Equal Treatment and Opportunity Redefined
By 1962 the civil rights leaders and their allies in the Kennedy
administration were pressing the Secretary of Defense to end
segregation in the reserve components and in housing, schools, and
public accommodations in communities adjacent to military
installations. Such an extension of policy, certainly the most
important to be contemplated since President Truman's executive order
in 1948, would involve the Department of Defense in the fight for
servicemen's civil rights, thrusting it into the forefront of the
civil rights movement.
Given the forces at work in the department, it was by no means certain
in 1962 that the fight against discrimination would be extended beyond
those vestiges that continued to exist in the military community
itself. In Robert McNamara the department had an energetic secretary,
committed to the principle of equal treatment and opportunity, and,
since his days with the Ford Motor Company in Michigan, a member of
the NAACP. But, as his directives indicated, McNamara had much to
learn in the field of race relations. As he later recalled: "Adam
[Yarmolinsky] was more sensitive to the subject [race relations] in
those days than I was. I was concerned. I recognized what Harry Truman
had done, his leadership in the field, and I wanted to continue his
work. But I didn't know enough."[21-1]
[Footnote 21-1: Interv, author with McNamara, telecon
of 11 May 72, CMH files.]
_The Secretary Makes a Decision_
Some of McNamara's closest advisers and some civil rights advocates in
the Kennedy administration, increasingly critical of current
practices, were anxious to instruct the secretary in the need for a
new racial outlook. But their efforts were counterbalanced by the
influence of defenders of the _status quo_, primarily the manpower
bureaucrats in the secretary's office and their colleagues in the
services. These men opposed substantive change not because they
objected to the reformers' goals but because they doubted the wisdom
and propriety of interfering in what they regarded as essentially a
domestic political issue.
Superficially, the department's racial policy appears to have been
shaped by a conflict between traditionalists and progressives, but it
would be a mistake to apply these labels mechanically to the men
involved. There were among them several shades of opinion, and (p. 531)
they were affected as well by complex political and social pressures.
Many of those involved in the debate shared a similar goal. A
continuum existed, one defense official later suggested, that ranged
from a few people who wanted for a number of reasons to do
nothing--who even wanted to tolerate the continued segregation of
National Guard units called to active duty in 1961--to men of
considerable impatience who thought the off-limits sanction was a
neglected and obvious weapon which ought to be invoked at once.[21-2]
Nevertheless, these various views tended to coalesce into a series of
mutually exclusive arguments that can be analyzed.[21-3]
[Footnote 21-2: Ltr, Alfred B. Fitt to author, 22 May
72, CMH files.]
[Footnote 21-3: The following summary of opinions is
based upon (1) Intervs: author with McNamara, 11
May 72, Gerhard A. Gesell, 13 May 72, Robert E.
Jordan III, 7 Jun 72, James C. Evans, 4 and 22 Mar
72; O'Brien with Gilpatric, 5 May 70; USAF with
Zuckert, Apr 73; (2) Ltrs: Fitt and Yarmolinsky to
author, 22 May 72 and 30 May 72, respectively;
Rudolph Winnacker, OSD Historian, to James C.
Evans, 17 Jul 70; Evans to DASD (CR), 20 Jul 70;
ASD (M) to Congressman Charles C. Diggs, Jr., 15
Mar 61; idem to John Roemer, Vice Chmn, Baltimore
CORE, 3 Aug 62; (3) Memos: USAF Dep for Manpower,
Pers, and Organization for SecAF, 9 Nov 62, sub:
Meeting of President's Committee on Equal
Opportunity in the Armed Forces; ASD (M) for Asst
Legal Counsel to President, 7 Nov 61, sub: Racial
Discrimination in the Armed Services; Evans to
Yarmolinsky, 31 Mar 61. Copies of all in CMH. See
also Adam Yarmolinsky, _The Military Establishment:
Its Impacts in American Society_ (New York: Harper
& Row, 1971), p. 351.]
One group, from whom Adam Yarmolinsky, McNamara's special assistant,
might be singled out as the most prominent member, developed arguments
for a new racial policy that would encourage the services to modify
local laws and customs in ways more favorable to black servicemen.
Unlike earlier reformers in the department who acted primarily out of
an interest in military efficiency, these men were basically civil
libertarians, or "social movers," as Secretary of the Air Force
Zuckert called them. They were allied with like-minded new
frontiersmen, including the President's special counsel on minority
affairs and Attorney General Kennedy, who were convinced that Congress
would enact no new civil rights legislation in 1962. The services,
this group argued, had through their recent integration found
themselves in the vanguard of the national campaign for equal
treatment and opportunity for Negroes, and to some it seemed only
logical that they be used to retain that lead for the administration.
These men had ample proof, they believed, for the proposition that the
services' policies had already influenced reforms elsewhere. They saw
a strong connection, for example, between the new Interstate Commerce
Commission's order outlawing segregation in interstate travel and the
services' efforts to secure equal treatment for troops in transit. In
effect, in the name of an administration handicapped by an unwilling
legislature, they were asking the services to fly the flag of civil
rights.
If their motives differed from those of their predecessors, their
rhetoric did not. Yarmolinsky and his colleagues argued that racial
discrimination, particularly discrimination in housing and public
accommodations, created a serious morale problem among black GIs, a
contention strongly supported by the recent Civil Rights Commission
findings. While the services had always denied responsibility for
combating discrimination outside the military reservation, these (p. 532)
officials were confident that the connection between this
discrimination and military efficiency could be demonstrated. They
were also convinced that segregated housing and the related
segregation of places of public accommodation were particularly
susceptible to economic pressure from military authorities.
[Illustration: ADAM YARMOLINSKY.]
This last argument was certainly not new. For some time civil rights
spokesmen had been urging the services to use economic pressure to
ease discrimination. Specifically, Congressman Powell, and later a
number of civil rights groups, had called on the armed forces to
impose off-limits sanctions for all servicemen against businesses that
discriminated against black servicemen. Clear historical precedent
seemed to exist for the action demanded by the controversial Harlem
legislator because from earliest time the services had been declaring
establishments and whole geographical areas off limits to their
officers and men in order to protect their health and welfare. In view
of the services' contention that equal treatment and opportunity were
important to the welfare of servicemen, was it not reasonable, the
spokesmen could ask, for the armed forces to use this powerful
economic weapon against those who discriminated?
Those defense officials calling for further changes also argued that
even the limited reforms already introduced by the administration
faced slow going in the Department of Defense. This point was of
particular concern to Robert Kennedy and his assistants in the Justice
Department who agreed that senior defense officials lacked neither the
zeal nor the determination to advance the civil rights of black
servicemen but that the uniformed services were not, as Deputy
Secretary Gilpatric expressed it, "putting their hearts and souls into
really carrying out all of these directives and policies." Reflecting
on it later, Gilpatric decided that the problem in the armed forces
was one of pace. The services, he believed, were willing enough to
carry out the policies, but in their own way and at their own speed,
to avoid the appearance of acting as the agent of another federal
department.
All these arguments failed to convince Assistant Secretary for
Manpower Runge, some officials in the general counsel's office, and
principal black adviser on racial affairs James Evans, among others.
This group and their allies in the services could point to a political
fact of life: to interfere with local segregation laws and customs,
specifically to impose off-limits sanctions against southern businessmen,
would pit the administration against powerful congressmen, calling (p. 533)
down on it the wrath of the armed services and appropriation committees.
To the charge that this threat of congressional retaliation was simply
an excuse for inaction, the services could explain that unlike the
recent integration of military units, which was largely an executive
function with which Congress, or at least some individual congressmen,
reluctantly went along, sanctions against local communities would be
considered a direct threat by scores of legislators. "Even one obscure
congressman thus threatened could light a fire over military
sanctions," Evans later remarked, "and there were plenty of folks
around who were eager to fan the flames."
[Illustration: JAMES EVANS.]
Even more important, the department's equal opportunity bureaucracy
argued, was the need to protect the physical well-being of the
individual black soldier. In a decade when civil rights beatings and
murders were a common occurrence, these men knew that Evans was right
when he said "by the time Washington could enter the case the young
man could be injured or dead." Operating under the principle that the
safety and welfare of the individual transcended the civil rights of
the group, these officials wanted to forbid the men, both the black
and the increasing number of white activists, to disobey local
segregation laws and customs.
The opponents of intervention pointed out that the services would be
ill-advised to push for changes outside the military reservation until
the reforms begun under Truman were completely realized inside the
reservation. Ignoring the argument that discrimination in the local
community had a profound effect on morale, they wanted the services to
concentrate instead on the necessary but minor reforms within their
jurisdiction. To give the local commander the added responsibility for
correcting discrimination in the community, they contended, might very
well dilute his efforts to correct conditions within the services. And
to use servicemen to spearhead civil rights reform was a misuse of
executive power. With support from the department's lawyers, they
questioned the legality of using off-limits sanctions in civil rights
cases. They constantly repeated the same refrain: social reform was
not a military function. As one manpower spokesman put it to the
renowned black civil rights lawyer, Thurgood Marshall, "let the Army
tend its own backyard, and let other government agencies work on civil
rights."[21-4]
[Footnote 21-4: Interv, author with Evans, 4 Mar 72.]
