the organized reserves. Reserve units had links with both the
regular forces and the guard. Like the regulars, the reserve was
legally a creature of the federal government and subject to policies
established by the Secretary of Defense. Moreover, the reserve drew
much of its manpower from the pool of soldiers separating from active
duty with a reserve obligation still to fulfill, and within some
limits the Defense Department could assign such men to units in a
manner that could influence the reserve's racial composition. But like
the guard, the reserve also had a distinct local flavor, serving
almost as a social club in some parts of the country. This
characteristic was often an important factor in maintaining a unit at
satisfactory strength. Since segregation sometimes went hand in hand
with the clublike atmosphere, the services feared that a strong stand
on integration might cause a severe decline in the strength of some
units.[20-74] When the Army staff reviewed the situation in 1956,
therefore, it had not pressed for integration of all units, settling
instead for merely "encouraging" commanders to open their units to
Negroes.[20-75]
[Footnote 20-74: ACofS (Reserve Components) Summary
Sheet, 11 Feb 57, sub: Race Issue in Armory Debate,
copy in DCSPER 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-75: DCSPER Summary Sheet, 6 Apr 56, sub:
Policy for Reserve Training Assignments of
Obligated Non-Caucasian Personnel of the Ready
Reserve Who Reside in Segregated Areas, DCSPER
291.2.]
The move toward complete integration of the reserves was slow. In
1956, for example, more than 75 percent of the Army's reserve units in
southern states were still segregated. The other services followed a
similar pattern; in 1962 more than 40 percent of all reserve units in
the country were white; the Army retained six all-black reserve units
as well. Racial exclusion persisted in the Reserve Officers' Training
Corps also, although here the fault was probably not so much a matter
of reserve policy as the lingering segregation pattern in some state
school systems. At the same time, the reserves had more blacks in
nondrill status than in drill status. In other words, more blacks were
in reserve pools where, unassigned to specific units, they did not
participate in active duty training. In 1962, some 75 percent of the
black reservists in the Army and Air Force, 85 percent in the Navy,
and 38 percent in the Marine Corps were assigned to such pools. For
many reservists, paid drill status was desirable; apart from the money
received for such active duty, they had the opportunity to gain (p. 520)
credit toward retirement and pensions.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Gilpatric reminded the services in April
1962 that the Truman order applied to the reserves and called on the
under secretaries to integrate the all-black and all-white units "as
rapidly as is consistent with military effectiveness."[20-76] He also
wanted a review of black assignments for the purpose of removing the
disproportionate number of Negroes in pools "consistent with the
military requirements and the skills of the personnel involved."
[Footnote 20-76: Memo, Dep SecDef for Under Secys, 3
Apr 62, sub: Compliance With E.O. 9981 in the Army,
Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps Reserves, in SD
files. The secretary's memo was distributed to the
commands; see, for example, Memo, TAG for CINCARPAC
et al., 15 May 62 (TAG 291.2/15 May 62).]
A defense manpower team surveyed the reserves in November 1962. It
tried to soften the obvious implication of its racial statistics by
pointing out that the all-black units were limited to two Army areas,
and action had already been taken by the Third Army and Fourth Army
commanders to integrate the six units as soon as possible. The team
also announced initiation of a series of administrative safeguards
against discrimination in the enlistment and assignment of men to
drilling units. As for the all-white units, the reviewers cautioned
that discrimination was not necessarily involved since Negroes
constituted a relatively small proportion of the strength of the
reserves--4.8 percent of the Army, 4.4 percent of the Air Force, and
an estimated 3.2 percent of the Navy. Furthermore, the data neither
proved nor disproved allegations of discrimination since the degree to
which individuals volunteered, the skills and aptitudes they
possessed, and the needs of the services were all factors in the
assignment and use of the men involved.[20-77]
[Footnote 20-77: Office of the ASD (M), Review of
Compliance With E.O. 9981 in the Army, Navy, Air
Force, and Marine Corps Reserves, 7 Nov 62, copy in
CMH.]
Pleas of an absence of legal authority in regard to the National Guard
and generalized promises of racial reform in the reserves were not
going to still the complaints of the civil rights organizations nor
discourage the interest of their allies in the administration.
Clearly, the Department of Defense would be hearing more about race in
the reserve components in the months to come.
The sudden reemergence in the early 1960's of complaints of
discrimination in the regular forces centered around a familiar
litany: the number of Negroes in some of the services still fell
significantly short of the black percentage of the national
population; and separate standards, favorable to whites, prevailed in
the promotion and assignment systems of all the services. There had to
be some discrimination involved, Congressman Diggs pointed out to the
Secretary of the Air Force in July 1960. With extensive help from the
services, Diggs had been investigating servicemen's complaints for
some time. While his major concern remained the discrimination
suffered by black servicemen off base, he nevertheless concluded that
the service regulations developed in consultation with the Fahy
Committee more than a decade earlier had not been fully implemented
and discriminatory practices existed "in varying degrees" at (p. 521)
military installations around the world. Diggs admitted that a black
serviceman might well charge discrimination to mask his failure to
compete successfully for a job or grade, but to accept such failures
as a universal explanation for the disproportionate number of Negroes
in the lower ranks and undesirable occupations was to accept as true
the canard that Negroes as a group were deficient. Diggs's conclusion,
which he pressed upon the department with some notice in the press,
was that some black servicemen were being subtly but deliberately and
arbitrarily restricted to inferior positions because their military
superiors exercised judgments based on racial considerations. These
judgments, he charged, were inconsistent with the spirit of the Truman
order.[20-78]
[Footnote 20-78: Ltr, Diggs to SecAF, 7 Jul 60; see
also Memo, Dir, AF Legis Liaison, for Spec Asst for
Manpower, Personnel, and Reserve Forces, USAF, 14
Jul 60, with attached Summary of Findings and
Highlights of the Diggs Report Concerning Alleged
Discriminatory Practices in the Armed Forces; both
in SecAF files.]
At first glance the 1963 study of racial discrimination by the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights seemed to contradict Diggs's charges. The
commission concluded that taken as a whole the status of black
servicemen had improved considerably since the Truman order. It noted
that black representation had remained relatively constant since the
early days of integration, 8.2 percent of the total, 9.2 percent of
the enlisted strength, and approached national population averages.
The percentage of black officers, 1.6 percent of all officers, while
admittedly low, had been rising steadily and compared favorably with
the number of black executives in the civilian economy. The
occupational status of the black enlisted man had also undergone
steady improvement since the early days of integration, especially
when one compared the number and variety of military occupation
specialties held by black servicemen with opportunities in the rest of
the civil service and the business community.
Finally, and perhaps most important, the commission found that in
their daily operations, military installations were "generally free
from the taint of racial discrimination."[20-79] It confirmed the
general assessments of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith and
the American Veterans Committee among others, pointing out that black
and white servicemen not only worked side by side, but also mingled in
off-duty hours.[20-80] In sum, the study demonstrated general
satisfaction with the racial situation on military bases. Its major
concern, and indeed the major concern of Diggs and most black
servicemen, remained the widespread discrimination prevailing against
black servicemen in the local community.
[Footnote 20-79: U.S. Commission on _Civil Rights_,
Civil Rights '63, pp. 173-85. The quotation is from
page 185.]
[Footnote 20-80: See, for example, Morton Puner, "The
Armed Forces: An Integration Success Story,"
_Anti-Defamation League Bulletin_, Nov 62, pp. 3,
7; and American Veterans Committee, "Audit of Negro
Veterans and Servicemen," 1960.]
These important generalizations aside, the commission nevertheless
offered impressive statistical support for some of Diggs's charges
when it investigated the diverse and conflicting enlistment and
assignment patterns of the different services. The Navy and Marine
Corps came in for special criticism. Even when the complexities of
mental aptitude requirements and use of draftees versus enlistees (p. 522)
were discounted, the commission found that these two services
consistently employed a significantly smaller percentage of Negroes
than the Army and Air Force. A similar disparity existed in assignment
procedures. The commission found that both services failed to match
the record of the civilian economy in the use of Negroes in technical,
mechanical, administrative, clerical, and craft fields. It suspected
that the services' recruiting and testing methods intensified these
differences and wondered whether they might not operate to exclude
Negroes in some instances.
Despite general approval of conditions on the bases, the commission
found what it called "vestiges of discrimination on some bases." It
reported some segregated noncommissioned officer clubs, some
segregated transportation of servicemen to the local community, and
some discriminatory employment patterns in the hiring of civilians for
post jobs. Partly the legacy of the old segregated services, this
discrimination, the commission concluded, was to a greater extent the
result of the intrusion of local civilian attitudes. The commission's
attention to outside influences on attitudes at the base suggested
that it found the villain of the Diggs investigation, the prejudiced
military official, far too simplistic an explanation for what was in
reality institutional racism, a complex mixture of sociological forces
and military traditions acting on the services. The Department of
Defense's manpower experts dwelt on these forces and traditions when
they analyzed recruitment, promotion, and assignment trends for
McNamara in 1963.[20-81]
[Footnote 20-81: Memo, DepASD (Special Studies and
Requirements) for ASD (M), 16 Jul 63, with
attachment, Utilization of Negroes in the Armed
Forces, July 1963, copy in CMH. All the tables
accompanying this discussion are from the preceding
source, with the exception of Table 16, which is
from the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Policy
Planning and Research, _The Negro Family: The Case
for National Action_, Mar 64, p. 75, where it is
reproduced from DOD sources.]
They found a general increase in black strength ratios between 1949
and 1962 (_Table 13_). They blamed the "selective" recruiting
practices in vogue before the Truman order for the low enlistment
ratios in 1949, just as they attributed the modest increases since
that time to the effects of the services' equal treatment and
opportunity programs. In the judgment of these analysts, racial
differences in representation since the Truman order, and indeed most
of the other discrepancies between black and white servicemen, could
usually be explained by the sometimes sharp difference in aptitude
test results (_Table 14_). A heritage of the Negro's limited, often
segregated and inferior education and his economic and related (p. 523)
environmental handicaps, low aptitude scores certainly explained the
contrast in disqualification rates (_Tables 15 and 16_). By 1962 fully
half of all Negroes--as compared to 8 percent of all whites--failed to
qualify for service under minimum mental test standards. In some
southern states, the draftee rejection rate for Negroes exceeded 80
percent.
Table 13--Black Strength in the Armed Forces for Selected Years
(In Percentage)
Army Navy Marine Corps Air Force
Enlisted Enlisted Enlisted Enlisted
Year Men Officers Men Officers Men Officers Men Officers
1949 12.4 1.8 4.7 0.0 2.1 0.0 5.1 0.6
1954 13.7 3.0 3.6 0.1 6.5 0.1 8.6 1.1
1962 12.2 3.2 5.2 0.2 7.6 0.2 9.2 1.2
Table 14--Estimated Percentage Distribution of Draft-Age Males in U.S.
Population by AFQT Groups (Based on Preinduction Examination, 1959-1962)
Group White Nonwhite
I 11.8 0.3
II 31.3 2.6
III 31.9 15.0
IV 19.0 40.1
V 6.0 42.0
Table 15--Rate of Men Disqualified for Service in 1962
(In Percentage)
Cause White Nonwhite
Medical and other 21.8 10.1
Mental test failure 8.4 50.6
Total 30.2 60.7
Table 16--Rejection Rates for Failure to Pass
Armed Forces Mental Test, 1962
Failed Mental Test
Number
Area Examined Number Percent
Grand total, Continental United States 286,152 64,536 22.6
Total, white 235,678 36,204 15.4
Total, black 50,474 28,332 56.1
First Army: Connecticut, Maine,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
New Jersey, New York, Rhode
Island, Vermont
White 49,171 12,989 26.4
Black 7,937 3,976 50.1
Second Army: Delaware, Washington,
D.C., Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Virginia,
West Virginia
White 48,641 5,888 12.1
Black 9,563 4,255 44.5
Third Army: Alabama, Florida, Georgia,
Mississippi, North Carolina,
South Carolina, Tennessee
White 30,242 5,786 19.1
Black 20,343 13,772 67.7
Fourth Army: Arkansas, Louisiana,
New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas
White 15,048 2,039 13.5
Black 4,796 2,988 62.3
Fifth Army: Colorado, Illinois, Iowa,
Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri,
Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota,
Wisconsin, Wyoming
White 51,117 4,495 8.9
Black 5,723 2,684 46.9
Sixth Army: Arizona, California, Idaho, 1 1 1
Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah,
Washington
White 41,459 5,007 12.1
Black 2,112 657 31.1
This problem became critical for black enlistments in the mid-1950's
when the services, with less need for new servicemen, raised the
mental standards for enlistees, denying Group IV men the right to
enlist. (An exception to this pattern was the Navy's decision to
accept Group IV enlistments in 1956 and 1957 to replace post-Korean
enlistment losses.) In terms of total black representation, however,
the new mental standards made a lesser difference (_Table 17_).
Denying Group IV men enlistment during the 1950's only increased their
number in the draft pool, and when the Army stepped up draft
inductions in the early 1960's the number of Group IV men in uniform,
including Negroes, rapidly increased.
Table 17--Nonwhite Inductions and First Enlistments, Fiscal Years
1953-1962[1]
Fiscal | Total | Percent Nonwhite
Year |Accessions| DOD| Army |Navy|Marine| Air
| (000)[1] | |Inductees[2]|Enlistees| |Corps |Force
1953 886.1 12.8 14.7 13.4 4.3 8.0 11.1
1954 576.3 10.0 9.9 13.0 4.0 7.8 11.9
1955 622.6 10.6 8.8 12.7 9.0 5.4 13.5
1956 481.9 11.2 10.3 15.1 9.5 10.6 12.2
1957 456.7 9.1 10.8 9.3 3.6 9.5 9.7
1958 367.1 7.9 13.2 6.4 2.8 5.1 7.1
1959 392.0 7.1 10.4 8.1 2.4 5.0 6.5
1960 389.4 8.1 12.3 8.4 3.0 7.9 8.4
1961 394.7 8.2 14.4 8.2 2.9 5.9 9.5
1962 518.6 9.7 15.3 9.0 4.1 6.5 8.6
Total 5,085.4 9.9 12.3 10.3 4.9 7.4 10.4
[Tablenote 1: Includes inductions and male
"non-prior service" enlistments into the Regular
components.]
[Tablenote 2: The Army was the only service
drafting men during this decade.]
While the Army's dependence on the draft, and thus Group IV men,
explained part of the continuing high percentage of Negroes in that
service, the Defense Department manpower group was at a loss to
explain the notable variation in black enlistments among the services.
All employed similar enlistment standards, yet during the period
1958--1960, for example, black enlistment in the Army and Air Force
averaged 7 percent, the Marine Corps 6 percent, and the Navy 2.7
percent. Nor could the analysts isolate the factors contributing to
the low officer ratios in all four services. Almost all military
officers during the period under analysis were college graduates,
Negroes comprised about 4 percent of all male college graduates, yet
only the Army maintained a black officer ratio approaching that
figure. (_See Table 13._)
The inability of many black servicemen to score highly in the tests
might also explain why training in some technical occupations
continued more restricted for them (_Tables 18 and 19_). In (p. 524)
contrast to ground combat and service occupations, which required
little formal school training, some occupation groups--electronics,
for example--had high selection standards. The Defense Department
group admitted that occupations for blacks in the armed forces had
also been influenced by historical patterns of segregated assignments
to food service and other support occupations. Among men with twenty
or more years in uniform, 40 percent of the blacks and 12 percent (p. 525)
of the whites were assigned to service occupations. But this pattern
was changing, the analysts pointed out. The reduction in the
differential between whites and blacks in service occupations among
more recent recruits clearly reflected the impact of policies designed
to equalize opportunities (_Table 20_). These policies had brought (p. 526)
about an increasing proportion of Negroes in white collar skills as
well as in ground combat skills.
Table 18--Distribution of Enlisted Personnel in Each Major
Occupation, 1956
Percentage Distribution by AFQT Groups
Occupation I&II III IV
Electronics 60.3 31.4 8.3
Other technical 57.9 30.7 11.4
Admin. & clerical 51.5 37.4 11.1
Mechanics & repairmen 37.6 43.8 18.6
Crafts 30.0 44.1 25.9
Services 21.5 43.3 35.2
Ground combat 24.5 37.1 38.4
Table 19--Occupational Group Distribution by Race. All DOD, 1962
Total Percent
Occupational Group Percentage Distribution of Negroes in
Negroes White Each Group
Ground combat 23.7 15.0 14.3
Electronics 7.0 14.9 4.7
Other technical 6.8 7.7 8.5
Admin. & clerical 21.5 19.2 10.6
Mechanics & repairmen 15.1 26.0 5.8
Crafts 5.6 6.6 8.4
Services 20.3 10.7 16.6
Total 100.0 100.0 9.2
Table 20--Occupational Group Distribution of Enlisted Personnel
By Length of Service and Race
12-20 Over
Occupational 0-4 Years 4-8 Years 8-12 Years Years 20 Years
Group
White Black White Black White Black White Black White Black
Ground
combat 20.3 32.7 9.8 17.7 9.6 17.8 9.8 14.5 8.4 12.5
Electronics 14.1 5.6 19.7 10.3 15.6 8.1 14.2 6.7 10.5 3.6
Other
technical 7.5 7.1 7.3 7.0 7.8 6.8 8.6 6.1 7.3 5.0
Admin. &
clerical 18.3 22.3 17.5 22.6 19.6 22.0 22.0 18.5 24.5 18.7
Mechanics 23.9 12.8 29.6 20.5 28.9 16.2 24.2 15.1 29.1 13.6
Crafts 5.3 4.0 6.9 7.4 7.7 6.8 8.8 7.2 8.6 6.1
Services 10.6 15.5 9.2 15.1 10.8 22.3 12.3 31.9 11.7 40.4
This change was dramatically highlighted by the occupational
distribution of naval personnel in 1962 (_Table 21_). Among General
Qualification Test Groups I and II, the percentage of Negroes assigned
to service occupations, mainly stewards, commissarymen, and the (p. 527)
like, declined from 22 percent of those with more than twelve years'
service to 2 percent of those with less than twelve years' service,
with sharp increases in the "other technical" group, mainly medical
and dental specialists, and smaller increases in other technical
skills. A similar trend also appeared in the lower mental categories.
One persisting occupational difference was the tendency to assign a
relatively large percentage of Negroes with high aptitudes to "other
technical" skills and those of low aptitude to service occupations.
The group admitted that these differences required further analysis.
Table 21--Percentage Distribution of Navy Enlisted Personnel by Race,
AFQT Groups and Occupational Areas, and Length of Service, 1962
AFQT Group and 0-12 Years 12 Years & Over
Occupational Area[1] White Negro White Negro
Groups I and II
Electronics 35.7 29.5 25.6 21.1
Other technical 11.4 25.9 10.4 10.5
Admin. & clerical 8.5 10.9 14.6 14.0
Mechanics & repairmen 37.5 26.1 33.1 22.5
Crafts 6.4 5.4 12.9 10.3
Services .6 2.2 3.5 21.6
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
Group III
Electronics 10.3 9.1 8.8 4.2
Other technical 7.1 12.3 6.2 3.0
Admin. & clerical 9.7 12.9 12.4 8.2
Mechanics & repairmen 56.7 42.2 36.7 16.5
Crafts 13.2 11.1 25.2 16.9
Services 3.0 12.4 10.8 51.2
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
Group IV
Electronics 5.3 1.4 2.9 .5
Other technical 3.7 1.7 2.9 .4
Admin. & clerical 6.9 8.1 7.0 2.5
Mechanics & repairmen 60.8 44.2 35.8 7.3
Crafts 16.4 13.5 32.5 9.5
Services 6.9 31.1 19.4 79.7
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
[Tablenote 1: Excludes personnel not classified by
occupation, such as recruits and general duty
seamen.]
Reporting on promotions, the Defense Department group found that the
relatively limited advancement of black officers was caused chiefly by
their disadvantage in point of time in service and grade, branch of
service, and educational background (_Table 22_). Although the
difference in grade distribution among black and white enlisted men
was much smaller, it too seemed related to disadvantages in education
and service occupation. Again, for Negroes entering the services since
1950, the grade distribution had become similar to that of whites. The
Navy's experience illustrated this point. In the case of those
entering the Navy since the Korean War, the grade distribution of
whites and nonwhites within the first three mental categories was
nearly identical (_Table 23_). The divergences were much wider among
the more senior men in the service groups, but this was probably due
at least in part to the concentration of senior black servicemen in
relatively overmanned specialties, such as food service, where
promotional opportunities were limited. With this exception little
evidence exists that whites enjoyed an advantage over blacks in the
matter of promotions in the enlisted ranks.
Table 22--Percentage Distribution of Blacks and Whites by Pay Grade,
All DOD, 1962
Grade Black White
Officers
O-1 to O-2 35.9 34.5
O-3 47.7 30.2
O-4 12.1 18.0
O-5 4.0 12.0
O-6 to O-10 .3 5.3
Total 100.0 100.0
Enlisted Men
E-1 to E-3 45.5 46.9
E-4 23.1 19.6
E-5 20.1 16.1
E-6 8.2 10.0
E-7 to E-9 3.0 7.5
Total 100.0 100.0
Table 23--Percentage Distribution of Navy Enlisted Personnel by Race,
AFQT Groups, Pay Grade, and Length of Service, 1962
0-12 Years Over 12 Years
Pay Grade White Negro White Negro
AFQT Groups I & II
E-1 to E-3 50.0 50.4 0.1 0.5
E-4 22.5 21.8 1.0 5.3
E-5 17.8 18.6 6.6 16.8
E-6 8.3 8.5 30.8 33.9
E-7 to E-9 1.4 .7 61.5 43.6
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
AFQT Group III
E-1 to E-3 60.6 60.5 0.5 3.5
E-4 20.7 20.4 4.4 14.7
E-5 13.1 14.2 19.3 28.8
E-6 5.1 4.6 40.1 33.7
E-7 to E-9 .5 .3 35.7 19.3
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
AFQT Group IV
E-1 to E-3 77.1 61.2 2.2 12.2
E-4 13.0 23.3 14.9 32.6
E-5 7.9 13.0 34.0 29.9
E-6 1.9 2.4 32.4 19.3
E-7 to E-9 .1 [a] 16.5 6.0
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
[Tablenote a: Less than .05 percent.]
All these figures could be conjured up when the services had to answer
complaints of discrimination, but more often than not the services
contented themselves with a vague defense of the _status quo_[20-82]
Such answers were clearly unacceptable to civil rights leaders (p. 528)
and their allies in the administration, and it is not surprising that
the complaints persisted. To the argument that higher enlistment
standards were a matter of military economy during a period of partial
mobilizations, those concerned about civil rights responded that,
since marginal manpower was a necessary ingredient of full
mobilization, the services should learn to deal in peacetime with what
would be a wartime problem.[20-83] To pleas of helplessness against
off-base discrimination, the activists argued that these practices had
demonstrably adverse effects on the morale of more than 9 percent of
the armed forces and were, therefore, a clear threat to the
accomplishment of the services' military mission.[20-84]
[Footnote 20-82: See, for example, the following
Memos: Dep Under SA (Manpower) for ASD (M), 30 Mar
62, sub: Servicemen's Complaints of Discrimination
in the U.S. Military; AF Dep for Manpower, Pers,
and Organization for ASD (M), 29 Mar 62, sub:
Alleged Racial Discrimination Within the Air Force;
Under SecNav for ASD (M), 16 Mar 62, sub:
Discrimination in the U.S. Military Services. All
in ASD (M) 291.2 (12 Feb 62).]
[Footnote 20-83: Ginzberg, _The Negro Potential_, p.
90.]
[Footnote 20-84: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights,
_Civil Rights '63_, pp. 210-11.]
Integration of black servicemen and general political and economic
gains of the black population had combined in the last decade to
create a ground swell for reform that resulted in ever more frequent
and pressing attacks on the community policies of the Department (p. 529)
of Defense. Some members of the administration rode with the reform
movement. Although he was speaking particularly of increased black
enrollment at the military academies, Special White House Assistant
Wofford betrayed the reformer's attitude toward the whole problem of
equal opportunity when he told James Evans "I am sure that much work
has been done, but there is, of course, still a long way to
go."[20-85] But by 1962 the services had just about exhausted the
traditional reform methods available to them. To go further, as
Wofford and the civil rights advocates demanded, meant a fundamental
change in the department's commitment to equal treatment and
opportunity. The decision to make such a change was clearly up to
Secretary McNamara and the Kennedy administration.
[Footnote 20-85: Memo, Wofford for Evans, 2 Feb 62,
Wofford Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]
CHAPTER 21 (p. 530)
Equal Treatment and Opportunity Redefined
By 1962 the civil rights leaders and their allies in the Kennedy
administration were pressing the Secretary of Defense to end
segregation in the reserve components and in housing, schools, and
public accommodations in communities adjacent to military
installations. Such an extension of policy, certainly the most
important to be contemplated since President Truman's executive order
in 1948, would involve the Department of Defense in the fight for
servicemen's civil rights, thrusting it into the forefront of the
civil rights movement.
Given the forces at work in the department, it was by no means certain
in 1962 that the fight against discrimination would be extended beyond
those vestiges that continued to exist in the military community
itself. In Robert McNamara the department had an energetic secretary,
committed to the principle of equal treatment and opportunity, and,
since his days with the Ford Motor Company in Michigan, a member of
the NAACP. But, as his directives indicated, McNamara had much to
learn in the field of race relations. As he later recalled: "Adam
[Yarmolinsky] was more sensitive to the subject [race relations] in
those days than I was. I was concerned. I recognized what Harry Truman
had done, his leadership in the field, and I wanted to continue his
work. But I didn't know enough."[21-1]
[Footnote 21-1: Interv, author with McNamara, telecon
of 11 May 72, CMH files.]
_The Secretary Makes a Decision_
Some of McNamara's closest advisers and some civil rights advocates in
the Kennedy administration, increasingly critical of current
practices, were anxious to instruct the secretary in the need for a
new racial outlook. But their efforts were counterbalanced by the
influence of defenders of the _status quo_, primarily the manpower
bureaucrats in the secretary's office and their colleagues in the
services. These men opposed substantive change not because they
objected to the reformers' goals but because they doubted the wisdom
and propriety of interfering in what they regarded as essentially a
domestic political issue.
Superficially, the department's racial policy appears to have been
shaped by a conflict between traditionalists and progressives, but it
would be a mistake to apply these labels mechanically to the men
involved. There were among them several shades of opinion, and (p. 531)
they were affected as well by complex political and social pressures.
Many of those involved in the debate shared a similar goal. A
continuum existed, one defense official later suggested, that ranged
from a few people who wanted for a number of reasons to do
nothing--who even wanted to tolerate the continued segregation of
National Guard units called to active duty in 1961--to men of
considerable impatience who thought the off-limits sanction was a
neglected and obvious weapon which ought to be invoked at once.[21-2]
Nevertheless, these various views tended to coalesce into a series of
mutually exclusive arguments that can be analyzed.[21-3]
[Footnote 21-2: Ltr, Alfred B. Fitt to author, 22 May
72, CMH files.]
[Footnote 21-3: The following summary of opinions is
based upon (1) Intervs: author with McNamara, 11
May 72, Gerhard A. Gesell, 13 May 72, Robert E.
Jordan III, 7 Jun 72, James C. Evans, 4 and 22 Mar
72; O'Brien with Gilpatric, 5 May 70; USAF with
Zuckert, Apr 73; (2) Ltrs: Fitt and Yarmolinsky to
author, 22 May 72 and 30 May 72, respectively;
Rudolph Winnacker, OSD Historian, to James C.
Evans, 17 Jul 70; Evans to DASD (CR), 20 Jul 70;
ASD (M) to Congressman Charles C. Diggs, Jr., 15
Mar 61; idem to John Roemer, Vice Chmn, Baltimore
CORE, 3 Aug 62; (3) Memos: USAF Dep for Manpower,
Pers, and Organization for SecAF, 9 Nov 62, sub:
Meeting of President's Committee on Equal
Opportunity in the Armed Forces; ASD (M) for Asst
Legal Counsel to President, 7 Nov 61, sub: Racial
Discrimination in the Armed Services; Evans to
Yarmolinsky, 31 Mar 61. Copies of all in CMH. See
also Adam Yarmolinsky, _The Military Establishment:
Its Impacts in American Society_ (New York: Harper
& Row, 1971), p. 351.]
One group, from whom Adam Yarmolinsky, McNamara's special assistant,
might be singled out as the most prominent member, developed arguments
for a new racial policy that would encourage the services to modify
local laws and customs in ways more favorable to black servicemen.
Unlike earlier reformers in the department who acted primarily out of
an interest in military efficiency, these men were basically civil
libertarians, or "social movers," as Secretary of the Air Force
Zuckert called them. They were allied with like-minded new
frontiersmen, including the President's special counsel on minority
affairs and Attorney General Kennedy, who were convinced that Congress
would enact no new civil rights legislation in 1962. The services,
this group argued, had through their recent integration found
themselves in the vanguard of the national campaign for equal
treatment and opportunity for Negroes, and to some it seemed only
logical that they be used to retain that lead for the administration.
These men had ample proof, they believed, for the proposition that the
services' policies had already influenced reforms elsewhere. They saw
a strong connection, for example, between the new Interstate Commerce
Commission's order outlawing segregation in interstate travel and the
services' efforts to secure equal treatment for troops in transit. In
effect, in the name of an administration handicapped by an unwilling
legislature, they were asking the services to fly the flag of civil
rights.
If their motives differed from those of their predecessors, their
rhetoric did not. Yarmolinsky and his colleagues argued that racial
discrimination, particularly discrimination in housing and public
accommodations, created a serious morale problem among black GIs, a
contention strongly supported by the recent Civil Rights Commission
findings. While the services had always denied responsibility for
combating discrimination outside the military reservation, these (p. 532)
officials were confident that the connection between this
discrimination and military efficiency could be demonstrated. They
were also convinced that segregated housing and the related
segregation of places of public accommodation were particularly
susceptible to economic pressure from military authorities.
[Illustration: ADAM YARMOLINSKY.]
This last argument was certainly not new. For some time civil rights
spokesmen had been urging the services to use economic pressure to
ease discrimination. Specifically, Congressman Powell, and later a
number of civil rights groups, had called on the armed forces to
impose off-limits sanctions for all servicemen against businesses that
discriminated against black servicemen. Clear historical precedent
seemed to exist for the action demanded by the controversial Harlem
legislator because from earliest time the services had been declaring
establishments and whole geographical areas off limits to their
officers and men in order to protect their health and welfare. In view
of the services' contention that equal treatment and opportunity were
important to the welfare of servicemen, was it not reasonable, the
spokesmen could ask, for the armed forces to use this powerful
economic weapon against those who discriminated?
Those defense officials calling for further changes also argued that
even the limited reforms already introduced by the administration
faced slow going in the Department of Defense. This point was of
particular concern to Robert Kennedy and his assistants in the Justice
Department who agreed that senior defense officials lacked neither the
zeal nor the determination to advance the civil rights of black
servicemen but that the uniformed services were not, as Deputy
Secretary Gilpatric expressed it, "putting their hearts and souls into
really carrying out all of these directives and policies." Reflecting
on it later, Gilpatric decided that the problem in the armed forces
was one of pace. The services, he believed, were willing enough to
carry out the policies, but in their own way and at their own speed,
to avoid the appearance of acting as the agent of another federal
department.
All these arguments failed to convince Assistant Secretary for
Manpower Runge, some officials in the general counsel's office, and
principal black adviser on racial affairs James Evans, among others.
This group and their allies in the services could point to a political
fact of life: to interfere with local segregation laws and customs,
specifically to impose off-limits sanctions against southern businessmen,
would pit the administration against powerful congressmen, calling (p. 533)
down on it the wrath of the armed services and appropriation committees.
To the charge that this threat of congressional retaliation was simply
an excuse for inaction, the services could explain that unlike the
recent integration of military units, which was largely an executive
function with which Congress, or at least some individual congressmen,
reluctantly went along, sanctions against local communities would be
considered a direct threat by scores of legislators. "Even one obscure
congressman thus threatened could light a fire over military
sanctions," Evans later remarked, "and there were plenty of folks
around who were eager to fan the flames."
[Illustration: JAMES EVANS.]
Even more important, the department's equal opportunity bureaucracy
argued, was the need to protect the physical well-being of the
individual black soldier. In a decade when civil rights beatings and
murders were a common occurrence, these men knew that Evans was right
when he said "by the time Washington could enter the case the young
man could be injured or dead." Operating under the principle that the
safety and welfare of the individual transcended the civil rights of
the group, these officials wanted to forbid the men, both the black
and the increasing number of white activists, to disobey local
segregation laws and customs.
The opponents of intervention pointed out that the services would be
ill-advised to push for changes outside the military reservation until
the reforms begun under Truman were completely realized inside the
reservation. Ignoring the argument that discrimination in the local
community had a profound effect on morale, they wanted the services to
concentrate instead on the necessary but minor reforms within their
jurisdiction. To give the local commander the added responsibility for
correcting discrimination in the community, they contended, might very
well dilute his efforts to correct conditions within the services. And
to use servicemen to spearhead civil rights reform was a misuse of
executive power. With support from the department's lawyers, they
questioned the legality of using off-limits sanctions in civil rights
cases. They constantly repeated the same refrain: social reform was
not a military function. As one manpower spokesman put it to the
renowned black civil rights lawyer, Thurgood Marshall, "let the Army
tend its own backyard, and let other government agencies work on civil
rights."[21-4]
[Footnote 21-4: Interv, author with Evans, 4 Mar 72.]
Runge and the rest were professional manpower managers who had a (p. 534)
healthy respect for the chance of command error and its effect on race
relations nationally. In this they found an ally in Secretary of the
Air Force Eugene M. Zuckert, one of the architects of Air Force
integration in 1949. American commanders lacked training in the
delicate art of community relations, Zuckert later explained, and
should even a few of them blunder they could bring on a race crisis of
major proportions. He sympathized with the activists' goals and was
convinced that the President as Commander in Chief could and should
use the armed forces for social ends; but these social objectives had
to be balanced against the need to preserve the military forces for
their primary mission. Again on the practical level, Deputy Secretary
of Defense Gilpatric was concerned with the problems of devising
general instructions that could be applied in all the diverse
situations that might arise at the hundreds of bases and local
communities involved.[21-5]
[Footnote 21-5: USAF Oral Hist Interv with Zuckert,
Apr 73; Interv, O'Brien with Gilpatric, 5 May 70.]
Many of the manpower officials carefully differentiated between equal
treatment, which had always been at the heart of the Defense
Department's reforms, and civil rights, which they were convinced were
a constitutional matter and belonged in the hands of the courts and
the Justice Department. The principle of equal treatment and
opportunity was beyond criticism. Its application, a lengthy and
arduous task that had occupied and still concerned the services'
racial advisers, had brought the Department of Defense to unparalleled
heights of racial harmony. Convinced that the current civil rights
campaign was not the business of the Defense Department, they
questioned the motives of those who were willing to make black GI's
the stalking horse for their latest and perhaps transient enthusiasm,
in the process inviting congressional criticism of the department's
vital racial programs. In short, Assistant Secretary Runge and his
colleagues argued that the administration's civil rights campaign
should be led by the Justice Department and by the Department of
Health, Education, and Welfare, not the Defense Department, which had
other missions to perform.
Such were the rationalizations that had kept the Department of Defense
out of the field of community race relations for over a decade, and
the opponents of change in a strong position. Their opposition was
reasonable, their allies in the services were legion, they were backed
by years of tradition, and, most important, they held the jobs where
the day-to-day decisions on racial matters were made. To change the
_status quo_, to move the department beyond the notion that the
guarantee of equal rights stopped at the boundaries of military
installations, might seem "desirable and indeed necessary" to
Yarmolinsky and his confreres,[21-6] but it would take something more
than their eloquent words to bring about change.
[Footnote 21-6: Ltr, Yarmolinsky to author, 30 May 72,
CMH files.]
Yarmolinsky was convinced that the initiative for such a change had to
come from outside the department. Certain that any outside
investigation would quickly reveal the connection between racial
discrimination in the community and military efficiency, he wanted the
Secretary of Defense to appoint a committee of independent (p. 535)
citizens to investigate and report on the situation.[21-7] The idea of
a citizens' committee was not new. The Fahy Committee provided a
recent precedent, and in August 1961 Congressman Diggs had asked the
Secretary of Defense to consider the appointment of such a group, a
suggestion rejected at the time by Assistant Secretary Runge.[21-8]
But Yarmolinsky enjoyed opportunities unavailable to the Michigan
congressman; he had the attention and the support of Robert McNamara.
In the latter's words: "Adam suggested another broad review of the
place of the Negro in the Department. The committee was necessary
because the other sources--the DOD manpower reports and so forth--were
inadequate. They didn't provide the exact information I needed. This
is what Adam and I decided."[21-9] This decision launched the
Department of Defense into one of the most important civil rights
battles of the 1960's.
[Footnote 21-7: Not everyone supporting the idea of an
investigatory committee was necessarily an advocate
of Yarmolinsky's theories. Roy K. Davenport, soon
to be appointed a deputy under secretary of the
Army for personnel management, decided that an
assessment of the status of black servicemen was
timely after a decade of integration. His
professional curiosity, like that of some of the
other manpower experts in the services, was piqued
more by a concern for the fate of current
regulations than an interest in the development of
new ones. See Interv, author with Davenport, 31 Oct
71.]
[Footnote 21-8: Ltr, Diggs to McNamara, 24 Aug 61;
Ltr, ASD (M) to Diggs, 5 Sep 61; Memo, ASD (M) for
Asst Legal Counsel to President, 7 Nov 61, sub:
Racial Discrimination in the Armed Services. All in
ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 21-9: Interv, author with McNamara, 11 May
72.]
_The Gesell Committee_
On 24 June 1962 John F. Kennedy announced the formation of the
President's Committee on Equality of Opportunity in the Armed Forces,
popularly designated the Gesell Committee after its chairman, Gerhard
A. Gesell.[21-10] It was inevitable that the Gesell Committee should
be compared to the Fahy Committee, given the similarity of interests,
but in fact the two groups had little in common and served different
purposes. The Fahy Committee had been created to carry out President
Truman's equal treatment and opportunity policy. The Gesell Committee,
on the other hand, was less concerned with carrying out existing
policy than with developing a new policy for the Department of
Defense. The Fahy Committee operated under an executive order and
sought an acceptable integration program from each service. The Gesell
Committee enjoyed no such advantage, although the Truman order was
technically still in effect and could have been used to support it.
(The Kennedy administration ignored this possibility, and Yarmolinsky
warned one presidential aide that the Truman order should be quietly
revoked lest someone question why the Gesell Committee had not been
afforded similar stature.)[21-11]
[Footnote 21-10: Ltr, Kennedy to Gesell, 22 Jun 62, as
reproduced in White House Press Release, 24 Jun 62,
copy in CMH. For an example of the attention the
new committee received in the press, see Washington
_Post_, June 24, 1962.]
[Footnote 21-11: Memo, Yarmolinsky for Lee C. White,
26 Jul 62, sub: Revocation of Executive Order 9981,
SD 291.2.]
Again unlike the Fahy Committee, which forced its attention upon a
generally reluctant Defense Department at the behest of the President,
the Gesell Committee was created by the Secretary of Defense; the
presidential appointment of its members bestowed an aura of special
authority on a group that lacked the power of its predecessor to (p. 536)
make and review policy. McNamara later put it quite bluntly: "The
committee was the creature of the Secretary of Defense. Calling it a
President's committee was just windowdressing. The civil rights people
didn't have a damn thing to do with it. We wanted information, and
that's just what the Gesell people gave us."[21-12] In fact,
Yarmolinsky conceived the project, named it, nominated its members,
and drew up its directives. Only when it was well along was the
project passed to the White House for review of the committee's makeup
and guidelines.[21-13]
[Footnote 21-12: Interv, author with McNamara, 11 May
72; see also Ltr, Yarmolinsky to author, 30 May 72.
Yarmolinsky called the presidential appointment an
example of the Defense Department's borrowing the
prestige of the White House.]
[Footnote 21-13: Memo, ASD (M) for Asst Legal Counsel
to President, 7 Nov 61, sub: Racial Discrimination
in the Armed Services, ASD (M) 291.2.]
This special connection between the Department of Defense and the
Gesell Committee influenced the course of the investigation. True to
his concept of the committee as a fact-finding team, McNamara
personally remained aloof from its proceedings, never trying to
influence its investigation or findings. Ironically, Gesell would
later complain about this remoteness, regretting the secretary's
failure to intervene in the case of the recalcitrant National
Guard.[21-14] He could harbor no complaint, however, against the
secretary's special assistant, Yarmolinsky, who carefully guided the
committee's investigation to the explosive subject of off-base
discrimination. Even while expressing the committee's independence,
Gesell recognized Yarmolinsky's influence. "It was perfectly clear,"
Gesell later noted, "that Yarmolinsky was interested in the off-base
housing and discrimination situation, but he had no solution to
suggest. He wanted the committee to come up with one."[21-15]
Yarmolinsky formally spelled out this interest when he devised the
group's presidential directive. The committee, he informed Vice
President Lyndon B. Johnson during March 1962, would devote itself to
those measures that should be taken to improve the effectiveness of
current policies and procedures in the services and to the methods
whereby the Department of Defense could improve equality of
opportunity for members of the armed forces and their dependents in
the civilian community.[21-16]
[Footnote 21-14: Interv, author with Gesell, 3 Nov 74,
CMH files. The Secretary of Defense met with the
committee but once for an informal chat.]
[Footnote 21-15: Interv, author with Gesell, 13 May
72.]
[Footnote 21-16: Memo, Yarmolinsky for Vice President,
13 Mar 62, SD 291.2.]
The citizens chosen for this delicate task, "integrationists
all,"[21-17] were men with backgrounds in the law and the civil rights
movement, their nearest common denominators being Yale University and
acquaintance with Yarmolinsky, a graduate of Yale Law School.[21-18]
Chairman Gesell was a Washington lawyer, educated at Yale, an
acquaintance of Yarmolinsky's with whom he shared a close mutual (p. 537)
friend, Burke Marshall, also from Yale and the head of the Department
of Justice's Civil Rights Division. Gesell always assumed that this
friendship with Marshall explained his selection by the Kennedy
administration for such a sensitive task.[21-19] Black committeemen
were Nathaniel S. Colley, a California lawyer, civil rights advocate
associated with the NAACP, and former law school classmate of
Yarmolinsky's; John H. Sengstacke, publisher of the Chicago _Defender_
and a member of the Fahy Committee; and Whitney M. Young, Jr., of the
National Urban League. The other members were Abe Fortas, a prominent
Washington attorney and former Yale professor; Benjamin Muse, a leader
of the Southern Regional Council and a noted student of the civil
rights movement; and Louis Hector, also a Yale-educated lawyer, who
was called in to replace ailing Dean Joseph O'Meara of the Notre Dame
Law School. Gesell arranged for the appointment of Laurence I. Hewes
III, of Yale College and Law School, as the committee's counsel.
[Footnote 21-17: Memo, ASD (M) for Lee C. White, Asst
Spec Counsel to President, 7 Jun 62, sub:
Establishment of Committee on Equality of
Opportunity in the Armed Forces, ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 21-18: In discussing the Yale connection in
the Gesell Committee, it is interesting to note
that at least three other officials intimately
connected with the question of equal treatment and
opportunity, Alfred B. Fitt, the first Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense (Civil Rights),
Cyrus R. Vance, Secretary of the Army, and Deputy
Secretary of Defense Gilpatric, were Yale men. Of
course, Secretary McNamara was not a Yale graduate;
his undergraduate degree is from the University of
California at Berkeley, his graduate degree from
Harvard.]
