Limited Response to Discrimination
The good feelings brought on by the integration of the armed forces
lasted less than a decade. By the early 1960's the Department of
Defense and the civil rights advocates had begun once more to draw
apart, the source of contention centering on their differing
interpretations of the scope of the Truman order. The Defense
Department professed itself unable to interfere with community laws
and customs even when those laws and customs discriminated against men
in uniform. The civil rights leaders, however, rejected the federal
government's acceptance of the _status quo_. Reacting especially to
the widespread and blatant discrimination encountered by servicemen
both in communities adjacent to bases at home and abroad and in the
reserve components of the services in many parts of the country, they
stepped up demands for remedial action against a situation that they
believed continued at the sufferance of the armed forces.
Nor were their demands limited to the problem of discrimination in the
local community. Civil rights spokesmen backed the complaints of those
black servicemen who had begun to question their treatment in the
military community itself. Lacking what many of them considered an
effective procedure for dealing with racial complaints, black
servicemen usually passed on their grievances to congressmen and
various civil rights organizations, and these, in turn, took the
problems to the Defense Department. The number of complaints over
inequalities in promotion, assignment, and racial representation never
matched the volume of those on discrimination in the community, nor
did their appearance attest to a new set of problems or any particular
increase in discrimination. It seemed rather that the black
serviceman, after the first flush of victory over segregation, was
beginning to perceive from the vantage of his improved position that
other and perhaps more subtle barriers stood in his way. Whatever the
reason, complaints of discrimination within the services themselves,
rarely heard in the Pentagon in the late 1950's, suddenly
reappeared.[20-1] Actually, the complaints about discrimination both
in the local civilian community and on the military reservation called
for a basic alteration in the way the services interpreted their
policies of equal treatment and opportunity. In the end it would prove
easier for the services to attack the gaudier but ultimately less
complicated problems outside their gates.
[Footnote 20-1: For discussion of charges of
discrimination within the services, see Ltrs, ASD
(M) to Congressman Charles C. Diggs, Jr., 15 Mar
and 5 Sep 61; and the following Memos: Under SecNav
for ASD (M), 16 Mar 62, sub: Discrimination in U.S.
Military Services; Dep SecAF for Manpower,
Personnel, and Organization for ASD (M), 29 Mar 62,
sub: Alleged Racial Discrimination With the Air
Force; Dep Under SA (M) For ASD (M), 30 Mar 62,
sub: Servicemen's Complaints of Discrimination in
the U.S. Military. All in ASD (M) 291.2.]
It would be a mistake to equate the notice given the persistent (p. 502)
but subtle problem of on-base discrimination with the sometimes brutal
injustice visited on black servicemen off-base in the early 1960's.
Black servicemen often found the short bus ride from post to town a
trip into the past, where once again they were forced to endure the
old patterns of segregation. Defense Department officials were aware,
for example, that decent housing open to black servicemen was scarce.
With limited income, under military orders, and often forced by
circumstances to reside in the civilian community, black servicemen
were, in the words of Robert S. McNamara, President Kennedy's
Secretary of Defense, "singularly defenseless against this
bigotry."[20-2] While the services had always denied responsibility
for combating this particular form of discrimination, many in the
black community were anxious to remind them of John F. Kennedy's claim
in the presidential campaign of 1960 that discrimination in housing
could be alleviated with a stroke of the Chief Executive's pen.
[Footnote 20-2: Robert S. McNamara, _The Essence of
Security_ (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), p. 124.]
But housing was only part of a larger pattern of segregation that
included restrictions on black servicemen's use of many places of
public accommodation such as restaurants, theaters, and saloons, some
literally on the doorstep of military reservations. James Evans listed
some twenty-seven military installations in the United States where in
1961 segregation in transportation and places of public accommodation
was established in adjacent communities by law or custom.[20-3]
Moreover, instances of blatant Jim Crow tactics were rapidly
multiplying near bases in Japan, Germany, the Philippines, and
elsewhere as host communities began to adopt the prejudices of their
visitors.[20-4] The United States Commission on Civil Rights charged
that black servicemen were often reluctant to complain to their
superiors or the Inspector General because of the repeated failure of
local commands to show concern for the problem and suspicion that
complainers would be subjected to reprisals.[20-5]
[Footnote 20-3: James C. Evans, OASD (M), "Suggested
List of Military Installations," 9 Jun 61, copy in
CMH. Evans's list was based on incomplete data. A
great number of military installations were located
in Jim Crow areas in 1961. See also Memo, Dep ASD
(Military Personnel Policy) for ASD (M), 19 Oct 62,
sub: Forthcoming Conference With Representatives
From CORE, ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-4: Memo, Lee Nichols (UPI reporter) for
SecDef, Attn: Adam Yarmolinsky, 13 May 63, sub:
Racial Integration in the U.S. Armed Forces, copy
in CMH. Nichols had recently toured military bases
under Defense Department sponsorship. See also
Puner, "Integration in the Army"; news articles in
_Overseas Weekly_ (Frankfurt), November 18 and 25,
1962, and _Stars and Stripes_, November 15, 1962.]
[Footnote 20-5: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights,
_Civil Rights_ '63 (Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1963), p. 206.]
Civil rights leaders were particularly distressed by this form of
discrimination, which, considering the armed forces' persistent
declaration of impotence in the matter, seemed destined to remain a
permanent condition of service life. "These problems involve factors
which are not directly under the control of the Department of
Defense," Assistant Secretary for Manpower Carlisle P. Runge noted in
a typical response.[20-6] Similar sentiments were often expressed by
local commanders, although some tried to soften their refusal to act
with the hope that the military example might change local community
attitudes in the long run.[20-7] Congressman Charles C. Diggs, (p. 503)
Jr., did not share this hope. Citing numerous examples for the
President of discrimination against black servicemen, he charged that,
far from influencing local communities to change, commanders actually
cooperated in discrimination by punishing or otherwise identifying
protesting servicemen as troublemakers.[20-8]
[Footnote 20-6: Memo, ASD (M) for Asst Legal Counsel
to President, 7 Nov 61, sub: Racial Discrimination
in the Armed Services, ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-7: See transcribed taped interviews
conducted by Nichols of the UPI with military and
civilian personnel in the Charleston, S.C., area in
March 1963, copies in the James C. Evans
Collection, AMHRC.]
[Footnote 20-8: Ltr, Diggs to President, 27 Jun 62,
copy in Gesell Collection, John F. Kennedy
Library.]
[Illustration: CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS AT THE WHITE HOUSE. _Attorney
General Robert F. Kennedy poses with (from left) Martin Luther King,
Jr., Roy Wilkins, Whitney M. Young, Jr., and A. Philip Randolph._]
Especially galling to civil rights leaders was the conviction that the
armed forces had set up artificial and self-imposed barriers to a
needed social reform. In the end this conviction seemed to spur them
on. The American Veterans Committee, for example, demanded that when a
community "mistreats American troops, such as in Montgomery, Alabama,
or flaunts its Ku Klux Klan membership, as does Selma, Alabama, the
entire area should be placed 'off limits' to purchases by Defense
installations and by Servicemen."[20-9] Others were convinced that the
federal government was in effect supporting segregation through its
widespread economic assistance programs to state and local governments
and to private institutions in the fields of employment, housing,
education, health service, military affairs, and agriculture. In
August 1961 a group of fifty civil rights leaders petitioned the (p. 504)
President to end such federal support.[20-10] On a more modest scale,
the Congress of Racial Equality asked the Army in August 1962 to
declare segregated restaurants in Aberdeen, Maryland, off limits to
all military personnel. The activist group justified its demand by
stating that "the Army declares dangerous or immoral establishments
off limits to soldiers and what is more dangerous or immoral in a
democracy than racial intolerance?"[20-11] In this they failed to
distinguish between the commander's proper response to what was
illegal, for example prostitution, and what was still legal, for
example, segregated housing.
[Footnote 20-9: American Veterans Committee, "Audit of
Negro Veterans and Servicemen," 1960, p. 16, copy
in CMH.]
[Footnote 20-10: Leadership Conference on Civil
Rights, "Proposals for Executive Action to End
Federally Supported Segregation and Other Forms of
Racial Discrimination," August 1961, copy in SD
291.2. See also U.S. Commission on Civil Rights,
_Freedom to the Free: A Century of Emancipation_
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1963), pp.
158ff.]
[Footnote 20-11: Baltimore _Sun_, August 8, 1962. On
the particular problem in the Aberdeen area see
Telg, President Kennedy to John Field, President's
Cmte on Equal Employment Opportunity, 22 Sep 61,
copy in CMH.]
_The Kennedy Administration and Civil Rights_
The strong connection between black morale and military efficiency
made it likely that the new Secretary of Defense would be intimately
concerned with problems of discrimination. Highly trained in modern
managerial techniques, Robert S. McNamara came to the Pentagon with
the idea of instituting a series of fundamental changes in the
management of the armed forces through manpower reorganization and
what was becoming known as systems analysis. Whatever his attitude
toward racial justice, his initial interest in the Defense
Department's black employees, military and civilian, was closely
linked to his concern for military efficiency. Less than a week on the
job, he called for information on the status of Negroes in the
department. He had heard that some services were better integrated
than others, and he wanted his Assistant Secretary for Manpower to
investigate. He wanted to know if there was a "fair" proportion of
Negroes in the higher civilian grades. If not, he asked, "what do you
recommend be done about it?"[20-12] These questions, and indeed all
action on civil rights matters originating in his office in the months
to come, indicated that McNamara, like his predecessors, would limit
his reforms to discrimination within the services themselves. But as
time passed, McNamara, like President Kennedy, would warm to the civil
rights cause and eventually both would become firmly committed.
[Footnote 20-12: Memo, SecDef for ASD (MP&R)
Designate, 27 Jan 61, ASD (M) 291.2.]