Runge and the rest were professional manpower managers who had a (p. 534)
healthy respect for the chance of command error and its effect on race
relations nationally. In this they found an ally in Secretary of the
Air Force Eugene M. Zuckert, one of the architects of Air Force
integration in 1949. American commanders lacked training in the
delicate art of community relations, Zuckert later explained, and
should even a few of them blunder they could bring on a race crisis of
major proportions. He sympathized with the activists' goals and was
convinced that the President as Commander in Chief could and should
use the armed forces for social ends; but these social objectives had
to be balanced against the need to preserve the military forces for
their primary mission. Again on the practical level, Deputy Secretary
of Defense Gilpatric was concerned with the problems of devising
general instructions that could be applied in all the diverse
situations that might arise at the hundreds of bases and local
communities involved.[21-5]
[Footnote 21-5: USAF Oral Hist Interv with Zuckert,
Apr 73; Interv, O'Brien with Gilpatric, 5 May 70.]
Many of the manpower officials carefully differentiated between equal
treatment, which had always been at the heart of the Defense
Department's reforms, and civil rights, which they were convinced were
a constitutional matter and belonged in the hands of the courts and
the Justice Department. The principle of equal treatment and
opportunity was beyond criticism. Its application, a lengthy and
arduous task that had occupied and still concerned the services'
racial advisers, had brought the Department of Defense to unparalleled
heights of racial harmony. Convinced that the current civil rights
campaign was not the business of the Defense Department, they
questioned the motives of those who were willing to make black GI's
the stalking horse for their latest and perhaps transient enthusiasm,
in the process inviting congressional criticism of the department's
vital racial programs. In short, Assistant Secretary Runge and his
colleagues argued that the administration's civil rights campaign
should be led by the Justice Department and by the Department of
Health, Education, and Welfare, not the Defense Department, which had
other missions to perform.
Such were the rationalizations that had kept the Department of Defense
out of the field of community race relations for over a decade, and
the opponents of change in a strong position. Their opposition was
reasonable, their allies in the services were legion, they were backed
by years of tradition, and, most important, they held the jobs where
the day-to-day decisions on racial matters were made. To change the
_status quo_, to move the department beyond the notion that the
guarantee of equal rights stopped at the boundaries of military
installations, might seem "desirable and indeed necessary" to
Yarmolinsky and his confreres,[21-6] but it would take something more
than their eloquent words to bring about change.
[Footnote 21-6: Ltr, Yarmolinsky to author, 30 May 72,
CMH files.]
Yarmolinsky was convinced that the initiative for such a change had to
come from outside the department. Certain that any outside
investigation would quickly reveal the connection between racial
discrimination in the community and military efficiency, he wanted the
Secretary of Defense to appoint a committee of independent (p. 535)
citizens to investigate and report on the situation.[21-7] The idea of
a citizens' committee was not new. The Fahy Committee provided a
recent precedent, and in August 1961 Congressman Diggs had asked the
Secretary of Defense to consider the appointment of such a group, a
suggestion rejected at the time by Assistant Secretary Runge.[21-8]
But Yarmolinsky enjoyed opportunities unavailable to the Michigan
congressman; he had the attention and the support of Robert McNamara.
In the latter's words: "Adam suggested another broad review of the
place of the Negro in the Department. The committee was necessary
because the other sources--the DOD manpower reports and so forth--were
inadequate. They didn't provide the exact information I needed. This
is what Adam and I decided."[21-9] This decision launched the
Department of Defense into one of the most important civil rights
battles of the 1960's.
[Footnote 21-7: Not everyone supporting the idea of an
investigatory committee was necessarily an advocate
of Yarmolinsky's theories. Roy K. Davenport, soon
to be appointed a deputy under secretary of the
Army for personnel management, decided that an
assessment of the status of black servicemen was
timely after a decade of integration. His
professional curiosity, like that of some of the
other manpower experts in the services, was piqued
more by a concern for the fate of current
regulations than an interest in the development of
new ones. See Interv, author with Davenport, 31 Oct
71.]
[Footnote 21-8: Ltr, Diggs to McNamara, 24 Aug 61;
Ltr, ASD (M) to Diggs, 5 Sep 61; Memo, ASD (M) for
Asst Legal Counsel to President, 7 Nov 61, sub:
Racial Discrimination in the Armed Services. All in
ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 21-9: Interv, author with McNamara, 11 May
72.]
_The Gesell Committee_
On 24 June 1962 John F. Kennedy announced the formation of the
President's Committee on Equality of Opportunity in the Armed Forces,
popularly designated the Gesell Committee after its chairman, Gerhard
A. Gesell.[21-10] It was inevitable that the Gesell Committee should
be compared to the Fahy Committee, given the similarity of interests,
but in fact the two groups had little in common and served different
purposes. The Fahy Committee had been created to carry out President
Truman's equal treatment and opportunity policy. The Gesell Committee,
on the other hand, was less concerned with carrying out existing
policy than with developing a new policy for the Department of
Defense. The Fahy Committee operated under an executive order and
sought an acceptable integration program from each service. The Gesell
Committee enjoyed no such advantage, although the Truman order was
technically still in effect and could have been used to support it.
(The Kennedy administration ignored this possibility, and Yarmolinsky
warned one presidential aide that the Truman order should be quietly
revoked lest someone question why the Gesell Committee had not been
afforded similar stature.)[21-11]
[Footnote 21-10: Ltr, Kennedy to Gesell, 22 Jun 62, as
reproduced in White House Press Release, 24 Jun 62,
copy in CMH. For an example of the attention the
new committee received in the press, see Washington
_Post_, June 24, 1962.]
[Footnote 21-11: Memo, Yarmolinsky for Lee C. White,
26 Jul 62, sub: Revocation of Executive Order 9981,
SD 291.2.]
Again unlike the Fahy Committee, which forced its attention upon a
generally reluctant Defense Department at the behest of the President,
the Gesell Committee was created by the Secretary of Defense; the
presidential appointment of its members bestowed an aura of special
authority on a group that lacked the power of its predecessor to (p. 536)
make and review policy. McNamara later put it quite bluntly: "The
committee was the creature of the Secretary of Defense. Calling it a
President's committee was just windowdressing. The civil rights people
didn't have a damn thing to do with it. We wanted information, and
that's just what the Gesell people gave us."[21-12] In fact,
Yarmolinsky conceived the project, named it, nominated its members,
and drew up its directives. Only when it was well along was the
project passed to the White House for review of the committee's makeup
and guidelines.[21-13]
[Footnote 21-12: Interv, author with McNamara, 11 May
72; see also Ltr, Yarmolinsky to author, 30 May 72.
Yarmolinsky called the presidential appointment an
example of the Defense Department's borrowing the
prestige of the White House.]
[Footnote 21-13: Memo, ASD (M) for Asst Legal Counsel
to President, 7 Nov 61, sub: Racial Discrimination
in the Armed Services, ASD (M) 291.2.]
This special connection between the Department of Defense and the
Gesell Committee influenced the course of the investigation. True to
his concept of the committee as a fact-finding team, McNamara
personally remained aloof from its proceedings, never trying to
influence its investigation or findings. Ironically, Gesell would
later complain about this remoteness, regretting the secretary's
failure to intervene in the case of the recalcitrant National
Guard.[21-14] He could harbor no complaint, however, against the
secretary's special assistant, Yarmolinsky, who carefully guided the
committee's investigation to the explosive subject of off-base
discrimination. Even while expressing the committee's independence,
Gesell recognized Yarmolinsky's influence. "It was perfectly clear,"
Gesell later noted, "that Yarmolinsky was interested in the off-base
housing and discrimination situation, but he had no solution to
suggest. He wanted the committee to come up with one."[21-15]
Yarmolinsky formally spelled out this interest when he devised the
group's presidential directive. The committee, he informed Vice
President Lyndon B. Johnson during March 1962, would devote itself to
those measures that should be taken to improve the effectiveness of
current policies and procedures in the services and to the methods
whereby the Department of Defense could improve equality of
opportunity for members of the armed forces and their dependents in
the civilian community.[21-16]
[Footnote 21-14: Interv, author with Gesell, 3 Nov 74,
CMH files. The Secretary of Defense met with the
committee but once for an informal chat.]
[Footnote 21-15: Interv, author with Gesell, 13 May
72.]
