Service Interests Versus Presidential Intent
Several months elapsed between the appointment of the President's
Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Services and its first meeting, a formal session with the President at
the White House on 12 January 1949. Actually, certain advantages
accrued from the delay, for postponing the meetings until after the
President's reelection enabled the committee to face the services with
assurance of continued support from the administration. Renewed
presidential backing was probably necessary, considering the services'
deliberations on race policy during this half-year hiatus. Their
reactions to the order, logical outgrowths of postwar policies and
practices, demonstrated how their perceived self-interests might
subvert the President's intentions. The events of this six-month
period also began to show the relative importance of the order and the
parochial interests of the services as factors in the integration of
the armed forces.
_Public Reaction to Executive Order 9981_
Considering the substantial changes it promised, the President's order
provoked surprisingly little public opposition. Its publication
coincided with the convening of the special session of a Congress
smarting under Truman's "do-nothing" label. In this charged political
atmosphere, the anti-administration majority in Congress quietly
sidestepped the President's 27 July call for civil rights legislation.
To do otherwise would only have added to the political profits already
garnered by Truman in some important voting areas. For the same reason
congressional opponents avoided all mention of Executive Order 9981,
although the widely expected defeat of Truman and the consequent end
to this executive sally into civil rights might have contributed to
the silence. Besides, segregationists could do little in an immediate
legislative way to counteract the presidential command. Congress had
already passed the Selective Service Act and Defense Appropriations
Act, the most suitable vehicles for amendments aimed at modifying the
impact of the integration order. National elections and the advent of
a new Congress precluded any other significant moves in this direction
until later in the next year.
Yet if it was ignored in Congress, the order was nevertheless a clear
signal to the friends of integration and brought with it a tremendous
surge of hope to the black community. Publishing the order made Harry
Truman the "darling of the Negroes," Roy Wilkins said later. Nor did
the coincidence of its publication to the election, he added, bother a
group that was becoming increasingly pragmatic about the reasons (p. 316)
for social reform.[13-1] Both the declaredly Democratic Chicago
_Defender_ and Republican-oriented Pittsburgh _Courier_ were aware of
the implications of the order. The _Defender_ ran an editorial on 7
August under the heading "Mr. Truman Makes History." The "National
Grapevine" column of Charlie Cherokee in the same issue promised its
readers a blow-by-blow description of the events surrounding the
President's action. An interview in the same issue with Col. Richard
L. Jones, black commander of the 178th Regimental Combat Team
(Illinois), emphasized the beneficial effects of the proposed
integration, and in the next issue, 14 August, the editor broadened
the discussion with an editorial entitled "What About Prejudice?"[13-2]
The _Courier_, for its part, questioned the President's sincerity
because he had not explicitly called for an end to segregation. At the
same time it contrasted the futility of civil disobedience with the
efficiency of such an order on the services, and while maintaining its
support for the candidacy of Governor Dewey the paper revealed a
strong enthusiasm for President Truman's civil rights program.[13-3]
[Footnote 13-1: Columbia University Oral Hist Interv
with Wilkins.]
[Footnote 13-2: Chicago _Defender_, August 7 and
August 14, 1948.]
[Footnote 13-3: Pittsburgh _Courier_, August 7, August
28, and September 25, 1948.]
These affirmations of support for Executive Order 9981 in the major
black newspapers fitted in neatly with the administration's political
strategy. Nor was the Democratic National Committee averse to using
the order to win black votes. For example it ran a half-page
advertisement in the _Defender_ under the heading "By His Deeds Shall
Ye Know Him."[13-4] At the same time, not wishing to antagonize the
opponents of integration further, the administration made no special
effort to publicize the order in the metropolitan press. Consequently,
when the order was mentioned at all, it was usually carried without
comment, and the few columnists who treated the subject did so with
some caution. Arthur Krock's "Reform Attempts Aid Southern Extremists"
in the New York _Times_, for example, lauded the President's civil
rights initiatives but warned that any attempt to force social
integration would only strengthen demagogues at the expense of
moderate politicians.[13-5]
[Footnote 13-4: Chicago _Defender_, August 21, 1948.]
[Footnote 13-5: New York _Times_, September 12, 1948.]
If the President's wooing of the black voter was good election
politics, his executive order was also a successful practical response
to the threat of civil disobedience and the failure of the Secretary
of Defense to strive actively for racial equality throughout the
services. Declaring the President's action a substantial gain, A.
Philip Randolph canceled the call for a boycott of the draft, leaving
only a small number of diehards to continue the now insignificant
effort. The black leaders who had participated in Secretary
Forrestal's National Defense Conference gave the President their full
support, and Donald S. Dawson, administrative assistant to the
President, was able to assure Truman that the black press, now
completely behind the committee on equal treatment and opportunity,
had abandoned its vigorous campaign against the Army's racial
policy.[13-6]
[Footnote 13-6: Memo, Donald Dawson for President, 9
Sep 48, Nash Collection, Truman Library; Memo,
SecDef for [Clark] Clifford, 2 Aug 48, and Ltr,
Bayard Rustin of the Campaign to Resist Military
Segregation to James V. Forrestal, 20 Aug 48; both
in D54-1-14, SecDef files. It should be noted that
Dawson's claim that the black press universally
supported the executive order has not been accepted
by all commentators; see McCoy and Ruetten, _Quest
and Response_, p. 130.]
Ironically, the most celebrated pronouncement on segregation at (p. 317)
the moment of the Truman order came not from publicists or politicians
but from the Army's new Chief of Staff, General Omar N. Bradley.[13-7]
Speaking to a group of instructors at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and unaware
of the President's order and the presence of the press, Bradley
declared that the Army would have to retain segregation as long as it
was the national pattern.[13-8] This statement prompted questions at
the President's next news conference, letters to the editor, and
debate in the press.[13-9] Bradley later explained that he had
supported the Army's segregation policy because he was against making
the Army an instrument of social change in areas of the country which
still rejected integration.[13-10] His comment, as amplified and
broadcast by military analyst Hanson W. Baldwin, summarized the Army's
position at the time of the Truman order. "It is extremely dangerous
nonsense," Baldwin declared, "to try to make the Army other than one
thing--a fighting machine." By emphasizing that the Army could not
afford to differ greatly in customs, traditions, and prejudices from
the general population, Baldwin explained, Bradley was only
underscoring a major characteristic of any large organization of
conscripts. Most import, Baldwin pointed out, the Chief of Staff
considered an inflexible order for the immediate integration of all
troops one of the surest ways to break down the morale of the Army and
destroy its efficiency.[13-11]
[Footnote 13-7: Bradley succeeded Eisenhower as Chief
of Staff on 7 February 1948.]
[Footnote 13-8: Washington _Post_, July 28, 1948;
Atlanta _Constitution_, July 28, 1948.]
[Footnote 13-9: News Conference, 29 Jul 48, _Public
Papers of the Presidents: Harry S. Truman, 1948_,
p. 165; New York _Times_, July 30, 1948; Chicago
_Defender_, August 7, 1948; Pittsburgh _Courier_,
August 21, 1948; Washington _Post_, August 23,
1948.]
[Footnote 13-10: Interv, Nichols with Bradley.]
[Footnote 13-11: Hanson Baldwin, "Segregation in the
Army," New York _Times_, August 8, 1948.]
But such arguments were under attack by the very civil rights groups
the President was trying to court. "Are we to understand that the
President's promise to end discrimination," one critic asked,
was made for some other purpose than to end discrimination in its
worst form--segregation? General Bradley's statement, subsequent
to the President's orders, would seem to indicate that the
President either did not mean what he said or his orders were not
being obeyed. We should like to point out that General Bradley's
reported observation ... was decidedly wide of the mark.
Segregation is the legal pattern of only a few of our most
backward states.... In view of the trends in law and social
practice, it is high time that the Defense forces were not used
as brakes on progress toward genuine democracy.[13-12]
[Footnote 13-12: Ltr, A. A. Heist, Dir, American Civil
Liberties Union, South California Branch, to
Forrestal, 7 Sep 48, D54-1-4, SecDef files.]
General Bradley apologized to the President for any confusion caused
by his statement, and Truman publicly sloughed off the affair, but not
before he stated to the press that his order specifically directed the
integration of the armed forces.[13-13] It was obvious that the situation
had developed into a standoff. Some of the President's most (p. 318)
outspoken supporters would not let him forget his integration order,
and the Army, as represented by its Chief of Staff, failed to realize
that events were rapidly moving beyond the point where segregation
could be considered a workable policy for an agency of the United
States government.
[Footnote 13-13: Ltrs, Bradley to President Truman, 30
Jul 48, and Truman to Bradley, 4 Aug 48, CSUSA
291.2 (4 Aug 48). See also Ltr, SA to President, 29
Jul 48, OSA 291.2 (Negroes) (7-29-48).]
_The Army: Segregation on the Defensive_
The President's order heralded a series of attacks on the Army's race
policy. As further evidence of the powerful pressures for change,
several state governors now challenged segregation in the National
Guard. Generally the race policy of the reserve components echoed that
of the Regular Army, in part because it seemed logical that state
units, subject to federal service, conform to federal standards of
performance and organization. Accordingly, in the wake of the
publication of the Gillem Board Report, the Army's Director of
Personnel and Administration recommended to the Committee on National
Guard Policy[13-14] that it amend its regulation on the employment of
black troops to conform more closely with the new policy.