The Kennedy administration has been closely identified with civil
rights, yet the President's major biographers and several of his
assistants agree that his commitment to civil rights reform did not
emerge full-blown on inauguration day. It was only in the last months
of his administration that Kennedy, subjected to civil rights demands
and sharing the interests and experiences of his brother Robert,
the Attorney General, threw himself wholeheartedly into the civil (p. 505)
rights fray.[20-13] As senator and later as President, Kennedy was
sympathetic to the aspirations of the black minority, appreciated its
support in his campaign, but regarded civil rights as one, and not the
most pressing, problem facing the Chief Executive. Even his
administrations's use of federal marshals during the freedom rides in
1961 and its use of both marshals and troops at Oxford, Mississippi,
in 1962 and troops again in Alabama in 1963 were justified in the name
of enforcement of federal judicial processes. Well into 1963 he
studiously downplayed the civil rights issues involved.
[Footnote 20-13: This discussion of Kennedy's civil
rights position is based on Arthur M. Schlesinger,
_A Thousand Days_ (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965);
Theodore C. Sorensen, _Kennedy_ (New York: Harper
and Row, 1965); and the following oral history
interviews in the J. F. Kennedy Library: Berl
Bernhard with Harris Wofford, 29 Nov 65, Roy
Wilkins, 13 Aug 64, and Thurgood Marshall, 7 Apr
64; Joseph O'Connor with Theodore Hesburgh, 27 Mar
66. Also consulted were Sorensen's _The Kennedy
Legacy_ (New York: New American Library, 1970);
Victor S. Navasky, _Kennedy Justice_ (New York:
Atheneum, 1971); William G. Carlton, "Kennedy in
History," in _Perspectives on 20th Century America:
Readings and Commentary_, ed. Otis L. Graham, Jr.
(New York: Dodd, Mead, 1973); Edwin Guthman, _We
Band of Brothers: A Memoir of Robert F. Kennedy_
(New York: Harper and Row, 1971); Burke Marshall,
_Federation and Civil Rights_ (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1974).]
Kennedy was convinced that the only answer to the injustices suffered
by Negroes was a series of strong laws, but he was also certain that
such legislation was impossible to achieve in 1961. To urge it on an
unwilling Congress would only jeopardize his legislative program,
increase the black minority's feeling of frustration, and divide the
nation in a period of national crisis. Discussing the Civil Rights
Commission's "non-negotiable" demands concerning the organized
reserves, for example, commission member Father Theodore Hesburgh
remembered the President saying:
Look, I have a serious problem in West Berlin, and I do not think
this is the proper time to start monkeying around with the
Army.... I have no problem with the principle of this, and we'll
certainly be doing it, but at this precise moment I have to keep
uppermost in mind that I may need these units ... and I can't
have them in the midst of a social revolution while I'm trying to
do this.[20-14]
[Footnote 20-14: Quoted from O'Connor's oral history
interview with Hesburgh, 27 Mar 66.]
Kennedy temporized. He would promptly and positively endorse the
principle of equal rights and enforce the civil rights decisions of
the Supreme Court through negotiation, moral suasion, executive order,
and, when necessary, through the use of federal marshals.[20-15] The
Justice Department meanwhile would pursue a vigorous course of
litigation to insure the franchise for Negroes from which, he
believed, all civil blessings flowed.
[Footnote 20-15: For a critical interpretation of the
Kennedy approach to enforcing the Court's
decisions, see Navasky's _Kennedy Justice_, pp.
97-98, and Howard Zinn, _Postwar America_,
1945-1971 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973), ch.
iv.]
Civil rights was not mentioned in Kennedy's first State of the Union
message. With the exception of a measure to outlaw literacy and poll
tax requirements for voting, no civil rights bills were sent to the
Eighty-seventh Congress. Yet at one of his first press conferences,
the President told newsmen that a plan to withhold federal funds in
certain segregation cases would be included in a general study "of
where the Federal Government might usefully place its power and
influence to expand civil rights."[20-16] On 6 March 1961 he signed
Executive Order 10925, which combined the committees on government (p. 506)
contracts and employment policy into a single Committee on Equal
Employment Opportunity chaired by the Vice President.[20-17] His
order, he believed, specified sanctions "sweeping enough to ensure
compliance."[20-18] Finally, in November 1962, after numerous and
increasingly pointed reminders from civil rights advocates, the
President issued Executive Order 11063, directing executive agencies
to take action against discrimination in the sale or lease of federal
housing or any housing bought with loans from or insured by the
federal government.[20-19]
[Footnote 20-16: Press Conference, 1 Mar 61, _Public
Papers of the Presidents: John F. Kennedy, 1961_,
p. 137.]
[Footnote 20-17: 26 _Federal Register_ 1977.]
[Footnote 20-18: Presidential statement, 7 Mar 61,
_Public Papers of the Presidents: Kennedy, 1961_,
p. 150. See also "President's Remarks on Meeting of
Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity," New
York _Times_, April 12, 1961; Memo, President for
Heads of All Executive Departments and Agencies, 18
Apr 61, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 20-19: Executive Order 11063, 20 Nov 62, 27
_Federal Register_ 11527.]
Besides executive orders, the White House had other ways, less formal
but perhaps more efficient, of getting the federal bureaucracy to move
on civil rights. Upon the recommendation of Special Assistant
Frederick G. Dutton, the President created the Civil Rights Subcabinet
Group in March 1961 to coordinate the administration's civil rights
actions. Under Dutton's chairmanship, this group included the
assistant secretaries responsible for racial matters in their
respective agencies, with White House Special Civil Rights Assistant
Harris Wofford serving as executive secretary.[20-20] The group
regularly scrutinized the racial programs of the various departments,
demanding reports and investigations of racial matters and insuring
that the interests and criticisms of the administration were quickly
disseminated at the operations level of the federal agencies
affected.[20-21]
[Footnote 20-20: Memo, Frederick G. Dutton, Spec Asst
to President, for Secy of State et al., 31 Mar 61,
and Memo, ASD (M) for Dutton (ca. 10 Apr 61), both
in ASD (M) 291.2; Memo, Nicholas D. Katzenbach for
Vice President Elect, 23 Nov 64, Burke Marshall
Papers, and Interv, Bernhard with Wofford, both in
J. F. Kennedy Library. According to Wofford there
was some discussion over just who would represent
the Department of Defense in the group. The
department's initial choice seems to have been
Evans, but Wofford rejected this selection on the
grounds that Evans's position did not place him in
the department's power structure. He preferred to
have Yarmolinsky or Assistant Secretary Carlisle P.
Runge. Yarmolinsky insisted that Runge be included
so that it would not appear that racial reform in
the Department of Defense was a duty only for the
administration's men.]
[Footnote 20-21: See Memo, ASD (M) for Under SA et
al., 7 Nov 61, sub: Minority Representation in
Officer Procurement and Training, ASD (M) 291.2.
See also Memos, Wofford for Civil Rights Subcabinet
Group, 15 Sep, 20 Oct, and 10 Nov 61, copies in
CMH.]
There is evidence that the subcabinet group was responsible for
considerable cross-fertilization of civil rights programs among the
departments. For example, it appears to have used the experience of
black servicemen in interstate travel to move the Department of
Justice and, with the assistance of Attorney General Kennedy,
the Interstate Commerce Commission toward eliminating such
discrimination.[20-22] And it was through the subcabinet group that
the Attorney General's interest in minority voting rights was
translated into a voting registration campaign among servicemen.[20-23]
[Footnote 20-22: Memo for Rcd, James C. Evans, 21 Jul
61, sub: Meeting, Subcabinet Group on Civil Rights,
Friday, July 21, 1961 (Judge Jackson represented
Mr. Runge); Ltr, SecDef to Atty Gen, 23 Jun 61;
both in ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-23: Civil Rights Subcabinet Group, Notes
on Meeting of 16 Jun 61; Ltr, Spec Asst to
Postmaster Gen to James C. Evans, 26 Jan 62; Memo,
Evans for Spec Asst to ASD (M), James W. Platt, 20
Mar 62; Memo, Harris Wofford for Subcabinet Group,
30 Jan 62. Copies of all in CMH.]
The existence of this group, with its surveys, questions, and (p. 507)
investigations, put constant pressure on the armed services. They were
not singled out for special treatment, but they obviously attracted
the attention of both the White House and the civil rights organizations
because their commitment to equal treatment and opportunity affected
so many people and their past successes and remaining problems were
having a decided impact on American society. In the words of
presidential assistant Wofford, the Defense Department was "a world
within itself," a world which by its magnitude could make a
"significant contribution by its example" to the solution of the
nation's racial problems.[20-24]
[Footnote 20-24: Memo for Rcd, James C. Evans, 21 Jul
61, sub: Meeting, Subcabinet Group on Civil Rights,
Friday, July 21, 1961 (Judge Jackson represented
Mr. Runge), ASD (M&P) 291.2.]
The size of the department's racial program alluded to by Wofford also
invited the attention of a federal agency outside White House control.
The United States Commission on Civil Rights was continually
investigating the services, probing allegations of discrimination
against black servicemen and evaluating the role of the department in
community race relations.[20-25] Of particular interest to an
understanding of racial policy in the 1960's is the commission's
comprehensive survey, titled "The Services and Their Relations with
the Community," which concluded that the continued existence of
community discrimination against servicemen and their dependents had a
detrimental effect on the morale and efficiency of significant numbers
of them. The commission cataloged the traditional alibis of military
commanders: "it is not the mission of the services to concern
themselves with the practices of the local community"; the commander's
responsibility "stops at the gate"; harmonious relations with the
community must be maintained; and, finally, in order to achieve
harmony, servicemen must comply with local laws and customs. Yet when
it came to other areas of community relations, particularly where the
general health, welfare, and morale of the servicemen were involved,
the commission found that commanders did not hesitate to ally
themselves with servicemen, local community controversy and opposition
notwithstanding. The commission wanted the services to take a similar
stand against racial discrimination in the community. Although its
specific recommendations differed little from those of civil rights
leaders, its position as an independent federal agency and its access
to the news media added a constant and special pressure on the
services.[20-26]
[Footnote 20-25: See, for example, Ltr, Chmn,
Commission on Civil Rights, to SecDef, 26 Mar 62;
Memo, ASD (M) for Under SA et al., 7 May 62, sub:
Survey, United States Commission on Civil Rights;
Memo, Under SecNav for ASD (M), 25 May 62, sub:
United States Commission on Civil Rights Survey of
the Department of Defense; Ltr, Yarmolinsky to Berl
I. Bernhard, Staff Dir, U.S. Comm on Civil Rights,
14 Nov 62; Memo, ASD (M) for Under SA et al., 31
May 61; Ltr, Bernhard to Runge, 6 Jul 61; Ltr Runge
to Bernhard, 17 Jul 61. Copies of all in CMH.]