[Footnote 21-16: Memo, Yarmolinsky for Vice President,
13 Mar 62, SD 291.2.]
The citizens chosen for this delicate task, "integrationists
all,"[21-17] were men with backgrounds in the law and the civil rights
movement, their nearest common denominators being Yale University and
acquaintance with Yarmolinsky, a graduate of Yale Law School.[21-18]
Chairman Gesell was a Washington lawyer, educated at Yale, an
acquaintance of Yarmolinsky's with whom he shared a close mutual (p. 537)
friend, Burke Marshall, also from Yale and the head of the Department
of Justice's Civil Rights Division. Gesell always assumed that this
friendship with Marshall explained his selection by the Kennedy
administration for such a sensitive task.[21-19] Black committeemen
were Nathaniel S. Colley, a California lawyer, civil rights advocate
associated with the NAACP, and former law school classmate of
Yarmolinsky's; John H. Sengstacke, publisher of the Chicago _Defender_
and a member of the Fahy Committee; and Whitney M. Young, Jr., of the
National Urban League. The other members were Abe Fortas, a prominent
Washington attorney and former Yale professor; Benjamin Muse, a leader
of the Southern Regional Council and a noted student of the civil
rights movement; and Louis Hector, also a Yale-educated lawyer, who
was called in to replace ailing Dean Joseph O'Meara of the Notre Dame
Law School. Gesell arranged for the appointment of Laurence I. Hewes
III, of Yale College and Law School, as the committee's counsel.
[Footnote 21-17: Memo, ASD (M) for Lee C. White, Asst
Spec Counsel to President, 7 Jun 62, sub:
Establishment of Committee on Equality of
Opportunity in the Armed Forces, ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 21-18: In discussing the Yale connection in
the Gesell Committee, it is interesting to note
that at least three other officials intimately
connected with the question of equal treatment and
opportunity, Alfred B. Fitt, the first Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense (Civil Rights),
Cyrus R. Vance, Secretary of the Army, and Deputy
Secretary of Defense Gilpatric, were Yale men. Of
course, Secretary McNamara was not a Yale graduate;
his undergraduate degree is from the University of
California at Berkeley, his graduate degree from
Harvard.]
[Footnote 21-19: Interv, author with Gesell, 13 May
72.]
Some of the members had definite ideas on how the committee should
operate. Warning of a new mood in the black community where
"impatience and expectations" were far different from what they were
at the time of the Fahy Committee, Whitney Young wanted the committee
to prepare a frank and honest report free of the "taint of whitewash."
To that end he wanted the group's directive interpreted in its
broadest sense as leading to a wide-ranging examination of off-base
housing, recreation, and educational opportunity, among other
subjects. He wanted an investigation at the grass roots level, and he
offered specific suggestions about the size and duties of the staff to
achieve this. Young also recommended commissioning "additional citizen
teams" to assist in some of the numerous and necessary field trips and
wanted the committee to use Congressman Diggs and his files.[21-20]
[Footnote 21-20: Ltr, Young to Gesell, 27 Aug 62,
Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]
Benjamin Muse, on the other hand, considered direct, personal
investigation of specific grievances too time-consuming. He wanted the
group to concentrate instead on the command level, holding formal
conferences with key staff officials. The best way to impress upon the
services that the White House was serious, he told Gesell, was to
learn the opinions of these officials and to elicit, "subject to our
private analysis and discount," a great deal of helpful
information.[21-21]
[Footnote 21-21: Ltr, Muse to Gesell, 26 Jan 63,
Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]
Chairman Gesell compromised. He wanted the group to develop some broad
recommendations on the basis of a limited examination of specific
complaints. President Kennedy agreed. He told Gesell: "don't go
overboard and try to visit every base, but unless you see at least
some bases you will never understand the situation."[21-22] White
House assistant Lee C. White suggested that while the committee had no
deadline it should be advised that a report would be needed in June if
any legislative proposals were to be submitted to Congress. At the (p. 538)
same time he wanted the White House to make clear that the members,
"and particularly the Negro members," would be left free to act as
they chose.[21-23]
[Footnote 21-22: Quoted by Gesell during interview
with author, 13 May 72.]
[Footnote 21-23: Memo, White for Dep Atty Gen, 23 Jan
63, copy in Lee C. White Collection, J. F. Kennedy
Library. (Deputy Attorney General Katzenbach was a
member of the White House's civil rights
subcabinet.) According to Yarmolinsky, the White
suggestion might have originated with Secretary
McNamara.]
In the end the committee's operations owed something to all these
suggestions. The group worked out of a small office near the White
House and pointedly distant from the Pentagon. Its formal meetings
were rare--only seven in all--and were used primarily to hear the
presentations of service officials and consider the committee's
findings. At a meeting in November 1962, for instance, Gesell arranged
for five Air Force base commanders to discuss the application of the
equal opportunity policy in their commands and in neighboring
communities and describe their own duties as they saw them.[21-24]
[Footnote 21-24: Ltr, Gesell to SecAF, 25 Oct 62,
SecAF files.]
The chairman explained that the infrequent meetings were used mostly
for "needling people and asking for statistics." Some black members at
first opposed asking the services for statistical data on the grounds
that such requests would reinforce the tendency to identify servicemen
by race, thus encouraging racial assignments and, ultimately, racial
quotas. The majority, however, was convinced of the need for
statistical material, and in the end the requests for such information
enjoyed the committee's unanimous support.[21-25]
[Footnote 21-25: Interv, author with Gesell, 3 Nov
74.]
Most of the committee's work was done in a "shirt sleeve" atmosphere,
as its chairman described it, with a staff of four people.[21-26]
Members, alone and in groups, studied the mountains of racial
statistics, some prepared by the staff of the Civil Rights Commission,
and the lengthy answers to committee questionnaires prepared by the
services. The services also arranged for on-site inspections by
committee members.[21-27] The field trips proved to be of paramount
importance, not only in ascertaining the conditions of black
servicemen and their dependents but also in fixing the extent of the
local commander's responsibility for race relations. Operating usually
in two-man biracial teams, the committee members would separate to
interview the commander, local businessmen, and the men themselves.
The firsthand information thus gathered had a profound influence on
the committee's thinking, an influence readily discernible in its
recommendations to the President.
[Footnote 21-26: Memo, Gesell for Cmte Members, 20 Nov
64, Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]
[Footnote 21-27: The committee's considerable probings
were reflected in the Defense Department's files.
See for example, Memo, SecDef for Secys of Mil
Depts et al., 28 Sep 62, sub: President's Committee
on Equal Opportunity in the Armed Forces, SD 291.2
(12 Feb 62); Memo, ASD (M) for SA et al., 18 Dec
62, same sub, ASD (M) 291.2; Ltr, SecNav to Gesell,
1 Apr 63; Memo, Under SecNav for SecNav, 9 Apr 63,
sub: Meeting With the President's Cmte on Equal
Opportunity in the Armed Forces; Ltrs, Under SecNav
to Chmn Gesell, 1 Apr and 3 May 63; last four in
SecNav file 5350, GenRecsNav, also Marine Corps
Bulletin 5050, 28 Jan 63, Hist Div. HQMC. See also
Ltrs, Chmn, President's Cmte, to SecAF, 8 Oct 62,
USAF, Report for President's Committee on Equal
Opportunity in the Armed Forces, 4 Dec 62, and
James P. Goode, AF Dep for Manpower, Personnel, &
Organization, to Chmn Gesell, 4 Apr 63, both in
2426-62, SecAF files; "Visit of Mr. Nathaniel
Colley and Mr. John Sengstacke to 3d Marine
Division," copy in CMH. Additionally, see also Ltr,
Berl I. Bernhard, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights,
to Gesell, 29 Jun 62, Gesell Collection, J. F.
Kennedy Library.]
The committee concluded from its investigations that serious
discrimination against black servicemen and their families existed at
home and abroad within the services and in the civilian community, (p. 539)
and that this discrimination affected black morale and military
efficiency. Regarding evidence of discrimination within the services,
the committee isolated a series of problems existing "both
service-wide and at particular bases."[21-28] Specifically, the group
was not convinced by official reasons for the disproportionately small
number of Negroes in some services, especially among the
noncommissioned officers and in the officer corps. Chairman Gesell
called the dearth of black officers a "shocking condition."[21-29] His
group was particularly concerned with the absence of black officers on
promotion boards and the possibility of unfairness in the promotion
process where photos and racial and religious information were
included in the selection files made available to these boards. It
also noted the failure of the services to increase the number of black
ROTC graduates. The committee considered and rejected the idea of
providing preferential treatment for Negroes to achieve better
representation in the services and in the higher grades.[21-30]
[Footnote 21-28: The President's Committee on Equal
Opportunity in the Armed Forces, "Initial Report:
Equality of Treatment and Opportunity for Negro
Military Personnel Stationed Within the United
States, June 13, 1963" (hereafter cited as "Initial
Rpt"), p. 10. The following discussion of the
committee cannot carry the eloquence or force of
the group's report, which was reproduced in the
_Congressional Record_, 88th Cong., 1st sess., vol.
109, pp. 14359-69.]
