The Fahy Committee Versus the Department of Defense
Given James Forrestal's sympathy for integration, considerable
cooperation could be expected between members of his department and
the Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Services, better known as the Fahy Committee. In the wake of the
committee's establishment, Forrestal proposed that the service
secretaries assign an assistant secretary to coordinate his
department's dealings with the group and a ranking black officer from
each service be assigned to advise the assistant secretaries.[14-1] His
own office promised to supply the committee with vital documentation,
and his manpower experts offered to testify. The service secretaries
agreed to follow suit.
[Footnote 14-1: Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 21 Oct 48,
copy in Fahy Committee file, CMH [hereafter cited
as FC file]. The Center of Military History has
retained an extensive collection of significant
primary materials pertaining to the Fahy Committee
and its dealings with the Department of Defense.
While most of the original documents are in the
Charles Fahy Papers and the Papers of the
President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and
Opportunity in the Armed Services at the Harry S.
Truman Library or in the National Archives, this
study will cite the CMH collection when possible.]
Willing to cooperate, Forrestal still wanted to chart his own course.
Both he and his successor, Louis A. Johnson, made it quite clear that
as a senior cabinet officer the Secretary of Defense was accountable
in all matters to the President alone. The Fahy Committee might report
on the department's racial practices and suggest changes, but the
development of policy was his prerogative. Both men dealt directly
with the committee from time to time, but their directives to the
services on the formulation of race policy were developed
independently of the White House group.[14-2] Underscoring this
independent attitude, Marx Leva reminded the service secretaries that
the members of the Personnel Policy Board were to work with the
representatives of their respective staffs on racial matters. They
were not expected "to assist Fahy."[14-3]
[Footnote 14-2: Ltrs, James Forrestal to Fahy, 26 Mar
49, and Louis Johnson to Fahy, 18 Apr 49; both in
FC file. See also Ltr, Thomas R. Reid to R. M.
Dalfiume, 12 Feb 65, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 14-3: Min, Cmte of Four Secretaries Mtg, 26
Oct 48, Office of OSD Historian. The Committee of
the Four Secretaries was an informal body composed
of the Secretary of Defense or his representative
and the secretaries of the three armed services.]
At the same time Secretary of Defense Forrestal was aware that the
interests of a committee enjoying White House support could not be
ignored. His attempt to develop a new racial policy was probably in
part an effort to forestall committee criticism and in part a wish to
draw up a policy that would satisfy the committee without really doing
much to change things. After all, such a departmental attitude toward
committees, both congressional and presidential, was fairly normal.
Faced with the conflicting racial policies of the Air Force and Army,
Forrestal agreed to let the services present their separate (p. 344)
programs to the Fahy Committee, but he wanted to develop a race policy
applicable to all the services.[14-4] Some of his subordinates debated
the wisdom of this decision, arguing that the President had assigned
that task to the Fahy Committee, but they were overruled. Forrestal
ordered the newly created Personnel Policy Board to undertake,
simultaneously with the committee, a study of the department's racial
policy. The board was to concentrate on "breaking down the problem,"
as Forrestal put it, into its component parts and trying to arrive
quietly at areas of agreement on a uniform policy that could be held
in readiness until the Fahy Committee made its report.[14-5]
[Footnote 14-4: Min, War Council Mtg, 12 Jan 49,
Office of OSD Historian; Memo, Secy of War Council
for SA et al., 13 Jan 49, sub: Significant Action
of the Special Meeting of the War Council on 12
January 1949, OSD 291.2. The War Council,
established by Section 210 of the National Security
Act of 1947, consisted of the Secretary of Defense
as chairman with power of decision, the service
secretaries, and the military chiefs of the Army,
Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps.]
[Footnote 14-5: Memo, Thomas R. Reid, Chmn, PPB, for
Worthington Thompson, OSD, 15 Feb 49, sub: Meeting
of Committee of Four, 10 A.M. Tuesday--15 February,
FC file.]
The Personnel Policy Board, established by Forrestal to help regulate
the military and civilian policies of his large department, was the
logical place to prepare a departmental racial policy.[14-6] But could a
group basically interservice in nature be expected to develop a
forceful, independent racial policy for all the services along the
lines Forrestal appeared to be following? It seemed unlikely, for at
their first meeting the board members agreed that any policy developed
must be "satisfactory to the three services."[14-7]
[Footnote 14-6: Forrestal signed an interim directive
appointing members of the board on 22 February
1949. Composed of a civilian chairman and an under
secretary or assistant secretary from each service,
the board was to have a staff of personnel experts
under a director, an officer of flag rank,
appointed by the chairman; see NME Press Releases,
28 Dec 48, and 1 Apr 49.]
[Footnote 14-7: Min PPB Mtg, 26 Feb 49, FC file.]
Undeterred by members' calling for more investigation and debate
before the board prepared a common policy, Chairman Thomas R. Reid and
his chief of staff, Army Brig. Gen. Charles T. Lanham, acted.[14-8] On 28
February they drafted a directive for the Secretary of Defense that
would abolish all racial quotas and establish uniform standards of
induction for service which in times of emergency would include
provisions for the apportionment of enlistees both qualitatively and
quantitatively. Moreover, all black enlistees would be given the
opportunity to serve as individuals in integrated units. The services
would be completely integrated by 1 July 1950. To ease the change,
Reid and Lanham would in the interim regulate the number of Negroes in
integrated units, allowing not less than four men and not more than 10
percent in a company-size unit. Enlisted men could choose to serve
under officers of their own race.[14-9]
[Footnote 14-8: Memo, Col J. F. Cassidy, PPB, for Dir,
PPB Staff, 25 Feb 49, sub: Policies of the Three
Departments With Reference to Negro Personnel, FC
file.]
[Footnote 14-9: PPB, Draft (Reid and Lanham), Proposed
Directive for the Armed Forces for the Period 1
July 1949 to 1 July 1950, 28 Feb 49, FC file.]
Favorably received in the secretary's office, the proposed directive
came too late for speedy enactment. On 3 March Forrestal resigned, and
although Leva hoped the directive could be issued before Forrestal's
actual departure, "in view of his long-standing interest in this
field," Forrestal was obviously reluctant to commit his successor (p. 345)
to so drastic a course.[14-10] With a final bow to his belief in
service autonomy, Forrestal asked Reid and Lanham to submit their
proposal to the service secretaries for review.[14-11] The secretaries
approved the idea of a unified policy in principle, but each had very
definite and individual views on what that policy should contain and
how it should be carried out. Denied firm direction from the ailing
Forrestal, Reid and Lanham could do little against service opposition.
Their proposal was quietly tabled while the board continued its search
for an acceptable unified policy.
[Footnote 14-10: Note, Leva thru Ohly to Buck Lanham,
attached to Draft of Proposed Directive cited in n.
9.]
[Footnote 14-11: Memo, Chmn, PPB, for John Ohly,
Assistant to SecDef, 15 Mar 49; Revised Min, PPB
Mtg, 18 Mar 49; both in FC file.]
Perhaps it was just as well, for the Reid-Lanham draft had serious
defects. It failed to address the problems of qualitative imbalance in
the peacetime services, probably in deference to Forrestal's recent
rejection of the Army's call for a fair distribution of high-scoring
enlistees. While the proposal encouraged special training for Negroes,
it also limited their assignment to a strict 10 percent quota in any
unit. The result would have been an administrative nightmare, with
trained men in excess of the 10 percent quota assigned to other,
nonspecialty duties. As one manpower expert later admitted, "you ran
the real chance of haying black engineers and the like pushing
wheelbarrows."[14-12]
[Footnote 14-12: Interv, author with Roy K. Davenport,
7 Oct 71, CMH.]
The service objections to a carefully spelled out policy were in
themselves quite convincing to Lanham and Reid. Reid agreed with
Eugene Zuckert, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, that "probably
the most logical and soundest approach" was for each service to
prepare a policy statement and explain how it was being carried out.
The board could then prepare a general policy based on these
statements, and, with the approval of the Secretary of Defense, send
it to the Fahy Committee in time for its report to the President.[14-13]
But if Zuckert's scheme was logical and sound, it also managed to
reduce the secretary's status to final endorsement officer. Such a
role never appealed to James Forrestal, and would be even less
acceptable to the politically energetic Louis Johnson, who succeeded
Forrestal as Secretary of Defense on 28 March 1949.
[Footnote 14-13: Memo for Files, Clarence H. Osthagen,
Assistant to SecAF, 31 Mar 49, sub: Conference With
Thomas Reid, FC file.]
Reid appreciated this distinction, and while he was willing to abandon
the idea of a policy directive spelling out matters of personnel
administration, he was determined that there be a general policy
statement on the subject and that it originate not with the services
but with the Secretary of Defense, who would then review individual
service plans for implementing his directive.[14-14] Reid set the board's
staff to this task, but it took several draftings, each stronger and
more specific than the last, before a directive acceptable to Reid and
Lanham was devised.[14-15] Approved by the full board on 5 April 1949 and
signed by Secretary Johnson the next day, the directive reiterated the
President's executive order, adding that all persons would be considered
on the basis of individual merit and ability and must qualify (p. 346)
according to the prescribed standards for enlistment, promotion,
assignment, and school attendance. All persons would be accorded equal
opportunity for appointment, advancement, professional improvement,
and retention, and although some segregated units would be retained,
"qualified" Negroes would be assigned without regard to race. The
secretary ordered the services to reexamine their policies and submit
detailed plans for carrying out this directive.[14-16]
[Footnote 14-14: Memo, Thomas Reid for Asst SecNav, 1
Apr 49, sub: Statement on Equality of Treatment and
Opportunity, FC file.]
[Footnote 14-15: PPB, Draft Memo, SecDef for Svc Secys
(prepared by Col J. F. Cassidy for Reid), 31 Mar
49; PPB, Proposed Policy for the National Military
Establishment, 4 Apr 49; both in FC file.]
[Footnote 14-16: Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 6 Apr 49,
sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the
Armed Services; Min, PPB Mtg, 5 Apr 49; both in FC
file.]
Although responsible for preparing the secretary's directive, Reid and
Lanham had second thoughts about it. They were concerned lest the
services treat it as an endorsement of their current policies. Reid
pointedly explained to their representatives on the Personnel Policy
Board that the service statements due by 1 May should not merely
reiterate present practices, but should represent a "sincere effort"
by the departments to move toward greater racial equality.[14-17] Service
responses, he warned, would be scrutinized to determine "their
adequacy in the light of the intent of the Secretary's policy." Reid
later admitted to Secretary Johnson that the directive was so broadly
formed that it "permits almost any practice under it."[14-18] He, Lanham,
and others agreed that since its contents were bound to reach the
press anyway, the policy should be publicized in a way that played
down generalizations and emphasized the responsibilities it imposed
for new directions. Johnson agreed, and the announcement of his
directive, emphasizing the importance of new service programs and
setting a deadline for their submission, was widely circulated.[14-19]
[Footnote 14-17: Min, PPB Mtg, 8 Apr 49, FC file.]
[Footnote 14-18: Memo, Reid for SecDef, 14 Apr 49,
sub: The President's Committee on Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, FC
file.]
[Footnote 14-19: Min, PPB Mtg, 5 May 49; NME Press
Release 3-49A, 20 Apr 49; both in FC file.]
The directive reflected Louis Johnson's personality, ambition, and
administrative strategy. If many of his associates questioned his
personal commitment to the principle of integration, or indeed even
his private feeling about President Truman's order, all recognized his
political ambition and penchant for vigorous and direct action.[14-20]
The secretary would recognize the political implications of the
executive order just as he would want to exercise personal control
over integration, an issue fraught with political uncertainties that
an independent presidential committee would only multiply. A dramatic
public statement might well serve Johnson's needs. By creating at
least the illusion of forward motion in the field of race relations, a
directive issued by the Secretary of Defense might neutralize the Fahy
Committee as an independent force, protecting the services from
outside interference while enhancing Johnson's position in the White
House and with the press. A "blustering bully," one of Fahy's
assistants later called Johnson, whose directive was designed, he
charged, to put the Fahy Committee out of business.[14-21]
[Footnote 14-20: This conclusion is based on
Interviews, author with Charles Fahy, 8 Feb 68,
James C. Evans, 6 Apr 69, and Brig Gen Charles T.
Lanham, 10 Jan 71. It is also based on letters to
author from John Ohly, 9 Jan 71, and Thomas Reid,
15 Jan 71. All in CMH.]
[Footnote 14-21: Memo, Kenworthy for Chief of Military
History, 13 Oct 76. CMH.]
If such was his motive, the secretary was taking a chance. (p. 347)
Announcing his directive to the press transformed what could have been
an innocuous, private reaffirmation of the department's pledge of
equal treatment and opportunity into a public exercise in military
policymaking. The Secretary of Defense in effect committed himself to
a public review of the services' racial practices. In this sense the
responses he elicited from the Army and Navy were a disappointment.
