From: shallit@graceland.uwaterloo.ca (Jeffrey Shallit)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.homosexuality
Subject: Re: History will judge
Date: 27 Jan 93 15:50:41 GMT
Organization: University of Waterloo

In article <2542@blue.cis.pitt.edu> psg+@pitt.edu (Paul S Galvanek) writes:
>In article <93025.095440MMB3@psuvm.psu.edu> MMB3@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>Answer this
>question - without regard to the specifics of the policy of gays in the
>military -  tell me when in your lifetime, if ever, did you see the Joint
>Chiefs of Staff AND it's [sic] Chairman publicly oppose the policies of the President?
>When in your memory can you tell me of a time when the military establishment
>threatened to fight the President to the end on a policy that hasn't even 
>been formulated yet?

Well, I think we have to go back exactly 45 years.  True, that is not
in my lifetime, but I trust Mr. Galvanek will be willing to listen to
a history lesson.

The year is 1948.  Truman is a Democratic President.  The armed forces
are segregated, and black soldiers, despite the unquestioned heroism
in World War II, cannot serve side-by-side with white soldiers.

Congress is "dominated by a conservative coalition that included the
Dixiecrats, a group of sometimes racially reactionary southerners...
Congress showed little interest in civil rights".  [1]   [Today,
Sam Nunn, a "Dixie democrat", shows little interest in gay rights.]

One of Truman's first domestic programs is a national health
project.  [Sound familiar?]

The President's Committee on Civil Rights examines the state of civil
rights in the armed forces and concludes that a segregated military is
unjust, and calls for sweeping changes.  [Just as in our time, the
DoD's own studies have concluded that there is no valid reason for
maintaining the discriminatory policy against lesbians and gay men.]

Forrestal, the Secretary of Defense urges that "progress must be made
administratively, and not put into effect by fiat."  [1]  [Is there
a parallel to Les Aspin's cautionary remarks?]

Dwight Eisenhower, "the nation's most widely admired hero-general...
testified that he believed racial segregation should not be
discontinued at the platoon level or below."  [2]   [Like Colin
Powell's view on gays today?  A little irony there, considering Powell
is black.]

On July 26, Truman issues Executive Order 9981, calling on the armed
forces to provide equal treatment and opportunity for black serviceman.
In 1940, he had said

	"In giving Negroes the rights which are theirs we are only acting
	in accord with our own ideals of a true democracy.  If any CLASS
	[emphasis mine] or race can be permanently set apart from, or
	pushed down below the rest in political and civil rights, so may 
	any other class or race when it shall incur the displeasure of
	its more powerful associates, and we may say farewell to the
	principles on which we count our safety."  [1]

[Just as Clinton has the courage to call for changes today.]

On July 28, the army's Chief of Staff, Omar Bradley, declared that
the Army would have to retain segregation as long as it was the
national pattern.  [1]   [Like Gordon Sullivan's opposition to gays
today?]

The Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel for the Air Force reported
that "you didn't have to scratch far to run into opposition" to
integration.
[Like Merrill A. McPeak's opposition to gays today?]

So there you have it:  the situation in 1948 was similar in many respects
to the situation in 1993.  And what happened?  According to the DOD's
own report [quoted in 3]:

	The order to integrate blacks was first met with stout resistance
	by traditionalists in the military establishment.  Dire
	consequences were predicted for maintaining discipline, building
	group morale, and achieving military organizational goals.  None
	of these predictions of doom has come true.

Can we learn from history?  


References
----------

[1]  Morris J. Macgregor, Jr.  _Integration of the Armed Forces 1940-1964_,
Defense Studies Series, Center of Military History, United States Army,
Washington, DC  1981.

[2]  Richard Kluger, _Simple Justice:  The History of Brown v. Board of
Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality_, Alfred A. Knopf,
New York, 1976.

[3]  United States General Accounting Office Report GAO/NSIAD-92-98,
_Defense Force Management: DOD's Policy on Homosexuality_, June 1992.