[Footnote 21-19: Interv, author with Gesell, 13 May
72.]
Some of the members had definite ideas on how the committee should
operate. Warning of a new mood in the black community where
"impatience and expectations" were far different from what they were
at the time of the Fahy Committee, Whitney Young wanted the committee
to prepare a frank and honest report free of the "taint of whitewash."
To that end he wanted the group's directive interpreted in its
broadest sense as leading to a wide-ranging examination of off-base
housing, recreation, and educational opportunity, among other
subjects. He wanted an investigation at the grass roots level, and he
offered specific suggestions about the size and duties of the staff to
achieve this. Young also recommended commissioning "additional citizen
teams" to assist in some of the numerous and necessary field trips and
wanted the committee to use Congressman Diggs and his files.[21-20]
[Footnote 21-20: Ltr, Young to Gesell, 27 Aug 62,
Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]
Benjamin Muse, on the other hand, considered direct, personal
investigation of specific grievances too time-consuming. He wanted the
group to concentrate instead on the command level, holding formal
conferences with key staff officials. The best way to impress upon the
services that the White House was serious, he told Gesell, was to
learn the opinions of these officials and to elicit, "subject to our
private analysis and discount," a great deal of helpful
information.[21-21]
[Footnote 21-21: Ltr, Muse to Gesell, 26 Jan 63,
Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]
Chairman Gesell compromised. He wanted the group to develop some broad
recommendations on the basis of a limited examination of specific
complaints. President Kennedy agreed. He told Gesell: "don't go
overboard and try to visit every base, but unless you see at least
some bases you will never understand the situation."[21-22] White
House assistant Lee C. White suggested that while the committee had no
deadline it should be advised that a report would be needed in June if
any legislative proposals were to be submitted to Congress. At the (p. 538)
same time he wanted the White House to make clear that the members,
"and particularly the Negro members," would be left free to act as
they chose.[21-23]
[Footnote 21-22: Quoted by Gesell during interview
with author, 13 May 72.]
[Footnote 21-23: Memo, White for Dep Atty Gen, 23 Jan
63, copy in Lee C. White Collection, J. F. Kennedy
Library. (Deputy Attorney General Katzenbach was a
member of the White House's civil rights
subcabinet.) According to Yarmolinsky, the White
suggestion might have originated with Secretary
McNamara.]
In the end the committee's operations owed something to all these
suggestions. The group worked out of a small office near the White
House and pointedly distant from the Pentagon. Its formal meetings
were rare--only seven in all--and were used primarily to hear the
presentations of service officials and consider the committee's
findings. At a meeting in November 1962, for instance, Gesell arranged
for five Air Force base commanders to discuss the application of the
equal opportunity policy in their commands and in neighboring
communities and describe their own duties as they saw them.[21-24]
[Footnote 21-24: Ltr, Gesell to SecAF, 25 Oct 62,
SecAF files.]
The chairman explained that the infrequent meetings were used mostly
for "needling people and asking for statistics." Some black members at
first opposed asking the services for statistical data on the grounds
that such requests would reinforce the tendency to identify servicemen
by race, thus encouraging racial assignments and, ultimately, racial
quotas. The majority, however, was convinced of the need for
statistical material, and in the end the requests for such information
enjoyed the committee's unanimous support.[21-25]
[Footnote 21-25: Interv, author with Gesell, 3 Nov
74.]
Most of the committee's work was done in a "shirt sleeve" atmosphere,
as its chairman described it, with a staff of four people.[21-26]
Members, alone and in groups, studied the mountains of racial
statistics, some prepared by the staff of the Civil Rights Commission,
and the lengthy answers to committee questionnaires prepared by the
services. The services also arranged for on-site inspections by
committee members.[21-27] The field trips proved to be of paramount
importance, not only in ascertaining the conditions of black
servicemen and their dependents but also in fixing the extent of the
local commander's responsibility for race relations. Operating usually
in two-man biracial teams, the committee members would separate to
interview the commander, local businessmen, and the men themselves.
The firsthand information thus gathered had a profound influence on
the committee's thinking, an influence readily discernible in its
recommendations to the President.
[Footnote 21-26: Memo, Gesell for Cmte Members, 20 Nov
64, Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]
[Footnote 21-27: The committee's considerable probings
were reflected in the Defense Department's files.
See for example, Memo, SecDef for Secys of Mil
Depts et al., 28 Sep 62, sub: President's Committee
on Equal Opportunity in the Armed Forces, SD 291.2
(12 Feb 62); Memo, ASD (M) for SA et al., 18 Dec
62, same sub, ASD (M) 291.2; Ltr, SecNav to Gesell,
1 Apr 63; Memo, Under SecNav for SecNav, 9 Apr 63,
sub: Meeting With the President's Cmte on Equal
Opportunity in the Armed Forces; Ltrs, Under SecNav
to Chmn Gesell, 1 Apr and 3 May 63; last four in
SecNav file 5350, GenRecsNav, also Marine Corps
Bulletin 5050, 28 Jan 63, Hist Div. HQMC. See also
Ltrs, Chmn, President's Cmte, to SecAF, 8 Oct 62,
USAF, Report for President's Committee on Equal
Opportunity in the Armed Forces, 4 Dec 62, and
James P. Goode, AF Dep for Manpower, Personnel, &
Organization, to Chmn Gesell, 4 Apr 63, both in
2426-62, SecAF files; "Visit of Mr. Nathaniel
Colley and Mr. John Sengstacke to 3d Marine
Division," copy in CMH. Additionally, see also Ltr,
Berl I. Bernhard, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights,
to Gesell, 29 Jun 62, Gesell Collection, J. F.
Kennedy Library.]
The committee concluded from its investigations that serious
discrimination against black servicemen and their families existed at
home and abroad within the services and in the civilian community, (p. 539)
and that this discrimination affected black morale and military
efficiency. Regarding evidence of discrimination within the services,
the committee isolated a series of problems existing "both
service-wide and at particular bases."[21-28] Specifically, the group
was not convinced by official reasons for the disproportionately small
number of Negroes in some services, especially among the
noncommissioned officers and in the officer corps. Chairman Gesell
called the dearth of black officers a "shocking condition."[21-29] His
group was particularly concerned with the absence of black officers on
promotion boards and the possibility of unfairness in the promotion
process where photos and racial and religious information were
included in the selection files made available to these boards. It
also noted the failure of the services to increase the number of black
ROTC graduates. The committee considered and rejected the idea of
providing preferential treatment for Negroes to achieve better
representation in the services and in the higher grades.[21-30]
[Footnote 21-28: The President's Committee on Equal
Opportunity in the Armed Forces, "Initial Report:
Equality of Treatment and Opportunity for Negro
Military Personnel Stationed Within the United
States, June 13, 1963" (hereafter cited as "Initial
Rpt"), p. 10. The following discussion of the
committee cannot carry the eloquence or force of
the group's report, which was reproduced in the
_Congressional Record_, 88th Cong., 1st sess., vol.
109, pp. 14359-69.]
[Footnote 21-29: Ltr, Gesell to Under SecNav, 6 Feb
63, SecNav file 5420 (1179), GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 21-30: Intervs, author with Gesell, 13 May
72 and 3 Nov 74.]
Overrepresentation of black enlisted men in certain supply and food
services was obvious.[21-31] Here the committee was particularly
critical of the Navy and the Marine Corps. On another score, the Chief
of Naval Personnel noted that the committee "considers the Navy and
Marines far behind the Army and Air Force, particularly in the area of
community relations," a criticism, he admitted, "to some extent"
justified.[21-32] So apparent was the justification that, at the
suggestion of the Secretary of the Navy, Gesell discussed with Under
Secretary Paul B. Fay, Jr., ways to better the Navy's record in its
"areas of least progress."[21-33] Gesell later concluded that the
close social contact necessary aboard ship had been a factor in the
Navy's slower progress.[21-34] Whatever the reason, the Navy and
Marine Corps fell statistically short of the other services in every
category measured by the Gesell group.
[Footnote 21-31: Memo, Dep for Manpower, Personnel, &
Organization, USAF, for SecAF, 25 Jan 63, sub:
Meeting With President's Committee on Equal
Opportunity in the Armed Forces, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 21-32: Ltr, Chief of NavPers to CONUS
District Cmdrs et al., 22 Apr 63, attached to Memo,
Chief of NavPers for Distribution List, 24 Apr 63,
sub: President's Committee on Equal Opportunity in
the Armed Forces, GenRecsNav 5420.]
[Footnote 21-33: Ltr, Under SecNav to Gesell, 8 Feb
63, SecNav file 5420 (1179), GenRecsNav. For
examples of this exchange between the committee and
the Navy, see Ltrs, Gesell to Fay, 6 Feb 63, and
Fay to Gesell, 3 May and 5 Jun 63, all in SecNav
file 5350, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 21-34: Interv, author with Gesell, 3 Nov
74.]
The "sex thing," as Gesell referred to the interracial problems
arising from off-duty social activities, also proved to be important,
especially for noncommissioned officer and service clubs and
base-sponsored activities in the community. The committee itself had
persuaded the National United Services Organization to integrate its
facilities, and it wanted local commanders to follow up by inviting black
civilians to participate in USO dances and entertainments.[21-35] (p. 540)
The committee also discussed discrimination in military police
assignments, segregation in local transport and on school buses, and
the commander's attitude toward interracial associations both on and
off the military reservation.
[Footnote 21-35: For an example of how an individual
service was handling the USO and other on-base
social problems, see Memo, Maj Gen John K. Hester,
Asst VCofS, USAF, for SecAF, 26 Feb 63, sub:
Antidiscrimination Policies, SecAF files. See also
"Initial Rpt," pp. 73-74.]
Despite its criticism of the imperfect application of service race
policies--some service-wide, others confined to certain bases--the
committee reported to the President that the services had made "an
intelligent and far-reaching advance toward complete integration, and,
with some variations from service to service, substantial progress
toward equality of treatment and opportunity."[21-36] Gesell called
the services the nation's "pace setter," and he was convinced that
they had not received sufficient credit for their racial achievements,
which were "way ahead of General Motors and the other great
corporations."[21-37] That the services were more advanced than other
segments of American society in terms of equal treatment and
opportunity was beyond dispute; nevertheless, serious problems
connected with racial prejudice and the armed forces' failure to
understand the fundamental needs of black servicemen remained. The
committee's investigation, with its emphasis on off-base realities and
its dependence on statistics and other empirical data, did not lend
itself to more than a superficial treatment of these subtle and
stubborn, if unmeasurable, on-base problems.
[Footnote 21-36: "Initial Rpt," p. 10.]
[Footnote 21-37: Interv, author with Gesell, 3 Nov
74.]
The committee believed that some of what appeared discriminatory was
in reality the working of such factors as the black serviceman's lack
of seniority, deficiencies in education, and lack of interest in
specific fields and assignments. Looking beyond these, the fruits of
institutional racism, the committee concluded that much of the
substantiated discrimination disclosed in its investigations had
proved to be limited in scope. But whether limited or widespread,
discrimination had to be eliminated. Prompt attention to even minor
incidents of discrimination would contribute substantially to morale
and serve to keep before all servicemen the standard of conduct
decreed by executive policy.[21-38]
[Footnote 21-38: "Initial Rpt," pp. 10-11, 30, 51.]
The committee was considerably less sanguine over conditions
encountered by black servicemen off military bases. In eloquent
paragraphs it outlined for the President the injustices suffered by
these men and their families in some American communities, the effect
of these practices on morale, and the consequent danger to the mission
of the armed forces. It reviewed the services' efforts to eliminate
segregated housing, schooling, and public accommodations around the
military reservations and found them wanting. Local commanders, the
committee charged, were often naive about the existence of social
problems and generally did not keep abreast of departmental policy
specifying their obligations; they were especially ill-informed on the
McNamara-Gilpatric directives and memorandums on equal treatment.
Often quizzed on the subject, the commanders told the committee that
they enjoyed very fine community relationships. To this Whitney (p. 541)
Young would answer that fine community relationships and racial
injustice were not necessarily exclusive.[21-39]
[Footnote 21-39: Memo for Rcd, USAF Dep for Manpower,
Personnel, & Organization, 14 Nov 62, sub: Meeting
of the President's Committee on Equal Opportunity
in the Armed Forces, SecAF file 2426-62.]
[Illustration: THE GESELL COMMITTEE MEETS WITH THE PRESIDENT. _Left to
right_: _Laurence I. Hewes III_, _Executive Secretary_; _Nathaniel S.
Colley_; _Benjamin Muse_; _Gerhard A. Gesell_; _President Kennedy_;
_Whitney M. Young, Jr._; _John H. Sengstacke_; and _Abe Fortas_.]
This community-based discrimination, the committee found, had become a
greater trial for black servicemen and their families because of its
often startling contrast to their life in the services. There was even
evidence that some of the off-base segregation, especially overseas,
had been introduced through the efforts of white servicemen.
Particularly irritating to the committee were restrictions placed on
black participation in civil rights demonstrations protesting such
off-base conditions. The committee wanted the restrictions
removed.[21-40]
[Footnote 21-40: Memo, Dep for Manpower, Personnel, &
Organization, USAF, for SecAF, 25 Jan 63, sub:
Meeting With President's Committee on Equal
Opportunity in the Armed Forces, SecAF files. See
also Memo for Rcd, Marine Corps Aide to SecNav, 30
Jan 63, sub: Meeting With Navy-Marine Corps
Representatives on Equal Opportunity, SecNav file
5420 (1179), GenRecsNav.]
In the end the committee's reputation would rest not so much on its
carefully developed catalog of racial discrimination. After all,
others, most notably the Civil Rights Commission, had recently
documented the problems encountered by black servicemen, although not
in the detail offered by the Gesell group, and had convincingly tied
this discrimination to black morale and military efficiency. The (p. 542)
committee's major contribution lay rather in its establishment of
a new concept in command responsibility that directly attacked the
traditional parochialism of the services' social concerns:
It should be the policy of the Department of Defense and part of
the mission of the chain of command from the Secretaries of the
Services to the local base commander not only to remove
discrimination within the Armed Forces, but also to make every
effort to eliminate discriminatory practices as they affect
members of the Armed Forces and their dependents within the
neighboring civilian communities.[21-41]
[Footnote 21-41: "Initial Rpt," p. 61.]
In effect the committee proposed a new racial policy for the
Department of Defense, one that would translate the services' promise
of equality of treatment and opportunity into a declaration of civil
liberties. To that end it recommended the adoption of a set of
techniques radically new to the thinking of the military commanders,
one that grew out of the committee's own experiences in the field.
Chairman Gesell later recollected how this recommendation developed:
I remember in particular our experiences at the bases at Augusta
and Pensacola. This made a strong impression on me. I saw
discrimination on bases right under the noses of the commanders
who were often not even aware of it. And I saw much
discrimination in communities around the bases. Sometimes
unbelievable. At Pensacola, for example, I found that the Station
had never used Negroes for guard duty at the main gate where they
would be seen by the public, black and white. We told this to the
commander and reminded him of the effect that it had on black
morale. He changed it immediately. On base the housing for blacks
was segregated off to one side in poor run-down shacks below the
railroad tracks. We told the commander who admitted that he had
some substandard housing units but was unaware of any segregation
in housing. The commander promised to report to us about this in
two weeks. He did later report: "the whole housing area has been
bulldozed and all housing on base integrated." It was examples
like this that convinced me that there was much the commanders
could do.[21-42]
[Footnote 21-42: Interv, author with Gesell, 13 May
72.]
This sense of racial progress made a vivid impression on committee
member Muse who later recalled that "it was amazing how much activity
our presence stirred up. It showed that a lot could be done by
commanders."[21-43] Gesell and Muse were particularly impressed by how
local commanders, acting firmly but informally, could achieve swift
breakthroughs. But actually, as the Gesell-Young trip to Pensacola
demonstrated, often more than the base commander was involved in these
dramatic reforms. A week after their trip to Florida, Gesell and Young
had a casual chat with Under Secretary Fay about conditions at
Pensacola, particularly housing conditions, that, they claimed, had
contributed to a "literally disgraceful" state of black morale,
leading black sailors "almost to the point of rebellion." Although the
base commander seemed concerned, he had deferred to his military
superior who lacked the "philosophical outlook oriented toward the
successful implementation of equal opportunity policies." Fay was
quick to see the point. He pledged the Navy to a "constructive effort"
to eliminate the problem at Pensacola "prior to the Committee's
reporting date [to the President] of 1 June."[21-44] In a matter (p. 543)
of hours Fay was arranging to send the Inspector General to Pensacola,
but the matter did not end there. In late May committee counsel Hewes
asked the Assistant Secretary of Defense concerned with military
installations about housing at Pensacola, thus setting off yet another
investigation of the base.[21-45]
[Footnote 21-43: Idem with Benjamin Muse, 2 Mar 73,
CMH files.]
[Footnote 21-44: Memo, Under SecNav for SecNav, 9 Apr
63, sub: Meeting With the President's Cmte on Equal
Opportunity in the Armed Forces, SecNav file 5420,
GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 21-45: Ltr, DASD (Family Housing) to Chmn
Gesell, 4 Jun 63, Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy
Library.]
Gesell saw the reforms at Pensacola as a direct result of his own
suggestion to a commander. He seemed unaware that his remarks to Fay
had set in motion a chain of action behind the scenes. In the weeks
following, black servicemen were moved from the substandard segregated
housing to integrated Navy-controlled housing both on and off base.
The local commander also arranged for the desegregation of some
off-base social facilities in a effort to improve black morale.[21-46]
If the changes at Pensacola appear more closely related to the
committee's political clout in Washington than to the commander's
interest in reform, they also demonstrate the power for reform that
the commander could exercise. This was the committee's main point,
that equal opportunity was a command responsibility.[21-47] But it
would be hard to sell in the Department of Defense where, as Gesell
himself later admitted, resistance to what was perceived as a
political matter was common to most American military officers.[21-48]
[Footnote 21-46: Ltr, Under SecNav to Chmn Gesell, 5
Jun 63, copy in Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy
Library; see also Memo, Under SecNav for SecNav, 13
Sep 63, sub: NAS Pensacola, SecNav file 5420
(1179), GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 21-47: "Initial Rpt," p. 52.]
[Footnote 21-48: Interv, author with Gesell, 3 Nov
74.]
The most controversial recommendation, however, was that the armed
forces should, when necessary, exercise economic sanctions against
recalcitrant businesses. In the name of troop morale and military
efficiency, the committee wanted commanders to put public
accommodations off limits for all servicemen, and it wanted the
Secretary of Defense, as a last resort, to close the military
installations in communities that persisted in denying black
servicemen their civil rights.[21-49] Again, Gesell elaborated on the
power of base commanders and recommended tactics.
There was also much that they could do in the community to
improve the lot of their blacks. If only they were sensitive to
the situation.... For example, we visited the local community
leaders. I would put it to the local banker who held the mortgage
on the local bowling alley: "what would you do if you were a
commander and some of your men were barred from the local bowling
alley?" He got the point and the alley outside the base was
desegregated overnight. To another I said, "you know, I'm just a
lawyer down here on a temporary job, and I can only talk with you
about these things. But you can't tell about those guys in
Washington. They will have to be closing some bases soon. Now put
yourself in their shoes. Which would you shut, those bases that
don't have race problems or those that do?" Again, they got the
point. In other words, an implied economic threat by the
commander would work well. Hell, the commanders were always
getting good citizenship awards and ignoring the major
citizenship problem of the era. Commanders were local heroes, and
they had plenty of influence. They use it. The trouble was most
commanders were ignorant of the ferment among their own men on
this subject. In all my trips I hinted at sanctions and base (p. 544)
closings. The dutch uncle approach. I wanted the commanders
to do the same. I talked economics to the community leaders. It
opened their eyes. The commanders could do the same.[21-50]
[Footnote 21-49: "Initial Rpt," pp. 68-71.]
[Footnote 21-50: Interv, author with Gesell, 13 May
72.]
The committee further refined its concepts of economic sanctions
during the course of its hearings. Commanders were frequently quizzed
on the probable effects of the imposition of off-limits sanctions or
base closings.[21-51] Despite the reluctance of most commanders to
invoke sanctions, committee members, assuming that no community would
long persist in a social order detrimental to its economic welfare,
came to the belief that ultimately only a firm and uncompromising
policy of economic sanctions would eliminate off-base discrimination.
The committee was obviously aware of the controversial aspects of its
recommendation, and it stressed that the department's objective should
always be "the preservation of morale, not the punishment of local
communities which have a tradition of segregation."[21-52]
[Footnote 21-51: Memo for Rcd, Dep for Manpower,
Personnel, & Organization, USAF, 14 Nov 62, sub:
Meeting of President's Committee on Equal
Opportunity in the Armed Forces, SecAF files.
Deputy Goode's assumptions about the committee's
thinking were later confirmed in its "Initial Rpt,"
pages 68-71, and in author's interview with Gesell
on 13 May 1972.]
[Footnote 21-52: "Initial Rpt," p. 70.]
Mindful of the wish expressed by the White House staff that a report
be submitted by mid-1963, the committee, acting unanimously, completed
on 13 June 1963 an initial report on discrimination in the services
and the local community, postponing the results of its time-consuming
and less-pressing investigation of the National Guard and overseas
posts until a later date.[21-53] Complete accord among the members had
not been automatic. The chairman later recalled that the group's black
members had remained somewhat aloof during the months of
investigation, perhaps because at first they felt the report might be
a whitewash of executive policy, but that they became "enthusiastic"
when they read his draft and quickly joined in the preparation of the
final version.[21-54]
[Footnote 21-53: Ltr, Gesell to President Kennedy, 13
Jun 63, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 21-54: Interv, author with Gesell, 13 May
72.]
The reason for this enthusiasm was a report that faithfully reflected
the realities of discrimination suffered by black servicemen and
proposed solutions based on conclusions drawn by the members from
their months of discussion and investigation. The committee's
conclusions and recommendations were the natural reaction of a group
of humane and sensible men to the overwhelming evidence of continued
discrimination against black servicemen. National policy, the
committee told the President, required that this discrimination be
eliminated, for
equal opportunity for the Negro will exist only when it is
possible for him to enter upon a career of military service with
assurance that his acceptance and his progress will be in no way
impeded by reason of his color. Clearly, distinctions based on
race prevent full utilization of Negro military personnel and are
inconsistent with the objectives of our democratic
society.[21-55]
[Footnote 21-55: "Initial Rpt," p. 11.]
The committee wanted responsibility for eliminating these color (p. 545)
distinctions in the services shifted to the local commander.
Commanders, it believed, needed to improve their communication with
black servicemen and should be "held accountable to discover and
remedy discrimination" in their commands. The committee, in short,
wanted racial sensitivity made a function of command.
Command responsibility for equal opportunity, the committee
emphasized, was particularly important "in the area of most pressing
concern, off-base discrimination." It wanted local commanders to
attack discrimination in the community by seeking the voluntary
compliance of local businessmen and by establishing biracial community
committees. The committee asserted that despite the services' claims
to the contrary the Department of Defense had made no serious effort
to achieve off-base compliance with its anti-discrimination measures
through voluntary action. Commanders had been given little guidance
thus far, and a carefully planned program of voluntary action should
be given a chance. If it failed, commanders should be able to employ
sanctions against the offending businesses; if sanctions failed, the
services should consider closing installations in offending areas. The
committee again stressed the need to fix responsibility for the
program on local commanders. A commander's performance should be
monitored and rated, and offices should be established in the
Department of Defense and in the individual services to devise
programs, monitor their progress, and bring base commanders into close
working relationship with other interested and responsible federal
agencies.
Although their recommendations were later excoriated by critics as a
radical usurpation of state sovereignty and a threat to civil
liberties, the committee had meant only to provide a graduated
solution to a national defense problem. Let reform begin with the
local commander's improving conditions on his base and pressing for
voluntary changes in the local community. Only when this tactic
failed--and the committee predicted that failure would be a rare
occurrence--should the services employ economic sanctions.
A firm philosophical assumption underlay all these recommendations.
The committee believed that the armed forces, a worldwide symbol of
American society, had to be the leader in the quest for racial
justice. Social reform, therefore, both within the services and where
it affected servicemen in the community beyond, was a legitimate
military function. To the extent that these reforms were successful,
the armed forces would not only be protecting the civil rights of
black servicemen but also providing a standard against which civilian
society could measure its conduct and other nations could judge the
country's adherence to its basic principles.[21-56]
[Footnote 21-56: Ibid., pp. 92-93.]
_Reaction to a New Commitment_
The Gesell Committee's conclusion that discrimination in the community
was tied to military efficiency meshed well with the civil rights
philosophy of the New Frontier. Responding to the committee's (p. 546)
report, President Kennedy cited "the interests of national defense,
national policy and basic considerations of human decency" to justify
his administration's interest in opening public accommodations and
housing to black servicemen. He considered it proper to ask the
"military community to take a leadership role" in the matter and asked
Secretary McNamara to review the committee's recommendations.[21-57]
The secretary, in turn, personally asked the service secretaries to
comment on the recommendations and assigned the Deputy Under Secretary
of the Army (Manpower), Alfred B. Fitt, to act as coordinator and draw
up the Defense Department's reply.[21-58]
The comments thus solicited revealed that some of McNamara's
senior subordinates had not been won over by the committee's
arguments that the services should take an active role in
community race relations.[21-59] The sticking point at all levels
involved two important recommendations: the rating of commanders
on their handling of racial matters and the use of economic
sanctions. In regard to the proposal to close bases in
communities that persisted in racial discrimination, the
Secretary of the Navy said bluntly: "Do not concur. Base siting
is based upon military requirements."[21-60] These officials
promised that commanders would press for voluntary compliance,
but for more aggressive measures they preferred to wait for the
passage of federal legislation--they had in mind the
administration's civil rights bill then being considered by
Congress--which would place the primary responsibility for the
protection of a serviceman's civil rights in another federal
department. The Secretary of the Air Force suggested that the
services continue to plan, but defer action on the committee's
recommendations until Congress acted on the civil rights
bill.[21-61]
[Footnote 21-57: Ltr, President to SecDef, 21 Jun 63,
copy in CMH. The President also sent the
committee's report to the Vice President for
comment. Indicative of the Pentagon's continuing
influence in the committee's work, the Kennedy
letter had been drafted by Gesell and Yarmolinsky;
see Memo, Yarmolinsky for White, 8 Jun 63, White
Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]
[Footnote 21-58: Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 27 Jun
63, sub: Report of the President's Committee on
Equal Opportunity in the Armed Forces; see also
Memo, ASD (M) for SecDef, 27 Jun 63; both in ASD
(M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 21-59: Memo, Dep Under SA (M) for SecDef
(ca. 10 Jul 63), with service comments attached,
copy in ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 21-60: Memo, SecNav for ASD (M), 10 Jul 63,
sub; Report of the President's Committee on Equal
Opportunity in the Armed Forces, SecNav file 5410,
GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 21-61: Memo, SecAF for ASD (M), 10 Jul 63,
sub: Air Force Response to the Gesell Committee
Report, SecAF files.]
Despite the opposition to these recommendations, Fitt saw room for
compromise between the committee and the services. Noting, for
example, that the services wanted to do their own monitoring of their
commander's performance, Fitt agreed this would be acceptable so long
as the Secretary of Defense could monitor the monitors. Adding that
officers, like other human beings, tended to concentrate on the tasks
that would be reviewed by superiors, he wanted to see a judgment of a
commander's ability to handle discrimination matters included in (p. 547)
the narrative portion of his efficiency report. On the question of
sanctions, Fitt pointed out to McNamara that the services now
understood that their equal opportunity responsibilities extended
beyond the limits of the military reservation but that several of
their objections to the use of sanctions were sound. He suggested the
secretary approve the use of sanctions in discrimination cases but
place severe restraints on their imposition, restricting the decision
to the secretary's office.
[Illustration: ALFRED FITT.]
This suggestion no doubt pleased McNamara. Although the committee's
recommendations might be the logical outcome of its investigations, in
the absence of a strong federal civil rights law even a sympathetic
secretary of defense could not accept such radical changes in the
services' community relations programs without reservations. Nor, as
Gesell later admitted, could a secretary of defense chance the serious
compromise to the administration's effort to win passage of such a law
that could be caused by some "too gung-ho" commander left to impose
sanctions on his own.[21-62] The secretary agreed with the committee
that much could be done by individual commanders in a voluntary way to
change the customs of the local community, and he wanted the emphasis
to be kept there.
[Footnote 21-62: Interv, author with Gesell, 13 May
72.]
Unlike Gesell, who doubted the effectiveness of directives and
executive edicts ("trouble-making" he called them), McNamara
considered equal opportunity matters "an executive job that should be
handled by the Departments, using directives."[21-63] Armed with the
committee's call for action and the services' agreement in principle,
McNamara turned to the preparation of a directive, the main outline of
which he transmitted to the President on 24 July after review by Burke
Marshall in the Department of Justice. As McNamara explained to
Marshall, "I would like to be able to tell him [the President] that
you have read same and offer no objection."[21-64]
[Footnote 21-63: Ibid., and with McNamara, 11 May 72.]
[Footnote 21-64: Memo, McNamara for Burke Marshall
(ca. 20 Jul 63), Marshall Papers, J. F. Kennedy
Library.]
The Secretary of Defense promised the President to "eliminate the
exceptions and guard the continuing reality" of racial equality in the
services. In the light of the committee's conclusion that off-base
discrimination reduced military effectiveness, he pledged that "the
military departments will take a leadership role in combating
discrimination wherever it affects the military effectiveness" of
servicemen. McNamara admitted having reservations about some of (p. 548)
the committee's recommendations, especially the closing of bases
near communities that constantly practiced discrimination; such
closings, he declared, were not feasible "at this time." Nevertheless
he agreed with the committee that off-limits sanctions should be
available to the services, for "certainly the damage to military
effectiveness from off-base discrimination is not less than that
caused by off-base vice, as to which the off-limits sanction is quite
customary."[21-65] He failed to add that even though sanctions against
vice were regularly applied by the local commander, sanctions against
discrimination would be reserved to higher authority.
[Footnote 21-65: Idem for President, 24 Jul 63, copy
in CMH.]
The directive, in reality an outline of the Department of Defense's
civil rights responsibilities and the prototype of subsequent
secretarial orders dealing with race, was published on 26 July 1963,
the fifteenth anniversary of Harry Truman's executive order. It read
in part:
_II. Responsibilities._
A. Office of the Secretary of Defense:
1. Pursuant to the authority vested in the Secretary of Defense
and the provisions of the National Security Act of 1947, as
amended, the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower) is hereby
assigned responsibility and authority for promoting equal
opportunity for members of the Armed Forces.
In the performance of this function he shall (a) be the
representative of the Secretary of Defense in civil rights
matters, (b) give direction to programs that promote equal
opportunity for military personnel, (c) provide policy guidance
and review policies, regulations and manuals of the military
departments, and (d) monitor their performance through periodic
reports and visits to field installations.
2. In carrying out the functions enumerated above, the Assistant
Secretary of Defense (Manpower) is authorized to establish the
Office of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Civil Rights).
B. The Military Departments:
1. The military departments shall, with the approval of the
Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower), issue appropriate
instructions, manuals and regulations in connection with the
leadership responsibility for equal opportunity, on and off base,
and containing guidance for its discharge.
2. The military departments shall institute in each service a
system for regularly reporting, monitoring and measuring progress
in achieving equal opportunity on and off base.
C. Military Commanders:
Every military commander has the responsibility to oppose
discriminatory practices affecting his men and their dependents
and to foster equal opportunity for them, not only in areas under
his immediate control, but also in nearby communities where they
may live or gather in off-duty hours. In discharging that
responsibility a commander shall not, except with the prior
approval of the Secretary of his military department, use the
off-limits sanction in discrimination cases arising within the
United States.[21-66]
[Footnote 21-66: DOD Dir 5120.36, 26 Jul 63.]
After some thirty months in office, Robert McNamara had made a (p. 549)
most decisive move in race relations. In the name of fulfilling
Harry Truman's pledge of equal treatment and opportunity he announced
an aggressive new policy. Not only would the department work to
eliminate discrimination in the armed forces, but when servicemen were
affected it would work in the community as well. Even more ominous to
the secretary's critics was the fact that the new policy revealed
McNamara's willingness, under certain circumstances, to use the
department's economic powers to force these changes. This directive
marked the beginning of McNamara's most active period of participation
in the civil rights revolution of the 1960's.
But the secretary's move did not escape strong criticism. The
directive was denounced as infamous and shocking, as biased,
impractical, undemocratic, brutally authoritarian, and un-American. If
followed, critics warned, it would set the military establishment at
war with society, inject the military into civilian political
controversies in defiance of all traditions to the contrary, and
burden military commanders with sociological tasks beyond their powers
and to the detriment of their military mission.[21-67]
[Footnote 21-67: Alfred B. Fitt thus characterized the
opposition in his Remarks Before Civilian Aides
Conference of the Secretary of Army, 6 Mar 64, DASD
(CR) files.]
"It is hard to realize that your office would become so rotten and
degraded," one critic wrote McNamara. "In my opinion you are using the
tactics of a dictator.... It is a tragic event when the Federal
Government is again trying to bring Reconstruction Days into the
South. Again the military is being used to bring this about." Did
businesses not have the right to choose their customers? Did local
authorities not have the right to enforce the law in their
communities? And surely the white soldier deserved the freedom to
choose his associates.[21-68] Another correspondent reproached
McNamara: "you have, without conscience and with total disregard for
the honorable history of the Military of our Great Nation, signed our
freedom away." And still another saw her white supremacy menaced: "We
have a bunch of mad dogs in Washington and if you and others like you
are not stopped, our children will curse us. We don't want black
grandchildren and we won't have them. If you want to dance with
them--you have two legs, start dancing."
[Footnote 21-68: Ltr to SecDef, 29 Jul 63. This letter
and the two following are typical of hundreds
received by the secretary and filed in the records
of ASD (M).]
Not all the correspondents were racist or hysterical. Some thoughtful
citizens were concerned with what they considered extramilitary and
illegal activities on the part of the services and took little comfort
from the often repeated official statement that the Secretary of
Defense had no present plans for the use of sanctions and hoped that
they would never have to be used.[21-69]
[Footnote 21-69: Ltr, DASD (CR) to James Wilson,
Director, National Security Commission, American
Legion, 24 Sep 63, written when the legion had the
adoption of a resolution against the directive
under consideration. See also Ltrs, DASD (CR) to
Sen. Frank Moss, 16 Aug 63, and ASD (M) to
Congressman George Huddleston, 13 Aug 63; ASD (M),
"Straightening Out the Record," 19 Aug 63; Memo,
DASD (CR) for General Counsel, 4 Sep 63, sub: Use
of the Off-Limits Power. All in DASD (CR) files.]
Some defenders of the directive saw the whole controversy over (p. 550)
sanctions as a red herring dragged across the path of a genuine
equal treatment and opportunity program.[21-70] During congressional
debate on the directive, the use of off-limits sanctions quickly
became the respectable issue behind which those opposed to any reform
could rally. The Senate debated the subject on 31 July; the House on 7
August. During lengthy sessions on those days, opponents cast the
controversy in the familiar context of states' rights, arguing that
constitutional and legal points were involved. As Congressman Durward
G. Hall of Missouri put it: "The recommendations made in the report
and in the directive indicate a narrowness of vision which, in seeing
only the civil rights issue, has blinded itself to the question of
whether it is proper to use the Armed Forces to enforce a moral or
social, rather than a legal, issue in the civilian sector."[21-71]
[Footnote 21-70: Ltr, Fitt to author, 22 May 72.]
[Footnote 21-71: _Congressional Record_, 88th Cong.,
1st sess., vol. 109, p. 14350.]
Opponents argued generally that the directive represented government
by fiat, an unprecedented extension of executive power that imposed
the armed forces on civilian society in a new and illegal way. If the
administration was already empowered to protect the civil rights of
some citizens, why, they asked, was it pushing so hard for a civil
rights bill? The fact was, several legislators argued, the Department
of Defense was interfering with the civil rights of businessmen and
practicing a crude form of economic blackmail.[21-72]
[Footnote 21-72: Ibid., pp. 13778-87, 14349-56.]
Critics also discussed the directive in terms of military efficiency.
The secretary had given the commanders a new mission, Senator John
Stennis of Mississippi noted, that "can only be detrimental to
military tradition, discipline, and morale." Elaborating on this idea,
Congressman L. Mendel Rivers of South Carolina predicted that the new
policy would destroy the merit promotion system. Henceforth, Rivers
forecast, advancement would depend on acceptance of integration;
henceforth, racial quotas would "take the place of competence for
purposes of promotion." Others were alarmed at the prospect of civil
rights advisers on duty at each base and outside the regular chain of
command. This outrage, Congressman H. R. Gross of Iowa charged, "would
create the biggest army of snoopers and informers that the military
has ever heard of."
Some legislators saw sinister things afoot in the Pentagon. Senator
Herman E. Talmadge of Georgia thought he recognized a return to the
military districting of Reconstruction days, and Congressman F. Edward
Hebert of Louisiana warned that "everybody should be prepared for the
midnight knock on the door." Congressman Otto E. Passman of Louisiana
thought it most likely that Attorney General Kennedy was behind the
whole thing; "a tragic state of affairs," he said, if the Justice
Department was directing "the missions of the Military Establishment."
Congressman Hebert found yet another villain in the piece. Adam
Yarmolinsky, whom he incorrectly identified as the author of the
McNamara directive, had, Hebert accused, "one objective in mind--with
an almost sataniclike zeal--the forced integration of every facet of
the American way of life, using the full power of the Department of
Defense to bring about this change."[21-73] In line with these (p. 551)
suspicions, some legislators reported that the secretary's new civil
rights deputy, Alfred B. Fitt, was circulating among southern
segregationist businessmen with, in Senator Barry M. Goldwater's
words, "a dossier gleaned from Internal Revenue reports." Senator
Stennis suspected that the Secretary of Defense had come under the
influence of "obscure men," and he warned against their revolutionary
strategy: "It had been apparent for some time that the more extreme
exponents of revolutionary civil rights action have wanted to use the
military in a posture of leadership to bring about desegregation
outside the boundaries of military bases."[21-74]
[Footnote 21-73: Quotes are from ibid., pp. 13778,
13780, 14345-46, 14349, 14351, 14352.]
[Footnote 21-74: Ibid., Senate, 31 Jul 63, pp. 13779,
13783.]
The congressional critics had a strategy of their own. They would try
to persuade McNamara to rescind or modify his directive, and, failing
that, they would try to change the new defense policy by law. Senators
Goldwater, J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, and Robert C. Byrd of
West Virginia, along with some of their constituents, debated with
McNamara while no less than the chairman of the House Armed Services
Committee, Carl Vinson of Georgia, introduced a bill aimed at
outlawing all integration activity by military officers.[21-75] Their
campaign came to naught because the new policy had its own supporters
in Congress,[21-76] and the great public outcry against the directive,
so ardently courted by its congressional opponents, failed to
materialize. Judging by the press, the public showed little interest
in the Gesell Committee's report and comment on the secretary's
directive was regional, with much of it coming from the southern
press. Certainly the effect of the directive could not compare with
the furor set off by the Truman order in 1948.
[Footnote 21-75: Congressional letters critical of the
directive can be found in DASD (CR) and SD files,
1963. See, for example, Ltrs, Fulbright to SecDef,
22 Aug 63, R. C. Byrd to SecDef, 13 Aug 63,
Goldwater to SecNav, 17 Jul 63, Rivers to ASD (M),
3 Oct 63, Gillis Long to SecDef, 8 Aug 63, Bob
Sikes to SecDef, 15 Jul 63. Intense discussion of
the constitutionality of the directive and of
Vinson's bill took place among department officials
during September and October 1963. See the
following Memos: DASD (CR) for ASD (M), 25 Oct 63,
sub: Vinson Bill Comment With Inclosures; ASD (M)
for Under SA et al., 24 Sep 63, sub: H.R. 8460;
Asst Gen Counsel (Manpower) for ASD (M), 4 Sep 63.
All in ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 21-76: Letters in support of the DOD
Directive can be found in ASD (CR) (68A1006) files,
1963.]
The attitude of the press merely underscored a fact already obvious to
many politicians on Capitol Hill in 1963--equal opportunity in the
armed forces had dwindled to the status of a minor issue in the
greater civil rights struggle engulfing the nation. The media reaction
also suggested that prolonged attacks against the committee and the
directive were for hometown consumption and not a serious effort to
reverse policy. In effect a last hurrah for the congressional
opponents of integration in the armed forces, the attacks failed to
budge the Secretary of Defense and marked the end of serious
congressional attempts to influence armed forces racial policy.[21-77]
The threat of congressional opposition, at times real and sometimes
imagined, had discouraged progressive racial policies in the
Department of Defense for over a quarter of a century. Its abrupt and
public demise robbed the traditionalists in the Department of (p. 552)
Defense of a cherished excuse for inaction.
[Footnote 21-77: A late victim of the anticivil rights
forces in Congress was Adam Yarmolinsky. His
appointment as deputy director of the Office of
Economic Opportunity was withdrawn as a result of
criticism in the House. One cause of this criticism
was his connection with the Gesell Committee. See
Mary McGrory, "A Southern Hatchet Fell," Washington
_Star_, August 10, 1964.]
_The Gesell Committee: Final Report_
While the argument over the McNamara directive raged, the Gesell
Committee worked quietly if intermittently on the final segment of its
investigation, the status of blacks stationed overseas and in the
National Guard. President Kennedy's death in November 1963 introduced
an element of uncertainty in a group serving at the pleasure of the
Chief Executive. Special Presidential Counsel Lee C. White arranged
for Gesell to meet with President Lyndon B. Johnson, and Gesell
offered to disband the committee if Johnson wished. The President left
it in being. As Gesell later observed: "The committee felt that
Johnson understood us and our work in a way better than Kennedy who
had no clear idea on how to go with the race issue. We had no trouble
with Johnson who could have stopped us if he wanted."[21-78]
[Footnote 21-78: The quote is from author's interview
with Gesell on 13 May 1972. See also Ltr, White to
Gesell, 8 Jan 64, and Memo, Gesell for Members of
the Committee, 26 Feb 64, both in Gesell
Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]
The committee's operations became even more informal in this final
stage. Its investigations completed, its staff dissolved, and its
members (now one man short with the resignation of Nathaniel Colley)
scattered, the committee operated out of Gesell's law office. He was
almost exclusively responsible for its final report.[21-79] This
informality masked the protracted negotiations that the committee
conducted with the National Guard Bureau over the persistent exclusion
of Negroes. It also masked the solid investigation by individual
committee members and the voluminous evidence gathered by the staff in
support of the group's final report.
[Footnote 21-79: Memo, Gesell for Members of the
Committee, 26 Feb 64.]
These investigations and the documentary evidence again confirmed the
findings of the Civil Rights Commission, although the Gesell
Committee's emphasis was different. It dismissed the problem of
assignment of Negroes to overseas stations. The percentage of Negroes,
both officers and men, sent overseas approximated their percentage in
the continental United States, and with rare and "understandable"
exceptions--it cited South Africa--overseas assignments in the armed
forces were made routinely without regard for race.[21-80] The
committee also quickly dismissed the problem of discrimination on
overseas bases, which it considered "minimal," and as in the United
States chiefly the result of poor communication between commanders and
men. The group concentrated instead on discrimination off base,
especially in Germany. Back from a firsthand look in April 1964,
Benjamin Muse reported that local American commanders seemed unwilling
to take the matter seriously, but he considered it delicate and
complex, principally because prejudice had been most often introduced
by American servicemen. He suggested that off-limits sanctions should
also be imposed in Germany but "only after consultation and on a (p. 553)
basis of mutual understanding with German municipal authorities."[21-81]
[Footnote 21-80: The President's Committee on Equal
Opportunity in the Armed Forces, "Final Report:
Military Personnel Stationed Overseas and
Membership and Participation in the National Guard,
November 1964" (hereafter cited as "Final Report"),
copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 21-81: Ltr, Muse to Gesell, 23 Apr 64,
Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]
The committee wanted the recommendations on off-base discrimination
contained in its initial report also applied overseas. Ignoring the
oft made distinction about the guest status of overseas service, it
wanted the Department of State enlisted in a campaign against
discrimination in public accommodations, including the use of
off-limits sanctions when necessary. The committee also called for a
continuing review to insure equal opportunity in assignments to
attache and mission positions.