Specifically, General Paul asked the committee to spell out the
prohibition against integration of white and black troops below
battalion level, warning that federal recognition would be denied any
state unit organized in violation of this order.[13-15]
[Footnote 13-14: As provided in various laws since
1920, most notably in Section V of the amendments
to the National Defense Act, members of the General
Staff's Committee on National Guard Policy and
Committee on Reserve Policy were the principal
advisers to the Secretary of War on reserve
component matters. All questions regarding these
organizations were referred to the committees,
which usually met in combined session as the
Committee on National Guard and Reserve Policy. The
combined committee was composed of twenty-one
officers, seven each from the Regular Army, the
guard, and the reserves. When the business under
consideration was restricted exclusively to one of
the reserve components, the representatives of the
other would absent themselves, the remaining
members, along with the Regular Army members,
reconstituting themselves as the Committee on
National Guard Policy or the Committee on Reserve
Policy. These groups, familiarly known as the
"Section V Committees," wielded considerable power
in the development of the postwar program for the
reserves.]
[Footnote 13-15: Memo, Chief, Classification and
Personnel Actions Br, P&A, for Brig Gen Ira Swift,
Chief, Liaison, Planning and Policy Coordination
Gp, P&A, 8 Apr 47, sub: Resolution Regarding
Employment of Negro Troops in the National Guard;
Memo, Dir, P&A, for Dir, Intel, 9 Apr 47, same sub;
both in WDGPA 291.2 (3 Apr 47).]
Agreeing to comply with General Paul's request, the National Guard
Committee went a step further and recommended that individual states
be permitted to make their own decisions on the wisdom and utility of
organizing separate black units.[13-16] The Army staff rejected this
proposal, however, on the grounds that it gave too much discretionary
power to the state guard authorities.[13-17] Interestingly enough in view
of later developments, neither the committee nor the staff disputed
the War Department's right to withhold federal recognition in racial
matters, and both displayed little concern for the principle of (p. 319)
states' rights. Their attitude was important, for while the
prohibition against integration sat well in some circles, it drew
severe criticism in others. Unlike the Regular Army, the National
Guard and the Army Reserve were composed of units deeply rooted in the
local community, each reflecting the parochial attitudes of its
members and its section. This truth was forcefully pointed out to the
Army staff in 1946 when it tried to reactivate the 313th Infantry and
designate it as a black unit in the 79th Division (Pennsylvania).
Former members of the old white 313th, now prominent citizens,
expressed their "very strong sentiments" on the matter, and the Army
had to beat a hasty retreat. In the future, the staff decided, either
black reserve units would be given the name and history of inactive
black units or new units would be constituted.[13-18]
[Footnote 13-16: DF, WDGS Cmte on National Guard
Policy, to Chief, NGB, 20 May 47, sub: Integration
of Negro Troops; idem to Dir, P&A, and Dir, O&T,
same date and sub. See also Ltr, Maj Gen Kenneth F.
Cramer, CG, 43d Inf Div (Conn. NG) to Col Russell
Y. Moore, OCofS, 17 Mar 47. All in Office file,
Army Reserve Forces Policy Cmte.]
[Footnote 13-17: Memo, Dir, O&T, for WDGS Cmte on
National Guard Policy, 23 Jun 47, sub: Integration
of Negro Troops, WDGOT 291.2.]
[Footnote 13-18: Memo, Exec for Reserve and ROTC
Affairs, O&T, for Dir, O&T, 22 Jul 46; O&T Memo for
Rcd, 12 Aug 46; both in WDGOT 291.2.]
On the other hand, in 1947 citizen groups sprang up in Connecticut,
New York, New Jersey, Ohio, and California to agitate among their
state adjutants general for liberalization of the National Guard's
racial policy. As early as February 1947 Governor James L. McConnaughy
had publicly deplored segregation of Negroes in his own Connecticut
National Guard. Adopting the states' rights stance more commonly
associated with defenders of racial discrimination, Governor
McConnaughy argued that by requiring segregation the War Department
ran contrary to the wishes of individual states. Marcus Ray, the
secretary's adviser on race, predicted that integration in the reserve
components would continue to be a "point of increasing pressure." As
he pointed out to Assistant Secretary Petersen, the Army had always
supported segregation in its southern installations on the grounds
that it had to conform with local mores. How then could it refuse to
conform with the local statutes and customs of some northern states
without appearing inconsistent? He recommended the Army amend its race
policy to permit reserve components in states which wished it to
integrate at a level consistent with "local community attitudes."[13-19]
[Footnote 13-19: Memo, Ray for Petersen, 2 Apr 47,
sub: Integration of Negro Personnel in the Reserve
Components, ASW 291.2.]
The Army staff would have nothing to do with Ray's suggestion.
Instead, both the Director of Personnel and Administration and the
Director of Organization and Training supported a new resolution by
the National Guard Policy Committee that left the number of black
units and the question of their integration with white units above the
company level up to the states involved. Integration at the company
level was prohibited, and such integrated companies would be denied
federal recognition. The committee's resolution was adopted by the
Secretary of War in May 1947.[13-20]
[Footnote 13-20: Memo, D/O&T for ASW, 17 Apr 47, sub:
Integration of Negro Personnel in the Reserve
Components, WDGOT 291.2; Memo, D/P&A thru D/O&T for
ASW, 10 Apr 47, same sub, WDGPA 291.2; DF, D/P&A to
CofS, 20 May 47, sub: Integration of Negro Troops,
CSUSA 291.2 Negroes.]
But the fight was not over yet. In 1947 New Jersey adopted a new
constitution that specifically prohibited segregation in the state
militia. By extension no New Jersey National Guard unit could receive
federal recognition. In February 1948 Governor McConnaughy brought (p. 320)
Connecticut back into the fray, this time taking the matter up with
the White House. A month later Governor Luther W. Youngdahl appealed
to the Secretary of Defense on behalf of Negroes in the Minnesota
National Guard. Secretary of the Army Royall quickly reappraised the
situation and excepted New Jersey from the Army's segregation rule.
Secretary Symington followed suit by excepting the New Jersey Air
National Guard.[13-21] Royall also let the governors of Connecticut
and Minnesota know that he would be inclined to make similar
concessions to any state which, by legislative action, prohibited its
governor from conforming to the federal requirements. At that time
Connecticut and Minnesota had no such legislation, but Royall
nevertheless agreed to refer their requests to his Committee on
National Guard Policy.[13-22]
[Footnote 13-21: Ltr, Kenneth Royall to Alfred
Driscoll, 7 Feb 48; Ltr, W. Stuart Symington to
Driscoll, 17 Mar 48; copies of both in CMH.]
[Footnote 13-22: Ltrs, SA to Luther Youngdahl and
James C. Shannon, 20 May 48, both in OSA 291.2
Negroes (5-28-48); Memos, CofSA for Dir, O&T, 2 Jan
and 9 Mar 48, sub: Utilization of Negroes in the
National Guard, CSUSA 291.2. Shannon succeeded
McConnaughy as governor of Connecticut in March
1948.]
[Illustration: MP'S HITCH A RIDE ON ARMY TANKS, AUGSBURG, GERMANY,
1949.]
Here the secretary did no more than comply with the National Defense
Act, which required that all National Guard policy matters be
formulated in the committee. Privately, Royall admitted that he did
not feel bound to accept a committee recommendation and would be
inclined to recognize any state prohibition against segregation. But
he made a careful distinction between constitutional or legislative
action and executive action in the states. A governor's decision to
integrate, he pointed out, would not be recognized by the Army because
such an action was subject to speedy reversal by the governor's
successor and could cause serious confusion in the guard.[13-23] (p. 321)
The majority of the National Guard Committee, supported by the
Director of Organization and Training, recommended that the secretary
make no exceptions to the segregation policy. The Director of
Personnel and Administration, on the other hand, joined with the
committee's minority in recommending that Royall's action in the New
Jersey case be used as a precedent.[13-24] Commenting independently,
General Bradley warned Royall that integrating individual Negroes in
the National Guard would, from a military point of view, "create
problems which may have serious consequences in case of national
mobilization of those units."[13-25]
[Footnote 13-23: Remarks by Kenneth Royall in the
Committee of Four, 9 Mar 48, OSD Historical Office
files.]
[Footnote 13-24: P&A Summary Sheet, 7 Jul 48, sub:
Utilization of Negro Manpower in the National
Guard, WDGPA 291.2; O&T Summary Sheet, 8 Apr 48,
same sub. See also Memo, Col William Abendroth,
Exec, Cmte on NG and Reserve Policy, for CofSA, 30
Jun 48, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the
National Guard of the United States, Office file,
Army Reserve Forces Policy Cmte. Thirteen of the
seventeen committee members concurred with the
staff study without reservation; the remaining four
concurred with the proviso that states prohibiting
segregation be granted the right to integrate.]
[Footnote 13-25: Memo, CofSA for SA, 7 Jul 48, CSUSA
291.2 Negroes (1 Jul 48).]
Here the matter would stand for some time, the Army's segregation
policy intact, but an informal allowance made for excepting individual
states from prohibitions against integration below the company level.
Yet the publicity and criticism attendant upon these decisions might
well have given the traditionalists pause. While Secretary Royall, and
on occasion his superior, Secretary of Defense Forrestal, reiterated
the Army's willingness to accommodate certain states,[13-26] civil rights
groups were gaining allies for another proposition. The American
Veterans Committee had advanced the idea that to forbid integration at
the platoon level was a retreat from World War II practice, and to
accept the excuse that segregation was in the interest of national
defense was to tolerate a "travesty on words."[13-27] Hearings were
conducted in Congress in 1949 and 1951 on bills H.R. 1403 and H.R.