Both services contented themselves with an outline of their current
policies and ignored the secretary's request for future plans. The
Army offered statistics to prove that its present program guaranteed
equal opportunity, while the Navy concluded that its practices and
procedures revealed "no inconsistencies" with the policy prescribed by
the Secretary of Defense.[14-22] Summing up his reaction to these
responses for the Personnel Policy Board, Reid said that the Army had
a poor policy satisfactorily administered, while the Navy had an
acceptable policy poorly administered. Neither service complied "with
the spirit or letter of the request."[14-23]
[Footnote 14-22: Memo, Actg SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 2
May 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity
in the Navy and Marine Corps; Memo, SA for SecDef,
21 Apr 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and
Opportunity in the Armed Services; both in FC
file.]
[Footnote 14-23: Min, PPB Mtg, 5 May 49, FC file.]
[Illustration: SECRETARY OF DEFENSE JOHNSON.]
Not all the board members agreed. In the wake of the Army and Navy
replies, some saw the possible need for separate service policies
rather than a common policy; considering the many advances enumerated
in the replies, one member even suggested that Johnson might achieve
more by getting the services to prosecute their current policies
vigorously. Although Chairman Reid promised that these suggestions
would all be taken into consideration, he still hoped to use the Air
Force response to pry further concessions out of the Army and
Navy.[14-24]
[Footnote 14-24: Ibid.; see also Ltr, Thomas Reid to
Richard Dalfiume, 1 Apr 65, Incl to Ltr, Reid to
author, 15 Jan 71. All in CMH.]
The Air Force plan had been in existence for some time, its
implementation delayed because Symington had agreed with Royall in
January that a joint Army-Air Force plan might be developed and
because he and Zuckert needed the time to sell the new plan to some of
their senior military assistants.[14-25] But greater familiarity with
the plan quickly convinced Royall that the Army and Air Force (p. 348)
positions could never be reconciled, and the Air Force plan was
independently presented to the Fahy Committee and later, with some
revision that further liberalized its provisions, to Johnson as the
Air Force reply to his directive.[14-26] The Personnel Policy Board
approved the Air Force's proposal for the integration of a large group
of its black personnel, and after discussing it with Fahy and the
other services, Reid recommended to the Secretary of Defense that he
approve it also.[14-27]
[Footnote 14-25: Min, War Council Mtg, 11 Jan 49, FC
file; see also Interv, author with W. Stuart
Symington, 1974, CMH.]
[Footnote 14-26: Memo, SecAF for Chmn, PPB, OSD, 30
Apr 49; Memo, Asst SecAF for SecAF, 20 Apr 49, sub:
Department of Air Force Implementation of
Department of Defense Policy on Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services;
both in SecAF files.]
[Footnote 14-27: Min, PPB Mtg, 5 May 49; Memo, Reid
for SecDef, 10 May 49, sub: Equality of Treatment
and Opportunity in the Armed Forces, FC file.]
To achieve maximum benefit from the Air Force plan, Reid and his
associates had to link it publicly with the inadequate replies from
the other services. Disregarding the views of some board members, he
suggested that Johnson reject the Army and Navy answers and, without
indicating the form he thought their answers should take, order them
to prepare new proposals.[14-28] Johnson would also have to ignore a
warning from Secretary of the Army Royall, who had recently reminded
him that Forrestal had assured Congress during the selective service
hearings that the administration would not issue a preemptory order
completely abolishing segregation. "I have no reason to believe that
the President had changed his mind," Royall continued, "but I think
you should be advised of these circumstances because if any action
were later taken by you or other authority to abolish segregation in
the Army I am confident that these Southern senators would remember
this incident."[14-29]
[Footnote 14-28: Ibid.]
[Footnote 14-29: Memo, SA for SecDef, 22 Apr 49, OSA
291.2.]
Despite Royall's not so subtle warning, Reid's scheme worked. The
Secretary of Defense explicitly and publicly approved the Air Force
program and rejected those of the Army and Navy. Johnson told the
Army, for example, that he was pleased with the progress made in the
past few years, but he saw "that much remains to be done and that the
rate of progress toward the objectives of the Executive Order must be
accelerated."[14-30] He gave the recalcitrants until 25 May to submit
"specific additional actions which you propose to take."
[Footnote 14-30: Memo, SecDef for SA, 13 May 49, sub:
Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Forces; idem for SecAF and SecNav, 11 May 49, same
sub; DOD Press Release 35-49A, 11 May 42. All in FC
file.]
_The Committee's Recommendations_
If there was ever any question of what their programs should contain,
the services had only to turn to the Fahy Committee for plenty of
advice. The considerable attention paid by senior officials of the
Department of Defense to racial matters in the spring of 1949 could be
attributed in part to the commonly held belief that the Fahy Committee
planned an integration crusade, using the power of the White House to
transform the services' racial policies in a profound and dramatic
way. Indeed, some members of the committee itself demanded that the
chairman "lay down the law to the services."[14-31] But this approach,
Charles Fahy decided, ignored both the personalities of the (p. 349)
participants and the realities of the situation.
[Footnote 14-31: Interv, author with Fahy.]
[Illustration: FAHY COMMITTEE WITH PRESIDENT TRUMAN AND ARMED SERVICES
SECRETARIES. _Seated with the President are Secretary Forrestal and
Committeeman A. J. Donahue. Standing from the left: Chairman of the
Personnel Policy Board Thomas R. Reid; Chief of Staff of the Personnel
Policy Board Brig. Gen. Charles T. Lanham; Committeemen John H.
Sengstacke and William M. Stevenson; Secretary Royall; Secretary
Symington; Committeemen Lester Granger and Dwight R. Palmer; Secretary
Sullivan; and Charles Fahy._]
The armed forces had just won a great world war, and the opinions of
the military commanders, Fahy reasoned, would carry much weight with
the American public. In any conflict between the committee and the
services, Fahy believed that public opinion would be likely to side
with the military. He wanted the committee to issue no directive.
Instead, as he reported to the President, the committee would seek the
confidence and help of the armed services in working out changes in
manpower practices to achieve Truman's objectives.[14-32] It was
important to Fahy that the committee not make the mistake of telling
the services what should be done and then have to drop the matter with
no assurances that anything would be done. He was determined, rather,
to obtain not only a change in policy, but also a "program in being"
during the life of the committee. To achieve this change the group
would have to convince the Army and the other services of the need for
and justice of integration. To do less, to settle for the issuance of
an integration directive alone, would leave the services the (p. 350)
option of later disregarding the reforms on the grounds of national
security or for other reasons. Fahy explained to the President that
all this would take time.[14-33] "Take all the time you need," Truman
told his committee.[14-34] This the committee proceeded to do, gathering
thousands of pages of testimony, while its staff under the direction
of Executive Secretary Edwin W. Kenworthy toured military
installations, analyzed the existing programs and operations of the
three services, and perused the reams of pertinent historical
documents.
[Footnote 14-32: Ibid.; see also Fahy Cmte, "A
Progress Report for the President," 7 Jun 49, FC
file.]
[Footnote 14-33: Memo, Fahy for Brig Gen James L.
Collins, Jr. 16 Aug 76, CMH.]
[Footnote 14-34: Interv, author with Fahy.]
That the committee expected the Secretary of Defense to take the lead
in racial affairs, refraining from dictating policy itself, did not
mean that Fahy and his associates lacked a definite point of view.
From the first, Fahy understood Truman's executive order to mean
unequivocally that the services would have to abandon segregation, an
interpretation reinforced in a later discussion he had with the
President.[14-35] The purpose of the committee, in Fahy's view, was not
to impose integration on the services, but to convince them of the
merits of the President's order and to agree with them on a plan to
make it effective.
[Footnote 14-35: Interv, Blumenson with Fahy, 7 Apr
66; Interv, author with Davenport, 31 Oct 71; both
in CMH.]
The trouble, the committee quickly learned, lay in trying to convince
the Army of the practical necessity for integration. On one hand the
Army readily admitted that there were some advantages in spreading
black soldiers through the white ranks. "It might remove any false
charges that equal opportunities are not provided," General Bradley
testified. "It would simplify administration and the use of manpower,
and it would distribute our losses in battle more nearly in proportion
to the percentage of the two races."[14-36] But then the Army had so
carefully and often repeated the disadvantages of integration that
Bradley and others could very easily offer a logical and
well-rehearsed apology for continuing the Army's current policy. Army
officials repeatedly testified, for example, that their situation
fundamentally differed from those of the other two services. The Army
had a much higher proportion of Negroes in its ranks, 10 to 11 percent
during the period of the committee's life, and in addition was
required by law to accept by the thousands recruits, many of them
black, whose aptitude or education would automatically disqualify them
for the Air Force or Navy. Armed with these inequities, the Army
remained impervious to the claims of the Navy and Air Force, defending
its time-honored charge that segregation was necessary to preserve the
efficiency of its combat forces. In Zuckert's opinion, the Army was
trying to maintain the _status quo_ at any cost.[14-37]
[Footnote 14-36: Testimony of General Omar N. Bradley,
Fahy Cmte Hearings, 28 Mar 49, afternoon session,
p. 71.]
[Footnote 14-37: Memo, Asst SecAF for Symington, 11
Apr 49, sub: Statement of the Secretary of the Army
Before the President's Committee on Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Services--March 28, 1949, SecAF files.]
The Army offered other reasons. Its leaders testified that the
unlimited induction of Negroes into an integrated Army would seriously
affect enlistments and the morale of troops. Morale in particular
affected battle efficiency. Again General Bradley testified.
I consider that a unit has high morale when the men have (p. 351)
confidence in themselves, confidence in their fellow members of
their unit, and confidence in their leaders. If we try to force
integration on the Army before the country is ready to accept
these customs, we may have difficulty attaining high morale along
the lines I have mentioned.[14-38]
[Footnote 14-38: Testimony of Bradley, Fahy Cmte
Hearings, 28 Mar 49, afternoon session, pp. 71-72.]
Underlying all these discussions of morale and efficiency lurked a
deep-seated suspicion of the combat reliability and effectiveness of
black troops and the fear that many white soldiers would refuse to
serve with blacks. Many Army leaders were convinced that the
performance of black troops in the past two wars did not qualify
Negroes for a role in the Army's current mission, the execution of
field operations in relatively small groups. These reservations were
expressed frequently in Army testimony. Bradley, in defense of
segregation, for example, cited the performance of the 92d Division.
When asked whether a 15 percent black Army would reduce efficiency, he
said, "from our experience in the past I think the time might come
when it wouldn't, but the average educational standards of these men
would not be up to the average of the white soldier. In modern combat
a man is thrown very much on his own initiative."[14-39] This attitude
was closely related to the Army's estimates of white morale: white
soldiers, the argument ran, especially many among those southerners
who comprised an unusually high proportion of the Army's strength,
would not accept integration. Many white men would refuse to take
orders from black superiors, and the mutual dependence of individual
soldiers and small units in combat would break down when the races
were mingled.
[Footnote 14-39: Ibid., p. 83.]
Although these beliefs were highly debatable, they were tenaciously
held by many senior officials and were often couched in terms that
were extremely difficult to refute. For instance, Royall summed up the
argument on morale: "I am reluctant--and I am sure all sincere
citizens will be reluctant--to force a pace faster than is consistent
with the efficiency and morale of the Army--or to follow a course
inconsistent with the ability of the Army, in the event of war, to
take the battlefield with reasonable assurance of success."[14-40]
[Footnote 14-40: Testimony of the Secretary of the
Army, Fahy Cmte Hearings, 28 Mar 49, morning
session, p. 28.]
But in time the Fahy Committee found a way, first suggested by its
executive secretary, to turn the efficiency argument around. Certainly
a most resourceful and imaginative man, Kenworthy had no doubt about
the immorality of segregation, but he also understood, as he later
told the Secretary of the Army, that whatever might be morally
undeniable in the abstract, military efficiency had to govern in
matters of military policy. His study of the record and his
investigation of existing service conditions convinced him that
segregation actually impeded military efficiency. Convinced from the
start that appeals to morality would be a waste of time, Kenworthy
pressed the committee members to tackle the services on their own
ground--efficiency.[14-41] After seeing the Army so effectively dismiss
in the name of military efficiency and national security the moral
arguments against segregation as being valid but irrelevant, Kenworthy
asked Chairman Fahy:
I wonder if the one chance of getting something done isn't (p. 352)
to meet the military on their own ground--the question of
military efficiency. They have defended their Negro manpower
policies on the grounds of efficiency. Have they used Negro
manpower efficiently?... Can it be that the whole policy of
segregation, especially in large units like the 92nd and 93rd
Division, ADVERSELY AFFECTS MORALE AND EFFICIENCY?[14-42]
[Footnote 14-41: Ltr, Kenworthy to SA, 20 Jul 50, FC
file; see also Memo, Kenworthy for Chief of
Military History, 13 Oct 76, CMH.]