The committee devoted the largest portion of its final report to the
National Guard, "the only branch of the Armed Forces," it told
President Johnson, "which has not been fully integrated."[21-82]
Chairman Gesell later reported that when the segregated state guards
were pressured they "resisted like hell."[21-83] This resistance had a
political dimension, but when Attorney General Kennedy chided that
"you are killing us with the Guard," Gesell replied that the committee
took orders from the President and would ignore the political problems
involved. Nevertheless, before the committee issued its report Gesell
sent the portions on the National Guard to the Justice Department for
comment, as one justice official noted, "apparently ... in the hope
that its recommendation will not prove embarrassing to the
administration."[21-84]
[Footnote 21-82: "Final Report," p. 12.]
[Footnote 21-83: Interv, author with Gesell, 3 Nov
74.]
[Footnote 21-84: The Kennedy quote is from the
author's interview with Gesell on 13 May 1972. The
Justice Department quote is from Memo, Gordon A.
Martin (Dept of Justice) for Burke Marshall, 26 Jul
63, sub: Proposed Gesell Cmte Rpt on the National
Guard, Marshall Papers, J. F. Kennedy Library.]
The committee admitted that its investigation of the National Guard
was incomplete because of the variation in state systems and the
absence of statistical data on recruitment, assignment, and promotion
in some state guards. It had no doubt, however, of the central premise
that discrimination existed. For example, until 1963 ten states with
large black populations had no black guardsmen at all. Membership in
the guard, the committee concluded, was a distinct advantage for some
individuals, providing the chance to perform their military obligation
without a lengthy time away from home or work. Because of the peculiar
relationship between the reserve and regular systems, National Guard
service had important advantages in retirement benefits for others.
These advantages and benefits should, in simple fairness, be open to
all, but beyond the basic constitutional rights involved there were
practical reasons for federal insistence on integration. The committee
accepted the National Guard Bureau's conclusion that, since guard
units were subject to integration when federalized, their morale and
combat efficiency would be improved if their members were accustomed
to service with Negroes in all ranks during training.[21-85]
[Footnote 21-85: "Final Report," pp. 19-20.]
The committee stressed executive initiatives. It wanted the President
to declare the integration of the National Guard in the national
interest. It wanted the Department of Defense to demand pertinent (p. 554)
racial statistics from the states. For psychological advantages, it
wanted the recent liberalization of guard policies toward Negroes
widely publicized. Again suggesting voluntary methods as a first step,
the committee called for the use of economic sanctions if voluntary
methods failed. The President should lose no time in applying the
provisions of the new Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbade the use
of federal funds in discriminatory activities, to offending states. As
it had been in the case of discrimination in local communities, the
committee was optimistic about the success of voluntary compliance.
Citing its own efforts and those of the National Guard Bureau,[21-86]
the committee reported that the last ten states to hold out had now
begun to integrate their guard units at least on a token basis. In
fact, the committee's report had to be revised at the last minute
because Alabama and Mississippi enrolled Negroes in their enlisted
ranks.
[Footnote 21-86: The National Guard Bureau is a joint
agency of the Departments of the Army and Air Force
which acts as adviser to the service staffs on
National Guard matters and as the channel of
communication between the two departments and the
state guards. The chief of the bureau is always a
National Guard officer.]
Chairman Gesell circulated a draft report containing these findings
and recommendations among committee members in September 1964.[21-87]
His colleagues suggested only minor revisions, although Whitney Young
thought that some of the space spent on complimenting the services
could be better used to emphasize the committee's recommendations for
further reform. He did not press the point but noted wryly: "if we
were as sensitive about the feelings of the victims of discrimination
as we are of the perpetuators, we wouldn't have most of these problems
to begin with."[21-88] Maj. Gen. Winston P. Wilson, the Chief of the
National Guard Bureau, also reviewed the draft and found it "entirely
fair, temperate and well-founded."[21-89] The committee's final report
was sent to the President on 20 November 1964. A month later Johnson
sent it along to McNamara with the request that he be kept informed on
progress of the negotiations between the secretary and the governors
on integration of the National Guard.[21-90]
[Footnote 21-87: The draft was also sent for comment
to the National Guard Bureau; see Ltr, Chief, NGB,
to Gesell, 13 Nov 64, Gesell Collection, J. F.
Kennedy Library.]
[Footnote 21-88: Memo, Gesell for Members of the
President's Committee on Equal Opportunity in the
Armed Forces, 20 Nov 64. The quotation is from Ltr,
Young to Gesell, 23 Sep 64. For the reaction of
other members see, for example, Ltrs, Sengstacke to
Gesell, 9 Oct 64, Muse to Gesell, 16 Sep 64, Fortas
to Gesell, 29 Sep 64. All in Gesell Collection, J.
F. Kennedy Library.]
[Footnote 21-89: Ltr, Gen Wilson, NGB, to Gesell, 13
Nov 64, Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]
[Footnote 21-90: Ltr, President to SecDef, 26 Dec 64,
copy in CMH.]
The radical change in the civil rights orientation of the Department
of Defense demanded by the administration's civil rights supporters
was obviously a task too controversial for the department to assume in
1963 on its own initiative. It was, as a member of the Gesell
Committee later remarked, a task that only a group of independent
citizens reporting to the President could effectively suggest.[21-91]
In the end the committee did all that its sponsors could have wanted.
It confirmed the persistence of discrimination against black
servicemen both on and off the military base and effectively tied that
discrimination to troop morale and military efficiency. The (p. 555)
committee's conclusions, logically derived from the connection between
morale and efficiency, introduced a radically expanded concept of
racial responsibility for the armed forces.
[Footnote 21-91: Interv, author with Muse, 2 Mar 73.]
Although many people strongly associate the Gesell Committee with the
use of economic coercion against race discrimination in the community,
the committee's emphasis was always on the local commander's role in
achieving voluntary compliance with the department's equal opportunity
policies. Economic sanction was conceived of as a last resort. The
directive of the Secretary of Defense that endorsed these
recommendations was also denounced for embracing sanctions, although
here the charges were even less appropriate because the use of
sanctions was severely circumscribed. It remained to be seen how far
command initiative and voluntary compliance could be translated by the
services into concrete gains.
CHAPTER 22 (p. 556)
Equal Opportunity in the Military Community
When Secretary McNamara issued his equal opportunity directive in
1963, all segregated public accommodations, schools, and even housing
near military reservations became potential targets of the Department
of Defense's integration drive. This change in policy was substantive,
but the traditionalists who feared the sudden intrusion of the
services into local community affairs and the reformers who later
charged McNamara with procrastination missed the point. More than a
declaration of racial principles, the directive was a guideline for
the progressive application of a series of administrative pressures.
Endorsing the Gesell Committee's concept of command responsibility,
McNamara enjoined the local commander to oppose discrimination and
foster equal opportunity both on and off the military base. He also
endorsed the committee's recommendation for the use of economic
sanctions in cases where voluntary compliance could not be obtained.
By demanding the approval of the service secretaries for the use of
sanctions, McNamara served notice that this serious application of the
commander's authority would be limited and infrequent. He avoided
altogether the committee's call for closing military bases.
The secretary's critics overlooked the fact that no exact timetable
was set for the reforms outlined in the directive, and actually
several factors were operating against precipitate action on
discrimination outside the military reservation. Strong sentiment
existed among service officials for leaving off-base discrimination
problems to the Department of Justice, and, as early reactions to the
committee report revealed, the committee's findings did little to
alter these feelings. More important, the inclination to postpone the
more controversial aspects of the equal opportunity directive received
support from the White House itself. Political wisdom dictated that
the Department of Defense refrain from any dramatic move in the civil
rights field while Congress debated the civil rights bill, a primary
legislative goal of both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
"Avoid civil rights spectaculars" was the White House's word to the
executive departments while the civil rights act hung fire.[22-1]
[Footnote 22-1: Quoted in Ltr, Fitt to author, 22 May
72; see also Interv, author with Jordan, 7 Jun 72.]
The lack of pressure by black servicemen and civil rights advocates
lent itself to official procrastination. Civil rights organizations,
preoccupied with racial unrest throughout the nation and anxious for
the passage of new civil rights legislation, seemed to lose some (p. 557)
of their intense interest in service problems. They paid scant
attention to the directive beyond probing for the outer limits of the
new policy. In the months following the directive, officials of the
NAACP and other organizations shot off a spate of requests for the
imposition of off-limits sanctions against certain businesses and
schools and in some cases even whole towns and cities.[22-2] When
Defense Department officials made clear that sanctions were to be a
last, not first, resort and offered the cooperation of local
commanders for a joint effort against local discrimination through
voluntary compliance, the demands of the civil rights organizations
petered out.[22-3]
[Footnote 22-2: See Ltr, J. Francis Pohlhous, Counsel,
Washington Bureau, NAACP, to SecDef, 5 Aug 63, ASD
(M) 291.2; Telg, NAACP Commanders to SecDef, DA IN
886952, ASD (M) 334 Equal Opportunity in Armed
Forces (21 Jul 63); Ltr, Juanita Mitchell,
President, Baltimore Branch, NAACP, to SecDef, 11
May 64, copy in CMH. Sec also New York _Times_,
July 23, 1963.]
[Footnote 22-3: See Ltrs, DASD (CR) to J. Francis
Pohlhous, 15 Aug and 6 Sep 63; Albert Fritz, Utah
Branch, NAACP, 29 Aug 63; and Juanita Mitchell, 18
Mar 64. See also Ltr, DASD (Civ Pers, Industrial
Relations, and Civil Rights) to Moses Newsom,
_Afro-American Newspapers_, 2 Feb 65. Copies of all
in CMH.]
According to a 1964 survey of black servicemen and veterans, this
group enjoyed military life more than whites and were more favorably
disposed toward the equal opportunity efforts of the Department of
Defense.[22-4] They continued to complain, but the volume of their
complaints was considerably reduced. One unsettling note: although
fewer in number, the complaints were often addressed to the White
House, the Justice Department, the civil rights organizations, or the
Secretary of Defense, thus confirming the Gesell Committee's finding
that black servicemen continued to distrust the services' interest in
or ability to administer justice.[22-5]
[Footnote 22-4: Charles Moskos, "Findings on American
Military Establishment" (Northeastern University,
1967), quoted in Yarmolinsky, _The Military
Establishment_, p. 343.]
[Footnote 22-5: For many examples of these racial
complaints and their disposition, see DASD (CR)
files, 1963-64, especially Access Nos. 68-A-1006
and 68-A-1033.]
The Secretary of Defense's manpower staff processed all these
complaints. It dismissed those considered unrelated to race but
forwarded many to the individual services with requests for immediate
remedial action. Significantly, those involving the violation of a
serviceman's civil rights off base continued to be sent to the Justice
Department for disposition. Defense Department officials themselves
adjudicated the hundreds of discrimination cases involving civilian
employees.[22-6]
[Footnote 22-6: The Assistant Secretary of Defense
(Manpower) prepared a monthly compilation of all
discrimination cases in the Department of Defense
involving civilian employees. Originally requested
by then Vice President Lyndon Johnson in his
capacity as chairman of the President's Committee
on Equal Opportunity in Employment in June 1962,
the reports were continued after the Gesell
Committee disbanded. The report for November 1963,
for example, listed 144 cases of "Contractor
Complaints" investigated and adjudicated and 159
cases of "In-House Complaints" being processed in
the Department of Defense. See Memo, ASD (M) for SA
et al., 20 Dec 63, ASD (M) 291.2.]
In the weeks and months following publication of the equal opportunity
directive, official replies to the demands and complaints of black
servicemen and their allies in the civil rights organizations
continued to be carefully circumscribed. Whatever skepticism such
restricted application of the Gesell recommendations may have produced
among the civil rights leaders, the department found itself
surprisingly free from outside pressure. It was able to set the pace
of its own reform and to avoid meanwhile a clash with either (p. 558)
reformers or segregationists over major civil rights issues of the
day.
_Creating a Civil Rights Apparatus_
The Defense Department could do little about discrimination either on
or off the military reservation until it was better organized for the
task. The secretary needed new bureaucratic tools with which to
develop new civil rights procedures, unite the disparate service
programs, and document whatever failures might occur. He created a
civil rights secretariat, assigning to his manpower assistant, Norman
S. Paul,[22-7] the responsibility for promoting equal opportunity in
the armed forces. Although racial affairs had always been considered
among the manpower secretary's general duties, with precedents
reaching back through the Personnel Policy Board to World War II when
Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy supervised the employment of
black troops, McNamara now significantly increased these
responsibilities. The assistant secretary would represent him "in
civil rights matters," would direct the department's equal opportunity
programs, and would provide policy guidance for the military
departments, reviewing their policies, regulations, instructions, and
manuals and monitoring their performance.[22-8] To carry out these
functions, the Secretary of Defense authorized his assistant to create
a deputy assistant secretary for civil rights.[22-9] Again a precedent
existed for the secretary's move. In January 1963 Paul had assigned an
assistant to coordinate the department's racial activities.[22-10] The
reorganization transferred the person and duties of the secretary's
civilian aide, James C. Evans, to the Office of the Deputy Assistant
Secretary for Civil Rights. The new organization was thus provided
with a pedigree traceable to World War I and the work of Emmett J.
Scott,[22-11] although Evans' move to the deputy's staff was the only
connection between Scott and that office. The civilian aides, limited
by the traditionally indifferent attitudes of the services toward
equal opportunity programs, had been used to advise civilian officials
on complaints from the black community, especially black servicemen,
and to rationalize service policies for civil rights organizations.
The new civil rights office, reflecting McNamara's positive
intentions, was organized to monitor and instruct military
departments.
[Footnote 22-7: Norman S. Paul succeeded Carlisle
Runge as Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower)
on 8 August 1962.]
[Footnote 22-8: DOD Dir 5120.36, 26 Jul 63. For an
extended discussion of the functions of the
Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower) and his
civil rights deputy, see Memo, DASD (CR) for Mr.
Paul, 21 Sep 65, sub: Policy Formulation, Planning
and Action in the Office of the Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense (Civil Rights), 26 July
1963-26 September 1965, ASD (M) 291.2. This
significant document, a progress report on civil
rights in the first two years of McNamara's new
program, is an important source for much of the
following discussion and will be referred to
hereafter as Paul Memo.]
[Footnote 22-9: DOD News Release 1057-63, 29 Jul 63.]
[Footnote 22-10: Memo, ASD (M) for DASD (Education) et
al., 23 Jan 63, sub: Coordination of All Matters
Related to Racial Problems, ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 22-11: Evans' predecessors included Emmett
J. Scott, Special Assistant to the Secretary of
War, 1917-19; William H. Hastie, Civilian Aide to
the Secretary of War, 1940-43; Truman K. Gibson,
1944-46; and Marcus H. Ray, 1946-47. Evans left
Army employ to join the staff of the Secretary of
Defense in 1947. See Memo for Rcd, Counselor to ASD
(M), 1 Mar 62, ASD (M) 291.2.]
The civil rights deputy was a relatively powerless bureaucrat. (p. 559)
He might investigate discrimination and isolate its causes, but he
enjoyed no independent power to reform service practices. His
substantive dealings with the services had to be staffed through his
superior, the Assistant Secretary for Manpower, a man to whom equal
opportunity was but one of many problems and who might well question
new or aggressive civil rights tactics. Such an attitude was
understandable in an official with little or no experience in civil
rights matters and no day-to-day contact with civil rights operations.
Norman Paul, whose experience was in legislative liaison, might also
be especially sensitive to the possibility of congressional or public
criticism.[22-12] Indicative of the assistant secretary's attitude
toward his civil rights deputy was the fact that the position was
reorganized and retitled, with some significant corresponding changes
in function each time, a bewildering five times in ten years.[22-13]
To add to the problems of the civil rights office, nine different men
were to occupy the deputy's position, three of them in the capacity of
acting deputy, in that same decade.[22-14]
[Footnote 22-12: Before assuming the manpower
position, Norman Paul was the chief of legislative
liaison for the Department of Defense. For a
critique of the work of the ASD (M) incumbents in
the racial field, see O'Brien's interview with
Gilpatric, 5 May 70, J. F. Kennedy Library.]
[Footnote 22-13: For a discussion of the effect of the
proliferation of assistants in the manpower office,
see USAF oral history interview with Evans, 24 Apr
73.]
[Footnote 22-14: The incumbents were Alfred B. Fitt,
Stephen N. Shulman, Jack Moskowitz, L. Howard
Bennett (acting), Frank W. Render II, Donald L.
Miller, Curtis R. Smothers (acting), Stuart Broad
(acting), and H. Minton Francis.]
The organization of the equal opportunity program of the Secretary of
Defense was not without its critics. Some wanted to enhance the
prestige of the equal opportunity program by creating a separate
assistant secretary for civil rights.[22-15] Such an official,
accountable to the Secretary of Defense alone, would be free to direct
the services' racial activities and, they agreed, would also serve as
a highly visible symbol to servicemen and civil rights advocates alike
of the department's determination to execute its new policy. Others,
however, defended the existing organization, arguing that racial
discrimination was a manpower problem, and the number of assistant
secretaries was fixed by law and the chance of congressional approval
for yet another manpower position was remote.[22-16]
[Footnote 22-15: This solution was still being
recommended a decade later; see Department of
Defense, "Report of the Task Force on the
Administration of Military Justice in the Armed
Forces," 30 Nov 72, vol. I, pp. 51, 112. See also
Interv, author with L. Howard Bennett (former DASD
[CR]), 13 Dec 73, CMH files.]
[Footnote 22-16: Interv, author with Col George R. H.
Johnson, Deputy, Plans and Policy, DASD (Equal
Opportunity), 9 Aug 73, CMH files.]
These organizational problems had yet to appear in July 1963 when at
Yarmolinsky's suggestion Secretary McNamara appointed Alfred B. Fitt
the first civil rights deputy. Since 1961 the Army's Deputy Under
Secretary for Manpower, Fitt had recently been on loan to the Office
of the Secretary of Defense to coordinate the department's responses
to the Gesell Committee. He was the author of the equal opportunity
directive signed by McNamara, and his personal views on the subject,
while consistent with those of Yarmolinsky and McNamara, were often
expressed in more advanced terms. Going beyond the usual arguments for
equal treatment based on morale and military efficiency, Fitt (p. 560)
referred to the black servicemen's struggle as a moral issue. He was
glad, he later confessed, to be on the right side of such an issue,
and he felt indebted to the positive racial policies of Kennedy and
Johnson and their Secretary of Defense.[22-17] He quickly gathered
around him a staff of like-minded experts who proceeded to their first
task, a review of the services' outline plans called for in the
secretary's directive.[22-18]
[Footnote 22-17: Ltr, DASD (CR) to Gesell, 28 Jul 64,
Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]
[Footnote 22-18: Interv, author with Jordan, 7 Jun
72.]
[Illustration: ARRIVING IN VIETNAM. _101st Airborne Division troops
aboard the USNS General Le Roy Eltinge._]
Although merely outlines of proposed service programs, the three plans
submitted in July and August nevertheless reflected the emphasis on
off-base discrimination preached by the Gesell Committee and endorsed
by the Secretary of Defense.[22-19] The plans also revealed the
services' essential satisfaction with their current on-base programs,
although each outlined further reforms within the military community.
The Navy, for example, announced reforms in recruitment methods, and
the Army planned the development of more racially equitable training
programs and job assignments. All three services discussed new (p. 561)
provisions for monitoring their equal opportunity programs, with the
Army including explicit provisions for the processing of servicemen's
racial complaints. And to insure the coordination of equal opportunity
matters in future staff decisions, each service also announced (the
Navy in a separate staff action) the formation of an equal opportunity
organization in its military staff: an Equal Rights Branch in the
office of the Army's Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, an Equal
Opportunity Group in the Air Force's Directorate of Personnel Planning
to work in conjunction with its Secretary's Committee on Equal
Opportunity, and an Ad Hoc Committee in the Navy's Bureau of
Personnel.
[Footnote 22-19: Memos: Dep to SecAF for Manpower,
Personnel, and Organization for ASD (M), 15 Aug 63,
sub: Implementation of DOD Directive 5120.36; SA
for ASD (M), 15 Aug 63, sub: Equal Opportunity in
the Armed Forces; Under SecNav for ASD (M), 15 Aug
63, sub: Outline Plan for Implementing Department
of Defense Directive 5120.36, "Equal Opportunity in
the Armed Forces," dated 26 Jul 63. All in ASD (M)
291.2.]
The outline plans revealed that the services entertained differing
interpretations of the McNamara call for command responsibility in
equal opportunity matters. The Gesell Committee had considered this
responsibility of fundamental importance and wanted the local
commander held accountable and his activities in this area made part
of his performance rating. There was some disagreement among manpower
experts on this point. How, one critic asked, could the services set
up standards against which a commander's performance might be fairly
judged? How could they insure that an overzealous commander might
not, in the interest of a higher efficiency report, upset
anti-discrimination programs that called for subtle negotiation?[22-20]
But to Chairman Gesell the equal opportunity situation demanded
action, and how could this demand be better impressed on the commander
than by the knowledge that his performance was being measured?[22-21]
The point of this argument, which the committee accepted, was that
unless personal responsibility was fixed, policies and directives on
equal opportunity were just so much rhetoric.
[Footnote 22-20: Interv, author with Davenport, 2 Aug
73, CMH files.]
[Footnote 22-21: Interv, author with Gesell, 13 May
72.]
Only the Army's outline plan explicitly adopted the committee's
controversial recommendation that "the effective performance of
commanders in this area will be considered along with other
responsibilities in determining his overall manner of duty
performance." The Navy equivocated. Commanders would "monitor
continually racial matters with a goal toward improvement." The
Inspectors General of the Navy and Marine Corps were "instructed to
appraise" all command procedures. The Air Force expected base base
commanders to concern themselves with the welfare nondiscriminatory
treatment of its servicemen when they were away from the base, but it
left them considerable freedom in the matter. "The military mission is
predominant," the Air Force announced, and the local commander must be
given wide latitude in dealing with discrimination cases since "each
community presented a different situation for which local solutions
must be developed."
The decision by the Navy and Air Force to exempt commanders from
explicit responsibility in equal opportunity matters came after some
six months of soul-searching. Under Secretary of the Navy Fay agreed
with his superior that the Navy's equal opportunity "image" suffered
in comparison to the other services and the percentage of Negroes in
the Navy and Marine Corps left much to be desired. But when (p. 562)
ordered by Secretary Fred Korth to develop a realistic approach to
equal opportunity in consultation with the Gesell Committee, Fay's
response tended to ignore service shortcomings and, most significantly,
failed to fix responsibility for equal opportunity matters. He
proposed to revise Navy instructions to provide for increased liaison
between local commanders and community leaders and monitor civil
rights cases involving naval personnel, but his response neither
discussed new ways to increase job opportunities for Negroes nor
mentioned making equal opportunity performance a part of the military
efficiency rating system.[22-22] His elaborate provisions for
monitoring and reporting notwithstanding, his efforts appeared
primarily cosmetic.
[Footnote 22-22: Memo, Under SecNav for SecNav, 7 Feb
63, sub: Equal Opportunity in the Navy and Marine
Corps, SecNav file 5420, GenRecsNav.]
[Illustration: DIGGING IN. _Men of M Company, 7th Marines, construct a
defense bunker during "Operation Desoto," Vietnam._]
Undoubtedly, the Navy's image in the black community needed some
refurbishing. Despite substantial changes in the racial composition of
the Steward's Branch in recent years, Negroes continued to avoid naval
service, as a special Navy investigation later found, because "they
have little desire to become stewards or cooks."[22-23] Fay believed
that the shortage of Negroes was part of a general problem shared by
all the services. His public relations proposals were designed (p. 563)
to overcome the difficulty of attracting volunteers. His recommendations
were approved by Secretary Korth in February 1963 and disseminated
throughout the Navy and Marine Corps for execution.[22-24] With only
minor modification they were also later submitted to the Secretary of
Defense as the Navy's outline plan.
[Footnote 22-23: Memo, David M. Clinard, Spec Asst,
for SecNav, 11 Oct 63, sub: Interviews With Negro
Personnel at Andrews Air Force Base, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 22-24: SecNav Instruction 5350.2A, 6 Mar 63;
Personal Ltr, SecNav to All Flag and General
Officers et al., 26 Mar 63, copy in CMH; SecNav
Notice 5350, 3 Apr 63; AlNav 28, 6 Sep 63. See also
Cmdt, USMC, Report of Progress--Equal Opportunity
in the United States Marine Corps (ca. 30 Jun 63),
Hist Div HQMC; Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Under
SecNav, 20 May 63, sub: Interim Progress Report on
Navy Measures..., SecNav file 5420, GenRecsNav.]
Even as Fay settled on these modest changes, signs pointed to the
possibility that the department's military leaders would be amenable
to more substantial reform. The Chief of Naval Personnel admitted that
the Gesell Committee's charges against the service were "to some
extent" justified and warned naval commanders that if they failed to
take a more positive approach to equal opportunity they would be
ordered to take actions difficult for both the Navy and the community.
Better "palatable evolutionary progress," he counseled, than "bitter
revolutionary change."[22-25]
[Footnote 22-25: Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to CONUS
District Cmdrs et al., 22 Apr 63, attached to Memo,
Chief, NavPers, for Distribution List, 24 Apr 63,
sub: President's Committee on Equal Opportunity in
the Armed Forces, SecNav file 5420, GenRecsNav.]
Air Force officials had also considered the problem of command
responsibility in the months before submitting their outline plan. As
early as December 1962, Under Secretary Joseph V. Charyk admitted the
possibility of confusion over what the policy of base commanders
should be concerning off-base segregation. He proposed that the staff
consider certain "minimum" actions, including "mandatory evaluation of
all officers concerning their knowledge of this program and the extent
to which they have complied with the policy of anti-discrimination."[22-26]
Secretary Zuckert discussed Charyk's proposal with his assistants on
23 January 1963. It was also considered by McNamara, who then passed
it to the other services, calling on them to develop similar
programs.[22-27] Finally, Air Force officials discussed command
responsibility in preparing their critique of Gesell Committee
recommendations, and Secretary Zuckert informed Assistant Secretary of
Defense Paul that "the responsibility for this [the Air Force's
anti-discrimination] program will be clearly designated down to base
level."[22-28] Despite this attention, the subject of specific command
responsibility was not clearly delineated in the Air Force's outline
plan.
[Footnote 22-26: Memo, Actg SecAF CofSAF, 8 Dec 62,
sub: Anti-Discrimination Policy in the Military
Service, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 22-27: Memo, SecDef for SA and Navy, 4 Mar
63, sub: Anti-Discrimination Policy in the Military
Service, copy in CMH. McNamara received the Air
Force document from Charyk through Yarmolinsky. See
Memo, Benjamin Fridge, Spec Asst for Manpower and
Reserve Forces, for SecAF, 4 Mar 63, sub:
Anti-Discrimination Policies; see also Memo, Asst
Vice CofS, USAF, for SecAF, 26 Feb 63, same sub,
687-63; both in SecAF files.]
[Footnote 22-28: Memo, SecAF for ASD (M), 10 Jul 63,
sub: Air Force Response to the Gesell Committee
Report, ASD (M) 291.2.]
Paul ignored the critical differences in the services' outline plans
when he approved all three without distinction on 13 September.[29]
Alfred Fitt later explained why the Department had not insisted (p. 564)
the services adopt the committee's specific recommendations
on command responsibility. Commenting on the committee's call for the
appointment of a special officer at each base to transmit black
servicemen's grievances to base commanders, Fitt acknowledged that
most Negroes were reluctant to complain, but said the services were
aware of this reluctance and had already devised means to overcome it.
Problems in communication, he pointed out, were leadership problems,
and commanders must be left free to find their own method of learning
about conditions in their commands. As for the committee's suggestion
that equal opportunity initiatives in the local community be made a
consideration in the promotion of the commander, the Defense
Department had temporized. Such initiatives, Fitt explained, might be
considered part of the commander's total performance, but it should
never be the governing factor in determining advancement.[30]
[Footnote 22-29: Memo, ASD (M) for Under SA et al., 13
Sep 63, sub: DOD Directive 5120.36, 26 Jul 63,
Equal Opportunity, ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 22-30: Alfred B. Fitt, Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense (Civil Rights), "Remarks
Before Civilian Aides Conference of the Secretary
of the Army," 6 Mar 64, copy in CMH.]
Yet the principle of command responsibility was not completely
ignored, for Paul made his approval of the plans contingent on several
additional service actions. Each service had to prepare for commanders
an instruction manual dealing with the discharge of their equal
opportunity responsibilities, develop an equal opportunity information
program for the periodic orientation of all personnel, and institute
some method of insuring that all new commanders promptly reviewed
equal opportunity programs applicable to their commands. The secretary
also set deadlines for putting the plans into effect. The preparation
of these comprehensive regulations and manuals, however, took much
longer than expected, a delay, Fitt admitted, that slowed equal
opportunity progress to some extent.[22-31] In fact, it was not until
January 1965 that the last of the basic service regulations on equal
opportunity was published.[22-32]
[Footnote 22-31: Ltr, DASD (Civil Rights) to Gesell,
30 Apr 64, ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 22-32: AR 600-21, 2 Jul 64 (superseded by AR
600-21, 18 Mar 65); AFR 35-78, 19 Aug 64
(superseded in May 71); SecNav Instructions 5350.6,
Jan 65, 5350.5A, 16 Dec 65, and 5370.7, 4 Mar 65.
See also NAVSO P2483, May 65, "A Commanding
Officer's Guide for Establishing Minority Community
Relations."]
There were several reasons for the delay. The first was the protracted
congressional debate over the civil rights bill. Some service
officials strongly supported the stand that off-base complaints of
black servicemen were chiefly the concern of the Justice Department.
On a more practical level, however, the Department of Defense was
reluctant to issue new directives while legislation bearing directly
on discrimination affecting servicemen was being formulated. Accepting
these arguments, Paul postponed the services' submission of new
regulations and manuals until the act assumed final form.
The delayed publication of the service regulations could also be
blamed in part on the confusion that surrounded the announcement of a
new Defense policy on attendance at segregated meetings. The issue
arose in early 1964 when Fitt discovered some defense employees
accepting invitations to participate in segregated affairs while
others refused on the basis of the secretary's equal opportunity
directives. Inconsistency on such a delicate subject disturbed the
civil rights deputy. The services had fortuitously avoided several (p. 565)
potentially embarrassing incidents when officials were invited to
attend segregated functions, and Fitt warned Paul that "if we don't
erect a better safeguard than sheer chance, we're bound somewhere,
sometime soon to look foolish and insensitive."[22-33] He wanted
McNamara to issue a policy statement on the subject, admittedly a
difficult task because it would be hard to write and would require
White House clearance that might not be forthcoming. For the short run
Fitt wanted to deal with the problem at a regular staff meeting where
he could discuss the matter and coordinate his strategy without the
delay of publishing new regulations.
[Footnote 22-33: Memo, DASD (CR) for Paul, 10 Feb 64,
sub: Official Attendance at Segregated Meetings,
ASD (M) 291.2.]
As it turned out, anxiety over White House approval proved groundless.
"The President has on numerous occasions made clear his view that
Federal officials should not participate in segregated meetings,"
White House Counsel Lee C. White informed all department and agency
heads, and he suggested that steps be taken in each department to
inform all employees.[22-34] The Deputy Secretary of Defense, Cyrus R.
Vance, complied on 7 July by issuing a memorandum to the services
prohibiting participation in segregated meetings. Adding to the text
prepared in the White House, he ordered that this prohibition be
incorporated in regulations then being prepared, a move that
necessitated additional staffing of the developing equal opportunity
regulations.[22-35]
[Footnote 22-34: Memo, Assoc Spec Counsel to President
for Heads of Departments and Agencies, 12 Jun 64,
sub: Further Participation at Segregated Meetings,
copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 22-35: Memo, Dep SecDef for Secys of
Military Departments et al., 7 Jul 64, sub: Federal
Participation at Segregated Meetings, SD 291.2. The
Army's regulation, published on 2 July, five days
before Secretary Vance's memorandum, was
republished on 18 May 1965 to include the
prohibition against segregated meetings and other
new policies. The Navy prepared a special Secretary
of Navy instruction (5720.38, 30 Jul 1964) on the
subject.]
Objections to the prohibition were forthcoming. Continuing on a tack
he had pursued for several years, the Air Force Deputy Special
Assistant for Manpower, Personnel, and Organization, James P. Goode,
objected to the application of the Vance memorandum to base
commanders. These men had to maintain good relations with community
leaders, he argued, and good relations were best fostered by the
commander's joining local community organizations such as the Rotary
Club and the Chamber of Commerce, which were often segregated. These
civic and social organizations offered an effective forum for
publicizing the objectives of the Department of Defense, and to forbid
the commander's participation because of segregation would seriously
reduce his local influence. Goode wanted the order "clarified" to
exclude local community organizations from its coverage on the grounds
that including them would be "detrimental to the best interests of all
military personnel and their dependents and would result in a
corresponding reduction in military effectiveness."[22-36] The Defense
Department would have nothing to do with the idea. Such an exception to
the rule, the civil rights deputy declared, would not constitute a (p. 566)
clarification, but rather a nullification of the order. The Air Force
request was rejected.[22-37]
[Footnote 22-36: Memo, James P. Goode for Dep SecDef,
29 Sep 64, sub: Federal Participation at Segregated
Meetings, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 22-37: Draft Memo, DASD (Civ Pers, Indus
Rels, and CR) for Dep for Manpower, Personnel, and
Organization, USAF, 7 Oct 64, sub: Federal
Participation at Segregated Meetings. The
memorandum was not actually dispatched, and a note
on the original draft discloses that after
discussion between the Deputy Assistant Secretary
of Defense and the Assistant Secretary of Defense
(Manpower) the rejection of the Air Force request
was "handled verbally." Copy of the memo in CMH.]
The confusion surrounding the publication of service regulations
suggested that without firm and comprehensive direction from the
Office of the Secretary of Defense the services would never develop
effective or uniform programs. Service officials argued that
commanders had always been allowed to execute racial policy without
specific instructions. They feared popular reaction to forceful
regulations, and, in truth, they were already being subjected to
congressional criticism over minor provisions of the Gesell
Committee's report. Even the innocuous suggestion that officers be
appointed to channel black servicemen's complaints was met with
charges of "snooping" and "gestapo" tactics.[22-38]
[Footnote 22-38: Fitt, "Remarks Before Civilian Aides
Conference of the Secretary of the Army," 6 Mar
64.]
Although both the Gesell Committee and Secretary McNamara had made
clear that careful direction was necessary, the manpower office of the
Department of Defense temporized. Instead of issuing detailed
guidelines to the services that outlined their responsibilities for
enforcing the provision of the secretary's equal opportunity
directive, instead of demanding a strict accounting from commanders of
their execution of these responsibilities, Paul asked the services for
outline plans and then indiscriminately approved these plans even when
they passed over real accountability in favor of vaguely stated
principles. The result was a lengthy period of bureaucratic confusion.
Protected by the lack of specific instructions the services went
through an Alfonse-Gaston routine, each politely refraining from
commitment to substantial measures while waiting to see how far the
others would go.[22-39]
[Footnote 22-39: Interv, author with Evans, 23 Jul 73,
CMH files.]
_Fighting Discrimination Within the Services_
The immediate test for the services' belatedly organized civil rights
apparatus was the racial discrimination lingering within the armed
forces themselves. The Civil Rights Commission and the Gesell
Committee had been concerned with the exceptions to the services'
generally satisfactory equal opportunity record. It was these
exceptions, such chronic problems as underrepresentation of Negroes in
some services, in the higher military grades, and in skilled military
occupations, that continued to concern the Defense Department civil
rights organization and the services as they tried to carry out
McNamara's directive. Seemingly minor compared to the discrimination
faced by black servicemen outside the military reservation, racial
problems within the military family and how the services dealt with
them would have direct bearing on the tranquility of the armed forces
in the 1970's.
[Illustration: LISTENING TO THE SQUAD LEADER. _Men of Company D, 21st
Infantry, prepare to move out, Quang Tin Province, Vietnam._]
Two pressing needs, and obviously interrelated ones, were to (p. 567)
attract a greater number of young blacks to a military career and
improve the status of Negroes already in uniform. These were not easy,
short-term tasks. In the first place the Negro, ironically in view of
the services' now genuine desire to have him, was no longer so
interested in joining. As explained by Defense Department civil rights
officials, the past attitudes and practices of the services,
especially the treatment of Negroes during World War II, had created
among black opinion-makers an indifference toward the services as a
vocation.[22-40] Lacking encouragement from parents, teachers, and
peers, black youths were increasingly reluctant to consider a military
career. For their part the services tried to counter this attitude
with an energetic public relations program.[22-41] Encouraged by the
department's civil rights experts they tried to establish closer (p. 568)
relations with black students. They even reorganized their recruitment
programs, and the Secretary of Defense himself initiated a program to
attract more black ROTC cadets.[22-42] Service representatives also
worked with teachers and school officials to inform students on
military career opportunities.
[Footnote 22-40: Paul Memo.]
[Footnote 22-41: For accounts of Navy and Marine
Corps attempts to attract more Negroes, see Memos:
Smedberg for Under SecNav, 20 May 63, sub: Interim
Progress Report on Navy Measures in the Area of
Equality of Opportunity in the Armed Forces; Under
SecNav for SecNav, 15 Jul 63, sub: First Report of
Progress in the Area of Equal Opportunity in the
Navy Department; E. Hidalgo, Spec Asst to SecNav,
for L. Howard Bennett, Principal Asst for Civil
Rights, OASD (CR), 1 Oct 65, sub: Summary of Steps
Deemed Necessary to Increase Number of Qualified
Negro Officers and Enlisted Personnel on the
Navy/Marine Corps Team, SecNav file 5420 (1179).
All in GenRecsNav. See also Memos, Marine Aide to
SecNav for CofS, USMC, 5 Aug 63, sub: Equal
Opportunity in the Armed Services, and ACofS, G-1,
USMC, for CofS, USMC, 17 Aug 63, same sub, both in
MC files. For OSD awareness of the problem, see
Stephen N. Shulman, "The Civil Rights Policies of
the Department of Defense," 4 May 65, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 22-42: Memo, SecDef for Educators, 6 Oct 65,
sub: Equal Opportunity at the Service Academies of
the United States Army, Navy, and Air Force, SD
291.2.]
Enlistment depended not only on a man's desire to join but also on his
ability to qualify. Following the publication of a presidential task
force report on the chronic problem of high draft rejection rates, the
Army inaugurated in August 1964 a Special Training and Enlistment
Program (STEP), an experiment in the "military training, education,
and physical rehabilitation of men who cannot meet current mental or
medical standards for regular enlistment in the Army."[22-43] Aimed at
increasing enlistments by providing special training after induction
for those previously rejected as unqualified, the program provided for
the enlistment of 8,000 substandard men, which included many Negroes.
Before the men could be enlisted, however, Congress killed the
program, citing its cost and duplication of the efforts of the Job
Corps. It was not until 1967 that the idea of accepting many young men
ineligible for the draft because of mental or educational deficiencies
was revived when McNamara launched his Project 100,000.[22-44]
[Footnote 22-43: DOD News Release, 13 Aug 64. See the
President's Task Force on Manpower Conservation,
_One-Third of a Nation: A Report on Young Men Found
Unqualified for Military Service_ (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1964). Kennedy
established the task force in September 1963. Its
members included the Secretaries of Labor, Defense,
and Health, Education and Welfare and the Director
of Selective Service.]
[Footnote 22-44: McNamara, _The Essence of Security_,
pp. 131-38. See also Bahr, "The Expanding Role of
the Department of Defense," ch. V.]
The services were unable to bring off a dramatic change in black
enlistment patterns in the 1960's. With the exception of the Marine
Corps, in which the proportion of black enlisted men increased 4
percent, the percentage of Negroes in the services remained relatively
stationary between 1962 and 1968 (_Table 24_). In 1968, when Negroes
accounted for 11 percent of the American population, their share of
the enlisted service population remained at 8.2, with significant
differences among the services. Nor did there seem much chance of
increasing the number of black servicemen since the percentage of
Negroes among draftees and first-time enlistees was rising very (p. 569)
slowly while black reenlistment rates, for some twenty years a major
factor in holding black strength steady, began to decline (_Table 25_).
Actually, enlistment figures for both whites and blacks declined, a
circumstance usually attributed to the unpopularity of the Vietnam
War, although in the midst of the war, in 1967, black first-term
reenlistment rates continued to exceed white rates 2 to 1.
Table 24--Black Percentages, 1962-1968
| Army | Navy | Marine Corps | Air Force
Year| Enlisted| Enlisted| Enlisted| Enlisted
|Officers| Men |Officers| Men |Officers| Men |Officers| Men
1962 3.2 12.2 .2 5.2 .2 7.6 1.2 9.2
1964 3.4 13.4 .3 5.8 .4 8.7 1.5 10.0
1965 3.5 13.9 .3 5.8 .4 9.0 1.6 10.7
1967 3.4 12.1 .3 4.7 .7 10.3 1.8 10.4
1968 3.3 12.6 .4 5.0 .9 11.5 1.8 10.2
_Source_: Records of ASD (M) 291.2.
Table 25--Rates for Reenlistments, 1964-1967
Army Navy Marine Corps Air Force
Year | White | Black | White | Black | White | Black | White | Black
1964 18.5 49.3 21.6 41.3 12.9 25.1 27.4 50.3
1965 13.7 49.3 24.2 44.8 18.9 38.9 19.1 39.2
1966 20.0 66.5 17.6 24.7 10.5 19.5 16.0 30.1
1967 12.9 31.7 16.7 22.5 10.7 17.4 17.3 26.9
_Source_: Records of ASD (M) 291.2; see especially Paul Memo.
The low percentage of black officers, a matter of special concern to
the Civil Rights Commission and the Gesell Committee as well as the
civil rights organizations, remained relatively unchanged in the
1960's (_see Table 24_). Nor could any dramatic rise in the number of
black officers be expected. Between 1963 and 1968 the three service
academies graduated just fifty-one black officers, an impressive
statistic only in the light of the record of a total of sixty black
graduates in the preceding eighty-six years. Furthermore, there were
only 116 black cadets in 1968, a vast proportional increase over
former years but also an indication of the small number of black
officers that could be expected from that source during the next four
years (_Table 26_). Since cadets were primarily chosen by
congressional nomination and from other special categories, little
could be done, many officials assumed, to increase substantially the
number of black cadets and midshipmen. An imaginative effort by Fitt
in early 1964, however, proved this assumption false. Fitt got the
academies to agree to take all the qualified Negroes he could find and
some senators and congressmen to relinquish some of their appointments
to the cause. He then wrote every major school district in the
country, seeking black applicants and assuring them that the academies
were truly open to all those qualified. Even though halfway through
the academic year, Fitt's "micro-personnel operation," as he later
called it, yielded appointments for ten Negroes. Unfortunately, (p. 570)
his successor did not continue the effort.[22-45]
[Footnote 22-45: Ltr, Fitt to author, 21 Oct 76, CMH
files.]