[Footnote 20-26: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, "The
Services and Their Relations With the Community,"
17 Jun 63.]
Another pressure on the armed forces in the early sixties was exerted
by the civil rights bureaucracy in the White House itself. Various
presidential assistants subjected the services' reports on progress in
the equal opportunity field to unprecedented scrutiny, asking
questions that forced the Defense Department to explain or justify its
racial policies and practices.[20-27] In March 1961, civil rights
assistants on the President's staff inquired about the number of (p. 508)
Negroes on the Defense Department's military and civilian screening
boards.[20-28] Later, Special Assistant Frank D. Reeves inquired about
the employees working in the executive area of the department and
suggested that the front offices do something about hiring more black
office workers.[20-29] And again as a result of a number of questions
raised about the Navy's race policy, presidential assistant Wofford
sponsored a White House meeting on 18 September 1961 for several civil
rights representatives and Adam Yarmolinsky, Special Assistant to the
Secretary of Defense, with the Chief of Naval Personnel, Vice Adm.
William R. Smedberg. Beginning with Yarmolinsky's probing questions
concerning the perennial problem of racial composition of the
Steward's Branch, the meeting evolved into a general review of the
Navy's recent problems and achievements in race relations.[20-30]
[Footnote 20-27: For examples of DOD reports submitted
to the White House on this subject, see Memo, ASD
(M) for Harris Wofford, 15 Nov 61, and idem for
Frank D. Reeves, Spec Asst to President, 29 Jun 61.
For examples of White House interest in these
reports, see James C. Evans, OASD (M), Notes on
Civil Rights Subcabinet Group Meeting, 2 Feb and 2
Mar 62. All in ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-28: Memo, Yarmolinsky for Runge, 13 May
61; Memo, ASD (M) for SA et al., 16 Mar 61, sub:
Personnel Screening Boards; both in ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-29: Memo, Frank D. Reeves, Spec Asst to
President, for SecDef, Attn: Adam Yarmolinsky, 19
Apr 61, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 20-30: Ltr, Harris Wofford to ASD (M), 18
Sep 61; Memo for Rcd, James C. Evans, 25 Sep 61,
sub: Negro Naval Personnel; Informal Memo, Evans
for Runge, 22 Sep 61, same sub. All in ASD (M)
291.2.]
At times this White House scrutiny could be aggressively critical.
There was, for example, small comfort for Defense Department officials
in Dutton's review of department comments on the recommendations of
the Civil Rights Leadership Conference submitted to the White House in
August 1961.[20-31] Dutton wanted to know more about the department's
inquiry into possible racial discrimination in the sentences meted out
by military courts. He was concerned with the allegation,
categorically denied by the Defense Department, that black servicemen
with school-aged dependents were being moved off bases to avoid
integrating base schools. He wanted a prompt investigation. Dutton was
impatient with the Navy's explanation for the continuing predominance
of Negroes in the Steward's Branch, and he was especially critical of
the racial situation in the National Guard. He wanted a progress
report on these points. Finally, he was unhappy with the lack of
Negroes in officer training, an executive area, he claimed, in which
civilian agencies were forging ahead. He wanted something done about
that also.[20-32]
[Footnote 20-31: Composed of representatives of some
fifty civil rights groups under the chairmanship of
Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, the Leadership Conference
on Civil Rights presented to President Kennedy a
list of proposals for executive action to end
federally supported segregation. See U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights, _Freedom to the Free_,
p. 129.]
[Footnote 20-32: Memo, Dutton for Yarmolinsky, 26 Oct
61, copy in ASD (M) 291.2 (22 May 61).]
The disquietude White House staff members produced among Defense
Department officials was nothing compared to the trauma induced by the
President's personal attention. John Kennedy rarely intervened but he
did so on occasion quickly and decisively and in a way illustrative of
his administration's civil rights style. He acted promptly, for
example, when he noticed an all-white unit from the Coast Guard
Academy marching in his inaugural parade. His call to the Secretary of
the Treasury Douglas Dillon on inauguration night led to the admission
of the first black students to the Coast Guard Academy. He elaborated
on the incident during his first cabinet meeting, asking each (p. 509)
department head to analyze the minority employment situation in his
own department. He was also upset to see "few, if any" black honor
guardsmen in the units that greeted visiting Ghanian President Kwame
Nkrumah on 13 March, an observation not lost on Secretary McNamara.
"Would it be possible," the new defense chief asked his manpower
assistant, "to introduce into these units a reasonable number of negro
personnel?"[20-33] An immediate survey revealed that Negroes accounted
for 14 percent of the Air Force honor unit, 8 percent of the Army's,
and 2.2 percent of the Marines Corps'. The 100-man naval unit had no
black members.[20-34]
[Footnote 20-33: Memo, SecDef for ASD (M), 13 Mar 61,
ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-34: Memo, ASD (M) for SecDef, 14 Mac 61,
sub: Ceremonial Units and Honor Guard Details, ASD
(M) 291.2.]
[Illustration: PRESIDENT KENNEDY AND PRESIDENT ALLESSANDRI OF CHILE
_review an all-white honor guard unit, White House, 1962_.]
These were minor incidents, yet Kennedy's interest was bound to make a
difference. As Evans wryly put it in regard to the survey of blacks in
the honor guard: "Pending any further instructions it is submitted
that the alert which has been given in person and by telephone in
connection with the securing of the above data may be adequate
for accomplishing the objectives contemplated in the [McNamara] (p. 510)
memorandum."[20-35] If not conducive to substantive change in the lot
of the black serviceman, the President's intervention signaled in a
way clearly understood by Washington bureaucrats that a new style in
executive politics was at hand and a new awareness of the racial
implications of their actions was expected of them.[20-36]
[Footnote 20-35: Informal Memo, Evans for Judge
Jackson, 14 Mar 61, sub: Ceremonial Units and Honor
Guard Details. Remark repeated by ASD (M) in his
Memo for SecDef, 14 Mar 61, same sub. Both in ASD
(M) files.]
[Footnote 20-36: The Coast Guard incident in
particular seems to have impressed Washington. It
was cited by Mitchell, Wilkins, and Hesburgh during
their oral history interviews at the J. F. Kennedy
Library, and it continued to be discussed for some
time after the inauguration in official channels.
See, for example, Memos, Frederick Dutton for Secy
of Treas, 21 Mar 61, sub: Coast Guard Academy, and
Theodore Eliot (Spec Asst to Secy of Treas) for
Richard N. Goodwin (Asst Spec Counsel to
President), 25 Jun 61, sub: Negro in the Coast
Guard, with attached note, Dick [Goodwin] to
President; Ltr, Asst Secy of Treas to Tim Reardon,
31 Jan 62. All in White House Gen files, J. F.
Kennedy Library. The Coast Guard, it should be
recalled, was not part of the Department of Defense
in 1961.]
_The Department of Defense, 1961-1963_
The White House approach to civil rights matters was faithfully
adopted in McNamara's department. Despite a reputation for
foot-dragging in some quarters--Deputy Secretary Roswell L. Gilpatric
admitted that neither he nor McNamara was especially interested in
personnel matters and that some of their early appointments in the
personnel field were inappropriate--[20-37]the secretary and his
assistants issued a spate of directives and policy memorandums and
inaugurated a whole series of surveys and investigations. Yarmolinsky
was later able to recall eleven major papers produced by the
secretary's office during the first thirty months of McNamara's
incumbency. Evans's more comprehensive list of actions taken by the
office of the secretary's manpower assistant with regard to equal
opportunity contained some forty items.[20-38] These totals did not
include 1,717 racial complaints the Defense Department investigated
and adjudicated before September 1963 nor the scores of contract
compliance reviews conducted under the equal opportunity clauses in
defense contracts.[20-39]
[Footnote 20-37: Interv, Dennis O'Brien with Roswell
L. Gilpatric, 5 May 70, in J. F. Kennedy Library;
see also Interv, Bernhard with Wofford.]
[Footnote 20-38: Memo, Spec Asst to SecDef for Paul
Southwick, White House, 22 Oct 63; James C. Evans,
"Equality of Opportunity in the Armed Forces, A
Summary Report on Actions and Contributions of the
ASD (M), January 1961-July 1962"; copies of both in
CMH.]
[Footnote 20-39: Although it did not directly affect
black servicemen, the contract compliance program
deserves mention as a field in which the Department
of Defense pioneered for the federal government.
During the Kennedy administration the department
hired hundreds of contract compliance officers to
scrutinize its vast purchasing program, insuring
compliance with Executive Order 10925. See Ltr,
Adam Yarmolinsky to author, 22 Nov 74, CMH files.]
The number of Department of Defense rulings that pertained directly to
black servicemen was matched by the comprehensiveness of their subject
matter. Many concerned the recruitment of Negroes and the increase in
their proportion of the military establishment. Others pertained to
off-base matters, ranging from prohibitions against the use of
segregated facilities during field exercises to the use of military
units in ceremonies and shows involving segregated audiences.
Continued segregation in the reserves, the racial policies of
the United Services Organization, and even the racial rule of (p. 511)
morticians who dealt with the services came in for attention.