1389 to prohibit segregation in the National Guard. Royall's
interpretation of the National Defense Act did not satisfy advocates
of a thoroughly integrated guard, for it was clear that not many
states were likely to petition for permission to integrate. At the
same time the exceptions to the segregation rule promised an
incompatible situation between the segregated active forces and the
incompletely integrated reserve organization.
[Footnote 13-26: See Ltrs, James Forrestal to A. A.
Heist, Dir, American Civil Liberties Union, 13 Sep
48, and Augustus F. Hawkins, 22 Sep 48; both in
D54-1-2, SecDef files; DF, Dir, P&A, to CofSA, 2
Nov 49, sub: Executive Order to Permit Integration
of Negroes Into Minnesota National Guard, CSUSA
291.2 Negroes (2 Nov 49).]
[Footnote 13-27: Ltr, J. Steward McClendon, Secy,
Minneapolis Chapter, Am Vets Cmte, to SecDef
[_sic_] Royall, 28 May 48, CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (28
May 48).]
Royall's ruling, while perhaps a short-term gain for traditionalists,
was significant because it established a precedent that would be used
by integrationists in later years. The price for defending the Army's
segregation policy, guard officials discovered, was the surrender of
their long-cherished claim of state autonomy. The committee's
recommendation on the matter of applying the Gillem Board policy to
the guard was inflexible, leaving no room for separate decisions by
officials of the several states. Maj. Gen. Jim Dan Hill of the
Wisconsin National Guard recognized this danger. Along with a minority
of his colleagues he maintained that the decision on segregation "will
have to be solved at the state level."[13-28] The committee (p. 322)
majority argued the contrary, agreeing with Brig. Gen. Alexander G.
Paxton of Mississippi that the National Defense Act of 1945 prohibited
the sort of exception made in the New Jersey case. General Paxton
called for a uniform policy for all guard units:
National Security is an obligation of all the states, and its
necessity in time of emergency transcends all local issues.
Federal recognition of the National Guard units of the several
States is extended for the purpose of affording these units a
Federal status under the National Defense Act. The issue in
question is purely one of compliance with Federal Law.[13-29]
[Footnote 13-28: Ltr, Maj Gen Jim Dan Hill, Wisconsin
National Guard, to Secy, WD Advisory Cmte, 24 Jun
48; see also Ltr, Brig Gen Harry Evans, Maryland
National Guard, to Col William Abendroth, Exec,
Cmte on NG and Reserve Policy, 22 Jun 48, Office
file, Army Reserve Forces Policy Cmte.]
[Footnote 13-29: Ltr, Brig Gen A. G. Paxton,
Mississippi National Guard, to Col William
Abendroth, 13 May 1948, Office file, Army Reserve
Forces Policy Cmte.]
Here was tacit recognition of federal supremacy over the National
Guard. In supporting the right of the Secretary of the Army to dictate
racial policy to state guards in 1948, the National Guard Committee
adopted a position that would haunt it when the question of
integrating the guard came up again in the early 1960's.
Despite the publicity given to General Bradley's comments at Fort
Knox, it was the Secretary of the Army, not the Chief of Staff, who
led the fight against change in the Army's racial practices. As the
debate over these practices warmed in the administration and the
national press, Kenneth C. Royall emerged as the principal spokesman
against further integration and the principal target of the civil
rights forces. Royall's sincere interest in the welfare of black
soldiers, albeit highly paternalistic, was not in question. His
trouble with civil rights officials stemmed from the fact that he
alone in the Truman administration still clung publicly to the belief
that segregation was not in itself discrimination, a belief shared by
many of his fellow citizens. Royall was convinced that the separate
but equal provisions of the Army's Gillem Board policy were right in
as much as they did provide equal treatment and opportunity for the
black minority. His opinion was reinforced by the continual assurances
of his military subordinates that in open competition with white
soldiers few Negroes would ever achieve a proportionate share of
promotions and better occupations. And when his subordinates added to
this sentiment the notion that integration would disrupt the Army and
endanger its efficiency, they quickly persuaded the already
sympathetic Royall that segregation was not only correct but
imperative.[13-30] The secretary might easily have agreed with General
Paul, who told an assembly of Army commanders that aside from some
needed improvement in the employment of black specialists "there isn't
a single complaint anyone can make in our use of the Negro."[13-31]
[Footnote 13-30: Ltr, Marx Leva to author, 24 May 70,
CMH files; see also Testimony of Royall at National
Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48,
copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 13-31: General Paul's Remarks at Army
Commanders Conference, 30 Mar-2 Apr 48, p. 30,
CSUSA 337.]
Secure in his belief that segregation was right and necessary, Royall
confidently awaited the judgment of the recently appointed President's
committee. He was convinced that any fair judge could draw but one
conclusion: under the provisions of Circular 124, Negroes had (p. 323)
already achieved equal treatment and opportunity in the Army. His job,
therefore, was relatively simple. He had to defend Army policy against
outside attack and make sure it was applied uniformly throughout the
service. His stand marked one of the last attempts by a major federal
official to support a racially separate but equal system before the
principle was finally struck down by the Supreme Court in _Brown_ v.
_Board of Education_.
[Illustration: SECRETARY ROYALL REVIEWS MILITARY POLICE, _Yokohama,
Japan, 1949_.]
Royall readily conceded that it was proper and necessary for Negroes
to insist on integration, but, echoing a long-cherished Army belief,
he adamantly opposed using the Army to support or oppose any social
cause. The Army, he contended, must follow the nation, not lead it, in
social matters. The Army must not experiment. When, "without prejudice
to the National Defense," the Army could reduce segregation to the
platoon level it would do so, but all such steps should be taken one
at a time. And 1948, he told the conference of black leaders in April
of that year, was not the time.[13-32]
[Footnote 13-32: See Testimony of Royall at National
Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48, pp.
24-26.]
Convinced of the rightness of the Army's policy, Secretary Royall was
understandably agitated by the unfavorable publicity directed at him
and his department. The publicity, he was convinced, resulted from
discrimination on the part of "the Negro and liberal press" (p. 324)
against the Army's policy in favor of the Navy and Air Force. He was
particularly incensed at the way the junior services had escaped the
"rap"--his word--on racial matters. He ascribed it in large part, he
told the Secretary of Defense in September 1948, to the "unfortunate"
National Defense Conference, the gathering of black spokesmen held
under Forrestal's auspices the previous spring.[13-33] The specific
object of Royall's indignation was Lester Granger's final report on
the work of the National Defense Conference. That report emphasized
the conferees' rebuttal to Royall's defense of segregation on the
grounds of military expediency and past experience with black
soldiers. The Army has assumed a position, Granger claimed, that was
unjustified by its own experience. Overlooking evidence to the
contrary, Granger added that the Army position was at variance with
the experience of the other services. His parting shot was aimed at
the heart of the Army's argument: "It is as unwise as it is unsound to
cite the resistance of military leadership against basic changes in
policy as sufficient cause for delaying immediate and effective
action."[13-34]
[Footnote 13-33: Memo, SA for SecDef, 22 Sep 48, copy
in CD30-1-2, SecDef files.]
[Footnote 13-34: Ltr, Granger and Conferees to
Forrestal, 26 Aug 48, D54-1-3, SecDef files.]
Adding to Royall's discomfort, Forrestal released the report on 8
September, and his letter of appreciation to Granger and the conferees
assured them he would send their report to the President's committee.
The New York _Times_ promptly picked up Granger's reference to
opposition among military leaders.[13-35] Royall tried to counter this
attack. Since neither the President nor the Secretary of Defense had
disapproved the Army's racial policy nor suggested any modifications,
Royall told Forrestal he wanted him to go on record as approving the
Army position. This course would doubtless be more palatable to
Forrestal, Royall suggested, than having Royall announce that
Forrestal had given tacit approval to the Army's policy.[13-36]
[Footnote 13-35: NME Press Release, 8 Sep 48; New York
_Times_, September 9, 1948; Memo, Leva for
Forrestal, 30 Aug 48; Ltr, Forrestal to Granger, 30
Aug 48. Last two in D54-1-3, SecDef files.]
[Footnote 13-36: Memo, SA for SecDef, 22 Sep 48, copy
in CD30-1-2, SecDef files.]
Forrestal quickly scotched this maneuver. It was true, he told Royall,
that the Army's policy had not been disapproved. But neither had the
Army's policy or that of the Navy or Air Force yet been reviewed by
the Secretary of Defense. The President's committee would probably
make such a review an early order of business. Meanwhile, the Army's
race policy would continue in effect until it was altered either by
Forrestal's office or by action from some other source.[13-37]
[Footnote 13-37: Memo (unsigned), Forrestal for
Royall, 22 Sep 48. The answer was prepared by Leva
and used by Forrestal as the basis for his
conversation with Royall. See Memos, Leva for
Forrestal, undated, and 30 Sep 48, both in
CD30-1-2, SecDef files.]
Even as Secretary Royall tried to defend the Army from the attacks of
the press, the service's policy was challenged from another quarter.
The blunt fact was that with the reinstitution of selective service in
1948 the Army was receiving more black recruits--especially those in
the lower mental categories--than a segregated system could easily
absorb. The high percentage of black soldiers so proudly publicized by
Royall at the National Defense Conference was in fact a source of
anxiety for Army planners. The staff particularly resented the
different standards adopted by the other services to determine (p. 325)
the acceptability of selectees. The Navy and Air Force, pleading their
need for skilled workers and dependence on volunteer enlistments,
imposed a higher minimum achievement score for admission than the
Army, which, largely dependent upon the draft for its manpower, was
required to accept men with lower scores. Thousands of Negroes, less
skilled and with little education, were therefore eligible for service
in the Army although they were excluded from the Navy and Air Force.
