Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940 1965

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

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85 | 86 | 87

[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?