Yet if these investigations and directives bespoke a quickened tempo
in the fight for equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces,
they did not herald a substantive reinterpretation of policy. The
Defense Department continued to limit its actions to matters obviously
and directly within its purview. The same self-imposed restriction
that kept McNamara's immediate predecessors from dealing with the most
pressing demands for reforms by black servicemen and the civil rights
leaders continued to be observed. This fact was especially clear in
the case of the Defense Department's four major policy pronouncements
involving the complex problem of discrimination visited upon
servicemen and their dependents outside the gates of the military
reservation.
_Discrimination Off the Military Reservation_
In the first of these directives, which was derived from President
Kennedy's executive order on equal employment opportunity,[20-40]
Secretary McNamara laid down that no departmental facility could be
used by employee recreational organizations that practiced racial or
religious discrimination. Included were facilities financed from
nonappropriated funds as well as all organizations to which civilian
as well as military personnel belonged.[20-41] A straightforward
enough commitment to a necessary racial reform, the secretary's order
could by logical extension also be viewed as carrying the department's
fight against racial discrimination into the civilian community. Yet
precisely because of these implications, the directive was subjected
to later clarification. Official interpretation revealed that
secretarial rhetoric aside, the Department of Defense was not yet
ready to involve civilians in its equality crusade.
[Footnote 20-40: The Office of the Secretary of
Defense also issued several other statements
implementing sections of Executive Order 10925; see
DOD Dir 1125.4, 2 Jan 62, and OSD Admin Instr No.
31, 13 July 62, both in SD files.]
[Footnote 20-41: Memo, SecDef for Secys of Military
Departments et al., 28 Apr 61, sub: Military and
Civilian Employee Recreational Organizations, copy
in ASD (M) 291.2.]
The problem emerged when the commander of Maxwell Air Force Base, in
keeping with his reading of the McNamara order, prohibited the use of
Maxwell's dining halls for a segregated luncheon of the American
Legion's Boys' State and its playing fields for the segregated Maxwell
Little League teams. Assistant Secretary Runge quickly reassured
Senator Lister Hill of Alabama that the 28 April order was limited to
employee organizations and so informed the Under Secretary of the Air
Force.[20-42] But a further clarification and, in effect, a further
restriction of the department's policy in discrimination cases was
issued when the Civil Rights Commission became interested in the case.
"If these activities are not covered by the April 28 directive," the
commission's staff director-designate wanted to know, "what is the
position of the Department of Defense on them?"[20-43] Runge's (p. 512)
response, cleared through Special Assistant Yarmolinsky, was hardly
reassuring to the commission. The department did not inquire into the
racial rules of private organizations that used departmental
facilities, Runge explained, nor did it object when its departmentally
sponsored teams and groups played or performed with segregated private
recreational groups.[20-44]
[Footnote 20-42: Ltr, Runge to Hill, 14 Jun 61; Memo,
Runge for Under SecAF, 28 Jan 61, sub: Military and
Civilian Employee Recreational Organizations both
in ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-43: Ltr, Bernhard to Runge, 6 Jul 61, ASD
(M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-44: Ltr, Runge to Bernhard, 17 Jul 61,
with attached Handwritten Note, signed SSJ [Stephen
Jackson], 13 Jul 61, ASD (M) 291.2.]
With the effect of a stone dropped into water, the implications of the
anti-discrimination memorandum continued to ripple outward. The
commander of Brookley Air Force Base, Alabama, canceled the sale of
subsidized tickets to the Mobile Bears baseball games by the base's
civilian welfare council on the grounds that the ball park's
segregated seating of Air Force personnel violated the secretary's
order. Inquiries from Capitol Hill set off another round of
clarifications.[20-45] While the secretary's manpower advisers were
inclined to support the base commander's action, some of the
department's legal advisers had reservations. Canceling the sale of
tickets, a lawyer in the general counsel's office noted, was
consistent with one construction of the secretary's memorandum but was
not the "inevitable interpretation" since it was the ball club and not
the Air Force recreational organization that discriminated.[20-46]
Another departmental lawyer warned that if the commander's
interpretation was sustained the department would next have to
prohibit welfare groups from selling unsubsidized tickets to events
where the seating or even perhaps the performers themselves were
segregated.[20-47]
[Footnote 20-45: Ltr, Hill to Runge, 26 Jul 61; Memo,
ASD (M) for SecAF, 25 Sep 61, sub: Purchase and
Sale of Baseball Tickets at Brookley AFB; both in
ASD (M) 353.8.]
[Footnote 20-46: Memo, R.C. Gilliat for Bartimo, 31
Jul 61, attached to Draft Ltr, Runge to Hill, ASD
(M) 353.8.]
[Footnote 20-47: Memo, RTA [Robert T. Andrews] for FAB
[Frank A. Bartimo], 1 Aug 61, ASD (M) 353.8.]
Yarmolinsky ignored such speculations, and on 4 August 1961 informed
special presidential assistant Dutton that the secretary's office
approved the base commander's action. Although the sale of tickets did
not technically violate Executive Order 10925, the department's
sponsorship and subsidy of segregated events, he said, "is, in our
opinion, not consonant with the clear intent of the President's
memorandum."[20-48] Yarmolinsky suggested the White House might want
to consider proposing to the ball club that the air base would resume
the sale of tickets if it could sell a block of unsegregated seats.
The White House reply was postponed until after the passage of the
foreign aid bill, but the Air Force eventually received notice to
proceed along these lines.[20-49]
[Footnote 20-48: Memo, Yarmolinsky for Dutton, 4 Aug
61, sub: President's Memorandum of 18 April 1961,
ASD (M) 291.2 (22 May 61).]
[Footnote 20-49: Note, signed, "MB," 16 Aug 61, sub:
Call From Virginia McGuire, attached to Draft Ltr,
ASD (M) to Sen. Hill; Memo, ASD (M) for SecAF, 25
Sep 61, sub: Purchase and Sale of Baseball Tickets
at Brookley AFB; both in ASD (M) 291.2 (22 May
61).]
On 19 June 1961 Deputy Secretary Gilpatric issued a second major
policy statement. This one ostensibly dealt with the availability of
integrated community facilities for servicemen, but was in fact far
wider in scope, and brought the department nearer the uncharted (p. 513)
shoals of community race relations. A testament to the extraordinary
political sensitivity of the subject was the long time the document
spent in the drafting stage. Its wording incorporated the suggestions
of representatives of the three service secretaries and was carefully
reviewed by the President's civil rights advisers, who wanted the
draft shown to the President "because of his particular interest in
Civil Rights matters."[20-50] With their request in mind, and because
of what he considered "the tense situation now existent in the South,"
Runge urged the secretary to send the President the memorandum. Before
doing so McNamara asked his general counsel, Cyrus R. Vance, to
discuss the draft with the under secretaries of the services and
Assistant Attorney General Nicholas B. Katzenbach and Burke Marshall.
At the suggestion of the justice officials, the draft was slightly
revised; then it was sent once again to the services for review.
Finally on 19 June 1961, and only after Yarmolinsky had rejected
certain minor alterations suggested by the services, was the
memorandum issued under Gilpatric's signature and its provisions
passed down to the local commanders by the service secretaries.[20-51]
[Footnote 20-50: Memo, ASD (M) for SecDef, 22 May 61,
sub: Availability of Facilities to Military
Personnel, ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-51: Memo, Dep SecDef for Service Secys,
19 Jun 61, sub: Availability of Facilities to
Military Personnel, SD 291.2. For various comments
on the draft memo, see the following Memos: Vance
and Runge for SecDef, 5 Jun 61; ASD (M) for Dep
SecDef, 16 Jun 51, sub: Availability of Facilities
to Military Personnel; Dep SecDef for Service
Secys, 5 Jun 61, same sub; SecAF for Dep SecDef, 13
Jun 61, same sub. All in ASD (M) 291.2 (22 May
61).]
The policy that emerged from all this careful labor committed the
services to very little change. In the first place the title, The
Availability of Facilities to Military Personnel, was vague, a legacy
of the department's fear of congressional retaliation for any
substantive move in the politically sensitive area of race relations.
Actually the secretary's office was primarily concerned with
discrimination in places of public accommodation such as swimming
pools, recreational facilities, meeting halls, and the like while the
explosive subject of off-base housing was ignored. Although the
order's ambiguity did not preclude initiatives in the housing field by
some zealous commanders, neither did it oblige any commander to take
any specific action, thus providing a convenient excuse for no action
at all.[20-52] Commanders, for example, were ordered to provide
integrated facilities off post for servicemen "to the extent
possible," a significant qualification in areas where such facilities
were not available in the community. Commanders were also "expected to
make every effort" to obtain integrated facilities off base through
the good offices of their command-community relations committees. In
effect the department was asking its commanders to achieve through
tact what the courts and the Justice Department were failing to
achieve through legal process.
[Footnote 20-52: Interv, author with James C. Evans,
15 Nov 72, CMH files.]
Where the order was specific, it carefully limited the extent of
reforms. It barred the use of military police in the enforcement of
local segregation laws, a positive step but a limited reform since
only in very rare instances had military police ever been so employed.
The order also provided "as circumstances warranted" for legal
assistance to servicemen to insure that they were afforded due
process of law in cases growing out of the enforcement of local (p. 514)
segregation ordinances. Again what seemed a broad commitment and
extensive interference with local matters was in practice very
carefully circumscribed, as demonstrated by the Air Force policy
statement issued in the wake of the secretary's order.
The Air Force announced that in the case of discrimination in the
community, the local Air Force commander and his staff judge advocate
would interview the aggrieved serviceman to ascertain the facts and
advise him of his legal recourses, "but will neither encourage nor
discourage the filing of a criminal complaint." The purpose of the
policy, the Air Force Chief of Staff explained, was to assist
servicemen and at the same time avoid disrupting good community
relations. The commander should remain interested, but he should leave
the work to his judge advocate so that the commander would not
personally be "caught in the middle" to the detriment of his community
relations program. If local authorities refused to cooperate, the
matter should be referred to higher authority who might pursue it with
local government officials. Such procedures might keep the commander
from becoming embroiled in locally sensitive issues.[20-53] In short,
discrimination was to be fought through voluntary action at the local
command level, but nothing was to be done that might compromise the
commander's standing with the local authorities.