[Footnote 21-29: Ltr, Gesell to Under SecNav, 6 Feb
63, SecNav file 5420 (1179), GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 21-30: Intervs, author with Gesell, 13 May
72 and 3 Nov 74.]
Overrepresentation of black enlisted men in certain supply and food
services was obvious.[21-31] Here the committee was particularly
critical of the Navy and the Marine Corps. On another score, the Chief
of Naval Personnel noted that the committee "considers the Navy and
Marines far behind the Army and Air Force, particularly in the area of
community relations," a criticism, he admitted, "to some extent"
justified.[21-32] So apparent was the justification that, at the
suggestion of the Secretary of the Navy, Gesell discussed with Under
Secretary Paul B. Fay, Jr., ways to better the Navy's record in its
"areas of least progress."[21-33] Gesell later concluded that the
close social contact necessary aboard ship had been a factor in the
Navy's slower progress.[21-34] Whatever the reason, the Navy and
Marine Corps fell statistically short of the other services in every
category measured by the Gesell group.
[Footnote 21-31: Memo, Dep for Manpower, Personnel, &
Organization, USAF, for SecAF, 25 Jan 63, sub:
Meeting With President's Committee on Equal
Opportunity in the Armed Forces, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 21-32: Ltr, Chief of NavPers to CONUS
District Cmdrs et al., 22 Apr 63, attached to Memo,
Chief of NavPers for Distribution List, 24 Apr 63,
sub: President's Committee on Equal Opportunity in
the Armed Forces, GenRecsNav 5420.]
[Footnote 21-33: Ltr, Under SecNav to Gesell, 8 Feb
63, SecNav file 5420 (1179), GenRecsNav. For
examples of this exchange between the committee and
the Navy, see Ltrs, Gesell to Fay, 6 Feb 63, and
Fay to Gesell, 3 May and 5 Jun 63, all in SecNav
file 5350, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 21-34: Interv, author with Gesell, 3 Nov
74.]
The "sex thing," as Gesell referred to the interracial problems
arising from off-duty social activities, also proved to be important,
especially for noncommissioned officer and service clubs and
base-sponsored activities in the community. The committee itself had
persuaded the National United Services Organization to integrate its
facilities, and it wanted local commanders to follow up by inviting black
civilians to participate in USO dances and entertainments.[21-35] (p. 540)
The committee also discussed discrimination in military police
assignments, segregation in local transport and on school buses, and
the commander's attitude toward interracial associations both on and
off the military reservation.
[Footnote 21-35: For an example of how an individual
service was handling the USO and other on-base
social problems, see Memo, Maj Gen John K. Hester,
Asst VCofS, USAF, for SecAF, 26 Feb 63, sub:
Antidiscrimination Policies, SecAF files. See also
"Initial Rpt," pp. 73-74.]
Despite its criticism of the imperfect application of service race
policies--some service-wide, others confined to certain bases--the
committee reported to the President that the services had made "an
intelligent and far-reaching advance toward complete integration, and,
with some variations from service to service, substantial progress
toward equality of treatment and opportunity."[21-36] Gesell called
the services the nation's "pace setter," and he was convinced that
they had not received sufficient credit for their racial achievements,
which were "way ahead of General Motors and the other great
corporations."[21-37] That the services were more advanced than other
segments of American society in terms of equal treatment and
opportunity was beyond dispute; nevertheless, serious problems
connected with racial prejudice and the armed forces' failure to
understand the fundamental needs of black servicemen remained. The
committee's investigation, with its emphasis on off-base realities and
its dependence on statistics and other empirical data, did not lend
itself to more than a superficial treatment of these subtle and
stubborn, if unmeasurable, on-base problems.
[Footnote 21-36: "Initial Rpt," p. 10.]
[Footnote 21-37: Interv, author with Gesell, 3 Nov
74.]
The committee believed that some of what appeared discriminatory was
in reality the working of such factors as the black serviceman's lack
of seniority, deficiencies in education, and lack of interest in
specific fields and assignments. Looking beyond these, the fruits of
institutional racism, the committee concluded that much of the
substantiated discrimination disclosed in its investigations had
proved to be limited in scope. But whether limited or widespread,
discrimination had to be eliminated. Prompt attention to even minor
incidents of discrimination would contribute substantially to morale
and serve to keep before all servicemen the standard of conduct
decreed by executive policy.[21-38]
[Footnote 21-38: "Initial Rpt," pp. 10-11, 30, 51.]
The committee was considerably less sanguine over conditions
encountered by black servicemen off military bases. In eloquent
paragraphs it outlined for the President the injustices suffered by
these men and their families in some American communities, the effect
of these practices on morale, and the consequent danger to the mission
of the armed forces. It reviewed the services' efforts to eliminate
segregated housing, schooling, and public accommodations around the
military reservations and found them wanting. Local commanders, the
committee charged, were often naive about the existence of social
problems and generally did not keep abreast of departmental policy
specifying their obligations; they were especially ill-informed on the
McNamara-Gilpatric directives and memorandums on equal treatment.
Often quizzed on the subject, the commanders told the committee that
they enjoyed very fine community relationships. To this Whitney (p. 541)
Young would answer that fine community relationships and racial
injustice were not necessarily exclusive.[21-39]
[Footnote 21-39: Memo for Rcd, USAF Dep for Manpower,
Personnel, & Organization, 14 Nov 62, sub: Meeting
of the President's Committee on Equal Opportunity
in the Armed Forces, SecAF file 2426-62.]
[Illustration: THE GESELL COMMITTEE MEETS WITH THE PRESIDENT. _Left to
right_: _Laurence I. Hewes III_, _Executive Secretary_; _Nathaniel S.
Colley_; _Benjamin Muse_; _Gerhard A. Gesell_; _President Kennedy_;
_Whitney M. Young, Jr._; _John H. Sengstacke_; and _Abe Fortas_.]
This community-based discrimination, the committee found, had become a
greater trial for black servicemen and their families because of its
often startling contrast to their life in the services. There was even
evidence that some of the off-base segregation, especially overseas,
had been introduced through the efforts of white servicemen.
Particularly irritating to the committee were restrictions placed on
black participation in civil rights demonstrations protesting such
off-base conditions. The committee wanted the restrictions
removed.[21-40]
[Footnote 21-40: Memo, Dep for Manpower, Personnel, &
Organization, USAF, for SecAF, 25 Jan 63, sub:
Meeting With President's Committee on Equal
Opportunity in the Armed Forces, SecAF files. See
also Memo for Rcd, Marine Corps Aide to SecNav, 30
Jan 63, sub: Meeting With Navy-Marine Corps
Representatives on Equal Opportunity, SecNav file
5420 (1179), GenRecsNav.]
In the end the committee's reputation would rest not so much on its
carefully developed catalog of racial discrimination. After all,
others, most notably the Civil Rights Commission, had recently
documented the problems encountered by black servicemen, although not
in the detail offered by the Gesell group, and had convincingly tied
this discrimination to black morale and military efficiency. The (p. 542)
committee's major contribution lay rather in its establishment of
a new concept in command responsibility that directly attacked the
traditional parochialism of the services' social concerns:
It should be the policy of the Department of Defense and part of
the mission of the chain of command from the Secretaries of the
Services to the local base commander not only to remove
discrimination within the Armed Forces, but also to make every
effort to eliminate discriminatory practices as they affect
members of the Armed Forces and their dependents within the
neighboring civilian communities.[21-41]
[Footnote 21-41: "Initial Rpt," p. 61.]
In effect the committee proposed a new racial policy for the
Department of Defense, one that would translate the services' promise
of equality of treatment and opportunity into a declaration of civil
liberties. To that end it recommended the adoption of a set of
techniques radically new to the thinking of the military commanders,
one that grew out of the committee's own experiences in the field.
Chairman Gesell later recollected how this recommendation developed:
I remember in particular our experiences at the bases at Augusta
and Pensacola. This made a strong impression on me. I saw
discrimination on bases right under the noses of the commanders
who were often not even aware of it. And I saw much
discrimination in communities around the bases. Sometimes
unbelievable. At Pensacola, for example, I found that the Station
had never used Negroes for guard duty at the main gate where they
would be seen by the public, black and white. We told this to the
commander and reminded him of the effect that it had on black
morale. He changed it immediately. On base the housing for blacks
was segregated off to one side in poor run-down shacks below the
railroad tracks. We told the commander who admitted that he had
some substandard housing units but was unaware of any segregation
in housing. The commander promised to report to us about this in
two weeks. He did later report: "the whole housing area has been
bulldozed and all housing on base integrated." It was examples
like this that convinced me that there was much the commanders
could do.[21-42]
[Footnote 21-42: Interv, author with Gesell, 13 May
72.]
