Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940 1965

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

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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]