[Footnote 20-53: Memo, Maj Gen Albert M. Kuhfeld,
USAFJAG (for CofSAF), for ALMAJCOM (SJA), 2 Feb 62,
sub: Air Force Policy Statement Concerning
Violations of Anti-Discrimination Law, and attached
Memo, Dep CofS, Pers, for ALMAJCOM, 30 Jan 62, same
sub, SecAF files.]
McNamara's office displayed the same good intentions and crippling
inhibitions when it considered policy on the participation of
servicemen in civil rights demonstrations. The secretary had inherited
a policy from his predecessor who, in the wake of a series of sit-in
demonstrations involving black airmen in the spring of 1960, had
approved a plan devised by the judge advocate generals of the services
and other Defense Department officials. Declaring such activity
"inappropriate" in light of the services' mission, these officials
banned the participation of servicemen in civil rights demonstrations
and gave local commanders broad discretionary powers to prevent such
participation, including the right to declare the place of
demonstration off limits or to restrict servicemen to the base.
Although all the services adopted the new policy, only the Air Force
published detailed instructions.[20-54]
[Footnote 20-54: Memo for Rcd, ASD (P), 23 Mar 60;
Memo, Dep Chief, NavPers, for Asst SecNav (Pers and
Reserve Forces), 23 Mar 60, sub: Considerations
Relative to Department of Defense Policy Concerning
Disputes Over Local Laws or Customs; copies of both
in ASD (M) 291.2. For the Air Force instructions,
see Memo, AF Dep CofS (P) for All Major Cmdrs, 30
Mar 60, sub: Air Force Policy Statement Concerning
Involvement of Air Force Personnel in Local Civil
Disturbances, SecAF files.]
This prohibition did not deter all black servicemen, and some
commanders, in their zeal to enforce departmental policy, went beyond
the methods McNamara's predecessor had recommended. Such was the case
during a series of sit-ins at Killeen, Texas, near the Army's Fort
Hood, where, as reported in the national press and subsequently
investigated by the United States Commission on Civil Rights, the
commander used military police to break up two demonstrations.[20-55]
The secretary's office reacted quickly to the incidents. A (p. 515)
prohibition against the use of military police to quell civil rights
demonstrations was quickly included in the secretary's policy
statement, The Availability of Facilities to Military Personnel, then
being formulated. "This memorandum," Assistant Secretary Runge assured
McNamara, "should preclude any further such incidents."[20-56] In
specific reference to the situation in the Fort Hood area, the Deputy
Under Secretary of the Army reported that as a result of a new policy
and the emphasis placed on personal contact by commanders with local
community representatives, "a cordial relationship now exists between
Fort Hood and the surrounding communities."[20-57]
[Footnote 20-55: Memo, ASD (M) for SecDef, 18 Jul 61,
sub: Use of Military Police to Halt Sit-ins as
Reported by Drew Pearson's Column of July 19 in the
Washington Post; Ltr, U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights Staff Dir Designate to ASD (M), 26 Jul 61;
both in ASD (M) 291.2. The President's office
received considerable mail on the subject; see
White House Cen files, J. F. Kennedy Library.]
[Footnote 20-56: Memo, ASD (M) for SecDef, 18 Jul 61,
sub: Use of Military Police..., ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-57: Memo, Dep Under SA for Counselor,
OASD (M), 12 Jan 62, sub: Off-Base Racial
Discrimination in the Fort Hood Area, ASD (M)
291.2.]
But to ban the use of military police and to urge commanders to deal
with local business leaders to end segregation actually begged the
question. Significantly, the much-heralded memorandum on the
availability of integrated facilities failed to review the rules
governing participation in demonstrations, a subject of pressing
interest to an increasing number of Negroes as the civil rights
struggle moved into a more active phase. Bothered by this failure, Air
Force representatives on the policy drafting team had wanted to
provide local commanders with guidance before civil rights incidents
occurred. The justice officials who reviewed the memorandum at
McNamara's invitation, however, were reluctant to see specific
reference to such incidents incorporated, and the matter was
ignored.[20-58]
[Footnote 20-58: Memo, Vance and Runge for SecDef, 5
Jun 61, ASD (M) 291.2.]
In fact, justice officials were not the only ones reluctant to see the
issue raised. It was a common belief in the Defense Department that
military service placed some limitations on a man's basic liberties.
Because servicemen were assigned to their duty station, subject to
immediate transfers and on duty twenty-four hours a day, they were
allowed no opportunity for participating in demonstrations.[20-59] The
department's general counsel was even more specific, saying that a
prohibition against picketing would not conflict with the department's
anti-discrimination policies and could be lawfully imposed by the
services. "Indeed," he believed, "the role of the military
establishment in our society required the imposition of such a
limitation on the off-duty activities of service personnel."[20-60]
Blessed by such authority, the 1960 prohibition against participation
in civil rights demonstrations remained in effect for more than three
years.[20-61]
[Footnote 20-59: Ltr, ASD (M) to John de J. Pemberton,
Jr., Exec Dir, American Civil Liberties Union, 31
Jul 63; Memos for Rcd, OSD Counselor, 26 Apr 61 and
9 Jul 63. All in ASD (M) 291.2 (16 Jul 63).]
[Footnote 20-60: Memo, General Counsel for ASD (M), 15
Jun 62, sub: Picketing by Members of the Armed
Forces, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 20-61: See Memo, James P. Goode, Office of
SecAF, for Stephen Jackson and Carlisle Runge,
attached to Memo, AF Dep CofS (P) for All Major
Cmdrs, 30 Mar 60, sub: Air Force Policy Statement
Concerning Involvement of Air Force Personnel in
Local Civil Disturbances, SecAF files; Ltr, Under
SecNav to Jesse H. Turner, 6 Oct 61, copy in CMH.
See also Ltr, Adam Yarmolinsky to Adam C. Powell,
30 Oct 63, SD 291.2 (14 Jul 63).]
Such restrictions could not last much longer. Given the civil (p. 516)
rights temper of the times--1963 witnessed the mammoth march on
Washington, the introduction of President Kennedy's civil rights bill,
and the landmark directive of the Secretary of Defense on equal
opportunity in the armed forces--a total prohibition on servicemen's
participation in demonstrations appeared more and more incongruous.
Finally, on 16 July 1963, McNamara relaxed the department's policy.
Still declaring such participation inappropriate and unnecessary for
servicemen in view of their "special obligations of citizenship," he
nevertheless lifted the ban on military participation in
demonstrations, provided that the uniform was not worn; such activity
took place during off-duty hours, off the military reservation, and
did not constitute a breach of law and order; and no violence was
reasonably likely to result.[20-62]
[Footnote 20-62: Memo, SecDef for Secys of Mil Depts
et al., 16 Jul 63, SD files; see also New York
_Times_, July 16, 17, 20, 22, 28, and 30, 1963.]
[Illustration: SECRETARY OF DEFENSE MCNAMARA.]
Again an apparent liberalization of departmental racial policy
actually promised very little change. First, the continuing
prohibitions on participation in demonstrations were so broad and so
vague that they could be interpreted to cover almost any civil rights
activity. Then, too, the secretary left the interpretation of his
order to the judgment of local commanders, a dubious blessing in the
eyes of the civil libertarians and concerned servicemen in light of
the narrow constructions commanders had given recent Defense
Department memorandums. Finally, the relaxation of the ban was
applicable only to the continental United States. In response to a
request for guidance from the European commander, the Joint Chiefs of
Staff informed all overseas commanders that as guests of Allied
nations, U.S. servicemen had no right to picket, demonstrate, or
otherwise participate in any act designed to "alter the policies,
practices, or activities of the local inhabitants who are operating
within the framework of their own laws."[20-63]
[Footnote 20-63: Msg, USCINCEUR to JCS, 201256Z Aug
63; Msg, JCS 2190 to CINSCO et al. (info copies to
Service Chiefs of Staff, CINCAL, ASD [M], and ASD
[PA]), 221630Z Aug 63.]
The fourth major memorandum on racial matters outlined the
department's application of Executive Order 11063 on housing. Racial
discrimination in off-base housing had become perhaps the chief
complaint of black servicemen who were further incensed by many (p. 517)
local commanders who maintained lists of segregated houses in their
base housing offices. In some cases commanders referred their black
servicemen to the Urban League or similar organizations for help in
finding suitable housing.[20-64] Demands that the services do
something about the situation were rebuffed. As the Assistant
Secretary of Defense explained to a White House official, the
Department of Defense had "virtually no direct involvement" in
off-base housing, the segregation of which was "not readily
susceptible to change by actions that are within the control of the
military departments."[20-65]
[Footnote 20-64: Omaha _World Herald_, August 17,
1962; see also Memo, Adam [Yarmolinsky] for L.
White, 7 Sep 62, Lee White Collection, J. F.
Kennedy Library.]
[Footnote 20-65: Memo, ASD (M) for Asst Legal Counsel
to President, 7 Nov 61, sub: Racial Discrimination
in the Armed Services, ASD (M) 291.2.]
Several of McNamara's assistants disagreed. They drafted a housing
order for the secretary but not without opposition at first from some
of their colleagues. An Army representative, for example, suggested a
counterproposal that commanders be ordered to work through the federal
agencies established in various geographical areas of the country by
Executive Order 11063. An Air Force spokesman recommended the creation
of special regional and local community committees, chaired by
representatives of the Housing and Home Finance Agency and including
members from all major federal agencies. For his part, Stephen S.
Jackson, a special assistant in the manpower office, thought these
service proposals had merit, and he wanted to postpone action until
they had been discussed with other interested federal agencies.[20-66]
[Footnote 20-66: Memo, Jackson for Dep ASD, Family
Housing-OASD (I&L), 8 Feb 63, sub: Implementation
of EX 11063, Equal Opportunity in Housing, copy in
CMH.]