Table 26--Black Attendance at the Military Academies, July 1968
Class Class Class Class Total Total
Academy | of 1969 | of 1970 | of 1971 | of 1972 | Negro | Attendance
Army 10 7 5 9 31 3,285
Navy 2 8 8 15 33 4,091
Air Force 6 10 13 23 52 3,028
Totals 18 25 26 47 116
_Source_: Office, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Civil
Rights).
The ROTC program at predominantly black colleges had always been the
chief source of black officers, but here, again, there was little hope
for immediate improvement. With the exception of a large increase in
the number of black Air Force officers graduating from five black
colleges, the percentage of officers entering the service from these
institutions remained essentially unchanged throughout the 1960's
despite the services' new equal opportunity programs (_Table 27_).
Some civil rights leaders had been arguing for years that the
establishment of ROTC units at predominantly black schools merely
helped perpetuate the nation's segregated college system. Fitt agreed
that as integrated education became more commonplace the number of
black ROTC graduates would increase in predominantly white colleges,
but meanwhile he considered units at black schools essential. Among
the approximately 140 black colleges without ROTC affiliation, some
could possibly qualify for units, and in February 1965 Fitt's
successor, Stephen N. Shulman, called for the formation of more (p. 571)
ROTC units as an equal opportunity measure.[22-46] The Army responded
by creating a unit at Arkansas A&M Normal College, and the Navy opened
a unit at Prairie View A&M in the President's home state of Texas.
Balancing the expectations implied by the formation of these new units
were the growing antiwar sentiment among college students and the
special competition for black college graduates in the private
business community, both of which made ROTC commissions less
attractive to many black students.
[Footnote 22-46: Fitt left the civil rights office in
August 1964 to become the General Counsel of the
Army. At his departure the position of Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Civil Rights was
consolidated with that of the Deputy for Civilian
Personnel and Industrial Relations. The incumbent
of the latter position, Stephen Shulman, became
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Civilian
Personnel, Industrial Relations, and Civil Rights.
Shulman, a graduate of Yale Law School and former
Executive Assistant to the Secretary of Labor, had
been closely involved in the Defense Department's
equal opportunity program in industrial contracts.]
Table 27--Army and Air Force Commissions Granted at Predominantly
Black Schools
Army Commissions
Class of|Class of|Class of|Class of
School 1964 | 1965 | 1966 | 1967
A&T College, N.C. 24 22 10 17
Central State College, Ohio 29 14 26 25
Florida A&M College 29 15 23 15
Hampton University, Va. 29 34 20 19
Lincoln University, Pa. 19 14 16 19
Morgan State College, Md. 21 27 12 16
Prairie View A&M College, Tex. 20 27 31 38
South Carolina State College 16 23 24 24
Southern University, La. 23 37 19 21
Tuskegee Institute, Ala. 14 14 20 26
Virginia State College 21 14 18 21
West Virginia State College 22 19 15 14
Howard University, Washington, D.C. 19 37 30 23
Total 286 297 264 278
Percentage of total such commissions
granted 2.4 2.7 2.5 2.6
Air Force Commissions
Class of Class of Class of
School 1964 | 1965 | 1966
A&T College, N.C. 12 10 33
Howard University, Washington, D.C. 24 31 23
Maryland State College 2 4 4
Tennessee A&I University 13 26 32
Tuskegee Institute, Ala. 14 33 41
Total 65 104 133
_Source_: Office, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Civil
Rights).
Chance of promotion for officers and men was one factor in judging
equal treatment and opportunity in the services. A statistical
comparison of the ranks of enlisted black servicemen between 1964 and
1966 reveals a steady advance (_Table 28_). With the exception of the
Air Force, the percentage of Negroes in the higher enlisted ranks
compared favorably with the total black percentage in each service.
The advance was less marked for officers, but here too the black share
of the O-4 grade (major or lieutenant commander) was comparable with
the black percentage of the service's total strength. The services
could declare with considerable justification that reform in this area
was necessarily a drawn-out affair; promotion to the senior ranks must
be won against strong competition.
Table 28--Percentage of Negroes in Certain Military Ranks, 1964-1966
E-6 (Staff Sergeant or Petty Officer, First Class)
_1964_ _1965_ _1966_
Army 13.9 15.5 18.1
Navy 4.7 5.0 5.6
Marine Corps 5.0 5.3 10.4
Air Force 5.3 5.6 6.6
O-4 (Major or Lieutenant Commander)
Army 3.6 4.5 5.2
Navy 0.3 0.3 0.3
Marine Corps 0.3 0.3 0.2
Air Force 0.8 0.9 1.6
_Source_: Office, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Civil
Rights).
The department's civil rights office forwarded to the services
complaints from black servicemen who, despite the highest efficiency
ratings and special commendations from commanders, failed to win
promotions. "Almost uniformly," the office reported in 1965, "the
reply comes back from the service that there had been no bias, no
partiality, no prejudice operating in detriment on the complainant's
consideration for promotion. They reply the best qualified was
promoted, but this was not to say that the complainant did not have a
very good record."[22-47] While black officers might well have (p. 572)
been subtly discriminated against in matters of promotion, they also,
it should be pointed out, shared in the general inflation in
efficiency ratings, common in all the services, that resulted in
average officers being given "highest efficiency ratings."
[Footnote 22-47: Paul Memo.]
In addition to complaining of direct denial of promotion opportunity,
so-called "vertical mobility," some black officers alleged that their
chances of promotion had been systematically reduced by the services
when they failed to provide Negroes with "horizontal mobility," that
is, with a wide variety of assignments and all-important command
experience which would justify their future advancement. Supporting
these claims, the civil rights office reported that only 5 Negroes
were enrolled at the senior service schools in 1965, 4 black naval
officers with command experience were on active duty, and 26 black Air
Force officers had been given tactical command experience since 1950.
The severely limited assignment of black Army officers at the major
command headquarters, moreover, illustrated the "narrow gauge"
assignment of Negroes.[22-48] This picture seemed somewhat at variance
with Deputy Assistant Secretary Shulman's assurances to the Kansas
Conference on Civil Rights in May 1965 that "we have paid particular
attention to the assignment of Negro officers to the senior Service
schools, and to those positions of command that are so vital to
officer advancement to the highest rank."[22-49]
[Footnote 22-48: Ibid.]
[Footnote 22-49: Shulman, "The Civil Rights Policies
of the Department of Defense," 4 May 65.]
Since promotion in the military ranks depended to a great extent on a
man's skills, training in and assignment to vital job categories were
important to enlisted men. Here, too, the statistics revealed that the
percentage of Negroes in the technical occupations, which had begun to
rise in the years after Korea, had continued to increase but that a
large proportion still held unskilled or semiskilled military
occupational specialties (_Table 29_). Eligibility for the various
military occupations depended to a great extent on the servicemen's
mental aptitude, with men scoring in the higher categories usually
winning assignment to technical occupations. When the Army began
drafting large numbers of men in the mid-1960's, the number of men in
category IV, which included many Negroes, began to go up. Given the
fact that many Negroes with the qualifications for technical training
were ignoring the services for other vocations while the less
qualified were once again swelling the ranks, the Department of
Defense could do little to insure a fair representation of Negroes in
technical occupations or increase the number of black soldiers in
higher grades. The problem tended to feed upon itself. Not only were
the statistics the bane of civil rights organizations, but they also
influenced talented young blacks to decide against a service career,
in effect creating a variation of Gresham's law in the Army wherein
men of low mentality were keeping out men of high intelligence. There
seemed little to be done, although the department's civil rights
office pressed the services to establish remedial training for
category IV men so that they might become eligible for more technical
assignments.
Table 29--Distribution of Servicemen in Occupational Groups by Race, 1967
| White | Black |Unknown|Total
| | | | | Percent| |
| | | | |of Total| |
| |Percent| |Percent| in Each| |
Group/Activity | Number| Dist. | Number| Dist. | Group/ | Number|Number
| | | | |Activity| |
Combat troops 324,560 12.1 55,518 18.7 14.5 2,646 382,724
Electronics
repairmen 239,595 9.0 13,843 4.7 5.5 204 253,642
Communications
specialists 191,372 7.2 12,856 4.4 6.3 392 204,620
Medical personnel 101,793 3.8 11,074 3.8 9.8 76 112,943
Other technicians 52,132 1.9 3,812 1.3 6.8 86 56,030
Administrative
personnel 430,186 16.1 55,543 18.8 11.4 986 486,715
Mechanical
repairmen 498,899 18.6 39,820 13.5 7.4 794 539,513
Draftsmen 144,070 5.4 15,728 5.3 9.8 248 160,046
Service & supply
personnel 283,976 10.6 53,136 18.0 15.7 998 338,110
Miscellaneous/
unknown 245,055 9.1 14,964 5.1 13.5 1,337 261,356
Trainees[a] 166,478 6.2 18,753 6.4 10.1 1,194 186,425
Total 2,678,116 100.0 295,047 100.0 9.9 8,961 2,982,124
[Tablenote a: Represents an Army category only.]
_Source_: Bahr, "The Expanding Role of the Department of Defense As an
Instrument of Social Change." Bahr's table is based on unpublished
data from the DASD (CR).
If a man's assignment and promotion depended ultimately on his (p. 573)
aptitude category, that category depended upon his performance in the
Armed Forces Qualifying Test and other screening tests usually
administered at induction. These tests have since been widely
criticized as being culturally biased, more a test of an individual's
understanding of the majority race's cultural norms than his mental
aptitude. Even the fact that the tests were written also left them
open to charges of bias. Some educational psychologists have claimed
that an individual's performance in written tests measured his
cultural and educational background, not his mental aptitude. It is
true that the accuracy of test measurements was never reassessed in
light of the subsequent performance of those tested. The services paid
little attention to these serious questions in the 1960's, yet as a
Defense Department task force studying the administration of military
justice was to observe later:
the most important determination about a serviceman's future
career (both in and out of the service) is made almost solely on
the basis of the results of these tests: where he will be placed,
how and whether he will be promoted during his hitch, and whether
what he will learn in the service will be saleable for his
post-service career.[22-50]
[Footnote 22-50: Department of Defense, "Report of the
Task Force on the Administration of Military
Justice in the Armed Forces," 30 Nov 72, vol. I, p.
47.]
The Department of Defense depended on the "limited predictive
capability of these tests," the task force charged, in deciding
whether a serviceman was assigned to a "soft core" field, that is,
given a job in such categories as transportation or supply, or whether
he could enter one of the more profitable and prestigious "hard core"
fields that would bring more rapid advancement.
Accurate and comprehensive testing and the measurement of acquired (p. 574)
skills was obviously an important and complex matter, but in 1963 it
was ignored by both the Civil Rights Commission and the Gesell
Committee. President Kennedy, however, seemed aware of the problem.
Before leaving for Europe in the summer of 1963 he called on the
Secretary of Defense to consider establishing training programs keyed
primarily to the special problems of black servicemen found ineligible
for technical training. According to Lee White, the President wanted
to use new training techniques "and other methods of stimulating
interest and industry" that might help thousands of men bridge "the
gap that presently exists between their own educational and cultural
backgrounds and those of the average white serviceman."[22-51]
[Footnote 22-51: Memo, Asst Spec Counsel to President
for SecDef, 27 Jun 63, copy in CMH.]
Because of the complexity of the problem, White agreed with Fitt that
the program should be postponed pending further study, but the
President's request happened to coincide with a special survey of the
deficiencies and changes in recruit training then being made by Under
Secretary of the Army Stephen Ailes.[22-52] Ailes offered to develop a
special off-duty training program in line with the President's
request. The program, to begin on a trial basis in October 1963, would
also include evaluation counseling to determine if and when trainees
should be assigned to technical schools.[22-53] Such a program
represented a departure for the services, which since World War II had
consistently rejected the idea frequently advanced by sociologists
that the culturally, environmentally, and educationally deprived were
denied equal opportunity when they were required to compete with the
middle-class average.[22-54] Although no specific, measurable results
were recorded from this educational experiment, the project was
eventually blended into the Army's Special Training and Enlistment
Program and finally into McNamara's Project 100,000.[22-55]
[Footnote 22-52: ACSFOR, "Annual Historical Summary,
Fiscal Years 1963-64," copy in CMH; Memo, DASD (CR)
for Paul, 25 Sep 63, sub: Training Program Keyed
Primarily to the Special Problems of Negro
Servicemen, ASD (M) files.]
[Footnote 22-53: Memo, Under SA for ASD (M), 14 Sep
63, sub: Training Program Keyed Primarily to the
Special Problems of Negro Servicemen; Memo, ASD (M)
for Asst Spec Counsel to President, 25 Sep 63; both
in ASD (M) files.]
[Footnote 22-54: For a discussion of this argument,
see [BuPers] Memo for Rcd, Capt K. J. B. Sanger,
USN, 9 Oct 63, Pers 1, BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 22-55: Interv, author with Davenport, ASA,
Manpower (Ret.), 2 Aug 73, CMH files.]
Beyond considering the competence of black servicemen, the Department
of Defense had to face the possibility that discrimination was
operating at least in some cases of assignment and promotion.
Abolishing the use of racial designations on personnel records was one
obvious way of limiting such discrimination, and throughout the
mid-1960's the department sought to balance the conflicting demands
for and against race labeling. Along with the integration of military
units in the 1950's, the services had narrowed their multiple and
cumbersome definition of races to a list of five groups. Even this
list, a compromise drawn up by the Defense Department's Personnel
Policy Board, was criticized. Reflecting the opinion of the civil
rights forces, Evans declared that the definition of five races and
twelve subcategories was scientifically inaccurate, statistically (p. 575)
complicated, and racially offensive. He wanted a simple "white,
nonwhite" listing of servicemen.[22-56] The subject continued to be
discussed throughout the 1960's, the case finally going to the
Director of the Bureau of the Budget, the ultimate authority on
government forms. In August 1969 the director announced a uniform
method for defining the races in federal statistics. The collectives
"Negro and Other Races," "All Other Rates," or "All Other" would be
acceptable to designate minorities; the terms "White," "Negro," and
"Other Races" would be acceptable in distinguishing between the
majority, principal minority, and other races.[22-57]
[Footnote 22-56: See, for example, the following
Memos: Evans for Judge Jackson, 1 Apr 63, and Mr.
Jordan, 3 Sep 64, sub: Racial Designations; Douglas
Dahlin for E. E. Moyers, 3 Sep 58, sub: Case
History of an OSD Action; James Evans for Philip M.
Timpane, 10 Aug 65, sub: Race and Color-Coding. See
also Memo for Rcd, Evans, 15 Aug 62, sub: Racial
Designations. All in DASD (CR) files.]
[Footnote 22-57: Bureau of the Budget, Circular No.
A-46, Transmittal Memorandum No. 8, 8 Aug 69.]
It was the use to which these definitions were put more than their
number that had concerned civil rights leaders since the 1950's. Under
pressure from civil rights organizations, some congressmen, and the
Office of the Secretary of Defense, the services began to abandon some
of the least justifiable uses of racial designations, principally
those used on certain inductees' travel orders, reassignment orders,
and reserve rosters.[22-58] But change was not widespread, and as late
as 1963 the services still distinguished by race in their basic
personnel records, casualty reports, statistical and command strength
reports, personnel control files, and over twenty-five other
departmental forms.[22-59] They continued to defend the use of racial
designations on the grounds that measurement of equal opportunity
programs and detection of discrimination patterns depended on accurate
racial data.[22-60] Few could argue with these motives, although
critics continued to question the need for race designations on
records that were used in assignment and promotion processes. When
public opposition developed to the use of racial entries on federal
forms in general, the President's Committee on Equal Opportunity
appointed a subcommittee in 1963 under Civil Service Chairman John W.
Macy, Jr., to investigate. After much deliberation this group
conducted a statistical experiment within the Department of
Agriculture to discover whether employees could be identified by
racial groups in a confidential manner separate from other personnel
data.[22-61]
[Footnote 22-58: See Ltr, Clarence Mitchell, NAACP, to
ASD (M), 8 Jul 53; Ltr, Congressman Henry S. Reuss
of Wisconsin to SecDef, 27 Sep 56; Memo,
Yarmolinsky for Fitt, 29 Nov 61; Memo, Dep Under SA
for ASD (M), 1 Dec 61, sub: Racial Designation in
Special Orders; Ltr, Chmn, Cmte on Gov Operations,
House of Representatives, to SA, 9 Jul 62; Memo,
ASD (M) for SA, 29 Mar 51, sub: Racial Designations
on Travel Orders; Memo, Chief, Mil Personnel
Management Div, G-1, for Dir, Personnel Policies, 5
Aug 52, sub: Racial Designations, G-1 291.2; Memo,
SecNav for ASD (M), 7 May 54, sub: Deletion of
Question Regarding "Race" ... Copies of all in
CMH.]
[Footnote 22-59: See Memo, TAG for Distribution, 21
Sep 62, sub: Racial Identification in Army
Documents, AGAM (M) 291.2; Memo for Rcd, Evans, 20
Dec 62, sub: Racial Designations--Navy, ASD (M)
291.2; Memo, DASD (CR) for DASD (H&M) et al., 19
Feb 64, sub: Racial Designations on Department of
Defense Forms, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 22-60: See, for example, Ltr, Dir of
Personnel Policy (OSD) to J. Francis Pohlhous,
Counsel, NAACP, 6 Jul 55, ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 22-61: Ltr, Director, Civil Service
Commission, to Rear Adm Robert L. Moore, Chief of
Industrial Relations, USN, 9 Jul 63, copy in CMH.]
[Illustration: SUPPLYING THE SEVENTH FLEET. _USS Procyon crewmen rig
netload of supplies for a warship._]
The civil rights staff of the Defense Department was also (p. 576)
interested in further limiting the use of race in departmental forms.
In April 1963 Assistant Secretary Paul ordered a review of military
personnel records and reporting forms to determine where racial
entries were included unnecessarily.[22-62] His review uncovered
twenty-five forms used in common by the services and the Office of the
Secretary of Defense that contained racial designations. On 3 March
1964 Paul discreetly ordered the removal of race designations on all
but nine of these forms, those concerning biostatistical, criminal,
and casualty figures.[22-63] His order did not, however, extend to
another group of forms used by individual services for their own
purposes, and later in the year Fitt drafted an order that would have
eliminated all racial designations in the services except an entry for
data processing systems and one for biostatistical information. The
directive also would have allowed racial designations on forms that
did not identify individuals, arranged for the disposition of remains
and casualty reporting, described fugitives and other "wanted" types,
and permitted other exceptions granted at the level of the Assistant
Secretary of Defense or that of the service secretary. Finally it
would have set up a system for purging existing records and removing
photographs from promotion board selection folders.[22-64] The
services strongly objected to a purge of existing records on the
grounds of costliness, and they were particularly opposed to the
removal of photographs. Photographs were traditional and remained
desirable, Deputy Under Secretary of the Army Roy K. Davenport
explained, because they were useful in portraying individual physical
characteristics unrelated to race.[22-65] Davenport added, however,
that photographs could be eliminated from promotion board materials.
[Footnote 22-62: Memo, Spec Asst to ASD (M) for Under
SA, 15 Apr 63, sub: Racial Identification on
Military Records (similar memorandums were sent to
the Secretaries of Navy and Air Force on the same
day); Memo, ASD (M) for OASD (Comptroller) (ca. 1
Jun 63); both in ASD (M) 291.2. For service
reviews, answers, and exchanges on the subject, see
ASD (M) 68A-1006. See also Memo, SSJ [Stephen S.
Jackson, Spec Asst to ASD (M)] for Valdes, OASD
(M), and James C. Evans, 11 Jun 63, ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 22-63: Memo, DASD (CR) for DASD
(Management), 3 Mar 64, sub: Elimination of Racial
Designations on DD Forms (the Army adopted this DOD
policy in the form of Change 1 to AR 66-21 in
October 1965). See also Memo, DASD (CR) for DASD
(H&M) et al., 19 Feb 64, sub: Racial Designations
on Department of Defense Forms; idem for Lee C.
White, 9 Jul 64. All in ASD (M) files. See also
Washington _Evening Star_, June 22, 1964, p. A2.]
[Footnote 22-64: Memo, Philip M. Timpane for DASD
(CR), 10 Aug 64, sub: Race on Records, ASD (M)
291.2.]
[Footnote 22-65: Memo, Dep Under SA for DASD (CR), 3
Jun 64, sub: Proposed DOD Instruction Re: Use of
Racial Designations in Forms and Records and Annual
Racial Distribution Report, copy in CMH.]
These proposals marked a high point in the effort to simplify and (p. 577)
reduce the use of racial designations by the Department of Defense.
Although several versions of Fitt's 1964 draft order were discussed in
later years, none was ever published.[22-66] Nor did the Bureau of the
Budget, to which the matter was referred for the development of a
government-wide policy, publish any instructions. In fact, by the
mid-1960's an obvious trend had begun in the Department of Defense
toward broader use of racial indicators but narrower definition of
race.
[Footnote 22-66: L. Howard Bennett, Untitled Minutes
of Equal Opportunity Council Meetings on the
Subject of Racial Indicators, 30 Sep 66; Memo,
Bennett for Thomas Morris and Jack Moskowitz, 8 Dec
66, sub: Actions to Aid in Assuring Equality of
Opportunity During Ratings, Assignment, Selection,
and Promotion Processes, copies of both in CMH.
Judge Bennett was the executive secretary of the
Equal Opportunity Council within the Office of the
Secretary of Defense, an interdepartmental working
group dealing with racial indicators in September
1966 and consisting of two members from each
manpower office of the services and P. M. Timpane
of the DASD (Equal Opportunity) office.]
Several changes in American society were responsible for the changes.
The need for more exact racial documentation overcame the argument for
removing racial designations, for the civil rights experts both within
and outside the department demanded more detailed racial statistics to
protect and enlarge the equal opportunity gains of the sixties. The
demand was also supported by representatives of the smaller racial
minorities who, joining in the civil rights revolution, developed a
self-awareness that made detailed racial and ethnic statistics
mandatory. The shift was made possible to a great extent by the change
in public opinion toward racial minorities. As one civil rights
official later noted, the change in attitude had caused black
servicemen to reconsider their belief that detrimental treatment
necessarily followed racial identification.[22-67] Ironically, just a
decade after the McNamara directive on equal opportunity, a
departmental civil rights official, himself a Negro, was defending the
use of photographs in the selection process on the grounds that such
procedures were necessary in any large organization where individuals
were relatively unknown to their superiors.[22-68] So strong had the
services' need for black officers become, it could be argued, that a
promotion board's knowledge of a candidate's race redounded to the
advantage of the black applicants. For whatever reason, the pressure
to eliminate racial indicators from personnel forms had largely
disappeared at the end of the 1960's.
[Footnote 22-67: Memo, Bennett for ASD (M) and DASD
(Civ Pers, Indus Rels, and CR), 8 Dec 66, copy in
CMH.]
[Footnote 22-68: Interv, author with Johnson, 9 Aug
73.]
The Gesell Committee's investigations also forced the Department of
Defense to consider the possibility of discrimination in the rarefied
area of embassy and special mission assignments and the certainty of
discrimination against black servicemen in local communities near some
overseas bases. Concerning the former, the staff of the civil rights
deputy concluded that such assignments were voluntary and based on
special selection procedures. Race was not a factor except for three
countries where assignments were "based on politically ethnic
considerations."[22-69] Nevertheless, Fitt began to discuss with
the services ways to attract more qualified black volunteers for (p. 578)
assignments to attaché, mission, and military assistance groups.
[Footnote 22-69: Memo, Exec to DASD (CR) for DASD
(CR), 20 Mar 64; see also OASD (CR), Summary of
Military Personnel Assignments in Overseas Areas;
both in ODASD (CR) files. Negroes were not the only
Americans excluded from certain countries for
"politically ethnic considerations." Jewish
servicemen were barred from certain Middle East
countries.]
The department was less responsive to the Gesell Committee's
recommendations on racial restrictions encountered off base overseas.
The services, traditionally, had shunned consideration of this matter,
citing their role as guests. When the Department of Defense outlined
the commander's responsibility regarding off-base discrimination
overseas, it expressly authorized commanders to impose sanctions in
foreign communities, yet just five weeks later the services clarified
the order for the press, explaining that sanctions would be limited to
the United States.[22-70] A spokesman for the U.S. Army in Germany
admitted that discrimination continued in restaurants and bars, adding
that such discrimination was illegal in Germany and was limited to the
lowest class establishments.[22-71] Supporting these conclusions was a
spate of newspaper reports of segregated establishments in certain
areas of Okinawa and the neighborhood around an Army barracks near
Frankfurt, Germany.[22-72]
[Footnote 22-70: DOD directive cited in Gesell
Committee's "Final Report," p. 7; see also New York
_Times_, September 12, 1963.]
[Footnote 22-71: New York _Times_ and Washington
_Post_, December 29, 1964.]
[Footnote 22-72: See, for example, New York _Herald
Tribune_, January 3, 1965; New York _Times_, March
29, 1964.]
Despite these continuing press reports, the services declared in
mid-1965 that the "overwhelming majority" of overseas installations
were free of segregation problems in housing or public accommodations.
One important exception to this overwhelming majority was reported by
General Paul Freeman, the commander of U.S. Army Forces in Europe. He
not only admitted that the problem existed in his command but also
concluded that it had been imported from the United States. The
general had met with Gerhard Gesell and subsequently launched a
special troop indoctrination program in Europe on discrimination in
public accommodations. He also introduced a voluntary compliance
program to procure open housing.[22-73]
[Footnote 22-73: Memo for Rcd, Timpane, 25 Nov 64,
ODASD (CR) files.]
The Gesell Committee had repeatedly asserted that discrimination
existed only in areas near American bases, and its most serious
manifestations were "largely inspired by the attitude of a minority of
white servicemen" who exerted social pressure on local businessmen. It
was, therefore, a problem for American forces, and not primarily one
for its allies. The civil rights office, however, preferred to
consider the continuing discrimination as an anti-American phenomenon
rather than a racial problem.[22-74] Fitt and his successor seemed
convinced that such discrimination was isolated and its solution
complex because of the difficulty in drawing a line between the
attitudes of host nations and American GI's. Consequently, the problem
continued throughout the next decade, always low key, never
widespread, a problem of black morale inadequately treated by the
department.
[Footnote 22-74: Paul Memo.]
The failure to solve the problem of racial discrimination overseas
and, indeed, the inability to liquidate all remaining vestiges of
discrimination within the military establishment, constituted the
major shortfall of McNamara's equal opportunity policy. With no (p. 579)
attempt to shift responsibility to his subordinates,[22-75] McNamara
later reflected with some heat on the failure of his directive to
improve treatment and opportunities for black servicemen substantially
and expeditiously: "I was naive enough in those days to think that all
I had to do was show my people that a problem existed, tell them to
work on it, and that they would then attack the problem. It turned out
of course that not a goddamn thing happened."[22-76]
[Footnote 22-75: For an example of McNamara's
extremely self-critical judgments on the subject of
equal opportunity, see Brock Brower, "McNamara Seen
Now, Full Length," _Life_ 64 (May 10, 1968): 78.]
[Footnote 22-76: Interv, author with McNamara, 11 May
72.]
Although critical of his department's performance, McNamara would
probably admit that more than simple recalcitrance was involved. For
example, the services' traditional opposition to outside interference
with the development of their personnel policies led naturally to
their opposition to any defense programs setting exact command
responsibilities or dictating strict monitoring of their racial
progress. Defense officials, respecting service attitudes, failed to
demand an exact accounting. Again, the services' natural reluctance to
court congressional criticism, a reluctance shared by McNamara and his
defense colleagues, led them all to avoid unpopular programs such as
creating ombudsmen at bases to channel black servicemen's complaints.
As one manpower official pointed out, all commanders professed their
intolerance of discrimination in their commands, yet the prospect of
any effective communication between these commanders and their
subordinates suffering such discrimination remained unlikely.[22-77]
Again defense officials, restrained by the White House from
antagonizing Congress, failed to insist upon change.
[Footnote 22-77: Memo, William C. Baldes, ODASD (CR),
for DASD (CR), 8 Jul 63, ASD (M) 291.2.]
Finally, while it was true that the services had not responded any
better to McNamara's directive than to any of several earlier and less
noteworthy calls for racial equality within the military community, it
was not true that the reason for the lack of progress lay exclusively
with the service. Against the background of the integration
achievements of the previous decade, a feeling existed among defense
officials that such on-base discrimination as remained was largely a
matter of detail. Even Fitt shared the prevailing view. "In three
years of close attention to such matters, I have observed [no] ...
great gains in on-base equality," because, he explained to his
superior, "_the basic gains were made in the 1948-1953 period_."[22-78]
It must be remembered that discrimination operating within the armed
forces was less tractable and more difficult to solve than the
patterns of segregation that had confronted the services of old or the
off-base problems confronting them in the early 1960's. The services
had reached what must have seemed to many a point of diminishing
returns in the battle against on-base discrimination, a point at which
each successive increment of effort yielded a smaller result than its
predecessor.
[Footnote 22-78: Memo, DASD (CR) for ASD (M), 2 Jul
64, copy in CMH. Emphasis not in original.]
No one--not the Civil Rights Commission, the Gesell Committee, the
civil rights organizations, and, judging from the volume of complaints,
not even black servicemen themselves--seriously tried to disabuse
these officials of their satisfaction with the pace of reform. (p. 580)
Certainly no one equated the importance of on-base discrimination with
the blatant off-base discrimination that had captured everyone's
attention. In fact, problems as potentially explosive as the
discrimination in the administration of military justice were all but
ignored during the 1960's.[22-79]
[Footnote 22-79: The administration of military
justice was not considered by the Civil Rights
Commission nor by the Gesell Committee, although it
was mentioned once by the NAACP as a cause of
numerous complaints and once by the Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights in regard to
black representation on courts-martial. See NAACP,
"Proposals for Executive Action to End Federal
Supported Segregation and Other Forms of Racial
Discrimination," submitted to the White House on 29
Aug 61, White House Central Files, J. F. Kennedy
Library; Memo, Philip M. Timpane, ODASD (Civ Pers,
Indus Rels, and CR) for DASD (Civ Pers, Indus Rels
and CR), 23 Feb 65, sub: Representation by Race on
Courts-Martial. ODASD (Civ Pers, Indus Rels, and
CR) files.]
[Illustration: USAF GROUND CREW, TAN SON NHUT AIR BASE, VIETNAM,
_relaxes over cards in the alert tent_.]
The sense of satisfaction that pervaded Fitt's comment, however
understandable, was lamentable because it helped insure that certain
inequities in the military community would linger. The failure of
Negroes to win skilled job assignments and promotions, for example,
would remain to fester and contribute significantly to the bitterness
visited upon a surprised Department of Defense in later years. In
brief, because the services had become a model of racial equality when
judged by contemporary standards, the impulse of almost all concerned
was to play down the reforms still needed on base and turn instead to
the pressing and spectacular challenges that lay in wait outside the
gates.
CHAPTER 23 (p. 581)
From Voluntary Compliance to Sanctions
The Defense Department's attitude toward off-base discrimination
against servicemen underwent a significant change in the mid-1960's.
At first Secretary McNamara relied on his commanders to win from the
local communities a voluntary accommodation to his equal opportunity
policy. Only after a lengthy interval, during which the accumulated
evidence demonstrated that voluntary compliance would, in some cases,
not be forthcoming, did he take up the cudgel of sanctions. His use of
this powerful economic weapon proved to be circumscribed and of brief
duration, but its application against a few carefully selected targets
had a salubrious and widespread effect. At the same time developments
in the civil rights movement, especially the passage of strong new
legislation in 1964, permitted servicemen to depend with considerable
assurance upon judicial processes for the redress of their grievances.
Sanctions were distasteful, and almost everyone concerned was anxious
to avoid their use. The Gesell Committee wanted them reserved for
those recalcitrants who had withstood the informal but determined
efforts of local commanders to obtain voluntary compliance. McNamara
agreed. "There were plenty of things that the commanders could do in a
voluntary way," he said later, and he wanted to give them time "to get
to work on this problem."[23-1] His principal civil rights assistants
considered it inappropriate to declare businesses or local communities
off limits while the services were still in the process of developing
voluntary action programs and before the full impact of new federal
civil rights legislation on those programs could be tested. As for the
services themselves, each was on record as being opposed to any use of
sanctions in equal opportunity cases. The 1963 equal opportunity
directive of the Secretary of Defense reflected this general
reluctance. It authorized the use of sanctions, but in such a
carefully restricted manner that for three years agencies of the
Department of Defense never seriously contemplated using them.
[Footnote 23-1: Interv, author with McNamara, 11 May
72.]
_Development of Voluntary Action Programs_
Despite this obvious aversion to the use of sanctions in equal
opportunity cases, the public impression persisted that Secretary
McNamara was trying to use military commanders as instruments for
forcing the desegregation of civilian communities. Actually, the (p. 582)
Gesell Committee and the McNamara directive had demanded no such
thing, as the secretary's civil rights deputy was repeatedly forced to
point out. Military commanders, Fitt explained, were obligated to
protect their men from harm and to secure their just treatment.
Therefore, when "harmful civilian discrimination" was directed against
men in uniform, "the wise commander seeks to do something about it."
Commanders, he observed, did not issue threats or demand social
reforms; they merely sought better conditions for servicemen and their
families through cooperation and understanding. As for the general
problem of racial discrimination in the United States, that was a
responsibility of the civilian community, not the services.[23-2]
[Footnote 23-2: See Memo, DASD (CR) for ASD (M), 2 Jul
64; Fitt, "Remarks Before the Civilian Aides
Conference of the Secretary of the Army," 6 Mar 64;
copies of both in CMH. The quoted passage is from
the latter document.]
Exhibiting a similar concern for the sensibilities of congressional
critics, Secretary McNamara assured the Senate Armed Services
Committee that he had no plans "to utilize military personnel as a
method of social reform." At the same time he reiterated his belief
that troop efficiency was affected by segregation, and added that when
such a connection was found to exist "we should work with the
community involved." He would base such involvement, he emphasized, on
the commander's responsibility to maintain combat readiness and
effectiveness.[23-3] Similar reassurances had to be given the military
commanders, some of whom saw in the Gesell recommendations a demand
for preferential treatment for Negroes and a level of involvement in
community affairs that would interfere with their basic military
mission.[23-4] To counter this belief, Fitt and his successor hammered
away at the Gesell Committee's basic theme: discrimination affects
morale; morale affects military efficiency. The commander's activities
in behalf of equal opportunity for his men in the community is at
least as important as his interest in problems of gambling, vice, and
public health, and is in furtherance of his military mission.[23-5]
[Footnote 23-3: Robert S. McNamara, Testimony Before
Senate Armed Services Committee, 3 Oct 63, quoted
in New York _Times_, October 4, 1963.]
[Footnote 23-4: Memo, William C. Valdes, OASD (M), for
Alfred B. Fitt, 8 Jul 63, sub: Case Studies of
Minority Group Problems at Keesler AFB, Brookley
AFB, Greenville AFB, and Columbus AFB, copy in
CMH.]
[Footnote 23-5: See Shulman, "The Civil Rights
Policies of the Department of Defense," 4 May 65.]
McNamara's civil rights assistants tried to provide explicit guidance
on the extent to which it was proper for base commanders to become
involved in the community. Fitt organized conferences with base
commanders to develop techniques for dealing with off-base
discrimination, and his office provided commanders with legal advice
to counter the arguments of authorities in segregated communities.
Fitt also encouraged commanders to establish liaison with local civil
rights groups whose objectives and activities coincided with
departmental policy. At his request, Assistant Secretary of Defense
for Manpower Paul devised numerous special instructions and asked the
services to issue regulations supporting commanders in their attempts
to change community attitudes toward black servicemen. These
regulations, in turn, called on commanders to enlist community support
for equal treatment and opportunity measures, utilizing in the (p. 583)
cause their command-community relations committees. Consisting of base
officials and local business and community leaders, these committees
had originally been organized by the services to improve relations
between the base and town. Henceforth, they would become the means by
which the local commanders might introduce measures to secure equal
treatment for servicemen.[23-6]
[Footnote 23-6: Memos: DASD (CR) for White, Assoc Spec
Council to President, 9 Jul 64; Philip M. Timpane.
Staff Asst, ODASD (CP, IR, & CR), for DASD (CP, IR,
& CR), 11 Feb 65, sub: Service Reports on Equal
Rights Activities; DASD (CP, IR, & CR) for John G.
Stewart, 23 Dec 64, sub: Civil Rights
Responsibilities of the Department of Defense.
Copies of all in CMH. For a discussion of the
composition and activities of these
command-community relations committees and a
critical analysis of the command initiatives in the
local community in general, see David Sutton, "The
Military Mission Against Off-Base Discrimination,"
_Public Opinion and the Military Establishment_,
ed. Charles C. Moskos, Jr. (Beverly Hills,
California: Sage Publications, 1971), pp. 149-83.]
[Illustration: FIGHTER PILOTS ON THE LINE. _Col. Daniel (Chappie)
James, Jr., commander of an F-4 jet, and his pilot readying for
takeoff from a field in Thailand._]
Perhaps the most important, certainly most controversial, of Fitt's
moves[23-7] was the establishment of a system to measure the local
commanders' progress against off-base discrimination. His vehicle was
a series of off-base equal opportunity inventories, the first
comprehensive, statistical record of discrimination affecting
servicemen in the United States. Based on detailed reports from every
military installation to which 500 or more servicemen were (p. 584)
assigned, the first inventory covered some 305 bases in forty-eight
states and the District of Columbia and nearly 80 percent of the total
military population stationed in the United States. Along with
detailed surveys of public transportation, education, public
accommodations, and housing, the inventory reported on local racial
laws and customs, police treatment of black servicemen, the existence
of state and local agencies concerned with equal opportunity
enforcement, and the base commander's use of command-community
relations committees.[23-8]
[Footnote 23-7: See especially UPI Press Release,
October 4, 1963; New York _Times_, October 3, 1963;
Memo, Robert E. Jordan III, Staff Asst, ODASD (CR),
for ASD (M), 2 Oct 63, sub: Status of Defense
Department Implementation of DOD Directive 5120.36
("Equal Opportunity in the Armed Forces," July 26,
1963), ASD (M) 291.2 (14 Jul 63).]
[Footnote 23-8: Memo, ASD (M) for Under SA et al., 24
Sep 63, sub: Off-Base Equal Opportunity Inventory,
ASD (M) 291.2 (14 Jul 63); DASD (CR) "Summary of
Off-Base Equal Opportunity Inventory Responses"
(ca. Jan 64), copy inclosed with Ltr, DASD (CR) to
Gesell, 2 Apr 64, Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy
library. For examples of service responses, see
BuPers Instruction 5350.3, 3 Oct 63, and Marine
Corps Order 5350.2, 1 Oct 63. For details of a
service's experiences with conducting an off-base
inventory, see the many documents in CS 291.2 (23
Aug 63).]
The first inventory confirmed the widespread complaints of special
discrimination encountered by black servicemen. It also uncovered
interesting patterns in that discrimination. In matters of commercial
transportation, local schools, and publicly owned facilities such as
libraries and stadiums, the problem of discrimination against black
servicemen was confined almost exclusively to areas around
installations in the south. But segregated public accommodations such
as motels, restaurants, and amusements, a particularly virulent form
of discrimination for servicemen, who as transients had to rely on
such businesses, existed in all parts of the country including areas
as diverse as Iowa, Alaska, Arizona, and Illinois. Discrimination in
these states was especially flagrant since all except Arizona had
legislation prohibiting enforced segregation of public accommodations.
Discrimination in the sale and rental of houses showed a similar
pattern. Only thirty installations out of the 305 reporting were
located in states with equal housing opportunity statutes. These were
in northern states, stretching from Maine to California. At the same
time, some of these installations reported discrimination in housing
despite existing state legislation forbidding such practices. No
differences were reported in the treatment of black and white
servicemen with respect to civilian law enforcement except that in
some communities black servicemen were segregated when taken into
custody for criminal violations.
Generally, the practice of most forms of discrimination was more
intense in the south, but the record of other sections of the country
was no better than mixed, even where legislation forbade such separate
and unequal treatment. Obviously there was much room for progress, and
as indicated in the inventory much still could be done within the
armed forces themselves. The reports revealed that almost one-third of
the commands inventoried failed to form the command-community
relations committees recommended by the Gesell Committee and ordered
in the services' equal opportunity directives. Of the rest, only
sixty-one commands had invited local black leaders to participate in
what were supposed to be biracial groups.
The purpose of the follow-up inventories--three were due from each
service at six-month intervals--was to determine the progress of local
commanders in achieving equal opportunity for their men. The (p. 585)
Defense Department showed considerable energy in extracting from
commanders comprehensive information on the state of equal opportunity
in their communities.[23-9] In fact, this rather public exposition
proved to be the major reporting system on equal opportunity progress,
the strongest inducement for service action, and the closest
endorsement by the department of the Gesell Committee's call for an
accountability system.
[Footnote 23-9: See, for example, the following Memos:
USAF Dep for Manpower, Personnel, and Organization
for ASD (M), 6 Feb 64, sub: Off-Base Equal
Opportunity Inventory Report, SecAF files; DASD
(CR) for Fridge, USAF Manpower Office, 14 May 64;
idem for Davenport et al., 3 Aug 64, sub: Off-Base
Equal Opportunity Inventory Follow-Up Reports. All
in ASD (M) 291.2.]
The first follow-up inventory revealed some progress in overcoming
discrimination near military installations, but progress was slight
everywhere and in some areas of concern nonexistent. Discrimination in
schooling for dependents off base, closely bound to the national
problem of school desegregation, remained a major difficulty.
Commanders reported that discrimination in public accommodations was
more susceptible to command efforts, but here, too, in some parts of
the country, communities were resisting change. A Marine Corps
commander, for example, reported the successful formation of a
command-community relations committee at his installation near Albany,
Georgia, but to inquiries concerning the achievements of this
committee the commander was forced to reply "absolutely none."[23-10]
[Footnote 23-10: OASD (CR), Summary of Follow-Up
Off-Base Equal Opportunity Inventory (ca. Jun 64),
DASD (CR) files.]
Some forms of discrimination seemed impervious to change. Open
housing, for one, was the exception rather than the rule throughout
the country. One survey noted the particular difficulty this created
for servicemen, especially the many enlisted men who lived in trailers
and could find no unsegregated place to park.[23-11] At times the
commanders' efforts to improve the situation seemed to compound the
problem. The stipulation that only open housing be listed with base
housing officers served more to reduce the number of listings than to
create opportunities for open housing. Small wonder then that
segregated housing, "the most pervasive and most intractable injustice
of all," in Alfred Fitt's words, was generally ignored while the
commanders and civil rights officials concentrated instead on the more
easily surmountable forms of discrimination.[23-12]
[Footnote 23-11: Memo, DASD (CP, IR, & CR) for
Stewart, 23 Dec 64, sub: Civil Rights
Responsibilities of the Department of Defense, copy
in CMH.]
[Footnote 23-12: Ltr, Fitt to author, 22 May 72.]