Given such circumstances, it was probably inevitable that differences
in racial policies would precipitate an interservice conflict. The
Army claimed the difference in enlistment standards was discriminatory
and contrary to the provisions of the draft law which required the
Secretary of Defense to set enlistment standards. In April 1948
Secretary Royall demanded that Forrestal impose the same mental
standards on all the services. He wanted inductees allocated to the
services according to their physical and mental abilities and Negroes
apportioned among them.
The other services countered that there were not enough well-educated
people of draft age to justify raising the Army's mental standards to
the Navy and Air Force levels, but neither service wanted to lower its
own entrance standards to match the level necessity had imposed on the
Army. The Air Force eventually agreed to enlist Negroes at a 10
percent ratio to whites, but the Navy held out for higher standards
and no allocation by race. It contended that setting the same
standards for all services would improve the quality of the Army's
black enlistees only imperceptibly while it would do great damage to
the Navy. The Navy admitted that the other services should help the
Army, but not "up to the point of _unnecessarily_ reducing their own
effectiveness.... The modern Navy cannot operate its ships and
aircraft with personnel of G.C.T. 70."[13-38] General Bradley cut to the
point: if the Navy carried the day it would receive substantially
fewer Negroes than the other two services and a larger portion of the
best qualified.[13-39] Secretary Forrestal first referred the
interservice controversy to the Munitions Board in May 1948 and later
that summer to a special interservice committee. After both groups
failed to reach an agreement,[13-40] Forrestal decided not to force a
parity in mental standards upon the services. On 12 October he
explained to the secretaries that parity could be imposed only during
time of full mobilization, and since conditions in the period between
October 1948 and June 1949 could not be considered comparable to those
of full mobilization, parity was impossible. He promised, however, to
study the qualitative needs of each service. Meanwhile, he had found
no evidence that any service was discriminating in the selection
of enlistees and settled for a warning that any serious (p. 326)
discrimination by any two of the services would place "an intolerable
burden" on the third.[13-41]
[Footnote 13-38: Memo, SecNav for SecDef, 27 May 48,
sub: Liaison With the Selective Service System and
Determination of Parity Standards, P14-6; Memo,
Actg SecNav for SecDef, 17 Aug 48; sub: Items in
Disagreement Between the Services as Listed in
SecDef's Memo of 15 Jul 48, P 14-4; both in
GenRecsNav. The quotation is from an inclosure to
the latter memo.]
[Footnote 13-39: CofSA, Rpt of War Council Min, 3 Aug
48, copy in OSD Historical Office files.]
[Footnote 13-40: For a detailed analysis of the
various service arguments and positions, see Office
of the Secretary of Defense, "Proposed Findings and
Decisions on Questions of Parity of Mental
Standards, Allocation of Inductees According to
Physical and Mental Capabilities and Allocation of
Negroes" (Noble Report), 29 Oct 48, copy in SecDef
files.]
[Footnote 13-41: Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 12 Oct
48, with attached Summary of Supplement, copy in
CMH.]
Convinced that Forrestal had made the wrong decision, the Army staff
was nevertheless obliged to concern itself with the percentage of
Negroes it would have to accept under the new selective service law.
Although by November 1948 the Army's black strength had dropped to
9.83 percent of the total, its proportion of Negroes was still large
when compared with the Navy's 4.3 percent, the Marine Corps' 1.79
percent, and the Air Force's 6 percent. Projecting these figures
against the possible mobilization of five million men (assuming each
service increased in proportion to its current strength and absorbed
the same percentage of a black population remaining at 12 percent of
the whole), the Army calculated that its low entrance requirements
would give it a black strength of 21 percent. In the event of a
mobilization equaling or surpassing that of World War II, the minimum
test score of seventy would probably be lowered, and thus the Army
would shoulder an even greater burden of poorly educated men, a burden
that in the Army's view should be shared by all the services.[13-42]
[Footnote 13-42: DF, Dir, P&A, to CofS, 24 Jan 49,
sub: Experimental Unit, GSPGA 291.2 (24 Jan 49).]
_A Different Approach_
No matter how the Army tried to justify segregation or argue against
the position of the Navy and Air Force, the integrationists continued
to gain ground. Royall, in opposition, adopted a new tactic in the
wake of the Truman order. He would have the Army experiment with
integration, perhaps proving that it would not work on a large scale,
certainly buying time for Circular 124 and frustrating the rising
demand for change. He had expressed willingness to experiment with an
integrated Army unit when Lester Granger made the suggestion through
Forrestal in February 1948, but nothing came of it.[13-43] In September
he returned to the idea, asking the Army staff to plan for the
formation of an integrated unit about the size of a regimental combat
team, along with an engineer battalion and the station complement of a
post large enough to accommodate these troops. Black enlisted men were
to form 10 percent of the troop basis and be used in all types of
positions. Black officers, used in the same ratio as black officers in
the whole Army, were to command mixed troops. General Bradley reported
the staff had studied the idea and concluded that such units "did not
prove anything on the subject." Royall, however, dismissed the staff's
objection and reiterated his order to plan an experiment at a large
installation and in a permanent unit.[13-44]
[Footnote 13-43: Memo, SecDef for President, 29 Feb
48, Secretary's File (PSF), Truman Library.]
[Footnote 13-44: Memo, CofS for Dir, O&T, 11 Oct 48,
CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (11 Oct 48).]
Despite the staff's obvious reluctance, Maj. Gen. Harold R. Bull, the
new Director of Organization and Training, made an intensive study of
the alternatives. He produced a plan that was in turn further refined
by a group of senior officers including the Deputy Chief of Staff for
Administration and the Chief of Information.[13-45] These officers (p. 327)
decided that "if the Secretary of the Army so orders," the Army could
activate an experimental unit in the 3d Infantry Division at Camp
Campbell, Kentucky. The troops, 10 percent of them black, would be
drawn from all parts of the country and include ten black officers,
none above the rank of major. The unit would be carefully monitored by
the Army staff, and its commander would report on problems encountered
after a year's trial.
[Footnote 13-45: Lt Col D. M. Oden, Asst Secy, CS,
Memo for Rcd, 4 Nov 48, sub: Organization of an
Experimental Unit, CSUSA 291.2 (Negroes) (11 Oct
48).]
[Illustration: SPRING FORMAL DANCE, FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, MARYLAND,
1952.]
It was obvious that Forrestal wanted to avoid publicizing the project.
He had his assistants, Marx Leva and John Ohly, discuss the proposal
with the Secretary of the Array to impress on him the need for secrecy
until all arrangements were completed. More important, he hoped to
turn Royall's experiment back on the Army itself, using it to gain a
foothold for integration in the largest service. Leva and Ohly
suggested to Royall that instead of activating a special unit he
select a Regular Army regiment--Leva recommended one from the 82d
Airborne Division to which a number of black combat units were already
attached--as the nucleus of the experiment. With an eye to the
forthcoming White House investigation, Leva added that, while the
details would be left to the Army, integration of the unit, to be put
into effect "as soon as possible," should be total.[13-46]
[Footnote 13-46: Memo, Marx Leva for SA, 22 Nov 48;
see also idem for Ohly, 16 Nov 48; both in CD
30-1-2, SecDef files.]
The plan for a large-scale integrated unit progressed little (p. 328)
beyond this point, but it was significant if only because it marked
the first time since the Revolution that the Army had seriously
considered using a large number of black soldiers in a totally
integrated unit. The situation was not without its note of irony, for
the purpose of the plan was not to abolish the racial discrimination
that critics were constantly laying at the Army's doorstep. In fact,
Army leaders, seriously dedicated to the separate but equal principle,
were convinced the Gillem Board policy had already eliminated
discrimination. Nor was the plan designed to carry out the President's
order or prompted by the Secretary of Defense. Rather, it was pushed
by Secretary Royall as a means of defending the Army against the
anticipated demands of the President's committee.
The plan died because, while the Army staff studied organizations and
counted bodies, Royall expanded his proposal for an integrated unit to
include elements of the whole national defense establishment. Several
motives have been suggested for his move. By ensnaring the Navy and
Air Force in the experiment, he might impress on all concerned the
problems he considered certain to arise if any service attempted the
integration of a large number of Negroes. An experiment involving the
whole department might also divert the White House from trying to
integrate the Army immediately. Besides, the scheme had an escape
clause. If the Navy and Air Force refused to cooperate, and Royall
thought it likely they would, given the shortage of skilled black
recruits, the Army could then legitimately cancel its offer to
experiment with integration and let the whole problem dissipate in a
lengthy interservice argument.[13-47]
[Footnote 13-47: Interv, author with James C. Evans, 1
Jul 70; Ltr, E. W. Kenworthy, Exec Secy,
Presidential Committee, to Lee Nichols, 28 Jul 53;
both in CMH files.]
Royall formally proposed a defense-wide experiment in integration to
Forrestal on 2 December. He was not oblivious to the impression his
vacillation on the subject had produced and went to some lengths to
explain why he had opposed such experiments in the past. Although he
had been thinking about such an experiment for some time, he told
Forrestal, he had publicly rejected the idea at the National Defense
Conference and during the Senate hearings on the draft law because of
the tense international situation and the small size of the Army at
that time. His interest in the experiment revived as the size of the
Army increased and similar suggestions were made by both black leaders
and southern politicians, but again he had hesitated, this time
because of the national elections. He was now prepared to go ahead,
but only if similar action were taken by the other services.