[Footnote 14-42: Ltr, Kenworthy to Fahy, 10 Mar 49, FC
file.]
The committee did not have to convince the Navy or the Air Force of
the practical necessity for integration. With four years of experience
in integrating its ships and stations, the Navy did not bother arguing
the merits of integration with the committee, but instead focused its
attention on black percentages and the perennial problem of the
largely black Steward's Branch. Specifically, naval officials
testified that integration increased the Navy's combat efficiency.
Speaking for the Air Force, Symington told the committee that "in our
position we believe that non-segregation will improve our efficiency
in at least some instances" and consequently "it's simply been a case
[of] how we are going to do it, not whether we are going to do it."
Convinced of the simple justice of integration, Symington also told
the committee: "You've got to clear up that basic problem in your
heart before you can really get to this subject. Both Zuckert and
Edwards feel right on the basic problem."[14-43]
[Footnote 14-43: Testimony of the Secretary of the Air
Force, Fahy Cmte Hearings, 28 Mar 49, afternoon
session, p. 27.]
Even while the Air Force and the Navy were assuring Fahy of their
belief in the efficiency of integration, they hastened to protect
themselves against a change of heart. General Edwards gave the
committee a caveat on integration: "if it comes to a matter of
lessening the efficiency of the Air Force so it can't go to war and do
a good job, there isn't any question that the policy of
non-segregation will have to go by the boards. In a case like that,
I'd be one of the first to recommend it."[14-44] Secretary of the Navy
Sullivan also supported this view and cautioned the committee against
making too much of the differences in the services' approach to racial
reforms. Each service, he suggested, should be allowed to work out a
program that would stand the test of war. "If war comes and we go back
[to segregation], then we have taken a very long step in the wrong
direction." He wanted the committee to look to the "substance of the
advance rather than to the apparent progress."[14-45]
[Footnote 14-44: Fahy Cmte Hearings, 28 Mar 49,
afternoon session, pp. 28-29.]
[Footnote 14-45: Ibid., p. 29.]
Kenworthy predicted that attacking the Army's theory of military
efficiency would require considerable research by the committee into
Army policy as well as the past performance of black units. Ironically
enough, he got the necessary evidence from the Army itself, in the
person of Roy K. Davenport.[14-46] Davenport's education at Fisk and
Columbia universities had prepared him for the scholar's life, but
Pearl Harbor changed all that, and Davenport eventually landed behind
a desk in the office that managed the Army's manpower affairs. One of
the first black professionals to break through the armed forces racial
barrier, Davenport was not a "Negro specialist" and did not wish to be
one. Nor could he, an experienced government bureaucrat, be blamed if
he saw in the Fahy Committee yet one more well-meaning attempt by (p. 353)
an outside group to reform the Army. Only when Kenworthy convinced him
that this committee was serious about achieving change did Davenport
proceed to explain in great detail how segregation limited the
availability of military occupational specialties, schooling, and
assignments for Negroes.
[Footnote 14-46: Intervs, Blumenson with Fahy, and
author with Fahy.]
[Illustration: E. W. KENWORTHY.]
Kenworthy decided that the time had come for Fahy to meet Davenport,
particularly since the chairman was inclined to be impressed with, and
optimistic over, the Army's response to Johnson's directive of 6 April
1949. Fahy, Kenworthy knew, was unfamiliar with military language and
the fine art practiced by military staffs of stating a purpose in
technical jargon that would permit various interpretations. There was
no fanfare, no dramatic scene. Kenworthy simply invited Fahy and
Davenport, along with the black officers assigned by the services to
assist the committee, to meet informally at his home one evening in
April.[14-47]
[Footnote 14-47: This incident is described in detail
in Interviews, author with Fahy; Davenport, 17 Oct
71; and E. W. Kenworthy (by telephone), 1 Dec 71.
See also Interv, Nichols with Davenport, in Nichols
Collection. All in CMH.]
Never one to waste time, Fahy summarized the committee's activities
thus far, outlined its dealings with Army witnesses, and then handed
out copies of the Army's response to Secretary Johnson's directive.
Fahy was inclined to recommend approval, a course agreed to by the
black officers present, but he nevertheless turned courteously to the
personnel expert from the Department of the Army and asked him for his
opinion of the official Army position. Davenport did not hesitate.
"The directive [the Army's response to Secretary Johnson's 6 April
directive] isn't worth the paper it's written on," he answered. It
called for sweeping changes in the administration of the Army's
training programs, he explained, but would produce no change because
personnel specialists at the training centers would quickly discover
that their existing procedures, which excluded so many qualified black
soldiers, would fit quite comfortably under the document's idealistic
but vague language. The Army's response, Davenport declared, had been
very carefully drawn up to retain segregation rather than to end it.
Chairman Fahy seemed annoyed by this declaration. After all, he had
listened intently to the Army's claims and promises and was inclined
to accept the Army's proposal as a slow, perhaps, but certain way to
bring about racial integration. He was, however, a tough-minded
man and was greatly impressed by the analysis of the situation (p. 354)
presented by the Army employee. When Davenport asked him to reexamine
the directive with eyes open to the possibility of deceit, Fahy walked
to a corner of the room and reread the Army's statement in the light
of Davenport's charges. Witnesses would later remember the flush of
anger that came to his face as he read. His committee was going to
have to hear more from Davenport.
[Illustration: CHARLES FAHY _(a later portrait)_.]
If efficiency was to be the keynote of the committee's investigation,
Davenport explained, it would be a simple thing to prove that the Army
was acting inefficiently. In a morning of complex testimony replete
with statistical analysis of the Army's manpower management, he and
Maj. James D. Fowler, a black West Point graduate and personnel
officer, provided the committee with the needed breakthrough. Step by
step they led Fahy and his associates through the complex workings of
the Army's career guidance program, showing them how segregation
caused the inefficient use of manpower on several counts.[14-48] The
Army, for example, as part of a continuing effort to find men who
_could_ be trained for specialties in which it had a shortage of men,
published a monthly list, the so-called "40 Report," of its authorized
and actual strength in each of its 490 military occupational
specialties. Each of these specialties was further broken down by
race. The committee learned that no authorization existed at all for
Negroes in 198 of these specialties, despite the fact that in many of
them the Army was under its authorized strength. Furthermore, for many
of the specialties in which there were no authorizations for Negroes
no great skill was needed. In short, it was the policy of segregated
service that allowed the Army, which had thousands of jobs unfilled
for lack of trained specialists, to continue to deny training and
assignment to thousands of Negroes whose aptitude test scores showed
them at least minimally suited for those jobs. How could the Army
claim that it was operating efficiently when a shortage existed and
potentially capable persons were being ignored?
[Footnote 14-48: Fahy Cmte Hearings, 28 Apr 49,
morning session.]
One question led to another. If there were no authorizations for black
soldiers in 198 specialties, what were the chances for qualified
Negroes to attend schools that trained men for these specialties? It
turned out that of the 106 school courses available after a man
finished basic training, only twenty-one were open to Negroes. That
is, 81 percent of the courses offered by the Army were closed to
Negroes. The Army denied that discrimination was involved. Since (p. 355)
existing black units could not use the full range of the Army's
military occupational specialties, went the official line of
reasoning, it would be wasteful and inefficient to train men for
nonexistent jobs in those units. It followed that the Organization and
Training Division must exclude many Negroes from being classified in
specialties for which they were qualified and from Army schools that
would train others for such unneeded specialties.
[Illustration: ROY DAVENPORT.]
This reasoning was in the interest of segregation, not efficiency, and
Davenport and others were able to prove to the committee's
satisfaction that the Army's segregation policy could be defended
neither in terms of manpower efficiency nor common fairness. With
Davenport and Fowler's testimony, Charles Fahy later explained, he
began to "see light for a solution."[14-49] He began to see how he would
probably be able to gain the committee's double objective: the
announcement of an integration policy for the Army and the
establishment of a practical program that would immediately begin
moving the Army from segregation to integration.
[Footnote 14-49: Interv, Nichols with Fahy, in Nichols
Collection, CMH.]
In fact, military efficiency was a potent weapon which, if skillfully
handled, might well force the Army into important concessions leading
to integration. Taking its cue from Davenport and Fowler, the
committee would contend that, as the increasing complexity of war had
created a demand for skilled manpower, the country could ill-afford to
use any of its soldiers below their full capacity or fail to train
them adequately. With a logic understandable to President and public
alike, the committee could later state that since maximum military
efficiency demanded that all servicemen be given an equal opportunity
to discover and exploit their talents, an indivisible link existed
between military efficiency and equal opportunity.[14-50] Thus equal
opportunity in the name of military efficiency became one of the
committee's basic premises; until the end of its existence the
committee hammered away at this premise.
[Footnote 14-50: Fahy Cmte, "Second Interim Report to
the President," 27 Jul 49, FC file.]
While the committee's logic was unassailable when applied to the
plight of a relatively small number of talented and qualified black
soldiers, a different solution would have to prevail when the far
larger number of Negroes ineligible for Army schooling either by
talent, inclination, or previous education was considered. Here the
Army's plea for continued segregation in the name of military efficiency
carried some weight. How could it, the Army asked, endanger the
morale and efficiency of its fighting forces by integrating these (p. 356)
men? How could it, with its low enlistment standards, abandon its
racial quota and risk enlarging the already burdensome concentration
of "professional black privates?" The committee admitted the justice
of the Army's claim that the higher enlistment score required by the
Navy and Air Force resulted in the Army's getting more than its share
of men in the low-test categories IV and V. And while Kenworthy
believed that immediate integration was less likely to cause serious
trouble than the Army's announced plan of mixing the races in
progressively smaller units, he too accepted the argument that it
would be dangerous to reassign the Army's group of professional black
privates to white units. Fahy saw the virtue of the Army's position
here; his committee never demanded the immediate, total integration of
the Army.
One solution to the problem, reducing the number of soldiers with low
aptitude by forcing the other services to share equally in the burden
of training and assimilating the less gifted and often black enlistee
and draftee, had recently been rejected by the Navy and Air Force, a
rejection endorsed by Secretary of Defense Forrestal. Even in the
event that the Army could raise its enlistment standards and the other
services be induced to lower theirs, much time would elapse before the
concentration of undereducated Negroes could be broken up. Davenport
was aware of all this when he limited his own recommendations to the
committee to matters concerning the integration of black specialists,
the opening of all Army schools to Negroes, and the establishment of
some system to monitor the Army's implementation of these reforms.[14-51]
[Footnote 14-51: Interv, author with Davenport, 31 Oct
71.]
Having gained some experience, the committee was now able to turn the
Army's efficiency argument against the racial quota. It decided that
the quota had helped defeat the Gillem Board's aim of using Negroes on
a broad professional scale. It pointed out that, when forced by
manpower needs and the selective service law to set a lower enlistment
standard, the Army had allowed its black quota to be filled to a great
extent by professional privates and denied to qualified black men, who
could be used on a broad professional scale, the chance to enlist.[14-52]
It was in the name of military efficiency, therefore, that the
committee adopted a corollary to its demand for equal opportunity in
specialist training and assignment: the racial quota must be abandoned
in favor of a quota based on aptitude.
[Footnote 14-52: Fahy Cmte, "Initial Recommendations
by the President's Committee on Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services,"
attached to Fahy Cmte, "A Progress Report for the
President", 7 Jun 49, FC file.]
Fahy was not sure, he later admitted, how best to proceed at this
point with the efficiency issue, but his committee obviously had to
come up with some kind of program if only to preserve its
administrative independence in the wake of Secretary Johnson's
directive. As Kenworthy pointed out, short of demanding the
elimination of all segregated units, there was little the committee
could do that went beyond Johnson's statement.[14-53] Fahy, at least, was
not prepared to settle for that. His solution, harmonizing with his
belief in the efficacy of long-range practical change and his estimate
of the committee's strength vis-a-vis the services' strength, was (p. 357)
to prepare a "list of suggestions to guide the Army and Navy in its
[_sic_] determinations."[14-54] The suggestions, often referred to by
the committee as its "Initial Recommendations," would in the fullness
of time, Fahy thought, effect substantial reforms in the way the Negro
was employed by the services.
[Footnote 14-53: Ltr, Kenworthy to Fahy, 5 May 49,
Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-54: Fahy Cmte, "A Progress Report for the
President," 7 Jun 49, FC file.]
The committee's recommendations, sent to the Personnel Policy Board in
late May 1949, are easily summarized.[14-55] Questioning why the Navy's
policy, "so progressive on its face," had attracted so few Negroes
into the general service, the committee suggested that Negroes
remembered the Navy's old habit of restricting them to servant duties.