At least part of the reason for the continued existence of housing
discrimination against servicemen lay in the fact that the Department
of Defense continued to deny itself the use of its most potent equal
opportunity weapon. Well into 1964, Fitt could report that no service
had contemplated the use of sanctions in an equal opportunity
case.[23-13] Nor had housing discrimination ever figured prominently
in any decision to close a military base. At Fitt's suggestion,
Assistant Secretary Paul proposed that community discrimination
patterns be listed as one of the reasons for closing military (p. 586)
bases.[23-14] Although the Assistant Secretary for Installations and
Logistics, Thomas D. Morris, agreed to consult such information during
deliberations on closings, he pointed out that economics and
operational suitability were the major factors in determining a base's
value.[23-15] As late as December 1964, an official of the Office of
the Secretary of Defense was publicly explaining that "discrimination
in the community is certainly a consideration, but the military
effectiveness and justification of an installation must be
primary."[23-16]
[Footnote 23-13: Ltr, DASD (CR) to Congressman Charles
Diggs, 3 Feb 64, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 23-14: Memo, DASD (CR) for ASD (M), 24 Apr
64, sub: Base Closings; Memo, ASD (M) for ASD
(I&L), 29 Apr 64, sub: Base Closing Decisions; both
in ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 23-15: Memo, ASD (I&L) for ASD (M), 23 May
64, sub: Base Closing Decisions, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 23-16: Ltr, Principal Asst for CR, DASD (CP,
IR, & CR) to Stanley T. Gutman, 18 Dec 64, ASD (M)
291.2.]
Clearly, voluntary compliance had its limits, and Fitt said as much on
the occasion of his departure after a year's assignment as the civil
rights deputy. Reviewing the year's activities for Gesell, Fitt
concluded that "we have done everything we could think of" in
formulating civil rights policy and in establishing a monitoring
system for its enforcement. He was confident that the department's
campaign against discrimination had gained enough momentum to insure
continued progress. If, as he put it, the "off-base lot of the Negro
serviceman will not in my time be the same as that of his white
comrade-in-arms" he was nevertheless satisfied that the Department of
Defense was committed to equal opportunity and that commitment was
"bound to be beneficial."[23-17]
[Footnote 23-17: Ltr, DASD (CR) to Gesell, 28 Jul 64,
copy in CMH.]
Fitt's assessment was accurate, no doubt, but not exactly in keeping
with the optimistic spirit of the Gesell Committee and Secretary
McNamara's subsequent equal opportunity commitment to the President.
Obviously more could be achieved through voluntary compliance if the
threat of legal sanctions were available. In the summer of 1964,
therefore, the Defense Department's manpower officials turned to new
federal civil rights legislation for help.
_Civil Rights, 1964-1966_
The need for strong civil rights legislation had become increasingly
apparent in the wake of _Brown_ v. _Board of Education_.[23-18] With
that decision, the judicial branch finally lined up definitively with
the executive in opposition to segregation. But the effect of this
united opposition was blunted by the lack of a strong civil rights
law, something that President Kennedy had not been able to wrestle
from a reluctant legislative branch. The demands of the civil rights
movement only underscored the inability of court judgments and (p. 587)
executive orders alone to guarantee the civil rights of all Americans.
Such a profound social change in American society required the
concerted action of all three branches of government, and by 1963 the
drive for strong civil rights legislation had made such legislation
the paramount domestic political issue. Lyndon Johnson fully
understood its importance. "We have talked long enough in this country
about equal rights," he told his old colleagues in Congress, "we have
talked for one hundred years or more. It is time now to write the next
chapter, and to write it in the books of law."[23-19]
[Footnote 23-18: _Benjamin Muse, The American Negro
Revolution: From Nonviolence to Black Power,
1963-1967_ (Bloomington: University of Indiana
Press, 1968). The following survey is based on Muse
and on Robert D. Marcus and David Burner, eds.,
_America Since 1945_ (New York: St. Martin's,
1972), especially the chapter by James Sundquist,
"Building the Great Society: The Case of Equal
Rights, From Politics and Policy," and that by
Daniel Walker, "Violence in Chicago, 1968: The
Walker Report"; _Report of the National Advisory
Commission on Civil Disorders_; Otis L. Graham,
Jr., ed., _Perspectives on 20th Century America,
Readings and Commentary_ (New York: Dodd, Mead,
1973); Zinn, _Postwar America, 1945-1971_; Roger
Beaumont, "The Embryonic Revolution: Perspectives
on the 1967 Riots," in Robin Higham, ed., _Bayonets
in the Street: The Use of Troops in Civil
Disturbances_ (Lawrence: University Press of
Kansas, 1969); Woodward's _Strange Career of Jim
Crow_.]
[Footnote 23-19: Lyndon B. Johnson, "Address Before a
Joint Session of the Congress," 27 Nov 63, _Public
Papers of the Presidents: Lyndon B. Johnson,
1963-1964_ (Washington: Government Printing Office,
1965), I:9.]
He was peculiarly fitted for the task. A southerner in quest of
national support, Johnson was determined for very practical reasons to
carry out the civil rights program of his slain predecessor and to end
the long rule of Jim Crow in many areas of the country. He let it be
known that he would accept no watered-down law.
I made my position [on the civil rights bill] unmistakably clear:
We were not prepared to compromise in any way. "So far as this
administration is concerned," I told a press conference, "its
position is firm." I wanted absolutely no room for bargaining....
I knew that the slightest wavering on my part would give hope to
the opposition's strategy of amending the bill to death.[23-20]
[Footnote 23-20: Lyndon B. Johnson, _The Vantage
Point_ (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1971), p. 157.]
Certainly this pronouncement was no empty rhetoric, coming as it did
from a consummate master of the legislative process who enjoyed old
and close ties with congressional leaders.
Johnson was also philosophically committed to change. "Civil rights
was really something that was, by this time, burning pretty strongly
in Johnson," Harris L. Wofford later noted.[23-21] The new President
exhorted his countrymen: "To the extent that Negroes were imprisoned,
so was I ... to the extent that Negroes were free, really free, so was
I. And so was my country."[23-22] Skillfully employing the wave of
sympathy for equal rights that swept the country after John Kennedy's
death, President Johnson procured a powerful civil rights act, which
he signed on 2 July 1964.[23-23]
[Footnote 23-21: Interv, Bernhard with Wofford, 29 Nov
65. Special Assistant to Presidents Kennedy and
Johnson, Wofford was later appointed to a senior
position in the Peace Corps.]
[Footnote 23-22: Johnson, _Vantage Point_, p. 160.]
[Footnote 23-23: PL 88-352, 78 _U.S. Stat._ 241.]
The object of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was no less than the
overthrow of segregation in America. Its major provisions outlawed
discrimination in places of amusement and public accommodation, in
public education, labor unions, employment, and housing. It called for
federal intervention in voting rights cases and established a
Community Relations Service in the Department of Commerce to arbitrate
racial disputes. The act also strengthened the Civil Rights Commission
and broadened its powers. It authorized the United States Attorney
General and private citizens to bring suit in discrimination cases,
outlining the procedures for such cases. Most significant were
the sweeping provisions of the law's Title VI that forbade (p. 588)
discrimination in any activity or program that received federal
financial assistance. This added the threat of economic sanctions
against any of those thousands of institutions, whether public or
private, which, while enjoying federal benefactions, discriminated
against citizens because of race. Accurately characterized as the
"most effective instrument yet found for the elimination of racial
discrimination,"[23-24] Title VI gave the federal government leave to
cut segregation and discrimination out of the body politic. In
Professor Woodward's words, "a national consensus was in the making
and a peaceful solution was in sight."[23-25]
[Footnote 23-24: Muse, _The American Negro
Revolution_, p. 183. For a detailed discussion of
the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, see
Muse's book, pp. 181-91.]
[Footnote 23-25: Woodward, _Strange Career of Jim
Crow_, p. 180.]
The 1964 presidential election was at hand to test this consensus.
Given the Republican candidate's vehement opposition to the Civil
Rights Act, Lyndon Johnson's overwhelming victory was among other
things widely interpreted as a national plebiscite for the new law.
The President, however, preferred a broader interpretation. Believing
that "great social change tends to come rapidly in periods of intense
activity before the impulse slows,"[23-26] he considered his victory a
mandate for further social reform. On the advice of the Justice
Department and the Civil Rights Commission, he called on Congress to
eliminate the "barriers to the right to vote."[23-27]
[Footnote 23-26: Johnson, "Remarks at the National
Urban League's Community Action Assembly," 10 Dec
64, as reproduced in _Public Papers of the
Presidents: Johnson, 1963-1964_, II:1653.]
[Footnote 23-27: Lyndon B. Johnson, "Annual Message to
Congress on the State of the Union," 4 Jan 65,
_Public Papers of the Presidents: Lyndon B.
Johnson, 1965_ (Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1966), I:6.]
In common with its predecessors, the 1964 Civil Rights Act had only
touched lightly on the serious obstacles in the way of black voters.
Although some 450,000 Negroes were added to the voting rolls in the
southern states in the year following passage of the 1964 law, the
civil rights advocates were calling for stronger legislation. With
bipartisan support, the President introduced a measure aimed directly
at states that discriminated against black voters, providing for the
abolition of literacy tests, appointment of federal examiners to
register voters for all elections, and assignment of federal
supervisors for those elections. The Twenty-fourth Amendment, adopted
in February 1964, had eliminated the poll tax in federal elections,
and the President's new measure carried a strong condemnation of the
use of the poll tax in state elections as well.
In all of his efforts the President had the unwitting support of the
segregationists, who treated the nation to another sordid racial
spectacular. In February 1965 Alabama police jailed Martin Luther
King, Jr., and some 2,000 members of his voting rights drive, and a
generally outraged nation watched King's later clash with the police
over a voting rights march. This time he and his followers were
stopped at a bridge in Selma, Alabama, by state troopers using tear
gas and clubs. The incident climaxed months of violence that saw the
murder of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi; the
harassment of the Mississippi Summer Project, a voting registration
campaign sponsored by several leading civil rights organizations; and
ended in the assassination of a white Unitarian minister, James (p. 589)
Reeb, of Washington, D.C., one of the hundreds of clergymen, students,
and other Americans who had joined in the King demonstrations.
Addressing a joint session of Congress on the voting rights bill, the
President alluded to the Selma incident, declaring: "Their cause must
be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all
of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.
And we shall overcome."[23-28]
[Footnote 23-28: Lyndon B. Johnson, "Speech Before
Joint Session of Congress," 15 Mar 65, _Public
Papers of the Presidents: Johnson, 1965_, I:284.]
[Illustration: MEDICAL EXAMINATION. _Navy doctor on duty, Yokosuka,
Japan._]
The President's bill passed easily with bipartisan support, and he
signed it on 6 August 1965. Two days later federal examiners were on
the job in three states. The act promised a tremendous difference in
the political complexion of significant portions of the country. In
less than a year federal examiners certified 124,000 new voters in
four states and almost half of all eligible Negroes were registered to
vote in the states and counties covered by the law. Another result of
the new legislation was that the Attorney General played an active
role in the 1966 defeat of the state poll tax laws in _Harper_ v.
_Virginia Board of Elections_.[23-29]
[Footnote 23-29: 383 U.S. 663 (1966).]
Useful against legalized discrimination, chiefly in the south, the
civil rights laws of the mid-1960's were conspicuously less successful
in those areas where discrimination operated outside the law. In the
great urban centers of the north and west, home of some 45 percent of
the black population, _de facto_ segregation in housing, employment,
and education had excluded millions of Negroes from the benefits of
economic progress. This ghettoization, this failure to meet human
needs, led to the alienation of many young Americans and a bitter
resentment against society that was dramatized just five days after
the signing of the 1965 voting rights act when the Watts section of
Los Angeles exploded in flames and violence. There had been racial
unrest before, especially during the two previous summers when
flare-ups occurred in Cambridge (Maryland), Philadelphia,
Jacksonville, Brooklyn, Cleveland, and elsewhere, but Watts was a
different matter. Before the California National Guard with some
logistical help from the Army quelled the riots, thirty-four people
were killed, some 4,000 arrested, and $35 million worth of property
damaged or destroyed. The greatest civil disturbance since the 1943
Detroit riot, Watts was but the first in a series of urban (p. 590)
disturbances which refuted the general belief that the race problem
had been largely solved in cities of the north and the west.[23-30]
[Footnote 23-30: For an account of the Watts riot and
its aftermath, see Robert Conot, _Rivers of Blood,
Years of Darkness_ (New York: Bantam Books, 1967),
and Anthony Platt, ed., _The Politics of Riot
Commissions_ (New York: Collin Books, 1971), ch.
vi.]
Discrimination in housing was a major cause of black urban unrest, and
housing was foremost among the areas of discrimination still untouched
by federal legislation. The housing provision of the 1964 Civil Rights
Act was severely limited, and Johnson rejected the idea of yet another
executive order proposed by his Committee on Equal Opportunity in
Housing. Like the order signed by Kennedy, it could cover only new
housing and even that with dubious legality. Johnson, relying on the
civil rights momentum developed over the previous years, decided
instead to press for a comprehensive civil rights bill that would
outlaw discrimination in the sale of all housing. The new measure was
also designed to attack several other residual areas of
discrimination, including jury selection and the physical protection
of Negroes and civil rights workers. Although he enjoyed a measure of
bipartisan support for these latter sections of the bill, the
President failed to overcome the widespread opposition to open
housing, and the 1966 civil rights bill died in the Senate, thereby
postponing an effective law on open housing until after the
assassination of Dr. King in 1968.
The spectacle of demonstrators and riots in northern cities and the
appearance in 1966 of the "black power" slogan considered ominous by
many citizens were blamed for the bill's failure. Another and more
likely cause was that in violating the sanctity of the all-white
neighborhood Johnson had gone beyond any national consensus on civil
rights. In August 1966, for example, a survey by the Louis Harris
organization revealed that some 46 percent of white America would
object to having a black family as next-door neighbors and 70 percent
believed that Negroes "were trying to move too fast." Of particular
importance to the Department of Defense, which would be taking some
equal opportunity steps in the housing field in the next months, was
the fact that this opposition was not translated into a general
rejection of the concept of equal opportunity. In fact, although the
bill failed to win enough votes to apply the Senate's cloture rule,
the President could boast that he won a clear majority in both houses.
His defeat slowed the pace of the civil rights movement and postponed
a solution to a major domestic problem; postponed, because, as Roy
Wilkins reminded his fellow citizens at the time, "the problem is not
going away ... the Negro is not going away."[23-31]
[Footnote 23-31: Both the Harris and Wilkins remarks
are quoted in Sundquist, "Building the Great
Society," pp. 205-06.]
_The Civil Rights Act and Voluntary Compliance_
The enactment of new civil rights legislation in 1964 had thrust the
armed forces into the heart of the civil rights movement in a special
way. As Secretary McNamara himself reminded his subordinates,
President Johnson was determined to have each federal department
develop programs and policies that would give meaning to the new (p. 591)
legislation. That legislation, he added, created "new opportunities"
to win full equality for all servicemen. The secretary made the usual
connection between discrimination and military efficiency, adding that
"this reason alone" compelled departmental action.[23-32] Obviously
other reasons existed, and when McNamara called on all commanders to
support their men in the "lawful assertion of the rights guaranteed"
by the act he was making his more than 300 local commanders agents of
the new federal legislation.
[Footnote 23-32: Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 10 Jul
64, copy in CMH; see also SecDef News Conference,
15 Jul 64, p. 13, OASD (PA).]
Defense officials quickly arranged for the publication of directives
and regulations applying the provisions of the new law to the whole
defense establishment. To insure, as McNamara put it, that military
commanders understood their responsibility for seeing that those in
uniform were accorded fair treatment as prescribed by the new law,
Assistant Secretary Paul had already ordered the services to advise
the rank and file of their rights and instruct commanders to seek
civilian cooperation for the orderly application of the act to
servicemen.[23-33] After considering the service comments solicited by
his civil rights deputy,[23-34] Paul issued a departmental instruction
on 24 July that prescribed specific policies and procedures for
processing the requests of uniformed men and women for legal action
under Titles II (Public Accommodations), III (Public Facilities), and
IV (Public Education) of the act. The instruction encouraged, but did
not compel, the use of command assistance by servicemen who wished to
request suit by the U.S. Attorney General.[23-35]
[Footnote 23-33: Memo, ASD (M) for Under SA et al., 6
Jul 64, ASD (M) 291.2; see also SecDef News
Conference, 15 Jul 64, p. 13.]
[Footnote 23-34: Memo, DASD (CR) for Roy Davenport, et
al., 5 May 64, sub: Requests for Suit by Military
Personnel Under the Civil Rights Bill; idem for ASD
(M), 10 Jul 64, sub: DOD Instruction on Processing
of Requests by Military Personnel for the Bringing
of Civil Rights Suits by the Attorney General; both
in ASD (M) 291.2. For an example of a service
response, see Memo, Dep Under SA (Pers Management)
for DASD (CR), 9 Jul 64, same sub, ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 23-35: DOD Instr 5525.2, 24 Jul 64,
Processing of Requests by Military Personnel for
Action by the Attorney General Under the Civil
Rights Act; see also Memo, ASD (M) for Under SA et
al., 24 Jul 64, same sub, ASD (M) 291.2.]
Finally in December, McNamara issued a directive spelling out his
department's obligations under the act's controversial Title VI,
Nondiscrimination in Federally Assisted Programs.[23-36] This
directive was one of a series requested by the White House from
various governmental agencies and reviewed by the Justice Department
and the Bureau of the Budget in an attempt to coordinate the federal
government's activities under the far-reaching Title VI
provision.[23-37] After arranging for the circulation of the directive
throughout the services, Secretary McNamara explained in considerable
detail how grants and loans of federal funds, transfer, sale, or lease
of military property, and in fact any federal assistance would be
denied in cases where discrimination could be found. Although this
directive would affect the Department of Defense chiefly through the
National Guard and various civil defense programs, it was (p. 592)
nevertheless a potential source of economic leverage for use by the
armed forces in the fight against discrimination.[23-38] Furthermore,
this directive, unlike McNamara's equal opportunity directive of the
previous year, was supported by federal legislation and thus escaped
the usual criticism suffered by his earlier directives on
discrimination.
[Footnote 23-36: DOD Directive 5500.11, 28 Dec 64.]
[Footnote 23-37: Memo, ASD (M) for Dir, BOB, 15 Jul
64, sub: Defense Department Regulations to
Implement Title VI of the Civil Rights Act; see
also Ltr, Spec Asst to DASD (CR), to Gesell, 24 Jul
64; copies of both in Gesell Collection, J. F.
Kennedy Library.]
[Footnote 23-38: DASD (CP, IR, & CR), The Civil Rights
Policies of the Department of Defense, 4 May 65,
copy in CMH.]
The Department of Defense's voluntary compliance program in off-base
discrimination cases had its greatest success in the months following
the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Given the passage of the act and
other federal legislation, pronouncements of the federal courts, and
the broad advance of racial tolerance throughout the nation, the
Defense Department's civil rights officials came to expect that most
discrimination could be dealt with in a routine manner. As Robert E.
Jordan III, a staff assistant to the department's civil rights deputy,
put it, the use of sanctions would not "normally" be invoked when the
Civil Rights Act or other laws could provide a judicial remedy.[23-39]
Fitt predicted that only a "very tiny number" of requests by
servicemen for suits under the act would ever be processed all the way
through to the courts. He expected to see many voluntary settlements
achieved by commanders spurred to action by the filing of requests for
suit.[23-40]
[Footnote 23-39: Ltr, Jordan to William A. Smith, 21
Aug 64, ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 23-40: Memo, DASD (CR) for ASD (M), 10 Jul
64, sub: DOD Instruction on Processing of Requests
by Military Personnel for the Bringing of Civil
Rights Suits by the Attorney General, ASD (M)
291.2.]
By early 1965 local commanders had made "very good progress,"
according to one Defense Department survey, in securing voluntary
compliance with Title II of the act for public accommodations
frequented by servicemen. Each service had reported "really surprising
examples of progress" in obtaining integrated off-base housing in
neighborhoods adjoining military installations and heavily populated
by service families. The services also reported good progress in
obtaining integrated off-duty education for servicemen, as distinct
from their dependents in the public schools.[23-41] At the same time
lesser but noticeable progress was reported in Titles II and III
cases. In the first off-base inventory some 145 installations in
twenty states had reported widespread discrimination in nearby
restaurants, hotels, bars, bowling alleys, and other Title II
businesses; forty installations in nine states reported similar
discrimination in libraries, city parks, and stadiums (Title III
categories). Each succeeding inventory reported impressive reductions
in these figures.
[Footnote 23-41: Memo, Timpane (Staff Asst) for
Shulman, DASD (CP, IR, & CR), 11 Feb 65, sub:
Service Reports on Equal Rights Activities, ASD (M)
291.2.]
Defense Department officials observed that the amount of progress
depended considerably on the size of the base, its proximity to the
local community, and the relationship between the commander and local
leaders. Progress was most notable at large bases near towns. The
influence of the Civil Rights Act on cases involving servicemen was
also readily apparent. But above all, these officials pointed to the
personal efforts of the local commander as the vital factor. Many
commanders were able to use the off-base inventory itself as a weapon
to fight discrimination, especially when the philosophy of "if (p. 593)
everybody else desegregates I will" was so prevalent. Nor could the
effect of commanders' achievements be measured merely in terms of
hotels and restaurants open to black servicemen. The knowledge that
his commander was fighting for his rights in the community gave a
tremendous boost to the black serviceman's morale. It followed that
when a commander successfully forced a change in the practices of a
business establishment, even one only rarely frequented by servicemen,
he stirred a new pride and self-respect in his men.[23-42]
[Footnote 23-42: For discussion of command initiatives
and black morale, see Memo, DASD (CR) for Under SA
et al., 25 May 64, sub: Off-Base Equal Opportunity
Inventories; Fitt, "Remarks Before Civilian Aides
Conference of the Secretary of the Army," 6 Mar 64;
Memo, DASD (CR) for Burke Marshall, Dept of
Justice, 20 Mar 64, sub: The Civil Rights of Negro
Servicemen. Copies of all in CMH.]
_The Limits of Voluntary Compliance_
If the Civil Rights Act strengthened the hands of the commander, it
also quickly revealed the ultimate limits of voluntary compliance
itself. The campaign against Titles II and III discrimination was only
one facet of the Department of Defense's battle against off-base
discrimination, which also included major attacks against
discrimination in the National Guard, in the public schools, and,
finally, in housing. It was in these areas that the limits of
voluntary compliance were reached, and the technique was abandoned in
favor of economic sanctions.
Because of its intimate connection with the Department of Defense, the
National Guard appeared to be an easy target in the attack against
off-base discrimination. Although Secretary McNamara had accepted his
department's traditional voluntary approach toward ending
discrimination in this major reserve component,[23-43] the possibility
of using sanctions against the guard had been under discussion for
some time. As early as 1949 the legal counsel of the National Guard
Bureau had concluded that the federal government had the right to
compel integration.[23-44] Essentially the same stand was taken in
1961 by the Defense Department's Assistant General Counsel for
Manpower.[23-45]
[Footnote 23-43: For the discussion of McNamara's
initial dealings with the National Guard on the
subject of race, see Chapter 20.]
[Footnote 23-44: "Opinion of the Legal Adviser of the
National Guard Bureau, April 1949," reproduced in
Special Board to Study Negro Participation in the
Army National Guard (ARNG) and the United States
Army Reserve (USAR), "Participation of Negroes in
the Reserve Components of the Army," 3 vols. (1967)
(hereafter cited as Williams Board Rpt), II:
20-21.]
[Footnote 23-45: Memo, Asst Gen Counsel (Manpower) for
ASD (M), 17 Jul 61, sub: Integration of National
Guard, ASD (M) 291.2.]
These opinions, along with the 1947 staff study on the guard and the
1948 New Jersey case,[23-46] provided support extending over more than
a decade for the argument that the federal government could establish
racial policies for the National Guard. Indeed, there is no evidence
of opposition to this position in the 1940's, and southern guard
leaders openly accepted federal supremacy during the period when the
Army and Air Force were segregated. But in the 1960's, long after (p. 594)
the services had integrated their active forces and seemed to be
moving toward a similar policy for the guard, doubts about federal
authority over a peacetime guard appeared. The National Guard Bureau
disputed the 1949 opinion of its legal counsel and the more recent one
from the Defense Department and stressed the political implications of
forcing integration; a bureau spokesman asserted that "an ultimatum to
a governor that he must commit political suicide in order to obtain
federal support for his National Guard will be rejected." Moreover, if
federal officials insisted on integration, the bureau foresaw a
deterioration of guard units to the detriment of national
security.[23-47]
[Footnote 23-46: For a discussion of earlier efforts
to integrate the New Jersey National Guard and the
attitude of individual states toward Defense
Department requests, see Chapter 12.]
[Footnote 23-47: Memo, Legal Adviser, NGB, for Bruce
Docherty, Office of the General Counsel, DA, 19 Jul
63, sub: Authority to Require Integration in the
National Guard, copy in CMH.]
[Illustration: AUTO PILOT SHOP. _Airmen check out equipment, Biggs Air
Force Base, Texas._]
The National Guard Bureau supported voluntary integration, and its
chiefs tried in 1962 and 1963 to prod state adjutants general into
taking action on their own account. Citing the success some states,
notably Texas, enjoyed in continuing the integration their units first
experienced during federalized service in the Berlin call-up, Maj.
Gen. D. W. McGowan warned other state organizations that outright
defiance of federal authorities could not be maintained indefinitely
and would eventually lead to integration enforced by Washington.[23-48]
Replies from the state adjutants varied, but in some cases it (p. 595)
became clear that the combination of persuasion and quiet pressure
might bring change. The Louisiana adjutant general, for example,
reported that considering the feelings in his state's legislature any
move toward integration would require "a selling job." At the same
time, he carefully admitted, "some of these days, the thing
[integration] is probably inevitable."[23-49] The administration,
however, continued to take the view that integration of the National
Guard was a special problem because the leverage available to
implement it was in no way comparable to the federal government's
control over the active forces or the organized reserves.
[Footnote 23-48: Ltrs, Chief, NGB, to AG's of Alabama
et al., 3 Mar 62, 3 Jul 63, and 9 Dec 63; see also
Williams Board Rpt, II: 36.]
[Footnote 23-49: Ltr, Maj Gen Raymond H. Fleming,
Adjutant General, Louisiana National Guard, to
Chief, NGB, 16 Jul 63, copy in CMH.]
Progress toward total integration continued through 1963 and 1964,
although slowly.[23-50] Near the end of 1964, the National Guard
Bureau announced that every state National Guard was integrated,
though only in token numbers in some cases.[23-51] Even this slight
victory could not be claimed by the Department of Defense or its
National Guard Bureau, but was the result of the pressure exerted on
states by the Gesell Committee.
[Footnote 23-50: See Memos: Chief, NGB, for Gen
Counsel, DA, 22 Oct 63, sub: Current Status of
Integration of National Guard in Ten Southern
States; idem for DASD (CR), 30 Dec 63, sub:
Year-End Report on Integration of Negroes in the
National Guard; idem for Dep Under SA (Manpower and
Res Forces), 9 Jan 64, sub: Meeting With National
Chairman of the American Veterans Committee. Copies
of all in CMH.]
[Footnote 23-51: "Statement by Maj. Gen. Winston C.
Wilson, Chief, National Guard Bureau Concerning
Integration of the National Guard," 28 Dec 64, copy
in CMH; see also New York _Times_, December 30,
1964, and Williams Board Rpt, II:38.]
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 altered the Defense Department's attitude
toward the National Guard. Title VI of the act undercut all arguments
against federal supremacy over the guard, for it no longer mattered
who had technical responsibility for units in peacetime. In practical
terms, the power to integrate clearly rested now with the federal
government, which in a complete reversal of its earlier policy showed
a disposition to use it. On 15 February 1965 Deputy Secretary of
Defense Vance ordered the Army and Air Force to amend National Guard
regulations to eliminate any trace of racial discrimination and "to
ensure that the policy of equal opportunity and treatment is clearly
stated."[23-52] Vance's order produced a speedy change in the states,
so much so that later in 1965 the Department of Defense was finally
able to oppose New York Congressman Abraham J. Multer's biannual bill
to withhold federal aid from segregated guard units on the grounds
that there were no longer any such units.[23-53]
[Footnote 23-52: Memo, Dep SecDef for SA and SecAF, 15
Feb 65, sub: Equality of Opportunity in the
National Guard, SD 291.2; see also Memo, Chief,
NGB, for Chief, Office of Reserve Components, 27
Jan 65. For examples of how Vance's order was
transmitted to the individual states, see Texas Air
National Guard Regulation 35-1, 17 March 1965, and
State of Michigan General Order No. 34, 2 July
1965. In March 1966 the Army and Air Force
published a joint regulation outlining procedures
to assure compliance with Title VI in the Army and
Air National Guard and designating the Chief of the
National Guard Bureau as the responsible official
to implement departmental directives regarding all
federally assisted activities of the National
Guard. See National Guard Regulation 24, 30 Mar
66.]
[Footnote 23-53: Congressman Multer first introduced
such a bill on 13 January 1949 and pressed,
unsuccessfully, for similar measures in each
succeeding Congress; see Williams Board Rpt, II:
47-48.]
Lack of equal opportunity in the National Guard might have been
resented by civil rights groups, but black servicemen themselves
suffered more generally and more deeply from discrimination (p. 596)
visited on their children. Alfred Fitt summarized these feelings in
1964:
The imposition of unconstitutionally segregated schooling on
their children is particularly galling for the Negro servicemen.
As comparative transients--and as military men accustomed to
avoiding controversy with civilian authorities--they cannot
effectively sue for the constitutional rights of their sons and
daughters. Yet they see their children, fresh from the integrated
environment which is the rule on military installations,
condemned to schools which are frequently two, even three grades
behind the integrated schools these same children had attended
on-base or at their fathers' previous duty stations.[23-54]
[Footnote 23-54: Memo, DASD (CR) for Burke Marshall,
20 Mar 64, sub: The Civil Rights of Negro
Servicemen, copy in CMH.]
There was much to be said for the Defense Department's theory that an
appeal for voluntary compliance would produce much integration in
off-base schools attended by military dependents. That these children
were the offspring of men serving in defense of their country was
likely to have considerable impact in the south, especially, with its
strong military traditions. That the children had in most cases
already attended integrated schools, competing and learning with
children of another race, was likely to make their integration more
acceptable to educators.
Beyond these special reasons, the services could expect help from new
legislation and new administration rulings. The Civil Rights Act of
1960, for example, had authorized the Department of Health, Education,
and Welfare to provide integrated education for military dependents in
areas where public schools were discontinued. In March 1962 Secretary
of Health, Education, and Welfare Abraham Ribicoff announced that
racially segregated schools were no longer "suitable" institutions
under the terms of Public Laws 815 and 879 and that beginning in
September 1963 his department would "exercise sound discretion, take
appropriate steps" to provide integrated education for military
dependents. If the children were withdrawn from local school systems
to achieve this, he warned, so too the federal aid.[23-55] Lending
credence to Ribicoff's warning, his department undertook a survey in
the fall of 1962 of selected military installations to determine the
educational status of military dependents.[23-56] On 17 September 1962
Attorney General Kennedy filed suit in Richmond to bar the use of
federal funds in the segregated schools of Prince George County,
Virginia, the location of Fort Lee.[23-57] Finally, in January 1963,
the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare announced that unless
state officials relented it would start a crash program of
construction and operation of integrated schools for military
dependents in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina.[23-58]
[Footnote 23-55: Ltr, Actg U.S. Comm of Ed to
Superintendent of Public Instruction, Fla., et al.,
6 Nov 62, with incls; see also Memo for Rcd, Evans,
20 Nov 62, sub: Schools for Dependents, copies of
both in CMH.]
[Footnote 23-56: AFNS, Release No. 2851, 17 Aug 62.]
[Footnote 23-57: Four similar suits were filed in
January 1963 regarding segregation in Huntsville
and Mobile, Alabama; Gulfport and Biloxi,
Mississippi; and Bossier Parish, Louisiana. Ltr,
Atty Gen to President, 24 Jan 63 (released by White
House on 26 Jan 63), copy in CMH. See New York
_Times_, September 18, 1962.]
[Footnote 23-58: Washington _Post_, January 17, 1963.]
Some local commanders took immediate advantage of these emotional (p. 597)
appeals and administration pressures. The commandant of the Marine
Corps Schools, Quantico, for example, won an agreement from Stafford
County, Virginia, authorities that the county would open its high
school and two elementary schools to Marine Corps dependents without
regard to race. The commandant also announced that schools in Albany,
Georgia, had agreed to take military dependents on an integrated
basis.[23-59] The Air Force announced that schools near Eglin,
Whiting, and MacDill Air Force Bases in Florida as well as those near
six bases in Texas, including Sheppard and Connally, would integrate.
The Under Secretary of the Navy reported similar successes in school
districts in Florida, Tennessee, and Texas. And the commander of Fort
Belvoir started discussions with the Fairfax County, Virginia, school
board looking toward the speedy desegregation of schools near the
fort.
[Footnote 23-59: Both the Marine Corps and the Navy
operated installations in the vicinity of Albany,
Georgia.]
Lest any commander hesitate, the Department of Defense issued a new
policy in regard to the education of military dependents. On 15 July
1963 Assistant Secretary Paul directed all local commanders in areas
where public education was still segregated--large parts of some
fifteen states--to counsel parents on the procedures available for the
transfer of their children to integrated schools, on how to appeal
assignment to segregated schools, and on legal action as an
alternative to accepting local school board decisions to bar their
children.[23-60] In December 1963 Fitt drew up contingency plans for
the education of dependent children in the event of local school
closings.[23-61] In April of 1964 Fitt reminded the services that
Defense Department policy called for the placement of military
dependents in integrated schools and that commanders were expected to
make "appropriate efforts" on behalf of the children to eliminate any
deviation from that policy.[23-62] In effect, base commanders were
being given a specific role in the fight to secure for black and white
dependents equal access to public schools.
[Footnote 23-60: Memo, ASD (M) for SA et al., 15 Jul
63, sub: Assignment of Dependents of Military
Personnel to Public Schools, ASD(M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 23-61: Memo, DASD (CR) for Under SecNav, 4
Dec 63, sub: Dependent Schooling in Closed School
Districts; Memo, Asst SecNav for DASD (CR), 20 Dec
63, same sub; both in SecNav files, GenRecsNav. See
also Memo, DASD (CR) for Burke Marshall et al., 9
Mar 64, sub: Possible September 1964 School
Closings Affecting Military Dependents, copy in
CMH.]
[Footnote 23-62: Memo, DASD (CR) for Under SA et al.,
17 Apr 64, sub: Assignment of Dependents of
Military Personnel to Public Schools; see also idem
for ASD (M), 2 Apr 64, sub: Segregated Schools and
Military Dependents. For an example of how this new
responsibility was conveyed to local commanders,
see BuPers Notice 5350.5, 26 Jul 63, "Assignment of
Dependents of Military Personnel to Public
Schools." Copies of all in CMH.]
The action taken by base commanders under this responsibility might
alter patterns of segregated education in some areas, but in the long
run any attempt to integrate schools through a program of voluntary
compliance appeared futile. At the end of the 1964 school year more
than 76,300 military dependents, including 6,177 black children, at
forty-nine installations attended segregated schools. Another 14,390
children on these same bases attended integrated schools, usually (p. 598)
grade school, on the military base itself.[23-63] Because of the
restrictions against base closings and off-limits sanctions, there was
little hope that base commanders could produce any substantial
improvement in this record. Fitt admitted that the Department of
Defense could not compel the integration of a school district. He
recognized that it was impossible to establish an accredited
twelve-grade system at the forty-nine installations, yet at the same
time he considered it "incompatible with military requirements" to
assign black servicemen with children to areas where only integrated
schools were available. Even the threat to deny impacted-area aid was
limited because in many communities the services' contracts with local
school districts to educate dependent children was contingent on
continuous federal aid. If the aid was stopped the schools would be
closed, leaving service children with no schools to attend.[23-64]
[Footnote 23-63: Memo, DASD (CR) for Under SA et al.,
25 May 64, sub: Off-Base Equal Opportunity
Inventories, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 23-64: For an example of how these contracts
for the education of dependents were tied to
federal aid, see the case concerning Columbus Air
Force Base, Mississippi, as discussed in Ltr, DASD
(CR) to J. Francis Pohlhous, NAACP, 5 Nov 63. For
the views of the secretary's race counselor on the
Fitt assessment, see Ltr, Evans to Mrs. Frank C.
Eubanks, 10 Jun 64. Copies of both in CMH.]
The only practical recourse for parents of military dependents, Fitt
believed, was to follow the slow process of judicial redress under
Title IV of the civil rights bill then moving through Congress.
Anticipating the new law, Fitt asked the services to provide him with
pertinent data on all school districts where military dependents
attended segregated schools. He planned to use this information in
cooperation with the Departments of Justice and Health, Education, and
Welfare for use in federal suits. He also requested reports on the
efforts made by local commanders to integrate schools used by
dependent children and the responses of local school officials to such
efforts.[23-65] Later, after the new law had been signed by the
President, Norman Paul outlined for the services the procedures to be
used for lodging complaints under Titles IV and VI of the Civil Rights
Act and directed that local commanders inform all parents under their
command of the remedies afforded them under the new legislation.[23-66]
[Footnote 23-65: Memo, DASD (CR) for Spec Asst to
SecAF for Manpower, Personnel, and Reserve Forces,
23 Jun 64, SecAF files. Similar memos were sent to
the Army and Navy the same day. For an example of
how these reports were used, see Memo, Spec Asst to
DASD (CR) for St. John Barrett, Civil Rights Div,
Dept of Justice, 20 Aug 64, sub: Desegregation of
Schools Serving Children of Shaw AFB, South
Carolina, Personnel. Copies of all in CMH.]
[Footnote 23-66: Memo, ASD (M) for Under SA et al., 9
Aug 65, sub: Assignment of Dependents of Military
Personnel to Public Schools, ASD (M) 291.2.]
With no prospect in sight for speedy integration of schools attended
by military dependents, the Department of Defense summarily ended the
attendance of uniformed personnel at all segregated educational
institutions. With the close of the 1964 spring semester, Paul
announced, no Defense Department funds would be spent to pay tuition
for such schooling.[23-67] The economic pressure implicit in this
ruling, which for some time had been applied to the education of (p. 599)
civilian employees of the department, allowed many base commanders to
negotiate an end to segregation in off-base schools.[23-68]
[Footnote 23-67: Memo, ASD (M) for SA et al., 25 Mar
64, sub: Non-Discrimination in Civil Schooling of
Military Personnel; Ltr, DASD (CR) to Congressman
John Bell Williams of Mississippi, 18 Mar 64; Ltr,
DASD (M) to Sen. Richard Russell of Georgia, 8 Jul
64; Memo, DASD (CR) for Roy Davenport et al., 20
Apr 64. Copies of all in CMH.]
[Footnote 23-68: Memo, Timpane for DASD (CP, IR, &
CR), 11 Feb 65, sub: Service Reports on Equal
Rights Activities. In a related action the
department made military facilities available for
the use of the College Entrance Examination Board
when that body was confronted with segregated
facilities in which to administer its tests; see
Memos, Dep Chief, Pers Services Div, USAF, for AFLC
et al., 8 Mar 63, sub: College Entrance
Examinations, and Evans for DASD (M), 15 Jan 63,
sub: College Entrance Examination Board
Communication. Fitt opposed this policy on the
grounds that it removed a wholesome pressure on the
segregated private facilities; see Memo, DASD (CR)
for ASD (M), 2 Mar 64, sub: College Entrance
Examinations at Military Installations. Fitt was
overruled, and the military facilities were
provided for the college entrance examinations; see
Ltr, Regional Dir, College Entrance Examination Bd,
to Evans, 13 Apr 64. Copies of all in CMH.]
The effort of the Department of Defense to secure education for its
military dependents in integrated schools was, on the whole,
unsuccessful. Integration, when it finally came to most of these
institutions later in the 1960's, came principally through the efforts
of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to enforce Title
VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Yet the role of local military
commanders in the effort to secure integrated schools cannot be
ignored, for with the development of a new policy toward off-base
facilities in 1963 the commander became a permanent and significant
partner in the administration's fight to desegregate the nation's
schools. In contrast to earlier times when the Department of Defense
depended on moral suasion to desegregate schools used by servicemen's
children, its commanders now educated parents on their legal rights,
collected data to support class action suits, and negotiated with
school boards. If the primary impetus for this activity was the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, the philosophy of the Gesell Committee and the
Secretary of Defense's directive were also implicit.
Discrimination in the sale and lease of housing continued to be the
most widespread and persistent form of racial injustice encountered by
black servicemen, and a most difficult one to fight. The chronic
shortage of on-base accommodations, the transient nature of a military
assignment, and the general reluctance of men in uniform to protest
publicly left the average serviceman at the mercy of local landlords
and real estate interests. Nor did he have recourse in law. No
significant federal legislation on the subject existed before 1969,
and state laws (by 1967 over half the states had some form of
prohibition against discrimination in public housing and twenty-one
states had open housing laws) were rather limited, excluding
owner-occupied dwellings, for example, from their provisions. Even
President Kennedy's 1962 housing order was restricted to future
building and to housing dependent on federal financing.
Both the Civil Rights Commission and the Gesell Committee studied the
problem in some detail and concluded that the President's directive to
all federal agencies to use their "good offices" to push for open
housing in federally supported housing had not been followed in the
Department of Defense. The Civil Rights Commission, in particular,
painted a picture of a Defense Department alternating between naivete
and indifference in connection with the special housing problems of
black servicemen.[23-69] White House staffer Wofford later decided (p. 600)
that the Secretary of Defense was dragging his feet on the subject of
off-base housing, although Wofford admitted that each federal agency
was a forceful advocate of action by other agencies.[23-70]
[Footnote 23-69: Memo, ASD (CR) for SecDef, 29 Oct 63,
sub: Family Housing and the Negro Serviceman, Civil
Rights Commission Staff Report; Memo, ASD (M) for
SecDef, 2 Nov 63, sub: Family Housing for Negro
Servicemen; both in ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 23-70: Interv, Bernhard with Wofford, 29 Nov
65, p. 60.]
[Illustration: SUBMARINE TENDER DUTY. _A senior chief boatswain mate
and master diver at his station on the USS Hunley._]
The Assistant Secretary for Manpower conceded in November 1963 that
little had been done, but, citing the widely misunderstood off-base
inventory, he pleaded the need to avoid retaliation by segregationist
forces in Congress both on future authorizations for housing and on
the current civil rights legislation. He recommended that the
Department of Defense complete and disseminate to local commanders
information packets containing relevant directives, statistics, and
legal procedures available in the local housing field.[23-71]
[Footnote 23-71: Memo, ASD (M) for SecDef, 2 Nov 63,
sub: Family Housing for Negro Servicemen, ASD (M)
291-2.]
McNamara approved this procedure, again investing local commanders
with responsibility for combating a pervasive form of discrimination
with a voluntary compliance program. Specifically, local commanders
were directed to promote open housing near their bases, expanding
their open housing lists and pressing the problem of local housing (p. 601)
discrimination on their biracial community committees for solution.
They were helped by the secretary's assistants. His civil rights and
housing deputies became active participants in the President's housing
committee, transmitting to local military commanders the information
and techniques developed in the executive body. McNamara's civil
rights staff inaugurated cooperative programs with state and municipal
equal opportunity commissions and other local open housing bodies,
making these community resources available to local commanders.
Finally, in February 1965, the Department of Defense entered into a
formal arrangement with the Federal Housing Administration to provide
commanders with lists of all housing in their area covered by the
President's housing order and to arrange for the lease of foreclosed
Federal Housing Authority properties to military personnel.[23-72]
[Footnote 23-72: Ltr, DASD (CR) to Chmn, President's
Cmte on Equal Opportunity in Housing, 19 Sep 63,
copy in CMH; see also Paul Memo.]
These activities had little effect on the military housing situation.
