Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940 1965

M >> Morris J. MacGregor Jr. >> Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940 1965

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[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected,
author's spelling has been retained.
--Missing page numbers correspond to illustration or blank pages.]

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