It wanted the Navy to aim a vigorous recruitment program at the black
community in order to counteract this lingering suspicion. At the same
time the committee wanted the Navy to make a greater effort among
black high school students to attract qualified Negroes into the Naval
Reserve Officers' Training Corps program. To reinforce these campaigns
and to remove one more vestige of racial inequality in naval service,
the committee also suggested that the Navy give to chief stewards all
the perquisites of chief petty officers. The lack of this rating, in
particular, had continued to cast doubt on the Navy's professed
policy, the committee charged. "There is no reason, except custom, why
the chief steward should not be a chief petty officer, and that custom
seems hardly worth the suspicion it evokes." Finally, the committee
wanted the Navy to adopt the same entry standards as the Army. It
rejected the Navy's claim that men who scored below ninety were
unusable in the general service and called for an analysis by outside
experts to determine what jobs in the Navy could be performed by men
who scored between seventy and ninety. At the same time the committee
reiterated that it did not intend the Navy or any of the services to
lower the qualifications for their highly skilled positions.
[Footnote 14-55: Min, War Council Mtg, 24 May 49; Fahy
Cmte, "Initial Recommendations by the President's
Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity
in the Armed Services," attached to Fahy Cmte, "A
Progress Report for the President", 7 Jun 49, FC
file. Excerpts from the "Initial Recommendations"
were sent to the services via the Personnel Policy
Board, which explains the document in the SecNav's
files with the penciled notation "Excerpt from Fahy
Recommendation 5/19." See also Ltr, Kenworthy to
Fahy, 16 May 49, Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]
The committee also suggested to the Air Force that it establish a
common enlistment standard along with the other services. Commenting
that the Air Force had apparently been able to use efficiently
thousands of men with test scores below ninety in the past, the
committee doubted that the contemporary differential in Air Force and
Army standards was justified. With a bow to Secretary Symington's new
and limited integration policy, the committee deferred further
recommendations.
It showed no such reluctance when it came to the Army. It wanted the
Army to abolish racial considerations in the designation of military
occupational specialties, attendance at its schools, and use of its
school graduates in their military specialties. In line with the
establishment of a parity of enlistment standards among the services,
the committee wanted the Army to abandon its racial quotas. The
committee did not insist on an immediate end to segregation in the
Army, believing that no matter how desirable, such a drastic change
could not be accomplished, as Davenport had warned, without very (p. 358)
serious administrative confusion. Besides, there were other pragmatic
reasons for adopting the gradualist approach. For the committee to
demand immediate and complete integration would risk an outcry from
Capitol Hill that might endanger the whole reform program. Gradual
change, on the other hand, would allow time for qualified Negroes to
attend school courses, and the concept that Negroes had a right to
equal educational opportunities was one that was very hard for the
segregationists to attack, given the American belief in education and
the right of every child to its benefits.[14-56] If the Army could be
persuaded to adopt these recommendations, the committee reasoned, the
Army itself would gradually abolish segregation. The committee's
formula for equality of treatment and opportunity in the Army,
therefore, was simple and straightforward, but each of its parts had
to be accepted to achieve the whole.
[Footnote 14-56: Memo, Kenworthy for Chief of Military
History, 13 Oct 76, CMH.]
As it was, the committee's program for gradual change proved to be a
rather large dose for senior service officials. An Army representative
on the Personnel Policy Board staff characterized the committee's work
as "presumptuous," "subjective," and "argumentative." He also charged
the committee with failing to interpret the executive order and thus
leaving unclear whether the President wanted across-the-board
integration, and if so how soon.[14-57] The Personnel Policy Board
ignored these larger questions when it considered the subject on 26
May, focusing its opposition instead on two of the committee's
recommendations. It wanted Secretary Johnson to make "a strong
representation" to Fahy against the suggestion that there be a parity
of scores for enlistment in the services. The board also unanimously
opposed the committee's suggestion that the Army send all qualified
Negroes to specialty schools within eighteen months of enlistment,
arguing that such a policy would be administratively impossible to
enforce and would discriminate against white servicemen.[14-58]
[Footnote 14-57: Col J. F. Cassidy, Comments on
Initial Recommendations of Fahy Committee (ca. 26
May 49) FC file.]
[Footnote 14-58: Min, PPB Mtg, 26 May 49, FC file.]
Chairman Reid temporized somewhat in his recommendations to Secretary
Johnson. He admitted that the whole question of parity of entrance
standards was highly controversial. He recognized the justice in
establishing universal standards for enlistment through selective
service, but at the same time he believed it unfair to ask any service
to accept volunteers of lesser quality than it could obtain through
good enlistment and recruitment methods. He wanted Johnson to
concentrate his attack on the parity question.[14-59]
[Footnote 14-59: Memo, Reid for Under SecDef, 23 May
49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in
the Armed Services; idem for SecDef, 1 Jun 49, sub:
Fahy Committee Initial Recommendations--Discussion
With Members of the Fahy Committee; both in PPB
files. See also Memo, Ohly for Reid, 26 May 49,
sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the
Armed Services, FC file.]
Before Johnson could act on his personnel group's recommendations, the
Army and Navy formally submitted their second replies to his directive
on the executive order. Surprisingly, the services provided a measure
of support for the Fahy Committee. For its part, the Navy was under
particular pressure to develop an acceptable program. It, after all,
had been the first to announce a general integration policy for which
it had, over the years, garnered considerable praise. But now it (p. 359)
was losing this psychological advantage under steady and persistent
criticism from civil rights leaders, the President's committee, and,
finally, the Secretary of Defense himself. Proud of its racial policy
and accustomed to the rapport it had always enjoyed with Forrestal,
the Navy was suddenly confronted with a new Secretary of Defense who
bluntly noted its "lack of any response" to his 6 April directive,
thus putting the Navy in the same league as the Army.
Secretary Johnson's rejection of the Navy's response made a
reexamination of its race program imperative, but it was still
reluctant to follow the Fahy Committee's proposals completely.
Although the personnel bureau had already planned special recruitment
programs, as well as a survey of all jobs in the Navy and the mental
requirements for each, the idea of making chief petty officers out of
chief stewards caused "great anger and resentment in the upper reaches
of BuPers," Capt. Fred Stickney of the bureau admitted to a
representative of the committee. Stickney was confident that the
bureau's opposition to this change could be surmounted, but he was not
so sure that the Navy would surrender on the issue of equality of
enlistment standards. The committee's arguments to the contrary, the
Navy remained convinced that standardizing entrance requirements for
all the services would mean "lowering the calibre of men taken into
the Navy."[14-60]
[Footnote 14-60: Ltr, Kenworthy to Fahy, 24 May 49, FC
file.]
But even here the Navy proved unexpectedly conciliatory. Replying to
the Secretary of Defense a second time on 23 May, Acting Secretary Dan
Kimball committed the Navy to a program that incorporated to a great
extent the recommendations of the Fahy Committee, including raising
the status of chief stewards and integrating recruit training in the
Marine Corps. While he did not agree with the committee's proposal for
equality of enlistment standards, Kimball broke the solid opposition
to the committee's recommendation on this subject by promising to
study the issue to determine where men who scored less than forty-five
(the equivalent of General Classification Test score ninety) could be
used without detriment to the Navy.[14-61]
[Footnote 14-61: Memo, Actg SecNav for SecDef, 23 May
49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in
the Armed Forces, FC file.]
The question of parity of enlistment standards aside, the Navy's
program generally followed the suggestions of the Fahy Committee, and
Chairman Reid urged Johnson to accept it.[14-62] The secretary's
acceptance was announced on 7 June and was widely reported in the
press.[14-63]
[Footnote 14-62: Draft Memo, Reid for SecNav, 3 Jun
49, and Memo, Reid for SecDef, 1 Jun 49, both in
PPB files; Memo, Kenworthy for Fahy, 30 May 49,
sub: Replies of Army and Navy to Mr. Johnson's May
11 Memo, FC file.]
[Footnote 14-63: NME, Off of Pub Info, Release 78-49A,
7 Jun 49. See Washington _Post_, June 7, 1949, and
New York _Times_, June 8, 1949.]
To some extent the Army had an advantage over the Navy in its dealings
with Johnson and Fahy. It never had an integration policy to defend,
had in fact consistently opposed the imposition of one, and was not,
therefore, under the same psychological pressures to react positively
to the secretary's latest rebuff. Determined to defend its current
interpretation of the Gillem Board policy, the Army resisted the
Personnel Policy Board's use of the Air Force plan, Secretary Johnson's
directive, and the initial recommendations of the Fahy Committee (p. 360)
to pry out of it a new commitment to integrate. In lieu of such a
commitment, Acting Secretary of the Army Gordon Gray[14-64] offered
Secretary Johnson another spirited defense of Circular 124 on 26 May,
promising that the Army's next step would be to integrate black
companies in the white battalions of the combat arms. This step could
not be taken, he added, until the reactions to placing black
battalions in white regiments and black companies in composite
battalions had been observed in detail over a period of time. Gray
remained unmoved by the committee's appeal for the wider use and
broader training of the talented black soldiers in the name of combat
efficiency and continued to defend the _status quo_. He cited with
feeling the case of the average black soldier who because of his
"social environment" had most often missed the opportunity to develop
leadership abilities and who against the direct competition with the
better educated white soldier would find it difficult to "rise above
the level of service tasks." Segregation, Gray claimed, was giving
black soldiers the chance to develop leadership "unhindered and
unfettered by overshadowing competition they are not yet equipped to
meet." He would be remiss in his duties, he warned Johnson, if he
failed to report the concern of many senior officers who believed that
the Army had already gone too far in inserting black units into white
units and that "we are weakening to a dangerous degree the combat
efficiency of our Army."[14-65]
[Footnote 14-64: Following the resignation of
Secretary Royall, President Truman nominated Gordon
Gray as Secretary of the Army. His appointment was
confirmed by the Senate on 13 June 1949. A lawyer,
Gray had been a newspaper publisher in North
Carolina before his appointment as assistant
secretary in 1947.]
[Footnote 14-65: Memo, Actg SA for SecDef, 26 May 49,
sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the
Armed Services; see also P&A Summary Sheet, 19 May
49, same sub, FC file.]
The Army's response found the Fahy Committee and the office of the
Secretary of Defense once again in agreement. The committee rejected
Gray's statement, and Kenworthy drew up a point-by-point rebuttal. He
contended that unless the Army took intermediate steps, its first
objective, a specific quota of black units segregated at the battalion
level, would always block the realization of integration, its ultimate
objective.[14-66] The secretary's Personnel Policy Board struck an even
harder blow. Chairman Reid called Gray's statement a rehash of Army
accomplishments "with no indication of significant change or step
forward." It ignored the committee's recommendations. In particular,
and in contrast to the Navy, which had agreed to restudy the
enlistment parity question, the Army had rejected the committee's
request that it reconsider its quota system. Reid's blunt advice to
Johnson: reject the Army's reply and demand a new one by a definite
and early date.[14-67]
[Footnote 14-66: Memo, Kenworthy for Fahy, 30 May 49,
sub: Replies of Army and Navy to Mr. Johnson's May
11 Memo, FC file.]
[Footnote 14-67: Memo, Reid for SecDef, 1 Jun 49, sub:
Army and Navy Replies to Your Memorandum of 6 April
on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the
Army Services; Min, PPB Mtg, 2 Jun 49; both in FC
file.]
Members of the Fahy Committee met with Johnson and Reid on 1 June.
Despite the antagonism that was growing between the Secretary of
Defense and the White House group, the meeting produced several notable
agreements. For his part, Johnson, accepting the recommendations of
Fahy and Reid, agreed to reject the Army's latest response and (p. 361)
order the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff to confer
informally with the committee in an attempt to produce an acceptable
program. At the same time, Johnson made no move to order a common
enlistment standard; he told Fahy that the matter was extremely
controversial and setting such standards would involve rescinding
previous interdepartmental agreements. On the committee's behalf, Fahy
agreed to reword the recommendation on schooling for all qualified
Negroes within eighteen months of enlistment and to discuss further
the parity issue.[14-68]
[Footnote 14-68: Min, PPB Mtg, 2 Jun 49; Ltr, Fahy to
Johnson, 25 Jul 49, FC file.]
[Illustration: PRESS NOTICE. _Rejection of the Army's second proposal
as seen by the Afro-American, June 14, 1949._]
General Lanham endorsed the committee's belief that there was a need
for practical, intermediate steps when he drafted a response to the
Army for Secretary Johnson to sign. "It is my conviction," he wanted
Johnson to say, "that the Department of the Army must meet this issue
[the equal opportunity imposed by Executive Order 9981] squarely and
that its action, no matter how modest or small at its inception, must
be progressive in spirit and carry with it the unmistakable promise of
an ultimate solution in consonance with the Chief Executive's position
and our national policy."[14-69]
[Footnote 14-69: Draft Memo, Lanham for SecDef, 2 Jun
49, FC file.]