The experimental units, he advised Forrestal, should contain both
combat and service elements of considerable size, and he went on to
specify their composition in some detail. The Navy and Marine Corps
should include at least one shore station "where the social problems
for individuals and their families will approximate those confronting
the Army." To insure the experiment's usefulness, he wanted Negroes
employed in all positions, including supervisory ones, for which they
qualified, and he urged that attention be paid to "the problem of
social relations in off-duty hours." He was candid about the plan's
weaknesses. The right to transfer out of the experimental unit might
confine the experiment to white and black troops who wanted it to (p. 329)
succeed; hence any conclusions drawn might be challenged as invalid
since men could not be given the right to exercise similar options in
time of war. Therefore, if the experiment succeeded, it would have to
be followed by another in which no voluntary options were granted. The
experiment might also bring pressure from groups outside the Army, and
if it failed "for any reason" the armed services would be accused of
sabotage, no matter how sincere their effort. Curiously, he admitted
that the plan was not favored by his military advisers. The Army
staff, he noted in what must have surprised anyone familiar with the
staff's consistent defense of segregation, thought the best way to
eliminate segregation was to reduce gradually the size of segregated
units and extend integration in schools, hospitals, and special units.
Nevertheless, Royall recommended that the National Military
Establishment as a whole, not the Army separately, go forward with the
experiment and that it start early in 1949.[13-48]
[Footnote 13-48: Memo, SA for SecDef, 2 Dec 48, CD
30-1-2, SecDef files.]
The other services had no intention of going forward with such an
experiment. The Air Force objected, as Secretary Symington explained,
because the experiment would be inconclusive; too many artificial
features were involved, especially having units composed of
volunteers. Arbitrary quotas violated the principle of equal
opportunity, he charged, and the experiment would be unfair to Negroes
because the proportion of Negroes able to compete with whites was less
than 1 to 10. Symington also warned against the public relations
aspect of the scheme, which was of "minimal military significance but
of major significance in the current public controversy on purely
racial issues." The Air Force could conduct the experiment without
difficulty, he conceded, for there were enough trained black
technicians to man 10 percent of the positions and give a creditable
performance, but these men were representative neither of the general
black population of the Air Force nor of Negroes coming into the
service during wartime.
Symington predicted that Negroes would suffer no matter how the
experiment came out--success would be attributed to the special
conditions involved; failure would reflect unjustly on the Negro's
capabilities. The Air Force, therefore, preferred to refrain from
participation in the experiment. Symington added that he was
considering a study prepared by the Air staff over the past six months
that would insure equality of treatment and increased opportunities
for Negroes in the Air Force, and he expected to offer proposals to
Forrestal in the immediate future.[13-49]
[Footnote 13-49: Memo, SecAF for SecDef, 22 Dec 48, CD
30-1-2, SecDef files.]
The Navy also wanted no part of the Royall experiment. Its acting
secretary, John Nicholas Brown, believed that the gradual
indoctrination of the naval establishment was producing the desired
nondiscriminatory practices "on a sound and permanent basis without
concomitant problems of morale and discipline." To adopt Royall's
proposal, on the other hand, would "unnecessarily risk losing all that
has been accomplished in the solution of the efficient utilization of
Negro personnel to the limit of their ability."[13-50] Brown did not
spell out the risk, but a Navy spokesman on Forrestal's staff was (p. 330)
not so reticent. "Mutiny cannot be dismissed from consideration,"
Capt. Herbert D. Riley warned, if the Navy were forced to integrate
its officers' wardrooms, staterooms, and clubs. Such integration ran
considerably in advance of the Navy's current and carefully controlled
integration of the enlisted general service and would, like the
proposal to place Negroes in command of white officers and men,
Captain Riley predicted, have such dire results as wholesale
resignations and retirements.[13-51]
[Footnote 13-50: Memo, Actg SecNav for SecDef, 28 Dec
48, CD 30-1-2, SecDef files.]
[Footnote 13-51: Memo, Capt H. D. Riley, USN, OSD, for
SecDef, 6 Dec 48, sub: Comment on the Secretary of
the Army's Proposal Concerning Experimental
Non-Segregated Units in the Armed Forces, CD
30-1-2, SecDef files.]
[Illustration: SECRETARY FORRESTAL, _accompanied by General Huebner,
inspects the 427th Army Band and the 7777th EUCOM Honor Guard,
Heidelberg, Germany, November 1948_.]
The decisive opposition of the Navy and Air Force convinced Forrestal
that interservice integration was unworkable. In short, the Navy and
Air Force had progressed in their own estimation to the point where,
despite shortcomings in their racial policies rivaling the Army's,
they had little to fear from the coming White House investigation. The
Army could show no similar forward motion. Despite Royall's claim that
he and the Army staff favored eventual integration of black soldiers
through progressive reduction in the size of the Army's segregated
black units, the facts indicated otherwise. For example, while
Secretary of Defense Forrestal was touring Germany in late 1948 he
noted in his diary of Lt. Gen. Clarence R. Huebner, now the commander
of Europe: "Huebner's experience with colored troops is excellent....
He is ready to proceed with the implementation of the President's
directive about nonsegregation down to the platoon level, and proposes
to initiate this in the three cavalry regiments and the AA battalion
up north, but does not want to do it if it is premature."[13-52]
[Footnote 13-52: Millis, _Forrestal Diaries_, p. 528.]
Huebner's concern with prematurity was understandable, for the
possibility of using black soldiers in the constabulary had been a
lively topic in the Army for some time. Marcus Ray had proposed it in
his December 1946 report to the Secretary of War, but it was quickly
rejected by the Army staff. The staff had approved Huebner's decision
in July 1948 to attach a black engineer construction battalion and a
transportation truck company, a total of 925 men, to the constabulary.
The Director of Organization and Training, however, continued to
make a careful distinction between attached units and "organic (p. 331)
assignment," adding that "the Department of the Army does not favor
the organic assignment of Negro units to the Constabulary at this
time."[13-53]
[Footnote 13-53: DF, Dir, O&T, to DCofS, 14 Jul 48,
sub: Report of Visit by Negro Publishers and
Editors to the European Theater, CSGOT 291.2 (14
May 48); Memo for Rcd, attached to Memo, Dir, P&A,
for DCofS, 21 Jul 48, same sub, CSGPA 291.2 (14 May
48). See also Geis Monograph, pp. 88-89.]
But by November 1948 Huebner wished to go considerably further. As he
later put it, he had no need for a black infantry regiment, but since
the constabulary, composed for the most part of cavalry units, lacked
foot soldiers, he wanted to integrate a black infantry battalion, in
platoon-size units, in each cavalry regiment.[13-54] The staff turned
down his request. Arguing that the inclusion of organic black units in
the constabulary "might be detrimental to the proper execution of its
mission," and quoting the provision of Circular 124 limiting
integration to the company level, the staff's organization experts
concluded that the use of black units in the European theater below
company size "would undoubtedly prove embarrassing to the Department
of the Army ... in the Zone of the Interior in view of the announced
Department of the Army policy." General Bull, Director of Organization
and Training, informed Huebner he might use black units in composite
groupings only at the company level, including his constabulary
forces, "if such is desired by you," but it was "not presently
contemplated that integration of Negro units on the platoon level will
be approved as Department of the Army policy."[13-55] Huebner later
recalled that the constabulary was his outfit, to be run his way, and
"Bradley and Collins always let me do what I had to."[13-56] Still, when
black infantrymen joined the constabulary in late 1948, they came in
three battalion-size units "attached" for training and tactical
control.[13-57]
[Footnote 13-54: Interv, author with Huebner.]
[Footnote 13-55: Ltr, Dir, O&T, to CG, EUCOM, 13 Dec
48, sub: Integration of Negro Units on the Platoon
Level Within the Constabulary EUCOM, CSGOT 291.21
(24 Nov 48); DF, Dir, O&T, to CofS, 9 Dec 48, same
sub, CSUSA 291.2 (24 Nov 48).]
[Footnote 13-56: Interv, author with Huebner.]
[Footnote 13-57: Geis Monograph, p. 90. For the
reaction of a constabulary brigade commander to the
attachment of black infantrymen, see Bruce C.
Clarke, "Early Integration," _Armor_ (Nov-Dec
1978):29.]
The Truman order had no immediate effect on the Army's racial policy.
The concession to state governors regarding integration of their
National Guard units was beside the point, and Royall's limited offer
to set up an experimental integrated unit in the Regular Army was more
image than substance. Accurately summarizing the situation in March
1949, The Adjutant General informed Army commanders that although it
was "strategically unwise" to republish War Department Circular 124
while the President's committee was meeting, the policies contained in
that document, which was about to expire, would continue in effect
until further notice.[13-58]
[Footnote 13-58: Ltr, TAG to Distribution, 23 Mar 49,
sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, AGAO 291.2.]
_The Navy: Business as Usual_
The Navy Department also saw no reason to alter its postwar racial
policy because of the Truman order. As Acting Secretary of Navy Brown
explained to the Secretary of Defense in December 1948, whites in (p. 332)
his service had come to accept the fact that blacks must take their
rightful place in the Navy and Marine Corps. This acceptance, in turn,
had led to "very satisfactory progress" in the integration of the
department's black personnel without producing problems of morale and
discipline or a lowering of _esprit de corps_.[13-59]
[Footnote 13-59: Memo, Actg SecNav for SecDef et al.,
28 Dec 48, sub: The Secretary of the Army's
Confidential Memorandum of 2 December..., copy in
SecAF files.]