McNamara, however, "readily agreed" with his housing experts that a
letter on nondiscrimination in family housing was necessary. On 8
March 1963 he informed the service secretaries that effective
immediately all military leases for family housing, that is, contracts
for private housing rented by the services for servicemen, would
contain a nondiscrimination clause in accordance with the President's
executive order. He also ordered military bases to maintain listings
only on nonsegregated private housing.[20-67] Again an attempt to
bring about a needed change was severely limited in effectiveness by
the department's concern for the scope of the commander's authority in
the local community. The application of the President's order would
end segregation in leased housing, but only a small percentage of
black servicemen lived in such housing. The majority of service
families lived off base in private housing, which the new order,
except for banning the listing of segregated properties by base
housing offices, ignored. Barring the use of segregated private
housing to all servicemen, a more direct method of changing the racial
pattern surrounding military installations, would have to wait for a
substantive change in departmental thinking.
[Footnote 20-67: Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 8 Mar 63,
sub: Non-Discrimination in Family Housing; Memo,
ASD (I&L) for Dep ASD (Family Housing), 8 Mar 63;
copies of both in ASD (M) 291.2. The quote is from
the latter document.]
_Reserves and Regulars: A Comparison_
While the interest of both civil rights advocates and defense
officials was focused on off-base concerns during the early 1960's,
discrimination continued to linger in the armed forces. A (p. 518)
particularly sensitive issue to the services, which in the public mind
had complete jurisdiction over all men in uniform, was the position of
the Negro in the reserve components. To generalize on the racial
policies of the fifty-four National Guard organizations is difficult,
but whereas some state guards had been a progressive force in the
integration of the services in the early postwar period, others had
become symbols of racism by 1961. Some fourteen years after the Truman
order, ten states with large black populations and understaffed guard
units still had no Negroes in the guard. The Kennedy administration
was not the first to wrestle with the problem of applying a single
racial policy to both the regulars and the guard. It was aware that
too much tampering with the politically influential and volatile guard
could produce an explosion. At the same time any appearance of
timidity courted antagonism from another quarter.
From the beginning the new administration found itself criticized by
civil rights organizations, including the U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights, for not moving quickly against segregated National Guard
units.[20-68] A delegation from the NAACP's 1961 convention visited
Assistant Secretary Runge in July and criticized--to the exclusion of
all other subjects--discrimination in the National Guard. This group
wanted the federal government to withhold funds from states that
continued to bar black participation. Repeating the old claim that
special federal-state relationships precluded direct action by the
Secretary of Defense, Runge nevertheless promised the delegates a
renewed effort to provide equal opportunity. He also made a somewhat
irrelevant reference to the recent experience of a black citizen in
Oklahoma who had secured admission to the state guard by a direct
appeal to the governor.[20-69] How futile such appeals would be in
some states was demonstrated a week later when the Adjutant General of
Florida declared that since the guard was a volunteer organization and
his state had always drawn its members from among white citizens,
Florida was under no obligation to enlist black men.[20-70]
[Footnote 20-68: See petitions signed by thousands of
Negroes to the President demanding redress of
grievances against the discriminatory practices of
the National Guard, in White House Cen files, 1962,
J. F. Kennedy Library.]
[Footnote 20-69: Memo for Rcd, James C. Evans, OASD
(M), 17 Jul 61, sub: Mr. Runge Receives NAACP
Delegation, ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-70: Washington _Post_, July 28, 1961.]
That the new administration had quietly adopted different policies
toward the guard and the regular forces was confirmed when Runge
responded to a report prepared by the American Veterans Committee on
the lack of racial progress in the guard. The veterans group called on
the administration to use the threat of withdrawal of federal
recognition to alter guard practices.[20-71] The administration
refused. A policy of force might be acceptable for the active armed
forces, but voluntary persuasion seemed more appropriate for the
National Guard. Enunciating what would become the Defense Department's
position on the National Guard through 1963, Runge declared that the
federal government had no legal authority to force integration on the
guard when it was not serving in a federal status. Furthermore, (p. 519)
withdrawal of federal recognition or withholding federal funds as a
means of bringing about integration, though legally sound, would cause
some states to reject federal support and inactivate their units,
thereby stripping the country of a portion of its military reserve and
damaging national security. Citing the progress being made by
persuasion, Runge predicted that some recalcitrant states might in
time voluntarily move toward integration.[20-72] Noting instances of
recent progress and citing legal restrictions against forcing state
compliance, McNamara endorsed the policy of encouraging voluntary
compliance.[20-73]
[Footnote 20-71: Ltr, Murray Gross, Chmn of the AVC,
to SecDef, 22 Jun 61, SD 291.2. The report on the
integration of the National Guard was inclosed.]
[Footnote 20-72: Ltrs, Runge to Murray Gross, 19 Jul
and 29 Nov 61, ASD (M) 291.2, and n.d. (ca. Nov
61), copy in Wofford Collection, J. F. Kennedy
Library.]
[Footnote 20-73: Ltr, SecDef to Rep. Carl Vinson of
Georgia, Chmn, House Armed Services Cmte, 5 Aug 61,
reprinted in Appendix to _Congressional Record_,
87th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 107, p. A6589.]
Although unauthorized, similar patterns of discrimination persisted in
parts of the organized reserves. Reserve units had links with both the
regular forces and the guard. Like the regulars, the reserve was
legally a creature of the federal government and subject to policies
established by the Secretary of Defense. Moreover, the reserve drew
much of its manpower from the pool of soldiers separating from active
duty with a reserve obligation still to fulfill, and within some
limits the Defense Department could assign such men to units in a
manner that could influence the reserve's racial composition. But like
the guard, the reserve also had a distinct local flavor, serving
almost as a social club in some parts of the country. This
characteristic was often an important factor in maintaining a unit at
satisfactory strength. Since segregation sometimes went hand in hand
with the clublike atmosphere, the services feared that a strong stand
on integration might cause a severe decline in the strength of some
units.[20-74] When the Army staff reviewed the situation in 1956,
therefore, it had not pressed for integration of all units, settling
instead for merely "encouraging" commanders to open their units to
Negroes.[20-75]
[Footnote 20-74: ACofS (Reserve Components) Summary
Sheet, 11 Feb 57, sub: Race Issue in Armory Debate,
copy in DCSPER 291.2.]
[Footnote 20-75: DCSPER Summary Sheet, 6 Apr 56, sub:
Policy for Reserve Training Assignments of
Obligated Non-Caucasian Personnel of the Ready
Reserve Who Reside in Segregated Areas, DCSPER
291.2.]
The move toward complete integration of the reserves was slow. In
1956, for example, more than 75 percent of the Army's reserve units in
southern states were still segregated. The other services followed a
similar pattern; in 1962 more than 40 percent of all reserve units in
the country were white; the Army retained six all-black reserve units
as well. Racial exclusion persisted in the Reserve Officers' Training
Corps also, although here the fault was probably not so much a matter
of reserve policy as the lingering segregation pattern in some state
school systems. At the same time, the reserves had more blacks in
nondrill status than in drill status. In other words, more blacks were
in reserve pools where, unassigned to specific units, they did not
participate in active duty training. In 1962, some 75 percent of the
black reservists in the Army and Air Force, 85 percent in the Navy,
and 38 percent in the Marine Corps were assigned to such pools. For
many reservists, paid drill status was desirable; apart from the money
received for such active duty, they had the opportunity to gain (p. 520)
credit toward retirement and pensions.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Gilpatric reminded the services in April
1962 that the Truman order applied to the reserves and called on the
under secretaries to integrate the all-black and all-white units "as
rapidly as is consistent with military effectiveness."[20-76] He also
wanted a review of black assignments for the purpose of removing the
disproportionate number of Negroes in pools "consistent with the
military requirements and the skills of the personnel involved."
[Footnote 20-76: Memo, Dep SecDef for Under Secys, 3
Apr 62, sub: Compliance With E.O. 9981 in the Army,
Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps Reserves, in SD
files. The secretary's memo was distributed to the
commands; see, for example, Memo, TAG for CINCARPAC
et al., 15 May 62 (TAG 291.2/15 May 62).]
A defense manpower team surveyed the reserves in November 1962. It
tried to soften the obvious implication of its racial statistics by
pointing out that the all-black units were limited to two Army areas,
and action had already been taken by the Third Army and Fourth Army
commanders to integrate the six units as soon as possible. The team
also announced initiation of a series of administrative safeguards
against discrimination in the enlistment and assignment of men to
drilling units. As for the all-white units, the reviewers cautioned
that discrimination was not necessarily involved since Negroes
constituted a relatively small proportion of the strength of the
reserves--4.8 percent of the Army, 4.4 percent of the Air Force, and
an estimated 3.2 percent of the Navy. Furthermore, the data neither
proved nor disproved allegations of discrimination since the degree to
which individuals volunteered, the skills and aptitudes they
possessed, and the needs of the services were all factors in the
assignment and use of the men involved.[20-77]
[Footnote 20-77: Office of the ASD (M), Review of
Compliance With E.O. 9981 in the Army, Navy, Air
Force, and Marine Corps Reserves, 7 Nov 62, copy in
CMH.]
Pleas of an absence of legal authority in regard to the National Guard
and generalized promises of racial reform in the reserves were not
going to still the complaints of the civil rights organizations nor
discourage the interest of their allies in the administration.
Clearly, the Department of Defense would be hearing more about race in
the reserve components in the months to come.