This sense of racial progress made a vivid impression on committee
member Muse who later recalled that "it was amazing how much activity
our presence stirred up. It showed that a lot could be done by
commanders."[21-43] Gesell and Muse were particularly impressed by how
local commanders, acting firmly but informally, could achieve swift
breakthroughs. But actually, as the Gesell-Young trip to Pensacola
demonstrated, often more than the base commander was involved in these
dramatic reforms. A week after their trip to Florida, Gesell and Young
had a casual chat with Under Secretary Fay about conditions at
Pensacola, particularly housing conditions, that, they claimed, had
contributed to a "literally disgraceful" state of black morale,
leading black sailors "almost to the point of rebellion." Although the
base commander seemed concerned, he had deferred to his military
superior who lacked the "philosophical outlook oriented toward the
successful implementation of equal opportunity policies." Fay was
quick to see the point. He pledged the Navy to a "constructive effort"
to eliminate the problem at Pensacola "prior to the Committee's
reporting date [to the President] of 1 June."[21-44] In a matter (p. 543)
of hours Fay was arranging to send the Inspector General to Pensacola,
but the matter did not end there. In late May committee counsel Hewes
asked the Assistant Secretary of Defense concerned with military
installations about housing at Pensacola, thus setting off yet another
investigation of the base.[21-45]
[Footnote 21-43: Idem with Benjamin Muse, 2 Mar 73,
CMH files.]
[Footnote 21-44: Memo, Under SecNav for SecNav, 9 Apr
63, sub: Meeting With the President's Cmte on Equal
Opportunity in the Armed Forces, SecNav file 5420,
GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 21-45: Ltr, DASD (Family Housing) to Chmn
Gesell, 4 Jun 63, Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy
Library.]
Gesell saw the reforms at Pensacola as a direct result of his own
suggestion to a commander. He seemed unaware that his remarks to Fay
had set in motion a chain of action behind the scenes. In the weeks
following, black servicemen were moved from the substandard segregated
housing to integrated Navy-controlled housing both on and off base.
The local commander also arranged for the desegregation of some
off-base social facilities in a effort to improve black morale.[21-46]
If the changes at Pensacola appear more closely related to the
committee's political clout in Washington than to the commander's
interest in reform, they also demonstrate the power for reform that
the commander could exercise. This was the committee's main point,
that equal opportunity was a command responsibility.[21-47] But it
would be hard to sell in the Department of Defense where, as Gesell
himself later admitted, resistance to what was perceived as a
political matter was common to most American military officers.[21-48]
[Footnote 21-46: Ltr, Under SecNav to Chmn Gesell, 5
Jun 63, copy in Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy
Library; see also Memo, Under SecNav for SecNav, 13
Sep 63, sub: NAS Pensacola, SecNav file 5420
(1179), GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 21-47: "Initial Rpt," p. 52.]
[Footnote 21-48: Interv, author with Gesell, 3 Nov
74.]
The most controversial recommendation, however, was that the armed
forces should, when necessary, exercise economic sanctions against
recalcitrant businesses. In the name of troop morale and military
efficiency, the committee wanted commanders to put public
accommodations off limits for all servicemen, and it wanted the
Secretary of Defense, as a last resort, to close the military
installations in communities that persisted in denying black
servicemen their civil rights.[21-49] Again, Gesell elaborated on the
power of base commanders and recommended tactics.
There was also much that they could do in the community to
improve the lot of their blacks. If only they were sensitive to
the situation.... For example, we visited the local community
leaders. I would put it to the local banker who held the mortgage
on the local bowling alley: "what would you do if you were a
commander and some of your men were barred from the local bowling
alley?" He got the point and the alley outside the base was
desegregated overnight. To another I said, "you know, I'm just a
lawyer down here on a temporary job, and I can only talk with you
about these things. But you can't tell about those guys in
Washington. They will have to be closing some bases soon. Now put
yourself in their shoes. Which would you shut, those bases that
don't have race problems or those that do?" Again, they got the
point. In other words, an implied economic threat by the
commander would work well. Hell, the commanders were always
getting good citizenship awards and ignoring the major
citizenship problem of the era. Commanders were local heroes, and
they had plenty of influence. They use it. The trouble was most
commanders were ignorant of the ferment among their own men on
this subject. In all my trips I hinted at sanctions and base (p. 544)
closings. The dutch uncle approach. I wanted the commanders
to do the same. I talked economics to the community leaders. It
opened their eyes. The commanders could do the same.[21-50]
[Footnote 21-49: "Initial Rpt," pp. 68-71.]
[Footnote 21-50: Interv, author with Gesell, 13 May
72.]
The committee further refined its concepts of economic sanctions
during the course of its hearings. Commanders were frequently quizzed
on the probable effects of the imposition of off-limits sanctions or
base closings.[21-51] Despite the reluctance of most commanders to
invoke sanctions, committee members, assuming that no community would
long persist in a social order detrimental to its economic welfare,
came to the belief that ultimately only a firm and uncompromising
policy of economic sanctions would eliminate off-base discrimination.
The committee was obviously aware of the controversial aspects of its
recommendation, and it stressed that the department's objective should
always be "the preservation of morale, not the punishment of local
communities which have a tradition of segregation."[21-52]
[Footnote 21-51: Memo for Rcd, Dep for Manpower,
Personnel, & Organization, USAF, 14 Nov 62, sub:
Meeting of President's Committee on Equal
Opportunity in the Armed Forces, SecAF files.
Deputy Goode's assumptions about the committee's
thinking were later confirmed in its "Initial Rpt,"
pages 68-71, and in author's interview with Gesell
on 13 May 1972.]
[Footnote 21-52: "Initial Rpt," p. 70.]
Mindful of the wish expressed by the White House staff that a report
be submitted by mid-1963, the committee, acting unanimously, completed
on 13 June 1963 an initial report on discrimination in the services
and the local community, postponing the results of its time-consuming
and less-pressing investigation of the National Guard and overseas
posts until a later date.[21-53] Complete accord among the members had
not been automatic. The chairman later recalled that the group's black
members had remained somewhat aloof during the months of
investigation, perhaps because at first they felt the report might be
a whitewash of executive policy, but that they became "enthusiastic"
when they read his draft and quickly joined in the preparation of the
final version.[21-54]
[Footnote 21-53: Ltr, Gesell to President Kennedy, 13
Jun 63, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 21-54: Interv, author with Gesell, 13 May
72.]
The reason for this enthusiasm was a report that faithfully reflected
the realities of discrimination suffered by black servicemen and
proposed solutions based on conclusions drawn by the members from
their months of discussion and investigation. The committee's
conclusions and recommendations were the natural reaction of a group
of humane and sensible men to the overwhelming evidence of continued
discrimination against black servicemen. National policy, the
committee told the President, required that this discrimination be
eliminated, for
equal opportunity for the Negro will exist only when it is
possible for him to enter upon a career of military service with
assurance that his acceptance and his progress will be in no way
impeded by reason of his color. Clearly, distinctions based on
race prevent full utilization of Negro military personnel and are
inconsistent with the objectives of our democratic
society.[21-55]
[Footnote 21-55: "Initial Rpt," p. 11.]
The committee wanted responsibility for eliminating these color (p. 545)
distinctions in the services shifted to the local commander.
Commanders, it believed, needed to improve their communication with
black servicemen and should be "held accountable to discover and
remedy discrimination" in their commands. The committee, in short,
wanted racial sensitivity made a function of command.
Command responsibility for equal opportunity, the committee
emphasized, was particularly important "in the area of most pressing
concern, off-base discrimination." It wanted local commanders to
attack discrimination in the community by seeking the voluntary
compliance of local businessmen and by establishing biracial community
committees. The committee asserted that despite the services' claims
to the contrary the Department of Defense had made no serious effort
to achieve off-base compliance with its anti-discrimination measures
through voluntary action. Commanders had been given little guidance
thus far, and a carefully planned program of voluntary action should
be given a chance. If it failed, commanders should be able to employ
sanctions against the offending businesses; if sanctions failed, the
services should consider closing installations in offending areas. The
committee again stressed the need to fix responsibility for the
program on local commanders. A commander's performance should be
monitored and rated, and offices should be established in the
Department of Defense and in the individual services to devise
programs, monitor their progress, and bring base commanders into close
working relationship with other interested and responsible federal
agencies.
Although their recommendations were later excoriated by critics as a
radical usurpation of state sovereignty and a threat to civil
liberties, the committee had meant only to provide a graduated
solution to a national defense problem. Let reform begin with the
local commander's improving conditions on his base and pressing for
voluntary changes in the local community. Only when this tactic
failed--and the committee predicted that failure would be a rare
occurrence--should the services employ economic sanctions.
A firm philosophical assumption underlay all these recommendations.
The committee believed that the armed forces, a worldwide symbol of
American society, had to be the leader in the quest for racial
justice. Social reform, therefore, both within the services and where
it affected servicemen in the community beyond, was a legitimate
military function. To the extent that these reforms were successful,
the armed forces would not only be protecting the civil rights of
black servicemen but also providing a standard against which civilian
society could measure its conduct and other nations could judge the
country's adherence to its basic principles.[21-56]
[Footnote 21-56: Ibid., pp. 92-93.]