But the Army received no such specific instruction. Although Johnson
rejected the Army's second reply and demanded another based on a
careful consideration of the Fahy Committee's recommendations,[14-70]
he deleted Lanham's demand for immediate steps toward providing equal
opportunity. Johnson's rejection of Lanham's proposal--a tacit
rejection of the committee's basic premise as well--did not
necessarily indicate a shift in Johnson's position, but it did
establish a basis for future rivalry between the secretary and the
committee. Until now Johnson and the committee, through the medium of
the Personnel Policy Board, had worked in an informal partnership
whose fruitfulness was readily apparent in the development of
acceptable Navy and Air Force programs and in Johnson's rejection of
the Army's inadequate responses. But this cooperation was to be (p. 362)
short-lived; it would disappear altogether as the Fahy Committee began
to press the Army, while the Secretary of Defense, in reaction, began
to draw closer to the Army's position.[14-71]
[Footnote 14-70: Memo, SecDef for SA, 7 Jun 49, sub:
Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Services; NME, Off of Pub Info, Press Release
78-49A, 7 Jun 49. The secretary gave the Army a new
deadline of 20 June, but by mutual agreement of all
concerned this date was postponed several times and
finally left to the Secretary of the Army to submit
his program "at his discretion," although at the
earliest possible date. See Memo, T. Reid for Maj
Gen Levin Allen, 6 Jul 49, sub: Army Reply to the
Secretary of Defense on Equality of Treatment; Min,
PPB Mtg, 18 Aug 49. All in FC file.]
[Footnote 14-71: Interv, author with Kenworthy.]
_A Summer of Discontent_
The committee approached its negotiations with the Army with
considerable optimism. Kenworthy was convinced that the committee's
moderate and concrete recommendations had reassured Reid and the
Personnel Policy Board and would strengthen its hand in dealing with
the recalcitrant Army,[14-72] and Fahy, outlining for the President the
progress the committee had made with the services, said that he looked
forward to his coming meetings with Gray and Bradley.[14-73]
[Footnote 14-72: Ltr, Kenworthy to Fahy, 20 May 49,
Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-73: Fahy Cmte, "A Progress Report for the
President," 7 Jun 49, FC file.]
To remove any unnecessary obstacle to what Fahy hoped would be
fruitful sessions, the committee revised its initial recommendations
to the Army. First, as Fahy had promised Johnson, it modified its
position on guaranteeing qualified black soldiers already assigned to
units the opportunity to attend Army schools within eighteen months.
Calling the imbroglio over this issue a mere misunderstanding--the
committee did not intend that preferential treatment be given Negroes
nor that the Army train more people than it needed--Fahy explained to
Johnson that the committee only wanted to make sure that qualified
Negroes would have the same chance as qualified white men. It would be
happy, Fahy said, to work with the Army on rewording the
recommendation.[14-74] The committee also added the suggestion that so
long as racial units existed, the Army might permit enlisted men in
the four lowest grades, at their request, to remain in a unit
predominantly composed of men of their own race. This provision,
however, was not to extend to officers and noncommissioned officers in
the top three grades, who received their promotions on a worldwide
competitive basis. Finally, the committee offered a substitute for the
numerical quota it wanted abolished. So that the Army would not get
too many low-scoring recruits, either black or white, the committee
proposed a separate quota for each category in the classification test
scores. Only so many voluntary enlistments would be accepted in
categories I through III, their numbers based on the normal spread of
scores that existed in both the wartime and peacetime Army. If the
Army netted more high scorers than average in any period, it would
induct fewer men from the next category. It would also deny
reenlistment to any man scoring less than eighty (category IV).[14-75]
[Footnote 14-74: Ltr, Fahy to Johnson, 15 Jun 49, FC
file.]
[Footnote 14-75: Idem to SA, 25 Jul 49, FC file.]
After meeting first with Gray and then the Chief of Staff, Fahy called
the sessions "frank and cordial" and saw some prospect of accord,
although their positions were still far apart.[14-76] Just how far
apart had already become apparent on 5 July when Gray presented (p. 363)
Fahy with an outline for yet another program for using black soldiers.
This new program was based in part on the comments of the field
commanders, and the Director of Personnel and Administration warned
that "beyond the steps listed in this plan, there is very little major
compromise area left short of complete integration."[14-77] While the
Army plan differed from the committee's recommendations in many ways,
in essence the disagreement was limited to two fundamental points.
Determined to retain segregated units, the Army opposed the
reassignment of school-trained Negroes to vacancies in white units;
and in order to prevent an influx of Negroes in the low achievement
categories, the Army was determined to retain the numerical
quota.[14-78]
[Footnote 14-76: Idem to SecDef, 25 Jul 49, FC file.]
[Footnote 14-77: P&A Summary Sheet to DC/S (Adm), 24
Jun 49, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, CSUSA
291.2 Negroes. For comments of Army commanders, see
the following Memos: Wade H. Haislip (DC/S Adm) for
Army Cmdrs, 8 Jun 49, sub: Draft Recommendations of
Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity;
Lt Gen M. S. Eddy for CofS, 10 Jun 49, same sub; Lt
Gen W. B. Smith for CofS, 10 Jun 49, same sub; Lt
Gen S. J. Chamberlain, 5th Army Cmdr, for CofS, 13
Jun 49, same sub; Lt Gen John R. Hodge for CofS, 14
Jun 49, same sub; Gen Jacob Devers, 13 Jun 49, same
sub; Gen Thomas T. Handy, 4th Army Cmdr, for CofS,
10 Jun 49, sub: Comments on Fahy Committee Draft
Recommendations. All in CSUSA 291.2 Negroes.]
[Footnote 14-78: An Outline Plan for Utilization of
Negro Manpower Submitted by the Army to the
President's Committee, 5 Jul 49, Incl to Ltr, Fahy
to SecDef, 25 Jul 49, FC file. See also Ltr,
Kenworthy to Fahy, 23 Jun 49, Fahy Papers, Truman
Library; Fahy Cmte, "Meeting to Discuss the
Proposals Made by the Army as Preliminary to the
Third Response," 11 Jul 49, FC file.]
The committee argued that if the Army was to train men according to
their ability, hence efficiently, and in accord with the principle of
equality, it must consider assigning them without regard to race. It
could not see how removal of the numerical quota would result in a
flood of Negroes joining the Army, but it could see how retaining the
quota would prevent the enlistment of blacks for long periods of time.
These two provisions--that school-trained Negroes be freely assigned
and that the quota be abolished--were really the heart of the
committee's plan and hope for the gradual integration of the Army. The
provisions would not require the abolition of racial units "at this
time," Fahy explained to President Truman, but they would gradually
extend the integration already practiced in overhead installations and
Army schools. The committee could not demand any less, he confessed,
in light of the President's order.[14-79]
[Footnote 14-79: Ltrs, Fahy to SecDef and SA, 25 Jul
49; idem to President, 27 Jul 49. All in FC file.]
The committee and the Army had reached a stalemate. As a staff member
of the Personnel Policy Board put it, their latest proposal and
counterproposals were simply extensions of what had long been put
forth by both parties. He advised Chairman Reid to remain neutral
until both sides presented their "total proposal."[14-80] But the
press was not remaining neutral. The New York _Times_, for example,
accused the Army of stalling and equivocating, engaging in a "private
insurrection," and trying "to preserve a pattern of bigotry which
caricatures the democratic cause in every corner of the world." There
was no room for compromise, the _Times_ added, and President Truman
could not retreat without abdicating as Commander in Chief.[14-81]
Secretary Gray countered with a statement that the Army was still (p. 364)
under injunction from the Secretary of Defense to submit a new race
program, and he was contemplating certain new proposals on the
military occupational specialty issue.[14-82]
[Footnote 14-80: Memo, Col J. F. Cassidy for Reid, 23
Aug 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity
in the Department of the Army, FC file.]
[Footnote 14-81: New York _Times_, July 16 and 18,
1949.]
[Footnote 14-82: Interv, NBC's "Meet the Press" with
Gordon Gray, 18 Jul 49; Ltr, SecDef to Charles
Fahy, 3 Aug 49, FC file.]
The Army staff did prepare another reply for the Secretary of Defense,
and on 16 September Gray met with Fahy and others to discuss it.
General Wade H. Haislip, the Vice Chief of Staff, claimed privately to
Gray that the new reply was almost identical with the plan presented
to the committee on 5 July and that the new concessions on
occupational specialties would only require the conversion of some
units from white to black.[14-83] Haislip, however, had not reckoned
with the concession that Gray was prepared to make to Fahy. Gray
accepted in principle the committee's argument that the assignment of
black graduates of specialist schools should not be limited to black
units or overhead positions but could be used to fill vacancies in any
unit. At the same time, he remained adamant on the quota. When the
committee spoke hopefully of the advantages of an Army open to all,
the Army contemplated fearfully the racial imbalance that might
result. The future was to prove the committee right about the
advantages, but as of September 1949 Gray and his subordinates had no
intention of giving up the quota.[14-84] Gray did agree, however, to
continue studying the quota issue with the committee, and Fahy
optimistically reported to President Truman: "It is the Committee's
expectation that it will be able within a few weeks to make a formal
report to you on a complete list of changes in Army policy and
practices."[14-85]
[Footnote 14-83: Memo, VCofS for Gray, 29 Aug 49, sub:
Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Services, CSUSA 291.2 Negroes.]
[Footnote 14-84: Interv, Nichols with Gordon Gray,
1953, in Nichols Collection, CMH; Memo, Kenworthy
for Cmte, 19 Sep 49, sub: Meeting With Gray, 16 Sep
49, Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-85: Ltrs, Fahy to President, 21 Sep and
26 Sep 49, both in FC file.]
Fahy made his prediction before Secretary of Defense Johnson took a
course of action that, in effect, rendered the committee's position
untenable. On 30 September Johnson received from Gray a new program
for the employment of black troops. Without reference to the Fahy
Committee, Johnson approved the proposal and announced it to the
press. Gray's program opened all military occupational specialties to
all qualified men, abolished racial quotas for the Army's schools, and
abolished racially separate promotion systems and standards. But it
also specifically called for retention of the racial quota on
enlistments and conspicuously failed to provide for the assignment of
black specialists beyond those jobs already provided by the old Gillem
Board policy.[14-86] Secretary Gray had asked for Fahy's personal
approval before forwarding the plan discussed by the two men at such
length, but Fahy refused; he wanted the plan submitted to his full
committee. When Johnson received the plan he did not consult the
committee at all, although he briefly referred it to the acting
chairman of the Personnel Policy Board, who interposed no
objection.[14-87]
[Footnote 14-86: Memo, SA for SecDef, 30 Sep 49, sub:
Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Services, CSGPA 291.2; DOD, Off of Pub Info, Press
Release 256-49, 30 Sep 49, FC file.]
[Footnote 14-87: Memo, Kenworthy for Cmte, 27 Sep 49,
sub: Army's Reply to Secretary Johnson, Fahy
Papers, Truman Library; Note, handwritten and
signed McCrea, attached to memo, SA for SecDef, 30
Sep 49; Memo, Thompson for Leva, 3 Oct 49, sub:
Army Policy of Equality of Treatment and
Opportunity, CD 30-1-4; both in SecDef files.]
It is not difficult to understand Johnson's reasons for ignoring (p. 365)
the President's committee. He had been forced to endure public
criticism over the protracted negotiations between the Army and the
committee. Among liberal elements on Capitol Hill, his position--that
his directive and the service replies made legislation to prohibit
segregation in the services unnecessary--was obviously being
compromised by the lack of an acceptable Army response.[14-88] In a
word, the argument over civil rights in the armed forces had become a
political liability for Louis Johnson, and he wanted it out of the
way. Glossing over the Army's truculence, Johnson blamed the committee
and its recommendations for his problem, and when his frontal assault
on the committee failed--Kenworthy reported that the secretary tried
to have the committee disbanded--he had to devise another
approach.[14-89] The Army's new proposal, a more reasonable-sounding
document than its predecessor, provided him with a convenient
opportunity. Why not quickly approve the program, thereby presenting
the committee with a _fait accompli_ and leaving the President with
little excuse for prolonging the civil rights negotiations?
[Footnote 14-88: Ltr, SecDef to Congressman Vinson, 7
Jul 49; Memo, Lanham for Reid, 29 Mar 49; both in
PPB files.]
[Footnote 14-89: Ltr, Kenworthy to Nichols, 28 Jul 53,
in Nichols Collection, CMH.]