The sudden reemergence in the early 1960's of complaints of
discrimination in the regular forces centered around a familiar
litany: the number of Negroes in some of the services still fell
significantly short of the black percentage of the national
population; and separate standards, favorable to whites, prevailed in
the promotion and assignment systems of all the services. There had to
be some discrimination involved, Congressman Diggs pointed out to the
Secretary of the Air Force in July 1960. With extensive help from the
services, Diggs had been investigating servicemen's complaints for
some time. While his major concern remained the discrimination
suffered by black servicemen off base, he nevertheless concluded that
the service regulations developed in consultation with the Fahy
Committee more than a decade earlier had not been fully implemented
and discriminatory practices existed "in varying degrees" at (p. 521)
military installations around the world. Diggs admitted that a black
serviceman might well charge discrimination to mask his failure to
compete successfully for a job or grade, but to accept such failures
as a universal explanation for the disproportionate number of Negroes
in the lower ranks and undesirable occupations was to accept as true
the canard that Negroes as a group were deficient. Diggs's conclusion,
which he pressed upon the department with some notice in the press,
was that some black servicemen were being subtly but deliberately and
arbitrarily restricted to inferior positions because their military
superiors exercised judgments based on racial considerations. These
judgments, he charged, were inconsistent with the spirit of the Truman
order.[20-78]
[Footnote 20-78: Ltr, Diggs to SecAF, 7 Jul 60; see
also Memo, Dir, AF Legis Liaison, for Spec Asst for
Manpower, Personnel, and Reserve Forces, USAF, 14
Jul 60, with attached Summary of Findings and
Highlights of the Diggs Report Concerning Alleged
Discriminatory Practices in the Armed Forces; both
in SecAF files.]
At first glance the 1963 study of racial discrimination by the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights seemed to contradict Diggs's charges. The
commission concluded that taken as a whole the status of black
servicemen had improved considerably since the Truman order. It noted
that black representation had remained relatively constant since the
early days of integration, 8.2 percent of the total, 9.2 percent of
the enlisted strength, and approached national population averages.
The percentage of black officers, 1.6 percent of all officers, while
admittedly low, had been rising steadily and compared favorably with
the number of black executives in the civilian economy. The
occupational status of the black enlisted man had also undergone
steady improvement since the early days of integration, especially
when one compared the number and variety of military occupation
specialties held by black servicemen with opportunities in the rest of
the civil service and the business community.
Finally, and perhaps most important, the commission found that in
their daily operations, military installations were "generally free
from the taint of racial discrimination."[20-79] It confirmed the
general assessments of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith and
the American Veterans Committee among others, pointing out that black
and white servicemen not only worked side by side, but also mingled in
off-duty hours.[20-80] In sum, the study demonstrated general
satisfaction with the racial situation on military bases. Its major
concern, and indeed the major concern of Diggs and most black
servicemen, remained the widespread discrimination prevailing against
black servicemen in the local community.
[Footnote 20-79: U.S. Commission on _Civil Rights_,
Civil Rights '63, pp. 173-85. The quotation is from
page 185.]
[Footnote 20-80: See, for example, Morton Puner, "The
Armed Forces: An Integration Success Story,"
_Anti-Defamation League Bulletin_, Nov 62, pp. 3,
7; and American Veterans Committee, "Audit of Negro
Veterans and Servicemen," 1960.]
These important generalizations aside, the commission nevertheless
offered impressive statistical support for some of Diggs's charges
when it investigated the diverse and conflicting enlistment and
assignment patterns of the different services. The Navy and Marine
Corps came in for special criticism. Even when the complexities of
mental aptitude requirements and use of draftees versus enlistees (p. 522)
were discounted, the commission found that these two services
consistently employed a significantly smaller percentage of Negroes
than the Army and Air Force. A similar disparity existed in assignment
procedures. The commission found that both services failed to match
the record of the civilian economy in the use of Negroes in technical,
mechanical, administrative, clerical, and craft fields. It suspected
that the services' recruiting and testing methods intensified these
differences and wondered whether they might not operate to exclude
Negroes in some instances.
Despite general approval of conditions on the bases, the commission
found what it called "vestiges of discrimination on some bases." It
reported some segregated noncommissioned officer clubs, some
segregated transportation of servicemen to the local community, and
some discriminatory employment patterns in the hiring of civilians for
post jobs. Partly the legacy of the old segregated services, this
discrimination, the commission concluded, was to a greater extent the
result of the intrusion of local civilian attitudes. The commission's
attention to outside influences on attitudes at the base suggested
that it found the villain of the Diggs investigation, the prejudiced
military official, far too simplistic an explanation for what was in
reality institutional racism, a complex mixture of sociological forces
and military traditions acting on the services. The Department of
Defense's manpower experts dwelt on these forces and traditions when
they analyzed recruitment, promotion, and assignment trends for
McNamara in 1963.[20-81]
[Footnote 20-81: Memo, DepASD (Special Studies and
Requirements) for ASD (M), 16 Jul 63, with
attachment, Utilization of Negroes in the Armed
Forces, July 1963, copy in CMH. All the tables
accompanying this discussion are from the preceding
source, with the exception of Table 16, which is
from the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Policy
Planning and Research, _The Negro Family: The Case
for National Action_, Mar 64, p. 75, where it is
reproduced from DOD sources.]
They found a general increase in black strength ratios between 1949
and 1962 (_Table 13_). They blamed the "selective" recruiting
practices in vogue before the Truman order for the low enlistment
ratios in 1949, just as they attributed the modest increases since
that time to the effects of the services' equal treatment and
opportunity programs. In the judgment of these analysts, racial
differences in representation since the Truman order, and indeed most
of the other discrepancies between black and white servicemen, could
usually be explained by the sometimes sharp difference in aptitude
test results (_Table 14_). A heritage of the Negro's limited, often
segregated and inferior education and his economic and related (p. 523)
environmental handicaps, low aptitude scores certainly explained the
contrast in disqualification rates (_Tables 15 and 16_). By 1962 fully
half of all Negroes--as compared to 8 percent of all whites--failed to
qualify for service under minimum mental test standards. In some
southern states, the draftee rejection rate for Negroes exceeded 80
percent.
Table 13--Black Strength in the Armed Forces for Selected Years
(In Percentage)
Army Navy Marine Corps Air Force
Enlisted Enlisted Enlisted Enlisted
Year Men Officers Men Officers Men Officers Men Officers
1949 12.4 1.8 4.7 0.0 2.1 0.0 5.1 0.6
1954 13.7 3.0 3.6 0.1 6.5 0.1 8.6 1.1
1962 12.2 3.2 5.2 0.2 7.6 0.2 9.2 1.2
Table 14--Estimated Percentage Distribution of Draft-Age Males in U.S.
Population by AFQT Groups (Based on Preinduction Examination, 1959-1962)
Group White Nonwhite
I 11.8 0.3
II 31.3 2.6
III 31.9 15.0
IV 19.0 40.1
V 6.0 42.0
Table 15--Rate of Men Disqualified for Service in 1962
(In Percentage)
Cause White Nonwhite
Medical and other 21.8 10.1
Mental test failure 8.4 50.6
Total 30.2 60.7
Table 16--Rejection Rates for Failure to Pass
Armed Forces Mental Test, 1962
Failed Mental Test
Number
Area Examined Number Percent
Grand total, Continental United States 286,152 64,536 22.6
Total, white 235,678 36,204 15.4
Total, black 50,474 28,332 56.1
First Army: Connecticut, Maine,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
New Jersey, New York, Rhode
Island, Vermont
White 49,171 12,989 26.4
Black 7,937 3,976 50.1
Second Army: Delaware, Washington,
D.C., Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Virginia,
West Virginia
White 48,641 5,888 12.1
Black 9,563 4,255 44.5
Third Army: Alabama, Florida, Georgia,
Mississippi, North Carolina,
South Carolina, Tennessee
White 30,242 5,786 19.1
Black 20,343 13,772 67.7
Fourth Army: Arkansas, Louisiana,
New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas
White 15,048 2,039 13.5
Black 4,796 2,988 62.3
Fifth Army: Colorado, Illinois, Iowa,
Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri,
Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota,
Wisconsin, Wyoming
White 51,117 4,495 8.9
Black 5,723 2,684 46.9
Sixth Army: Arizona, California, Idaho, 1 1 1
Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah,
Washington
White 41,459 5,007 12.1
Black 2,112 657 31.1
This problem became critical for black enlistments in the mid-1950's
when the services, with less need for new servicemen, raised the
mental standards for enlistees, denying Group IV men the right to
enlist. (An exception to this pattern was the Navy's decision to
accept Group IV enlistments in 1956 and 1957 to replace post-Korean
enlistment losses.) In terms of total black representation, however,
the new mental standards made a lesser difference (_Table 17_).
Denying Group IV men enlistment during the 1950's only increased their
number in the draft pool, and when the Army stepped up draft
inductions in the early 1960's the number of Group IV men in uniform,
including Negroes, rapidly increased.
Table 17--Nonwhite Inductions and First Enlistments, Fiscal Years
1953-1962[1]
Fiscal | Total | Percent Nonwhite
Year |Accessions| DOD| Army |Navy|Marine| Air
| (000)[1] | |Inductees[2]|Enlistees| |Corps |Force
1953 886.1 12.8 14.7 13.4 4.3 8.0 11.1
1954 576.3 10.0 9.9 13.0 4.0 7.8 11.9
1955 622.6 10.6 8.8 12.7 9.0 5.4 13.5
1956 481.9 11.2 10.3 15.1 9.5 10.6 12.2
1957 456.7 9.1 10.8 9.3 3.6 9.5 9.7
1958 367.1 7.9 13.2 6.4 2.8 5.1 7.1
1959 392.0 7.1 10.4 8.1 2.4 5.0 6.5
1960 389.4 8.1 12.3 8.4 3.0 7.9 8.4
1961 394.7 8.2 14.4 8.2 2.9 5.9 9.5
1962 518.6 9.7 15.3 9.0 4.1 6.5 8.6
Total 5,085.4 9.9 12.3 10.3 4.9 7.4 10.4
[Tablenote 1: Includes inductions and male
"non-prior service" enlistments into the Regular
components.]
[Tablenote 2: The Army was the only service
drafting men during this decade.]
While the Army's dependence on the draft, and thus Group IV men,
explained part of the continuing high percentage of Negroes in that
service, the Defense Department manpower group was at a loss to
explain the notable variation in black enlistments among the services.