Brown had ample statistics at hand to demonstrate that at least in the
Navy this nondiscrimination policy was progressive. Whereas at the end
of the World War II demobilization only 6 percent of the Navy's
Negroes served in the general service, some two years later 38 percent
were so assigned. These men and women generally worked and lived under
total integration, and the men served on many of the Navy's combat
ships. The Bureau of Naval Personnel predicted in early 1949 that
before the end of the year at least half of all black sailors would be
assigned to the general service.[13-60] In contrast to the Army's policy
of separate but equal service for its black troops, the Navy's postwar
racial policy was technically correct and essentially in compliance
with the President's order. Yet progress was very limited and in fact
in the two years under its postwar nondiscrimination policy, the
Navy's performance was only marginally different from that of the
other services. The number of Negroes in the Navy in December 1948,
the same month Brown was extolling its nondiscrimination policy,
totaled some 17,000 men, 4.5 percent of its strength and about half
the Army's proportion. This percentage had remained fairly constant
since World War II and masked a dramatic drop in the number of black
men in uniform as the Navy demobilized. Thus while the _percentage_ of
the Navy's black sailors assigned to the integrated general service
rose from 6 to 38, the _number_ of Negroes in the general service
dropped from 9,900 in 1946 to some 6,000 in 1948. Looked at another
way, the 38 percent figure of blacks in the general service meant that
62 percent of all Negroes in the Navy, 10,871 men in December 1948,
still served in the separate Steward's Branch.[13-61] In contrast to the
Army and Air Force, the Navy's Negroes were, with only the rarest
exception, enlisted men. The number of black officers in December 1948
was four; the WAVES could count only six black women in its 2,130 (p. 333)
total. Clearly, the oft repeated rationale for these statistics--Negroes
favored the Army because they were not a seafaring people--could
not explain them away.[13-62]
[Footnote 13-60: Testimony of Stickney Before the
President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and
Opportunity in the Armed Services, 25 Apr 49, pp.
19-20. See also, Memo, Actg SecNav for SecDef et
al., 28 Dec 48, sub: The Secretary of the Army's
Confidential Memorandum of 2 December....]
[Footnote 13-61: Lt Cmdr G. E. Minor, BuPers, Memo for
File, 10 Mar 49, sub: Information for Lt.
Nelson-Press Section, Pers 251, BuPersRecs.
_Separate_ is probably a better term for describing
the Steward's Branch, since the branch was never
completely segregated. On 31 March 1949, for
example, the racial and ethnic breakdown of the
branch was as follows:
Negro 10,499 Hawaiian 5
Filipino 4,707 Puerto Rican 4
Chamorro 641 Japanese 1
Chinese 55 American Indian 1
Samoan 25 Caucasian 1
Korean 9 Total 15,945
_Source_: Figures taken from BuPers, "Steward Group
Personnel by Race," 24 May 49, Pers 25,
BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 13-62: This dubious assertion on the
seagoing interests of races had been most recently
expressed by the Chief of Naval Personnel before a
meeting of the President's Committee on Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services;
see Testimony of Fechteler, 13 Jan 49, pp. 107-08.]
A substantial increase in the number of Negroes would have absolved
the Navy from some of the stigma of racial discrimination it endured
in the late 1940's. Since the size of the Steward's Branch was limited
by regulation and budget, any increase in black enlistment would
immediately raise the number of Negroes serving in the integrated
general service. Increased enlistments would also widen the choice of
assignments, creating new opportunities for promotion to higher
grades. But even this obvious and basic response to the Truman order
was not forthcoming. The Navy continued to exclude many potential
black volunteers on the grounds that it needed to maintain stricter
mental and physical standards to secure men capable of running a
modern, technically complex Navy. True, regular and reserve officers
were periodically sent to black colleges to discuss naval careers with
the students, but as one official, speaking of the reserves, confessed
to the Fahy Committee in April 1949, "We aren't doing anything special
to procure Negro officers or Negro enlisted men."[13-63]
[Footnote 13-63: Testimony of Capt J. H. Schultz, Asst
Chief of Naval Personnel for Naval Reserve, Before
President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and
Opportunity in the Armed Services, 26 Apr 49,
afternoon session, p. 19.]
At best, recruiting more Negroes for the general service would only
partly fulfill the Navy's obligation to conform to the Truman order.
It would still leave untouched the Steward's Branch, which for years
had kept alive the impression that the Navy valued minority groups
only as servants. The Bureau of Naval Personnel had closed the branch
to first enlistments and provided for the transfer of eligible
stewards to the general service, but black stewards were only
transferring at the rate of seven men per month, hardly enough to
alter the racial composition of the branch. In the six months
following September 1948 the branch's black strength dropped by 910
men, but because the total strength of the branch also dropped, the
percentage of black stewards remained constant.[13-64] What was needed
was an infusion of whites, but this remedy, like an increase of black
officers, would require a fundamental change in the racial attitudes
of Navy leaders. No such change was evident in the Navy's postwar
racial policy. While solemnly proclaiming its belief in the principle
of nondiscrimination, the service had continued to sanction practices
that limited integration and equal opportunity to a degree consistent
with its racial tradition and manpower needs. Curiously, the Navy
managed to avoid strong criticism from the civil rights groups
throughout the postwar period, and the Truman order notwithstanding,
it was therefore in a strong position to resist precipitous change (p. 334)
in its racial practices.
[Footnote 13-64: Memo, Head, Pers Accounting and
Statistical Control Sec, BuPers, for Dir, Fiscal
Div (Pers 83), 14 Dec 48, sub: Statistics on
Steward Group Personnel in Navy; Memo, W. C.
Kincaid, BuPers Fiscal Div, for Cmdr Smith, BuPers,
6 May 48, sub: Negroes, USN--Transferring From
Commissary or Steward Branch to General Service;
BuPers, "Steward Group Personnel by Race," 24 May
49. All in Pers 25, BuPersRecs.]
_Adjustments in the Marine Corps_
Unlike the Navy, the Marine Corps did not enjoy so secure a position.
Its policy of keeping black marines strictly segregated was becoming
untenable in the face of its shrinking size, and by the time President
Truman issued his order the corps was finding it necessary to make
some adjustments. Basic training, for example, was integrated in the
cause of military efficiency. With fewer than twenty new black
recruits a month, the corps was finding it too expensive and
inefficient to maintain a separate recruit training program, and on 1
July 1949 the commandant, General Clifton B. Cates, ordered that
Negroes be trained with the rest of the recruits at Parris Island, but
in separate platoons.[13-65] Even this system proved too costly, however,
because black recruits were forced to wait for training until their
numbers built up to platoon size. Given the length of the training
cycle, the camp commander had to reserve three training platoons for
the few black recruits. Maj. Gen. Alfred H. Noble, the commander,
repeatedly complained of the waste of instructors, time, and
facilities and the "otherwise generally undesirable" features of
separate black training platoons. He pointed out to the commandant
that black students had been successfully assimilated into personnel
administration and drill instructor schools without friction or
incident, and reservist training and local intramural sports had
already peacefully introduced integration to the base. Noble wanted to
integrate black recruits as they arrived, absorbing them in the white
training platoons then being processed. He also wanted to use selected
black noncommissioned officers as instructors.[13-66]
[Footnote 13-65: Memo, CMC for CG, MB, Cp Lejeune,
N.C., 23 Aug 48, sub: Recruit Training Load at
Montford Point Camp, MC 1035238; idem for CG, MCRD,
26 May 49, MC 1091093; Memo, Dir of Recruiting for
Off in Charge, Recruit Divs, 13 Jun 49, sub:
Enlistment of Negro Personnel. All in Hist Div,
HQMC. Unless otherwise noted all documents cited in
this section are located in this office.]
[Footnote 13-66: Memo, CG, MCRD, Parris Island, for
CMC, 15 Sep 49, sub: Negro Recruits, ser. 08355.]
The commandant approved the integration of recruit training on 22
September, and Noble quietly began assigning recruits without regard
to color.[13-67] Integration of black noncommissioned officer platoon
leaders followed, along with integration of the noncommissioned
officers' club and other facilities. Noble later recalled the
circumstance of the first significant instance of integration in the
history of the Marine Corps:
This innovation not only produced no unfavorable reaction among
the Marines, but also it had no unfavorable reaction among the
civilian citizens of South Carolina in the vicinity. Of course I
consulted the civilian leaders first and told them what I was
going to do and got their advice and promises of help to try to
stop any adverse criticisms of it. It seemed like integration was
due to take place sooner or later anyway in this country,
certainly in the Armed Forces, and I thought that it should take
place in the Armed Forces first.[13-68]
[Footnote 13-67: This limited integration program was
announced by the Secretary of the Navy on 22
December 1949; see Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn,
PPB, 22 Dec 49, PPB files.]
[Footnote 13-68: USMC Oral History Interview with
Noble, 20-23 May 68.]
Since manpower restrictions also made the organization of (p. 335)
administratively separate black units hard to justify, the postwar
reduction in the number of black marines eventually led to the
formation of a number of racially composite units. Where once separate
black companies were the norm, by 1949 the corps had organized most of
its black marines into separate platoons and assigned them as parts of
larger white units. In March 1949 Secretary of the Navy Sullivan
reported that with the minor exception of several black depot
companies, the largest black units in the Marine Corps were platoons
of forty-three men, "and they are integrated with other platoons of
whites."[13-69]
[Footnote 13-69: Testimony of the Secretary of the
Navy Before President's Committee on Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 28
Mar 49, afternoon session, p. 15.]
