Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940 1965

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

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[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.]