_Reaction to a New Commitment_
The Gesell Committee's conclusion that discrimination in the community
was tied to military efficiency meshed well with the civil rights
philosophy of the New Frontier. Responding to the committee's (p. 546)
report, President Kennedy cited "the interests of national defense,
national policy and basic considerations of human decency" to justify
his administration's interest in opening public accommodations and
housing to black servicemen. He considered it proper to ask the
"military community to take a leadership role" in the matter and asked
Secretary McNamara to review the committee's recommendations.[21-57]
The secretary, in turn, personally asked the service secretaries to
comment on the recommendations and assigned the Deputy Under Secretary
of the Army (Manpower), Alfred B. Fitt, to act as coordinator and draw
up the Defense Department's reply.[21-58]
The comments thus solicited revealed that some of McNamara's
senior subordinates had not been won over by the committee's
arguments that the services should take an active role in
community race relations.[21-59] The sticking point at all levels
involved two important recommendations: the rating of commanders
on their handling of racial matters and the use of economic
sanctions. In regard to the proposal to close bases in
communities that persisted in racial discrimination, the
Secretary of the Navy said bluntly: "Do not concur. Base siting
is based upon military requirements."[21-60] These officials
promised that commanders would press for voluntary compliance,
but for more aggressive measures they preferred to wait for the
passage of federal legislation--they had in mind the
administration's civil rights bill then being considered by
Congress--which would place the primary responsibility for the
protection of a serviceman's civil rights in another federal
department. The Secretary of the Air Force suggested that the
services continue to plan, but defer action on the committee's
recommendations until Congress acted on the civil rights
bill.[21-61]
[Footnote 21-57: Ltr, President to SecDef, 21 Jun 63,
copy in CMH. The President also sent the
committee's report to the Vice President for
comment. Indicative of the Pentagon's continuing
influence in the committee's work, the Kennedy
letter had been drafted by Gesell and Yarmolinsky;
see Memo, Yarmolinsky for White, 8 Jun 63, White
Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]
[Footnote 21-58: Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 27 Jun
63, sub: Report of the President's Committee on
Equal Opportunity in the Armed Forces; see also
Memo, ASD (M) for SecDef, 27 Jun 63; both in ASD
(M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 21-59: Memo, Dep Under SA (M) for SecDef
(ca. 10 Jul 63), with service comments attached,
copy in ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 21-60: Memo, SecNav for ASD (M), 10 Jul 63,
sub; Report of the President's Committee on Equal
Opportunity in the Armed Forces, SecNav file 5410,
GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 21-61: Memo, SecAF for ASD (M), 10 Jul 63,
sub: Air Force Response to the Gesell Committee
Report, SecAF files.]
Despite the opposition to these recommendations, Fitt saw room for
compromise between the committee and the services. Noting, for
example, that the services wanted to do their own monitoring of their
commander's performance, Fitt agreed this would be acceptable so long
as the Secretary of Defense could monitor the monitors. Adding that
officers, like other human beings, tended to concentrate on the tasks
that would be reviewed by superiors, he wanted to see a judgment of a
commander's ability to handle discrimination matters included in (p. 547)
the narrative portion of his efficiency report. On the question of
sanctions, Fitt pointed out to McNamara that the services now
understood that their equal opportunity responsibilities extended
beyond the limits of the military reservation but that several of
their objections to the use of sanctions were sound. He suggested the
secretary approve the use of sanctions in discrimination cases but
place severe restraints on their imposition, restricting the decision
to the secretary's office.
[Illustration: ALFRED FITT.]
This suggestion no doubt pleased McNamara. Although the committee's
recommendations might be the logical outcome of its investigations, in
the absence of a strong federal civil rights law even a sympathetic
secretary of defense could not accept such radical changes in the
services' community relations programs without reservations. Nor, as
Gesell later admitted, could a secretary of defense chance the serious
compromise to the administration's effort to win passage of such a law
that could be caused by some "too gung-ho" commander left to impose
sanctions on his own.[21-62] The secretary agreed with the committee
that much could be done by individual commanders in a voluntary way to
change the customs of the local community, and he wanted the emphasis
to be kept there.
[Footnote 21-62: Interv, author with Gesell, 13 May
72.]
Unlike Gesell, who doubted the effectiveness of directives and
executive edicts ("trouble-making" he called them), McNamara
considered equal opportunity matters "an executive job that should be
handled by the Departments, using directives."[21-63] Armed with the
committee's call for action and the services' agreement in principle,
McNamara turned to the preparation of a directive, the main outline of
which he transmitted to the President on 24 July after review by Burke
Marshall in the Department of Justice. As McNamara explained to
Marshall, "I would like to be able to tell him [the President] that
you have read same and offer no objection."[21-64]
[Footnote 21-63: Ibid., and with McNamara, 11 May 72.]
[Footnote 21-64: Memo, McNamara for Burke Marshall
(ca. 20 Jul 63), Marshall Papers, J. F. Kennedy
Library.]
The Secretary of Defense promised the President to "eliminate the
exceptions and guard the continuing reality" of racial equality in the
services. In the light of the committee's conclusion that off-base
discrimination reduced military effectiveness, he pledged that "the
military departments will take a leadership role in combating
discrimination wherever it affects the military effectiveness" of
servicemen. McNamara admitted having reservations about some of (p. 548)
the committee's recommendations, especially the closing of bases
near communities that constantly practiced discrimination; such
closings, he declared, were not feasible "at this time." Nevertheless
he agreed with the committee that off-limits sanctions should be
available to the services, for "certainly the damage to military
effectiveness from off-base discrimination is not less than that
caused by off-base vice, as to which the off-limits sanction is quite
customary."[21-65] He failed to add that even though sanctions against
vice were regularly applied by the local commander, sanctions against
discrimination would be reserved to higher authority.
[Footnote 21-65: Idem for President, 24 Jul 63, copy
in CMH.]
The directive, in reality an outline of the Department of Defense's
civil rights responsibilities and the prototype of subsequent
secretarial orders dealing with race, was published on 26 July 1963,
the fifteenth anniversary of Harry Truman's executive order. It read
in part:
_II. Responsibilities._
A. Office of the Secretary of Defense:
1. Pursuant to the authority vested in the Secretary of Defense
and the provisions of the National Security Act of 1947, as
amended, the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower) is hereby
assigned responsibility and authority for promoting equal
opportunity for members of the Armed Forces.
In the performance of this function he shall (a) be the
representative of the Secretary of Defense in civil rights
matters, (b) give direction to programs that promote equal
opportunity for military personnel, (c) provide policy guidance
and review policies, regulations and manuals of the military
departments, and (d) monitor their performance through periodic
reports and visits to field installations.
2. In carrying out the functions enumerated above, the Assistant
Secretary of Defense (Manpower) is authorized to establish the
Office of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Civil Rights).
B. The Military Departments:
1. The military departments shall, with the approval of the
Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower), issue appropriate
instructions, manuals and regulations in connection with the
leadership responsibility for equal opportunity, on and off base,
and containing guidance for its discharge.
2. The military departments shall institute in each service a
system for regularly reporting, monitoring and measuring progress
in achieving equal opportunity on and off base.
C. Military Commanders:
Every military commander has the responsibility to oppose
discriminatory practices affecting his men and their dependents
and to foster equal opportunity for them, not only in areas under
his immediate control, but also in nearby communities where they
may live or gather in off-duty hours. In discharging that
responsibility a commander shall not, except with the prior
approval of the Secretary of his military department, use the
off-limits sanction in discrimination cases arising within the
United States.[21-66]
[Footnote 21-66: DOD Dir 5120.36, 26 Jul 63.]
After some thirty months in office, Robert McNamara had made a (p. 549)
most decisive move in race relations. In the name of fulfilling
Harry Truman's pledge of equal treatment and opportunity he announced
an aggressive new policy. Not only would the department work to
eliminate discrimination in the armed forces, but when servicemen were
affected it would work in the community as well. Even more ominous to
the secretary's critics was the fact that the new policy revealed
McNamara's willingness, under certain circumstances, to use the
department's economic powers to force these changes. This directive
marked the beginning of McNamara's most active period of participation
in the civil rights revolution of the 1960's.
But the secretary's move did not escape strong criticism. The
directive was denounced as infamous and shocking, as biased,
impractical, undemocratic, brutally authoritarian, and un-American. If
followed, critics warned, it would set the military establishment at
war with society, inject the military into civilian political
controversies in defiance of all traditions to the contrary, and
burden military commanders with sociological tasks beyond their powers
and to the detriment of their military mission.[21-67]
[Footnote 21-67: Alfred B. Fitt thus characterized the
opposition in his Remarks Before Civilian Aides
Conference of the Secretary of Army, 6 Mar 64, DASD
(CR) files.]