[Illustration: GENERAL CATES.]
The cutback in the size and kinds of black units and the integration
of recruit training removed the need for the separate camp at Montford
Point, home base for black marines since the beginning of World War
II. The camp's last two organizations, a provisional company and a
headquarters company, were inactivated on 31 July and 9 September,
respectively, thus ending an era in the history of Negroes in the
Marine Corps.[13-70]
[Footnote 13-70: On the closing of Montford Point, see
Interv, Blumenson with Sgt Max Rousseau, Admin
Chief, G-1 Div, USMC (former member of the Montford
Point Camp headquarters), 21 Feb 66, CMH files.]
Composite grouping of small black units usually provided for separate
assignment and segregated facilities. As late as February 1949, the
commandant made clear he had no intention of allowing the corps to
drift into a _de facto_ integration policy. When, for example, it came
to his attention that some commanders were restricting appointment of
qualified black marines to specialist schools on the grounds that
their commands lacked billets for black specialists, the commandant
reiterated the principle that assignment to specialty training was to
be made without regard to race. At the same time he emphasized that
this policy was not to be construed as an endorsement of the use of
black specialists in white units. General Cates specifically
stipulated that where no billets in their specialty or a related one
were available for black specialists in black units, his headquarters
was to be informed. The implication of this order was obvious to the
Division of Plans and Policies. "This is an important one," a division
official commented, "it involves finding billets for Negro specialists
even if we have to create a unit to do it."[13-71] It was also obvious
that when the Under Secretary of the Navy, Dan A. Kimball, (p. 336)
reported to the Personnel Policy Board in May that "Negro Marines,
including Stewards, are assigned to other [white] Marine Corps units
in accord with their specialty," he was speaking of rare exceptions to
the general rule.[13-72]
[Footnote 13-71: Memo, CMC for CG, FMF, Pacific, 11
Feb 49, with attached Handwritten Note, Div of
Plans and Policies to Asst CMC, 11 Feb 49.]
[Footnote 13-72: Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 2
May 49, PPB 291.2.]
Cates seemed determined to ignore the military inefficiency attendant
on such elaborate attempts to insure the continued isolation of black
marines. The defense establishment, he was convinced, "could not be an
agency for experimentation in civil liberty without detriment to its
ability to maintain the efficiency and the high state of readiness so
essential to national defense." Having thus tied military efficiency
to segregation, Cates explained to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy
for Air that the efficiency of a unit was a command responsibility,
and so long as that responsibility rested with the commander, he must
be authorized to make such assignments as he deemed necessary. It
followed, then, that segregation was a national, not a military,
problem, and any attempt to change national policy through the armed
forces was, in the commandant's words, "a dangerous path to pursue
inasmuch as it affects the ability of the National Military
Establishment to fulfill its mission." Integration must first be
accepted as a national custom, he concluded, "before it could be
adopted in the armed forces."[13-73] Nor was General Cates ambiguous on
Marine Corps policy when it was questioned by civil rights leaders.
Individual marines, he told the commander of a black depot company in
a case involving opportunities available to reenlisting black marines,
would be employed in the future as in the past "to serve the best
interests of the Corps under existing circumstances."[13-74]
[Footnote 13-73: Memo, CMC for Asst SecNav for Air, 17
Mar 49, sub: Proposed Directive for the Armed
Forces for the Period 1 July 1949 to 1 July 1950,
AO-1, MC files.]
[Footnote 13-74: Idem for CO, Second Depot Co, Service
Cmd, FMF, 2 May 49, sub: Employment of Negroes in
the Marine Corps, MC1008783, MC files.]
Actually, Cates was only forcibly expressing a cardinal tenet common
to all the military services: the civil rights of the individual must
be subordinated to the mission of the service. What might appear to a
civil rights activist to be a callous and prejudiced response to a
legitimate social complaint was more likely an expression of the
commandant's overriding concern for his military mission. Still it was
difficult to explain such elaborate precautions in a corps where
Negroes numbered less than 2 percent of the total strength.[13-75] How
could the integration of 1,500 men throughout the worldwide units of
the corps disrupt its mission, civil rights spokesmen might well (p. 337)
ask, especially given the evidence to the contrary in the Navy? In
view of the President's order, how could the corps justify the
proliferation of very small black units that severely restricted the
spread of occupational opportunities for Negroes?
[Footnote 13-75: On 30 June 1949 the Marine Corps had
1,504 Negroes on active duty, 1.9 percent of the
total if the one-year enlistees were included or
2.08 percent if the one-year enlistees were
excluded. See Office of the Civilian Aide, OSD,
_Negro Strength Summary_, 18 Jul 49, copy in CMH.
For purposes of comparison, the following gives the
percentage of Negroes in the Navy and the Marine
Corps for earlier years.
_Date_ _Navy_ _Marine Corps_
Dec 43 5.0 3.2
Dec 44 5.5 3.6
Dec 45 5.9 5.4
Dec 46 4.7 2.3
Dec 47 5.4 1.6
Feb 48 5.05 1.9
_Source_: Officer in Charge, Pers Acctg & Stat
Control, Memo for File, 23 Apr 48, Pers 215
BuPersRecs.]
[Illustration: 1ST MARINE DIVISION DRILL TEAM ON EXHIBITION _at San
Diego's Balboa Stadium, 1949_.]
The corps ignored these questions during the summer of 1949,
concentrating instead on the problem of finding racially separate
assignments for its 1,000 Negroes in the general service. As the
number of marines continued to drop, the Division of Plans and
Policies was forced to justify the existence of black units by a
series of reorganizations and redistributions. When, for example, the
reorganization of the Fleet Marine Force caused the inactivation of
two black depot units, the division designated a 108-man truck company
as a black unit to take up the slack. At the same time the division
found yet another "suitable" occupation for black marines by laying
down a policy that all security detachments at inactive naval
facilities were to be manned by Negroes. It also decided to assign
small black units to the service battalions of the Marine divisions,
maintaining that such assignments would not run counter to the
commandant's policy of restricting Negroes to noncombat
organizations.[13-76]
[Footnote 13-76: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 28 Jul 49, sub: Re-assignment of Negro
Marines to Existing units (DP&P Study 88-49), MC
files.]
The Marine Corps, in short, had no intention of relaxing its policy of
separating the races. The timing of the integration of recruit
training and the breakup of some large black units perhaps suggested a
general concession to the Truman order, but these administrative
changes were actually made in response to the manpower restrictions of
the Truman defense budget. In fact, the position of black marines
in small black units became even more isolated in the months (p. 338)
following the Truman order as the Division of Plans and Policies began
devising racially separate assignments. Like the stewards before them,
the security guards at closed naval installations and ammunition
depots found themselves in assignments increasingly viewed as
"colored" jobs. That the number of Negroes in the Marine Corps was so
small aided and abetted these arrangements, which promised to continue
despite the presidential order until some dramatic need for change
arose.
_The Air Force Plans for Limited Integration_
Of all the services, the Air Force was in the best position to respond
promptly to President Truman's call for equal treatment and
opportunity. For some time a group of Air staff officers had been
engaged in devising a new approach to the use of black manpower.
Indeed their study, much of which antedated the Truman order,
represented the solution of the Air Force's manpower experts to a
pressing problem in military efficiency. More important than the
executive order or demands of civil rights advocates, the criticism of
segregation by these experts in uniform led the Air Force to accept
the need for limited integration.
But there was to be no easy road to integration for the service.
Considerable resistance was yet to be overcome, both in the Air staff
and among senior commanders. As Secretary Zuckert later put it, while
there was sentiment for integration among a few of the highest
officers, "you didn't have to scratch far to run into opposition."[13-77]
The Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, General Edwards, reported to
Secretary Symington that he had found solid opposition to any proposed
policy of integration in the service.[13-78] Normally such resistance
would have killed the study group's proposals. In the Army, for
example, opposition supported by Secretary Royall had blocked change.
In the Air Force, the opposition received no such support. Indeed,
Secretary Symington proved to be the catalyst that the Army had
lacked. He was the Air Force's margin of difference, transforming the
study group's proposal from a staffing paper into a program for
substantial change in racial policy.
[Footnote 13-77: Notes on Telecon, author with
Zuckert, 28 Apr 70, CMH files.]
[Footnote 13-78: Memo, DCofS/P&A, USAF, for SecAF, 29
Apr 48, sub: Conference With Group of Prominent
Negroes, Negro Affairs, 1948, SecAF files.]
In Symington the Air Force had a secretary who was not only a
tough-minded businessman demanding efficiency but a progressive
politician with a humanitarian interest in providing equal opportunity
for Negroes. "With Symington," Eugene Zuckert has pointed out, "it was
principle first, efficiency second."[13-79] Symington himself later
explained the source of his humanitarian interest. "What determined me
many years ago was a quotation from Bernard Shaw in Myrdal's book,
_American Dilemma_, which went something like this--'First the
American white man makes the negro clean his shoes, then criticizes
him for being a bootblack.' All Americans should have their chance.
And both my grandfathers were in the Confederate Army."[13-80] Symington
had successfully combined efficiency and humanitarianism before. (p. 339)
As president of the Emerson Electric Manufacturing Company of St.
Louis, he had racially integrated a major industry carrying out vital
war work in a border state, thereby increasing productivity. When he
became secretary, Symington was immediately involved in the Air
Force's race problems; he wanted to know, for instance, why only nine
black applicants had passed the qualifying examination for the current
cadet program.[13-81] When President Truman issued his executive
order, Symington was ready to move. In his own words, "when Mr. Truman
as Commander-in-Chief issued an order to integrate the Air Force, I
asked him if he was serious. He said he was. Accordingly we did just
that. I turned the actual operations of the job over to my Assistant
Secretary Eugene Zuckert.... It all worked out routinely."[13-82]
[Footnote 13-79: Telecon, author with Zuckert.]