Unfortunately for Johnson the gambit failed. While Fahy admitted that
the Army's newest proposal was an improvement, for several reasons he
could not accept it. The assignment of black specialists to white
units was a key part of the committee's program, and despite Gray's
private assurances that specialists would be integrated, Fahy was not
prepared to accept the Army's "equivocal" language on this subject.
There was also the issue of the quota, still very much alive between
the committee and the Army. The committee was bound, furthermore, to
resent being ignored in the approval process. Fahy and his associates
had been charged by the President with advising the services on
equality of treatment and opportunity, and they were determined to be
heard.[14-90] Fahy informed the White House that the committee would
review the Army's proposal in an extraordinary meeting. He asked that
the President meanwhile refrain from comment.[14-91]
[Footnote 14-90: Memo, Kenworthy to Cmte, 27 Sep 49,
sub: Army's Reply to Secretary Johnson, and Ltr,
Kenworthy to Joseph Evans, 30 Sep 49, both in Fahy
Papers, Truman Library; Memo, Worthington Thompson
for Leva, 3 Oct 49, sub: Army Policy of Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity, SecDef files; Ltr,
Kenworthy to Nichols, 28 Jul 53, in Nichols
Collection, CMH.]
[Footnote 14-91: Memo for Rcd, probably written by
Philleo Nash, 3 Oct 49, Nash Collection, Truman
Library.]
The committee's stand received support from the black press and
numerous national civil rights organizations, all of which excoriated
the Army's position.[14-92] David K. Niles, the White House adviser on
racial matters, warned President Truman about the rising controversy
and predicted that the committee would again reject the Army's
proposal. He advised the President to tell the press that Johnson's
news release was merely a "progress report," that it was not final,
and that the committee was continuing its investigation.[14-93] The
President did just that, adding: "Eventually we will reach, I (p. 366)
hope, what we contemplated in the beginning. You can't do it all at
once. The progress report was a good report, and it isn't finished
yet."[14-94] And lest his purpose remain unclear, the President
declared that his aim was the racial integration of the Army.
[Footnote 14-92: See Los Angeles _Star Review_,
October 6, 1949; _Afro-American_, October 8, 1949;
Washington _Post_, October 6, 1949; Pittsburgh
_Courier_, Octobers, 1949; Norfolk _Journal and
Guide_, October 15, 1949; New York _Amsterdam
News_, October 15, 1949.]
[Footnote 14-93: Ltr, Niles to President, 5 Oct 49,
Nash Collection, Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-94: News Conference, 6 Oct 49, as quoted
in _Public Papers of the President: Harry S.
Truman, 1949_, p. 501.]
The President's statement signaled a victory for the committee; its
extent became apparent only when the Army tried to issue a new
circular, revising its Gillem Board policy along the lines of the
outline plan approved by Johnson on 30 September. During the weeks of
protracted negotiations that followed, the committee clearly remained
in control, its power derived basically from its willingness to have
the differences between the committee and the Army publicized and the
reluctance of the White House to have it so. The attitudes toward
publicity were already noticeable when, on 11 October, Fahy suggested
to Truman some possible solutions to the impasse between the committee
and the Army. The Secretary of Defense could issue a supplementary
statement on the Army's assignment policy, the committee could release
its recommendations to the press, or the Army and the committee could
resume discussions.[14-95]
[Footnote 14-95: Memo, Fahy for President, 11 Oct 49,
FC file.]
President Truman ordered his military aide to read the committee's 11
October suggestion and "then take [it] up with Johnson."[14-96] As a
result the Secretary of Defense retired from the controversy.
Reminding Gray through intermediaries that he had approved the Army's
plan in outline form, Johnson declared that it was "inappropriate" for
him to approve the plan's publication as an Army circular as the Army
had requested.[14-97] About the same time, Niles informed the Army
that any revision of Circular 124 would have to be submitted to the
White House before publication, and he candidly admitted that
presidential approval would depend on the views of the Fahy
Committee.[14-98] Meanwhile, his assistant, Philleo Nash, predicting
that the committee would win both the assignment and quota arguments,
persuaded Fahy to postpone any public statement until after the Army's
revised circular had been reviewed by the committee.[14-99]
[Footnote 14-96: Penciled Note, signed HST, on Memo,
Niles for President, Secretary's File (PSF), Truman
Library.]
[Footnote 14-97: Memo, Maj Gen Levin C. Allen, Exec
Secy, SecDef, for SA, 14 Oct 49; Memo, Vice Adm
John McCrea, Dir of Staff, PPB, for Allen, 25 Oct
49; both in CD 30-1-4, SecDef files.]
[Footnote 14-98: Memo for Rcd, Karl Bendetsen, Spec
Consultant to SA, 28 Nov 49, SA files; Ltr,
Kenworthy to Fahy, 22 Nov 49, and Memo, Kenworthy
for Fahy Cmte, 29 Oct 49, sub: Background to
Proposed Letter to Gray; both in Fahy Papers,
Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-99: Ltr, Fahy to Cmte, 17 Nov 49, Fahy
Papers, Truman Library.]
Chairman Fahy was fully aware of the leverage these actions gave his
committee, although he and his associates now had few illusions about
the speedy end to the contest. "I know from the best authority within
P&A," Kenworthy warned the committee, that the obstructionists in Army
Personnel hoped to see the committee submit final recommendations--"what
its recommendations are they don't much care"--and then disband. Until
the committee disbanded, its opponents would try to block any real
change in Army policy.[14-100] Kenworthy offered in evidence the
current controversy over the Army's instructions to its field
commanders. These instructions, a copy of the outline plan (p. 367)
approved by Secretary Johnson, had been sent to the commanders by The
Adjutant General on 1 October as "additional policies" pending a
revision of Circular 124.[14-101] Included in the message, of course,
was Gray's order to open all military occupational specialties to
Negroes; but when some commanders, on the basis of their
interpretation of the message, began integrating black specialists in
white units, officials in the Personnel and Administration and the
Organization and Training Divisions dispatched a second message on 27
October specifically forbidding such action "except on Department of
Army orders."[14-102] Negroes would continue to be authorized for
assignment to black units, the message explained, and to "Negro spaces
in T/D [overhead] units." In effect, the Army staff was ordering
commanders to interpret the secretary's plan in its narrowest sense,
blocking any possibility of broadening the range of black assignments.
[Footnote 14-100: Memo, Kenworthy for Cmte, 29 Oct 49,
sub: Background to Proposed Letter to Gray, Fahy
Papers, Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-101: Msg, TAG to Chief, AFF, et al., WCL
45586, 011900Z Oct 49, copy in AG 220.3.]
[Footnote 14-102: Memo, D/PA for TAG, 25 Oct 49, sub:
Assignment of Negro Enlisted Personnel, with
attached Memo for Rcd, Col John H. Riepe, Chief,
Manpower Control Gp, D/PA; Memo, Deputy Dir, PA,
for Gen Brooks (Dir of PA), 3 Nov 49, same sub;
Msg, TAG to Chief, AFF, et al., WCL 20682, 27 Oct
49. All in CSGPA 291.2 (25 Oct 49).]
Kenworthy was able to turn this incident to the committee's advantage.
He made a practice of never locking his Pentagon office door nor his
desk drawer. He knew that Negroes, both civilian and military, worked
in the message centers, and he suspected that if any hanky-panky was
afoot they would discover it and he would be anonymously apprised of
it. A few days after the dispatch of the second message, Kenworthy
opened his desk drawer to find a copy. For the first and only time, he
later explained, he broke his self-imposed rule of relying on
negotiations between the military and the committee and its staff _in
camera_. He laid both messages before a long-time friend of his, the
editor of the Washington _Post_'s editorial page.[14-103] Thus
delivered to the press, the second message brought on another round of
accusations, corrections, and headlines to the effect that "The Brass
Gives Gray the Run-Around." Kenworthy was able to denounce the
incident as a "step backward" that even violated the Gillem Board
policy by allocating "Negro spaces" in overhead units. The Army
staff's second message nullified the committee's recommendations since
they depended ultimately on the unlimited assignment of black
specialists. The message demonstrated very well, Kenworthy told the
committee, that careful supervision of the Army's racial policy would
be necessary.[14-104] Some newspapers were less charitable. The
Pittsburgh _Courier_ charged that the colonel blamed for the release
of the second message had been made the "goat" in a case that involved
far more senior officials, and the Washington _Post_ claimed that the
message "vitiates" even the limited improvements outlined in the
Army's plan as approved by Secretary Johnson. The paper called on
Secretary Gray to assert himself in the case.[14-105]
[Footnote 14-103: Memo, Kenworthy for Chief of
Military History, 13 Oct 76, CMH.]
[Footnote 14-104: Idem for Cmte, 29 Oct 49, sub:
Instructions to Commanding Generals on New Army
Policy, Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-105: Lem Graves, Jr. (Washington
correspondent of the Pittsburgh _Courier_), "A
Colonel Takes the Rap," Pittsburgh _Courier_,
October 29, 1949; Washington _Post_, November 3,
1949.]
A furious secretary, learning of the second message from the press (p. 368)
stories, did enter the case. Branding the document a violation of his
announced policy, he had it rescinded and, publicizing a promise made
earlier to the committee, announced that qualified black specialists
would be assigned to some white units.[14-106] At the same time Gray
was not prepared to admit that the incident demonstrated how open his
plan was to evasion, just as he refused to admit that his rescinding
of the errant message represented a change in policy. He would
continue, in effect, the plan approved by the Secretary of Defense on
30 September, he told Fahy.[14-107]
[Footnote 14-106: DOD, Off of Pub Info, Release
400-49, 3 Nov 49, FC file.]
[Footnote 14-107: Ltr, SA to Fahy, 17 Nov 49, FC
file.]
The Army staff's draft revision of the Gillem Board circular, sent to
the committee on 25 November, reflected Gray's 30 September
plan.[14-108] In short, when it emerged from its journey through the
various Army staff agencies, the proposed revision still contained
none of the committee's key recommendations. It continued the severe
restrictions on the assignment of Negroes who had specialty training;
it specifically retained the numerical quota; and, with several
specific exceptions, it carefully preserved the segregation of Army
life.[14-109] Actually, the proposed revision amounted to little more
than a repetition of the Gillem Board policy with minor modifications
designed to make it easier to carry out. Fahy quickly warned the
Deputy Director of Personnel and Administration that there was no
chance of its winning the committee's approval.[14-110]
[Footnote 14-108: Ltr, Bendetsen to Fahy, 25 Nov 49;
Memo for Rcd, Kenworthy, 28 Nov 49; both in Fahy
Papers, Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-109: Army Draft No. 1 of Revised Circular
124, 16 Nov 49, FC file.]
[Footnote 14-110: Ltr, Fahy to Maj Gen C. E. Byers, 30
Nov 49, FC file.]
_Assignments_
The quota and assignments issues remained the center of controversy
between the Army and the committee. Although Fahy was prepared to
postpone a decision on the quota while negotiations continued, he was
unwilling to budge on the assignments issue. As the committee had
repeatedly emphasized, the question of open, integrated assignment of
trained Negroes was at the heart of its program. Without it the
opening of Army schools and military occupational specialties would be
meaningless and the intent of Executive Order 9981 frustrated.
At first glance it would seem that the revision of Circular 124
supported the assignment of Negroes to white units, as indeed
Secretary Gray had recently promised. But this was not really the
case, as Kenworthy explained to the committee. The Army had always
made a distinction between _specialists_, men especially recruited for
critically needed jobs, and _specialties_, those military occupations
for which soldiers were routinely trained in Army schools. The draft
revision did not refer to this second and far larger category and was
intended to provide only for the placement of the rare black
specialist in white units. The document as worded even limited (p. 369)
the use of Negroes in overhead units. Only those with skills
considered appropriate by the personnel office--that is, those who
possessed a specialty either inappropriate in a black unit or in
excess of its needs--would be considered for racially mixed overhead
units.[14-111]
[Footnote 14-111: Memo, Kenworthy for President's
Cmte, 18 Nov 49, sub: Successor Policy to WD Cir
124; idem for Fahy, 28 Nov 49, sub: Revised WD Cir
124; both in Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]
Fahy was determined to have the Army's plan modified, and furthermore
he had learned during the past few weeks how to get it done. On 9
December Kenworthy telephoned Philleo Nash at the White House to
inform him of the considerable sentiment in the committee for
publicizing the whole affair and read to him the draft of a press
statement prepared by Fahy. As Fahy expected, the White House wanted
to avoid publicity; the President, through Nash, assured the committee
that the issues of assignment and quota were still under discussion.
Nash suggested that instead of a public statement the committee
prepare a document for the Army and the White House explaining what
principles and procedures were demanded by the presidential order. In
his opinion, Nash assured Kenworthy, the White House would order the
Army to meet the committee's recommendations.[14-112]
[Footnote 14-112: Memo for Rcd, Kenworthy, 9 Dec 49,
sub: Telephone Conversation With Nash, Fahy Papers,
Truman Library.]