An occasional apartment complex or trailer court got integrated, but
no substantial progress could be reported in the four years following
Secretary McNamara's 1963 equal opportunity directive. On the
contrary, the record suggests that many commanders, discouraged
perhaps by the overwhelming difficulties encountered in the fair
housing field, might agree with Fitt: "I have no doubt that I did
nothing about it [housing discrimination] in 1963-4 because I was
working on forms of discrimination at once more blatant and easier to
overcome. I did not fully understand the impact of housing
discrimination, and I did not know what to do about it."[23-73]
[Footnote 23-73: Ltr, Fitt to author, 22 May 72.]
A special Defense Department housing survey of thirteen representative
communities, including a study of service families in the Washington,
D.C., area, documented this failure. The survey described a housing
situation as of early 1967 in which progress toward open off-base
housing for servicemen was minimal. Despite the active off-base
programs sponsored by local commanders, discrimination in housing
remained widespread,[23-74] and based on four years' experience the
Department of Defense had to conclude that appeals to the community
for voluntary compliance would not produce integrated housing for
military families on a large scale. Still, defense officials were
reluctant to substitute more drastic measures. Deputy Secretary Vance,
for one, argued in early 1967 that nationwide application of
off-limits sanctions would raise significant legal issues, create
chaotic conditions in the residential status of all military
personnel, downgrade rather than enhance the responsibility of local
commanders to achieve their equal opportunity goals, and, above all,
fail to produce more integrated housing. Writing to the chairman of
the Action Coordinating Committee to End Segregation in the Suburbs
(ACCESS),[23-75] he asserted that open housing for servicemen (p. 602)
would be achieved only through the "full commitment at every level of
command to the proposition of equal treatment."[23-76]
[Footnote 23-74: Ltr, Dep SecDef to J. Charles Jones,
Chairman, ACCESS, 21 Feb 67, copy in CMH; see also
the detailed account of the Department of Defense's
housing campaign in Bahr, "The Expanding Role of
the Department of Defense," p. 105.]
[Footnote 23-75: ACCESS was one of the several local,
biracial open-housing groups that sprang up to
fight discrimination in housing during the
mid-1960's. The center of this particular group's
concern was in the Washington, D.C., suburbs.]
[Footnote 23-76: Ltr, Dep SecDef to Jones, 21 Feb 67,
copy in CMH.]
But even as Vance wrote, the department's housing policy was
undergoing substantial revision. And, ironically, it was the very
group to which Vance was writing that precipitated the change. It was
the members of ACCESS who climaxed their campaign against segregated
apartment complexes in the Washington suburbs with a sit-down
demonstration in McNamara's reception room in the Pentagon on 1
February, bringing the problem to the personal attention of a
Secretary of Defense burdened with Vietnam.[23-77] Although strongly
committed to the principle of equal opportunity and always ready to
support the initiatives of his civil rights assistants,[23-78]
McNamara had largely ignored the housing problem. Later he castigated
himself for allowing the problem to drift for four years.
I get charged with the TFX. It's nothing compared to the Bay of
Pigs or my failure for four years to integrate off-base military
housing. I don't want you to misunderstand me when I say this,
but the TFX was only money. We're talking about blood, the moral
foundation of our future, the life of the nation when we talk
about these things.[23-79]
[Footnote 23-77: Ltr, Fitt to author, 22 May 72; see
also New York _Times_ and Washington _Post_,
February 2, 1967.]
[Footnote 23-78: Robert E. Jordan, former DASD (CR)
assistant, described the secretary's eagerness to
support civil rights initiatives: "He would hardly
wait for an explanation, but start murmuring,
'Where do I sign, where do I sign?'" Interv, author
with Jordan, 7 Jun 72.]
[Footnote 23-79: Quoted by Brower, "McNamara Seen Now,
Full Length," p. 78. The TFX mentioned by McNamara
was an allusion to the heated and lengthy
controversy that arose during his administration
over fighter aircraft for the Navy and Air Force.]
McNamara was being unnecessarily harsh with himself. There were
several reasons, quite unrelated to either the Secretary of Defense or
his assistants, that explain the failure of voluntarism to integrate
housing used by servicemen. A major cause--witness the failure of
President Johnson's proposed civil rights bill in 1966--was that open
housing lacked a national consensus or widespread public support.
Voluntary compliance was successful in other areas, such as public
accommodation, transportation, and to some extent even in dependent
schooling, precisely because the requests of local commanders were
supported by a growing national consensus and the force of national
legislation. In dealing with housing discrimination, however, these
same commanders faced public indifference or open hostility without
the comforting support of federal law. Even with the commander's
wholehearted commitment to open housing, a commitment that equal
opportunity directives from the services could by no means insure, his
effectiveness against such widespread discrimination was questionable.
Nothing in his training prepared him for the delicate negotiations
involved in obtaining integrated housing. Moreover, it was extremely
difficult if not impossible to isolate the black serviceman's housing
plight from that of other black citizens; thus, an open housing
campaign really demanded comprehensive action by the whole federal
government. The White House had never launched a national open housing
campaign; it was not, indeed, until 16 February 1967 that President
Johnson submitted a compulsory national open housing bill to
Congress.[23-80]
[Footnote 23-80: A weakened version of this bill
eventually emerged as the Civil Rights Act of
1968.]
Whatever the factors contributing to the lack of progress, (p. 603)
McNamara admitted that "the voluntary program had failed and failed
miserably."[23-81] Philosophically, Robert McNamara found this
situation intolerable. He had become interested in the "unused
potential" of his department to change American society as it affected
the welfare of servicemen. As Fitt explained, the secretary believed
any department which administers 10% of the gross national
product, with influence over the lives of 10 million people, is
bound to have an impact. The question is whether it's going to be
a dumb, blind impact, or a marshaled and ordered impact.
McNamara wanted to marshal that impact by committing defense
resources to social goals that were still compatible with the
primary mission of security.[23-82]
[Footnote 23-81: McNamara, _The Essence of Security_,
p. 124.]
[Footnote 23-82: Quoted by Brower, "McNamara Seen Now,
Full Length," p. 89.]
Clearly, the Secretary of Defense considered open housing for service
families one of these goals, and when his attention was drawn to the
immediacy of the problem by the ACCESS demonstration he acted quickly.
At his instigation Vance ordered the local commanders of all services
to conduct a nationwide census of all apartment houses, housing
developments, and mobile home courts consisting of five or more rental
units within normal commuting distance of all installations having at
least 500 servicemen. He also ordered the commanders to talk to the
owners or operators of these properties personally and to urge them to
open their properties to all servicemen. He organized an Off-base
Equal Opportunity Board, consisting of the open housing coordinators
of each service and his office to monitor the census. Finally, he
announced the establishment of a special action program under the
direction of Thomas D. Morris, now the Assistant Secretary for
Manpower. Aimed at the Washington, D.C., area specifically, the
program was designed to serve as a model for the rest of the
country.[23-83]
[Footnote 23-83: Memo, Dep SecDef for Secys of
Military Departments, 11 Apr 67, sub: Equal
Opportunity for Military Personnel in Rental of
Off-Base Housing. Vance's instructions were spelled
out in great detail, replete with charts and forms,
in Memo, ASD (M) for Dep Under Secys of Military
Departments (Manpower), 22 Apr 67, same sub. Copies
of both in CMH.]
Vance also notified the service secretaries that subsequent to the
census all local commanders would be asked to discuss the census
findings with local community leaders in an effort to mobilize support
for open housing. Later Assistant Secretary Morris, with the help of
the acting civil rights deputy, L. Howard Bennett, spelled out a
program for "aggressive" negotiation with community leaders and
cooperation with other government agencies, in effect a last-ditch
attempt to achieve open housing for servicemen through voluntary
compliance. Underscoring the urgency of the housing campaign, the
department demanded a monthly report from all commanders on their open
housing activities,[23-84] and Morris promptly launched a
proselytizing effort of his own in the metropolitan Washington area.
Described simply by McNamara as "a decent man," Morris spoke
indefatigably before civil leaders and realtors on behalf of open
housing.[23-85]
[Footnote 23-84: Memos, ASD (M) for Dep Under Secys of
Military Departments, 22 Apr and 17 Jul 67, sub:
Equal Opportunity for Military Personnel in Rental
of Off-Base Housing. For the effect of this order
on an individual commander, see article by Charles
Hunter in Charleston, South Carolina, _Post_,
August 30, 1967. See also Interv, author with
Bennett, 13 Dec 73.]
[Footnote 23-85: Intervs, author with McNamara, 11 May
72, and Jordan, 7 Jan 72.]
The department's national housing census confirmed the gloomy (p. 604)
statistics projected from earlier studies indicating that housing
discrimination was widespread and intractable and damaging to
servicemen's morale.[23-86] McNamara decided that local commanders
"were not going to involve themselves," and for the first time since
sanctions were mentioned in his equal opportunity directive some four
years before, he decided to use them in a discrimination case. The
Secretary of Defense himself, not the local commander nor the service
secretaries, made the decision: housing not opened to _all_ servicemen
would be closed to _all_ servicemen.[23-87] Aware of the controversy
accompanying such action, the secretary's legal counsel prepared a
justification. Predictably, the department's lawyer argued that
sanctions against discrimination in off-base housing were an extension
of the commander's traditional right to forbid commerce with
establishments whose policies adversely affected the health or morals
of his men. Acutely conscious of the lack of federal legislation
barring housing discrimination, Vance and his legal associates were
careful to distinguish between an owner's legal right to choose his
tenants and the commander's power to impose a military order on his
men.
[Footnote 23-86: McNamara, _The Essence of Security_,
p. 126.]
[Footnote 23-87: Interv, author with McNamara, 11 May
72.]
Although committed to a nationwide imposition of sanctions on housing
if necessary, the Secretary of Defense hoped that the example of a few
cases would be sufficient to break the intransigence of offending
landlords; certainly a successful test case would strengthen the hand
of the commanders in their negotiations with community leaders.
Metropolitan Washington was the obvious area for the first test case,
and the Maryland General Assembly further focused attention on that
region when on 28 February 1967 it called on the Secretary of Defense
to end housing discrimination for all military personnel in the
state.[23-88] On the night of 21 June, Gerhard Gesell received an
unexpected phone call: there would be something in tomorrow's paper,
Robert McNamara told him, that should be especially interesting to the
judge.[23-89] And there was, indeed, on the front page. As of 1 July,
all military personnel would be forbidden to lease or rent housing in
any segregated apartment building or trailer court within a
three-and-a-half-mile radius of Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland.
Citing the special housing problems of servicemen returning from
Vietnam, McNamara pointed out that in the Andrews area of Maryland
less than 3 percent of some 22,000 local apartment units were open to
black servicemen. The Andrews situation, he declared, was causing
problems "detrimental to the morale and welfare of the majority of our
Negro military families and thus to the operational effectiveness of
the base."[23-90]
[Footnote 23-88: Joint Resolution 47 of the Maryland
General Assembly as cited in Memo, SecDef for
Secretaries of Military Departments, 22 Jun 67,
sub: Unsatisfactory Housing of Negro Military
Families Living Off-Post in the Andrews Air Force
Base Area, copy in CMH. See also New York _Times_,
May 26, 1967, and Yarmolinsky, _The Military
Establishment_, p. 352.]
[Footnote 23-89: Interv, author with Gesell, 3 Nov
74.]
[Footnote 23-90: Memo, SecDef for Secretaries of
Military Departments, 22 Jun 67, sub:
Unsatisfactory Housing of Negro Military Families
Living Off-Post in the Andrews Air Force Base Area,
SD files. The quotation is from McNamara's News
Conference, 22 June 1967, as quoted in the New York
_Times_, June 23, 1967.]
The secretary's rhetoric, skillfully justifying sanctions in (p. 605)
terms of military efficiency and elementary fairness for returning
combat veterans, might have explained the singular lack of adverse
congressional reaction to the order. No less a personage than Chairman
L. Mendel Rivers of the House Armed Services Committee admitted that
he had no objection to the sanctions near Andrews. Asked about
possible sanctions elsewhere, Rivers added that he would cross that
bridge later.[23-91]
[Footnote 23-91: New York _Times_, June 23, 1967.
Rivers did criticize later applications of the
housing sanctions; see Washington _Post_, December
28, 1977.]
Rivers and his congressional allies would have little time for
reflection, because McNamara quickly made it clear that the Andrews
action was only a first step. Sanctions were imposed in rapid
succession on areas surrounding four other military installations in
Maryland, Fort George G. Meade, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Edgewood
Arsenal, and Fort Holabird.[23-92] More pressure was placed on
segregationists when McNamara announced on 8 September his intention
to extend the sanctions nationwide. He singled out California, where
the Defense Department census had shown black servicemen barred from a
third of all rental units, for special attention. In fact, off-limits
sanctions imposed on broad geographical areas were used only once
more--in December 1967 against multiple rental properties in the
northern Virginia area.[23-93] In the meantime, the Department of
Defense had developed a less dramatic but equally effective method of
exerting economic pressure on landlords. On 17 July 1967 McNamara
ordered the establishment of housing referral offices at all
installations where more than 500 men were assigned. All married
servicemen seeking off-base housing were required to obtain prior
clearance from these offices before entering into rental agreements
with landlords.[23-94]
[Footnote 23-92: Actually, McNamara imposed the
sanctions in the first two instances, the Secretary
of the Army in the other two.]
[Footnote 23-93: DOD News Release No. 1209-67, 26 Dec
67.]
[Footnote 23-94: Memo, SecDef for Service Secys et
al., 17 Jul 67, sub: Off-Base Housing Referral
Services, SD files.]
Finally, in the wake of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968
and the Supreme Court's ruling against housing discrimination in
_Jones_ v. _Mayer_, McNamara's successor, Clark M. Clifford, was able
to combine economic threats with new legal sanctions against landlords
who continued to discriminate. On 20 June 1968 Clifford ordered the
services to provide advice and legal assistance to servicemen who
encountered discrimination in housing. The services were also to
coordinate their housing programs with the Departments of Housing and
Urban Development and Justice, provide assistance in locating
nondiscriminatory rental units, and withhold authorization for
servicemen to sign leases where discriminatory practices were evident.
In a separate action the manpower assistant secretary also ordered
that housing referral offices be established on all bases to which
100--as opposed to the earlier 500--military personnel were
assigned.[23-95]
[Footnote 23-95: In _Jones_ v. _Mayer_ (392 U.S.
409, 421 [1968]) the Supreme Court held that the
Civil Rights Act of 1968 "bars all racial
discrimination, private as well as public, in the
sale or rental of property." For Clifford's
response, see Memo, SecDef for Secys of Military
Departments, et al., 20 Jun 68; Clark Clifford,
News Conference, 20 Jun 68; Memo, ASD (M&RA) for
Secys of Military Departments, et al., 25 Nov 68.
For instructions concerning legal assistance to
servicemen and civilian employees of the Department
of Defense under the 1968 Civil Rights Act, see DOD
Instr 1338.12, 8 Aug 68. Copy of all in CMH.]
[Illustration: FIRST AID. _Soldier of the 23d Infantry gives water to
heat stroke victim during "Operation Wahiawa," Vietnam._]
The result of these directives was spectacular. By June 1968 the (p. 606)
ratio of off-base housing units carried on military referral
listings--that is, apartment and trailer court units with open housing
policies assured in writing by the owner or certified by the local
commander--rose to some 83 percent of all available off-base housing
for a gain of 247,000 units over the 1967 inventory.[23-96] In the
suburban Washington area alone, the number of housing units opened to
all servicemen rose more than 300 percent in 120 days--from 15,000 to
more than 50,000 units.[23-97] By the end of 1968 some 1.17 million
rental units, 93 percent of all those identified in the 1967 survey,
were open to all servicemen.[23-98] Still, these impressive gains did
not signal the end of housing discrimination for black servicemen. The
various Defense Department sanctions excluded dwellings for four
families or less, and the evidence suggests that the original and
hastily compiled off-base census on which all the open housing gains
were measured had ignored some particularly intransigent landlords in
larger apartment houses and operators of trailer courts on the grounds
that their continued refusal to negotiate with commanders had made (p. 607)
the likelihood of integrating their properties extremely remote.
[Footnote 23-96: SecDef News Conference, 29 Jun 68,
transcript in CMH.]
[Footnote 23-97: McNamara, _The Essence of Security_,
p. 127.]
[Footnote 23-98: Bahr, "_The Expanding Role of the
Department of Defense_," p. 123.]
The campaign for open housing is the most noteworthy chapter in the
fight for equality of treatment and opportunity for servicemen. The
efforts of the Department of Defense against other forms of off-base
discrimination were to a great extent successful because they
coincided with court rulings and powerful civil rights legislation.
The campaign for open housing, on the other hand, was launched in
advance of court and congressional action and in the face of much
popular feeling against integrated housing. McNamara's fight for open
housing demonstrates, as nothing had before, his determination to use,
if necessary, the department's economic powers in the civilian
community to secure equal treatment and opportunity for servicemen. In
the name of fair housing, McNamara invested not only his own prestige
but also the Defense Department's manpower and financial resources. In
effect, this willingness to use the extreme weapon of off-limits
sanctions revitalized the idea of using the Department of Defense as
an instrument of social change in American society.
McNamara's willingness to push the department beyond the national
consensus on civil rights (as represented by the contemporary civil
rights laws) also signified a change in his attitude. Unlike
Yarmolinsky and Robert Kennedy, McNamara limited his attention to
discrimination's effect on the individual serviceman and, ultimately,
on the military efficiency of the armed forces. Despite his interest
in the cause of civil rights, he had, until the open housing campaign,
always circumscribed the department's equal opportunity program to fit
a more traditional definition of military mission. Seen in this light,
McNamara's attack against segregated housing represented not only the
substitution of a new and more powerful technique--sanctions--for one
that had been found wanting--voluntary compliance, but also a
substantial evolution in his own social philosophy. He later implied
as much.
We request cooperation and seek voluntary compliance [in
obtaining open housing].... I am fully aware that the Defense
Department is not a philanthropic foundation or a social-welfare
institution. But the Department does not intend to let our Negro
servicemen and their families continue to suffer the injustices
and indignities they have in the past. I am certain my successors
will pursue the same policy.[23-99]
[Footnote 23-99: McNamara, _The Essence of Security_,
p. 127.]
By 1967 the major programs derived from Secretary McNamara's equal
opportunity policy had been defined, and the Department of Defense
could look back with pride on the substantial and permanent changes it
had achieved in the treatment of black servicemen in communities near
military bases.[23-100] Emphasizing voluntary compliance with its
policy, the department had proved to be quite successful in its
campaign against discrimination in off-base recreation, public
transportation and accommodation, in the organized reserves, and even,
to a limited extent, in off-base schools. It was logical that the
services should seek voluntary compliance before resorting to more
drastic methods. As the Gesell Committee had pointed out, base (p. 608)
commanders had vast influence in their local communities, influence
that might be used in countless ways to alter the patterns of off-base
discrimination. For the first time the armed forces had fought
discrimination by making the local commander responsible for a
systematic program of negotiations in the community.
[Footnote 23-100: This analysis owes much to the
author's correspondence with Alfred Fitt and the
interviews with McNamara, Gesell, and Jordan. See
also Memo, Timpane tor Stephen Schulman, 11 Feb 65,
sub: Service Reports of Equal Rights Activities,
and Paul Memo. Copies of all in CMH.]
But voluntary compliance had its limits. Its success depended in large
measure on the ability and will of local commanders, who, for the most
part, were unprepared by training or temperament to deal with the
complex and explosive problems of off-base discrimination. Even if the
commander could qualify as a civil rights reformer, he had little time
or incentive for a duty that would go unrecognized in terms of his
efficiency rating yet must compete for his attention with other
necessary duties that were so recognized. Finally, the successful use
of voluntary compliance techniques depended on the implied threat of
legal or economic pressures, yet, for a considerable period following
McNamara's 1963 directive, no legal strictures against some forms of
discrimination existed, and the use of economic sanctions had been so
carefully circumscribed by defense officials as to render the
possibility of their use extremely remote.
The decision to circumscribe the use of economic sanctions against
off-base discrimination made sense. Closing a base because of
discrimination in nearby communities was practically if not
politically impossible and might conceivably become a threat to
national security. As to sanctions aimed at specific businesses, the
secretary's civil rights assistants feared the possibility that the
abrupt or authoritarian imposition of sanctions by an insensitive or
unsympathetic commander might sabotage the department's whole equal
opportunity program in the community. They were determined to leave
the responsibility for sanctions in the hands of senior civilian
officials. In the end it was the most senior of these officials who
acted. When his attention turned to the problem of discrimination in
off-base housing for black servicemen in 1967, Secretary McNamara
quickly decided to use sanctions against a discriminatory practice
widely accepted and still legal under federal law.
The combination of voluntary compliance techniques and economic
sanctions, in tandem with the historic civil rights legislation of the
mid-1960's, succeeded in eliminating most of the off-base
discrimination faced by black servicemen. Ironically, in view of its
unquestioned control in the area, the Department of Defense failed to
achieve an equal success against discrimination within the military
establishment itself. Complaints concerning the number, promotion,
assignment, and punishment of black servicemen, a limited problem in
the mid-1960's, went mostly unrecognized. Relatively speaking, they
were ignored by the Gesell Committee and the civil rights
organizations in the face of the more pressing off-base problems and
only summarily treated by the services, which remained largely silent
about on-base and in-house discrimination. Long after off-base
discrimination had disappeared as a specific military problem, this
neglected on-base discrimination would rise up again to trouble the
armed forces in more militant times.[23-101]
[Footnote 23-101: Interv, author with Bennett, 13 Dec
73.]
CHAPTER 24 (p. 609)
Conclusion
The Defense Department's response to the recommendations of the Gesell
Committee marked the close of a well-defined chapter in the racial
history of the armed forces. Within a single generation, the services
had recognized the rights of black Americans to serve freely in the
defense of their country, to be racially integrated, and to have, with
their dependents, equal treatment and opportunity not only on the
military reservation but also in nearby communities. The gradual
compliance with Secretary McNamara's directives in the mid-1960's
marked the crumbling of the last legal and administrative barriers to
these goals.
_Why the Services Integrated_
In retrospect, several causes for the elimination of these barriers
can be identified. First, if only for the constancy and fervor of its
demands, was the civil rights movement. An obvious correlation exists
between the development of this movement and the shift in the
services' racial attitudes. The civil rights advocates--that is, those
spokesmen of the rapidly proliferating civil rights organizations and
their allies in Congress, the White House, and the media--formed a
pressure group that zealously enlisted political support for equal
opportunity measures. Their metier was presidential politics. In
several elections they successfully traded their political assistance,
an unknown quantity, for specific reform. Their influence was crucial,
for example, in Roosevelt's decision to enlist Negroes for general
service in the World War II Navy and in all branches of the Army and
in Truman's proclamation of equal treatment and opportunity; it was
notable in the adjudication of countless discrimination cases
involving individual black servicemen both on and off the military
base. Running through all their demands and expressed more and more
clearly during this period was the conviction that segregation itself
was discrimination. The success of their campaign against segregation
in the armed forces can be measured by the extent to which this
proposition came to be accepted in the counsels of the White House and
the Pentagon.
Because the demands of the civil rights advocates were extremely
persistent and widely heard, their direct influence on the integration
of the services has sometimes been overstressed. In fact, for much of
the period their most important demands were neutralized by the
logical-sounding arguments of those defending the racial _status quo_.
More to the point, the civil rights revolution itself swept along some
important defense officials. Thus the reforms begun by James Forrestal
and Robert McNamara testified to the indirect but important influence
of the civil rights movement.
Resisting the pressure for change was a solid bloc of officials (p. 610)
in the services which held out for the retention of traditional
policies of racial exclusion or segregation. Professed loyalty to
military tradition was all too often a cloak for prejudice, and
prejudice, of course, was prevalent in all the services just as it was
in American society. At the same time traditionalism simply reflected
the natural inclination of any large, inbred bureaucracy to preserve
the privileges and order of an earlier time. Basically, the military
traditionalists--that is, most senior officials and commanders of the
armed forces and their allies in Congress--took the position that
black servicemen were difficult to train and undependable in battle.
They cited the performance of large black combat units during the
world wars as support for their argument. They also rationalized their
opposition to integration by saying that the armed forces should not
be an instrument of social change and that the services could only
reflect the social mores of the society from which they sprang. Thus,
in their view, integration not only hindered the services' basic
mission by burdening them with undependable units and marginally
capable men, but also courted social upheaval in military units.
Eventually reconciled to the integration of military units, many
military officials continued to resist the idea that responsibility
for equal treatment and opportunity of black servicemen extended
beyond the gates of the military reservation. Deeply ingrained in the
officer corps was the conviction that the role of the military was to
serve, not to change, society. To effect social change, the
traditionalist argued, would require an intrusion into politics that
was by definition militarism. It was the duty of the Department of
Justice and other civilian agencies, not the armed forces, to secure
those social changes essential for the protection of the rights of
servicemen in the civilian community.[24-1] If these arguments appear
to have overlooked the real causes of the services' wartime racial
problems and ignored some of the logical implications of Truman's
equal treatment and opportunity order, they were nevertheless in the
mainstream of American military thought, ardently supported, and
widely proclaimed.
[Footnote 24-1: Speaking at a later date on this
subject, former Army Chief of Staff J. Lawton
Collins observed that "when we look about us and
see the deleterious effects of military
interference in civilian governments throughout ...
many other areas of the world, we can be grateful
that American military leaders have generally stuck
to their proper sphere." See Memo, Collins for OSD
Historian, 21 Aug 76, copy in CMH.]
The story of integration in the armed forces has usually, and with
some logic, been told in terms of the conflict between the "good"
civil rights advocates and the "bad" traditionalists. In fact, the
history of integration goes beyond the dimensions of a morality play
and includes a number of other influences both institutional and
individual.
[Illustration: VIETNAM PATROL. _Men of the 35th Infantry advance
during "Operation Baker."_]
The most prominent of these institutional factors were federal
legislation and executive orders. After World War II most Americans
moved slowly toward acceptance of the proposition that equal treatment
and opportunity for the nation's minorities was both just and
prudent.[24-2] A drawn-out process, this acceptance was in reality a
grudging concession to the promptings of the civil rights movement;
translated into federal legislation, it exerted constant pressure (p. 612)
on the racial policy of the armed forces. The Selective Service Acts
of 1940 and 1948, for example, provided an important reason for
integrating when, as interpreted by the executive branch, their racial
provisions required each service to accept a quota of Negroes among
its draftees. The services could evade the provisions of the acts for
only so long before the influx of black draftees in conjunction with
other pressures led to alterations in the old racial policies.
Truman's order calling for equality of treatment and opportunity in
the services was also a major factor in the racial changes that took
place in the Army in the early 1950's. To a great extent the dictates
of the civil rights laws of 1964 and 1965 exerted similar pressure on
the services and account for the success of the Defense Department's
comprehensive response during the mid-1960's to the discrimination
faced by servicemen in the local community.
[Footnote 24-2: For an extended discussion of the
moral basis of racial reform, see O'Connor's
interview with Hesburgh, 27 Mar 66.]
Questions concerning the effect of law on social custom, and
particularly the issue of whether government should force social
change or await the popular will, are of continuing interest to the
sociologist and the political scientist. In the case of the armed
forces, a sector of society that habitually recognizes the primacy of
authority and law, the answer was clear. Ordered to integrate, the
members of both races adjusted, though sometimes reluctantly, to a new
social relationship. The traditionalists' genuine fear that racial
unrest would follow racial mixing proved unfounded. The performance of
individual Negroes in the integrated units demonstrated that changed
social relationships could also produce rapid improvement in
individual and group achievement and thus increase military
efficiency. Furthermore, the successful integration of military units
in the 1950's so raised expectations in the black community that the
civil rights leaders would use that success to support their
successful campaign in the 1960's to convince the government that it
must impose social change on the community at large.[24-3]
[Footnote 24-3: For an extended discussion of the law
and racial change, see Greenberg, _Race Relations
and American Law_; Charles C. Moskos, Jr., "Racial
Integration in the Armed Forces," _American Journal
of Sociology_ 72 (September 1966): 132-48;
Ginzberg, _The Negro Potential_, pp. 127-31.]
Paralleling the influence of the law, the quest for military
efficiency was another institutional factor that affected the
services' racial policies. The need for military efficiency had always
been used by the services to rationalize racial exclusion and
segregation; later it became the primary consideration in the decision
of each service to integrate its units. Reinforcing the efficiency
argument was the realization by the military that manpower could no
longer be considered an inexhaustible resource. World War II had
demonstrated that the federal government dare not ignore the military
and industrial potential of any segment of its population. The reality
of the limited national manpower pool explained the services'
guarantee that Negroes would be included in the postwar period as
cadres for the full wartime mobilization of black manpower. Timing was
somewhat dependent on the size and mission of the individual service;
integration came to each when it became obvious that black manpower
could not be used efficiently in separate organizations. In the case
of the largest service, the Army, the Fahy Committee used the (p. 613)
failure to train and use eligible Negroes in unfilled jobs to convince
senior officials that military efficiency demanded the progressive
integration of its black soldiers, beginning with those men eligible
for specialist duties. The final demonstration of the connection
between efficiency and integration came from those harried commanders
who, trying against overwhelming odds to fight a war in Korea with
segregated units, finally began integrating their forces. They found
that their black soldiers fought better in integrated units.
[Illustration: MARINE ENGINEERS IN VIETNAM. _Men of the 11th Engineer
Battalion move culverts into place in a mountain stream during
"Operation Pegasus."_]
Later, military efficiency would be the rationale for the Defense
Department's fight against discrimination in the local community. The
Gesell Committee was used by Adam Yarmolinsky and others to
demonstrate to Secretary McNamara if not to the satisfaction of
skeptical military traditionalists and congressional critics that the
need to solve a severe morale problem justified the department's
intrusion. Appeals to military efficiency, therefore, became the
ultimate justification for integrating the units of the armed forces
and providing for equal treatment of its members in the community.
Beyond the demands of the law and military efficiency, the integration
of the armed forces was also influenced by certain individuals within
the military establishment who personified America's awakening
social conscience. They led the services along the road toward (p. 614)
integration not because the law demanded it, nor because activists
clamored for it, nor even because military efficiency required it, but
because they believed it was right. Complementing the work of these
men and women was the opinion of the American serviceman himself.
Between 1940 and 1965 his attitude toward change was constantly
discussed and predicted but only rarely solicited by senior officials.
Actually his opinion at that time is still largely unknown;
documentary evidence is scarce, and his recollections, influenced as
they are by the intervening years of the civil rights movement, are
unreliable. Yet it was clearly the serviceman's generally quiet
acceptance of new social practices, particularly those of the early
1950's, that ratified the services' racial reforms. As a perceptive
critic of the nation's racial history described conditions in the
services in 1962:
There was a rising tide of tolerance around the nation at that
time. I was thrilled to see it working in the services. Whether
officers were working for it or not it existed. From time to time
you would find an officer imbued with the desire to improve race
relations.... It was a marvel to me, in contrast to my recent
investigations in the South, to see how well integration worked
in the services.[24-4]
[Footnote 24-4: Interv, author with Muse, 2 Mar 73.]
Indeed, it could be argued, American servicemen of the 1950's became a
positive if indirect cause of racial change. By demonstrating that
large numbers of blacks and whites could work and live together, they
destroyed a fundamental argument of the opponents of integration and
made further reforms possible if not imperative.
_How the Services Integrated, 1946-1954_
The interaction of all these factors can be seen when equal treatment
and opportunity in the armed forces is considered in two distinct
phases, the first culminating in the integration of all active
military units in 1954, the second centering around the decision in
1963 to push for equal opportunity for black servicemen outside the
gates of the military base.[24-5]
[Footnote 24-5: Portions of the following discussion
have been published in somewhat different form
under the title "Armed Forces Integration--Forced
or Free?" in _The Military and Society, Proceedings
of the Fifth Military Symposium_ (U.S. Air Force
Academy, 1972).]
The Navy was the acknowledged pioneer in integration. Its decision
during World War II to assign black and white sailors to certain ships
was not entirely a response to pressures from civil rights advocates,
although Secretary James Forrestal relied on his friends in the Urban
League, particularly Lester Granger, to teach him the techniques of
integrating a large organization. Nor was the decision solely the work
of racial reformers in the Bureau of Naval Personnel, although this
small group was undoubtedly responsible for drafting the regulations
that governed the changes in the wartime Navy. Rather, the Navy began
integrating its general service because segregation proved painfully
inefficient. The decision was largely the result of the impersonal
operation of the 1940 draft law. Although imperfectly applied during
the war, the anti-discrimination provision of that law produced a
massive infusion of black inductees. The Army, with its larger (p. 615)
manpower base and expandable black units, could evade the implications
of a nondiscrimination clause, but the sheer presence of large numbers
of Negroes in the service, more than any other force, breached the
walls of segregation in the Navy.
[Illustration: LOADING A ROCKET LAUNCHER. _Crewmen of the USS
Carronade participating in a coordinated gunfire support action near
Chu Lai, Vietnam._]
The Navy experiment with an all-black crew had proved unsatisfactory,
and only so many shore-based jobs were considered suitable for large
segregated units. Bowing to the argument that two navies--one black,
one white--were both inefficient and expensive, Secretary Forrestal
began to experiment with integration during the last months of the war
and finally announced a policy of integration in February 1946. The
full application of this new policy would wait for some years while
the Navy's traditional racial attitudes warred with its practical
desire for efficiency.
The Air Force was the next to end segregation. Again, immediate
outside influences appeared to be slight. Despite the timing of the
Air Force integration directive in early 1949 and Secretary Stuart
Symington's discussions of the subject with Truman and the Fahy
Committee, plans to drop many racial barriers in the Air Force had
already been formulated at the time of the President's equal
opportunity order in 1948. Nor is there any evidence of special
concern among Air Force officials about the growing criticism of their
segregation policy. The record clearly reveals, however, that by late
1947 the Air staff had become anxious over the manpower requirements
of the Gillem Board Report, which enunciated the postwar racial policy
that the Air Force shared with the Army.
The Gillem Board Report would hardly be classified as progressive by
later standards; its provisions for reducing the size of black units
and integrating a small number of black specialists were, in a way, an
effort to make segregation less wasteful. Nevertheless, with all its
shortcomings, this postwar policy contained the germ of integration.
It committed the Army and Air Force to total integration as a
long-range objective, and, more important, it made permanent the
wartime policy of allotting 10 percent of the Army's strength to
Negroes. Later branded by the civil rights spokesmen as an instrument
for limiting black enlistment, the racial quota committed the Army and
its offspring, the Air Force, not only to maintaining at least 10
percent black strength but also to assigning black servicemen to all
branches and all job categories, thereby significantly weakening (p. 616)
the segregated system. Although never filled in either service, the
quotas guaranteed that a large number of Negroes would remain in
uniform after the war and thus gave both services an incentive to
desegregate.
Once again the Army could postpone the logical consequences of its
racial policy by the continued proliferation of its segregated combat
and service units. But the new Air Force almost immediately felt the
full force of the Gillem Board policy, quickly learning that it could
not maintain 10 percent black strength separate but equal. It too
might have continued indefinitely enlarging the number of service
units in order to absorb black airmen. Like the Army, it might even
have ignored the injunction to assign a quota of blacks to every
military occupation and to every school. But it was politically
impossible for the Air Force to do away with its black flying units,
and it became economically impossible in a time of shrinking budgets
and manpower cuts to operate separate flying units for the small group
of Negroes involved. It was also unfeasible, considering the small
number of black rated officers and men, to fill all the positions in
the black air units and provide at the same time for the normal
rotation and advanced training schedules. Facing these difficulties
and mindful of the Navy's experience with integration, the Air Force
began serious discussion of the integration of its black pilots and
crews in 1947, some months before Truman issued his order.
Committed to integrating its air units and rated men in 1949, the Air
staff quietly enlarged its objectives and broke up all its black
units, thereby making the Air Force the first service to achieve total
integration. There were several reasons for this rapid escalation in
what was to have been a limited program. As devised by General Edwards
and Colonel Marr of the Air staff the plan demanded that all black
airmen in each command be conscientiously examined so that all might
be properly reassigned, further trained, retained in segregated units,
or dismissed. The removal of increasing numbers of eligible men from
black units only hastened the end of those organizations, a tendency
ratified by the trouble-free acceptance of the program by all
involved.
The integration of the Army was more protracted. The Truman order in
1948 and the Fahy Committee, the White House group appointed to
oversee the execution of that order, focused primarily on the
segregated Army. There is little doubt that the President's action had
a political dimension. Given the fact that the Army had become a major
target of the President's own Civil Rights Commission and that it was
a highly visible practitioner of segregation, the equal opportunity
order would almost have had to be part of the President's plan to
unite the nation's minorities behind his 1948 candidacy. The order was
also a logical response to the threat of civil disobedience issued by
A. Philip Randolph and endorsed by other civil rights advocates. In a
matter of weeks after Truman issued his integration order, Randolph
dropped his opposition to the 1948 draft law and his call for a
boycott of the draft by Negroes.
It remained for the Fahy Committee to translate the President's order
into a working program leading toward integration of the Army. Like
Randolph and other activists, the committee quickly concluded that
segregation was a denial of equal treatment and opportunity and that
the executive order, therefore, was essentially a call for the (p. 617)
services to integrate. After lengthy negotiations, the committee
won from the Army an agreement to move progressively toward full
integration. Gradual integration was disregarded, however, when the
Army, fighting in Korea, was forced by a direct threat to the
efficiency of its operations to begin wide-scale mixing of the races.
Specifically, the proximate reason for the Army's integration in the
Far East was the fact that General Ridgway faced a severe shortage of
replacements for his depleted white units while accumulating a surplus
of black replacements. So pressing was his need that even before
permission was received from Washington integration had already begun
on the battlefield. The reason for the rapid integration of the rest
of the Army was more complicated. The example of Korea was persuasive,
as was the need for a uniform policy, but beyond that the rapid
modernization of the Army was making obsolete the large-scale labor
units traditionally used by the Army to absorb much of its black
quota. With these units disappearing, the Army had to find new jobs
for the men, a task hopelessly complicated by segregation.
The postwar racial policy of the Marine Corps struck a curious
compromise between that of the Army and of the Navy. Adopting the
former's system of segregated units and the latter's rejection of the
10 percent racial quota, the corps was able to assign its small
contingent of black marines to a few segregated noncombatant duties.
But the policy of the corps was only practicable for its peacetime
size, as its mobilization for Korea demonstrated. Even before the Army
was forced to change, the Marine Corps, its manpower planners pressed
to find trained men and units to fill its divisional commitment to
Korea, quietly abandoned the rules on segregated service.
While progressives cited the military efficiency of integration,
traditionalists used the efficiency argument to defend the racial
_status quo_. In general, senior military officials had concluded on
the basis of their World War II experience that large black units were
ineffective, undependable in close combat, and best suited for supply
assignments. Whatever their motives, the traditionalists had reached
the wrong conclusion from their data. They were correct when they
charged that, despite competent and even heroic performance on the
part of some individuals and units, the large black combat units had,
on average, performed poorly during the war. But the traditionalists
failed, as they had failed after World War I, to see the reasons for
this poor performance. Not the least of these were the benumbing
discrimination suffered by black servicemen during training, the
humiliations involved in their assignments, and the ineptitude of many
of their leaders, who were most often white.
Above all, the postwar manpower planners drew the wrong conclusion
from the fact that the average General Classification Test scores of
men in World War II black units fell significantly below that of their
white counterparts. The scores were directly related to the two
groups' relative educational advantages which depended to a large
extent on their economic status and the geographic region from which
they came. This mental average of servicemen was a unit problem, for
at all times the total number of white individuals who scored in
low-aptitude categories IV and V greatly outnumbered black individuals
in those categories. This greater number of less gifted white (p. 618)
servicemen had been spread thinly throughout the services' thousands
of white units where they caused no particular problem. The lesser
number of Negroes with low aptitude, however, were concentrated in the
relatively few black units, creating a serious handicap to efficient
performance. Conversely, the contribution of talented black servicemen
was largely negated by their frequent assignment to units with too
many low-scoring men. Small units composed in the main of black
specialists, such as the black artillery and armor units that served
in the European theater during World War II, served with distinction,
but these units were special cases where the effect of segregation was
tempered by the special qualifications of the carefully chosen men.
Segregation and not mental aptitude was the key to the poor
performance of the large black units in World War II.
[Illustration: AMERICAN SAILORS _help evacuate Vietnamese child_.]
Postwar service policies ignored these facts and defended segregation
in the name of military efficiency. In short, the armed forces had to
make inefficiency seem efficient as they explained in paternalistic
fashion that segregation was best for all concerned. "In general, the
Negro is less well educated than his brother citizen that is white,"
General Eisenhower told the Senate Armed Forces Committee in 1948,
"and if you make a complete amalgamation, what you are going to have
is in every company the Negro is going to be relegated to the minor
jobs ... because the competition is too rough."[24-6]
[Footnote 24-6: Quoted in Senate, Hearings Before the
U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, _Universal
Military Training_, 80th Cong., 2d sess., 1948, pp.
995-96.]
Competence in a great many skills became increasingly important for
servicemen in the postwar period as the trend toward technical
complexity and specialization continued in all the services.
Differences in recruiting gave some services an advantage. The Navy
and Air Force, setting stricter standards of enlistment, could fill
their ranks with high-scoring volunteers and avoid enlisting large
groups of low-scoring men, often black, who were eventually drafted
for the Army. While this situation helped reduce the traditional
opposition to integration in the Navy and Air Force, it made the Army
more determined to retain separate black units to absorb the large
number of low-scoring draftees it was obligated to take. A major
factor in the eventual integration of the Army--and the single most
significant contribution of the Secretary of Defense to that (p. 619)
end--was George Marshall's decision to establish a parity of
enlistment standards for the services. On the advice of his manpower
assistant, Anna Rosenberg, Marshall abolished the special advantage
enjoyed by the Navy and Air Force, making all the services share in
the recruitment of low-scoring men. The common standard undercut the
Army's most persuasive argument for restoring a racial quota and
maintaining segregated units.
[Illustration: BOOBY TRAP VICTIM _from Company B, 47th Infantry,
resting on buddy's back, awaits evacuation_.]
In the years from 1946 to 1954, then, several forces converged to
bring about integration of the regular armed forces. Pressure from the
civil rights advocates was one, idealistic leadership another. Most
important, however, was the services' realization that segregation was
an inefficient way to use the manpower provided by a democratic draft
law or a volunteer system made democratic by the Secretary of Defense.
Each service reached its conclusion separately, since each had a
different problem in the efficient use of manpower and each had its
own racial traditions. Accordingly, the services saw little need to
exchange views, develop rivalries, or imitate one another's racial
policies. There were two exceptions to this situation: both the Army
and Air Force naturally considered the Navy's integration experience
when they were formulating postwar policies, and the Navy and Air
Force fought the Army's proposals to experiment with integrated units
and institute a parity of enlistment standards.
_Equal Treatment and Opportunity_
Segregation officially ended in the active armed forces with the
announcement of the Secretary of Defense in 1954 that the last
all-black unit had been disbanded. In the little more than six years
after President Truman's order, some quarter of a million blacks had
been intermingled with whites in the nation's military units
worldwide. These changes ushered in a brief era of good feeling during
which the services and the civil rights advocates tended to overlook
some forms of discrimination that persisted within the services. This
tendency became even stronger in the early 1960's when the
discrimination suffered by black servicemen in local communities
dramatized the relative effectiveness of the equal treatment and
opportunity policies on military installations. In July 1963, in the
wake of another presidential investigation of racial equality (p. 620)
in the armed forces, Secretary of Defense McNamara outlined a new
racial policy. An extension of the forces that had produced the
abolition of segregated military units, the new policy also vowed to
carry the crusade for equal treatment and opportunity for black
servicemen outside the military compound into the civilian community
beyond. McNamara's 1963 directive became the model for subsequent
racial orders in the Defense Department.