"It is hard to realize that your office would become so rotten and
degraded," one critic wrote McNamara. "In my opinion you are using the
tactics of a dictator.... It is a tragic event when the Federal
Government is again trying to bring Reconstruction Days into the
South. Again the military is being used to bring this about." Did
businesses not have the right to choose their customers? Did local
authorities not have the right to enforce the law in their
communities? And surely the white soldier deserved the freedom to
choose his associates.[21-68] Another correspondent reproached
McNamara: "you have, without conscience and with total disregard for
the honorable history of the Military of our Great Nation, signed our
freedom away." And still another saw her white supremacy menaced: "We
have a bunch of mad dogs in Washington and if you and others like you
are not stopped, our children will curse us. We don't want black
grandchildren and we won't have them. If you want to dance with
them--you have two legs, start dancing."
[Footnote 21-68: Ltr to SecDef, 29 Jul 63. This letter
and the two following are typical of hundreds
received by the secretary and filed in the records
of ASD (M).]
Not all the correspondents were racist or hysterical. Some thoughtful
citizens were concerned with what they considered extramilitary and
illegal activities on the part of the services and took little comfort
from the often repeated official statement that the Secretary of
Defense had no present plans for the use of sanctions and hoped that
they would never have to be used.[21-69]
[Footnote 21-69: Ltr, DASD (CR) to James Wilson,
Director, National Security Commission, American
Legion, 24 Sep 63, written when the legion had the
adoption of a resolution against the directive
under consideration. See also Ltrs, DASD (CR) to
Sen. Frank Moss, 16 Aug 63, and ASD (M) to
Congressman George Huddleston, 13 Aug 63; ASD (M),
"Straightening Out the Record," 19 Aug 63; Memo,
DASD (CR) for General Counsel, 4 Sep 63, sub: Use
of the Off-Limits Power. All in DASD (CR) files.]
Some defenders of the directive saw the whole controversy over (p. 550)
sanctions as a red herring dragged across the path of a genuine
equal treatment and opportunity program.[21-70] During congressional
debate on the directive, the use of off-limits sanctions quickly
became the respectable issue behind which those opposed to any reform
could rally. The Senate debated the subject on 31 July; the House on 7
August. During lengthy sessions on those days, opponents cast the
controversy in the familiar context of states' rights, arguing that
constitutional and legal points were involved. As Congressman Durward
G. Hall of Missouri put it: "The recommendations made in the report
and in the directive indicate a narrowness of vision which, in seeing
only the civil rights issue, has blinded itself to the question of
whether it is proper to use the Armed Forces to enforce a moral or
social, rather than a legal, issue in the civilian sector."[21-71]
[Footnote 21-70: Ltr, Fitt to author, 22 May 72.]
[Footnote 21-71: _Congressional Record_, 88th Cong.,
1st sess., vol. 109, p. 14350.]
Opponents argued generally that the directive represented government
by fiat, an unprecedented extension of executive power that imposed
the armed forces on civilian society in a new and illegal way. If the
administration was already empowered to protect the civil rights of
some citizens, why, they asked, was it pushing so hard for a civil
rights bill? The fact was, several legislators argued, the Department
of Defense was interfering with the civil rights of businessmen and
practicing a crude form of economic blackmail.[21-72]
[Footnote 21-72: Ibid., pp. 13778-87, 14349-56.]
Critics also discussed the directive in terms of military efficiency.
The secretary had given the commanders a new mission, Senator John
Stennis of Mississippi noted, that "can only be detrimental to
military tradition, discipline, and morale." Elaborating on this idea,
Congressman L. Mendel Rivers of South Carolina predicted that the new
policy would destroy the merit promotion system. Henceforth, Rivers
forecast, advancement would depend on acceptance of integration;
henceforth, racial quotas would "take the place of competence for
purposes of promotion." Others were alarmed at the prospect of civil
rights advisers on duty at each base and outside the regular chain of
command. This outrage, Congressman H. R. Gross of Iowa charged, "would
create the biggest army of snoopers and informers that the military
has ever heard of."
Some legislators saw sinister things afoot in the Pentagon. Senator
Herman E. Talmadge of Georgia thought he recognized a return to the
military districting of Reconstruction days, and Congressman F. Edward
Hebert of Louisiana warned that "everybody should be prepared for the
midnight knock on the door." Congressman Otto E. Passman of Louisiana
thought it most likely that Attorney General Kennedy was behind the
whole thing; "a tragic state of affairs," he said, if the Justice
Department was directing "the missions of the Military Establishment."
Congressman Hebert found yet another villain in the piece. Adam
Yarmolinsky, whom he incorrectly identified as the author of the
McNamara directive, had, Hebert accused, "one objective in mind--with
an almost sataniclike zeal--the forced integration of every facet of
the American way of life, using the full power of the Department of
Defense to bring about this change."[21-73] In line with these (p. 551)
suspicions, some legislators reported that the secretary's new civil
rights deputy, Alfred B. Fitt, was circulating among southern
segregationist businessmen with, in Senator Barry M. Goldwater's
words, "a dossier gleaned from Internal Revenue reports." Senator
Stennis suspected that the Secretary of Defense had come under the
influence of "obscure men," and he warned against their revolutionary
strategy: "It had been apparent for some time that the more extreme
exponents of revolutionary civil rights action have wanted to use the
military in a posture of leadership to bring about desegregation
outside the boundaries of military bases."[21-74]
[Footnote 21-73: Quotes are from ibid., pp. 13778,
13780, 14345-46, 14349, 14351, 14352.]
[Footnote 21-74: Ibid., Senate, 31 Jul 63, pp. 13779,
13783.]
The congressional critics had a strategy of their own. They would try
to persuade McNamara to rescind or modify his directive, and, failing
that, they would try to change the new defense policy by law. Senators
Goldwater, J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, and Robert C. Byrd of
West Virginia, along with some of their constituents, debated with
McNamara while no less than the chairman of the House Armed Services
Committee, Carl Vinson of Georgia, introduced a bill aimed at
outlawing all integration activity by military officers.[21-75] Their
campaign came to naught because the new policy had its own supporters
in Congress,[21-76] and the great public outcry against the directive,
so ardently courted by its congressional opponents, failed to
materialize. Judging by the press, the public showed little interest
in the Gesell Committee's report and comment on the secretary's
directive was regional, with much of it coming from the southern
press. Certainly the effect of the directive could not compare with
the furor set off by the Truman order in 1948.
[Footnote 21-75: Congressional letters critical of the
directive can be found in DASD (CR) and SD files,
1963. See, for example, Ltrs, Fulbright to SecDef,
22 Aug 63, R. C. Byrd to SecDef, 13 Aug 63,
Goldwater to SecNav, 17 Jul 63, Rivers to ASD (M),
3 Oct 63, Gillis Long to SecDef, 8 Aug 63, Bob
Sikes to SecDef, 15 Jul 63. Intense discussion of
the constitutionality of the directive and of
Vinson's bill took place among department officials
during September and October 1963. See the
following Memos: DASD (CR) for ASD (M), 25 Oct 63,
sub: Vinson Bill Comment With Inclosures; ASD (M)
for Under SA et al., 24 Sep 63, sub: H.R. 8460;
Asst Gen Counsel (Manpower) for ASD (M), 4 Sep 63.
All in ASD (M) 291.2.]
[Footnote 21-76: Letters in support of the DOD
Directive can be found in ASD (CR) (68A1006) files,
1963.]
The attitude of the press merely underscored a fact already obvious to
many politicians on Capitol Hill in 1963--equal opportunity in the
armed forces had dwindled to the status of a minor issue in the
greater civil rights struggle engulfing the nation. The media reaction
also suggested that prolonged attacks against the committee and the
directive were for hometown consumption and not a serious effort to
reverse policy. In effect a last hurrah for the congressional
opponents of integration in the armed forces, the attacks failed to
budge the Secretary of Defense and marked the end of serious
congressional attempts to influence armed forces racial policy.[21-77]
The threat of congressional opposition, at times real and sometimes
imagined, had discouraged progressive racial policies in the
Department of Defense for over a quarter of a century. Its abrupt and
public demise robbed the traditionalists in the Department of (p. 552)
Defense of a cherished excuse for inaction.
[Footnote 21-77: A late victim of the anticivil rights
forces in Congress was Adam Yarmolinsky. His
appointment as deputy director of the Office of
Economic Opportunity was withdrawn as a result of
criticism in the House. One cause of this criticism
was his connection with the Gesell Committee. See
Mary McGrory, "A Southern Hatchet Fell," Washington
_Star_, August 10, 1964.]