White House pressure undoubtedly played a major role in the resolution
of the assignment issue. When on 14 December 1949 the committee
presented the Army and the President with its comments on the Army's
proposed revision of Circular 124, it took the first step toward what
was to be a rapid agreement on black assignments. At the same time it
would be a mistake to discount the effectiveness of reasonable men of
good will discussing their very real differences in an effort to reach
a consensus. There is considerable evidence that when Fahy met on 27
December with Secretary Gray and General J. Lawton Collins, the Chief
of Staff, he was able to convince them that the committee's position
on the assignment of black graduates of specialist schools was right
and inevitable.[14-113]
[Footnote 14-113: Interv, Nichols with Fahy. J. Lawton
Collins became Chief of Staff of the Army on 1
August 1949, succeeding Omar Bradley who stepped up
to the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.]
While neither Gray nor Collins could even remotely be described as
social reformers, both were pragmatic leaders, prepared to accept
changes in Army tradition.[14-114] Collins, unlike his immediate
predecessors, was not so much concerned with finding the Army in the
vanguard of American social practices as he was in determining that
its racial practices guaranteed a more efficient organization. While
he wanted to retain the numerical quota, lest the advantages of an
Army career attract so large a number of Negroes that a serious racial
imbalance would result, he was willing to accept a substantive
revision of the Gillem Board policy.
[Footnote 14-114: Intervs, Nichols with Gray and Fahy,
and author with Collins.]
Gray was perhaps more cautious than Collins. Confessing later that he
had never considered the question of equal opportunity until Fahy
brought it to his attention, Gray began with a limited view of the
executive order--the Army must eliminate racial discrimination, (p. 370)
not promote racial integration. In their meeting on 27 December Fahy
was able to convince Gray that the former was impossible without the
latter. According to Kenworthy, Gray demonstrated an "open and
unbiased" view of the problem throughout all discussions.[14-115]
[Footnote 14-115: Ltr, Kenworthy to Gray, 20 Jul 50,
FC file; Intervs, Nichols with Gray, Davenport, and
Fahy.]
[Illustration: SECRETARY OF THE ARMY GRAY.]
The trouble was, as Roy Davenport later noted, Gordon Gray was a
lawyer, not a personnel expert, and he failed to grasp the full
implications of the Army staff's recommendations.[14-116] Davenport
was speaking from firsthand knowledge because Gray, after belatedly
learning of his experience and influence with the committee, sent for
him. Politely but explicitly Davenport told Gray that the staff
officers who were advising him and writing the memos and directives to
which he was signing his name had deceived him. Gray was at first
annoyed and incredulous; after Davenport finally convinced him, he was
angry. Kenworthy, years later, wrote that the Gray-Davenport
discussion was decisive in changing Gray's mind on the assignment
issue and was of great help to the Fahy Committee.[14-117]
[Footnote 14-116: Interv, author with Davenport, 31
Oct 71.]
[Footnote 14-117: Memo, Kenworthy for Chief of
Military History, 13 Oct 76, CMH.]
Fahy reduced the whole problem to the case of one qualified black
soldier denied a job because of color and pictured the loss to the
Army and the country, eloquently pleading with Gray and Collins at the
27 December meeting to try the committee's way. "I can't say you won't
have problems," Fahy concluded, "but try it." Gray resisted at first
because "this would mean the complete end of segregation," but unable
to deny the logic of Fahy's arguments he agreed to try.[14-118] There
were compromises on both sides. When Collins pointed out some of the
administrative difficulties that could come from the "mandatory"
language recommended by the committee, Fahy said that the policy
should be administered "with latitude." To that end he promised to
suggest some changes in wording that would produce "a policy with some
play in the joints." The conferees also agreed that the quota issue
should be downplayed while the parties continued their discussions on
that subject.[14-119]
[Footnote 14-118: Memo for Rcd, Karl R. Bendetsen,
Spec Asst to SA, 27 Dec 49, sub: Conference With
Judge Charles Fahy, SA files. Intervs, Nichols with
Gray and Fahy, author with Fahy, and Blumenson with
Fahy.]
[Footnote 14-119: Memo for Rcd, Bendetsen, 27 Dec 49,
SA files; Ltr, Fahy to Cmte, 27 Dec 49, Fahy
papers, Truman Library.]
Agreement followed rapidly on the heels of the meeting of the
principals. Roy Davenport presented the committee members with the
final draft of the Army proposal and urged that it be accepted as (p. 371)
"the furthest and most hopeful they could get."[14-120] Lester
Granger, Davenport later reported, was the first to say he would
accept, with Fahy and the rest following suit,[14-121] and on 16
January 1950 the Army issued Special Regulation 600-629-1,
_Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Army_, with the committee's
blessing.
[Footnote 14-120: Interv, Nichols with Davenport.]
[Footnote 14-121: Ltr, Kenworthy to Nichols, 29 Jul
53, in Nichols Collection, CMH; Interv, Nichols
with Davenport.]
[Illustration: GENERAL COLLINS.]
Fahy reported to Truman that the new Army policy was consistent with
the executive order. Its paragraphs on assignments spelled out the
principle long advocated by the committee: "Negro manpower possessing
appropriate skills and qualifications will be utilized in accordance
with such skills and qualifications, and will be assigned to any ...
unit without regard to race or color." Adding substance to this
declaration, the Army also announced that a list of critical
specialties in which vacancies existed would be published periodically
and ordered major commanders to assign Negroes who possessed those
specialties to fill the vacancies without regard to race. The first
such list was published at the same time as the new regulation. The
Army had taken a significant step, Fahy told the President, toward the
realization of equal treatment and opportunity for all soldiers.[14-122]
[Footnote 14-122: Memo, Fahy for President, 16 Jan 50,
FC file; SR 600-629-1, 16 Jan 50; DOD, Off of Pub
Info, Release 64-50, 16 Jan 50. The special
regulation was circulated worldwide on the day of
the issue; see Memo, D/P&A to TAG, 16 Jan 50, WDGPA
291.2.]
Secretary of Defense Johnson was also optimistic, but he warned Gordon
Gray that many complex problems remained and asked the Army for
periodic reports. His request only emphasized the fact that the Army's
new regulation lacked the machinery for monitoring compliance with its
provisions for integration. As the history of the Gillem Board era
demonstrated, any attempt to change the Army's traditions demanded not
only exact definition of the intermediate steps but also establishment
of a responsible authority to enforce compliance.
_Quotas_
In the wake of the Army's new assignment regulation, the committee
turned its full attention to the last of its major recommendations,
the abolition of the numerical quota. Despite months of discussion,
the disagreement between the Army and the committee over the quota (p. 372)
showed no signs of resolution. Simply put, the Fahy Committee wanted
the Army to abolish the Gillem Board's racial quota and to substitute
a quota based on General Classification Test scores of enlistees. The
committee found the racial quota unacceptable in terms of the
executive order and wasteful of manpower since it tended to encourage
the reenlistment of low-scoring Negroes and thereby prevented the
enlistment of superior men. None of the Negroes graduating from high
school in June 1949, for example, no matter how high their academic
rating, could enlist because the black quota had been filled for
months. Quotas based on test scores, on the other hand, would limit
enlistment to only the higher scoring blacks and whites.
Specifically, the committee wanted no enlistment to be decided by
race. The Army would open all enlistments to anyone who scored ninety
or above, limiting the number of blacks and whites scoring between
eighty and eighty-nine to 13.4 percent of the total Army strength, a
percentage based on World War II strengths. With rare exception it
would close enlistment to anyone who scored less than eighty. Applying
this formula to the current Army, 611,400 men on 31 March 1949, and
assessing the number of men from seventeen to thirty-four years old in
the national population, the committee projected a total of 65,565
Negroes in the Army, almost exactly 10 percent of the Army's strength.
In a related statistical report prepared by Davenport, the committee
offered figures demonstrating that the higher black reenlistment rates
would not increase the number of black soldiers.[14-123]
[Footnote 14-123: D/PA Summary Sheet for SA, 28 Feb
50, sub: Fahy Committee Proposal re: Numerical
Enlistment Quota, CSGPA 291.2 (2 Nov 49); Roy
Davenport, "Figures on Reenlistment Rate and
Explanation," Document FC XL, FC file; Memo, Fahy
for SA, 9 Feb 50, sub: Recapitulation of the
Proposal of the President's Committee for the
Abolition of the Racial Quota, FC file; Memo,
Kenworthy for Dwight Palmer (cmte member), 8 Feb
50, Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]
The Army's reply was based on the premise that "the Negro strength of
the Army must be restricted and that the population ratio is the most
equitable method [of] limitation." In fact, the _only_ method of
controlling black strength was a numerical quota of original
enlistments. The personnel staff argued that enlistment specifically
unrestricted by race, as the high rate of unrestricted black
reenlistment had demonstrated, would inevitably produce a "very high
percentage of Negroes in the Army." A quota based on the
classification test scores could not limit sufficiently the number of
black enlistments if, as the committee insisted, it required that
identical enlistment standards be maintained for both blacks and
whites. Looking at the census figure another way, the Army had its own
statistics to prove its point. Basing its figures on the number of
Negroes who became eighteen each month (11,000), the personnel staff
estimated that black enlistments would total from 15 to 20 percent of
the Army's monthly strength if an entrance quota was imposed with the
cut-off score set at ninety or from 19 to 31 percent if the enlistment
standards were lowered to eighty. It also pointed to the experience of
the Air Force where with no quotas in the third quarter of 1949 black
enlistments accounted for 16.4 percent of the total; even when a (p. 373)
GCT quota of 100 was imposed in October and November, 10 percent of
all Air Force enlistees were black.[14-124]
[Footnote 14-124: Memo, Actg D/PA for Karl R.
Bendetsen, Spec Asst to SA, 13 Dec 49, sub: Ten
Percent Racial Quota; D/PA Summary Sheet, with
Incl, for SA, 28 Feb 50, sub: Fahy Committee
Proposals re: Numerical Enlistment Quota; both in
CSGPA 291.2 (2 Nov 49). The quotations are from the
former document.]
The committee quickly pointed out that the Army had neglected to
subtract from the monthly figure of 11,000 blacks those physically and
mentally disqualified (those who scored below eighty) and those in
school. Using the Army's own figures and taking into account these
deductions, the committee predicted that Negroes would account for
10.6 percent of the men accepted in the 8,000 monthly intake, probably
at the GCT eighty level, or 5 percent of the 6,000 men estimated
acceptable at the GCT ninety level.[14-125]
[Footnote 14-125: Memo, Kenworthy for Karl Bendetsen,
19 Oct 49, sub: Manpower Policy, Fahy Papers,
Truman Library.]
On 14 December 1949 the Army, offering to compromise on the quota,
retired from its statistical battle with the committee. It would
accept the unlimited enlistment of Negroes scoring 100 or better,
limiting the number of those accepted below 100 so that the total
black strength would remain at 10 percent of the Army's
population.[14-126] Attractive to the committee because it would
provide for the enlistment of qualified men at the expense of the less
able, the proposal was nevertheless rejected because it still insisted
upon a racial quota. Again there was a difference between the
committee and the Army, but again the advantage lay with the
committee, for the White House was anxious for the quota problem to be
solved.[14-127]
[Footnote 14-126: Memo for Rcd, Kenworthy, 14 Dec 49,
sub: Conference With Maj Lieblich and Col Smith, 14
Dec 49, FC file.]
[Footnote 14-127: Memo, Fahy for President's Cmte, 1
Feb 50, Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]
Niles warned the President that the racial imbalance which had for so
long frustrated equal treatment and opportunity for Negroes in the
Army would continue despite the Army's new assignment policy unless
the Army was able to raise the quality of its black enlistees. Niles
considered the committee's proposal doubly attractive because, while
it abolished the quota, it would also raise the level of black
recruits. The proposal was sensible and fair, Niles added, and he
believed it would reduce the number of black soldiers as it raised
their quality. It had been used successfully by the Navy and Air
Force, and, as it had in those services, would provide for the gradual
dissolution of the all-black units rather than a precipitous
change.[14-128] The Army staff did not agree, and as late as 28
February 1950 the Director of Personnel and Administration was
recommending that the Army retain the racial quota at least for all
Negroes scoring below 110 on the classification test.[14-129]
[Footnote 14-128: Ltr, Niles to President, 7 Feb 50,
Secretary's File (PSF), Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-129: D/PA Summary Sheet for SA, 28 Feb
50, sub: Fahy Committee Proposal re: Numerical
Enlistment Quota, CSGPA 291.2 (2 Nov 49).]