This enlargement of the department's concept of equal treatment and
opportunity paralleled the rise of the modern civil rights movement,
which was reaching its apogee in the mid-1960's. McNamara later
acknowledged the influence of the civil rights activists on his
department during this period. But the department's racial progress
cannot be explained solely as a reaction to the pressures exerted by
the civil rights movement. Several other factors lay behind the new
and broader policy. The Defense Department was, for instance, under
constant pressure from black officers and men who were not only
reporting inequities in the newly integrated services and complaining
of the remaining racial discrimination within the military community
but were also demanding the department's assistance in securing their
constitutional rights from the communities outside the military bases.
This was particularly true in the fields of public education, housing,
and places of entertainment.
The services as well as the Defense Department's manpower officials
resisted these demands and continued in the early 1960's to limit
their racial reforms to those necessary but exclusively internal
matters most obviously connected with the efficient operation of their
units. Reinforcing this resistance was the reluctance on the part of
most commanders to break with tradition and interfere in what they
considered community affairs. Nor had McNamara's early policy
statements in response to servicemen's demands come to grips with the
issue of discrimination in the civilian community. At the same time,
some reformers in the Defense Department had allied themselves with
like-minded progressives throughout the administration and were
searching for a way to carry out President Kennedy's commitment to
civil rights. These individuals were determined to use the services'
early integration successes as a stepping-stone to further civil
rights reforms while the administration's civil rights program
remained bogged down in Congress.
Although these reformers believed that the armed forces could be an
effective instrument of social change for society at large, they
clothed their aims in the garb of military efficiency. In fact,
military efficiency was certainly McNamara's paramount concern when he
supported the idea of enlarging the scope of his department's racial
programs and when in 1962 he readily accepted the proposal to appoint
the Gesell Committee to study the services' racial program.
The Gesell Committee easily documented the connection, long suspected
by the reformers, between discrimination in the community and poor
morale among black servicemen and the link between morale and combat
efficiency. More important, with its ability to publicize the extent
of discrimination against black servicemen in local communities and to
offer practical recommendations for reform, the committee was able (p. 621)
to stimulate the secretary into action. Yet not until his last years
in office, beginning with his open housing campaign in 1967, did
McNamara, who had always championed the stand of Adam Yarmolinsky and
the rest, become a strong participant.
McNamara promptly endorsed the Gesell Committee's report, which called
for a vigorous program to provide equal opportunity for black
servicemen, ordering the services to launch such a program in
communities near military bases and making the local commander
primarily responsible for its success. He soft-pedaled the committee's
controversial provision for the use of economic sanctions against
recalcitrant businessmen, stressing instead the duty of commanders to
press for changes through voluntary compliance. These efforts,
according to Defense Department reports, achieved gratifying results
in the next few years. In conjunction with other federal officials
operating under provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, local
commanders helped open thousands of theaters, bowling alleys,
restaurants, and bathing beaches to black servicemen. Only in the face
of continued opposition to open housing by landlords who dealt with
servicemen, and then not until 1967, did McNamara decide to use the
powerful and controversial weapon of off-limits sanctions. In short
order his programs helped destroy the patterns of segregation in
multiple housing in areas surrounding most military bases.
The federal government's commitment to civil rights, manifest in
Supreme Court decisions, executive orders, and congressional actions,
was an important support for the Defense Department's racial program
during this second part of the integration era. It is doubtful whether
many of the command initiatives recommended by the Gesell Committee
would have succeeded or even been tried without the court's 1954
school ruling and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Yet in several
important instances, such as the McNamara 1963 equal opportunity
directive and the open housing campaign in 1967, the department's
actions antedated federal action. Originally a follower of civilian
society in racial matters, the armed forces moved ahead in the 1950's
and by the mid-1960's had become a powerful stimulus for change in
civilian practices in some areas of the country.[24-7]
[Footnote 24-7: For a discussion of this point, see
Yarmolinsky's _The Military Establishment_, pp.
346-51.]
Achievements of the services should not detract from the primacy of
civil rights legislation in the reforms of the 1960's. The sudden fall
of barriers to black Americans was primarily the result of the Civil
Rights Acts. But the fact and example of integration in the armed
forces was an important cause of change in the communities near
military bases. Defense officials, prodding in the matter of
integrated schooling for dependent children, found the mere existence
of successfully integrated on-base schooling a useful tool in
achieving similar schooling off-base. The experience of having served
in the integrated armed forces, shared by so many young Americans,
also exercised an immeasurable influence on the changes of the 1960's.
Gesell Committee member Benjamin Muse recalled hearing a Mississippi
hitchhiker say in 1961 at the height of the anti-integration, anti-Negro
fever in that area: "I don't hold with this stuff about 'niggers'. (p. 622)
I had a colored buddy in Korea, and I want to tell you he was all
right."[24-8]
[Footnote 24-8: Quoted in Ltr, Muse to Chief of
Military History, 2 Aug 76, in CMH.]
[Illustration: CAMARADERIE. _A soldier of Company C, 7th Infantry,
lights a cigarette for a marine from D Company, 26th Marines, during
"Operation Pegasus" near Khe Sanh._]
In retrospect, the attention paid by defense officials and the
services to off-base discrimination in the 1960's may have been
misdirected; many of these injustices would eventually have succumbed
to civil rights legislation. Certainly more attention could have been
paid to the unfinished business of providing equal treatment and
opportunity for black servicemen within the military community.
Discrimination in matters of promotion, assignment, and military
justice, overlooked by almost everyone in the early 1960's, was never
treated with the urgency it deserved. To have done so might have
averted at least some of the racial turmoil visited on the services in
the Vietnam era.
But these shortcomings merely point to the fact that the services were
the only segment of American society to have integrated, however
imperfectly, the races on so large a scale. In doing so they
demonstrated that a policy of equal treatment and opportunity is more
than a legal concept; it also ordains a social condition. Between (p. 623)
the enunciation of such a policy and the achievement of its goals can
fall the shadow of bigotry and the traditional way of doing things.
The record indicates that the services surmounted bigotry and rejected
the old ways to a gratifying degree. To the extent that they were
successful in bringing the races together, their efficiency prospered
and the nation's ideal of equal opportunity for all citizens was
fortified.
Unfortunately, the collapse of the legal and administrative barriers
to equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces did not lead
immediately to the full realization of this ideal. Equal treatment and
opportunity would remain an elusive goal for the Department of Defense
for years to come. The post-1965 period comprises a new chapter in the
racial history of the services. The agitation that followed the
McNamara era had different roots from the events of the previous
decades. The key to this difference was suggested during the Vietnam
War by the Kerner Commission in its stark conclusion that "our nation
is moving toward two societies, one black, one white--separate but
unequal."[24-9] In contrast to the McNamara period of integration,
when civil rights advocates and Defense Department officials worked
toward a common goal, subsequent years would be marked by an often
greater militancy on the part of black servicemen and a new kind of
friction between a fragmented civil rights movement and the Department
of Defense. Clearly, in coping with these problems the services will
have to move beyond the elimination of legal and administrative
barriers that had ordered their racial concerns between 1940 and 1965.
[Footnote 24-9: _Report of the National Advisory
Commission on Civil Disorders_, p. 1.]
Note on Sources (p. 625)
The search for source materials used in this volume provided the
writer with a special glimpse into the ways in which various
government agencies have treated what was until recently considered a
sensitive subject. Most important documents and working papers
concerning the employment of black servicemen were, well into the
1950's and in contrast to the great bulk of personnel policy papers,
routinely given a security classification. In some agencies the
"secret" or "confidential" stamp was considered sufficient to protect
the materials, which were filed and retired in a routine manner and,
therefore, have always been readily available to the persistent and
qualified researcher. But, as any experienced staff officer could
demonstrate, other methods beyond mere classification can be devised
to prevent easy access to sensitive material.
Thus, subterfuges were employed from time to time by officials dealing
with racial subjects. In some staff agencies, for example, documents
were collected in special files, separated from the normal personnel
or policy files. In other instances the materials were never retired
in a routine matter, but instead remained for many years scattered in
offices of origin or, less often, in some central file system. If some
officials appear to have been overly anxious to shield their agency's
record, they also, it should be added, possessed a sense of history
and the historical import of their work. Though the temptation may
have been strong within some agencies to destroy papers connected with
past controversies, most officials scrupulously preserved not only the
basic policy documents concerning this specialized subject, but also
much of the back-up material that the historian treasures.
The problem for the modern researcher is that these special
collections and reserved materials, no longer classified and no longer
sensitive, have fallen, largely unnoted, into a sea of governmental
paper beyond the reach of the archivist's finding aids. The frequently
expressed comment of the researcher, "somebody is withholding
something," should, for the sake of accuracy, be changed to "somebody
has lost track of something."
This material might never have been recovered without the skilled
assistance of the historical offices of the various services and
Office of the Secretary of Defense. At times their search for lost
documents assumed the dimensions of a detective story. In partnership
with Marine Corps historian Ralph Donnelly, for example, the author
finally traced the bulk of the World War II racial records of the
Marine Corps to an obscure and unmarked file in the classified records
section of Marine Corps headquarters. A comprehensive collection of
official documents on the employment of black personnel in the Navy
between 1920 and 1946 was unearthed, not in the official archives, but
in a dusty file cabinet in the Bureau of Naval Personnel's Management
Information Division.
The search also had its frustrations, for some materials seem (p. 626)
permanently lost. Despite persistent and imaginative work by the Coast
Guard's historian, Truman Strobridge, much of the documentary record
of that service's World War II racial history could not be located.
The development of the Coast Guard's policy has had to be reconstructed,
painstakingly and laboriously, from other sources. The records of many
Army staff agencies for the period 1940-43 were destroyed on the
assumption that their materials were duplicated in The Adjutant
General's files, an assumption that frequently proved to be incorrect.
Although generally intact, the Navy's records of the immediate
post-World War II period also lack some of the background staff work
on the employment of black manpower. Fortunately for this writer, the
recent, inadvertent destruction of the bulk of the Bureau of Naval
Personnel's classified wartime records occurred after the basic
research for this volume had been completed, but this lamentable
accident will no doubt cause problems for future researchers.
Thanks to the efforts of the services' historical offices and the
wonder of photocopying, future historians may be spared some of the
labor connected with the preparation of this volume. Most of the
records surviving outside regular archives have been identified and
relocated for easy access. Copies of approximately 65 percent of all
documents cited in this volume have been collected and are presently
on file in the Center of Military History, from which they will be
retired for permanent preservation.
_Official Archival Material_
The bulk of the official records used in the preparation of this
volume is in the permanent custody of the National Archives and
Records Service, Washington, D.C. The records of most military
agencies for the period 1940-54 are located in the Modern Military
Records Branch or in the Navy and Old Army Branch of the National
Archives proper. Most documents dated after 1954, along with military
unit records (including ships' logs), are located in the General
Archives Division in the Washington National Records Center, Suitland,
Maryland. The Suitland center also holds the other major group of
official materials, that is, all those documents still administered by
the individual agencies but stored in the center prior to their
screening and acquisition by the National Archives. These records are
open to qualified researchers, but access to them is controlled by the
records managers of the individual agencies, a not altogether
felicitous arrangement for the researcher, considering the bulk of the
material and its lack of organization.
The largest single group of materials consulted were those of the
various offices of the Army staff. Although these agencies have
abandoned the system of classifying all documents by a decimal-subject
system, the system persisted in many offices well into the 1960's,
thereby enabling the researcher to accomplish a speedy, if unrefined,
screening of pertinent materials. Even with this crutch, the
researcher must still comb through thousands of documents created by
the Secretary of War (later Secretary of the Army), his assistant
secretary, the Chief of Staff, and the various staff divisions, (p. 627)
especially the Personnel (G-1), Organization and Training (G-3), and
Operations Divisions, together with the offices of The Adjutant
General, the Judge Advocate General, and the Inspector General. The
War Department Special Planning Division's files are an extremely
important source, especially for postwar racial planning, as are the
records of the three World War II major commands, the Army Ground,
Service, and Air Forces. Although illuminating in regard to the
problem of racial discrimination, the records of the office of the
secretary's civilian aide are less important in terms of policy
development. Finally, the records of the black units, especially the
important body of documents related to the tribulations of the 92d
Infantry Division in World War II and the 24th Infantry Regiment in
Korea, are also vital sources for this subject.
The records managers in the Office of the Secretary of Defense also
used the familiar 291.2 classification to designate materials related
to the subject of Negroes. (An exception to this generalization were
the official papers of the secretary's office during the Forrestal
period when a Navy file system was generally employed.) The most
important materials on the subject of the Defense Department's racial
interests are found in the records of the Office of the Secretary of
Defense. The majority of these records, including the voluminous files
of the Assistant Secretary (Manpower) so helpful for the later
sections of the study, have remained in the custody of the department
and are administered by the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary
of Defense (Administration). After 1963 the Office of the Deputy
Assistant Secretary (Civil Rights) and its successor organizations
loom as a major source. Many of the official papers were eventually
filed with those of the Assistant Secretary (Manpower) or have been
retained in the historical files of the Equal Opportunity Office of
the Secretary of Defense. The records of the Personnel Policy Board
and the Office of the General Counsel, both part of the files of the
Office of the Secretary of Defense, are two more important sources of
materials on black manpower.
A subject classification system was not universally applied in the
Navy Department during the 1940's and even where used proved
exceedingly complicated. The records of the Office of the Secretary of
the Navy are especially strong in the World War II period, but they
must be supplemented with the National Archives' separate Forrestal
papers file. Despite the recent loss of records, the files of the
Bureau of Naval Personnel remain the primary source for documents on
the employment of black personnel in the Navy. Research in all these
files, even for the World War II period, is best begun in the Records
Management offices of those two agencies. More readily accessible, the
records of the Chief of Naval Operations and the General Board, both
of considerable importance in understanding the Navy's World War II
racial history, are located in the Operational Archives Branch, Naval
Historical Division, Washington Navy Yard. This office has recently
created a special miscellaneous file containing important documents of
interest to the researcher on racial matters that have been gleaned
from various sources not easily available to the researcher.
Copies of all known staff papers concerning black marines and the (p. 628)
development of the Marine Corps' equal opportunity program during
the integration period have been collected and filed in the reference
section of the Director of Marine Corps History and Museums,
Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps. Likewise, most of the very small
selection of extant official Coast Guard records on the employment of
Negroes have been identified and collected by the Coast Guard
historian. The log of the _Sea Cloud_, the first Coast Guard vessel in
modern times to boast a racially mixed crew, is located in the
Archives Branch at Suitland.
The Air Force has retained control of a significant portion of its
postwar personnel records, and the researcher would best begin work in
the Office of the Administrative Assistant, Secretary of the Air
Force. This office has custody of the files of the Secretary of the
Air Force, his assistant secretaries, the Office of the Chief of
Staff, and the staff agencies pertinent to this story, especially the
Deputy Chief of Staff, Personnel, and the Director of Military
Personnel. The records of black air units, as well as the extensive
and well-indexed collection of official unit and base histories and
studies and reports of the Air staff that touch on the service's
racial policies, are located in the Albert F. Simpson Historical
Research Center, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. These records are supplemented,
and sometimes duplicated, by the holdings of the Suitland Records
Center and the Office of Air Force History, Boiling Air Force Base,
Washington, D.C. Other Air Force files of interest, particularly in
the area of policy planning, can be found in the holdings of the
National Archives' Modern Military Branch.
The records of the Selective Service System also provide some
interesting material, but most of this has been published by the
Selective Service in its _Special Groups_ (Special Monograph Number
10, 2 vols. [Washington: Government Printing Office, 1953]). Far more
important are the records of the War Manpower Commission, located in
the National Archives, which, when studied in conjunction with the
papers of the Secretaries of War and Navy, reveal the influence of the
1940 draft law on the services' racial policies.
_Personal Collections_
The official records of the integration of the armed forces are not
limited to those documents retired by the governmental agencies. Parts
of the story must also be gleaned from documents that for various
reasons have been included in the personal papers of individuals.
Documents created by government officials, as well as much unofficial
material of special interest, are scattered in a number of
institutional or private repositories. Probably the most noteworthy of
these collections is the papers of the President's Committee on
Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Forces (the Fahy
Committee) in the Harry S. Truman Library. In addition to this central
source, the Truman Library also contains materials contributed by
Philleo Nash, Oscar Chapman, and Clark Clifford, whose work in the
White House was intimately, if briefly, concerned with armed forces
integration. The President's own papers, especially the recently
opened White House Secretary's File, contain a number of important (p. 629)
documents.
Documents of special interest can also be found in the Roosevelt
Papers at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and among the various
White House files preserved in the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library. The
Central White House file in the John F. Kennedy Library, along with
the papers of Harris Wofford and Gerhard Gesell, are essential to the
history of equal opportunity in the early 1960's. Most of these
collections are well indexed.
The James V. Forrestal Papers, Princeton University Library, while
helpful in tracing the Urban League's contribution to the Navy's
integration policy, lack the focus and comprehensiveness of the
Forrestal Papers in the National Archives' Office of the Secretary of
the Navy file. Another collection of particular interest for the naval
aspects of the story is the Dennis D. Nelson Papers, in the custody of
the Nelson family in San Diego, California, with a microfilm copy on
file in the Navy's Operational Archives Branch in Washington. The
heart of this collection is the materials Nelson gathered while
writing "The Integration of the Negro in the United States Navy,
1776-1947," a U.S. Navy monograph prepared in 1948. The Nelson
collection also contains a large group of newspaper clippings and
other rare secondary materials of special interest. The Maxie M. Berry
Papers, in the custody of the equal opportunity officer of the U.S.
Coast Guard headquarters, offer a rare glimpse into the life of black
Coast Guardsmen during World War II, especially those assigned to the
all-black Pea Island Station, North Carolina.
The U.S. Army Military History Research Collection at Carlisle
Barracks, Pennsylvania, has acquired the papers of James C. Evans, the
long-time Civilian Aide to the Secretaries of War and Defense, and
those of Lt. Gen. Alvan C. Gillem, Jr., the chairman of the Army's
special personnel board that bears his name. The Evans materials
contain a rare collection of clippings and memorandums on integration
in the armed forces; the Gillem Papers are particularly interesting
for the summaries of testimony before the Gillem Board.
The papers of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People in the Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, are useful,
especially if used in conjunction with that library's Arthur B.
Spingarn Papers, in assessing the role of the civil rights leaders in
bringing about black participation in World War II. The collection of
secondary materials on Negroes in the armed forces in the Schomburg
Collection, New York Public Library, however, is disappointing,
considering the prominence of that institution.
Finally, the U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington, D.C.,
has on file those materials collected by the author in the preparation
of this volume, including not only those items cited in the footnotes,
but also copies of hundreds of official documents and correspondence
with various participants, together with the unique body of documents
and notes collected by Lee Nichols in his groundbreaking research on
integration. Of particular importance among the documents in the
Center of Military History are copies of many Bureau of Naval
Personnel documents, the originals of which have since been destroyed,
as well as copies of the bulk of the papers produced by the Fahy
Committee.
_Interviews_ (p. 630)
The status of black servicemen in the integration era has attracted
considerable attention among oral history enthusiasts. The author has
taken advantage of this special source, but oral testimony concerning
integration must be treated cautiously. In addition to the usual
dangers of fallible memory that haunt all oral history interviews, the
subjects of some of these interviews, it should be emphasized, were
separated from the events they were recalling by a civil rights
revolution that has changed fundamentally the attitudes of many
people, both black and white. In some instances it is readily apparent
that the recollections of persons being interviewed have been colored
by the changes of the 1950's and 1960's, and while their recitation of
specific events can be checked against the records, their estimates of
attitudes and influences, not so easily verified, should be used
cautiously. Much of this danger can be avoided by a skillful
interviewer with special knowledge of integration. Because of the care
that went into the interviews conducted in the U.S. Air Force Oral
History Program, which are on file at the Albert F. Simpson Historical
Research Center, they are particularly dependable. This is especially
true of those used in this study, for they were conducted by Lt. Col.
Alan Gropman and Maj. Alan Osur, both serious students of the subject.
Particular note should be made of the especially valuable interviews
with former Secretary of the Air Force Eugene M. Zuckert and several
of the more prominent black generals.
The extensive Columbia University Oral History Collection has several
interviews of special interest, in particular the very revealing
interview with the National Urban League's Lester Granger. Read in
conjunction with the National Archives' Forrestal Papers, this
interview is a major source for the Navy's immediate postwar policy
changes. Similarly, the Kennedy Library's oral history program
contains several interviews that are helpful in assessing the role of
the services in the Kennedy administration's civil rights program. Of
particular interest are the interviews with Harris Wofford, Roy
Wilkins, and Theodore Hesburgh.
The U.S. Marine Corps Oral History Program, whose interviews are on
file in Marine Corps headquarters, and the U.S. Navy Oral History
Collection, copies of which can be found in the Navy's Operational
Archives Branch, contain several interviews of special interest to
researchers in racial history. Mention should be made of the Marine
Corps interviews with Generals Ray A. Robinson and Alfred G. Noble and
the Navy's interviews with Captains Mildred McAfee Horton and Dorothy
Stratton, leaders of the World War II WAVES and SPARS.
Finally, included in the files of the Center of Military History is a
collection of notes taken by Lee Nichols, Martin Blumenson, and the
author during their interviews with leading figures in the integration
story. The Nichols notes, covering the series of interviews conducted
by that veteran reporter in 1953-54, include such items as summaries
of conversations with Harry S. Truman, Truman K. Gibson, Jr., and
Emmett J. Scott.
_Printed Materials_ (p. 631)
Many of the secondary materials found particularly helpful by the
author have been cited throughout the volume, but special attention
should be drawn to certain key works in several categories. In the
area of official works, Ulysses Lee's _The Employment of Negro Troops_
in the United States Army in World War II series (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1966) remains the definitive account of
the Negro in the World War II Army. The Bureau of Naval Personnel's
"The Negro in the Navy," Bureau of Naval Personnel History of World
War II (mimeographed, 1946, of which there is a copy in the bureau's
Technical Library in Washington), is a rare item that has assumed even
greater significance with the loss of so much of the bureau's records.
Presented without attribution, the text paraphrases many important
documents accurately. Margaret L. Geis's "Negro Personnel in the
European Command, 1 January 1946-30 June 1950," part of the Occupation
Forces in Europe series (Historical Division, European Command, 1952),
Ronald Sher's "Integration of Negro and White Troops in the U.S. Army,
Europe, 1952-1954" (Historical Division, Headquarters, U.S. Army,
Europe, 1956), and Charles G. Cleaver, "Personnel Problems," vol. III,
pt. 2, of the "History of the Korean War" (Military History Section,
Headquarters, Far East Command, 1952), are important secondary sources
for guiding the student through a bewildering mass of materials. Alan
M. Osur's _Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World War II: The
Problem of Race Relations_ (Washington: Government Printing Office,
1977) and Alan Gropman's _The Air Force Integrates, 1945-1964_
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1978), both published by the
Office of Air Force History, and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., and Ralph W.
Donnelly's _Blacks in the Marine Corps_ (Washington: Government
Printing Office, 1975) provided official, comprehensive surveys of
their subjects. Finally, there is in the files of the Center of
Military History a copy of the transcripts of the National Defense
Conference on Negro Affairs (26 April 1948). Second only to the
transcripts of the Fahy Committee hearings in comprehensiveness on the
subject of postwar racial policies, this document also provides a rare
look at the attitudes of the traditional black leadership at a crucial
period.
As the footnotes indicate, congressional documents and newspapers were
also important resources mined in the preparation of this volume. Of
particular interest, the Center of Military History has on file a
special guide to some of these sources prepared by Lt. Col. Reinhold
S. Schumann (USAR). This guide analyzes the congressional and press
reaction to the 1940 and 1948 draft laws and to the Fahy and Gesell
Committee reports.
In his _Blacks and the Military in American History: A New
Perspective_ (New York: Praeger, 1974), Jack D. Foner provides a fine
general survey of the Negro in the armed forces, including an accurate
summary of the integration period. Among the many specialized studies
on the integration period itself, cited throughout the text, several
might provide a helpful entree to a complicated subject. The standard
account is Richard M. Dalfiume's _Desegregation of the_ _United (p. 632)
States Armed Forces: Fighting on Two Fronts, 1939-1953_ (Columbia,
Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1969). Carefully documented
and containing a very helpful bibliography, this work tends to
emphasize the influence of the civil rights advocates and Harry Truman
on the integration process. The reader will also benefit from
consulting Lee Nichols's pioneer work, _Breakthrough on the Color
Front_ (New York: Random House, 1954). Although lacking documentation,
Nichols's journalistic account was devised with the help of many of
the participants and is still of considerable value to the student.
The reader may also want to consult Richard J. Stillman II's short
survey, _Integration of the Negro in the U.S. Armed Forces_ (New York:
Praeger, 1968), principally for its statistical information on the
post-Korean period.
The role of President Truman and the Fahy Committee in the integration
of the armed forces has been treated in detail by Dalfiume and by
Donald R. McCoy and Richard T. Ruetten in _Quest and Response:
Minority Rights and the Truman Administration_ (Lawrence, Kansas: The
University of Kansas Press, 1973). A valuable critical appraisal of
the short-range response of the Army to the Fahy Committee's work
appeared in Edwin W. Kenworthy's "The Case Against Army Segregation,"
_Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science_ 275
(May 1951):27-33. In addition, the reader may want to consult William
C. Berman's _The Politics of Civil Rights in the Truman
Administration_ (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1970) for a
general survey of civil rights in the Truman years.
The expansion of the Defense Department's equal treatment and
opportunity policy in the 1960's is explained by Adam Yarmolinsky in
_The Military Establishment: Its Impacts on American Society_ (New
York: Harper & Row, 1971). This book is the work of a number of
informed specialists sponsored by the 20th Century Fund. A general
survey of President Kennedy's civil rights program is presented by
Carl M. Brauer in his _John F. Kennedy and the Second Reconstruction_
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1977). The McNamara era is
treated in Fred Richard Bahr's "The Expanding Role of the Department
of Defense as an Instrument of Social Change" (Ph.D. dissertation,
George Washington University, 1970).
Concerning the rise of the civil rights movement itself, the reader
would be advised to consult C. Vann Woodward's masterful _The Strange
Career of Jim Crow_, 3d ed. rev. (New York: Oxford University Press,
1974), and the two volumes composed by Gesell Committee member
Benjamin Muse, _Ten Years of Prelude: The Story of Integration Since
the Supreme Court's 1954 Decision_ (New York: The Viking Press, 1964),
and _The American Negro Revolution: From Nonviolence to Black Power,
1963-1967_ (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1968). Important
aspects of the civil rights movement and its influence on American
servicemen are discussed by Jack Greenberg in _Race Relations and
American Law_ (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959) and Eli
Ginzberg, _The Negro Potential_ (New York: Columbia University Press,
1956).
Finally, many of the documents supporting the history of the
integration of the armed forces, including complete transcripts of the
Fahy Committee hearings and the Conference on Negro Affairs, have (p. 633)
been compiled by the author and Bernard C. Nalty in the multivolumed
_Blacks in the United States Armed Forces: Basic Documents_
(Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1977).
Index (p. 635)
Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., 605.
Action Coordinating Committee to End Segregation in the Suburbs
(ACCESS), 601, 601_n_.
Adler, Julius Ochs, 314.
Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies (McCloy Committee),
34-35, 39, 41-43, 45, 56, 123.
Advisory Commission on Universal Training (Compton Commission), 303.
Ailes, Stephen, 574.
_Air Force Times_, 411.
Air forces
Second, 273;
Third, 273;
Fourth, 273;
Ninth, 282.
Air Training Command, 402, 405.
Air Transport Command, 273.
Air Transport Wing, 1701st, 411.
Airborne Division, 82d, 190-92, 200.
Alaskan Command, integration of, 452.
Alaskan Department, 190, 197.
Alexander, Sadie T. M., 294, 302_n_.
Almond, Lt. Gen. Edward M., 134, 135, 440-41.
American Civil Liberties Union, 246, 418.
American Legion, 225.
American Veterans Committee, 321, 503, 518, 521.
Anderson, Robert B., 421-23, 484-86.
Andrews Air Force Base, Md., 604-05.
Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, 492, 521.
Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion, 3d (USMC), 269.
Antilles Department, 190.
Arkansas A&M Normal College, 571.
Armed forces, Negroes in before 1940, 3-8.
Armed Forces Qualification Test, 394-95, 523, 573,
_See also_ Intelligence levels and test scores.
Armies
First, 53;
Sixth, 453;
Seventh, 53, 210-11, 390, 452;
Eighth, 208-10, 430, 433-34, 436-39, 442-47.
Armored Division, 2d, 200.
Armored Field Artillery Battalion, 58th, 445.
Armstrong, Lt. Comdr. Daniel, 67.
Army Air Forces
efficiency, military, and segregation in, 26-30, 271-79;
enlistment practices, 276;
manpower shortages, black, 271-72;
morale in, 273-74;
officer training schools, integration of, 275;
officers, black, 27-30, 272-73;
postwar assignments, 140-41, 159-60, 195, 197, 272;
quotas, 180-81, 183;
racial policies, 1940-1947, 27-30, 271-79;
training in, 271, 274-76.
Army Forces, Pacific, 179.
Army General Classification Test (AGCT), 24-25, 31, 55_n_, 137-38,
203-04, 215-16, 617-18;
_See also_ Intelligence levels and test scores.
Army Ground Forces, 180, 189;
and assignments, 194-95, 197;
and postwar location of training camps, 223-24;
and postwar use of black troops, 139-40, 160.
Army Groups, 6th and 12th, 52-53.
Army Service Forces, 42;
and postwar quotas, 181, 190;
and postwar use of black troops, 138-39, 160-61.
_Army Talk_, 170, 226.
Arnold, Maj. Gen. Henry H., 27, 271, 274.
Assignments, Air Force postwar, 277-79;
and reassignments during integration, 402-04, 410.
Assignments, armed forces
and civilian community attitudes, 37, 223-24, 262-65, 467-68;
and embassy and special mission, 467, 577-78;
and occupational distribution, 523-26, 572-73;
and overseas restrictions, 38, 179, 385-89.
Assignments, Army
and Fahy Committee, 368-71;
and Korean War, 433-34;
postwar, 194-98;
in World War II, 33-34, 37-38, 43-44, 51-54.
Assignments, Coast Guard, 114-17.
Assignments, Marine Corps
and 1951 integration order, 466-68;
postwar, 173, 253-57, 261-66, 335-38;
in World War II, 104, 106-10.
Assignments, Navy
postwar, 244-45;
in World War II, 72-75, 77-78, 84-86, 96.
Attitudes, change in toward Negroes, 229-30, 447, 614.
Attorney General, 587, 589.
Availability of Facilities to Military Personnel, The, 512-15.
Bainbridge Naval Training Center, Md., 73, 77, 92, 243.
Baker, Newton D., 46-47.
Baldwin, Hanson W., 164, 317.
Bard, Ralph A., 59, 62-63, 144.
Bare, Maj. Gen. Robert O., 467-68.
Barr, Col. John E., 280-81.
Base Service Squadron, 3817th, 404.
Battle Mountain, Korea, 436.
Bayonne, N.J. (naval shipyard), 263-64.
Bennett, L. Howard, 559_n_, 603.
Benton, William, 392_n_.
Berthoud, 2d Lt. Kenneth H., Jr., 472.
Bethune, Mary McLeod, 302_n_.
Biggs Air Force Base, Texas, 494.
Billikopf, Jacob, 314.
Blood banks, segregated, 36.
Blytheville, Ark., 498.
Bolte, Maj. Gen. Charles L., 194.
Bombardment Group, 477th, 29-30, 271, 275.
Bradley, General Omar N., 55, 188;
and Fahy Committee, 350-51, 410;
and a segregated Army, 228-29, 317-18, 321, 326.
Branch, 2d Lt. Frederick, 266.
Bremerhaven, Germany, 129.
Broad, Stuart, 559_n_.
Brookley Air Force Base, Ala., 512.
Brooks, Lt. Gen. Edward H., 432.
Brown, Edgar G., 49.
Brown, Ens. Jessie, 246.
Brown, John Nicholas, 242, 249, 329-30, 331.
Brown, Ens. Wesley A., 246, 414.
_Brown_ v. _Board of Education_, 323, 476, 586.
Brownell, Herbert, Jr., 480.
Browning, Charles, 302_n_.
Bull, Maj. Gen. Harold R., 326, 331.
Buress, Maj. Gen. Withers A., 429_n_.
Burgess, Carter L., 494.
Burley, Dan, 302_n_.
Burns, Maj. Gen. James H., 387.
Byrd, Robert C., 551.
Caffey, Brig. Gen. Benjamin F., 194.
_Calypso_, 114.
Camp Barry, Ill., 67.
Camp Campbell, Ky., 327.
Camp Geiger, N.C., 269.
Camp Hanford, Wash., 481.
Camp Lejeune, N.C., 255, 259.
Camp Perry, Va., 148.
Camp Robert Smalls, Ill., 67, 68, 77.
_Campbell_, 116.
Career Guidance Program (War Department), 198-99.
Carey, James B., 295_n_.
Caribbean Defense Command, 190.
Carlton, Sgt. Cornelius H., 440.
Cates, General Clifton B., 334-36, 461-62.
Cavalry Division, 2d, 31-33, 135_n_, 192, 439.
Cavalry regiments, 9th and 10th, 4, 30-31, 33, 192, 454.
Cemeteries, national, 224-25.
Chamberlain, Col. Edwin W., 31-32.
Chamberlin, Lt. Gen. Stephen J., 429.
Chamberlin Board, 429-30, 432, 440.
Charleston, S.C. (shipyard), 485, 486.
Charyk, Joseph V., 563.
_Chemung_, 86.
Cherokee, Charlie, 316.
Chicago _Defender_, 316, 408.
Chicago _Tribune_, 41.
Chief of Staff. _See_ Eisenhower, General of the Army Dwight D.
Chile, 38.
China, 179, 385.
Ch'ongch'on River line, 434.
Civil Rights Act of 1964, 554, 587-88, 590, 595.
Civil rights demonstrations, participation of servicemen in, 514-16,
541.
Civil rights legislation (1964-1966), 477, 554, 586-90, 595, 610-12.
Civil rights movement, 608;
and armed forces before World War II, 13-16;
and armed forces during World War II, 18-19, 23, 56, 123-30;
and Department of Defense, 299-309, 510-17;
and Eisenhower, 474-79, 485;
and Johnson, 586-90, 602;
and Kennedy, 473, 477, 504-07, 508-10, 535, 537, 546, 586;
and off-base discrimination, 473, 479-83, 500-04;
post-World War II, 474-79;
and postwar use of Negroes in armed forces, 129-30, 152;
prior to World War II, 8-13;
and Roosevelt, 8, 18-19;
and Truman, 124, 130, 292-97, 309-10, 483_n_, 488.
Civil Rights Subcabinet Group (1961), 506-07.
Civilian Aide to Secretary of War for Negro Affairs.
_See_ Gibson, Truman K., Jr., Hastie, William H.; Ray, Marcus H.;
Scott, Emmett J.
Civilian communities. _See also_ Committee on Equality of Opportunity
in the Armed Forces (Gesell Committee).
and assignment of black personnel, 37, 223-24, 262-65, 467-68;
and off-base discrimination, 129, 473, 479-83, 500, 606-08, 619-21;
and off-base discrimination overseas, 214-15, 578;
and racial incidents, 38, 39, 393-94, 412.
Clark, General Mark W., 133, 432-33, 443.
Clay, Lt. Gen. Lucius D., 212.
Clifford, Clark M., 308-11, 374, 605.
Colley, Nathaniel S., 537, 552.
Collins, General J. Lawton
and the Fahy Committee, 369-70;
and integration of the Army, 428-30, 431, 442, 443, 449-51, 454,
610_n_.
Combat Service Group, 2d, 269.
_Command of Negro Troops_, 44-45.
Commerce, Department of, 587.
Commission of Inquiry (1948), 306-07.
Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training, 300, 302,
390.
Committee on Civil Rights (1946), 294-95.
Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity (1961), 506.
Committee on Equality of Opportunity in the Armed Forces (Gesell
Committee), 535-37;
conclusions of, 538-42, 566, 577-78;
congressional opposition to, 550-51;
and DOD Directive 5120.36 issued, 548;
and final report, 552-55;
and local commanders' responsibilities, 540, 542-55, 561, 621;
and off-limits sanctions, 543-44, 546-47, 555, 581;
operations of, 537-38;
reactions to, 545-48;
recommendations of, 542-45, 599.
Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Forces (Fahy Committee), 312-14, 342, 616-17;
and the Air Force, 352, 356-57, 398, 407-08, 411-12;
and Army assignments, 368-71;
and Army opposition to recommendations, 359-62;
and Army proposals and counterproposals, 360-68;
and Army quotas, 356, 371-75, 429-30;
assessment of, 375-78;
and Department of Defense racial policy, 343-48;
and enlistment standards, 357-59;
and initial recommendations, 357-58;
and military efficiency in the Army, 350-56, 428, 613;
and the Navy, 352, 357-58, 412, 425-26;
purpose of, 348-50.
Committee for Negro Participation in the National Defense Program
(1938), 10.
Committee on Negro Personnel (Navy), 144-46, 151.
Community facilities, integrated, availability of for servicemen, 512-14.
Composite Group, 477th, 275, 278.
Composite units
in the Army, 189-93;
in the Marine Corps, 268-69, 335.
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 126, 478, 504.
Construction Battalion, 80th, 75.
Contract compliance program, 510_n_.
Cooke, Brig. Gen. Elliot D., 212.
Crabb, Brig. Gen. Jarred V., 283.
Craig, Maj. Gen. Lewis A., 431-32.
Craig Air Force Base, Ala., 480, 493.
Crime and disease rates, 206-09, 219, 273.
_Crisis, The_, 9, 14, 66, 133.
Daniels, Jonathan, 294, 313.
Darden, Colgate, 313.
Darden, Capt. Thomas F., 76.
Davenport, Roy K., 199, 204, 352-56, 358, 370-72, 380, 394-95,
535_n_, 576.
Davis, Col. Benjamin O., Jr., 275, 283-84, 286, 341, 400, 402.
Davis, Brig. Gen. Benjamin O., Sr., 19, 37, 39, 48, 53, 231.
Davis, Dowdal H., 302_n_, 408.
Davis, John W., 302_n_.
Dawson, Donald S., 313-14, 316.
Dawson William L., 314.
Defense, Department of, 297-99;
and basic regulations on equal opportunity, 564, 566;
and civil rights, 298-308, 510-17;
and civilian communities, 473, 479-83, 500, 607-08, 620-21;
and discrimination in the services, 1950's, 473-74, 482-83, 500;
and discrimination within the services, 1960's, 566-80;
and equal opportunity directive, 1963, 547-51, 556-57, 581, 619-21;
and field of community race relations, 531-35;
and integration of dependents' schools, 489-97, 596-99, 620;
and off-base discrimination, 500-03, 510-16, 583-85;
and off-base housing, 515-16, 584-85, 589, 598-606, 621;
and off-limits sanctions, 531-34, 543-44, 547-48, 556-57, 581, 604-05,
608, 621;
and organization of a civil rights office, 558-66;
and overseas assignments, 385-89;
and racial designations, 380-85, 574-77;
and voluntary compliance programs, 581-86, 592-93, 602-03, 607-08,
621. _See also_ Committee on Equality of Opportunity in the Armed
Forces (Gesell Committee); Committee on Equality of Treatment and
Opportunity in the Armed Forces (Fahy Committee).
Defense Appropriations Act, 315.
Defense battalions
51st (Composite), 101, 108-10;
52d, 109-10, 262.
Denfeld, Admiral Louis E., 167-68.
Depot companies
2d Medium 269;
7th and 8th, 111.
Dern, George H., 225.
Desegregation. _See_ Integration _of the four services_.
Detroit _Free Press_, 421-22.
Devers, General Jacob L., 134, 165, 190-92.
DeVoe, Lt. (jg.) Edith, 246.
DeVoto, Bernard, 126-27.
Dewey, Thomas E., 87, 309.
Dickey, John S., 295_n_.
Diggs, Charles C., Jr., 503, 520-22, 535, 537.
Dillon, Lt. Comdr. Charles E., 76.
Dillon, Douglas, 508.
Discipline. _See_ Crime and disease rates.
Discrimination, racial. _See also_ Civilian communities; Committee
on Equality of Opportunity in the Armed Forces (Gesell Committee);
Integration _of the four services_; Racial policies _of the four
services_.
and complaints of in the 1960's, 501-04, 510, 520-21, 557, 571, 584-86;
and U.S. Commission on Civil Rights study of (1963), 521-22.
Disease rates. _See_ Crime and disease rates.
_District of Columbia_ v. _John R. Thompson Co._, 476.
Divine, Maj. Gen. John M., 429_n_.
Divisions. _See_ Airborne Division, 82d; Armored Division, 2d; Cavalry
Division, 2d; Infantry divisions; Marine divisions; National Guard
divisions, 40th and 45th.
DOD Directive 5120.36, 547-51, 556-57, 581, 619-20.
Donahue, Alphonsus J., 314.
Double V campaign, 9, 17, 56.
Draper, William H., Jr., 193.
Drew, Charles R., 36.
DuBois, William E. B., 14, 124.
Dutton, Frederick G., 506, 508, 512.
Eaker, Lt. Gen. Ira C., 159-60, 196.
Earle Naval Ammunition Depot, N.J., 254, 263-65.
Early, Stephen, 15.
Eberstadt, Ferdinand, 298.
_Ebony_, 408, 412.
Eddy, Lt. Gen. Manton S., 451.
Edgewood Arsenal, Md., 605.
Education program, EUCOM, 216-19.
Educational backgrounds, 24-25, 67, 75, 137, 171-72, 617-18.
Edwards, Daniel K., 394.
Edwards, Lt. Gen. Idwal H.
and continued segregation in the Air Force, 285-89;
and integration plan of 1949, 338-42, 352, 399-401, 616;
and overseas restrictions, 387;
and Army postwar racial policy, 159, 176.
Efficiency, military, and segregation, 3, 152, 499, 612-13;
in the Air Force, 270, 276-77, 280-81;
in the Army, 18, 20, 24-26, 30-34, 43, 56-57, 350-56, 428;
in the Marine Corps, 256, 261-66, 334-36;
in the Navy, 62-63, 76-77, 235-37.
Eisenhower, General of the Army Dwight D., 192, 392, 451;
and the Army's racial policy, 227-29, 307, 618;
and civil rights movement, 476-78, 485;
and federal intervention, 473, 482, 487;
and Gillem Board Report, 162;
and integration of dependents' schools, 489-92, 495, 497-98;
and Negro infantry training, 51-52.
Ellender, Allen J., 11.
Engineer Battalion, 94th, 452, 455.
Engineer Combat Company, 77th, 445.
Engineers, Chief of, 222-23.
Eniwetok, 110.
Enlistment in armed forces, 1960's, and black indifference, 567-69.
Enlistment practices
in the Air Force, 276, 280, 618-19;
in the Army, 25-26, 32, 178, 182-84, 187-89, 203, 430, 618-19;
in the Coast Guard, 112, 114-15;
in the Marine Corps, 101-04, 107, 257-61;
in the Navy, 66-67, 69-71, 167, 236, 237-249, 421-24, 618-19.
Enlistment standards
and the Fahy Committee, 356-59;
and interservice controversy over in 1948, 324-26;
and qualitative distribution program, 394-95, 415-16.