_The Gesell Committee: Final Report_
While the argument over the McNamara directive raged, the Gesell
Committee worked quietly if intermittently on the final segment of its
investigation, the status of blacks stationed overseas and in the
National Guard. President Kennedy's death in November 1963 introduced
an element of uncertainty in a group serving at the pleasure of the
Chief Executive. Special Presidential Counsel Lee C. White arranged
for Gesell to meet with President Lyndon B. Johnson, and Gesell
offered to disband the committee if Johnson wished. The President left
it in being. As Gesell later observed: "The committee felt that
Johnson understood us and our work in a way better than Kennedy who
had no clear idea on how to go with the race issue. We had no trouble
with Johnson who could have stopped us if he wanted."[21-78]
[Footnote 21-78: The quote is from author's interview
with Gesell on 13 May 1972. See also Ltr, White to
Gesell, 8 Jan 64, and Memo, Gesell for Members of
the Committee, 26 Feb 64, both in Gesell
Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]
The committee's operations became even more informal in this final
stage. Its investigations completed, its staff dissolved, and its
members (now one man short with the resignation of Nathaniel Colley)
scattered, the committee operated out of Gesell's law office. He was
almost exclusively responsible for its final report.[21-79] This
informality masked the protracted negotiations that the committee
conducted with the National Guard Bureau over the persistent exclusion
of Negroes. It also masked the solid investigation by individual
committee members and the voluminous evidence gathered by the staff in
support of the group's final report.
[Footnote 21-79: Memo, Gesell for Members of the
Committee, 26 Feb 64.]
These investigations and the documentary evidence again confirmed the
findings of the Civil Rights Commission, although the Gesell
Committee's emphasis was different. It dismissed the problem of
assignment of Negroes to overseas stations. The percentage of Negroes,
both officers and men, sent overseas approximated their percentage in
the continental United States, and with rare and "understandable"
exceptions--it cited South Africa--overseas assignments in the armed
forces were made routinely without regard for race.[21-80] The
committee also quickly dismissed the problem of discrimination on
overseas bases, which it considered "minimal," and as in the United
States chiefly the result of poor communication between commanders and
men. The group concentrated instead on discrimination off base,
especially in Germany. Back from a firsthand look in April 1964,
Benjamin Muse reported that local American commanders seemed unwilling
to take the matter seriously, but he considered it delicate and
complex, principally because prejudice had been most often introduced
by American servicemen. He suggested that off-limits sanctions should
also be imposed in Germany but "only after consultation and on a (p. 553)
basis of mutual understanding with German municipal authorities."[21-81]
[Footnote 21-80: The President's Committee on Equal
Opportunity in the Armed Forces, "Final Report:
Military Personnel Stationed Overseas and
Membership and Participation in the National Guard,
November 1964" (hereafter cited as "Final Report"),
copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 21-81: Ltr, Muse to Gesell, 23 Apr 64,
Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]
The committee wanted the recommendations on off-base discrimination
contained in its initial report also applied overseas. Ignoring the
oft made distinction about the guest status of overseas service, it
wanted the Department of State enlisted in a campaign against
discrimination in public accommodations, including the use of
off-limits sanctions when necessary. The committee also called for a
continuing review to insure equal opportunity in assignments to
attache and mission positions.
The committee devoted the largest portion of its final report to the
National Guard, "the only branch of the Armed Forces," it told
President Johnson, "which has not been fully integrated."[21-82]
Chairman Gesell later reported that when the segregated state guards
were pressured they "resisted like hell."[21-83] This resistance had a
political dimension, but when Attorney General Kennedy chided that
"you are killing us with the Guard," Gesell replied that the committee
took orders from the President and would ignore the political problems
involved. Nevertheless, before the committee issued its report Gesell
sent the portions on the National Guard to the Justice Department for
comment, as one justice official noted, "apparently ... in the hope
that its recommendation will not prove embarrassing to the
administration."[21-84]
[Footnote 21-82: "Final Report," p. 12.]
[Footnote 21-83: Interv, author with Gesell, 3 Nov
74.]
[Footnote 21-84: The Kennedy quote is from the
author's interview with Gesell on 13 May 1972. The
Justice Department quote is from Memo, Gordon A.
Martin (Dept of Justice) for Burke Marshall, 26 Jul
63, sub: Proposed Gesell Cmte Rpt on the National
Guard, Marshall Papers, J. F. Kennedy Library.]
The committee admitted that its investigation of the National Guard
was incomplete because of the variation in state systems and the
absence of statistical data on recruitment, assignment, and promotion
in some state guards. It had no doubt, however, of the central premise
that discrimination existed. For example, until 1963 ten states with
large black populations had no black guardsmen at all. Membership in
the guard, the committee concluded, was a distinct advantage for some
individuals, providing the chance to perform their military obligation
without a lengthy time away from home or work. Because of the peculiar
relationship between the reserve and regular systems, National Guard
service had important advantages in retirement benefits for others.
These advantages and benefits should, in simple fairness, be open to
all, but beyond the basic constitutional rights involved there were
practical reasons for federal insistence on integration. The committee
accepted the National Guard Bureau's conclusion that, since guard
units were subject to integration when federalized, their morale and
combat efficiency would be improved if their members were accustomed
to service with Negroes in all ranks during training.[21-85]
[Footnote 21-85: "Final Report," pp. 19-20.]
The committee stressed executive initiatives. It wanted the President
to declare the integration of the National Guard in the national
interest. It wanted the Department of Defense to demand pertinent (p. 554)
racial statistics from the states. For psychological advantages, it
wanted the recent liberalization of guard policies toward Negroes
widely publicized. Again suggesting voluntary methods as a first step,
the committee called for the use of economic sanctions if voluntary
methods failed. The President should lose no time in applying the
provisions of the new Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbade the use
of federal funds in discriminatory activities, to offending states. As
it had been in the case of discrimination in local communities, the
committee was optimistic about the success of voluntary compliance.
Citing its own efforts and those of the National Guard Bureau,[21-86]
the committee reported that the last ten states to hold out had now
begun to integrate their guard units at least on a token basis. In
fact, the committee's report had to be revised at the last minute
because Alabama and Mississippi enrolled Negroes in their enlisted
ranks.
[Footnote 21-86: The National Guard Bureau is a joint
agency of the Departments of the Army and Air Force
which acts as adviser to the service staffs on
National Guard matters and as the channel of
communication between the two departments and the
state guards. The chief of the bureau is always a
National Guard officer.]
Chairman Gesell circulated a draft report containing these findings
and recommendations among committee members in September 1964.[21-87]
His colleagues suggested only minor revisions, although Whitney Young
thought that some of the space spent on complimenting the services
could be better used to emphasize the committee's recommendations for
further reform. He did not press the point but noted wryly: "if we
were as sensitive about the feelings of the victims of discrimination
as we are of the perpetuators, we wouldn't have most of these problems
to begin with."[21-88] Maj. Gen. Winston P. Wilson, the Chief of the
National Guard Bureau, also reviewed the draft and found it "entirely
fair, temperate and well-founded."[21-89] The committee's final report
was sent to the President on 20 November 1964. A month later Johnson
sent it along to McNamara with the request that he be kept informed on
progress of the negotiations between the secretary and the governors
on integration of the National Guard.[21-90]
[Footnote 21-87: The draft was also sent for comment
to the National Guard Bureau; see Ltr, Chief, NGB,
to Gesell, 13 Nov 64, Gesell Collection, J. F.
Kennedy Library.]
[Footnote 21-88: Memo, Gesell for Members of the
President's Committee on Equal Opportunity in the
Armed Forces, 20 Nov 64. The quotation is from Ltr,
Young to Gesell, 23 Sep 64. For the reaction of
other members see, for example, Ltrs, Sengstacke to
Gesell, 9 Oct 64, Muse to Gesell, 16 Sep 64, Fortas
to Gesell, 29 Sep 64. All in Gesell Collection, J.
F. Kennedy Library.]
[Footnote 21-89: Ltr, Gen Wilson, NGB, to Gesell, 13
Nov 64, Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]
[Footnote 21-90: Ltr, President to SecDef, 26 Dec 64,
copy in CMH.]
The radical change in the civil rights orientation of the Department
of Defense demanded by the administration's civil rights supporters
was obviously a task too controversial for the department to assume in
1963 on its own initiative. It was, as a member of the Gesell
Committee later remarked, a task that only a group of independent
citizens reporting to the President could effectively suggest.[21-91]
In the end the committee did all that its sponsors could have wanted.
It confirmed the persistence of discrimination against black
servicemen both on and off the military base and effectively tied that
discrimination to troop morale and military efficiency. The (p. 555)
committee's conclusions, logically derived from the connection between
morale and efficiency, introduced a radically expanded concept of
racial responsibility for the armed forces.
[Footnote 21-91: Interv, author with Muse, 2 Mar 73.]
Although many people strongly associate the Gesell Committee with the
use of economic coercion against race discrimination in the community,
the committee's emphasis was always on the local commander's role in
achieving voluntary compliance with the department's equal opportunity
policies. Economic sanction was conceived of as a last resort. The
directive of the Secretary of Defense that endorsed these
recommendations was also denounced for embracing sanctions, although
here the charges were even less appropriate because the use of
sanctions was severely circumscribed. It remained to be seen how far
command initiative and voluntary compliance could be translated by the
services into concrete gains.