Secretary Gray, aware that the Army's arguments would not move the
committee, was sure that the President did not want to see a
spectacular and precipitous rise in the Army's black strength. He
decided on a personal appeal to the Commander in Chief.[14-130] The
Army would drop the racial quota, he told Truman on 1 March, with (p. 374)
one proviso: "If, as a result of a fair trial of this new system,
there ensues a disproportionate balance of racial strengths in the
Army, it is my understanding that I have your authority to return to a
system which will, in effect, control enlistments by race."[14-131]
The President agreed.
[Footnote 14-130: Interv, Nichols with Gray.]
[Footnote 14-131: Ltr, SA to President, 1 Mar 50, Fahy
Papers, Truman Library.]
At the President's request, Gray outlined a program for open
recruitment, fixing April as the date when all vacancies would be open
to all qualified individuals. Gray wanted to handle the changes in
routine fashion. With the committee's concurrence, he planned no
public announcement. From his vacation quarters in Key West, Truman
added a final encouraging word: "I am sure that everything will work
out as it should."[14-132] The order opening recruiting to all races
went out on 27 March 1950.[14-133]
[Footnote 14-132: Memo, President for SA, 27 Mar 50,
FC file; Memo, SA for President, 24 Mar 50, sub:
Discontinuance of Racial Enlistment Quotas, copy in
CSGPA 291.2.]
[Footnote 14-133: Msg, TAG to Chief, AFF, et al., Fort
Monroe, Va., WCL 44600, 27 Mar 50, copy in FC
file.]
Despite the President's optimism, the Fahy Committee was beginning to
have doubts about just how everything would work out. Specifically,
some members were wondering how they could be sure the Army would
comply with the newly approved policies. Such concern was reasonable,
despite the Army's solemn commitments, when one considers the
committee's lengthening experience with the Defense Department's
bureaucracy and its familiarity with the liabilities of the Gillem
Board policy. The committee decided, therefore, to include in its
final report to the President a request for the retention of a
watchdog group to review service practices. In this its views clashed
directly with those of Secretary Johnson, who wanted the President to
abolish the committee and make him solely responsible for the equal
treatment and opportunity program.[14-134]
[Footnote 14-134: Memo, Clark Clifford for President
(ca. Mar 50), Nash Collection, Truman Library.]
Niles, anxious to settle the issue, tried to reconcile the
differences[14-135] and successfully persuaded the committee to omit a
reference in its final report to a successor group to review the
services' progress. Such a move, he told Kenworthy, would imply that,
unless policed, the services would not carry out their programs.
Public discussion about how long the committee was to remain in effect
would also tend to tie the President's hands. Niles suggested instead
that the committee members discuss the matter with the President when
they met with him to submit their final report and perhaps suggest
that a watchdog group be appointed or their committee be retained on a
standby basis for a later review of service actions.[14-136] Before
the committee met with the President on 22 May, Niles recommended to
Truman that he make no commitment on a watchdog group.[14-137]
Privately, Niles agreed with Clark Clifford that the committee should
be retained for an indefinite period, but on an advisory rather than
an operating basis so that, in Clifford's words, "it will be in a
position to see that there is not a gap between policy and an (p. 375)
administration of policy in the Defense Establishment."[14-138]
[Footnote 14-135: Interv, author with Kenworthy.]
[Footnote 14-136: Memo, Kenworthy for Fahy, 28 Apr 50,
Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-137: Ltr, Niles to President, 22 May 50,
Nash Collection, Truman Library.]
[Footnote 14-138: Memo, Clifford for President, Nash
Collection, Truman Library.]
The President proceeded along these lines. Several months after the
committee presented its final report, _Freedom to Serve_,[14-139] in a
public ceremony, Truman relieved the group of its assignment.
Commenting that the services should have the opportunity to work out
in detail the new policies and procedures initiated by the committee,
he told Fahy on 6 July 1950 that he would leave his order in effect,
noting that "at some later date, it may prove desirable to examine the
effectuation of your Committee's recommendations, which can be done
under Executive Order 9981."[14-140]
[Footnote 14-139: _Freedom to Serve: Equality of
Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services; A
Report by the President's Committee_ (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1950).]
[Footnote 14-140: Ltr, President to Fahy, 6 Jul 50,
Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]
_An Assessment_
Thus ended a most active period in the history of armed forces
integration, a period of executive orders, presidential conferences,
and national hearings, of administrative infighting broadcast to the
public in national headlines. The Fahy Committee was the focus of this
bureaucratic and journalistic excitement. Charged with examining the
policies of the services in light of the President's order, the
committee could have glanced briefly at current racial practices and
automatically ratified Secretary Johnson's general policy statement.
Indeed, this was precisely what Walter White and other civil rights
leaders expected. But the committee was made of sterner stuff. With
dedication and with considerable political acumen, it correctly
assessed the position of black servicemen and subjected the racial
policies of the services to a rigorous and detailed examination, the
first to be made by an agency outside the Department of Defense. As a
result of this scrutiny, the committee clearly and finally
demonstrated that segregation was an inefficient way to use military
manpower; once and for all it demolished the arguments that the
services habitually used against any demand for serious change. Most
important is the fact that the committee kept alive the spirit of
reform the Truman order had created. The committee's definition of
equal treatment and opportunity became the standard by which future
action on racial issues in the armed forces would be measured.
Throughout its long existence, the Fahy Committee was chiefly
concerned with the position of the Negro in the Army. After protracted
argument it won from the Army an agreement to abolish the racial quota
and to open all specialties in all Army units and all Army schools and
courses to qualified Negroes. Finally, it won the Army's promise to
cease restricting black servicemen to black units and overhead
installations alone and to assign them instead on the basis of
individual ability and the Army's need.
As for the other services, the committee secured from the Navy a
pledge to give petty officer status to chief stewards and stewards of
the first, second, and third class, and its influence was discernible
in the Navy's decision to allow stewards to transfer to the general
service. The committee also made, and the Navy accepted, several
practical suggestions that might lead to an increase in the number (p. 376)
of black officers and enlisted men. The committee approved the Air
Force integration program and publicized the success of this major
reform as it was carried out during 1949; for the benefit of the
reluctant Army, the committee could point to the demonstrated ability
of black servicemen and the widespread acceptance of integration among
the rank and file of the Air Force. In regard to the Marine Corps,
however, the committee was forced to acknowledge that the corps had
not yet "fully carried out Navy policy."[14-141]
[Footnote 14-141: _Freedom to Serve_, p. 27.]
The Fahy Committee won from the services a commitment to equal
treatment and opportunity and a practical program to achieve that end.
Yet even with this victory and the strong support of many senior
military officials, the possibility that determined foes of
integration might erect roadblocks or that simple bureaucratic inertia
would delay progress could not be discounted. There was, for example,
nothing in the postwar practices of the Marine Corps, even the
temporary integration of its few black recruits during basic training,
that hinted at any long-range intention of adopting the Navy's
integration program. And the fate of one of the committee's major
recommendations, that all the services adopt equal enlistment
standards, had yet to be decided. The acceptance of this
recommendation hinged on the results of a Defense Department study to
determine the jobs in each service that could be filled by men in the
lowest mental classification category acceptable to all three
services. Although the Navy and the Air Force had agreed to reexamine
the matter, they had consistently opposed the application of
enlistment parity in the past, and the Secretary of Defense's
Personnel Policy Board had indorsed their position. Secretary
Forrestal, himself, had rejected the concept, and there was nothing in
the record to suggest that his successor would do otherwise. Yet the
parity of enlistment standards was a vital part of the committee's
argument for the abolition of the Army's racial quota. If enlistment
standards were not equalized, especially in a period when the Army was
turning to Selective Service for much of its manpower, the number of
men in the Army's categories IV and V was bound to increase, and that
increase would provide strong justification for reviving the racial
quota. The Army staff was aware, if the public was not, that a
resurrected quota was possible, for the President had given the
Secretary of the Army authority to take such action if there was "a
disproportionate balance of racial strengths."[14-142]
[Footnote 14-142: Ltr, SA to President, 1 Mar 50, Fahy
Papers, Truman Library.]
The Army's concern with disproportionate balance was always linked to
a concern with the influx of men, mostly black, who scored poorly on
the classification tests. The problem, the Army repeatedly claimed,
was not the quantity of black troops but their quality. Yet at the
time the Army agreed to the committee's demand to drop the quota, some
40 percent of all black soldiers scored below eighty. These men could
rarely profit from the Army's agreement to integrate all specialist
training and assignments. The committee, aware of the problem, had
strongly urged the Army to refuse reenlistment, with few exceptions,
to anyone scoring below eighty. On 11 May 1950 Fahy reminded Secretary
of the Army Frank Pace, Jr., that despite the Army's promise to
eliminate its low scorers it continued to reenlist men scoring (p. 377)
less than seventy.[14-143] But by July even the test score for
first-time enlistment into the Army had declined to seventy because
men were needed for the Korean War. The law required that whenever
Selective Service began drafting men the Army would automatically
lower its enlistment standards to seventy. Thus, despite the
committee's recommendations, the concentration of low-scoring Negroes
in the lower grades continued to increase, creating an even greater
pool of men incapable of assignment to the schools and specialties
open without regard to race.
[Footnote 14-143: Memo, Fahy for SA, 11 May 50, Fahy
Papers, Truman Library. Frank Pace, an Arkansas
lawyer and former Assistant Director of the Bureau
of the Budget, succeeded Gordon Gray as Secretary
of the Army on 12 April 1950.]
[Illustration: "NO LONGER A DREAM." _The Pittsburgh Courier's reaction
to the services' agreements with the Fahy Committee, May 20, 1950._]
Even the Army's promise to enlarge gradually the number of specialties
open to Negroes was not carried out expeditiously. By July 1950, the
last month of the Fahy Committee's life, the Army had added only seven
more specialties with openings for Negroes to the list of forty
published seven months before at the time of its agreement with the
committee. In a pessimistic mood, Kenworthy confessed to Judge (p. 378)
Fahy[14-144] that "so long as additions are not progressively made to
the critical list of MOS in which Negroes can serve, and so long as
segregated units continue to be the rule, all MOS and schools can not
be said to be open to Negroes because Negro units do not have calls
for many of the advanced MOS." Kenworthy was also disturbed because
the Army had disbanded the staff agency created to monitor the new
policies and make future recommendations and had transferred both its
two members to other duties. In the light of progress registered in
the half year since the Army had adopted the committee's proposal,
Kenworthy concluded that "the Army intends to do as little as possible
towards implementing the policy which it adopted and published."[14-145]
[Footnote 14-144: President Truman appointed Charles
Fahy to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia on 15 October 1949. Fahy did
not assume his judicial duties, however, until 15
December after concluding his responsibilities as a
member of the American delegation to the United
Nations General Assembly.]
[Footnote 14-145: Memo, Kenworthy for Fahy, 25 Jul 50,
Fahy Papers, Truman Library. In the memorandum the
number of additional specialties is erroneously
given as six; see DCSPER Summary Sheet, 23 Apr 50,
sub: List of Critical Specialties Referred to in SR
600-629-1, G-1 291.2 (25 Oct 49).]
Roy Davenport later suggested that such pessimism was ill-founded.
Other factors were at work within the Army in 1950, particularly after
the outbreak of war in Korea.[14-146] Davenport alluded principally to
the integration of basic training centers and the assignment of
greater numbers of black inductees to combat specialties--developments
that were pushing the Army ahead of the integration timetable
envisioned by committee members and making concern over black
eligibility for an increased number of occupation categories less
important.
[Footnote 14-146: Ltr, Davenport to OSD Historian, 31
Aug 76, copy in CMH. For a discussion of these
war-related factors, see Chapters 14 and 17.]
The Fahy Committee has been given full credit for proving that
segregation could not be defended on grounds of military efficiency,
thereby laying the foundation for the integration of the Army. But
perhaps in the long run the group's idealism proved to be equally
important. The committee never lost sight of the moral implications of
the services' racial policies. Concern for the rightness and wrongness
of things is readily apparent in all its deliberations, and in the end
the committee would invoke the words of Saint Paul to the Philippians
to remind men who perhaps should have needed no such reminder that
they should heed "whatsoever things are true ... whatsoever things are
just." What was right and just, the committee concluded, would
"strengthen the nation."[14-147]
[Footnote 14-147: _Freedom to Serve_, pp. 66-67.]
The same ethics stood forth in the conclusion of the committee's final
report, raising that practical summary of events to the status of an
eloquent state paper. The committee reminded the President and its
fellow citizens that the status of the individual, "his equal worth in
the sight of God, his equal protection under the law, his equal rights
and obligations of citizenship and his equal opportunity to make just
and constructive use of his endowment--these are the very foundation
of the American system of values."[14-148]
[Footnote 14-148: _Ibid._, p. 67.]
To its lasting honor the Fahy Committee succeeded in spelling out for
the nation's military leaders how these principles, these "high
standards of democracy" as President Truman called them in his order,
must be applied in the services.