All employed similar enlistment standards, yet during the period
1958--1960, for example, black enlistment in the Army and Air Force
averaged 7 percent, the Marine Corps 6 percent, and the Navy 2.7
percent. Nor could the analysts isolate the factors contributing to
the low officer ratios in all four services. Almost all military
officers during the period under analysis were college graduates,
Negroes comprised about 4 percent of all male college graduates, yet
only the Army maintained a black officer ratio approaching that
figure. (_See Table 13._)
The inability of many black servicemen to score highly in the tests
might also explain why training in some technical occupations
continued more restricted for them (_Tables 18 and 19_). In (p. 524)
contrast to ground combat and service occupations, which required
little formal school training, some occupation groups--electronics,
for example--had high selection standards. The Defense Department
group admitted that occupations for blacks in the armed forces had
also been influenced by historical patterns of segregated assignments
to food service and other support occupations. Among men with twenty
or more years in uniform, 40 percent of the blacks and 12 percent (p. 525)
of the whites were assigned to service occupations. But this pattern
was changing, the analysts pointed out. The reduction in the
differential between whites and blacks in service occupations among
more recent recruits clearly reflected the impact of policies designed
to equalize opportunities (_Table 20_). These policies had brought (p. 526)
about an increasing proportion of Negroes in white collar skills as
well as in ground combat skills.
Table 18--Distribution of Enlisted Personnel in Each Major
Occupation, 1956
Percentage Distribution by AFQT Groups
Occupation I&II III IV
Electronics 60.3 31.4 8.3
Other technical 57.9 30.7 11.4
Admin. & clerical 51.5 37.4 11.1
Mechanics & repairmen 37.6 43.8 18.6
Crafts 30.0 44.1 25.9
Services 21.5 43.3 35.2
Ground combat 24.5 37.1 38.4
Table 19--Occupational Group Distribution by Race. All DOD, 1962
Total Percent
Occupational Group Percentage Distribution of Negroes in
Negroes White Each Group
Ground combat 23.7 15.0 14.3
Electronics 7.0 14.9 4.7
Other technical 6.8 7.7 8.5
Admin. & clerical 21.5 19.2 10.6
Mechanics & repairmen 15.1 26.0 5.8
Crafts 5.6 6.6 8.4
Services 20.3 10.7 16.6
Total 100.0 100.0 9.2
Table 20--Occupational Group Distribution of Enlisted Personnel
By Length of Service and Race
12-20 Over
Occupational 0-4 Years 4-8 Years 8-12 Years Years 20 Years
Group
White Black White Black White Black White Black White Black
Ground
combat 20.3 32.7 9.8 17.7 9.6 17.8 9.8 14.5 8.4 12.5
Electronics 14.1 5.6 19.7 10.3 15.6 8.1 14.2 6.7 10.5 3.6
Other
technical 7.5 7.1 7.3 7.0 7.8 6.8 8.6 6.1 7.3 5.0
Admin. &
clerical 18.3 22.3 17.5 22.6 19.6 22.0 22.0 18.5 24.5 18.7
Mechanics 23.9 12.8 29.6 20.5 28.9 16.2 24.2 15.1 29.1 13.6
Crafts 5.3 4.0 6.9 7.4 7.7 6.8 8.8 7.2 8.6 6.1
Services 10.6 15.5 9.2 15.1 10.8 22.3 12.3 31.9 11.7 40.4
This change was dramatically highlighted by the occupational
distribution of naval personnel in 1962 (_Table 21_). Among General
Qualification Test Groups I and II, the percentage of Negroes assigned
to service occupations, mainly stewards, commissarymen, and the (p. 527)
like, declined from 22 percent of those with more than twelve years'
service to 2 percent of those with less than twelve years' service,
with sharp increases in the "other technical" group, mainly medical
and dental specialists, and smaller increases in other technical
skills. A similar trend also appeared in the lower mental categories.
One persisting occupational difference was the tendency to assign a
relatively large percentage of Negroes with high aptitudes to "other
technical" skills and those of low aptitude to service occupations.
The group admitted that these differences required further analysis.
Table 21--Percentage Distribution of Navy Enlisted Personnel by Race,
AFQT Groups and Occupational Areas, and Length of Service, 1962
AFQT Group and 0-12 Years 12 Years & Over
Occupational Area[1] White Negro White Negro
Groups I and II
Electronics 35.7 29.5 25.6 21.1
Other technical 11.4 25.9 10.4 10.5
Admin. & clerical 8.5 10.9 14.6 14.0
Mechanics & repairmen 37.5 26.1 33.1 22.5
Crafts 6.4 5.4 12.9 10.3
Services .6 2.2 3.5 21.6
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
Group III
Electronics 10.3 9.1 8.8 4.2
Other technical 7.1 12.3 6.2 3.0
Admin. & clerical 9.7 12.9 12.4 8.2
Mechanics & repairmen 56.7 42.2 36.7 16.5
Crafts 13.2 11.1 25.2 16.9
Services 3.0 12.4 10.8 51.2
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
Group IV
Electronics 5.3 1.4 2.9 .5
Other technical 3.7 1.7 2.9 .4
Admin. & clerical 6.9 8.1 7.0 2.5
Mechanics & repairmen 60.8 44.2 35.8 7.3
Crafts 16.4 13.5 32.5 9.5
Services 6.9 31.1 19.4 79.7
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
[Tablenote 1: Excludes personnel not classified by
occupation, such as recruits and general duty
seamen.]
Reporting on promotions, the Defense Department group found that the
relatively limited advancement of black officers was caused chiefly by
their disadvantage in point of time in service and grade, branch of
service, and educational background (_Table 22_). Although the
difference in grade distribution among black and white enlisted men
was much smaller, it too seemed related to disadvantages in education
and service occupation. Again, for Negroes entering the services since
1950, the grade distribution had become similar to that of whites. The
Navy's experience illustrated this point. In the case of those
entering the Navy since the Korean War, the grade distribution of
whites and nonwhites within the first three mental categories was
nearly identical (_Table 23_). The divergences were much wider among
the more senior men in the service groups, but this was probably due
at least in part to the concentration of senior black servicemen in
relatively overmanned specialties, such as food service, where
promotional opportunities were limited. With this exception little
evidence exists that whites enjoyed an advantage over blacks in the
matter of promotions in the enlisted ranks.
Table 22--Percentage Distribution of Blacks and Whites by Pay Grade,
All DOD, 1962
Grade Black White
Officers
O-1 to O-2 35.9 34.5
O-3 47.7 30.2
O-4 12.1 18.0
O-5 4.0 12.0
O-6 to O-10 .3 5.3
Total 100.0 100.0
Enlisted Men
E-1 to E-3 45.5 46.9
E-4 23.1 19.6
E-5 20.1 16.1
E-6 8.2 10.0
E-7 to E-9 3.0 7.5
Total 100.0 100.0
Table 23--Percentage Distribution of Navy Enlisted Personnel by Race,
AFQT Groups, Pay Grade, and Length of Service, 1962
0-12 Years Over 12 Years
Pay Grade White Negro White Negro
AFQT Groups I & II
E-1 to E-3 50.0 50.4 0.1 0.5
E-4 22.5 21.8 1.0 5.3
E-5 17.8 18.6 6.6 16.8
E-6 8.3 8.5 30.8 33.9
E-7 to E-9 1.4 .7 61.5 43.6
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
AFQT Group III
E-1 to E-3 60.6 60.5 0.5 3.5
E-4 20.7 20.4 4.4 14.7
E-5 13.1 14.2 19.3 28.8
E-6 5.1 4.6 40.1 33.7
E-7 to E-9 .5 .3 35.7 19.3
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
AFQT Group IV
E-1 to E-3 77.1 61.2 2.2 12.2
E-4 13.0 23.3 14.9 32.6
E-5 7.9 13.0 34.0 29.9
E-6 1.9 2.4 32.4 19.3
E-7 to E-9 .1 [a] 16.5 6.0
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
[Tablenote a: Less than .05 percent.]
All these figures could be conjured up when the services had to answer
complaints of discrimination, but more often than not the services
contented themselves with a vague defense of the _status quo_[20-82]
Such answers were clearly unacceptable to civil rights leaders (p. 528)
and their allies in the administration, and it is not surprising that
the complaints persisted. To the argument that higher enlistment
standards were a matter of military economy during a period of partial
mobilizations, those concerned about civil rights responded that,
since marginal manpower was a necessary ingredient of full
mobilization, the services should learn to deal in peacetime with what
would be a wartime problem.[20-83] To pleas of helplessness against
off-base discrimination, the activists argued that these practices had
demonstrably adverse effects on the morale of more than 9 percent of
the armed forces and were, therefore, a clear threat to the
accomplishment of the services' military mission.[20-84]
[Footnote 20-82: See, for example, the following
Memos: Dep Under SA (Manpower) for ASD (M), 30 Mar
62, sub: Servicemen's Complaints of Discrimination
in the U.S. Military; AF Dep for Manpower, Pers,
and Organization for ASD (M), 29 Mar 62, sub:
Alleged Racial Discrimination Within the Air Force;
Under SecNav for ASD (M), 16 Mar 62, sub:
Discrimination in the U.S. Military Services. All
in ASD (M) 291.2 (12 Feb 62).]
[Footnote 20-83: Ginzberg, _The Negro Potential_, p.
90.]
[Footnote 20-84: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights,
_Civil Rights '63_, pp. 210-11.]
Integration of black servicemen and general political and economic
gains of the black population had combined in the last decade to
create a ground swell for reform that resulted in ever more frequent
and pressing attacks on the community policies of the Department (p. 529)
of Defense. Some members of the administration rode with the reform
movement. Although he was speaking particularly of increased black
enrollment at the military academies, Special White House Assistant
Wofford betrayed the reformer's attitude toward the whole problem of
equal opportunity when he told James Evans "I am sure that much work
has been done, but there is, of course, still a long way to
go."[20-85] But by 1962 the services had just about exhausted the
traditional reform methods available to them. To go further, as
Wofford and the civil rights advocates demanded, meant a fundamental
change in the department's commitment to equal treatment and
opportunity. The decision to make such a change was clearly up to
Secretary McNamara and the Kennedy administration.
[Footnote 20-85: Memo, Wofford for Evans, 2 Feb 62,
Wofford Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]