[Footnote 13-80: Ltr, Symington to David K. Niles, 28
Jan 50, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 13-81: Memo, SecAF for Zuckert, 5 Jan 48;
Penciled Note, signed "Stu," attached to Memo,
ASecAF for Symington, 20 Jan 48. All in SecAF
files.]
[Footnote 13-82: Ltr, W. Stuart Symington to author, 6
May 70, CMH files.]
To call "routine" the fundamental change that took place in Air Force
manpower practices stretches the definition of the word. The
integration program required many months of intensive study and
planning, and many more months to carry out. Yet if integration under
Symington was slow, it was also inevitable. Zuckert reported that
Symington gave him about eight reasons for integration, the last
"because I said do it."[13-83] Symington's tough attitude, along with the
presidential order, considerably eased the burden of those in the Air
Force who were expected to abandon a tradition inherited from their
Army days. The secretary's diplomatic skill also softened opposition
in other quarters. Symington, a master at congressional relations,
smoothed the way on Capitol Hill by successfully reassuring some
southern leaders, in particular Congressman Carl Vinson of Georgia,
that integration had to come, but that it would come quietly and in a
way least calculated to provoke its congressional opponents.[13-84]
[Footnote 13-83: Telecon, author with Zuckert.]
[Footnote 13-84: Ibid.; see also USAF Oral Hist Interv
with Zuckert.]
Symington assigned general responsibility for equal opportunity
matters to his assistant secretary for management, Eugene Zuckert, but
the task of formulating the specific plan fell to General Edwards. To
avoid conflict with some of his colleagues, Edwards resorted to the
unorthodox means of ignoring the usual staff coordination. He sent his
proposals directly to the Chief of Staff and then on to the secretary
for approval without reference to other staff agencies, one of which,
the Office of the Vice Chief of Staff, General Muir S. Fairchild, was
the focal point of staff opposition.[13-85]
[Footnote 13-85: For discussion of the close-held
nature of the USAF integration plan, see USAF Oral
Hist Intervs with Davis and Marr; see also Ltrs,
Marr to author, 19 Jun and 28 Jul 70.]
On the basis of evidence submitted by his long-standing study group,
General Edwards concluded that current Air Force policy for the use of
black manpower was "wasteful, deleterious to military effectiveness
and lacking in wartime application." The policy of the Navy was
superior, he told the Chief of Staff and the secretary, with respect
to military effectiveness, economy, and morale, especially when the
needs of full mobilization were considered. The Air Force would (p. 340)
profit by adopting a policy similar to that of the Navy, and he
proposed a program, to be "vigorously implemented and monitored," that
would inactivate the all-black fighter wing and transfer qualified
black servicemen from that wing as well as from all the major commands
to white units. One exception would be that those black specialists,
whose work was essential to the continued operation of their units,
would stay in their black units. Some black units would be retained to
provide for individuals ineligible for transfer to white units or for
discharge.
[Illustration: SECRETARY SYMINGTON.]
The new program would abolish the 10 percent quota and develop
recruiting methods to enable the Air Force to secure only the "best
qualified" enlistees of both races. Men chronically ineligible for
advancement, both black and white, would be eliminated. If too many
Negroes enlisted despite these measures, Edwards explained that an
"administratively determined ceiling of Negro intake" could be
established, but the Air Force had no intention of establishing a
minimum for black enlistees. As the Director of Personnel Planning put
it, a racial floor was just as much a quota as a racial ceiling and
had the same effect of denying opportunity to some while providing
special consideration for others.[13-86]
[Footnote 13-86: Memo, Dir, Personnel Planning USAF,
for the Fahy Cmte, 15 Jan 49, sub: Air Force
Policies Regarding Negro Personnel, SecAF files.]
The manpower experts had decided that the social complications of such
a policy would be negligible--"more imaginary than real." Edwards
referred to the Navy's experience with limited integration, which, he
judged, had relieved rather than multiplied social tensions between
the races. Nevertheless he and his staff proposed "as a conservative
but progressive step" toward the integration of living quarters that
the Air Force arrange for separate sleeping quarters for blacks and
whites. The so-called "barracks problem" was the principal point of
discussion within the Air staff, Edwards admitted, and "perhaps the
most critical point of the entire policy." He predicted that the trend
toward more privacy in barracks, especially the separate cubicles
provided in construction plans for new barracks, would help solve
whatever problems might arise.[13-87]
[Footnote 13-87: Summary Sheet DCS/P, USAF, for CS,
USAF, and SecAF, 29 Dec 48, sub: Air Force Policies
on Negro Personnel, SecAF files.]
While the Chief of Staff, General Vandenberg, initialed the program
without comment, Assistant Secretary Zuckert was enthusiastic. As
Zuckert explained to Symington, the program was predicated on free
competition for all Air Force jobs, and he believed that it would also
eliminate social discrimination by giving black officers and men (p. 341)
all the privileges of Air Force social facilities. Although he
admitted that in the matter of living arrangements the plan "only goes
part way," he too was confident that time and changes in barracks
construction would eliminate any problems.[13-88]
[Footnote 13-88: Memo, ASecAF for Symington, 5 Jan 49,
SecAF files.]
Symington was already familiar with most of Edwards's conclusions, for
a summary had been sent him by the Assistant Vice Chief of Staff on 22
December "for background."[13-89] When he received Zuckert's comments he
acted quickly. The next day he let the Secretary of Defense know what
the Air Force was doing. "We propose," he told Forrestal, "to adopt a
policy of integration." But he qualified that statement along the
lines suggested by the Air staff: "Although there will still be units
manned entirely by Negroes, all Negroes will not necessarily be
assigned to these units. Qualified Negro personnel will be assigned to
any duties in any Air Force activity strictly on the basis of the
qualifications of the individual and the needs of the Air Force."[13-90]
Symington tied the new program to military efficiency, explaining to
Forrestal that efficient use of black servicemen was one of the
essentials of economic and effective air power. In this vein he
summarized the program and listed what he considered its advantages
for the Air Force.
[Footnote 13-89: Memo, Maj Gen William F. McKee for
Symington, 22 Dec 48, sub: Mr. Royall's Negro
Experiment, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 13-90: Memo, SecAF for Forrestal, 6 Jan 49,
Negro Affairs, 1949, SecAF files.]
The proposal forwarded to the Secretary of Defense in January 1949
committed the Air Force to a limited integration policy frankly
imitative of the Navy's. A major improvement over the Air Force's
current practices, the plan still fell considerably short of the
long-range goals enunciated in the Gillem Board Report, to say nothing
of the implications of the President's equal opportunity order.
Although it is impossible to say exactly why Symington decided to
settle for less than full integration, there are several explanations
worth considering.
In the first place the program sent to Forrestal may well not have
reflected the exact views of the Air Force secretary, nor conveyed all
that his principal manpower assistant intended. Actually, the concern
expressed by Air Force officials for military efficiency and by civil
rights leaders for equal opportunity always centered specifically on
the problems of the black tactical air unit and related specialist
billets at Lockbourne Air Force Base. In fact, the need to solve the
pressing administrative problems of Colonel Davis's command provoked
the Air staff study that eventually evolved into the integration
program. The program itself focused on this command and provided for
the integrated assignment of its members throughout the Air Force.
Other black enlisted men, certainly those serving as laborers in the F
Squadrons, scattered worldwide, did not pose a comparable manpower
problem. They were ignored on the theory that abolition of the quota,
along with the application of more stringent recruitment procedures,
would in time rid the services of its unskilled and unneeded men.
It can be argued that the purpose of the limited integration proposal
was not so much to devise a new policy as to minimize the impact of
change on congressional opponents. Edwards certainly hoped that his
plan would placate senior commanders and staff officers who (p. 342)
opposed integration or feared the social upheaval they assumed would
follow the abolition of all black units. This explanation would
account for the cautious approach to racial mixing in the proposal,
the elaborate administrative safeguards against social confrontation,
and the promised reduction in the number of black airmen. Some of
those pressing for the new program certainly considered the retention
of segregated units a stopgap measure designed to prevent a too
precipitous reorganization of the service. As Lt. Col. Jack Marr, a
member of Edwards's staff and author of the staff's integration study,
explained to the Fahy Committee, "we are trying to do our best not to
tear the Air Force all apart and try to reorganize it overnight."[13-91]
Marr predicted that as those eligible for reassignment were
transferred out of black units, the units themselves, bereft of
essential personnel, would become inoperative and disappear one by
one.
[Footnote 13-91: Testimony of Lt Col Jack F. Marr
Before President's Committee on Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 13
Jan 49, afternoon session, p 46.]
In the end it must be admitted that race relations possess an inner
dynamic, and it is impossible to relate the integration of the Air
Force to any isolated decision by a secretary or proposal by a group
from his military staff. The decision to integrate was the result of
several disparate forces--the political interests of the
administration, the manpower needs of the Air Force, the aspirations
of its black minority, and perhaps more than all the rest, the
acceptance by its airmen of a different social system. Together, these
factors would make successive steps to full integration impossible to
resist. Integration, then, was an evolutionary process, and
Symington's acceptance of a limited integration plan was only one step
in a continuing process that stretched from the Air staff's study of
black manpower in 1948 to the disappearance of the last black unit two
years later.