Equal opportunity in the 1960's. _See also_ Executive Order 9981.
in the Air Force, 561, 563;
in the armed forces;
assessments of, 578-80, 618-22;
and DOD Directive 5120.36, 546-50, 555-56, 580, 619-20;
in the Army, 560-61;
and Executive Order 10925, 505-06, 512;
in the Marine Corps, 561;
in the Navy, 560-63.
Ernst, Morris L., 295_n_.
Ethiopia and the Assignment of American servicemen, 388-89.
Ethridge, Mark, 62-63.
European Command, 190, 197, 209, 448_n_;
and education program, 216-19;
and integration of, 450-53.
Evans, James C.
and DOD racial policies, 286, 299, 306-07, 435, 457, 506_n_;
and foreign assignment of Negroes, 387;
and integration of naval shipyards, 483, 486;
and new civil rights office, 558;
and off-base discrimination, 479-80, 502, 532-33;
and racial designations, 382, 574-75.
Evans, Joseph, 419.
Ewing, Oscar, 309-11, 313.
Executive Order 9980, 483.
Executive Order 9981, 291, 309-14, 616;
and immediate effect on the Air Force, 338-42;
and immediate effect on the Army, 318-31;
and immediate effect on the Marine Corps, 334-38;
and immediate effect on the Navy, 331-34;
limitations on, 479-483;
public reactions to, 315-18.
Executive Order 10925, 505-06, 512.
Executive Order 11063, 506, 517.
Fahy, Charles, 314, 348-51, 352-56, 360-66, 368-71, 376, 378_n_, 410.
Fahy Committee. _See_ Committee on Equality of Treatment and
Opportunity in the Armed Forces (Fahy Committee).
Fair Employment Practices Commission, 16, 62-63, 293.
Fairchild, General Muir S., 339.
Faix, Capt. Thomas L., 465.
Falgout, 426.
Far East Command, 197, 208, 210, 216, 443-45.
Farmer, James, 478.
Fay, Paul B., Jr., 538, 541-42, 560-62.
Fechteler, Rear Adm. William M., 245.
Federal Housing Authority, 476-77, 479, 601.
Ferguson, Homer, 479.
Fighter Group, 332d, 29, 275.
Fighter Squadron, 99th, 29, 428.
Fighter Wing, 332d, 282-84, 398-99, 408.
Finkle, Lee, 9.
Finletter, Thomas K., 384-85.
Finucane, Charles C., 497.
Fish, Hamilton, 11-12.
Fitt, Alfred B.
and assignments, 577-78;
and dependents' schools, 596-98;
and effort to attract black officer candidates, 569-70;
as first civil rights deputy, 536_n_, 551, 559-60, 563-64, 571_n_,
579, 601;
and Gesell Committee, 546-47;
and racial designations, 576-77;
and voluntary action programs, 582-83, 585-86, 592.
Foner, Jack, 7.
Forrestal, James V., 57, 59, 345, 609;
and changes in Navy's policy, 84-85, 87-89, 94-96, 98, 128-29, 235,
244-45, 248, 614-15;
and Executive Order 9981, 311, 314;
and Fahy Committee, 343-44, 356, 376;
and integration approach as Secretary of Defense, 292, 297-99,
301-02, 305, 307-09, 324-25, 327, 330;
and postwar policy aims, 144-45, 147, 151, 166-70.
Fort Belvoir, Va., 493, 597.
Fort Benning, Ga., 50, 216, 490.
Fort Bliss, Tex., 494.
Fort Bragg, N. C., 223.
Fort Dix, N. J., 201, 223-24, 435-36.
Fort George G. Meade, Md., 494, 605.
Fort Holabird, Md., 605.
Fort Hood, Tex., 514-15.
Fort Jackson, S. C., 223-24, 435.
Fort Knox, Ky., 201, 223, 303, 436.
Fort Leavenworth, Kans., 209-10.
Fort Lee, Va., 434, 596.
Fort Lewis, Wash., 223.
Fort Mifflin, Pa., 264, 265.
Fort Ord, Calif., 223-24, 435.
Fort Snelling National Cemetery, Minn., 225.
Fortas, Abe, 537.
Fowler, Maj. James D., 201-02, 354.
Francis, H. Minton, 559_n_.
_Freedom to Serve_, 375, 408.
Freeman, Douglas Southall, 313.
Freeman, General Paul, 578.
Freeman Field, Ind., 45, 128, 273.
Fulbright, J. William, 551.
Garrison, Lloyd K., 314.
Garvey, Marcus, 16.
German Army and segregated units, 23_n_.
Gesell, Gerhard A., 535-39, 542-44, 547, 552-54, 561, 604.
Gesell Committee. _See_ Committee on Equality of Opportunity in the
Armed Forces (Gesell Committee).
Gibson, Truman K., Jr., 21, 41, 132, 137-38, 141-42, 157-58, 163, 165,
299-300, 302_n_, 304, 310, 558_n_.
Gillem, Lt. Gen. Alvan C., Jr., 153-55, 165.
Gillem Board, 153-54, 165-66, 232-33, 275, 278, 614;
and attitudes toward new policy, 163-65;
conclusions and recommendations of, 154-57, 161-62, 430-31, 437, 459;
and reactions to recommendations, 157-61.
Gilliam, Jerry, 483.
Gillmor, Reginald E., 314.
Gilpatric, Roswell L., 510, 512-13, 520, 532, 534, 536_n_.
Ginzberg, Eli, 450-51.
Gittelsohn, Roland B., 295_n_.
Godman Field, Ky., 30, 272.
Goldwater, Barry M., 551.
Goode, James P., 498, 565.
Grafenwohr Training Center, Germany, 217.
Graham, Annie N., 267.
Graham, Frank P., 295_n_, 313.
Granger, Lester B., 88, 92, 124, 169, 249-50, 252;
and Fahy Committee, 313-14, 371;
and inspection of black units, 147-51;
and racial problems of Department of Defense, 301-02, 305, 307, 324,
326, 484-85;
and recommendations to Navy Department, 95-98, 144-46, 150-51,
166-68, 614;
and reforms in Steward's Branch, 242, 421-22, 426;
and shortage of black officers, 245, 247.
Gravely, Lt. Comdr. Samuel L., Jr., 77, 80_n_, 426.
Gray, Gordon
and Fahy Committee, 360, 362-64, 367-70, 373-74;
and integration of the Army, 428-30.
Great Britain, 37-39.
Great Falls Air Force Base, Mont., 411.
Great Lakes Training Center, Ill., 67, 77, 79, 82, 244.
Greenland, 38, 386.
Gregg, Bishop J. W., 302_n_.
Gross, H. R., 550.
Gruenther, General Alfred M., 452.
Guam
and black Marines at, 110, 150, 254-55, 258;
and race riot at, 92-93.
_Guide to the Command of Negro Naval Personnel_, 83-84.
Haas, Francis J., 295_n_.
Hague, Rear Adm. W. McL., 483.
Haislip, General Wade H., 228-29, 364, 440.
Halaby, Najeeb, 386-87.
Hall, Lt. Gen. Charles P., 189-92, 195.
Hall, Durward G., 550.
Hampton Institute, Va., 67-68.
Handy, General Thomas T., 226, 450-51.
Hannah, John A., 454-56, 486, 489, 499.
Harper, Robert, 398.
_Harper_ v. _Virginia Board of Elections_, 589.
Hastie, William H., 19-20, 23, 30, 36, 40-42, 49, 51, 56, 558_n_.
Havenner, Franck R., 393.
Hawaii, 149, 265.
Hayes, Arthur Garfield, 306.
Healey, Capt. Michael, 113_n_.
Health, Education, and Welfare, Department of, 492, 596, 598-99.
Hebert, F. Edward, 550.
Hector, Louis, 537.
Heinz, Comdr. Luther C., 414.
Hershey, Maj. Gen. Lewis B., 70, 103, 384.
Hesburgh, Father Theodore, 505.
Hewes, Laurence I., III, 537, 543.
Hill, Maj. Gen. Jim Dan, 321-22.
Hill, Lister, 11, 511.
Hill, T. Arnold, 9, 15.
Hillenkoetter, Capt. Roscoe H., 145.
Hingham, Mass., 264-65.
Hobby, Oveta Culp, 491-92.
Hodes, Maj. Gen. Henry I., 196-97.
Holcomb, Maj. Gen. Thomas, 64, 100-101, 105-06.
Holifield, Chet, 381.
Holloway, Vice Adm. James L., Jr., 421-23.
Holloway program, 246.
Holmes, John Haynes, 187.
Hope, Lt. Comdr. Edward, 250.
_Hoquim_, 120-21.
Housing, off-base, 476-77, 479, 502, 506, 584;
and Department of Defense, 516-17, 581, 585-86, 590, 599-608, 621;
in Washington, D.C. area, 601-04.
Houston, Charles H., 14, 302_n_.
Huebner, Lt. Gen. Clarence R., 216-17, 219, 330-31.
Huff, Sgt. Maj. Edgar R., 472.
Hull, Lt. Gen. John E., 159.
Humphrey, Hubert H., 309, 392, 488.
Hunter College Naval Training School, N.Y., 88.
Iceland, 38, 179, 385-87.
Infantry battalions
3d of 9th Infantry, 193;
3d of 188th Infantry, 193;
9th, 462;
370th and 371st (Separate), 217_n_.
Infantry divisions
1st, 190, 217;
2d, 200;
3d, 327;
9th, 435;
25th, 445;
34th, 134;
69th, 53;
88th, 193;
92d, 7, 18, 30, 32, 43, 132, 136-37, 351-52, 440;
93d, 7, 32, 43, 135-37, 352.
Infantry regiments
9th, 433;
14th, 444;
24th, 4, 7, 135, 192, 436-40, 442-45, 459;
25th, 4, 7, 136, 192;
27th, 437;
34th, 444;
35th, 437;
313th, 319;
364th, 436;
365th, 436.
Installation Group, 3202d, 410.
Integration of the Air Force
directive for (1949), 401-02;
and the Fahy Committee, 352, 357;
and local commanders' responsibilities, 400-401;
plan for in 1949, 338-42, 376, 397-400;
and reassignment of black airmen, 402-04, 410;
and screening at Lockbourne Field, 402-03;
and social situations, 409-11;
success of, 405-12, 615-16.
Integration of the Army
and continental Army commands, 453-54;
in the Eighth Army, 442-47;
and the European Command, 450-53;
and military efficiency, 428-34;
in officer training schools, 47-51, 275;
and performance of 24th Infantry Regiment, 436-40;
in platoons, 51-56;
and review of racial policy (1951), 440-42;
and social situations, 447, 449, 456;
success of, 455-59, 616-17;
and training units, 434-36.
Integration of the Coast Guard, 118-22.
Integration of the Marine Corps
and assignments of Negroes, 466-68;
and black reservists, 267-69;
and the Korean War, 462-66, 617;
new racial policy for (1949), 461-62;
and recruit training, 334-35;
and the Steward's Branch, 468-71.
Integration of the Navy
in the fleet, 77-78, 84-86, 167-68, 614-15;
new plan for in 1949, 412-13;
and recruitment of Negroes, 413-18;
and shipyards, 483-87;
and the Steward's Branch, 418-25.
Intelligence levels and test scores, 24, 104, 137-38, 140, 198-99,
204, 271, 324-25, 372-73, 521-24, 527, 571-73.
Interstate Commerce Commission, 476, 506, 531.
Investigations on conduct of black soldiers, 210-13.
Jackson, Stephen S., 497, 517.
Jacobs, Rear Adm. Randall, 68-70, 72, 84, 89.
James, Lt. Gen. Daniel (Chappie), Jr., 401.
James Connally Air Force Base, Tex., 405.
Javits, Jacob K., 391-92, 435.
Jenkins, Ens. Joseph C., 121.
Johnson, Col. Campbell C., 19, 103.
Johnson, Earl D., 395, 432, 436, 449-50.
Johnson, John H., 302_n_.
Johnson, Louis A.
and Fahy Committee, 343, 345-48, 358-62, 364-67, 371, 374;
as Secretary of Defense, 380-81, 386-87, 390-92, 396.
Johnson, Lyndon B.,
and civil rights legislation, 587-91, 602;
and Gesell Committee, 536, 552.
Johnson, Mordecai, 247, 285, 302_n_.
Jones, Col. Richard L., 316.
_Jones_ v. _Mayer_, 605.
Jordan, Robert E., III, 592.
Justice, Department of, 497, 505, 610.
Katzenbach, Nicholas B., 513.
Kean, Maj. Gen. William B., 436-37.
Keeler, Leonard, 211.
Kelly Field, Tex., 128.
Kennedy, John F.
and civil rights, 473, 477, 504-06, 508-10, 586, 620;
and Gesell Committee, 535, 537, 546;
and training programs, 574.
Kennedy, Robert F., 504, 506, 531-32, 553, 596.
Kenworthy, Edwin W., 350-53, 356, 360, 362, 365-70, 377-78, 408, 430.
Kerner Commission, 623.
Key West, Fla., 291, 479, 498.
Kilgore, Harley M., 212, 392_n_.
Kimball Dan A., 240, 336, 359, 413, 418-20, 484.
King, Admiral Ernest J., 59_n_, 77, 82, 85-86, 88-90, 91, 94, 166.
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 478-79, 588.
Kitzingen Air Base, Germany, 217-19, 450.
Knowland, William F., 224.
Knox, Frank, 20_n_, 100;
and early views on integration, 59-61, 63-64, 101;
and induction of Negroes into the Navy, 66-67, 70-71, 81-82, 86-87;
and the Marine Corps, 106-07.
Korean War, 431-34, 460, 462-65, 613, 617.
Korth, Fred, 452-53, 488, 562-63.
Krock, Arthur, 316.
Kuter, Maj. Gen. Laurence S., 401.
Labrador, 38.
LaFollette, Robert M., Jr., 187.
Lamb, Ann E., 267.
Langer, William, 308.
Lanham, Brig. Gen. Charles T., 344-46, 361.
Lautier, Louis R., 210, 302_n_.
Lee, Ens. John, 246.
Lee, Lt. Gen. John C. H., 51-52, 228.
Lee, Ulysses, 39, 137.
Legal assistance, 581, 587, 591, 598.
LeGette, Col. Curtis W., 171.
LeHavre, France, 128.
Lehman, Herbert H., 392_n_, 393.
Leva, Marx, 234, 301, 308, 311, 313, 327, 343-44.
Lewis, Anthony, 499.
Lewis, Fulton, Jr., 49.
Lewis, Ira F., 302.
Lightship No. 115, 122.
Little Rock, Ark., 476, 477.
Little Rock, Air Force Base, Ark., 496-98.
Local commanders, Air Force, 400-401, 408.
Local commanders, armed forces
and equal opportunity matters, 556, 561-64, 582-85, 592-93, 608, 621;
and Gesell Committee's recommendations, 539-44, 554, 560, 620;
and integration of off-base schools, 597-99;
and local community attitudes, 502-03;
and off-base housing, 600-601.
Local commanders, Army
and discipline, 207;
and off-base discrimination, 39;
and on-base discrimination, 36, 42, 44-45.
Local commanders, Navy, 83.
Lockbourne Field, Ohio, 275, 277, 281-82, 286, 341, 398-99, 402-03.
Lodge, Henry Cabot, 307.
Logan, Rayford W., 11.
Long, John D., 235_n_.
Long Island National Cemetery, 224.
Louis, Joe, 66, 300.
Lovett, Robert A., 30, 489.
Luckman, Charles, 295_n_, 314, 314_n_.
McAfee, Capt. Mildred H., 86-88.
McAlester Naval Ammunition Depot, Okla., 109, 254, 263.
MacArthur, General Douglas, 14, 197, 439, 444, 463.
McAuliffe, Maj. Gen. Anthony C., 432-33, 441, 443, 449-51, 453-54, 457.
McCloy, John J., 21, 23, 128, 188
and Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies, 34-35, 42-43, 46,
56-57;
and postwar use of black troops, 130-31, 135, 143, 153, 154_n_,
157-58, 165, 558.
McConnaughy, James L., 319, 320.
McCrea, Vice Adm. John L., 383.
MacDill Airfield, Fla., 209, 277.
McFayden, Brig. Gen. B. M., 392.
McGill, Ralph, 313.
McGowan, Maj. Gen. D. W., 594.
McGrath, Earl J., 489.
McGrath, Howard J., 314.
MacKay, Cliff W., 302_n_.
McMahon, Brian, 314.
McNair, Lt. Gen. Lesley J., 43.
McNamara, Robert S., 502, 504, 509, 609;
and Civil Rights Act of 1964, 590-91;
and equal opportunity directive (1963), 547-48, 556, 619-21;
and equal treatment and opportunity, 530, 578-79;
and Gesell Committee, 536, 546-49;
and the National Guard, 519, 593;
and off-base housing, 517, 600, 602-08;
and off-limits sanctions, 547-48, 556, 581, 604-05;
and organization of civil rights apparatus, 558-59, 563, 566;
and racial reform directives, 511, 513, 516-17;
and voluntary action programs, 582, 586.
McNarney, General Joseph T., 210.
McNutt, Paul V., 32, 70-71.
Macy, John W., Jr., 575.
Manhattan Beach Training Station, N. Y., 114-15, 121-22.
Manpower shortages, black
in the Air Force, 280, 282-83;
in the Army, 32-33, 178, 219-22;
in the Navy, 74, 414-15, 426.
March, General Peyton C., 235.
March on Washington Movement, 16.
Mare Island, Calif., 92.
Marine Air Group, 33, 463.
Marine Air Wing, 1st, 463.
Marine Barracks, Dahlgren, Va., 467.
Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C., 467.
Marine divisions
1st, 463-64;
2d, 269.
Marine regiments
5th, 463;
7th, 463-64.
Maris, Maj. Gen. Ward S., 441.
Marr, Lt. Col. Jack F., 287-88, 288_n_, 342, 616.
Marshall, Burke, 513, 537, 547.
Marshall, General George C., 43, 49, 55;
and integration, 20-22, 31, 42, 131, 153;
as Secretary of Defense, 380, 392-93, 435, 443, 449, 619.
Marshall, S. L. A., 434.
Marshall, Thurgood, 15, 92, 124, 438-39, 533.
Martin, Louis, 302_n_.
_Mason_, 77-78, 86.
Matthews, Francis P., 295_n_, 387, 412-13.
Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., 404, 493, 511.
Maxwell Field, Ala., 28.
Mays, Benjamin E., 302_n_.
Meader, George, 212.
Medals of Honor, 440.
Mediterranean theater, 190, 197.
Meetings, segregated, 564-66.
Miami Beach, Fla., 30, 50, 244.
_Midway_, 481.
Miller, Donald L., 559_n_.
Miller, Dorie (Doris), 58, 58_n_.
Miller, Lt. Col. Francis P., 212.
Miller, Loren, 302_n_.
Minneapolis _Spokesman_, 408.
Mississippi Summer Project, 588-89.
Mitchell, Clarence, 384, 393-94, 474, 478-79, 484.
Mobilization plans, 10-13, 18-19, 24, 28.
Montford Point, N. C., 101, 108-09, 253-55, 258, 269, 335.
Montgomery, Ala., 503.
Morale
in the Air Force, 282, 398-99;
in the armed forces, 528, 531, 542;
in the Army, 20, 34-39, 350-51, 442;
in the Marine Corps, 105, 110, 469-71;
in the Navy, 75, 148-49.
_Morgan_ v. _Virginia_, 475.
Morris, Thomas D., 586, 603.
Morse, Wayne, 303, 390.
Morse, Brig. Gen. Winslow C., 154.
Moskowitz, Jack, 559_n_.
Multer, Abraham J., 393, 595.
Muse, Benjamin, 537, 542, 552, 621.
Myrdal, Gunnar, 3, 9, 14.
Nash, Philleo, 310-11, 313, 366, 369.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
and the Army, 31, 49, 293, 438, 518;
and enlistment quotas, 186;
and integration in the armed forces, 8, 14-16, 126, 304, 500;
and the Marine Corps, 462;
and the Navy, 62, 66;
and off-limits sanctions, 557;
and racial violence, 393;
and segregated dependents' schools, 498;
and segregated national cemeteries, 225.
National Defense Act of 1945, 320, 322.
National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs (1948), 243, 285, 304-05,
324.
National Emergency Committee Against Mob Violence (1946), 294.
National Guard
continued segregation in, 518-20, 553-54;
and Executive Order 9981, 318-22;
integration of, 593-95.
National Guard divisions, 40th and 45th, 443, 445-46.
National Negro Congress, 8, 66.
National Negro Publishers Association, 302.
National Security Act of 1947, 297-98.
National Urban League, 8, 95, 126, 241, 414, 615.
Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps, 246-47, 414-15.
Navy Circular Letter 48-46, 168-70.
Nelson, Lt. Dennis D., 244, 246, 250, 305, 484;
and recruitment of officer candidates, 247, 414, 417;
and reform of Steward's Branch, 242-43, 419.
New Orleans, La., 476.
New Orleans Naval Air Station, La., 495.
New York _Times_, 304, 324, 363.
Newspapers. _See_ Press, Negro; _publications by name_.
Nichols, Lee, 426-27, 493-94.
Niles, David K., 294-95, 314, 365-66, 373-74.
Nimitz, Admiral Chester W., 94, 166-67.
Nkrumah, Kwame, 509.
Noble, Maj. Gen. Alfred H., 334.
Norfolk, Va., 73, 77, 483, 485, 498.
Norfolk _Journal and Guide_, 163, 258.
_Northland_, 118.
Nugent, Maj. Gen. Richard E., 287-88, 405.
Nunn, William G., 302_n_.
Nurse Corps, U.S. Navy, 72, 74-75, 96, 247-48.
Occupational distribution of assignments, 523-27, 572-73.
Occupational specialties, 177, 194-95, 201, 354-55, 377, 524-27, 572-73.
Off-base equal opportunity inventories, 583-85, 592.
Off-limits sanctions by Department of Defense
and housing, 580, 604-05, 608, 621;
and question of using, 532-33;
recommended by Gesell Committee, 543-44, 547-48, 556, 581;
and requested by NAACP, 556.
Office of War Information, 40.
Officer training schools, integration of
in the Air Force, 286;
in the Army, 30, 47-51;
in the Marine Corps, 266;
in the Navy, 82, 87.
Officers, black
in the Air Force, 278, 282-83, 398, 406;
in the armed forces, 568-71;
in the Army, 30, 36-37, 47-51, 194, 219-23, 226;
in the Coast Guard, 119, 121-22;
in the Marine Corps, 111, 266-67, 461, 471-72;
in the Navy, 79-82, 86-87, 243-48, 332, 414-15, 417-18, 426.
Officers, white, attitudes of
in the Army, 37, 133-34;
in the Navy, 82-84, 89-90.
Ohly, John H., 299, 327.
OIR Notice CP75 (1952), 483-84.
Okinawa Base Command, 190.
Old, Maj. Gen. William D., 282, 284.
O'Meara, Joseph, 537.
Operations Research Office, 441-42.
_Opportunity_, 67.
Osthagen, Clarence H., 398.
Overhead spaces
in the Air Force, 279;
in the Army, 177, 195-97.
Overseas employment of black servicemen
by the Army, 37-38;
and the Gesell Committee, 552-53;
by the Marine Corps, 109-11;
restrictions on, 38, 179, 385-89.
Overton, John H., 11.
Oxford, Miss., 476, 505.
Pace, Frank, Jr., 224, 376, 377_n_, 395, 443-44, 447.
Padover, Saul K., 294.
Palmer, Dwight, 314.
Panama Canal Zone, 38, 179, 386.
Parachute Battalion, 555th, 190-92.
Parks, Maj. Gen. Floyd L., 186-87.
Parks, Rosa, 124, 478.
Parris Island, S. C., 334.
Parrish, Col. Noel F., 273, 279.
Passman, Otto E., 550.
Pastore, John, 392_n_.
Patch, Lt. Gen. Alexander M., 53.
Patterson, Robert P., 21-22, 28, 46, 225;
and conduct of black troops in Europe, 212-13;
and Gillem Board, 153, 162-63, 215, 232;
and quotas, 176, 183-84, 187-88;
sued for violation of Selective Service Act, 182, 186.
Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Md., 494.
Paul, Norman S.
and civil rights legislation, 591, 597-98;
and off-base discrimination, 582, 585-86;
and organization of civil rights apparatus, 558-59, 564, 566.
Paul, Maj. Gen. Willard S., 158-59, 217, 225;
and assignment of black personnel, 194-96, 202, 213-14;
and composite units, 192-93;
and continued segregation, 231, 322;
and expansion of school quotas, 198-201;
and National Guard integration, 318;
and postwar quotas, 176-79, 181, 185-86, 188-89;
and shortage of black officers, 219-22.
Paxton, Brig. Gen. Alexander G., 322.
PC 1264, 77.
Pea Island Station, N.C., 112, 115.
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 148.
Pensacola Naval Air Station, Fla., 493, 542-43.
Personnel Policy Board, DOD, 398, 402;
and Fahy Committee, 344-48, 358, 360;
and facial designations, 381-84, 574.
Petsons, Wilton B., 485.
Petersen, 2d Lt. Frank E., Jr., 472.
Petersen, Howard C., 163-64, 232;
and postwar quotas, 177, 187;
and postwar racial reforms, 223-24, 279.
Philadelphia, Miss., 588.
Philadelphia Depot of Supplies, Pa., 109.
Pick, Maj. Gen. Lewis A., 154.
Pinchot, Gifford, 63.
Pine Bluff Arsenal, Ark., 494.
Pittsburgh _Courier_, 10, 126, 164, 285, 316, 367, 399, 408.
Platoons, integration of, 51-56.
_Plessy_ v. _Ferguson_, 6.
Poletti, Charles, 59.
Port Chicago, Calif., 263.
Port Hueneme, Calif., 93.
Powell, Adam Clayton, and discrimination in the services, 248, 304,
388-89, 423, 425, 468, 482, 485, 532.
Prairie View A&M, Tex., 571.
Press, Negro. _See also by name of publication._
and equal treatment in the armed forces, 10, 42-43, 126, 132-33,
169, 258, 284-85, 302, 304;
and Executive Order 9981, 316, 324, 365.
Price, Maj. Gen. Charles F. B., 110-11.
Project CLEAR, 442, 449, 457.
Promotions
in the Air Force, 284;
in the armed forces, 571-72;
in the Army, 133, 322;
in the Coast Guard, 121;
in the Marine Corps, 150, 471-72;
in the Navy, 75, 79, 417-18.
Provisional Marine Brigade, 1st, 463.
Public Laws 815 and 874, 487-88.
Puner, Morton, 499.
Pursuit Squadron, 99th. _See_ Fighter Squadron, 99th.
Qualitative Distribution of Military Manpower Program, 394-95, 416-17.
Quartermaster General, 222, 225.
Quesada, Lt. Gen. Elwood R., 282.
Quotas, Air Force, 615-16.
Quotas, Army, 25-26, 32, 156_n_, 158, 166, 615-16;
assessments of, 202-05, 458-59;
and enlistment practices, 182-84, 187-89, 203;
and expansion of for schools, 198-202;
and the Fahy Committee, 356, 371-75, 429-30;
and postwar opposition to, 176-81, 187;
and qualitative balance, 184-86.
Quotas, Coast Guard, 115.
Quotas, Marine Corps
postwar, 172, 174, 255-56;
and postwar recruitment efforts, 257-61;
in World War II, 103.
Quotas, Navy, 69-71.
Rabb, Maxwell, M., 482, 485, 492.
Racial designations, 224, 380-85, 574-77.
Racial incidents, 126, 393;
in the Air Force, 409;
in the Army, 38-39, 45, 128, 209-10;
in the Marine Corps, 92-93, 111;
in the Navy, 75, 92-94, 128-29.
Racial policies, Air Force
1940-1947, 271-80;
and immediate effect of Executive Order 9981, 338-42;
and military traditions, 270;
and need for change of, 280-90.
Racial policies, Army
and arguments for continued segregation, 227-29;
and an assessment of segregation in 1948, 231-33;
and enlisted opinions on integration, 229-30;
and immediate effect of Executive Order 9981, 318-31;
and immediate postwar. _See_ Gillem Board;
and military traditions, 20, 234-35;
postwar, 213-15;
and postwar opposition to quotas, 176-81, 187;
and postwar performance evaluation of black troops, 132-43;
and reforms in 1947, 223-26;
and search for a new postwar policy, 130-32, 141-43, 151;
in World War II, 17-24, 34, 39-46.
Racial policies, Coast Guard
and limited integration, 118-22;
pre-World War II experience, 112-13;
in World War II, 114-17.
Racial policies, Marine Corps
and immediate effect of Executive Order 9981, 334-38;
immediate postwar, 170-74, 253-54, 266-67;
and military traditions, 100, 103, 170, 174, 269;
and search for a postwar policy, 149-50;
and steps toward integration, 266-69;
in World War II, 100-12.
Racial policies, Navy
between world wars, 58;
and blood processing, 36_n_;
and commissioning of black officers, 79-82;
and development of a wartime policy, 59-67;
and employment of black recruits, 67-75;
and failure to attract Negroes, 68-69, 248-52, 415-18, 426, 562-63;
and immediate effect of Executive Order 9981, 331-34;
and immediate postwar, 166-70;
and military traditions, 234-35, 237, 252;
and reforms under Forrestal, 84-92, 94-98;
and search for a postwar policy, 143-46, 150-51;
and Special Programs Unit reforms, 75-79, 82-83, 87-88.
Racial policies, and social change
in the armed forces, 21-22, 39, 227, 229, 232, 317, 610, 612;
and Congress, 379-80, 389-90, 550-51.
Randolph, A. Philip
and civil rights movement, 478;
and Executive Order 9981, 311, 316;
and integration of the armed forces, 15-16, 66-67, 124, 267, 390;
and proposed draft bill, 300, 302-06, 616.
Randolph Field, Tex., 275, 286.
Ray, (Lt. Col.) Marcus H., 133, 163, 211, 319, 558_n_;
and EUCOM education program, 216, 219;
and postwar manpower needs, 177-78, 184;
and postwar racial reforms, 223-24, 279, 330;
and survey of black soldiers in Europe, 212-15.
Recreational facilities, 37-38, 45-46, 411, 511-12.
Recruitment. _See_ Enlistment practices.
Red Cross, 36.
Reddick, L. D., 163, 300.
Reeb, James, 589.
Reenlistment. _See_ Enlistment practices.
Reese Air Force Base, Tex., 493.
Reeves, Frank D., 508.
Regimental Combat Team, 25th, 135, 189, 216.
Reid, Thomas R., 344-48, 358-60.
Render, Frank W., II, 559_n_.
Reserve Officers' Training Corps, 221, 570-71.
Reserves, Army, integration of, 519-20.
Reuther, Walter P., 187, 478.
Reynolds, Grant, 300, 306, 390.
Reynolds, Hobson, E., 302_n_.
Ribicoff, Abraham, 596.
Richardson, Elliot, C., 496.
Ridgway, General Matthew B., 439, 442-48, 617.
Riley, Capt. Herbert D., 330.
Rivers, L. Mendel, 550, 605.
Robinson, Brig. Gen. Ray A., 260, 266, 268.
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 8, 20, 74, 75_n_, 103.
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 59, 235;
and civil rights, 8;
and integration in the Army, 15-16, 18-19;
and integration in the Navy, 60-65, 69-73, 87, 97, 101, 609.
Roosevelt, Franklin D., Jr., 295_n_.
Roosevelt, James, 479.
Rosenberg, Anna M., 392-93, 436, 443-44, 483, 488-89, 619.
Rowan, Carl T., 80_n_.
Royall, Kenneth C., 188, 212, 232;
and enlistment standards, 324;
and Executive Order 9981, 311-13;
and the Fahy Committee, 347-48, 351;
and further integration in the Army, 322-24;
and integration experiments, 326-29;
and integration of reserve components, 320-21;
and shortage of black officers, 221-22.
Rudder, 2d Lt. John E., 266-67.
Runge, Carlisle P.
and the National Guard, 518-19;
and off-base discrimination, 502, 506_n_, 532, 534-35;
and racial reform directives, 511-13, 515.
Rusk, Dean, 184, 387.
Russell, Ens. Harvey C., 122.
Russell, Richard B., 308, 389-90, 456-57.
Sabath, Adolph J., 391.
St. Julien's Creek, Va., 75.
Saipan, 254-55, 258.
Saltonstall, Leverett, 390.
Samoa, 111.
Samuels, Lt. (jg.) Clarence, 121.
San Antonio, Tex., 277.
Sargent, Lt. Comdr. Christopher S., 76, 242.
Schmidt, Maj. Gen. Harry, 104-05.
Schneider, J. Thomas, 383.
Schools, Army, and quotas, 198-202.
Schools, dependents'
and impact aid legislation, 487-89;
off-base, 476, 496-98, 596-99, 621;
on-post, 489.
Schuyler, George S., 9, 300.
Scotia, N. Y., 265.
Scott, Emmett, J., 19, 558.
_Sea Cloud_, 119-22.
Secretary of the Air Force. _See_ Finletter, Thomas K.;
Symington, W. Stuart.
Secretary of the Army. _See_ Gray, Gordon; Pace, Frank, Jr.;
Royall, Kenneth C.; Stevens, Robert T.
Secretary of Defense. _See_ Clifford, Clark M.; Forrestal, James V.;
Johnson, Louis A.; Lovett, Robert A.; McNamara, Robert S.;
Marshall, General George C.; Wilson, Charles E.
Secretary of the Navy. _See_ Anderson, Robert B.; Forrestal, James V.;
Kimball Dan A.; Knox, Frank; Matthews, Francis P.; Sullivan, John L.
Secretary of War. _See_ Patterson, Robert P.; Royall, Kenneth C.;
Stimson, Henry L.
Segregation. _See_ Discrimination, racial.
Selective Service Act of 1940, 10-13, 32, 70, 612, 614.
Selective Service Act of 1948, 299-300, 303-04, 308, 315, 612.
Selective Service System, 69, 435;
and quotas, 25-26, 182;
and racial designations, 381, 383-84.
Selfridge Field, Mich., 128.
Selma, Ala., 503, 588-89.
Sengstacke, John H., 314, 537.
"Services and Their Relations with the Community, The," 507.
Sexton, Vice Adm. Walton R., 114-15.
Shaw, Bernard, 338.
Shaw Air Force Base, S. C., 281.
Sherrill, Henry Knox, 295_n_.
Shipyards, naval, integration of, 483-87.
Shishkin, Boris, 295_n_.
Shulman, Stephen N., 559_n_, 570-72.
Signal Construction Detachment, 449th, 210.
Skinner, Lt. Comdr. Carlton, 118-21.
Smedberg, Vice Adm. William R., 508.
Smith, Lt. Gen. Oliver P., 462, 464.
Smith, Lt. Gen. Walter Bedell, 52.
Smith College, Mass., 87.
Smothers, Curtis R., 559_n_.
Snyder, Rear Adm. Charles P., 63-64.
Sollat, Ralph P., 393.
Somervell, General Brehon B., 54-55.
Sommers, Lt. Col. Davidson, 142.
South Boston, Mass., 77.
Southern Christian Leadership Council, 478.
Spaatz, General Carl
and assignments, 195-96, 285;
and postwar quotas, 176, 180-81.
SPARS, 74, 122.
Special Training and Enlistment Program (STEP), 568.
_Spencer_, 121.
Spencer, Comdr. Lyndon, 114.
Sprague, Rear Adm. Thomas L., 414-15, 419-20.
Stanley, Frank L., 302_n_.
State, Department of, 386-87, 389.
Stennis, John, 550-51.
Stevens, Robert T., 490.
Stevenson, Adlai E., 59, 80-81.
Stevenson, William E., 314.
Steward's Branch
Coast Guard, 113, 116-17;
Marine Corps, 107-08, 255-57, 259-61, 460, 468-71;
Navy, 58, 145, 151, 236, 238-43, 332-33, 418-25.
Stewart, Tenn., 498.
Stickney, Capt. Fred, 359.
Stimson, Henry L., 20-21, 32-34, 38, 43, 49, 69, 128, 131, 135.
Strategic Air Command, 284.
Strength ratios, Air Force, 276, 280_n_, 397, 405.
Strength ratios, armed forces, 1962-1968, 568.
Strength ratios, Army, 24, 33;
1946-1948, 181-82, 185-86, 326;
in Korean War, 430, 450, 457-58;
postwar overseas, 208.
Strength ratios, Coast Guard, 116-17, 122.
Strength ratios, Marine Corps
postwar, 256, 326, 336, 472;
in World War II, 102-03, 111.
Strength ratios, Navy
in 1941, 58;
1945-1948, 98, 236, 238, 250, 326, 332;
1949-1960, 412, 415-16.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 478.
Sullivan, John L., 237, 242, 311, 335, 352.
Surveys
on Army segregation (1942-1943), 40;
and enlisted opinion on segregation, 229-30;
and Harris on open housing, 590;
and Hodes on overhead spaces, 196-98;
on integration of platoons, 54-55;
by U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 521-22;
of Washington, D. C. housing, 601.
_Sweetgum_, 122.
Swing, Lt. Gen. Joseph M., 453.
Symington, W. Stuart, 286-87, 311, 320, 329, 387;
and Executive Order 9981, 338-39, 341;
and the Fahy Committee, 347, 352;
and integration plan of 1949, 397-98, 407, 409, 615.
Tactical Air Command, 275, 277, 280-84.
Taft, Robert A., 308.
Talbott, Harold E., 480, 493.
"Talented tenth," 75, 123.
Talmadge, Herman E., 550.
Tank battalions
64th, 445;
509th and 510th, 454.
Taylor, Maj. Gen. Maxwell D., 432, 441, 443.
Thomas, Charles S., 486.
Thomas, Lt. Gen. Gerald C., 172-74, 254-55, 258-59, 268, 466.
Thompson, Pfc. William, 440.
Thurmond, Strom, 310.
Tiana Beach, N.Y., 116.
Tilly, Dorothy, 295_n_.
Tobias, Channing H., 295, 300, 302_n_.
Townsend, Willard, 302_n_.
Training
in the Air Force, 274-76, 278-79, 403;
in the armed forces, 572-74;
in the Army, 25, 28-30, 47-52, 434-36;
in the Coast Guard, 114-15;
in the Marine Corps, 102, 108-09;
in the Navy, 67-68, 73, 77, 82, 87-88, 91, 243.
Training camps, postwar location of, 223-24.
Transportation, Chief of, 222.
Transportation facilities, 38, 45, 148.
Trieste, 387.
Trinidad Base Command, 38, 190.
Troop Carrier Command, I, 273.
Truman, Harry S.
and civil rights, 124, 130, 291-96, 308-09, 483_n_, 488;
and Executive Order 9981, 291, 310-12, 315, 317, 473, 609, 612;
and the Fahy Committee, 365-66, 369, 374-76, 379;
and segregation in the services, 304, 308.
Truscott, Lt. Gen. Lucian K., Jr., 134.
Turkey, 388.
Tuskegee, Ala., 28-30, 271-73, 275.
United Services Organization, 539-40.
Units, attached v. assigned, 190-93.
Universal military training, 142.
U.S. Coast Guard Academy, 508.
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 477, 502, 507, 511, 514, 518;
and Civil Rights Act of 1964, 587, 599;
and study of racial discrimination (1963), 521-22, 538, 541, 566.
U.S. Commissioner of Education, 489-90, 492.
U.S. Congress
and the armed forces, 142, 379-80, 389-94, 398, 456-57, 550-52,
568, 579, 582, 600;
and civil rights legislation, 477, 554, 586-90, 595;
and Senate Special Investigations Committee, 211-12.
U.S. Military Academy, 221.
U.S. Office of Education, 487-88.
U.S. Supreme Court, 6, 292, 323, 475-77, 586, 605.
_Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Army_, 371.
V-12 program, 80-81, 243, 247.
Vance, Cyrus R., 513, 536_n_, 565, 595, 601-04.
Vandegrift, General Alexander, 171, 173-74, 255, 259, 265-66.
Vandenberg, General Hoyt S., 283, 340, 399, 401, 405, 409.
VanNess, Lt. Comdr. Donald O., 76.
VanVoorst, Col. M., 429_n_.
Venereal disease rates, 208-09, 219.
Vinson, Carl, 339, 398, 551.
Voluntary compliance programs, 581-86, 592-93, 602-03, 608, 621.
Votes, black, 8, 475;
and 1948 election, 307, 309, 316, 379;
legislation for, 475, 588-89.
Voting Rights Act of 1965, 475.
WAAC's, 33, 51, 434.
Waesche, Rear Adm. Russell R., 114, 119.
Wagner, Robert F., 11.
Walker, Addison, 61-63.
Walker, Lt. Gen. Walton H., 437.
Wallace, Henry A., 307, 309.
War Department Circular No. 105, 177.
War Department Circular No. 124;
and Gillem Board Report, 162, 206, 215, 223, 233, 322;
and provisions of, 189, 192, 220-21, 231.
War Department Pamphlet No. 20-6, 45.
War Manpower Commission, 69.
Warnock, Brig. Gen. Aln D., 154.
Washington, Booker T., 13.
Washington, D. C., and off-base housing, 601-04, 606.
Washington _Post_, 304, 367.
Watson, Col. Edwin M., 14.
Watts, Calif., 589.
WAVES, 72, 74, 86-88, 247-48, 332.
Weaver, George L. P., 302_n_.
Webb, James E., 386.
Wesley, Carter, 302_n_.
White, Lee C., 537-38, 552, 565, 574.
White, Walter F., 224, 384, 393;
and civil rights movement, 294, 302_n_, 375, 484-85, 492;
and EUCOM's training program, 217_n_;
and integration of the armed forces, 9, 14-15, 31, 49, 93, 124,
300, 311, 439, 471.
Whiting, Capt. Kenneth, 64.
Wilkins, Roy, 16, 247, 302_n_, 315, 590.
Willkie, Wendell L., 19, 66.
Wilson, Charles E. (Secretary of Defense), 480, 490-91, 496, 499-500.
Wilson, Charles E., 295, 313.
Wilson, Maj. Gen. Winston P., 554.
Winstead, Arthur A., 390, 398, 492.
Wofford, Harris L., 506-08, 529, 587, 599-600.
Women, black
in the Marine Corps Women's Reserve, 74, 267;
in the Nurse Corps, U.S. Navy, 72, 74-75, 96, 247-48;
in the WAAC's, 33, 51, 434;
in the WAVES, 72, 74, 86-88, 247-48, 332-33.
Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). _See_ WAAC's.
Women's Army Corps (WAC). _See_ WAAC's.
Women's Reserve, U.S. Marine Corps, 74, 267.
Wood, Capt. Hunter, Jr., 167.
Woodard, Sgt. Issac, Jr., 129.
Woods, Col. Samuel A., Jr., 101.
Woodward, C. Vann, 474-76.
Wright Field, Ohio, 279.
Yarmolinsky, Adam
and civil rights, 424, 506_n_, 508, 510, 512;
and Gesell Committee, 535-36, 613, 620-21;
and need for a new DOD racial policy, 531, 534-35.
Yokohama Base Command, 190.
Young, P. B., Jr., 302_n_.
Young, Thomas W., 302_n_.
Young, Whitney M., Jr., 537, 541, 554.
Youngdahl, Luther W., 320.
Zuckert, Eugene M., 285, 290, 386;
and Air Force integration plans, 338-41, 398, 401-02, 406;
and civilian communities, 479, 531;
and the Fahy Committee, 345, 350, 352;
and local commanders, 534, 563.
Zundel, Brig. Gen. Edwin A., 437.
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1981 0-305-168
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